NEW YORK – No flying chariots. No vanishing mountains. No caves mysteriously transformed into temples.
No matter. There was magic aplenty on the stage of Alice Tully Hall during a concert version of Handel's opera "Orlando," presented as part of the Mostly Mozart festival.
The magician-in-chief was Nicholas McGegan, who conducted his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Sunday afternoon with unflagging energy and led five exemplary singers through their grueling paces in the solo roles.
Beaming broadly as if entranced by the great fun of it all, McGegan made the nearly 3 1/2-hour performance fly by — much like the four genies who at one point are supposed to swoop down over the stage in the company of an eagle.
Handel adapted the opera in 1732 from the Italian romance epic "Orlando Furioso," which had been written 200 years earlier but remained wildly popular in his day. It's one of three operas he composed that are based on that text, and it contains some of his most haunting melodies and most innovative vocal writing.
Orlando, a Christian soldier fighting the infidels, gets waylaid by his love for the princess Angelica. She doesn't return his affection, having fallen for Medoro, a Saracen she nursed back to health. Orlando, being a proud knight, is prone to lethal jealousy.
Meanwhile, Dorinda, a shepherdess, is in love with Orlando, and not immune from jealousy herself.
It takes a magician, Zoroastro, to sort this all out and save the characters from disaster. At the finale, Angelica and Medoro are reunited, Orlando renounces love, and Dorinda invites everyone to her house to celebrate.
In Handel's day, the fantastical plot invited spectacular stage effects to simulate the many magical acts described in the libretto.
More recent productions have also indulged in imaginative flights: Peter Sellars famously set it at Cape Canaveral and made Orlando an astronaut. But in this concert performance, the spells and transformations were left to the imagination — and to the elaborate hand and facial gestures supplied by German bass Wolf Matthias Friedrich as Zoroastro.
Friedrich, whose tall figure and long mane of steel-gray hair made him the perfect embodiment of an all-powerful wizard, sang with booming tone when the role didn't go too low. He may have overdone the mugging, but it was certainly an animated performance.
In the title role — originally written for a castrato — South African countertenor Clint van der Linde handled its intense dramatic demands and vocal acrobatics extremely well. Orlando gets his own mad scene, and Handel constructed it in a dizzying series of shifting tempos and rhythms — including a gavotte and a few measures in then-unheard-of five-eighths meter.
As Angelica, the veteran Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle anchored the performance with a strong, even tone and elegant phrasing. In the ingenue role of Dorinda, the Russian-American soprano Yulia Van Doren brought charm and a bell-like purity to her arias, one of which requires her to warble like a nightingale.
Best of all was the English mezzo-soprano Diana Moore, whose warm, noble sound imbued the role of Medoro with an aching appeal. The highlight of the afternoon was her ravishing delivery of the aria "Verdi allori" ("Verdant trees, always united, preserve our names"), after she has carved her and Angelica's names in the forest.
This performance was part of a tour that continues at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut on Monday night and concludes Tuesday at Tanglewood in Massachusetts.
The Outside Lands festival has acts like the Grammy-winning Arcade Fire and Muse as headliners, but co-promoter Rick Farman is just as excited about another attraction at the three-day event — its culinary delights.
"People (are) talking about what they're going to eat and going to drink ... almost as much as what they're going to see or hear music-wise," he said about the event, which starts Friday and wraps up Sunday.
Outside Lands, now in its fifth year, this year features acts including Erykah Badu, John Fogerty, the Arctic Monkeys and dozens more. Since its inception, the festival has played up its San Francisco food-and-wine connections. Its "Taste of the Bay" lineup includes numerous local eateries, and it also has a separate wine component.
"It was very much a part of the original plan of the event, to really incorporate some specific aspects of the Bay area culture into the event, and food and wine were two of those top things that we focused on right off the bat," said Farman, whose Superfly Presents is one of the two promoters of Outside Lands.
"But that said, it certainly has grown each year, and this year, sort of the vision that we had first set out for the festival has really culminated."
Many music festivals incorporate art, food and other elements to enhance the event. Superfly Presents also puts on the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., which also has film, comedy and other attractions.
Farman said Outside Lands was inspired by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which incorporates that city's famous food fare into the festival.
"We really looked to that in some ways as a mode — how could we create an event that expressed the culture of the Bay area? So I think it is something certainly festivals in general can offer music fans other than something beyond (the) music experience," he said.
