MTV will celebrate the Januay 20th inauguration of new President Barack Obama with “Be the Change Inaugural Ball” celebrating young voter turnout and volunteer services. The ball will take place at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center and feature “leading artists, celebrities and government officials” who will be named soon. The ball will be simulcast live across all the MTV platforms. “Over the last year and culminating in this election, we have seen a groundswell of engagement and a refreshed spirit of activism from young people,” MTV general manager Stephen Friedman said. “We want to celebrate young people across the nation who are answering the call and working to make changes in their communities and beyond.”

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[808s and Heartbreak is out now on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam]

The economy's been tricky everywhere, even Scrooge McDuck's homeland, so when the Twilight Sad went on tour with fellow Scots Mogwai, they put together the Goo-referencing The Twilight Sad Killed My Parents And Hit The Road, a limited-edition collection of covers, live tracks, and instrumentals to help fund the trip. The quartet takes on the Smiths, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Joy Division via Closer's "Twenty Four Hours," which shows up as this week's Drop. We asked guitarist Andy MacFarlane about his band's Ian Curtis impression: Read his responses and take a listen.

By the by, The Twilight Sad Killed My Parents And Hit The Road is available for pre-order via the FatCat USA webstore.

In this week's Drop, we also offered the chance to win a limited-edition Monkey: Journey To The West vinyl boxset designed by Gorillaz's Jamie Hewlett.

In this special Thanksgiving installment of Quit Your Day Job, Frankie Rose and I talk a lot about drinks. When not bartending at Great Jones Cafe in New York City the ex-Vivian Girl plays stand-up drums in Crystal Stilts, the Brooklyn band that recently released Alight Of Night, a tight collection of dark minimalist, melancholic pop. Again, think Ian Curtis-on-Spector on down-tempo Chills. It's one of my 2008 favorites. After our discussion about the Shaggy, Vodka Lemonades, Purple Titties, and strange celebrity sightings take another listen to the harmonica-and-feedback-entwined "Shattered Shine" and detached surf haze of "Crystal Stilts." Pay attention to her drumming.

As we've mentioned many times, there's been a lot of talk about how Christina Aguilera has been "inspired" by Lady Gaga, both visually and sonically.

When questioned about the similarities, Aguilera referred to Gaga as "this person" and stated she didn't know if LADY G. was a man or a woman.

Diss!

But, in a new interview, it was Lady Gaga who was questioned this time about Aguilera's apparent attempt to copy her and recent "tranny" insult.

And Gaga did the right thing. She took the high road!

So after a bit of talk about her career and her songs, Gaga was asked:

Christina Aguilera said that she didn’t know who you were or whether or not you’re a man or a woman. Any comment on that? I thought it was rude.
"I don’t take offense to it. I’m inspired by androgyny and David Bowie and Grace Jones."

And the MTV performance? It was said that she stole your look?
"The performance bared a resemblance. I don’t have a “look”. I dress like this all the time. I have no enemies."

And that's how you properly handle situations like that!

Take note, Xtina.

[Photo via Getty Images.]

To the programming monkeys over at The CW: Do you really believe that you are an honest-to-goodness competitor in the market right now? Because, if you were, then you would probably be doing something more than just relying on the teen angst shows that populate your weekday schedule.You would probably be trying again to get original programming up and running on the weekends, as well. Particularly on Sunday nights.

Sadly, you're not doing this. In fact, according to the most recent press release you sent out, you're pretty much caving in on Sundays. Instead of giving viewers some new shows to try out, or even reruns (or, as you say, encores) of your more popular programs, from 5-8 pm you're giving us first season episodes of Everybody Hates Chris and The Game, second season episodes of The Drew Carey Show and first season episodes of Jericho. The only people I can see being even remotely happy about this schedule are Jericho fans.

To cap it all off, you're giving us heavily edited movies from your MGM catalog. You say in the press release that these movies will be "contemporary theatrical films". Oh, really! Let's take a look at the "contemporary" titles you're promoting: Teen Wolf, Spaceballs, Carrie, Mr. Mom, Three Amigos. The only "contemporary" titles I saw in the listing you gave were the 2001 tech thriller Anti-Trust and 2002's The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, which premieres this Sunday. You remember this movie, don't you? It stars the late Steve Irwin.

Come on, guys, time to give it all up. Farm out your most successful shows to the other networks, including cable, and just shutdown. Giving us the so-called "new" Sunday lineup is an insult to our viewing intelligence. We're a pretty smart bunch of television viewers. Either give us something new we can sink our teeth into or just close the doors on your way out.

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Continue reading The Stories That Informed 'Batman R.I.P.' ›

Ask anyone what film they're most looking forward to next year and they'll probably tell you Watchmen or Inglourious Basterds or some other crap. Why? Because they've not yet heard of Paper Hearts, the top-secret new Michael Cera movie debuting at January's Sundance Film Festival. According to The Hollywood Reporter today, Hearts' makers are trying to keep it under wraps — it's not even on IMDb! — in hopes that it might take the fest by surprise, like Napoleon Dynamite did in 2005. "Any movie that's going to be touted too much will have a bull's-eye on its back," says one of HR's sources. Still, though, if the film's anywhere near as good as its stealth marketing campaign implies, can there be any doubt that Paper Hearts will surpass The Dark Knight's box-office gross on its way to next year's Academy Award for Best Picture?

