Taylor Swift at American Music Award

Kanye West might just have a major problem and several other issues with Taylor Swift’s growing popularity, but who really cares? West like it or not this is definitely Swift’s year.

The country crooner Taylor Swift overshadowed the late Michael Jackson by picking up 5 leading awards as the King of Pop pocketed 4 nods at the American Music Awards. Swift’s 5 nods included the prestigious artist of the year award at the AMA held on Sunday.

The 19 year old country singer proved all MJ fans wrong who expected the Pop King to get a clean sweep. Swift have him a head to head competition in the ceremony’s final prize, the artist of the year category. Besides winning the favorite female artist in the pop/rock and country categories Swift also won favorite adult-contemporary artist award. “Feerless”, the 2008 release of Swift, was named favorite country album. Feerless became the best-selling release in the United States this year.

Among the other multiple winners hip-hop singer Jay-Z and the Black Eyed Peas won two each.

While accepting her award for the artist of the year, live via satellite from backstage at London’s Wembley Arena, Swift said, “Music has never been ultimately about competition”. Swift also added she feels its an “unimaginable honor” for her to be nominated in the same category as Jackson. The country crooner will be performing at a concert in Wembley Arena on Monday.

“I just want to say that music has never been ultimately about competition and to even be mentioned in a category with Michael Jackson who we’ll miss and love forever is an unimaginable honor”, she added. “And I just want to say I’m sending my love to the Jackson family and Janet”.

Michael Jackson at American Music Award

Jackson won four posthumous including favorite male artist in the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories. “Number Ones”, a hits collection of the Pop Star, was named favorite album in both those categories too. Jermaine, MJ’s brother, accepted the awards on the Late singer’s behalf.  “We love you, Michael. It’s not just about the winnings, the awards, it’s mainly the message. The message that Michael had will live on forever…and he saw good in everyone and he wanted them to do good.  To start with love and let’s love each other”, said Jermaine Jackson.

Eminem, who was nominated in 4 categories, went home empty handed. While Jay-Z won the favorite male artist and favorite album in the rap/hip-hop categories, Black Eyed Peas were named favorite group in both the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories.

Green Day, the punk rock trio, bagged the favorite alternative artist title. The favorite country group went to Rascal Flatts for the fourth year in a row.

Thanks to Adam Lambert, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Whitney Houston who gave some of the most outrageous performances at the event. Janet with her medleys put the stage of fire.

Rihanna

Its been nine month after Rihanna had been bashed up badly by her former boyfriend rapper Chris Brown. And now Rihanna felt this is the right time to speak out about the night that left her wounded and freaking.

“This happened to me. … It can happen to anyone”, the 21 year old singer told in an interview on Good Morning America and on 20/20. Rihanna was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Friday.

The singer also added that parting from Brown is practically very difficult for her since she was deeply in love with him. “He was definitely my first big love”, said Rihanna also mentioning that Brown held a special place in her heart.

After the horrific incident Rihanna lodged an FIR against Brown. The 20 year old rapper is presently serving his sentence of 3 months community services and 5 years probation and also working on new music, his album Graffiti, which will hit the stores on November 23rd. “Russian Roulette”, the first single of the album debuted last week. Brown has apologized for his unlawful act a number of times in public.

Rihanna, who was in much shock due to the unexpected incident for long, also added, “I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears,” the 21-year-old songstress tells Glamour. “That was the level of media chaos that happened the next day… The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn’t heard”.

Michael Buble

Second week in a row and Michael Buble still continues to dominated the US Pop Album Chart. The soundtrack from “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” topped the second place of the billboard after its release. Buble gave it a strong fight by occupying the top spot for a second consecutive week.

The album named “Crazy Love” by the singer sold over 203,000 copies in a week that ended on 18th October. This is marked as the second-best sales week of Buble’s career as per a report presented by Nielsen SoundScan. Earlier his debut album “Call Me Irresponsible” recorded a weekly sale of 213,000 for in 2007.

As compared to Buble’s “Crazy Love”, the “New Moon” soundtrack marked a sale of 115,000 copies. In order to leave behind the leaks, the soundtrack of New Moon was released on 16th October, 4 days ahead of it scheduled date on 20th October.

