Rihanna Loves Being Bad

She’s sold over 5 million albums and released five #1 singles, and now 19-year-old Rihanna is talking about her decision to ditch her nice girl image, instead indulging in her inner “bad girl.”

Her new album, Good Girl Gone Bad, is doing extremely well. And it’s success could be attributed to a change in the R&B singer’s demeanor. “This record (Good Girl Gone Bad), I basically took the attitude of the bad girl and I really got rebellious and just did everything the way I wanted to do it,” Rihanna told press.

"A bad girl, it’s all about the attitude that you take toward things,” she says. “I’m not being careful, I’m just having fun. I’m taking risks because bad girls take risks.”

And for the new album, Rihanna boasts some pretty big names who helped her make it the success that it is. “It’s just an honor to work with Justin. He’s a fun guy, a great artist and a very talented person. Jay-Z, he is such a perfectionist. That’s what I love about working with him. ... Everything has to be done in the most perfect way possible. Timbaland, he just has so much fun with his creativity. I really was shocked to see how he and Justin Timberlake could be in a studio making great music, but having fun at the same time.”

If you haven’t checked out the new album yet, hop over to iTunes and give it a listen. It’s sure to get you movin!

Potter Reaches Cult Phenomenon Status

As the Harry Potter series wraps up this summer, we can look back at two remarkable narratives: Potter the boy wizard and Potter the cultural phenomenon.

Potter the wizard's fate will be known July 21 with the release of "Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows," Book 7 of J.K. Rowling's fantasy epic. Worldwide sales of the first six books already top 325 million copies and the first printing for "Deathly Hallows" is 12 million in the United States alone.

Potter the phenomenon doesn't compare for suspense, but like the wizard's tale, it is unique and extraordinary and well placed in tradition. Like "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," it is the story of how a work of popular art becomes a world of its own imitated, merchandised and analyzed, immortalized not by the marketers, but by the fans.

"Every phenomenon is a kind of myth unto itself, a myth about how a phenomenon becomes a phenomenon. The story of how the public embraced Potter only gives more momentum to Potter in our culture," says Neal Gabler, an author and cultural critic whose books include "Walt Disney" and "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality."

True phenomena are never planned. Not "Star Trek," a series canceled after three seasons by NBC; or "Star Wars," rejected throughout Hollywood before taken on by 20th Century Fox, which didn't bother pushing for merchandising or sequel rights. The public knew better the young people who screamed for the Beatles or watched "Star Wars" dozens of times or carried on for years about "Star Trek" after its cancellation.

In the beginning, "Harry Potter" simply needed a home. Several British publishers turned down Rowling, believing her manuscript too long and/or too slow, before the Bloomsbury Press signed her up in 1996, for $4,000 and a warning not to expect to get rich from writing children's books. An American publisher had bigger ideas: Scholastic editor Arthur A. Levine acquired U.S. rights for $105,000.

"I can vividly remember reading the manuscript and thinking, `This reminds me of Roald Dahl,' an author of such skill, an author with a unique ability to be funny and cutting and exciting at the same time," Levine says.

"But I could not possibly have had the expectation we would be printing 12 million copies for one book (`Deathly Hallows'). That's beyond anyone's experience. I would have had to be literally insane."

For the media, the biggest news at first was Rowling herself: an unemployed, single English mother who gets the idea for a fantasy series while stuck on a train between Manchester and London, finishes the manuscript in the cafes of Edinburgh, Scotland, and finds herself compared, in more than one publication, to Dahl.

"In fact, if there is a downside to Rowling's story it is the distinct danger she will be called `The New Roald Dahl,' which would be an albatross around her slender shoulders," the Glasgow-based The Herald warned in June 1997 with publication of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," the first Potter book.

"Philosopher's Stone" was released in England during business hours with a tiny first printing. Bloomsbury suggested that Rowling use initials instead of her real name, Joanne, out of fear that boys wouldn't read a book by a woman.

The book quickly became a commercial and critical favorite and just kept selling. In July 1998, the Guardian in London noted that Rowling was more popular than John Grisham and declared "The Harry Potter books have become a phenomenon." At the time, "Philosopher's Stone" had sold 70,000 copies.

The first book came out in the United States in September 1998, renamed "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for young Americans and promoted by "Meet Harry Potter" buttons. Potter was first mentioned by The Associated Press that November, when Rowling was interviewed in New York during a five-city U.S. tour. Potter appeared a month later in The New York Times, cited well down in a roundup of holiday favorites.

