Jessica Simpson Is Going Country!

The buzz in the music industry is that Jessica Simpson has temporarily parked herself in Nashville, Tennessee - the capital of country music - to work on a new album with Columbia Nashville. Apparently, since she is from Texas and she thinks that she was meant to sing country music. In recent interviews, Jessica Simpson has said that the new album will be available sometime in 2008. She hass said that Martina McBride, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Reba McEntire have been inspirational to her because of the strength in female country singers.

In this collaberation with Willie Nelson, I guess country wouldn't be too far of a stretch for her. She already has the cowgirl hat and boots...I guess we won't have to wait too much longer to see how it turns out. Here's to 2008...a year full of new music!

What do you think? Would you buy a Jessica Simpson country album? Post a comment to let us know the consensus!

New Artist: Ingrid Michaelson

This is a video for an up & coming artist: Ingrid Michaelson. Her song "The Way I Am" was recently featured on an Old Navy Commercial, which is where I first heard her music. I scoured the internet looking for her - and I found the video on YouTube.

Her song "Keep Breathing" was apparently also featured on Grey's Anatomy on last season's finale - but I missed that. This video for "The Way I Am", however, is now in rotation on VH1 - which is amazing for a new and fairly unknown artist.

Last I heard, she was also going to be on a spot on NPR on December 21st. Have any of you heard of Ingrid? Post a comment to tell me what you think of her new video!

Alanis Morissette To Release A New Album

Alanis Morissette will get back into the music scene this coming spring with her new album "Flavors of Entanglement." These songs are set to be produced by Guy Sigsworth, who has also worked with Madonna and Bjork.

Alanis says that she envisioned an album that pulled in her various musical interests, "a combination of everything" from organic instruments to hip-hop beats. She hopes to whittle down the album to 11 tracks in the upcoming weeks. Some of those tracks are "Not As We," which is solely piano and vocals, and "Moratorium," in which Alanis speaks of her readiness to stop repeating bad patterns.

The theme of the album is to explore Alanis’s real life struggles over the last few years in addition to the more political struggles in the world. In an interview, she said, "Really, in the end, the personal struggles are political. Our emotions align themselves with larger symptomatic things in the world. We face a large war out there, but Flavors of Entanglement more closely reflects the war in peoples' living rooms... the icy silence at home, versus the big cold war."

If you are as excited as I am to hear the newest songs, she is going to start touring with Matchbox Twenty in January 2008. You can get the tour dates here, from Matchbox Twenty's tour schedule on Billboard.

Lawsuit Against Kid Rock Dropped

A U.S. District Judge decided in Kid Rock's favor last week in a lawsuit brought against him by Troy Landry. Troy accused Kid Rock of ripping off his music and said that Kid Rock's 'Somebody's Gotta Feel This' sounded strikingly similar to a song Landry had released in 1994.

Testimony was heard from both sides and a side-by-side comparison of the songs was performed and it was decided that they were not substantially similar and that Kid Rock could have independently created the tune. The judge noted that "a layman would not view the works as substantially similar."

As celebrity lawsuits go, Landry named a whole list of people to sue that included Atlantic Recording Corp, Kid Rock, and many others in 2004. After several years in court, the question about the 8-second tune has been resolved. Attorneys for Kid Rock made a statement about it saying the rock star's song had a "fairly common progression", even though Landry claimed the 8-second hook was repeated over and over again and made up 45 percent of the song. Michael Novak, Kid Rock's personal attorney said "Whenever you have a hit record, you can pretty much plan on attracting this kind of lawsuit." Somebody always wants a cut of the profits!

Check Out DearRockers.org

Darren Barefoot has created a website to compel and direct us all to send money to musicians whose music we have benefited from via illegal music downloads. It's called Dear Rockers. Here is how it works:

You pick a musician and then you write them a letter. You then have to scan or photograph the letter and send it to an address specified at DearRockers.org. You mail off your letter along with $5.oo and then supposedly you are forgiven and you can listen to your illegal music guilt-free.

I think it's a great concept! So, if you are one of those 'fans' that didn't pay for Radiohead's new album 'In Rainbows', go to DearRockers.org and redeem yourself!

Do you know anyone who has used this website and actually mailed in the money? If so, post a comment to let us know! I'd love to do this myself, mostly for taking music from Alanis Morissette when I was a teenager...I think I'll go do that now.