MadonnaMadonna has been a lot of things over the years: urban cowgirl, dancing queen, electro empress, pop priestess and ill-advised rapper.

But indie rocker? Madonna biographer Andrew Morton has found a 27-year-old tape of some of the singer's earliest recordings, chronicling the era when the future chameleonic media maven was a struggling dancer living in the basement of a Queens, New York, synagogue with brothers Ed and Dan Gilroy, the latter of whom was Madonna's boyfriend at the time. Read More...

Nick Hogan
Kevin Cogill says he didn't do it. The 27-year-old Los Angeles resident pleaded innocent on Monday in federal court to posting nine songs from Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy online earlier this year. According to Reuters, Cogill, who is charged with violating federal copyright law, will face trial at a yet-unspecified date. The blogger was arrested in August after the FBI claimed he posted nine songs from the long-awaited album on his site, AntiQuiet.com.
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Lil WayneConsidering he's been busted in two different states on drug and weapons charges after police stopped his tour bus, it's not exactly shocking that an assistant to Lil Wayne said on Monday in court that he "occasionally" saw a handgun and people smoking pot on the rapper's tour bus. Though the assistant said he never saw Weezy himself handling a gun, the rapper was busted on gun charges in July 2007 when police boarded his tour bus. If convicted, he faces three-and-a-half years in prison.

Read more about Lil Wayne's gun-possession case here.

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Nick HoganSix months after going to jail following a no-contest plea on a reckless driving charge, Nick Bollea, son of Hulk Hogan, was released from jail early Tuesday morning (October 21). He raced into the arms of his sister, Brooke Hogan, upon his release from Pinellas County Jail, where he served 166 days of an eight-month sentence in connection with an August 2007 street racing crash that severely injured Hogan's friend, John Graziano.

Read more about Nick Hogan's release here.

Bollea has said he wants his own reality show now. Graziano's lawyer says that's an "awful" idea. What do you think? Could the "Hogan Knows Best" alum turn his show into something positive, or will it just be exploiting a tragedy?

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Britney SpearsThe Britney Spears do-over continues. The singer has just relaunched her official Web site with a message to fans that promises to take them where "no paparazzi lens ever could." And in her traffic trial on Thursday, her dad said the singer's true home is Louisiana, not L.A.

Read more about Britney's traffic trial here.

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John McCainWe're not so arrogant as to think that the McCain and Palin spend their downtime reading the Newsroom blog. We know they're busy and all. So, maybe they didn't read our story earlier this week about how '80s rockers Survivor weren't too happy about the campaign using their "Rocky III" song, "Eye of the Tiger," at rallies.

And maybe they missed the stories about the Foo Fighters, Van Halen, Heart and Jackson Browne complaining about the same thing. We're not saying an intervention is in order, but while five is troubling, six is definitely a sign of a problem.

The latest? Jersey icons Bon Jovi. Jon Bon Jovi told TMZ that the band was "surprised to hear that our song 'Who Says You Can't Go Home,' was used by the McCain campaign at rallies yesterday and today.

"We wrote this song as a thank you to those who have supported us over the past twenty-five years," JBJ continued. "The song has since become a banner for our home state of New Jersey and the defacto theme song for our partnerships around the country to build homes and rebuild communities. Although we were not asked, we do not approve of their use of 'Home.'

McCain certainly should have seen this one coming, what with the singer throwing a $30,800-a-plate dinner at his house for Obama last month.

What do you think of McCain's musical miscues? Does the campaign need to be more careful, or do these musicians need to lighten up?

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Barack Obama and John McCainOh, yes they did. Senator John McCain finally brought up the William Ayers question. Senator Barack Obama called out McCain's supporters for threatening him during McCain's rallies. And both men made the case for the real star of Wednesday night's final presidential debate: some guy named "Joe the Plumber," who seems to have replaced "Joe Six-Pack" as the generic face of struggling America in the waning days of this presidential campaign.

It got ugly, and it got personal.

So, who do you think won the debate?

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David CookWe're not going to pretend we know what goes on in "American Idol" season-seven winner David Cook's swirly little head. But a peep at some of the song titles on his upcoming self-titled debut, due November 18, definitely made us say, "Huh?" (But first, a caveat: We have not heard the album at all.)

The first one that grabbed our attention was "Bar-ba-sol," which is either an homage to the original premium shave cream — in which case we applaud his blatant Chris Brown-like product placement at a time when musicians have to get their hustle on any way they can — or an homage to season-six pinup Antonella Barba, which we would also applaud.
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We've more than exhausted our allotment of boxing metaphors to describe the presidential campaign. But here goes one more: Whoever is in charge of picking the music played at Republican candidate Senator John McCain's rallies is either punch-drunk or down for the count.

You'd think after getting smacked down by the Foo Fighters, John Mellencamp, Heart and Jackson Browne (who actually filed suit against McCain for using "Running on Empty" in an ad broadcast in Ohio) that someone, anyone, in the McCain camp would vet song choices at least as thoroughly as they vetted vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (OK, maybe that's a bad example).

But in the latest song snafu, the guitarist for '80s rockers Survivor has asked the McCain/Palin campaign to stop using their "Rocky III" anthem "Eye of the Tiger" at events, according to a post on the band's official Web site.
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Janet JacksonWe know, we've said it a few times before, but this time Janet Jackson's people swear it's for real. After staying off the road since September 29 with what has been described as a rare form of migraine that results in vertigo, Jackson is slated to hit the stage in Washington, D.C., tonight.

Read more about Janet Jackson resuming her Rock Witchu Tour here.

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