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Great Grammy Moments: Bob Dylan Meets Soy Bomb

Posted 1/31/11 5:30 pm EST by in Grammys


The 53rd Grammy Awards are upon us, and music's biggest, most prestigious awards show will feature a number of killer performances, appearances and potential acceptance speeches from the likes of Eminem, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Cee Lo Green, Muse, Arcade Fire, B.o.B, Justin Bieber, Lady Antebellum, Jay-Z and scores of others. In order to appreciate what's to come, every day the MTV Newsroom Blog will deliver a classic moment in the history of the Grammy Awards. Today's installment: Soy Bomb!

Considering the sort of reverence most people hold for the rock icons of the 1960s, it's weird to think that Bob Dylan ever needed any sort of a comeback. But that's just what happened when the venerable rocker released Time Out of Mind in 1997. After decades floundering with middling music, Dylan finally seemed to be embracing his own mortality on the dark, desolate Time Out of Mind, which tapped into Dylan's particular vision of love, death, freedom and the American experience. The minimalist flavor on the album pleased old fans (who were glad to have the old, weird Dylan back) and attracted a whole new generation of admirers.

Dylan's comeback came full circle on February 25, 1998, when he emerged as the big winner at the 40th Grammy Awards (which were held in Radio City Music Hall in New York that time around). Time Out of Mind took home the prize for Album of the Year, but the moment that everybody remembers from that night came during Dylan's performance. While in the midst of a scorching version of Time Out of Mind's "Love Sick," a man named Michael Portnoy stormed the stage and began manically dancing next to Dylan. Portnoy was shirtless and had the words "Soy Bomb" written across his chest. Dylan glanced at the strange man but barely batted an eye, and security came out to retrieve him while the rocker burned through another bluesy guitar solo.

Later, Portnoy (who was hired to dance behind Dylan during the performance, so was on stage legally) explained what "Soy Bomb" meant. "Soy represents dense nutritional life," he told Entertainment Weekly. "Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, soy bomb is what I think art should be: dense, transformational, explosive life."

Stay tuned to MTV News for all the latest on the 53rd Grammy Awards!

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Swedish House Mafia Announce Lineup For 'Miami Masquerade Motel: One Night Stand'

Posted 1/31/11 5:00 pm EST by in Music


By Adam Stewart

Well over a month after pre-sale tickets went up for grabs, Swedish House Mafia have finally shown their cards. The collective revealed the huge lineup for the upcoming Miami Music Week, which promises to rival every other dance-related event in Miami in the coming months.

In the teaser released today, dance fans got a glimpse of what SHM's "One Night Stand" might look like. In the clip, a masked beauty pilots a mysterious elevator. She is looking for the hottest party in town, and what she finds when the doors open is nothing short of epic — a sight and sound spectacle with the Swedish House Mafia on staged, again poised to make the house explode.

Performing alongside the Swedes in their only official Miami show will be turntable master A-Trak, his Duck Sauce partner in crime Armand Van Helden, Calvin Harris, Dirty South, Pete Tong, Size powerhouses Kim Fai, Max Vangeli, AN21 and new signees Third Party and Thomas Gold.

While the physical location of Miami Masquerade Motel is being kept hush-hush for now, sources tell us that the final product will be nothing short of massive. If it's anything like the Halloween permutation of "Masquerade Motel" (which was housed in a custom-built arena for nearly 10,000 fans), "One Night Stand" promises to be one of the greatest nights in Miami's dance music history.

The show will play opposite the second day of the three-day Ultra Music Festival, which will be headlined by Deadmau5. Also slated to wow the masses over UMF's three days include Tiesto, David Guetta, Skrillex, Carl Cox, Wolfgang Gartner and Armin Van Buuren. Ultra Music Festival, which has become the focal point of the unofficial "Miami Music Week," will take place a full two weeks after the traditional Winter Music Conference amidst all sorts of controversy and confusion. Still, despite the sniping and conflicts, electronic music fans will certainly come out on top — and Swedish House Mafia's "One Night Stand" promises to take them there.

