Lady Gaga's own performance gets her YouTube account suspended

Looking to waste a few minutes on YouTube watching the clips Lady Gaga uploaded to her personal channel? Well not today, as the singer has found her account suspended.

A message saying "This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's Copyright Policy" immediately greets users when they click on ladygagaofficial, her personal handle.

The multiple or severe violations of said policy? Gaga's own performances. Time Out Tokyo reported on Thursday that the suspension was the result of Gaga posting her own performance from Japanese network Fuji TV’s show "SMAP x SMAP," which led to a copyright-infringement claim from Media Interactive Inc.

In the 10-minute clip, which was pretty easy to spot on numerous blogs Wednesday, she sings a medley of tracks from "Born This Way" along with Japanese boy band SMAP.

All is not lost though, her Vevo channel remains unfazed. Sure, you can't see her recent bizarro performances from Japan and Sydney, but it's better than nothing.

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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
Twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

Photo: Lady Gaga shows a new two-tone hair style as she leaves her hotel in Sydney, Australia, Tuesday. Credit: Dean Lewins / EPA

Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Carrie Underwood, Sting tapped for iHeartRadio Music Festival

Billed as "the biggest live music event in radio history," the two-day festival, set for the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in September, also features Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj and Kelly Clarkson.

Though summer has already had its fair share of big-ticket, multiday festivals, Clear Channel is kicking off fall with what it's billing as "the biggest live music event in radio history."

The radio conglomerate on Monday announced the lineup for the inaugural iHeartRadio Music Festival, and the roster for the two-day festival, set for Sept. 23 and 24 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, is quite the who’s who among Top 40.

Night 1 features performances by Coldplay, Alicia Keys, the Black Eyed Peas, John Mayer, Carrie Underwood, Bruno Mars and Jane's Addiction. While Night 2 has Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler, Kenny Chesney, Nicki Minaj, Rascal Flatts, Kelly Clarkson, David Guetta, Sublime with Rome and special guest performances by Sting and Usher.

Concert business is up 11% in first half of 2011, Pollstar reports

 
The record industry isn't the only segment of the music business that appears to be on the rebound. The concert industry too, after a difficult year in 2010, is showing total revenue from the Top 50 tours worldwide is up more than 11% for the first half of 2011, according to Pollstar, the concert-industry tracking publication.

Totals from those 50 tours added up to $1.65 billion, despite a 2.1% drop in the number of tickets sold -- 19.4 million -- meaning the bump in the total box office came as the result of higher ticket prices on average.

The increase in the cost of concert attendance “was not expected coming off a down year,” said Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni. “It's possible that much of this is driven by artists playing smaller venues at higher prices or better artist packaging, which increases show costs but offers fans a better value for their ticket dollar.”

Ticket prices increased by an average of 13.6%, or $10.23, worldwide, Pollstar reported. The story for the North American concert business is even better, with total revenue on the Top 50 tours jumping 16.2%, to $1.12 billion.

The news comes on the heels of Wednesday’s midyear report on recorded music sales, which also showed an increase over the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Leading the pack on the concert trail, not surprisingly, is U2, with a six-month total gross of $164 million on the latest leg of its 360 Tour, which has become the highest-grossing tour of all time. With an average ticket price of $97.65 in stadiums where attendance averaged more than 104,000 people per show, U2 took in a whopping $10.25 million per night.  Bon Jovi's top-grossing tour of 2010, by comparison, took in $201.1 million worldwide over the whole year, according to Pollstar's figures.

Behind U2 is Roger Waters, who has pulled in $97.9 million with an average ticket price of $112.99, followed by Bon Jovi ($921 million, $96.26 ticket average), Lady Gaga ($65.3 million, $96.77 tickets) and Usher ($62.2 million, $83.28 tickets).

Rounding out the midyear Top 10 are Kylie Minogue ($52.1 million, $100.33 tickets), Kenny Chesney ($46.7 million, $72.41 tickets), Andre Rieu ($46 million, $113.72 tickets), Elton John ($44.6 million, $96.71 tickets) and Taylor Swift ($42.9 million, $68 tickets).

“The increased admission price seems to be spread throughout the chart rankings,” Pollstar’s report says. “There were 12 tours on this year’s chart that charged more than $100 per ticket, as compared to only eight last year. Even more interesting is the huge increase in tours hovering just under the magic three-digit price point. There were 22 tours charging more than $90 this year as compared to 12 tours last year.”

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Live review: U2 at Angel Stadium

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of U2 singer Bono during the group's 360 Tour stop in Anaheim in June. Credit: Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times.

Lady Gaga's ‘Born This Way' sags in sales

Lady Gaga's ‘Born This Way' had a blockbuster first week, spurred by Amazon's 99-cent sale, but since then sales have fallen more than expected. Why?

On a trip through London's Heathrow Airport earlier this week, Lady Gaga tumbled off the impossibly high heels she was wearing and took a nose dive onto the linoleum floor. She quickly righted herself and continued on her way; her new album, however, isn't showing the same resilience.

