In the news, MTV will have exclusive US television rights to Michael Jackson’s “This Is It.” The movie concert will start to air on MTV’s networks in 2011, so don’t hold your breath.

Discovery has another epic series coming out in March. “Life” is an 11-parter and will be narrated by Opray Winfrey.

Lorraine Bracco from “The Sopranos” was cast in a TNT drama pilot called “Rizzoli.” She will play the mother of police detective Jane Rizzoli, who will be played by Angie Harmon.

According to MTV.com, Rihanna said her relationship with Chris was just too intense. They started out as close friends, and their love bordered on obsession. Rihanna also admitted to feeling guilty for reconciling so quickly with Chris because of the message it sent about domestic violence victims. But now, she says, it’s really over.

“I went through … a host of emotions,” she told Sawyer. “It was confusing for me. I was still attached by love. But I wasn’t thinking about … the reality of the situation. You start lying to yourself. … This is a memory you don’t want to have ever again. … The physical wounds go away, you put it in the back of your head and you start lying to yourself subconsciously.”

Long interview short – she still loves and cares about Chris, but doesn’t think they’ll ever get back together. She hated him for a while, yet felt bad that he was facing so much hatred. Now, she just wants to move on.

“I don’t want that five years from now — every time they see Rihanna, they think of Chris Brown beating me,” she said. “That’s not who I am. It’s just one thing that happened to me.”

You can tune in to MTV tonight at 6:00 to here Chris’ side.

According to MTV.com, Brown will answer questions about his fight with Rihanna, including “What caused the singer to lash out against his former girlfriend in the first place? Why has he tweeted old photos of the two of them and released music inspired by her? What does he think about, nine months later, when he recalls that fateful night?”

Brown told MTV that he has been using therapy to deal with his anger and understand his behavior. He also said, “My thoughts [when I look back on it now] is like, why did it happen? Like, what was I thinking? What is wrong with you? That’s what I’m thinking with myself. That’s what my thoughts are, basically, now.”

Tune in Friday for the full, hour-long interview.

But besides that, there are two finales to keep in mind. MTV has the closer of “P. Diddy’s Starmaker,” and VH1 has “My Antonio,” both at 10 p.m.

We also know today that Bravo is renewing “Top chef Masters” for a second season. It’s a cooking show where famous chefs battle it out for charity.

SyFy jumps in at 10 with the season premiere of “Sanctuary,” the Amanda Tapping post-Stargate project. DIY Network premieres “Kitchen Impossible” at 10, and we can’t forget “Dog Whisperer” at 9 p.m. on NatGeo.

The only big finale this weekend is MTV’s “Making His Band” at 9 p.m.

On Monday, you can expect premieres of “Little People, Big World,” on TLC at 8 p.m., “100 Mile Challenge” on Planet Green at 9 p.m., and “Gone Too Far” on MTV at 10.

Southland is D E D dead, even though it never was officially alive. NBC pulled the plug on the drama before its anticipated season debut on October 23. No reason has been given, and six episodes were already finished and ready to air.

Southland was going to be aired on Fridays at 9 p.m., which has been a dead zone for television lately, with Dollhouse dying there.

ABC has ordered the full seasons of “Modern Family,” “Cougar Town” and “The Middle.”

The three shows have done well in the ratings, but no news has been announced on the Kelsey Grammer comeback “Hank” or the new show “Eastwick.”

Showtime announced a new webisode about Dexter called “Dexter: Early Cuts.” The series will premiere on October 25 on sho.com.

CBS may be bringing back “Hawaii Five-O” with a plot commitment for a revival of the series, written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and CSI: New York executive producer Peter Lenkov. The original ran from 1968-1990.

Finally, Ellen Page is working with HBO to both write and produce a new comedy series called “Stich N’ Bitch” about two cool girls who move from New York to Los Angeles to try and become artists — and kind of artists. Page is working with actresses Alia Shawkat and Sean Tillmann, both of whom stared with her in “Whip It.”

That’s it for the networks tonight, but TLC has two new ones: “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” at 8, followed by “King of the Crown” at 9.

MTV starts a new “The Real World/Road Rules Challenge” at 10 p.m., and BET has the premiere of “First In” also at 10.

In news, Kate Gosselin proves she’s at least as much a publicity whore as her ex, because she has signed on to continue exploiting her eight children on cable television. “Kate Plus Eight” will launch November 2 on TLC. We’re even hearing that Jon Gosselin will make appearances on the show.

We’re giving it 10 years before one of these kids is locked up for laying waste to a classroom.

TLC also said it’s working on a new project featuring just Kate for 2010.

Maybe five years.

Animal Planet premieres “Weird, True and Freaky” at 9 p.m., with “Lost Tapes” to follow at 10. MTV has some reality shows starting tonight; most notably is the reality-drama “The Hills” at 10 with “The City” to follow at 10:30.

Actor Omar Miller is joining CSI: Miami as a regular starting with the October 5 episode. Miller will play Walter Simmons, an art chief from Louisiana who joins the crime fighting CSI team.

CBS had the best night on Friday, according to Nielsen, with premieres of “Ghost Whisperer,” “Medium” and “Numb3rs” scoring big on the ranking charts. We predict that will continue tonight as CBS has new episodes of three of its biggest shows, “NCIS,” the new “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and “The Good Wife.”

We wonder how long “NCIS: Los Angeles” will continue to air on Tuesdays. The two NCIS shows are hits, and we have to assume one will get moved to bolster a slower weekday.

“Dancing with the Stars” is on ABC tonight and “So You Think You Can Dance” is on FOX.

Finally, no it’s not the 90s, but new episodes of the new “90210,” and “Melrose Place” are on The CW tonight.

By the way: Because of a reporting error, we said “NCIS: Los Angeles” aired on Mondays. It airs on Tuesdays.

