That’s just music

The new video from Lady Gaga - “Alejandro” is winning over the YouTube by it’s incredible popularity. In less than twenty four hours it was viewed by seven million times, thus setting another quite unprecedented event in her music career. Every hour the amount of seekers to look at this video is multiplying by hundreds of thousands. Definitely, this singer is trying to repeat Madonna’s biography of the 1980’s and after all she is very successful in this procedure. Lady Gaga seems to be very unique before other pop singers such as Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, these two are ordinary anyway if comparing them to her - regular stage against truly glamorous stage. The online popularity of Lady Gaga is solidly reflecting it. Video on “Alejandro” (from her 2009 album “The Fame Monster”) was produced by the fashion photographer Steve Klein. It lasts for nine minutes and as music magazines have noted, reflects the style of Madonna’s “Vogue”; it is scandalous, sexually oriented and moreover portrays the life of people with the non-traditional sexual orientation. Nothing less than that could be expected from Lady Gaga because things of that sort can seriously shock the crowd. Many may not be supportive of that, but a singer keeps with it and wants to rebel against the mainstream. Once again, a pop singer going totally against something is not very typical, rock, rap performers are usually acting this way, but for pop musicians it’s truly rebellious.

The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood had announced the release of his new solo album, said Classic Rock. This new record is going to become Wood’s first independent work in nine years - the last one, “Not for Beginners” came out in 2001. The new record is called “I Feel Like Playing”, and it surely opens the new horizons for the legend. Such musicians as Slash and Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) were involved in the process of recording, adding new things and underlining the old ones. The exact release date was not aired so far, but it’s known that it includes twelve songs: 

1. “Why’d Wanna Do A Thing”
2. “Sweetness”
3. “Lucky Man”
4. “I Gotta Go”
5. “Thing About You”
6. “How Am I Gonna Catch You”
7. “Spoonful”
8. “I Don’t Think So”
9. “100%”
10. “Fancy Pants”
11. “Tell Me Something”
12. “Forever”.

Just a few days ago it became publicly known that Ronnie Wood is planning to participate in the concert of the reunited The Faces; it’s possible that he is going to perform together with these guys and it’s totally incredible. The concert will take place on August 13, 2010 and it’s going to be their first performance since 1975. Humorously, but not without some facts Ronnie Wood is experiencing some sort of upheaval after breaking up with his scandalous girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova. While being with her he simply could not do anything, but drinking and going absolutely insane.

British pop singer Robbie Williams had prepared a new single, which was recorded together with another Take That member Gary Barlow, said ContactMusic. This work turned to be the first co-operation between them in fifteen years, so fans of Take That should be quite happy about it. This new song was called “Shame” and will be released on October 4, 2010. Besides that, a song may be incorporated into his double disk hits collection, which should include thirty nine tracks - it’s release is also planned on this year’s autumn. “The great thing about the album is that it’s not only a celebration of my past but also a bridge to my future. The fact that part of the future includes a name from my past makes it all the more poignant for me”, he noted. Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow have stopped co-working way back in 1995, and their conflicts had practically destroyed Take That (it fell apart in 1996). In nine years this group came back again, but without Williams, for some reason they’ve decided that “he’s gone solo too much”. Recently there was a lot of information on their possible reunion together with Williams, but so far all such rumors did not find any support. During the last year Williams had released his own hits compilation called “Songbook”, and another studio album - “Reality Killed the Video Star”.

Legendary ex-Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne had announced his wish that after death he would like to dedicate his body to scientific research, said ContactMusic. As musician underlined, he wants people to discover the secret of his long life despite the rock n’ roll lifestyle. A 61-years old vocalist is personally not understanding how he could survive. “By all accounts, I’m a medical miracle. It’s all very well going on a bender for a couple of days but mine went on for 40 years. At one point, I was knocking back four bottles of cognac a day, blacking out, coming to again and carrying on”. Well, it’s quite interesting amount of alcohol, and surely very unique if he could live after so many years of heavy drinking habits. Possibly there is no equivalent of this kind, many rock superstars who were drinking as badly as he did could not last until fifty. The guy is constantly sick with something and by now people just got used to hear of his medical conditions. “I happen to be the world’s worst hypochondriac. Being ill is like a hobby. I’ve even started to diagnose my own diseases, thanks to Google”. Quite peculiar note, and it surely reflects his real state of health, but maybe he is not that sick if he can perform and travel all over the place? Some critics are a little bit suspicious about Ozzy’s conditions because in many ways (and it may be true) people always want to see something incredible and unique. It could be the media which built Ozzy the way everyone knows him.

