Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Taylor Swift wins Grammys, loses music critics
Taylor Swift’s record label has come out in defense of the young pop/country star after her less-than-stellar performance at the Grammy awards on Sunday had music critics shooting poisoned arrows at her vocal talents.
Swift, 20, took four Grammys on Sunday, including the coveted album of the year for the smash hit “Fearless”, which was also the biggest selling album of 2009. But her haul was somewhat overshadowed by her live Grammy duet with veteran rock singer Stevie Nicks, which The Washington Post called “incredibly wretched” and Ann Powers of The Los Angeles Times described as “tinny and rhythmically flat footed.”
Over to Scott Borchetta, president and CEO of Swift’s record label Big Machine Records in Nashville. “Maybe she’s not the best technical singer, but she is the best emotional singer,” Borchetta told The Tennessean.com. “No one is perfect on any given day. Maybe in that moment, we didn’t have the best night, but in the same breath, maybe we did.”
It’s not the first time that Swift’s vocal prowess has come under fire during the singer-songwriter’s rapid rise to the top and a marketing campaign that has put her just about everywhere in the last six months. In the past, Swift’s managers have blamed some shaky moments on nerves and the technical constraints of live performances, while pointing to a string of sell-out concerts and her undoubted ability to connect with the angst of young teens going through their first loves.
Britney Spears lip-synching! What’s new?
Britney Spears? Lip-synching? “Whateverrrr” as the pop princess might put it herself.
Britney has been lip-synching her way through her “comeback” world tour for the past six months, so it’s a bit of a mystery why it’s caused such a fuss in Australia.
AC/DC returning to North America in summer
Break out the flashing devil horns and industrial-strength earplugs. AC/DC will return to North America in the summer for the second leg of their “Black Ice” world tour.
The Anglo-Australian hard rockers on Monday announced the first nine dates of the trek, which begins July 28 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., about 22 miles southwest of Boston.
Other dates include:
July 31 – East Rutherford, NJ (Giants Stadium);
Aug. 16 – Detroit (Palace of Auburn Hills)
Aug. 18 – Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena)
Aug. 30 – Tacoma Dome, Tacoma, Wash. (Tacoma Dome)
Sept. 2 – San Jose, Calif. (HP Pavilion)
Sept. 4 – Los Angeles (Staples Center)
Sept. 6 – San Diego (Sports Arena)
Sept. 8 – Anaheim, Calif. (Honda Center)
Who needs an Oscar if your wife has two? (Baz Luhrmann)
Australian director Baz Luhrmann may not have his own Academy Award, but he joked on Friday that he secretly pretends using two Oscars won by his wife, set and costume designer Catherine Martin.
“Just for the record I do sneak in and grab the Oscars … run around with them … but she never knows I touch them,” he joked at the “G’Day USA” dinner in New York City on Friday where the director was being honoured by his homeland.
Nicole Kidman: Not a star?
This past week, veteran Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein has kicked up a fuss in 
Hollywood by saying that Oscar winner Nicole Kidman is not a true Hollywood star. By Goldstein’s reckoning — and he wrote about it extensively in this past Saturday’s newspaper — Kidman’s box office appeal is not strong enough to label her a true star.
In fact, while Kidman is hounded by paparazzi around the world and regularly graces the cover of many a celebrity magazine, her movies have stumbled at box offices in recent years. The most recent example is epic “Australia,” which has taken in only $31 million in about two weeks in U.S. movie theaters.