NBC's Trauma premieres tonight at 10

Not a lot of new stuff on the tube tonight, but there’s some news to discuss below.

On network TV, FOX premieres “Lie to Me’ at 9 p.m. tonight, while NBC debuts its “Trauma” at the same time. MTV premieres another reality show, “Disaster Date” at 6 p.m., and truTV has the premiere of “Operation Repo” at 10. Tonight is also the season finale of A&E’s “Hoarders,” which is also on at 10.

The Ashton Kutcher-produced series “The Beautiful Life” staring Mischa Barton appears to be an abject failure. The CW pulled the show from its fall schedule after just two episodes and ordered production on the show halted after miserable ratings.

Also getting axed is A&E’s “The Cleaner.” The Benjamin Bratt drama will not get renewed for a third season.

ABC announced that the new alien-infused drama “V” will debut November 3, with a four-episode run, followed by a major cliffhanger, followed by nine more episodes next spring.

In other ABC-related news, the always busy Jerry Bruckheimer is working on a pilot for a new series called “Hopscotch,” which Variety says promises to be a “high-concept police procedural” drama. Variety reported several networks were vying for the opportunity to land the new series, which is chock-full of “hit potential.” Chris Levinson will write the series, and Warner will producer.

The CW approved a new, untitled reality series about New York socialite Tinsley Mortimer, because they know you just can’t get enough of watching rich people spend their money. The series is approved for at least eight episodes.

NBC has an interesting-sounding project in the works. In the tentatively titled “Slacker Sons,” Variety reports that two brothers get rich by developing their own energy drink. They buy the family home and end up helping out their divorced dad who gets laid off from his corporate wageslave job.

Finally today, Vincent D’Onofrio is leaving Law & Order: Criminal Intent after eight seasons playing the quirky detective Robert Goren.

CBS has the most premieres tonight with “The New Adventures of Old Christine” at 8, “Gary Unmarried” at 8:30, “Criminal Minds” at 9, and “CSI: New York” at 10. The drama continues on NBC with premieres of “Mercy” at 8 p.m. and “Law and Order: SVU” at 9.

ABC offers the series premiere of “Modern Family” tonight at 9 p.m., which is Ed O’Neil’s return to primetime. Blast will be running our interview with O’Neil later today, and we’ll continue to talk about our time on-set with ABC.

ABC also has premieres of “Cougar Town” at 9:30 and “Eastwick” at 10 tonight.

FX is starting a new comedy show about fantasy football. “The League” follows a bunch of guys in the suburbs and their shenanigans. That will start-up on October 29 at 10:30 p.m. following “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” FX has ordered six episodes of the new comedy show.

MTV continues the reality shows with “Disaster Date,” a hidden-camera show about people who set up their friends on a blind date with an actor who makes things disastrous for them. The fun times begin September 28 at 6 p.m.

Nielsen says that SyFy’s season finale of “Eureka” gained 2.3 total viewers last Friday at 9 p.m., which is impressive for the cable network.

Syfy’s season three finale of Eureka last Friday at 9p averaged 1.1 million A18-49, 1.2 million A25-54 and 2.3 million total viewers. HBO’s return of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Sunday night gained 1.1 million viewers on Sunday night. A new show followed, “Bored to Death,” to the tune of about 1 million viewers.

Finally for you Melrose Place fans, Heather Locklear will join The CW’s version of the show on November 17, reprising her role as Amanda Woodward.

These are two that we’re excited about since the finale in the sixth season left us with a cliff hanger for the ages. Plus, the two-hour spin-off into “Los Angeles” that occurred toward the end of last season left us wanting more, and it gave us another cliff hanger whereby one of the main characters was the victim of a drive-by shooting.

CBS also has “The Good Wife” premiering at 10 p.m, competing with ABC’s premiere of “The Forgotten.”

On cable, Oxygen has “The Naughty Kitchen with Chef Blythe Beck” on at 10 p.m., and TLC starts “Table for 12″ also at 10.

Two finales to keep in mind tonight: SyFy ends the season “Warehouse 13″ tonight at 9 p.m., and Discovery Channel reality show “The Colony” has its finale at 10.

FOX announced Monday that it has given “Glee” the thumbs up, ordering a full season of the new comedy. It’s the first new show of the fall TV watching season to get picked up for the full season.

Reality network MTV is moving “The Hills” to 10 p.m., and putting “The City” at 10:30 starting September 29, which is also the premiere date for season five of “The Hills.” MTV has also said that a new season of “The Real World/Road Rules Challenge” called “The Ruins” will open September 30 at 10 p.m. This season is set in Thailand.

Just in case you have been in a coma for the past 24 hours, the first thing you need to know about last night’s awards is that Kanye West should no longer be allowed on the premises. By Blast calculations, this is the third year that Kanye has publicly displayed his outrage at the MTV selection for an award. This year’s victim was America’s country sweetheart Taylor Swift, who won the first award of the night – Best Female Video. In outrage that Beyoncé didn’t win for “one of the best videos of all time” Kanye rushed the stage, took Taylor’s microphone during her acceptance speech, and proclaimed Beyoncé should have been the winner – leaving Miss Swift in horrified silence. Twitter explosions and blog frenzies after report that Swift was to be seen sobbing backstage after the debacle.

Outside of the dramatics, the VMAs this year contained a lot of W-t-fness, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Every cut to Lady Gaga gave viewers a peak at outrageous outfit after outrageous outfit. Apparently being able to see was not a major concern when making fashion decisions. Equally as twisted was her live performance. Gaga performed her latest mega hit “Paparazzi” on the VMA stage. She lived up to her reputation of a fantastic live performance, but the crowd and viewers alike were a little disturbed by Gaga’s literal perception of the paparazzi killing her when she poured blood over her and then pseudo hung herself from the VMA ceiling.