Which show are you more likely to go to? Let us know in the comments!

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Would 'Two And A Half Men' Replace Charlie Sheen With A Reformed Rocker?

Posted 1/31/11 4:30 pm EST by in Television


The hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men" is a lot like meth: Nobody admits to getting involved with it, but it's so huge that you know some of your friends are indulging and not telling you. It's the highest-rated comedy show on television, and yet seems to exist in a strange void where nobody really talks about it (it has never really come up around the MTV News coffee machine the way that "Breaking Bad," "The Office" or even "How I Met Your Mother" usually do).

Still, it's a huge show with a big problem. Obviously, Charlie Sheen's character (seemingly a slightly fictionalized version of himself, often involving prostitutes) is the show's biggest draw, but the star's personal life seems to finally have infringed too heavily on his work. He'll be in rehab for three months, which would take us almost to the end of the television season and brings up a reasonable question: Will he be replaced for the duration of his recovery?

While the show has made no official statements about the actor's status on the show (and in the past, they've been very quick to stand by Sheen, simply because the show is such a huge hit and a massive cash cow), it's still fun to play around with the idea of dinging him a fill-in. Of course, finding a suitable replacement would be no easy task, as he has an undeniably electric charisma and a brilliant sense of timing and theatricality. That's why no actors will do, and we have to jump straight to reformed rock and roll bad boys, all of whom could slide onto the couch next to Jon Cryer while Sheen gets healthy.

Bret Michaels
The Poison frontman and winner of the last season of "The Celebrity Apprentice" became everybody's favorite rock star turned reality icon last year, and he could easily parlay that into a brief run on "Two and a Half Men."

Nikki Sixx
The Mötley Crüe bassist has had a long life of drugs, women and disaster (he was legally dead for a few minutes back in the '80s), but he has since cleaned himself up and is as delightful a deliverer of bon mots as the rock world has. Can he read from a script? It's unclear. But he does have great tattoos.

Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy has a ton of television experience, having anchored the hit MTV reality show "The Osbournes" for three seasons. Plus, he has a knack for comedic timing and would look funny sitting next to Cryer.

Dee Snider
True, we here in the MTV Newsroom think that the former Twisted Sister frontman should be cast in just about everything (there's no reason why he can't be the villain in the new "Superman" movie, by the way). And it's true that he has stayed sober throughout his professional life. But he's just so good on "Growing Up Twisted" that it would be a shame to waste his talent.

Anthony Kiedis
The Red Hot Chili Peppers singer used to be as self-destructive as any of his Los Angeles contemporaries, but he cleaned himself up long ago. That puts him in a great position to haunt the set of "Two and a Half Men" — shirtless, of course.

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Britney Spears' New Video Is 'Incredible' Collaboration: The MTV News Quote Of The Day

Posted 1/31/11 3:30 pm EST by in Music


"I am a huge Jonas Akerlund fan. Anything that he does is magical. His eye for art is insane, so I was excited to work with someone who loves art so much and it's not just a job, it's not technical; it really is a string aesthetic to what he does. I had a meeting with him at his house. We went through the video from top to bottom, and I gave him as much input from the dance side, 'cause it's a dance video, as I could to try to help bring his story to life. And the collaboration was incredible."

-Choreographer Brian Friedman, explaining his enthusiasm for working with video director Jonas Akerlund on the soon-to-be-released video for Britney Spears' chart-topping new single "Hold It Against Me." The video, which is set to premiere some time during Grammy weekend, will marry Friedman's cutting-edge dance moves with the same keen visual sense that Akerlund has brought to instant classic clips like Lady Gaga's "Telephone," Madonna's "Ray of Light," Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and U2's "Beautiful Day."

Friedman was happy that Akerlund both brought his personal vision to the project and was willing to collaborate with the choreographer on the video, which promises to be extremely dance-heavy. "I really feel like bringing two artists together in a way like that, where the director really loves the dance and understands the art of the dance and doesn't try to cover it up and water it down, is the best way to go," he explained to MTV News during a conversation about the project last week. "He was genius for me with dance."