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Online:
http://www.sfoutsidelands.com
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Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi
(This version CORRECTS Corrects spelling of Muse.)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A global social media campaign featuring a Bob Marley song was launched by some of the music industry's top stars on Tuesday to help stem the hunger crisis that is increasing in the Horn of Africa.
More than 150 stars including Lady Gaga, U2, Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney are among the well-known figures using their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to urge fans to donate money to help the numerous families starving in the region.
The campaign, called "I'm Gonna Be Your Friend," can be found at www.imgonnabeyourfriend.org. It shows a video of Bob Marley & The Wailers' 1973 song, 'High Tide or Low Tide," accompanied by footage of malnourished children created by award-winning film director Kevin Macdonald.
About 3.6 million people are at risk of starvation in Somalia and 12 million people across the Horn of Africa, including in Ethiopia and Kenya, the United Nations says.
The drought-hit Horn of Africa urgently needs funds to rebuild agriculture and fight famine. The United Nations food agency has called for a high level meeting to help overcome the worsening crisis.
The "I'm Gonna Be Your Friend," campaign estimated it would reach over a billion people with partners such as Universal Music Group, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, MSN, YouTube and Twitter and the power of celebrities' reach. The combined power of using Facebook and Twitter pages alone will reach 730 million, the campaign said.
Donations or downloads of "High Tide or Low Tide," for $1.29 will go to the Save the Children appeal for east Africa and used for food, water and medicine.
Other stars participating include Sting, David Beckham, Eminem, Rihanna, Annie Lennox, Bruno Mars, Madonna, Ricky Martin and Lily Allen.
"High Tide or Low Tide" was chosen by the Marley family for the resonance of the single's lyrics, "I'm Gonna Be Your Friend" and can also be found on www.facebook.com/bobmarley.
The video starts with the slogan "The Worst Drought in Decades" and after showing images of starving and thirsty children, ends with a black-and-white image of the late Marley behind the message, "Millions of children are facing starvation."
"We must stand up together as friends to put a stop to this, to feed our children and to save their lives," Rita Marley, Bob Marley's widow, said in a statement.
(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
PORT JEFFERSON, N.Y. – The Hall of Fame that honors the rich musical history of New York's Long Island is getting a home.
Until now, the Long Island Music Hall of Fame has existed only as a website.
Brookhaven Town officials have announced an agreement for a 15-year lease at the site of the former First National Bank in Port Jefferson, 50 miles east of New York City. A lease-signing ceremony is scheduled for next week.
The facility will feature an interactive museum with exhibits, classrooms and a performance area.
The Hall of Fame honors artists from Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau and Suffolk counties who've made significant contributions to music. Inductees include Billy Joel, Louis Armstrong, LL Cool J, George M. Cohan, Lou Reed, the Ramones and Harry Chapin.
Renovations could take a year, but the museum may open during construction.
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Online:
http:// www.limusichalloffame.org/
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Paul McCartney on Thursday recalled the shock and fear that engulfed New York in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks and what he called the magical power of music in helping to heal those wounds.
Speaking ahead of the television broadcast of his 9/11 documentary "The Love We Make", the former Beatle said that the concert he helped organize after the attacks was one of the most worthwhile moments of his career.
Shot in black and white, "The Love We Make" chronicles McCartney's personal journey in the devastated city immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center, and preparations for the "Concert for 9/11" six weeks later.
It will be broadcast on cable channel Showtime on September 10 as part of a slew of U.S. television programs marking the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
"The whole mood of the world, of America and New York had changed. There was fear in the air and I had never experienced that in New York," McCartney told television journalists gathered in Los Angeles for a bi-annual meeting of critics.
McCartney said he organized the concert in a bid to help New York let out the fear. "We were emerging from the fearfulness of the immediate impact, and now you were seeing the emotion releasing through music -- it's one of the reasons I am in music."
"It was a great feeling. We actually felt like we were doing a bit of good," he said of the concert.
McCartney was on a plane on the tarmac in New York on the morning of September 11, 2001 which was grounded when hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers. He spent the next few days stranded on Long Island and immediately came up with the idea of staging a concert for the city.
McCartney said he was a big believer in the transformative powers of music. "I have come to the conclusion that it is magical...One of the things I am most proud of is that I have lucked out and am in a profession like this that can help heal and help people get in touch with their emotions."