R&B badass Pink also used a harness for her VMA performance, which may have been the most impressive of the night. Pink performed the entire sang, hanging about 50 feet off the ground, flipping around and somersaulting with her trapeze partner. The most amazing part of the stunt was that she was continuing to sing live – no lip syncing – as she continuously flipped head over heels.

In fact there wasn’t a bad musical performance the entire night. Taylor Swift was impressive with her take over of the 42nd street subway station and subsequent Times Square performance. Beyoncé amazed audiences not only with her fancy leg work but the fact that she didn’t have a wardrobe malfunction visa Janet Jackson at the Superbowl. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys topped off the night with their new duet, but it was the opening of the show that stole most of the attention.

This year’s VMAs kicked off with a Janet Jackson led tribute to her late brother, King of Pop, Michael Jackson. It was touching and very fitting that this year’s awards were dedicated to a man who took music videos to a new height. Dancers recreated moves from the iconic “Thriller” before Janet arose on stage and re-created the moves from “Scream” while Michael’s mirroring performance played on the screen behind. Intermittently throughout the show, props were given to Michael as well as a full trailer of “This Is It”, the film compiled of all the rehearsal footage before his death, which will appear in theatres nationwide on October 28.

Performances really took precedence at the awards. Only five trophies were given out during the actual aired show. Equally as insignificant was host Russell Brand. While admittedly hilarious in his own right, British stand-up comic Brand fell flat as returning host of the awards. While MTV was probably banking on Brand’s gained notoriety over the past year, his brash humor didn’t translate well to the stage. It seemed that producers spent more time cutting to commercial after Brand’s crude punchlines than letting him speak, and that’s when he was brought on stage to introduce anyone at all. Though Brand has conquered television hosting, movies and even the New York Time’s bestseller’s list with his autobiography “My Booky Wook”, hosting just may not be his thing.

Overall, the show was surprisingly entertaining, especially considering the disappointing past couple of years. There wasn’t a boring moment during the entire two and a half hour runtime. Last night’s show was so well put together that it might have actually succeeded in distracting people from the fact that the ceremony is completely irrelevant. Seriously, when was the last time MTV even played a video?

In a post on her blog, Clarkson went on a tirade against Kanye West that can only be described as the musical equivalent of Rocky Marciano’s “kill the body and the head will die” knockout of Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952.

It was a series of relentless jabs and hay-makers.

“What happened to you as a child?? Did you not get hugged enough?? Something must have happened to make you this way and I think we’re all just curious as to what would make a grown man go on national television and make a talented artist, let alone teenager, feel like shit,” Clarkson wrote.

She is, of course, referring to West’s outrageous, arch-asshole attempt to ruin the MTV Video Music Awards night for, of all people, Taylor Swift.

Because she’s such a fuckin gangster. Frankly, I’m surprised Swifty and her peeps didn’t pull out their 9’s and bust a few caps right on the motherfuckin stage, yo.

Clarkson goes on to say that she likes her “asshole ex-boyfriend” who cheated on her better than Kanye, and she admits she never even met Kanye!

Clarkson lost the VMA Moon Man to Swift, but said she was “excited” for her.

Pink, who also lost in the Best Female Video category to Swift, reportedly had to be stopped by security from rushing the stage and knocking Kanye on his ass, which would have been the best publicity stunt MTV could have pulled off, since they still try to call their awards show the “Video” Music Awards, even though all they do is replay episodes of “The Hills” and “The Real World.”

But back on topic:

“Kanye West is the biggest piece of shit on earth. Quote me,” Pink wrote to MTV. “My heart goes out to Taylor Swift. She is a sweet and talented girl and deserved her moment.”

Hell, Mr. West, hath no fury.

Kanye pulled another stunt at MTV’s Video Music Awards last night – effectively embarrassing Taylor Swift, Beyonce and himself.

When a stunned 19-year-old Taylor took the stage to accept the award for Best Female Music Video, she only managed to get a few words of thanks and surprise out before Kanye took the mic from her hands. “Taylor, I’m really happy for you, and I’m gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time,” he said. And then he was gone.

Poor Taylor was left in stunned silence on stage and cameras turned to a clearly embarrassed Beyonce, who later won Video of the Year. During her acceptance speech, she invited Taylor on stage to give her another shot at her moment. A very nice gesture, but I doubt Taylor feels much better about the evening.

So who’s racking up the moon-men this year? By the looks of it, Lady Gaga might be going home with six awards tomorrow evening. She will allegedly be collecting awards for most of the major categories like Best New Artist. She should also be receiving Best Pop Video and Video of the Year for her song “Poker Face” while her song “Papparrazzi” earns her Best Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

Rapper Eminem also seems to be winning big with Best Male Video, Best Hip-Hop Video, and Best Special Effects for “We Made You.”

Also according to the list, artists Matt & Kim are the winners for Breakthrough Video. Matt & Kim will be playing Lansdowne Pub on October 7.

With the leakage of a document like this, obviously its validity has been called into question. Could Lady Gaga really win that many awards over rivals Beyonce and Britney Spears? There is much speculation about the Best New Artist award as well because voting for that category is still open to people. Unless based on the number of votes already tallied, Lady Gaga has such a ridiculous lead that she’s already been declared the winner. Or it’s all one big conspiracy and MTV just picks the artist they think should win. Form your theories now.

The Britney and Beyonce fan bases feeling ill at ease about Lady Gaga’s possible domination should know that neither female seems to be going home empty-handed. Spears is supposed to walk away with Best Editing for “Circus” and Beyonce with ‘Best Female Video’ and ‘Best Choreography’ for ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it).’

The 2009 VMA’s air live tomorrow at 9 p.m. hosted by British comedian Russell Brand. Tune in to see if the leak was real or an elaborate PR stunt by MTV.

We talked to Eric about crossing Abbey Road, the fleeting nature of fame and the tyranny of two-track recordings.

