Blog Posts by Chris Willman

Other rock stars may be eager to align themselves with President Obama, but former Pink Floyd mastermind Roger Waters is a little more old-school than that. He's teaming up with… Dwight D. Eisenhower! And he's taking their joint peace mission to the streets. And/or walls, as is his wont.

This weekend, Waters is behind a series of guerrilla art installations at busy intersections in New York City and Los Angeles, where a quote of Eisenhower's that the rocker is particularly fond of will be both projected and pasted onto the nearby pavement. The saying of Ike's that Waters likes goes like this: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

The handwriting in which Eisenhower's quote has been rendered is unmistakably the work of longtime Waters collaborator Gerald Scarfe. It's being represented in both projection and chalk drawing form, and also

Anyone who's seen a Celine Dion show in the last eight years has heard her perform her worldwide 2002 hit "I'm Alive," as seen in this brand new Maximum Performance exclusive. "It's a song that's been traveling with me from one show to another ever since it was proposed to me," she says. "Every time I perform it, it doesn't age." The uplifting theme strikes a chord with Dion and her audience, naturally: "Positive messages, like that feeling that you can move mountains, are just wonderful." But there's one other slightly less obvious reason why "I'm Alive" is an irreplaceable part of her concert repertoire: "I don't have a lot of other uptempo songs on top of that," she admits.

Indeed, Dion doesn't have a lot of other tracks that have actually made the dance charts--as a remix of this track did just last year. But somehow that hasn't been a huge hamper on her career. And if it's uptempo attitude you want, pop music's all-time ballads queen has that to spare, in person and in a couple of

Remember when the masses used to be referring only to heterosexual celebs when they would say, "If those two can't make it, what hope is there for the rest of us?" But a handful of stars have been out of the closet and in public relationships for long enough that the unexpected splits of seemingly rock-solid gay couples can also send shock waves from coast to coast.

That's certainly the case with rocker Melissa Etheridge, 48, and actress Tammy Etheridge (née: Tammy Lynn Michaels), 35, who'd been together for nine years and exchanged vows seven years ago. The couple issued a statement confirming their separation, saying: "We ask for consideration and respect for our family as we go through this difficult period."

This wasn't Etheridge's first highly public partnership, though it was her longest-lasting. The singer-songwriter came out as a lesbian in 1993, five years after the release of her multi-platinum debut album. In 1997 and 1998, then-partner Julie Cypher gave birth to two

If Lady Gaga had any intention of taking the week off from her world media domination campaign, rest assured that her fans stand ready to step into the tiniest breach. Any viral-video eyes that aren't trained on Gaga herself right now might be in the process of being redirected to the sudden plethora of clips about Gaga.

Earnest homage? Earnest satire? Tributes from civilians and celebrities alike? Truly, it's Gaga's world right now, and we just live, venerate, and play "Telephone" tag in it.

Just ask Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams, who tweeted a short, sweet solo cover of "Bad Romance" to the world over the weekend, dubbing herself "Lady Haha" in the process. The production values are low, and Williams does not don any flammable sunglasses, but the tribute is sincere:

(That's what you get when you let your Lady-loving heart win—whoa, rah-rah-ah-ah-ah, roma-roma-ma-maa!)  

But it's Gaga's latest hit, "Telephone," her duet with Beyonce, that is inspiring most of the love, or

Back in the day, the McDonald's chain used to update its signs every few years to offer a running tally of how many burgers they'd sold, before giving up and just leaving it at "billions and billions served." Lady Gaga may soon have the same problem. She's the first artist whose videos have been viewed on the web more than 1 billion times, according to a video analytics company called Visible Measures. By their count, "Poker Face" is her most popular video, having been dealt up 375 million times, followed by "Bad Romance," which has been streamed 360 million times, and "Just Dance," which has boogied across 273 million monitors.

In other words, she crossed the billion-videos-streamed mark with just three clips. That's not even counting fresh tallies yet to come in for "Telephone," her nine-and-a-half-minute on-screen teaming with Beyonce, which ought to stoke several hundred million women-in-prison fantasies all by itself. And Gaga's just getting started, having released only an album

What do you call a two-person ABBA reunion? Besides "AB," that is? How about a big whiff? The news that only two out of four ABBA members will be attending the group's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame tonight in New York is gravely disappointing news. "The winner takes it all," but, of course, the winner has no obligation to actually show, much less reunite and make all of our most pop-tastic dreams come true.

Adding insult to injury, Peter Gabriel will not be attending to take part in Genesis' induction. Between these two sets of no-shows, it's clear that the Rock Hall is failing in its greatest responsibility... which is to publicly shame geezers who otherwise have no inclination to put aside rancor with their old bandmates into getting it together one last time.

ABBA disbanded in 1983, though Bjorn and Benny stayed together as a musical-theater songwriting team (preserving the "BB" part of the equation). Cause of death: two divorces and too much dough. In the intervening

Remember the old show tune from Guys and Dolls that goes, "Sit down, you're rockin' the boat"? These days, the marching orders (or sailing orders) are exactly the opposite. Rockers and pop stars are taking to the sea in droves, on ocean liners substantial enough that swaying and foot-stomping don't pose a problem. And it's not just the tribute acts and has-beens that landlubbers might associate with the cruise business, either. Nowadays, you're as likely to see acts from John Mayer to New Kids On The Block commandeering their own boats to become pirates of the Caribbean for a few days at a time.

The next big name taking thousands of fans out on the water: Kid Rock, whose personalized Carnival cruise leaves the port of Tampa April 29 and returns from the Grand Cayman four days later. And if anyone forgets their Dramamine and happens to toss their dinner...well, it won't be the first time this ever happened at a Kid Rock show.

The bar tabs probably won't reach quite such a mast-high

Do Danny Gokey's best days lie ahead in the fields of country music? The American Idol finalist's first album comes out today and, as many predicted toward the end of season 8, it's being geared toward the country market... even though little of the content of My Best Days would strike the average Idol viewer as particularly un-pop-like. 

Gokey just had a big Nashville coming-out at the annual Country Radio Seminar industry confab in Music City. Right after his performance for hundreds of radio programmers at a luncheon sponsored by Sony Nashville, I pulled him aside for an interview. Video and text excerpts from our chat follow...

The boldest statement Gokey made to me was this: "If it does cross over (from country to pop), it'd be great. But I always want to be called a country singer the rest of my life."

Those are the kinds of words that country radio programmers want to hear, certainly, because they want artists who are committed to the format and genre and not just making a