Legendary producer/mogul Quincy Jones is composing the score for 50 Cent's debut flick, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," Jones' publicist said Wednesday (August 3). It will be his first film score since 1985's "The Color Purple," which earned him two Oscar nominations. Jones will be working on the project with composers Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. ...

Christina Aguilera is blocking her ears for a new fall campaign for YouthAIDS, which has a theme of "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil." Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd, Cindy Crawford, Penélope Cruz, LL Cool J, Elijah Wood and Josh Lucas also cover their mouths and ears for the black-and-white campaign, which hopes to raise awareness and protect youth from HIV/AIDS. Aguilera's poster reads, "Hear no evil? 3 million people died of AIDS last year. When truth spreads, AIDS won't." ... Linkin Park DJ Joseph Hahn directed a short in Los Angeles over the weekend called "The Seed." Hahn plans to enter the movie, about a homeless veteran losing his mind on the banks of the L.A. River, in the Sundance Film Festival. ...

Joe Simpson is tired of having to deny rumors and reports that his daughter Jessica and her husband, Nick Lachey, are getting divorced, so much so that he's hired "the most powerful lawyer in the city" to take legal action against media outlets that run false reports, he told "Access Hollywood" Tuesday. "You can only say, 'No, that's not true' so often and then everybody thinks you are lying. ... We don't have any responsibility in the media anymore. You can say whatever the hell you want to and it's not right." Some of the other stories he said were false were reports that he had Botox injections and Jessica had plastic surgery. "Who believes that?" he said. "I mean, they just print it because Jessica sells magazines, Ashlee sells magazines." ... Speaking of famous sibs, on-the-rise singer Natasha Bedingfield considers her more famous brother, Daniel, "a hard act for anybody to follow," she told MTV Europe, and being a "typical younger sister," she wants to reach his level -- but on her own terms. "He is an amazing person and very gifted," she said, "but I have to make my own way. The proof is in the pudding, really. It's like, listen to the music, make your own judgment. I think that is what's been so exciting is that people are enjoying the music for the music, and it's not about being somebody's sister." ...

Ryan Cabrera, Tyler Hilton, the Click Five, Kaci Brown and B5 are among the artists taking turns appearing in a free mall tour, launching Friday in Jersey City, New Jersey. The 25-date Simon DTour Live concludes October 23 in Austin, Texas. ... Cabrera, meanwhile, will release his second album, You Stand Watching, on September 20. The singer produced most of the album himself, including lead single "Shine On." ...

Melissa Etheridge is now cancer-free. "I stand before you a totally healthy person," the singer, who is growing back her hair, told "Extra" in an interview that will air Wednesday. She credits her partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, with helping her beat breast cancer. "At the end of the whole thing, when it was over, I came home to a bouquet that said, 'In sickness and in health,' and she means it," Etheridge said. "And the love and support of someone like that is worth all the money in the world." Meanwhile, Etheridge's greatest-hits album, The Road Less Traveled, due October 18, will also include four new songs including one called "This Is Not Goodbye" and a cover of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." ... John Mayer, Carlos Santana and Keith Richards are among the guests on blues legend Buddy Guy's new album, Bring 'Em In. Due September 20, the LP features reworkings of favorites by Curtis Mayfield, Otis Redding and others. ...

Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson, the Flaming Lips, the Shins, Primus, Widespread Panic, Digable Planets and Ryan Adams are among the performers set to hit Sin City for the Vegoose music festival on October 29 and 30. Tickets for the event, being held at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, run $128.50 a pop for a two-day pass, and will go on sale August 13 via the event's official Web site, vegoose.com. ... Taking time off from their day jobs as Bam Margera's bearded yes-man and portly punching bag, Ryan Dunn and Don Vito are planning on launching their very own rock tour. Dubbed Dunn and Don Vito's Rock Night, the tour kicks off Wednesday in Austin, Texas, and wraps September 11 in Revere, Massachusetts, and promises to live up to its billing as "the stupidest rock tour of the year" by incorporating live music with stunts by Dunn and Vito. The actual music comes courtesy of rock acts Open Hand and Fight Paris. ...

Supergrass recorded their new album, Road to Rouen, due September 27, in a barn-turned-barebones-recording-studio. Instead of their trademark buzzsaw pop, Rouen is said to be all over the place, using zithers, ukuleles, brass, strings and a model of drum machine used by Sly & the Family Stone. "We've had some trying times over the last couple of years," singer Gaz Coombes said, "and it changes the way you do things. It changed the way I wrote songs." Tracks on the album include "Tales of Endurance (Parts 4, 5 & 6)," "Sad Girl," "Coffee in the Pot," "Kick in the Teeth" and "Low C." The band plans to embark on an international acoustic tour, and then do a U.S. tour early next year. ... New York's Central Park will play host to what's being touted as "America's largest dance music event" on September 16. ULTRA.NY, which will coincide with this year's CMJ Music Marathon, will bring more than five hours of electronica to the Park's Rumsey Playfield, compliments of the Chemical Brothers, Paul Oakenfold, Timo Maas, Danny Tenaglia and others. ...

