And there they are. Louis Walsh, Kelly Rowland, Tulisa Contostavlos and Gary Barlow.

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Michelle Branch's new album will be titled West Coast Time and you can expect it to hit stores this September. The first single "Loud Music" will be released on June 14th. If you haven't heard it yet, click here to do so. Great song, I recommend it.

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Lady Gaga sold a predicted 1.11 million copies of her album Born This Way this past week, which means it had the best first week sales since 50 Cent's The Massacre sold 1.14 million copies in 2005. However, the numbers are so close that when the official Billboard numbers are in tomorrow, she MAY have the biggest first week sales number in 10 years!

Almost 650k of those sales, though, were in digital form, with 460k coming via Amazon’s precedent-shattering two-day 99 cents promotion.

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Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" album made its expected powerful arrival to the U.K. chart Sunday (May 29), with the biggest first-week sale of the year here of 215,000 units, more than the rest of the top ten titles combined.

Lady Gaga's opening U.K. sales narrowly beat Adele's first-week tally of 208,000 for "21" in late January. "Born This Way" is joined in the top ten by its predecessor "The Fame," which rises 11-7.

The Australians also went crazy for Lady Gaga, as the much-anticipated album, released on May 23, is already approaching multi-platinum status in that country.

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Gary Barlow, Tulisa Contostavlos, Kelly Rowland & Louis Walsh will be the new judges for the upcoming season of The X Factor in the UK!

In case you didn't know, the judges for the US version of the show are Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, L.A. Reid and Cheryl Cole. No, Cheryl's supposed "exit" from the show has not been confirmed.

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James and Haley should've been the top 2! I'm telling you!

Fox’s American Idol performance finale was down slightly in the ratings from last year’s all-time low. Tuesday’s episode delivered 20 million viewers and a 6.2 preliminary adults 18-49 rating, down 7 percent from last season’s final performance show. Last night marked the lowest rating ever for a performance finale of American Idol.

And according to The Drudge Report, Scotty McCreery has won this season of American Idol after he got nearly double the amount of votes Lauren Alaina got and according to The New York Post, American Idol is "Getting Old".

Just a few months ago, the producers of "American Idol" declared that this would be the season they dragged the aging goliath into the future.

With ratings sagging over the past few years and its winners finding it increasingly difficult to sell records, "Idol" was in need of a dramatic reboot.

"Maybe it's like a diva, maybe it's more like Lady Gaga," Randy Jackson mused about the type of star he hoped would emerge. "Maybe it's Muse, Bono or Brandon Flowers of the Killers."

Now, at the season's end, with "Idol's" first all-country finale on tap, the "c" word -- for contemporary -- is not much heard and the winner is being labeled as an "UN-COOL, UN-HIP, COUNTRY-FRIED SINGER."
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Ouch! And with a FOURTH male winner in a row, I think it's safe to say American Idol has dug out its own grave and will be buried by The X Factor later this year.

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Lady Gaga’s Born This Way will debut at #1 next week with the year’s biggest sales total, between 900-950k. That would be the largest debut since Taylor Swift’s Speak Now scored 1.04 million last October.

Brad Paisley’s This Is Country Music, the 10th album since bursting onto the scene in 1999, is on target for an opening week of 145-155k.

Glee Cast Volume 6 will debut with between 80-85k, while Columbia/Jive/Legacy’s NKOTBSB, the joining of New Kids and Backstreet Boys, should do 35-40k on the heels of their blockbuster tour.

-HitsDailyDouble

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Beyoncé acknowledged Lorella Cuccarini's performance and even reveals that, it was the inspiration behind hers all along and that she worked with the people who made Lorella's performance happen last year. Here's what she said:

"My makeup artist showed me the performance of Lorella Cuccarini a year ago, and it inspired me so much. I then met with the talented people who worked on it. The technology and concept were so genius. Thank god for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring. I never worked so hard on anything in my life as that performance for the Billboard Awards."

And there you go.

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Does Haley Reinhart already have a record deal?

According to the "American Idol" Top 3 finalist's parents Harry and Patti, who are fast becoming a treasure trove of key information, she has already recorded a single and plans to debut it on the season 10 finale this Wednesday.