Five weeks after posting the biggest first-week sales figure for any album in more than six years — spurred by a two-day sale during which Amazon.com sold the album for 99 cents — “Born This Way” has slipped to No. 8 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart on sales last week of just 49,000 copies — that's only slightly ahead of “Alpocalypse,” the latest from novelty artist “Weird Al” Yankovic, with a single parodying Gaga.

Most in the record industry had expected “Born This Way” to show a steep drop in its second week of release, although perhaps not as steep as the 84% plunge it saw after the stellar first week. But the slowdown for “Born This Way” has continued to be more pronounced than many anticipated. Gaga spent just two weeks at No. 1 before Adele returned to the top of the chart.

“I can't remember that ever happening like this -- selling so much and then going down to so little, so quickly,” said Brad Sheldon, music buyer at the Amoeba Music store in Hollywood. “I had to look really hard to find it on our bestseller list. We're stuck with a lot of copies now.”

Music industry analysts say there are probably multiple reasons for the swift decline of Gaga's album. Among the potential problems: Amazon.com's bargain-basement sale price devalued it in the minds of potential subsequent buyers; Gaga fans are more interested in singles than albums; her so-called “little monsters” are more likely to share or illegally download her music than other artists' fans are.

The full effect of Amazon's 99-cent “Born This Way” sale, a promotion for its new cloud service, has yet to be determined authoritatively. But it didn't endear her or her record company -- even though the decision was Amazon's, which took a multimillion-dollar loss on the deal -- to other merchants who found themselves stuck trying to sell downloads and physical CDs for much higher prices.

“We definitely weren't a fan of them doing that,” Amoeba's Sheldon said. “It sort of devalues everything after that, and it raises the question of whether she's going to have to do that again on her next record.”

Adele reschedules concert dates canceled because of laryngitis

 
Adele is back in action and has resumed the North American tour that was abruptly halted earlier this month by a bout of laryngitis. The British soul singer, whose sophomore album “21” topped the U.S. sales chart for 10 weeks, has rescheduled 14 dates she called off because of illness, and added six more to the itinerary.

She’ll make up her missed performance at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Aug. 15 and her date at the Hollywood Palladium on Aug. 17, two of 10 shows she’ll play in August, beginning Aug. 9 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The other 10 will move to October, wrapping up Oct. 21 in Grand Prairie, Texas. 

The six new dates will tour stops her to Las Vegas; Atlantic City, N.J.; Durham, N.C.; Orlando, Fla.; Miami and Spring, Texas. Pioneering rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson, who had been slated to open most of Adele's tour, will appear on the bill for her August dates, but not for the October leg, according to a spokesman for Sony Music, Adele's label.

Lady Gaga and philosopher Slavoj Zizek have an intellectual/dance thing going on... or do they?

Lady Gaga and philospher Slavoj Žižek are walking down an avenue, and there's a giant puddle. He takes off his jacket and spreads it over the water for her.

Lady Gaga and Slavoj Žižek are at an Italian restaurant, sharing a big bowl of pasta. They each start chewing on a strand of spaghetti, only to discover that it's the same one, and they meet in the middle and totally kiss!

Lady Gaga and Slavjo Žižek are watching the sunset together when Gaga says, "You know what I think of cinema?" "That it's the ultimate perverse art?" Žižek offers. She tenderly nods at him. "You always know just what I'm thinking."

OK, so we don't know whether any of this is actually happening, but our friends at Jacket Copy report, based on the New York Post, that the fiesty philosopher and theorist who often rakes through pop culture for his latest ideas has struck up a friendship with the singing and dancing doyenne of outfits that call to mind both a nun's habit and a condom.

Here's what the New York Post says about their budding comradeship:

Sources say Gaga and Slovenian-born Zizek -- who like Salman Rushdie seems to be intellectual catnip to beautiful women and who was once married to Argentine model Analia Hounie -- spent time together discussing feminism and collective human creativity. The pop star also agreed to support Zizek at a March rally in London when the lecturers' union UCU was on strike.

In a recent blog post titled "Communism Knows No Monster," Zizek called Gaga "my good friend" and said, "There is a certain performance of theory in her costumes, videos and even (some of) her music." He says her infamous meat dress is a reference to "the consistent linking in the oppressive imaginary of the patriarchy of the female body and meat, of animality and the feminine."

Cheese, bees and intestines? Weird Al Yankovic pokes fun at Lady Gaga in 'Perform This Way' video

We're glad that Lady Gaga has given "Weird Al" Yankovic her monster-clawed stamp of approval for the satirist to take on her hit “Born This Way.”

After a bit of drama, Yankovic premiered the video for his parody,  “Perform This Way,” on Monday morning.

Pop & Hiss previously reported that Gaga seemed to have denied permission to satirize her anthem, according to a lengthy post on Yankovic's blog. It turned out that her manager was responsible for nixing the song without sending it to Gaga first. Yankovic later wrote that Gaga's manager had apologized -- and that Mama Monster loved the cover.

