Music News Page 1087

Irish rock band U2 is adding dates to its 2006 Vertigo tour, which is slated to begin February 12 in Monterrey, Mexico. The additional dates will include an April 8 show at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, the group's first appearance in Hawaii since 1985.

In addition, it will also cover a February 28 show in Santiago, Chile. In the meantime, AOL Music will on Jan 11th premiere a new version of the video for "Original of the Species." The original clip can be viewed on U2's Web site (http://www.u2.com).

Maybe envying the success of the just comeback Take That, teen pop phenomenon Boyzone reportedly is planning a comeback to the music scene. Stephen Gateley, in fact, has confirmed the report saying that his band does planning to reunite but without frontman Ronan Keating.

"I don't know whether there will be another record. Probably, I'd like there to be. Probably Ronan won't be involved. But the other four of us had dinner and discussions about what we could do in the future," Stephen said, while explaining "There's still a huge fan base and we just had a re-released album out and it went to number six in the UK, even without any promotion."

Grammy-nominated rock group Fall Out Boy is planning to headline its first arena tour ever. About which the band's bassist Pete Wentz says "We've gradually played in front of 50 to 8,000 people due to demand. We wanted to play arenas at this point to give everybody a chance to see us, but our next U.S. tour after this will probably be a small club tour."

The arena tour reportedly will begin March 15 at the Pepsi Arena in Albany, N.Y., and will hit at least 40 markets. For more dates, it will be announced soon on http://www.falloutboyrock.com.

Numbers of famous musicians have been tapped to join the lineup at the Sundance Film Festival, which is going to be held January 20-28 at the Sundance Music Cafe in Park City, Utah. Among those are Rufus Wainwright, Bruce Hornsby, Michael Penn and Savage Garden alumnus Darren Hayes.

Those names will feature at the 8th annual event which is aimed to encourage onscreen collaborations among filmmakers, composers and songwriters. Meanwhile, stars set to perform among others include Schuyler Fisk, Sharon Stone, musicians led by Patrick Fugit, Mike Doughty, 2 Foot Yard, Athlete, Augustana, and many more.

Country crooner Tim McGraw and wife Faith Hill are a dense couple as either husband-and-wife or music partner. The couple lives both parts in balance and approvingly could do it well.

Anyway, both have planned to embark on another tour, which is said as the finishing touches on a reprise of their Soul II Soul tour. Set to begin April 21 and will run through Labor Day with a total of about 70 dates in the works, McGraw and Hill will perform together with no supporting acts booked.

Successfully completed their promotional task on album "Make Believe," and following frontman Rivers Cuomo plans to graduate from Harvard University in June with a degree in English, music group Weezer is taking a hiatus of undetermined length. Despite such fact, the group's Geffen Records label is planning to release an as-yet-untitled live Weezer DVD sometime this year.

As said in Weezer's official Web site (http://www.weezer.com), the set will center on a seven-camera concert shoot and will also feature behind-the-scenes footage which was captured last month during a tour through Japan.

The Billboard Hot 100 has a new champion. It's rap group D4L whose single "Laffy Taffy" successfully ups three places, seizing the No. 1 spot on the charts from Mariah Carey's "Don't Forget About Us," which after two-week on the top spot downs to No. 7.

The second best on the charts is Chris Brown's "Run It!" and the No. 3 is Nickelback's "Photograph." In the meantime, Kanye West's "Gold Digger" featuring Jamie Foxx rebounds four places to No. 4, whereas Nelly's "Grillz" drops two to No. 5.

Just like the title of his album "Unpredictable," Jamie Foxx unpredictably takes the place of Mary J. Blige on the US album charts to be in the first position with his set sold 200,000 copies in the week ended January 1. Meanwhile, Blige falls to No. 2 with her "Breakthrough" sold 193,000 copies in its second week.

Eminem's first-ever hits compilation, "Curtain Call," on the other hand ups one place to No. 3 with 186,000 units, ahead of Notorious B.I.G.'s "Duets: The Final Chapter" which downs one place to No. 4 at 150,000 units. In the meantime, American Idol winner Carrie Underwood's "Some Hearts" clings at No. 5 with 135,000 units.

