Women Affairs

After making headlines for everything but music, Britney Spears is back with an album industry insiders say should top the charts despite her. Over the past year the one-time Mouseketeer shaved her head, spent time in rehab, went through an ugly divorce, lost custody of her children and attacked a photographer's car. And in an odd habit yielding endless tabloid references to the title of her biggest album - Oops!... I Did It Again - she kept getting photographed without her underwear. Now Spears is hoping that the release of Blackout, her first studio album in four years on Oct. 30, will revive her reputation. The album has already produced Gimme More, which topped US digital charts and critics expect a hit. But some critics who have heard her latest opus say the album's likely success has little to with her abilities and more to do with the producers. The New York Daily News noted all the "studio trickery" made her sound like a "Brit-Bot" machine. "If ...

Pop princess Kylie Minogue has admitted she was not prepared for how much her weight would balloon while she was being treated for breast cancer. It was on the eve of her Australian tour in 2005 that Minogue discovered she had a malignant lump in her breast and underwent surgery at Cabrini private hospital in Melbourne. Two years later, Minogue has released a documentary film, White Diamond, about her Showgirl world tour, which she revived following her recovery from breast cancer - and called the Showgirl Homecoming Tour for its Australian leg. She said the biggest surprise for her during her intensive cancer treatment was the dramatic fluctuation in her weight. "I went from next to nothing then I just ballooned with the drugs, and I guess now maybe I'm just curvy Kylie," Minogue told the Nine Network in an interview filmed in London and broadcast this morning. "I've been every other Kylie, who'd have thought it would be curvy Kylie," she said. "As...

British girl band Spice Girls Greatest Hits album will only be available in the US through lingerie chain Victoria's Secret for the first two months of its release. Under a deal announced today, Emma, Geri, Mel B, Melanie C and Victoria -- aka Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Victoria Beckham -- will also perform at the 'Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.' Capitol Music Group said Spice Girls: Greatest Hits would go on sale at Victoria's Secret on November 13 and that the fashion show would be broadcast on US television on December 4. The album will be made available elsewhere in the United States from January 15, 2008. Along with 13 of the Spice Girls hits, like Wannabe and Spice Up Your Life, the album will also include two new songs -- Voodoo, and Headlines (Friendship Never Ends), which will be the group's first new single since 2000. The Spice Girls announced in late June that they were reforming, seven years after they split, a...

The music industry has grown accustomed to prophecies of doom over the past few years and news that Madonna and Radiohead have abandoned their former paymasters has bolstered the perception that the end of the major record label is nigh. Madonna - the most successful female artist of all time - has ended a 25-year relationship with Warner Music in favour of a lucrative deal with Live Nation, a company that organises live events and owns several venues. The deal follows the recent excitement around Radiohead's decision to ditch EMI and offer their new album for download with the consumer choosing what to pay - a move set to be echoed by The Charlatans. Earlier this year, Prince gave away his new album to readers of the Mail on Sunday. Meanwhile, a slew of yesteryear's superstars, including Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell, have signed record deals with Hear Music, which is owned by the coffee chain Starbucks. It appears that artists of all calibres are forsaking the traditional ...

Scott Kara Kristin Hersh battles with her songs and sometimes they almost kill her. But despite a prolific career, during which she has released eight Throwing Muses albums, seven solo albums, and one as 50 Foot Wave, a power trio she started so she could vent, the songs haven't got her just yet. Hersh, who suffered from a form of bipolar disorder that caused her to hallucinate, is a happy and cheery talker despite the dark and troubled subjects she delves into. She also has a unique way of explaining her music. "I never know, when I go off to write a song, if I'm going to come back because it's like going to a place that would make you psychotic, make you a junkie, or would make you dead. All I can do is approach it without my brain, I have to see it as a spiritual response and that's when I can live with it. And that's not comfortable. "I don't think it [music] is going to kill me anymore, and I'm still honoured to hang out with music, but it has...