Melody Plant

Hilary Duff has recently dropped the first single from her upcoming Greatest Hits album. The song is called ‘Reach Out’ and it features a sizeable sample from Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’. I really like it! The song probably won’t get much play in America but it should do quite well for Hilary in Europe and overseas as it has that Euro pop and dance sound. Hey, if you can’t find fame in one side of the world because Miley Cyrus has taken over, go for other places. It’s a smart move if you ask me. Hilary is way better than her anyway.

Taylor Swift is going all glamorous on us with the new album artwork that has been released. Her album ‘Fearless’ will be released by Big Machine Records on Tuesday, November 11, and contains 11 tracks, all written or co-written by the country sweetheart. Taylor also co-produced the project with Nathan Chapman and her first single ‘Love Story’ from the new record will be on radio in early September. If you pre-order the $75 Collector’s Box or $40 CD + Mosaic Combo, fans have the opportunity to have their photo included in a special mosaic that will be included in Taylor’s album packaging. The offer is only available for the first 10,000 fans who pre-order.

The album cover for Jessica Simpson’s country effort ‘Do You Know’ has been revealed. Her debut country album will be released on Tuesday, September 9th. The 28-year old blonde bombshell of a singer co-wrote all but three tracks on the disc including her top 20 hit single ‘Come on Over’. It was also recently announced that Jessica will be performing at the Akwesasne Music Festival at the Discount Concert Grounds in Hogansburg, New York on August 29. Let’s hope she does better in that show. Her debut country performance was met with a mix of jeers and cheers, but mostly jeers, last time.

Ashley Tisdale was spotted as she headed into the Warner Bros. Studio in Los Angeles on Wednesday. She was there for a meeting to discuss her second album. In other Ashley news, ‘Picture This’, a made for TV movie starring her was released on DVD this week following its airing on the ABC Family channel. The DVD has a couple of extra treats including Making of ‘Picture This’ and Making a Concert: Behind the Scenes of ‘Shadows of the Night’ Performance. Why do I get the feeling that no matter what she does, she will never outgrow her ‘High School Musical’ role and just become stuck in an acting career rut unless her album does good?

The world better brace itself because we’re going to be hit by a diva hurricane as Mariah Carey is going on tour. The singer has just announced the big news on the JohnJay & Rich morning radio show on Wednesday. The tour is still in the planning stages though so don’t expect to see her this summer. The earliest we can see her is later this year. And if you add in the diva factor, the tour may not happen until next year. By then, people would have lost interest and there wcouldn’t have been a point anyway. She should have planned the tour right when she released her album.

All hopes of Lily Allen making a splash with her upcoming album have gone down the drain. The other British pop wreck is set to record a duet with train wreck from the US Lindsay Lohan. Lily is working on finishing her second album but reports are saying that she still wants to add another song to it called ‘Wherever You Go’ and plans to record it with Lindsay. If Lily really wanted to further her career and make a big deal out of it, she should have just enlisted label mate and rumored rival Katy Perry to do the duet with her.

The New Kids on the Block recorded a song last week with a fellow 80s boy band, New Edition. The thing is the most infamous member, Bobby Brown, was cut out of the picture. The track called ‘Full Service’ will be on NKOTB’s as yet untitled upcoming album. Producer RedOne says “Donnie Wahlberg had this idea for a few months, since New Kids had the idea of getting back together really. Donnie’s been looking for that one track for all of them and I think we found it.” New Edition’s Ralph Tresvant recently spoke about the bands’ rumored feud saying “The thing people were going back and forth with was we’d been doing what we were doing for the longest [but] we couldn’t get cartoons and things that the white guys were getting. It was like, ‘wow’. But the guys themselves, we have mad love.”

The video for Miley Cyrus’ first single for her upcoming studio album ‘Breakout’ has just dropped. ‘7 Things’ was shot in Los Angeles last month with director Brett Ratner, the same guy who directed ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ and ‘Red Dragon’. It features Miley and other heartbroken girls using the lyrics of the song to attack their respective exes. It looks like Miley has a vindictive side to her. It’s pretty obvious anyway – just look at what she and her family keep saying about the Vanity Fair scandal. The official premiere of the video took place Saturday night on the Disney Channel.

The cover art for Miley Cyrus sophomore album ‘Breakout’ has been revealed. The ‘Hannah Montana’ star’s new CD will be dropping in stores everywhere on Tuesday, July 22. The album’s first single, ‘7 Things’ debuted on Radio Disney earlier this month. So what do you think of the album cover? If you ask me, I think it’s still a little on the phallic side. But at least she’s not showing of her bare back and teasing people that she may have nothing on under a sheet. Seriously, the girl needs to start acting her age if she doesn’t want people thinking bad things about her.

Hilary Duff threw on a killer pair of cork-colored boots to spend her entire Tuesday afternoon at a recording studio in Burbank, California. It looks like the more successful of the Duff sister is getting back in music mode and is back to recording a new album after making a film, ‘War Inc’. Later in the evening, Hilary ate hearty at Mr. Chow with her hockey player boyfriend Mike Comrie. I wonder if any of her new songs will be about her beau just like some songs from her last album were about ex-boyfriend and now Nicole Richie baby daddy Joel Madden.

Vanessa Hudgens has received the first review of her sophomore album ‘Identified’, which comes out on July 1, from Entertainment Weekly. Vanessa said of the album that “[The album] is definitely sophisticated. But it’s also funky and fun–something that I would, like, actually listen to.” I’m not sure who really reviews the album here. Of the three tracks EW listed, most of the reviews of the songs came pretty much from Vanessa herself. The songs they heard were her first single off the album ‘Sneakernight’, the Dr. Luke (Kelly Clarkson, Pink) produced sassy anthem ‘First Bad Habit’ and the stripped-down ballad ‘Gone with the Wind’.

