WATCH out! Baby Britney is popping out of the playpen.At a fashion show last Thursday for Kids "R" Us, Jamie Lynn Spears - the pop princess' 11-year-old kid sister - strutted her stuff in cute cheerleader costumes.
But the confident starlet has an agenda of her own - which doesn't include modeling. "I like fashion, but I want to be a singer and actor," Jamie Lynn told The Post.
So far, Britney has let her little sister - who has her blond hair and pale complexion - tag along for the ride. Jamie Lynn appeared on stage in "Britney Spears: Live from Las Vegas," starred with Britney in a Pepsi commercial and had a cameo as young Britney in the teen romance flick, "Crossroads."
But the sixth-grader will soon be stepping out from the sexy megastar's shadow. Nickelodeon has confirmed that Jamie Lynn and her mom have been "in talks" about a project in which the dimunitive dazzler might star - echoes of Britney, who got her big break as a Mouseketeer.
"We have talked to Jamie Lynn but we don't have any announcements to make at this time," said a spokesperson for the network.
There's even buzz that - gasp! - little sis might be the more talented one. At the show, Jamie Lynn was asked if she thinks she has a better voice than Britney. "Yes, ma'am," she answered modestly.
Her big sister agrees. "[Jamie Lynn] has a better voice than I do," admitted Britney to the San Diego Union-Tribune last year. "I support her 100 percent."
Mama Spears also boasts about her baby daughter's pipes. When she sings, says Lynne Spears, "she makes the windows rattle" in their $3 million Louisiana mansion.
Yet mom says she's not grooming her to be the next Britney. "It's her own thing," she says. "I'm along for the ride."
Sadly, Hollywood will have to live without the girls' older brother, 25-year-old heartthrob Bryan, who works in product merchandising in Manhattan. Says mom, "He's too macho" for show business.
We'll hold our breath.
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 @ 03:44 p.m.
-- *NSYNC wrapped up a two-night stand at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Sunday (April 14), performing in front of a almost sold-out house. Rapper-producer Sean "P. Diddy" Combs opened for *NSYNC at the show.
Opening the show, Combs performed many hits, including "Diddy" and " I Need A Girl (Part One)." He also wowed the packed arena with "It's All About The Benjamins" and "Mo Money Mo Problems." In addition, Combs incorporated a unique video duet into his show with fellow rapper Busta Rhymes on "Pass The Courvoisier Part II."
Combs, who readily admits to being a fan of Canadian rockers Nickelback, even had his DJ spin the band's hit, "How You Remind Me," for the audience to sing along with. Combs dedicated "I'll Be Missing You" to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and a video montage of the events that transpired that day played in the background as Combs performed the track.
Other opening acts on Sunday included NSB2 (Not So Boy Band), which features *NSYNC member Joey Fatone's father Joe Fatone Sr. Also, singer-songwriter Tony Lucca, who got his start on the Mickey Mouse Club with Justin Timberlake and J.C. Chasez, delivered an admirable acoustic performance.
In the main event, *NSYNC was successful in keeping the focus on its music, performing songs not only from Celebrity but also from its 1998 self-titled debut, and from 2000's No Strings Attached. Singer Chris Kirkpatrick told LAUNCH that *NSYNC didn't want the special effects and pyrotechnics to overshadow the music on this tour.
"The show we're doing right now is very musical," he said. "We do a couple of little things in it, but it won't take away from the show at all. And I think with everything that we put together and with everything we do, the music is the most important thing because that's what the kids are there to hear."
*NSYNC also took a trip back in time and performed a medley of Beatles hits that included "Twist & Shout," "I Want To Hold Your Hand," and "Hey Jude," among others. The quintet also paid homage to the Temptations with the classics "My Girl" and "The Way You Do The Things You Do."
Chasez agreed with Kirkpatrick that remaining focused on the music is the group's first priority. "This show itself, like Chris said before, is a totally different show. It has nothing to do with special effects, and nothing to do with anything like that. This show is strictly a musical show, and we like to throw different things at people, you know, and different sounds. The main part of us touring, we just love to be on the road. We love to give our music to the people face-to-face. I mean, it's one thing when they buy it off the shelves--it's another thing when you can look somebody in the face and they can sing with you and you can give them a lyric that they love."
*NSYNC will perform at Boston's FleetCenter Tuesday night (April 16). Meanwhile, the group's current album Celebrity has sold almost 4.7 million copies in the U.S. to date, according to current sales figures.