"When the Potter books first came out, we didn't know they would sell millions of copies, but we all read them and loved them and we thought they were the kinds of books that would really grab a child. We hand-sold the heck out of them, the same way we would with any book that was so well written," says Beth Puffer, manager of the Bank Street Bookstore in New York City.

By January 1999, the AP was calling Potter a sensation, noting in a brief item that "Joanne Rowling has gone from hard-up single mother to literary phenomenon." In July 1999, the "p-word" appeared in long articles in the Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly and the Times, which observed that "Hannibal Lecter and Harry Potter are shaping up as the summer's must reads," but then added, with a bit of a wink, "Harry who?"

By 2000, Harry was a friend to millions, the toast of midnight book parties around the world. For a time, the first three Potter books held the top positions on the Times' hardcover fiction list of best sellers, leading the newspaper to create a separate category for children's books. The fourth work, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," had a first printing of 3.8 million in the United States alone. The release date became 12:01 a.m., sharp, "so everyone could come to it at the same time no spoilers!" according to Scholastic spokeswoman Kyle Good.

Potter was pulling in all ages. Rene Kirkpatrick, a buyer for All for Kids Books & Music, an independent store based in Seattle, says the appeal to grown-ups set Potter apart. She began noticing that adults not only read Rowling, but would browse through other titles in the children's fantasy section.

"People were beginning to realize that there was some extraordinary literature written for people under 19," she says. "It doesn't feel odd anymore for adults to be seen reading children's books. ... Potter has made a big difference."

"Potter has greatly expanded the real estate for young adult fiction," says Doug Whiteman, president of the Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA). "The teen section of a bookstore is now quite a substantial area, shopped in not only by teens, but by parents."

Meanwhile, Potter was alive and breeding on the Internet, thanks to fan sites such as http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/ and http://www.mugglenet.com. Potter Web masters Emerson Spartz of Leaky Cauldron and Melissa Anelli of Mugglenet agree that between 2000 and 2003 the Potter galaxy exploded again, from publishing phenomenon to cultural phenomenon. Spartz notes the release of the first Potter movie, in 2001. Anelli refers to the three-year wait for book five, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

"Around 2000, message boards, mailing lists, blogs were starting to form into the community hubs we have now. So the fans, who were desperately awaiting word on the fifth book ... obsessed together on the Internet, writing their own fan fiction, having huge discussions picking every last piece of the canon apart and finding whatever way possible to make the wait tolerable," says Anelli, who is writing a history of Potter, due out in 2008.

"This built on itself exponentially until, by the time the fifth book came out in 2003, there was a rabid, active, flourishing online community that was spilling off the Net and into bookstores."

No longer was Rowling called the new Dahl. Now, publishers looked for the next J.K. Rowling. Countless works, from Cornelia Funke's "The Thief Lord" to Christopher Paolini's "Eragon," were compared to Potter. Again, a common symptom, like all the "new Bob Dylans" or the science fiction projects that followed "Star Wars," including the first "Star Trek" movie.

Along with imitators come the products: Beatle wigs, "Star Wars" sabers, "Star Trek" clocks, Harry Potter glasses. And along with the products come the spinoffs, whether business books such as Tom Morris' "If Harry Potter Ran General Electric," or Neil Mulholland's "The Psychology of Harry Potter" or John Granger's "Looking for God in Harry Potter."

"I think the reason that authors write books about J.K. Rowling's works and readers buy them is because being a fan of Harry Potter is about much more than just reading and enjoying Ms. Rowling's book series," says Jennifer Heddle, an editor at Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster that is publishing Anelli and has released more than 100 "Star Trek" related titles.

"I think it is similar to `Star Trek' in that it takes place in a richly imagined world that invites fans to immerse themselves in every aspect. I think it's even closer to `Star Wars' because it's also a very mythic story that appeals to a broad audience that crosses all age and gender lines."

Unbounded by age or format, phenomena are amphibious creatures: The Beatles were sensations on television and film and in books, which continue to come out, and sell, more than 30 years after their breakup. "Star Trek" produced a string of popular TV spin-offs and was adapted into a series of hit films, video games and novels, just as "Star Wars" inspired its own line of best-selling books and games. A live-action TV series is planned for 2009.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth Potter film, is a guaranteed blockbuster. The first four Potter movies have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, and sales for the soundtracks top 1 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks the retail market. Potter is the rare literary series to inspire a video game and is expected to have a theme park, in Orlando, Fla., by 2010.

