Justin Bieber appealed to his fans on Wednesday (April 28) to calm down after his hat was stolen and his mother knocked over by a crowd of about 500 waiting to greet him as he arrived in New Zealand.
The frenzy came after Australian police on Monday (April 26) canceled a live performance in Sydney by the 16-year-old Canadian singer when a crowd of about 5,000 teenage girls got out of hand, with about eight youngsters injured in the crush and others fainting.
The hysteria surrounding Bieber, who is traveling to promote his debut album "My World 2.0," has sparked comparisons to the reaction of young fans when The Beatles went on tour in the 1960s.
"Finally got to New Zealand last night," Bieber told his 2 million-plus followers on Twitter. "The airport was crazy. Not happy that someone stole my hat and knocked down my mama. Come on people... I want to be able to sign and take pics and meet my fans but if you are all pushing security won't let me."
His album "My World 2.0" hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts in the United States within a week of its release last month. http://www.billboard.com/news/justin-bieber-urges-fans-to-calm-down-1004086941.story#/news/justin-bieber-urges-fans-to-calm-down-1004086941.storyView Here...
For my daughter, Sophie, it was like finding the goose that laid the golden egg. "Today was a Fairytale," Taylor Swift was singing from the stage at Staples Center, and Sophie, age 11, was singing every word along with her, waving a colored light stick back and forth above her head. Her grin was electric, her attention sharply focused; she wasn't missing anything.
For the last year or so, Sophie has been a Taylor Swift obsessive ("I am Taylor's No. 1 fan!" read the sign she brought to the concert with us), which made the show April 16 its own kind of happily ever after — or, as Sophie informed me, "the most important night of my life."
Partly, this had to do with Swift, who Sophie likes both because of her music and "because she's not afraid to talk about what happened in her life." Partly, it had to do with the fact that we were not just seeing the concert but reporting on it, and were therefore invited to a backstage meet-and-greet.
Sitting in the hospitality room deep in the belly of Staples Center, Sophie looked as if she couldn't quite believe where she was. Normally, she's a chatty kid, full of excitement and stories. But waiting for the main event, she was quiet, watchful, taking it all in. Then Swift entered, wearing a simple yellow dress, to thank us all for coming, and Sophie's face uncurled.
Sophie is a big fan of pop music. Last summer, I took her to see the Jonas Brothers, and she listens to Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, all the Disney stars.
But there's something different about her feelings for Swift, something I recognize from my early days as a music fan. Beginning when I was not much older than she is, I was a rock 'n' roll fanatic: first, the Beatles, and later everything from the Grateful Dead to Led Zeppelin to the Clash, as if, in the intersection of all those clanging guitar chords, I might learn some lesson about how to live.
For my daughter, Swift offers a similar connection, one that transcends fanhood for identification instead. At Staples, she laughed when the stage patter turned toward bad boyfriends, and shrieked when Swift played songs such as "Should've Said No."
It doesn't matter that Sophie's still too young to have a boyfriend; in her eyes, all this makes Swift a figure of empowerment, a role model in a certain sense. "I like that she writes songs about her boyfriends," Sophie told me. "It shows that she was sad but she got over it."
I don't want to make too much of this, although in our culture of flash and excess, there are worse messages for Sophie to internalize. But I don't want to minimize it either, for I remember how I used to feel about the musicians I idolized. Because of that, I can relate to her devotion, to the idea that seeing this concert felt like the most essential, vital thing she'd ever done.
That's why on Friday night, I watched her as much as I watched the action on the stage. Our seats were close. You could almost feel like you were part of it, which is, of course, the essential illusion of pop. You connect with a performer through the music, and yet at the same time, that performer remains just the slightest bit distant, just the slightest bit larger-than-life.
For Sophie, that is part of the attraction; she was there for the show. She liked the costume changes, liked the fact that Swift kept changing her guitar. When Swift opened with "You Belong With Me," Sophie admired what she called her "band-geek outfit," a kind of majorette costume that she shed partway through the song to reveal a sparkly dress.
Yet most of all, she liked the music, which, even I'll admit, is not half-bad. What Swift has over the other performers to whom Sophie listens is an understanding of the art of songcraft; she's like the Sheryl Crow of the tween set. I was astonished to see a lot of older people at the concert — not just teenagers and college kids, but adults my age, couples out on a Friday night. This says something about her sustainability, and also about her appeal.
As for the performance, I'm going to leave that to Sophie, since she's the fan. Swift played most of Sophie's favorite songs, including "Forever & Always," "Fearless" and "Teardrops on My Guitar." She spent a while in the middle of the show singing from out in the audience, which Sophie thought "shows she wants to meet her fans."
Throughout the evening, there were videos that served as connective fiber, mock interviews and skits. The sets, Sophie thought, "were really cool," and if she wished there had been a few more costume changes, her only real regret was that Swift didn't play enough from her first album.
But then again, Sophie prefers the second album, "Fearless," because it has a better mix of styles.
Sophie told me all this after the concert, chatty again in the car. As she talked, I felt as if I had found the golden goose myself. It may have started out as Sophie's evening, but driving home, I understood that I had been given something irreplaceable and rare.
