But wouldn't they rather be alive?

Elvis Remains Top-Earning Dead Celeb

Elvis is still the king when it comes to earning royalties, according to Forbes magazine, but Shakespeare could have given him a run for the money. Forbes' annual list of Ten-Top Earning Dead Celebrities showed Elvis Presley was top earner for the fifth straight year, generating $45 million for his estate.

"Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz held his customary spot at No. 2, with $35 million.

Presley died in 1977 and his music is still going strong, but he has a long way to go to outlast Shakespeare, still on theater marquees nearly 400 years after his death.

The magazine calculated what the Bard's heirs might collect each year if he were still under copyright and estimated it at $15 million with over 5,000 performances of his plays and hundreds of thousands of books sold in the last year.

That would put him behind fellow Englishman and former Beatle John Lennon (No. 3 at $22 million) and artist Andy Warhol (No. 4, $16 million) and ahead of dead heavyweights such as Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.

This year's list also showed the big impact of Hollywood, as Johnny Cash and Ray Charles broke into the top rankings as the release or planned release of film biographies boosted their royalty statements.

I like to think, if they knew who Iw as, that they would vote me "Dan Of The Year."

Movie Fans Vote Rourke 'Man of the Year'

LONDON - British movie fans have voted Mickey Rourke "man of the year" for his portrayal of the swaggering down-on-his-luck Marv in "Sin City."

"Batman Begins," the most recent adventure of the comic superhero starring Christian Bale in the title role, was voted top film of 2005.

The movie fought off competition from "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith" to land the No. 1 spot in the poll of 15,000 film fans by Total Film magazine. The poll was released Sunday.

Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid, who played Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in "Revenge of the Sith," was named best movie villain; 11-year-old Dakota Fanning was named best child actor for her role in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds"; and the nut-eating squirrels in Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" were named best movie animal.

"`Batman Begins' was a smart but funny reinvention of an iconic figure and had fantastic performances. It was also excellently directed by Christopher Nolan," said Total Film editor Nev Pierce.

"Film fans want more and `Batman Begins' overcomes the horrible taste that previous outing `Batman & Robin' left in people's mouths," Pierce said.

I didn't get into a theatre all weekend! Ahhhhhhh!!

'Saw II' Cuts Down 'Zorro' at Box Office

LOS ANGELES - Horror swung a sharper blade than Zorro at the box office. With Halloween at hand, the bloody "Saw II" won the weekend with $30.5 million, almost double the $16.5 million opening of Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones' swashbuckling sequel "The Legend of Zorro," according to studio estimates Sunday.

The weekend's other big-name wide releases had so-so premieres. "Prime," starring Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep in a romance between a thirtysomething woman and a younger man, debuted at No. 3 with $6.4 million.

Nicolas Cage's "The Weather Man," in which he plays a materially successful TV forecaster whose personal life is a tempest of disorder, opened at No. 6 with $4.3 million.

Hollywood's box-office slump abated from the double-digit percentage declines of recent weekends, though receipts still were down. The top 12 movies took in $86.3 million, off 6.5 percent from the same weekend last year.

"Saw II," featuring Donnie Wahlberg as a cop drawn into a deadly game with the serial killer of the 2004 horror hit "Saw," easily outdid the original movie's $18.3 million opening over last Halloween weekend.

Distributor Lions Gate, which acquired the low-budgeted "Saw" at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, rushed ahead to get the sequel in theaters just a year after the original's release. "Saw" did a respectable $55.2 million at the domestic box office, but the sequel got a big boost from fans who discovered the franchise on DVD.

"A lot of talk is devoted to the theatrical moviegoing experience being like a warmup for the DVD release. In this case, the DVD release of the first film was a warmup for the huge debut of the sequel," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "Plus, it's a no-brainer. It's Halloween weekend."

"The Legend of Zorro," with Banderas' masked swordsman fighting a secret society aiming to ravage the United States amid California's statehood drive in 1850, came in well behind the 1998 summer hit "The Mask of Zorro," which opened with $22.3 million.

Considering ticket prices are up about one-third since then, "Legend of Zorro" drew only about half the crowds domestically as the first movie over opening weekend.

Distributor Sony noted that solid returns in Latin America and Europe offset the weaker showing for "Legend of Zorro" on the homefront. In about 50 international markets, the sequel took in $27 million, up 22 percent from the debut of "Mask of Zorro" in those same countries, said Rory Bruer, Sony head of distribution.

"In regards to how you go about releasing your film, it's just a matter of what brings the most dollars in box office, whether domestic or worldwide," Bruer said.

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Saw II," $30.5 million.
2. "The Legend of Zorro," $16.5 million.
3. "Prime," $6.4 million.
4. "Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story," $6.3 million.
5. "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit," $4.4 million.
6. "The Weather Man," $4.3 million.
7. "Doom," $4.1 million.
8. "North Country," $3.65 million.
9. "The Fog," $3.3 million.
10. "Flightplan," $2.6 million.

This could be a good read!

Anticipated Beatles Bio Comes Out Tuesday

NEW YORK - Ten hours, 28 minutes. That was the sum of the music recorded and released by the Beatles before breaking up, a volume of work that changed lives, careers and the course of music history. Eight years, 2,792 pages. That was the effort author Bob Spitz put into telling their story, although editors whittled his manuscript down to 856 pages (minus the end notes).

"The Beatles: The Biography," available Nov. 1, is a compulsively readable history that brings the same exhaustive level of scholarship to the Fab Four that Robert Caro brought to Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.

"The Beatles' story is all of our stories," says Spitz, 55, a manager for Bruce Springsteen and others before turning to writing. "It is about how the youth culture emerged, the drug culture emerged, how politics rose to the fore as a universal debate. It's about rebellion, it's about the growth of the British entertainment system, the growth of the rock 'n' roll entertainment system.

"The Beatles changed music forever. They took rock 'n' roll from a medium that was about cars and girls and gave it context, interesting chord changes and true musicianship."

Get the idea he's passionate about the subject?

Spitz lived it, writing six days a week for six years, spending six months in Liverpool and retracing the Beatles' steps. He could practically smell the stale cigarette smoke from the old clubs, and even ordered the band's favorite scotch and Coke drinks just to taste what they had tasted.

It almost makes up for the school yard beating that a teenage Spitz suffered for suggesting that the Beatles were no-talent bums who wouldn't last; he was an avid Bob Dylan fan at the time.

He feels differently now. But his love and respect for the Beatles doesn't blind him as a writer; he draws a complete portrait of brilliant musicians who were human after all. Several initial reviews have been positive, and his publisher's first printing of nearly 200,000 copies is considered a positive sign of the biography's potential.

The New York Times' Janet Maslin called it a "consolidating and newly illuminating work. For the right reader, that combination is irresistible."

"As with all great history writing, Spitz both captures a moment in time and humanizes his subjects," wrote Publishers Weekly. "While some will blanch at the unsettling dark sides of the Beatles, most will come to appreciate the band even more for knowing the incredible personal odysseys they endured."

Spitz's biography is one of four Beatles-related books in the stores this fall, including one each by both of John Lennon's wives.

"I get a new Beatles book submitted almost every month, and sales are varied," said Kim Corradini, a buyer for Barnes & Noble Booksellers. "Books that offer something new — new revelations, new photos, an insider's view — do much better than those that are just rehashings."

The project was daunting for more reasons than just the effort it entailed. There have been more Beatles books published than there are actual Beatles songs, and most fans have heard the same stories many times over.

Spitz, who has written biographies of Dylan and Bob Marley, was assigned by The New York Times Magazine to write a story about Paul McCartney in 1996. At the time, McCartney was working on the Beatles' anthology project and told Spitz "they might as well call it the mythology, as only about 50 percent of it was true."

Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr agreed on their version of the Beatles' story, a mix of truth and legend, and it formed the basis of what Spitz considers the band's only other serious biography, written by Hunter Davies four decades ago. Some of the stories were told so often that the lines between truth and fiction had even blurred for the surviving Beatles.

Spitz set out to make the record straight.

"I interviewed 650 people on this," he says. "I approached this book as if nobody had ever written a biography on the Beatles."

McCartney cooperated, and so did Harrison before his death in 2001. Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono did not, and neither did Starr or Neil Aspinall, who used to drive the Beatles to gigs in Liverpool and now runs their business empire.

Almost more important than his recollections was McCartney quietly putting the word out to dozens of former associates, many of whom had never spoken publicly about their roles, that it was OK to speak to Spitz. Spitz also tracked down new sources. In western Canada he found Dot Rohne, who nearly married McCartney and miscarried his baby before being dumped as the Beatles were on the cusp of making it big.

Spitz so doggedly traces the band's family history, and depicts postwar Liverpool, that Lennon doesn't meet McCartney until page 95 of his book.

"My book is not a book of dirty stories," Spitz says. "There are no shocking revelations. I wasn't looking for any and I didn't find any."

Still, there are sublime details and myth-busters that good fans will enjoy, like producer George Martin leaving the recording of "Love Me Do" to an underling while he had a lunch date with his secretary.

One much-repeated story is that future manager Brian Epstein first heard of the Beatles when a customer at his record store requested their recording of "My Bonnie" from Hamburg, Germany. In truth, he was already well aware of them — their posters hung in his store and Epstein, who was gay, secretly liked their rough-boys-in-leather image.

Spitz opens with a detailed scene from Dec. 27, 1960, a Liverpool performance where the Beatles' improvement after a lengthy residence in Germany so startled and thrilled their hometown audience that it presaged the impact they would have on the world three years later. Spitz even reports the brand of popular hairspray whose scent lingered in the air.

He was struck by the extraordinary tight bond the four men created, personally and musically. Even during their unpleasant breakup, they still loved each other, he says. Spitz believes the split was less because of the influence of Ono than the fact that Lennon and Harrison couldn't stand to be in the room with McCartney anymore.

The flip side is how completely, even ruthlessly, the four men would freeze out anyone they no longer had use for, as drummer Pete Best most famously found out.

The project was an intense time in Spitz's life. He and his wife have split and he says his daughter thinks dad has a mop tops obsession.

"It turned my life inside out," he says. "Yet I must say it was the most incredible and pleasurable experience I ever had."

Spitz is involved in one more Beatles-related project: writing a version of his biography for young readers.

"It's sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," he says, "without the sex and drugs."

Well, I guess he was getting a full paycheck for those eight weeks. As for me, well I wasn't!

Lockout worth it, CBC boss says

OTTAWA (CP) - The eight-week lockout of CBC employees didn't save any money, hurt market share and damaged employee relations - but was still worth it, says the president of the public broadcaster.

Under close questioning by skeptical MPs, Robert Rabinovitch said Thursday the lockout was essential to head off a strike later in the fall which would have disrupted new programming as well as NHL broadcasts.

He not only blamed the union for provoking the lockout but suggested Parliament, by cutting CBC funding over past decades, also helped push the corporation into a financial corner.

"People have asked whether the lockout was worth it and my answer was yes," Rabinovitch told MPs on the all-party heritage committee, who peppered him with questions about low employee morale and future labour relations.

Rabinovitch said he feared that if he didn't bring matters to a head with the mid-August lockout, the 5,500 Canadian Media Guild employees would strike in late fall and disrupt important television programming.

The choice was either "wait and let the union strike at a time of their choosing . . . or bring negotiations to a head at a relatively quiet time of the year," he said.

Actually, a strike in late fall was impossible since the union's strike mandate expired Sept. 6, an angry Arnold Amber - chief negotiator for the union - said outside the committee room.

"He is lying . . . what we got today is a lot of spin," said Amber.

"If there was a vote of confidence held amongst staff today, Mr. Rabinovitch and his entire group of senior managers would go."

The committee postponed a vote on its own motion of non-confidence in Rabinovitch from New Democrat MP Charlie Angus.

But MPs made their feelings clear.

"There is no confidence in you around this table," said Bloc Quebecois MP Carole Lavallee, who accused Rabinovitch of seriously undermining employee relations.

"The members who are here have no compliments to pay you."

Journalists, technicians and clerical staff were locked out of the public broadcaster from Aug. 15 to early October when a contract, which runs to March 2009, was finally reached to end the dispute.

Amber also disputed claims by Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of English television, that the lockout saved CBC no money.

The extra costs of security during the lockout, higher management expenses to keep CBC radio and TV on the air and loss of advertising revenues offset eight weeks' worth of savings on employee wages and benefits, Stursberg told the committee.