While fads fade out, phenomena last, thanks to the same folks who got them started: the fans, the people who hold "Star Wars" conventions, play Beatles songs for their children, post their own "Star Trek" videos online or the Potter fans around the world already vowing to continue.

"I think we'll always have Harry Potter conventions-conferences, and the appeal won't end once it's off the `new releases' shelf," Anelli says. "The mania will never be this intense again but this series will have life in the real world for a very long time."

"When something has staying power, it's because it strikes some kind of fundamental chord," Gabler, the cultural critic, says. "Kids identify with Harry Potter and his adventures; they identify with his empowerment. It's all very circular. We feel empowered by making a phenomenon out of something like Potter and Potter itself addresses the very idea of empowerment."

Marvel Comics Buries Captain America

It's a funeral fit for a superhero. In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pallbearers Iron Man, the Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms. Marvel carry a casket draped with an American flag.

Yes, folks, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics' "Fallen Son," due on newsstands the morning after Independence Day. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin's bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.

He was headed to court after refusing to sign the government's Superhero Registration Act, a move that would have revealed his true identity. A sniper who fired from a rooftop was captured as police and Captain America's military escort were left to cope with chaos in the streets.

But the sniper didn't act alone, and didn't even fire the shot that killed the captain.

Writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in his most recent titles. A book centered on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; and Spider-Man battled depression.

With the story line so relevant to present-day politics, and the timing of the latest issue so precise, it's hard not to think the whole thing is one big slam on the government.

"Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that's at war, we are being perceived differently in the world," Loeb said. "He wears the flag and he is assassinated it's impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of present day."

But Loeb says he was working with more personal material: the death of his 17-year-old son from cancer.

"So many people have lost their sons and daughters over the years, for the greater good or to cancer or other horrible things," said Loeb, an executive producer for NBC's "Heroes." "I wanted this to be something people would identify with."

In the final frames of the book, the Falcon delivers a eulogy asking superheros old and young to stand up and honor Captain America. Loeb did a similar thing at his son's funeral.

"It was this moment where I realized that we were all different, but this boy, my son, made us all connected," he said. "It was powerful."

Captain America, whose secret identity was Steve Rogers, was an early member of the pantheon of comic book heroes that began with Superman in the 1930s.

He landed on newsstands in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor delivering a punch to Hitler on the cover of his first issue, a sock-in-the-jaw reminder that there was a war on and the United States was not involved.

Since then, Marvel Entertainment Inc., has sold more than 200 million copies of Captain America magazine in 75 countries.

In the most recent story line, he became involved in a superhero "civil war," taking up sides against Iron Man in the registration controversy, climaxed by his arrest and assassination.

Marvel says you never know what will happen. He may make it back from the dead after all, although Loeb says that question isn't really important right now.

"The question is, how does the world continue without this hero?" he said. "If that story of his return gets told further down the line, great. But everyone's still been dealing with his loss.

"They aren't going to wake up and it's a dream, like it's some episode of 'Dallas.'"

Harry Potter Gets His First Kiss

First kisses can be tricky. Even for Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the Harry Potter series, said Friday while in Tokyo for the premiere of the latest installment that it took a few takes to get over the nerves of getting the young wizard through his first on-screen kiss.

And even then, he didn't really feel the magic.

"When we started it, we were both a bit nervous," Radcliffe said at a news conference. "But after the first few takes, it was sort of like any other scene, which is never really what people want to hear. It doesn't really feel any different, because you are still acting."

In "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the latest in the megahit series based on J.K. Rowling's books, Harry comes of age and has his first on-screen kiss, with longtime crush Cho Chang, played by Katie Leung.

It was a big moment for Harry if not for Radcliffe.

Producer David Heyman said director David Yates cleared the set to create more intimacy for the scene and the crew crowded around a monitor to watch.

"The makeup artist, who's known Daniel really well from the age of 10, she shed a tear," Heyman said. "For me, it was quite moving."

"Order of the Phoenix," a Warner Bros. Pictures release, opens in the United States on July 11 and in Britain the next day.

Radcliffe said Japan was a natural place for the world premiere probably half of their fan mail comes from Japan, he said, and the hundreds of thousands of letters they receive are "beautifully presented."

The next Harry-related frenzy will be the publication of the seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," on July 21.