Blast’s Ben Lindbergh: When you sat down to select the songs initially — I don’t know exactly who was involved in that — how much weight was assigned to the popularity of the song of the song or the success of the song, versus how much fun you thought it would be to play, or how easy it would be to represent with the notes?

Eric Brosius: We definitely considered both of those things, like we always do. Actually, that’s pretty much what we do in all of Rock Band, there’s always this balance between playability and how popular it is, and some songs are in there for different reasons. But yeah, we wanted to find—pretty much all the Beatles songs are famous, outside of just a few. They’re one of the rare bands where like 80 percent of the catalog is completely famous, and 20 percent is lesser known. So, it was pretty easy to find songs that we thought everyone would just love playing, but that were also giant hits.

But we definitely looked at that, for sure. We also looked out for — you know, we wanted to grab songs from their entire career. From the beginning, and have roughly an equal number of songs from the different periods, just to make sure we hit all of their major albums and all of the time periods, and stuff like that. So it was just balancing those things together. There were some tricky things in the early songs, because some early songs were maybe harder to get, just because of the limited number of tracks that they had. So, we were always balancing that, and then we were talking to Giles Martin, who did all the actual mixing for us, because he knew the track layouts for every single song they’ve ever done, and he would always go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s problematic because of this, but this one I think we could do instead, because there’s some an extra tape of other stuff on here that we can use to make the song work.’

BL: So he had some sort of software that would be able to pick out the instruments individually when there was only a two-track recording, and then separate them somehow?

Harmonix Music Systems audio lead Eric Brosius makes his living playing with the soundtrack to your life, and he’s never had more fun than with Beatles Rock Band. (Darcy Hofmann for Blast)

EB: Yeah. And sometimes with a two-track recording, it also depends on even what was on the tracks, because some things are easier to separate, and some things are not, just depending on how it was mixed. If it’s a two-track recording, and they had some things panned to one side, that’s easy to separate from stuff that’s in the middle or on the other side. If it was a two-track recording where the whole thing was a stereo wash right down the center, that makes it a lot harder. So he kind of knew, not just the number of tracks of each song, but kind of where things were, and whether we would have an easier time separating them. Because yes, you can separate stuff, but it’s not a perfect solution. Some songs are kind of easy to get nice, clean separation, and some songs are harder, so we used all of that knowledge together.

BL: So then he would do all the work in Abbey Road, with some assistants, and then someone would come over here with a briefcase chained to his arm?

Sometimes with a two-track recording, it also depends on even what was on the tracks, because some things are easier to separate, and some things are not

EB: Well, he knew all about the Beatles stuff and mixing, so he and his guy, Paul Hicks, were in charge of actually recreating the mixes. Because the first step is just to like bring up the tapes, transfer them to digital, and then recreate the mix. Because what’s on the raw tape doesn’t usually sound like the raw mix in music. So, they spent a lot of time doing that, just making sure it came out, and they can recreate all the effects if there weren’t effects. Because sometimes effects weren’t printed to tape, right, they were this old gear, so they spent a lot of time doing that. And then we would usually fly over there and spend like five days there when we were going to pick up a batch of songs, and where they would bring up the mixes they had, and we would do some further editing, deciding which parts are going to be our playable guitar part, and which parts are not.

And then while we were at the studio, we’d bounce out the actual stems we needed for the game, and then we’d encode them into the final version that the game ships with right there, which was encrypted and high-security and all that kind of stuff. So we did everything there, and then we just brought the finished game assets back with us, because they were pretty keen on leaving all the original assets at Abbey Road, because they’re somewhat protective, as they should be.

BL: Was the fact that the remasters were being developed simultaneously, was there any work that was able to be saved or shared there, or was it just two separate processes?

EB: It was pretty much two separate processes, because on things that we’re doing, we’re going back to the multi-tracks. I’m not sure what was done in the mastering process, but usually remasterings are just, you go back to the two-track mixes, and then you use modern mastering techniques. So it was kind of separate, what they were doing was totally separate. I mean, it’s nice that they’re going to release them at the same time, which kind of shows how enthusiastic Apple and the Beatles are, which is cool, but it was really two separate processes.

Blast editor John Guilfoil: Can you kind of run our readers through the process of taking a song and putting it into Rock Band?

EB: Sure. So, for old songs like this, a lot of them are stored on magnetic tape. So the first thing to do is to transfer them to a digital format like Pro Tools, which is the standard that everyone uses. So you digitize all the tracks, and then the next step would be to take those and remix the song so it sounds like the original. Once the song is sounding good, with all the effects and levels balanced, then we bounce out stems, according to our specific needs, the ones we need in the game. Because we have one guitar player in the game, so if there are several guitars playing, at every given moment through the song, we decide which one is going to be the part you’re going to play. And that ends up being a composite of, maybe a little of John’s guitar here, maybe a little of George’s here, and that kind of thing.

And we bounce out the stems that we actually need for the game, then we basically encrypt them, interleave them into a single file that our game reads. So we have that, and that’s the audio part of it, it’s fairly straightforward. And then we have a team of people here that kind of transcribe all the music, putting down all the gems that you see, laying down all the tracks and putting the lyrics in. And that’s basically kind of like transcription using MIDI files, basically.

BL: So for someone who grew up listening to the ’80s pressings of the CDs, or compressed .mp3 versions of the songs and hasn’t heard the remasters yet, would this be the cleanest and the best they’ve ever heard the Beatles, even though it’s meant for playing as well as listening, and so there are compromises that have to be made there?

Blast spent the day at Harmonix learning about the game and its development. (Darcy Hofmann for Blast)

EB: I think so. And the thing that’s going to — yes, because part of the thing with Rock Band is, we’ll sometimes make some changes to the mixes. Sometimes, if there was a guitar part that was pretty buried in the original mix, but we want that to be the playable one, sometimes we’ll boost it a little bit so you can hear it more, because you want to hear the notes that you’re actually playing. So we always try to walk this line between — we don’t want to change history or anything like that, but with Giles’ approval, we would sometimes alter things. You know, ‘Let’s bring that up a little bit, because that’s going to be the playable part.’ So there are some things like that.

