<i>Roc-A-Fella Records Presents Teairra Marí</i>
Photo: Roc-A-Fella

The Princess Awakes: Detroit's Teairra Marí has melted L.A. Reid and Jay-Z alike, but it's the latter mogul who'll be giving the singer a presidential push this week with Roc-A-Fella Records Presents Teairra Marí. She's already made waves with "Make Her Feel Good," which samples Eric B. & Rakim and appears on this record along with two versions of "No Daddy," co-written by Sean Garrett (Destiny's Child, Beyoncé).

Yes, They're Related: New Zealand-born singer Natasha Bedingfield — sister of dance-pop artist Daniel — hopes to replicate her substantial European success with the U.S. release of her debut, Unwritten (she's only the third solo singer in U.K. history to debut at #1). The DualDisc has behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and more.

Another Blonde Gone: Faith Hill, who showed up on the cover of 2002's Cry as a tempting, sweat-drenched blonde befitted with a crucifix, now appears as a sleek, Pantene-d brunette on Fireflies. (Maybe husband Tim McGraw, who duets with her on "Like We Never Loved at All," had a few words to say this time around.) Expect a big splash from Hill's sixth record, which contains "Mississippi Girl," a song that debuted higher than any of her previous singles on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. Fans can get the album signed through a limited offer on FaithHill.com.

The Prom Kings Got Game — But Where?: Funky L.A. rockers the Prom Kings have opened for Sum 41 and Papa Roach and have shipped to radio two hip-shaking cuts from their self-titled debut: "Alone" and "Birthday." Only time will tell if the Kings will crown their Game-featured golden egg, "Down," as single number three. Yes, that's the Game.

Rewriting History: Michael Penn tells a history lesson with his long-awaited fifth album, Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947, with wife Aimee Mann stepping in for a brief bit of bass playing and backup singing. A limited run has a bonus track, "Down by the Riverside," plus a video for "Walter Reed."

Song Titles of the Week:
"In a Lose, Lose Situation," followed by "In a Win, Win Situation" (Emery's The Question)

Other Notables:

• Alice Cooper - Dirty Diamonds

Has the Coop flown the way of Christina Aguilera ("Dirrty") and Kanye ("Diamonds")? Nope, he's just back to his bizarro ways, dishing up "Gutter Cats vs. the Jets," featuring a horn section; an obscure cover of the Left Banke's "Pretty Ballerina"; and a nod to 1973's watershed Billion Dollar Babies with "Sunset Babies (All Got Rabies)."
• Deadman - Our Eternal Ghosts and D'Nell - 1st Magic (BBE)

Texans Steven and Sherilyn Collins name-check authors (William Faulkner, on "Absalom! Absalom!"), painters ("Monsters of Goya") and Native Americans ("Sad Ole' Geronimo") on their third record, which has been getting raves in the U.K. In the meantime, D'Nell, another co-ed duo (don't be fooled by the SWF on the album cover), recorded their soul-meets-hip-hop debut in a London studio apartment.
• The Greenhornes - East Grand Blues EP

The White Stripes' tour partners don't really sound bluesy at all on songs like "I'm Going Away" and "Shelter of Your Arms." Think classic-rock throwback instead.
• Maria Muldaur - Sweet Lovin' Ol' Soul

Grammy-nominated Maria Muldaur tips her hat to female blues legends like Memphis Minnie on Sweet Lovin' Ol' Soul, getting a boost from Taj Mahal and Alvin Youngblood. And fans won't want to miss Muldaur on peer Angela Strehli's Blue Highway, which also features longtime collaborator Stevie Ray Vaughan.
• Various artists - The Free Design: The Now Sound Redesigned

In case you haven't been scooping up Light in the Attic's series of 12-inches hailing lost soft-psych group the Free Design, the label presents the entire fleet of remixes, plus a few unissued tracks, as The Free Design: The Now Sound Redesigned. Producers include Danger Mouse, Stereolab, Super Furry Animals and members of Belle and Sebastian and the Mars Volta.
• Various artists - Generations: A Hardcore Compilation

Sinking Ships and Robot Whales bring an aquatic feel to this Revelation roundup of punk up-and-comers.

