It's official: Lady Gaga will bring her fashion-forward stage show to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, as she is set to perform at the ceremony on September 13. Though I love Jay-Z, Green Day and the other acts already announced as performers, I'm most looking forward to Gaga. I echo James Montgomery's enthusiasm for The Fame — even without the juggernaut singles, it would still be one of the more impressive pop albums of the past decade. When you add in her phenomenal approach to fashion, her ultra-quotable interviews and her extraordinary visual sense (hence her nine VMA nominations), you get a tremendous package. (No pun intended.)

But the woman born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta didn't simply drop from the sky fully formed. Rather, she's a careful construction of a number of other stars. Think of her as the FrankenStar, made up of the parts below.

David Bowie: Bowie spent most of his early career pretending he came to this planet from outer space. Those shiny suits Gaga wears? Totally Bowie. And Ziggy Stardust was also obsessed with the concept of fame — in fact, it was the title of one of his biggest hits.

Grace Jones: A woman who plays a hybrid stew of pop styles and has a commitment to stage costumes? That sounds familiar.
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Last year, Kevin "Skwerl" Cogill came across a few tracks from Guns N' Roses decade-in-development album Chinese Democracy. He posted them on the music site he helps write and design. The post was quickly scrubbed, but the damage had been done: Cogill had angered the wrong people, and a few months later he found himself being shaken awake by the FBI so he could be arrested for piracy.

Yesterday, his legal woes finally ended, as he was sentenced to a year of probation (including two months of modified house arrest). Throughout the fiasco (and the subsequent release of Chinese Democracy), Axl Rose never weighed in on Cogill, but amazingly, Slash (who does not play on the album and by all accounts does not get along with Rose) did voice his opinion. That bothered Cogill. "An old friend of mine conducted the interview with him last year in which he called me a thief and wished that I 'rot in jail.' I found that surprisingly crass, considering the guy has made no bones about shoplifting cassette tapes with the same rationale as today's downloaders," he said. "But then he took it even further, stealing things he didn't even need, just because he could. For example, the top hat. So if he wants to see me in jail, I'll see him in the cafeteria."

Almost from the moment they burst out of the fertile early 1990s Chicago alt-rock scene, the whispers about the Smashing Pumpkins were that they were a one-man show. Despite guitarist James Iha's considerable chops and pop songwriting sensibility, bassist D'arcy Wretzky's charismatically stoic persona and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin's jazzy yet muscular touch, the Pumpkins were and always would be singer/songwriter Billy Corgan's baby.

Now, thanks to this weekend's unexplained ouster of Billy's longtime foil and last fellow original member, Chamberlin, Corgan is truly the Axl Rose of alternative rock. He's the Trent Reznor of overblown guitar bands. The ... oh, you get the point.

Fans had already been a bit iffy about Corgan reuniting the "band" three years ago when he announced that he and Chamberlin would be touring (and recording) under the venerable group's name. But with at least 50 percent of the original members on board, many seemed willing to overlook it.

(Take a look at how the Smashing Pumpkins have changed over the years.)
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By Matt Harper

Bruce Springsteen may have gotten some major love at the Golden Globes last night, but he wasn't the only musician who helped make "The Wrestler" such an amazing movie. As Mickey Rourke reminded everyone during his acceptance speech for Best Actor, fellow bad boy Axl Rose provided "Sweet Child O' Mine" at a severely discounted price.

Rourke "Wrestler" director Darren Aronofsky recently stopped by the MTV News offices to talk about the movie, and told us a bit about how they managed to get the GNR song. ...

Of course, this isn't the first time Rourke has given Axl and GNR their due props: There is a shout-out in "The Wrestler" itself when Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke) and his stripper friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) are hanging out at a bar listening to '80s metal:

Randy : They don't make 'em like they used to.
Cassidy: F---in' '80s, man, best sh-- ever !
Randy: Bet yer a--, man, Guns N' Roses rules!

