Lady Gaga performing at the I Heart Radio festival in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Credit: AP Photo/Chris PIzzello

I wouldn’t consider myself a Little Monster, but I think Lady Gaga just won me over for life with this performance and dedication. Last night in Las Vegas at Clear Channel’s I Heart Radio mega-concerts,  Lady Gaga gave a knock-out, emotional tribute to 14-year Jamey Rodemeyer, who committed suicide last week after being bullied for more than a year.

Rodemeyer was a huge Gaga fan. In this moving intro to “Hair,” a breathless Gaga, seated at a piano shaped like the motorcycle from the "Born This Way" cover, says, “I just want to take a minute because I don’t know if any of your know this, but we lost a little monster this week and I wanted to dedicate this song to him tonight because he was really young.” The screen then flashed Rodemeyer’s name, the date of his death, and apparently a tweet to Lady Gaga he sent that serves as a chilling last note: “Bye Mother Monster. Thank You For All You Have Done. Paws Up Forever.”

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 Michael Stipe

 

Credit: AP

1) R.E.M.: Sometimes magnificent, often inscrutable, but always interesting, the durable Athens, Ga. purveyors of jangle pop call it quits after 31 years.  It’s not the end of the world as we know it, it just feels that way.

2) Lady Antebellum: Country trio lands its second No. 1 album as “Own The Night” opens with sales of close to 350,000 copies. They own the charts too.

3) Universal Music Group and Live Nation: The two powerhouses partner up to blend their artist management companies, but the pact hardly ends there.  The deal has potential for an amazing array of synergies (or conflicts of interest, depending upon whom you ask). How much larger does Live Nation Entertainment have to get before it is officially too big to fail?

4) Tony Bennett: This week Bennett became the oldest living artist  to chart on the Hot 100. The 85-year old may very well land the first No. 1 album of his career  and may very well possibly land the first No. 1 album of his career with “Duets ll.” Hey, he may have a future in this business we call show.

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The cover of Tony Bennett's "Duets II"

 

Tony Bennett will get a wonderful birthday present: his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. “Duets ll,” which pairs him with such artists as Amy Winehouse, Carrie Underwood and k.d. lang to commemorate his 85th birthday,  will debut at the top of the chart next week with sales of up to 170,000.

The title should be able to hold off on any last minute surge by Lady Antebellum, whose “Own The Night” drops to No. 2 with a still very sturdy 150,000 in sales, according to Hits Daily Double.  “Duets: An American Classic,” which Bennett released in 2006 to herald his 80th birthday, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, selling 202,000 in its opening frame.

Adele

Credit: Columbia

Sure, we all know Adele’s “21” is a shoo-in for a Grammy nomination for album of the year, but after the British thrush’s second effort, who will likely land a nod among the top five slots?

We know the Grammy Awards aren’t until Feb. 12, 2012, but next Friday, Sept. 30, marks the last release day of eligibility for an album to be considered. Any album put out between Oct. 1, 2010 and Sept. 30, 2011 falls within the qualifying period.

That means that a number of sets still to come in 2011 will have to wait until the 2013 ceremony for their chance to snare the golden gramophone, including new titles from Coldplay, Kelly Clarkson, Drake, Tom Waits, Miranda Lambert and Lou Reed/Metallica.

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Wavves

You know what’s a buzz kill at a party? A dude who crashes your  perfectly civilized game night who is wanted by the police.

Then, when the pills that you’ve been popping all night kick in, a drag queen (or at least we think it’s a guy) dressed as a mermaid toting a machine gun pops up through the coffee table, and takes out the cops with said gun and splatters their blood all over a perfectly fine poster of Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl. What? It seems like it was only last month the band was declaring its love for for Grohl in “I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl.”

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Jason Aldean in "Tattoos on This Town"

Jason Aldean had the country hit of the summer with the massively popular country rap “Dirt Road Anthem.” Will he rule the fall with “Tattoos on This Town.” The song, which is already No. 23 on the Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, will undoubtedly get a boost from the video released today.

Aldean is one of country’s resident hunks, so he needs to be in the video, which intersperses footage of he and his band playing in an abandoned warehouse with a story that takes a deeply tragic turn that, to my mind, is a bit too heavy handed for the song. Having said that, congrats to the songwriters, Neil Thrasher, Wendell Mobley and Michael Dulaney, who came up with an image we haven’t gotten before in country songs—or any song—about leaving your permanent mark on your home city by comparing it to a tattoo.

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Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera from "Moves Like Jagger"

“Moves Like Jagger” stays perfectly still this week as the Maroon 5 tune featuring Christina Aguilera remains at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the third week in a row.

“Jagger” isn’t the only static song: the top four on the chart remain the same as last week: Adele’s “Someone Like You” is No. 2, Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” is No. 3 and LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” is No. 4.

Lady Gaga, bringing a little weirdness to 'Good Morning America' in May

Credit: AP Photo/Evan Agostini

This time when Lady Gaga  sings “This time I’m not leaving without you,” in the latest video for “You and I,” she really means it. Because she can’t!

In the third Haus of U clip for “You and I,” Gaga appears as Yuyi, the mermaid who first surfaced in the official clip for the song.  Therefore, motility on land is somewhat limited to flopping around, as she does in and under a director’s chair here, or being carried around. As you recall, Lady Gaga has been releasing additional short black and white clips, filmed in Nebraska, to boost the song. While beautifully shot, they’re low-concept affairs. The first of the five, “Nymph,” featured Lady Gaga in lingerie dancing to the song. In last week’s installment, “Bride,” she was working a “Bride of Frankenstein” theme.

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Axl Rose

Guns N’ Roses will play its first full U.S. tour in five years starting Oct. 28 in Orlando. A few dates had been announced here and there, but today we got confirmation of the cities (and some venues) on the arena tour.

The line-up is Axl Rose, guitarist DJ Ashba, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, bassist Tommy Stinson, guitarist Richard Fortus, guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, keyboardist Chris Pitman and drummer Frank Ferrer.

Gavin DeGraw

Credit: AP Photo

Gavin DeGraw seems a little young to have life regrets, but at 34, he already has a big one: not getting to duet with Solomon Burke.

He met the soul legend and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer a few years earlier, and had subsequently asked him to sing on a track. “He was like, ‘Baby, baby, c’mon. I would love that Gavin. That would be wonderful’,” DeGraw recalls, imitating Burke’s deep drawl.

Months passed without the pair going to the studio. Then  DeGraw gets a call in the middle of the night from Burke. “I was just dog tired from the studio. I forgot to call him the next day when I got out of the studio,” DeGraw says. Before he could return the call, Burke died in Amsterdam.

“One of my biggest regrets is not having had a chance to record with him or put him on an album because he’s one of the most important singers from that era,” DeGraw says, as recalls “freaking out” when he met Burke and L.C.Cooke, Sam Cooke’s brother.  “That’s my silver and gold right there, being in the company of my idols.”

Although DeGraw never got to record with Burke, his influence can be heard on “Sweeter,” which comes out today, Sept. 20.

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