The Star Online: Entertainment: Music
The Star Online: Entertainment: Music |
- A touch of Bocelli
- Karen O on staying crazy while growing up
- Frank Ocean decides not to press charges agains Chris Brown
| Posted: 04 Feb 2013 04:07 AM PST ANDREA Bocelli, the world's most beloved tenor, will be making his concert debut here when he plays Stadium Putra, Bukit Jalil in Kuala Lumpur on May 5. The upcoming Kuala Lumpur performance is the Italian music star's only concert stop in South East Asia. Bocelli, 54, is also back in the limelight with his new album, 'Passione', released on Jan 29. The album is a collection of Mediterranean love songs featuring duets with global pop stars Jennifer Lopez, Nelly Furtado and the late Edith Piaf. The album is also produced by David Foster, who produced Bocelli's 2006 release 'Amore', which sold more than 4.2 million copies. The album 'Passione', which will be a big part of Bocelli's current tour setlist, includes several beloved classics such as 'Love Me Tender', 'Girl From Ipanema', and 'Sarà Settembre' (better known to English-speaking audiences as Neil Diamond's 'September Morn'). Bocelli has sold more than 70 million albums throughout the world since the beginning of his pop crossover career in the early 1990s. The tenor, who was born with poor eyesight, became blind at the age of 12 following a football accident. Through his music, Bocelli has emerged as an inspirational force and his albums have never strayed far from their romantic tint. He will be backed by a full orchestra and choir during his two-hour KL concert. He will be supported by conductor Marcello Rota, soprano Sabina Cvilak, guest act Div4s and guitar duo Carisma. Tickets for his Kuala Lumpur show, presented by JS Concert Productions, will go on sale online at ticketpro.com.my this Thursday. Prices range RM388 (regular), RM588 (bronze), RM988 (silver), RM1,288 (gold), RM1,888 (platinum) and RM2,888 (diamond). Hotline: 03-7880-7999. Tickets will also be made available at Rock Corner, The Guitar Store and Victoria Music outlets in the Klang Valley later this month. |
| Karen O on staying crazy while growing up Posted: 04 Feb 2013 03:26 AM PST Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O talks about staying crazy while growing up. The feisty frontwoman of New York art-rock trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O, will always associate Singapore with the thorny king of fruit. The 34-year-old remembers distinctively the last time she was in Singapore in 2010 for a gig. "Yeah, we played at The Durian," she says, using the colloquial term for the Esplanade. "And we also ate durians, it was my first time and it wasn't my favourite. I remember we had a great culinary experience there, we had chicken rice and then we went to a late-night fruit stand. We had a great time, it was awesome." Born Karen Lee Orzolek in South Korea to a Korean mother and a Polish father, the family moved to New Jersey while she was a child. She met Yeah Yeah Yeahs' drummer Brian Chase when they were studying at Ohio liberal arts college, Oberlin College, and was introduced to guitarist Nick Zinner when she moved to New York to enrol in the Tisch School of the Arts. The trio formed the band in 2000 and soon gained prominence after supporting acts such as The Strokes and The White Stripes, major players in the then-emerging garage-punk scene. Several American and European tours later, they released their debut full album, Fever To Tell, in 2003, a record that earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. Their subsequent two albums, Show Your Bones (2006) and It's Blitz! (2009) were equally well received by critics and fans. O, who is married to film director Barney Clay, is reluctant to talk about the new tunes that the band have been working on for its highly anticipated fourth album, but the band did preview new material at its Big Night Out gig at Fort Canning Park in Singapore last Wednesday. You have been playing in the band with Nick Zinner and Brian Chase for about 13 years. How has the relationship changed among the three of you over the years? I guess you might have heard this before, but being in a band is the closest thing to being a family. And, like in a family, you have blood ties, you go through thick and thin, the hard times and good times and whether you love them or hate them, they are your family and you stick with them. It's been a really long time to be in a band. You understand the other band members better and, yeah, it gets better. You genuinely look like you are having a lot of fun in all your shows. Where do you get the enthusiasm from, considering that you have to do it night after night when you are on tour? I don't know, I wish I could tell you where it comes from. A lot of it comes from the audience