For more from our sit-down with Rourke and Aronofsky, check back in later this week for our full Rough Cut!

The sales figures are finally in, and after a nearly 17-year wait, Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy scanned just 261,200 copies, earning the album the #3 position on Billboard's weekly albums sales chart — right behind Taylor Swift's Fearless at #2 (with 267,400 sold) and Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, which opens at #1 with sales of 450,000 and change.

Two weeks ago, GN'R's latest was considered a strong contender for the chart's peak position, with some predicting the album would outperform West's 808s in a close race for #1. Instead, history may show Chinese Democracy's first-week sales as an epic failure. Read more...

MTV has had quite a lengthy and, um, interesting relationship with Mr. W. Axl Rose — one that has spanned decades, musical genres (metal, pseudo-industrial, sorta rap-rock) and, of course, cornrows.

Our cameras have been there at basically every step of Rose's career: from Guns N' Roses' first appearance on "Headbangers Ball" in 1987 to their ascent to legendary status in '91 and then through the bevy of beefs, arrests and in-band bickering that eventually led to their demise. And, for the most part, one man has been in front of (or beside) those cameras: Kurt Loder.

So after combing our vaults to find the most Awesome Axl Moments on MTV, we decided to sit down with Kurt to get his take on the man himself — and luckily, he also had more than a few truly excellent Axl stories to share with us before the release of Chinese Democracy.

(More of Kurt's Axl stories, after the jump!)
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I've got something you don't have, I've got something you don't have — a physical copy of Guns N' Roses' long-awaited LP Chinese Democracy. While you've all been downloading the leaked version of the album, illegally, I've got a copy of the actual record, which I, too, didn't pay a penny for.

People, I wouldn't believe it if I weren't actually thumbing through the liner notes, but Chinese Democracy is real. It arrived via messenger from Geffen's offices about an hour ago, and so far, I'm not even halfway through the music — the music I've already heard over the years, thanks to the myriad of leaks that have occurred. I'm more interested in the artwork and what's inside the CD booklet.

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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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It's been 17 years since Guns N' Roses released a studio album full of fresh material — the one-two punch that was 1991's Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II — and in that long stretch, fans have learned one thing: Axl Rose refuses to rush the creative process. OK, they've also learned that a lot of lies can be told over 17 years and that a band can still tour successfully, even if that band looks nothing like anyone remembers.

Now that Hits Daily Double is reporting a firm November 23 release date for Chinese Democracy, the wait for some fresh GN'R — at least in the way Rose meant for it to be heard — looks like it may soon be over. It also got us to thinking about what's transpired since Guns N' Roses' last studio LPs dropped. And the short answer is "a lot." Read more...

He's been working on it for more than 14 years now, and still, there are no concrete signs that Axl Rose's magnum opus, the oft-delayed Chinese Democracy, will be in stores anytime soon. But on Friday, Billboard.com reported that, according to several unnamed sources, the long-awaited album could soon be coming to your local Wal-Mart.

The report claims that negotiations have begun to make Chinese Democracy a retail exclusive, either at Wal-Mart or Best Buy. The article further purports that negotiations to distribute the record through conventional channels have also been ongoing.

Of course, no one from Guns N' Roses' management firm, Front Line Management, was available to comment on these rumors, but Irving Azoff, who runs Front Line, did work with the Eagles to get their Long Road Out of Eden on Wal-Mart's shelves, making that album an exclusive for the chain. Additionally, representatives from Best Buy and Wal-Mart would not confirm the rumors.

Could the release of Chinese Democracy be imminent? Perhaps, considering Harmonix and MTV Games announced last month that "Shackler's Revenge," a track from the perennially delayed LP, would be making its worldwide debut on the forthcoming "Rock Band 2," which will be released next month for the Xbox 360. We'll believe it if, and only if, Axl Rose himself makes an official announcement about the record's release. Until then, we'll keep our fingers crossed.