Rihanna Sidelined By Undisclosed Illness

The Daily Mail published a photograph of her sucking on a lollipop as she left a doctor's office in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. You can see the photo here.

Selena Gomez Announces World Tour

Selena Gomez will be performing across the globe this summer and fall on her Stars Dance World Tour, which will begin with a Canadian leg.

Gomez spoke to Ryan Seacrest on Monday and had this to say, "It's going to be a bigger show. I'm excited. I've been dancing a lot and I just want to entertain people... I kind of missed shows when it used to just be about the dancing and the performing as opposed to how big and elaborate the stage is, so I kind of want to get back to that."

The tour will kick off on August 14 in Vancouver and she will perform several Canadian dates before heading to Europe on August 30th.

The European leg begins in Copenhagen and will run for almost a month before concluding on September 25th in Moscow, Russia.

Gomez will then take a few weeks off before kicking off the U.S. leg on October 10th in Washington, D.C. The leg will conclude on November 27th in St. Louis, MO. more on this story

Phoenix Streaming New Album Online

Phoenix fans don't have to wait until April 23rd to listen to the band's new album, Bankrupt!, as the group is offering a full album stream online.

The band teamed up with iTunes to stream the album in full up until release date at the iTunes store. You can check it out here.

Phoenix are following up their headline performance at Coachella this past weekend with a several North American appearances next month.

The band is set to perform at Jazzfest in New Orleans on May 4th, followed by performances at the Beale Street Music festival, Sweetlife Festival.

They will also be performing stand alone shows including stops in Orlando, Atlanta and the Apollo Theatre in New York City. more on this story

Prince Releases New Song FIXURLIFEUP

(Radio.com) Who needs album releases when you've got the Internet? Alright, so maybe Prince hasn't given up on the full album concept entirely — it's rumored he's calling his 35th album Plectrum Electrum — but the Purple One released the new track "FIXURLIFEUP" over the weekend, just in time to kick off his Live Out Loud Tour.

Following a similar sonic direction as his recent blues remake of "Let's Go Crazy," "FIXURLIFEUP" features distorted guitars and a hypnotic vocal lead.

Ripping through an electronic guitar solo, Prince declares, "Don't worry about what the crowd does/Just worry about being good at what you love."

Listen to "FIXURLIFEUP" and see a short Plectrum teaser, via his band's alias "3rd Eye Girl," here.

Brad Paisley Thinks SNL's Accidental Racist Parody Was Awesome

(Radio.com) What did Brad Paisley think of the Saturday Night Live parody of his and LL Cool J's song "Accidental Racist" that aired this past weekend? Three words: "It was awesome."

In an interview this morning with Lisa Dent and Ramblin' Ray of Chicago's US99.5, Brad talked about the parody–and about the "firestorm" that surrounded "Accidental Racist," a song that appears on his brand-new album Wheelhouse. "What I was trying to do with this entire album was push boundaries," said Brad. "And we definitely succeeded at that."

As reported last week, "Accidental Racist"–a Paisley song that features guest vocals from LL Cool J–was an earnest attempt by the artists to open dialogue around the still-hot topic of racism. Brad called the song one of his proudest moments as a songwriter, while the media showered more attention on him, his collaborator, and the song that he ever could have predicted.

"And I figured, this being an album cut and not being the single, that it would take people a while to discover it."

Brad told Lisa and Ray that, because the song was an album cut and not a single, he figured it would take people a while to discover the track. "And in a best case scenario, myself and LL Cool J would wind up on a show like NPR or Charlie Rose, and talk about the song and why we wrote it." That's not what happened!

Drake Samples Destiny's Child For 'Girls Love Beyonce'

(Radio.com) If you're going to write a song called "Girls Love Beyonce," it makes sense to include an excerpt from either a Beyonce or Destiny's Child song.

That's just what Drake has done on his new track, released on Soundcloud on Monday, April 15. The nearly four-minute jam finds Drake returning to his familiar rap-sing style, decrying girl troubles.

"It's hard to meet women/feel like my love life is finished/I've been avoiding commitment/that's why I'm in this position," he sings, proceeding a chorus lifted straight from Destiny's Child's "Say My Name," with an assist from producer/singer James Fauntleroy (Justin Timberlake, Ciara) on the hook.

Over a slow-burning, sparse beat and instrumentation, Drake eventually reveals the type of girl for whom he's searching: "I need someone that'll help me think of someone besides myself/I need someone I leave through the front door with/'Cause we don't wanna hide no more." Check it out here.

Olly Murs Explains What To Expect From New Album

(Radio.com) Olly Murs didn't plan on releasing a new album this year but after writing five songs in between stints on tour with One Direction, he decided it was the right time. Murs sat down with Radio.com to discuss his new album, aptly titled Right Place Right Time.

"There isn't really a theme to the album. Whenever I put an album together I look at it like a show, like a tour," he said. "If you were to come and watch me on a stage would you want there to be the same songs from start to finish where it's the same production, same feel to it? I think by the time you got to the twelfth song you'd be like, 'I need to get out of here, it's just the same.'"

Murs explained that when he records an album he wants to put his personality into the project and produce a versatile release. "We can mix it up. We can put different styles on it. A different sound of a guitar, a different drum beat. Just completely change each song," he said. "It's taking someone in a completely different direction. One minute you're going left and then you're going right and then you're going up and down. You've got all these different kinds of songs you can listen to and it gives you a different feel and a different vibe."

Murs said the tracks throughout the album spans a person's emotions. "One makes you really sad, one makes you excited, one makes you want to go out for a jog and a run," he said. "One makes you want to get in the car and think about life. One wants you to sit cry and think about the girl that you lost. I feel like my album takes people on a big journey of different events and different parts that's happened in their life. Each song has a different feel to it." A lot more.