*NSYNC's remaining Celebrity tour dates:
April 16 - Boston, MA - FleetCenter
April 18 - Philadelphia, PA - First Union Center
April 19 - Hartford, CT - Hartford Civic Center
April 21 - Washington, DC - MCI Center
April 22 - Pittsburgh, PA - Mellon Arena
April 23 - Columbus, OH - Nationwide Arena
April 25 - Memphis, TN - The Pyramid
April 27 - Sunrise, FL - National Car Rental Center
April 28 - Orlando, FL - TD Waterhouse Centre
-- Jason Gelman, New York
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 @ 03:38 p.m.
'N Sync last night at the FleetCenter, with P. Diddy.
'N Sync sang the blues last night at the FleetCenter.
The Florida fivesome weren't complaining about their fishbowl lives or the rigors of having to learn so much fancy footwork to the sold-out crowd - who screamed non-stop throughout the performance. Members Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass were actually singing the blues - a swinging, finger-snapping, Manhattan Transfer-esque version of their hit ``I Want You Back'' to be exact - and doing a bang up job of it, too.
In fact, for most of the show - the first of two at the Fleet - the teen heartthrobs succeeded in scaling back their mammoth PopOdyssey stadium spectacle to arena size proportions, and even threw in a few musical curveballs without sacrificing too many of the bells and whistles that have become obligatory for boy band extravaganzas.
Those included several costume changes, plenty of pyrotechnics, a rectangular concourse surrounding half the floor a la U2's heart and a huge catwalk that descended from the ceiling. The boys zipped onto that contraption for a spirited romp through tunes by their more substantive musical forebears the Beatles and the Temptations, including ``I Want to Hold Your Hand,'' ``Twist and Shout,'' ``My Girl'' and ``Can't Get Next to You.''
The performance was paced well as the quintet oscillated between jittery dance pop hits like ``Bye, Bye, Bye'' and ``Tearin' Up My Heart'' and ballads like ``This I Promise You.'' But things came to a grinding halt near the end as the group told agonizingly tedious jokes and stories. That momentum killer also meant missing the encores, including the best tunes from their recent Celebrity album, ``Gone'' and ``Pop'' to meet our deadline obligations.
P. Diddy, on the other hand, played a mediocre set that included snippets of most of his big hits - ``All About the Benjamins'' etc. - but little charisma. The artist formerly known as Puff Daddy wasted a lot of time playing other people's songs and exhorting the crowd to make noise. Worst of all was the September 11th footage that played on the overhead video screens during his Notorious B.I.G. ode ``Missing You.'' His intentions may have been good in dedicating the song to the victims, but these are not pictures that should accompany a party.
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 @ 03:34 p.m.
There aren't any clever sex references in the title of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' follow-up to Californication, but that doesn't mean the music is without a kinky quotient.
"It's going to spank your ass ... in a good way," singer Anthony Kiedis said Saturday at the ESPN Action Sports and Music Awards, where the band was given the Artist Contribution Award.
The LP will be titled By the Way, and although the Chili Peppers are spending a little more time than expected on it, a spokesperson for the band said the album is still due in late June.
"We could be [done], but we're not," Kiedis said. "We just keep going. I mean, we have enough to be done and finished, but instead we just keep going further. Just because we don't stop. We can't stop."
Guitarist John Frusciante said much of the studio time has been spent giving the songs multiple layers.
"It's much deeper, I would say, than the last record," Frusciante said. "There's a lot going on, I mean, [on] some songs. When it's the right thing, it's just the four of us playing, but there's a lot of overdubs and a lot of work has gone into the production of it."
Longtime Red Hot Chili Peppers producer Rick Rubin is again on board for By the Way (see "Chili Peppers Releasing Home Video, Working On New LP"), which Kiedis described as "rich." "There isn't really a definitive single screaming to be the first guy out of the block, but we'll find it," he said.
While in the studio, the Chili Peppers have recorded a cover of the Ramones' "Havana Affair" for a tribute album due this summer that will also include Rob Zombie, Green Day, the Offspring and others (see "Rob Zombie Helming Ramones Tribute Album").
"It doesn't sound anything like their version of it," Frusciante said. "It sounds like a song we could have written. Johnny [Ramone] thinks it's better than the Ramones version, but I don't agree with him on that."
