Eminem's "Recovery" led the U.S. pop album chart for a fourth week on Wednesday, thanks to his latest hit single.
The album sold 195,000 copies during the week ended July 18, taking its total to 1.5 million. He becomes the first artist to log a four-week stretch at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since Susan Boyle began a six-week stint in November.
(Reuters) - Irish rock band U2 have rescheduled the dates for the North American leg of their 360 tour for Spring/Summer 2011 with all tickets valid for the new performance dates, their concert promoter said Tuesday.
The North American leg will kick off on May 21 next year at Invesco Field in Denver and end on July 23, 2011 in Minneapolis, music concert company Live Nation Entertainment said. The 2010 European tour will begin on time on August 6, 2010 in Turin.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - A second free Drake concert in New York has been canceled after security concerns were raised by the city's police department.
The Toronto rapper, whose debut album recently opened at No. 1 on the U.S. pop chart, was in talks to perform in Central Park on July 16 as part of ABC's "Good Morning America" summer concert series. According to the Daily News, the plans were scrapped after the NYPD told the city's Parks Department to bolster its security efforts.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Katy Perry's "California Gurls" spent a fourth week at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart Thursday, while Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" debuted at No. 2.
The Eminem track, featuring Rihanna, comes from the rapper's new album "Recovery," which bowed at No. 1 on the album chart Wednesday.
The album's first single, the former chart-topper "Not Afraid," fell two to No. 11. Five other songs from "Recovery" debuted on the Hot 100: "No Love" (No. 23), "Won't Back Down" (No. 62), "Cold Wind Blows" (No. 71), "Talkin' 2 Myself" (No. 88) and "25 to Life" (No. 92).
(Reuters) - Pop star Kylie Minogue has cultivated international success spanning two decades with her sultry image and catchy, tinny pop songs that blossomed into mainstream dance music beats.
The London-based, Australian singer is still selling her dance-floor hits and sexy formula with her new album "Aphrodite," being released globally on July 6.
(Reuters) - Pop princess Britney Spears is joining the growing club of celebrities-turned-designers, launching her own fashion collection that targets the schoolgirl crowd.
Spears, 28, has designed her first collection of clothing and accessories for the Iconix Brand Group Inc's Candie's brand for which she has been the face for the past three seasons.
(Reuters) - Motley Crue singer Vince Neil has been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and was being held in a Las Vegas jail, police said on Monday.
Las Vegas police had few details of the arrest but Neil, 49, was expected to appear in court later on Monday.
Celebrity website TMZ.com said Neil's car was pulled over late on Sunday night after police received a complaint from a woman who alleged Neil had smashed her camera earlier in the evening.
(Reuters) - The BET Awards on Sunday were hosted by a Queen and honored a Prince, but it was a fallen star, Chris Brown, who surprised fans with a tearful tribute to the late King of Pop.
Alicia Keys, Trey Songz, Nicki Minaj and current albums chart champ Drake were among the big winners at cable television network BET's annual salute to R&B and hip-hop stars, while Diddy, Kanye West, Eminem and El DeBarge wowed the audience with their performances.
England (Reuters) - Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue made her debut at the Glastonbury music festival on Saturday, five years after she was forced to pull out of the event after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
The 42-year-old, a major star in Britain, was a guest of U.S. glam rockers Scissor Sisters on the main Pyramid stage in front of tens of thousands of revelers who descended on a farm in southwest England for the four-day music showcase.
(Reuters) - Michael Jackson fans worldwide paid tribute to the late King of Pop on Friday, the first anniversary of his death, by remembering him in song and dance even as his father sued the doctor accused of sending the superstar to his grave.
In Tokyo, the "Thriller" singer's followers spent the night among his possessions at a Michael Jackson exhibition, at New York's famed Apollo theater they danced to his music, and along Hollywood's Walk of Fame, they laid flowers by his star.
(Reuters) - Michael Jackson fans around the world lit candles on Friday to mark the death one year ago of the controversial pop star whose posthumous popularity has returned him to a pedestal and made him a billion dollar man.
Fans in Hanoi, Vietnam, held a night of performances of Jackson's songs while 50 Japanese admirers -- one for each year of his life -- were picked from 10,000 people to spend a night at Tokyo Tower among the singer's possessions in the Neverland Collection, the only official Michael Jackson exhibition.
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As the first half of 2010 draws to a close, serious Academy Awards contenders have yet to emerge.
Admittedly, the 83rd annual Academy Awards ceremony, set for February 27, is a long way off. And traditionally most awards hopefuls arrive during the second half of the year.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Best known for her '80s-era pop hits, Cyndi Lauper veers off in a new direction with "Memphis Blues."
