Shia LaBeouf was in the news a lot last year; the former Disney Channel actor opened up about dropping acid to prepare for a movie role, claimed he was raped during a performance art piece, and was accused of plagiarism after he released a movie that bore a striking resemblance to the graphic novel Justin M. Damiamo by Daniel Clowes. These days, he’s toned down his somewhat odd behavior quite a bit, but he recently took part in an art project that had him performing short pieces submitted to him by art students while standing in front of a green screen. The results have had the web buzzing today after several people used the green screen to make their own projects.
LaBeouf gets particularly into one piece–in which he gives a motivational speech–and it was quickly pasted into several well-known movies, much to the amusement of the web. The actor gives advice to Luke Skywalker, William Wallace, and the audience at a TED talk.
“Don’t let your dreams be dreams. Yesterday, you said tomorrow. So JUST DO IT. MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.”
LaBeouf grabbed headlines earlier this year with his appearance in the Sia video “Elastic Heart”, in which he performed interpretive dance with Dance Moms star Maddie Ziegler. Although there were some concerns that the video sexualized Ziegler--who is just 12 years old–it quickly became one of the most watched videos on YouTube and boosted Sia up the charts.
It wasn’t the first time LaBeouf bared his soul–or his body–for a video; a few years ago, he starred in a Sigur Ros video and showed off a good deal of his anatomy.
Britney Spears’ and Giorgio Moroder’s remake of the Suzanne Vega classic, “Tom’s Diner”, was leaked on the internet earlier in the week.
The Britney Spears collaboration for Moroder’s first album in over 30 years, Deja Vu, was immediately a huge hit.
The album, which is full of superstar collaborators, was not set to release until June, but eager listeners got a great sneak peak in Britney Spears’ rendition of “Tom’s Diner”.
The leak left many surprised at the song and wondering just who’s idea it was for Britney Spears to cover Suzanne Vega’s hit.
Turns out it was Britney Spears, herself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrCLZ7qHb2w
According to Giorgio Moroder, she approached him about the remake.
The famous 74-year-old producing legend said, “She wanted to redo ‘Tom’s Diner’ — that was something she wanted to do — and she asked me if I was interested in producing it and having it on my album, and I loved the idea.”
He said of Britney Spears, “She must have liked the original voice of Suzanne Vega.”
Of course she did, and what’s not to like? Britney Spears herself has a very similar sound to that of the great Suzanne Vega.
Moroder loves Britney Spears’ sound on this song. He says it’s very natural.
He said, “I listened a lot to her latest songs, which were all a little… the voice was a little mechanical, too many effects on some,while on this one, she’s basically without.”
He added, “A little delay, but no effects, no nothing, so it sounds really natural. I don’t think you could say immediately, ‘Oh, this is Britney,’ because she sounds so good on this song.”
Britney Spears isn’t the only huge name to lend her voice talent for Moroder’s album.
Also on tap are Sia and Kylie Minogue.
What do you think about Britney Spears’ collaboration with Giorgio Moroder?
The Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Show was full of surprise guests and musical performers that have become a part of the groundbreaking show. One of those guests that definitely stunned the crowd was Kanye West who debuted his new track on television.
The Grammy-winning rapper performed in a black and white designed stage that made it look like an art installation. West wore casual trousers, a pair of boots, a hoodie, and some cutoff gloves during the performance, but the one thing that the crowd made notice of was West’s baby blue contact lens that helped complete his eerie outfit.
The colored contacts made the 37-year-old rap artist’s eyes look like the eyes of wolves, which is also the title of his latest single. After performing Jesus Walks and Only One, a song that he wrote and dedicated to his late mother Donda, Kanye debuted his latest singleWolves on live television. A clip of the song was previously released along with the teaser video of his collaboration with clothing brand, Adidas. West performed the single during the launch of his line of Yeezy shoes during New York Fashion Week, but this is the first time that West performed the track in front of millions of television viewers who tuned in during the show.
West was joined onstage by newcomer Vic Mensa and Sia who donned her now-infamous blonde wig that obscured her face from the cameras. Kim Kardashian tuned in during the show and tweeted out a clip of her husband’s performance with the caption: “Iconic moment!!! Kanye SNL!”
West played it cool during the show when Mike Myers and Dana Carvey reprised their Wayne’s World characters and made fun of Kanye during their Top 10 skit. There were a lot of jokes thrown out during the three-hour show and it also featured a couple of musical guests aside from Kanye West and Sia. Paul McCartney was joined onstage by Paul Simon to perform a brief clip of The Beatles’ I’ve Just Seen a Face, while Miley Cyrus made a shockingly good performance of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.
