Michael Jackson was working on two albums

NEW YORK (Billboard) – At the time of Michael Jackson's death last week, it was well-known that he was preparing for a 50-show concert series at London's O2 Arena later this month.

What was less well-known -- and what many are now speculating about -- was what kind of recordings Jackson had done for the last few years.

Billboard has learned that the singer was working on two albums at the time of his death: one in the pop vein that made him famous and another that would consist of an instrumental classical composition. And while some believe the star wanted to recapture his '80s glory days -- or escape financial trouble -- those who worked with him recently say he was motivated by his fans and his children.

Jackson was working on the pop album with songwriter Claude Kelly and R&B star Akon, who says that Jackson was motivated by the ticket sales for his performances.

Wake 'will open to Jackson fans'

Michael Jackson's body will go on public view at his Neverland ranch, according to reports.

Although the family are yet to confirm any details of the 50-year-old's funeral, reports in the US media suggest his body will be taken to the ranch about 150 miles north-west of Los Angeles.

The complex was where Jackson kept his personal fairground and where he often entertained fans and it is thought a public viewing of the King of Pop's body has been scheduled for Friday, with a private funeral being held on Sunday.

Meanwhile a Jackson family lawyer confirmed the singer - who suffered a cardiac arrest last Thursday - had left a will.

Londell McMillan said: "My clients are now aware after filings that a will has been presented. His various advisers are looking for additional documents."

In documents filed in court when Jackson's mother won temporary custody of her son's three children and the family moved to become administrators of his estate, it was stated the singer died without a valid will.

Michael Jackson feared he'd "end up" like Elvis: Lisa Marie

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Michael Jackson's former wife Lisa Marie Presley said on Friday the pop star was a tortured soul who once predicted that he would "end up" like her father, the late rock icon Elvis Presley.

Writing on her MySpace blog, Presley also ripped into reports in the media that her relationship with Jackson was contrived, saying they split because she could not save him from self-destructive behavior.

"Our relationship was not a 'a sham' as is being reported in the press," Presley, 41, wrote in the blog posting, which was verified by her spokesperson.

She called it an "unusual relationship" but added: "Nonetheless, I do believe he loved me as much as he could love anyone and I loved him very much."

Presley, the only daughter of the original "King of Rock 'n' Roll" and a performer in her own right, describes having a conversation with Jackson about her father's August 16, 1977 death. Elvis Presley died at age 42 of a heart attack after years of drug use.

News of Jackson's death first spread online

NEW YORK – It was a where-were-you moment in a digital age. Michael Jackson's death was not learned from a fatherly TV news anchor. Instead, the news first spread online.

Some of the initial reports from various outlets were confusing: Was Jackson still alive? Was he in a coma? They spread like wildfire across news sites, social media networks and Twitter.

The celebrity Web site TMZ.com. site broke the news of Jackson's death at 5:20 p.m. Thursday.

It was a huge scoop for the AOL-owned TMZ, though many did not believe TMZ's report until it was matched by more established news organizations.

"Everything starts with a tip," said Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ. "We wouldn't have put it up if we weren't positive."

Jackson's death was confirmed by the Los Angeles Times and then The Associated Press just minutes before the nightly network news began. The anchors relayed the news at the top of their broadcasts, though CBS and ABC quickly moved on to their prepared obituaries for Farrah Fawcett, who died earlier Thursday.

Springsteen, Ticketmaster battle escalates

NASHVILLE (Billboard) – Bruce Springsteen's manager has come out swinging against the Newark Star Ledger and Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller following a news report that the rocker's organization kept many of the best tickets to a recent show out of the public's hands.

The Ledger reported last week that about 2,300 total tickets for a May 21 performance at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., were held back for "friends of the band, the record label and the New Jersey Sports and Exhibition Authority, which operates the venue."

Diller was quoted in the New York Post as saying Springsteen "has been one of our most vocal critics on our ticketing policies and while he's more than entitled to his opinion, it seems minimally fair-minded to point out that in the concert that created the battle, where Ticketmaster apologized for making a technical mistake, it seems that Mr. Springsteen held back from his fans all but 108 of the 1,126 tickets closest to the stage," Diller said.

