New Janet Single Due In May, Album In Fall
The first single from Janet Jackson's as-yet-untitled new album is expected to hit U.S. radio outlets in May, Virgin Urban president Jermaine Dupri tells Billboard. The album will likely follow at the end of September. As previously reported, longtime Jackson collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have contributed to the new album.
"It's a milestone year for us and for the collaboration," Jam previously told Billboard.com. "It'll be 20 years since the release of [Jackson's 1986 album] 'Control,' so there's definitely a little bit of a nod to that on the new album."
Will Dupri be a featured guest on any of the new tracks? "You'll hear my voice on some songs," he says. "But I don't know if Jermaine Dupri the artist exists anymore. I'm not into that right now. It's far on the back burner. It's probably in the cards somewhere down the road. But it's the last thing I'm thinking about right now."
The new offering will be the follow-up to 2004's "Damita Jo," which was released amidst the aftermath of Jackson's controversial Super Bowl halftime show. The set debuted at No. 2 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 985,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Foo Fighters Still Planning Acoustic Tour
Although the Foo Fighters are taking it easy until frontman Dave Grohl's first baby is born, the band is still planning to follow through on a previously discussed acoustic tour. "We're going to start rehearsing very soon," drummer Taylor Hawkins tells Billboard.com of the trek, which will focus on the less aggressive songs on the 2005 double album "In Your Honor."
Hawkins expects rehearsals to begin right after the April 24 completion of a two-week solo tour with his band the Coattail Riders. The group's self-titled debut was released March 21 via Thrive Records.
The Foos are already slated to play several U.K. festivals in June, but no North American dates have been announced yet. "We might do some stuff before [June], but there is nothing on the books," says Hawkins, adding, "We're knockin' some stuff around, though."
For the acoustic dates, the Foos have signed up an auxiliary backing band featuring multi-instrumentalist Petra Haden, pianist Rami Jaffee and percussionist Drew Hester. Haden and Jaffee both guested on "In Your Honor"; Haden's Foo Fighters association dates back a decade, when her band, that dog, toured with the Foos in North America.
Despite his impending fatherhood, Grohl has found time to guest behind the drums on the new album from Juliette & the Licks, who are fronted by actress Juliette Lewis. The as-yet-untitled set is expected in early fall.
Fans get taste of "The Simpsons" movie
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - To learn some long-awaited news about "The Simpsons," television's most popular cartoon family, fans had to go to the movies on Friday.
Film studio 20th Century Fox released a 25-second promotional trailer at showings of its new computer-animated movie "Ice Age: The Meltdown" to announce the first big-screen version of "The Simpsons" would be coming to theaters on July 27, 2007.
The trailer begins with a giant superhero-sized letter "S" while an announcer declares, "Leaping his way onto the silver screen ... the greatest hero in American history!"
The scene cuts to Homer Simpson sitting on his couch in his underwear, saying, "I forgot what I was supposed to say."
Now in its 17th season, "The Simpsons" is the longest-running U.S. comedy series in prime time.
Beginning as a string of cartoon shorts on "The Tracey Ullman Show" in 1987, "The Simpsons" made their debut as a half-hour series on the then-fledgling Fox network in December 1989.
At the outset, the series centered on the antics of the wisecracking, underachieving 10-year-old Bart Simpson, a spiky-haired misfit who darts around town on his skateboard and drives his fourth-grade teacher nuts.
But as the show evolved, the focus shifted to Bart's bone-headed father, Homer, who works at a nuclear power plant and punctuates his frequent mistakes with the anguished, half-syllable utterance "D'Oh!"
Rounding out the Simpsons brood are beehive-haired mother Marge, the sensible, good-natured anchor of the family, and Bart's two sisters -- pacifier-sucking baby Maggie, a silent observer of all, and second-grade prodigy Lisa, a baritone saxophone virtuoso and intellectual of the family.
Behind them is a huge cast of regulars who populate the fictional town of Springfield -- extended family members, neighbors, teachers, classmates, Homer's co-workers, his pals at Moe's Tavern, Apu the Kwik-E-Mart clerk, police chief Wiggum and even the Comic Book Guy.
The series averages 9.6 million viewers a week on Sunday nights, down from its peak ratings several years ago, but remains a critical favorite and worldwide pop culture phenomenon seen in dozens of countries.
It also is a cash cow for 20th Century Fox TV for the handsome revenues it generates in syndication.
