Andrea Bocelli

Audience Interaction Sucks!

​With rare exceptions, I've always felt that forced audience interaction is a lazy device designed to get paying customers more involved in the show. I came to see the show. I want to be entertained, not be the entertainment, and if these stars dazzled the way they should, no such encouragem ... More >>

My Weirdest Pitches Of The Week

​Think the life of a gossip columnist/blogger is all sawdust and tinsel? Well, here are some of the pitches I've gotten this week, to give you a hint of the reality behind the glitterdome: *"Andrea Bocelli rides the East River ferry"

MAMMA MIA!

A world-famous tenor makes his Met Opera solo debut

Edie Falco & Stephen Wallem

The Five Best Things Lil B Raps Over on His Great New Mixtape, Red Flame

​If you've looked at the incredibly prolific, California-based rapper Lil B's twitter at any point over the past few days, you know that he's just released a new mixtape, Red Flame. B, of course, is heralding it as the greatest of all time. After a couple listens, this seems to be a bit of an ... More >>

Susan Boyle Bypasses Young, Illegal Downloaders En Route To A Second #1

​527,000 copies. She is a commercial juggernaut no one can touch, not least because in all likelihood the vast majority of her fans have no idea how to pirate and/or steal I Dreamed a Dream--the 10th best-selling record of the year and rising fast. If you can find a demographic old enough, thi ... More >>

Susan Boyle Is the New Eminem

​And so the 2009 Taylor Swift Memorial Award for single-handedly saving the record industry goes to Susan Boyle, who last week sold north of 700,000 copies of her debut, I Dreamed a Dream. Boyle easily racked up the year's best sales week and the runner-up, Eminem's 600K-selling Relapse, ain't ... More >>

Speaking of Wale, Bon Jovi's The Circle is #1

​Sometimes there's just not a lot to live for when it comes to the week in record sales. Bon Jovi's The Circle took #1 with a pretty lackluster 163,000 copies sold (about half of what Carrie Underwood sold last week)--it's their fourth and most underwhelming #1. Underwood's Play On is down at ... More >>

Carrie Underwood's Play On Is #1

​To the tune of a stunning 318,000 copies sold, good for the "largest sales week for an album by a woman in 2009 and the second-best sales week for a country release," according to Billboard. Sorry Mariah! MJ's This Is It halved its sales and still held onto #2, clocking second week numbers at ... More >>

Ferrell, Reilly, McKay Will Be Boys in Step Brothers

The middle-aged comics still don't wanna grow up. Yay.

The Grammy Awards: A Running Diary

Jay-Z: Rap's Joe Lieberman

Turkey Shoot 2003

Putatively musical sounds from hunger, for the fan of the future in a very disastrous year

Slow Ride

Houston Screws Off the Cough-Syrup Cap

Show World

Kind of Blue

Jazz Competes With Its Past, Settles for the Hard Sell