This Sunday is the 30th MTV Video Music Awards. The show's come a long way from the days of Bette Midler and basic-cable bedlam--it's one of the most influential award shows on television. Youth driven channel that it is, MTV itself seldom looks back at yesterday in favor of focusing on the future, ... More >>
In the sports entertainment universe, wrestler Rob Van Dam is "the whole damn show." In the fictional sphere of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, ascending to international tennis is "making the show"; in the real world, that's what aspiring baseballers think of as earning a spot on a MLB team. ... More >>
Today and Saturday, Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake take the stage at Yankee Stadium for their Legends of Summer tour. While they're both certainly living legends in their own right, it's interesting to look back on how truly different both Hov and Timberlake's summers have been over the years, and yet ... More >>
Egos have been around for a long time. Odysseus had an ego, Louis XIV had an ego, Wu Zeitan had an ego. For as long as we've recorded history, there have been people feeling themselves, sometime for good reason. So, naturally, many of the people on this list are responsible for some truly amazing mu ... More >>
Being Beyonce is apparently a tough gig to pull off. Not only is she a pop icon, she's also a faux-baby-bump-sporting member of the Illuminati who is buying Neverland Ranch. And that's just the Bey of the past year or so. Look back a bit further and you'll figure out that she's been pregnant once ... More >>
If while listening to Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail, you experienced an indescribable sensation that you were actually listening to an encrypted invitation to a very luxurious party with a super exclusive guest list and even more ridiculous gift wish list, you were right!!! We made note of every pe ... More >>
Playing evil is more fun than playing good anyway, right?
The cultural appraisal of Taylor Swift is simple. She is a country-laced pop-star who dates a lot of famous people, and sings a lot of songs about her exes. This isn't untrue -- she admitted it herself when I saw her play a few weeks ago. It's become the narrative. Taylor has taken thinly-veiled sho ... More >>
This Sunday, MetLife stadium will hold the 2013 incarnation of what's become hip-hop's most reliably controversial night, the Hot 97 Summer Jam. The 20th annual Summer Jam, it's seen the genre's biggest stars perform and game-changing moments happen. One man whose seen just about every Summer Jam is ... More >>
When the first trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby was released a year ago, it was set to the music of Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," from the sometimes duo's incredibly self-important Watch the Throne album. On the surface it made sense. Jay-Z -- who retired as a rapper in ... More >>
Elton John may be one of the most silently pervasive artists ever. At award shows, tribute concerts, and even on random albums, including his most recent stint on Fall Out Boy's currently #1 Save Rock and Roll, the "Candle in the Wind" crooner knows how to steal the spotlight from whichever star is ... More >>
Yesterday activists protested Reebok's flagship store to put pressure on the company to cut its ties with rapper Rick Ross, who recently ... well you already know this story. Whether or not the more than 71,000 signatures collected to get Ross fired will work remains to be seen, but Big Corporations ... More >>
Julia Roberts could have done Blind Side, but opted for Valentine's Day instead. Jack Nicholson was offered the role of Michael Corleone, but felt it was an offer he could refuse. Michelle Pfeiffer didn't want to be Clarice Starling, and Jeremy Irons pooh poohed the part of Hannibal Lecter, both t ... More >>
The way to make it in music these days is to play cruise ships and theme parks, but if you want to be a movie star, break out on TV first. Oz The Great and Powerful--opening today--features no fewer than four major film folk who started on the small screen.
Taking a classic song that's perfectly fine as is and exhuming it for financial gain is awful enough, but when the result comes out sounding excremental, you want to cover the new artist with a blanket and make them stop. Here are my 10 least favorite cover tunes: (1) Britney Spears, "(I Can't Ge ... More >>
I'll give that honor to Best Actress Jennifer Lawrence. She was succinct, sweet, and sincere--everything a speech should be, including acknowledging the four losers, but not in a patronizing, humiliating way. And she did this even after falling on her face on the way up to the podium, and making a ... More >>
There are actors (like Peter O'Toole and Glenn Close) who've gotten nominated a whole lot of times and never won. Yet. But how about the ones who've never even been nominated? In the case of the dead ones, I'm pretty sure they never will be! Now that's gotta hurt. Here are some of the top omission ... More >>
At what point did teen girls suddenly just become wrong? "Serious" music fans seem to have universally accepted a critique of quality that befalls any artist who willingly sells to the rabid teen girl market and stigmatized the fans who dare to sometimes be male or at least above the age of 18. It's ... More >>
Last night, during the 55th Grammy Awards, we trudged through the bile and self-loating of angry would-be comedians and critics who took to Twitter to tell Jack White he looks like Edward Scissorhands and Johnny Depp he looks like the butt baby of Jack Sparrow and Steve Tyler and Adele she was dress ... More >>
It's a HollyScoop story titled: HUGH JACKMAN STARSTRUCK BY JOHN TRAVOLTA. And it goes something like this: "Hugh Jackman is a big-time Hollywood star who we're assuming NEVER gets starstruck, because he's the one doing the star-striking (Is that a word? Nevermind) but there is one A-lister who ha ... More >>
Think about it. Hear much about Sandra Bullock lately? Gwyneth's movie career? Natalie Portman? (Yes, I know she has another Thor and a Terrence Malick film coming, but still.)
