Lohans Beg Press To Back Off & other

Amy Winehouse

2008-08-11T18:07:00.001-07:00

Artist: Amy Winehouse

   Genre(s):
Blues
   Jazz
   Pop

Discography:


Back To Black (Deluxe) CD2

   Year: 2007
Tracks: 8


Back To Black (Deluxe) CD1

   Year: 2007
Tracks: 11


Back To Black (Deluxe Edition) cd2

   Year: 2007
Tracks: 8


Back to Black

   Year: 2006
Tracks: 11


Frank

   Year: 2003
Tracks: 13

Much derriere be aforesaid nearly Amy Winehouse, one of the U.K.'s flagship vocalists during the 2000s. The British compact and tabloids seemed to focus on her hooligan behavior and heavy consumption of inebriant, just fans and critics likewise embraced her rugged magic spell, nervy signified of wit, and distinctively soulful and jazzy vocals. Her platinum-selling breakthrough album, Dog (2003), elicited comparisons ranging from Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan to Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill. Interestingly enough, despite her unshakable cockney speech pattern and patois, 1 can oft find prohibited aspects of each of those singers' outspoken repertoire in Winehouse's have voice. Nonetheless, her allurement has been her songwriting -- nearly always profoundly personal, simply best known for its profanity and brutal candor.

Born to a taxi-driving padre and chemist mother, Winehouse grew up in the Southgate area of northern London. Her fostering was encircled by jazz. Many of the uncles on her mother's side were professional jazz musicians, and even her paternal nan was romantically involved with British jazz legend Ronnie Scott at one time. While at house, she listened to and absorbed her parents' excerpt of greats: Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra among others. However, in her teens, she was drawn to the rebellious spirit of TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, and other American R&B and rap music acts of the prison term.

At the age of 16, after she had been expelled from London's Sylvia Young Theatre School, she caught her number one bust when pour down singer Tyler James, a schoolfellow and close friend, passed on her demonstration tape to his A&R, world Health Organization was trenchant for a jazz singer. That opportunity lED to her recording contract with Island Records. By the close of 2003, when she was 20 years old, Island had released her debut album, Dog. With contributions from rap music producer/keyboardist Salaam Remi, Winehouse's amalgam of jazz, pour down, soul, and rap received rave reviews. The album was nominative for the 2004 Mercury Music Prize as well as two Brit awards, and its lead-in exclusive, "Stronger Than Me," north Korean won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song.

Following Winehouse's debut, the accolades and inquiring interviews appeared concurrently in the press with her wild public life. Several multiplication she showed up to her night club or TV performances also drunk to babble out a whole rig. In 2006, her management company last suggested that she enter rehab for alcohol maltreat, simply alternatively, she dumped the company and canned the ordeal into the U.K. Top Ten hit "Rehab," the lead individual for her s, critically acclaimed record album, Back to Black. Containing remindful productions from Salaam Remi and British DJ/multi-instrumentalist Mark Ronson, the album jolly abandoned jazz, delving into the sounds of '50s/'60s-era young lady grouping harmonies, stone & roll, and soul. The fanfare over the going was so great that it started to spill over onto U.S. shores; several rappers and DJs made their possess remixes of respective songs -- not to reference covers by Prince and the Arctic Monkeys.

One month after Winehouse north Korean won Best Female Artist at the Brit Awards in February 2007, Universal released Back to Black in the U.S. The LP charted higher than whatsoever other American debut by a British female transcription artist earlier it, and it remained in the Top Ten for several months, marketing a million copies by the end of that summer. Just as in the U.K., she became the verbalize of the townsfolk, landing on the covers of Rolling Stone and Spin magazines. Not long later, though, Winehouse canceled her North American tour. Early reports revealed that she was entering rehab for alcohol and drug addiction, simply her new management denied the claims, stating it was due to spartan enfeeblement. Her temperamental behaviour unbroken her and her new husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, always in the tabloids and on and off stages on both sides of the Atlantic, simply in late 2007 American fans were finally apt a prospect to listen Winehouse's other work, with a slightly brief (two songs removed and ane added) rendering of Wiener.