Pharrell Williams Explains How Daft Punk Collaboration Happened

(Radio.com) Daft Punk released the latest in a series of videos featuring artists who they collaborated with for their fourth studio album, Random Access Memories, set for release on May 21.

In this latest clip, Pharrell Williams (who only refers to the dance duo as "the robots") discusses how the collaboration came together after the two entities ran into each other at a party hosted by Madonna, eventually connecting in Paris to work on music.

It was during that session that Williams says Daft Punk gave him a mysterious pill that not only gave him a burst of energy in the recording session, but also erased any memory of it from his brain.

"Because I was just so tired and extremely jet lagged, they gave me this table that you put in water, you know, more on the holistic side, it doesn't have the crash or whatever," Williams said. He goes on to say that the pill gave him a "burst of energy," as well as a little something extra.

"By the time I got back on the plane to America, I had forgotten everything," the Neptunes producer and N*E*R*D frontman continued. "Still to this day, I can't figure out was it really the jet lag or did the robots sort of hit me with the Men in Black, like, 'you will remember nothing of this.'" More including the video.

Coldplay Release Crowdsourced Music Video

(Radio.com) Chris Martin and the band Coldplay have released a new crowdsourced music video is set to an acoustic take on "In My Place," which was recorded in the Absolute Radio Studio for the website One Golden Square back in 2002.

The clip consists of video footage and still images provided by thousands of the band's fans, was compiled by Coldplay music video director Mat Whitecross.

Among the Coldplay fans in the video are a smattering of celebrities, including actor Dominic Cooper and for a brief moment, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran (he can be seen holding a sign that reads "stop land grabs" at around the 1:58 mark of the video).

The original version of the song can be found on the band's 2002 full-length release, A Rush of Blood to the Head. Check out the video here.

alt-J Release iTunes Session

alt-J found time in their busy tour schedule to record a special iTunes Session album at the Revolution Recording Studio in Toronto, which has now been released.

Their iTunes Session album features 8 songs including "Fitzpleasure," "Tessellate," and "Breezeblocks." The release also features the group's cover of "A Real Hero" by College ft. Electric Youth.

Full tracklist: 1. Interlude I 2. Tessellate 3. Fitzpleasure 4. Breezeblocks 5. Buffalo 6. Matilda 7. A Real Hero 8. Taro. You can get it here.

The band continues to tour in support of their Mercury Prize winning album, An Awesome Wave. They are currently on a North American tour leg which will conclude at the Bonnaroo Festival in June.

The band will launch another North American tour leg on August 2nd at the Osheaga Festival in Montreal. That leg will conclude on September 29th in Dallas, TX. more on this story

The Neighbourhood Streaming New Album Online

(Radio.com) Southern California buzz band the Neighbourhood has released an online stream of their long-awaited first album, I Love You, featuring their breakout single, "Sweater Weather."

The band, led by frontman Jesse Rutherford, recently performed at the first weekend of Coachella 2013, and is scheduled to hit the desert festival again for the second weekend, April 19-21.

"The idea came about pretty quickly," Rutherford told L.A. station KROQ in a recent interview about forming the band. "I just think that when you have a vision about something, you shouldn't disturb that vision."

"A lot of the songs started in my bedroom," Rutherford explained of the writing process for the album. "The boys will come over and we'll just vibe out to a drum beat or something." more on this story

Lady Antebellum Go Downtown To No. 1

(Radio.com) That didn't take long. After Lady Antebellum released "Downtown" in late January, the song has now reached 500,000 downloads and topped the country singles charts. It's the group's fastest-rising No. 1 single to date.

Part of the song's immediate and widespread appeal had to do with the funky arrangement and sassy vocals of band member Hillary Scott — both of which are departures from the group's previous hits such as "Need You Now," "American Honey," and "We Owned the Night."

Hillary may be the voice out front on "Downtown," but as she and bandmate Charles Kelley explained during an interview backstage at Country Thunder Arizona with KMLE this past weekend, a good chunk of credit also belongs to the third member of the Lady A triumvirate, Dave Haywood.

He may not be out front as much during their live shows as lead vocalists Hillary and Charles, but as Charles explained, Dave is "definitely the music" behind the group. Speaking of their upcoming album Golden, Charles said that "in the studio, he and our producer Paul Worley are spearheading most of the project. And we [he and Hillary] get to breeze in and out throughout the process. He definitely is the most talented out of us, I'd have to say." more on this story

Ellie Goulding And Calvin Harris Couple Up For 'I Need Your Love'

(Radio.com) Ellie Goulding's music has long been measured against the men she's with — from the BBC DJ who inspired her current album, Halcyon, to EDM headliner/heartbreaker Skrillex.

With this video collaboration with fellow Brit electronic artist Calvin Harris, Goulding finally tweaks the nose of looky-loos and music journalists who would use her romantic life as a plot line instead of actually penning a review.

For Harris, this is another on his whirlwind of collaborations with female singers from his album, 18 Months. After the massive success of "Sweet Nothing" with Florence Welch and the diamond-bright "We Found Love" with Rihanna, Harris has found his path: he makes the beats and they sing the words.

That Goulding is so game to play along in the video, down to the intimacies of frolicking nude in bed with Harris, along with the handheld nature of the camera work lends the video an air of authenticity, as if we'd simply discovered their unremarkable couple footage.

Until, that is, the camera gets hijacked from a beach by a tattooed gentleman with a skateboard and a healthy sense of self-esteem. And then it starts making the rounds with all sorts of traditionally unsavory types who systematically tape over the images of the happy couple. more on this story

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