*NSync, Joe and Carlos Vives turned up in person, and Britney Spears appeared via satellite, at a Philadelphia McDonald's on Thursday to help announce plans for the fast food chain's summer music promotion. The McDonald's Summer Music Event 2000 kicks off Aug. 4, when participating restaurants will begin offering three CDs for $4.99 each — a pop CD featuring *NSync and Spears; a hip-hop/soul CD featuring Ruff Ryders, Sisqó, Mary J. Blige, Q-Tip, Joe and TLC; and a Latin CD featuring Vives, Enrique Iglesias and Carlos Ponce. The chain also will offer a home video of Spears and *NSync and the chance to win backstage tickets to concerts by some of the participating artists. ... Coolio may include a song from the unfinished Tommy Boy album project Dead Man Walkin' that uses a sample of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" on his upcoming album Coolio.com, a spokesperson for Allied Artists Records said. There are no plans to release the track as a single yet. ...

Barbra Streisand will perform what she is calling the last concerts of her career this fall at the Staples Center in Los Angeles (Sept. 20–21) and at New York's Madison Square Garden (Sept. 27–28), according to Columbia Records. Ranging in price from $150 to $2,500, the tickets for the Los Angeles performance go on sale July 30, and for the New York show July 31. ... A study of Napster use and CD sales released on Friday (July 21) by Internet research firm Jupiter Communications found that Napster users are 45 percent more likely to buy more music than nonusers. The study refutes the Recording Industry Association of America's claim that Napster has taken a deep chunk out of CD sales near "wired" universities and says most sales declines in the RIAA-cited study occurred before the file-sharing software was released. The study concluded that sales are driven by Napster and similar services but that sales would increase exponentially if record companies were to team up with file-sharing systems. ... The Spice Girls were ordered Thursday (July 20) by a British High Court judge to pay nearly $600,000 in damages to Italian scooter manufacturer Aprilia after losing a court battle to the scooter company in February. Aprilia sued the group over a 1998 contract dispute. ...

U2 have launched a Web site (www.U2.com) that offers a look into the studio, via webcams, where they are putting together their upcoming album. A release date or title for the album, which follows 1997's Pop, has not been decided, according to a band spokesperson. ... Pop-rockers World Party will release Dumbing Up, their first album since 1997's Egyptology, on Aug. 7 in the UK, according to an announcement from the band. No date has been set for Stateside release of the new LP. ... Counting Crows will host an online chat at 7 p.m. EDT Tuesday (July 25) at AOL.com. The band will kick off its summer tour with Live on July 28 in Bonner Springs, Kan. ...

Unsigned bands who win an opening slot on Limp Bizkit's current free tour also have the chance to get signed by singer Fred Durst's Interscope Records imprint, Flawless Records. Each of the 11 dates of the Back to Basics tour features a band that scored the most visitor votes at garageband.com. Representatives from Flawless are attending the winners' performances as they scout out new talent for their roster. ... Teen diva Mandy Moore, nominated for Best Female Vocalist at the Fox Teen Choice Awards, is confirmed as one of the program's presenters, according to her publicist. The show will be taped Aug. 6 in Los Angeles and will air Aug. 22 on FOX. Moore is scheduled for an interview Aug. 8 on "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn," and she'll join the Music Mania 2000 lineup on Aug. 13 before heading on a tour of Asia. The Music Mania 2000 special is taping in Jacksonville, Fla., on Aug. 13 and is scheduled to air in mid-September. Nickelodeon is also gathering footage for a half-hour special on Moore planned for mid-August. (Sonicnet.com's parent company, Viacom, also owns Nickelodeon.) ... The Smokin' Grooves hip-hop tour looks likely to sit out for the second year in a row after hopes of securing chart-topping rapper Eminem as the headliner fell through. "It doesn't look good, but you never know," said Kevin Morrow, a vice president at House of Blues, which puts on the tour. ...

Monday's birthdays (July 24): Barbara Jean Love (Friends of Distinction), 59; Heinz Burt (Tornadoes), 58; Lynval Golding (Specials), 49; Robbie Grey (Modern English), 43; and Jennifer Lopez, 30.

— sonicnet.com staff report