"We've ended up, basically, zero. There is no savings to the corporation."

Actually, says the union, CBC probably saved about $50 million on employee costs but doesn't want to admit it.

"We should get an auditor in there," said Amber.

Liberal Marlene Catterral, chair of the heritage committee, also sounded skeptical of CBC's figures: "Management, when it works overtime, doesn't usually get paid overtime."

The hearing started badly for Rabinovitch, who doused himself with water and crashed to the highly polished committee room floor after his chair slipped out from under him just before the session began.

He reminded MPs several times how government funding for CBC has dropped even as inflation and rising production costs have steadily pushed up costs.

At the same time, questions are being raised about English language TV programming and market share has also been falling at Newsworld - especially since the revamped CTV Newsnet channel emerged, he said.

Rabinovitch also insisted CBC's board of directors was kept informed of management's strategy to lock out workers before they could strike.

But while the board was aware of the lockout plan, it didn't exactly endorse it, said Guy Fournier, a newcomer to the CBC board, who closely watched the committee hearing.

"If you asked the board was there a formal vote (on approving the lockout) no - I can't lie to you," Fournier said later.

He stopped short of calling the lockout a mistake but added: "If we had to re-live the whole thing, we would surely call for a formal vote before a lockout."

Fournier has previously said the board would have appreciated more information from management before the lockout began.

Three hours?!?!?!?

"King Kong" Super-Sized

That's one big gorilla.

The original King Kong ran 90 minutes long. That relatively tame length is just a warm-up to what Peter Jackson has in store for his remake of the great ape epic.

According to Universal, which paid a whopping $20 million for the right to distribute the Oscar-winning helmer's remake of the Tinseltown classic, Kong's running time is nearly double the 1933 version, weighing in at a mammoth three hours.

It was initially believed that Jackson would bring the picture in at two and a half hours, but extra digital effects that swelled the pic's budget from $175 million to a final price tag of $207 million, combined with the Lord of the Rings mastermind's penchant for big-time spectacle, led to the monster cut.

After flying to Jackson's home base in Wellington, New Zealand where Kong was shot to watch a sneak peak of the film, studio executives were reportedly elated with the results and agreed to release the three-hour Kong as scheduled Dec. 14--despite the possibility that the length might eat into the monkey movie's box office, allowing for fewer screenings each day.

"I anticipated it would be long, but not this long," Universal Pictures chairwoman Stacey Snider told the New York Times. "This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to unveil it."

Universal could use a big hit about now. The company is still trying to figure out why moviegoers stayed away in droves from its critically-acclaimed boxing drama Cinderella Man.

Then there's the mediocre ticket sales generated by flicks such as The Perfect Man, Kicking and Screaming and, most recently, Doom, which debuted with a ho-hum $15 million. The studio's one stand-out this year has been the surprise success of R-rated sex comedy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

But studio suits were willing to take a chance on the plus-size running time, optimistic that audiences will go bananas over Jackson's re-imagining of one of its most memorable mascots.

"This is a three-hour feast of an event," Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, told the Times. "I've never come close to seeing an artist working at this level."

Unlike the poorly-received 1976 remake, the Kiwi filmmaker's version sticks close to the plot of the original Kong. It follows the giant beast as he falls for the beautiful Hollywood actress Ann Darrow ( Naomi Watts), rampages through Depression-era New York and climbs up the Empire State Building. The film also stars Jack Black, Adrien Brody and Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in Lord of the Rings, as the computer-generated ape.

As for the budget, Universal was pleased enough with the finished product to offer to pick up half of the $32 million in cost overruns Jackson rang up. However, the 43-year-old auteur insisted he and his partner and co-writer, Fran Walsh, who was also part of that $20 million payday, would cover the overages themselves.

Going over budget hasn't been Jackson's only concern.

New Zealand's labor department assailed the production last week for unsafe set practices after investigating incidents on the set in which two workers were injured when scaffolding collapsed.

According to an occupational safety and health report, one of the riggers suffered a concussion and a broken shoulder blade, while another received cuts and bruises.

Jackson's LLC, Big Primate Productions, declined to comment on the findings but said the company is cooperating with the investigation.

Meanwhile, to drum up excitement in advance of Kong's big bow, Universal Home Video will unleash a DVD documenting the making of Jackson's magnum opus on Dec. 13. Much of the material will be culled from the over-achieving director's own video production diaries on Kongisking.net, in which he's offered fans behind-the-scenes glimpses into the production process.

Jackson is also contributing a two-hour, seven-part feature documentary entitled RKO Production 601: The Making of Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World to a two-disc DVD set of the 1933 Kong, which Universal is issuing on Nov. 22

And last but not least, Turner Classic Movies is planning to air on the same day a documentary by noted film historian Kevin Brownlow on Merian C. Cooper, the original's director. I'm King Kong! The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper will be narrated by Alec Baldwin and feature footage of Cooper working in Hollywood, as well as interviews with the late Fay Wray--the first woman to play Darrow--and special effects master Ray Harryhausen, among others.

Sox win!! Sox win!! Sox win!!!!

White Sox Win 1st World Series Since 1917

HOUSTON - The Chicago White Sox are World Series champions again at last, and yet another epic streak of futility is not just wiped away but swept away.

After seven scoreless innings, Jermaine Dye singled home the only run in the eighth, and the White Sox beat the Houston Astros 1-0 Wednesday night to win their first title in 88 years.

Just a year ago, the same story line captivated baseball when the long-suffering Boston Red Sox swept St. Louis to capture their first title in 86 years.

Who's next, the Chicago Cubs, without a championship since 1908?

It was the third title for the White Sox, following wins in 1906 and 1917. And it was the first since "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the "Black Sox" threw the 1919 Series against Cincinnati.

In the Windy City, where the Cubs have long been king, Chicago's South Side team for once trumped its North Side rival, no small feat for the Sox.

Owner Jerry Reinsdorf once said he'd trade all six of the Chicago Bulls' NBA titles for a single Series ring, a statement he now regrets. No swap is needed now: He's got the prize he dreamed of since he was a kid growing up in Brooklyn.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said during the regular season that he might retire if his team went on to win the Series, and now he'll have to reveal that decision.

Chicago's sweep, its eighth straight postseason win, made it only the second team to go through the postseason 11-1 since the extra round of playoffs was added in 1995, joining the 1999 Yankees. But the White Sox fans didn't get to enjoy a single celebration in person: the division title and all three rounds of the postseason were won on the road.

Houston, which finally won a pennant for the first time since it joined the National League in 1962, became the first team swept in its Series debut.

On a night when pitching dominated, winner Freddy Garcia and Houston's Brandon Backe pitched shutout ball for seven innings, with Backe allowing four hits and Garcia five. They each struck out seven.

Brad Lidge, Houston's closer, came in to start the eighth, and Chicago sent up Willie Harris to bat for Garcia.

Harris lined a single to left leading off, and that led to Houston's downfall. Scott Podsednik bunted a difficult high pitch in front of the plate, and the speedy Harris took second on the sacrifice. Carl Everett pinch hit for Tadahito Iguchi and grounded to second, moving Harris to third.

Dye, the Series MVP, swung and missed Lidge's next pitch, took a ball, then grounded a single up the middle, clapping his hands as he left the plate. Harris trotted home from third, and the White Sox celebrated in the third-base dugout.

But it wasn't quite over yet.

Cliff Politte relieved to start the bottom half and hit Willy Taveras on the hand with one out. Politte bounced a wild pitch on his first offering to Lance Berkman, moving Taveras to second, then intentionally walked Berkman, nearly throwing away the next pitch.

Morgan Ensberg flied to right-center, dropping him to 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position in the Series, and Chicago brought in left-hander Neal Cotts to face pinch-hitter Jose Vizcaino, who hit a broken-bat grounder to shortstop.

Juan Uribe charged in, backhanded the ball by the grass and threw hard to first, beating Vizcaino by half a step.

After Chicago wasted a leadoff double by A.J. Pierzynski in the ninth, Jason Lane lofted a 3-2 pitch off Bobby Jenks into short center for a single leading off the bottom half.

Brad Ausmus sacrificed and pinch-hitter Chris Burke fouled out to Uribe, who fell into the left-field seats as he leaned in to make the grab. Uribe ran to the mound with the ball and gave Jenks a slap.

Orlando Palmeiro then pinch hit, and grounded to short for the final out and the White Sox poured out of their dugout and jumped around the mound.

Houston was 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position on the night and 10-for-48 (.208) in the Series, and Lidge fell to 0-2 in the Series and 0-3 in the postseason.

After Chicago's 14-inning, 7-5 win that lasted a Series-record 5 hours, 41 minutes and ended at 1:20 a.m. Wednesday, the crowd was more subdued at Minute Maid Park. Most of them had to know that no team has ever overcome a 3-0 Series deficit.

Chicago stranded runners in three of the first four innings, including Podsednik after a two-out triple in the third, but Backe's changeup got stronger, and he struck out five straight — one short of the Series record — following Dye's leadoff single in the fourth.

He retired 11 batters in a row before Aaron Rowand's two-out single in the seventh, and Joe Crede followed with a drive high off the out-of-town scoreboard in the left-field fence, missing a home run by a few feet. Rowand, who had slowed slightly just before getting to second, was held up at third.

After a conference at the mound, and with Everett on deck as a potential pinch-hitter, Houston elected to pitch to Uribe, the No. 8 hitter, instead of intentionally walking him and forcing Chicago to decide whether to bat for Garcia. Backe fanned him on his final pitch and skipped off the mound before high-fiving teammates.

Houston, meanwhile, went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position in the first six innings. The Astros stranded runners on second base in the first two innings. With two on and one out in the sixth, Ensberg struck out and after Mike Lamb was intentionally walked to load the bases, Garcia struck out Jason Lane.

Notes: The record of six straight strikeouts was set by Cincinnati's Hod Eller against the White Sox in 1919 and matched by Baltimore's Moe Drabowsky in 1966 and St. Louis' Todd Worrell in 1985.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Bad music won't sell, good music sells!!

Music industry sales plunging: StatsCan

Canada's sound recording industry is suffering from plunging sales and profits resulting in fewer opportunities for Canadian artists to record, a new study says.

The industry has experienced six years of declining sales, according to a Statistics Canada study released Wednesday. In 2003, the industry had $708.7 million in sales, down 20.5 per cent from $891.6 million in 1998.

StatsCan pointed to illegal downloading, file swapping and competition from other media as likely causes for the drop.

Music by Canadian artists took a hit, with $110 million in sales in 2003, down from $154 million in 1998. However, Canadian artists' share of the market for music sold in Canada remained the same, at 16 per cent, as sales of recordings by foreign artists fell even more sharply.

Declining profitability in the industry has led to lower investment in new Canadian recording artists and music, according to the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).

"You have to treat a study like this as a wakeup call," says CRIA president Graham Henderson. "This is a terrible situation."

The CRIA estimates that sales of pirated sound recordings drained $23.5 million from the Canadian market in 2003.

It is lobbying for changes to copyright laws that would put Canada in line with its international partners in protecting against piracy and clarifying electronic rights. A bill has undergone first reading in Parliament, but any changes likely wouldn't take effect for more than a year.

The hardest hit part of the industry is rock and pop, the sector where music is most likely to be downloaded, the StatsCan study showed.

Henderson said industry studies show that independent artists are being squeezed. "We have standout artists in this country who don't generate enough money from their record sales to keep their careers going," he said.

Sales of classical, country, jazz and blues continued to rise and consequently made up a larger share of the market. Sales of music-themed DVDs and concert videos also appeared to be up.

Since 2003, increased opportunities for legal downloading, chiefly through Apple's iTunes, have begun to reverse the decline in the industry in some countries. In Canada, sales are not falling as quickly and may have stabilized, Henderson said.

Recording companies issued 5,619 new releases in 2003, down from 6,654 in 2000. Only 904 belonged to Canadian artists, the first time in more than five years that their output fell below the 1,000 mark.

There were 300 recording companies in 2003, with many smaller record labels entering and leaving the market rapidly.

Profit margins fell to a slim 2.6 per cent in 2003, down from 11.9 per cent in 1998, a year before Napster introduced illegal downloading to the world. Company profits in Canada combined totalled only $30.5 million.