The entire fracas dates back to February 6 Springsteen on-sale chaos for the Izod show, where the Springsteen camp claimed Ticketmaster directed fans to its in-house secondary site TicketsNow in a "bait-and-switch" maneuver.

Variable iTunes pricing a moneymaker for artists

DENVER/NASHVILLE (Billboard) – In April, soon after Apple gave labels the ability to set different prices for their songs on iTunes, every track on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" was raised to $1.29.

Some music fans complained about these price increases, and many technology executives and bloggers proclaimed that labels were making the wrong move. But while sales of individual tracks from "Dark Side of the Moon" dipped by 11%, album sales remained steady. And all sales combined generated about 12% more revenue in the six weeks after iTunes implemented variable pricing than they did in the six weeks before that.

These are the results labels were hoping for when Apple relented and began selling music at three price tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. They certainly put enough work into getting there: It took years of negotiation to get Apple to break its one-price-fits-all format.

Playing with pricing won't solve the music industry's biggest problem: Digital revenue is increasing too slowly to compensate for the decline of CD sales. But variable pricing will help labels bring in more money from online downloads, according to the results so far.

News Corp sees fair competition boosting Italy TV

MILAN (Reuters) – TV and publishing group News Corp sees fair competition in the Italian TV sector as favoring viewers, according to News's Chief Executive for Europe and Asia James Murdoch on Thursday.

Murdoch, who is also chairman of News Corp's Italian satellite pay-TV unit Sky Italia, made his comments in the text of a speech at a gala dinner for Italian advertisers and entrepreneurs.

"Competition favoring customers based on transparency and in the framework of Italian and European norms is making Italy a better country while competition carried out in any other way without these rules makes exactly the opposite," he said.

"We are proud of being able to carry this competition in Italy where 5 million families have replied positively. Fair competition is an essential element in a dynamic society," he said in the text of the speech.

Media commentators see a clash between News Corp owner and chairman Rupert Murdoch, father of James, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister who owns the mainly free-to-air broadcaster Mediaset SpA.

Susan Boyle returns to tour after "rest day"

LONDON (Reuters) – Susan Boyle, who became famous the world over after appearing on the "Britain's Got Talent" television show, returned to the stage on Monday after canceling

a weekend performance amid concerns over her health.

The 48-year-old church volunteer from Scotland delighted the home crowd of 6,000 in Glasgow by taking the stage and singing "Memory" from the musical "Cats" followed by the tune that made her a star, "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables."

"She sang in front of 6,000 Scots," said a spokeswoman for the tour. "She's ecstatic," the spokeswoman added, saying Boyle earned a standing ovation from the audience.

Boyle's first performance on Britain's Got Talent in April was downloaded around 200 million times on the internet, making her a global celebrity, but she has struggled to cope with the pressures of her sudden fame.

"American Idol" singer Iraheta wins record deal

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Allison Iraheta, a 17-year-old high-school student who finished fourth on "American Idol," has signed a contract with 19 Recordings, the company affiliated with the top-rated reality show.

Iraheta joins "American Idol" winner Kris Allen and runner-up Adam Lambert on the label, which is run by "Idol" creator Simon Fuller.

Before their albums are released in the fall, Allen, Lambert and Iraheta will reunite with their castmates on the annual "American Idol" tour, which kicks off July 5 in Portland, Ore.

Fuller said Iraheta is one of the best teenage singers the show has ever discovered. Her big songs included the jazz standard "Someone to Watch Over Me" and Heart's "Alone."

Iraheta, the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants who live in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, has said that she aspired to compete on "American Idol" since she was 9 years-old.

Singer-songwriter Kenny Rankin dead of lung cancer

LOS ANGELES – Kenny Rankin, a brilliant pop vocalist and highly regarded musician-songwriter whose stylings ranged from jazz to pop to the world music influences he picked up as a child in New York, has died of complications related to lung cancer, his record company announced Monday. He was 69.

Rankin died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Mack Avenue Records spokesman Don Lucoff said.

The musician, who first gained acclaim as one of the guitarists on Bob Dylan's landmark 1965 album, "Bringing it all Back Home," had been preparing to record an album of new material when he became ill a few weeks ago. Recording sessions scheduled with producer Phil Ramone were canceled as his health began to deteriorate.

