News

Madonna and Cyndi Lauper are two 1980s divas who will always be associated with one another. Around the same time, they made some of the most famous dance songs ever, revolutionized the music video as an art form, and became major LGBTQ icons. Notably, one of Madonna’s biggest songs was initially meant for Lauper. Here’s a look at how the Queen of Pop came to record one of her hits.

A pair of songwriters wrote Madonna’s ‘Open Your Heart’ for Cyndi Lauper

Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” is one of her most famous dance-pop tunes. According to Stereogum, Gardner Cole and Peter Rafelson penned the original version of “Open Your Heart” for Lauper. Originally, “Open Your Heart” was going to be a synth-rock song. Considering Lauper has a background in that style of music, having been a member of the band Blue Angel, the song might have worked for her.

I had a great time talking to Niki Haris and Donna De Lory.  They are about to visit Palm Springs for a fun show with Carlton Wilborn and Luis Conte.  Take a look at what they say about working with Madonna, her upcoming Celebration Tour, and why the LGBTQ+ community is near and dear to

The post Niki Haris and Donna De Lory Talk Madonna, Celebration Tour, Upcoming Show appeared first on Manny the Movie Guy.

If you’re too young to have experienced the aerobics craze of the 1980’s, consider yourself lucky. On the plus side, hot girls in leotards and spandex. On the negative side, pretty much everything else. Also on the plus side, slasher movies about burned and scarred tanning bed victims killing gym members with a giant safety pin.

David A. Prior has spent most of his direct-to-video filmmaking career writing, directing, and producing b-action flicks with titles like Operation Warzone, Hell on the Battleground, and the all-time bad action movie classic Deadly Prey. Prior got his start in the horror genre, and one of his first features was the 1987 melding of slasher flicks and the aerobics craze of the time: Killer Workout aka Aerobicide.

From the year her single “Only You Tonight” was featured in Killer Workout until 2007, Donna De Lory could be found on stage backing up Madonna as a...

I like having an easy comeback for that incessantly rebooted complaint: "Madonna's not talented!" For me, it strikes the same chord as "Women aren't funny," because in order to spew such a statement, you have to want to believe it, and you have to ignore obvious conflicting facts. And I don't know why you'd want to, because the formula for Madonna's success is simple and respectable: She's Elvis with brains.

She has all of The Pelvis' swagger, confrontational stage presence, carnal urgency, and underlying soulfulness. Unlike Elvis, she also has subversive wit, a compulsion for revitalizing her theatricality, and the kind of raunchy self-awareness that'd force Ed Sullivan to broadcast her just from the neck up, let alone the waist. To call Madonna's bravado and success "calculated" is -- as All Music Guide critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine once put it brilliantly -- "not to get Madonna." She's righteously in control,...

Days before her big halftime show, MTV News counts down the Queen of Pop's most-iconic moments on our stage.

By John Mitchell

Madonna at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards

Photo: Getty Images

America will be the first audience for the Queen of Pop in over two years when Madonna takes the stage at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis as the halftime act for Super Bowl Xlvi. If her history with MTV is any indicator, she's likely to blow the roof off the joint.

Madonna is known for her over-the-top live performances and will most assuredly have her game face on with the world watching this Sunday. Not that she ever slacks in the live performance department: Her most recent tour, Sticky & Sweet, was the highest-grossing tour ever by a solo artist and the fourth-biggest tour of all time. From Live Aid in 1985 to Live 8, 20 years later, she's headlined some...

Nevada (Us), July 17 – Grammy winner musician Sheryl Crow has contributed towards a CD to raise funds for providing in-school kids yoga programs, according to reports.

Titled “Yoga Revolution”, its other contributing artists include Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Ziggy Marley, Peter Gabriel, Seal, Michael Franti, Krishna Das, Anjelique Kidjo, Guru Singh, Donna De Lory, and Anoushka Shankar.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has applauded the efforts of Crow and other musicians to promote yoga for schoolchildren. In a statement in Nevada (USA) today, he urged other Hollywood and sports celebrities to come forward to help incorporate yoga in the lives of youth and children.

Zed,.

HollywoodNews.com: Grammy winner musician Sheryl Crow has contributed towards a CD to raise funds for providing in-school kids yoga programs, according to reports.

Titled “Yoga Revolution”, its other contributing artists include Sarah McLachlan, Sting, Ziggy Marley, Peter Gabriel, Seal, Michael Franti, Krishna Das, Anjelique Kidjo, Guru Singh, Donna De Lory, and Anoushka Shankar.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has applauded the efforts of Crow and other musicians to promote yoga for schoolchildren. In a statement in Nevada (USA) today, he urged other Hollywood and sports celebrities to come forward to help incorporate yoga in the lives of youth and children.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged public schools to include yoga in their curriculum. Yoga was a mental and physical discipline whose traces went back to around 2,000 Bce, he pointed out.

Rajan Zed quoted Patanjali, author of the basic text Yoga Sutra, who said that...

Erykah Badu, Chairlift, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ke$ha and Metric also onboard.

By Gil Kaufman

Mary J. Blige

Photo: Jeffrey Ufberg/ Getty Images

After a decade-long hiatus, the female-centric Lilith Fair festival will storm back in summer 2010 with a lineup that features a mix of festival veterans and new stars, including founder Sarah McLachlan, Mary J. Blige, Ke$ha, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Colbie Caillat and Corinne Bailey Rae.

McLachlan and Badu, who were on the lineup the first time around, will be joined by fellow vets Emmylou Harris, the Indigo Girls and Tegan and Sara. Among the other acts slated to perform are country star Miranda Lambert, Janelle Monáe, Metric, A Fine Frenzy, Chairlift, Jill Scott, Sugarland, Brandi Carlile, Butterfly Boucher, Ingrid Michaelson, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Katzenjammer, the Submarines, Tara MacLean, Sara Bareilles, Chantal Kreviazuk, Serena Ryder, Susan Justice, Ima, Donna Delory, Ash Koley, Ann Atomic, Jennifer Knapp,...