The documentary features footage of McCartney rehearsing for the concert, talking with New Yorkers on city streets and backstage. The film features the likes of David Bowie, Mick Jagger, former President Bill Clinton, Leonardo DiCaprio and many others.
McCartney said he had done nothing with the original footage for years, until the 10th anniversary of 9/11 began to loom. "The documentary was reawakened by the anniversary," he said.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Beyonce is featuring a New Jersey mobile home park in her next music video.
Residents of the Oakdale Mobile Home Park in South Brunswick on Tuesday watched as the Grammy-winning artist and crew filmed a video of "Party" from her latest album, "4."
The shoot included a vintage Airstream trailer and designers painted a trailer-park-themed mural.
Sixty-four-year-old resident Bill Flaherty told The Home News Tribune of East Brunswick (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_en_mu/storytext/us_beyonce_music_video/42482635/SIG=10mi34cu2/*http://bit.ly/qgATJ9) he was impressed by the mural and the "good-looking young girls" featured in the video.
But resident Ginger Sickles told the paper it would have been better if it was Kenny Rogers.
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Information from: Home News Tribune, http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_en_mu/storytext/us_beyonce_music_video/42482635/SIG=1101brnse/*http://www.mycentraljersey.com
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. – Music mogul Russell Simmons and model Kimora Lee Simmons may no longer be married, but the pair came together in the name of charity at a dinner gala.
The couple hosted the fundraiser Saturday night to benefit Art for Life, a charity that supports arts programs for inner-city kids.
"We started this together 12 years ago," Lee Simmons said. "I hosted it every year forever and then I had to turn over the duties, and now we are back as a family and we are so excited. It is a great night."
The couple's two daughters attended the event, as well as Lee Simmons' partner, actor Djimon Hounsou, and their son. The Simmonses divorced in 2009.
The evening wasn't just family affair. Singer Mary J Blige, actor Ed Norton and fashion icon Tamara Mellon were honored for their work with the organization.
"It seems like a banner year, and that is really how you measure it," Simmons said of the fundraising efforts, which totaled more than $1 million before the event.
During the gala, Norton took to the microphone to express why he supports the cause.
"When you don't invest in the inventors of tomorrow, the economist of tomorrow, the doctors of tomorrow won't emerge because you haven't taught people to think in their individual creative ways," he said. "Creativity fuels everything that makes America dynamic."
Guests were later entertained by Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, who performed three songs. They also had the opportunity to bid on a variety of items, including artwork and a chance to meet Justin Timberlake.
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Online:
http://www.rushphilanthropic.org
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. – Music mogul Russell Simmons and model Kimora Lee Simmons may no longer be married, but the pair came together in the name of charity at a dinner gala.
The couple hosted the fundraiser Saturday night to benefit Art for Life, a charity that supports arts programs for inner-city kids.
"We started this together 12 years ago," Lee Simmons said. "I hosted it every year forever and then I had to turn over the duties, and now we are back as a family and we are so excited. It is a great night."
The couple's two daughters attended the event, as well as Lee Simmons' partner, actor Djimon Hounsou, and their son. The Simmonses divorced in 2009.
The evening wasn't just family affair. Singer Mary J Blige, actor Ed Norton and fashion icon Tamara Mellon were honored for their work with the organization.
"It seems like a banner year, and that is really how you measure it," Simmons said of the fundraising efforts, which totaled more than $1 million before the event.
During the gala, Norton took to the microphone to express why he supports the cause.
"When you don't invest in the inventors of tomorrow, the economist of tomorrow, the doctors of tomorrow won't emerge because you haven't taught people to think in their individual creative ways," he said. "Creativity fuels everything that makes America dynamic."
Guests were later entertained by Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, who performed three songs. They also had the opportunity to bid on a variety of items, including artwork and a chance to meet Justin Timberlake.
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Online:
http://www.rushphilanthropic.org
1 - Garden State, 2004
Category: trickster
The breakthrough indie songs from the likes of The Shins, Frou Frou and Thievery Corporation were good enough to distract viewers from the fact that the film was a gloppy intravenous drip of sad giggles and unabashed Natalie Portman idolatry. Zack Braff: curator of indie, purveyor of twee, voice of toilet paper-using puppy.
2 - The Twilight Saga, 2008-2012
Category: show-stealer
The trilogy's track list boasts a roster of heavyweights--Muse, Thom Yorke and Vampire Weekend--and reads like a fantasy music draft between the editor of Pitchfork and the founder of Emo Weekly. The film itself appeals only to the latter.
