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Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, December 21, 2006
End of '06 Lists
As this year comes to a close quickly, I feel the need to conform with almost every other website & TV/radio show and create my own end of '06 list. Read on.
I would like to wish you all a Happy Holiday and Happy New Year. Next year there will be some changes to my blog so come back and check that out. Last week I added a new blog to my roster. It's called Elements of Style (it's a fashion blog mostly but worth checking out). See ya next year. Cheers mates!
- Best Breakout Star of the Year: Jennifer Hudson
- Most Shocking Breakup of the Year: Ryan & Reese
- Most Wanted Breakup of the Year: Kevin Federline & Britney Spears
- Most Expected Engagement of the Year: Eva Longoria & Tony Parker
- Best Cleaned Up Acts of the Year: Whitney Houston & Courtney Love
- Most Overated People of the Year: Donald Trump & Paris Hilton
- Oddest Actress of the Year: Lindsay Lohan
- Oddest Celeb Arrest of the Year: Mel Gibson
- Most Annoying Celeb Duels of the Year: Donald Trump vs. Martha Stewart/Rosie O'Donnell/anyone else who tells a joke about him that he can't take & Lindsay Lohan vs. Paris Hilton
- Sports Team of the Year: Miami Heat
- Sport Shockers of the Year: Zidane & the World Cup headbutt scandal/Jeter not being named MVP (I'm still in shock)
- Best TV Show of the Year: Ugly Betty
- Biggest Movie of the Year: Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
- Most Buzzed about Movie of the Year: Dreamgirls
- Most Expected Comeback of the Year: Jay-Z
- Best Comeback of the Year: Justin Timberlake
- Skankiest Comeback of the Year: Britney Spears
- Old Hollywood Inspired Vixen of the Year: Christina Aguilera
- Surprise Makeover of the Year: Nelly Furtado
- Best "Makes You Think" Song of the Year: Stupid Girls (P!nk)
- Best Band of the Year: I would say Panic! at the Disco while my friend Jynx would say My Chemical Romance (shout out 2 Jynx!!)
- (Most Overused) Catch Phrase of the Year: "I'm bringing sexy back"
- Most Questioned Catch Phrase of the Year: "London Bridge"
- Lamest Fads of the Year: Leggings & Tights
- Biggest Trend of the Year: Skinny Jeans
- Biggest Trend of the Year that should STOP IMMEDIATELY: Going Commando while wearing a mini skirt
- Biggest Website of the Year: YouTube
- Scandalous Website of the Year: TMZ
- Least looked at Blog of the Year: For Tainted Eyes Only
- Breakout YouTube Video of the Year: OkGo's Treadmill Music Video
- SNL Skit of the Year: Dick in a Box (merry christmas)
I would like to wish you all a Happy Holiday and Happy New Year. Next year there will be some changes to my blog so come back and check that out. Last week I added a new blog to my roster. It's called Elements of Style (it's a fashion blog mostly but worth checking out). See ya next year. Cheers mates!
Diddy Daddy Twice Over
NEW YORK - Call him P. Daddy. Sean "Diddy" Combs and girlfriend Kim Porter became the parents of twin girls Thursday morning, with the hip-hop impresario flying in from a movie set in Canada for the birth at a Manhattan hospital, said Combs spokesman Robert Zimmerman.
"Diddy received an early Christmas gift," said Zimmerman. "Both Kim and the girls are doing great."
The first arrived at 7:56 a.m., weighing in at 5 pounds, while the second girl was delivered two minutes later and weighed 5 pounds, 4 ounces. There's no word on names for the new arrivals, Zimmerman said.
Combs flew in from the Toronto, where he is filming "Raisin in the Sun," and made it "just in the nick of time for the delivery," Zimmerman said.
Combs, 37, already has a son, Christian, with Porter. He's also the father of a son, Justin, with ex-girlfriend Misa Hylton-Brim.
"Diddy received an early Christmas gift," said Zimmerman. "Both Kim and the girls are doing great."
The first arrived at 7:56 a.m., weighing in at 5 pounds, while the second girl was delivered two minutes later and weighed 5 pounds, 4 ounces. There's no word on names for the new arrivals, Zimmerman said.
Combs flew in from the Toronto, where he is filming "Raisin in the Sun," and made it "just in the nick of time for the delivery," Zimmerman said.
Combs, 37, already has a son, Christian, with Porter. He's also the father of a son, Justin, with ex-girlfriend Misa Hylton-Brim.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Some of My Fave 'Glam.com' It Girls
Cameron Diaz
Penélope Cruz
Kirsten Dunst
Sienna Miller
Ashley Olsen
Gemma Ward
Who Should Be The Next Wonder Woman?
Wonder Woman is expected for release sometime next year. For a little (temporary) closure, we offer our top choices for the role:
Charisma Carpenter: She's worked closely with Whedon before (as chatterbox Cordelia on "Buffy" and "Angel"), and she's kept a low profile lately, so it could be refreshing to see her again. "It hasn't even gotten so far as auditions," said her rep. "It's only in discussions at this point." On ImagineCasting.com, Carpenter is top of the list, beating out other contenders like Minnie Driver and Monica Bellucci.
Priyanka Chopra: One look at this raven-haired Bollywood beauty and you can just imagine her kicking butt. The former Miss India is currently starring in a superhero movie called "Krrish" and knows kung fu. We're sold!
Megan Fox: We're psyched to see Fox work the robot gear as Mikaela in her next flick, "Transformers." She hasn't auditioned for the Wonder Woman role, but she would be overjoyed to play it. "It would be flattering," her rep said. "Megan would love to do it. She's a big fan. And she can definitely fit in the suit."
Morena Baccarin: If you're a Joss Whedon fan, then you'll recognize Brazilian-born Baccarin from "Serenity" and "Firefly." Like Carpenter, she can be told what to do, where to sit and how to smile. It's almost as if Whedon has been training her for this opportunity her whole career.
Evangeline Lilly: Sure, she might be shooting "Lost" for what seems like forever (or she could be killed off next week), but it would be nice for Lilly to prove her acting chops beyond television. A movie poster of Lilly in a pair of starry knickers beats the cover of TV Guide any day.
Cameron Diaz: She kicked butt in "Charlie's Angels" as a blonde. Now she's channeling Wonder Woman as a brunette.
Denise Richards: Hey, anyone who throws laptops from hotel windows ...
Charisma Carpenter: She's worked closely with Whedon before (as chatterbox Cordelia on "Buffy" and "Angel"), and she's kept a low profile lately, so it could be refreshing to see her again. "It hasn't even gotten so far as auditions," said her rep. "It's only in discussions at this point." On ImagineCasting.com, Carpenter is top of the list, beating out other contenders like Minnie Driver and Monica Bellucci.
Priyanka Chopra: One look at this raven-haired Bollywood beauty and you can just imagine her kicking butt. The former Miss India is currently starring in a superhero movie called "Krrish" and knows kung fu. We're sold!
Megan Fox: We're psyched to see Fox work the robot gear as Mikaela in her next flick, "Transformers." She hasn't auditioned for the Wonder Woman role, but she would be overjoyed to play it. "It would be flattering," her rep said. "Megan would love to do it. She's a big fan. And she can definitely fit in the suit."
Morena Baccarin: If you're a Joss Whedon fan, then you'll recognize Brazilian-born Baccarin from "Serenity" and "Firefly." Like Carpenter, she can be told what to do, where to sit and how to smile. It's almost as if Whedon has been training her for this opportunity her whole career.
Evangeline Lilly: Sure, she might be shooting "Lost" for what seems like forever (or she could be killed off next week), but it would be nice for Lilly to prove her acting chops beyond television. A movie poster of Lilly in a pair of starry knickers beats the cover of TV Guide any day.
Cameron Diaz: She kicked butt in "Charlie's Angels" as a blonde. Now she's channeling Wonder Woman as a brunette.
Denise Richards: Hey, anyone who throws laptops from hotel windows ...
Singer, Dancer, Girl-Power Ally? Beyonce Brings Out New Side Of Ne-Yo
To the left, to the left." All the ladies seem to know those six words, the opening lines of Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," which is one of the most-spun records in the country right now. Oddly enough, the girl-power anthem was co-written by a man — but not just any man, a hitmaker in his own right: Ne-Yo.
"Beyoncé's 'Irreplaceable' is doing really well, that [song] is racing up the charts," Ne-Yo said recently in New York. "She had some stuff that she wanted to get off her chest, and that's what she did. An artist's art really only has to make sense to the artist, and if the rest of the world catches on, that's cool too. If they don't, hey, 'This is my art, leave me alone.' "
The world seems to be catching on. B's album, B'Day, has been shooting back up the charts — it'll hit #6 next week on the Billboard albums chart, selling over 173,000 copies — and "Irreplaceable" is also the #3 song in the country.
