New Tunage
Here are the new music releases for the week of November 9th, 2004:
Tuesday November 9.
MAXWELL new album (Sony)
NEKO CASE The Tigers Have Spoken (Mint Records)
SHANIA TWAIN Greatest Hits (Universal Music)
Wednesday November 10, 2004
VARIOUS ARTISTS Live Aid (DVD) (Warner International)
Friday November 12, 2004
EMINEM Encore (Shady Records/Interscope)
McGraw's 'Live Like You Were Dying' Wins
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" won song of the year and single of the year, and Kenny Chesney took entertainer of the year and album of the year honors at the Country Music Association awards Tuesday night.
"Of course the song is special to me, but I think it is special to a lot of people," McGraw said. "The song to me is not about death, it's an affirmation about life."
Chesney, whose album "When the Sun Goes Down" took top honors, noted that he's "been making records and been on the road 12 years now, and this is my first CMA award. ... I'm very proud of it."
Other winners included Keith Urban, Gretchen Wilson, Brad Paisley, Martina McBride and Rascal Flatts.
Written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman, "Live Like You Were Dying" spent eight weeks this summer at No. 1.
The song, about living life to its fullest, was special for McGraw, who lost his father, former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Tug McGraw, to cancer in January.
The lyrics tell of a man in his early 40s who learned he doesn't have long to live and is asked how he handled the news. McGraw sings, "Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying."
It was chosen for song of the year over Wilson's "Redneck Woman," Josh Turner's "Long Black Train," Alan Jackson's "Remember When" and the Paisley-Alison Krauss duet "Whiskey Lullaby."
"Whiskey Lullaby," written by Bill Anderson and Jon Randall, won for musical event of the year and music video of the year. It's a dark tale about a woman who breaks a man's heart, watches him drink himself to death and then is so guilt-stricken that she too — as the songs says — "put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger."
"I want to thank country radio for playing this," Paisley said. "It says a lot about the great people in our format who will take a chance on a double suicide in a drinking song."
In one of the evening's surprises, Urban won the male vocalist award. The rising star was up against veterans Jackson, George Strait, Toby Keith and Chesney.
"I thought I was just rounding out the category," Urban said.
During the show, Keith and his daughter, Krystal, performed "Mockingbird," and Kix Brooks of the duo Brooks & Dunn paid tribute to the late Ray Charles.
"He really was one soulful country singer. Bless you, Ray Charles," Brooks said.
Keith had six nominations for the Country Music Association awards, but was shut out for the second straight year.
"I have the worst record in the history of the CMA," he said recently.
Jackson, who led all nominees for the ceremony with seven, also left empty-handed.
McBride won female vocalist of the year, her fourth in that category and third in a row.
"When I was a little girl in Kansas I had some big dreams, but I don't think I ever dreamed this big," he said.
Dolly Parton presented the entertainer of the year award to Chesney, joking: "Once upon a time I won the entertainer of the year award, and if any of you out there remember when that was you keep your mouth shut."
Others who've won the award include Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn.
Wilson, who has sold 3 million copies of her debut album, "Here For the Party," won the Horizon Award for best new artist. She fought back tears as she accepted.
"I came here last year and sat way back there in the very back and dreamed of standing up here someday. I just had no idea it would happen this fast for me," she said.
Rascal Flatts won the vocal group award for the second consecutive year.
"It's overwhelming," said bass player Jay DeMarcus. "We had big hopes and aspirations when we started out in this business ... to have something like this in hand at the end of the day sort of gives validity to what you want to accomplish."
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame. His friend Willie Nelson introduced him and sang Kristofferson's "For the Good Times." Faith Hill performed his "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and Randy Travis did "Sunday Morning Coming Down."
Kristofferson, who has been outspoken during his career on political and social issues, sang "Me and Bobby McGee," a song made famous by Janis Joplin.
He thanked the late Johnny and June Cash "for endorsing me back when nobody knew me and defending me later when everybody did and for standing up for truth and justice and human rights."
Lohan 'Speaks' on Debut Album
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Teen queen Lindsay Lohan will release her debut album, "Speak," Dec. 7 via Casablanca.
The set's first single, "Rumors," jumps from No. 37 to No. 31 this week on Billboard's Top 40 Mainstream chart and debuts at No. 24 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 singles tally. The cut reached a new peak last week at No. 17 on the Hot Digital Tracks chart.
