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MUSIC NEWS

MTV Video Music Awards!
Wed, 09 Aug
MTV Video Music Awards! Live! August 31, 8PM.

Catch all the star-packed VMA action direct from New York on August 31. MTV News' preshow kicks things off at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT, followed by the big show at 8 p.m.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Shakira are front and center at this year's MTV Video Music Awards.
Tue, 01 Aug
The rock band and the pop superstar got seven nominations each for the videos "Dani California" and "Hips Don't Lie," respectively, MTV announced Monday. Both will compete for video of the year along with Christina Aguilera ("Ain't No Other Man"), Madonna ("Hung Up") and Panic! at the Disco ("I Write Sins Not Tragedies"). Madonna, Shakira and Aguilera also are nominated for best female video with Kelly Clarkson ("Because of You") and Nelly Furtado ("Promiscuous"). Her Madgesty is up for another three awards, including best dance video and best pop video. Aguilera, now in a '40s glamour-puss phase, also is nominated for best pop video and best choreography in a video. Nick Lachey's "What's Left of Me," which re-creates his breakup with Jessica Simpson, will vie for best male video with James Blunt ("You're Beautiful"), Kanye West ("Gold Digger"), T.I. ("What You Know") and Busta Rhymes (for his remix of "Touch It," featuring Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliott). The bands for best group video include the Chili Peppers, Fall Out Boy ("Dance, Dance") and Gnarls Barkley ("Crazy"). Performers were to be Beyonce Knowles, Justin Timberlake, Panic! at the Disco, The Killers and rappers T.I. and Ludacris. The Raconteurs, fronted by the White Stripes' Jack White, will provide the show's "soundtrack," MTV said. More performers and presenters were to be announced later. The 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, scheduled to air live on MTV, will take place Aug. 31 at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Viewers can watch videos and vote on the awards' general categories, such as best male video and best hip hop video, through Aug. 20 by visiting MTV Overdrive, an internet channel launched last year, at the Web site www.vma.mtv.com. Voting for the viewer's choice award starts Aug. 7 and runs through Aug. 31.

Mariah Carey Tour Kickoff: The Voice Outshines Costume Changes, Video Clips
Mon, 07 Aug
Miami show shoots for spectacle, but Carey and her pipes are main attraction.
MIAMI — Opening night of Mariah Carey's Adventures of Mimi: The Voice, the Hits, the Tour could have been subtitled The Videos, the Costumes, the Waiting. But when Carey set aside the spectacle to focus on her music and reach out to fans, she hit her stride — and those high Cs.
It could have been first-show jitters, but on Saturday night, the singer seemed preoccupied at the start of the concert — as if she forgot that the reason her fans had gathered (some from as far as Portugal and Peru) was to hear her sing, not to see how many outfits she could squeeze into. Carey's backup singers and dancers carried on while she changed, DJ Clue tried to keep the momentum going, and Spike Lee (via his mini Mimi movies about rumors and gossip the singer is always facing) tried to distract from the fact that for chunks of the two-hour show, Mariah was onscreen, but not onstage.
Perhaps her fashion-minded fans didn't mind — after all, Carey did show off a lot of skin, wearing a black bikini with a cape, two different gowns with exposed midriffs, and a metallic red burlesque number that lent itself to lots of straddling poses behind a straight-back chair during "Breakdown" (see "Mariah Turning Into Superhero, James Bond On Upcoming Tour"). But it wasn't just Carey's cutout gowns that had something missing — being offstage for 10 minutes at a stretch meant the set list also got the cutout treatment, reducing several songs to snippets.
On a duet with her backup singer and fan favorite Trey Lorenz, she didn't have time to sing the entire "One Sweet Day" with him so they started the song at the bridge. And though Carey claims "I Know What You Want" — her hit with opening act Busta Rhymes — she didn't seem to know that that the crowd wanted was to see them perform the song together. Busta had included the song in his set, exhorting the ladies to sing Carey's part, and teased that he'd be back later. But when it was Carey's turn onstage, she opted to have the rapper "appear" via the music video they shot together in 2003. Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard also participated in much the same manner during "Heartbreaker," "It's Like That," and "Fantasy," which was more understandable — but Busta?
