Skin

Except that's not why your going. You can say it's all about the music but that's not why you are there. You are going to the concert to see the person live. You are going to see a "larger then life popstar/rockstar/artist, live in person." That is why those ticket prices cost so much and why people spend upwards of $300 dollars for a front row standing admission ticket. It's a celebrity appearance/citing first of all. Again people aren't going to a Madonna concert to see her sing, she's a poor live singer even on her best of days. You are going to see Madonna because you want to see the woman who has changed the landscape of pop music and who has persisted in pop culture for nearly 30 years. You are paying for the spectacle and the perfection of it all and if pre-recorded vocals gives it that kind of atmosphere of grandness who cares? Especially when you know and recognize the fact that it's her voice that produced said vocal? Ultimately the reason you are going to see these singers/performers/entertainers/artists and pay big money for them remains the same. You are going first and foremost to see them. Be in the same arena/room/stadium as them and watch them do what you like watching them do sometimes sing, sometimes dance, sometimes both, sometimes play an instrument, etc. I don't even understand this lip syncing argument especially for artists who make it known that their main focus is not singing. I could maybe understand it for the major vocalists to an extent because their voices are the reasons they are popular but others who make it known that they don't focus on singing it's ridiculous. I won't get into the fact that nearly all of the greats at one point have lip synced. Some television shows and special events have even required it. There were several artists back in the 50's, 60's and 70's who had to pre-tape their performances and lip sync to the recorded vocals for their performances because television hosts didn't like giving them the freedom to perform live on air. So the "old times" are no better then the "new times" on that front. Micheal Jackson lip synced a lot during his Dangerous tour because he was very ill and suffered from dehydration, migraines and numerous physical injuries -- is he talentless and useless because he lip synced? I am almost sure most of the general public would disagree with that assessment. If you care about the art of music and not the entertaining aspect of it there most certainly are musicians and indie artists you could choose to listen to and follow. There are tons of small myspace artists just waiting to perform at their local mom and pop coffee shop for you and serenade you with their songs they spilt blood, tears and sweat over. if you yearn for "true, meaningful music with unaltered vocals and non-commercialized songs" all you have to do is go out and find it. Popular music and the music industry as a whole has and always will be a business about the all mighty dollar. Either embrace that or don't listen to pop music or follow it's huge acts. This isn't a new phenomenon what so ever. I am sure there were "talentless" pop stars back when you were growing up to. Just like there are "talentless" pop stars now.

Twitter and Facebook (from what I have seen) haven't been as kind there are also some blogs that have responded negatively to it. I don't think it will matter though. The performance wasn't a disaster and it brought tons of publicity to her music. She's winning.

Compared to who? Compared to today's performers Rihanna, Ke$ha, Katy and the like have horrible shows. Britney probably has the best show out of all of them. Her shows are actually pretty expensive and they all have extensive themes, sets and props for all of her performances which can't really be said about a lot of current pop stars who just kind of show up and walk around a stage for two hours. As far as dancing goes no one really dancers anymore in the pop industry. The days of the Janet's, Micheal's and hardcore Boy band dancing are long gone. That being said Britney will definitely do some dance routines in cages, swing around on top of giant guitars, perform on swing sets, dance on lifts and do more. That's not in your typical pop show nowadays. She is not as intense of a performer as she was in previous years. But she definitely has a show that encompasses a lot in terms of spectacle and if you enjoy that kind of show you most certainly will have a fun time watching everything come together. I liked Vogue and Give Me All Your Love the rest was pretty uninspired and boring even though I liked the dance break in Music. I can't believe how many people she brought into her set though. Cee Lo, LMAFO, Nicki and MIA. That's a lot. She should have chose better songs. Open Your Heart? Like A Prayer? Music? She needed powerful energy movers. Any of her 80's material could have done the trick. Maybe Ray Of Light, Express Yourself and Into The Groove.