In the coming week country king Tim McGraw’s new album, “Southern Voice”, will hit the stores. New Moon will have to give it a big fight to secure the top position on Billboard 200 in the next week.

Following the success of “Crazy Love”, a close second debut was “Embryonic” by Flaming Lips. The album entered Billboard 200 at number 8 after a sale of a little under 32,000 copies. This is the highest rank that the rock band has ever received in US charts. With a sale of 48,000 in its first week, the last album of Flaming Lips, “At War With the Mystics”, was ranked at number 11 on Billboard 200 in 2006.

The 3rd rank is secured by Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 3″ with 55,000 sales. And the 5th spot is reigned by Miley Cyrus’ “The Time of Our Lives” with 40,000. Black Eyed Peas’ “The E.N.D.” took a huge leap from No. 23 to No. 6 with just under 40,000.

New Moon

The “Twilight” saga promises to keep its fans glued to their seats through every possible means. The music of New Moon has been released and the fans have already given it a green signal. In fact the music of New Moon fulfills the hype as the most awaited soundtrack of the year.

The sound track of Twilight’s forthcoming sequel, New Moon, brings in the alt/indie-rock genre. Well known names such as Death Cab For a Cutie, The Killers, Muse, Bon Iver and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have come together to create this fascinating music. Following the innense success of Twilight’s music, the producers didn’t want to take any risk with the upcoming sequel.

The soundtrack of New Moon gives its audience a change to experience elements of the ridiculous and supernatural: vampires, werewolves and the rush of adrenaline. The producers promises to give the fans a chance to hear some of the music clubbing together the supernatural and depression.  There is a rare mix of songs that avoids the already familiar tunes. It would definitely be an unforgettable experience to hear those left-of-center rock right from the beginning till the end.

Groovy female voice and electronic fairy tale soaked melodies gives you the perfect paranormal feel while you watch Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart make romance. As a whole the music of New Moon will drive you through the rural and snowy countryside, sometimes giving you ample comfort and sometimes setting your spine on fire. A magical surrealism brings alive the melodrama between Bella, Edward and Jacob.

Michael Jackson is up with 5 posthumous nominations at AMA

It has been a little over four months after the shocking death of the king of pop, and now he has been nominated for a posthumous award at AMA. Michael Jackson has received a nomination for favorite male artist and favorite album in both the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories.

Besides MJ, the other performers up for nomination in the American Music Awards (AMAs) are Lady Gaga, rapper Eminem and rockers King of Leon. The country crooner Taylor Swift leads the nomination list with six nomination.

The AMAs, which will be presented on November 22nd at Los Angeles, will be decided based on the sale of each artists’ record and radio airplay. Based on the sales count the winners will be finally awarded after voting through online selection.

The late pop singer, Michael Jackson, is up with five nominations at the American Music Awards. These nominations also include a posthumous artist of the year. The “Thriller” singer will face tough competition from some of the very popular singers of the present in the key categories.

The American Music Awards (AMAs) will have a live telecast on ABC network of America on 22nd November night. Fans will be able to vote for their favorite singer or performer through online voting system.

MJ has the credit of winning most number of AMAs till date amounting to 20 till date as a solo artist. The Moon Walker has also won an artist of the century award in AMA earlier. The “Thriller” album of the late pop king won 8 nods in 1983. This record win of Jackson was leveled by Whitney Houston only after 12 years.

Among his other prominent ideas the most mentionable ones are his 13 Grammy wins. The singer has also the fame to be included in the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

The Black Eyed Peas, along with Alicia Keys and Jennifer Lopez, who are also nominated in AMA, are expected to perform in the ceremony.

Beatles

Beatles was… Beatles is… and Beatles will be… as they sell 2.25 million copies of their album in just 5 days … “Imagine”!

It has been 40 years the group broke off, but Beatles still continues to break records for album sales. It has been confirmed by EMI Group PLC that more than 2.25 million copies of the Fab Four’s re-mastered albums were sold in North America, Japan and the U.K. within the first five days of its release. The album was released on September 9th.

It was reflected on the Billboard magazine’s pop catalog chart that the 16 titles that included the 14 re-mastered CDs two box sets of the band were ranked among top 50 in the chart.