Carey was clued in that her fans wanted to hear a lot of inspirational numbers, so she packed the set with "Make It Happen," "Fly Like a Bird" (which came with a backing choir), and "Hero," which she said wasn't planned, but so many people had told her it had "changed their lives," that she "can't do a show without it." Those are all big numbers, and no one sings big better than Mariah — she hit all the high C notes with ease — but it was when she brought the show down a notch halfway through the set that she seemed happiest.
Standing on a platform in the middle of the floor seats, Carey was able to reach out to the fans and they to her. One girl even threw her purse to Carey as an offering (whatever happened to the days of bras and roses?). As if in exchange, Carey tossed her sunglasses out to the sea of grabbing hands. "I'm in the middle of the people," she said, amazed, as if to herself. Though "Don't Forget About Us" and "Always Be My Baby" are meant to be love songs, she sang them as if they were love letters to her fans, sending her dancers away so it would be just her and her adoring public for a moment. "We didn't really rehearse this," she apologized, but having a spontaneous moment was exactly what she needed to get back on track.
While all the glitz and glamour of the lights, the dancers, the video screens, the costumes, and the confetti are what we expect from a diva of Carey's stature, her fans actually want something far less extravagant: All they were talking about while filing in and out of the venue were the songs. It sounds simple enough, but Carey doesn't let it be simple — not when she can make holding a note, as she did in the encore of "We Belong Together," a major accomplishment. Clutching herself tight as if she could bottle it up inside somehow before she had to ultimately let go, she found her release, her purpose. "I didn't make it easy," she said, after letting the last strain fall away. And if it were easy, no one would be in awe that despite everything else — first-night glitches, gossip and all — she nailed it.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West And More Rock Out At Lollapalooza 2006
Mon, 07 Aug
Festival also features Flaming Lips, Common, Raconteurs, Sleater-Kinney, Go! Team, Wolfmother, Queens of the Stone Age and several dozen others.
CHICAGO — With the temperature a fraction cooler than last year's triple digits and attendance more than doubling — to an estimated 170,000 people checking out 130 bands on nine stages over three days — Lollapalooza seems well on its way to establishing itself as one of the premier destination festivals in the country.
Organizers doubled the size of the festival — which took place along the lakefront here in Grant Park — during its second year as a non-touring fest. The two main stages were set up three-quarters of a mile apart on either side of the festival grounds, with the space between featuring seven smaller stages (including ones dedicated to comedy and kids' music) and a social-responsibility area focused on environmental issues. There was plenty of room for the crowd, which ranged from newborns passed out in strollers to teenagers and their parents sprawled out on blankets. Lollapalooza featured more hip-hop this year than last (with Common, Lady Sovereign, Lyrics Born and Blackalicious joining headliner Kanye West) and plenty of indie-rock and jam bands spread out over each day's 10-hour schedule, making it nearly impossible to see it all, but we tried. Here's a diary of the highlights. ...
Day 1
11:26 a.m. As the gates open for the festival's first day, a clutch of fans sprint toward the far end of the grounds to get up front for Panic! at the Disco's set, some three hours later. They succeed, beating out four friends from Chicago who have been following the band all summer.
11:56 a.m. Walking past the Kidzapalooza stage, a sunshiny song called "Scrub a Dub" by the band ScribbleMonster bleeds out onto the midway, to the confusion of the kid-less throngs walking by.
12:06 p.m. Dax Riggs, singer of the twisted blues duo (augmented by a touring bassist) Deadboy & the Elephantmen, seems to be challenging Panic to a makeup throwdown with his heavy dark eyeliner.
