|
|
|
TEEN SCENE |
|
|
|
|||
|
With Sarah Lounges
HOOBASTANK HELP OUT!
On July 15th Hoobastank
raised $19,000 for a new school in the band’s hometown of Calabasas,
California. The band performed the benefit show in nearby Agoura Hills, to raise
funds for the new Alice C. Stelle Middle
School, which is still under construction, but experiencing financial
problems due to the state of California’s budget crisis. Guitarist Dan
Estrin said he and singer Doug Robb
staged the concert because they wanted to give something back to their hometown.
Hoobastank has
scheduled a September 30th release for their new, still-untitled, album which is
the follow-up to their self-titled breakthrough album that included the hit “Crawling
In The Dark.” CELEBRITIES TO FILM VANDROSS TRIBUTE VIDEO
Luther Vandross is too sick to film a
video for his new song, so Beyonce
Knowles and other friends and admirers filled in for what turned out to be
an all-star tribute to the ailing star.
Vandross, 52, is still
recovering from an April stroke that left him hospitalized for two months. His
album, Dance With My Father, was released last month, and it has sold
almost 1 million copies. More than a dozen celebrities turned out to appear in
the video to the title track, including Knowles, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion , Stevie Wonder, Monica, and Patti LaBelle.
This is really a case
of “gettin’ by with a little help from
your friends.” Kudos to the
singer’s friends for showing such class and concern... “IDOL” Hosts How Show!
The Hollywood Reporter, citing
Twentieth Television, said that “American
Idol” host Ryan Seacrest’s
upcoming syndicated talk show has been picked up in all the top U.S. TV markets,
including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. It has gained 65 percent of the country on Fox stations.
Set for a January
launch in national syndication, the Seacrest show, will premiere in all of the
markets where Fox owns and operates stations.
The Seacrest show is still untitled. AMERICA CHANGES ITS TUNE…
Though he was only the runner-up on “American
Idol,” it seems as though America has changed their minds about Clay
Aiken. Aiken’s “This
Is the Night”/“Bridge Over Troubled Water” single sold 392,975 copies
in it’s first week, according to SoundScan, beating “Idol” winner Ruben
Studdard’s “Flying Without
Wings”/“Superstar” by about 107,000 copies. Both finalists are big
winners, though, when you consider they both smoked Kelly Clarkson’s 236,000 copies sold of “Before Your Love”/“A Moment Like This” in her first week on
the charts last fall. Aiken and Studdard’s first-week sales are second only to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind ‘97,” which sold an extraordinary 3.44 million copies. Not bad company to keep. CLARKSON GETS “LOW”…
On Kelly Clarkson’s
latest single, “Low,” she gets
mad. In the video, she gets even.
The song finds the “American Idol” winner
dealing with a broken relationship. The video, directed by Antti
J., opens with Clarkson cruising on a desert highway in a Jeep that viewers
later learn belongs to an old flame. While driving, she envisions the guy
driving by and holding up his number on a piece of paper, but she sings, “No,
I don’t need your number.” Eventually, after
cutting back from footage of her performing at a drive-in theater, the video
shows Clarkson pulling off the road near the edge of a cliff. In classic
Hollywood fashion, she stops with the front wheels just over the edge. She gets
out, emotionless, and walks away, but not before kicking the bumper and sending
the vehicle tumbling. As with “Miss Independent,” the number nine song on Billboard’s “Hot 100 Singles”, Clarkson wasn’t immediately convinced that “Low” should be a single. Other contenders, and possible third singles, were “Just Missed The Train,” “The Trouble With Love Is” and “You Thought Wrong,” a duet with former “Idol” finalist, Tamyra Gray. PARADISE LOST?
So how many of you
have seen the new reality show “Paradise
Hotel” on FOX-TV? This show completely crosses the lines of morality in my
eyes. The only way
for contestants to stay on the show is to “hook up.”
If you do not, you are
gone. How low have we become as a
society that we have come to watching people degrade themselves on television
for our entertainment? Granted –– “Reality
TV” –– is quite stupid in itself, but this has really stooped to an
all new level of sleaze... On the
first episode (the only one I watched) the people on the show had to pick a
member of the opposite sex, that they had just met that day, to shack up with. Come on!
You wonder why teen pregnancy and STDs are on the rise?
What kind of message is a show like this sending in the guise of
“entertainment”? I think the “business
suits” behind the desks at these television studios should be pink slipped
and have their Beamers taken away if they can not come up with something better
than this crap. There are many
talented writers and directors out there, many artistic folks with vision and
imagination, or has all that gone out of fashion? The moral fabric of America is badly frayed already,
this kind of garbage has GOT
to go!
Well, that’s all the venting I’m going to do for this month.
By the way...Thanks to
everyone who gave positive feedback on last month’s “Highland’s Downtown Ducks” rant.
Nice to find out that others feel the same way...especially so many my
own age... SCHOOL TIME…
Hard to believe, that I have to get focused on going back to school
already. Wow...Senior Year!
Only one more school
year before reality really slaps me in the face. I’m going to make the most of it! I’ll see you all back here in this space come September. Email Sarah Lounges @ sarah@midwestbeat.com
|
|||
|
Web
Design By: 6 String Design © 2003 |
|||
