Thirty Years On, the Beatles Go Back to Basics
LONDON (Reuters) - More than 30 years after they broke up, The Beatles are to go back to basics with a stripped down version of their classic "Let It Be" album.
"It's all exactly as it was in the room. You're right there now," Paul McCartney said on Thursday of the album "Let It Be ... Naked."
After Abbey Road Studios put their 21st century digital technology to work on the original 1969 album, McCartney said of the no-frills result: "This is the noise we made in the studio."
Ringo Starr, the only other surviving member of the world's most famous pop group, was equally re-assured by the new-look album.
"When I first heard it, it was really uplifting," the drummer said. "It took you back again to the times when we were this band, the Beatle band."
A statement from management company Apple Corps said the album will be released worldwide on November 17.
It said the group had originally set out to make the 1969 album with no studio effects and no over-dubbing of voices and instruments.
But the album was caught up in the turmoil of the band's break-up. It was re-produced by Phil Spector and never released as the Beatles had originally intended.
The track listing for the new album differs from the original with "Dig It" and Maggie Mae" taken out and replaced by "Don't Let Me Down."
Diehard Beatle fans with an inexhaustible appetite for nostalgic trivia will also be treated to a 20-minute bonus disc of the Beatles at work in rehearsal and in the studios.
As their fame soared, the band stopped playing live and became more involved in elaborately produced albums that changed the face of pop.
But John Lennon, killed by a crazed fan outside his New York apartment building in 1980, always argued: "In spite of all things, The Beatles could really play music together."
After three decades, Beatlemania shows no signs of fading, with their compilation album of number one hits selling 24 million copies worldwide.
BBC viewers will be taken down memory line on Saturday with the televising of lost footage that shows Lennon clowning around with his wife Yoko Ono and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.
The film was discovered in the archives of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) by a team making a documentary about Lennon.
The footage was part of a project that Austrian film-maker Hans Preiner had been working on during the 1960s.
'Survivor' Lie Fools Probst, Fuels New Season
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - After six turns as the host of "Survivor," Jeff Probst pretty much knows his job cold. Every now and then, though, something on the show catches him by surprise.
That happened during his stint off the coast of Panama for "Survivor: Pearl Islands," the seventh edition of the game, which premieres at 8 p.m. EST tonight on CBS. For a time, he says he fell for "the greatest lie ever told on 'Survivor.' "
"It's brilliant. It's brutal and it's brilliant and it totally suckered me," says Probst, who, naturally, won't divulge who told the lie or what its ramifications were. "My first reaction was 'Motherf----r,' and then my second reaction was 'Wow, that's amazing.' "
The fantastic fib would seem to fit well with the overall theme of "Pearl Islands," which is piracy. The two tribes are called Drake and Morgan, after two English pirates (Sir Francis Drake and Capt. Henry Morgan) who sacked Spanish forts in the 16th and 17th centuries. Probst says working with that theme helped keep the show fresh for him and the crew this time.
"That was the creative box we worked in," he says. "[We were thinking] what would pirates do, how do we set them adrift, how do we do a mutiny, who can we make walk the plank."
The duplicity started right away. The 16 players were told to dress for a publicity photo while on the boat to their destination. Instead, though, Probst informed them that they'd be setting up camp with only the clothes they were wearing.
"It's not a huge twist in a sense, because it's just clothes," he says. "But it spins the game so differently from the beginning and puts them in a different mindset of being resourceful."
The two tribes were also given 100 Balboas -- the equivalent of $100 -- to buy supplies in a small village before being taken to their camps. They could also barter using the few items of clothing they had with them.
"What's interesting is one tribe comes out of there like they just robbed Fort Knox -- they have every thing," Probst says. "The other tribe comes out with not much more than when they went in. In fact, these idiots go back to camp with cash in hand. ... That's what makes the show still fascinating, is 'What are they thinking?' "
Because "Survivor" was essentially the starting point for the current glut of unscripted series, and because it's delivered consistently to a loyal audience, Probst thinks the show can outlive its newer, lesser spawn.
"I can see fatigue setting in with reality [shows], without question, because there's a lot of crap out there," he says. "Do I think it will affect 'Survivor'? No I don't. ... I think we're going to be around, I think 'American Idol' will be around, I think 'The Bachelor' will be around. Because they all touch on something, either fulfilling a dream or finding love or, in 'Survivor,' the adventure."
To make sure of that, though, the show's producers will keep coming up with new wrinkles. Probst promises more than just a grandiose lie by one of the players this time around.
"There's ... a very, very regrettable event that happens, and the person to whom it happens is going to regret it ... more than they have any idea right now," he says. "I couldn't believe it when it happened, and I can't wait for it to play out.
"There's also a huge twist to come that this time next year we'll be talking about, and you'll have an opinion on whether you loved or hated it."
Wanna see the new R.E.M. video?
'Scarface' echoes mightily with hip-hop artists
Brian De Palma's Scarface blasted onto theater screens 20 years ago and made a lot of critics and moviegoers skittish over its brutal violence and lurid drug scenes.
But with time, the sweeping tale of Cuban refugee Tony Montana's meteoric rise and crashing fall in the Miami cocaine trade has become an influential cultural icon — especially among hip-hop artists.