Dad Harry revealed at a concert held at Haley's alma mater Wheeling High School that the song will be used as a barometer of sorts, to "test it out and see what happens" after Wednesday's finale.

"She likes the song she's doing, and we hope you like it too," Haley's mom told an audience of several hundred gathered to support Relay For Life, adding that her "little spitfire" rejected two compositions before settling on the tune.

No one in the Reinhart clan is crying over Haley's elimination, either. "No. 3 is pretty darn good," said Harry, pointing out that "you don't have to be so tied to the company that way."

All "Idol" finalists are optioned to 19 Recordings and Interscope Records, should either company wish to sign and release their music.
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I gotta say, I'm pretty excited over this. I've got the feeling that Pia, James and Haley could be the biggest stars of this season. I hope they are! The three of them should have been the Top 3.

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Who better to raise the curtain on the 2011 Billboard Music Awards – which return Sunday night after a five-year hiatus – than Britney Spears, who earlier in the afternoon was seen at a dress rehearsal with Rihanna, sources close to the show tell PEOPLE.

"She looked fabulous," one of the sources says about Spears, "better than ever. The opening is sexy and playful, Britney's's got a fantastic entrance. It's epic."

Live on the stage of the MGM Grand Garden Arena Las Vegas, Spears will perform "Til the World Ends" with nominee Nicki Minaj after the latter delivers her hit "Superbass" backed by a slew of male dancers.

The show will air live on ABC, with Hangover 2 star Ken Jeong as host. Previously announced among the performers are Cee Lo Green, Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, the Black Eyed Peas and Keith Urban.

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Take a look below at the Top 10 list of the celebrities with the most followers on Twitter:

#1. Lady Gaga [10,266,506]

#2. Justin Bieber [9,789,727]

#3. Barack Obama [8,126,237]

#4. Britney Spears [7,926,258]

#5. Kim Kardashian [7,564,230]

#6. Katy Perry [7,422,638]

#7. Ashton Kutcher [6,795,691]

#8. Ellen DeGeneres [6,666,850]

#9. Taylor Swift [6,458,910]

#10. Shakira [6,134,778]

Barack Obama is the oldest member, having registered 51 months ago, while Shakira is the newest member of the ten having opened her account only 24 months ago.

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As predicted by Simon Cowell after Carrie Underwood's "Alone" performance in Season 4 of American Idol, she has just surpassed Season 1 winner, Kelly Clarkson, to become American Idol’s best-selling artist and the highest earner.

Nielsen SoundScan shows that as of May 16, Underwood has sold more than 12,296,000 albums and 18,482,000 digital tracks since her career began, this compared to Clarkson's 10,600,000 albums sold and 15,900,000 digital tracks sold. Furthermore, according to Billboard BoxScore, as far as tour revenues are concerned, Carrie's got Kelly beat by a lot with $66,000,000 in earnings, whereas Kelly has brought in around $32,000,000.

Congrats to Carrie! And to Kelly Clarkson as well, those are some big numbers for both ladies.

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Britney is performing at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on Sunday, according to Us Weekly. TWICE!

Britney will do one performance — potentially the opening number — with Rihanna, 23. The duo will perform Rihanna’s hit song “S&M.”

Spears will also be performing for the first time ever with Nicki Minaj, 26. Spears and Minaj will partner up for a remix of Spears’ hit “Till The World Ends.”

“I’m obviously honored to be out with Britney,” Nicki Minaj tells Us of the tour. “She’s freakin’ paved the way for so many things right now in pop culture. I’m excited to be on with her.”

“It’s gonna be big,” a source says of the Billboard performance. “People will definitely be talking about it the next day.”

The 2011 Billboard Music Awards air Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. on ABC

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Says the Kelly:

"I just heard another demo of mine leaked. I don't know how or who is doing it but they're demos and not the real deal. I record a ton of songs I write and songs that other people write when I'm making an album. Sorry for the confusion. I promise y'all I'm just as anxious to get my CD out! The recording is all done and now we're finishing up with mixing the record and getting ready to release the single in July."