Out Tuesday, August 2:

New releases:

• Amadou & Mariam - Dimanche a Bamako (Nonesuch)
• Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten (Epic)
  Buy Now: Unwritten (Epic)
• BA - Sports (Rah)
• Danny Barnes - Get Myself Together (Terminus)
• Bass Freq - Neon Skyline (Neurodisc)
• Blindside - The Great Depression (RTE/DRT)
  Buy Now: The Great Depression (RTE/DRT)
• Bliss - Quiet Letters (Quango)
• Bootcut - Hammond vs. Drums (Gadfly)
• Brazen Abbot - My Resurrection (Melodic Symphony)
• Alice Cooper - Dirty Diamonds (New West)
• D'Nell - 1st Magic (BBE)
• Deadman - Our Eternal Ghosts (One Little Indian)
• Benjamin Diamond - Out of Myself (!K7)
• Emery - The Question (Tooth & Nail)
• The Greenhornes - East Grand Blues EP (V2)
• Johnny Freeman - How Much Is Free (Southern Signal)
• Don Friedman VIP Trio - Timeless (441)
• Mitchell Froom - A Thousand Days (Inner Knot)
• Faith Hill - Fireflies (Warner Bros.)
  Buy Now: Fireflies (Warner Bros.)
• Stan Hope - Put on a Happy Face (Savant)
• Houston Calls - A Collection of Short Stories (Rushmore/Drive-Thru)
• I Self Divine - Self Destruction (Rhymesayers)
• Lorene Drive - Romantic Wealth (Lobster)
• Madball - Legacy (Ferret)
• Madredeus - Faluas Do Tejo (Metro Blue)
• Teairra Marí - Roc-A-Fella Records Presents Teairra Mari (Roc-A-Fella)
  Read: "Jay-Z's Picks: Teairra Mari, Rihanna, Ne-Yo"
• Milk Inc. - Closer (Water Music)
• Mr. Del - The Future (Holy Hip Hop)
• Maria Muldaur - Sweet Lovin' Ol' Soul (Stony Plain)
• Greg Osby - Channel Three (Blue Note)
• Michael Penn - Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947 (spinART)
  Read: "Free At Last, Michael Penn Attempts A Comeback With Mr. Hollywood Jr."
• Doug Pinnick - Emotional Animal (Magna Carta)
• Tristan Prettyman - Twentythree (Virgin)
• The Prom Kings - The Prom Kings (Geffen)
• Darryl Lee Rush - Llano Avenue (Infinity Nashville)
• Sahnas - Odyssey (Native Language)
• Sons of the Never Wrong - Nuthatch Suite (Gadfly)
• Angela Strehli - Blue Highway (MC)
• Turning Point - Matador (Native Language)
• Various artists - Dark Trance vs. Neogoth (Cleopatra)
• Various artists - Desire: Piano Tribute to U2 (Vitamin)
• Various artists - Fashion Lounge (Cleopatra)
• Various artists - Fusion for Miles (Tone Center)
• Various artists - Generations: A Hardcore Compilation (Revelation)
• Various artists - Harley Davidson: Ride (Capitol)
• Various artists - Kidz Bop, Vol. 8 (Razor & Tie)
• Various artists - Nu:Jazz Brasilia (Sunswept)
• Various artists - The Piano Tribute to Iron Maiden (Vitamin)
• Various artists - Pick Yourself Up From the Ground: Pickin' on Eric Clapton Vol. 2 (CMH)
• Various artists - Pickin' on Beck (CMH)
• Various artists - Pickin' on Franz Ferdinand (CMH)
• Various artists - Pickin' on Nickelback (CMH)
• Various artists - Prinz Myshkin: Treats From the Garden of Earthly Delights (Radikal)
• Various artists - Smooth Sounds Tribute to Mariah Carey's Greatest Hits (Tribute Sounds)
• Various artists - The String Quartet Tribute to Queens of the Stone Age, Volume 2 (Vitamin)
• Various artists - Tribute to Insane Clown Posse (Big Eye)
• Various artists - "Broken Flowers" soundtrack (Decca)
• Various artists - "Rainbow Six: Lockdown" soundtrack (Calvin) (dualdisc)
• Warren Brothers - Barely Famous Hits (BNA)
• Abigail Washburn - Song of the Traveling Daughter (Nettwerk)
• Wetton/ Downes - Icon (Frontiers)
• Reuben Wilson - Fun House (Savant)
• Madelin Zero - Gotta Know (Indecent Media)

Notable reissues:

