Y&RWorldTurner

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1634292/20100319/lady_gaga.jhtml

"By adding this endorsement to the back of the check, defendants had attempted to trick plaintiff into depositing said check and thereby settle all outstanding debts due him by defendants under the [contract] and to bar plaintiff from seeking any additional payments," the suit reads. In the documents, Fusari says he has not endorsed or deposited the second check. He also says he has not received his 15 percent share of merchandising revenue that was agreed upon in the contract.

As a result, Fusari lodged the $30.5 million suit against Gaga in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Who knows if this is really happening, but...

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/news/a209249/claire-sweeney-to-join-hollyoaks.html

EXCLUSIVE: Claire Sweeney to join 'Hollyoaks'?

Wednesday, March 17 2010, 7:10pm EDT

By Kris Green, Soaps Editor

Claire Sweeney to join 'Hollyoaks'?

Hollyoaks boss Paul Marquess allegedly has his sights on former Brookside actress Claire Sweeney to head up the soap's "glitzy" new family.

Marquess, who took office at the Channel 4 serial's home in Liverpool at the beginning of the year, apparently has Sweeney's casting photo pinned to the centre of his notice board with the remaining cast surrounding her.

It is believed that she will become the matriarchal figurehead of a raft of new characters expected to be announced in the coming months.

A Hollyoaks source this afternoon told DS: "Loads of people around the building have been talking about Claire's photo on Paul's wall. Everyone thinks that he's bringing her in to be the mother of a Family Affairs-style Costello clan."

They continued: "The reaction to Sheree Murphy's singing was just what the programme needed, so Paul's looking for similar soapy names to join the ranks as Hollyoaks continues on the road to recovery."

They added: "There's more than one family in the works, too - it's all go and Paul's adamant that Hollyoaks will be as strong as it ever was by the beginning of next year."

Despite rumors, a Hollyoaks spokesperson claimed that there are "no plans" for such a casting.

Since his arrival, Marquess streamlined the creative process within the production team, before culling a further 11 characters from the cast.

Earlier this week, DS exclusively revealed that Alex Carter is to reprise his role as Lee Hunter in June.

I can't believe how much Hollyoaks has changed since 2005. I know that was considered a down period for the show but I didn't think it was too bad. But part of that is due to Max and OB Some of that era did have weird stories though. I don't know if I can imagine the show as of now spending months on Tony trying to drive a gypsy caravan away from his restaurant.

The show just seemed so light and lacking in anything resembling substances during that era. It also felt like they were casting all of the actors due to looks and nothing else, a rep Hollyoaks has always had a problem shaking.

The fake comedic moments during that time were SO BAD. The show needed the revamp Tony Wood and Bryan Kirkwood gave it in 2006, I think it was dying for it.

Max and OB brought a lot to the show though, and no other friendship or relationship on this show has been as strong.

It's weird though with Lee coming back. Does he even really know anyone other than Steph? She's like the last real one left over from that era. Let's not forget that Steph and Lisa have a complicated history too, as it was Steph's bullying that practically drove Lisa into self-mutilation.

Maybe I just don't get her. Sigh. That makes me feel old. I don't want to stereotype but practically every gay man I know thinks she is the bee's knees. I pretty much trust their judgment on all things fab and poppy, so what am I missing here? Why can't I shake this "Emperor's New Clothes" feeling -- like in a few years time, most everybody who loved Lady G will be hiding their head in shame? I want to be a lover, not a hater!

I get that feeling too, that she'll be another Cyndi Lauper (who I love, btw), that will have one or two hit albums, and then her popularity goes downhill fast. Her mainstream popularity will die out fast, but she'll become somewhat of a gay-exclusive artist and her popularity with the gay community will remain, like Cyndi Lauper.

I can't help but think Gaga is just a fluke. But it remains to seen if she can reinvent herself and how her next real album will fare. That's the thing about pop music sometimes, you're in one day, and you could be out the next.

I'm surprised Marquess wants to bring Lee back. The character was fun though, and I'll look forward to see what's planned for him.

Amello should be happy Alex Carter will be back on a soap soon.

I wonder where Lee will fit in now though, Hollyoaks is such a different show from when he originally appeared, and it's bound to get even more different with a new producer there.