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Ke$ha's already got the face paint down pat, and, during recent live sets, she's even taken to guzzling blood out of a human heart, so it should come as no surprise that, on her upcoming album, the pop star is taking things back to the most theatrical era of rock: the prop-heavy, arena-spanning heyday of the 1970s.

Ke$h revealed her plans over the weekend in Los Angeles, on the red carpet of KIIS FM's annual Wango Tango concert, where she told MTV News that the follow-up to her breakout Animal album (and, we suppose, Cannibal too) would be heavy on hard riffs and light on pretty much everything else.

"The next album ... I've been working on writing on the road, but as far as a sound, I just know it's gonna be balls-out, irreverent rock and roll," she said. "I've been pretty much in this '70s rock and roll kick and I just want to capture some of the true essence of what rock and roll is, and that's just irreverence and sexiness and fun and not giving a f---, so we'll definitely put a bit of rock and roll in it."

So, does that mean that fans can expect the likes of Alice Cooper or Peter Frampton to show up on her new album? Perhaps. Because while Ke$ha's new album is still a ways off, she's already begun calling in favors, hoping to line up a killer collabo for the new disc.

"I'm trying, trust me," she laughed. "I really would love to connect with one of my idols, I mean, that's my dream. I'm working on it."

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According to the Britney Spears fansite, Breathe Heavy: "Rumor has it Eminem wants Britney featured on a rap/dance track for his new album."

This would be epic if it happens. Hope it does!

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Kelly Clarkson has recorded a joint track with fellow “American Idol” season 5 contestant Chris Daughtry, it was confirmed. Pop/rock singer/songwriter Richard Marx revealed the duet during a recent interview with 95.5 PLJ.

Richard said the song is titled “One More Yesterday” and he has songwriting credit on it. “I’ve heard the rough mix of it, and the singing can’t be beat, between the two of them,” the 47-year-old musician further spilled the beans about the project.

Back in 2008, Kelly and Chris were rumored to record a duet. However, a source claimed the plan was scrapped because the label was not satisfied with the result. The two singers then tried to hook up in other songs that might have worked, but they reportedly were forced to cancel it as well.

This new duet reportedly will be included in Kelly’s upcoming studio album. The rumor arose since Kelly herself has stated publicly that her new album will contain a duet with someone that fans have wanted to see her singing with for quite some time.

Kelly won’t release the new album until September this year. On Facebook, she apologized over the delay, “I realize that is a long time but that’s the best time to release it apparently so I’m sorry for the wait but I promise you it sounds great!”

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Last week, Katy Perry broke the record for most plays of a pop song in a single tracking week. Her hit "E.T.," featuring Kanye West, logged 12,330 plays on all 131 Pop Songs reporters, besting the previous record of 12,159 plays set by "California Gurls," last summer.

In fact, Katy holds the top four spots with her last four singles! Check out the numbers:

12,330, "E.T.," May 14, 2011
12,159, "California Gurls," July 17, 2010
11,857, "Firework," Jan. 22, 2011
11,841, "Teenage Dream," Oct. 16, 2010

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Following up on the smash premiere of “Telephone” on E! News in 2010, this seven-minute, $10 million masterwork will air without interruption and in its entirety, and will be followed by a revealing interview in which Gaga tells Giuliana Rancic about her life, music and the uproar already surrounding “Judas.” Fans will no doubt be glad to learn that the singer co-directed the clip with choreographer Laurianne Gibson, star of E!’s The Dance Scene.

Loaded with biblical imagery and religious overtones, the clip is sure to provoke controversy and conversation—so be sure to check out E! Online on Friday for full video of Gaga’s exclusive interview as well as the clip.

“It’s fantastic to have Gaga back at E! for the debut of ‘Judas,’” said Suzanne Kolb, President of Marketing, News and Online for E! and Style. “She’s an incredible talent and pop culture icon and we’re excited to work with her and Interscope once again to bring our viewers this highly anticipated premiere.”

Don’t miss the “Judas” world premiere as airs in its entirety May 5th on E! News at 11:30p.m. ET/PT—and on E! Online at 8 p.m.

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