"Beyoncé writes [for] herself, but if she has somebody writing something for her, she's not going to sing it if it doesn't make sense to her," Ne-Yo explained, providing some insight into collaborating with Ms. Knowles. "It's gotta be something that holds some weight with her."
Judging by his latest work, Ne-Yo's pen is worth more than its weight in gold and platinum. He also wrote all of Beyoncé's lines on the song "Hollywood," from Jay-Z's Kingdom Come LP.
"That's one I'm really proud of," he said of "Hollywood." "The track, I had never messed with anything like that. It's up [tempo], kinda retro. I was like, 'What am I gonna do with this one?' So I went back into the mental banks. The inspiration, I got from Sheila E. Remember 'The Glamorous Life,' how that sounded? That's the sound I wanted for that track.
"The song is basically about how Hollywood could be heaven on earth or absolute hell," he added. "It's for some people, it's not for everybody. It's basically talking about the ups and downs of what the business is, and Beyoncé is definitely a person that has been through that."
Ne-Yo pulled double duty on Kingdom Come, singing on his longtime supporters' "Minority Report" (see "Jay-Z Calls Ne-Yo's #1 Debut 'A Wonderful Thing'; R&B Newcomer Dancing Up A Storm"). "When Jay first said he was gonna put another record together, he told he wanted me to be a part of it," Ne-Yo said. "It was a really cool thing, but a scary thing ... But a cool thing. I didn't know what to expect. But it was a situation just like the first time I met him. I didn't know what type of person he was.
"He turned out to be a regular dude," Ne-Yo continued. "The session was a regular session: get in, vibe with the track for a minute, you feel something, write it down. Get in the booth. He explained what the song was about, what he wanted it to feel like."
Ne-Yo said that despite all his writing assignments (Ruben Studdard, possibly Britney Spears and Enrique Iglesias), he is working on his own album as well. He wants to put out a single no later than February and release the LP sometime in the spring of '07. According to him, the delayed start of the Scream Tour 5 — which also features Omarion, Yung Joc and Jibbs — from late November to early December was a blessing in disguise (see "Scream Tour Organizer Eyeing Chris Brown, Ne-Yo For Fifth Installment"). Instead of running around from city to city and sneaking in time to record in a hotel room, he actually can lock in a studio for the time being.
"I want to sit and focus so this album comes out as good as the first album was, plus more," he said.
Scream Tour 5 dates, according to the tour's publicist:
12/15 - Miami, FL @ AmericanAirlines Arena
12/17 - Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena
12/21 - Hampton, VA @ Hampton Coliseum
12/22 - Philadelphia, PA @ Wachovia Center
12/23 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
12/26 - Detroit, MI @ Joe Louis Arena
12/28 - Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena
12/29 - Cleveland, OH @ Wolstein Center at CSU
12/30 - Baltimore, MD @ 1st Mariner Arena
12/31 - Washington, DC @ Verizon Center
Panty-Free Britney, Quick-Divorce Pam: Why Do Stars Make Bad Choices?
Experts weigh in with explanations like alcohol, poor self-regulation, maintaining brands and just plain bad judgment.
Britney's panty-free partying. Kid Rock and Pam Anderson staging a series of flashy weddings, only to divorce four months later. Michael Richards' racist onstage rant. Snoop's third arrest in three months. Lindsay Lohan's endless series of long nights out captured on film. Danny DeVito's admittedly drunken babbling on "The View."
In this age of paparazzi mayhem, gossip magazine ubiquity and the speed with which every public gaffe ends up on YouTube, what's up with celebrities making such horrible public decisions?
"That's the million-dollar question," said Mark McGrath, the tabloid-prone Sugar Ray frontman who now chronicles other celebrities' slip-ups as the co-host of "Extra." McGrath, who has had drunken rants and a pants-free incident caught on tape, said alcohol is often partially to blame. "There's lots of self-destruction involved and I've been a part of that. You go to any boardwalk in the country and you can find a T-shirt that reads, 'Instant a--hole, just add alcohol.' "
With or without booze though, McGrath said fans have inflated opinions of celebrities and athletes because they like their movies, music and dramatic 360 dunks — but at the end of the day, "they're just people." And of course the other major issue, which McGrath admitted to feeding into on "Extra," is the ravenous paparazzi and tabloid culture, which creates a "perfect storm of self-destruction and boorish behavior.
"But you're talking about things you should have learned about when you were 6 years old," McGrath added. "Make sure you wear underwear; my mom said don't chew gum anywhere, not in church or on TV; don't call people the 'N' word in your routine."
It's easy to pick on Britney (see "12 Ways For Britney To Get Her Groove Back"), but by hooking up with notorious new BFF Paris Hilton and showing off everything with her flash-dances, the singer seems to be inexplicably tossing out much of the public good will she garnered with her decision to divorce Kevin Federline (see "Britney Spears Files For Divorce — It's Official").
"The media beats someone up, but they love a comeback," said Shawn Sachs, executive vice president of Ken Sunshine Consultants, a publicity firm that represents Justin Timberlake and Leonardo DiCaprio. "When Britney broke up with Kevin, the public let out a roar. They were psyched for her to be back. She could have thrown away two years of bad press, then all of a sudden in a week she squandered it."
So what's the harm of bad press? "The public's appetite for those antics is very short and they're hard to undo," said Sachs, who noted that anyone who believes the old adage that all press is good press is not thinking about the long-term prospects of their career. "A lot of times, if you have a client who doesn't listen or wants to do their own thing, you can be the best publicist in the world and you can't do anything about it."
So even knowing that they're in the public eye, and that just about every move they make will be photographed, YouTube'd and instantly uploaded, why do celebrities continue to make such horrible choices?
"One cynical view is that it's just about publicity and them craving attention, but I don't think Michael Richards or Lindsay Lohan want that attention or that it's helping their careers," said Roberto Weber, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in the psychology of decision making.
"The reason these people are celebrities is because they're not good at self-regulating," he explained. "Someone like Britney was singing onstage in front of big crowds at an early age and wearing sexy outfits in public, which is something a lot of people couldn't do. Her ability to suppress shame and shyness contributes to her ability to be in the public eye, but it also contributes to her inability to regulate that behavior. The mechanism that causes me to feel trepidation about getting onstage, or makes me wonder if what I'm saying is insensitive is the thing that lets them be extroverted."
Weber said celebrities live in an environment where their outrageous behavior is rewarded with attention, which sometimes makes them unable to gauge when they are being inappropriate until a situation blows up into a crisis.
Another way to look at it is this: Anyone, celebrity or not, would get caught in an embarrassing moment at some point if they had cameras trained on them all the time. Just because you can act, sing or are good looking doesn't mean you have better judgment than your fans. "But Britney has said it herself: 'You can take the girl out of Kentwood, but you can't take the Kentwood out of the girl,' " said Ken Baker, West Coast executive editor of US Weekly magazine.
"A lot of this is a major compliment to Britney," he added. "She's done such a good job at creating this Britney persona — the cute, sexy, polished pop star — that the more she's under the media spotlight and paparazzi glare, the more she's ended up disappointing people because they had such a strong image of her as this glossy pop star, not a regular girl from Louisiana who is rough around the edges."
Baker said it's a different story when stars like Hilton and Snoop misbehave. They're very shrewd about knowing their brand and promoting it, whether it's the sexy, single, dangerous party girl or the edgy rapper from the 'hood who gets arrested. Britney's recent gum-snapping, underwear-forgetting incidents are not consistent with the public Britney brand, and her public doesn't like it. "It's like going into Starbucks and getting a cup of McDonald's coffee," Baker said. "You don't want that."
And while Richards' meltdown and Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rant are examples of what he called irrational behavior, Robert Thompson, the director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, said some celebrities just don't adjust to a life of constant scrutiny.
"Paparazzi have been around as long as celebrities have, but I think people just haven't yet gotten used to the fact that as soon as they leave the confines of their domestic space they have to act as though someone is videoing them or putting a microphone in their face, because they usually are," said Thompson. "But Britney without underwear? It's what she does. It's her job. She's one of those celebrities that never lets us down. Gossip columns and the entertainment media like her so much [because] she gives them so much to work with. Like Michael Jackson, just when you think it's safe to stop thinking about Britney, she drives down the street with her kid in her lap."
Even as she transformed from virginal Mouseketeer to Madonna-kissing starlet to girl gone wild, Thompson said Britney has mastered the ability to hang on to her position as the star of the big business we call American celebrity. "The question is, 'Did she go out without underwear out of stupidity?' or is the thinking, 'I'm Britney Spears and I'm selling perfume. It won't hurt sales of my perfume because it's not marketed as a modest scent for spinster schoolteachers. It's something sexy'? To get street cred as a bad girl, which is a major role that needs to be filled constantly in American culture, the cover charge is to be caught in a few of these situations."