This story of the American dream is being reintroduced with a 10-city theatrical run starting Friday to promote the DVD release Sept. 30.
A 20-minute documentary on the movie's influence on rap music will accompany the DVD, and the 16-track Def Jam Recordings Presents Music Inspired by Scarface is out this week. The deluxe $60 version of the DVD (basic version is $27) includes the 1932 Scarface, starring Paul Muni.
"It's just amazing to see how a classic film like Scarface has not only retained its original audience, but how it has impacted a whole new generation of fans," says Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Video.
The film's influence can be seen in the numerous catchphrases it introduced to the popular lexicon. ("Say 'ello to my little friend," Montana says, wielding a machine gun.) Comedian George Lopez did a Montana impersonation at this year's Latin Grammy Awards, and basketball star Shaquille O'Neal's clothing line is dubbed The World Is Mine after Montana's sentiment. But nowhere is the influence felt more keenly than in urban communities.
Def Jam president Kevin Liles, who says he has seen the movie more than 100 times, says, "Everybody could relate to the struggle that Tony went through and the point that when you do it that way, you always end up in jail or dead."
Liles says Def Jam had proposed rescoring the movie with hip-hop music, but the Giorgio Moroder score was left intact. Instead, Def Jam compiled songs such as the Notorious B.I.G.'s 10 Crack Commandments, Grandmaster Flash's White Lines, the Lox's Money, Power, Respect and Mobb Deep's It's Mine, interspersing them with movie dialogue.
The 20-minute documentary, Def Jam Presents: Origins of a Hip-Hop Classic, is packed with interviews with such hip-hop stars as P. Diddy, Snoop Dogg and Eve, who talk about the movie. P. Diddy says the film "scared me straight."
Jadakiss says the movie "made you want to go out and do what you were doing to the best of your capability.
"You see when he killed (best friend) Manolo (Steven Bauer) how everything went downhill after that," he says. "It keeps you grounded with your crew."
Houston rapper Scarface, who is in the documentary, says: "Me and (Montana) went through the same stuff, going from nothing to something. I'm just not dead. For years to come, that movie will be relevant because it's the truth."
Scarface lines
Aside from using the f-word a gazillion times (Michelle Pfeiffer, as girlfriend Elvira, asks him to cut it out, to no avail), Al Pacino's Tony Montana spouted some of filmdom's most memorable lines:
• "Say 'ello to my little friend!"
• "I always tell the truth, even when I lie."
• "I bury those cock-a-roaches!"
• "Say goodnight to the bad guy."
• "Who put this thing together? Me! That's who! Who do you trust? Me!"
• "Jou should see the other guy. Jou can't recognize him."
• "You want to waste my time? OK. I call my lawyer. He's the best lawyer in Miami. He's such a good lawyer, that by tomorrow morning, you gonna be working in Alaska. So dress warm."
• "Me, I want what's coming to me. The world, Chico and everything in it."
• "In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."
But not all of the best lines went to Montana. Other characters dropped these gems:
• "Rule No. 1: Don't underestimate the other guy's greed.
• Rule No. 2: Don't get high on your own supply." Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia)
• "Every day above ground is a good day." Mel Bernstein (Harris Yulin)
Music industry has a lot riding on final-stretch sales
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
Mired in the third year of a sales slump, the music industry is counting on a handful of chart titans to salvage 2003 in the final stretch.
The September-December season, which typically accounts for more than 40% of the year's retail action, is the most crucial period on the record business calendar. Like the film industry, the record business often saves its strongest offerings for the fourth quarter to entice holiday shoppers.
The stakes are high: With a good fall, the industry could reverse two years of decline.
But to inch ahead of 2002's year-end total of 681 million albums, consumers will have to buy an additional 299 million albums by late December. Based on recent sales patterns, a more likely figure is 254 million albums, or 40% of the year's estimated take. That would end the year 6.6% behind 2002 (currently the deficit is 8.6%).
Two much-touted industry initiatives — the RIAA's campaign to sue file sharers and Universal's unilateral price reductions — may have an effect on sales as the fall unfolds, but the key factor will be the appeal of new releases. This fall's lineup appears to be a mixed bag of likely winners, potential dark horses and big question marks, with no sure bets.
"If we look at last year as a template, I don't expect the gap to close significantly," says Billboard chart director Geoff Mayfield. "At the same time, I don't expect it to get a lot wider. The last two months will be when the record stores do a significant percentage of their business, but it's not fair to expect the big horses to sew up the gap."
The race intensifies with next Tuesday's bounty of new releases, including potential chart toppers by Outkast, Limp Bizkit, Nickelback and Dave Matthews. Britney Spears, Pink and American Idol champs Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard may be among hot sellers that provide a second wind during the last laps.
Fall sales as a percentage of each year's total have been falling slightly, from 42.6% in 1998 to 40.4% in 2002. The variations may be a result of such pre-fall whoppers as 'N Sync's Celebrity in August 2001 (1.9 million copies the first week) or The Eminem Show in June 2002 (2.4 million copies in three weeks).
This year has yielded very few blockbusters aside from 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', the leader with 5.9 million copies sold since February. No album this year has sold more than 1 million copies in a single week. And none of the fourth-quarter releases seem poised to break that unhappy trend.