Howard Stern Lashes Out at Some Fans
NEW YORK - Howard Stern is angry more fans haven't followed him to satellite radio. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 52-year-old shock jock lashes out at those of his fan base who haven't made the transition to Sirius Satellite Radio.
In January, Stern moved his popular and bawdy morning show to the subscription satellite radio provider.
"I was just at my psychiatrist and I said, `I just got great news: We hit the 4 million mark. And I'm angry. It should be 20 million,'" Stern says in the magazine, on newsstands Monday.
"It's insulting to me that everyone hasn't come with me. I take it personally," he says.
"I want to say to my audience ... `You haven't come with me yet? How dare you? We're up to wild, crazy stuff, the show has never sounded better. You cheap bastard!'"
In February, CBS Radio, formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting, filed a lawsuit against Stern for improperly using airtime to promote his new show on Sirius.
Stern has claimed the lawsuit is without merit.
Courtney & Nirvana: Smells Like a Sellout
Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--coming soon to a soap ad near you?
So far Courtney Love is ruling that out, but chances are we'll be hearing more of the seminal grunge band's music in unexpected places now that Kurt Cobain's cash-strapped widow has agreed to sell off a 25 percent stake in the Nirvana song catalog in a deal valued at $50 million, per Rolling Stone.
On the other end of the deal is Larry Mestel, the former COO of Virgin Records and current head of Primary Wave Music Publishing.
To preemptively squelch backlash from fans worried about the over-commercialization of a decidedly anticorporate band, Love sought to assure the Nirvana faithful that the music won't simply be licensed to the highest bidder.
"We're going to remain very tasteful, and we're going to [retain] the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before," Love told the magazine.
"I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me comanage the estate because it was overwhelming," Love said. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap.
"I own almost all of [the publishing]...and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it," she said.
Following her husband's 1994 suicide, Love became the primary benefactor of Cobain's estate, which included ownership rights of more than 98 percent of Nirvana's song catalog. The other two former members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, own the remainder--slightly less than 2 percent split between them. The new deal does not affect their portion.
Mestel, too, is quick to quell rumors that he's just another suit out to profit on Cobain's legacy.
"My goal is to keep the music very true to who the songwriter was and what his passions and tastes would be and to work through Courtney to figure out exactly the best way to go about exposing his music to a new youth culture to a new generation," Mestel said.
He also told Rolling Stone that he was thrilled to have been able to buy into the Nirvana catalog and become, with his three-year-old company, a part of music history.
"The appeal to me is that [Cobain was] one of the most important songwriters of his time," Mestel said. "Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."
Novoselic and Grohl, long-time adversaries of Love, have yet to comment on the new deal. But we're guessing they're none too pleased.
When rumors first swirled that Love was looking to unload a stake in the lucrative catalog, it was expected that the duo may have first dibs, but, based on their troubled history with Love, it's doubtful they were ever offered the chance.
In 2001, Love filed suit against Grohl and Novoselic in an attempt to gain sole custody of the Nirvana songbook, calling the duo merely "sidemen" in the band, which she equated as a one-man show--the man of course being her late husband. The same year, Grohl and Novoselic struck back, filing their own suit alleging Love was using Cobain's music to "further her own career goals," calling her a "greedy prima donna" with a "waning recording and acting career."
Love also filed suit against Grohl and Novoselic and Nirvana's label, Universal Music Group, to block the release of a Nirvana box set, The Heart-Shaped Box. The suit was eventually settled and the album released.
In an interview with Blender magazine last year, Love claimed that "$40 million has been stolen from me and Frances by a fiduciary institution." In July, she blamed former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl for her financial woes, telling Spin magazine that Grohl had been "taking money from my child for years."
Aside from the wrangling over Nirvana, Love's once considerable fortune has been sapped by lawsuits, liens and numerous drug-related charges. In January, a mortgage company took possession of a Seattle-area house owned by Love (and the former residence of Cobain's sister), after the singer-actress failed to make payments. Last August, a Manhattan financial firm moved to foreclose on her pricey New York condo, claiming she had not made a mortgage payment in months.
But things are looking up. Aside from the Mestel deal, Love was given a good report card in February by a Los Angeles judge in her last remaining drug case. For her part, Love told the judge she had put her "very gnarly drug problem" behind her.
She's also resuming her own music career. Love is in the studio recording a follow-up to her 2004 solo album, America's Sweetheart. Linda Perry, Moby and Billy Corgan are pitching in, with the latter joining Love for a track called, aptly enough, "How Dirty Girls Get Clean."