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Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend Play The Edges: Better Know A Grammy Category

Posted 1/31/11 2:30 pm EST by in Grammys


The 53rd Grammy Awards are upon us, and they bring with them dozens of artists competing in 109 different categories. The performers on the show — which airs live on Sunday, February 13 — include Eminem, Cee Lo Green, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Justin Bieber, Miranda Lambert, Katy Perry, Muse, B.o.B, Usher, Bruno Mars, Jaden Smith and Janelle Monae. It promises to be one of the biggest nights in the history of music, and MTV News will be bringing you wall-to-wall coverage of the big event.

But the awards are the big draw, and just as the MTV Newsroom Blog does with the MTV Video Music Awards, here are a series of guides to some of the biggest categories on the docket. This time around: Best Alternative Album.

The concept of "alternative" as a genre is a holdover from the '90s, a pre-Internet era when counter-cultural music was far more elusive than it is now. However, while many of the albums nominated for the prize for Best Alternative Music Album could be considered mainstream (Arcade Fire's The Suburbs and Vampire Weekend's Contra both topped the Billboard album chart, and the Black Keys, Band of Horses and Broken Bells are generally well-known), the spirit of the prize remains true, as all five of the nominated albums are doing something a little different. The Black Keys continue to deconstruct and rebuild the blues, Arcade Fire push the boundaries of soft/loud dynamics, Vampire Weekend continue to interpolate world music, Band of Horses are mixing the beautiful with the caustic and Broken Bells traffic in literate weirdness.

But which album will dominate? The Grammy voters will probably want to reward an alternative album that also managed some crossover success, which boils it down to Arcade Fire against Vampire Weekend. And while Contra enjoyed a bit of a renaissance at the end of the year (it seemed like a lot of people forgot that album came out last year and were reminded when it showed up on best-of lists for 2010), this is Arcade Fire's prize to lose. Their combination of sonic adventurousness and commercial appeal is too much to deny.

Other Notable Winners: R.E.M., Out of Time (1992); Green Day, Dookie (1995); Beck, Odelay (1997); Radiohead, OK Computer (1998); Wilco, A Ghost is Born (2005); The White Stripes, Icky Thump (2008)

Notable Robberies: Nirvana's In Utero should have beaten U2's Zooropa in 1994; Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Fever to Tell deserved the prize more than the White Stripes' Elephant in 2004.

Who do you want to win the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album? Let us know in the comments!

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Spotted: Matt Damon Cheers On The Boston Celtics Against The Los Angeles Lakers

Posted 1/31/11 1:30 pm EST by in Television


Every day a multitude of stars wander through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild.

Actor Matt Damon is a Boston guy (he grew up in Cambridge, attended Harvard and had his breakout role on the Beantown-centric movie "Good Will Hunting"), which means that he loves Boston sports teams (when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, he narrated a commemorative DVD about the season — something that friend Ben Affleck did when the team took home the championship in 2004). That's what drew him to the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday (January 30), as his beloved hometown Celtics took on the Lakers in a rematch of last year's NBA Finals. The star of "The Adjustment Bureau" walked away happy, as though Kobe Bryant put up 41 points, the Celtics used a balanced attack from its three superstars (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen) to beat the Lakers 109-96. Lakers games are always star-studded affairs, but Sunday's match-up drew some big-time celebrities, including Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson, Zac Efron, UFC president Dana White, model Brooklyn Decker, will.i.am and George Lopez.

They weren't the only stars out among the people, as a bevy of stars showed up to the SAG Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and Angels & Airwaves crashed La Cigale in Paris. Click here for these photos as well as the entire "Spotted" archive, which features over 500 candid shots of stars like Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Rihanna, Shakira, Madonna and the Jonas Brothers!