"Today Was a Fairytale," Swift had sung. And listening to my daughter, I knew that she was right. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/la-et-swift-20100425,0,383963.story?track=rssView Here...
This entertainer is BFF with Rihanna (who's known for wearing high fashion in the most casual of settings). So we weren't surprised when she decided to wear a couture frock at Coachella.
Too bad she picked the ugliest designer piece she could find! This Louis Vuitton camouflage dress looks more like a fat-lady suit. To make matters worse, she paired it with a smorgasbord of neon accessories. Read more: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b177051_which_rihanna_bestie_dressing_under.html#ixzz0lhqbg2jvView Here...
Her exterior masked a singing voice that took the Internet and the music industry by storm, so could Susan Boyle, below, also be concealing a prose style to rival Jane Austen’s or Virginia Woolf’s? The British publisher Transworld is willing to make that bet and has signed up Ms. Boyle, the reality television-turned-recording star, to write her autobiography, BBC News reported. Transworld said the book, which will be called “The Woman I Was Born to Be,” will document Ms. Boyle’s sudden rise after her 2009 appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent,” which led to her best-selling debut album, “I Dreamed a Dream.” A British release is planned for the fall; no American publication date has been announced. In a statement reported by the BBC, Ms. Boyle said she was “writing this book to try to show that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” She added: “When I strutted on to the stage for that audition, I was a scared wee lassie, still grieving for my mother, not caring how I looked. I think I’ve grown up a lot in the last year, become more of a lady, and I’m not so frightened anymore.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/arts/21arts-SUSANBOYLESS_BRF.htmlView Here...
Singing sensation Susan Boyle hopes one day she will meet her ''prince'' and hasn't given up on finding love.
Susan Boyle is looking for her "prince".
The 'Wild Horses' singer - who remains a spinster at 49 - still hopes there is time to find the man of her dreams.
Although she is still single, Susan has been having the best time of her life since she shot to fame after appearing on Simon Cowell's show 'Britain's Got Talent'.
In a TV interview in Australia, she said: "I go on looking. Some day my prince will come.
"But I have never been in a better place. It's absolutely brilliant for me right now."
After appearing on the series, Susan asked out a fellow churchgoer - 66-year-old Helmut Glaser - in her hometown of West Lothian in Scotland, but he turned her down saying he was too old.
Susan - whose debut album, 'I Dreamed A Dream', became the biggest-selling worldwide female solo album of 2009 - also admitted she is still getting used to being recognised in the street but remains down to earth and still uses public transport.
She added: "It takes a wee bit to get used to it. I had to learn to be a bit different, people recognise you in the street. At the beginning I couldn't go out on my own. I still catch the bus."
Meanwhile, the pressures of fame appear to be getting to Susan as she has reportedly had a public falling out with her personal assistant, Joanne Crawford, who is also her niece.
The pair are said to have been at loggerheads during a recent trip to Japan, then upon their return to the UK Susan blasted Joanne after being informed a private plane scheduled to take her from London's Heathrow airport to Edinburgh was delayed.
A source said: "It all kicked off in public at the baggage carousel at Heathrow Terminal Three. Susan was absolutely raging. It's a 13-hour flight from Tokyo and she was yelling at Joanne that she just wanted to f***ing get home. Then she started calling Joanne a b***h.
"Joanne and Susan were supposed to have a bond which would stop this sort of thing happening. But it's not working." http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/susan-boyle-looking-for-prince_1138667View Here...
RIHANNA has scored a third week at the top of the U.S. pop charts with her RUDE BOY.
The track holds off B.o.B.'s Nothin' On You at two and a charge from Train, who gain four spots at three with Hey, Soul Sister.
Former chart topper Need You Now by Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga and Beyonce's Telephone round out the new top five.
Justin Bieber scores the highest debut on the Hot 100 for a second successive week - his Eenie Meenie collaboration with Sean Kingston enters the countdown at 30. http://www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-82593.htmlView Here...
SINGER Shakira says getting married is no longer high on her list of priorities.
The Hips Don’t Lie hitmaker — who has been engaged to beau Antonio De La Rua for over four years — says she sees marriage as a “contract” — which she doesn’t find romantic.
“Our relationship is very romantic and I want to be his eternal girlfriend,” she said.
“The idea of wearing a white dress is very romantic, but the real point of marriage is a contract and that is not romantic to me. I also didn’t want to be under constant pressure to name a day. Then, after the marriage, the only thing people want to know is when the divorce will be.
“I told him: ‘Let’s never get married.’ It makes everything so much easier. He is very much like me and he understood what I was saying and now we feel very free and happy.”
However, the 33-year-old star is keen to start a family.
“Do I have any plans for children? Little wolves? Yeah, of course,” she recently said. “I’d really like to have kids, but first I need to go on tour and release this new album – and then we can sit down and talk about it.” http://www.showbizspy.com/article/202375/shakira-says-shes-not-keen-on-the-pressure-of-marriage.htmlView Here...
Posts