Or, as McGrath put it, "Maybe she's feeling insecure and trying to get her sexy on. Like, 'Hey, I'm still sexy and I'm hanging out with Paris Hilton. Yes, I'm a mother who used to be the world's biggest pop star, but I'm still here.' "
Britney's panty-free partying. Kid Rock and Pam Anderson staging a series of flashy weddings, only to divorce four months later. Michael Richards' racist onstage rant. Snoop's third arrest in three months. Lindsay Lohan's endless series of long nights out captured on film. Danny DeVito's admittedly drunken babbling on "The View."
In this age of paparazzi mayhem, gossip magazine ubiquity and the speed with which every public gaffe ends up on YouTube, what's up with celebrities making such horrible public decisions?
"That's the million-dollar question," said Mark McGrath, the tabloid-prone Sugar Ray frontman who now chronicles other celebrities' slip-ups as the co-host of "Extra." McGrath, who has had drunken rants and a pants-free incident caught on tape, said alcohol is often partially to blame. "There's lots of self-destruction involved and I've been a part of that. You go to any boardwalk in the country and you can find a T-shirt that reads, 'Instant a--hole, just add alcohol.' "
With or without booze though, McGrath said fans have inflated opinions of celebrities and athletes because they like their movies, music and dramatic 360 dunks — but at the end of the day, "they're just people." And of course the other major issue, which McGrath admitted to feeding into on "Extra," is the ravenous paparazzi and tabloid culture, which creates a "perfect storm of self-destruction and boorish behavior.
"But you're talking about things you should have learned about when you were 6 years old," McGrath added. "Make sure you wear underwear; my mom said don't chew gum anywhere, not in church or on TV; don't call people the 'N' word in your routine."
It's easy to pick on Britney (see "12 Ways For Britney To Get Her Groove Back"), but by hooking up with notorious new BFF Paris Hilton and showing off everything with her flash-dances, the singer seems to be inexplicably tossing out much of the public good will she garnered with her decision to divorce Kevin Federline (see "Britney Spears Files For Divorce — It's Official").
"The media beats someone up, but they love a comeback," said Shawn Sachs, executive vice president of Ken Sunshine Consultants, a publicity firm that represents Justin Timberlake and Leonardo DiCaprio. "When Britney broke up with Kevin, the public let out a roar. They were psyched for her to be back. She could have thrown away two years of bad press, then all of a sudden in a week she squandered it."
So what's the harm of bad press? "The public's appetite for those antics is very short and they're hard to undo," said Sachs, who noted that anyone who believes the old adage that all press is good press is not thinking about the long-term prospects of their career. "A lot of times, if you have a client who doesn't listen or wants to do their own thing, you can be the best publicist in the world and you can't do anything about it."
So even knowing that they're in the public eye, and that just about every move they make will be photographed, YouTube'd and instantly uploaded, why do celebrities continue to make such horrible choices?
"One cynical view is that it's just about publicity and them craving attention, but I don't think Michael Richards or Lindsay Lohan want that attention or that it's helping their careers," said Roberto Weber, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in the psychology of decision making.
"The reason these people are celebrities is because they're not good at self-regulating," he explained. "Someone like Britney was singing onstage in front of big crowds at an early age and wearing sexy outfits in public, which is something a lot of people couldn't do. Her ability to suppress shame and shyness contributes to her ability to be in the public eye, but it also contributes to her inability to regulate that behavior. The mechanism that causes me to feel trepidation about getting onstage, or makes me wonder if what I'm saying is insensitive is the thing that lets them be extroverted."
Weber said celebrities live in an environment where their outrageous behavior is rewarded with attention, which sometimes makes them unable to gauge when they are being inappropriate until a situation blows up into a crisis.
Another way to look at it is this: Anyone, celebrity or not, would get caught in an embarrassing moment at some point if they had cameras trained on them all the time. Just because you can act, sing or are good looking doesn't mean you have better judgment than your fans. "But Britney has said it herself: 'You can take the girl out of Kentwood, but you can't take the Kentwood out of the girl,' " said Ken Baker, West Coast executive editor of US Weekly magazine.
"A lot of this is a major compliment to Britney," he added. "She's done such a good job at creating this Britney persona — the cute, sexy, polished pop star — that the more she's under the media spotlight and paparazzi glare, the more she's ended up disappointing people because they had such a strong image of her as this glossy pop star, not a regular girl from Louisiana who is rough around the edges."
Baker said it's a different story when stars like Hilton and Snoop misbehave. They're very shrewd about knowing their brand and promoting it, whether it's the sexy, single, dangerous party girl or the edgy rapper from the 'hood who gets arrested. Britney's recent gum-snapping, underwear-forgetting incidents are not consistent with the public Britney brand, and her public doesn't like it. "It's like going into Starbucks and getting a cup of McDonald's coffee," Baker said. "You don't want that."
And while Richards' meltdown and Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rant are examples of what he called irrational behavior, Robert Thompson, the director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, said some celebrities just don't adjust to a life of constant scrutiny.
"Paparazzi have been around as long as celebrities have, but I think people just haven't yet gotten used to the fact that as soon as they leave the confines of their domestic space they have to act as though someone is videoing them or putting a microphone in their face, because they usually are," said Thompson. "But Britney without underwear? It's what she does. It's her job. She's one of those celebrities that never lets us down. Gossip columns and the entertainment media like her so much [because] she gives them so much to work with. Like Michael Jackson, just when you think it's safe to stop thinking about Britney, she drives down the street with her kid in her lap."
Even as she transformed from virginal Mouseketeer to Madonna-kissing starlet to girl gone wild, Thompson said Britney has mastered the ability to hang on to her position as the star of the big business we call American celebrity. "The question is, 'Did she go out without underwear out of stupidity?' or is the thinking, 'I'm Britney Spears and I'm selling perfume. It won't hurt sales of my perfume because it's not marketed as a modest scent for spinster schoolteachers. It's something sexy'? To get street cred as a bad girl, which is a major role that needs to be filled constantly in American culture, the cover charge is to be caught in a few of these situations."
Or, as McGrath put it, "Maybe she's feeling insecure and trying to get her sexy on. Like, 'Hey, I'm still sexy and I'm hanging out with Paris Hilton. Yes, I'm a mother who used to be the world's biggest pop star, but I'm still here.' "
2006, Brought to You by You
IMAGINE paying $580 million for an ever-expanding heap of personal ads, random photos, private blathering, demo recordings and camcorder video clips. That’s what Rupert Murdoch did when his News Corporation bought MySpace in July. Then imagine paying $1.65 billion for a flood of grainy TV excerpts, snarkily edited film clips, homemade video diaries, amateur music videos and shots of people singing along with their stereos. That’s what Google got when it bought YouTube in October.
What these two highly strategic companies spent more than $2 billion on is a couple of empty vessels: brand-named, centralized repositories for whatever their members decide to contribute.
All that material is “user-generated content,” the paramount cultural buzz phrase of 2006. It’s a term that must appeal to the technocratic instincts of investors. I prefer something a little more old-fashioned: self-expression. Terminology aside, this will be remembered as the year that the old-line media mogul, the online media titan and millions of individual Web users agreed: It demands attention.
It’s on Web sites like YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion, PureVolume, GarageBand and Metacafe. It’s homemade art independently distributed and inventively promoted. It’s borrowed art that has been warped, wrecked, mocked and sometimes improved. It’s blogs and open-source software and collaborative wikis and personal Web pages. It’s word of mouth that can reach the entire world.
It’s often inept, but every so often it’s inspired, or at least worth a mouse click. It has made stars, at least momentarily, of characters like the video diarist Lonelygirl (who turned out to be a fictional creation) and the power-pop band OK Go (whose treadmill choreography earned far more plays than its albums). And now that Web entrepreneurs have recognized the potential for profit, it’s also a sweet deal: amateurs, and some calculating professionals, supply the raw material free. Private individuals aren’t private anymore; everyone wants to preen.
All that free-flowing self-expression presents a grandly promising anarchy, an assault on established notions of professionalism, a legal morass and a technological remix of the processes of folk culture. And simply unleashing it could be the easy part. Now we have to figure out what to do with it: Ignore it? Sort it? Add more of our own? In utopian terms the great abundance of self-expression puts an end to the old, supposedly wrongheaded gatekeeping mechanisms: hit-driven recording companies, hidebound movie studios, timid broadcast radio stations, trend-seeking media coverage. But toss out those old obstacles to creativity and, lo and behold, people begin to crave a new set of filters.