3 - Boiler Room, 2000
Category: show-stealer
The film's high-rolling hustlers are set to the sounds of raw hip-hop from some of New York's best MC's: Biggie, Rakim, De La Soul and a still-underground 50 Cent. Clearly an attempt to draw a profound parallel between Wall Street and rap's paper-chasers, the juxtaposition only served to make the Wall Street meatheads playing with Monopoly money seem even more outlandish.
4 - Vanilla Sky, 2001
Category: trickster
This movie is always in the HBO cycle because of Tom Cruise's particularly Tom Cruise-y performance, the Penelope Cruz nip shots, and the incredibly eclectic soundtrack featuring classics from Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel, as well as somber cuts from Radiohead and R.E.M. Fortunately, this all diverts your attention from the nonsensical plot (I mean, really, why would you set your splice point for AFTER the disfiguring car wreck?). Although, maybe that's why it's nonsensical in the first place.
5 - Hot Rod, 2007
Category: show-stealer
When a movie is utterly dumb, it can be painful. But when music is utterly dumb, it can be a blast (see: Ke$ha). This dumb comedy celebrates some of the best dumb, montage-ready songs of the '80s, including forgotten gems like "Two Of Hearts" and "You're The Voice," plus four Europe songs. Is it absurd to include four Europe songs? Of course. Which is exactly why it works.
6 - Above The Rim, 1994
Category: show-stealer
One of a multitude of forgettable sports flicks, except it has arguably the best hip-hop soundtrack of all time: Dr. Dre in the studio, 2Pac's first go-round with Death Row, Snoop Dogg and, oh, maybe you've heard of a little ditty called "Regulate." If aliens wanted to know what West Coast rap sounded like in the early '90s (these aliens are incredibly curious about incredibly specific topics), you'd hand them this album.
7 - Good Will Hunting, 1997
Category: trickster
Now that we're well past the 10-year statute of limitations, can we all finally admit this movie was an overrated fluke? No? Well, let's at least agree that the aching Elliott Smith-centric soundtrack still holds up. The album also contains Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street," which is the melted Velveeta of songs: unnaturally smooth and cheesy, but undeniably appealing.
8 - Idlewild, 2006
Category: show-stealer
You know what they say: A bloated album from Outkast is better than a fine-tuned effort from anyone else. Highlights include "Mighty O," "N2U," "Morris Brown" and "Call The Law" featuring Janelle Monae. Andre 3000 and Big Boi can do no wrong (cinematic endeavors notwithstanding).
9 - 21, 2008
Category: show-stealer
A murderer's row of late-aughts hit-makers: Rihanna, LCD Soundsystem, MGMT, Mark Ronson, Peter Bjorn and John. We'll just pretend that remix of The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" didn't happen (which is also what Kevin Spacey does with this movie).
10 - RocknRolla, 2008
Category: show-stealer
All of Guy Ritchie's crime capers are injected with a rollicking mix of songs. But this is the first collection to surpass the film, thanks to stompers from The Hives, The Clash, Wanda Jackson and a few gritty blues covers.
- Reference/Source: MTV.com by Clutch Staff (Movies, Music)
LONDON – Amy Winehouse left a trove of unreleased music, but no decision has been made about whether it will be released, people close to the singer say.
The soul diva, who had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, was found dead of unknown causes at her London home on Saturday. She was 27.
Spokesman Chris Goodman said Thursday that Winehouse left behind "plenty" of material, but there have been no discussions yet about releasing anything.
It's not clear how finished the tracks are. Winehouse released only two albums in her lifetime, but had been in the studio sporadically over the past few years. In July 2010 she said a new album would appear within six months, but it was never finished.
The Guardian newspaper on Thursday quoted an unnamed spokesman "close to" record label Universal as saying Winehouse had left the "framework" of about a dozen songs.
The record company did not immediately return requests for comment from the Associated Press.
Producer Salaam Remi, who worked on both Winehouse albums — "Frank" and "Back to Black" — and was involved with her new material, told DJ Kim Kane of New York's Power 105.1 radio station that there were not large amounts of finished material, and Winehouse's estate had yet to approve the release of anything.
"We had a lot of things going, there are recordings, but first things first, I think," he said. "We're trying to focus on what's at hand and what her family wants to do."
