Lady Gaga Says Born This Way Is Nearly Finished, 'Almost Perfect'

'It won't be much longer, it's almost perfect. But I (we) don't want almost,' Gaga tweets about forthcoming album.
By James Montgomery


Lady Gaga
Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images

By now, you are probably aware that Lady Gaga's upcoming Born This Way album is "incredible," "shocking," "bold and beautiful," "utter liberation," and, of course, "crazy amazing."

But what you might not have known is that it is finally, totally, completely finished. Almost.

That's according to Gaga herself, who took to her Twitter account on Wednesday to announce that she's nearly wrapped production on Born, and that her little monsters' long wait is just about over. Unless she's not satisfied with every last detail, of course.

"Endless melodies, hooks [and] poetry sledge-hammering my skull," she tweeted. "It won't be much longer, it's almost perfect. But I (we) don't want almost."

Of course, there's still no release date (tentative or otherwise) for Born This Way, though Gaga has been playing songs from the album — like "You And I" and "Living on the Radio" — since the summer, and has discussed the project at length during her Monster Ball performances. In September, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, she announced the title of the album after winning Video of the Year.

Those who have heard Born This Way can't seem to stop gushing over it. On Tuesday, MTV News caught up with Gaga's label boss, Akon, who said the album "is definitely ... a notch up" from her previous work, and that she's "taking things to the next level."

Gaga's manager, Troy Carter, said that he's just starting to play music from Born for Interscope Records, and that the songs on the album are "incredible." He also hinted that the album would be "coming soon."

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Justin Bieber, Usher Top American Music Awards Winners List

Eminem, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna also nab trophies.
By Mawuse Ziegbe


Justin Bieber wins Breakthrough Artist, Pop/Rock Favorite Male Artist and Artist Of The Year Award during the 2010 American Music Award
Photo: Jason Merritt/ Getty Images

The 2010 American Music Awards dished out hardware to many of pop, R&B and country music's biggest names. Like most high-profile awards shows, there were showstopping performances, off-the-runway fashion and emotional moments. Unlike most trophy fests, the AMA winners aren't determined by the inner circle of music-industry professionals, but rather the fans who plunk down cash for hit records.

This year, fans handed over pyramids to the artists who also cranked out many of the biggest hits. Justin Bieber made off with the most AMA booty, nabbing four trophies. Taylor Swift, Rihanna, the Black Eyed Peas, Eminem and Bieber's mentor Usher also snagged AMA loot.

Check out the list of AMA winners below:

Pop or Rock Music
Favorite Male Artist
Justin Bieber

Favorite Female Artist
Lady Gaga

Favorite Band, Duo or Group
The Black Eyed Peas

Favorite Album
Justin Bieber, My World 2.0

Country Music
Favorite Male Artist
Brad Paisley

Favorite Female Artist
Taylor Swift

Favorite Band, Duo or Group
Lady Antebellum

Favorite Album
Carrie Underwood, Play On

Rap/ Hip-Hop Music
Favorite Male Artist
Eminem

Favorite Album
Eminem, Recovery

Soul/ Rhythm & Blues Music
Favorite Male Artist
Usher

Favorite Female Artist
Rihanna

Favorite Album
Usher, Raymond v. Raymond

Soundtracks
Favorite Album
Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers

Alternative Rock Music
Favorite Artist
Muse

Adult Contemporary Music
Favorite Artist
Michael Bublé

Latin Music
Favorite Artist
Shakira

Contemporary Inspirational
Favorite Artist
MercyMe

Artist of the Year
Justin Bieber

T-Mobile Breakthrough Artist
Justin Bieber

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Michael Jackson Cirque Du Soleil Tour Details Revealed

'Michael will be represented in every way possible,' writer/director Jamie King tells MTV News.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Matt Elias


Michael Jackson
Photo: Al Messerschmidt Archive / Getty Images

Michael Jackson might be gone, but he's certainly not forgotten. With new music to be released on his posthumous album and a Jackson-centric Cirque du Soleil show set to hit the road next fall, MJ's pop-culture influence is still going strong.

When MTV News spoke to writer/director Jamie King, who is helming the Cirque du Soleil Immortal World Tour, he made it clear that when fans come out to see the show, Jackson's presence will be felt.

"It started with the music for me. I had to go back. I mean, we all know the Michael Jackson hits, but I really just wanted to sit and remember why I, as a fan, loved Michael and what his lyrics meant to me," he said. "I really started there, and ... it kind of became a snowball, wherein a story was being created for me. I was invited to Neverland [Ranch], and once I got there, I knew this was the environment I wanted to create for this show.

"Michael will be represented in every way possible, and that is from the video elements, holographic-type images and installation pieces to, of course, the choreography and that energy he gave onstage," King continued. "Essentially, there are living beings that are giving that energy that Michael would. Michael's lead vocal will always be there, because no one could sing it like Michael, but around that and outside of that, I'm going to be playing with remixing and mashing up, as well as give you some surprises and unreleased songs."