Some at Digital Spy are thinking this is to bring back Alex's sister, Lisa. Lisa Hunter started out as a shy, long-suffering misfit. She had a very well known story where she cut herself to deal with her self-loathing and feeling like no one cared about her. As Lisa grew older, the show decided to make her a sex figure, as Gemma Atkinson also began posing in magazines. She suddenly had big fake breasts and went around seducing men, among them Jake Dean and Ben Davies (a somewhat creepy element is that they were both close friends with her dead brother, Dan). She gave Jake an STD, which he then gave to his girlfriend Becca.

In late 2005 she and Ben left the show and went on to appear in several late night specials. They had their own series, called Hollyoaks in the City, where they split up and both fell into prostitution and decadence. The end of this featured Lisa being kidnapped. She freed herself, got a gun, and fired...shooting and killing Ben, who had come to rescue her.

I think it's not a great idea to bring this type of character back but who knows.

Strangely, though, Atkinson/Lisa were very popular, and even now, articles are constantly published about her wanting to come back. I don't know if that's due to her looks, or if people genuinely liked this character. I thought Lisa was just OK, though Atkinson sure was pretty.

I thought you didn't like Confessions, that it was too "Euro" for you.

Huh? I love Euro cheese.

Most of the stuff I listen to comes from Europe.

Confessions was a solid effort, but as I said before, as with any dance effort, it was surely be dated as hell in a few years, even if the music on itself is still good. Confessions was an artistic return to from for her at the time, but I wouldn't call it my favourite Madonna album.

Though, I think a lot of Stuart Price's work and remixes since then have sucked ass. I think he's highly unimaginative.

The thing about the American Life album to me was that it didn't know what it wanted to be. Was it supposed to be a commentary on then current political situations? Was it supposed to be a commentary about Madonna's personal life and her battle with fame? Was it supposed to be a fun dance-pop album? Was it supposed to showcase her then profound interest in acoustic guitar-driven music? What the hell was that album supposed to be? There's a few standouts on the album, but as an overall album, it just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't flow well.

It seemed to be an introspective effort, but when you compare it to her critically acclaimed darlings, Like A Prayer and Ray of Light, which are her most introspective and humanly raw efforts, it doesn't stack up either.

Confessions was a great return to Madonna's dance roots, and showed she was still capable of putting out a cohesive and inspsired effort. But it will be very dated production-wise in a few years, if it isn't already. That's the thing about doing dance music, it constantly evolves and things get dated fast, even if the music itself is still very good.

The thing where I do give Gaga credit (and I already mentioned I hate her interviews) is that she was clever enough to do mainstream appealing music that is aware and self knowing of its camp. There was an allmusic.com review by that Madonna fanboy Stephen Thomas Erlywine that summed up what I mean (though I think he gives her a bit too much credit, this is true on a level):

Gaga's starting to remind of Mariah Carey's delusionalness and that "lost little girl thing." It seems like Carey, she can't stop pointing out how many #1 singles she has in North America, and she wants to claim she has 6 US #1's, when she only has 2. The rest were #1's in the Dance/Club airplay chart, a chart where not surprisingly Madonna still dominated and has a whopping 40 #1 singles on. In other words, a pretty useless chart. And let's not forget Gaga's pet name for her fans - "The Little Monsters." which is similar to how Carey labeled her fans "The Lambs."

"The times were crying out for a pop star like Lady GaGa — a self-styled, self-made shooting star, one who mocked the tabloid digital age while still wanting to wallow in it — and one who's smart enough to pull it all off, too. That self-awareness and satire were absent in the pop of the new millennium, where even the best of the lot operated only on one level, which may be why Lady GaGa turned into such a sensation in 2009: everybody was thirsty for music like this, music for and about their lives, both real and virtual. To a certain extent, the reaction to The Fame may have been a little too enthusiastic [...]Like the marvelous Madge, Lady GaGa ushers the underground into the mainstream — chiefly, a dose of diluted Peaches delivered via a burbling cauldron of electro-disco — by taming it just enough so it’s given the form of pop yet remains titillating. Sure, GaGa sings of disco sticks, bluffin’ with her muffin, and rough sex, but her provocation doesn’t derive solely from her words: this is music that sounds thickly sexy with its stainless steel synths and dark disco rhythms (something sorely lacking from American radio)[...]but none of this meta text would work if the songs didn’t click, functioning simultaneously as glorious pop trash and a wicked parody of it. "

Again I think that gives her a bit too much credit, but there's a lot of truth there (of course, already she's unleashed a sea of sub Gagas)

I think she started off that way in 2008/early 2009, but by the latter part of 2009, it seemed like she got lost in her own hype and became the exact thing she spoke out against and parodied.

