Monthly Archives: June 2009

In the months leading up to his sudden death last week at age 50, Michael Jackson was “adamant” about receiving a powerful intravenous sedative called Diprivan or Propofol, nurse/nutritionist Cherilyn Lee, who treated the star, tells the AP. And just four days before he died, one of Jackson’s aides placed a desperate call to Lee, [...] Continue reading →

Daughtry’s plan to Leave This Town includes an August full of club dates, Alice In Chains hit the road in support of their upcoming first album in 10 years Black Gives Way To Blue and Andrew Bird plots a jaunt that spans from July 10th to October 28th. Full dates for all three treks, after [...] Continue reading →

Wilco return with their seventh album, the almost-eponymous Wilco (The Album) this week. Now seven years removed from their 2002 breakthrough Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Jeff Tweedy and crew obliterate all the experimental vestiges from that disc for an album that finds the band channeling George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Kraftwerk. “Wilco’s seventh studio album is [...] Continue reading →

Win Butler says the Arcade Fire have begun songwriting sessions for their next record, the NME reports in the issue on stands now. “Before Funeral, me and Régine had this big room to rehearse in… People would come by and work on a song,” Butler tells the U.K. mag. “Now the guys are calling and [...] Continue reading →

It’s no surprise that Michael Jackson’s album and song download sales have had incredible spikes in the days since his death. But despite the legacy of hits that Jackson has had, the top-selling track on iTunes has been “Man in the Mirror.” While “Man in the Mirror” is not a bad song by any stretch [...] Continue reading →

By Haley Murphy
This afternoon, I joined the hundreds of people on the trip to Harlem to visit the legendary Apollo Theater, where Michael Jackson fans gathered to pay tribute to his life as a musician, a friend and an icon.
When I arrived, I walked into what seemed like a small church, only to find [...] Continue reading →

Levon Helm kicks off his new album Electric Dirt with the Dead’s “Tennessee Jed,” and it’s a fitting opener to the legendary Band drummer’s first proper rock & roll record in ages, writes Will Hermes in his four-star review. Helm returned from throat cancer with 2007’s mostly acoustic Dirt Farmer, and on Electric Dirt — [...] Continue reading →

Even though their latest album No Line on the Horizon came out back in February, U2 are only just hitting the road for their “360″ tour, which begins tonight in Barcelona, Spain. The show is a massive affair: The band spent millions of dollars constructing one of the largest concert stages ever built, complete with [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Hogan/Getty
More than 90,000 fans have piled into Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium tonight for the kick off of U2’s 360° Tour. The biggest stadium in all of Europe is bearing witness to the Irish rockers’ first gig performing songs off their latest album, No Line on the Horizon, as well as getting a look [...] Continue reading →

Photo: Walter/Getty(Jackson), Merritt/Getty(Lambert)
As tributes to Michael Jackson pour into Rolling Stone — be sure to keep an eye out for our special issue, out next week — recent cover star Adam Lambert shared his memories of dancing around his parents’ house, lip-synching to “Beat It.” His early childhood was also heavy on “Thriller” (he cites [...] Continue reading →

Needed more evidence that Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” is about Eminem? Photos from yesterday’s video shoot for Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel’s first single is all the proof you’ll need. In the pics, Carey — playing a dude thanks to some major league help from the make-up department — is seen donning Eminem’s trademark hoodie-and-hat look. [...] Continue reading →

Take a good look at that well-dressed dude below. No, that’s not a new rapper or an extra in “Hotel For Dogs 2.” It’s Mariah Carey, on the set of her new video for “Obsessed.” Carey also appears in the video as a hoodie-wearing dude who looks suspiciously like a certain rapper from Detroit.

Check [...] Continue reading →

Michael Jackson’s body will be transported Thursday, July 2nd to the singer’s Neverland Ranch for a public viewing, CNN reports. The viewing will be held Friday morning, with a private memorial service planned for Sunday, July 5th. Law enforcements officials told TMZ that Jackson’s body would be transported in a 30-car motorcade. Security and traffic [...] Continue reading →

Fans of bottom-heavy, groove-rich rock have reason to rejoice well into the Fall. Full-throated stoner rock journeymen Clutch have set a July 14th release for their new album, Strange Cousins From the West, and also unveiled a new string of U.S. dates that reaches deep into October.
The band kicks off its U.S. tour with Baroness [...] Continue reading →

Fantasia Barrino won the third season of American Idol in 2004. Since winning the prized title, Fantasia has made a name for herself in the R&B world, musical theater world, and has won many awards.

After winning American Idol, Fantasia released her debut CD, “Free Yourself,” which included the single “I Believe.” The single debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, which made Fantasia the first artist in history to achieve this with a first single. “I Believe” then spent 11 consecutive weeks at number one on the sales charts, giving it the longest consecutive stay on top of that chart for an American Idol contestant. The CD single of “I Believe” was the top selling single of 2004 in the U.S. and went double platinum. Fantasia received four Grammy Awards for “Free Yourself.”

