Music Videos

Director Francis Lawrence's provocative storytelling impulse has played a large part in the image overhauls for a number of top-10 pop stars. Take his 2002 video for Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River." Lawrence re-imagined the sugary-sweet 'N Sync man-child as a creepy stalker who breaks into his ex-girlfriend's house. Such imagery helped recast Timberlake as an adult star with crossover appeal.

The gig: Michael Palmer is co-founder and executive producer of Clevver Media, a nearly 6-year-old Hollywood company that has launched seven YouTube channels, including its flagship, ClevverTV, a teen version of TMZ or E! that provides entertainment and celebrity news for the "Twilight" generation. The intern: As a film production major at USC, Palmer interned for one of the most successful producers in Hollywood: Jerry Bruckheimer, whose credits include the popular "CSI" television series and "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie franchise.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Kurt Rambis, assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. Rambis, nicknamed "Superman" when he started wearing thick, Clark Kent-type eyeglasses as a Laker player, and his wife, Linda, have bought a town home in Playa Vista for $1.2 million. The three-bedroom, 3 1/2 -bathroom unit was a model for the complex and was purchased fully furnished. It has 2,600 square feet.

BET, which has been targeted in recent years for showcasing provocative music videos and other programming that critics and cultural observers said showed blacks in a negative and derogatory light, is unveiling an ambitious development slate. These new programs include a number of scripted shows and projects that emphasize positive aspects of African American culture. Among the highlights of the lineup is a new scripted comedy from the Wayans family and a gritty police drama which would be the urban-oriented network's first scripted drama.

It was the comeback that turned into a train wreck. Millions of viewers tuned in to MTV's Video Music Awards last year to see Britney Spears' highly anticipated return to the stage after a period of painful turmoil and near career collapse, only to see the singer flounder during her ceremony kickoff performance. The awards show itself received similarly disparaging reviews, with critics deriding everything from its Las Vegas locale to its Web-centric aesthetic. This time around, as the network stages the 25th ceremony set to unfold Sunday at the Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles, executives are hoping the show itself will be able to stage that big comeback.

Music videos from Green Day, Jay-Z and Linkin Park will begin reappearing on YouTube as soon as December, the result of a multiyear agreement reached with Warner Music Group Corp. The Internet's dominant video site and one of the world's largest music companies had been locked in a dispute over the value of music videos, some of the most popular content on YouTube, whose young viewers are coveted by advertisers. Licensing talks reached an impasse late last year, resulting in Warner's videos being pulled from the site.

If Rio Caraeff had his way, the phrase "I want my MTV" would be replaced by "I want my Vevo." The 34-year-old Santa Monica music executive, who once headed the digital music business for Universal Music Group, launched Vevo in December. In April — less than six months later — the site vaulted into the No. 1 spot for online music videos in the U.S., garnering more than 43 million unique viewers who watched 350 million streams, according to ComScore Inc. Among all video sites, Vevo ranked fourth, just after Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Fox Interactive Media, and beating out the likes of Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp.

Launch Media, the Santa Monica company that produces a music magazine on CD-ROM, will acquire MusicVideos.com to broaden the content on its Web site, the companies will announce today. Newport Beach-based MusicVideos.com features nearly 1,000 alternative, dance, country and hip-hop videos and serves up more than 1 million videos each month. Those videos will now be available at Launch's music-oriented Web site, http://www.launch.com. Four of MusicVideos.

U2 lead singer Bono, well known for his ONE campaign against poverty, has turned his focus to a charity case closer to home: the ailing music industry. The rocker is credited with bringing together Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, and YouTube, Google Inc.'s online video site, for talks that on Thursday resulted in a partnership to launch a music video service featuring professionally produced content from the label's big-name acts.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America said Thursday that shipments of prerecorded music and music videos reached $12.5 billion in 1996, up about 2% over the 1995 total of $12.3 billion. The association said unit shipments rose to 1.14 billion in 1996 from 1.11 billion in 1995. Hilary Rosen, the association's president, said the group is surveying consumers and funding research to determine what it will take to foster America's passion for owning music.