12:27 p.m. Texan techno-punk duo Ghostland Observatory have the festival's best look so far, thanks to keyboardist/beatmaster Thomas Turner's flowing powder-blue cape.
1:52 p.m. It just seems like Aqualung — essentially Londoner Matt Hales — don't really belong here: The Coldplay-lite (if that's possible) sound comes off kind of limp for the chatty early afternoon crowd. Hales seems to get it, though. He thanks the crowd for cheering for a ballad about "abject misery," then busts a piano freestyle tune that turns things around. "You f---ing could be happy for all the things that are going for him ... he's English, so he's a sad bastard," Hales said. Funny, but a girl near the front still sneers, "Is that Chris Martin?" Hales finally redeems himself with a soaring cover of Queen's "Somebody to Love" (a very difficult song to pull off).
2:41 p.m. Panic! at the Disco bring it. With help from their limber, theatrical friends in the Lucent Dossier dance troupe, they take the stage with a circus flourish thanks to a made-up carnival barker and two naughty cabaret girls in lingerie and clown makeup. Guitarist Ryan Ross wins the fashion award, as usual, busting out a ruffled shirt, fancy red vest, tight black pants and dramatic spangly swirls of makeup on his cheek. The band throws in a tweaked-out cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police" and singer Brendon Urie gets a lapdance from a sexy cabaret clown during "But It's Better If You Do." Sadly, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan doesn't make the dramatic entrance some had hoped for when Panic bust out their cover of the Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight."
3:25 p.m. The Blisters rock the biggest crowd at the Kidzapalooza stage all day. It doesn't hurt that they're tearing through covers of the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop," the Flaming Lips' "She Don't Use Jelly" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Oh, did we mention that the singer and drummer are Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy's sons? Proud papa Tweedy stands halfway back in the crowd with some of his bandmates, fairly anonymous in a straw hat, tinted shades and a bushy beard, mouthing some of the words to the Beatles' "Dear Prudence."
6:55 p.m. The Raconteurs make their Chicago debut in style, ripping into "Intimate Secretary" with leader Jack White wearing freaky white kabuki makeup. "Steady as She Goes" sounds so big it seems to echo off the buildings downtown, and White chops out some futuristic blues solos that send a few girls in the crowd into peasant-dress-spinning hippy dances. With only one album to draw from, the band slips in a pair of killer covers, a take on Sonny & Cher's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" and a chugging Southern-boogie version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" that is one of the weekend's high points.
7:47 p.m. Playing one of their final shows before their announced breakup, Sleater-Kinney appear to be getting along just fine, hitting fans with some signature jagged guitar and yelping vocals on newer songs like "The Fox" and "What's Mine Is Yours" (see "Sleater-Kinney Announce 'Indefinite Hiatus,' Thank Fans For 'Passion And Loyalty' "). Guitarist Corin Tucker sings the line "Don't go away" during "Turn It On" — a sentiment fans can appreciate, with some of them chanting "don't leave us!"
8:34 p.m. Though they'd expressed awe at being one of the first night's closing acts, Death Cab for Cutie are on top of their game, drawing the day's second-biggest crowd (the Raconteurs took top honors) with wistful songs like "The New Year" and "Soul Meets Body," which serve as a nice send-off into the half-moon-illuminated night.
Day 2
12:15 p.m. This is not the best way to start the day: Be Your Own Pet singer Jemina Pearl, who spazzes around the stage during "Girls on TV" like she's stepping on an exposed electrical cord with wet feet, informs the audience that she just threw up halfway through the band's set. She blames it on heat sickness. "It wasn't that much. It tasted like watermelon," she lets the kids know. Thanks ...
12:34 p.m. Seems like Living Things singer Lillian Berlin might have changed his tune a bit since his anti-American onstage banter got him in trouble with Alter Bridge last month. During a bluesy take on their anti-war tune "Bombs Below," he yells "All hail the U.S. military!," and then he jumps off the stage into the audience and grabs a Navy seaman from the pit and throws his arms around him. A short time later, during "Bom Bom Bom," he shouts "We love America!" and, later still, "We salute our brothers and sisters in Iraq." OK, we get it. He also leads the crowd in a chant of "Peace! Peace!" Now that's more like it. ...