The artist's Web site (http://www.lindsaylohanmusic.com) is hosting a video for "Rumors," in which the actress/singer escapes menacing paparazzi on her way to writhing in an elevator and frolicking in a dark nightclub.
"Speak" finds Lohan collaborating with such producers as Desmond Child, Cory Rooney (Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez), Andreas Carlson (Britney Spears, 'N Sync) and Jon Shanks (Ashlee Simpson).
Lohan is expected to perform "Rumors" Dec. 6 on ABC's "Good Morning America." Other appearances are being lined up on "Regis & Kelly" and "The Late Show With David Letterman."
Best known for her starring roles in "Mean Girls," "Freaky Friday" and "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen," Lohan has been heard as a vocalist on soundtracks for the latter two films. She also contributed a song to the soundtrack for this summer's "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement."
As an actress, Lohan is immersed in six film projects in various stages of development, including a revival of the "Herbie" franchise, a starring role as a young fashion designer in "Fashionistas" and an as-yet-untitled project with fellow musician/actor Nick Cannon.
U.S. Court Upholds Beastie Boys' Musical Sampling
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court has handed a victory to pioneering punk-rap group the Beastie Boys in a dispute over the growing musical practice of sampling, in which recording artists incorporate snippets of other songs into their own work.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined on Tuesday to reconsider its decision last year allowing the group to use a six-second segment of music from jazz flutist James Newton's 1978 composition "Choir."
A three-judge panel of the court held in 2003 that the band had abided by copyright protections by paying a license fee for a sample of Newton's recording and therefore did not have to pay an additional fee to license the underlying composition.
That finding upheld a lower-court dismissal of the case in favor of the Beastie Boys, and the 9th Circuit on Tuesday refused to reconsider its ruling before a larger 11-judge panel.
"We hold that Beastie Boys' use of a brief segment of that composition, consisting of three notes separated by a half-step over a background C note, is not sufficient to sustain a claim for infringement of Newton's copyright," Chief Judge Mary Schroeder wrote in her opinion.
The Beastie Boys used the sample in their song "Pass the Mic" on their 1992 album "Check Your Head."
Representatives for Newton and the Beastie Boys were not immediately available for comment.
The Beastie Boys helped spark the modern sampling trend in popular music with the 1989 album "Paul's Boutique," which incorporated bits of music from sources as diverse as Johnny Cash, Bob Marley and the Beatles to create new music. Sampling has since become a staple of many artists, especially in the rap and hip-hop genres.
The Beastie Boys have also emerged as leading advocates of a new approach to licensing known as the Creative Commons, in which artists record songs that listeners are invited to "rip, sample, mash and share" over file-sharing online networks like Kazaa or borrow to create their own compositions.
Renee Zellweger Plans a Break from Acting
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One would not know it from the way she is all over the media promoting her latest "Bridget Jones" film, but Oscar-winning Renee Zellweger is taking an extended break from acting.
After "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" begins playing in theaters on Friday, Zellweger, 35, said she plans to step away from the limelight, stop acting for a while and learn what it is like to be "just a girl."
"I don't see myself climbing into a makeup chair any time soon and taking another role. I feel like I need to take a minute and have a little bit of life experience," Zellweger told Reuters in a recent interview.
She declined to say how her break from filming would last and she has already made a film that will open in 2005, Ron Howard's "The Cinderella man," in which plays the wife of Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock.
The first "Bridget Jones' Diary" in 2001 made Zellweger a top box office star as audiences fell in love with her portrayal of the plump, single British woman who drinks, smokes, curses and bungles her way through her love life. It racked up $254 million at worldwide box offices.
She followed "Bridget Jones" with her Oscar-nominated role as murderess Roxie Hart in musical "Chicago" and capped three years of success with the U.S. film industry's top film honor in February for best supporting actress as the hard-scrabble farm girl Ruby Thewes in U.S. Civil War drama "Cold Mountain."
But Zellweger, with a sigh, said her golden Oscar statuette was still sitting on her bedside table where she left eight months ago it because the day after she left Los Angeles for a new job.
"I put it there so when I woke up in the morning I could see that I really did bring it home," she said. "I haven't really been back until now."
SAME SEX, DIFFERENT STORY
Zellweger, who gained 30 pounds to play Bridget Jones a second time, returns to familiar territory in "Edge of Reason." As the movie opens, Bridget has had six weeks of a relationship with her "total sex god and human rights lawyer" Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).
