Hot Music Beat

After only including releases from the previous 18 months to calculate the best selling albums on the Billboard chart, Billboard will now be incorporating catalog releases due to the massive sales of both Michael Jackson and The Beatles. The sales chart on November 25 will be the first tally of the comprehensive chart. In digital music news, 4 artists have already broken Rihanna’s track sales record of 9.9 million digital songs in 2008, including the late King of Pop, Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas and Taylor Swift. The biggest news is probably that the country singer is the only artist that outsold Michael’s album this year in sales. Congratulations!

Taylor Swift is featured on the cover of the December 2009 issue of InStyle magazine which will hit stands on November 20th. WWD reports that something special is up with that particular cover of the country singer. They say “Readers who hold up the cover to their Web camera will see Swift spring to life surrounded by snowflakes in a 45-second video that ends when she signs her autograph across the screen. ‘We’re using this in an interesting way; it will bring the issue to life,’ noted managing editor Ariel Foxman.” That sounds like such a sweet treat for everyone indeed.

The singer recently came up and admitted that she is terribly excited about hosting the famous Saturday Night Live show. Taylor Swift wrote the following on her twitter: : “Starting the SNL process I kinda feel like I might have a heart attack or pass out in the pitch meeting. I’m that excited.” Taylor Swift probably has nothing to worry about… if she does pass out, Taylor Lautner will most likely be there to catch her. Or, to make matters more amusing, Kanye West will play the part of the human trampoline, after all, it is supposed to be a comedy show.

Garth Brooks has been retired from the music scene since 2000 but the country singer has recently signed on with the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas to perform at the Danny Gans Theater beginning next year. The country star is expected to perform for 16 weeks shortly after New Year’s. Garth also recently had press conferences in both Nashville and Vegas to announce further details. If for some reason you don’t know who this guy is, Garth has sold over 220 million albums worldwide since his first album back in 1989 and currently lives in Oklahoma with his fellow country singer wife Trisha Yearwood.

Taylor Swift recently debuted a brand new music video for her song ‘Fifteen’. The song is the fourth single from her 2008 album ‘Fearless’. The video features her real life best friend Abigail Anderson. The cutie pie country singer talked about the song and the video saying “‘Fifteen’ talks about how my best friend, Abigail, got her heart broken when we were in ninth grade and singing about that absolutely gets me every time.” It’s a great song and a cute video. I can’t expect anything less from Taylor. She’s just great. I honestly can’t find something that I don’t like about her.

Apparently, one of Carrie Underwood’s song writers met with country singer Brittany McDonald after hearing and loving the latter’s song ‘Bang’. The meeting took place well before the 26-year old American Idol champ’s new single ‘Cowboy Casanova’ was written and recorded and now there is suspicion that Carrie’s latest single is a plagiarized song from Brittany. I’ve listened to both songs and they do sound eerily similar. While there are a lot of songs out there that sound similar, it’s highly suspicious that one of Carrie’s song writers met with Brittany before Carrie’s song even came to life. I hope Carrie isn’t involved in any shape or form in any plagiarism acts.

After acting like a disrespectful douche bag towards Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, Kanye West took to his blog twice to apologize to the country singer. The rapper then continued his tour of contrition during his appearance on Jay Leno’s new talk show on NBC last Monday. Kanye apologized once again and said that he needed to take some time off. I think he needs to check himself into rehab if he was chugging down a bottle of Hennessy like what he did at the ceremony. Hopefully, the time off that he was talking about wouldn’t affect his upcoming co-headlining tour with Lady Gaga.

If there was ever and award for nicest celebrity ever, Taylor Swift would easily take the top honors after the stunt she pulled outside her London hotel last Friday night. The 19-year old country singer treated all of her waiting fans to dinner by buying ten Domino’s pizza pies, several boxes of cookies and cartons of milk. Everything was delivered but the blonde cutie still took the time to hand some food out to all her waiting fans. I don’t think there’s any other star like Taylor who would do that. She’s epic I tell you. She just keeps giving you reasons to fall in love with her.

Carrie Underwood met and performed for the soldiers at the ‘Salute to the Troops’ concert at the Division Parade Field taking place in Fort Campbell, Kentucky last week. As part of the 2009 Week of the Eagles, the 26-year old American Idol alum was joined by fellow country singer Hank Williams Jr. The event-filled biannual celebration pays tribute to the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division who will soon be returning from their service in the Middle East. Welcome home guys! And thanks for protecting the country and the rest of the world from terror. You’ve made a lot of people proud.

Legendary country music duo Brooks & Dunn are said to be over and done. Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn have recently announced that it’s the time for them to leave the country music scene and that they will be calling it quits after a 2010 farewell tour. The duo said in a statement “After 20 years of making music and riding this trail together, we have agreed as a duo that it’s time to call it a day. This ride has been everything and more than we could ever have dreamed…. We owe it all to you, the fans. If you hear rumors, don’t believe them, it’s just time.” Brooks & Dunn are now preparing for their final tour, The Last Rodeo Tour, and the release of their greatest hits collection ‘#1… and Then Some’.

Tim McGraw kicked a fan out of his concert last week and he has finally come out to explain exactly what went down that made the country singer snap. Apparently, the concertgoer was being abusive towards the woman he was with. During Tim’s show in Paso Robles, California, the singer stopped his performance and absolutely refused to continue until the guy was removed from the premises, telling the crowd “You don’t treat a woman like that.” No one knew what the guy did at that time. They just knew that they wanted Tim to keep singing. This isn’t the first time that Tim laid down the law. A similar incident happened last year in Washington.

It is now official that Jessica Simpson will return to the world of reality TV. The failed country singer and actress will host the documentary series ‘The Price of Beauty’ which will follow the singer as she treks around the world in search of what people find beautiful and why. In a statement, Jessica said “I have always believed that beauty comes from within and confidence will always make a woman beautiful, but I know how much pressure some women put on themselves to look perfect. I am really looking forward to discovering how beauty is perceived in different cultures and participating in some of the crazy things people do to feel beautiful. I know we will all learn a lot on this journey and I am so excited that VH1 is coming along on what I’m sure will be a wild ride.” Will you watch her desperate attempt at a career?

If you happen to be a Jonas Brothers fan, then I’m sure you’ve heard ‘Much Better’, a song off the trio’s new album ‘Lines, Vines and Trying Times’. You should also be aware that it’s that song that makes a little dig at Joe’s ex-girlfriend, the singer of ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’, Taylor Swift. Everyone’s speculating that the song is about the country cutie but we’re all going to be left at speculation because Joe isn’t confirming anything. Joe talked about it in a recent interview and said “We went through a lot in the past year and a half, all of us. And you’re just going to have to get the record and figure it out for yourself.” He should just own up to it. Taylor did when she released ‘Forever and Always’.

Carrie Underwood exchanges a microphone for a softball bat this past Wednesday when she participated in the 19th Annual City of Hope Celebrity Softball Challenge which was held at Greer Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. The 26-year old American Idol alum played for the Grand Ole Opry Team while Dancing with the Stars cast Julianne Hough and boyfriend Chuck Wicks played on the other team, After Midnight. Carrie’s team won 11-5 after the country singer scored a run, hit a double and got an RBI. Who knew Carrie could play such good ball? She can have a career in sports if she wants to.