The first Harry Potter movie was released in 2001. Radcliffe and co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who play Harry's friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, have been at the center of the Potter storm for almost half their lives.

All three stars have signed up for the final two Potter films.

The Harry Potter books have been translated into 65 languages and sold more than 325 million copies since the first volume, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was published in 1997. The book was published in the United States with the title "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Spice Girls reunite for world tour

The Spice Girls wannabe stars again. Following a calculated publicity buildup, the original Girl Power group of the 1990s announced Thursday they had agreed to get together for 11 concerts around the world in December and January.

The shows will be their first concerts since breaking up in 2001, and the first with all five of the original group since Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell quit to pursue a solo career in 1998.

"Imagine you got divorced and you've got back together with your ex-husband," Halliwell said, explaining how she felt about the reunion.

"She just appreciates the fact we've let her back in," joked Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham.

The group said the shows would be in Los Angeles on Dec. 7; Las Vegas on Dec. 8; New York on Dec. 11; London on Dec. 15; Cologne, Germany, on Dec. 20; Madrid, Spain, on Dec. 23; Beijing on Jan. 10; Hong Kong on Jan. 12; Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 17; Cape Town, South Africa, on Jan. 20; and Buenos Aires, Argentina on Jan. 24.

Halliwell and Beckham joined with Melanie "Sporty Spice" Chisholm, Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton and Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown to pose for photos and announce tour plans.

"We wanted to say thank you to our fans. It just feels very right for us," Chisholm said.

"Obviously it's nostalgic. But equally, if new fans want to come along, that's fantastic," Halliwell said. "I like to think our songs are universal and they are timeless."

Fans stood outside the news conference, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Spice Girls.

"We found out about this going on and we decided to take a trip," said Nicola Seodon, 21, a shop worker, who traveled the 20 miles from Dartford to London.

"I was a big Spice Girls fan when I was 10 years old. I'll definitely buy their album and I never got to see a concert when they were still around, so this will be a great chance," she said.

The Spice Girls' first single, "Wannabe," was released in 1996 and topped charts in 31 countries. They went on to sell more than 55 million records.

But their last album, "Forever," released in 2000 and without Halliwell, fared poorly.

You could now call them the Spice Mums. Beckham said the tour would be designed to accommodate the band members' seven children. And Bunton is now pregnant with her first child.

"Our priority is going to be our families. We want to have fun," said Beckham, who has three sons with her husband, soccer star David Beckham. "That's one of the many reasons for this, for our children to see what we used to do. And I may be the cool one in the family for once."

EMI said it plans to release the first Spice Girls greatest-hits album in November. The group also plans to make their first official documentary for TV broadcast.

"It's going to be the most honest story that you've ever heard," Halliwell said. "You get to see the dark side of the Spice Girls, the gritty side, the tears."

Bon Jovi: New album not 'Bon Jovi does country'

They still look like the Bon Jovi of old -- their leather jackets and jeans. And they still act like the boys from New Jersey, proud of their musical brotherhood that spawned numerous hit albums and No. 1 singles.

But still, there is something different, something unexpected from one of the biggest rock bands of the past few decades. At first listen, it's their sound. It's well ... different. And perhaps even more surprising, it's intentional, they say.

Fresh off their crossover success with a country remake of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, which earned them the sole Grammy of their 25-year career, Bon Jovi is releasing the country-influenced album "Lost Highway" on Tuesday. And nobody in the band seems sure what the reception will be -- from their fans to the country music industry.

"Who knows? This record might be over in three weeks. Or it might have 10 singles on it," Jon Bon Jovi said during a recent interview.

"I just found myself listening to this kind of music, and finding that they were telling stories. That's something we've been doing our whole career," he said. "So it was very much a fit for us."

But while the albums of Bon Jovi's career have tended in the past decade to be more socially or politically influenced ("Bounce" was inspired by 9/11, "Have A Nice Day" followed the presidential election), this album appears to be personal, filled with stories inspired by the band members lives, loves and losses. And for a group that has made every effort to avoid tabloid headlines and VH1-style "Behind The Music" stories, the band has had more than enough of those moments to go around in the past few years.

It was the inspiration behind the album, which despite its lukewarm reception from critics has already received a fair amount of airplay for its first single "(You Want To) Make A Memory."