Wasn't he involved in the movie musical she was writing? The one that somehow Devil Wouldn't Recognize You came from apparently? Leonard is a good example of someone who is ace with Madonna and very meh with everyone else (which does show she has some creative pull, something people often doubt)--

I don't think he has writing credit on Devil, but he did recently score her latest documentary about Malawi, so they're still friends at least.

Yes, Patrick has always been best with Madonna. I think during Hard Candy, she stopped trying to get the best out of her collaborators, and just went with the flow, which turned out disastrous.

Depends what you mean by success--X was seen as a slow seller, but it ended upbeing in the top 10 UK albums that year (and top 5 in Australia).

Do you mean it peaked in the top 10? It did peak at #4. I have the list of the best selling albums in the UK in 2008, and X isn't in the top 10. In fact is was the #100 best selling album of the year in 2008 in the UK.

2008 UK Best Selling Albums

1 Rockferry - Duffy * 1,684,944

2 The Circus - Take That * 1,446,135

3 Only by the Night - Kings of Leon * 1,181,641

4 Spirit - Leona Lewis * 1,108,369

5 Viva la Vida or Death and all his Friends - Coldplay 1,089,000

6 Good Girl Gone Bad - Rihanna 819,000

7 Day & Age - The Killers 693,000

8 Out of Control - Girls Aloud * 591,786

9 Funhouse - Pink * 587,983

10 Scouting for Girls - Scouting for Girls 575,000

The 2007 List:

01. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

02. Leona Lewis, Spirit

03. Mika: Life in Cartoon Motion

04. Take That, Beautiful World

05. Westlife, Back Home

06. Eagles, Long Road Out of Eden

07. Kaiser Chiefs, Yours Truly Angry Mob

08. Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmares

09. Timbaland, Shock Value

10. Rihanna: Good Girl Gone Bad

But she's getting to be a bit like Madonna--her tours sell out instantly (of course I'm not discussing N America where she's still a cult oddity really), and she ended up touring the X show endlessly it sold so well. Still I'm excited to hear her album with Stuart Price, out pretty soon (it was a smart decision to go with just one producer as her albums as of late have all suffered from too many producers).

I think Stuart Price is a pretty unimaginative producer. His still is soo 2004-2005. But I am excited to see how well his work with Kylie turns out.

And I do agree with her--and Madonna about sticking now more or less at what they're good at.

At their age, they better be.

I assumed you meant you want her to do dance music with more string instrumentation?

She hasn't even started working on her next album yet, though she was supposedly compiling stuff with David Guetta. Though, who knows if that will make the cut on the album, when it ever gets released.

Madonna's known to change direction a lot prior to releasing an album. I almost feel like the next album is important in reconnecting to her core audience audience again, many of which (myself included) were alienated by Hard Candy.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1633818/20100312/lady_gaga.jhtml

Mar 12 2010 1:31 PM EST

The Man Behind Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' Video: Jonas Akerlund

The director of Gaga's epic new clip has also worked with Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Pink, U2.

The long-awaited debut of Lady Gaga's sprawling epic of a music video for "Telephone" has no shortage of stars, including Gaga herself, Beyoncé and Tyrese Gibson. But there's another key ingredient to "Telephone" that stayed firmly behind the camera lens: the video's director, Jonas Åkerlund.

From the late 1980s through much of the '90s, the 44-year-old Swedish filmmaker and video director spent his career working with Swedish acts such as Candlemass, Roxette, Sinclair and Whale. In 1997, Åkerlund made his first foray into the mainstream music video scene outside of his country in the form of "James Bond Theme" for Moby and "Smack My Bitch Up" for the Prodigy.

Just one year later, Åkerlund experienced his single greatest achievement to date: Madonna's "Ray of Light." The celebrated music video won a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video as well as seven awards at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards, including the top prize, Video of the Year. Although "Ray of Light" was their first and most celebrated collaboration, Åkerlund and Madonna continued their working relationship with videos for "Music" in 2000, "American Life" in 2003, "Jump" in 2006 and "Celebration" in 2009. He also directed Madonna in the 2006 documentary "I'm Going to Tell You a Secret," which chronicled Madonna's experiences during her successful Re-Invention World Tour.