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Warpaint Catch MTV News' #MusicMonday With Some Fuzz

Posted 1/31/11 12:30 pm EST by in Music


Really, you should be listening to music every day, but thanks to Twitter, Monday has become the best day of the week to discover new songs, show some love to the tune currently dominating your iPod playlist and quietly judge the listening habits of your closest friends. Yes, it's #MusicMonday, one of Twitter's most enduring trending topics. Hence "MTV News' #MusicMonday," a weekly look at the songs we are currently crushing on.

This week, MTV's Push Artist Warpaint makes a whole lot of noise.

Back in the summer of 2010, the MTV News crew headed out to Lollapalooza to cover that festival top-to-bottom. Though we were most concerned with the headliners (including Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire and the reunions of both Soundgarden and the Strokes), it also allowed us to explore bands we had yet to fully understand. As we looked back at what we saw and heard, we realized there was one band who most everyone experienced and could agree would be a big deal: Warpaint.

The Los Angeles collective (who are this week's MTV Push Artist) formed back in 2004 and once counted actress Shannyn Sossamon ("The Rules of Attraction," "Wristcutters: A Love Story") among its members. Their sound is something of a hard sell, as they deal in noisy, claustrophobic wall of guitars that recalls late '90s post-punk. The melodies often struggle to get past the din, but when they do, it makes for a transcendent level of beauty and strength.

Even through the group's two releases (2009's Exquisite Corpse EP and the 2010 full-length The Fool), they have already pushed their song towards the outer reaches of indie rock. They seem poised to break through to something much larger, and the fact that they are a stellar live act will certainly help them. Enjoy their performance of "Set Your Arms Down," the opening track from The Fool and one of their best and most fascinating live tracks.

What's your #MusicMonday jam? Let us know in the comments!

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Happy Birthday, Justin Timberlake!

Posted 1/31/11 11:30 am EST by in Music


The 30th birthday is almost always a little tense for everybody, as it signifies a certain transition. It almost always is the close of any epoch that could be called "youth," and the birthday boy (or girl) is always left with the sense that something should be next. However, it's doubtful that Justin Timberlake is feeling all that doubtful on his 30th birthday (which is today), as he has the world at his feet.

Having already conquered the music world both as a member of *NSYNC and as one of the definitive solo pop stars of the past decade, Timberlake has set his sights on the movie world. And just as JT seemed to have all angles of the music world covered, he is also diversifying in the film universe. He has made a name for himself as an actor (he received acclaim for both "Alpha Dog" and his recent turn as Napster co-founder Sean Parker in the critically lauded "The Social Network") and has also worked behind the scenes (he's the music supervisor on the upcoming "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and also produced the TV series "The Phone"). And of course he's already a modern marvel when it comes to comedy, as every single one of his appearances on "Saturday Night Live" (especially the absurdly catchy "D--- in a Box") has been the stuff of legend.

Even though Timberlake has only put out two solo albums, his career has been nothing short of incredible. His first album Justified separated him from the rest of the pop world with all sorts of weird sonic experiments, nods to hip-hop and jittery dance numbers. But his second album FutureSex/LoveSounds is a true masterpiece, full of jaw-droppingly great tracks built around futuritstic funk, gorgeous genre-pushing balladry and some killer melodies. Celebrate Timberlake's birthday with a spin through "LoveStoned/ I Think She Knows."


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Justin Bieber Conquers 'Letterman' In This Week's 'Late Night Lineup'

Posted 1/31/11 10:30 am EST by in Television


There are more winter storms on the horizon this week, which means that you'll more than likely be snowed in and housebound for a little while. Conveniently, all of the talk shows are back on the air with new episodes this week, so you will have an endless amount of celebrity interviews, comedy bits and live musical performances to warm your darkened living room while the ice builds outside. The best place to start is "The Late Show With David Letterman," which will feature visits from Justin Bieber (Monday, January 31), the National (Tuesday, February 1), a rare appearance by Howard Stern (Thursday, February 3) and Martha Stewart (Friday, February 4). That's an awful lot of heavy hitters for one show, and that's not even including the "Top Ten" that will be delivered by Mitt Romney on Tuesday, the musical performances by Naughty by Nature (Thursday) and Robert Plant (Friday) and another "Top Ten" care of Bieber (Friday).

