Music Roundup

Lady Gaga’s sold-out Indonesia show is cancelled after the singer bowed to pressures from Islamics and conservative lawmakers. The vocal groups said that her sexy dance moves and clothes will corrupt the Indonesian youth.
Gaga’s tour was unable to get the required permit for the Indonesian show, thereby assuring the cancellation.
While the country is predominantly Muslim, it also has a reputation for a moderate approach to the religion and is known for supporting free speech. The hit to Gaga’s tour is also a hit, some say, to that reputation.
The June 3 show was sold-out and organizers promised full refunds, but fans were still disappointed and angry that many were bowing to the pressures of a few. But Minola Sebayang, a lawyer for promoter Big Daddy, said that threats made to the singer couldn’t be ignored.
“It’s unfortunate,” he told the media. “But with threats if the concert goes ahead, Lady Gaga’s side is calling it off. This not only about Lady Gaga’s security, but extends to those who will be watching her.”
Indonesia is often used by the U.S. as an example of how Islam and democracy can coexist. While this is true in many ways, there is a small extremist fringe that has become more vocal and violent in recent years, including the Islamic Defenders Front, which called Gaga “a messenger of the devil”. The group vowed to bring thousands of people to the airport to protest when Gaga arrived and others said they bought tickets to the show just so they could wreak havoc.
Police denied the permit, but said they would reconsider if Gaga agreed to a more conservative version of her usual act. Instead, the tour pulled the plug on the Indonesia stop.

Thank goodness we had the foresight to save all our CDs a few years ago even after we burned them on the computer. One computer crash (and no backup) later and most of our music could have been lost. Thanks to the keeping of the CDs, however, we have a nice stash to burn again, one of these days.
The box containing these hundreds of CDs sits in my office and one of these days we’ll figure out which CDs need to be burned (and backed up) again and maybe then we can get rid of the actual CDs, which seem so space consuming these days.
The fun thing about a big box of old music, however, is how many memories it brings and how much you learn about yourself.
For example:
• I am reminded that Ireland put out a lot of fantastic music for a time and that CDs by Hothouse Flowers, The 4 Of Us and U2 as well as the soundtrack to The Commitments were some of the most-listened-to CDs in my house.
• INXS was a great band. Fun, exciting, sexy.
• Tears For Fears has always been a favorite band. If the collection of CDs ranging from The Hurting to Everybody Loves a Happy Ending to solo efforts by both Roland Orzabel and Curt Smith proves nothing else, it proves this.
• Holiday music is fun! Whether it’s the free CD handed out at the holidays at Body & Bath Works or the Halloween Howl mix of “fun and scary music”, holiday music is all good.
• Hard rock is an excellent way to relax, rewind and get your rocker on. CDs from Metallica, Led Zeppelin and even Guns N’ Roses help to serve this purpose.
• The 80s were ugly and silly. We might not have thought so at the time but one look at the cover art from Extreme’s debut effort and we are reminded. We thought it was hot at the time, but now? Not so hot.
A tween in my life recently declared on Facebook that without music, she didn’t know how she would live. “It’s my life!” she declared, perhaps a bit too dramatically. But music adds so much to our lives. It enriches and entertains them …and sometimes, even reminds us of past passions.

In her freshmen debut on the Billboard chart, Carly Rae Jepsen shot to the No. 1 spot on the Digital Songs chart this week and sits at No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart, landing just behind Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know”.
Jepsen’s kicky “Call Me Maybe” success places her in fine company. She will be the first woman on her way to No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart since Ke$ha spent six weeks at No. 1 with her hit “TiK ToK”. Prior to Ke$ha, Lady Gaga also ruled that chart, staying at the No. 1 spot for four weeks with “Just Dance” in 2009.
Taking over the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 chart could be difficult, however, as Jepsen will have to remove current No. 1 placeholder, Gotye, who has ruled that chart for six weeks. Jepsen achieved a personal unprecedented audience when she performed last weekend on the Billboard Music Awards. That exposure could be aiding her climb up the charts. Other BBMA performers like Justin Bieber, Usher and Carrie Underwood will also likely see gains on this week’s charts.
Other Hot 100 chart holders include Maroon 5’s “Payphone” at No. 3 and Fun.’s “We Are Young” at No. 4. Both singles slipped one place this week. Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” continues to sit pretty at the No. 5 spot. Also dropping a spot this week was Flo Rida and his single “Wild Ones” which dropped from 5 to 6 on the chart.
The rest of the Hot 100 retains its position from last week including One Direction with their hit “What Makes You Beautiful” at No. 7, Wanted’s “Glad you Came” at No. 8, Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” at No. 9 and Train’s “Drive By” at No. 10.