TECH oracles predicted long ago that by making worldwide distribution instantaneous, the Web would democratize art as well as other discourse, at least for those who are connected. The virtual painting galleries, the free songs, the video blogs, the comedy clips, the online novels — all of them followed the rise of the Internet and the spread of broadband as inevitably as water spills through a crack in a dam. Why keep your creativity, or the lack of it, to yourself when you can invite the world to see?
Every so often the world notices. British rockers like the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen built huge followings at home and abroad by making their music available on MySpace, where bands can post full-length songs and video clips. When the Arctic Monkeys released their first album as 2006 began — full of songs that fans already had on their computers and iPods — it drew the highest initial sales of any debut in the history of the British charts. Both of them are exceptions, however; many musicians are still waiting for the first stranger to visit their MySpace page.
While some small percentage of the user-generated outpouring is a first glimpse of real talent, much of it is fledgling bands unveiling a song recorded last Thursday in a friend’s basement, or would-be directors showing the world their demo reels. There’s deadpan video vérité, raw club recordings, “gotcha” moments (like Michael Richards’s stand-up meltdown) and wiseguy edits, along with considerably more polished productions. And users generate all sorts of recombinant art: parodies, alternate video clips, mash-ups, juxtapositions, “Star Trek” scenes accompanied by U2 songs, George W. Bush rapping.
User-generated content — turning the audience into the auteur — isn’t exactly an online innovation. It’s as old as “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” or letters to the editor, or community sings, or Talmudic commentary, or graffiti. The difference is that in past eras most self-expression stayed close to home. Users generated traditional cultures and honed regional styles, concentrated by geographical isolation.
In the 20th century recording and broadcasting broke down that isolation. Yet those same technologies came to reinforce a different kind of separation: between professional artist and audience. A successful artist needed not only creativity and skill, but also access to the tools of production — studios, recorders, cameras — and outlets for mass distribution.
As the music and movie businesses grew, they flaunted their economic advantage. They could spend millions of dollars to make and market blockbuster hits, to place them in theaters or get them played on radio and MTV. They owned the factories that could press vinyl albums and make the first CDs, before the days of the home CD burner and MP3s. Independent types could, and did, release their own work, but they couldn’t match the scale of the established entertainment business.
They still are at a disadvantage. But they are gaining.
Low-budget recording and the Internet have handed production and distribution back to artists, and one-stop collections of user-generated content give audiences a chance to find their works. With gatekeepers out of the way, it’s possible to realize the do-it-yourself dreams of punk and hip-hop, to circle back to the kind of homemade art that existed long before media conglomerates and mass distribution. But that art doesn’t stay close to home. Online it moves breathtakingly fast and far.
Folk cultures often work incrementally, adding bits of individuality to a well-established tradition, with time and memory determining what will last. In the user-generated realm, tradition is anything prerecorded, and all existing works seem to be there for the taking, copyrights aside.
In the process, another thing users generate is back talk. Surfing YouTube can be a survey of individual reactions to pop culture: movie and television characters transplanted out of their original plots or synched to improbable songs, pop hits revamped as comedy or attached to new, unauthorized imagery. (Try searching for Justin Timberlake on YouTube to see all the variations, loving and snide, on his single “Sexyback.”)
Copyright holders might be incensed; since buying YouTube, Google is paying some of them and fielding lawsuits from others. But a truly shrewd marketer might find some larger value. Those parodies, collages, remakes and mismakes are unvarnished market research: a way to see what people really think of their product. They’re also advertising: a reminder of how enjoyable the official versions were.
The amateurs may seem irreverent, disrespectful and even parasitical as they help themselves to someone else’s hooks. But they’re confirming that the pros came up with something durable enough to demand a reply. Without icons, what would iconoclasts mock?
Some pros understand that they don’t need to have the last word on their work. Rappers like Jay-Z customarily release a cappella versions of their rhymes, a clear invitation for disc jockeys and producers to work up their own new tracks. Rockers like Nine Inch Nails have placed their raw multitrack recordings online, along with the software to remix them. Filmmakers have not been so forthcoming, but that hasn’t stopped viewers from, for instance, editing “The Big Lebowski” down to all the moments when its characters use a certain four-letter word. It’s a popular clip on YouTube.
Of course the notion of culture as something bestowed by creators and swallowed whole by audiences never had much to do with reality. Now fans can not only tell others about their responses to art — in the user-generated content of fan sites and discussion forums — but they can also demonstrate them directly.
IN the tsunami of self-expression, audiences have been forced to take on a much bigger job: sifting through the new stuff. For musicians, the Internet has become an incessant public audition. What once was winnowed down by A&R departments, and then culled again by radio stations and other media, is now online in all its hopeful profusion. A listener could spend the rest of her life listening to unreleased songs. Some people do just that to claim bragging rights, or blogging rights, for discovering the next indie sensation.
Individually the hopefuls can’t compete with a heavily promoted major-label star. Face it: Song for song, most of them just aren’t as good. But collectively they are stiff competition indeed: for time, for attention and, eventually, for cultural impact. The multiplying choices promise ever more diversity, ever more possibility for innovation and unexpected delight. But they also point toward an increasingly atomized audience, a popular culture composed of a zillion nonintersecting mini-cults. So much available self-expression can only accelerate what narrowing radio and cable formats had already begun: the separation of culture into ever-smaller niches.
That fragmentation is a problem for businesses, like recording companies and film studios, that are built on selling a few blockbusters to make up for a lot of flops. The music business in particular is going to have to remake itself with lower and more sustainable expectations, along the lines of how independent labels already work.
But let the business take care of itself; it’s the culture that matters. Fragmentation is difficult too for artists with populist intentions, who want to be heard beyond the confines of their core following. That kind of ambition isn’t only a mercenary one. It’s a challenge to preach to the unconverted, and an achievement to unite disparate audiences. Every so often it’s good to break through demographic categories and share some cultural reference. Popular culture has never been entirely monolithic — someone, somewhere, has no opinion on Michael Jackson or “Titanic” — but 21st-century stardom has less clout, less scope. It’s shrinking down to mere celebrity.
Yet there is a limit to how splintered a culture can become, one that’s as much psychological as aesthetic. Humans like to congregate and join a crowd, at least up to a point. One thing the Internet does superbly is to tabulate, and it’s no accident that sites featuring user-generated content prominently display their own most-viewed and most-played lists. Even if they take pride in ignoring the mass-market Top 10, users still want a little company, and perhaps they hope that the collective choices add up to some guidance.
Humans also like to share what they enjoy; hence all the user-generated playlists at sites like Amazon or eMusic, the inevitable lists of favorite bands and films on social networking sites and the proliferation of music blogs, like fluxblog.org or obscuresound.com, that gather hard-to-find songs for listeners to download directly. The songs on music blogs are chosen not by companies desperate for profit, but by individuals with time to spare, and if the choices often seem a little, well, geeky — indie rock, with a side of underground hip-hop, seems to be the overwhelming choice of music bloggers — who but a geek would be spending all that time at a computer?
Those geeks make life easier for the media moguls who bought into user-generated content this year. Selection, a time-consuming job, has been outsourced. What’s growing is the plentitude not just of user-generated content, but also of user-filtered content. (There are even sites like elbo.ws that tabulate songs found on music blogs, finding yet another Top 10.)
The open question is whether those new, quirky, homemade filters will find better art than the old, crassly commercial ones. The most-played songs from unsigned bands on MySpace — some played two million or three million times — tend to be as sappy as anything on the radio; the most-viewed videos on YouTube are novelty bits, and proudly dorky. Mouse-clicking individuals can be as tasteless, in the aggregate, as entertainment professionals.
Unlike the old media roadblocks, however, their filtering can easily be ignored. The promise of all the self-expression online is that genius will reach the public with fewer obstacles, bypassing the entrenched media. The reality is that genius has a bigger junk pile to climb out of than ever, one that requires just as much hustle and ingenuity as the old distribution system.
The entertainment business is already nostalgic for the days when it made and relied on big stars; parts of the public miss a sense of cultural unity that may never return. Instead both have to face the irrevocable fact of the Internet: There’s always another choice.
Rock Your Body
BFFs Trace Ayala and Justin Timberlake join forces to create William Rast, a street fashion label that debuted to NSYNC-style mayhem at LA Fashion Week.
Trace Ayala has been Justin Timberlake's childhood friend, personal assistant and now his business partner in the pair's latest venture, clothing line William Rast. With Justin providing the catwalk theme music, the duo's first runway collection "Street Sexy," debuted at LA Fashion Week(for the lucky few who got in, we salute your gusto. Check out the red carpet drama here). Celebs like Cameron Diaz, Paris 'I Never Miss a Party' Hilton, and Maroon 5's Adam Levine (who teamed up with JT for his single, This Love) came to support the line. Trace tells us what it's like to work with Justin, the meaning of 'Tennessee Flair' and how to make the perfect pair of jeans.