Will Smith - I Am Legend Star Will Smith Tops Hollywood Rich List

2008-08-06T01:16:00.001-07:00

Will Smith is the best paid actor in Hollywood, according to a new study by US business magazine Forbes.

The Hancock star earned $US80 million ($82.4 million) between June 1st 2007 and June 1st this year to head the poll, with Johnny Depp in second with a $72 million (£36 million) haul.

Smith's recent science-fiction film I Am Legend took $76.5 million (£37.9 million) in its opening weekend, recording the biggest December opening of all time, surpassing the $72.6 million (£36 million) start recorded by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

And after the chart-topping success of Smith's current hit Hancock, he has become the first actor ever to have eight consecutive films earn more than $100 million (£50 million) at the box office.

Shrek co-stars Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers were ranked in third, with $55 million (£27.5 million) each, despite the relative commercial failures of their recent films Meet Dave and The Love Guru.

Their fellow voice actor in the Shrek movies, Cameron Diaz, was judged to be the best paid actress, having earned $50 million (£25 million) in the 12-month period.

The What Happens in Vegas star… was followed by Leonardo DiCaprio with $US45 million (£22.6 million), Bruce Willis with $US41 million (£20.6 million), Ben Stiller with $US40 million (£20.1 million) and Nicolas Cage with $US38 million (£19.1 million).

Keira Knightley was the highest-ranking Briton, with $32 million (£16 million) in earnings.

See Also

Vicki Hansen

2008-06-24T13:03:00.001-07:00

Artist: Vicki Hansen

   Genre(s):
New Age

Discography:

Earth Heart

Year: 1996
Tracks: 7

Award-winning isaac Bashevis Singer Vickie Winans comes from a big fellowship of telling gospel singers. She began her career when she was a diminished kid, playacting with family line. All fully grown up, she completed her debut solo album, Be Encouraged, in 1985. It was the start of a long line of recordings that would bring her a number of hits and music awards. Born the seventh child of a still-growing family, Winans was elevated in Detroit, MI. Her entire fellowship was a musical one, and deeply religious as well. She was only around eight days old when she began singing at the crime syndicate church, astounding the hearing with her vocal ability. Her beloved for the Gospel and euphony was the double-dyed combination. She's shared succeeder with the renowned Winans class, for she matrimonial Marvin Winans and eventually joined forces with the gospel truth group. Vickie's start solo album carries a lead that became her signature song, "We Shall Behold Him." The debut uncut offering too earned her a Grammy nominating speech for Best Female Contemporary Soul Gospel Album, a Stellar Award for Album of the Year, and an Excellence Award for Best Female Contemporary Artist. It was a prognostication of what was to get. Through the latter half of the '80s into the side by side decade, Winans recorded several award-winning albums. When non in the transcription studio, she exhausted often of her time playing more than two hundred nights most years. She has besides made legion tv appearances on shows like Oprah, the Grammy Awards, Arsenio Hall, Queen Latifah, and The Pat Sajak Show and starred in Broadway musicals like Don't Get God Started. Winans' euphony canful be deep gospel, contemporaneous Christian, or any commixture in 'tween. Her well-nigh famous songs include "We Shall Behold Him," "Dada Can't Sing," "Start Trumpet Sound," "The Diet Medley," "Boyfriends," "Its Yo Thang," "Give It One More Try," "Sweeter Than the Honeycomb," and "Small Timmy." In 2002 she released Woman's Journey, followed the future year by Bringing It All Together and, in 2006, Charwoman to Woman: Songs of Life, a 33-track live and studio album that was 10 days in the qualification.