According to the 2003 Survey of Household Spending, Canadian households spent an average of $118 annually on recordings, but almost $464 on rental of cablevision and satellite services.

This is the last post I will ever do on this subject. Here's hoping it goes away!

Janet: I'm No Mother

Janet Jackson does not have any children that she knows of.

The famously secretive pop star broke her silence Wednesday on assertions by her former brother-in-law that she had a secret 18-year-old daughter.

"I do not have a child, and all allegations saying so are false," Jackson said in a brief statement.

Jackson did not mention ex-husband James DeBarge. She didn't have to--Young DeBarge, one of James DeBarge's brothers, did that himself last Friday during an interview on New York City's WQHT-FM ("Hot 97").

Young DeBarge said on the air that his brother and Jackson, who were briefly married from 1984 to 1985, had a baby together. The child, named Renee, was raised by Jackson's eldest sister, Rebbie, he said.

When not dishing on family gossip, Young DeBarge was said to be promoting an upcoming album.

Jackson, meanwhile, reportedly was moving on to more pressing matters--namely, trying to get a stalkerazzi video of her backyard sunbathing routine off the Internet, MSNBC.com said.

The clip, making the rounds for about a month, shows a slap-happy Jackson playing her bare bottom "like bongos," as the New York Post originally put it. "I believe that she's particularly unhappy about this video because she’s not in great shape," a source told MSNBC.com's Jeannette Walls.

Jackson, 39, prefers to show off her shape at the Super Bowl.

Fall Music Preview 2005

From OutKast to the Darkness, a first look at fall's 20 biggest CDs

OCTOBER
Alicia Keys
Alicia keys Unplugged
Out October 11th

"I wanted to be able to bring it back to the essence of me as a performer: intimate and personal," says Keys of her Unplugged disc, recorded live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on July 14th. In addition to pared-down versions of songs from her two previous albums ("A Woman's Worth," "Fallin' "), Keys duetted with Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine on a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses"; teamed with Common, Mos Def and Damian Marley for a fusion of Keys' "Love It or Leave It Alone" and Marley's "Welcome to Jam Rock"; and debuted two new songs: "Unbreakable," which is already in heavy rotation on MTV, and "Stolen Moments," co-written by Al Green.

Ashlee Simpson
I Am Me
Out October 18th

Simpson re-teams with hot producer John Shanks for a disc of chart-killing teen pop that takes its cues from grown-up rockers. The first single, "Boyfriend," is as close to Franz Ferdinand as a pop tart may dare go, with a jittery dance-rock guitar hook. The piano ballad "Beautifully Broken" chronicles the aftermath of her SNL lip-sync fiasco in a way that almost elicits sympathy -- and it doesn't hurt that the intro sounds exactly like Oasis' "Wonderwall."

Depeche Mode
Playing the Angel
Out October 18th

"It's rockier than our traditional stuff," says Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan about his band's eleventh studio album, on which Blur producer Ben Hillier added heavier guitar and drums to the band's analog-synth-driven sound. Recorded after Gahan got sober following decades of struggling with addiction, the album provides clear evidence that the goth godfathers are still as into pain and suffering as ever. Says Gahan, "That's kind of our MO."

Rod Stewart
Thanks for the memory . . . The Great American Songbook: Volume IV
Out October 18th

For the fourth volume of his Great American Songbook series, Stewart tackles fourteen more classics, including "Long Ago and Far Away," and "Makin' Whoopee," on which he duets with Elton John. "I bring a new emotion and a voice that people haven't heard singing these kinds of songs," says Stewart. Though Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" doesn't fit into Stewart's loose rule of including only songs cut "between the two Great Wars," he wanted to give props to the man who inspired his career. Says Stewart, "No Sam, no Rod."

NOVEMBER

Burt Bacharach
At this Time
Out November 1st

In an awesomely weird pairing, seventy-seven-year-old swinger Bacharach recruited Dr. Dre to provide Snoop-worthy bass-and-drum loops for three songs on his new disc. Bacharach says he is "not necessarily" a big fan of rap. "I'm a big fan of Dre's. The guy gets the most unbelievable sounds." Elvis Costello and Rufus Wainwright also make appearances on the album, which pairs Bacharach's lush orchestral arrangements with angry lyrics about the Bush administration. "I spent all this time writing love songs," he says. "I never rocked the boat. If I lose some fans, that's OK."

Trey Anastasio
Shine
Out November 1st

For his first collection of songs since Phish broke up last year, Anastasio left the comfort of his converted-barn studio in Vermont to work with Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam producer Brendan O'Brien in Atlanta. "A lot of it was based on Brendan teaching me how to make a record," says Anastasio. "We had two days with me, Brendan and [Bob Dylan and John Mellencamp drummer] Kenny Aronoff playing like a power trio. Brendan's a motherfucker on the bass." The resulting disc is surprisingly noodle-free, with twelve uptempo rockers that are more Beatles than Zappa.

Santana
All That I Am
Out November 1st

"The only thing I won't do is something that is fake, superficial and shallow," says Carlos Santana, who jams with musicians from Sean Paul to Kirk Hammett on his latest guest-laden album. Steven Tyler sings the power ballad "Just Feel Better"; American Idol rocker Bo Bice belts the "Smooth"-style "Brown Skin Girl"; and Mary J. Blige duets with Big Boi on the R&B tune "My Man." "I don't listen to the radio," says Santana, crediting executive producer Clive Davis with picking many of the guests. More familiar faces were his tourmates Los Lonely Boys, who contributed the slinky "I Don't Wanna Lose Your Love," and Michelle Branch, whose acoustic pop tune "I'm Feeling You" is her second Santana collaboration, following 2002's "The Game of Love." But Santana is determined to keep broadening his group's sound. "A lot of musicians say, 'I don't do windows,' " Santana says. "But to me, life is a big window. So if I don't want to do windows, I shouldn't be on this planet."

Neil Diamond
12 Songs
Out November 8th

Though Diamond is better known now for wearing sequined jumpsuits and making middle-aged women weak in the knees, in the 1960s he was a cool young New York singer-songwriter. On the new disc, Rick Rubin -- who produced Johnny Cash's American Recordings series -- recaptures the spirit of awesome early recordings including "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman." "Rick really pressured me to get back to those times," says Diamond. "Those records were very minimalist -- get a small rhythm group, add some hand claps, mix it up and send it out."

50 Cent
Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture "Get Rich or Die Tryin' "
Out November 8th

"Every song has something that ties it to the actual film," says 50 Cent of the tracks he wrote to accompany his 8 Mile-style new movie, Get Rich or Die Tryin'. The first single, "Hustler's Ambition," defines 50's alter ego, Marcus, a poor kid from the Bronx (not 50's Queens) who goes from slinging drugs to spitting rhymes. The second, "Window Shopping," backs a scene where Marcus longs for expensive sneakers. The album, with production from Dr. Dre and Hi-Tek, also includes a likely third single, "We Don't Need No Help," with Young Buck. Says 50, "It's a new version of N.W.A's 'Fuck Tha Police' with a Southern twist."

Big and Rich
Comin' To Your City
Out November 15th

On Comin' to Your City, Nashville duo Big and Rich beef up the genre-crossing, party-starting stomp of their multiplatinum 2004 debut, Horse of a Different Color. Recorded with the duo's five-piece touring band, City drops elegantly harmonized ballads ("Never Mind Me"), jokey honky-tonk ("20 Margaritas") and disco-flavored rapping ("Caught Up in the Moment") amid barnburners such as "Soul Shaker" and the AC/DC-gone-South title track.

Pharrell
In My Mind
Out November 15th

Perhaps only Pharrell Williams -- half of the most sought-after production team in pop music, the Neptunes -- could get Gwen Stefani to guest on a song where her entire contribution is five spoken words repeated ad nauseam: "You got it like that." Stefani answers Williams' titular question on "Can I Have It Like That," the first single from Williams' solo debut -- which also features guest spots from Jay-Z and Slim Thug. The disc is divided into two halves: seven tracks of club-banging hip-hop, seven of smooth R&B grooves. "You have the personality with your girl, and you have your macho mannerisms," Williams says. "You got all these characteristics that make up your personality. This is an album I've been working on all my life."

Bruce Springsteen
Born to Run: 30th Anniversary Edition
Out November 15th

A newly remastered version of Springsteen's 1975 masterpiece is just the beginning of this unique CD-plus-two-DVDs reissue package. One DVD showcases long-buried footage of a full E Street Band concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon from 1975, including performances of "Backstreets," "Lost in the Flood" and "Kitty's Back." The other contains Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run, a ninety-minute documentary that includes new interviews with Springsteen and the E Streeters (including former drummer Ernest "Boom" Carter and pre-Roy Bittan pianist David Sancious).

Madonna
Confessions on a Dancefloor
Out November 15th

After 2003's underwhelming disc of electronic folk, American Life, the Material Girl returns to the dance floor with Confessions. The disco-friendly vibe is announced by the first single, "Hung Up," which samples the opening keyboards from Abba's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" Madonna recruited Stuart Price -- a London DJ and the keyboardist on her Re-Invention tour -- to produce the disc, but don't think she didn't express herself during the recording process. "People always think that it's just some guy behind her coming up with all the ideas," says Price. "She's very underrated as a producer."

Fort Minor
The Rising Tied
Out November 22nd

Linkin Park rapper Mike Shinoda gets in touch with his hip-hop roots on his Fort Minor side project -- which gets a boost from heavy-spitters Common, Black Thought of the Roots and Jay-Z. "I thoroughly enjoy what I do in Linkin Park," says Shinoda. "But the first Fort Minor songs were recorded because I got frustrated that I hadn't made a pure hip-hop song in a while." Shinoda plays nearly every instrument on The Rising Tied, which also features new faces such as Styles of Beyond and Linkin Park's nineteen-year-old protege, Holly Brook. Says Shinoda, "I've got some up-and-comers on there who are very hungry."

Jamie Foxx
Unpredictable
Out November 22nd

Foxx is cashing in on the musical cred he earned through his remarkable Ray performance with his new album, Unpredictable. "We wanted to stay young and up," Foxx says, citing the feel of his first hit single, "Extravaganza," a collaboration with Kanye West that's currently burning up urban radio. "But the meat of the album is more musical, more piano -- back to how I really get down." Many of Foxx's seductive new tunes, including "Can I Take You Home," "DJ Play a Love Song" and "V.I.P.," find middle ground between his gospel and soul roots and the laid-back beats and raps provided by guests Busta Rhymes, Pharrell Williams, Ludacris, and Twista. Foxx and his friends recorded the bulk of Unpredictable on the set of the actor's next film, Miami Vice. "Timbaland allowed me to use his bus -- it has a studio in it," he says. "So I'd come right off the set, get on the bus and keep cutting and grinding."

System of a Down
Hypnotize
Out November 22nd

"I can't say I sat down and tried to make a dark record," says System of a Down guitarist and songwriter Daron Malakian. "I guess you could say it's a reflection of the times." System recorded Hypnotize at the same time as May's Mezmerize and, like its predecessor, it's full of apocalyptic anti-war lyrics paired with guided-missile guitar riffs and exotic melodies. And in the spirit of Mezmerize's "B.Y.O.B.," the band's catchiest song ever, there are some surprisingly pop-friendly moments, including the heart-baring ballad "Lonely Day." "I used to be more focused on 'Let's get it heavy,' " says Malakian. "Now I'm more focused on 'Let's get some emotion out." Malakian adds that Hypnotize isn't just a sequel to Mezmerize. "We don't look at them as two records, we look at them as one record," he says. "It feels like people haven't heard the whole album yet."

The Darkness
One Way Ticket to Hell . . . and Back
Out November 29th

It wasn't enough to sound like Queen -- for their second album, the Darkness teamed with Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker and even recorded some of the disc at Rockfield Studios in Wales, where Freddie Mercury and Co. cut "Bohemian Rhapsody." The ten tracks continue in the anthemic head-banging vein of the fabulously trashy Permission to Land, recalling the Eighties hair-metal excesses of Def Leppard and Whitesnake. The album's first single, "One Way Ticket," features a pan-flute intro immediately followed by the distinct sound of someone cutting up and snorting a line of cocaine. "It's a song of redemption, really," says singer Justin Hawkins, who spent part of last year in rehab. "It talks about drugs, the inevitable downward slide into hell, and how it's never too late to turn back."