Meanwhile, "The Tonight Show" has Adam Sandler (Monday), Jeff Bridges (Thursday) and "True Grit" star and Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld (Friday). Jimmy Kimmel will welcome Jamie Foxx (Tuesday), David Arquette (Wednesday) and Kim Kardashian (Thursday) to "Jimmy Kimmel Live," while "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" will feature Ice Cube (Tuesday), Samuel L. Jackson (Wednesday) and Dana Carvey (Thursday). Mötörhead frontman and metal legend Lemmy Kilmister chat with Carson Daly on "Last Call With Carson Daly" on Monday, and Bill Gates (Monday) highlights an otherwise quiet week on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report."

Elsewhere on cable, "Conan" will have Jennifer Aniston (Tuesday), Los Angeles Lakers star and reigning NBA Finals MVP Kobe Bryant (Wednesday) and former "Guts" host and current "Glee" star Mike O'Malley (Thursday). Kevin Smith visits "Chelsea Lately" on Monday, while "Lopez Tonight" has Jamie Foxx (Monday) and a musical appearance from OK Go (Thursday).

Who are you most looking forward to on this week's talk shows? Let us know in the comments!

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The Dismemberment Plan Dance And Joke Their Way To Salvation In New York

Posted 1/31/11 9:30 am EST by in Music


"Something is about to happen," Dismemberment Plan frontman Travis Morrison told the crowd at Webster Hall on Saturday night (January 29) as he walked back on stage for his band's encore. The people instantly knew what was up, as the time had come for the cult favorites to tuck into "The Ice of Boston," one of the weirdest, most anthemic singalongs to come out of the emo genre. This particular anthem — the highlight of any Dismemberment Plan show and the climax of all the performances on their brief reunion tour — always came with an impressive stunt, as the band invited the first few rows of devotees onto the stage with them to shout along with the narrative about getting a call from your mom when you're drunk on New Year's Eve.

It was simultaneously thrilling and surreal, which sums up most of the band's catalog. Formed in Washington, D.C. over a decade-and-a-half ago, the Dismemberment Plan started as a traditional emo act, exploiting the traditions of hardcore for their heart-on-sleeve confessions. But they soon developed into a more complex beast, deconstructing and recreating indie tropes into a sort of post-hardcore dub. Think of them as the much, much louder Pavement.

Their heady, sprawling, powerful albums (especially the recently-reissued Emergency & I) inspired an incredible amount of devotion, and when the band called it quits back in 2003 (just after the release of their watershed album Change), it inspired an immediate hunger for their return. They didn't disappoint their patient fans on Saturday night, the first of two at the venerable New York club. With an easy, jokey energy, Morrison lead the band through a hard-hitting set, nailing all the high points of their catalog. Though the lung-busting choruses inspired the biggest responses (including the twitchy "You Are Invited," the jagged "What Do You Want Me to Say?" and the manic "Time Bomb"), the more experimental moments were just as thrilling (especially the convulsions on "Pay for the Piano" and the almost-dub of "The Face of Earth").

Though his fellow band members still seem to be as emo as ever (bassist Eric Axelson noted that he had a dream that nobody showed up to any of the group's shows), Morrison was casual. He bantered well (after explaining the two types of mosh pits — one in which people just want to hurt each other and one in which "it's just dudes rubbing" — he requested "a gay pit") and regularly poked fun at the over-excited members of the crowd. After one guy shouted about waiting 10 years to see the band, Morrison retorted, "You've been waiting 10 years to have a girl's head in your armpit?"

By the time the band was forced to clear out ("They have to have a dance party or something," explained Morrison of their early exit time), they had laid down nearly two hours of sweat and elation. The show-closing "The City" (from Emergency & I) was a little anti-climatic following "The Ice of Boston," but it was an appropriate goodnight. "The city's been dead since you've been gone," Morrison crooned. The passionate fans shouted his lyrics right back at him, and the circle of mutual admiration — and inevitable departure — was complete.

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