We here at That's Really Week try to stay on the lighter side of the news, like whatever Pete Doherty's been up to, or Paris Hilton's plans for her much-un-awaited sophmore album. You know, fairly silly stuff. But sadly, this week's lead story is nothing to laugh about: Luciano Pavarotti has passed away at age 71 from pancreatic cancer. Nope, ain't no way we can make that story funny. It's just plain sad. Pav, as we like to affectionately call him, was one of the greatest tenors in operatic history, he sold 100 million albums during his decade-straddling career (take that, Garth Brooks!), and he was beloved by millions more. Pav, you shall be missed...

OK, moving on to happier stories, such as...dancing days are here again, because the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin are finally getting back together! Yep, hard rock fans still dazed and confused by recent news of the long-delayed Van Halen reunion have even more reason to celebrate, now that this even longer-delayed reunion is

Here at That's Really Week we've long been enamored of the Man Bites Dog journalistic principle--that is, when every celebrity in the world gets in scandalous trouble, more of the same simply isn't news. However, when things that don't normally happen happen--hey baby, you're on to something!

And so this week brings us several unexpected tidbits, not least of which was the unusual scenario wherein a famous musician's relative told the world to stop making that musician famous! Unheard of, but true in the case of Amy Winehouse--whose father-in-law suggested the world boycott Amy's records to send a message to the troubled tattooed temptress. Of course the week began in typically scandalous Winehousian fashion--after...yawn... the UK press ran some pictures of the singer and her new husband bloodied and bruised after a hotel fight--but the very idea of a family member putting human concerns above financial? Now that's news!

Likewise, Keith Richards--the Rolling Stone who has been the

Far be it from us here at That's Really Week to make blanket judgement calls about Western morality--but that won't stop other people around the world from doing the same! And in this case we're talking about Malaysia, where this week protests by conservative religious types there forced everyone's sweetheart Gwen Stefani to make "a major sacrifice" while performing there by wearing clothes that, according to reports, "revealed little!"

Similarly feeling conservative pressure is one Beyonce Knowles--scheduled to perform in the same country this November--whose camp is also feeling some pressure to dress for success. "We've informed Beyonce's management about this issue of clothes," said the concert organizer, admittedly intriguingly, "but it takes some of the fun out of it." Well said, friend--this troublesome issue simply won't go away!

And while it's easy for boorish Westerners such as ourselves to hoo-hah over this brouhaha--to coin a phrase--let's step back and examine the behavior

Following week upon week of dreary news about photogenic troublemakers with memorable names and tenuous links to the music business, we can't help but be thrilled to note that two of this week's biggest stories involve two middle-aged men--one of whom is in fact still living! That would be Bruce Springsteen, the man and the legend, who this week announced the Oct. 2nd release of a brand new album titled Magic, his first recording with the E Street Band since 2002's The Rising. Several of us here at Y! Music Central were recently treated to an early listen of some new tracks and were especially taken with the guitar-laden rocker "Radio Nowhere," which we can only hope will get on the radio somewhere, if you catch our drift! Big buzz is that Bruce & Co. will soon be embarking on a European and American tour, and we plan to be there--if only to again witness Clarence Clemons playing his sax while spinning around in a circle onstage, surely the sort of image one needs to see but once to

"Come witness rock history as Van Halen makes an announcement of monumental proportions," declared a press-release email that landed in our inbox this week, and we reacted as any self-respecting rawk fans would: By leaping from our desks and highkicking in a gravity-defying, pants-splitting manner not witnessed since David Lee Roth was still peacock-prancing around in the "Jump" video. We might have even dislocated our hips in the process, a la Eddie Van Halen himself, but we were just too on top of the world (heh heh) to contain our joy.

Of course, we're assuming that, you know, the Van Halen dudes aren't going to get up in front of all those paparazzi types at L.A.'s Four Seasons Hotel on Monday, August 13, and say, "Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know we still hate each other's guts. So Dave's going to do another bluegrass album. Oh, and we've re-hired Gary Cherone. See ya!" Nay, this monumentally-proportioned announcement can only be about one thing: the long-rumored,

Perhaps not since that bug-eyed Runaway Bride was in the news has a last-minute wedding cancellation captured the nation's attention like that of Usher and his off/on (and now supposedly still on?) pregnant fiancee, Tameka Foster. The R&B it-couple were supposed to marry last Saturday in a ceremony at record mogul L.A. Reid's Hamptons home, with blue-eyed soulman Robin Thicke providing the entertainment at the reception...and then, just hours before the nuptials were set to take place, they were called off without explanation, thus gipping Mr. Thicke out of a good-paying gig and immediately stirring up rampant tabloid speculation. Some said it was because Usher's mama (and recently fired "momager"), Jonnetta Patton, was none too fond of Usher's allegedly Yoko-like babymama. Some claimed that Usher's godfather, Ben Vereen of Webster/Roots fame, was also objecting to the union. But what is the real story? Inquiring minds still want--nay, demand--to know, because Usher and his boo are not

Just last week in this very column, we were a) praising Lindsay Lohan for staying clean and sober, and b) lamenting the fact that Lindsay's on/off party pal and a usually endless source of blog fodder, Britney Spears, had done nothing worth writing about. Well, look what a difference seven days make!

Yes, these two "ladies" have much in common (they've both recorded songs with the words "Broken Heart" in the title; they both have a penchant for pantylessness; they both exhibit a resiliently Amy Winehouse-esque resistance to rehab), and have therefore occupied countless pixels of page space in past editions of That's Really Week. And now they're baaaa-aaack!

First, let's start with Lindsay (who, just for the record, is in NO way related to or affiliated with the Lyndsey writing this blog, got it?). Seems the "Rumors" singer took her role in the ironically yet aptly titled Fully Loaded a little too literally this week, when she reportedly got involved in a high-speed car chase with her

Well, it didn't exactly boost Good Charlotte frontdude Joel Madden's punk-rock cred when it was announced a couple weeks ago that he'd knocked up his even-less-punk-than-Hilary-Duff new girlfriend, Nicole Richie. But that's nothing compared to the precipitous decline in punk status that Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz may experience soon, if there's any truth to this week's tabloid rumor that he has impregnated, and proposed to, his lip-synching, hoedown-dancing, acid-refluxing, McDonald's-terrorizing, not-at-all-plastic-surgery-having, pop-starlet paramour, Ashlee Simpson. But despite whatever fallout the main Fall Out Boy boy may suffer as result of his controversial choice of corpse bride--or that annoying little fact that publicists for both Pete and Ash have completely denied this story, damn it!--all we here at That's Really Week have to say is..."punk cred" be damned! We actually hope all this gossip is true--because if it is, then it's only a matter of time before Pete and Ashlee get