One of the tracks on her new album is called Gang Bang. Track list. » Girls Gone Wild » Gang Bang » I'm Addicted » Some Girls » I Don't Give A » Turn Up the Radio » Give Me All Your Luvin' » B-day Song » Superstar » I'm a Sinner » Masterpiece » Falling Free » Love Spent » I'm F---ed Up » Beautiful Killer

Most singers who lip sync do so because they have other things happening regarding their performance. The focus is either split on different things be it dance moves, acrobatics, tricks or other demanding performance styles that physically exhaust them to the point of producing a weaker vocal which is why the backing vocal is needed. In some special cases it's just better to lip sync then it is to give a live vocal especially in terms of illness. Then there are also technical issues to take into account by the way the stadium/stage is built and sound issues that could arise through live vocals. As long as it's their voice I don't really have a problem with it, especially if the performer is doing it for the reasons specified above. You can almost always find a raw vocal of an artist performing at least a song or more live, so I don't think there is much merit to the argument that most lipsyncers can't produce a live vocal in some capacity. If their standard of singing is not up to your own accord of what it should be that's your opinion. But again what are you expecting from someone who isn't known explicitly for their voice or vocal talent? You shouldn't really be expecting Whitney-esque vocals from someone who is not known for their voice. I think standards need to be re-evaluated when you take things such as that into consideration. There was actually quite a controversy about it. You can see it all on wikipedia if you are interested.

That is still considered by and large to be lip syncing. Any time when an artist isn't singing the entire song live and has a heavy back track, pre-recorded live vocals, has their cd playing in the background or has their mic lowered to hear the other non-live vocals is essentially "lip syncing". I more or less don't care about lip syncing as long as it's the singers own voice that is being used. Even if a pop artist only lip syncs one time they can still be criticized for lip syncing. Once you put black into white you will always get grey. No matter how much white you put back into it. I don't understand the criticism of lip syncing anyway. Everyone will do it at some point in their career. Even great vocalists like Mariah, Whitney and others have had to lip sync at major events and some of those are considered to be their best vocal performances ever (Whitney Houston's National Anthem was lipped). I only care if a person can put on an amazing show, people who see Madonna aren't going to see her sing anyway. They are going to see an amazing show and see a woman who has stayed relevant in pop culture for 30 years. Britney actually has been singing more live on her most recent tour specifically because she cut down her choreography. This being said artists who aren't known specifically for their voices will always be targets for lip syncing criticism.

She's under Live Nation technically. She just shopped her record out to Interscope to release it/back it. She doesn't really have a deal with them. They receive proceeds from the album sales, singles sales, rights, etc. while Live Nation gets money from her tour. She will do this for all of her future albums until her Live Nation deal is up in 10 years or so. I doubt Madonna wants to be shackled to a record label like she was with Warner Bros. for years. During her last few album releases she was very unhappy with them. I don't mind Madonna making fun, uptempo dance music. I loved Confessions on a Dancefloor. However when she is teaming up with the likes of Timbaland, MIA, Nicki Minaj and Justin Timberlake to get a hit I think that reeks of desperation to stay relevant. Which is appropriate, considering the last time Madonna had a solo hit was back in 2005 -- she hasn't had a solo radio hit in even longer. Again I don't think her overt sexiness is a problem either. It's the fact that she is blatantly producing poor quality pop tracks that women in their 20's and 30's are singing. To be honest Katy Perry could be singing this song and that's the problem. Madonna always did it her way, now she is following the very people she paved the way for. How the mighty have fallen. Age is kind to no one. She's lipsynced a fair deal and has gone under fire from it from many publications (the UK has been her harshest critics in this department) so the comments are warranted. She will likely lip sync at the Superbowl too. No. The Britney fan in me rebels.

Interscope.

That's my main problem with it. It makes no sense. Pratt basically just killed the character off only to recreate her again after only a few months, and then the character persisted for years afterwards! I don't understand. I could get killing Babe off, she did little if anything the last year she was on, but why kill her and then virtually bring her back in a boring incarnation with a poor actress. Never mind that they completely butchered Krystal's character to make her conception possible. I seriously have to wonder if Pratt was on mind altering drugs while he was watching AMC.

I remember hearing 4 Minutes on the radio when it was released about 4 years ago and it sounded like they edited her voice to replicate a 12 year old girls. The last album I liked from her was Confessions on A Dancefloor. It just seems to me like she is trying to prolong her relevancy by using cheap features to get on the airwaves and stay "hip". That being said I just read online that her new album is #1 in 35 countries according to pre-order sales, so I guess something is working for her.

Can someone please explain to me what was the point of the Marissa Tasker character?

Cheerleaders, football players and lingerie? She's too old for this kind of stuff. The song is a mess, the Nicki and MIA features were gratuitous.

Natalie trapped in the well sounds like such a Disney story to me.