Hopefully, she loves the video as well, as he certainly didn't go easy on the punches.

In the clip, Yankovic's head is digitally placed on the body of a female who sports Gaga's tattoos and matches her dance ability. He struts his stuff in an array of outlandish costumes, including a unicorn headdress, Swiss cheese, police tape, his small intestines and bees (hive included) in a send-up of her over-the-top outfits -- double points for the Madonna jab.

Despite the minor dustup, Yankovic didn't actually need Gaga's permission, but offered it as a courtesy, as his parodies have always fallen under "fair use"  in matters of copyright law.

He said he planned on donating sales from the video and song to the Human Rights Campaign.

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

RELATED:

Weird Al' Yankovic gets permission to 'perform this way' after Lady Gaga dustup

Lady Gaga says no to Weird Al Yankovic regarding 'Born This Way' parody [updated]

Lady Gaga's 'Edge of Glory' video sparks Twitter war

Photo: Screenshot from "Perform This Way."

Lady Gaga's 'Edge of Glory' video sparks Twitter war

Lady Gaga's video for "The Edge of Glory" hadn’t even premiered Thursday and there was controversy.

And it started with a simple tweet.

"I did NOT direct Lady Gaga's 'Edge of Glory' video. Lady Gaga did," popular music video director Joseph Kahn wrote after Gaga's fans (a.k.a. Little Monsters) demanded the scoop, and some photos featuring a mermaid-esque Gaga leaked online.

It was previously reported that Kahn, who has done videos for artists including Britney Spears (“Toxic”), Eminem ("Love the Way You Lie") and even a few for Gaga, would direct the clip with the singer’s longtime creative director choreographer Laurieann Gibson. Then there were rumors that  Kahn and Gibson fought and that they were dismissed from the shoot. 

Gibson took to Twitter to explain her side of the story.

E Street Band sax man Clarence Clemons 'improving' after massive stroke in Florida

  E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons continues to battle the after-effects of a massive stroke he suffered over the weekend at his home in Florida, but associates on Monday said they are more hopeful about his prospects for a recovery than they had been initially.

“Yesterday it did not look good at all,” a source described as “a close friend” told the Bruce Springsteen fan site Backstreets.com.  “Today... miracles are happening. His vital signs are improving. He's responsive. His eyes are welling up when we're talking to him. He was paralyzed on his left side, but now he's squeezing with his left hand. This is the best news we've heard since [the stroke] happened — it's nothing short of miraculous. The next five days will still be critical. But he's a fighter."

The site said Clemons, 69, underwent two brain surgeries after the stroke and was responsive and in stable condition but still seriously ill.

Clemons has been an indispensible component of the E Street Band, both for his beefy tenor sax work in such Springsteen staple songs as “Born to Run” and “Jungleland” and his imposing presence on stage with the group, where he has often served as a playful and big-hearted foil to the band’s leader.

Springsteen invoked Clemons’ familiar nickname — and his role in the band — in “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”: “When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band/From the coastline to the city all the little pretties raise their hands.” And Clemons is pictured at Springsteen's side on the fold-out cover on his 1975 breakthrough album "Born to Run."

As Springsteen explored different musical settings in the '80s and '90s, which periodically put the E Street Band on hiatus, Clemons recorded several solo albums and collaborated with other artists on theirs, including Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Ensemble, Aretha Franklin and Jackson Browne. Most recently he lent his sax to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” album.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Clarence Clemons with Bruce Springsteen during the E Street Band's 2009 tour stop at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

The music you bought this week: Yes, more Lady Gaga, but Foster the People became a below-the-radar success story

Music sales may no longer be the surefire barometer of success they once were, yet the Nielsen SoundScan charts today represent perhaps an even broader snapshot of artists resonating with fans. Though it could be argued that the charts are no longer the providence of the mainstream, below is a snapshot of some of the music that has inspired the populace to part with cash.

Pop star Lady Gaga shot to the top of the U.S. pop charts last week, fueled by an ultra-low-priced 99 cent full album download of "Born This Way." But now the work begins.

Lady Gaga's "The Fame" has shown tremendous staying power; after 136 weeks, the album is still in the upper echelon of the chart. It's at No. 31 this week, having sold more than 4.2 million copies to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "Born This Way," meanwhile, made quite the first-week impact, selling more than 1.1 million copies, but its long-term life is still a major unknown, as reviews have been as mixed as the reaction to early singles.

In its second week, the album still manages to lead the pop charts, but does so with 174,000 copies sold. That gives it a two-week total of just under 1.3 million. As noted last week, the majority of first-week sales came via Internet downloads, as Amazon.com had priced the album at 99 cents in an effort to boost usage for its Cloud Player online locker service. 

"Born This Way" keeps Adele from returning to the pole position, as the soul singer's "21" sold 120,000  copies this week and to date has sold more than 2 million copies. The artist was forced to cancel her local shows this week due to laryngitis and has not yet rescheduled.