There would certainly be an appetite for new material. Two days after her funeral, dozens of mourners continued to gather outside her home in north London, leaving flowers and taking photos.
Sales of Winehouse's music have soared since her death. In the U.S., digital sales of her tracks have risen by 2,000 percent in the past week, according to Nielsen Soundscan, and "Back to Black" is set to re-enter the Billboard album chart at No. 9.
Britain's Official Charts Company said it looks like Winehouse will have seven songs in this week's top 40, which is announced Sunday.
Music critic John Aizlewood said posthumous releases can help cement an artist's legacy — or, if mishandled, do the opposite.
"The record company is there to tend the musical legacy," he said. "If they put out something that is obviously substandard, it will negate that legacy."
He cited the example of Jeff Buckley, who drowned in 1997 having released just one album, the highly praised "Grace."
"Since he's died he's put an awful lot of stuff out," Aizlewood said. "I don't think it's particularly enhanced his standing. It was the same with Jimi Hendrix — once he died, he really started releasing records. And most of them were appalling.
"It's such a dangerous area to start finishing unfinished music."
One track that should see the light of day is a version of pop standard "Body and Soul" that Winehouse recorded in March with Tony Bennett for a forthcoming duets album.
LONDON (Reuters) – Singer Adele and boyband The Wanted held their positions at the top of the British album and singles charts on Sunday, a day after the music world began mourning the death of soul singer Amy Winehouse.
Sales of the late 27-year-old singer's recordings rocketed in the hours after news spread of her death at her home in north London on Saturday.
The Official Charts Company said sales of Winehouse's albums had increased by 37 times in the few hours remaining in the period monitored for the weekly ranking. Track sales were up 23 times.
That was enough to propel her Grammy-winning 2006 release "Back to Black" to No. 59 in the album charts and to push the album's title track to 81 in the singles chart.
There was no change in the top five positions in the singles charts, with the Wanted's "Glad You Came" at No. 1 for a second week.
It was much the same in the album charts, where Adele remained at No. 1 and No. 3 with her releases "21" and "19," while Beyonce stayed in second place with her fourth studio album "4."
(Reporting by Tim Castle)
NEW YORK – Amy Winehouse released only two albums in her life, one of which sold more than a million copies, won five Grammys and sparked a retro soul movement that hasn't yet stopped.
The small output, in inverse relation to her outsized talent, made her death Saturday in London all the more tragic. Fans will only be able to imagine the unrecorded singles, the never-to-be concerts and the comeback album that didn't come.
It's a sadly familiar script in pop music, the history of which is checkered with greats and would-be greats snuffed out too early in life.
Almost as soon as news of Winehouse's death broke and spread across social media, fans were inducting her into the unfortunate pantheon of music talents gone too soon. Many noted that Winehouse, 27, shared the same age at death as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison.
The British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, though, realized that a meaningful commonality was being mistaken for coincidence.
"It's not age that Hendrix, Jones, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain & Amy have in common," wrote Bragg on Twitter. "It's drug abuse, sadly."
Those names were touted on the Web as the 27 Club, a ghoulish glamourizing of rock star death that makes it sound as though even in death VIPs remain behind a seductive velvet rope.
It's a term, sometimes called the Forever 27 Club, that has spawned a Wikipedia entry, an independent 2008 movie ("The 27 Club"), numerous websites and at least one book ("The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll").
The causes of death vary. Jones, the Rolling Stones guitarist, was found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool in 1969 and was ruled dead "by misadventure." Hendrix, having mixed sleeping pills and wine, died in 1970 in a London hotel room. Joplin, also in 1970, died in her Porsche in Los Angeles, with heroin suspected as the culprit. Morrison died of heart failure in 1971 in the bathtub of his Paris apartment. Cobain killed himself in 1994.
Some have claimed Cobain was aware of the so-called 27 Club. After his death, his mother, Wendy O'Connor, was understandably fed up with the concept, saying: "I told him not to join that stupid club."
The cause of Winehouse's death is not yet known. She long struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Last month, she canceled her European comeback tour after she swayed and slurred her way through barely recognizable songs in her first show in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. She flew home, and her management said she would take time off to recover.
What's particular about Winehouse's style of rock 'n' roll excess is that it was chronicled thoroughly by the tabloids and news media and was eagerly consumed by readers.