I actually liked Ryan's retcon, a lot just because it put a kabosh on the whole Lavery's were born evil thing and lightened up Ryan as a character. Ryan was always at his best when he was a romantic lead or a supporting dramatic player. I hated it when Megan brought that back for the sole purpose of giving Ryan siblings that never existed before. To add further insult to injury they gave him that good awful domestic abuse storyline that pretty much ruined his character. I never thought LH had a lot of charisma. She always seemed very subdued and boderline bored with her material. She had nice lady chemistry with Eden's Bianca, but I never thought Maggie had legs as a character which is why bigger character personalities always overwhelmed her in stories. The whole domestic abuse with Jonathan story dragged in part because she was a weaker dramatic player. I personally think she has more of a personality on Y&R as the scheming Chole then she ever did as Bianca's sometime lover on AMC. As to if they ever tried to get Maggie to comeback, I doubt it. Pratt was only thinking about getting his favorites to work on the show and if that meant destroying Bianca's character to get there then he did it.

I'll admit my bias against the JR character just to have the discussion above board. I truly have a problem blaming anyone for his behavior from 2004 onward because there were so many times JR should have stopped himself and realized he was going on the wrong path. There were so many ignored epiphanies on his part in the last seven years of his character development that I find it extremely hard to find him in anyway to be a sympathetic character. The reason why I say I personally don't blame Dixie for the way he turned out is because she was largely considered to be the perfect model mother in all ways. JR had the best parental relationships growing up with Tad and Dixie when they showed them as a family unit. Dixie was always his primary care giver and there was no sense that she was a poor parent or a poor provider to him in anyway, so from childhood to late adulthood JR had a perfectly stable upbringing. Things only got "rocky" during his high school period and by that point Dixie had already "died". At the end of the day Dixie's health was in jeopardy, I would imagine JR would be at the age where he would understand that his mother was sick (she already had a failing heart which was why she needed David to treat her in general) and that she needed better care in another country. I don't believe JR at that age (17-19) wouldn't understand why Dixie left to seek better health care. As far as Dixie's death being a reason for his decline I would give him leeway in that and agree that most certainly should have an effect on him. That most certainly could have aggravated his ill habits and behaviors with drugs and liquor at an impressionable age. The fact that Adam and Tad didn't discipline him better during that period is egregious. But how long are we going to excuse his behavior with this excuse? JR was far beyond the pale before he was told Dixie faked her death back in 06'. JR had already drugged, framed, hired hitmen, gaslighted, blackmailed and nearly killed six or so people by that point in his character history. I say this because I really don't think JR's depravity in 2004 is appreciated fully. I always hear how JR was "betrayed" by the Martins, yet I almost never hear about all the things JR did before which caused them to turn their backs to him. Why would anyone, let alone Tad condone the kinds of behavior JR exemplified in the above sentences? Why would Tad or Jaime for that matter support someone who did all of the mentioned above things to them, their friends and other innocent people? JR was certainly no angel through out 2004 and 2005 and this was prior to Dixie's secret. I imagine once JR nearly killed Jaime and had him framed and jailed for something he didn't do Tad would wash his hands of him. I can't imagine why Tad would have this unyielding loyalty to JR after JR caused actions to nearly have two or three people killed. Especially when JR was dead wrong in doing the things he did and he and everyone else knew it. JR is the one to blame for his own actions and he is to blame for the people in his life turning his back on him. Why? Because JR purposely did evil, hurtful, malicious things to his own family and to people he said he loved before those people ever turned their backs on him. The truth of the matter is JR screwed with Jaime first, and then expected like the spoiled brat he was for Tad to be on his side, even when JR was wrong. The fact that Jaime and Tad hurt JR is superseded by the fact that he hurt them all first. I just don't agree. JR's early life if nothing else was relatively peaceful. JR was an infant during the time of his custody battles and through most of the horrors Adam inflicted on Dixie, he was a toddler when Tad died. So he wouldn't remember any of those bad times. Most of the time he grew up under Dixie's care and he had a good life in Pigeon Hollow from what we know. Adam didn't start becoming more involved in JR's life until much later late 90's in the earliest as Adam was obsessed with Liza by that point in show history. But even still his primary influences were of Tad and Dixie with Adam popping in every now and then when he felt his legacy was being threatened by a Martin. The first true rough spot JR truly experienced was as a teenager when Dixie found out Tad had cheated on her and then Dixie cheating on Tad with David. That was also the first time JR actively started acting out with drugs, attacking David and him going to Adam to bail him out of trouble consistently. JR was more or less considered a capable adult by that point. JR's downward spiral never had any catalyst to me and that's largely why I find him so unsympathetic. He's just a loser for no reason. When all logic tells us that he should at least be a functioning human being yet he became a sociopath who had no compassion for other humans. All the other things JR went through Babe's infedilities, Jaime and Tad's "betrayals" and Dixie's lies happened when he was an adult who should be capable of handling these things in the manner in which an adult would. Not shooting people, drugging people, framing them for your own crimes and trying to kill them. The show would have done a better job if they went the Jonathan route with him and given him some kind of mental illness that caused him to react this way. As it stands the character simply made no sense. His character overhaul from being Dixie's boy to Adam's son never translated well with me at all.

