Justin Timberlake Considering MySpace Talent Competition

Singer/actor wants to bring new talent to the site he now co-owns, manager says.
By Gil Kaufman


Justin Timberlake
Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images

Now that he's bought a chunk of recently sold MySpace, Justin Timberlake is eager to get his hands dirty relaunching the once-powerful social networking destination.

According to Timberlake's longtime manager, the singer-turned-actor has got plenty of ideas about how to get MySpace back on track as a destination for music fans, including finding new talent. Manager Johnny Wright said that using the site to find the next great singer or group is just one of the concepts that got kicked around during the frantic two weeks of negotiations that went on before Specific Media's deal with Timberlake to buy MySpace from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was announced last week.

"Whether it becomes a talent competition or something like that, those are things that we will still flesh out," Wright said, according to The Associated Press. "We definitely want to bring the industry back to MySpace to really look at the talented people that have put their faces there."

More detailed plans for how Timberlake and the site's new managers will run Myspace are expected at an August 17 press conference.

California-based Specific Media paid $35 million for MySpace last week in a mostly stock deal that came six years after Murdoch's News Corp. outbid a number of other media giants to purchase the then-hot site for $580 million. In the ensuing years, MySpace cooled off as new rivals such as Facebook took off.

Hours after Specific announced its deal to buy MySpace, it issued a press release touting Timberlake's status as a part owner and creative force, noting that he will have his own office and staff. Given Timberlake's role as the founder of Napster in the hit Facebook movie "The Social Network," his involvement in the project quickly became a global headline. And, according to reports, that partnership wasn't even sealed until just 30 minutes before Specific Media's MySpace purchase was made public.

While Wright didn't offer any details on what form the talent show might take, the manager who has handled the singer since his 'NSYNC days said his client is eager to get things going. The day after the deal closed, Wright said he got an email from an anxious Timberlake that read, "Are you up? My mind is going dizzy with ideas. I need to talk."

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666784/justin-timberlake-myspace-talent-competition.jhtml

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Adam Lambert's 'Whole Lotta Love': The Story Behind The Cover

Glam rocker tackled the legendary 1970 Led Zeppelin song for 'American Idol' rock night.
By Gil Kaufman


Adam Lambert performs "Whole Lotta Love" on "American Idol" on Tuesday
Photo: R. Mickshaw/Getty Images/ Fox

Imagine a freight train speeding toward you at midnight. Or a rockslide barreling down a hill as you try to outrace it. That's the feeling of the ominous, chugging Jimmy Page riff that kicks off Led Zeppelin's 1970 Stonehenge of rock, "Whole Lotta Love." And that's before singer Robert Plant leans into one of the nastiest, ecstatic rock screams this side of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again."

That's the song Adam Lambert chose to sing on "American Idol" rock night Tuesday (May 5), and, needless to say, it was a challenge that the eyeliner-loving Los Angeles stage veteran was more than up for, hitting a series of high notes and rock screams that would have made Plant proud. It was a risky maneuver that paid off for Lambert, who chose a tune that came in at #75 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.

The legendary British rock act recorded the tribute to Chicago blues icon Willie Dixon during their second U.S. tour after working it out in their live show, including it on their 1969 classic album Led Zeppelin II. Like many of the songs Zeppelin performed early in their career, "Love" was a blues standard turned on its head with a heavy dose of crunching psychedelic guitar and thundering drums, courtesy of late drummer John Bonham. The song was based on a 1962 tune by another blues forefather, Muddy Waters, called "You Need Love," which was penned by Dixon.

For Zeppelin's version, Plant customized the lyrics by adding some lyrical quotes from a few other songs Dixon wrote for Howlin' Wolf, "Back Door Man" and "Shake For Me," nailing the tricky vocal in a single take. It was also inspired by 1966's "You Need Loving" from the British rock group the Small Faces, for whom Zeppelin had great affection, but they also did not credit Dixon for his part in writing the original lyrics. The song became Zeppelin's first U.S. single and their only U.S. top 10 hit. Though their manager would not let them release singles in the U.K. because he thought it cannibalized album sales, the song was finally released as the band's only British single in 1997.

Dixon sued Zeppelin over the song in 1985, claiming it borrowed too heavily from his "You Need Love," and Zeppelin reached an agreement with him, with Dixon using the money he received to set up a program that provided musical instruments for schools. A cornerstone of heavy rock, the tune -- which was the theme song for the long-running British countdown show "Top of the Pops" in the 1970s and '80s -- has been covered by dozens of artists over the years, from Tina Turner and Ben Harper to Prince, Slash, Leona Lewis, Train's Pat Monahan, the London Symphony Orchestra and Jane's Addiction.

Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1610709/adam-lamberts-whole-lotta-love-story-behind-cover.jhtml

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Beyonce Surprises Fans At Harlem Target

Retail giant, meanwhile, promises that video exclusive for deluxe edition of 4 will be ready soon.
By Jocelyn Vena


Beyonce surprises fans at Target in Harlem on June 30th
Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

While traipsing the globe to promote 4, Beyoncé stopped by New York City's Harlem Target on Thursday to say hello to some of her young fans.

As the store celebrated its one-year anniversary, kids from the local Boys and Girls Club danced their hearts out onstage to Beyoncé's new track "Countdown." In the middle of the song, B took the stage and gave them a big group hug before letting them continue their routine.

"I'd like to thank the Boys and Girls Club for coming out. I hope y'all had fun learning the choreography to 'Countdown' today," she told the crowd, in footage posted on Rap-up.com. "I hope you guys enjoy the new album 4."

