Britney Spears is ‘great singer’ says producer

Songwriter-and-producer Steve Anderson has worked with some of the industry’s biggest names, including Kylie Minogue. He recently collaborated with Britney on a single called Grow, and says rumours the star can’t sing without the help of auto-tune technology are ridiculous.

“I adore Grow. It’s so gorgeous. Lisa Greene was in America with Britney writing new songs, I was supposed to go but was working on a Kylie tour,” Steve told music blog MuuMuse. “One night she called and was in the studio with Britney. They had come up with an idea which they sang down the phone to me, and I got to work on a track idea for it to help them get to the next stage with the song.

“We then worked via phone and e-mail co-writing for the next few days, ending up with Lisa recording Britney and sending me the vocals to mix. I have to say the vocals were stunning – another misconception about people being able to sing. Honestly, such a great singer.”

Grow ended up being cut from Britney’s last album Circus because it was a ballad and did not fit with the rest of the album’s R&B feel. Steven says it is an amazing song, and hopes the star will release it one day soon.

“It’s a song very much to do with her kids, and I think just after that there were some problems which meant it would have not fit on the record,” Steven said.

“Also it was very gentle and she went incredibly hard and R&B so it wouldn’t have worked. It’s a shame as I absolutely love it and would love people to hear it, but it’s not for me to let that happen.”

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Usher's OMG Tour

Multi-platinum recording artist Usher officially announces his OMG Tour. The highly anticipated 25-date trek across North America is presented by AEG Live and will kick off November 10th in Seattle, WA at Key Arena.

On the heels of his recent release Versus, an extension of his platinum album Raymond V. Raymond, Usher is preparing to bring all of his hits to the stage including his current pop chart smash "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love".

"Songs like 'OMG', 'DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love', 'There Goes My Baby', 'Papers', 'Daddy's Home', 'Lil Freak with Nicki Minaj' and 'Hot Tottie with Jay Z' have dominated the airwaves since last February", says Randy Phillips, President & CEO of AEG Live. "Now is the time for one of our greatest entertainers to go live and we are thrilled to be part of the ultimate Usher experience. Usher is bringing his fans an evening they will not soon forget. This will be the 'Must See' concert tour of 2010!"

Fans will be able purchase tickets beginning September 17th and for up to the minute tour information and news they can visit Usherworld.com.

For a complete list of dates check the Tour Dates

Usher's sixth studio album Raymond V. Raymond debuted at No.1 on Pop and R&B albums charts and spawned five hit singles including "Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home)," "Lil Freak" featuring Nicki Minaj, "There Goes My Baby" and "OMG" featuring will.i.am. He was recently confirmed to perform at the upcoming MTV 2010 Video Music Awards on September 12th.

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Kelis selects next Flesh Tone single.

In a new interview with Watermark Online, my girl Kelis has confirmed that the Benny Benassi-produced “Brave” will be the third single to be lifted from her underrated dance album, Flesh Tone.

I assume that we’re all in agreement that this is amazing news and that “Brave” is one of the best songs from the album, right?

The third Flesh Tone single was originally scheduled to be the David Guetta-produced “Scream”, but it now appears that Kelis and Co came to their senses and realized that it was the worst song off the album, and quickly replaced it with something much more divine.

Meanwhile, Kelis’ current single “4th of July” turned out to be a bit of a slow burner in the US, after reaching a peak last week of #4 on the Billboard club chart. As of this week, the song currently sits at #11.

Fingers crossed that “Brave” manages to reach the top spot.

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Cheryl Cole 'in no rush' to reunite with Girls Aloud

Chezza, who is busy working on new solo material and on The X Factor, apparently reckons it could take up to a year for the girls to get back in the studio together.

A source told heat: "Cheryl is tied up with her solo success. She's in no rush to get back with Girls Aloud."

"She realistically doesn't think they'll get back together for at least another year, and perhaps even longer."

According to the magazine, Sarah Harding is determined to reunite the group and is making a last-ditch attempt to get her warring bandmates together again for a night out.

The blonde star thinks that a night on the tiles is just what is needed to make the girls put aside their differences.

The source added: "Sarah has realised that the issues within the band can be resolved and she wants the girls to get on like they used to."

"She thinks a night out for the five of them will help them get things back the way they were."

Harding has already taken the first step by getting in touch with Nadine Coyle, who returned to London recently from LA to put the finishing touches on her debut album.

Coyle is widely rumoured to have fallen out with her Girls Aloud bandmates Harding, Cheryl Cole, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh.

