Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Brit awards get U2 boost
Irish rockers U2 will play the single “Get On Your Boots” from their upcoming album live during the BRIT awards, the UK’s answer to the Grammys. It will be interesting to see whether the high-profile performance will help boost the TV audience of the annual event, which is being broadcast live on ITV on Wednesday, Feb. 18th.
Organisers are certainly not shy about talking up the show and the band. “Their addition to the line-up for this year’s show makes it possibly the best we have ever had,” says Ged Doherty, chairman of the BRITs. “This cements the BRITs as one of the biggest TV events in the world.
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That may be stretching things a little, but U2 are big (140 million albums sold and counting), and the industry will be watching sales of their new record closely for signs that the slump in recent years may at last be levelling off.
Britney’s new single. Back for a re-mix?
Radio stations were supposed to start playing Britney Spears’ new single “Womanizer” on Monday. But instead the pop star’s record label pushed back the release by a week.
The last minute delay comes after a 37-second segment of “Womanizer” was leaked and played on the Web site of a Nashville, Tennessee, radio station on Friday. The leak had a short life that day, as Spears’ record label, Zomba Label Group/Jive Records, told the station to take the song off its site.
Wendy Washington, a spokeswoman for the record company, said on Monday that the single’s release was pushed back.
“Yes, the mix is being finalized and is expected to be done within a week,” Washington said.
The leaked segment of “Womanizer” was not an immediate hit with commentators on the Web. The site Hollyscoop.com said the fake song “Candy From Strangers,” posted online last week by a Spears impostor, was more catchy than the leaked song from Spears herself.
The single is off Spears’ album “Circus,” which is scheduled to be released on the pop star’s 27th birthday on Dec. 2.
Spears has a lot riding on the album, because after a turbulent public meltdown last year she appears to have gotten her life back on track, giving her the chance to make what could be the biggest comeback in years in the rollercoaster music business.
(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)
Britney’s new single — catch it if you can
Was it Britney, or wasn’t it?
Two songs that sounded like new work from the revitalized pop princess circulated briefly on the Internet this week, but only one of them was real.
Less than 40 seconds of a song called “Womanizer” made its way to the Web site for Nashville, Tennessee, radio station 107.5 The River on Friday – but it was soon taken down.