Bob Dylan - Dylans Secret Rehab

New Kids On The Block - New Kids On The Block Begin Comeback

2008-06-11T19:50:00.003-07:00

It may have been 15 years since their last performances together, but New Kids On The Block are showing their comeback is well and truly underway.

Fans came out of the woodwork for their concert at New York's Rockefeller Plaza and, with another set for tomorrow in Boston, the early 90s boyband are clearly demonstrating they still have the Right Stuff.

Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Danny Wood and Donnie Wahlberg will be seeking to cash in on their new success with a major North American tour this September and October.

Starting in Toronto, Canada they will promote their new record, out at the same time, with comeback single Summertime the warm-up.

The band members, who are all not quite as young as they used to be, have admitted getting back into the swing of things have proved something of a challenge.

"It's like riding a mountain bike," they said.

"The recording was easier. Then we started dance rehearsals - that took a few days for all of us to get acclimated. We're being tested though, today is a test of our determination."

NKOTB rung up 70 million album sales during the late 80s and early 90s, with Hangin' Tough their biggest seller.

17/05/2008 12:44:51

See Also

C Quence

2008-06-11T19:50:00.001-07:00

Artist: C Quence

   Genre(s):
Trance
   Other

Discography:


Endorphine__Incl Arizona Remix Vinyl

   Year: 2006
Tracks: 3


Endorphine Incl Original Mix

   Year: 2005
Tracks: 2


Endorphine Incl Hydroid Remix

   Year: 2005
Tracks: 2


Endorphine

   Year: 2005
Tracks: 2


Single Pure, Progressive EP,LP

   Year: 2001
Tracks: 1


Far Away

   Year: 2001
Tracks: 1

Rihanna reveals her bedroom secrets

2008-06-11T19:49:00.003-07:00

Rihanna likes to wear her sexy stage outfits in the bedroom.

Tributo A Los Cadetes De Linares

2008-06-11T19:49:00.001-07:00

Artist: Tributo A Los Cadetes De Linares

   Genre(s):
Latin

Discography:

Tributo A Los Cadetes De Linares

Year: 2005
Tracks: 20

"The Strangers" a frightening first film

2008-06-11T19:48:00.003-07:00

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Every now and then a horror film comes along that bucks the going copycat trends and manages to scare up some unique shivers.

Say hello to "The Strangers," a spare, creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect.

The film opens across North America on Friday. Although horror generally has taken a bit of a beating at the box office lately, fans should be able to discern "Strangers" as the real deal, providing Rogue Pictures with a little lucrative "death in the country" counterprogramming to "Sex and the City."

First-time director Bryan Bertino has taken a cue from the fright films of the '70s, but unlike others evoking the era, the influences are more character-rooted than derivatively stylized.

Ostensibly inspired by actual events concerning senseless acts of violence (not that it really matters), the film is set in the secluded South Carolina family vacation home where James (Scott Speedman) was intending to celebrate his engagement to Kristen (Liv Tyler). But it's apparent from the tension between the couple as they pull up to the house in pitch darkness that things didn't go as planned on the proposal front.

Once inside, things quickly start going bump in the night as it becomes clear they aren't alone.

Like the best of psychological horror in its purest form, there's always the lingering possibility that the terrifying intruders could be manifestations of the lead characters' own suppressed rage.

Not that it's necessary to go there, since Bertino hand delivers the ghoulish goods with a claustrophobic tension and a minimum of gore that has been handily supplanted by a chillingly effective sound schematic.

Schloss Tegal

2008-06-11T19:48:00.001-07:00

Artist: Schloss Tegal

   Genre(s):
Industrial

Discography:

Human Resource Explotation

Year: 1997
Tracks: 3

Paul Lester talks to Sam Sparro, pop's latest out gay star

2008-06-11T19:47:00.001-07:00

Riding high in the singles chart with Black and Gold and with a superb self-titled debut album of soulful electronic melodies just released, Sam Sparro is destined to be this year's Scissor Sisters or Mika - the new, flamboyant, ubiquitous pop kid on the block. The 25-year-old with the three-octave range, who blends new-wave edge, irresistible melodies and synthesized funk rhythms, has already received favourable comparisons with Prince. He is also gaining attention for his "interesting" outfits, and his declarations, in homage to his teenage idol, Björk, that he "could very happily wear a swan".