Without giving away too much about the 90-minute Jackson spectacular, King teased a bit about what Jackson maniacs can expect: "Michael's songs are the score for the show, and they guide us and lead us. ... Essentially, it's about following several characters as they get transported through a portal into Michael's world. This place is Neverland. In that world, we discover all kinds of things about Michael. Things we know ... and secrets."

What are you expecting from the MJ Cirque du Soleil show? Let us know in the comments!

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Coldplay, Led Zeppelin Album Covers Featured On New British Stamps

Album art from Pink Floyd, Blur and David Bowie also included.
By James Montgomery


Coldplay's new British stamps
Photo: Royal Mail

On Thursday (January 7), the U.K.'s Royal Mail unveiled a series of 10 new stamps, honoring the most iconic album covers of the past 40 years.

The albums featured in the new series are the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed, Led Zeppelin's IV, David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, The Clash's London Calling, New Order's Power, Corruption and Lies, Primal Scream's Screamadelica, Pink Floyd's The Division Bell, Blur's Parklife and — the most recent album on to make the cut — Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head.

Meant to honor "the most potent graphic images of modern times, many of which have provided a visual soundtrack to people's lives," the series is the end result of a lengthy research process by the Royal Mail, who looked through thousands of album covers by British artists before deciding on the final list. And, during a Wednesday night BBC Radio broadcast, it was revealed that the queen herself actually approved each design.

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page — who helped design the cover for IV — was on hand to celebrate the release of the stamps and recalled the mysterious nature of the album's iconic imagery.

"Almost 40 years after the album came out, nobody knows the old man who featured on the cover, nor the artist who painted him," he said. "That sort of sums up what we wanted to achieve with the album cover, which has remained both anonymous and enigmatic at the same time."

Of course, any great honor is befitting of an equally great contest, so, on the same day the stamps were made available to the general public, Coldplay decided to give one of their Rush of Blood stamps away. In a message on their official site, the band held a contest to send one lucky fan "a letter using a Coldplay stamp, postmarked with today's issue date."

"We visited our local post office earlier today and bought some of the Coldplay stamps," the message read. "Very nice they are too."

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Justin Bieber, Lil Twist Will Leak Mixtape Track 'Real Soon'

Young Money MC says his project with Bieber may even become an EP.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by James "FLX" Smith


Lil Twist
Photo: MTV News

Justin Bieber has already received the seal of approval of Kanye West, Ludacris and Drake. And he impressed many with a video in which he raps over Vado and Cam'ron's "Speaking in Tungs" last month. Now Bieber is taking the next step to proving his crossover potential: working on a mixtape with of Young Money rapper and fellow teen Lil Twist.

"Me and Justin are working on this mixtape," Twist confirmed to MTV News. "We probably gonna title it Best of Both Worlds, [or] Best of Young Rap, Best of Young Pop. We got a few records done. The recent record that was talked about was 'Billionaire.' We did 'Billionaire' by Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars. We gonna get ready to leak that out. We're gonna leak something real soon."

Any further details about when more music from the twosome might drop is still very TBD. "I don't have the date on the mixtape yet, because we're still working hard on it," the MC explained. "We're trying to get new beats, because now, like, some of the beats [that we've used] are old. ... So we're gonna get new beats and go back in and try and make an EP."

The idea of the two working on some music together was really an idea Bieber came up with, Twist explained. "Me and Justin, we actually met through a mutual friend and after that we got real cool actually," he recalled. "[We] started working in the studio, sending stuff through the Mac book and everything. And then he was like, 'Yo, bro, we should do a mixtape. Let's go.' We just started then."

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Janet Jackson Has Drake, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga On Her iPod

Her 'For Colored Girls' co-stars also share their musical faves, in Mixtape Daily.
By Jayson Rodriguez, with reporting by Kara Warner


Janet Jackson
Photo: MTV News

Celebrity Favorites: Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise and Thandie Newton

Although the ladies of Tyler Perry's "For Colored Girls" had to embrace pain and confront harsh realities to channel the characters in the movie script, from an adaptation of playwright Ntozake Shange's 1974 Broadway hit "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf," offscreen, the cast was as cool as Janet Jackson's character in the film.

"She's someone who has no time for niceties, really," Jackson told MTV News of her role. "That was a tough thing for me, to drop the 'please' and the 'thank you,' just trying to get into the role, get into her head and doing that at home and in my world, that was kind of tough, but eventually it happened. [Laughs.] She has her walls up, for sure."

OK, maybe the lovely ladies of Perry's film weren't that cool. But when the camera wasn't rolling, Jackson, Kimberly Elise and Thandie Newton spent plenty of time listening to music.

"I enjoy listening to Drake, I enjoy listening to Bruno Mars," Jackson revealed. "I enjoy listening to Gaga."

"I love Citizen Cope," Elise added. "Anything Citizen Cope-y. I like Matt and Kim; they're different."