Say what you will about Megan but I always thought she was generally good at creating social events that moved story quite quickly. She also did the Mardi Gras Ball as well and that pushed several stories forward. Megan knew how to play the game more then most and she always had relatively good/strong/interesting sweeps stories to keep people watching for the most part. I don't think she gets enough credit for the good things she did for this show. Bringing back Janet Dillon for instance was a gold mind it really made the show so much more interesting for about five months or so before Dixie landed in 06'. I think one of the worst things about AMC in the last few years was that the show seemed so insular in so many ways, and an extension of that was due to the poor use of sets and the lack of diversity in PV. You really only had a hand full of sets for the show and most of them were homes and apartments. You never really felt the show had a community environment much of the time. You just had endless sets of apartments and houses. Very little outside establishments and places of business. I don't really remember much of JR prior to Ridings. Can we codify them real quick? What were the JR's most memorable for? I know McCartney dealt with the decline of Tad's cheating and their break up and Riding ran away. Jesse McCartney - ? Bennings - ? Ridings - ? She never should have came back for her 05-07 stint. Moreover that entire Di storyline at the end of 05' never should have happened. The impact that Dixie was alive could have been a bigger deal had she just comeback at the end of the show like they planned just before for the cancellation. That was the best way Dixie could have came back. I hate how the show used her like a yo-yo whenever they needed a sentimental appearance for the Martins and Chandlers it gave her no gravitas as a character. I don't hate her. I just think she was overrated and over important. I remember reading a publication that once said she was the "heart" of All My Children shortly after her 07' death and I just never felt that way. I could agree about that statement with Eden Rigel's Bianca or Debbie Morgan's Angie. But I never felt that way about Dixie in her most recent interpretations. I never got the Liz Hendrickson love, she is a very understated actress though so I can see why she would work on Y&R. That kind of actress just can't work on AMC though. Was she better/different as Frankie? That seems to be where most of her fan support came from and then the audience just accepted her as a long lost twin. Interestingly enough I liked Kendall here more then I liked her during her last few years. I can't believe how utterly and completely Zach wrecked her character. The person Kendall was from 02- early/mid 04' was exactly who she was supposed to be and once she was paired up with Zach she completely lost any viability as a character in my eyes. You just slowly saw all the life seep out of her. It happened with all of the members of Slavery. Greenlee should have left after Leo did. Kendall should have went to jail for killing Micheal Cambias, Ryan should have never came back in 03' and Zach should have left with Maria. The characters themselves just became so redundant and pointless so quickly after they were created. Trey had so much raw potential as a character. It's a shame he never took off. This screams of writers wanting Dixie to be perceived one way character wise (sainted mother) while writing her another (the cheating). I think it is obvious that the writers didn't want to write her this way but I am sure Cady wanted Dixie to have more "edge" in order to justify Dixie as a character instead of just Tad's wife. Hence why both times when she came back she was saddled with grey characters like David (98-02') and Zach (05-07') instead of utilizing her familiar role as mother and wife. Didn't Adam kill Gloria's baby though, by locking her in a room and not helping her when she said her baby was in danger? I never got over that. To me that's one of the reasons I could never like Adam as a character. His evilness was just extraordinary and I didn't find it charming or interesting, I just found it sick and depraved. It doesn't shock me at all that someone would want to shoot him after all he did to people in the Pine Valley community. I disagree here, Dixie got a lot of crap when she returned back in 06'. It was just starting to get better by the time Dixie died in 07' but I generally do think she paid for her mistakes in terms of having people pissed off at her for staying away for so long. I also can't blame her for JR ending up the way he did. I honestly think JR was just messed up from the start. He was always a written to be a character who couldn't cope with hardships and had very little resilience in the face of adversity and I don't think that can really be blamed on Dixie. JR had a relatively good childhood all things considered. He wasn't abused, mistreated, neglected or in anyway treated badly as a young child. So I can't blame Dixie for JR's problems once JR went into adulthood. I don't think you could even blame Tad for that matter he was so rarely around until JR's teen years. For example look at how Jaime is and compare it to how JR ended up. Night and day, even though they both had the same parents.