And the other really cool thing about the game is that, because most of our game is kind of featured around live stuff, most of the songs, we don’t have fadeouts in them, usually. And many times they went back to the way they actually played it in the studio, that usually had a proper ending. Because they’ll usually do the fade-out later, right in the mix. So in our game, a lot of times you get to hear the proper endings, which is really cool. So it’s like a little bit of extra material in most songs. And probably the biggest one is in ‘Helter Skelter,’ we don’t do the big fade back in, so you get to hear the way they played it through, which is pretty cool, and I think Beatles fanatics will love that stuff.

BL: Did you sit down initially and say, ‘We know we’re going to have forty-five songs,’ and then get a list of the catalog and cross things out, or did you start with a blank page, and say, ‘We have to have this one, and we have to have that one?’

EB: Well, we knew that we were going to have roughly forty to fifty songs, but we didn’t know exactly until the whole deal was worked out. So basically, everyone wrote down sixty or seventy of their favorite songs, and it was a bunch of the higher-ups at Harmonix, and the people at Apple, and Giles, and everyone, and we all kind of got together and came up with about forty-five, and then once in a while Giles would say, ‘Oh, I know this one can’t work, because this was actually just recorded on one track,’ and we would just kind of work it out.

And then there would be a little bit of back-and-forth, of course, about, ‘Let’s make sure that we have a good balance of Paul and John songs, so that we don’t just by accident have too many John songs and too many Paul songs,’ and ‘Make sure that we include the important George songs,’ and all this balancing. Same thing we do when we select songs for Rock Band. You balance out a bunch of things—we want to have songs from different decades, different styles, different things, so the same kind of process went through. And then we presented what we thought was our song list to the shareholders, who were Yoko and Paul and Ringo and Olivia Harrison, and they would give us their two cents on it, and we would make some adjustments. The song list was fairly easy to do.

BL: So they weren’t dictating anything, like ‘This song has to be in there, this one’s off-limits.’

EB: No. And the good thing is that Giles has worked with them before. He did the “Love” show, which is the big Cirque du Soleil thing in Las Vegas, he’s already kind of gone through this process with them, and he knows them very well, and they trust him. So that was one of the best things. Because we could kind of make all of our musical decisions, and if we got them blessed by Giles, then we were pretty confident that he could get them blessed by the important people. So, it made things very smooth.

Three-part vocal harmony is part of what makes Beatles Rock Band different from all other music games

BL: Were there any specific challenges that you faced as a result of the Beatles’ experimentation in the studio, or using somewhat exotic instruments that might not conform to the four-instrument mold? I know you have songs like ‘Because’ or ‘She’s Leaving Home’ coming out soon—how do you face those challenges, or how do you conform to this set-up?

EB: Well, in some songs—in the Beatles game, one of the cool things is we’re doing the harmonies, so that’s a big thing, because there’s so much importance on that. On other things where they had, maybe not a prominent guitar, but they had different instruments, we would probably swap them around, which we do in Rock Band once in a while. Like in, I think in ‘Strawberry Fields,’ you might end up playing the string parts a little bit on the guitar. And in a song like ‘Because,’ which has no drums, right, that would be a song where the drummer just kind of sits out and relaxes for a while. We’re not going to add anything to it, because we don’t want to change the song.

BL: I know you wanted to span the whole career and represent each part accurately—was there any thought that maybe the early Beatles or the late Beatles would appeal or connect to the modern audience more? Your first three downloadable albums coming out are from the middle-to-late period—is there any consideration given to emphasizing that period?

EB: We didn’t really think about that too much. I think that we wanted to—different fans have their different favorites, of course. So we really just wanted to tell the whole story of their career, so we wanted to just do that. As far as the downloads go, we know that technically we have an easier time with the later albums, because they tend to be cleaner, on four-track, where it’s easier, and harder times on the earlier albums. So it would be difficult to do Please Please Me as a full album, because while we could probably do a lot of the songs, it might be difficult, there might be some there that we’re just like, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to get the separation.’

But that being said, if we choose to do more albums, I’m sure we’ll do some early ones too, because we want to do as much as we can. It just also happened that I think the first three albums that we picked are three of the pretty big, iconic ones—Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper’s. And we were going back and forth between Rubber Soul and Revolver, because we wanted something from that period, but we were debating back and forth.

BL: Would most of the team working on the game have described themselves as Beatles fans coming into it, or just sort of passionate music fans who came to appreciate the Beatles more during the process?

EB: Well, everyone’s a passionate music fan. I don’t think we had everyone was a passionate Beatles fan — certainly a fan in some ways — but we have a few people who were just obsessive. And so we set those guys on all the research. They’re the ones who spent hours poring over things, and making sure that the right person was playing the right guitar part, and they would look up, ‘Okay, is John playing this lick, or is George playing this lick?’ And they would try to figure it out to make sure the animations looked right, because we can kind of control that. So we had at least a half a dozen Beatles fanatics, which was really good.

John M. Guilfoil and Marc Normandin of the Blast staff and Blast correspondents Steve Bagley and Darcy Hofmann contributed to this report.

The US version will retain one of the British show’s creators, Brian Elsley, as a writer and executive producer. But perhaps more importantly, MTV will maintain the unique writing and casting model that made “Skins” a success across the pond. This means MTV will select a group of unknown teenagers to be both the writers and stars of the show, which will be set in Baltimore.

“We intend to preserve the authenticity of the British version and are excited to collaborate with the original team to develop stories that will speak to American youth,” said Liz Gateley, Senior Vice President, MTV Series Development.

Like most teen dramas, “Skins” is about all the of the good and bad teenagers encounter growing up and looking for love. Since it’s premier in January 2007, it has made a major cultural impact on British teens, who are now sometimes referred to as the “Skins Generation.”

In the UK, “Skins” was the third highest-rated show of the year on the channel E4.  It also won a 2009 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Audience Award and Best Drama Series at the 2008 Broadcast Awards — the former of which is voted on by the public.

MTV describes their search the best as such:

“Have video games totally taken over your life? Is your game play increasingly getting out of control? Have your friends or family confronted you about your gaming habit? How about your marriage or personal relationships — are they being affected? Is it difficult to balance work and gaming time? Do you sometimes skip doing homework or household responsibilities to play? Have you played video games as a way of escaping your problems? Has your game playing habit become so encompassing that you may need to go to rehab to kick it?  If you can identify with any of the above, MTV wants to hear from you.”

So if you’re between the ages of 18 and 29 and have a serious addiction and a unique personality (MTV loves those) head on over here to the casting call directory to start your journey to reality television stardom.

The Fire and Reason also made their TV performing debut at the awards, performing their new single “Do It Again.”

The award indicates big things for the Brooklyn-based duo that first became famous for their remix of “NME.” Originally from Brazil and Ecuador, The Fire and Reason’s Bella Saona and Steve Narvaez embrace their multicultural appeal and are always proud to represent their Latin roots, whether they are singing in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

The awards will be airing throughout the rest of the month but you can see their performance and acceptance speech here.

Warner Bros. had been in talks for the sequel before “The Hangover” even hit theaters last week, showing its faith the film would be the box office success it turned out to be.

When Blast had a chance to speak with “The Hangover” star Ed Helms, he had not been under the impression a sequel was as set as it now is. He told Blast the talks were to get ahead of the game so they were not faced with waiting too long to get a sequel in the works like they did with “Old School:” a sequel that recently popped up on IMDB after the successful opening weekend of “The Hangover.” Sounds like Warner Bros. has some big plans for their hit R-rated comedies.

Phillips confirmed that his four leading men: Helms, Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha would all be returning for “The Hangover” sequel. So what exactly will the sequel be about? With the film still a year away, nothing can be certain, but we like Helms’ suggestion best:

“The only way to heighten “The Hangover,” I think, is to take it outer space. So yeah, I think it would be a bachelor party in a space station.”

That is definitely something we would pay to see.

So as we say goodbye to 2008 and Blast’s second year, we would also like to thank the Twilighters out there for always checking out the Twilight news at Blast and passing it on. If it wasn’t for the Twilight Lexicon and Hisgoldeneyes.com posting news from Blast, I personally wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be Blast’s coolest (and only) intern. But as our entertainment editor and fellow resident Twilighter once said, “we want people to know that Blast is about more than Twilight and beer,” so continue to check us out for all your pop culture news and don’t forget to spread the word.

If you didn’t catch the acceptance speeches on MTV, here are a few Women of the Year, and one slightly disgruntled male Twilighter accepting this great honor through video submission.

Here is my submission, that MTV linked to in their Twilight Tuesdays blog:

And what a media circus it has been for Britney, essentially since the day she stepped onto the scene back when she was just 16 years old in 1997. While her latest album “Blackout” fell short of expectations and took a backseat to her custody battles and driving violations, there were a few hits that helped her maintain afloat. Circus, however is sure to pack a punch that will throw the critics and surprise the masses. 

“Phonography” at first hear has silly, innuendo-filled lyrics, but the beat is so intoxicating it completely makes up for it and you end up loving the lyrics, giggling at Britney’s utter honesty. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget she is a nearly 30-year-old mother of two, rather that teen girl growing up in the spotlight and being awkward and naive. The song hints at Ace of Base’s beats and melodies, and it actually works. With self-proclaimed unapologetic lyrics that border on the extremely inappropriate, this song is for adults only. 

“Amnesia” has a bit of an 80s throwback vibe, and is wistful and fun. Forget hinting at Ace of Base’s heyday in the early 90s with electronic sounds and a sugary feel, this song emanates their sound and it actually lends a new dimension to Britney’s sound. ”Kill the Lights” is a feisty lash out at the paparazzi. Thanks to a male announcer saying at the beginning of the song “here is a message from the world’s pop princess now pop queen …” the song showcases Britney’s arrogance, which actually might end up being mis-judged confidence.

There is nothing wrong with confidence, even over-confidence, especially when you have the dancing talent, wow-factor and resurrection chops to back it up. Granted, Britney never was the best singer, but that’s not what she is. She is not a singer, she is an entertainer; pure and simple. Yes she can carry a tune, and she projects fairly well, but the nitty-gritty is the girl can perform and after all of the bad press and judgement passed on her these past few years, she has come back and is saying to the world “Want to talk about me more? Talk about how great this album is!”

Other standouts on the CD include “If You Seek Amy,” “Lace and Leather,” and of course the first single “Womanizer” a radio favorite which receives frequent airplay in clubs and bars since its arrival a few months ago. This album is not just an effort by what can be mildly labeled a pop diva, but is a very sharp comment on her life in the limelight, and how she is knowingly an exhibitionist and in many ways, a masochist.

Overall the music on this new album is classic Britney, filled with evocative lyrics, enticing dance beats and thanks to the help of her production team, complex sounds that only add. While I’m positive not everyone out there is looking forward to this album to drop, Britney fans will be pleased with her ability to survive and to put out a CD that will make for a great show when she goes on tour, expected in early 2009. As many onlookers wait with bated breath, they may be turning blue at the potential success of Circus.  