and the crowd and wanting to kind of have a dialogue with the crowd. So the enthusiasm is speaking to the crowd and trying to get them to return the enthusiasm and then after that gets going, it's just a natural high that happens to me up there. You got married in 2011. Has being married had any effect on your music? (Laughs) Oh, I don't know about the music. There might be a couple of songs related to that on this new record about everlasting love. But yeah, I'm happily married and it's new territory for me, so I'm learning about it every day. The band have always released a new album consistently every three years. It has been four years since the last album. What is taking the new album so long? Yeah, it is a little bit overdue. We started writing songs for this record when we got off the road in 2010 and just collected a bunch of songs over the years. That was a good way to do it because every time we go into the studio, we'd be kind of excited about writing something new instead of just sitting around the studio trying to write songs. So yeah, it was a different process this time and that took a little longer. Do you keep in touch with your family in South Korea? Yeah, I have family there. I used to go because my grandparents were there but they are not with us anymore. I was there a few months ago to pay my respects, so I still have ties in South Korea. I have the vocabulary of a one-year-old Korean child, though. I can say "milk", "thank you" and "hello", just the real basic stuff. K-pop music is huge around the world today. Are you a fan of the genre? Well, I've been reading about it and checking it out from time to time and I can see the appeal. I think I'm happy that it's happening with Korean stuff, it's exciting for me. Because for a long time, I was waiting for Korea to be on the radar culturally and it seems like it's really popping off through there, so I'm excited about hearing all the stuff that's coming out, including K-pop. – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network |
| Frank Ocean decides not to press charges agains Chris Brown Posted: 03 Feb 2013 08:56 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rising R&B star Frank Ocean said on Saturday he will not press charges against singer Chris Brown, who he said had "jumped" him last week in a parking lot fracas. The encounter between Ocean (pic) and Brown still could derail Brown's efforts to remain in compliance with his probation stemming from his 2009 assault against singer Rihanna, his on-again, off-again girlfriend, a legal expert said. Earlier in the week, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Ocean was "desirous of prosecution in this incident," which occurred on January 27 outside a recording studio in West Hollywood. Representatives for Brown could not be reached for comment on Saturday. Sheriff's deputies had cited witnesses as saying Grammy-winner Brown, 23, punched Ocean, 25, in the brief altercation. But Ocean on Saturday posted a message on www.frankocean.com saying he wanted to move past the incident. "I'll choose sanity," he wrote. "No criminal charges. No civil lawsuit. Forgiveness, albeit difficult, is wisdom. Peace, albeit trite, is what I want in my short life. Peace." Brown and Ocean both are nominated in the best urban contemporary album category at the Grammys Awards, which will be announced February 10 in Los Angeles. On the day of the parking lot incident Ocean had said on Twitter that he "got jumped by chris and a couple guys." He also said he cut his finger and Brown was later photographed with a cast on his right hand. Brown, whose hit songs include Look At Me Now and Run It!, was placed on probation for five years for the assault on Rihanna. He risks having his probation revoked if charges are filed against him. But if the judge overseeing his case suspects Brown broke the law, the judge could move to find him in violation of probation even without a criminal charge, said Steve Cron, a defense attorney not connected to the case and an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University School of Law. "Then, Brown would be entitled to have a hearing with witnesses and his lawyers questioning witnesses and so forth," Cron said. Cron said prosecutors still can file charges even if a suspected victim does not cooperate. If Brown is found to have violated his probation, a judge could send him to jail or order counseling, he said. Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said that if Ocean does not want to press charges, it would be difficult to proceed with the case. Brown's entourage and that of Canadian rapper Drake were involved in a June 2012 brawl in a New York nightclub. No arrests or charges were brought in that case. |
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