Out Tuesday (June 22) on Downtown Records, the album is a big change from 2008's dance-oriented "Bring Ya to the Brink." The set features 12 classic blues covers, recorded in Memphis under Lauper's direction with such legends as Allen Toussaint, B.B. King and Charlie Musselwhite and veteran Stax Records session players including Lester Snell and Skip Pitts.
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Infant Sorrow seems to have it all: a charismatic, good-looking frontman; several talented and well-known musicians; an extensive, major-label-funded marketing campaign; and a No. 1 debut on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart.
There's only one wrinkle: Infant Sorrow isn't a real band.
(Reuters) - The World Cup opening concert in Soweto drew nearly 8.5 million television viewers in South Africa, the highest for an entertainment event in recent history, a survey showed Friday.
Thousands of people rocked Orlando Stadium in South Africa's biggest township Thursday, to sing at the first World Cup concert on the eve of the world's most watched sporting event.
(Reuters) - Singer Walter Williams from R&B group The O'Jays seemed to have a charmed life, but for nearly three decades he kept a secret from his fans -- he was suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS).
However to mark World MS Day on May 26, Williams decided it was time to go public with his health issues to let other MS sufferers know that it is possible to lead an active life despite the chronic and often disabling disease.
"I have done well with MS and I want other sufferers to know that they too can lead a normal life," Williams, 67, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
DETROIT (Billboard) - A 55-year-old reel-to-reel Amex tape recorder, a single microphone and three historic recording sites were John Mellencamp's tools for making his new album, which comes out on August 3 -- seven weeks after he releases a boxed set that omits many of his biggest hits.
Mellencamp and producer T-Bone Burnett recorded the 13 mono, unoverdubbed tracks for "No Better Than This" last summer, while the Indiana rocker was on the road with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.
(Reuters) - U2 frontman Bono left hospital in Germany on Tuesday after undergoing emergency surgery on his back, but the injury has forced the Irish band to postpone the entire North American leg of its world tour.
It also means the band will not be appearing at Glastonbury, one of the biggest live music events of the annual pop calendar.
Bono has been told to recuperate for at least eight weeks and band manager Paul McGuinness, speaking to Reuters outside the Munich hospital where the operation was performed on Friday, said the 50-year-old singer "feels awful" about the tour changes, which will affect over a million fans.
"Clearly this is a serious injury and the recuperation time necessary to rehabilitate Bono is a big problem for the U2 tour and has unfortunately necessitated the postponement of 16 shows in North America," he said.
"Those shows were to occur between June 3 in Salt Lake City and July 19 in Meadowlands Stadium."
The earliest possible date for Bono's return, according to the band's website, would be August 6 in Turin, Italy.
U2 were to have been the headline act on the main stage at Glastonbury on June 25, but that has now been canceled.
"I'm heartbroken," Bono said in a statement posted on the festival's website. "We really wanted to be there to do something really special -- we even wrote a song especially for the festival."
BLOW TO LIVE NATION
As well as the band and fans, the injury will also hit Live Nation, the music concert company which signed a 12-year deal to handle merchandising, digital and branding rights and touring for one of the world's most successful bands.
"Obviously Bono feels terrible about missing these shows and we are working as fast as we can with Live Nation to reinstate them and reschedule them for next year," McGuinness said.
"For a performer like him to miss shows is a terrible thing and he feels awful about it. He shouldn't. The most important thing is for him to get better and return to his full power as a performer."
Joerg Tonn, the neurosurgeon treating the star, described Bono's condition as a "sudden onset disease" which caused temporary partial paralysis. The injury happened while the singer was training in preparation for the tour.
"He was already in severe pain with partial paralysis of the lower leg. The ligaments surrounding the disc had an eight millimeter tear and during surgery we discovered fragments of the disc had travelled into the spine canal.
"The surgery was the only cause of treatment for full recovery and to avoid further paralysis. Bono is now much better with complete recovery of his motor-deficit.
"His prognosis is excellent but to obtain a sustainable result he must now enter a period of rehabilitation."
The 2009 part of the tour helped the band earn $109 million last year, according to music journal Billboard. The U2 360 Tour, so-called because fans surround a giant circular platform, was predicted to become the highest-grossing tour in history.
The band, with hits like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Where the Streets Have No Name", is one of the world's biggest. They have sold over 150 million records, according to unofficial estimates.
(Reporting and writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Steve Addison)
(Reuters) - The bassist for Grammy-winning metal band Slipknot, a masked group whose members beat each other up on stage and endearingly call their fans "maggots," was found dead at a hotel near the group's home town of Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday, officials said.
Paul Gray, a co-founder of the group, was 38. The circumstances of his death were unclear. His body was discovered at a TownePlace Suites hotel in Johnston, north of Des Moines, by a hotel employee.
A spokesman for the nearby Urbandale Police Department said there was no evidence of foul play, and that more information would likely be released on Tuesday following an autopsy.