1:44 p.m. England's Go! Team put on a cheerleader camp for live hip-hop-soul junkies. Lead rapper/dancer Ninja bounces around in her cheer outfit during "Panther Dash" as the rest of the group swirls around her, trading off instruments, which include guitars, bass, keyboards, flute, xylophones, harmonica and two sets of drums.
2:30 p.m. Mike Patton is a freak. And between the white linen suit, the hair net and the smoothly flowing "Roll it up and smoke it" chorus of "Mojo," it's kind of hard to figure out what's going on with the former Faith No More singer's new group, Peeping Tom, a punk hip-hop/soul mash-up (see "Mike Patton's Agenda: Touring With Peeping Tom, Humiliating Mark Hoppus And Danny DeVito"). He can't quite match bandmate Rahzel's beatboxing skills (he busted out a bit of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army"), but Patton holds his own.
2:51 p.m. The members of 30 Seconds to Mars can't take their eyes off Coheed and Cambria, who bring a rare touch of prog-metal to one of the main stages.
3:34 p.m. And then there's Wolfmother. The Aussie trio punch up the way-back machine with their Led Zeppelin-meets-Black Sabbath riffery on songs like "Dimension" and "Mind's Eye," inspiring the biggest crowd of the day so far to indulge in the first crowd-surfing of the festival.
4:31 p.m. Gnarls Barkley are known for their sartorial flair, but no one could have predicted that the group would make their entrance in fresh tennis whites. Singer Cee-Lo, swinging a tennis racket, fronts a 13-piece band that includes a string section and three back-up singers, one of whom plays a racket with a drum stick during songs like "Who Cares" and the jam of the summer, "Crazy." Seemingly paying homage to the Raconteurs, who covered "Crazy" the day before, Barkley bust out their Motown-style cover of "There Is an End," written by the Greenhornes — the Ohio band whose rhythm section is moonlighting in the Raconteurs.
6:40 p.m. A dozen dancing alien girls, 12-foot tall Santas, spacemen, another dozen booty-shaking guys in Santa suits, Superman, Batman, the Flash and Wonder Woman, 50 giant blue balloons bouncing over the crowd, confetti guns, a bullhorn spewing green smoke and a giant confetti-filled balloon exploded over the stage using a leaf blower: Just a typical Flaming Lips set. Oh, and they played crowd favorites like "Race for the Prize," "Do You Realize??" and "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," which singer Wayne Coyne asked the crowd to dedicate to Israel as a plea to stop bombing Lebanon.
8:38 p.m. Lolla runs like clockwork, but hometown hero Kanye West is making the crowd of nearly 60,000 wait.
8:39 p.m.He finally emerges to the strains of "Diamonds From Sierra Leone," running back and forth across the stage as tens of thousands throw up the Roc diamond hand signal. Kanye's DJ A-Trak busts out some space-age scratches during "Heard 'Em Say," but it wouldn't be Kanye without drama. The rapper is thrown off by sound problems and complains about coming home after touring the world and having to deal with his vocals cutting out. "Y'all embarrass me in front of my city?" he says. "There's gonna be some repercussions!" He gets over it and brings out protege GLC and fellow Chicago rappers Twista and Common for cameos, as well as Lupe Fiasco, who skateboards onto the stage to trade verses on his hit, "Kick Push."
9:23 p.m. West's string section runs through a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" and the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" while Kanye attends to some backstage business, returning for a triumphant shout-along version of "Gold Digger" that can probably be heard blocks away. He doesn't say, but maybe it redeems the earlier sound problems, making Kanye the prince of his city for the night.
Day 3
11:59 p.m. What a way to wake up: Mucca Pazza, the punk-rock marching band, crowds the stage with more than 25 players, who spin, jump, run and skip while playing Dixieland rave-ups and doing high-energy mime skits alongside their cheerleader section.
