Jennifer Lopez And Marc Anthony Wipe Off Tears, Set Sights On 'Monster Show'

Want to make Jennifer Lopez cry? Sing to her. That's what a group of schoolchildren in New York's Bronx borough discovered on Tuesday when the singer and her husband, Marc Anthony, popped by PS 36 Unionport School in Castle Hill to kick off their upcoming joint tour, which starts Friday. To welcome the singers to the school — which was across the street from where Lopez grew up on Blackrock Avenue — the children serenaded the couple, who were overtaken with emotion at the gesture.
"I was like, 'Did you see me?' I was crying like a baby," Lopez laughed. "We were both crying like babies."
"I was a hot mess," Anthony said.
"He had glasses on, but me? I was like, 'Eeeee,' " Lopez said. "I was trying to hold it back, too."
Lopez and Anthony are donating part of the proceeds from their 19-date trek to ING's school-fitness program for kids, Run for Something Better, with funds to go to select schools with high Latino enrollment. The couple also tied orange shoelaces around their wrists to demonstrate they're "tied" to supporting fit kids, and fighting obesity and diabetes.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570622/20070926/lopez_jennifer.jhtml

Kanye West Clobbers 50 Cent In Week-Two Sales - But Reba McEntire Takes Top Spot

For the last month or so, everyone in the music industry has been abuzz about Kanye West and 50 Cent — or more specifically, the epic sales campaign the two waged during the weeks leading up to the September 11 release of their latest LPs, 'Ye's Graduation and Fif's Curtis.

And last week the results came in, with West the undisputed victor (see "Kanye West's Sales Triumph, By The Numbers: He Thumped 50 Cent In Almost Every Market" and "Kanye West Pounds 50 Cent In First Week Of Album Showdown"). But who'd come out on top after week two? Would West's sales continue to eclipse 50's, or would the tables turn, resulting in a come-from-behind coup?

Well, neither ended up being the case, and the results stayed pretty much the same: Sales of Graduation were significantly stronger than those generated by Curtis, and interest in both sets waned. According to the latest SoundScan totals, sales for West's latest dipped 76 percent, while Curtis suffered a 79 percent sales cut. What this all means, basically, is there's a new name in the #1 position on next week's Billboard albums sales chart, and that name is Reba.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570585/20070926/mcentire_reba.jhtml

Phil Spector Judge Declares Mistrial In Murder Case

The jury weighing the fate of Phil Spector was not able to render a unanimous verdict in the music producer's murder trial, forcing Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to declare a mistrial Wednesday afternoon (September 26), according to The Associated Press.
All the jurors told Fidler they were at an impasse, with the foreman explaining that the panel was logjammed 10 to 2. There was no indication which way the majority was leaning.
"At this time, I will find that the jury is unable to arrive at a verdict and declare a mistrial in this matter," Fidler said, ending nearly two weeks of deadlocked deliberations in the case involving the death of 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570613/20070926/index.jhtml

Foo Fighters Try To Silence Will.I.Am, Cheetah Girls, Keyshia Cole And More, In New Releases

Foo for Thought: If you like the sound of the recent reissue of Foo Fighters' 1997 album, The Colour and the Shape, you might want to feast your ears on the band's sixth effort, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace — for it, they reteamed with Colour producer Gil Norton. Fans who preordered the disc via iTunes got a download of "The Pretender," while ones who did so through Ticketmaster became eligible to buy advance tickets to upcoming Foo concerts. Everyone who picks up the disc will get to hear "Long Road to Ruin," "Erase/Replace" and "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners," but keep an eye out for a few bonus tracks floating around overseas and elsewhere too ("Seda" and a demo of "Once and for All" in particular).

Where There's a Will, There's a Way: Don't pay attention to the plural form in the title of Will.I.Am's solo album, Songs About Girls — the Black Eyed Pea's effort actually revolves around just one relationship. "It was just me being a young dude making dumb decisions. But I was just growing up into a man, learning how to juggle a career with a relationship," he said of the LP subject matter in a recent press release. Songs features Snoop Dogg, video game sound effects, club bangers, Brazilian funk beats and a surprise writing contribution from Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570432/20070924/foo_fighters.jhtml

Usher Talks Up New Album - It's 'Just About Finished' - And Fragrances

There's no title and no release date, but Usher says to trust him: He's not going to make us wait too much longer for his anticipated follow-up to 2004's multiplatinum Confessions.
"I'm working on my album," he said via phone from Atlanta on Friday. "It'll be out, I'm not sure when.
"I'm not doing the Dr. Dre to y'all. I'm not doing the Detox," he added, jokingly referring to Dr. Dre's all-too-long-awaited next album. "I'm on my way. I'm actually just about finished. I've been working on it all this year amongst all the other things I've been doing. It's been a somewhat tumultuous year for me. But you go through something to get to something. I'm a married man with a baby on the way, you gotta love that. That's the next major step. A lot of what I plan to offer with this album is kinda standing in this spot. ... The king's back. I ain't gonna say 'back,' I never left."