Shakira
Oral fixation, Vol. 2
Out November 29th

After scoring a Top Ten hit earlier this year with the Spanish-language album Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1, Shakira is back with an English sequel. "The Spanish album is strictly romantic," she says. "But the English album embraces more social-oriented topics." Featuring a guest performance by Carlos Santana on "Illegal," the disc, like its predecessor, was executive-produced by Rick Rubin. As for putting out so much material in one year, the Colombian singer says, "I just kept writing, and one day I found myself with sixty songs. It was a good problem to have, but it was still a problem."

Notorious B.I.G.
The NOTORIOUS B.I.G. DUETS
Out November 29th

Biggie's posthumous output has been limited compared with the steady stream of releases from fellow slain rapper Tupac Shakur -- which makes this duets album a potentially notable event. The first single, "Hold Ya Head," teams Biggie with another late legend, Bob Marley, and other songs will have him trading verses with various yet-to-be-announced artists. A companion DVD will include live footage and other bonuses.

DECEMBER

OutKast
Idlewild
Out December 6th

"It's like an OutKast record on film," says Big Boi of the soundtrack to the rap duo's new musical film, tentatively titled Idlewild. Set in the Depression-era South, the movie, which will be released in theaters on January 6th, follows the story of a struggling musician (played by Andre 3000) and a lovable Lothario (Big Boi). "Since it's in the Thirties, we didn't want to use too many synthesizers and keys," says Big, who adds that the duo mined its vault of unreleased and unfinished tracks for the album. The first single, "Idlewild Blues," is a jazzy romp loaded with drum stomps, muffled trumpets and piano; Dre gives his best Cab Calloway impersonation, and Big flips his hallmark spitfire rhymes. "It's a juke-joint jam," says Big. "I don't know if you can categorize it as a rap song."

It comes out on Tuesday, baby!! Tuesday!!

REJECTS OF THE 'SITH'

It's everything you ever wanted to know about "Sith" but were afraid to ask.

Here's a peek at two scenes added to the DVD of the sixth and final chapter of the "Star Wars" series, in stores next week. The two-disc "Revenge of the Sith" set, available in full-screen or widescreen, features a handful of deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, game demos, photo galleries and even a preview of "Hyperspace, the ultimate online Star Wars experience."

Though director George Lucas has said much of his deleted material focuses on the Senate, at least one scene features some good, old-fashioned lightsaber fighting.

In "General Grievous Slaughters a Jedi," which adds to a rescue sequence early in the film, Anakin (Hayden Christensen) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) battle a throng of droids - led by cyborg General Grievous himself - and then cut through the floor to escape.

The scene also connects to the animated "Clone Wars" series, as Grievous kills a Jedi prisoner he took in the Cartoon Network prequel.

In another deleted scene, Chancellor Palpatine plants further tension between Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) and Anakin.

Also included is the lone scene featuring actress Bai Ling, who ended up on the cutting-room floor - reportedly because she posed topless in Playboy before the film's release.

In "The Seeds of Rebellion," Ling plays a senator working with Amidala to thwart the plans of the chancellor. Her one line? "That would be dangerous."

(Too bad someone didn't tell her that before the Playboy shoot.)

I have said it before, and I will say it again: This would be so cool!!

ABC's Muppet Makeover

Think of it as the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational reality show around.

After plunking down a whopping $90 million last year for rights to Kermit and cohorts, Disney is hoping to relaunch the Muppets on a prime-time ABC series parodying such unscripted hits as American Idol and America's Next Top Model.

A network rep says the Muppet project is in the extremely early stages of development. But ABC has ordered a pilot script and five additional script outlines for America's Next Muppet, which will see Kermit's crew trying out would-be Muppets to join the pantheon of beloved Jim Henson creations like Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, the Swedish Chef, Scooter, Rowlf, Janice, Dr. Teeth, Animal, Dr. Bunson Honeydew, Beeker and a certain amphibian.

While there's been no official word on who'll judge the contestants, we think Statler and Waldorf would be naturals. And with Paula Abdul and Tyra Banks already tied up with their own day jobs, the diva role would be perfect for, oui, Miss Piggy.

Who knows, if America's Next Muppet takes off, maybe we can look forward to Muppet Survivor, The Amazing Muppet Race or Extreme Makeover: Muppet Edition.

Since assuming control of Henson's iconic characters, the Mouse House has moved swiftly to reintroduce the Muppets to new generations unfamiliar with The Muppet Show, which aired in syndication from 1976 to 1981 and spawned the feature films The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1983).

Henson died unexpectedly of a bacterial infection on May 16, 1990--the same day he was set to sign a deal licensing the characters to Disney. During the 1990s, the franchise floundered, despite movies like A Muppet Christmas Carol and A Muppet Treasure Island and the short-lived TV revival, Muppets, Tonight, which aired on ABC in 1996 before moving to the Disney Channel for one more season.

In 2000, Henson heirs Brian and Lisa Henson sold the pack of puppets to German conglomerate EM.TV for a $680 million. The company quickly announced it was going to revive The Muppet Show.

However, awash in red ink, EM.TV sold the characters back to the Hensons in 2003 for $89 million. That prompted a renewed interest on Disney's part and led to last year's deal.

Soon Mickey's minions began plotting Kermit's comeback. Disney produced the TV movie The Muppets Wizard of Oz, which attracted a solid 7.8 million viewers when broadcast on ABC last May. Statler and Waldorf will begin appearing on Disney's movies.com Website this week.

And the company is currently celebrating Kermit's 50th anniversary with a world tour that saw the Muppets stop at the Statue of Liberty, run with the Bulls in Pamplona, trade smooches at a kissing booth at the Eiffel Tower, attend a frog-leg festival, climb the Great Wall of China and, naturally, receive a key to Kermit, Texas, where the road show touched down last week.

Even the U.S. Postal Service is getting involved, honoring Kermit & Co. with their own set of stamps.

Who said it wasn't easy being green?

I have one of these now, it is called my computer! But I would also love to get this!!! Wow!!!

ALL BRUCE, ALL THE TIME

Sirius Satellite Radio launching E Street Radio, a channel devoted entirely to the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, on Nov. 1.

This is wyrd!! (Please don't sue me!!)

"Harry," Pulp & Radiohead's Wyrd World

Pulp's Jarvis Cocker is a Harry Potter fan. Canadian folk band the Wyrd Sisters--not so much.

The Winnipeg-based group has conjured up a $40 million lawsuit seeking to block the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in North America all because the film features a performance with a same-named band fronted by Cocker and backed by members of Radiohead.

The suit was filed late last month in both the U.S. and Canada and touched off a firestorm in the blogosphere as fans of Potter, Radiohead and Pulp threatened to go Dark Arts on the Canadian group.

In the original book, Potter scribe J.K. Rowling christened the band the Weird Sisters, but Warner Bros. changed the spelling to Wyrd for the movie. In both the book and film, the magical group plays a party attended by Harry and pals. The film's band consists of Cocker along with Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway (reportedly subbing for Franz Ferdinand, which turned down the gig).

According to the lawyer for the Wyrd Sisters, the band was tipped off that Goblet used the moniker back in June, when Warners offered the trio $5,000 for name rights. The band, which has been together for 15 years, refused. Warners reportedly upped the offer to $50,000. No dice.

The group then launched their lawsuit, seeking $40 million in damages from Warner Bros., as well as Cocker, Greenwood and Selway. The real Wyrds are also asking that the film be blocked from release on Nov. 18.

Now, Warners says it has removed any reference to the band, Weird or Wyrd, from the film and soundtrack.

"The name the Weird Sisters is not being used either in the film or on its soundtrack and we've submitted sworn affidavits to the court stating that fact," the studio said in a statement Tuesday. "Last week, we even showed plaintiff's counsel the film in its entirety to prove that point."

The statemenet may, or may not, be good enough for the Wyrd camp.

"Until recently Warner had them credited and the official word was that the name of the band was 'The Wyrd Sisters'," the group's lawyer, Kimberly Townley-Smith, said in a posting on the band's Website. "They've already created an association between the name and the band and that's all you need."

Or, as the band's singer and cofounder Kim Baryluk told the music site ChartAttack.com: "They are so much more huge than us in their reach that we'll go out on tour a month after the movie comes out--and we'll go all over to Australia, to New Zealand--and people will wonder who are these strange people stealing the Harry Potter name."

As the Wyrd dispute winds its way through the legal system, it's proving difficult for Warner Music's marketing group to hype the soundtrack, which is eagerly anticipated by alt-rock fans.

In a press release announcing the album, due Nov. 15, Warners simply says there are three original tunes performed by the now unnamed band: "Do the Hippogriff," "This Is the Night" and "Magic Works."

Cocker, who wrote two of the Goblet tracks, told E! Online Monday that he was proud of the project.

He was making an L.A. appearance at the small Los Angeles club Tangier, where he tried out a new song that may well end up on his forthcoming solo debut, titled "C--ts Are Still Running the World," with a little help on stage from former Beck drummer Joey Waronker and Donnie Darko composer Michael Andrews on guitar.

However, he did seem a bit taken aback by the Wyrd folkie attack.

"I didn't know they had lawyers in Canada," the singer deadpanned before playing the pick-up gig Monday night.

"I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite."

Because they need the money (both The Rolling Stones and Starbucks)!!

Rolling Stones dig up rare songs for Starbucks CD

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones will release an album of rare tracks next month in partnership with coffee retailer Starbucks Corp. and the group's Virgin Records label, the partners said on Tuesday.

"Rarities 1971-2003" will be released simultaneously on November 22 in both Starbucks-owned outlets and in traditional music stores across the United States and Canada. Virgin, a unit of Britain's EMI Group Plc., will handle the foreign release by itself.

The nonexclusive deal marks a departure from recent controversial arrangements Starbucks has had with other major artists. Pop singer Alanis Morissette allowed Starbucks to sell her latest album six weeks before everyone else, resulting in the HMV chain in her native Canada pulling her other albums off its racks in protest.

The Stones, currently on a tour of North America, suffered a similar fate from some retailers in 2003 when they gave electronics chain Best Buy Co. Inc. an exclusive sales window for a DVD package.

Starbucks, which has aimed to boost revenue by adding small CD kiosks in stores, has enjoyed its biggest success with Ray Charles' Grammy-winning posthumous album "Genius Loves Company," which was a nonexclusive release.

The album has sold about 3.1 million copies in the U.S. with Starbucks accounting for about 730,000 copies, according to Charles' Concord Records label.

The new Stones disc boasts 16 tracks, including live versions of concert staples like "Tumbling Dice" and "Beast of Burden," dance remixes of songs like "Miss You" and "Harlem Shuffle" and b-sides, such as their live 1971 cover of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock." All have been previously released, but some are hard to find. The band has been wary of releasing old gems as it prefers to keep the focus on its new material.

"With every studio session, there are always songs that never appear on the final album and at the time you think, what a shame that song did not make it," Stones vocalist Mick Jagger was quoted as saying in a statement.

It will reach stores just 11 weeks after the Stones released their first studio album in eight years, "A Bigger Bang." Despite critical acclaim and heavy publicity surrounding the tour, the Virgin release has been a commercial disappointment, debuting at No. 3 on the U.S. pop charts, and sliding to No. 63 in its sixth week, with cumulative sales of 295,000 copies, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan.

Starbucks was involved in the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of "Rarities," but Starbucks Entertainment president Ken Lombard declined to offer financial specifics.

"We felt this was an exciting project and a perfect fit for what we're trying to provide to our customers," he said in an interview.

Lombard said Starbucks has been working with the Stones' management since they partnered on a 2003 album in the chain's "Artist's Choice" series, where musicians choose their favorite songs and discuss their impact.

I like my iTunes!

IMesh Rolls Out New File-Sharing Software

LOS ANGELES - Popular peer-to-peer, file-sharing service iMesh introduced new software Tuesday that allows users to legally share and buy music online.

The service offers access to 17 million music files. About 15 million will be available for free. Another 2 million protected releases will be sold for 99 cents per song, with the company paying record labels a portion of the revenue from each downloaded or shared song.

The new service is being offered free for a 30-60 day introductory period, and will cost $6.95 a month after that.

"This takes the peer-to-peer experience, turns it on its ear and it becomes a pay service," said Bob Summer, executive chairman of iMesh.

