Collection Of Early Beach Boys Hits Set For June Release
A new box set of Beach Boys' singles from their early days at Capitol Records will be released June 10 as a limited edition box set, as well as a digital download, according to a press release.
The 16-CD limited edition boxed set, "The Beach Boys: U.S. Singles Collection - The Capitol Years (1962-1965)," will feature original singles and their B-sides. The collection also will include additional versions of most tracks, ranging from mono and stereo mixes to live recordings. The collection's 66 tracks also include previously unreleased mixes.
The CD boxed set, featuring "lavish packaging, faithfully reproduced original single artwork and a 48-page hardbound photo book," will feature some of the band's best known hits including "Surfin' Safari," Help Me Rhonda," Surfin' USA," "Surfer Girl," and "Be True To Your School," among numerous others.
'X-Files' movie title is out there: `I Want to Believe'
LOS ANGELES - The truth is finally out there about the new "X-Files" movie title.
The second big-screen spinoff of the paranormal TV adventure will be called "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," Chris Carter, the series' creator and the movie's director and co-writer, told The Associated Press.
Distributor 20th Century Fox signed off on the title Wednesday.
The title is a familiar phrase for fans of the series that starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents chasing after aliens and supernatural happenings. "I Want to Believe" was the slogan on a poster Duchovny's UFO-obsessed agent Fox Mulder had hanging in the cluttered basement office where he and Anderson's Dana Scully worked.
"It's a natural title," Carter said in a telephone interview Tuesday during a break from editing the film. "It's a story that involves the difficulties in mediating faith and science. `I Want to Believe.' It really does suggest Mulder's struggle with his faith."
"I Want to Believe" comes 10 years after the first film and six years after the finale of the series, whose opening credits for much of its nine-year run featured the catch-phrase "the truth is out there."
Due in theaters July 25, the movie will not deal with aliens or the intricate mythology about interaction between humans and extraterrestrials that the show built up over the years, Carter said.
Instead, it casts Mulder and Scully into a stand-alone, earth-bound story aimed at both serious "X-Files" fans and newcomers, he said.
"It has struck me over the last several years talking to college-age kids that a lot of them really don't know the show or haven't seen it," Carter said. "If you're 20 years old now, the show started when you were 4. It was probably too scary for you or your parents wouldn't let you watch it. So there's a whole new audience that might have liked the show. This was made to, I would call it, satisfy everyone."
Hardcore fans need not worry that the movie will be going back to square one, though, Carter said. The movie will be true to the spirit of the show and everything Mulder and Scully went through, he said.
"The reason we're even making the movie is for the rabid fans, so we don't want to insult them by having to take them back through the concept again," Carter said.
Carter said he settled on "I Want to Believe" from the time he and co-writer Frank Spotnitz started on the screenplay. It took so long to go public with it because studio executives wanted to make sure it was a marketable title, he said.
The filmmakers have kept the story tightly under wraps to prevent plot spoilers from leaking on the Internet, a phenomenon that barely existed when the first movie came out in 1998.
"We went to almost comical lengths to keep the story a secret," Carter said. "That included allowing only the key crew members to read the script, and they had to read it in a room that had video cameras trained on them. It was a new experience."
Bruce Springsteen endorses Obama for president
WASHINGTON - Rock star Bruce Springsteen endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president Wednesday, saying "he speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years."
In a letter addressed to friends and fans posted his Web site, Springsteen said he believes Obama is the best candidate to undo "the terrible damage done over the past eight years."
"He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next president," the letter said. "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where '...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.' "
The bard of New Jersey is known for his lyrics about the struggles of working-class Americans, particularly in the economically ravaged factory towns of the Northeast.
Springsteen and his E Street band were part of the Vote for Change tour, a coalition of musicians opposed to the re-election of President Bush in 2004. He wrote the anti-war ballad "Devils and Dust" about Iraq.
Springsteen did not directly mention Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's rival for the Democratic nomination, in his letter, but appeared to take issue with her recent criticisms of comments made by Obama about working-class voters in small towns in Pennsylvania and controversial statements by his pastor.
"Critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships," Springsteen wrote. "While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision ... often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment."