Rappers have long professed their love of drinking “Cristals by the bottle”, incorporating the champagne - which can sell for more than £700 - in lyrics and music videos.
But Louis Roederer, makers of the gold-labelled Cristal, have not welcomed their association with the “bling” lifestyle, provoking leading names in the rap music industry, including Jay-Z, the president of Def Jam records, to boycott the brand.
In a summer issue of The Economist, Frederic Rouzaud, the managing director of Louis Roederer, said the company viewed the affection for his company’s champagne from rappers and their fans with “curiosity and serenity”. When asked if the association with the “bling lifestyle” could be detrimental, Mr Rouzaud replied: “That’s a good question, but what can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.”
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June 16th, 2006
Pop princess Britney Spears, whose marriage and parenting skills are under a media microscope, tearfully admitted being “an emotional wreck” in excerpts of an interview aired on Thursday.Intermittently weeping and chewing gum throughout, Spears denied she is estranged from her husband, Kevin Federline, saying on NBC’s “Today” show that Federline is helping her weather the hormonal ups and downs of her second pregnancy.
“He helps me. He has to. I’m an emotional wreck right now,” Spears said. “Not in a bad way. Just, just, you know, I’ll start laughing hysterically and then I’ll just start crying, like just because … . It’s my hormones. (more…)
June 16th, 2006
NEW YORK — “What would Axl do?” read the T-shirt on one of the Guns N’ Roses fans outside the Hammerstein Ballroom on Friday. They were lined up around the block waiting to get into the 3,300-capacity theater where Guns N’ Roses was scheduled to play its first show since a 2002 concert a couple of blocks away at Madison Square Garden.
As it turned out, Axl Rose wouldn’t do much, at least not in the way the T-shirt suggested — nothing to add to the list of no-shows, walkouts and confrontations with audience members that has made the band’s saga a trail of mayhem as well as music. The only musician to go into the audience Friday was guitarist Robin Finck, who did a little stage-diving and crowd-surfing near the end of the night.
The last time the L.A. band opened a tour, in Vancouver, Canada, Rose was late, the show was canceled and the fans rioted. That 2002 tour came to a premature end later on when Rose did the same thing in Philadelphia.
That history — as well as a newspaper report that Rose had missed a rehearsal — might have been lingering in people’s minds Friday as they came to witness the awakening of what they hoped was a slumbering giant. The four Hammerstein concerts (shows were also scheduled for Sunday, today and Wednesday) are a warm-up for a European tour, which will be followed, Rose recently announced, by the release of the band’s first album of new material since 1991, the infamously, interminably in-progress “Chinese Democracy.”
Showing good taste and high spirits, the crowd booed the opener, the Welsh band Bullet for My Valentine, off the stage, then waited for an hour until Guns N’ Roses came on at 11 p.m., complete with its lead singer.
Rose, wearing jeans, a black leather shirt and sunglasses, his hair in cornrows and tied in a ponytail, got a hero’s welcome as he led the band through its traditional opener, “Welcome to the Jungle.” His frame looked a little heftier at age 44 than in his street-waif heyday 20 years ago, but he kicked and scampered around with spirited energy, and his raspy voice had its old barbed-wire edge.
That was the start of a solid, smooth-running 2 1/2-hour set that was dominated by vintage fan favorites, with no tirades, no impulsive departures from the book, unless you count a guest appearance by Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach, singing with Rose on “My Michelle.” There was also a lot less of the tension that fueled the band’s performances in the late ’80s and early ’90s, largely because this is a different Guns N’ Roses, with the original lineup — most significantly, Rose’s colorful, guitar-wielding foil Slash — gone and new players in place since the late ’90s.
One teaser for Friday’s show was the unveiling of a new guitarist as replacement for the recently departed Buckethead. He turned out to be Ron Thal, from a New York outfit called, oddly enough, Bumblefoot, and who at one point played a guitar shaped and painted as a foot.
With its three guitarists, Guns N’ Roses’ 2006 edition is a hard-rock fan’s dream, churning out the Stones-cum-Aerosmith-influenced songs with requisite power. On Friday, they re-created the structures of such old standbys as “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Patience,” “Paradise City,” “Mr. Brownstone,” et al.
But at heart, it’s very different from the band Rose once fronted — one of the most popular, polarizing, powerful, controversial and fascinatingly self-sabotaging entities in rock. This is the curse of rock’s bad boys (and girls). If you find enough stability to show up and do a good show, you’ve lost your edge. If you keep too much of your edge, you’re going to find your audience dwindling to a morbid few waiting for your final mistake.