12:53 p.m. Lolla founder Perry Farrell does his customary mini set of songs on the Kidzapalooza stage with guitarist Peter DiStefano. He brings on surprise guest Patti Smith, who doesn't seem to get the whole "kid" part of Kidapalooza, as she goes on to tell the mini rockers that "any a--hole can play guitar." She unveils a song she says she wrote the day before about the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana. "How would you feel if 27 [of your children] were blown away by missiles and bombs?" she asks the crowd. The new, untitled song features lyrics such as "And the dead lay in strange shapes ... limp little bodies caked in mud ... small, small hands found in the road." At least it ended on a somewhat hopeful thought for the visibly shocked crowd: "The miracle is love."
2:26 p.m. English dance group Hot Chip prove that even five guys who look like rumpled college math teaching assistants can rock if they can kick out hot jams like "Boy From School."
3:37 p.m. 30 Seconds to Mars make a dramatic entrance in all-white outfits and creepy Kabuki masks. Singer Jared Leto takes his life into his hands by scrambling up the rigging to sing a song from 40 feet above the crowd.
6:35 p.m. Wilco win the award for inspiring the oddest singalong of the weekend when the crowd enthusiastically shouts out the line, "To the handshake drugs I bought downtown" during a set that features four new songs.
7:27 p.m. And Queens of the Stone Age win the award for the loudest set of the weekend. In fact, you can hear it all the way over at the stage Wilco is playing on: three-fourths of a mile away.
8:21 p.m. Perry Farrell promises that the Red Hot Chili Peppers will "take the cork off and blow it sky high." And while the veteran punk-funk band didn't bust out any of their signature outrageous costumes (though the crazy quilt of colors and patterns on Flea's pants and shirt was close), fans ate up funky versions of "Can't Stop," "Dani California," "Scar Tissue," "Readymade," "Me and My Friends" and short snippets of the Clash's "London Calling" and Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done." With more than 70,000 people undulating to "Give It Away," the Peppers indeed pulled the cork on what has quickly established itself as Chicago's newest summer tradition.

Lauryn Hill Makes Surprise Visit, Wu-Tang Remember ODB At Rock The Bells Festival
Mon, 07 Aug
Supernatural makes hip-hop history at SoCal event with nine-hour freestyle.
SAN BERNARDINO, California — Southern Californians are notorious for arriving late and leaving early, but an estimated 20,000 hip-hop fans didn't want to miss a second of Saturday's Rock the Bells festival.
Tributes were paid and history was made, as hip-hop living legends, surprise guests and a record-breaking performance gave the fans a whole lot more than they could have ever imagined.
Fans have come to expect the unexpected from Rock the Bells, now in its third year. But when special guest Lauryn Hill took the stage, fan reaction was lukewarm, to be kind.
Earlier, Talib Kweli got the crowd moving to his blend of street poetry and socially conscious flow. Mos Def followed, giving up a crowd-pleasing but extra-long performance, which left many in the audience starving for the headlining heavyweights, Wu-Tang Clan.
So when a live band began playing smoothed-out jazz grooves, many fans unwillingly put down their W hand signals. Hill emerged onstage to light applause and "Wu-Tang!" chants — not exactly the raucous ovation expected for the woman many regard as the greatest female MC of all time. She told the crowd that she just wanted to come by and do a song or two, delivering "Doo Wop (That Thing)," "Lost Ones" and the Fugees' "How Many Mics."
Then the fans got what they'd been waiting for. Wu-Tang's rabid army of fans didn't need any cues to thrust their W hand signs proudly into the air, as sirens wailed and the Shaolin warriors brought the ruckus as hungry as ever.
Before assaulting the stage, Method Man called this show a "Dirty-versary," dedicating it to the late Wu soldier, Ol' Dirty Bastard. The fans waved and nodded to every beat and verse, as Black Eyed Peas' Will.I.Am and onetime tourmate Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine joined in.