The source added: "She wishes she'd talked to Nadine before now about the troubles in the band and her feeling left out."

"Sarah just wants to make a go of the band now and really have fun, because it might be the last stint they do together."

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Rihanna Debuts "Only Girl (In The World)"

Snippet can be heard here on Ryan Seacrest's website.

Ciara Will Perform at the VMAs

From her Twitter -

Club Mansion was so much fun, my night couldn't have eneded any sweeter! Off 2 LA to shoot Gimmie Dat, Speechless, and Perform on the VMA's!

Jesse McCartney's "Shake"

Possible Track Listing for Michael Jackson's New Album

The new album of late legendary King Of Pop will have a likely release on November , but this is possible only if the promotional work for the album begins from the middle of next month .

But there are also reports that Sony Music is planning to release a couple of singles in November and the album will be released only during the Christmas week.

The deadline set by Sony Music to Jackson’s estate for the submission of the material is on the second week of September.

The album will likely feature the following tracks

Another Day (Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz )

Bassouille (Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz)

Belong 2 ( Jackson and Riley)

Buffalo Hill (Jackson )

Face (Jackson)

Fear (Jackson)

Get Around (Jackson )

Hold My Hand (Claudia Kelly and Akon )

The Future (Jackson and will.i.am)

Rolling The Dice (Temperton )

Seven Digits (Jackson and Loren )

This Is Our Time (Jackson )

I repeat these are the possible tracks and the strongest contenders for the album .

In addition to this ,there are four untitled tracks written and composed by R Kelly, which are likely to be considered for the final list of the tracks.

Teddy Riley , R Kelly, and Rodney Jerkins, have all confirmed that they are working for Jackson’s new album.

The album will be produced by John McClain and John Branca.

The album will be released world wide by Sony Music .

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New Madonna Song - Broken (I'm Sorry)

Nadine Coyle to release debut album on her own label

Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle has founded her own record label to release her debut solo album, Insatiable.

The 25-year-old has also signed a deal with supermarket chain Tesco, who will stock the CD exclusively when it is released on 8 November.

Dance act Faithless struck a similar deal earlier this year, and saw their album enter the chart at number two.

"The traditional model for selling an album isn't the only way of doing things," Coyle said.

"To be able to create an album where you are in complete control of your own work is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an artist.'

The Northern Irish star, who won a Brit award with her Girls Aloud bandmates in2009, has been working on her solo album for nearly a year.

A clip of her first single, also called Insatiable, hit the internet today.

Co-written by Robbie Williams' former hitmaker Guy Chambers, it showcases a harder, guitar-led sound for the pop singer.

"I just knew we had something special when we wrote that song," said Coyle.

Two other songs heard by the BBC included a more straightforward pop number, and a show-stopping minor key ballad in the style of 1970s singer-songwriters like Carole King and Joni Mitchell.

Coyle said she had sketched out most of the tracks in her London flat, before taking them to producers including William Orbit (Madonna), Toby Gad (Beyonce) and Desmond Child (Bon Jovi).

Some of the original vocals, recorded in her front room, remain on the finished record.
Girls Aloud Girls Aloud are on hiatus while Coyle and Cheryl Cole release their solo material

The supermarket deal means that Coyle's debut album, released on her Black Pen Records imprint, will be sold exclusively in 1,200 Tesco stores across the UK.

It is the chain's latest move into the music industry, having previously released CDs by Simply Red and Faithless.

Tesco also announced it would be the sole stockist of Robbie Williams' forthcoming autobiography and the launch editions of the official X Factor magazine.

Head of entertainment Rob Salter said in a statement: "We are delighted that Nadine Coyle has agreed to entrust the first album of her solo career to Tesco.

"Nadine has delivered a real album with musical integrity and, most of all, that great big warm voice and fantastic songs which we believe will speak to all of Tesco's customers."

It is understood that the star plans to release digital copies of her record through the usual outlets - including iTunes and Amazon - as well as Tesco's own download store.

Coyle's Girls Aloud bandmate Cheryl Cole is also due to release her second solo album this autumn.

The girl band are also due to return next year, having signed a deal to release three more albums with record label Fascination in 2009.

Recent tabloid stories have suggested the reunion may not happen.

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David Archuleta Debuts "Things Are Gonna Get Better"

Dr. Luke Will Produce Britney Spears' Next Album

The doctor is in, at the tree-shrouded Conway Studios compound in Hollywood, and he won't be out any time soon.

