andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

So there we are having a nice conversation with the boys from Parachute about their recent success and their debut album Losing Sleep, and guess who crashes the party? Chris Rochon from andPOP Radio decides to sneak up on us and take over the interview. Nevertheless we had a good chat with the Parachute boys about music, being on the road, picking up women, and the TV show Friends.

Beyoncé was the big winner at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs), held at the O2 World in Berlin, Germany.  The global music icon walked away with three of the night’s biggest awards– Best Female, Best Song, (“Halo”) and Best Video, (“Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).”  She had been nominated for four EMAs, including Best Live Act. The win for Best Video repeats her win at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), held in New York last September 13.  Beyoncé used the occasion in Berlin to thank her husband, Jay-Z for “putting a ring on it.”

The audience at Berlin’s O2 World was treated to a spectacular performance of “Sweet Dreams,” by Beyoncé and television viewers across Europe tuned in to the live telecast.  MTV US channels, mtvU and MTV2, will air a one-hour version of the Awards on Sunday, November 15; 12:00 AM on MTV2 and 8:00 PM on mtvU.  MTV Tr3s will also air a one-hour version on Saturday, November 21 at 2:00 PM and the full show will air on Palladia on Saturday, November 28 at 9:00 PM with a repeat at Midnight.  All times are Eastern Standard.

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Chris Brown opened up about his assault on former girlfriend Rihanna during the MTV News special “Chris Brown: The Interview” on Friday (November 6), elaborating on his destructive behavior, explaining his previous apologies and describing his ongoing therapy sessions.

According to mtvnews.com, Brown told MTV News correspondent Sway that he has finally come to terms with the fact that he was capable of such violence.

“I think you’d be in denial and be totally naive not to,” he said. “And not being able to realize and own up to the fact of your own wrongs. I mean, me, I’ve come to terms with it and I’m working on it. … For that moment or whatever had me at that place, I want to erase that from what my character is. I want to be totally different from now on. I don’t want to be that person.”

“I’m confused right now as far as the public perception [of me],” he said. “Like, I think with my fans, they still love me, they support me, definitely. You have those people who will support you. So it’s kinda like 50/50 for me. I got the people that will come out and support and then the people that don’t wanna see me do anything. They basically want me in jail.”

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Remember Evanescence? You know, the one with that goth female lead singer with the haunting voice? Well, they’re back, and with a bang.

Wednesday night the band performed a secret show at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom in New York, reports rollingstone.com. A little after 9 p.m., the crowd started growing impatient, chanting, “EVAN-ES-SCENTS, EVAN-ES-SCENTS.” And even though the band hasn’t been heard from in years, you wouldn’t know it from their performance.

And as their front woman Amy Lee explained, last night’s intimate show was quite necessary, considering Evanescence will be performing for 40,000 people at the Maquinaria Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Nov. 8. So, Lee said, they needed a little warming up before heading south.

“Thanks for being our guinea pigs,” Lee joked to the predominantly female crowd.

Evanescence hasn’t put out a record since 2006’s The Open Door, but they’re currently hard at work on a follow-up album. Still, it’ll be another year before the band is back performing in New York, making last night’s concert a special treat for their dedicated fans, who sold out the show in just five minutes.

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What better way to honor the prince?

“Michael Jackson’s This Is It” made motion picture history as the highest grossing concert film of all time. That’s not all. The two-disc companion to the movie released by Sony Music’s Epic Records makes its first week debut in the #1 spot on Canada’s Nielsen SoundScan Top 200 album chart, the U.S. Billboard Top 200 chart, as well as the Soundtrack album chart in both countries.

Sales totaled 44,441 in Canada and 373,100 units in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, and this figure does not include significant sales from non-traditional retailers. In Canada, “This Is It” is Jackson’s first number one album since the establishment of SoundScan in 1997. With over 40,000 in first week sales, the album claims the third best sales week of 2009, trailing only behind U2 and Eminem’s releases. It’s no surprise that “This Is It” also claimed the #1 spot in 15 other countries, including Japan, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the Middle East and Colombia. It was also top-3 in the UK, Australia, Argentina, Austra, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain. Furthermore, a simultaneous #1 album and #1 documentary film as not happened since 1971 when the Rolling Stones did it with the album “Sticky Fingers” and movie “Gimme Shelter.”

Michael Jackson albums now occupy the top five spots of Billboard catalog album chart at #1, #3 and #4; his Number Ones album is this year’s best-selling overall album year to date. Michael Jackson’s accomplishments continue in Canada with eleven albums charting in Nielsen SoundScan’s Top Catalogue Albums including Thriller (Remastered), Thriller 25^th Anniversary Edition, Essential Michael Jackson, and Number Ones. Throughout his career, Michael Jackson has spent a total of 51 weeks at #1 on the Billboard album chart. Only The Beatles and Elvis Presley have spent more weeks at the top.

