Monthly Archives: January 2009

Anticipation is rising in Tampa. The tension is becoming palpable. Speculation runs rampant, and everyone has an opinion, a theory or a prediction about what will happen on Sunday night.
Yeah, we’re talking about Bruce Springsteen’s halftime set at Super Bowl XVIII.
There’s as much chatter and suspense on the ground around what Springsteen might have up [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Halleran/Getty
As Super Bowl XLIII inches closer, Tampa feels like it’s divided into two camps — staging or showcasing. If you aren’t stepping in front of the lights right now, you’re probably busy preparing to do so.
Last night, Wyclef Jean and DJ Samantha Ronson had their moment, holding court under a sprawling tent in downtown [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Halleran/Getty Images

Rock Daily had Las Vegas panicked when we revealed the winning answer to all those Bruce Springsteen Super Bowl Halftime Show bets, forcing most gambling sites to shut down all Bruce-related betting. We have the full story on that plus much more at our Super Bowl Hub — Rock Daily will be in [...] Continue reading →

By April Richardson
Morrissey, former lead singer of the legendary Smiths, huge influence on bands like the Killers and Fall Out Boy and one of the headliners at this year’s Coachella festival, will release his latest single, “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris,” on February 9. It’s a great song, but that’s not what I want [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Truscello/WireImage
Brace yourself for the sight of Gene Simmons enjoying a special moment with Carrot Top.
Do we have an explanation for why the KISS merchandise-maniac and prop comic were hanging in Las Vegas? No, we do not. Perhaps they were talking about the relative merits of Canadian bands like Metric and the Dears, since Simmons [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Getty
Our favorite headline of the year also spawned our favorite comment of the week, as “Massachusetts Cop Reportedly Urinates On Metallica Fan At Concert” brought out the best and the worst of our loquacious readership. While many debated whether or not the police officer in question actually urinated or just poured a beer on [...] Continue reading →

To celebrate the legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell and his legendary intro to the band’s “Free Bird,” this week’s Rock List is dedicated to Bird Songs. Whether it’s about an eagle, a pigeon, a double-crested cormorant… if it has wings and feathers, it’s applicable. Tell us your favorites, and on Monday we’ll tally [...] Continue reading →

The first time I ever flew to New York was about six years ago, to interview an artist whose single “In Da Club” had just dropped.
Six years on, 50 Cent is still going hard. He’s arguably the most internationally successful hip-hop artist in the game — 50 has elevated himself beyond the world of [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty
Next Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Holly’s friends, family and fellow musicians remember an artist who helped invent rock & roll as we know it today. [...] Continue reading →

There’s a lot going on in the world that doesn’t necessarily get addressed in our Newsroom blog. Here’s a look at some top stories making headlines today.
Rick Ross isn’t too impressed with 50 Cent’s new dis track, “Officer Ricky (Go ‘Head Try Me).” How do you feel about this latest war of words in the [...] Continue reading →

Taylor Swift plots a 2009 headlining tour that’ll keep the chart topper on the road until October, Black Mountain travel the West Coast states and “It’s Not Unusual” to see Tom Jones performing in California and Florida these next few months. Full dates for all three treks are after the jump.
Taylor Swift
February 10 – [...] Continue reading →

By Joseph Patel
The best four hours of live music I’ve ever experienced took place at the Coachella festival in 2004. It was a Pixies/ Radiohead/ Kraftwerk/ TV on the Radio back-to-back-to-back-to-back string of sets that only Coachella or a European festival could have offered. The Empire Polo fields in the California desert have been sacred [...] Continue reading →

By Christina Garibaldi
One of the many perks of working at MTV News is the people you get to meet and talk to. Yet only a few have ever gotten me really excited, like my teen dreams the Backstreet Boys, Yankees slugger Derek Jeter, and now … Poison frontman/ “Rock of Love” star Bret Michaels! [...] Continue reading →

You rarely ever see Tom Waits on late-night television anymore, and perhaps this is the reason why: Here we have two different clips from Waits’ visits to Late Night with David Letterman, one from 1983 to support Swordfishtrombones and perform a kick-ass rendition of “Frank’s Wild Years” (above video), the other in 1986 during the [...] Continue reading →

White Stripes drummer Meg White has donated one of her drum kits to benefit Detroit music-scene vet Jim Shaw, who is battling cancer.
The kit — the one featured in the band’s classic “The Hardest Button to Button” video, directed by Michel Gondry — is one of several items being auctioned at the fundraiser held in [...] Continue reading →