There were a few more surprises for fans earlier in the day before the Clan wrapped things up. After blending recent material ("Verbal Clap") with vintage Daisy Age hits ("Buddy" and "Me, Myself and I"), De La Soul's Posdnuos and Trugoy brought out some fellow backpacker vets not on the lineup. Dres of Black Sheep joined De La Soul for "The Choice Is Yours" and Phife Dawg came out for a medley of A Tribe Called Quest hits, including "Buggin' Out," "Check the Rhime" and "Award Tour."
De La gave way to Redman, who, in between moving the crowd with hits like "Time 4 Sum Aksion" and "Diggy Doc," told the crowd he had partied too much and left his luggage in Brick City. He asked whoever could spare some "extra drawers and socks" to meet him at his dressing room. Upon finishing his set and returning to his trailer, Red was later seen smiling broadly with women's G-string thongs draped over his head.
Not counting Red's dressing-room antics and the mainstage performers, much of the festival's action came from the adjacent VIP ballroom, where rapper Supernatural set out to make history by breaking the "Guinness Book of World Records" mark for longest freestyle. Supernat's goal was to break the standing record of eight hours and 45 minutes and flow for nine hours. He designed the stage to match his living room — complete with coffee table, leather couches, bottles of Heineken and Hennessy — and a dictionary for inspiration.
With DJs Rhettmatic, Icy Ice and Rocky Rock among others rotating turntable responsibilities throughout the day, Supernat looked to the crowd to keep him going. He placed a dry-erase board by the stage for audience members to jot down ideas and even asked some to hand him items in their pockets that he could work into his rhymes. Fans gave him money, fake cannabis and even batteries.
Supernatural didn't need the batteries, as he spit then spit some more, building up a serious rasp in his voice while pumping up the swelling audience as it witnessed history. When the beat ended, Supernatural had his record — freestyling straight for nine hours and 12 minutes.

Shakira, Chili Peppers, Madonna, Panic! Lead List Of Nominees For MTV Video Music Awards.
Mon, 31 Jul

Performers include Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, T.I., Ludacris and the Killers.
The list of nominees for the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards includes a familiar mix of hip-shakers, funky Californians, ambitious blondes — and one group of tight-trousered gatecrashers.
Swivel-hipped Shakira and the rejuvenated Red Hot Chili Peppers lead the field with seven noms each, followed closely by the majestic Madonna and upstart Las Vegas rockers Panic! at the Disco, both with five nods. Christina Aguilera is next with four.
Videos from all five artists — Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie," the Chili Peppers' "Dani California," Madonna's "Hung Up," Panic's "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" and Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man" — will go head-to-head for the coveted Video of the Year Moonman at the 2006 VMAs, which will air live from New York's Radio City Music Hall on August 31.
Panic! are also one of the first artists confirmed to perform on the show, joining an all-star cast that also includes Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, T.I., Ludacris and the Killers.
Shakira's "Hips" scored nominations for Best Female Video (where it also faces off against Aguilera and Madonna, as well as Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You" and Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous"), Best Dance Video, Best Pop Video and the Viewer's Choice Award, plus a pair of technical nods — for Choreography and Art Direction — along with its Video of the Year nom.
In addition to their Video of the Year nom, the Chili Peppers' "Dani California" is up for Best Group Video and Best Rock Video (it also landed a host of technical nominations, for Direction, Editing, Cinematography and Art Direction).
"I found out we got [seven nominations] when my office paged me this morning," RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis told MTV News. "And ironically enough, seven is the number my 4-year-old nephew predicted when he first saw the video. You know when you're getting through to the 4-year-old kids you're doing something right. Making a great video still means a lot to us — we look at it as a great opportunity and we put our hearts into it. So these nominations mean a lot to us."