She can thank all of those producers who helped make these songs three-dimensional and irresistible for any and all praise she may or may not receive. Those producers include including Max Martin, The Outsyders, Danja, Bloodshy & Avant and The Underdogs who lend much needed artistic direction while maintaining Brit-Brit’s dance queen image. She can also thank all of the personal trainers and what has to be a ridiculously patient entourage to help her with the everyday demands of being a pop star worth millions. Not to mention her quirky personality, outbursts and foibles that make her a media magnet, mostly for negative exposure. 

Circus will arrive in stores in the U.S. on the heels of the documentary Britney: For the Record airing Sunday Nov. 30 at 10 p.m.  on MTV. The film follows the Spears for three months, beginning Sept. 7, the day she appeared on the MTV Video Music Awards. 

Whether you love her, hate her, are apathetic, or waiting on the edge of your seat for her to fail, the fact is Britney Spears is back, and perhaps better than ever.

The night’s crowd was best described by local Melissa Cellurale as being, “99 percent women, and then there’s Steve,” her accommodating boyfriend. Indeed, women controlled the club, many looking like Conrad and many others there to actually see what her designs look like in person.

Even though her line is being sold in the West Coast at LA stores like Intuition, Miss LC has not been exposed to the coffee drinkers and black clothing lovers of the East Coast the same way. To solve that she launched a tour through this side of the States with the help of TheQuad.com, a website for that keeps college students up-to-date with events in their area.  The tour has made stops in Austin, Atlanta and Minneapolis.

The tours have been successful in getting Conrad to see her fans and see that, contrary to the belief of Spencer Pratt, she is well esteemed. Unfortunately for her dresses, that is not the same story. Yes they are clean cut, yes they are perfect for cocktail parties and yes they may make your fantasies about living the California life more vivid- but they are not worth the price tag of $150 and up.

Many of the designs disguise the fact that a simple red dress is just that with the use of fabrics like silk and lace. The designer is clearly concerned with quality and textures but if she could put that effort into the designing itself things may be different. To see a one side-sleeved tube dress with thin black belt embellishment compete in the same price range with, lets say, MARC BY MARC JACOBS Fiona Dress makes it very easy to see who will win the battle. The answer, dearest Hills fans, should be the Marc Jacobs frock.

Although the night was fun, with gifts from Aldo and Mark by Avon for whom Conrad is spokeswoman, the fashion show was not spectacular. Perhaps it was shadowed by the fact the show gave way to a regular club night. Perhaps it was the fact that seeing more than 100 LC-wannabes in the crowd made one wonder what they were really there for. Or maybe, perhaps it was because Conrad’s training at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising still has to continue for her to compete with the other gifted young designers. At least, she’s trying.

Fortunately, our friends at Aldo know most of us are watching the budget so they have offered a 15 percent discount off your next online purchase! Use the promotional code LC315OFF until December 1st when checking out.

The show will end with a two-hour special on a Saturday afternoon in November, said executive producer Dave Sirulnick on Monday. Sirulnick said the show wasn’t ending forever, but said now was the right time to give the show a “break.”

“We want to close this era of ‘TRL’ in a big celebratory way, and 10 is a great number,” Sirulnick said. “And 10 is the number that ‘TRL’ counted down every single day for 10 years, and we hit this 10th (anniversary) and we thought, ‘You know what? This feels like the right time and let’s celebrate it and let’s reward it. And let’s let it have a little bit of a rest for a minute.’ Let it catch its breath! Been working hard — for 10 years!”

“TRL” started in 1998 and served as a springboard for acts like The Spice Girls, The Backstreet Boys and many more.

According to some reports, MTV will replace “TRL” with “FNMTV” a Los Angeles-taped show hosted by Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz. The show features a mix of music from Slipknot to the Jonas Brothers.

In a statement, Eminem said: “I’m going to miss ‘TRL.’ … Where else will I be able to start feuds, defend my honor vigorously and act like an angry teenager on national TV? Oh wait … The VMAs!”

Fall Out Boy’s ‘Beat It’ nominated for Best Rock Video at 25th annual MTV VMAs

The first single will be the track “I Don’t Care.” Radio dates to be announced shortly.

“For Folie A Deux, Fall Out Boy spearheaded a politically charged group that unveiled cryptic ‘big brother’ type messages in order to support and ignite a democratic process,” Island Def Jam Music Group said in a statement Tuesday. “Impressively, the creative album roll-out garnered over 1 million impressions in just one week online across literally hundreds of websites such as absolutepunk.net, friendsorenemies.com, Live journal communities and many other popular music websites, including the band’s own site, www.falloutboyrock.com.”

“This roll-out was started to engage people and let them tell their own stories.  We came up with the beginning and the end, while the rest happened organically,” said bass player Pete Wentz.

Fall Out Boy’s cover of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” has been nominated for Best Rock Video at this year’s 25th annual MTV Video Music Awards.  The worldwide cablecast takes place live from Paramount Studios in Hollywood, September 7 at 9 p.m.

“People always ask who mine are,” the 23-year-old said in a recent interview. “But that phrase, ‘I’m only human’ – it’s there for a reason.”

In the past seven years, Trohman’s band — Fall Out Boy — has exploded from an underground sensation to an internationally recognized pop-punk powerhouse, hitting number one on the Billboard charts and performing at the MTV Video Music Awards last September.

For some fans, his success and talent makes Trohman a rock-and-roll idol himself. But he won’t have it, he says. And, speaking with BLAST, Trohman insisted that the name of his new line of custom electric guitars had no special meaning — called the Joe Trohman Washburn Idol.

Designed by Trohman and manufactured by Washburn Guitars last year, the Idol is aesthetically simple: available in black or white, with a classic binding — cream around the black model, and black on the white. The neck is wide and thin, the solid basswood body is thin and light and there are just four adjustment knobs.

“I have guitars that have a lot of weird modes, and tons of switches and stuff,” Trohman said. Those are fun, but as the guitar player for Fall Out Boy … I don’t have a bunch of effects. I just have a guitar, and it needs to be able to do its job.”

