Adele Gets A Second US Number One With Someone Like You

BBC reports:

Adele has scored a second number one single in the US with her track Someone Like You, which has risen to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
The track, which was at the top of the UK singles chart for four weeks earlier this year, went from number 19 to number one in America this week.
The jump in the charts happened after the singer performed at last week’s MTV video music awards.
The song went on to sell more than 270,000 downloads in its ninth week.
Adele’s first US number one single ‘Rolling in the Deep’ was in May this year.
Meanwhile, Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera’s Moves Like Jagger drops to number two and Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks remains at three.
Mercury loser
Earlier this week in the UK Adele lost out to artist PJ Harvey for the 2011 Mercury Price for best album.
Some were surprised she didn’t win.
The judges’ chairman, Simon Firth, said album sales weren’t considered by the panel.
He said: “So we never stop and say well we won’t give that prize there, we think it’s the best album but she’s got enough success already so we won’t make her the winner.
“That would be so silly, it doesn’t even cross our minds.”
Meanwhile, Adele has been forced to postpone four shows on her UK tour on doctors’ orders.
It’s because the 23-year-old has been suffering with a bad cold and chest infection.

Lady Gaga Wins For “Best Female” While Dressed As A Man

The Advocate reports:

Lady Gaga took home this year’s award for best female performer — after putting on a raucous show dressed as a cigarette smoking, beer drinking man.

Her tweak on gender identity opened the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday with a monologue in character as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, who declared nothing real, and everything theater. Then Calderone tore off a black blazer and danced with a crew of men in white t-shirts and black pants during a rendition of “Yoü and I.”

On a night when Lady Gaga’s album and anthem of the same name for gay rights, “Born This Way,” brought in the awards, Lady Gaga spent the entire evening as a drag king. The song beat a number of this year’s biggest musical statements for gay acceptance to win “Best Video with a Message,” a new category. 

“I feel so blessed to be here,” Gaga said while accepting best female performer. “It doesn’t matter how you are — gay, straight, bi, lesbian, transgendered — you were born this way.” 

Before the night was over, Britney Spears accepted a kiss from Calderone, who enthusiastically introduced Spears as the winner of the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. 

First Sign Of The Apocalypse: Madge, Gaga Honor Britney Spears At VMA’s

Queerty reports:

The list of pop music divas appearing in the Britney Spears tribute at the VMAs keeps growing and growing:
Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha have all been named as artists performing in a tribute set at MTV’s Video Music Awards  on August 28. The queen bee herself, Madonna, is rumored to be making an appearance too. (Though if Madge sings one of Brit’s songs, we imagine the walls of the Nokia Theater will actually start bleeding.)
Other names being floated include Demi Lovato, Janet Jackson and Selena Gomez.

• “If this lineup is legit (which I’m told it is) the tribute to Britney at the VMAs is gonna be insanely EPIC!,” TV producer Johnathan Woodbeck (Top Chef, Project Runway) tweeted.
• Lady Gaga will reportedly sing “Circus,” Katy Perry is lined up for “Oops I Did It Again,” while Ke$ha and Nicki Minaj will collaborate on “Gimme More,”and Brit will be the last to perform with a mash-up of her hits “Hold It Against Me” and “I Wanna Go.”

What, no Kevin Federline? We’d love to hear the “Popo Zao” rapper tackle, “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.”

Rise Against’s “Make It Stop” Nominated in New VMA Category

Dan Savage comments:

One the most-watched IGB videos isn’t technically an IGB video at all. It’s the video for Rise Against’s “Make It Stop (September’s Children).”
Everyone at the IGBP—it’s not just me and Terry anymore (and hasn’t been for a long time, RSCC)—is hugely grateful to Rise Against for their outsized and moving contribution to the project. And we were thrilled to learn today that “Make It Stop” has been nominated for a VMA award in a newly created category: “Best Video With a Message.” Also nominated: Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way,” Eminem & Rihanna’s “Love The Way You Lie,” Katy Perry’s “Firework” (which Perry dedicated to the IGBP), and Taylor Swift’s “Mean.”
Rise Against’s video sends a powerful message and it’s reached and touched countless LGBT teenagers and their straight peers. Gay sex-advice columnists standing up against homophobia is one thing; punk bands with millions of straight fans standing up against homophobia is another thing altogether. We wanna thank Rise Against for the stand they’ve taken against the bullying of LGBT kids, for their enormous contribution to the It Gets Better Project, and for all they’ve done to make it better. We also wanna thank MTV for acknowledging the video and what it stands for.
And, hey, MTV viewers—and only MTV viewers (cough, cough)—are invited to vote for for all general VMA categories at vma.mtv.com. MTV viewers (cough, cough) who are only interested in voting in the “Best Video With a Message” category can go straight here. Voting’s open through August 16.

Here’s the video.

Cher & Lady Gaga

People reports:

Lady Gaga had a reason to sing at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards. 

The pop star, nominated for arecord-setting 13 trophies, took home top honors, winning video of the year for “Bad Romance” – and seized the opportunity to trill for Cher, who presented her with the Moonman trophy. 

“I never thought I’d be asking Cher to hold my meat purse,” a tearful Gaga said at the podium in a bacon-colored outfit. 

“I promised that if I won this tonight, I’d announce the name of my new record,” she said. After exhaling, Gaga revealed it is titled Born This Way.Then, she belted out a refrain as Cher looked on. “God makes no mistakes,” she sang. “I’m on the right track baby. I was born this way.” 

Throughout the night, Gaga turned the ceremony, live from L.A.’s Nokia Theater, into her very own fashion show, at one point noting that she wasn’t prepared for all her acceptance speeches. 

“This outfit’s too heavy to walk in,” she said while accepting best pop video. “I apologize if I’m a little slow this evening.” 

Here’s the Presentation of the Music Video Of The Year by Cher, which Lady Gaga got. The Lady Meets The Queen.

Cher is up to present Video Of The Year on tonight’s MTV VMA’s. Can’t wait to see her!

The Advocate:

Nominated for 13 Music Video Awards, Lady Gaga has decided to make a statement in support of gay rights at MTV’s Sunday evening show.

Her chaperones? A group of service members affected by “don’t ask, don’t tell,” sources have confirmed toThe Advocate.

The names of the service members have not yet been released.

Lady Gaga’s decision to attend the VMAs at Nokia Theater in Los Angeles with gay service members in tow isn’t the first time she’s taken a stand in support of repealing DADT. Prior to her concert in Washington, D.C. last week, the subversive siren met with clients of SLDN, an advocacy group that works with soldiers facing discharge from the military as a result of the 1993 law. Gaga was also a high-profile speaker at last year’s National Equality March in Washington. 

UPDATE: The four service members on the white carpet with Lady Gaga were identified as Katie Miller, described on Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s website as “a top West Point cadet who resigned in August to protest the discriminatory law”; Maj. Mike Almy, an Air Force officer who was discharged in 2006 and who testified in the federal challenge to “don’t ask, don’t tell”; David Hall, a former U.S. Air Force staff sergeant; and Stacy Vasquez, Army sergeant first class, who was also discharged as a result of DADT.

Though a federal judge in California last week ruled that DADT violates the First Amendment and due process rights of gay soldiers, pressure for the U.S. Senate to repeal the law remains immense as lawmakers return from recess on Monday. 

Failure to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (of which of DADT repeal is a part) before Congress recesses again on October 8 for the upcoming midterm elections could put repeal in jeopardy (click here for an update on legislative repeal from The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld).