The impending release of "The Runaways" film is bringing singer Cherie Currie back to music, as well as book stores.

The FCC’s long-awaited National Broadband Plan is due to be revealed next Tuesday (3/16) then presented to Congress the following day. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, nominated by President Barack Obama and sworn into office on June 29, 2009, met with Country Music Association Board members in Washington DC at the Capitol Building 3/10. Genachowski has spent [...]

Kraft Singles and Disney ABC have announced the top ten finalists in their search for America’s “Single Best Town” and invite America to vote for the winner. With more than 400 submissions coast to coast, the top ten towns boast one-of-a-kind features that make them special and uniquely American. Now through April 11, consumers can vote for [...]

Check out Hollywood's sweethearts pose for the camera during the Oscars and more.    

Check out Hollywood's sweethearts pose for the camera during the Oscars and more.    

Steel Magnolia Making History Big Machine duo  Steel Magnolia’s Top 15 hit, “Keep On Lovin’ You,” has become the highest charting debut single from a male/female country duet act in the 66-year history of Billboard’s Top Country Songs Chart. The song currently sits at No. 14. Steel Magnolia is a multiple ACM Award nominee (Top Vocal Duo [...]

Billboard readers discuss album sales for a pair of '80s pop/metal bands, debut country albums, and La Roux's breaking hit "Bulletproof."

Chapter 334 Photo: Jamey Walls Lady Antebellum concluded its two-night stand at The Ryman Auditorium on Thursday (3/11) by demonstrating to a sold-out, A-List crowd that it is one terrific little party band. The set was peppered with bright, tightly harmonized rockers, including the concert opening “Stars Tonight” and such radio favorites as “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” [...]

Metric, Tegan & Sara, BRMC, and more exclusive concert pics from SPIN's photographers.

Capitol Nashville artists Luke Bryan and Emily West have been chosen to appear in an episode of the new season of NBC-TV’s Celebrity Apprentice. The two artists will take part in a Nashville-themed challenge that will have the celebrity teams trying to figure out what it takes to make a country music superstar. West says she [...]

John Lydon says some fresh Public Image Ltd. music -- the group's first since 1992 -- will likely "come at the end of all this. That's definitely the intention."

Charlotte Church has agreed a £2 million ($3 million) investment deal with Power Amp Music, the London-based music fund manager, to support the recording of her new album and comeback.

Building on its continued success in the country genre, EMI Music’s Capitol Nashville is forming a new imprint. Designed to be a sister label to Capitol Nashville, which includes artists Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Darius Rucker, Keith Urban and Emily West, the new imprint, to be called EMI Records [...]

Lady Gaga and Beyonce release epic new video for "Telephone," fans arrested in Colombia at Metallica concert riot, Cage the Elephant talks about second album.

Today (3/12) the Academy of Country Music announced the full list of radio award winners that will not be televised on the upcoming ACM Awards due to time constraints. The ceremony will be broadcast live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 18 at 7:00 PM CT on CBS. Cody Alan, the host [...]

Not only is Lady Gaga a pop star, but the 23-year-old woman born Stefani Germanotta has an affinity for a whole lot of pop culture -- and she crams as much of it as possible into her new video for "Telephone," her nine-minute collabo with Beyonce off The Fame Monster.

The clip -- which dropped late Thursday night -- is a Whitman's sampler of pop nuggets, including nods to movies like Kill Bill, Thelma & Louise, and Sin City, plus the boom-pow effect of brightly-colored Japanese television. Then comes a barrage of product placement: cans of Diet Coke as curlers in Gaga's hair, a Virgin Mobile cellphone in her pants, Chanel sunglasses, Monster Heartbeats headphones, and much more.

The sponsorship was probably necessary -- this video must have cost a fortune. Like a movie with beginning and end credits, the clip opens with Gaga being escorted to a prison cell, where she is stripped of her clothes. “I told you she didn’t have a dick,” one of the scantily-clad guards quips, a reference to rumors about Gaga's sexuality. Soon after a makeout session with an androgynous inmate in the prison yard, the music finally kicks in and Gaga leads a choreographed dance through the prison halls.

Soon Gaga is bailed out by Beyonce -- driving the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill -- and the two high-tail to a nearby diner, where they poison Beyonce's pal, played by Tyrese Gibson. The scene unfolds into another dance routine, complete with cooks prancing about the diner, then the duo speed away into the sunset. “We did it, Honey Bee, now let’s go far, far away from here,” Gaga says to Beyonce.

The "Telephone" clip is a big-budget, pop masterwork from an artist clearly familiar with the discipline -- remember the "Bad Romance" video? And every aspect of the "Telephone" clip was meticulously planned by the pop icon herself.

"What I like about it is, it's a real true pop event," Gaga recently told Ryan Seacrest of the "Telephone" video [via E!]. "When I was younger I was always excited when there was a big giant event happening in pop music and that's what I wanted this to be." Mission accomplished.

Lady Gaga's "Telephone" Video:

The National craft nuanced, studied, multi-textured rock anthems, and take their time to do so -- High Violet is their first release in four years. Not coincidentally, their output requires patience to fully appreciate, and the crowd at Thursday night's stealthily announced, intimate gig at Brooklyn's Bell House displayed a hushed, reverent decorum, a vibe imbued with an understanding that their full attention was required.

 

  PHOTOS:

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Photos by Ben Rowland
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As the quintet -- which germinated in Cincinnati, Ohio, but whose members now reside in Brooklyn -- performed each new song, joined by a half-dozen extra musicians on horns, percussion, and keyboards, the response was the same: a burst of applause and cheers, followed by a near-silent hush.

"We're gonna play a couple of new songs, flawlessly," singer Matt Berninger quipped, after getting underway with High Violet cuts "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and "Sorrow." He was joking then, and there certainly may have been some opening night fumbles, but early on it became clear that this new material was very much worth waiting for.

The third new song in the set list, "Anyone's Ghost," was quickly accessible, a slow but empowered nocturnal-sounding shuffle.

Next came "Little Faith," and its gray-sounding refrain ("I'm stuck in New York and the rain's coming down"), and "Afraid of Everyone," with haunting background coos, and even more dour lyrics from Berninger about not having "the drugs to sort this out," and about a voice swallowing his soul. It wasn't hard to project future encounters with these songs on headphones, played while strolling alone through the urban landscape -- a typical aesthetic for this band.

The crowd remained spellbound, including R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, who soaked in the new songs intently from the back. And while the room expectedly surged to life when the band revisited older romps like "Secret Meeting" and "Mr. November" from 2005's Alligator -- the latter song coaxing a very "Pop Song '89" set of dance moves out of Mr. Stipe -- it was the night's final number that showed how High Violet might already be creeping hauntingly into synapses.

Since they'd played it on national TV the night before, "Terrible Love" was the most familiar new tune, and even with just 24 hours to breathe, it's already starting to cast a spell. Surging to a cacophonous crescendo that far exceeds the album version -- and was on par with the band's perpetually explosive performance of Alligator's "Abel" -- "Terrible Love," however powerful it was, might not have been ringing note for note in heads as the show came to its conclusion.

But it's safe to expect that it'll be doing so quite soon.

The National's set list:

Bloodbuzz Ohio
Sorrow
Anyone's Ghost
Little Faith
Start a War
Secret Meeting
Afraid of Everyone
Lemonworld
Slow Show
Apartment Story
Runaway
Conversation 16
Abel
England
Fake Empire

Encore:
Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
Mr. November
Terrible Love

South American fans have rioted at a Metallica concert for the second time in less than two months.

The band's gig in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday ended in over 160 arrests after a swarm of ticketless fans tried to barge their way into the sold-out Simon Bolivar Park, where the metal band was performing in the country for the first time in 11 years. In January, a similar riot broke out in Chile, resulting in hundred of arrests.

According to reports from the Bogota media, 60,000 ticket-holding Metallica fans rocked out peacefully inside the venue, while the scene outside was chaotic, with rioters trashing windows and street signs -- and even dismantling a wall in order to use the bricks as ammunition against police.

Rumors of fans crashing the gig had circulated on Facebook prior to the concert, prompting 1,500 officers to show up at the event. When events turned violent, officers used water hoses and tear bombs to stop the riot, but eight people -- including four police officers -- were injured during the clash.

WATCH: AP Reports from Bogota

A member of the pop group Girlicious has been charged in California with drug possession with the intent to sell after Glendale police allegedly found a dozen plastic bags of cocaine in her Gucci purse.

A musical celebrating Ray Charles is headed for Broadway this fall.