• Johnny Cash - The Legend (Columbia) (box set)
• June Carter Cash - Keep on the Sunny Side: Her Life in Music (Columbia)
• John Coltrane - The Bethlehem Years (Shout! Factory) (two CDs)
• Bill Cosby - Inside the Mind Of (live) (Geffen)
• Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt (Kemado) (with second disc containing five unreleased bonus tracks)
• Richard Hell - Spurts: The Best of Richard Hell (Rhino)
• Marshall Tucker Band - Just Us (Shout! Factory) (with two bonus alternate takes)
• Charles Mingus - East Coasting (Shout! Factory) (with eight bonus remixes)
• Public Enemy - Power to the People and the Beats: Greatest Hits (Def Jam)
• The Rolling Stones - Forty Licks (limited-edition box set) (ABKCO/Virgin)
• Six Feet Under - 13/ Graveyard Classics, Vol. 2 (Metal Blade)
• The Slits - Live at the Gibus Club (Castle/Sanctuary)
• Various artists - The Free Design: The Now Sound Redesigned (Light in the Attic)
• Various artists - "Raging Bull" soundtrack (Capitol)

DVDs:

• Beulah - "A Good Band Is Easy to Kill" (Music Video Distributors)
• Impotent Sea Snakes - "Alive in Germany" (Music Video Distributors)
• Suzanne Vega - "Retrospective: The Videos of Suzanne Vega" (Universal)
• Various Artists - "Cool Runnings: The Reggae Movie" (Universal)
• Various Artists - "Give 'Em the Boot (A Film by Tim Armstrong)" (Epitaph)
• Various Artists - "The Industry" (Image Entertainment)
• Various Artists - "Poets in Hip Hop" (Music Video Distributors)
• Various Artists - "Rap Life: Behind the Scenes" (Bayside Distribution)

• Teairra Marí
• Natasha Bedingfield
• Faith Hill
• Michael Penn
• Alice Cooper

Michael Penn (file)
Photo: Carlos Serrao

NEW YORK — The message conveyed at Michael Penn's performance at Joe's Pub a few weeks back was simple: He's back, and he's got a new record.

It's not that extraordinary; really, unless, like Penn, you've just emerged from one of the music industry's longest-running contract skirmishes. "My father fought in World War II. He'd have to laugh at the fact that I've been a captive of the Axis powers the better part of my adult life," Penn said of Japanese-owned Sony and German-owned BMG at the industry-only show.

Penn's 1989 single "No Myth" ("What if I was Romeo in black jeans?") propelled the singer/songwriter brother of more famous Hollywood siblings Sean and Chris into the top 20 and garnered him an MTV Video Music Award. But a poorly received sophomore effort, Free-for-All, and resulting RCA Records contract woes soon followed.

Though Penn soldiered on through two solid Sony releases, Resigned and MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident, lightning failed to strike twice. Worse, Sony retained the rights to Penn's very name: Until last fall, Michael Penn didn't own www.michaelpenn.com.

Penn stayed busy behind the scenes through the late '90s and early '00s. He scored Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights," produced tracks for the Wallflowers and Liz Phair, and toured with his singer/songwriter wife, Aimee Mann.

Perhaps bolstered by his wife's independent success, and free from the contractual obligations of Sony, Penn is back with Mr. Hollywood Jr. The 13-song set is firmly anchored in a nearly forgotten, post-war Los Angeles.

"1947 is the year everything changed. And it really felt to me, just as I was writing these songs, that everything that was going on around me in some way led back to that year. Everything was coming to fruition: GIs like my father were back from World War II, the National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA, and the U.N. partitioned Palestine. America became the first country to be in the position to take over the whole world, but didn't, but really did."

Performing at the darkly lit and intimate Joe's Pub, Penn's older material stood the test of time. "No Myth," "Long Way Down" and "Bunker Hill" sat squarely with songs culled from Mr. Hollywood Jr. Further, though, his set seemed to comment on his return to a stage now crowded with acoustic-strumming teenage heartthrobs like Tyler Hilton and Jesse McCartney. It's difficult to hear Penn wailing the refrain of "Don't Let Me Go" and not imagine that he's pleading for his audience back. Still, he admitted later, it's "Out of My Hands."

Some might consider Penn's return after a nearly 10-year hiatus brave, or stupid. Or both.

"I don't think of it as bravery, as much as stubbornness," Penn said.

"There's a certain exhilaration at starting over and paying my dues again," he noted just prior to the performance. "Performing doesn't come naturally to me. But you know, optimism is a funny thing.

"There's an instrument that I use sometimes called a Marx-a-phone," he continued. "It's sort of like a hammer dulcimer. And in the 1920s and '30s, they would sell them door-to-door. That's [kind of like] what I'm doing now."