And two decades have created a distance from those early songs, which were immediate, close-to-the-bone expressions of rage and frustration from a troubled and eloquent kid. On Friday, they were all audience sing-alongs, enjoyable as celebrations of a community of fans and band but no longer scary, compelling pieces. The one that retained its essence best was the encore, “Paradise City,” because its message of longing for refuge carries a more universal reach.
The trick for Rose is to summon those songs’ original spirit while removing himself from the character who created them. The problem is that he hasn’t given us a new Axl to put the old material in a new context or, more important, to sing something new.
If “Chinese Democracy” really is coming soon, this would have been a perfect time to showcase it, but the few new songs came and went without much impact amid the nostalgia. The energetic title song, with its more contemporary sound, was a promising indication.
While this return was long awaited by some, Rose and company have been long forgotten by many. You can’t stay away forever if you want to keep your audience engaged plus attract new listeners. The intensity of Guns N’ Roses’ initial music and lifestyle might have earned Rose a temporary pass, but if he doesn’t show up soon, he’ll find he has the jungle all to himself.
May 15th, 2006
US rapper DMX has been cautioned by police after being arrested at Heathrow Airport for abusing airline staff. The 35-year-old refused to co-operate on the American Airlines flight from New York after being asked to fasten his seatbelt on approaching London.
The flight’s captain alerted Heathrow police, who arrested the musician once the plane landed.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman confirmed DMX - real name Earl Simmons - was later released with a caution.
DMX has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and will release his sixth solo album, Year of the Dog, Again, this summer.
Launch party
He is due to perform at a secret launch party in London on Tuesday.
DMX, who has also appeared in films including Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds, was sentenced to seven days in prison in 2005 for colliding with two cars while driving with a suspended licence.
He received a 70-day sentence for a separate incidence of speeding while holding an invalid licence in December 2004.
In June 2004, he was arrested after crashing his car into a gate at New York’s JFK Airport and was handed a conditional discharge.
May 15th, 2006
Geri Halliwell has given birth to a baby girl at London’s Portland Hospital, according to The Sun.
The singer’s representatives haven’t officially confirmed the birth yet, but it is believed she underwent a Caesarean section in the early hours this morning at the private hospital. And she reportedly enjoyed the services of the same obstetrician that delivered Victoria Beckham’s first son Brooklyn.
Geri’s mum Anna Maria was at her side, but The Sun claims father Sacha Gervasi – a Hollywood screenwriter who split with Geri shortly after she fell pregnant – was not present.
May 15th, 2006
Snoop Dogg has fessed up and accepted responsibility for threatening officers at London’s Heathrow airport last month.
The rapper “accepted a caution for a Section Four Public Order Act matter, using threatening words or behavior,” according to the Associated Press. In other words, Snoop said he’s sorry and no further action will be taken against him.
Snoop had gotten into a bit of trouble when he and five other men in his entourage were arrested on charges of violent disorder and starting a brawl when they were refused entry into the first-class lounge of British Airways. All of the men spent the night in jail and several of the officers involved in the altercation received minor injuries.
While Snoop has made good with the police, he continues to be banned from British Airways.
May 11th, 2006
Britney Spears says she misses touring and can’t wait to get back to work.
It’s only been five months since she popped out son Sean Preston, but the hardworking princess of pop reckons she’s ready to make a return to music. She said: “This may sound weird, but I miss travelling. I miss the road, seeing different places and being with the dancers and having fun. (more…)
February 17th, 2006
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With five Grammies under his belt, R&B singer Usher is moving into Tony territory — making his Broadway debut in a revival of the musical “Chicago.”
If there were an organization called the National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Ethnic Music Video Hootchies, they would surely find great investment and reward in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, given that it would gainfully employ so much of their membership.
Brawny, testosteronized action flicks like this are always being accused, sometimes quite unfairly, of being unthinkingly misogynistic, but the third installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise tells us forthrightly what it thinks of women when, in the first 10 minutes of its perfunctory setup, it has the putative high school girlfriend of one character offer herself up by purring, “Why don’t you race for me?” and then has our lead character’s middle-aged mother winkingly come on to a police officer who’s arrested her son. Nice. I’m sure Betty Friedan would enthusiastically approve. 
Hip-hop star Missy Elliott is to play the lead role in a film chronicling her life, Universal Pictures has announced. The film, which is untitled and in the development phase, will be produced by actor Robert De Niro through his company Tribeca Films.