The biggest problem with Glee will always be the character development. These characters don't act realistically at all which wouldn't be a problem if their actions made sense or there was some kind of arc, reason attached to their development. Even the catalyst for most of their problems and the way the resolve them don't really make sense either. It's like they are in some bizarro world or something. I remember in the first season where everyone in the club kept the fact that the father of Quinn's child was not Finn but Puck. Finn believed he was the father of the child because Quinn tricked him into it. Everyone in the club went along with it because "it was Quinn's choice" and they didn't want to "blow nationals" by telling Finn the truth WTF? How can there be 13 characters and not one of them has an ounce of morality in them to see that what Quinn was doing was wrong? And worse yet both Rachel and Puck were said to be in the wrong for exposing Quinn's lies! Ridiculous especially considering Quinn was on the side having dates with Puck even while she was Finn's girlfriend. Fast forward to season two, Quinn and Rachel are friends, Finn wants to get back together with Quinn because they "have firework chemistry" and Finn has completely forgotten the fact that Quinn cheated on him and lied about her child's fraternity. Quinn has completely forgotten she had a child at all and now is all about becoming Prom Queen and achieving something in high school because she knows she won't amount to anything after high school is over. She just accepts this line of thinking, doesn't try to change it make herself better. She doesn't aim for college, doesn't aim to work a trader, anything, she just wants to be Prom Queen and be popular. Fast forward again to season three Quinn is a delinquent and supposedly everything bad that happened to her is a result of the fact that she lost her baby since she put her up for adoption two seasons ago, after she went an entire year not giving a second thought to her baby! The character work is just unbelievably messy. I am sure you could find horrible development for most of the side characters. I like Rachel a lot. She is probably the cornerstone character for the series and she seems to be the only character who consistently grows and who's characterization is deep enough that it doesn't change by the episode. Finn, Quinn, Puck, Mercedes, Tina, etc. all of them change so frequently and so ridiculously that there isn't a point in investing in them. They are all so shallow. The only characters I like are Santana, Artie, Brittany and Rachel. The rest are useless.

Ratings 7.01- 2.1 7.02- 1.8 7.03- 1.6

You could add in Nip/Tuck to that list too. I really don't think Ryan Murphy knows how to write a series. He coasts solely on shock value and (ill) humor. I don't think a single one of his characters are likable or sympathetic. They all come off so deeply problematic and self-absorbed.

All of her songs have been doing well. Every single from this album has been a top 10 hit. Only bad thing is that the album sales have been a bit slow but that's pretty much the norm now.

She performed this on a German Award show.

This song is getting major airplay from Top 40. I think it's a grower personally. That chorus is pop genius.

I thought Livvie was one of the most defined characters on the show. She started out as the young ingenue and due to actions lead by Alison and Caleb she ended up being this bitchy villian, but really even when she was only one half of herself (Tess being the other half as she was split into two people) she was more human and had more depth to her then most of the other characters combined and magnified. She was easily the most interesting character study out of all of the characters on Port Charles because of the fact that she her journey was so interesting and poignant to watch. Livvie was the best part of the show for me just out of the simple fact that she was such a tragically flawed character who always got the short end of the stick even when it wasn't her fault. I hated Alison. I have to think that she is seriously the worst character on the show. She wasn't interesting, dynamic and she had no depth to her. EHP wasn't good at all and I agree with your sentiment that EHP should never land on another soap ever again. She was just that wooden as Alison. No chemistry at ALL. Livvie was a much more fleshed out and interesting character and it's so sickening to see all of Livvie's friends and FAMILY turn on her for that airhead.

I loved Livvie. Man was one of my all time favorite soap characters. There was so much depth within her and it's so sad that she was always turned down for the door knob Alison.

Me too