Åkerlund brought his trademark cinematic style into the world of feature filmmaking with 2002's "Spun." Focusing on drug culture and the effects of methamphetamines, "Spun" featured an all-star cast including Jason Schwartzman, John Leguizamo, Mickey Rourke and the late Brittany Murphy. Despite the high level of talent, "Spun" was widely panned by critics upon its release. Åkerlund resumed his focus on music videos but eventually gave feature filmmaking another shot with the 2009 thriller "Horsemen" starring Dennis Quaid and Zhang Ziyi.

While the release of "Telephone" marks Åkerlund's first video of 2010, it's not his first collaboration with Lady Gaga. The two worked together on the video for "Paparazzi," which, like "Telephone," featured high-profile talent including Alexander SkarsgÅrd of "True Blood" fame.

Some of the director's other acclaimed videos include Metallica's "Turn the Page," U2's "Walk On," Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and Pink's "Sober."

In think her acoustic guitar phase is over. She incorporates it time to time on tour, but it hasn't been in any of her albums since American Life.

All her albums have been dance oriented though, even if their influences came from different places.

To keep things slightly on topic, here's Akerland with Madonna accepting the Best Director VMA with Madonna at the 1998 MTV VMA Awards, 1:03 in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siFUSq75Ons

So, Y&RWorldTurner, what is it that you'd love for Madonna to do next?

A dance album?

She is a dance-pop artist, her roots have always been in dance music.

But I want something lyrically mature again.

I think her best collaborator was Patrick Leonard. They always brought out the best in one another. It's a shame the last time they worked together was writing songs for Ray of Light.

Patrick Leonard and Madonna just worked so well off one another. I really wish she'd work with him again, even if it's just co-writing songs with him again and not production.

Well the fact is, she's too old to do most of the ones that are out there (there surely are new underground trends she hasn't explored, but yeah, little would fit now). I dunno, I almost think she should start just making an album for herself--at this point in her career, when frankly she's not gaining a ton of new fans anyway with her new stuff, that would be the mostinteresting. But that would come hard fro Madonna I think--to do an album and not care about its chart success, etc...

At this point, I think Madonna just needs to concentrate in making good dance music, and sometimes with her a serious undertone.

She did start off in the New York club scene, her roots have always been in dance music, even as she's experimented a lot.

Because of her age primarily, her commercial heyday is over. Now she just needs to do the type of music her target audience and core audience expects from her.

(Kylie Minogue is ten years Madonna's junior--and a very different performer of course, I'm not comparing them even if the European media constantly does and has all through their careers--but she's been having some similar problems as she gets older, finding an image that still fits her campier, pop princess icon yet is a bit more mature and, frankly classier).

I think Kylie too just needs to target the audience she has and stick with it.

Though, commercially, it did seem like Fever was a bit of a fluke for her. The albums and singles since haven't generated much success for her in the UK or Aus.

Sleaze? It's one of the Madonna videos with the least skin Yeah the shot of the shores andher walking is a literal reshoot of the beach scenes in Humoresque (I think there's a youtube that shows them back to back).

Here's the funny thing, The Power of Goodbye was shot on the same beach where she shot the video for Cherish (Herb Ritts FIRST music video as director).

I wish she'd do one final video with him. LOL. He really really wanted to do Evita but wasn't a big enough name to get the rights--I think Parker's Evita is a decent film, but Fincher's would have been more interesting anyway. (The man has said repeatedly how much he likes musicals but wants to do a dark one--and he's amazing at filming dance--even in non Madonna videos like Abdul's Cold Hearted Snake video with its Fosse's All That Jazz hommage).

Fincher is a fabulous director, and I'm not surprised he's made it in Hollywood.

And he's still very much proud of his music video roots.

Add me to the list that hopes she works with him again before she dies. LOL!

Although by the 90s Madonna's interviews became a real chore to sit through--I think I have a bunch on tape (yes I was obsessed) from Ray of Light where she tries to be deep and they're just ENDLESS--this was before the British accent but they do remind me of Gaga interviews where she says pseudo "deep" things in a quiet monotone voice with little excitement.