The move comes after New York-based iMesh paid $4.1 million to the recording industry in July 2004 to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit. The firm also agreed to block users from trading unauthorized copies of songs.

For years, peer-to-peer networks have made it simple to illegally share music online. Music labels claim illegal downloads have cut into sales, while analysts say high CD prices and musical quality also share part of the blame.

Users of iMesh can now legally access songs through the Gnutella network, where musicians and others post music for free sharing. In addition, songs can be bought from the four major music conglomerates.

Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said iMesh is another example of the growing online marketplace that respects the rights of musicians, songwriters, record labels and others.

"It is a significant moment in the transformation of the peer-to-peer model," he said.

This would be, will be cool!!

Muppets pull strings at ABC

Reality skein has viewers pick next big kiddie character

The Muppets are plotting a return to primetime while looking for their next great character.

ABC has ordered a script and five script outlines for "America's Next Muppet," a reality TV parody in which viewers may actually get a chance to pick Kermit and Miss Piggy's latest colleague.

ABC and Disney remain tight-lipped on the project, although word of the project first leaked last month to several Muppets fan Web sites. But it appears that the new Muppet project would borrow from shows like "American Idol" and "America's Next Top Model" as judges (Kermit? Statler and Waldorf? Animal?) comb through several new characters to select a major Muppet.

Since acquiring rights to the Muppet characters in 2004, Disney has been pursuing various ways to relaunch the popular brand as part of an overall corporate goal. Alphabet web last May aired telepic "The Muppets Wizard of Oz," which performed solidly (7.8 million viewers), particularly with adults 18-34, teens and kids.

"America's Next Muppet" would rep the first Muppets TV program since "Muppets Tonight," which briefly aired on ABC in 1996 (moving with additional episodes to the Disney Channel for one more year). That show also parodied the TV biz, as the Muppets ran a variety show on "KMUP-TV."

The original "Muppet Show" ran in syndication for 120 episodes between 1976 and 1981.

"What should we rent? "Herbie" or "SCTV"?!?"

The Couch Potato Report - October 25th, 2005

This week The Couch Potato Report features some things you never need to see twice, and some that can be watched over and over and over again!

There are only a few hour long television shows that I can watch a second, or third time. For some reason, after the drama has played out, and I know what happens, I just can't enjoy them any more.

For instance, I have enjoyed almost every episode I have seen of "The West Wing", "24", "Law & Order", "Homicide", and "Kojack" on television, but when I sat down to watch their respective DVD sets I was,...well I was bored.

There are exceptions, notably "The X-Files", "Miami Vice" and "Lost", but for the most part I just can't get into most of these hour long dramas the second time around.

And the same is true with the show ALIAS. When the show began airing new episodes for it's fourth season in January I made a point to be home every Wednesday night to watch them.

However when I sat down this past week to watch the 6-DVD Box Set for ALIAS - THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON, I could barely get through it.

Now, if you didn't make a point of being home every Wednesday from January to May of this year just so you could watch a TV show about Sydney Bristow, an international spy recruited out of college and trained for espionage and self-defense, then maybe you will enjoy this box set.

As for me, well, I got through it, and there were episodes I mildly enjoyed, but I was,...well, I was bored.

But, I am still glad I had the set to watch as it has a wide array of extras.

In addition to featuring all 22 Episodes from the fourth season, the Box Set includes an interview with star Jennifer Garner, a Director's Diary, Blooper Reel, Deleted Scenes, commentary of four episodes, and much more!

In ALIAS - THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON family secrets come to light and old foes once again return. It is a season of betrayal, suspense, and one of the best season cliffhangers ever!

That is, if you have never seen it before.

I recommend this box set, because I know what it entails, but that doesn't mean I will ever watch it again.

I also doubt I will ever watch HERBIE: FULLY LOADED again.

That isn't because it is a bad film, it just doesn't have anything that would make me watch it again.

And that is too bad as I have watched the original Herbie movie THE LOVE BUG, and all of it's sequels many times since I started watching movies in the early 1970s.

I love all of these films about a Volkswagon Bug with a mind and a heart of its own.

But with HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, I guess it is time to realize that I am too old for this franchise, and just pass it on to the youth of today.

So youth, in HERBIE: FULLY LOADED, Lindsay Lohan from MEAN GIRLS stars as a woman who gets an old Volkswagen Beetle for a graduation present.

She soon ends up racing against a champion in the sport on her way to a very satisfying conclusion.

Luckily for the viewer, Lohan and the entire cast realizes that they aren't making an Oscar winning picture so they just have fun with the material.

The result is an entertaining enough film that the whole family can enjoy.

The whole family might not ever need to see it twice, but they will enjoy it.

Now, if there are things that you never need to see again, then there must be things that must be seen a second time. Or third, or fourth...

Some of those exact things are collected on THE LOONEY TUNES - GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE.

If you missed my reviews of the original THE LOONEY TUNES - GOLDEN COLLECTION, or my review of THE LOONEY TUNES - GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME TWO I will tell you that I called them both "incredible anthologies of classic cartoons."

Now that THE LOONEY TUNES - GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE is available, I hope it doesn't come as too big a shock when I proclaim this new 4-disc set with 60 more of the most legendary cartoons ever created to also be "an incredible anthology of classic cartoons."

VOLUME THREE's cartoons range from the debut of Porky Pig in 1935 to the end of the Warner Bros. animation studio in 1963.

Plus, each of the four discs has a varied lineup of cartoons so you don't end up watching cartoon after cartoon of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, or Road Runner. Each disc has a few of everyone!

A few of everyone, and a few for everyone!

THE LOONEY TUNES - GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE is a must own for all fans of animation.

And so is this week's first "Leftover!"

The classic Disney animated film CINDERELLA was released on DVD for the first time on October 4th and the studio did a great job with their 2-disc DISNEY SPECIAL PLATINUM EDITION.

This version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale was first produced in 1950. To this day it remains one of the most enduring animated films of all time.

As superb as the film is, the best part of this PLATINUM EDITION are the supplemental features. Those features are a wealth of archival material and they include "The Cinderella That Almost Was," a feature that tracks the development of the project through decades of original Disney concepts, characters, and songs.

If you or your kids have been waiting for this film to come out on DVD then I guess it is as CINDERELLA's classic song says "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes."

Our second "leftover" this week is SCTV - VOLUME 4.

When these shows originally aired Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis and Catherine O'Hara had departed the series, Martin Short became a superstar in their absence.

The VOLUME 4 box set does feature the SCTV parodies of "The Towering Inferno," "Christmas Specials," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Sweeps Week", along with musical guests John Cougar Mellencamp, Joe Walsh, and Crystal Gayle, but the primary reason this box is a must have for comedy lovers is because it contains the episodes that parody the CBC.

In that same episode is the parody of the early seventies Canadian film "Going Down The Road", which is just as much an integral part of Canadiana as the movie it spoofs.

SCTV - VOLUME 4 is classic Canadian comedy and it is available now at a store near you. For that matter, so are the CINDERELLA DISNEY SPECIAL PLATINUM EDITION, THE LOONEY TUNES - GOLDEN COLLECTION: VOLUME THREE, HERIE: FULLY LOADED, and ALIAS - THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON.

Coming up in the next Couch Potato Report

The saga concludes with STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH!!

Finally, we get to see Anakin Skywalker turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader!

We will also get to see Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn starring in THE INTERPRETER; John Belushi, Gilda Radner and the Not Ready For Prime Time Players in SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: LIVE FROM NEW YORK - THE FIRST FIVE YEARS and ALF - SEASON TWO features...Alf.

Remember him?

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next week on The Couch.

Welcome back, Melissa!

Etheridge Back on Track

Rocker returns with hits package, MTV special and ABC sitcom in the works

Officially cancer-free for the first time since she was diagnosed last fall, Melissa Etheridge has plunged back into her career -- with a greatest-hits album including four new songs; a sitcom she's developing for ABC; a new breast-cancer charity single; and an appearance at a UCLA biology class for an MTV special.

"I'm feeling great -- wonderful and just fine," says Etheridge. "My energy is back."

Etheridge's greatest-hits collection, The Road Less Traveled, debuted at Number Fourteen on the Billboard charts last week. The seventeen-song retrospective includes smash hits ("Come to My Window," "Bring Me Some Water") and four new recordings: her Grammy duet with Joss Stone on "Piece of My Heart," from earlier this year; a raucous cover of Tom Petty's "Refugee"; and her own "This Is Not Goodbye" and the hard-rocking breast-cancer-awareness anthem "I Run for Life" (which is also available on iTunes, with the proceeds going to breast-cancer-research charities).

"My writing comes from what I feel and know and think and dream, and cancer is now a part of that," she says. "I have a new perspective and focus on life -- so all that's going to come into my music."

Earlier this month, for MTVU's Stand-In, Etheridge showed up unannounced at a UCLA cancer-biology class to answer questions about being diagnosed with breast cancer and overcoming it with chemotherapy so painful that it hurt her ears to listen to music. "I've been a rock star since you were very young, but I've never encountered anything as powerful as cancer," she said during her hour with the class. "At this point, shoot -- everyone's asked me everything," she tells Rolling Stone magazine. "It's good for me to process this with people."

In 2006, Etheridge hopes to release an album of new material -- she has a notebook full of songs -- and possibly tour during the summer. She's also developing an ABC sitcom with That '70s Show producer Linda Wallem that could debut next spring. "It's just a blue-girl-in-a-red-state sort of story," Etheridge says. The show, which she'll star in, is about what the singer's life might be like had she stayed in her hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas, and worked as a music teacher.

Her practical reason for the TV show is to have a stable gig (with summers off for touring) so she can stay home most of the year with her family. But there's another reason: "I figure I really have to balance out the Hilary Duffs and the Lindsay Lohans," she says. "They came over and played in my field. I have to play in theirs."

Look at it this way, it can't be worse than the original!

'Fantastic' Sequel Gets 2007 Release Date

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)- It'll be mutants battling robots for July 4th supremacy in 2007.

Marvel and 20th Century Fox have taken out ads in the industry trade papers announcing that "Fantastic Four II" (or "Fantastic 2") will premiere on July 4, 2007. Even two years out, though, that date is already getting crowded. During the summer, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, Inc. laid their claim to the weekend for Michael Bay's "Transformers" feature.

Stars Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd are apparently under contract to reprise their roles from the summer hit that has taken in over $321 million worldwide. The film's domestic take has been over $150 million, a strong total for a film that was largely critically savages.

While promoting her September release "Into the Blue," Alba discussed her hopes for the future of her Sue Storm character and Gruffudd's Reed Richards.

"Married -- I think they need to get married," she said. "I know what the first 20 minutes are gonna be, of the movie. It's really cool. They're getting married. Maybe I'm giving away too much, but yeah."

For anything beyond that, though, fans may just need to wait.

I knew there was a reason not to buy one!

Apple Faces Suit Over iPod Nano

Apple Computer Inc. faces a lawsuit that alleges the company knew its nano portable music player was defective but still decided to press on with the product's release last month.

The lawsuit depends on a judge to decide whether it can be grouped with other complaints to win class action status. Sales of iPods account for almost a third of Apple's sales.

The credit card-sized nano, which replaced the best-selling iPod mini and is smaller than the traditional iPod, met with rave reviews. But users quickly started grumbling on Internet message boards that the device's screen scratches too easily.

The lawsuit, filed in San Jose, Calif., last week, claims that the nano scratches "excessively during normal usage." It alleges that though Apple knew the nano had design problems, it released the product and led consumers to believe it was durable -- forcing them to shoulder the cost of replacing defective music players.

The complaint blames the nano's defectiveness on the film of plastic resin that covers it to protect it from damage. Previous versions of the iPod were coated with thicker and stronger resin, the suit says.

"Rather than admit the design flaw when consumers began to express widespread complaints ... Apple concealed the defect and advised class members that they would need to purchase additional equipment to prevent the screen from scratching excessively," the complaint says.

Apple admitted in late September that some iPod nano screens cracked too easily, but blamed that separate issue on vendor quality problems and said it had occured in less than one-tenth of 1% of the nanos sold at that point.

The plaintiff named in the California lawsuit, Jason Tomczak, bought a nano in September. He said it quickly became so scratched he could not view the screen. Apple replaced that device because of a battery problem, but the complaint claims the replacement nano also became so scratched that Tomczak decided to return it.