By Christina Roperti
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ELLEgirl: How did you become involved in designing?
Trace Ayala: Fashion is something that I've always wanted to do. Justin and I grew up in Tennessee, and it's really hard to get into fashion there, especially being a guy. But when I was 17, I moved to Orlando, where Justin had a house from when he was in The Mickey Mouse Club, and it was easier to start designing there. I bought a sewing machine and some patterns, and just took some old Levis apart. I really learned by trial and error.
EG: There are so many celebrity clothing lines out there. What makes William Rast different?
TA: So many celebrities, even friends of mine, have their own lines, but they just find companies that already make clothes and just put their names onto it. For us, we started from the beginning--everything from buttons to stitching to rivets. We fully design and produce the line.
EG: How do you and Justin split up the responsibilities?
TA: I definitely go more towards the design and creativeness than Justin does, but Justin's an amazing businessman. When it comes to perfection and making good marketing decisions, he's always on target. He's really good at sticking to his plans and keeping us in line.
EG: I've heard the line described as infused with "Tennessee flair." What does that mean, exactly?
TA: When we started out, a lot of our graphic tees had Tennessee symbols or slogans on them. But a big part of what we mean by 'Tennessee flair' is that all of our clothes are made in the United States, which is really rare these days. That was the first thing that our family asked us--where was it made and who was sewing it.
EG: How did you come up with the name for your line?
TA: William is Justin's grandfather's first name, and Rast is my grandfather's last name. We were trying to think of names that would mean a lot to us. We didn't want to have to explain it as, "I was inspired one day...haha." Our grandfathers really mean a lot to us - they were like our fathers.
EG: Who would you say is the typical William Rast guy or girl?
TA: That's tough! Basically, someone who's looking for an amazing pair of jeans that you can wear with anything--heels or flats, a tank top or a really nice top. I haven't had many complaints yet.
EG: I heard you're also opening a store in Japan.
TA: We're in talks right now about it. We just want to make sure that it's exactly how we want it, down to the type of wood floors. When we started selling, we weren't sure if the Japanese would get the line, because it's so Americana. But they're a huge market for us now.
EG: What's the next step for you guys?
TA: We have a lot of things coming up, but nothing is set in stone, so I don't want to give specifics. We have a really big designer who wants to come in and design a jean with us, which would be unbelievable, so we're really hoping that goes through. When I started, I really loved the creative part of making the jeans, and finding the right fabrics, but I didn't realize how much of a business it is. Every single day, things are changing--everything is a next step.
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Comes to The CW
What's this? Surprised to see this pic (of 1.Gisele strutting her stuff and 2.Justin Timberlake suspiciously masking his) on this blog? You're probably wondering, "What's THAT doing on The CW Source? Sassy pics of Mackenzie Rosman or Chad Michael Murray's latest conquest are one thing, but lingerie models and pop stars are quite another!"
Well, Gisele Justin Timberlake, and many more Victoria's Secret models (are they calling them Angels these days?), are coming to The CW on Tuesday, 12/19 for The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2006. The special will air instead of Veronica Mars. Before you freak, remember that it would've been a rerun anyway, and VM will be back the following week.
"Dreamgirls" Recalls Rise of Girl Groups
DETROIT - Set in the 1960s and `70s, "Dreamgirls" doesn't profess to be a literal history of Motown or any other music scene from the past.
But the film, which is loosely based on Detroit chart-toppers the Supremes, does examine the issues that confronted many girl groups over the years. In this case: a calculating manager, relentless ambitions and ego-driven clashes among the artists.
Motown Hall of Famer Martha Reeves says she's glad that the film, which opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles and Dec. 25 across the country, is shining a spotlight on the sound, glamour and elegance of girl groups.
"Being a performer, I could identify with the development of the talent, our personalities and opinions and how judgments are decreed," said the 65-year-old former leader of Martha and the Vandellas, whose hits included "Dancing in the Street" and "Heat Wave". "But I couldn't say there was anything (in the film) like my experience in Motown."
The film, adapted from the 1981 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name, chronicles a fictional three-piece girl group known as the Dreamettes. Its two main members - Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) - were inspired by the Supremes' Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, respectively.
The three, who are rounded out by Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose), are discovered by manager Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) and offered a job as backup singers for hit-maker James "Thunder" Early, played by Eddie Murphy.
Taylor eventually establishes the trio as the stand-alone act The Dreams and begins shaping the women's look and sound, a la Motown. As Berry Gordy did for Ross, Taylor grooms Jones for the spotlight, while the less photogenic Effie is pushed out. (Ballard left the group in 1967, ended up on welfare and died in 1976.)
In reality, the soundtrack to the film has more in common with show tunes than the signature Motown or Phil Spector-produced "wall of sound" style that characterized so many girl-group artists.
Charles Sykes, an Indiana University professor who teaches a class on the history of the Motown music movement, said girl groups rode a wave of popular music that targeted an emerging market of music-hungry teenagers. He said most of Motown's girl groups didn't necessarily stand apart from the label's overall talent roster until the Supremes began to emerge as superstars in 1964-65 with hits such as "Baby Love" and "Stop! In the Name of Love."
"The girl-group tradition kind of started around the mid-`50s, part of the rock 'n' roll era, and then the girl groups really started to wane in the `60s," he said. "Motown was an exception in that sense."
Lyrically, female performers of the era presented certain contradictions, said music journalist Donna Gaines, who contributed the chapter "Girl Groups: A Ballad of Codependency" for the "Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock."
On the one hand, she said, many of the era's girl groups performed songs written by men on topics that largely reinforced societal gender roles. But groups like the Shangri-Las ("Leader of the Pack") and the Ronettes ("Be My Baby") presented more defiant music.
"It was music made by teenagers for teenagers, and on the surface it was a lot about your role assignment as a wife and a good woman, and you're supposed to be there for the guy," Gaines said. "But it also allowed you to pull away from the family and the community and make your own choices for yourself."
Many girl groups saw their declines come as quickly as their ascents, Gaines said.
"They were horribly underpaid and exploited. They had very few legal protections. They were just easy prey for exploitation and some of them met with very tragic circumstances."
Reeves, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who now serves on the Detroit City Council, cited examples such as the Shirelles' "Soldier Boy" and Freda Payne's "Bring the Boys Home" to argue that Motown acts and others rose to popularity by singing about love during a turbulent period in history.
"The girls had their way in the `60s, I guess, because we sung through wars," Reeves said. "I remember the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and people would come to me and say: `Your music took us through it.'"
She added: "They were songs that took us through a crisis and people could identify with it."
Sykes, the Indiana professor, said he often compares lyrics of Motown hits such as the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," in which a woman eagerly awaits notice from her faraway boyfriend, to modern-day female lyricists and finds stark differences in what he called "the empowerment of the female image." But, he noted, girl groups capitalized on certain timeless elements of longing.
"There's a lyric in a Mary Wells song, `The One Who Really Loves You,' and she's talking about `little me,'" Sykes said. "And you'd be hard-pressed to find that in a 2006 song. But the idea of being a woman being the one who really loves you, that doesn't go away."
But the film, which is loosely based on Detroit chart-toppers the Supremes, does examine the issues that confronted many girl groups over the years. In this case: a calculating manager, relentless ambitions and ego-driven clashes among the artists.
Motown Hall of Famer Martha Reeves says she's glad that the film, which opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles and Dec. 25 across the country, is shining a spotlight on the sound, glamour and elegance of girl groups."Being a performer, I could identify with the development of the talent, our personalities and opinions and how judgments are decreed," said the 65-year-old former leader of Martha and the Vandellas, whose hits included "Dancing in the Street" and "Heat Wave". "But I couldn't say there was anything (in the film) like my experience in Motown."
The film, adapted from the 1981 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name, chronicles a fictional three-piece girl group known as the Dreamettes. Its two main members - Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) - were inspired by the Supremes' Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, respectively.
The three, who are rounded out by Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose), are discovered by manager Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) and offered a job as backup singers for hit-maker James "Thunder" Early, played by Eddie Murphy.
Taylor eventually establishes the trio as the stand-alone act The Dreams and begins shaping the women's look and sound, a la Motown. As Berry Gordy did for Ross, Taylor grooms Jones for the spotlight, while the less photogenic Effie is pushed out. (Ballard left the group in 1967, ended up on welfare and died in 1976.)
In reality, the soundtrack to the film has more in common with show tunes than the signature Motown or Phil Spector-produced "wall of sound" style that characterized so many girl-group artists.