But her old fans know the good loving can't last long when into her life returns old flame Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) with his eye back on Bridget.
The first "Bridget Jones" dealt with finding love, but "Edge of Reason" is about keeping love burning, and Zellweger said it was important for the filmmakers to avoid a sequel that covered the same old ground as the original.
"I felt like I didn't want to disappoint the fans just throwing something out there because we could, and the same went for me. I didn't want to disappoint myself," she said.
The Texas-born American faced sharp scrutiny playing Bridget in the first film but won over the hearts of the British with her spot-on portrayal.
"It's easy to relate to her," Zellweger said, "Her imperfections, her vulnerability, and the fact the audience is privy to her inner dialogue and fear about her shortcomings."
Now, the star said, it's now time for her to find out more about her own imperfections and vulnerabilities, and start her own inner dialogue.
HELLO, NEWMAN!
Six years after its final episode aired, "Seinfeld," the sitcom that redefined television, is finally available on DVD — and it's just as obsessive as the show. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
A sneak peek at the first three seasons, which will be released on Nov. 22, confirms that these are no Costanza-like make-a-quick-buck editions, nor a yada-yada rehash.
In addition to 40 gorgeously remastered episodes in their original network form (plus, for comparison, the shorter syndicated versions of two episodes), there are more than 12 hours of extras for each season, include extensive written notes in the form of subtitles for every single episode.
This innovative feature provides lines that were cut or changed (sometimes for reasons of taste), running tallies of the four main characters' boyfriends and girlfriends — and a count of the wacky Kramer's entrances, which destroyed three doorways during the series' run.
And for true obsessive-compulsives, there are biographies and credits for virtually every actor who appears as a guest star (or in a bit role), as well as detailed explanations of the series' sometimes obscure cultural references — everything from Peter Lorre and Gandhi to the book "Where's Waldo?" and New York City parking rules.
But that's only the beginning. Along with hilarious blooper reels and never-seen deleted scenes and Seinfeld stand-up routines, most episodes are preceded by new interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, as well as behind-the-camera talent, including co-creator Larry David.
Some of these interviews are remarkably candid — Richards admits he was deeply hurt when the wacky Kramer was left out of the series' first classic episode, "The Restaurant," and worried he was going to be written out of the series.
Former NBC president Warren Littlefield confesses he was adamantly opposed to "The Restaurant," which defined "Seinfeld" as a "series about nothing" by having stand-up comic Jerry, his pushy ex-girlfriend Elaine and his whiny pal George spend the entire 22 minutes waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant.
In a separate audio commentary track, Seinfeld and David discuss how they prevailed over the nervous network to do the episode, which was held on the shelf for several months after it was filmed because NBC thought an episode with so little action would hurt the series.
Indeed, there is plenty of discussion of how the series evolved from a very shaky start — the underwhelming pilot, "The Seinfeld Chronicles," aired in July 1989, and the first season, which began a year later, was only five episodes long.
In a candid 65-minute documentary on the show's origins, Seinfeld and David say they gambled on an abbreviated first-season summer run following "Cheers," rather than a lousy spot on the schedule earlier in the season.
But despite great reviews, the ratings were relatively anemic until the show broke through in season three, when the series began coining catch-phrases like "yada yada," "master of his domain," "spongeworthy," "double-dipping" and "not that there's anything wrong with that."
David and Seinfeld, who as newcomers to the sitcom form were eager to push the envelope in unconventional ways, say there was enormous pressure from the network to have Jerry get back together with his ex-girlfriend Elaine.
They responded with the second-season closer "The Deal," in which the two have sex — and bicker endlessly as they try to establish rules for a purely physical relationship.
Seinfeld says that during the hiatus, he repeatedly asked audiences whether Jerry and Elaine should stay together — and they responded overwhelmingly against it.
"So Jerry and Elaine broke up again between the second and third seasons, and it was never referred to in the show," Seinfeld says.
Letterman Visits Philbin's Daytime Show
NEW YORK - David Letterman cracked a few jokes, showed some baby pictures and, yes, was a little cranky about going on television so early in the morning.
But, as Regis Philbin said, Letterman "did the right thing" and appeared on "Live with Regis and Kelly" Monday, especially since Philbin has been one of the CBS late-night host's favorite foils for many years.