Lukasz Gottwald -- the writer/producer better-known to the explosive-chorus-loving world as Dr. Luke -- has booked all three rooms at Conway for the entire month of September. He's told his manager to cancel all meetings, and you might have to excuse him if your call goes to voice mail. The deadline task at hand: Coming up with enough new songs for his protégée, Ke$ha, to get a deluxe repackaging of her debut album out in time for the holiday buying season.

Nothing is remotely done yet, and Ke$ha is only available for a three-week stretch, so he and fellow producers Benny Blanco and Ammo are hard at work coming up with rough tracks for the singer to put her stamp on. How many songs are they planning on adding to the "Animal" reissue?

"I'd like as many as eight, if possible," Gottwald says. "But I'll be happy if I got four or five great ones. And a lot depends on the next two weeks. She has a single right now, 'Take It Off,' which is doing pretty well. Last time I checked, it was No. 11 on iTunes. Normally, an artist would be stuck in a fourth-single slump by now, so that's encouraging. But who knows. Two weeks from now, research could come in and say that song won't go as far as we had anticipated, and then that'll mean we need a new song right away."

If Gottwald's attention to chart detail sounds a little bit (as his nickname might suggest) scientific, he's positively a rocket engineer when it comes to the arts and sciences that take place inside the studio control room, where he's known as a genial perfectionist nonpareil. He sweats the small stuff. But that sonic fussiness hasn't gotten him bogged down so much that it's kept him from racking up the most commercially enviable career in pop production at the moment.

Stats speak even louder than beats. On the Billboard Hot 100 right now, he's responsible as a co-writer and co-producer for 40% of the top 10: Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" (No. 3), Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" (No. 2) and "California Gurls" (No. 7), and Ke$ha's "Take It Off" (No. 10), which is defying a fourth-single slump. (He would have claimed half the top 10 if B.o.B and Rivers Cuomo's "Magic" hadn't slipped 11-10.) He can claim four of Billboard's 20 top-selling digital singles of all time, with Ke$ha's 5 million-selling "TiK ToK," Flo Rida's "Right Round," Perry's "Hot N Cold" and Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A."

Then there are the earlier smashes that might've made that list had they been released later in the digital singles sales revolution, like Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes," seminal collaborations with mentor Max Martin that put him on the pop map five years ago. That Gottwald was named ASCAP's songwriter of the year in April probably counts as a performing-rights no-brainer.

In the coming months, Gottwald will co-executive produce Britney Spears' 2011 project, alongside Martin. For his own label, Kemosabe, whose sole release so far is Ke$ha's "Animal," he'll be working with his latest signings, female singers Sabi and Sophia Black. Meanwhile, taking off his executive hat, he's still involved in plenty of production one-offs, like an upcoming single for British powerhouse vocalist Jessie J (who co-wrote "Party in the U.S.A." for herself before sacrificing it to Cyrus).

For the last five years, Gottwald has provided a veritable soundtrack for adolescence and young adulthood, assuming the mantle of Tycoon of Teen that's been passed down from Phil Spector. There's hardly a ballad to be found in his catalog, which is full of rock-tinged dance-pop with an unabashedly ecstatic quality that makes even middle-aged top 40 listeners feel like they're living the teenage dream, to paraphrase Perry.

"His hallmark is 'tempo' records-at worst, they're [midtempo]-coupled with über-melody and great concepts," RCA/Jive Label Group chairman/CEO Barry Weiss says. Consider the fact that many of these concepts have involved some form or another of cheeky female empowerment-see Perry's "I Kissed a Girl," Pink's "U + Ur Hand" and Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend"-and he could almost be considered an avatar of girls, or girl-lovers, everywhere.

But Gottwald, who will turn 37 in a few weeks, resists the suggestion that he might concoct these hits with the image of a teenage girl with an iPod in mind. His awareness of research and chart stats notwithstanding, he swears he's his own target audience.

"Apparently my taste is that of a 13-year-old girl," he jokes. "Not really. But my taste is commercial. Listen, there's been times in my life like the two years that I only listened to jazz, and probably nothing after 1966. When I went to the Manhattan School of Music, the library didn't have anything after 1966. In order to get good at that, I had to tunnel-vision and focus on that.

"But sometimes when I talk to those kinds of people, they're like, 'What is it like making this simple music?' They look down on it. And I'm like, 'No, you don't get it. I actually like this. I don't see a difference between brilliance in one and the other.' There's no compromise to me in what I'm doing. I'm trying to make songs that I love and make them feel a certain way and go to certain places. It just so happens that a lot of 13-year-old girls like that."

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