Because Tomczak and other complainants were required to pay a $25 fee to return the nano, the proposed class action suit seeks the return of those fees along with the device's original cost and several other forms of damages.

The suit, filed by law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, says Apple has "failed to remedy the problem in any meaningful way" and claims Apple deleted postings on its Web site that relate to the scratching problem.

A spokesperson for Apple, whose main offices are in Cupertino, Calif., could not be reached for comment.

I love the movie, but I won't buy it again!

'Titanic' rises again in 'ultimate' 3-disc set

When the special edition of Titanic arrives in stores Tuesday, movie fans will finally be able to pick up the definitive DVD version of Hollywood's biggest-grossing movie.

Director James Cameron says he's so pleased with the three-disc set ($30) that he won't go back for another round, something that has become standard practice.

Noting that his blockbuster Terminator 2 already has come out on DVD in four different incarnations, including an "ultimate edition," Cameron says: "Our intention here was to jump through all those intermediate iterations and get right to the ultimate version and tell people, point blank, this is it. This is the ultimate disc."

The film is notable not only for its $600 million gross but also for its controversy. The Titanic budget spiraled out of control to reach $200 million. And midway through production, 20th Century Fox sold half the rights to Paramount.

Cameron now concedes that even he had misgivings about whether the film would turn a profit. "It was a chick flick set in 1912, it was three hours long, and everybody dies in the end — how could it possibly be successful?" he says with a laugh.

"I don't think anybody really believed in its upside potential, myself included."

When Titanic finally hit theaters the weekend before Christmas 1997, a ho-hum opening almost led to panic in the boardrooms of both studios. But the film didn't taper off; it steadily chugged its way into the record books. It was No. 1 on the box-office charts for an astounding 15 weeks.

"That's something that simply doesn't happen anymore," says Robert Dowling of The Hollywood Reporter. Today's movies, he says, typically take in one-third of their gross the first weekend and rarely remain No. 1 for more than a week.

The controversy over the film's production probably helped, Dowling says.

"If you remember the amount of press that movie got, about people losing their jobs and how much money it was costing, that's going to stir up interest."

Titanic also was able to stay on top for so long because of repeat viewers. "What makes a movie work," Dowling says, "is it resonates with where the world is at the time, and every once in a while everything just hits the right note. And Titanic was such a movie. People felt good when they saw it, told everyone else to see it, and then if they really liked it, saw it again."

Cameron has his own theories: "There was this kind of pre-millennial angst in the air, and the film keyed to that sense of impending disaster and how important it is to live life well. The lesson of Titanic is you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or even tonight.

"People used to mock us and say, 'Well, we know how it ends.' And we said, 'Yes, you also know how your own life will end — with death.' It's just a question of what you do in the meantime."

New Tunage - Ahhhhhhh!!! The first wave of new Christmas CDs are upon us!!

NEW CD RELEASES FOR OCTOBER 25, 2005

Aerosmith Rockin' the Joint - Live from the Hard Rock (Columbia)

Agents of the Sun Monarchs of a Fallen Society (mixed by 311's Chad Sexton) (DCide)

Anthony B Confused Times (Penitentiary)

Antony & the Johnsons You Are My Sister EP (Secretly Canadian)

Arsis A Diamond for Disease (Willowtip)

The Bacon Brothers White Knuckles (Forosoco)

Rim Banna The Mirrors of My Soul (Valley)

Jeff Bates Good People (RCA)

Berlin 4Play (covers of David Bowie, Prince, Marilyn Manson and more; plus two new originals) (MRI/49 North)

Jay Bezel Diplomats Present: The Philadelphia Beast (w/Juelz Santana, Jae Millz, Freeway and more) (Sure Shot)

Bigg Milt Power 2 the People (Thump)

Black Furies Death Trip Saturday Night (Gearhead)

The Blazers 17 Jewels (Little Dog/Fontana)

Bliss Quiet Letters (guest Sophie Barker of Zero 7) (Quango)

Rick Braun Yours Truly (ARTizen)

Breakestra Hit the Floor (guest members of Jurassic 5 and People Under the Stairs) (Ubiquity)

Sarah Brightman Love Changes Everything: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection Vol. 2 (includes five previously unreleased recordings) (Decca)

Marc Broussard Bootleg to Benefit the Victims of Hurricane Katrina (Island)

Buckethead Enter the Chicken (w/System of a Down's Serj Tanakian, Saul Williams and members of Death by Stereo and Bad Acid Trip; on Tanakian's label) (Serjical Strike)

Vashti Bunyan Lookaftering (first album in 30 years; w/Devendra Banhart and members of Vetiver) (DiCristina Staircase)

Taylor Ho Bynum and SpiderMonkey Strings Other Stories (Three Suites) (482 Music)

C-BO West Side Ryders 2 (w/E40, Too Short and more) (West Coast Mafia)

Capleton The People Dem (Penitentiary/Rude Boy)

Cargo Cult Belize City Boil Up (Numero Group)

Caroline Where's My Love (Secretly Canadian)

Alain Caron 5 (BHM)

Craig Chaquico Holiday (Higher Octave)

Charivari A Trip to the Holiday Lounge (Rounder)

Children of Bodom Are You Dead Yet? (Spinefarm)

Margaret Cho Assassin (Nettwerk)

Cisco 7740 Valmont St. (Little Dog/Fontana)

Stephen Clair Under the Bed (Valley)

Cobra Killer & Kapajkos Das Mandolinenorchester (Monika)

Crimson Spectre/Uwharria Crimson Spectre/Uwharria (split CD) (Magic Bullet)

The Cumberlands Civil War Songbook Album (A Bluegrass Tribute) - Songs of Battle, Honor, Pride, Loved Ones & Home Sick Blues (Rural Rhythm)

Moot Davis Moot Davis (Little Dog/Fontana)

A Day in Black and White Notes (Level-Plane)

The Dead Science Frost Giant (Absolutely Kosher)

Dirty Faces Super American (Secretly Canadian)

Dr. Israel Presents Dreadtone Int'l - Patterns of War (ROIR)

The Drift Noumena (Secretly Canadian)

The Earlies These Were (includes early singles and EPs; released in 2004 in the UK) (Secretly Canadian)

Enter the Haggis Casualties of Retail (United for Opportunity)

Ricki Erik Born to Rock (Fontana/Universal)

Faith Evans A Faithful Christmas (Capitol)

The Fiery Furnaces Rehearsing My Choir (Rough Trade)

The Five Boroughs Doo Wop Under the Palms (Collectables)

Paula Frazer Leave the Sad Things Behind (w/members of American Music Club, Kronos Quartet, Court and Spark and more) (Birdman)

David Garfield Giving Back (Creatchy)

Goblin Cock Bagged and Boarded (Absolutely Kosher)

Delta Goodrem Born to Try (DualDisc) (Columbia)

Great Big Sea The Hard and the Easy (CD/DVD combo) (Rounder)

Joel Harrison Harrison on Harrison (covers of George Harrison songs) (HighNote)

Marcos Hernandez C About Me (TVT)

Scott Holt Revelator (Rockview)

Hoods The King Is Dead (Eulogy)

I Am Ghost We Are Always Searching EP (Epitaph)

Icarus Witch Capture the Magic (guest members of Dokken and Fates Warning) (Magick)

Idaho The Lone Gunman (Idaho Music)

Il Divo Ancora (Columbia)

Frankie J. The One (DualDisc) (Columbia)

Jan Jelinek Kosmischer Pitch (~scape)

Jin Emcee's Propaganda (Draft/Crafty Plugz Entertainment)

Colin John Acousticland Lady (Rockview)

Calvin Johnson Before the Dream Faded... (K Records)

LAL Warm Belly High Power (Public Transit)

The Lappetites Before the Libretto (Quecksilber)

LaSalle Expedition Songs (Thick)

Rita Lee (ex-Os Mutantes) Bossa'n Beatles (bossa nova versions of Beatles tunes) (Delanuca Records/Ghordo Music)

The LeeVees Hanukkah Rocks (Reprise)

The Living Blue Fire Blood Water (Minty Fresh)

Jacques Loussier Mozart: Piano Concertos, No. 20 in D Minor and No. 23 in A Major (Telarc)

Luciano Call on Jah (Penitentiary/Rude Boy)

Mat Maneri Pentagon (Thirsty Ear)

Mary Mary Mary Mary (Columbia)

MDD Modern Day David (Promise Communication)

The Mean Reds Together at Last, and This Is Our Wedding (Record Collection)

Meat Beat Manifesto Off Centre (w/live tracks and previously unreleased material) (Thirsty Ear)

Mezklah SpiderMonkey (Escuchalo)

Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook (DualDisc) (Columbia)

Mikoto Mikoto EP (Level-Plane)

Milemarker Ominosity (produced by Steve Albini) (Eyeball)

The Mistletoe Orchestra Yuletide Follies (Empire)

Niacin Organik (w/cover of Frank Zappa's "King Kong," plus bonus track) (Magna Carta)

Joe Nichols III (Universal South)

Nicotine Session (Asian Man)

Tony Orlando & Dawn A Christmas Reunion (first new album in 28 years; holiday standards plus three new originals) (E2 Entertainment)

Paleo Misery, Missouri (Future Farmer)

Rebecca Pidgeon Tough on Crime (guests Billy Preston and Steely Dan's Walter Becker) (The LAB)

Pinetop Seven The Night's Bloom (Secretly Canadian)

Public Announcement When the Smoke Clears (Boss Fontana)

Pull My Finger Jingle Smells (Oglio)

Queenadreena The Butcher and the Butterfly (One Little Indian)

Quio Like Oooh (AGF Producktion)

Colin Raye Twenty Years and Change (Aspiron)

Reef the Lost Cause Feast or Famine (guests Sean Price, DJ Mighty Mi and members of JuJu Mob) (Good Hands/Eastern Conference)

Renee Heartfelt Death of the Ghost (Textbook Music)

Report Suspicious Activity (w/ex-Jawbox's J. Robbins) Report Suspicious Activity (ICE #224) (Alternative Tentacles)

Rogue Wave Descended Like Vultures (Sub Pop)

Sadat X (of Brand Nubian) Experience & Education (w/Diamond D, DJ Spinna, Heltah Skeltah and more) (Female Fun)

The Satelliters The Satelliters EP (Dionysus)

Sharissa Every Beat of My Heart (guests R. Kelly, Wyclef Jean, the Game and more) (Virgin)

Lisa Shaw Lisa Shaw (Naked Music)

Silver Sunshine A Small Pocket of Pure Spirit EP (Secretly Canadian)

The Skygreen Leopards Jehovah Surrender EP (Secretly Canadian)

Slum Village Slum Village (w/bonus DVD) (Barak)

Solea (ex-Samiam members) Solea (Textbook Music)

Spanish Harlem Orchestra featuring Rubén Blades Across 110th Street (Universal)

Spyritual Wall of Soul (Kitty Yo)

St. Christopher The Art of Dreaming (AERIA)

Stereocell Into Tomorrow (Rockview)

Marty Stuart & the Fabulous Superlatives Badlands (Superlatone/Universal South)

Taken Between Two Unseens (CD/DVD combo; includes live performance) (Goodfellow)

Tall Dwarfs Weeville (Cloud)

They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs (CD/DVD combo) (Walt Disney)

Toots Thielemans Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Verve)

tok tok tok about... (BHM)

Towers of London Blood, Sweat and Towers (TVT)

Pat Travers and Carmine Appice Bazooka

True Love Wings (Not Lame)

Tom Vek We Have Sound (StarTime International)

Vida aka Electric Cowboys Prisoners of the Honky Tonk (South Central)

Vorpal An Incomplete Guide to (Cock Rock Disco)

Waldteufel Waltzes (holiday album) (Milan)

Watchmaker Erased from the Memory of Man (Willowtip)

Young Lyfe Real Lyfe (Empire)

VA A Christmas Carol - Mr. Pickwick's Christmas (Deutsche Grammophon)

VA A Country West of Nashville (w/BJ Thomas, Mike Stinson and more) (Little Dog/Fontana)

VA Aloha Margaritaville: Hawaiian Tribute to Jimmy Buffet (CMH)

VA An All Star Tribute to Cher (w/Tiffany, Lisa Loeb, Sheila E. and more) (All Starz)