Adele dominated last night’s Billboard Music Awards, taking home 12 awards, including Top Artist and Top Billboard 200 Album. LMFAO was second in award nods, taking home 6 awards, including Hot 100 Song of the Year (for “Party Rock Anthem”) and Top Duo/Group.
Both artists commanded a show that was loaded with major performances and meaningful tributes to recently passed singers Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, Beastie Boy Adam “MCA” Yauch, and Bee Gee Barry Gibb, who passed away earlier in the day on Sunday.
Adele won in several major categories including Top Hot 100 Artist, Top Digital Songs Artist, Top Digital Media Artist and Top Pop Artist. LMFAO won Top Digital Song, Top Rap Song and Top Dance Song.
Other big winners were Coldplay and Lil Wayne, who each won four Billboard awards. Among other awards, Colplay won Top Rock Artist, while Lil Wayne took awards for Top Male Artist and Top Rap Artist.
Some of the major acts who performed Sunday night included Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Usher and Kelly Clarkson. Fans were introduced to some of the new big stars including The Wanted and Carly Rae Jepson, who each performed their current big hits.
The Billboard Music Awards are a little different from other award shows in that they take a holistic look at the artist and base awards not just on record sales but on factors like social and steaming activity. The eligibility period was March 1, 2011 to Feb. 29, 2012.
Some other winners Sunday included:
Chris Brown – Top R & B artist
Top Country Artist – Lady Antebellum
Top Dance Artist – Lady Gaga
Top New Artist – Wiz Khalifa
Top Radio Song – Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer for “Give Me Everything”
Top Streaming Video (song) – Nicki Minaj for “Super Bass”

It was one of the most highly anticipated concert tours of the summer season, but Van Halen announced this week that it was postponing a number of summer dates. No reason was given.
The abrupt postponement came as a surprise and disappointment to fans, who openly hoped on message boards that band members were well. Some speculated that the band might be postponing parts of the tour because guitarist Eddie Van Halen is sick again.
“I just hope it’s not Eddie having to battle against cancer again,” said one fan on a Van Halen fan message board.
Thirteen of the band’s shows, including a stop Saturday in St. Paul, Minn., will go on as scheduled, but all dates after the June 26 New Orleans show will be postponed. In all, 30 dates will be postponed. No information was given about when these appearances will be rescheduled.
The band is touring behind its new release, “A Different Kind of Truth”, which is the first album the band has released since lead singer David Lee Roth re-joined the band. The last full album the band recorded together was “1984”, which was released on Jan. 31, 1983.
Van Halen has a turbulent history with lead singers as well as personal issues. Roth left the band in 1985 and was replaced by Sammy Hagar, who left the band in 1996. He was replaced by former Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone in 1998; the album recorded with Cherone at the vocal helm was the worst-selling in the band’s history.
Lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen has more than once undergone treatment for cancer and alcoholism as well as other health problems. In 2007, the band was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; later that year, the band announced a tour with Roth at the helm. During that tour, the band replaced original band member guitarist Michael Anthony with Van Halen’s son Wolfgang, who was 17 at the time. During the 2007-2008 tour, several dates were postponed, but all were rescheduled.

The MTV Video Music Awards had its biggest year ever last year, so it stands to reason that it will now move to one of the largest venues in the country for this year’s award show.
The awards show announced this week that the Staples Center in Los Angeles will host this year’s VMAs; the Staples Center is considered to be the epicenter of the entertainment and sports universe and putting the VMAs there simply makes sense.
Last year, the VMAs scored the second biggest audience of any show in the network’s history. It boasted more than 12 million viewers. It was also the most tweeted-about award show ever. Many believe that was due in large part to two things – the reveal of Beyonce’s baby bump and Lady Gaga’s appearance as Joe Calderone, her apparent alter ego.
While the Staples Center is the largest venue to host the VMAs, the show has also been held at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, American Airlines Arena in Miami, and the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. This year’s venue is the largest and most spectacular, but, after all, the MTV Video Music Awards are known for putting on a pretty spectacular show so it works.
The VMAs will be held Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. Presenters and musical acts will be announced later. If you need to get your MTV award show fix before then, you can tune into the 2012 MTV Movie Awards, which will air live June 3 from Gibson Amphitheatre; it will be hosted by British comedian and actor Russell Brand.

Fox’s “X Factor” is sure to delight young music fans this fall. After lots of speculation about who the new judges would be, two new judges were announced yesterday. They are Britney Spears and Demi Lovato.
It’s been rumored for weeks now that Spears was set to join the show, and some gossip included the tidbit that she had successfully nabbed a $15 million contract for the show. While she is now confirmed to be a judge on the show, the amount of her contract has not been revealed. It’s been rumored that Lovato will get the much lower sum of $1 million for her participation on the show.
“I’m so excited about this whole experience,” Spears said Monday during the Fox Upfronts presentation in New York City. “I’m ready to find the true star.”
“X Factor” is Simon Cowell’s show and he had some fun with the revelation that both Spears and Lovato had joined the show. “Well, we delivered,” Cowell said. “Rumors are one thing, but delivery is something else.”
The two are replacing judges Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul; the show’s host also left at the end of the first season. That job has yet to be filled.
Returning judge L.A. Reid was excited about the addition of Spears and Lovato and the obvious return of Cowell. “I’m the luckiest guy in the planet, standing next to these three,” he said Monday. “This is the Rolls Royce of television right here.”