The Chili Peppers have two weeks of European festival dates scheduled for late June, after which Kiedis said the band may play a handful of American dates. "I imagine we're going to want to play our new songs," he said.
—Corey Moss
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 @ 03:31 p.m.
Furtado has four gigs in five days, then gets set for followup album
By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun
There's no time for global-pop artist Nelly Furtado to dwell on her losses to jazz diva Diana Krall for best album and best artist at the Junos on the weekend in St. John's, Nfld.
Furtado has four shows this week in the Toronto area, including Thursday-Friday concerts at Massey Hall. (The others are tonight at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton and Saturday night in Barrie, where her tour concludes.)
The Victoria, B.C., native told The Sun in a recent interview that this is her dream road trip.
"It's a higher level of production -- more fancy stuff. You know, the music is improved," said Furtado, who plays for about an hour and a half at her concerts. "It kind of feels like the tour that I probably dreamed of when I wrote the record, 'cause when I made this record my point of reference was, 'What is this going to sound like live?' I always thought about the live show."
After this week, Furtado will begin to think more about a followup album, which she'll probably begin to record by the end of the summer.
Furtado already has collaborated in the studio with Philadelphia outfit The Roots and Colombian artist Juanez, and she has expressed a desire to work again "at least partially" with Track And Field -- the Toronto-based producers (real names, Gerald Eaton and Brian West) who co-produced her acclaimed 2000 debut, Whoa, Nelly!
Also on her producer wishlist are Timbaland and Dan The Automator, who did a remix of her latest single, On The Radio (Remember The Days).
"I'd anticipate an album next spring or summer," Furtado told The Sun. "And, as usual, I'll play a big role in the production."
In February, Furtado picked up a Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance for her breakthrough hit, I'm Like A Bird. She was asked backstage about the intensifying battle between artists and labels.
"Times are changing, for sure," said Furtado, who was signed directly to Dreamworks in the U.S. "I think definitely the days of the sort of naive artist are long gone. People are more empowered. We have more access to more information. More and more record deals are (being) changed and altered. We have more power. That's a positive thing."
Yet Furtado pointed out there are good people at labels to deal with, given the success of her album, Whoa, Nelly!, which was by no means a mainstream record at the get-go. It took months for it to break into the U.S. market, but since then has sold four million copies worldwide.
"There are people around who believe in artistic integrity and believe that good music will find its way," she said. "(From) a Dave Matthews to a Sarah McLachlan to a band like OutKast, it's all about touring, developing a fan base, making music from your heart, writing songs. Basically, if you do good work, the success will follow eventually. Eventually being the key word." (More on Nelly Furtado)
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 @ 03:22 p.m.
LONDON (Reuters) - Touched by the magic of its eponymous soccer hero, feel-good film "Bend it Like Beckham" has scored huge at cinemas, leaping straight to the top of the charts in its big-screen debut.
The comedy drama about an Indian girl from London whose dreams of a professional soccer career run against her family's wishes, grossed two million pounds in its opening weekend in the UK and Ireland, according to Screen International figures.
Ironically, the film opened as Britons were stunned by the news that England's soccer captain David Beckham may have sit out the forthcoming World Cup finals through injury.
But that didn't stop director Gurinder Chadha's film knocking blood-sucking action adventure "Blade II" into the number three spot.
The sequel, starring Wesley Snipes as half-man, half vampire, sucked up 833,000 pounds in its third weekend in cinemas.
Holding tight to the number two spot in its fourth week on the charts was the animated "Ice Age," which grossed 948,000 pounds with its comedy about a motley crew of prehistoric beasts.
Entering the charts at number four was another bloodsucking tale "Queen of the Damned," starring the late R&B singer Aaliyah.
Another newcomer over the weekend was number five "K-Pax," starring leading Hollywood misfit Kevin Spacey as a mental patient who claims to be from another planet.
Sliding two spots into sixth place was "Crossroads," the film debut of pop darling Britney Spears.
Sci-fi action adventure "The One" entered the charts at number seven.
The weekend's biggest tumbler was spoof gangster rapper's "Ali G Indahouse," which fell to eighth place from third after four weeks on the charts.
Rounding out the top entries was Disney's "Return to Neverland" and Oscar-winner "A Beautiful Mind," which slipped to number 10 in its eighth week on the charts
Posted by Jen on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 @ 03:10 p.m.
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