Colourful, outspoken, a superb singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and programmer, Sparro has what it takes to become a household name. And yet the Sydney-born wunderkind, who spent his mid teens in Los Angeles and his late teens in London, is hardly jumping with joy at the prospect. "I definitely think I'm a reluctant pop star, because I just want to be myself and have fun," he says. We are talking in the vestibule of a plush apartment block in north London where he has a long-term let to cover him as Black and Gold takes off in Europe. He is a bit the worse for wear, following a night on the tiles in Camden and several days revisiting Guildford, where he lived at the turn of the century with his cousins. He was recognised a few times on his travels. "I had a few people coming up to me,

saying, 'Are you Sam Sparro?'" he winces, unimpressed. "It could be a blessing and a curse."

Don't be swayed by the bratty attitude: Sparro is good company, wryly humorous and eminently aware of his own shortcomings. Everything he says is undercut with modesty and a sense of nervous excitement at his new-found fame. Just as the eccentric clothes he wears to perform in aren't the real him - today he's in jeans and T-shirt - so his words seem bolder in print.

He was born Sam Falson, the son of a church-minister-cum-performer called Chris Falson. "Imagine," he suggests, "Bob Dylan if he was a gospel recording artist." The stage name started as a family nickname, inspired by the Australian radio mascot Sammy Sparrow. He lived in Australia until he was 10, at which point his family moved to LA. "I began to rebel and really lost interest in studying," he says. A confident child, he was happy in Sydney surrounded by friends and relations. In America, he felt ostracised. "I didn't know the culture, and nobody got my jokes, which is a big deal when you're a kid. It was a horrible time." How depressed was he? "I would say that, between the ages of 12 and 16, I spent the whole time listening to Portishead and Belle & Sebastian." Wow, he really was depressed. "Yeah, but it was just teen angst, really." Did he ever contemplate anything drastic? "What, like slit my wrists? No. But I did start to pierce my body in weird ways. I'd pierce the cartilage in my ears and pierce my belly button using big safety pins, which is a really silly thing to do. I gave myself a tattoo on my ankle when I was about 14. I did it with a needle and a marker. It was a little cross, and it lasted about five years. I don't know why I'm telling you all of this stuff. It's painting me as a complete lunatic."

Sparro can now see the benefit of a miserable adolescence. "I think all that time being unhappy was a good thing because I learned to rely on myself. I think to love yourself is really important because if you can't love yourself you can't love anybody else." He acknowledges the source of the latter quote - it's the catchphrase from American drag performer RuPaul's US chat show. Sparro is openly gay. "I've always thought, 'This is me, I'm happy with myself,' and so that's what I'm here to project. So that gay teenagers don't have to get the shit kicked out of them in school and think that they're a horrible person. It's easier to be an 'out' pop star today. Morrissey never came out, and Neil Tennant left it very, very late, whereas Jake Shears was open from the start." For Sparro, even getting beaten up, as he used to, has had its plus points. "I'm tougher because of it," he says. His parents were "really cool" about his coming out. "I thought it was going to be the worst thing in the world and they were never going to talk to me again. I really worried that they were going to disown me. But I should have trusted them a bit more and known that they're better than that. I'm really close to both of my parents, and they're really supportive and they love my boyfriend. I've been with him for two years."

The thing that kept Sparro going throughout his time in LA was singing in church. "I grew up with a church background, but now . . . I have a general faith in a higher power. I'm a spiritual person, but I'm not into any religion. I was always kind of a non-denominational Christian. What do you call it when people clap their hands and say, 'Yeah'? I was a Gloria Gaynor Christian."