High-quality photographs captured her poor health, the scabs on her face and marks on her arms. Videos of her landed on the Internet, like one that showed her and Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty playing with newborn mice. Another showed her singing a racist ditty to the tune of a children's song. One, published by a tabloid newspaper, appeared to show her smoking crack cocaine.
Her run-ins with the law — she was cautioned by the police in 2008 for assault and in 2010 pleaded guilty to assaulting a theater manager who asked her to leave a family Christmas show because she'd had too much to drink — found headlines. So did her romances, such as her brief marriage in 2007 to music industry hanger-on Blake Fielder-Civil.
Rarely, though, were Winehouse's troubles romantic or appealing. Though a thoroughly captivating presence — all beehive and tattoos and candor — Winehouse always cut a desperate figure. Her struggles with substances and bipolar disorder (she said she declined to take medication for it) were painfully evident.
In death, her famous boast of "no, no, no" to rehab only sounds empty. The hard truths of addiction don't fit neatly into pop tunes — or morbid 27 Clubs — but play out over years of toil.
Early death typically mythologizes pop stars, inflating their reputation. Pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman, in his book "Killing Yourself to Live," wondered why "the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing."
The posthumous releases from Winehouse will surely follow, and her legacy will grow. But hopefully mythologizing will be resisted.
Winehouse's death, an unfortunate but unsurprising end to a long, public decline, might be best remembered not just as another tragic loss but as a modern portrait of how untrue those rock myths really are.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop singer Katy won a leading nine nominations for the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday, reducing eccentric superstar Lady Gaga to also-ran status with just three nods.
Sultry British singer Adele, whose second album "21" is the world's top-selling record this year, earned seven nominations -- all of them for her hit single "Rolling in the Deep".
Rapper Kanye West was the top male nominee, with seven nods for his futuristic "E.T" collaboration with Perry as well as his own music videos for "All of the Lights" and "Power".
Soulful "Grenade" singer Bruno Mars earned four nominations while Beyonce, Eminem, rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars and female rapper Nicki Minaj racked up three nods apiece. The awards will be handed out during a televised live show in Los Angeles on August 28. Winners are picked by public voting.
The nine nods for Perry, 26, were the climax of an extraordinary 12 months that has seen the once struggling gospel singer reinvent herself as a pop sex kitten with a string of hits like "California Gurls", "Teenage Dream" and "Firework".
"Firework" was nominated for both video of the year and best female video, while "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)" got a best pop video mention.
Perry will compete with Adele ("Rolling in the Deep"), first time VMA nominee Tyler the Creator ("Yonkers"), Bruno Mars ("Grenade") and the Beastie Boys ("Make Some Noise") for video of the year --the top MTV video music prize.
Lady Gaga was the big winner at last year's MTV music awards, taking home eight prizes, including video of the year for "Bad Romance".
But after months of hype for her new album "Born This Way" the flamboyant New York singer was sidelined in the 2011 nominations. Her three nods came for best female video for "Born This Way", while "Judas" will compete for art direction and choreography.
Rappers Wiz Khalifa, Tyler the Creator, and Big Sean will face off in the best new artist category against American indie band Foster the People and hip-hop singer Kreayshawn.
The TV audience for last year's MTV Video Music Awards was the biggest since 2002, attracting some 11.4 million viewers.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
10 - Wag na (Original: Yeng Constantino)
9 - Elesi (Original: Rivermaya)
8 - Ulan (Original: Rivermaya)
7 - Lagi (Original: Kiss Jane)
6 - Liwanag sa Dilim (Original: Rivermaya)
5 - Sabihin mo na (Original: Top Suzara)
4 - Antukin (Original: Rico Blanco)
3 - Himala (Original: Rivermaya)
2 - Overdrive (Original: Eraserheads)
1 - Naiisip Mo Ba (His Original Song Debut)
- Reference/Source: daviddimuzio on Youtube Channel
- Reference/Source: Daviddimuzio.blogspot.com
- Reference/Source: Daviddimuzio.com
AboutDavid Dimuzio
"I wrote my first real song when I was 11 years old because I had a huge crush on a girl at camp. My heroes growing up where my favorite musicians, and that seemed to be what they did. I sang her the song after we attended the "summer camp dance" then timidly asked if I could kiss her, she said yes, and then we kissed each other on the cheek, and I realized I was on to something. I play guitar on my own recordings, write all of my own lyrics, and arrange all of my own music. "Subscribe to David Dimuzio