Charles Sykes, an Indiana University professor who teaches a class on the history of the Motown music movement, said girl groups rode a wave of popular music that targeted an emerging market of music-hungry teenagers. He said most of Motown's girl groups didn't necessarily stand apart from the label's overall talent roster until the Supremes began to emerge as superstars in 1964-65 with hits such as "Baby Love" and "Stop! In the Name of Love."
"The girl-group tradition kind of started around the mid-`50s, part of the rock 'n' roll era, and then the girl groups really started to wane in the `60s," he said. "Motown was an exception in that sense."
Lyrically, female performers of the era presented certain contradictions, said music journalist Donna Gaines, who contributed the chapter "Girl Groups: A Ballad of Codependency" for the "Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock."
On the one hand, she said, many of the era's girl groups performed songs written by men on topics that largely reinforced societal gender roles. But groups like the Shangri-Las ("Leader of the Pack") and the Ronettes ("Be My Baby") presented more defiant music.
"It was music made by teenagers for teenagers, and on the surface it was a lot about your role assignment as a wife and a good woman, and you're supposed to be there for the guy," Gaines said. "But it also allowed you to pull away from the family and the community and make your own choices for yourself."
Many girl groups saw their declines come as quickly as their ascents, Gaines said.
"They were horribly underpaid and exploited. They had very few legal protections. They were just easy prey for exploitation and some of them met with very tragic circumstances."
Reeves, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who now serves on the Detroit City Council, cited examples such as the Shirelles' "Soldier Boy" and Freda Payne's "Bring the Boys Home" to argue that Motown acts and others rose to popularity by singing about love during a turbulent period in history.
"The girls had their way in the `60s, I guess, because we sung through wars," Reeves said. "I remember the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and people would come to me and say: `Your music took us through it.'"
She added: "They were songs that took us through a crisis and people could identify with it."
Sykes, the Indiana professor, said he often compares lyrics of Motown hits such as the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," in which a woman eagerly awaits notice from her faraway boyfriend, to modern-day female lyricists and finds stark differences in what he called "the empowerment of the female image." But, he noted, girl groups capitalized on certain timeless elements of longing.
"There's a lyric in a Mary Wells song, `The One Who Really Loves You,' and she's talking about `little me,'" Sykes said. "And you'd be hard-pressed to find that in a 2006 song. But the idea of being a woman being the one who really loves you, that doesn't go away."
Thursday, December 07, 2006
In Pursuit of Hot Women, Hard Living and Insane Fame
When the reality series “Laguna Beach” started in 2004, MTV promised it would expose “The Real Orange County”; the dewy documentary was styled as a lifelike answer to Fox’s soapy “OC.”
To keep things consistent, then, MTV’s new reality series, “Twentyfourseven,” the story of a pack of guys aiming for fame in Hollywood, could have billed itself as the real “Entourage,” and a fan’s companion to that HBO comedy. Except now everyone knows how it goes: life begets art, which begets “reality.” Somewhere, in other words, young men actually do roll together, knock shoulders and pledge to make Thursday night “sick” and “insane.” That becomes comedy, which in turn becomes “Twentyfourseven,” which has its premiere tonight.
The producers have ably managed to recruit some presentable and ambitious young men from the honking, bottlenecked entrance to fame’s freeway. Among them are agent-filmmaker-actor-musician types. Their designated capo is Greg, who is, as it happens, a perfect narrator: a man whose disembodied baritone offers so many regional, racial and ethnic miscues that there’s some suspense before you finally see his face: he’s Arkansan (originally), 23 and white.
His real job is to be the star of “Twentyfourseven,” but MTV has given him cover in the ideal fame-seeker’s profession, the one that crosses courtier and profiteer and leaves almost no trace in, say, W-4 forms: party promoter. He also seems to sort of date Haylie Duff, sister of a bona fide famous person, Hilary Duff.
Greg’s brother Chris has a band, the Prom Kings, that sounds like most other Green Day-era bands, i.e., like Green Day, i.e., not that bad. The band seems far enough along in its evolution that MTV is not embarrassed to let it jam on the channel’s time.
At first the characters seem stiff, false and forced into a television friendship charade. But I came to like Chris when he insists on returning to “the dirty” — his name for Arkansas — shortly before playing at one of Greg’s parties. Though he says he’ll be back in Los Angeles in time to perform, he’s going to make only $500 at the gig (as opposed to Greg’s cut of the door), and some hunting boys back home have promised him a deer and a hog. Besides, he wants to see Mom and Dad.
Greg is enraged. This is his party that Chris is blowing off, and anyway, they were supposed to be all Hollywood now. But Chris, the older, digs in and leaves the city; he then misses his performance entirely when he lands in jail.
This return-of-the-Arkansas-repressed in the midst of the effort to go Hollywood is a good twist, and different from the way Queens occasionally comes back to haunt the consciences of the gang on “Entourage.” As with “Laguna Beach,” however, MTV seems to have deployed every camera at Viacom just following the cast members around town in case something exciting — a cellphone call! — happens.
It’s unlikely that the producers will wrangle a crew to stray beyond California and fly a whole team to Little Rock or Hot Springs. Too bad. It might be instructive to see what could go wrong in a healthy Arkansas childhood, filled with hogs, deer and good times, to turn a decent country boy into a mangy old party promoter.
Audrey Hepburn Dress Fetches Nearly a Million
The sleeveless black satin Givenchy dress worn by Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the 1961 film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” sold for a total cost of $922,000 yesterday at a Christie’s auction in London. The dress had been expected to fetch $99,000 to $138,000, The Associated Press reported. Proceeds of the sale, to an unidentified telephone bidder, will go to a charity, City of Joy Aid, to help destitute children in India.
One Name, Many Goals for a Driven R&B Star
While her classmates were busy fretting about boys, zits and trips to the mall, the 14-year-old Ciara Princess Harris was preoccupied with something more intangible, mapping out her music career.
“The first goal was to get a deal with a major recording company; the second was to sell three to five million records; and the third one was to have longevity,” the R & B singer, now known as Ciara, recalled last week. “I guess I’ve already done the first two.”
Her 2004 debut, “Goodies,” a fun-loving R&B album made for clubs and skate rinks alike, sold nearly five million copies worldwide, largely on the strength of the title track, a girl-power anthem promoting, of all things in these sexually charged times, abstinence.
“If you’re looking for the goodies/Keep on looking, ’cause they stay in the jar,” she sang. The kiss-off lyrics laid over an addictive beat proved a winning combination; the song raced to the top of the Billboard chart and quickly established Ciara (pronounced Sierra) as a singer to watch. Those betting that she was little more than a one-hit wonder were proved wrong with her chart-topping follow-ups “One, Two Step” (featuring Missy Elliott) and “Oh” (featuring Ludacris).
And with her latest effort, “The Evolution,” which was released yesterday, Ciara, now 21, has added yet another goal to her list. “I want to do triple what I did last time,” she said in her suite at the Trump tower and hotel overlooking Central Park. “Triple numbers, triple popularity, triple everything.” You could excuse her unbridled performance on the “Late Show With David Letterman,” a sultry, hip-swaying number that left many in the audience panting.
For a person functioning on less than five hours of sleep, Ciara was wide-eyed and chatty, discussing everything from her favorite fashion designers to adages that she lives by (“teamwork makes a dream work”). Both her physical and sartorial evolution were readily apparent. Gone were the baggy jeans, sneakers and midriff-baring T-shirts she used to favor. That evening she wore curve-hugging jeans, bejeweled Prada platform pumps and a cropped leather bomber jacket. Her hair, once strawberry blond, was dyed a shimmering black, and she has dropped nearly 15 pounds (by limiting carbohydrates, working out and drinking water, she said).
She has evolved musically as well. While “Goodies” was the stuff of slumber parties, “Evolution” is made for more adult sleepovers. The album’s first single, “Promise,” a breathy, Prince-inspired ballad, should come with a condom and a cigarette. She no longer appears as concerned with keeping her goodies in a jar.
Lil Jon, who produced two tracks on “Goodies,” said he had definitely noticed a change in her. “She was such a little kid on the first album, but now she’s a lot more outspoken,” he said. “Sometimes people will come to you, and they don’t know what they want to do; they just want a hit record. She knew exactly what she wanted for this album and was very in control of her music.”
Ciara, who helped write and produce nearly all of the tracks on her album, said her stable of star-making producers (Pharrell of the Neptunes, Dallas Austin, Rodney Jerkins and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas) didn’t mind her input — not that she would have kept quiet, even if they did.
“I think they know that I’ve got my own ideas,” she said with a girlish giggle that belied an unshakable drive. “Only you determine your destiny. Nobody else will get you where you’ve got to go, so there’s no way I can put my career in someone else’s hands and let it slip away.”