Beyoncé had a little bit of a commercial reason to show up at the Target store: The deluxe version of 4, which is set to debut at #1 on the Billboard albums chart, is available exclusively at the retail giant. But since the disc's release on Tuesday, fans have complained that some Targets didn't stock enough copies, and the promised exclusive video can't be accessed yet.

"Honestly, day one sales were fantastic for us, especially on the deluxe edition," John Butcher, Target's vice president of entertainment, told The Hollywood Reporter, assuring fans that Sony was delivering more CDs soon.

As for the promised exclusive director's cut of B's "Run the World (Girls)" video, Butcher explained that the clip wasn't quite ready for public consumption, but it should be ready shortly. "Beyoncé's team is still finalizing aspects of the content, and they just didn't want [it] to be released until it was perfect," he said. "We could have forced something through that wasn't right — it was our prerogative to do so — but we didn't want to do it. We certainly don't want to disappoint our guests. We believe they'd rather have the right content and wait a couple days than get something that wasn't going to be very special."

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666731/beyonce-harlem-target.jhtml

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Shirtless Tom Cruise Rings in 49 With Bikini-Clad Katie Holmes and Their Kids!

Tom Cruise turned 49 yesterday, and to celebrate, his wife, Katie Holmes, threw him a surprise bash in Miami. Katie, along with their kids, Connor and Suri, threw Tom Cruise's birthday party on the roof of the city's Soho House. The family has been based at the lux hotel for the long weekend, with Katie and Suri seen entering on Friday and Connor spotted on Saturday. Yesterday, though, the foursome kicked things off with a swim. Tom Cruise went shirtless while Katie wore a black bikini, and Suri even had her face painted. They then moved inside for the bash, which included yummy treats like pasta, shrimp, more Italian dishes, as well as a special chocolate cake. Tom has been in Florida working on Rock of Ages. He's earned at least one fan in director Adam Shankman. Adam gave Tom an early birthday present by tweeting on Thursday, "I promise: Tom is brilliant in this movie. The hardest working actor I've ever worked with. You'll be blown away."

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'Transformers' Stars Reveal Tricks Behind Filming Building-Escape Scene

'We all felt 12 again, sliding down the side of this building, shooting, screaming,' Tyrese Gibson tells MTV News.
By Kara Warner


Shia LaBeouf in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
Photo: Jaimie Trueblood

For those who've seen "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," there is so much going on in the film that one could spend the next 12 months breaking down all the dirty details. We've already tackled the nods to "Star Trek" and the "Transformers"-specific Easter eggs, so today we turn our attention to one of the film's most impressive action sequences: the part when evil Decepticon Shockwave sends his massive, spinning, snakelike destroyer after our protagonists, who become trapped in the upper stories of a tall building. The Transformer proceeds to cut the building in half, leaving our heroes no option but to jump out of the windows and slide down the outside of the building to safety.

MTV News had the scene's stars, Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Tyrese Gibson, explain how they managed to pull off that sequence.

"The building comes up on what I can only describe as a crane," Whiteley explained of the rig used to support and move the specific set piece. "It tilts to about a 40-degree angle. It's built to look like the outside of a skyscraper," she said. "Shia, myself, Tyrese, the Marines, we all set at the top, Mike [director Michael Bay] would scream 'Action!' and then we would slide down this thing," she recalled. "And then flower pots, chairs, paper and fake glass, tennis balls, every office supply you could possibly think of would get thrown down after us."

Despite the gravity of that particular scene, it turns out that the boys thought of the tilting skyscraper set piece more like a ride at a county fair.

"This thing had to be 150 to 200 feet in the air. It was like a huge slide," Gibson said. "We all felt 12 again, sliding down the side of this building, shooting, screaming, doing everything we had to do in those scenes.

"It was scary stuff," he added with a smile. "It was scary with the idea that we are about to be eaten, eaten alive."

"We shot that for three weeks or so," LaBeouf said. "You're basically pulling yourself on rope to get to the top of the thing. It's like a big slide, you know those slides they have at fairs where you get the little brown bag? Brown bag slides, sort of like that."

Huntington-Whiteley added that in the midst of all the fun had while sliding, she learned very quickly to pay attention to her landing and get out of the way when she reached the bottom of the set piece. "I'd always hit the bottom first. It took one time to realize if I didn't get out of the way really quick, I was going to get flattened by a 300-pound man coming quite quickly after me!"

Check out everything we've got on "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666768/transformers-dark-of-the-moon-building-escape.jhtml

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ESSENCE FEST PARTY PICS: Garcelle Beauvais, Boris Kodjoe & LeToya Luckett In The Belvedere Lounge

The Belvedere Lounge saw a lot of traffic though its space at the Superdome for the 2011 Essence Essence Music Fest.  Inside, see pics of Garcelle Beauvais, Boris Kodjoe, LeToya Luckett and Terry Crews...

The star of TNT's "Franklin & Bash," Garcelle Beauvais stopped by the lounge. 

And gorgeous actor Boris Kudjoe posed on their carpet. 

"Find A Way" crooner Dwele came through. 

And singer Noel Gourdin posed. 

LeToya Luckett brought her Houston flavor to the lounge.


 

Then she and stye maven Bevy Smith created "The Belve Peach Essence."   We love a good fruity drink! 

 
 

Terry Crews and his wife Rebecca posed in the lounge.


 

And Naturi Naughton came through too.  Just a thought...I wonder if Kiely and Sabrina will invite their old 3LW bandmate on Dinner With Friends?

Photos via Belvedere Vodka

Source: http://theybf.com/2011/07/02/essence-fest-party-pics-garcelle-beauvais-boris-kodjoe-letoya-lucket-in-the-belvedere-lou

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