On the new Web show “MTV Detox,” our pop-culture superfan Jim Cantiello recaps the wildest happenings from the network’s prime-time programming. Stream the show on your mobile phone and on MTV.com. New episodes air Sunday-Thursday at 11 p.m. ET.
On Thursday night’s “Detox,” Lil Mama — actually we mean famed Lil Mama impersonator and viral video [...] Continue reading →

You’ll have to forgive Tampa if it’s a bit giddy this week. The Bay town is playing host to a week-long carnival of music, beer and (eventually) football that will draw Bruce Springsteen, Faith Hill, Jennifer Hudson, Fall Out Boy, Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and hundreds of thousands of fans.
The Pittsburgh Steelers [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic
With Velvet Revolver’s future uncertain, guitarist Duff McKagan, already a columnist for Seattle Weekly, will share his advice about all things business with the readers of Playboy.com as the site’s new financial columnist. “How the hell is it that I will to be writing about money matters for Playboy?” Duff asks rhetorically in [...] Continue reading →

On his way to Rolling Stone headquarters in New York to talk about his new three-CD career spanning box set, Graham Nash began thinking about a song he wrote in the city more than 40 years ago. “I was seduced by a beautiful woman down in Long Island,” Nash says. “She was married. The song [...] Continue reading →

By Akshay Bhansali
Curiosity brought me to Le Poisson Rouge in New York City last night for the release of N.A.S.A.’s first album, The Spirit of Apollo. Come to think of it, it brought MTV News correspondent Kim Stolz there as well. Why? Well, the debut album from N.A.S.A. (stands for North America, South America) — [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Benc/Getty
Lil Wayne has settled the lawsuit the Rolling Stones’ publishing company Abkco slapped him with after the rapper’s Tha Carter III song “Playing With Fire” was deemed too similar to the Stones’ 1965 hit “Play With Fire.” Abkco originally sued Lil Wayne in July 2008. The lawsuit cited lyrical comparisons like the Stones’ original [...] Continue reading →

I knew little about guitarist Stephane Wrembel when I caught his acoustic quartet, the Django Experiment — named after the Belgian Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt — opening for Patti Smith at New York’s Bowery Ballroom in December. The set was a revelation. The Parisian-born Wrembel studied Reinhardt’s fleet precision and soulful swing the hard way [...] Continue reading →

By Matt Harper
Gene Simmons: rock god, legendary lothario, reality TV “star” … and now, savior of the Canadian music scene? Yep, in a somewhat baffling move, the Kiss bassist has partnered with Universal Canada to (re-)form Simmons Records: an all-Canadian imprint hoping to search out and recruit unsigned Canuck music acts.
Now, as a Canadian (who’s [...] Continue reading →

How do you make Super Bowl Sunday even more of a spectacle? By adding Bob Dylan, even if it is just for a $3 million minute. The legendary singer-songwriter and the Black Eyed Peas‘ once again ubiquitous Will.i.am will make a cameo appearance during this Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast when the pair team up for [...] Continue reading →

It’s beginning to feel like I write this same thing every single year (and, lo and behold, I have), but, wow, the lineup for Coachella 2009 is super underwhelming. Again.
Perhaps it’s due to the inflated expectations from previous years, or the constant stream of hype, speculation and false-starts that accompanies the unveiling of the lineup [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Cattermole/Getty
Lily Allen, “22,” “The Fear,” “He Wasn’t There” [Live]
Lily Allen, looking lovably scruffy and periodically bored, blows through three songs from her forthcoming record, all of them proving that she remains smarter, sharper and more tuneful than any of her close competitors.
Kings of Leon, “Sex on Fire” [Tenzin Remix]
We remembered how much everyone [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Becker/FOX
Since Simon Cowell and Co. are always on American Idol hopefuls’ cases about not sounding contemporary and skewing old, the show kicked off with references to the very young and hip West Side Story and A Tale of Two Cities last night. The towns in question — New York and San Juan, Puerto [...] Continue reading →

Taylor Swift Is Hitting The Road

The chart-topping country star plans to headline her own tour this April.

Related Artists

• Taylor Swift
• Kellie Pickler

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Julian Lennon denies he’ll perform with his half-brother, Sean. The erroneous story was first reported by Fox News, who claimed John’s sons would perform at a UN gala on February 26th. Julian wrote on his MySpace blog: “Hi Folks, sorry to say, but the news today about Sean & I playing together at the UN [...] Continue reading →

The organizers of the first big festival of 2009, California’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, have finally announced the lineup for their epic desert fest: Paul McCartney, the Killers and the Cure will headline on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively (the fest runs April 17th, 18th and 19th at the Empire Polo Club in [...] Continue reading →