It was her decision to start this project with the slow jam “Promise” — a surprise, given that she is better known for her high-energy dance tracks and the videos that accompany them than for her pipes.
“The easy route is to start off with another dance record,” said Barry Weiss, chief executive and president of her current label, Zomba Records. “ ‘Promise’ shows that’s she’s not just the dance girl. It’s a career enhancer.”
Growing up the only child of military parents (her father was in the Army, her mother in the Air Force), Ciara seldom stayed in one place for long. By the time she was an adolescent, she had lived across the United States and Germany. Buddies came as easily as they went.
“I would build these friendships, and it would be challenging to end them,” she said. “I would cry, but eventually I would have to get over it because I’d be in the next state. Can’t go back.”
All the moving about taught her to adapt quickly to new places and new surroundings. She was popular in high school — cheerleader, track star, perennial prom date — but she had her sights set on the music industry. “I always sang in the mirror and in the shower,” she said. “I knew I had something, but I was always a little shy about it.”
She formed an R&B girl group, Hear Say, which disbanded after six months. L. A. Reid, then based in Atlanta, eventually signed her to his LaFace Records, which eventually became part of Zomba. She has been the called “the first lady of crunk &B,” a title she is all too willing to relinquish. “I don’t want to be limited,” she said. She is also often likened to Janet Jackson and the R & B singer Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in 2001, a comparison she appreciates but also seems reluctant to embrace.
“Because of all the comparisons, it’s even more of a motivation for me to become my own person,” she said. She paused, then flashed a picture-perfect grin. “I wouldn’t mind Janet’s success, though,” she said.
Kevin Federline says he's doing 'great'
NEW YORK - Britney Spears dumped him and his debut album bombed, but Kevin Federline says he's doing "great." "I am good, I am great, you know ... just moving along, progressing and taking it all in stride," the 28-year-old aspiring rapper tells "E! News" in an interview that was to air Wednesday night.
Spears, 25, filed for divorce last month after two years of marriage. She and Federline have a 1-year-old son, Sean Preston, and an infant son, Jayden James, who was born Sept. 12. Spears is seeking custody of both children, with visitation rights for Federline.
Federline, who is seeking spousal support and sole custody of his sons with Spears, says he's a family man and "that is the truth ... in all honesty, that is what it is."
He is also the father of a 4-year-old daughter, Kori, and a 2-year-old son, Kaleb, with actress Shar Jackson. They dated before he became involved with Spears.
Meanwhile, the media is giving the club-hopping Federline a tough time.
"I laugh a little bit about it you know," he said. "I don't take it too seriously. Those are people who don't really know who I am."
His debut album, "Playing With Fire," sold a dismal 6,500 copies in its first week of release. The CD was released Oct. 31.
When asked about it, Federline says he's "working it slowly, still trying to get out there and do more stuff ... I got a lot of options on the table right now."
His New Year's resolution?
To be "a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger."
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Now that's the spirit!!!
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On the Net:
E! Entertainment Television: http://www.eonline.com
Kevin Federline: http://www.kevinfederline.com/
H&M to sell 2nd Madonna fashion line
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Hennes & Mauritz, Europe's largest fashion retailer, has once again sealed a deal with Madonna for a new fashion line.
Madonna has teamed up with Margareta van den Bosch, H&M's head of design, to create the "M by Madonna" women's wear collection, scheduled to be launched globally in March, the company said Thursday.
This is the second time the 48-year-old pop singer has collaborated with the Swedish clothing chain. H&M supplied Madonna and her entourage with an offstage wardrobe for her "Confessions" world tour.
"I've made no secret of my love for fashion and trends," Madonna said in a statement. "Working with Margareta and H&M was an exciting and new creative challenge for me. I'm really happy with the results and look forward to wearing `M by Madonna' along with the rest of the world."
H&M said the new collection will "reflect Madonna's timelessness, unique and always glamorous style."
Designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Viktor & Rolf have produced collections for H&M.
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On the Net:
Madonna: http://www.madonna.com/
Madonna has teamed up with Margareta van den Bosch, H&M's head of design, to create the "M by Madonna" women's wear collection, scheduled to be launched globally in March, the company said Thursday.
This is the second time the 48-year-old pop singer has collaborated with the Swedish clothing chain. H&M supplied Madonna and her entourage with an offstage wardrobe for her "Confessions" world tour.
"I've made no secret of my love for fashion and trends," Madonna said in a statement. "Working with Margareta and H&M was an exciting and new creative challenge for me. I'm really happy with the results and look forward to wearing `M by Madonna' along with the rest of the world."
H&M said the new collection will "reflect Madonna's timelessness, unique and always glamorous style."
Designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Viktor & Rolf have produced collections for H&M.
___
On the Net:
Madonna: http://www.madonna.com/
Hendrix guitar goes for $168K at auction
NEW YORK - Paul McCartney's lyrics. Jimi Hendrix's guitar. A John Lennon interview. Memorabilia from some of the most influential musicians of the 20th century hit the auction block Monday.
McCartney's original handwritten working lyrics for the 1968 Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" went for $192,000 at Christie's sale of rock and pop memorabilia. The pre-sale estimate had been $200,000 to $300,000.
Hendrix's guitar, a 1968 Fender Stratocaster with a sunburst finish that was modified to accommodate his left-handed use, sold for a staggering $168,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000.
The guitar has been kept at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland since the museum's opening in 1996.
A notebook belonging to Neville Garrick, former art director to Bob Marley and the Wailers, containing lyrics in Marley's hand, fetched $72,000, far beyond its estimated $20,000 to $30,000.
Jim Morrison's circa 1970 handwritten poem "The American Night" had an estimate of up to $12,000 but sold for $50,400.
A previously unheard and undocumented recording of an interview with John Lennon sold for $38,400, in line with its pre-sale estimate. In the wide-ranging interview, used for a 1974 article in Crawdaddy magazine, Lennon talks about his songwriting process and the possibility of a Beatles reunion.
Another Lennon lot was a signed lithograph inscribed with the controversial song lyric "Woman is the Nigger of the World." It sold for $12,000.
All sale prices include a buyer's premium. The auction house didn't reveal the identities of the winning bidders.
McCartney's original handwritten working lyrics for the 1968 Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" went for $192,000 at Christie's sale of rock and pop memorabilia. The pre-sale estimate had been $200,000 to $300,000.
Hendrix's guitar, a 1968 Fender Stratocaster with a sunburst finish that was modified to accommodate his left-handed use, sold for a staggering $168,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000.
The guitar has been kept at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland since the museum's opening in 1996.
A notebook belonging to Neville Garrick, former art director to Bob Marley and the Wailers, containing lyrics in Marley's hand, fetched $72,000, far beyond its estimated $20,000 to $30,000.
Jim Morrison's circa 1970 handwritten poem "The American Night" had an estimate of up to $12,000 but sold for $50,400.
A previously unheard and undocumented recording of an interview with John Lennon sold for $38,400, in line with its pre-sale estimate. In the wide-ranging interview, used for a 1974 article in Crawdaddy magazine, Lennon talks about his songwriting process and the possibility of a Beatles reunion.
Another Lennon lot was a signed lithograph inscribed with the controversial song lyric "Woman is the Nigger of the World." It sold for $12,000.
All sale prices include a buyer's premium. The auction house didn't reveal the identities of the winning bidders.
1 killed as actor Garrison's SUV wrecks
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - A sport utility vehicle carrying Lane Garrison of TV's "Prison Break" and three teenagers struck a tree, killing a 17-year-old boy, police said.
Two 15-year-old girls inside the vehicle were also injured, one critically, during the late Saturday night accident, police said. Garrison, 26, had minor injuries.
The vehicle jumped a curb and hit a tree. Authorities were trying to determine who drove the SUV, which was registered to Garrison.
The boy was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where he died. His name was not released. The conditions of the girls were not immediately released.
Garrison, a Dallas native, plays "Tweener" on Fox's "Prison Break." He has worked mainly in television, but appears in the upcoming film "Shooter," which is due out next year.
Garrison's publicist, Catherine Olim, did not immediately return a phone call Sunday.
Grammy Nominations
Mary J. Blige, whose album "The Breakthrough" was perhaps the biggest in her career, was nominated for a leading eight Grammy Awards on Thursday, including R&B album, record and song of the year. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were also multiple nominees, garnering six.
Other multiple nominees were the Dixie Chicks, British newcomer James Blunt, John Mayer, Prince, and the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am.
The R&B veteran was nominated record of the year for "Be Without You" and song of the year for the same track.
"That's a beautiful thing, that I'm still going," Blige, 35, told The Associated Press. "`The Breakthrough' is about triumph, about not being a victim, but being a victor. It's about loving yourself."