VMA vet Madonna is up for Best Female Video, Dance Video, Pop Video and Choreography, while Panic! at the Disco — who less than two years ago weren't even a band — saw their "Sins" clip nominated for Best Rock Video, Best Group Video and Best New Artist (going up against Angels & Airwaves' "The Adventure," Avenged Sevenfold's "Bat Country," Rihanna's "S.O.S.," Chris Brown's "Run It!" and James Blunt's "You're Beautiful"), plus an Art Direction nom.
"It was kind of mind-blowing when we heard that the Red Hot Chili Peppers got a few and then Madonna got a few, and we were right there with them," Panic! frontman Brendon Urie said Monday (July 31). "It's crazy to see us up there. It's been a year of firsts for us: We did our first album and we got our first big sales, and our first gold record, and now we got our first five VMA nominations. ... It's awesome to see all the success that's coming."
Aguilera's four nominations include nods for Video of the Year and Best Female Video, while a gaggle of artists — including AFI, Chris Brown and Gnarls Barkley — locked up three nominations apiece. Fall Out Boy, Kanye West, Rihanna and the Pussycat Dolls each scored two noms.
"It feels phenomenal," T.I. — whose "What You Know" clip is nominated for Best Male Video and Best Rap Video — told MTV News. "Lots of hard work and perseverance paying off, and I'm definitely look forward to that big night. It's going to be a monumental evening. I'm excited because it's going to be my first time performing [at the awards], and I'm nominated. So it's been a great year for me, and I'm just looking forward to doing my thing."
For the first time in VMA history, viewers will be able to vote for their favorites in all categories (not just Viewer's Choice).
In addition, this year there will be two new categories for the online gaming community to vote on, through Gametrailers.com and Xfire: Best Video Game Soundtrack and Best Video Game Score. Winners will be announced live on vma.mtv.com on August 31 during the MTV Overdrive broadcast.

Panic! At The Disco Carry Emo-Punk Banner Into VMAs With Five Noms
Mon, 31 Jul

Las Vegas rookies score more nominations than Kanye, Fall Out Boy, Beyonce combined.
Call it Shock! at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards: Less than two years after forming in the suburbs of Las Vegas — as a Blink-182 cover band, no less — Panic! at the Disco are the biggest surprise so far of the 2006 VMAs, scoring an eye-opening five nominations ... the same number as Madonna and more than Kanye West, Fall Out Boy and Beyonce. Combined.
In fact, Panic's five nominations are more than pretty much everyone else (only Shakira and the Red Hot Chili Peppers — seven each — can claim to have more), capping off a mind-bending year in which they've sold nearly 1 million copies of their debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, dominated the "TRL" countdown and launched their own sold-out (and thoroughly over-the-top) headlining tour.
And while it hasn't always been smooth sailing — early on they found themselves unwittingly embroiled in a war of words with fellow Vegas synth-sters the Killers, then in June they split with founding bassist Brent Wilson under less-than-friendly circumstances — Panic's meteoric rise from pop-punk garage band to platinum-plus pinup stars has certainly been serendipitous, the kind of music-industry fairy tale that's equal parts persistence, patience and, well, Pete Wentz.
It all started in late 2004, when Panic's Ryan Ross and Brendon Urie began to commit to their laptops the demos they had been developing. On a whim, they sent them to Fall Out Boy bassist Wentz via a LiveJournal account. As luck would have it, Wentz and the rest of FOB were in Los Angeles working on From Under the Cork Tree. And the rest, as they say, is history (or, more specifically, the stuff of MySpace lore).
"[Wentz] listened to the stuff and got in touch with us ... [and] drove down to Vegas and heard the rest of our songs at band practice," Ross explained to MTV News back in February. "And right there, he said he wanted to sign us. And that was it. It happened really fast [and] there was a lot of pressure, because Pete had only heard, like, two to three songs, and all of a sudden we were expected to go and write a whole record, and no one was really certain how it was going to turn out."