Mariah Carey. The name comes up on the top position in the list of the Top 10 best-selling albums of 2005. The singer apparently has proven to worldwide that she's hard to beat and thus deserves the predicate of pop diva.

Leading the Top 10 best-selling albums of 2005, Carey has her album "The Emancipation of Mimi" sold for 4.97 million copies, making rapper 50 Cent's "The Massacre" the second best with 4.85 million copies. "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson wins the 3rd place with 3.5 million copies. The 4th best is Green Day's "American Idiot" which is sold for 3.4 million copies, ahead of Black Eyed Peas' "Monkey Business" at No. 5 sold 3 million copies.

Pete Townshend says that by next year his band, The Who, will embark on a tour following "a very, very cool" surprise announcement in June. Per a Christmas Eve online diary post (http://www.petetownshend.co.uk/) titled "I will go on tour...," the band's driving creative force said all of the shows may be viewable online.

There Townshend wrote "I have high hopes for the whole tour to be shared to a wide audience at home in a mixture of pay-per-view and free special Web casts. Some of the proceeds will go to charity, of course." Despite the tour has yet mentioned date, Townshend said he expected to unveil some new material on the road.

Hip-hop soul queen Mary J. Blige scores great success with "The Breakthrough." The new set of her successfully holds strong on the top position of the Billboard 200, selling 727,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, to lead the Christmas album chart. Meanwhile, Oscar-winning Jamie Foxx's "Unpredictable" only secures the 2nd rank selling nearly 598,000 copies.

No. 3 is "Duets: The Final Chapter" by late rapper Notorious B.I.G. sold nearly 438,000 copies, followed by Eminem's "Curtain Call" at No. 4 with 430,000 copies. American Idol champ Carrie Underwood wins the 5th place with her "Some Hearts" sold 400,000 copies, ahead of Mariah Carey's "the Emancipation of Mimi" at 6th with 191,000 in sales.

World music industry will be more crowded as there emerges music group Devo from its long hiatus. By now, the group is focusing their music to children. Thus, all five members of Devo regrouped to re-record some of its best known songs to be included in their upcoming album "Divo 2.0" due March 17 next year via Disney Sound, a family-oriented division of Walt Disney Records.

The set will among others include the 1980 hit "Whip It!" with vocals provided by a quintet of kids, "Cyclops" and "The Winner," the first new studio tracks from Devo in nearly two decades. There will also be a companion DVD featuring animated and live-action videos for each of the tracks directed by Devo bassist Gerry Casale.

American Idol runner up Bo Bice is releasing his debut album titled "The Real Thing." "I'm obviously very excited about the album, to see what people think of it," he said about the set. "I had quite a bit of creative control, and I was extremely pleased with that. I had a lot of input."

"The Real Thing" consists of 11 tracks that were written by Bice himself. One of them dubbed "Valley of Angels," is a ballad he wrote several years ago that was given a new instrumental bridge by producer Cliff Magness. It is about the idea that things aren't perfect. "Everyone fumbles and falls and makes mistakes. When you're down, you might not feel there's any place of serenity you can find. It's about finding peace," Bice revealed.

Having his holiday album, "Through the Many Winters: A Christmas Album," went gold surely has become a special Christmas present for singer Michael McDonald.

Arriving in Hallmark's stores in November 2005, the album sold more than a half-million copies in only two weeks, so said Ann Herrick, who runs the store's seasonal music program.

Soon as Destiny's Child called it quit for their trio career this fall, Kelly Rowland jumps quickly to the studio, working on her next solo album. As an attempt to make the set a hit in music scene, she reportedly has collaborated with songwriter Sean Garrett and Beyonce Knowles' younger sister Solange Knowles.

About her as-yet-untitled Columbia set, Rowland reveals "It has been a very personal album for me. It has been one of the best experiences of my life. It's a look into the past two years, going through different relationships, love and growing as a woman. It's a soul-searching record. It's really beautiful."