VA Broken Bones and Power Chords Vol. 1: New York's Finest (new punk compilation) (Crosscheck)

VA Electronic Tribute to Depeche Mode (Vitamin)

VA Feng Shui Harmony (Sunswept)

VA Imaginational Anthem (compilation of solo acoustic guitar instrumentals from 1965-2005; ICE #224) (Near Mint)

VA Impulsive! - Revolutionary Jazz Reworked (Impulse)

VA Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling (Rhino)

VA Michael Rütten Presents: Soulsearching - The Compost Radio Show (compilation of soul, jazz, funk, electronica and hiphop) (Compost)

VA Pickin' on Brad Paisley Volume 2 (CMH)

VA Pickin' on Def Leppard: A Bluegrass Tribute (CMH)

VA Sah Presents: Supporting Radical Habits (w/Kottonmouth Kings, Slightly Stoopid and more; w/bonus DVD) (Suburban Noize)

VA Smooth Sax Tribute to Norah Jones (Tribute Sounds)

VA Smooth Sax Tribute to the Temptations' Greatest Hits (Tribute Sounds)

VA Songs from the Neighborhood: The Music of Mr. Rogers (w/Donna Summer, Roberta Flack, Amy Grant, Ricky Skaggs and more) (Memory Lane Syndication)

VA The String Quartet Tribute to System of a Down's Mezmerize (Vitamin)

VA This Bird Has Flown - A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul (w/Ben Harper, the Donnas, Sufjan Stevens, Cowboy Junkies, Low and more) (Razor & Tie)

OST Prime (Varèse Sarabande)

OST Saw II (w/exclusive remixes of Marilyn Manson, Queens of the Stone Age and more) (Treadstone)

OST Stay (score by Asche and Spencer) (Varèse Sarabande)

OST The Bee Season (score by Peter Nashel; w/original song by Ivy) (Nettwerk)

OST The Fog (score by Graeme Revell) (Varèse Sarabande)

OST The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (Milan)

OST Where the Truth Lies (score by Mychael Danna) (Varèse Sarabande)

DVD The BellRays @ the Barfly (Music Video Distributors)

DVD Blues Company Keepin' the Blues Alive (Music Video Distributors)

DVD Body Count Live (2004 Los Angeles show w/interviews and behind-the-scenes footage) (escapi/49 North)

DVD Cook, Dixon & Young Volume One (RCA)

DVD Keak da Sneak Copium (w/bonus CD) (Sumday)

DVD Mint Condition Live (Image)

DVD Mötley Crüe Carnival of Sins (two DVDs; live performance from current reunion tour w/bonus features) (Clear Channel/Ventura Entertainment)

DVD Mr. Capone-e A Soldier's Story (two DVDs) (Thump)

DVD The Notorious B.I.G. Bigga Than Life (unauthorized documentary) (Fieldstone Entertainment)

DVD Tupac Shakur Words Never Die (unauthorized documentary w/interviews, live performance and more) (Fieldstone Entertainment)

DVD Trick Daddy Thug Holiday Uncut (performances and behind-the-scenes footage; guests Ludacris, Big Boi, Lil Jon and more) (Music Video Distributors)

DVD VA Slip N Slide Presents: The Dirty South Raw & Uncut (documentary w/2 Live Crew, Goodie Mob, 69 Boyz and more) (Music Video Distributors)

This is going to be an awesome disc to listen to!!

Fogerty Back on Fantasy Records After Spar

NEW YORK - John Fogerty is back on Fantasy Records. Most music fans would gloss over such a small detail, but for years that simple statement was about as realistic as Neil Armstrong flying back to the moon.

When the California-based record label was sold last year, it ended one of the most famously contentious artist-management relationships in music, freeing the former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman to return to the company that distributed his most famous work.

Their first project together, "The Long Road Home: The Ultimate John Fogerty-Creedence Collection," is a 25-song disc that pulls together his old band's hits with Fogerty's solo material, up to the anti- Iraq war song "Deja Vu (All Over Again)." (It's being released Nov. 1.)

"There's no way to overstate how cool this is," said Fogerty.

In an almost impossibly productive period (1968-71) Creedence churned out concise, often socially conscious rock hits like "Proud Mary," "Bad Moon Rising," "Down on the Corner," "Who'll Stop the Rain" and "Green River." That burst of work alone earned Creedence induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Fogerty wrote and sang them all.

Yet Fogerty, now 60, spent years without performing those songs because of bitterness over his feud with former Fantasy owner Saul Zaentz dating to Creedence's messy breakup in the early 1970s.

Their bickering kept generations of lawyers fed. Fogerty spent years as a recluse, and his 1985 comeback album contained thinly disguised contempt in "Mr. Greed" and "Vanz Kant Danz" (renamed from "Zanz Can't Dance" after, of course, a lawsuit).

Zaentz unsuccessfully sued Fogerty, claiming the songwriter had plagiarized himself because the comeback hit "The Old Man Down the Road" sounded too much like Creedence's "Run Through the Jungle."

The fight became heartbreakingly personal when Fogerty's older brother Tom, also a former Creedence member, took Zaentz's side. The brothers were estranged at Tom's death in 1990.

The years of court time had taken such a toll that Adam Sweeting, a writer for The Guardian, wrote about Fogerty in 2000 that "it remains to be seen whether he will be remembered for his music or his lawsuits."

That's why seeing Fogerty's name willingly associated with a Fantasy product is so startling.

After the Concord Music Group, partly owned by legendary TV producer Norman Lear, bought Fantasy, Fogerty asked for a meeting with the new leadership. He came away feeling they respected him and his music. It also didn't hurt that Concord restored Fogerty's rights to royalties, which he had signed away decades ago to escape Fantasy.

They asked for Fogerty's opinion on decisions about how his old music would be used, which had never happened since his split with Zaentz.

"It's turned out to be, for me, a very, very happy, wonderful time in my life and career," he said. "Even a year ago I could not have envisioned this. The most happy thing is that I am reconnected with the music I made on Fantasy Records all those years ago, that I had basically been cut off from financially and emotionally for a long, long time."

He has also recorded a DVD that will be released sometime next year, and hopes to make new music for Fantasy soon after.

Most of Creedence's biggest hits appear in their original form on "The Long Road Home," but he replaces a handful of older songs with live versions recorded recently.

"Keep On Chooglin'" was replaced because Fogerty feels it is a substantially different song now than when he wrote it. He went with the live version of "Fortunate Son" because it's "a white-hot dose of energy," he said.

The toughest call was the live version of "Hey Tonight," which is primarily different because he did all the background vocals himself in the original version.

His current good feelings don't extend to Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, Creedence's other surviving members, whom Fogerty also sued for performing under the banner of Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

He compared them to a rattlesnake.

"They bit me very badly in the same way that the old folks at Fantasy did," he said. "That hasn't changed, so I will continue to give them a very wide berth."

Well I guess we will all sleep tonight!

Former In-Law: Janet Jackson Has Daughter

NEW YORK - Janet Jackson and James DeBarge, who were briefly married in 1984, had a daughter together, DeBarge's brother Young DeBarge has claimed on a radio program.

Young DeBarge said the child, named Renee and now 18, has been living with Rebbie Jackson, Janet's oldest sister. His comments lent support to reports that have circulated for years claiming Janet has a "secret" daughter.

Jackson's publicist didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Monday. The singer and James DeBarge were married for less than three months when she was just 18. The marriage was annulled a year later.

"James and the Jackson family kept everything real close, real tight," Young DeBarge said Friday on New York radio station WQHT, known as Hot 97. "They weren't very revealing about what the relationship was about."

"No one really knew how it was working out until things kind of surfaced," he said.

He added, "There's no telling what (Janet Jackson) is telling her."

DeBarge said Renee "is a wonderful singer."

Jackson, 39, secretly married Rene Elizondo Jr. in 1991. They separated in 1999. She is now dating Jermaine Dupri.

Young DeBarge, 28, said he has recently finished an album.

May she rest in peace!!

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

DETROIT - Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday evening. She was 92.

Mrs. Parks died at her home during the evening of natural causes, with close friends by her side, said Gregory Reed, an attorney who represented her for the past 15 years.

Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."

At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.

The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat.

Mrs. Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined $14.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said he felt a personal tie to the civil rights icon: "She stood up by sitting down. I'm only standing here because of her."

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., lauded Mrs. Parks' mettle.

"I truly believe that there's a little bit of Rosa Parks in all Americans who have the courage to say enough is enough and stand up for what they believe in," Rangel said. "She did such a small thing, but it was so courageous for her as a humble person to do."

Speaking in 1992, Mrs. Parks said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."

The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after the Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and whites were "inherently unequal," marked the start of the modern civil rights movement.

The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.

After taking her public stand for civil rights, Mrs. Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama. Amid threats and harassment, she and her husband Raymond moved to Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in the Detroit office of Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers from 1965 until retiring in 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.

Mrs. Parks became a revered figure in Detroit, where a street and middle school were named for her and a papier-mache likeness of her was featured in the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with Conyers that she wanted to devote more time to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to developing leadership among Detroit's young people and initiating them into the struggle for civil rights.

"Rosa Parks: My Story" was published in February 1992. In 1994 she brought out "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," and in 1996 a collection of letters called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth."

She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed the Million Man March in October 1995.

In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding contributions to American life. In 1999, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an NAACP Image Award for her 1999 appearance on CBS' "Touched by an Angel."

The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in November 2000 in Montgomery. The museum features a 1955-era bus and a video that recreates the conversation that preceded Parks' arrest.

"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.

"No," Parks answered.

"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.

"You may do that," Parks responded.

Mrs. Parks' later years were not without difficult moments.

In 1994, Mrs. Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old man who beat her and took $53. She was treated at a hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.

The Parks Institute struggled financially since its inception. The charity's principal activity — the annual Pathways to Freedom bus tour taking students to the sites of key events in the civil rights movement — routinely cost more money than the institute could raise.

Mrs. Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the title of a Grammy-nominated song. In 2000, she threatened legal action against an Oklahoma man who planned to auction Internet domain name rights to http://www.rosaparks.com.

After losing the OutKast lawsuit, Reed, her attorney, said Mrs. Parks "has once again suffered the pains of exploitation." A later suit against OutKast's record company was settled out of court.

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the NAACP.

Looking back in 1988, Mrs. Parks said she worried that black young people took legal equality for granted.

Older blacks, she said "have tried to shield young people from what we have suffered. And in so doing, we seem to have a more complacent attitude.

"We must double and redouble our efforts to try to say to our youth, to try to give them an inspiration, an incentive and the will to study our heritage and to know what it means to be black in America today."

At a celebration in her honor that same year, she said: "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom and peace."

If you love the TV show "lost" Stay away from this story! SPOILERS!! THere are SPOILERS!!

TIL DEATH DO US PART

"Lost" fans are getting ready for a second funeral.

The show has promised to kill off another regular character in just two weeks.

The drama, about a group of plane crash survivors trying to stay alive on a mysterious and extremely dangerous island, has become a whole new kind of TV show where characters that viewers become attached to are killed off at will.

Die-hard "Lost" fans, a group who have become almost as devoted to the show as Trekkies are to "Star Trek," pore over each episode looking for clues about what's to come and post their findings on the Internet.

This week, the buzz is over a mysterious — but authoritative sounding — message that that has popped up on several popular "Lost" fan sites in the last few days

"This person is intentionally killed, although the reason will not be known to us immediately," the anonymous post says.

"This is not a 'Lost' murder mystery though, it's more of a 'Why'd they do it?'

"The person who dies is a crash survivor. The person who kills them will not be revealed until the [final] November sweeps week episode (of course).

"The network will dangle this information for a while to build anticipation. (Another "who shot JR" moment.)

The full time-line is: Death in Episode 6 . . . Then episode 7 which is mostly told in flashback. . . but ends with a teaser . . .

"Then Episode 8 which reveals who the killer is," it says. "Look for [the killer] to deceive everybody except for a select few."

The death episode is set to air November 9.

Last season ended with the death of Boone, a beloved young rich kid played by Ian Somerhalder. Now with another character on the chopping block, water cooler talk about the show is nearing a fever pitch.

Some fans of "Lost" take the show so seriously, they go to extraordinary lengths trying to find clues as to what may happen next.

In some extreme cases, they've been known to run scenes backwards frame by frame, like Beatles fans did in the 1960s, searching for hints.