A regular on the gay gossip board datalounge.com took a stab at ranking the show's bevy of belting prize winners, from 11 to 1. If you don't see some of the best talents on the list, it's because they didn't win on the show! Here what they wrote: "11. Lee DeWyze (above). He's cute and can more or ... More >>
What was supposed to be a simple inauguration for President Obama's second term is turning into the concert of the year. Kelly Clarkson will do "Breakaway." Usher's crooning "Something Special." Katy Perry will belt "Firework" one more time. John Legend is set to perform "Ordinary People."
So, Justin Timberlake and Destiny's Child dropped two singles over the weekend, and people who mostly grew up in the last decade rejoiced. Everybody else was like, "What the hell is this all about?" Both these major pop entities haven't dropped new music in a long while. Timberlake, who hasn't rele ... More >>
Relax! I'm talking about the Razzie awards, for worst of the year. The latest vamp epic scored 11 nominations, making it the Lincoln of the Razzies (or maybe the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).
Hey: Albums! In case people still care about these things, here's a batch of potentially interesting releases arriving in the calendar year.
...Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, Snooki, Johnny Depp, Susan Boyle, John Galliano, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Lady Gaga... Virtually everyone who's ever lived. They're all linked here to bring you back to the time before I was dressed as Angelina Jolie, Clint Eastwood ... More >>
If the protean Daniel Day-Lewis wins his third Oscar for Lincoln--which there's a much better chance of happening than Liz & Dick nabbing an Emmy--he'll be the first three-time Best Actor winner in the Academy's history. Other actors have won three Oscars, mind you, but not all for Best Actor. (Ja ... More >>
Naturally, they might change--especially when I see every last film--but right now, this is what I'm predicting on goldderby.com (where they ask various commentators for their incredibly prescient forecasts and expect them to be accurate). SUPPORTING ACTRESS 1--Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables 2--S ... More >>
That's what insiders are saying--the kind of insiders who are usually right sometimes. Oscar's Best Actor locks already seem to be: Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln Duh. We knew this the second the movie was announced. Denzel Washington for Flight People are so happy he got a quality script agai ... More >>
Madonna recently remarked that she loves Lady Gaga, adding that we'll be seeing the two divas onstage together real soon. I guess they buried the hatchet in Katy Perry. So what should Madonnagaga sing? I have some ideas:
The proverbial train wreck that is Lindsay Lohan is in trouble again, this time for an alleged hit-and-run that happened early this morning near a downtown hotel.At about 12:30 a.m. today, Lohan, who is on probation for stealing jewelry, was parking her Porsche Cayenne near an alley by the Maritime ... More >>
By Mike Seely [Editor's note: Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle.] With the nation's major-party political conventions drawing to a close recently with a rousing reelection appeal from the nation's first black president, it seems fitting to cast a spotlight ... More >>
This week's Hot 100 debuts include big names and the viral video of the yearand, surprisingly, a nearly year-old track by Beyoncé. "Dance For You" was released on the deluxe version of 4 a little less than year ago and has been on the Hot R&B Songs chart since April; for a good but nowhere n ... More >>
Let me indulge in a little bit of Jay-Z/Kanye fan fiction in the least 50 Shades of Grey way possible: Def Jam President and retired rapper Jay-Z was fed up. 50 Cent had been sending subliminal barbs Jay's way for eight years, starting with a shot Mr. Carter's way on "How To Rob" when they were b ... More >>
Ben Affleck was a Hollywood golden boy who got sucked into some crappy pictures as well as a destructively over-publicized relationship before settling into a simpler life and emerging as a fine director with films like Gone Baby Gone and The Town. And now he's getting Oscar buzz all over again. A ... More >>
Our music critic's picks for the season's hottest concerts
Rap has always had a dividing line between the rapper and the guy that yells out things on stage because it's America, damn it. That man used to be the DJ, who'd spin records for the rapper and rap along to his verses to get the crowd hype. As the years went by and quality DJing became more rare, th ... More >>
I'll start: Robert Pattinson Kristen Stewart
The King of Pop lives on at LPR
It's in today's New York Daily News, in an article by Nicole Lyn Pesce centering on a panel coming up dealing with Madonna vs. Gaga. (I'm not on the panel, but I managed to get my views out in the article anyway.) Said I:
Kellie Pickler brings the country to long Island