Penn's door-to-door, stage-to-stage tour in advance of Mr. Hollywood Jr. wrapped up in Los Angeles Sunday night. He hopes to hit the road with a full band in the fall.

• Michael Penn

Liz Phair
Photo: Josephine Close

HOLLYWOOD — Liz Phair has enlisted singer/songwriter Michael Penn to produce several songs for her upcoming fourth album.

Phair, a Chicago native, recently relocated to Los Angeles, where she is about halfway through recording the as-yet-untitled project.

"Michael's sound is something that I have never really heard before," Phair said backstage at Saturday's Breathe breast cancer benefit concert, where she performed three tunes with Third Eye Blind (see ). "He places me in it so beautifully. He'll do things like get an industrial sound and replace it for a snare drum. It's one of the most intense-sounding things I've ever done."

Penn, who has previously done production work for his wife, Aimee Mann, as well as for the Wallflowers, is working with Phair at a studio in the famous Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, fine-tuning a number of songs she wrote recently with songwriter Gary Clark.

Singer/songwriter Pete Yorn has also produced some material for Phair's follow-up to 1998's Whitechocolatespaceegg (see "Liz Phair To Wrap Up Fourth Album Soon").

Once considered the poster girl for indie rock, Phair came to prominence in 1993 with the release of Exile in Guyville, a song-for-song response to the Rolling Stones' classic Exile on Main Street. Her second album, Whip-Smart, featured the hit "Supernova."

Phair, whose stage fright kept her from touring for several years early in her career, said she is scheduled to hit the road next summer. "So the record should be coming out by then," she said.

Her spokesperson at Capitol said there is no release date yet for the album.

• Liz Phair
• Michael Penn

Michael Penn
Photo: Carlos Serrao

Between scoring a new Gwyneth Paltrow movie, writing for his next album and putting together a live set from his last tour with wife Aimee Mann, Michael Penn has been keeping plenty busy. But don't remind him.

"I'm just trying to keep working," Penn said from his Los Angeles home. "If I think about it, it's pretty overwhelming." Penn just wrapped up work on the soundtrack for "The Anniversary Party," which stars Gwyneth Paltrow and was written and directed by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming. In addition to helping choose songs that appear in the film — from a set of artists including the Eels, Sammy Davis Jr. and Marlene Dietrich — Penn composed incidental music, which he said ranges from "delicate piano and acoustic guitar" to electronic tunes.

Penn previously contributed music to director Paul Thomas Anderson's "Hard Eight" and "Boogie Nights," in which he also had a bit part. Mann's tunes provided much of the soundtrack to Anderson's last movie, 1999's "Magnolia." The singer/songwriter is also putting the finishing touches on Acoustic Vaudeville, a live album culled from performances from the 2000 tour of the same name. The tour featured Penn and Mann performing separately, with standup comics doing much of the between-song banter.

"We talked about the fact that we both had a similar limitation," says Penn of his partner of six years. "The public speaking aspect isn't our strong suit." So they got comedians David Cross, who's appeared on HBO's "Mr. Show," and Patton Oswalt, who has a recurring role on "The King of Queens," to do it for them. "They served as kind of a palate cleanser," Penn said. "There's a perception that Aimee and I are serious and dour, and David or Patton would just kind of undercut that." A label spokesperson said a track listing for Acoustic Vaudeville is not yet available. With the live record set for a fall release, Penn has begun writing for his next album. Both will come out on Penn and Mann's own label, United Musicians. His last album, the darkly melodic MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident, came out in 2000.

• Michael Penn

After being tapped to step in for The Black Crowes and injured Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page for The Who's multi-night stand in New York City in early October, The Wallflowers have just added several more dates bookending the "substitute" shows.

In addition to joining The Who on October 3, 4, 6, and 7 for performances at Madison Square Garden, The Wallflowers will play gigs in Atlanta on October 2, Boston on October 9, Toronto on October 10, and Chicago on October 11.

The mini-tour should provide The Wallflowers with a chance to road-test material from its third album, "Breach," which is due out on October 10 and has already spawned a radio hit with the first single, "Sleepwalker."

For "Breach," The Wallflowers worked with producers Andrew Slater, who handled the group's 1992 self-titled debut, and Michael Penn, an acclaimed singer-songwriter in his own right and a friend of Wallflowers frontman Jakob Dylan.

"I've known Michael for a long time," Dylan told MTV News, "and one of the things I really wanted to focus on while getting this record together was [the durability of the material]. We spent a long time touring on the last record, and I realized that I was singing these songs every night, and half of them I kind of thought could have been better.