Newton noted a track from Amos Lee's discography, "Long Line of Pain," from the blues singer's Supply and Demand album, as a song she kept loaded in her iPod during filming.

"I'm a huge fan of TV on the Radio," Newton said. "A bit of Afro-Punk. I like a bit of Amos Lee, one of his songs, 'Long Line of Pain,' really reminded me of the movie. That was a part of my 'For Colored Girls' playlist. How we can inherit pain unless we intercept the cycle. We're just passing it forward. Thank you, Amos Lee."

For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.

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Lady Gaga '60 Minutes' Interview Details Revealed

'She's obviously a fascinating person,' Anderson Cooper says about time he spent with the pop star.
By Jocelyn Vena


Lady Gaga
Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images

For those wondering when that "60 Minutes" interview with Lady Gaga and Anderson Cooper will air, the news anchor announced that it will be broadcast in February 2011, around the time of the Grammy Awards. He also revealed why he wanted to interview the "Bad Romance" singer so badly.

"I was really interested to meet Lady Gaga ... she's obviously a fascinating person," the newsman said in a sit-down with "The Insider." "What's great about '60 Minutes' is you spend a lot of time with the person you're profiling."

Cooper recounted just how much time he got to spend with the singer, who is going to release her new album in early 2011. "So to be able to spend a couple weekends with her in various places over the course of several months, it's really cool," he added. "And it's really interesting and I'm learning stuff about her I never saw before."

Photos and some grainy YouTube footage of the two filming the interview in October found its way online soon after they were spotted in London on the South Bank of the Thames River chatting for the episode. Gaga was wearing a lacy bustier, platform ankle-high boots, fishnet stockings and sunglasses, with her long hair loose and down.

Gaga recently tweeted that her album Born This Way is nearly complete, and Akon, her label boss, shared that he thinks Gaga is really stepping up her game with this album.

"If I was going to compare it to her previous work, I would definitely say it's a notch up," Akon said. "It's like she's slowly taking you on to this journey down this road. If she were to just drastically do it, she probably would have lost everybody from the first album, but once the sound was created and established, now we can use that as a tool to grab all the monsters and walk them down this graveyard. It's crazy. It's amazing."

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Adam Lambert's 'Whole Lotta Love': The Story Behind The Cover

Glam rocker tackled the legendary 1970 Led Zeppelin song for 'American Idol' rock night.
By Gil Kaufman


Adam Lambert performs "Whole Lotta Love" on "American Idol" on Tuesday
Photo: R. Mickshaw/Getty Images/ Fox

Imagine a freight train speeding toward you at midnight. Or a rockslide barreling down a hill as you try to outrace it. That's the feeling of the ominous, chugging Jimmy Page riff that kicks off Led Zeppelin's 1970 Stonehenge of rock, "Whole Lotta Love." And that's before singer Robert Plant leans into one of the nastiest, ecstatic rock screams this side of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again."

That's the song Adam Lambert chose to sing on "American Idol" rock night Tuesday (May 5), and, needless to say, it was a challenge that the eyeliner-loving Los Angeles stage veteran was more than up for, hitting a series of high notes and rock screams that would have made Plant proud. It was a risky maneuver that paid off for Lambert, who chose a tune that came in at #75 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.

The legendary British rock act recorded the tribute to Chicago blues icon Willie Dixon during their second U.S. tour after working it out in their live show, including it on their 1969 classic album Led Zeppelin II. Like many of the songs Zeppelin performed early in their career, "Love" was a blues standard turned on its head with a heavy dose of crunching psychedelic guitar and thundering drums, courtesy of late drummer John Bonham. The song was based on a 1962 tune by another blues forefather, Muddy Waters, called "You Need Love," which was penned by Dixon.

For Zeppelin's version, Plant customized the lyrics by adding some lyrical quotes from a few other songs Dixon wrote for Howlin' Wolf, "Back Door Man" and "Shake For Me," nailing the tricky vocal in a single take. It was also inspired by 1966's "You Need Loving" from the British rock group the Small Faces, for whom Zeppelin had great affection, but they also did not credit Dixon for his part in writing the original lyrics. The song became Zeppelin's first U.S. single and their only U.S. top 10 hit. Though their manager would not let them release singles in the U.K. because he thought it cannibalized album sales, the song was finally released as the band's only British single in 1997.

Dixon sued Zeppelin over the song in 1985, claiming it borrowed too heavily from his "You Need Love," and Zeppelin reached an agreement with him, with Dixon using the money he received to set up a program that provided musical instruments for schools. A cornerstone of heavy rock, the tune -- which was the theme song for the long-running British countdown show "Top of the Pops" in the 1970s and '80s -- has been covered by dozens of artists over the years, from Tina Turner and Ben Harper to Prince, Slash, Leona Lewis, Train's Pat Monahan, the London Symphony Orchestra and Jane's Addiction.

Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

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