Twelve-year-old dancer Maddie Ziegler has been a muse of sorts for Sia recently. The talented dancer appeared in the music videos for Sia’s “Chandelier” and “Elastic Heart”. Sia has even brought Maddie Ziegler along with her to perform the dance routine for those songs while promoting her new album. Now, they have finally made it. The two appeared at the Grammy Awards red carpet wearing matching hairstyles and matching suits.
Maddie Ziegler and Sia were there for a special performance of “Chandelier”. Shia LaBeouf, who starred in Sia’s “Elastic Heart” video alongside Ziegler, introduced the performance. Maddie Ziegler danced with comedienne Kristin Wiig as Sia sang with her back to the crowd. The pair wore matching blonde wigs that were meant to mimic Sia’s signature bob.
In a recent interview, Maddie Ziegler opened up about her collaboration with Sia. “People only knew me as a reality star. Now when I go out with my friends, go get ice cream and go shopping, I love when they say, ‘Oh, you do stuff with Sia!’” Ziegler said. “I don’t want to be known as just a Dance Moms competitor. I’d really like to be known for all of Sia’s work, too.”
Maddie Ziegler also revealed that her recent work with Sia led to her increased interest in music. “I would love to be an amazing singer. I take voice lessons,” she said. “It’s good to have as a dancer — to be able to sing and act too because for a Broadway show or musical, you have to be able to do everything.”
Ziegler added, “We’ve become like family ever since I did ‘Chandelier. I text Sia sometimes when I am in rehearsals. Everyone’s like, ‘Send a picture of us to her!’”
The video for Sia’s “Chandelier” starring Maddie Ziegler racked up more than 520 million views on Sia’s VEVO page, making it one of the most popular music videos in recent years.
The 12-year old dance star first found success on the reality show Dance Moms, but things really blew up when singer Sia recruited her for her video “Elastic Heart”. Aside from numerous dancing, acting, and modeling jobs in the months since, she’s also the star of Sia’s new video “Chandelier”, which she performed live at this year’s Grammy Awards with none other than…Kristen Wiig?
It’s true. The Saturday Night Live alum donned a platinum wig and nude leotard to perform an interpretive dance with Maddie while Sia sang the song facing away from the audience, something she’s known for. Maddie and Kristen jumped around a set onstage, looking like one another’s doppleganger in their matching wigs, and today the performance is getting quite a bit of buzz.
Sam Smith may have walked away with most of the awards on Sunday night, but it’s likely not a big deal to Sia, who has made it clear in the past that she doesn’t care that much about fame and accolades. Over the years, she’s declined to stay in the spotlight too long and has hidden her face for many performances because she doesn’t want to sacrifice her personal life just to be famous.
“I don’t want to be famous, or recognizable. I don’t want to be critiqued about the way that I look on the Internet. I’ve been writing pop songs for pop stars for a couple years and see what their lives are like and that’s just not something I want,” Sia told ABC News.
Maddie Ziegler and Shia LaBeouf made headlines when “Elastic Heart” was released, as the two of them performed in the video together, prompting worry that there were undertones of pedophilia. However, according to several interviews Maddie has given, that was such a non-issue that all she was worried about was how dirty her costume was.
Maddie said recently that the fame has been surreal, especially when she meets celebrities who know who she is.
It’s changed in so many different ways. I mean, now celebrities know who I am. When I saw Miley Cyrus and J.Lo (on the red carpet at the VMAs) I was like, “Hi, um, I’m Maddie, I don’t know if you know me, I’m in the Sia video.” They’re like, “We’ve seen it.” And I was like, Whoa, that is cool. Because, you know, I’m just a girl that lives in Pittsburgh. It’s not a big deal at all,” she told Cosmopolitan.
With almost 60 million views in just two weeks since her latest video was released, Sia continued to electrify audiences with her insane performance on Saturday Night Live. Comedian Kevin Hart hosted the most recent SNL episode and Sia provided her artistic flair on stage by performing her massive hit, “Chandeliers” and “Elastic Heart.”
Hidden by a black veiled visor during the performance, Sia let her two dancers do the entertaining during her first performance. Maddie Ziegler, the 12-year-old star of Dance Moms stunned the audience with her modern dance interpretation of Sia’s latest hit. Although Ziegler danced with actor Shia LaBeouf for the video, the controversial star of Transformers was noticeably absent from the performance.
Ziegler did the routine with an older, similarly dressed female. Although the Elastic Heart video was a massive hit, Sia was criticized for paring a young girl with a grown man like LaBeouf. People who have seen the video found it to be highly sexualized, making it inappropriate for some. Others viewed Zeigler and LaBeouf’s performance as a work of art, stirring a handful of emotions in the music video form.