The original U.K. studio albums of The Beatles were re-mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London. It was relased to give a tough competition to the sale of “The Beatles: Rock Band” on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.

Beatles shall be remembered for revolutionizing the world of rock music almost 60 years ago. With such an increasing sale of their albums the Fab Four are all set to rock the world again. The Beatles: Rock Band, one of their new releases, is a video-game, has been made available in stores for sale around the world last week.

The American Idol winner Kris Allen

The American Idol winner Kris Allen has recently debuted his first single album. The singer appeared at New York’s Z100 on Monday to debut his first single, “Live Like We’re Dying,” on Elvis Duran’s morning show.

Allen has been dropping in on radio stations for his first single’s promotion. The singer in an interview mentioned that he almost gave up on his one and only dream to become a singer. “I was playing in bars, playing three hour shows, singing every song under the sun, taking requests from people. I was actually trying to go back to school [before Idol]. This was one of the last ditch efforts. I’m just glad it worked out!” said Allen.

“I’m glad I was able to be a part of her last season. She was great. She cared for all of us. We got to know her the most, probably. She’s just a sweetheart. I’ve met Ellen [DeGeneres] as well, and she’s great. She’s awesome. I love Ellen to death”, Allen also added.

The album that has not yet been titles is all set to hit the stores on 17th November. Allen would be busy till then promoting his album and has mentioned that he would miss his home in Conway, Ark. “I miss everything about that place. I miss Chick-Fil-A. It is the best chicken sandwich out there. I love it, man. It’s one of my favorite places in the world”, the singer said.

Heath Ledger

Late actor Heath Ledger will always be remembered through his work. Recently a music video named, “King Rat”, directed by Ledger himself was released online. The music video that premiered online today was made for US rock band Modest Mouse.

“King Rat” is a 6 minute long animated video that showed whales and dolphins on board a ship, fishing for humans in the water. It constituted of whimsical and dark comedy. The video was appreciated by many. The concluding shot of the music video is a black screen on which a message in white is written, which says, “This began with our friend, a great defender of life, and was completed in his spirit”.

The Dark Knight actor died of overdose of prescribed drugs at the age of 28 last year. Earlier this year in March it was announced by the rock band, Modest Mouse that they would release the music video “in honor of Heath’s last piece of work as a director”, revealed their spokeswoman Lisa Markowitz. Ledger has also directed a video for one of Ben Harper’s songs.

Ledger began work on the music video in 2007, but he left it in progress when he died in January 2008. The video was finally taken over and completed by “Enter the Masses”, which is a film and video company where the late actor was a partner.

Pink

After Britney Spears, now it’s Pink with a circus themed show. And the pop singer regrets staging the show for her ongoing world tour “Funhouse.” She is being constantly compared to Britney, who launched her “Circus” tour in US early this March.

Pop singer Pink is taking her world tour to the United States this summer. But, she has come under the eye of critics who are accusing her of copying Britney’s “Circus” tour. Both Britney and Pink’s tours are based on the title of their latest albums. Both the singers have dancers in colorful costumes, acrobats, and wild acts in their stage shows.

Pink, however, denies copying Britney. Her album released last year just weeks before Britney’s album release, and she is emphatic that she was oblivious to the trend. “Had I known that certain other people were going to base their latest thing about circus things, I probably would have went into another direction. I was six months before that and didn’t really understand that it was a trend that was happening. I’m pretty out of the loop,” said Pink.

So there is another ‘circus’ coming your way!

Bob Dylan

World’s legendary musician, Bob Dylan, will be seen performing at Louisville Slugger Field coming summer. This is a great opportunity for all the Dylan fans out there to catch the veteran perform live.

Dylan will be accompanied by a couple of guest performers namely Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. The show at Louisville Slugger Field will take place on 8th of July. The show is considered to be a part of the ongoing tour of Dylan’s minor-league baseball parks.

Bob Dylan, the world’s most celebrated singer and songwriter, began performing at the parks in 2004. A new album of Dylan named as “Together Through Life”, will be released by the singer himself on Tuesday.

The tickets for the Louisville concert will be on sale from May 9th and will be available at the price of $69.50.