In 2007, Fantasia starred as Celie in the Broadway musical “The Color Purple.” Fantasia received rave reviews for her performance and even performed at the 2007 Tony Awards. In 2008, Fantasia returned to the American Idol stage to perform during a Season 7 results show.

Currently, Fantasia is working on a new album. She has also been cast by Oprah Winfrey to play Celie in the movie version of “The Color Purple.”

Happy Birthday, Fantasia!

Watch a video of Fantasia discussing her album and “The Color Purple.”

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As authorities begin to weed through the custody issues related to Michael Jackson’s three children, a number of reports are emerging that question the paternity of Prince Michael Jr., 12; Paris Michael Katherine, 11; and Prince Michael II, 7. Our colleagues at Us Weekly are reporting that Los Angeles dermatologist Arnold Klein — Michael’s former [...] Continue reading →

One of the most exciting things about the idea of a three-day Phish festival this fall is the fact that one of the dates of that weekend is Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve is a special date for Phish and their fans, as the band traditionally covers a full classic album — which they call a [...] Continue reading →

Michael Jackson’s This Is It! show — the mammoth comeback production that was due to launch July 13th at London’s O2 Arena — may still come to the stage as a tribute concert to the King of Pop, MSNBC reports. The concert will reportedly replicate Jackson’s planned stage show for his 50-concert sold-out run, but [...] Continue reading →

On the commentary track for the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head reissue the trio hinted that Bob Dylan would guest in some capacity on their upcoming album The Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1. However, when details of the album were announced, only Nas and Santigold were listed as features on Pt. 1. So what happened [...] Continue reading →

It seems strange that the phrase “literary device” would show up anywhere on Twitter, but that was songwriter, guitarist, cruise captain and social-networking aficionado John Mayer’s explanation for a series of notes he left last night. In a fantastically meta experiment, Mayer invented three Tweets that are ostensibly reviews of Thriller, written as “a fantasy [...] Continue reading →

Michael Jackson will likely be the King of Pop Charts this week after three of the singer’s albums sold more than 100,000 copies following news of his sudden death, Billboard.biz reports. Final numbers aren’t due until tomorrow, but Thriller, Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson are expected to top six-figures based on sales through [...] Continue reading →

MGMT and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O guest on the Flaming Lips’ upcoming double-LP Embryonic, according to an interview Wayne Coyne gave to a Swiss Website (unearthed by Pitchfork). “For the Karen O tracks, I just called her up in her hotel room and we just did it right over the telephone,” Coyne said. [...] Continue reading →

Is there any band in history better than Kiss? The answer is, “Yeah, probably.” But has any group ever been less subtle in their symbolism and message? The answer there is, “Unless you count Ween, it seems unlikely.” For a group so unflappably goofy, it’s amazing how polarizing they have been for their over 30 [...] Continue reading →

Dr. Conrad Murray, the cardiologist serving as Michael Jackson’s personal physician for his O2 concert run, waited roughly 20 to 30 minutes to call paramedics after finding the singer with a faint pulse last Thursday, the AP reports. Attorney Matt Alford, a partner in the law firm representing Murray as the LAPD investigates Jackson’s death, [...] Continue reading →

Although their still-untitled second album is being recorded in a gritty, super-urban part of Brooklyn, Vampire Weekend say the record has a sunny vibe befitting locales far different than the outer borough of New York. “These songs would be perfect for driving up the Pacific coast,” guitarist-keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij tells RS in our new issue, [...] Continue reading →

Today’s Stars Remember Michael Jackson

Justin Timberlake, Ashley Tisdale, Donnie Wahlberg and others discuss the influence the King of Pop had on their careers.

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The American Idol display of the judges’ desk and chairs at the Smithsonian is being installed this week in the Castle. On the Season 8 Top 3 results show, Ben Stiller, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, and Hank Azaria from “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” announced that the American Idol judges’ desk is making its way to the Smithsonian. The American Idol display base and back wall have been designed, built, and are ready to go. The museum has rearranged the Great Hall in order to make room for the American Idol exhibit.

The donor credit panel will read:
FremantleMedia North America, Inc.
19 TV Limited
FOX Broadcasting Company

The desk will be on display starting today and is scheduled to run through the middle of September.

Watch Ben Stiller open the show again.

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Radio celebrated Michael Jackson’s music in a huge way following news of the King of Pop’s death, as Jackson’s biggest hits jumped nearly 1,735 percent in overall airplay over the previous week, with many stations solely dedicating their play lists to Jackson’s discography this weekend. According to the Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, which tracks total [...] Continue reading →

To pay tribute to Michael Jackson’s musical legacy, we asked our readers to tell us their favorite songs by the King of Pop. The votes spanned Jackson’s entire career, but it was his Thriller hit “Billie Jean” that touched the most readers’ hearts, edging out the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” Off the Wall’s [...] Continue reading →

While in the midst of talking to Paramore about their upcoming new album Brand New Eyes, MTV’s James Montgomery paused to discuss a mutual source of admiration for both he and the band: Sunny Day Real Estate. The Seattle quartet recently announced their reunion, and the members of Paramore (who cover Sunny Day Real Estate’s [...] Continue reading →