Nominees for album of the year included the Dixie Chicks' "Taking the Long Way," Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere," Mayer's "Continuum," Justin Timberlake's "FutureSex/LoveSounds," and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium."
Corrine Bailey Rae, a silky pop-soul singer from Britain, was nominated for best new artist, but was a surprise nominee for record of the year for "Put Your Records On." Other nominees in that category were Blunt's ubiquitous ballad, "You're Beautiful," Gnarls Barkley's psychedelic groove "Crazy," and the Dixie Chicks angry "Not Ready to Make Nice."
Besides Rae, other nominees for best new artist included teen R&B singer Chris Brown, Imogen Heap, Blunt, and former "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood. Gnarls Barkley, a duo of producer Danger Mouse and rapper/singer Cee-Lo, were surprisingly shut out. However, they did receive a total of four nominations.
The Dixie Chicks' five nominations were a triumph for a group who weathered boycotts from the country music establishment and a drop in album sales after lead singer Natalie Maines' criticized President Bush in 2003. "Taking the Long Way," which found the trio leaning more toward rock, was still ignored by country music radio. But the defiant album still was a best-seller, and was nominated for country album of the year among its other nominations.
Besides album of the year, The Red Hot Chili Peppers' acclaimed "Stadium Arcadium" was nominated for rock album, and the song "Dani California" was nominated for best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal. "Dani California" also received a nomination in the rock song category.
James Blunt, who was on hand at the announcement ceremony, capped his stellar year with five nods.
Also getting five nominations were Mayer, Danger Mouse, Prince, producer Rick Rubin, will.i.am and composer John Williams.
Beyonce, Barkley, Timberlake and rapper T.I. were among those getting four each.
The 49th Grammy Awards are scheduled to air live on CBS from the Staples Center here on Feb. 11.
Other multiple nominees were the Dixie Chicks, British newcomer James Blunt, John Mayer, Prince, and the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am.
The R&B veteran was nominated record of the year for "Be Without You" and song of the year for the same track.
"That's a beautiful thing, that I'm still going," Blige, 35, told The Associated Press. "`The Breakthrough' is about triumph, about not being a victim, but being a victor. It's about loving yourself."
Nominees for album of the year included the Dixie Chicks' "Taking the Long Way," Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere," Mayer's "Continuum," Justin Timberlake's "FutureSex/LoveSounds," and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium."
Corrine Bailey Rae, a silky pop-soul singer from Britain, was nominated for best new artist, but was a surprise nominee for record of the year for "Put Your Records On." Other nominees in that category were Blunt's ubiquitous ballad, "You're Beautiful," Gnarls Barkley's psychedelic groove "Crazy," and the Dixie Chicks angry "Not Ready to Make Nice."
Besides Rae, other nominees for best new artist included teen R&B singer Chris Brown, Imogen Heap, Blunt, and former "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood. Gnarls Barkley, a duo of producer Danger Mouse and rapper/singer Cee-Lo, were surprisingly shut out. However, they did receive a total of four nominations.
The Dixie Chicks' five nominations were a triumph for a group who weathered boycotts from the country music establishment and a drop in album sales after lead singer Natalie Maines' criticized President Bush in 2003. "Taking the Long Way," which found the trio leaning more toward rock, was still ignored by country music radio. But the defiant album still was a best-seller, and was nominated for country album of the year among its other nominations.
Besides album of the year, The Red Hot Chili Peppers' acclaimed "Stadium Arcadium" was nominated for rock album, and the song "Dani California" was nominated for best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal. "Dani California" also received a nomination in the rock song category.
James Blunt, who was on hand at the announcement ceremony, capped his stellar year with five nods.
Also getting five nominations were Mayer, Danger Mouse, Prince, producer Rick Rubin, will.i.am and composer John Williams.
Beyonce, Barkley, Timberlake and rapper T.I. were among those getting four each.
The 49th Grammy Awards are scheduled to air live on CBS from the Staples Center here on Feb. 11.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
12 Ways For Britney To Get Her Groove Back
(*take note of the publicist's statements*)
The news of Britney Spears' split with Kevin Federline was met with squeals of delight from many of her fans.
Divorce is seldom happy news, but devoted followers hoped that the move would mean the return of Classic Brit: the hit-making, trend-setting pop starlet who could do no wrong — who set and stayed ahead of trends, who seemed set for a long, successful career. The image of a well-polished Britney on "Late Show With David Letterman" — and even on the streets of New York in the days after the news broke — suggested that brighter times lay ahead.
And then, well, this: The cigarettes, the gum-chewing, the cut-up fishnet tights ... a parade of late-night public displays and a blogosphere filled with photos of more than fans ever imagined they'd see of their beloved Brit.
"Get a grip," commented one MySpace friend. "Think of your kids," wrote another. "Wear underwear," said yet another. And most disturbing: "You're losing a lot of your fans."
What gives? Linda Thomas, a corporate-image adviser for Powerful Appearance, speculated that getting back at Federline is a reason for Brit's recent behavior. "She must be totally disappointed in the time and energy she put into Kevin and trying to start a family," Thomas said. "If she wants to have custody of her children, people are going to be looking at her behavior. It seems like she's trying to one-up Kevin instead of being with her kids and spending time with them.
"She needs to be reassured that she is still attractive and valid in the industry, but the more she behaves like Kevin, the more people are going to put her in the same boat."
Obviously, matters of custody make the stakes much higher. "The courts are very conservative, judges are very conservative, and she needs to start acting like a mother," Thomas said. "Her challenge is that in the entertainment industry, the more skin you show, the more excitement you create. But in the conservative world of being responsible and raising children, you have to cover up your skin so people can focus on what's at hand. If she's showing lots of skin and her nether regions, they won't respect her or honor her."
With all of that in mind, we're going to exercise a little tough love and make a dozen gentle do-and-don't suggestions that can help Britney get her groove back.
1. Don't hang out with Paris Hilton
She might be fun to party with at a nightclub, but Britney will only encounter more drama by kicking it with "The Simple Life" star. Some old friends from Kentwood, Louisiana, might make better party pals, or even Christina Aguilera, who has come back from her own acting-out phase with class and a first-class album. "She should take advice from Christina," Thomas said. "Christina is making good decisions as a businesswoman as well as an entertainer. Most importantly, her talent is coming across stronger than her personal life."
2. Don't chew gum or smoke in public
Perception counts for a lot where child-custody is concerned.
3. Do ditch the dollar-store extensions
The sophisticated blonde bob Brit rocked on "Letterman" was a glorious reminder of what a class act she can be.
4. Do show off musical talent
Gwen and Fergie moved into Brit's turf while she was on maternity leave — here's her chance to reclaim the throne. "I think she needs to get back to the old Britney we've known and loved since the beginning," said Trent Vanegas, founder of Pink Is the New Blog. "She knows what the pulse of pop culture needs. And she can be a cool mom and still be relevant and sexy. Britney needs to say, 'I took a break for a while — and now I'm back.' Follow Gwen and Christina's lead."
5. Do update the Web site
It's a direct line to fans — and we're tired of that growling tiger.
6. Do get a publicist
Paris Hilton would be the first to admit that she'd be lost without constant companion/spinmaster Elliot Mintz.
7. Do wear designer clothes
The Wal-Mart look was funny for a minute, but why keep it when fabulous designers like Tracy Reese, Nicole Miller, Roberto Cavalli, Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbana are just a phone call away?
8. Do consider a sleigh ride with Mr. Rudolph this Christmas
Larry Rudolph — with whom Brit parted company in 2004, shortly after she married Federline — began managing Britney when she was 15, and played a huge role in making her the star she is.
9. Do work with Pharrell and/or Timbaland
On record, the right company counts for a lot — just ask Mariah. "The world is her oyster," Vanegas said. "She has a lot of friends and a lot of people that would die to work with her. And if she makes the right decisions and partners up with the right people, I think she definitely has a shot at blowing up again."
10. Do reach out to Max Martin
He crafted many of Britney's early hits — and gave Kelly Clarkson one of the best songs on her last album. If Larry Rudolph's back in the game, why not Max?
11. Don't try to one-up Kevin
"She is still focused on getting back at Kevin," Linda Thomas said. "But she has to realize that the legal world is a different world. You need to have time to settle down and get your head clear. I think people really care about her and want to see her recover from her mistakes. I think everyone is rooting for her, but if she has a month or two of this behavior, that's bad."
12. Do stay away from Las Vegas
The place to cut loose is the place where the paparazzi aren't.
Just a Reminder -- Vicky S Show
Behind the Scenes
The Pink Carpet
The Runway
Wondering what JT was staring at?
Guess who this angel is?
Well it's none other than Riley Keough - Lisa Marie Presley's daughter & Elivs' granddaughter.
Riley back in the day with her mom.
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