Maybe the flashiest physical feature of the guitar are its inlays on the fret board, shaped like Fall Out Boy’s keyhole logo.

“I’m very into design, and I like modern stuff,” Trohman says. “I like the simplistic value of it.”

Inspired by some of Trohman’s favorite vintage guitars – his black Les Paul Custom and white Les Paul Studio – his model hides a couple of innovative features beneath its basic surface. In particular, its Voice Contour Control (VCC) coil-splitting system allows for a dirty tone, combining single-coil pick-up sounds and humbucking, without the usual hum of a single-coil, according to the retailer’s website, empireoftherepublic.com.

“I think it’s really cool, and it works for me when I’m flicking between two amps,” Trohman says. The result, he says, is a dirty sound that roars out smooth.

When Trohman was approached by Washburn by last year, he had minor deals with some retailers, he says, but no actual endorsement. Part of the package, he says, was getting to design a guitar all his own.

“I pretty much couldn’t turn it down,” he says. “It’s pretty hard for any guitarist, no matter how good they are, to make a signature guitar. I jumped on it — it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Now, the Idol is a mainstay for the lead guitarist, and has knocked his 1969 Les Paul Custom out of the top spot for favorite guitar.

“It’s the first time I got to make one,” he says. “And it’s a very comfortable relationship I have with the guitar, because I was able to … put it together and make it to my standards.”

Trohman has been playing guitar for nearly 14 years, he says, and has a collection of about 30 guitars in his Chicago home. He’d love to add another of his own creations to the line-up.

“That all depends on the demand for the guitar, honestly,” he said.

The guitar has seen a spike in online orders recently. “The fact that people want to buy my guitar blind, without ever playing it, is really cool,” he said.

In about four months, Sam Ash locations nationwide will start carrying the Idol. For now, they’re available online exclusively, at empireoftherepublic.com — a name invented when Trohman mashed together a couple of terms from the Star Wars series.

The guitar sells for $420.

“It’s inexpensive,” he said, “but the craftmanship great. For a beginner who wants to start out with a decent guitar, or for an advanced player who doesn’t have a lot of money but wants a nice guitar — it covers everyone.”

Fall Out Boy has been on tour for about six or seven years straight, and last week the band flew to Moscow to perform at a private engagement.

Later this year they’ll start recording their next album record with some of the 50 songs they’ve got floating around, Trohman said.

“But right now, we’ll just do one-off shows here and there,” he says. “And we’ll work on individual things – like sitting around, enjoying being home.”

Viacom, parent company of MTV and MTV Games, hopes to capitalize on the producer’s entertainment and drama successes and build Bruckheimer’s original style into modern interactive entertainment.

“Video games represent a new and innovative medium for what we’ve always tried to do, which is to tell great stories,” Bruckheimer said. “But this medium is unique in that it gives the player control over how those stories unfold.”

The new gaming studio will work on all phases of game creation from concept to marketing, MTV Games said in a statement Wednesday. MTV will tap Jeff Yapp, executive vice president of programming enterprises, and Bob Picunko, VP of electronic games and interactive products to work directly with Bruckheimer’s studio.

The resulting games will have the benefit of immense targeted marketing on all MTV/Viacom television networks and Internet channels, which will attempt to generate a buzz among the MTV fan base and translate that into sales.

MTV announced in August that they would invest more than $500 million over the next two years info developing interactive products. They have already seen success after purchasing Harmonix in 2006. Harmonix developed the original Guitar Hero games as well as the new hit, Rock Band.

Bruckheimer is responsible for some of the biggest movies and television shows ever including Top Gun, The Rock, Black Hawk Down, Crimson Tide, Bad Boys, Gone in 60 Seconds, National Treasure and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He also produced King Arthur, which is a great watch if you are looking for something that rings somewhere between Braveheart and [insert any medieval movie here].

Bruckheimer is no stranger to video games. Many of his properties have been turned into games, but most of them have met minimal success due to low budgets and the stigma of movie-to-video-game titles. Games included:

• A dark ages tale of the knights of the roundtable in “King Arthur,” which saw a PS2/Xbox/GC adaptation to reviews in the 6’s and 7’s
• Highly (financially) successful game ports of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series
• Awful mobile phone ports of National Treasure
• Bad Boys: Miami Takedown on the Playstation 2, one of the worst of a thousand games to hit the PS2
• A series of poorly reviewed PC games based on the CSI television show
• A whole bunch of Top Gun flight sims

Bruckheimer also has a movie coming out in 2009 based on the the Prince of Persia video game series called “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.”

It’s a fair bet that future Bruckheimer-title-based video games will have the financial and technical backing of this new studio. No word yet on the original content they are looking to develop, but if Bruckheimer is making a serious leap into the video game world, it’s definitely worth paying attention.

“The complete, unedited 66-minute concert including ‘Something In The Way’ and ‘Oh Me’ not aired during the original 44-minute broadcast,” MTV said in a statement. “‘Unplugged in New York’ also includes five previously unreleased rehearsal performances and MTV News interviews with the band and audience members.”

“Unplugged” was filmed Nov. 18, 1993 at Sony Music Studios, the show first aired on MTV Dec. 14, 1993, months before Kurt Cobain’s death.

The DVD also features a “Bare Witness” interview with the band.

Features:

COMPLETE SHOW (UNEDITED):

• About A Girl
• Come As You Are
• Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam
• The Man Who Sold The World
• Pennyroyal Tea
• Dumb
• Polly
• On A Plain
• Something In The Way
• Plateau
• Oh, Me
• Lake Of Fire
• All Apologies
• Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

MTV NEWS – BARE WITNESS: Documentary

THE REHEARSALS:

• Come As You Are
• Polly
• Plateau
• Pennyroyal Tea
• The Man Who Sold The World

The DVD is available now.