Emphasis on "no one." At that moment people, people didn't know much of anything about Panic!, except that they had been signed to Wentz's Decaydance Records without ever playing a show, which almost instantly brought the band waves of Internet hateration.
"Almost right away we knew what was going to happen," Ross sighed. "We had two songs online and people were already making assumptions on what kind of band we were and what we were going to sound like."
"We never played shows in Vegas before we got signed, because the music scene there is, um, well, there's not a lot going on," drummer Spencer Smith added. "When we were writing all these songs, we'd sit around and talk about how nothing that was happening in Vegas was influencing us positively. All the bands there were so monotonous, and so it influenced us to be different."
And the songs they began working on with producer Matt Squire were most definitely "different," a whirly mix of circus calliopes and keyboards and horns that showed off the band's less-than-current influences (which, notably, included zero so-called "emo" acts).
"Some of our favorite bands are, like, Third Eye Blind and Counting Crows, and stuff like Danny Elfman and Jon Brion movie scores," Ross said, adding that the bandmembers also have a soft spot for the Decemberists and the Arcade Fire.
All the while, Wentz was hyping Panic! at every chance he got, dropping their name in interviews, wearing "Pete! At the Disco" T-shirts onstage and including the band on the 2005 Nintendo Fusion tour. On September 27 — one day before the Fusion tour kicked off in Detroit — Panic's debut, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, hit stores. By December it had cracked the Billboard albums chart top 200.
And then things started to get crazy.
Within a span of four months, Panic! would see the video for their first single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies," rocket up the "TRL" countdown as sales of Fever passed the 500,000 mark. At the end of March, they announced their very own headlining tour, and by June, the video for single #2, "But It's Better if You Do," was premiering on "TRL."
"Some aspects of the fame are annoying, but at the end of the day it's something we're most grateful for. It's certainly opened the door to a whole new batch of opportunities," Ross said. "I mean, we're already beginning to think about album number two, and we want to work with Jon Brion, or Kanye West or Danny Elfman, and they all are possibilities."
And now, with a load of nominations in tow, Panic! head into the Video Music Awards as both the outsiders and the carriers of the emo-punk banner. And for all that's been said (and blogged, posted and podcasted) about them, perhaps the best statement about the band's huge year is actually from last year. From the 2005 VMAs, nonetheless.
It was a quick shout-out Wentz gave to the band during a press junket on the day before the Awards, and, upon reading it now, it's prescient.
"I've got a couple of bands coming out soon on Decaydance, one being this band called Panic! at the Disco," Wentz said. "Their record is going to be your next favorite record. It's called A Fever You Can't Sweat Out — get it before your little brother does."
Safe to say he was right.

MTV Video Music Awards Returning To New York City
Sat, 22 Mar
The date for the 23rd annual MTV Video Music Awards has been set: August 31. And Miami's two-year stint playing host to the awards show ends as the VMAs return to New York City's Radio City Music Hall.
MTV announced this morning that the VMAs will be back in the Big Apple for a 13th year. The awards will be handed out inside Radio City Music Hall, the storied venue that has housed the event nine times before.
"New York City is our hometown, and we are really looking to showcase the music, culture, and people from every borough of this amazing city on TV, online, broadband, and wireless to fans around the globe," Christina Norman, president of MTV, said. "The VMAs are always the biggest party of the year and in 2006 we will take the show to unprecedented levels with fans interacting with music and stars through every single screen of MTV."
The 2006 VMAs will incorporate various platforms, including the MTV, MTV2, and mtvU television outlets, online at MTV.com, MTV Overdrive and mtvUber and through wireless content.
Information on performers, nominees, presenters and this year's host will be announced soon.
"We are proud that MTV has made New York City its home for the past 25 years, and once again has selected the Big Apple as host for the 23rd annual MTV Video Music Awards," commented the city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg. "An event of this magnitude and cultural importance will generate tremendous media exposure and, with the thousands of visitors expected, will yield a positive economic impact projected in excess of $25 million."