By a "Late Show" count, Philbin has appeared 83 times on Letterman's show since it moved to CBS in 1993. He was a guest host when Letterman underwent heart bypass surgery in 2000 and recovered from an eye infection last year.
Letterman, who's rarely seen on TV outside of his own show, had visited "Live" twice before, the most recent in February 1997.
At least he had the television smarts to show up during a ratings "sweeps" month.
"This is a live Mardi Gras every morning," Letterman told Philbin and co-host Kelly Ripa.
Letterman showed pictures of son Harry, joking that the 1-year-old was looking at "mom's beer can" in one. He and Philbin traded good-natured gibes about who was most negligent about inviting the other on social occasions.
After Letterman complained that Philbin hadn't invited him to dinner, the stage curtain opened to reveal a table for two, with breakfast steaks set out.
"I want nothing to do with this phony dinner!" Letterman said.
They made some small talk about Notre Dame football, and Philbin tossed in a political question: Why did John Kerry lose?
"Geez, I have no idea," Letterman said. "I know nothing about politics. If I knew anything, why would I be here?"
But the two have an odd chemistry, and the irony-drenched Letterman clearly respects the showbiz veteran Philbin, 73, who's in the Guinness Book of World Records for logging more than 15,000 hours in front of a television camera.
"He is so quick and inventive and imaginative," Philbin told The Associated Press later. "His show is one surprise after another and I admire that tremendously. What does he see in me? I don't know."
Philbin said "Live" had asked Letterman to appear so many times that the show had nearly stopped asking.
"I know how private he is and how much he didn't want to do this," he said. "It was awfully nice of him to come by."
As for a return engagement, don't hold you're breath. That's what Letterman indicated when Philbin asked when he's be back.
"None of us will live that long," he replied.
Pirated U2 Album Hits Net, Release Date in Limbo
LONDON (Reuters) - Pirated versions of U2's new album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" have emerged on Internet file-sharing networks two weeks before it goes on sale, throwing into question its official release date.
A London spokeswoman for the band on Monday would only say that U2 was aware of the illicit copies, but that no decision had yet been made on changing the release date.
The Irish rock band has been due to release the album on Nov. 22 in Europe and the following day in the United States. It is the first studio album in four years for the band.
Earlier this summer, a tape containing rough tracks from the upcoming album went missing from a studio in Nice, France where the band was recording. At the time, the band said it might move the release date if the tracks appear online first.
The online appearance of unsanctioned versions of an album before the official release has dogged many music acts.
Record labels fight back by sending copy-proof promotional copies to radio stations and journalists, and hiring firms to flood file-sharing networks with "spoof" tracks with poor sound quality, which crowd out better-sounding pirated versions.
"With any major release, the record companies start about a week in advance flooding the networks. That way users are more likely to download a spoofed copy," said Jim Graham, a spokesman for California-based online piracy tracking firm BayTSP.
"But over time, the pirated versions win out. It's very cat and mouse. It's like the cold war," he added.
In the past month, release dates for American rap artist Eminem and hip-hop star Snoop Dogg, both signed to Universal's Interscope Records, has been pushed forward by a few days due to the appearance of pirated tracks online.
Actor Colin Farrell Not Interested in 007 Role
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Irish actor Colin Farrell says he is not interested in becoming the next James Bond. Working as Alexander the Great seems to be enough.
In an interview with Reuters on Sunday to discuss his soon to be released film "Alexander," Farrell, 28, was asked about a suggestion by the outgoing James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, last week that he get the job because "he'll eat the head off them all."
Farrell feigned outrage at the thought of becoming the sixth James Bond in the series, joking he was shocked by Brosnan's suggestion and if he got the job, he just might employ an Irish accent to confuse fans of the suave British agent.
"The idea of me playing James Bond got into the press, but it is not true. I would not like to do it ... they should find someone the audience has no history with,' Farrell said.
Farrell stars in the upcoming Oliver Stone film "Alexander," which is slated to opened in late November. It was a role that had plenty of action for him as he broke an ankle and a wrist while filming battle scenes on location in Thailand.
Finding a successor to Brosnan as agent 007, the character who has sold nearly $4 billion in tickets since "Dr. No" hit the screens 42 years ago, has been the subject of intense speculation for months.
Brosnan fulfilled his four-film contract with "Die Another Day" in 2002. The next film is not slated to come out until 2006. Others names mentioned as possibilities to put on Bond's trademark tuxedo have been Hugh Jackman and Jude Law.