08.02.2005

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Photos of Jessica Simpson in September's Seventeen

Don't look for any Daisy Dukes in Jessica Simpson's forthcoming clothing line, which hits stores this week. Princy by Jessica Simpson, which will be available at Macy's, Nordstrom and Dillard's, so far includes "everyday wear" like casual tees, plaid and embroidered button-down shirts, baby-doll tops, jeans, skirts, sweater vests and tailored tweed blazers (which Simpson models in the September issue of Seventeen magazine), but the singer thinks it's too soon to add the trademark short shorts. "It's for the fall, and I don't know if people will wear Daisy Dukes in the fall, but definitely next summer," she said. That will give folks plenty of time to shape up, and Simpson wants to help them do that via an exercise video and equipment line she's about to roll out, which she hopes will provide the same results for others that she got with her personal trainer. "I worked out really hard [to prepare for the movie], and I'm proud that I worked for it," she said. "I think that makes a person more confident." ...

(Click here for photos of Jessica Simpson in September's Seventeen.)[/article]

Hilary Duff is being singled out by PETA -- for its seal of approval. While the animal-rights activist group usually targets those celebs who don't meet its strict standards (think Jennifer Lopez), this time, PETA has found one who does, because the manufacturer of Duff's cosmetics line, Stuff by Hilary Duff, has just signed a statement of assurance promising it does not test products on animals. ... Maroon 5 recorded a concert earlier this summer and plan to release it this fall as a live CD/DVD. Live at the Santa Barbara Bowl, due September 20, contains 14 tracks, including the never-before-released "Wasted Years" and a cover of Oasis' "Hello," as well as Maroon's hits "This Love" and "She Will Be Loved." Meanwhile, frontman Adam Levine has added his vocals to the Ying Yang Twins' "Live Again" for their chopped-and-screwed version of U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta), and Kanye West's "Heard 'Em Say," which will appear on his upcoming Late Registration. Levine also plays guitar on Alicia Keys' cover of the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses," to be featured on her "MTV Unplugged" set. After opening for a few Stones shows this summer, Maroon 5 plan to begin work on their next album. ...

Imagine you're in space, floating weightless thousands of miles above the Earth's atmosphere, sleeping soundly when all of a sudden, a Spanish-speaking Bono comes piping into your eardrums. That's just what happened to the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery last week, when "Vertigo" was used as a wake-up call -- at the behest of astronaut Jim Kelly. It marks the first time U2 were ever played in outer space, the band's Web site claims. ... Stevie Wonder will be honored with a lifetime achievement award by the United Negro College Fund at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on September 9 and 10. The four-hour tribute will be broadcast as part of the organization's annual televised fund-raiser, "An Evening of Stars," January 5-7 on a network to be announced. Fantasia, India.Arie, Vivica Fox, Toni Braxton and others are scheduled to appear. ...

The first single from the upcoming album by Icelandic hush rockers Sigur Rós will be "Sæglópur," available as a download on August 16. The band's fourth album, Takk, will hit stores on September 13; the group will launch a month of U.S. dates on September 12 at the Beacon Theatre in New York. ... Fellow Chicago rockers OK Go and the Redwalls are hooking up for a late summer tour that will launch on August 23 in Houston and take them through a September 10 date in Tempe, Arizona. The bands, who played the recent Lollapalooza in their hometown, first shared a stage more than five years ago as unsigned acts. ...

Taproot need some help with their video for "Facepeeler," a track from the band's newest, Blue-Sky Research, which lands in stores August 16. The aggro-rockers have set up a contest, which ends on September 15, in which they ask their faithful to create "a unique video" for the song. More information on the specifics of the contest is available at taprootvideocontest.com, but the big winner will be given Taproot's entire catalogue, along with an autographed guitar and several video and audio production software programs. ... It's a safe bet you've already planned on preordering Stryper's first studio album in over a decade, Reborn. But in the off-chance you haven't, here's an added incentive: When the disc ships on August 10, it'll come complete with an autographed pocket Bible, emblazoned with the band's logo -- the same Bibles the '80s Christian hair metal act throws out at concerts. ...

Simple Minds (to whom Yellowcard paid homage by performing "Don't You (Forget About Me)" at the MTV Movie Awards) have a new album on the way, called Black & White 050505 (for when recording ended on May 5, 2005). Tracks include first single "Home," "Dolphins," "Different World" and the title track "Black & White," a somber electro ballad about Holocaust deniers. "We wanted to make an album once again that was full of dramatic and atmospheric pop music," singer Jim Kerr said. "We felt we needed an album that proved as much to ourselves as anyone else that the big beating heart of Simple Minds was very much alive and driving us on once again." The album's due September 13. ...