"Richie (Sambora) and David (Bryan) suffered a lot in the last year, a lot of pain. In what had been a very peaceful decade and a half, suddenly there was a lot of pain in the organization," Bon Jovi said. "I think it was cathartic for Richie to express with me or through me the hell he has been dealing with: losing his dad, losing the wife. And David, it's the same thing. So it was an easy record to write."

Bryan, who broke up with his wife recently, said Bon Jovi is always looking for musical subject matter. "There's some personal turmoils that showed up on this record. It's a cleansing process, I think."

In what Sambora told The AP was one of his first sit-down interviews in two years, following the breakup with his wife Heather Locklear and his romance with her friend Denise Richards (the two have since split), he said the songs reflect the heartache.

"It's interesting, the changes I've gone through in my life. I think I've brought a lot of the dramatics here within the lyric in a bunch of different places -- just from the stuff that's been going on with me. I think even the songs I didn't write with Jon, I think he used me as his muse."

Sambora said the band closed ranks around him during the recent death of his father, who died of lung cancer, to help him get through it.

"They were unbelievable. We're a tight group. Everybody goes through their own stuff, and everybody supports each other while they go through it no matter what it is."

During the interview, he was joined by drummer Tico Torres.

"It's all part of a relationship. You get through it, together," he said, looking over at Sambora. (A short time after the interview, Sambora entered a Los Angeles-area rehabilitation center for an undisclosed condition. The band has said he will be joining them this month for a scheduled performance).

It's perhaps this relationship between band mates that is laid open in the song "A Whole Lot Of Leaving," a song that clearly invites the country music influence onto the album.

Bon Jovi said he knows the success of country remake of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" laid a welcome mat of sorts for them in Nashville. But he added: "I'm not a carpetbagger."

He quickly pointed out that he and Sambora have been making trips to Nashville for years to meet with artists, producers or to find inspiration for their musical storytelling.

And he dismissed the "Bon Jovi goes country" label.

"Listen to it. I don't think it's that different than a Bon Jovi record. It's not a Bon Jovi does country record," he said. "I think I was at fault for trying to explain myself, for misrepresenting us, for saying we're going to Nashville to make a country record."

Country music, he said, is the music of Alan Jackson and Vince Gill. He said "Lost Highway" is much more in tune with country-to-rock crossover artists, such as Sugarland and Big & Rich, who also make an appearance on the album's rocking "We Got It Going On" number.

As the band readies to release its new album, the irony of a rock band winning it's only Grammy in a country music category for a remake is not lost on Bon Jovi.

"We were a nine-time Grammy loser. Nine times," Sambora said. "The juxtaposition is really crazy."

Bruce Willis: New 'Die Hard' WAS hard

Actor Bruce Willis says he is glad to be back doing action films, but, at 52, admitted that surviving "Live Free or Die Hard" was no easy task.

"It was a really hard film to make," he said at a press conference Tuesday. "A year ago when we started making this film, the risk factor was very high. There was a high possibility of failure in a film like this. But it turned out very well."

The latest installment in the Die Hard series revolves around a planned cyber-terror attack on the United States, with Willis teaming up with Justin Long, who plays a computer hacker, to thwart the evil Mai, Hong Kong star Maggie Quigley, who is better known as Maggie Q.

Willis noted that the movie's director, Len Wiseman, was just 16 years old when the first Die Hard was released in 1988 -- evidence that, as the name suggests, the movie has staying power.

"Now you can see me as a 32-year-old actor and as a 52-year-old actor," he said.

Audiences can also see Willis get beat up by a woman.

"This is the first time I've fought against a woman in a film and lost," Willis said.

The movie premieres in Japan on June 23. It opens in the U.S. and elsewhere on June 27.

Lohan sued over car crash

Lindsay Lohan's legal problems continue even while she recovers in rehab.

The 20-year-old actress has been sued by Grandeur Inc., which claims Lohan crashed into a company van in October 2005.

Lohan was behind the wheel in Beverly Hills when her car collided with a parked van, according to small claims court papers filed May 18. Grandeur Inc. is seeking $3,624.84 in damages, the celebrity news Web site CelebTV.com reported.

Lohan's spokeswoman had no comment Tuesday.

A judge will hear the matter on June 20.

Lohan checked into rehab May 28 after a wild Memorial Day weekend during which she crashed her Mercedes-Benz into a curb, was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence and was photographed slumped in the passenger seat of a friend's car. It is Lohan's second rehab stint this year.

She said in January that she had checked into a rehabilitation center for substance abuse treatment.