The first in nine years Stone Temple Pilots’ album was not able to win over the American music charts, for some reason such returns are not always successful, even if the band is nearly legendary. Following the last week’s results the album called “Stone Temple Pilots” had debuted on the second place according to Billboard scores by selling sixty two copies. All six previous records were able to get into the top ten list, except “Purple” (1994) which once got to number one. The leadership belongs to “Glee” series soundtrack for the second week in a row with it’s sixty three thousand copies sold out. It even won over The Rolling Stones’ “Exile On Main Street” re-released album, thus showing some incredible survival skills. Surely, it’s a little bit sad to see Stone Temple Pilots and The Rolling Stones to keep on loosing to the soundtrack of the modern series, but after all this is reality of the show business, which is often not very fair or objective. The band Stone Temple Pilots is considered to be almost legendary today, practically all of their albums portray their own unique style of music. Currently, many music critics think that the leader of the next week will be Jack Johnson with his album “To the Sea”; predictions say that he may sell up to 250 thousand copies.

Famous British music journalist Nick Kent had helped The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards to finish writing his autobiography, said New Musical Express. As Kent noted, he was particularly assisting to write about the early 1970’s when times were extremely tough for Richards, and for the band. “I understand why he forgot everything. All of it was too unpleasant to recall. His memories are extremely dark and full of misery. Keith even broke into tears. Those were difficult times”, underlined journalist. Drugs, sex and rock n’roll were making things pretty hard for them all, the band was in it’s peak, new, modern and very powerful. The Rolling Stones guitarist is working on his autobiography for two years so far, and recently he said that a book is almost over, so don’t miss it’s release; most likely it will hit the stores in October, 2010. Nick Kent is considered to be the best music critic in Britain of the 1970’s, he had co-operated with New Musical Express, The Face and currently gets published in The Guardian and many other British or French issues. Besides that, Kent was closely related to the creation of the British punk, he was responsible for the literary and media side of it. Generally speaking the music criticism is one of those jobs which surround music in a very particular way. These journalists are making the aura around it, even though usually they’re not writing the music itself.

Infamous Mexican guitarist Carlos Santana is working with a new album, which includes cover versions of the whole variety of  the classic rock songs, said Undercover. The release date and the name are not known so far, so fans should wait a little bit more. Among other musicians who have helped Santana to record the album, fans will find such performers as rapper Nas (”Back in Black”, AC/DC), Joe Cocker (he sang “Little Wing”, Jimi Hendrix), Chris Cornell (with his cover of Led Zeppelins “Whole Lotta Love”), and Ray Manzarek who had recorded the new version of The Doors’ “Riders On The Storm”. Santana has already practiced these kinds of experiments on his deeply successful album “Supernatural” (1999), it was able to sell twenty five million copies, hit platinum status for fifteen times and receive nine “Grammy’s”. “Supernatural” was co-produced with Eric Clapton, Matchbox Twenty vocalist Rob Thomas, Lauryn Hill, Dave Matthews, Everlast and Eagle Eye Cherry. The following records, “Shaman” (2002) and “All That I Am” (2005) were also including numerous duets, but less successful. Carlos Santana is very unique in mixing of different styles in his guitar playing, classic rock, Caribbean, and pop, all of them co-exist very well though. People admire Santana for being humorous all the time and friendly, so possibly that’s where his real talent dwells, openness and musical creativity. Thus, Santana shall hopefully create another classic thing once again.

A member of the Irish pop-band Boyzone Ronan Keating has returned to his wife at last, said The Daily Mirror relating this news to people that are closely related to the couple. Practically, rumours say that a singer and his wife Yvonne could not really stay separately, and now they’ve decided to return to each other. “Yvonne has made the huge step of admitting she is not ready to give up on the marriage but that doesn’t mean she is forgiving him”, noted the unknown source. A 33-years old Keating and his 36-years old wife Yvonne have separated after she had discovered his intimate SMS message history with another woman, a 26-years old dancer Francine Cornell. Almost immediately Yvonne had thrown him out, so Ronan has moved to the nearby hotel, - well she was right after all. During the last week he was trying to get in terms with his wife by doing all sorts of things, Ronan’s attempts even included writing of a song in which he confesses to her, and apologizes. Currently, he is working with it in his Dublin studio. The same rumours say that the couple is talking and there is a chance of them getting back on track, Yvonne is still terribly devastated, but there is a hope. She simply doesn’t want to break things up because of three children they both have, and maybe contemplates on being merciful on the guy. Another typical situation that came out due to the fame of these people.