Winehouse (Sort of) Recording New Album

Duets with babymama to be released, plague us all

(NEWSER) - The 40th anniversary of Woodstock—what a perfect day for the announcement that Mel Gibson is making what is sure to become known as musical history. The actor provides guest vocals for two of the tracks on babymamma Oksana Grigorieva’s upcoming album, the Mirror reports. In not nearly so terrifying news, he also directs four of the videos for her album, Beautiful Heartache. More»

Rapper will still be in the game when he's 70, he says

(NEWSER) - Ghostface Killah is one of today’s most critically acclaimed rappers, and he doesn’t plan on quitting any time soon: “I’ma definitely be old in hip-hop. This is a mental thing. You can write music till you 70,” he tells New York. His new album, Wizard of Poetry, finds him exploring a new direction: R&B. The main difference? “You can’t talk about slinging crack on an R&B album.” More»

Yes, Kelly Clarkson made the top five

(NEWSER) - Now that 2009 is more than halfway over, James Montgomery runs down the best albums of the year—so far—on MTV:

• Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion: The No. 1 pick is “the only thing I can remember that has actually lived up to the hype, if not exceeded it.”
• Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: “Retro pop hyper-focused on a futuristic re-imagination of post-modernism and neo-classicism as proletarian touchstones? That you can dance to?” earns album No. 2 spot.

Singer kept demos extremely private

(NEWSER) - Michael Jackson plotted his comeback album with Will.i.am, and the Black Eyed Peas frontman now tells the Mirror it was going to be “something Michael has never done before—a dance music album.” The King of Pop kept the demos “under lock and key,” but Will.i.am heard them. “It was going to be out of this world," he said. More»

(NEWSER) - It’s no exaggeration to say that Michael Jackson “made a more profound impact in the arenas of soul, R&B and dance-pop than any other singer or songwriter in history,” writes Jim DeRogatis in the Chicago Sun-Times. But while many fans reach for Thriller, “widely considered the best-selling disc of all time,” DeRogatis and other “hardcore fans” cast their lot with 1979’s Off the Wall. More»