While NBC’s “The Voice” has pulled in record numbers in its second season, which just wrapped, Cowell predicts that when the two shows go head to head in the fall, “X Factor” will come out on top.
“This year, we’re going to seriously kick butt,” he told reporters. “We’re thrilled ‘The Voice’ has decided to compete with us and I wish them the most sincere luck. But second’s not great.”

The lucky artists who will perform at this year’s CMT awards run the gamut from the traditional to the new breed of crossover artists.
While hosts have not been announced, some of the performers were announced on Monday. The hosts and additional performers will be announced soon, according to Country Music Television.
The event will be held on June 6 in Nashville and will air live on CMT and CMT.com. Fans who want to attend can begin purchasing tickets on May 21 at 11 a.m.
Performers announced Monday include Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, and the Zac Brown Band.
Underwood leads all nominees with five nods, including one for her newest project, “Good Girl”. Underwood also has an interesting nod in the CMT performance of the year category. She is nominated with Steven Tyler for their live rendition of “Just a Dream/Dream On” from “CMT Crossroads: Steven Tyler and Carrie Underwood from the Pepsi Super Bowl Fan Jam”.
Underwood shares two of her nominations with Brad Paisley for “Remind Me”, which is in both the collaborative video of the year and video of the year categories.
Kenny Chesney is also competing in both of those categories for his collaboration with Grace Potter on “You and Tequila”. Lady Antebellum has three nominations, including video of the year and group video for “We Owned the Night”. They also received a nod in the CMT performance category for “Dancin’ Away with My Heart”.
Fans can vote from now until June 4 for their favorites at www.cmt.com or on their CMT apps which are available for the iPad, iPhone and Android devices.
Nominees for video of the year will be announced at the start of the live show and fans can vote throughout the show to determine the highlight winner of the night.

A country’s national anthem is its calling card. It’s what citizens learn at an early age and sing along with as soon as they can. National anthems are exactly as the name implies – they are songs that serve as important anthems to bring the people together and they raise the collective patriotism of any given country.
America’s national anthem, however, has been somewhat butchered recently. Like most national anthems, it’s a song that not everyone can sing and which should be reserved for the most vocally gifted singers in the country. That’s not to say that we cannot sing along, only that whoever leads the song should be gifted enough to bring out our patriotic spirit and encourage us to sing along, not make us stop in our tracks and wonder why the song is being disrespected.
That’s why those of us who favor hearing the national anthem sung like a national anthem should be are glad to hear that country singer Martina McBride has been chosen to sing the national anthem at the May 27 running of the Indianapolis 500.
It’s fair to say that America was a bit up in arms when Steven Tyler put his – ahem — unique spin on the National Anthem at the Super Bowl this year. It brought up memories for many Americans of other horrible versions of the song, including those from Roseanne Barr and Christina Aguilera, the former simply not a singer and the latter forgetting most of the lyrics.
It’s true. We place a lot of importance on the anthem and how it’s sung. I think this is true in every country. America’s anthem, however, ends on a difficult note and really only the best singers can pull it off. Many of us hold our breath waiting to see how those final bars will sound and erupt in either tears or applause when it’s sung just right (think Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl).
So we say ‘thank you’ to those who decided to anoint McBride with the honor at the American classic Indianapolis 500. Doug Boles, the spokesperson for the Speedway, told the Indianapolis Star that officials wanted a singer who could sing the anthem in a traditional manner.

It used to be, back in the day, that Saturday Night Live featured real musical artists performing live. It was a forum for new and up-and-coming artists to get attention and publicity and a place for more established performers to have a good time on a Saturday night showing off a new song or having fun with old favorites.
These days? It’s often a mess.
Witness Rihanna on this past Saturday’s SNL. While she might have sung live, it’s hard to tell in this case, she spent the bulk of both of her performances shaking her hips and patting her .. ahem .. lady parts. True, I’m not a great Rihanna fan so it’s easy to find fault her, but this was a hot mess. I don’t mean hot as in, “she’s so hot”, but truly a big messy performance series.
Who can do it better? This year, there have been few good performances. Gotye brought some of the classic SNL feel his performance a couple of weeks ago, but few others have really brought what made SNL performances special.
Instead, look to the past.

Not only did Nirvana perform LIVE (for shame) in early 1992, they welcomed the new year with classic rebel style.

Nirvana on SNL

The Blues Brothers reminded us that music can be fun. While the Blues Brothers franchise has tried to remind us again and again that “new” versions are just as good as the original created by Jon Belushi, watching them perform on SNL in 1978 reminds us why this just isn’t the case.

Blues Brothers on SNL

Finally, for some time we all loved to hate Kanye West. But he made a comeback of sorts on SNL in October of 2010. This brilliant performance reminded us that not only is the bad boy talented, but that we might need to forgive him his transgressions. Brilliance is often eccentric.

Kanye West on SNL