The results of their efforts this week seem to indicate that Maggie Grace, who plays snobby Shannon Rutherford — Boone's half-sister — is the likely victim.

Among the various reports fans have circulated this season is that an actress on the show found out over the summer that her character was going to be killed. The actress made a fuss and asked producers to do get rid of her early in the season so she could find a new job while the "Lost" is still one of the biggest show's on TV.

A storyline focusing on Shannon's back story is expected to air in early November — which has helped fuel speculation that she is doomed.

Another possibility, say fans, is Sun Kwon, the tragic debutante played by popular Korean actress, Yoon-jin Kim.

Officials at Touchstone, the studio that produces "Lost," declined to comment.

"Why do I top this list, do I amuse you?!?"

"Goodfellas" tops greatest movies list

LONDON (Reuters) - Mobsters in the 1990 film "Goodfellas" have beaten a fear of heights in "Vertigo" and the great white shark of "Jaws" to help the Martin Scorsese film clench the mantle of greatest movie of all time in a survey of UK film experts.

Goodfellas, which featured Ray Liotta, Robert de Niro and an Oscar winning supporting role from Joe Pesci, topped the list of 100 movies in a survey of film critics by Total Film.

"Goodfellas has everything, in terms of its technical brilliance, its huge influence on modern film-making and its spikiness and rewatchability," Total Film features editor Jamie Graham told Reuters.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic "Vertigo" took second place, while third went to Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic "Jaws," the tale of a coastal town terrorised by a great white shark.

Goodfellas, which was based on the story of real-life mobster Henry Hill, also beat Citizen Kane, the 1941 Orson Welles film that tops many critics lists but which finished in sixth position in the Total Film poll.

The 10 ten films in the list included two made in the last decade, the 1999 film "Fight Club," starring Brad Pitt, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson.

Fight Club took fourth position ahead of other classics such as "Tokyo Story" and "Taxi Driver."

"By no means were we trying to be perverse, but we were setting out to make a list that was a bit more modern," Graham said.

So if it fails, has the sky fallen for Disney?

"Chicken Little" critical for Disney reputation

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Next month Walt Disney hopes to prove the sky is no longer falling.

The adorably round-headed star of its computer-animated movie, "Chicken Little," will make the case that the storied studio has moved into the next generation of animation and can produce the type of hit films that once were its signature -- and an important profit center.

In the works for five years, "Chicken Little" is the first computer-generated feature film created by Disney animators and follows a string of traditionally animated films that failed to perform as well as many computer-made competitors.

Disney's new effort follows Chicken Little's travails in middle school a year after his disastrously incorrect observation that the sky was falling.

It debuts November 4 in the midst of Disney's talks with Pixar Animation Studios Inc over whether Disney will continue to distribute and share profits from Pixar's computer-generated, or CG, films and could prove an important factor if a deal is struck, analysts said.

Disney's studio has had a number of golden ages with hand-drawn animated features centering around hits such as the 1937 film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and in 1994 "The Lion King." Partner Pixar has had animated hits since 1995.

Ryan Ball, a senior writer for the online Animation magazine said the studio, known for its "Disney Look" and classic story lines, may have to sacrifice both to tap into a more sophisticated audience that now includes young adults.

"Now that everything is going CG, everything is looking the same. That's the trend," Ball said. "(DreamWorks Animation's) 'Shrek' was kind of the first animation movie that went from being a matinee movie for kids to a Friday night date movie."

Analysts said the film must open big and perform well overseas for Disney to be considered a player in the new world of animation, where DreamWorks Animation SKG's "Antz" was not considered a success despite $170 million in worldwide ticket sales.

'A GENUINE DISNEY CARTOON'

"My gut instinct is they need to do something in the $350 million range to be seen as 'Disney's on its way back in animation,"' Rich Greenfield, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, said. "If it does $200 million or $250 million worldwide, it will not be seen as the way to replace Pixar."

Disney dabbled in CG for its 2000 film, "Dinosaur," which featured animated characters on filmed backgrounds, but was slow to adopt the technology that generated blockbusters like "Finding Nemo" for Pixar and "Shrek" for DreamWorks.

Although about 150 animators had to be trained in CG to make "Chicken Little," the studio says it has closed the gap and is on track to release one CG animated film for each of the next three years: "Meet the Robinsons" in 2006, "American Dog" in 2007 and "Rapunzel Unbraided" in 2008.

Like "Chicken Little," the films offer modern takes on classic themes -- similar to the approach DreamWorks and Pixar used to appeal to a new generation of animation fans, including sought-after young males -- and plenty of nods to adult humor.

Time magazine writer Richard Corliss, one of the first critics to review the film, praised it as "a genuine Disney cartoon" and "one of the funniest, most charming and most exhilarating movie in years."

"Chicken Little" director Mark Dindal, who watched the transition from hand-drawn to CG animation at Disney during the making of his film, said studio founder Walt Disney, who championed new technology, would have been proud.

"It was like horses at the starting gate waiting to get their chance," Dindal said of the animators. "We just caught a wave of all this pent up excitement of people saying, 'We'll show you what we can do."'

Sure, most reviewers have had mixed - or negative - things to say about "ELIZABETHTOWN", but I loved it!

Cameron Crowe on music, marriage, film and "Elizabethtown"

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Cameron Crowe was on tour with his wife, musician Nancy Wilson. He gazed out the bus window at the Kentucky landscape and thought of his father; he had not been back to Kentucky since his dad's funeral many years earlier. For Crowe, returning to Kentucky was a celebration, an adventure into all the things he loved, all the things he could not see when he was mourning his father. "Elizabethtown" -- the film and the soundtrack -- was born.

Music and movies have no separation for Crowe, who began his writing career at age 15 with a byline in Rolling Stone. Crowe likens the music from "Elizabethtown" to a "great American radio station" -- a perfect road-trip mix tape.

Music has been an important presence in all of Crowe's films. In "Say Anything," the lovelorn hero blasts Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" from a boombox as a wooing technique. "Singles" features the members of Pearl Jam, a band that was little known when the film was shot; and in "Almost Famous," loosely based on Crowe's days as a writer for Rolling Stone, Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" turns a bus sing-along into a meaning-of-life moment.

Crowe says he wanted to champion singer/songwriters on the soundtrack to "Elizabethtown," which stars Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. This eclectic mix, out on RCA Records, features previously unreleased songs by Tom Petty, Lindsey Buckingham and My Morning Jacket, as well as tracks from Elton John, Ryan Adams and Patty Griffin.

Crowe recently spoke with Billboard about music, marriage, film and his personal journey with "Elizabethtown."

Q: "Elizabethtown" marks another musical collaboration between you and your wife, Nancy Wilson, who wrote the score. How do you work together?

A: It's the most natural collaboration. Because even if there wasn't a movie, we'd still be playing each other music and having that kind of dialogue. From the years she toured with her sister (Ann Wilson) in Heart, they would always go back to their room, put on robes and watch movies. She's actually seen more movies than I've seen. That was the great surprise when we first got together. I thought, "That's crazy. You're not supposed to know that much about movies and be able to play the guitar like that!"

Q: Did you write any music into the script?

A: The Hollies' "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" was the only music cue that I wrote into the script, to begin the movie. The song is like the black-sheep stepbrother of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." I thought it would be great to begin the film with this feeling of an ending, because the movie ends with a beginning.

Q: How much music did you listen to in the process of making the film?

A: Tons. For years. I kept packing my iTunes with stuff that I thought might be right for the movie. I kept a notebook of thoughts for every scene. Then it was about whittling it down. There is so much great music. Maybe not albums, as much as there might have been when albums were crafted in a certain way.

Q: What makes a really good album?

A: Albums have been abused. There were some artists who would put out 27-minute albums. A good 40 minutes with two sides, that's sweet. You don't want to abuse the length on a CD. It's good when you approach it like a mix, like a letter to a friend. That's how the music in the movie was always supposed to be. It's really personal -- it's (Orlando Bloom's character's) journey.

In the past couple of years, many people hanging out around movies said, 'Ah, there's no good music.' Well, they weren't listening. There's tons of great music, particularly singer/songwriters. So I was thinking early on, maybe we could celebrate some of the singer/songwriters like Ryan Adams.

Q: Do you think this is more of a music film than "Almost Famous?"

A: Yes. It's got more music. It's more of a character in a way, whereas "Almost Famous" was about the characters who love music. In this, the music is the voice of the father who passes away.

Q: Let's go back to your days as a writer for Rolling Stone. Who was your worst interview?

A: The disastrous one was Steve Miller, who was a friend of (Rolling Stone founder) Jann Wenner. I really wanted to do well for Jann. But when I showed up, Steve Miller had a big problem with me being 17 years old. He was like, "Tell me how you know my music." And I said, "Everybody knows your music." He said, "But you're only 17." I said, "Your fans are 17!"

It got ugly and weird from there. I forget how it ended, but I think I was dismissed. It was the only time that ever happened. Everyone else I interviewed thought, "Wow, you actually buy my records."

"Somewhere, over the DVD!"

COMPUTER 'WIZARD'

In the new, high-resolution DVD of "The Wizard of Oz," a bolt is visible between the Tin Man's eyes. You can clearly see the trapdoor used by the Wicked Witch of the West. And if you look closely, there's a fishing line holding up the Cowardly Lion's tail.

The latest digital version of the beloved classic, in stores Tuesday, is so crisp that the moviemakers' production tricks are clearly revealed.

"We didn't remove the fishing lines as a matter of philosophy," says Rob Hummel, senior vice president for production technologies at Warner Bros., who oversaw an eight-month restoration on the 1939 classic. "We didn't add or remove anything, just revealed what was already there by making the images much clearer."

For the movie's third release on DVD, the film was scanned using an ultra-resolution process that captured four times as much detail as the previous digital restoration in 1997.

The expensive process has been used on only three earlier Warner titles, "Singing in the Rain," "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "Gone With the Wind," all of which were filmed in Technicolor.

Early Technicolor films were shot with special cameras that used filters and mirrors to produce three separate reels of black-and-white film, each representing one of the primary colors, which were added in the printing process.

"Some old black-and-white films like 'Casablanca' are unbelievably sharp, but the edges of Technicolor films tend to be soft because of problems in aligning the three negatives," Hummel explains. "What we did was to use computers to painstakingly line up the three images."

Though the results are spectacular, Hummel says the full effect won't be visible until new high-definition DVD formats arrive next year.

As part of the process, dirt was automatically removed for the first time using a new software program.

"But we did have a problem with the software removing the ruby slippers in some of the long shots," Hummel said. "That's why we use humans to correct the process."

The new restoration of "The Wizard of Oz" - No. 6 on the American Film Institute's list of Greatest American Movies - gets a big thumbs up from Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft.

"Thank God for Warner Home Video doing this," Luft says from Ireland, where she is on a concert tour. For Luft, it's important that the movie be preserved for future generations.

"Now it looks just as if you were looking through the cameraman's viewfinder," Luft says. My mother would really love that people can now see the movie in all its glory."

They have given us a superb collection of songs!

Eurythmics reliving Sweet Dreams with hits set

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Twenty-five years after forming Eurythmics, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox admit that how they write songs together remains a mystery.

"It takes a tremendous amount of faith every time I go into the studio," Lennox says. "Music comes easy to me -- melody, chord progression, no problem. That's something very simple, and I like to sit down and do that. But to actually literally write something important ..."

She trails off as she shakes her head.

"(If) someone starts up a conversation with me, I have a lot to say and it comes easily to speak, but to actually hone it down to the craft of song or whatever it might be, you know, it's actually quite challenging to me. So I just kind of have to suspend disbelief. (Dave's) just the opposite, so that never helps."

Indeed, Stewart says the pair popped out with relative ease the two new songs that appear on "Eurythmics Ultimate Collection," out November 8 on Arista Records.

"I've Got a Life," the first single, is classic Eurythmics: an uplifting melody juxtaposed with sad lyrics. "That's every Eurythmics song," Stewart says with a laugh. "There's a lot of optimism, there's a lot of angst and melancholy in the same song, which is unusual."

Lennox thinks their songs just reflect life's contradictions. "Life is joyous and full of beauty and hope and optimism and at the same time, it's tempered by potential catastrophe personally or nationally at any moment," she says.

The "Ultimate Collection" contains 17 past U.K. and U.S. hits the duo culled from as