At the end of the 90s, he moved back to Australia, lived with his grandparents and worked for a PR company. By 2000, he was living with family in Surrey and working in a Toshiba spare parts factory, which was "mind-numbingly boring". Within six weeks he'd saved up enough money to move to Brixton and started temping at record companies. His final move, in 2002, was back to LA. This time, he was determined to do things right. So once he'd found an apartment in Hollywood, a "really shitty dive" sandwiched between a family of five and a couple of "crackhead lesbians", Sparro started making music in his bedroom using a computer, a keyboard and a software programme. He also wrote his first songs, influenced by Björk. He started with Food Chain - "about a relationship between me and a close friend where I felt like I was at the bottom of the food chain. It was really rubbish". Then he wrote Sally, about a stripper. "It's kind of a fictional story," he says, "but kind of autobiographical." Beg pardon? "You didn't know this, did you? I used to dance in my underpants in LA. I only did it for about three weeks. It was a really crappy gay club called Fubar, which stands for 'fucked up beyond all recognition'. It smelt like an armpit, and it was really trashy. I had friends around the bar, so I was like, 'I can do this.' I danced to stuff like Peaches. I probably made about $10. I was just desperate for attention. I really didn't care about the money."

He immersed himself in LA's dance underground and before long, the world's leading labels began to take notice. Mark Ronson even emailed to say how much he loved a new song of his called Black and Gold. But it was with indie producer du jour Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Long Blondes) that he and his musical partner/manager, Jesse Rogg, chose to hone his material and remarkable voice, which can leap from baritone to falsetto in an instant. His album of what he calls "personal songs" is a glorious mix of P-Funk and disco, synthpop and electro-funk, warm vocals and pristine computer beats. There are more potential hit singles on Sam Sparro to capitalise on the success of Black and Gold, including 21st Century Life and Hot Mess. It's Sparro's first deliciously twisted Greatest Hits collection. The question is, can he handle that success? "I'm still trying to figure it out," he says. "I'm not used to the crazy schedule. I'm pretty relaxed, and now it's 16-hour days every day."

Not that the boy who once danced in his smalls for dollar bills because he was so eager for attention isn't grateful for the, well, attention. "I'm really grateful that my music is going to be available to this many people, and that people already like it, or at least one song." The key, he says, is to "stay grounded". "I don't want to be an asshole, this big, famous turn who just acts like a shit all the time," he says. He worries that people might think he's "ripping off Prince".

Ultimately, he'd like a nice home for him and his partner, plus their two cats, and to be surrounded by family and friends: the people that matter. "I couldn't care any less if people like me or not, to be honest," he says, finally. "Because I like me. So why should I care if anybody else does? I've got friends, and I've got family - I'm a real family person. I've got everything that I need. I don't need the permission and applause of loads of silly people"

· The album Sam Sparro is out now on Island

See Also

Lohans Beg Press To Back Off

2008-06-11T19:45:00.001-07:00

Lindsay Lohan's parents have asked the press to leave them alone as they begin a new battle over the custody of their children. Former couple Michael and Dina Lohan returned to family court in Long Island, New York on Tuesday , after Michael complained his ex-wife was violating a previous agreement by refusing him access to their youngest children Ali, 14 and Dakota, 11. But the pair appeared to have made some steps towards reconciliation and Judge Stacey Bennett told the court: "I'm encouraged to hear that the parties and counsel are working at ways to repair the relationship between the children and the father." After the case was adjourned until 14 July , Michael and Dina posed in silence on the courthouse steps while a spokesperson appealed to the media to back off. The representative said, "Both the parties want the press to know they love their children very much. They want the press to stay out of their lives. They are doing what's in the best interests of the children and they would appreciate that they are allowed to participate in their children's lives without the press." Dina is currently starring alongside her youngest children in reality show Living Lohan, while Michael has signed a deal to critique it in a U.S. showbiz magazine. The pair finalised their divorce last summer .

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