Amy Winehouse is working on a new track with Babyshambles.

Band frontman Pete Doherty confirmed the ‘Rehab’ singer teamed up with guitarist Mick Whitnall in the studio while he was in London’s Wormwood Scrubs Prison.

He said: ‘Mick and Amy have a great relationship. They have been working on material while I was in prison. When I came out I went straight to the recording studio. I just want to get the music going. We’ve been told we will be doing a third album. That will keep me busy and hopefully out of trouble.’

The collaboration, first sounded out last year, is tipped to be released as a single and will appear on the next Babyshambles album.

Earlier this month, producer Mark Ronson reportedly halted sessions to record the new James Bond theme with Amy, 24, saying he was not sure she was ready to work on new music. Pete was released from jail last week after serving 29 days of a 14-week sentence for drug offences.

Scarlett Johansson has recently premiered her first music video ‘Falling Down’ which comes off of her debut solo album ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’. The cover song, which also features David Bowie on vocals, was originally from Tom Waits’ album ‘Big Time’. It’s a good song but when it comes to the video, forget it. It’s pretty bad with its lame theme of ‘a day in the life of Scarlett’ and with the very shaky camera. It just gave me a headache really. Anyway, Scarlett’s album is set for release through Acto/Rhino Records on May 20. Here’s to hoping that the rest of her album doesn’t give me the headaches.

It’s not your average pairing… but Usher wants to work with Michael Buble.

The R’n’B star is desperate to team up with the Canadian jazz artist on his new album ‘Here I Stand’ and has even written a song for them to perform together.

He said: ‘I would love to perform my track ‘Forever Young’ with Michael Buble. I actually wrote that song with the intention of him and me doing it together.’

The ‘Love in This Club’ singer is also keen to collaborate with US singer-songwriter John Mayer.

Usher added: ‘I would like to do something with John Mayer on one of my songs ‘Something Special’ which is on my new album. I would love him to play the guitar and sing with me on that.’

The 29-year-old star, who has recorded a track with Ne-Yo for his new LP, insists he is happy his 18-year-old chart rival Chris Brown has enjoyed such success.

Usher explained: ‘All of this new energy is great for the industry. Chris is the guy who dances and sings, which is a lot like I do and did as a young artist. If time serves us correctly, and artists continue to better themselves, then hopefully he will follow the same path that I did.’

‘Here I stand’, which is Usher’s fifth studio album, is scheduled to be released worldwide on May 27.

Check out the latest episode of “Being..Ashlee Simpson” presented by Pepsi Smash on Yahoo! Music. This time around Ashlee makes a stop in Houston on her first ever club tour. The late nights and early mornings might take getting used to, but they don’t stop Ashlee from putting on a good show. See her get the party started as she performs a few tracks from Bittersweet World.

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The album cover for Clay Aiken’s new album ‘On My Way Here’ has just been released. His new studio effort will hit stores on May 6 but that’s not going to stop the singer from performing all new songs on Monday, April 28 at 7PM on QVC. The American Idol alum commented on his album unveiling saying “Starting my career on national, live television, it seems fitting to be unveiling my new album live on QVC. To be able to connect with QVC’s viewers and broadcast my performance to over 93 million households is an amazing opportunity.” Whatever floats your boat.

While Leona Lewis is the first British musician to have gone to the top spot of the American charts with her album in around 20 years, Mariah Carey’s album is predicted to have one of the biggest opening weeks on any album in recent years. Leona’s album ‘Spirit’ has sold 205,000 copies this past week in the US. Mariah’s new album ‘E=MC2’ opened with sales of 154,000 in the first day. And as I previously said, she is predicted to go over the 500,000 mark with first week sales. Mariah is hot on Leona’s tail and the curvaceous diva is pretty set to kick the Brit’s pretty butt off the top spot.

The Jonas Brothers were spotted in Los Angeles just as they got finished running a couple of errands on Tuesday. Mark your calendars now as the band of brothers consisting of 20-year old Kevin, 18-year old Joe and 15-year old Nick will be releasing their new album called ‘A Little Bit Longer’ on August 12. They recently talked to Popstar about their upcoming ‘Burnin’ Up’ tour where Nick said “We’re definitely talking about having some fire and maybe some explosions.” He even jokingly added “We’re going to [swallow swords of fire]!” Are we going to see a concert or a circus act?

A new promo picture of ‘High School Musical’ star Vanessa Hudgens has been released from her sophomore album ‘Identified’. Could this possibly be the artwork for her new album cover? Vanessa has also released a new single called ‘Sneakernight’ and it’s gotten nothing but good reviews. Blender magazine reviewed the song saying “Teens will dance (and giggle), parents will overpay for the concert and all will be right with the teen pop universe.” If you go by nothing but that, then I guess it really is a good song. It may be a teeny bopper song but hey, it’s a pretty big market.

The artist who’s arguably the most talented to have come out of the Spice Girls camp has just released her solo album ‘This Time’ in Canada and she’s gracing the Canadians with her presence. Mel C is going on a tour across Canada in support of her solo album. Her tour kicks off on May 4 at Club Soda in Montreal and will round off on May 17 at The Plaza Club in Vancouver. Sporty is going places people and she’s taking her amazing music with her! Canada better love her or they’ll have me to answer to! Go Sporty!