Dancers who work on music videos for Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and other performers staged a "solidarity rally" in Beverly Hills on Friday while similar rallies were held at Sony offices in Miami and New York. Dozens of members of the Los Angeles dance community held a rally and a flash mob performance, set to the tune of Aretha Franklin's hit "Respect," outside the offices of Sony Music Entertainment in support of efforts by music video performers to secure a union contract.

After being closed for nearly a decade, the well-loved gay video bar, Revolver, which originally debuted in the early '80s, has reopened under new management in West Hollywood. Times have changed, though, and the revolving entrance door and the expansive front windows are no longer blacked out. And with new transparency comes a new sensibility for the bar. What was once dark and divey is now clean, bright and fresh, as is the roster of talented performers that Revolver's new owner, Alfredo Diaz, has been quietly amassing since the bar opened.

Myspace has kicked off what its new owners hope will be its comeback tour. The site's senior executives joined with creative partner Justin Timberlake in outlining plans Monday to return Myspace to its musical roots. Their presentation for top advertisers gathered at Radio City Music Hall in New York was followed by a VIP concert whose lineup included contemporary artists Far East Movement, Natasha Bedingfield and B.o.B. The splashy promotional affair came three months after Irvine advertising firm Specific Media bought Myspace for $35 million and touted Timberlake's ability to lend cachet to the once-dominant social network that long ago lost its magnetism.

Whoever believes wisdom increases with age may be in for a reality check if they come across the return of MTV's resident idiots, "Beavis and Butt-Head. " Almost two decades have passed since the animated duo first sat on a dingy couch in their living room and fired off insults at each other and music videos playing on their run-down TV. It's a different world now, but the more things change, the more Beavis and Butt-Head have stayed the same — they're still teens, they still wear AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts, and they're still dumb as rocks.

Evening news' big break Viewership is up at "CBS Evening News" since Scott Pelley took over as anchor in early June. Then again, the same can be said for his rivals. Pelley's third-place newscast reached an average of 5.55 million viewers during his first five weeks in the anchor chair, an increase of 7% over the same five weeks in 2010 when Katie Couric was the anchor, the Nielsen Co. said. During the same time, Brian Williams' "Nightly News" on NBC averaged 7.88 million people each night, and ABC's "World News" with Diane Sawyer had 7.12 million, Nielsen said.

Google Inc.'s YouTube dramatically expanded its movie rental service with the addition of 3,000 titles from major Hollywood studios, positioning the dominant online video service to capitalize on the growing number of Internet-connected televisions and portable devices. YouTube head Salar Kamangar notified the site's estimated 105 million U.S. users via a blog post Monday that they would be able to watch "full-length blockbuster films," read reviews and catch behind-the-scenes videos on the site.

In the music video for the hot new single "Clint Eastwood," an army of mutant apes explodes to the surface from underground and dances a disturbing ode to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." As the menacing primates approach a cemetery, a blank-eyed slacker named 2-D stands between the headstones and sings a Rasta pop tune, flanked by the band's sneering leader and bassist Murdoc, the bouncy 10-year-old bassist Noodle and the mild-mannered drummer Russel.

And here you thought music video was just glamour boys with poufy hair preening behind blemish-obscuring smoke--money for nothing, as it were. But this relatively recent genre represents something else entirely to the American Cinematheque, which, in conjunction with the Long Beach Museum of Art, has scheduled this weekend a mini-festival whose brave assertion--as stated in its printed program--is nothing less than that "music video is the art form of the '80s."

In a little-noticed bipartisan effort, House Republicans and Senate Democrats have agreed to press for new laws to crack down on "rogue websites" that sell pirated copies of movies, TV shows, music and video games or counterfeit goods like sportswear and prescription drugs. "What these rogue websites do is theft, pure and simple," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They are no more than digital stores selling stolen property. The Internet needs to be free and open — not lawless.

"We don't hate you because you're famous. You're famous because we hate you. " So went one of countless tweets about Rebecca Black, the eighth-grader whose music video "Friday" ? a robotic ditty about waking up in the morning and enduring the drudgery of the school week before reaching exalted Friday ? has become a surprise hit on YouTube. On Tuesday night, Black performed on Jay Leno, and as of Wednesday, "Friday" had been streamed more than 35 million times on YouTube, and hit No. 19 on the iTunes bestselling singles list.