Sia returned to the SNL stage by performing her Grammy-nominated hit, Chandelier. The singer replaced Ziegler with a mime for her next number, continuing her trend of strange on-stage performances. The 39-year-old Australian singer belted out her massive hit, stunning the live audience who were at awe over her amazing vocal chops.
A few days after the release of the Elastic Heart video, the singer apologized to those who felt triggered by the controversial video. “My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody,” she tweeted. People over Twitter criticized the performer for paring up a grown man with a 12-year old girl in a wild modern dance routine. In the video, both Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler were donned in skin-colored outfits and engaged in a dance routine that people found suggestive.
I apologize to those who feel triggered by #ElasticHeart My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody.
While Britney Spears has yet to have a lip-syncing scandal as big as Ashlee Simpson’s SNL debacle, her career has been riddled with vocal criticisms, with the most recent one coming earlier this summer when a version of her hit song, “Alien”, was released without the assistance of auto-tune. While her producers have defended the singer’s out of tune track by stating it is a leaked track of a warm-up session, there has yet to be a valid excuse rendered for what transpired at Spears’s latest show during her Planet Hollywood Las Vegas residency.
Yesterday, a Britney fan posted a clip of her latest concert performance to Instagram. In the video, Britney is shown singing and performing to “Perfume”, a ballad from her recently released album, Britney Jean.
Everything seems to be fine, except for one big, glaring error. Hear the vocal track from the video? Does it sound like Britney?
If you think it doesn’t, you’re in agreement with hundreds of angry fans across the globe.
Britney is under hot-water once again for supposedly lip-syncing during one of her live performances. This time, the gaffe seems to be quite apparent as most suspect that they hear the voice of Spears’s back-up singer and co-writer of the track, Sia, in the Instagram video.
The mistake is easy to spot considering Spears released an acoustic version of “Perfume” earlier in the year in which she and Sia sing the song in a duet fashion, bringing prominence to Sia’s voice. A video was also released earlier which showcases Sia singing the song all on her own. If you want to judge the video yourself, here are videos to provide a vocal comparison:
Britney:
Sia:
Acoustic Duet:
Despite the auditory evidence, Britney’s camp insists that the performer did not lip-sync during her act and that the voice in the video is indeed Britney’s, telling fans to “Get your … ears checked.”
However, Britney’s managers and producers have previously supported her lip-syncing scandals, defending her by saying that it is impossible for anyone to perform the way Spears does and not use backing vocals: “To put on the show that she puts on, it’s virtually impossible to sing the entire time and do what she does. She’s singing on every song, basically, when she has the ability to sing. There’s no way you can dance for 90 minutes straight and sing the entire time,” stated manager Adam Leber.
Leber’s assurances that no one could perform that hard for 90 minutes without lip-syncing at some point apparently missed the attention of another of Spears’s managers, Larry Rudolph, however, when he stated that Spears would most certainly be singing live during her Vegas residency:
She’s going to be singing live. She does choreography and vocal coaching every day. The vocal coaching is really just to strengthen her voice and get her to a point where she can go out there every night and do a full show.
It’s hard for the public to fully understand what goes on when you get on stage and you’re dancing full out during a song. No matter what anyone says, there’s not a single artist who goes out there and does full choreography and is singing without a vocal track underneath them at the same time. It’s physically impossible. We’re just trying to build up her stamina and get her to a point where she can do as much as humanly possible. The idea is to try to get her pretty close to 100%. There might be some numbers where she’s full out dancing with a (vocal) track underneath her, but there won’t be any lip-syncing across the board on anything.
With a career that has been marred by a plethora of issues, this Instagram video of supposed lip-syncing is not going to destroy Spears’s career anytime soon.
If you have ever seen an episode of Dance Moms, you probably noticed the impressive little dancer, Maddie Ziegler. At only 11 years old Maddie has won numerous dance titles and is an amazingly mature dancer.
Maddie has made it clear on the show that she plans to be a star someday, and her recent appearance in Sia’s new music video for her single “Chandelier,” has gotten her one step closer to her dream.
Sia’s song is about being abandoned as a child and Maddie dances throughout the entire video, expressing through her dance the many emotions that an abandoned child goes through.
In the video, Maddie wears a plain leotard and a short, blonde wig that almost makes her unrecognizable. Her dance moves and facial expressions however, make her easy to identify.
Maddie has gotten a huge amount of positive feedback about the video and it has been shared thousands of time on Twitter and Facebook..
Maddie competes with the Abbie Lee Dance company and has been dancing since she was 2. She has modeled for several dance clothing lines, appeared in a commercial for Sketchers and had a role as ‘Young Deb’ on the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva. Maddie is no doubt talented, and the video was a chance for her to show off her talents in a new way.
What do you think of Maddie’s dancing in the video?
Image via Wikimedia Commons