Lil Wayne's Death News Report, A Hoax

Fans of Lil' Wayne have reacted with outrage after a fake report claiming the US rapper had been shot dead appeared on the internet.

Lil' Wayne has become the subject of a death hoax, after a fake BBC News page appeared to claim the rapper had been caught up in gang rivalry following a concert in New Orleans.

According to the fake site, Wayne was supposed to have been shot in the early hours of Saturday (November 2) morning, following a despite between the Blood and Crips gangs.

A picture of the web page, which can be seen above, claimed the rapper had been pronounced dead after being shot six times.

The hoax caused rumours of Wayne's demise to circulate around the internet over the weekend until several sites, most notably Perezhilton.com, went out of the way to state that the rapper is still very much alive.

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Michael refutes Jermaine Jackson's Claim of Jackson 5 Reunion

For now, the chance of a full-blown Jackson 5 reunion – especially one that has the members already "in the studio" – seems like little more than a fantasy perpetuated by Jermaine Jackson, a particularly unreliable tipster who made similar murmurings in 2003 and 2007.

Michael Jackson denied on Thursday that he would take part in a reunion of the famed Motown singing group, a day after elder brother Jermaine said the faded pop star was on board.

"My brothers and sisters have my full love and support, and we've certainly shared many great experiences, but at this time I have no plans to record or tour with them," the self-proclaimed "king of pop" said a statement.

Jackson, 50, said he was in the studio working on "new and exciting projects."

But Jermaine Jackson, 53, said in Australia on Wednesday that the clan was working on the music and logistics for a tour next year.

"It is going to be more like a family affair," he was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press. "(Younger sister) Janet's going to open and, of course, the original Jackson 5 ... Michael, Randy and the whole family. ... We're in the studio, we're planning on being out there next year."

Michael Jackson has not encouraged reunion talk. He did not show up with his brothers to collect a lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles in September.

The Jackson 5, whose lineup is rounded out by Jackie, 57, Tito, 55, and Marlon, 51, as well as unofficial member Randy, 47, rose to fame in the early 1970s with such singles as "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "I'll Be There." The group last toured in 1984, by which time Michael Jackson was a huge star in his own right.

The original Jackson 5 have not performed together since 2001, when they reunited to celebrate Michael's 30th anniversary in music.

Michael Jackson has been a relative recluse since then, rarely appearing in public – with the notable exception of 2005's child abuse trial. Though he announced work on a Hurricane Katrina charity single, it was never released. Nor have there been updates on the status of a long-germinating album with songs written by Akon and Will.I.Am.

His statement was credited to a spokesperson dubbed "Dr. Tohme." The publicity firm that distributed the statement declined to elaborate on the person's identity.

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ISPs Role In Reducing Online Music and Video Downloads

Music pirates can be deterred by warnings from their internet service provider (ISP), suggests a survey.

Almost 75% of music pirates would stop if told to by their ISP, the survey of 1,500 UK consumers found.

The research looked at the digital habits of consumers and found that the abundance of online music services was convincing many to go straight.

Just over half of those questioned said they got music from legal subscription sites, or those supported by ads.

Older fans

Conducted by Entertainment Media Research (EMR) the survey aimed to find out what kinds of digital media consumers like and also how media sellers can make it more palatable.

The research revealed the effect of the campaign against persistent pirates conducted by the music industry.

Acting on information supplied by music industry groups many ISPs have contacted customers to tell them they are suspected of illegally downloading music.

"It is quite evident that an ISP-led strategy has bite, because illegal downloaders are fairly convinced that ISPs are currently monitoring their activities and are more likely to act against them than the courts," said Russell Hart, chief executive of Entertainment Media Research in a statement.

The research found that younger net users tended to be the most persistent pirates. In the 13-17 age bracket, 58% said they had downloaded illegally. It also found that 61% of those questioned who admitted to being illegal downloaders were convinced that their activities were being monitored by net firms.

Fierce competition among online music stores meant that few needed to illegally download in order to listen to the music they wanted.

For the first time in the five years the EMR survey has been produced, a majority of respondents - 51% - received their music via legal downloads.

In the last month firms such as Nokia, MySpace and Play have unveiled digital music stores.

But, noted the survey, much of that growth was coming from older music lovers with more than 40% of over-35s buying downloads at least once per month.

"The survey shows that despite the ubiquity of free music, there's a real willingness by consumers to pay for music products if the package is right," said Alexander Ross, music partner at media law firm Wiggin which collaborated on the research.

The survey also highlighted the importance of social media and networking sites to music fans. Many now use YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to find new bands or talk to other fans of established acts.

Video was becoming an increasingly important part of music consumption, it found, with 41% saying YouTube was their preferred social networking site. By contrast only 25% said MySpace was their favourite site for music.

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Jens Lekman's Night Falls over Kortedala

Bernard Zuel

Three years ago Jens Lekman was voted the 15th sexiest man in Sweden by Elle magazine. OK, that's not exactly bachelor of the year status, but it's not bad. Not bad at all for a droll pop singer with what was, at the time, a small but devoted following for his achingly lovely songs that wore their wit and heart openly. Songs about philosophy and Rocky Dennis (the seriously disfigured teenage boy in the film Mask); about using your one phone call after being arrested to request a song on the radio; about pretending to be your lesbian friend's boyfriend to keep her father happy.

Three years on, Lekman's new album Night Falls over Kortedala - more classic pop in the mould of Burt Bacharach and Jonathan Richman with dance rhythms - made it to No.1 in his homeland. Has that seen his sexiest man ranking change?

"It should have, yeah," Lekman says, sounding a little hurt at Elle's evident failure. "I look better now than I did back then."

Where would he rate himself, then, on the sexiest man in Sweden table?

"I'm not the sexiest man but somewhere in the top 10," is his considered opinion. "The problem last time was the whole [Swedish] football team was in there. But most of those players now are quite old and are dropping out."

If you've not seen him perform or heard his songs you may be wondering what is it about Lekman that would make him one of the sexiest men in Sweden. He has the answer.

"I have a very nice voice," he says. "It's pretty sexy, I think. It's not always a sexy voice but it can be sexy. That's my opinion anyway. There are times when older people hear me sing [and] they say that I sing a little bit like Elvis. That may be their only reference point, of course, but still it's a pretty good and sexy reference."

Lekman is an amusing man, made more so by a deadpan face and a dry delivery. It can make it hard to know when to take him seriously (though he insists the much circulated story, started by him, that he is moving to Melbourne from Stockholm is true). It seems that uncertainty about what was serious and what wasn't, evident in his audience, had some effect on him, too, until "Hawkeye" Pierce and friends made it all clear to him. Seriously.

"When I started writing songs and performing them I had this feeling that maybe I was comically retarded," Lekman says. "Each time I sang a song that was very serious to me, people would laugh and when I tried to make people laugh with a funny song, people started to cry. At some point last year I stopped listening to music for a long time and I listened to a lot of comedy. I loved all the comedy records I got and I watched every single episode of M*A*S*H and that last episode - you remember, it's very serious and not a single joke, quite a dignified look at life - when I came to that episode I realised what I had been trying to do with my songs.

"I think a lot of my songs are very silly and very stupid, written to entertain people, but in the end I always come to that last line and I feel that I have to wrap this up with a bit of dignity and a little tear in the eye otherwise the joke would be on the characters in the song."

With Lekman songs, it is possible to laugh and cry a number of times across the album and sometimes within the one song. The thing is, he's not afraid to go there because as an undoubted fan of the pop song and its conventions, he understands that being passionate about something doesn't mean you can't see the silliness. After all, there is nothing sillier than being in love.

"Some very silly songs can have an almost melancholy feeling when you put it in a different perspective," he says. "Like [his new song about a job he had during his year off from playing music] Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo for example. That was definitely just a silly song I wrote so that people could dance to it and sing along but in the end when I heard it, it was a very pretty song and almost made me cry."

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Britney Spears Returns To MTV To Join The Likes Of Timbaland, Rihanna, 50 Cents...

Britney Spears hasn`t had a hit in years. MTV stopped playing music videos years ago.

The two former music industry stalwarts will join forces in Las Vegas this evening for the 24th annual MTV Video Music Awards, an event long considered a looser, hipper version of the Grammys, the top honors show in the record business.

MTV is bringing the show to Sin City for the first time, hoping to reverse a sharp slide in viewership for its flagship awards bash.

Last year`s ceremony in New York drew 5.8 million viewers, down from 8 million in 2005 and 10.3 million in 2004, according to Nielsen Media Research. Both those shows took place in Miami. The only other city to host the show has been Los Angeles, most recently in 1998.

The ceremony harkens back to MTV`s heyday as the maker and breaker of musical acts. The cable channel long ago ditched its basic diet of music videos after realizing that its youthful viewers would surf to other channels when a clip came on that they did not care for. It is now a lifestyle-programming network, focused on reality shows like "The Hills" and "The Real World."

The leading nominees this year are pop singer Justin Timberlake and R&B star Beyonce with seven nominations each, while hip-hop star Kanye West has five.
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The "awards" part of the show usually is overshadowed by the performances and the chance that something outrageous will happen, like same-sex kisses or naughty utterances. The lack of excitement in recent years, amid a government crackdown in media decency, has been blamed for the slide in ratings.

Britney comeback

The ceremony will kick off at 6 pm on Monday from the Palms Casino Resort, with Spears performing her new comeback tune, "Gimme More." The 25-year-old performer, whose professional achievements have been overshadowed by her personal crises in recent years, has used past MTV shows to cavort with a snake and make out with Madonna.

Spears is reportedly working on her first album in more than four years, having been distracted by two marriages, two children and two rehab stints. In that time, fellow Mickey Mouse Club alumni such as Timberlake and Christina Aguilera have seen their careers soar.

The MTV awards performers are drawn mostly from the urban music field -- rappers such as West, 50 Cent, Common, and Soulja Boy, as well as R&B singers Akon, T-Pain, Timbaland and Rihanna. The only rock bands on the bill are the Foo Fighters and Fall Out Boy.

The show itself is almost a footnote to a busy weekend of related parties and concerts throughout the city. Performers at various venues included West, rapper Snoop Dogg and rock band Linkin Park.

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