Mariah Carey’s new mouthpiece Roger Friedman has confirmed yesterday’s rumor that the “real first single” from Mimi’s delay-plagued, yet still forthcoming Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel will be a cover of Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is.” (In case you missed it, the new line on the Eminem dis track “Obsessed” is that it was just a “summer trifle,” and not a real lead single from the album, despite it having an expensive video and it being called a single by Mariah’s camp. This couldn’t be because it hasn’t hit the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 in the five weeks that it’s been out, could it? Cough.)


Anyway, Friedman’s item is worth reading, if only to provoke giggles when he gets all Andy Rooney on the “stage names” of “Obsessed” producers Tricky and The-Dream, not to mention when he drops the decree that “Carey’s album, is, as they used to say, ‘what the kids want.’ Plus, it’s got stuff for the slightly older crowd.” Of course, that laughter might turn to tears when you realize that, yes, he gets paid to basically serve as a semi-credible mouthpiece for his bigwiggy pals. (Remember when he was all about the super-spendy boondoggle that was the Social@Ross series? Good times!)


Mariah Wants to Know What Love Is: Covers Foreigner [Showbiz 411]
Foreigner – I Want To Know What Love Is [Dailymotion]

What’s interesting about all that is Madonna moved her base of operations from London to New York for this “Sweet and Sticky Tour,” opting to rehearse every day in Brooklyn, of all places. This is a little odd, considering the tour begins in Great Britain on Aug. 23 and doesn’t come to America until Oct. 4 at the New Jersey Meadowlands.

According to her Web site, Madonna.com, there are plenty of tickets available in most major American cities, including New York and Boston. Apparently, all this publicity — a lot of which this reporter admittedly thought was being generated to sell tickets — has not helped much at all.

Quite a change from the claims of this tour “[outpacing] Madonna’s last tour significantly” that he was making two weeks ago. Either he’s not someone you want to scorn, or maybe his assistant finally checked out Ticketmaster? At any rate, watching Friedman’s worm turn in real time is yet another reason why I want this story to never ever end. (And here is another one.)

Did Madonna Injure A-Rod? [Fox 411]

Quoth Friedman, or whatever Live Nation mole put the Post-sized bee in his bonnet:

So let’s clear up reports from Tuesday that her big fall tour isn’t selling out. With the sole exception of Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium, the Sweet and Sticky tour, I am told, will outpace Madonna’s last tour significantly.

Indeed, Dodger Stadium is the only venue Madonna hasn’t sold out. Of course, the show isn’t for five months. The fact that she’s sold half the stadium now for November is pretty darn impressive

Well, first off, it’s the Sticky and Sweet Tour, but that can easily be blamed on copyeditors who don’t feel like slogging through Friedman’s paeans to his pals too closely. The real falsity here is Friedman’s assertion that Dodger Stadium is “the only venue Madonna hasn’t sold out.” Yesterday I did a little Ticketmaster searching for Madonna’s shows in Boston and Houston, and found available seats at both dates; repeating that experiment just now revealed similar results. (I just did a plain old search, without any wiggling around for VIP seating or secondary-market offers.) Is there another definition of “sold out” that I’m not aware of? Or does he not care about those markets, since later on he puffs up his chest and says, “She’s already sold out four shows at the Garden and out in New Jersey at what used to be the Continental Airlines Arena — now the Izod Arena. She’s also sold out most of her venues in Europe.” (Not to mention that it’s the Izod Center, but again, the copyeditor assigned to this story was probably weeping by this point.)

Friedman also whines about the evil Mr. M. Group not promoting Madonna’s shaping-up-to-be-a-dud Hard Candy properly:

Meanwhile, a better question to ask is why can’t WMG cough up a follow-up single to “4 Minutes”? That is, assuming they would want to. “Hard Candy” is full of candidates such as “Miles Away” and “Give It to Me.”

But WMG hasn’t had made a move. By contrast, Mariah Carey — whose sales have outpaced Madonna’s considerably — is already on her third single from her contemporaneous release, “E=MC2.”

Two things: One, I do believe that part of the reason Mariah’s on the verge of releasing her third single from E=MC² was that “Bye Bye” was kind of a flop; and two, apparently he forgot about the video for “Give It To Me,” which has actually been spotted by this writer on MTV, of all places. But that’s OK, because it’s pretty forgettable.

Squatting at yourself in front of a mirror, Madonna? Is this leftover footage from “Hung Up”?

Anyway, Friedman also claims in the piece that Live Nation is on the verge of signing 360 deals with Nickelback and Shakira, but given that he claims that Nickelback’s hits include “The Reason,” we can assume that maybe he thought he heard “Nickelback” when what he really heard was the name of another band with a kinda-dumb, three-syllable name.

Is Madonna Being Sabotaged? [Fox 411 via Coolfer]
Earlier: Madonna’s Ticket Sales Give Live Nation Something Else To Suck On