"That he was still at the top of his game is one of the saddest parts of his passing for me," Denny Stilwell, president of Mack Avenue Records, said in a statement. "He performed the new material in our office over the last few months and his voice was still in its finest form — he sounded absolutely amazing. Our hearts and prayers are with his family."

Indie band Dirty Projectors shifts gears on "Orca"

NEW YORK (Billboard) – The Dirty Projectors' last two releases, "The Getty Address" and "Rise Above," were lo-fi concept albums built around inscrutable song structures. Given the Brooklyn-based indie band's track record, "Stillness Is the Move" -- the group's pop-confection first single from the forthcoming album "Bitte Orca" -- represents a jarring departure.

Over a shimmering guitar loop and playful backing beat, guitarist Amber Coffman sings about the fear and comfort of settling down, something the band may be experiencing stylistically.

"I've never identified with that idea of 'experimental.' I like music that takes risks and tries new things," singer/guitarist Dave Longstreth said. "But I like music that is assured and resolved too."

Slated for release June 9 on Domino Records, "Bitte Orca" contains arrangements as intricate as those on the band's previous albums. But tracks like "Cannibal Resource" and "Two Doves" offer a more immediate approach.

The set was recorded in Brooklyn and Portland, Oregon, and it's a departure from the band's previous album-spanning concepts. "Rise Above," for instance, was a song-for-song reinterpretation of punk band Black Flag's 1981 album "Damaged."

Carradine's "Americana" was one from the heart

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – It was doubly sad to learn of the death of actor David Carradine in an apparent suicide Thursday in Bangkok, having witnessed one of the more crushing failures in his artistic life.

In 1981, when he came to the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes with his handmade film "Americana," Carradine was at the top of his game. He was the star of a smash TV series, "Kung Fu," and such fine films as "Bound for Glory" and "The Long Riders."

But Carradine wanted to be a filmmaker. Tenaciously, he put together a clutch of film projects for himself to direct and planned to use his acting pay to finance his films, just as John Cassavetes was doing.

He hoped to launch this career with "Americana." The film was a poetic fable about an ex-Green Beret, played by Carradine, who drifts into a small Midwestern town in 1973 and impulsively decides to repair a broken-down merry-go-round. An allegory about the joy of work, the loneliness of an artist and small-town prejudices, "Americana" is a snapshot in time: Here we see a country, still caught up in the Vietnam War, struggling to restore a sense of decency to its collective soul.

"Americana" won an award in Cannes, but Carradine needed American audiences to see the film. When he told me about the project at a dinner party, I asked to see the film. Most impressed, I got an assignment from The New York Times to do a profile on Carradine the filmmaker.

Publishers look to music lessons on digital content

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Publishers are learning from music labels' struggle to make online music profitable and combat piracy, but so-called e-books will only add value to the industry and not replace printed books, experts say.

Amid a global economic downturn, the publishing industry is also trying to deal with a growing demand for online content driven by advances in technology with electronic readers like Amazon.com's Kindle and Sony Corp's Reader.

But it is learning from music labels, who have seen a shift in fans to digital sales from physical sales. These labels have filed countless lawsuits to combat free online music-sharing sites, while trying to make digital distribution profitable.

"Our aim is not to beat up the music industry ... but that said, they sure did screw it up," Andrew Albanese, Publisher's Weekly features editor, told a panel discussion on the topic at the recent Book Expo America in New York City.

British Internet talent star Boyle taken to clinic

LONDON (Reuters) – British internet singing star Susan Boyle has been admitted to a private clinic after being beaten into second place in the final of the popular "Britain's Got Talent" television contest, British media reported.

Dowdy and unglamorous, Boyle seemed an unlikely star when she first appeared on the show in April, only to stun the judges and win popular acclaim with her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables."

Boyle, 48, had been heavily backed to beat nine other finalists on Saturday after clips of her earlier appearance were downloaded nearly 200 million times and she was hailed the world over as a superstar.

But according to the Sun newspaper, she suffered an "emotional breakdown" at her hotel in London on Sunday.

A police spokesman confirmed that officers had been called to a London hotel "to doctors attending a woman under the mental health act."

"She was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic. At the request of doctors, police accompanied the ambulance," the spokesman added.

Torontos new Koerner Hall books Canadian, international stars

Torontos new Koerner Hall books Canadian, international stars