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Not much has been spilled regarding Lady Gagas much-anticipated appearance on the show, Gossip Girl.

According to perezhilton.com, the cast has only confirmed that she will be appearing and eluded that it will be something pretty spectacular. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, has revealed actual details about the upcoming appearance.

Gaga explained hat if she was going to do the show, she not settling for a randomly inserted musical performance.

“I hate TV series performances, because they kind of come in out of nowhere, and everyone’s, like, really into the story, and then all of a sudden somebody breaks into song. And it has nothing to do with the storyline, and then it screws everything up. I really sat down with the writers. I was like, ‘Look, I want to do this, and the reason I want to do this is because I am trying to say something that is not mainstream in a mainstream capacity. So, if I can say it on your show, that would be, like, a real coup d’état for me as a performance artist.’ ”

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Rihanna spoke candidly about being assaulted by Chris Brown in her first televised interview since the February incident. She said the assault was “humiliating” and “traumatizing,” and admitted that going back to Brown shortly after it happened it was “wrong.”

According to mtvnews.com, Rihanna told Diane Sawyer that it was “embarrassing that that’s the type of person that I fell in love with.” The interview aired in part on “Good Morning America” on Thursday (November 5) and will air in full on “20/20″ Friday night. “[I was] so far in love, so unconditional that I went back. It’s humiliating to say this happened. To accept that? It’s a traumatizing experience.”

Rihanna told Sawyer that on February 8, Brown put her in a headlock twice and bit her ears and fingers. Soon after the incident, a police photo leaked, showing the singer to be badly bruised. But weeks later, she and Brown were spotted vacationing together in Miami.

“I stayed. I even went back after he beat me, which was wrong,” she admitted. “But again … I’m a human being, and people put me on a very unrealistic pedestal. And all these expectations, I’m not perfect. Also it’s pretty natural for that to be the first reaction. … It’s completely normal to go back. You start lying to yourself. The minute the physical wounds go away you want this thing to go away. This is a memory you don’t want to have ever again.”

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Rapper Jay-Z was joined onstage by rising pop phenomenon Mr. Hudson at his London show yesterday, reports nme.com.

Jay-Z is currently on tour in support of his new album, The Blueprint III, which took him to London’s Alexandra Palace last night. For the encore, Jay-Z sang a song off The Blueprint III, called “Young Forever,” which features Mr. Hudson. The singer joined Jay-Z onstage for the song.

Mr. Hudson’s appearance wasn’t the only surprise that the London audience got last night: they also found out they were going to be in a music video for the song. Jay-Z and Mr. Hudson used the crowd to film the video.

The crowd, once informed by Mr. Hudson that they were being filmed for the forthcoming promo, responded by holding lighters in the air and singing along while the artists and Jay-Z’s live band carried the song. ”Young Forever” closed off Jay-Z’s sold-out performance at the UK capital, which saw him play other hits including “Empire State of Mind,” “DOA (Death of Autotune)”, and “Izzo (H.O.V.A.).”

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John Mayer is back with a new album and a 2010 tour, according to the musician’s website, johnmayer.com.

Mayer’s new album, Battle Studies, is due out on Nov. 17. Mayer will then go on a tour to support the album in the Winter of 2010. Mayer has already released one single from the new album, called “Who Says.” Physical and digital presale orders for the album are being accepted until Nov. 10.

Mayer will also be playing a select few upcoming CD release concerts, including one on Nov. 24 at Toronto’s Sound Academy. This small tour also includes stops in Australia and New York.

You can see Mayer on tour in 2010 here:

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In a highly digital age such as the one we are currently in, it’s hard to believe that not all music is legally sold online. However, with the Beatles, that’s just the case.

While you can play their songs on Rock Band and listen to their music on remastered CDs, you still cannot buy the Beatles’ music on iTunes and other digital stores. That is, not yet.

According to rollingstone.com, Apple Corps. and EMI Music will release a limited-edition USB drive featuring the entire Beatles in Stereo remastered discography on Dec. 7 in the UK and Dec. 8 in North America. While Apple Corps. had up until recently kept the view of not selling John, Paul, George and Ringo’s music digitally, 320 Kbps MP3s will house all 14 Beatles albums and 13 “mini-documentaries,” and will be available for public purchase. The 16GB USB drive will be shaped like the famous Apple logo, with “The Beatles” written on it. Only 30,000 of these Beatles USBs will be produced.

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