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  • News On Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, American Idol, And Kanye West

    Rihanna
    I was only going to write about Rihanna, but other bits of news came out today that I thought were interesting as well.

    Rihanna

    According to MTV.com, Rihanna has joined the cast of the upcoming Peter Berg directed film, Battleship, which I’m assuming is a take on the classic kids’ game.

    She’ll join my man Tim Riggins (aka Taylor Kitsch from the TV show Friday Night Lights) and Alexander Skarsgård, who is best known for his role in True Blood.

    It will be the first movie for the pop princess who has a number one single out there with Eminem, called Love The Way You Lie. The movie is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2012.

    Justin Timberlake and American Idol

    The Rolling Stone’s website has a bit about possible American Idol changes.

    The show is reportedly close to a deal to bring back producer Nigel Lythgoe (who left in 2008) in an executive producer role while targeting new candidates including Justin Timberlake and Elton John as potential replacements for Cowell, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

    While the article does say that getting Timberlake would be a long shot, he’d be the perfect replacement. I can’t believe I never thought about him. In my opinion, he’s just as talented a TV performer as he is a music artist. If you’ve ever seen him on Saturday Night Live, you know what I mean. He’d be the anti-Cowell, but he’d bring instant credibility, super stardom, and the ability to create off the top of his head.

    The article also says Lythgoe isn’t a fan of the four judge panel, which could be bad for Kara DioGuardi who is the only judge with a little bit of Cowell in her. It would also be bad for me as I think I may just be her biggest fan.

    Kanye West

    Kanye West made the Silicon Valley rounds today, showing up at both Facebook and Twitter headquarters. He also created a Twitter account and you can find him @kanyewest.

    He previewed some lyrics from his new album, which he says is now not going to be called Good Ass Job. I always liked that name.



    You can also check out photos of Kanye at Twitter on Flickr.

    Photo of Rihanna shared via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

  • Raging Against Christmas: Anarchy in the U.K.

    It’s quite a big deal to have the #1 single in the UK over Christmas. Over the years, that spot has hosted artists ranging from Band Aid (whose “Do They Know It’s Christmas” topped the chart in 1984) to Mr. Blobby (don’t feel bad if you don’t know who that is…unfortunately, I do).

    Anyway, for the past few years, the Christmas #1 in Britain has been tied in with “X Factor”, AKA the British version of “American Idol”. Like “Idol”, “X Factor” is spearheaded by Simon Cowell. Although the show doesn’t mean much on U.S shores, it has spawned at least one certified hitmaker (for a brief time, anyway) in Leona Lewis.

    One guy took exception to Cowell’s domination of the UK charts (and what it represents to true music fans) and started a Facebook campaign to get people to download Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” in the hopes that it would prevent “X factor” winner Joe McElderry from hitting the #1 spot with his cover of Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” (I can’t make this stuff up folks).

    So, the results are in and the #1 single in the UK is…”Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine! Half a million people downloaded it last week, pushing the 18-year old song to the top of the charts. This chart victory is all kinds of symbolic, proving the fact that British music fans are a little tired of having processed musical cheese shoved down their collective throats (although it might have been better had they used their Facebook clout to promote a new artist who needs the publicity). It’s also cool that the guys from Rage have promised to donate money to charity as a result of their chart-topping success. Now if we could just do something about Susan Boyle here in the States…

  • The Night We Won The War – Free Download

    Writing on her Facebook page today, Susan Werner, that gifted vocalist, songwriter and musician, released a free MP3 of The Night We Won The War.

    When people speak about vocal stylists, the phrase “could sing the phone book” often sneaks out.  No such cliches here, but I would pay to listen to her sing the phone book starting at her choice of yellow or white pages.

    Night is accompanied by an on-page slideshow of the night President Obama won the election, the song’s topic.

    The link for the free song download is down here too in case you missed it above.

    Go grab a free track and maybe listen to a few more.  When I think about people who will succeed Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell, I’m thinking Susan Werner.