As much as I loved that era, the Ray of Light era was the beginning of Madonna taking herself too seriously and losing her sense of humour a bit.

Though, as I mentioned before, she seems to be going though a rejuvenation process again and seems lively for the first time in ages again. Hopefully, it translates well into the music...

But comparing the interviews and self-promotion of Madonna and Gaga earlier on in their careers, and there's a striking difference and memorable way that Madonna presented herself, which Gaga just doesn't have and just can't communicate the image she wants to communicate.

My fave from ROL was actually Power of Goodbye, video wise even if it's a complete hommage/rip off to the Joan Crawford movie, Humoresque--it's just shot SOOO beautifully. But actually I prefered all the ROL videos (even the UK only Substitue for Love) over Ray of Light's--but I know that video still made more of an impact.

I LOVED the Drowned World/Substitute For Love video too.

You, know, I heard Madonna HATED how The Power of Goodbye turned out. She thought she looked too pretty for the video and it was more like a hair commercial, she wanted to look more miserable.

Though, Matthew Rolston directed it, and he was of course a renown fashion photographer and did a lot of commercial work.

I loved that video too, though.

How about Frozen by Chris Cunningham? I think that is her best video.

I don't get the big deal about the Frozen video, it's nice and the cinematography is great, but she has better.

As Eric and I discussed a few months ago, David Fincher really directed some of her best videos. In fact, I would say her best video work was with him.

Over 7 millon hits in 2 days!! Wow! The music video certainly isn't dead.

Tell that to the record companies who don't spend much on music video promotion anymore.

If you look at the albums that are selling these days, and the recording industry is SUFFERING, very little is invested into music videos for these artists. They just aren't profitable anymore, hence why Gaga had to use all the product placement to pay for this video.

But we all know Madonna will continue to chase trends, instead of making them.

Madonna's entire career was based of of taking underground trends and bringing them to the mainstream. But unlike Gaga, Madonna has a more captivating personality and brashness, she was fierce and backed a lot of her image up.

It's partly the image thing where Gaga fails miserably at, and where Madonna succeeded earlier on with. Compare the way Madonna presented herself in interviews and the way she promoted herself earlier on in her career to Gaga, there's just something, as that hack MAB said, that "popped" about Madonna. Gaga by contrast doesn't have that much personality or spunk.She's pretty much dead weight in her interviews and self-promotion.

It's funny, I loved Ray of Light so much when it came out--and I can still appreciate it, but it's VERY VERY dated. In its way I find it even more dated than her 80s stuff or the now archaic "sleaze" sound of Pettibone's production for Erotica (which, despite being overlong is prob my personal fave).

Yes, William Orbit's production is VERY mid/late 90's.

Though, I do think Ray of Light was the most important album in her career. It kind of proved she still had some relevancy after the 4 year break since Bedtime Story, and proved she could do another mature and soulful effort since Like A Prayer.

Erotica is a sleeping pill for me, you're right it's too long of an album. I think In This Life is one of the worst filler songs she's ever included on an album.

Madonna still tries to do a few, as Sylph says, "melodic" tracks an album-- (The second half of Bedtime Stories--the Bjork song aside--actually is pretty much all in that style and of course around the same time, partly to get past Erotica backlash, partly to court Evita, etc, she tried to model herself as something of an adult contemporary singer even--the Somethign to Remember compilation of slower songs, Take a Bow, the David Foster stuff).

Yeah, I thought that was all very calculated by her. After the media backlash of the SEX/Erotica era, she almost had to show a softer side of herself following it.

It was Madonna who broke Akerlund into the trendy mainstream with Ray of Light (before that he had done many Roxette videos...), so I think it makes sense.

Yes, it was Madonna who got his name out there. Apparently she saw the Smack My Bitch Up video Akerland directed for Prodigy and she just had to work with him for the Ray of Light video, which was, of course a massive critical success for her.

I thought Madonna was at her worse when Hard Candy came out--suddenly she seemed to becoming the joke people mocked her about--self serious, looking her age but trying to look young and hip, etc. But I agree that even just in the past year suddenly she seems to be getting more of a sense of humour about herself.

Hard Candy was arguably her worst album. It felt like she was a featured artist on her own record. That type of Urban production just doesn't mesh with her. Either she did that album to be hip in modern times, or Warner wanted it to conclude her contract with them.