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570546/20070925/usher.jhtml

Britney Spears Charged With Two Driving-Related Misdemeanors

After hitting another car while attempting to park last month, Britney Spears was charged Friday (September 21) with misdemeanor hit and run causing property damage. She's also charged with driving without a valid license.

According to the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, the singer hit a parked car on or about August 6 in the San Fernando Valley without leaving a note for the driver of the other vehicle or filing a police report. The incident was caught on video (widely available on the Internet), in which Spears, driving a black convertible, hits a parked white station wagon.

"Uh-oh, I'm a brainiac," she tells the crowd of paparazzi photographers and videographers surrounding her. "Sorry about that. What do I do?" After parking her car, she gets out to examine her car, but not the one she hit. "Did I hurt my car?" she asks before examining the front end. "It's not bad." She's then videotaped walking away.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570348/20070921/spears_britney.jhtml

All-American Reject Becomes Big-Screen 'Boy' - And Calls On 'Ghostbusters'?

All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter has had silver-screen dreams ever since he was a kid. The only problem was that his ultra-successful rock band got in the way of him actually realizing them.
"I just wanted to be on a stage when I was a kid, and I did all this little dinner-theater stuff, like 'Bye Bye Birdie,' all that stuff," he laughed. "But then I realized that the only way I was going to get onstage was by being in a band, so I was like, 'I don't care, I'll do it.' "

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570167/20070920/all_american_rejects.jhtml

Black Lips Take Brooklyn By Storm - With A Circus In Tow

Band leads 200-strong parade — complete with burlesque dancers and marching band — through the streets of Williamsburg.

BROOKLYN, New York — When the circus comes to town, everyone takes notice. But Wednesday night at Sound Fix Records in Brooklyn was not your typical Ringling Bros./ Barnum & Bailey event: In the center ring were garage-rockers Black Lips, who decided that a record store is a good a place as any to try and throw a circus.

The band is part of a thriving Atlanta indie-rock scene that also includes Deerhunter, Manchester Orchestra and others. Originally slated to be a simple in-store acoustic performance, the band decided to take it one step — OK, several steps — further, dubbing the event the "Black Lips Circus and Bad Kids' Parade." The band's shows are notorious for bad behavior both onstage and off — most famously involving several different kinds of bodily fluids, which the band has largely stopped doing — so the concept isn't much of a stretch. "It's always kind of a circus mentality of people being degenerates at our shows, so we decided to take it to the next level by inviting kids — not even at a show — to parade down the streets," Lips singer/guitarist Cole Alexander said of the event.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1570237/20070920/index.jhtml

Marc Ecko Having A Ball After Landing Prized Barry Bonds Item

After hearing enough of his friends' bickering over baseball slugger Barry Bonds and the legitimacy of his recently accomplished home-run record, hip-hop-fashion mogul Marc Ecko decided to put his money where his mouth was.

Ecko paid $752,467 in the Sotheby's/SCP bidding war for Bonds' 756th home-run ball and was rewarded on Saturday when he won the auction. But instead of keeping the prize all for himself, Ecko decided to let fans determine its fate. He has set up a Web site, Vote756.com, where fans can vote on three different possible outcomes for the ball: Send it to Cooperstown with or without an asterisk — to signify the controversy that has accompanied Bonds' home-run record — or launch it into space. The voting began Monday (September 17) and will last for one week.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1569884/20070917/index.jhtml

Star Trek Remake Beams Up Zoe Saldana

Trekkies rejoice! The cold vacuum of space just got a heck of a lot hotter: 29-year-old actress Zoë Saldana is the first female to join the cast of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek," according to Variety. The "Haven" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" star will play Lieutenant Uhura, a role made famous in the original television series (and first six feature films) by Nichelle Nichols.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1569905/20070918/story.jhtml

Phil Spector Jury Deadlocked

After seven days of deliberation, the jury in the Phil Spector murder trial is apparently at an impasse. According to the Los Angeles Times, the jury sent a note Tuesday morning (September 18) to Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler saying that it is incapable of rendering a unanimous verdict.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1569976/20070918/index.jhtml

Dragonforce's Guitar Hero III Finger Mangler

The ScoreHero gang gives us the exclusive first look at Dragonforce's hyperspeed metal hit "Through the Fire and the Flames" for Guitar Hero III. It doesn't seem that unlikely that your fingers may just snap off within the first minute.

Video clip:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/dragonforces-guitar-hero-iii-finger-mangler-286084.php