According to HR, Hearts — directed by newcomer Nicholas Jasenovec — is a "part-documentary, part-scripted comedy" about the relationship between Cera and Charlyne Yi, his real-life girlfriend (who played Jodi in Knocked Up). Presumably Cera will play another dolt who bumbles his way into an awkward sexual encounter, and the soundtrack will feature indie rock of some variety. Sounds awesome to us!

Michael Cera comedy flies under radar [HR]

Read more posts by Lane Brown

Filed Under: charlyne yi, countdown, michael cera, movies, paper hearts, sundance, sundance film festival

[808s and Heartbreak is out now on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam]

If Kanye West looked uncomfortable answering Conan O'Brien's questions last night, it wasn't because he was nervous. This defense of Auto-Tune that came eight minutes into the interview should explain things...

"If I sing off-key it really points that out. It points out the bad notes. So I actually have to sing more perfect. But I use it because I like the electronic feel. I like the sound. I want to juxtapose Taiko drums and monk choirs with Auto-Tune. I deliver music like it's art. I feel like I'm a Pop Artist. Sidebar: I have to use the bathroom really, really bad, and they didn't give me enough time, I just wanted to tell you that."

Cue awkward silence. I felt bad for him, but as Conan pointed it, it added a sense of urgency to what he was saying. Based on the dryness of Kanye's khakis during the subsequent performance of "Heartless," it looks like he got to use a restroom during Seth MacFarlane's segment.

For the 2008 version of the Rolling Stone “Hot Issue,” Britney Spears found her way onto the cover of the magazine for the seventh time on the heels of her new album Circus and her seemingly unlikely comeback. Click above to go behind the scenes at Britney’s cover shoot and to hear Rolling Stone’s Jodi Peckman discuss the ideas behind the cover.

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To get the story behind the album and its standout track "Champagne in a Paper Cup," we jumped on the phone with Gibs for a chat.

Listen: Death Cab for Cutie, "Champagne in a Paper Cup"

"I think it's a 'one night in a life' kind of song about the disillusionment of being at a party in your late teens/ early twenties," Gibbard says of the track. "I've always been fond of the lyric, 'Drinking champagne out of a paper cup / It's never quite the same.' You're drinking something that's supposed to be elegant, for special occasions, but you're drinking it out of a paper cup. It's kind of very indicative of the situation."

The situation: college life. Something About Airplanes was written and recorded while Gibbard was attending Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. "I was 20, and at the time I was living with [guitarist] Chris Walla and our friend Brian," he says.

Death Cab for Cutie / Photo by Peter Ellenby
Click to enlarge

"To be perfectly honest, there was a song by a friend of ours that was kind of linked to a heavy tremolo, a slow-core kind of thing," Gibbard says. "I started playing guitar with this really heavy tremolo -- I liked the way it sounded. I cranked it up and we got it recorded on cassette -- that's 'Champagne in a Paper Cup''s sound."

"Sometimes hearing old songs can be like seeing an old high school yearbook about yourself," he says of revisiting Something About Airplanes. "You thought you looked cool in that stripy T-shirt and your hair parted in that particular way, and maybe in the context of the time, you'd fit. When you look back on something years later, you're looking at it with very different eyes and with a different kind of contemporary context. I think the same can be said about songwriting."

To document the historic event, SPIN.com sent Axl fan and all around funny guy Ben Lashes -- frontman of Seattle punk band the Lashes -- to the center of the GNR storm: a Hollywood Best Buy, where he surveyed the scene on the release day of music's most-anticipated album ever. Watch his report below.

Watch: Ben Lashes on the scene

Continue reading NBC dumps Chuck, Life, and Heroes (for January, for January!)

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Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment

Hitachi introduces trio of ultra-bright projectors originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The moment where the MP3 has supplanted the CD as the music industry’s centerpiece may have finally arrived, at least at Atlantic Records, where the company reported that digital sales accounted for 51% of its revenues. Atlantic is the first label to reveal that their digital sector — comprised of song downloads, ringtones and the like — outsold their physical CDs. “We’re like a college basketball team on an 18-2 run,” Atlantic’s chairman Craig Kallman said in an awkward, failed sports analogy. All told, Atlantic’s parent company Warner Music Group saw their digital revenues rise by 39% to $639 million in the previous fiscal year. Making Atlantic’s digital achievement even more stunning is the fact that their biggest album of the last year and a half, Kid Rock’s Rock N’ Roll Jesus, wasn’t available via top digital retailer iTunes and was only recently available on Rhapsody. So does this mean that record labels are finally adapting to the ever-changing industry? “I think we’ve figured it out,” said Julie Greenwald, president of Atlantic Records. “It used to be that you could connect five dots and sell a million records. Now there are 20 dots you can connect to sell a million records.”

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