"I had kind of gotten a little lazy and frustrated when writing the last record," he added.

On Monday, October 2, MTV will air an exclusive listening party for the "Breach" album hosted by the band. The Wallflowers' "First Listen" special is scheduled to air on MTV at 10:30 p.m. (ET)

Currently scheduled dates where you catch The Wallflowers in October:

• 10/2 - Atlanta, GA @ Coca Cola Roxy Theater
• 10/3 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden (w/ The Who)
• 10/4 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden (w/ The Who)
• 10/6 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden (w/ The Who)
• 10/7 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden (w/ The Who)
• 10/9 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
• 10/10 - Toronto, ON @ The Guvernment
• 10/12 - Chicago, IL @ Metro

• Michael Penn
• The Wallflowers

Singer-songwriter spouses Aimee Mann and Michael Penn will head out on the road later this month for a brief joint tour, scheduled to kick off on January 25 in San Francisco and conclude on February 17 in New York City.

• 1/25 - San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo's 365 Club
• 1/28 - Portland, Oregon @ Aladdin Theater
• 1/29 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
• 2/7 - Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head Tavern
• 2/8 - Alexandria, VA @ Birchmere Music Hall
• 2/11 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theater of the Living Arts
• 2/12 - Somerville, MA @ Somerville Theater
• 2/13 - Providence, RI @ Lupos Heartbreak Hotel
• 2/15 - New York, NY @ Joe's Pub
• 2/16 - New York, NY @ Joe's Pub
• 2/17 - New York, NY @ Joe's Pub

-- David Basham

• Aimee Mann
• Michael Penn

When looking for a musician to pen the score for his porn-in-decline flick "Boogie Nights," director Paul Thomas Anderson didn't turn to the 70s artists who dominate the time in the which the film is set. Instead he went with Michael Penn.

While the movie is now finding rave reviews, Penn says that at first he wasn't exactly jumping at the chance to work in film.

"Well, you avoid a director's phone call for just as long as you possibly can," Penn said of how he came to work with Anderson.

Speaking before taking the stage in New York City recently, Penn told MTV News Online, "Then you finally meet with the guy and go, 'Jeesh, he's young!' And then you go, 'All right, let's see the movie.' And you go, 'Wow, this is pretty good.' And then you go, 'Well, O.K., so what do you got in mind?' And he says 'Well, I've got this temp track, and this is sort of the vibe of the scenes, you know, sort of grand and orchestral here and small and sort of odd here.' Plus Paul's a big fan of the chamberlain, as it happens, so that was sort of a guiding focus as well. And just try to please him, 'cause it's all about you Paul."

"It is now," interjected Anderson, who was on-hand to catch Penn's act at Fez.

Apparently the artistic partnership has worked out, as "Boogie Nights" has earned a great deal of critical acclaim, and is gaining commercial success in its limited release.

• Michael Penn

Eight years after the release of his Top 20 Pop hit "No Myth," a single that earned him a Best New Artist statuette at the MTV Video Music Awards, songwriter (brother of actors Chris and Sean, and son of director Leo) Michael Penn is back in heavy rotation with "Resigned."

Produced by Brendan O'Brien, the man behind releases by Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, and Matthew Sweet, "Resigned" finds Penn paying dedicated homage to the Fab Four.

Syrupy harmonies, literate turns of phrase and clever wordplay ("Watch you take the Fifth while I give you the third degree," Penn sings in the album's first single, "Try") mark the release.

And, like the Beatles before him, "Resigned" is distinguished by its oddly textured instrumentation, from the optogon used in "Like Egypt Was," to the Chamberlin solo in "Me Around."

"The Chamberlin is an antiquated sampler using tapes under keys," Penn explained. "For whatever reason it was a sound that I felt a real sort of kinship with and a real need to incude in my stuff. It's a timeless sort of thing somehow. There's a quirkiness to it, and humanity to it somehow. It's astonishing to me that an instrument can have a humanity, but it does."

Penn's recent soundtrack collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson for the forthcoming "Boogie Nights" earned the songwriter Anderson's favor. A la Hitchcock, Anderson filmed the video for "Try" in one painstaking shot.

"It's all built around this location in Los Angeles that's rumored to be the longest continuous hallway in North America," Anderson, in New York for Penn's gig, said. "It is very, very long, it's really wonderful and no one's used it before and so we sorta' just did this one shot."

Penn joins Crow for her U.S. tour kick off August 15 in Wantagh, New York.

• Michael Penn