By Geoff Mayfield 25 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul adds another jewel to her crown, as Mary J. Blige captures her fourth career No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Blige ends up ruling the chart in the only week of 2007 when album sales beat those of the same week in the prior year.

With Santa Claus finishing his rounds early in the tracking week, momentum finally slows for Josh Groban's "Noel," which had a lock on the top slot for five weeks. That shift sets the stage for Blige's "Growing Pains" to take command of the big chart a week after it bowed at No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

Groban's Christmas set declines by 77 percent, the first time since its second chart week that "Noel" does not log a gain. That rolls him down to No. 3 (176,000 copies); a smaller erosion of 67 percent from Blige's opening sales moves her to first place (204,000).

The post-Christmas decline by Alicia Keys' "As I Am" is less severe than either Groban's or Blige's, shuffling her back to No. 2 (down 59 percent, 193,000).

Coming off the busiest shopping week of the year in the week that ended December 23, there is no shame in a post-Christmas slide. Only two titles in the Billboard 200's top 50 manage any kind of increase: the film-fueled soundtrack to "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (56-23, up 5 percent) and Greatest Gainer winner Sara Bareilles (98-45, up 19 percent).

Including chart bows, there are 15 gainers on the Billboard 200, which is actually more than the chart has produced in some post-Christmas frames of years gone by.

Three of those gains belong to albums new to the list: Disney Channel variant "High School Musical 2: Non-Stop Dance Party" (No. 68, 22,000 copies), the "P.S. I Love You" soundtrack (No. 134, 10,000) and the physical release of Radiohead's "In Rainbows," which charts early due to street-date violations (No. 156, 9,000).

Among those 15 gainers are seven albums that re-enter the Billboard 200 (at Nos. 123, 168, 170, 182, 184, 191 and 196), a couple of them with increases of fewer than 100 units.

Meanwhile, with a Tuesday Christmas adding one more last-minute gift-shopping day than we had in the comparable frame of 2006, the last week of 2007 manages to be the only one of the year where album sales show an uptick over the same week of the prior year. Aside from gift shopping, the growth is fed by album downloads gobbled up by consumers who found MP3 players under their Christmas trees.

Under most circumstances, a 2.4 percent improvement in comparable-week sales would seem meager, but in the landscape of 2007, that bump looms as large as Mount Rushmore.

Reuters/Billboard

29 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - Natalie Imbruglia, the singer and former "Neighbours" actress, has split from her husband four years after they married in a beachside ceremony in Australia.

Imbruglia, 32, and Daniel Johns, 28, lead singer with the Australian rock band Silverchair, said they had "simply grown apart" after living on different sides of the world for years.

Imbruglia is based in England while Johns lives in Australia.

"While we are very sad that our marriage has ended, we want to make it clear that our parting is amicable and we remain friends," they said in a joint statement. "This mutual decision has not been taken lightly or quickly.

"However, our career demands and our lives in different parts of the world have brought us to the point where unfortunately this difficult decision was necessary for both of us.

"We have simply grown apart through not being able to spend enough time together."

The couple married on New Year's Eve in 2003 in Queensland. Guests included singer Kylie Minogue, actor Guy Pearce and the Virgin boss Richard Branson, according to media reports.

Before her marriage she was linked to the American singer Lenny Kravitz and "Friends" actor David Schwimmer.

Imbruglia's biggest hit was "Torn," which reached number two in Britain in November 1997. Silverchair have had a string of number one albums in Australia.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Steve Addison and Paul Casciato)

By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Police were called to Britney Spears’ home Thursday night in a custodial dispute involving her children, authorities said.

Officers were called at 8 p.m. and were still at the house two hours later, said Officer Jason Lee, a police spokesman.

The call involved a “family custodial dispute that we are trying to resolve … peacefully by court order,” Lee said, declining to elaborate.

Spears and ex-husband Kevin Federline are fighting over custody of their sons, 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James.

Federline, 29, has temporary custody of the children because Spears, who has limited visitation rights, has defied court orders. The two were married in October 2004 and divorced in July.

Calls to attorneys for Federline and Spears were not immediately returned.

Earlier Thursday, the 26-year-old singer appeared for a deposition in the custody dispute.

She was deposed for just 14 minutes, attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan told reporters after she left.

Spears called in sick for a Dec. 12 court-ordered deposition, but was photographed that day driving with a friend. She also didn’t show up for a session Wednesday, Kaplan said.

Spears’ attorneys from the firm Trope and Trope on Wednesday filed a court motion asking to be relieved due to a “breakdown” in communication with their client.

Kaplan said Spears’ attorneys were present for what became a very abbreviated session.

“The deposition proceeding did go forward today. It was scheduled for 9:45 to 11:45,” Kaplan said. “However, it wasn’t able to commence until 11:32.”

“You can imagine in 14 minutes there’s not a lot of time to develop questions,” he said.

Kaplan said another deposition will be scheduled.

___

Raquel Maria Dillon contributed to this report.

16 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Stephen Stills is recovering after surgery for prostate cancer, his wife said Thursday.

In a statement, Stills’ wife, Kristen Stills, said the “procedure went remarkably well and he couldn’t be better. He will be home by noon tomorrow and the pain will be minimal.”

The musician is scheduled to attend the Sundance Film Festival in Utah for the Jan. 25 world premiere of “CSNY/Deja vu,” the statement said. The feature movie, directed by Bernard Shakey, was filmed during the 2006 Freedom of Speech tour by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Stills is also scheduled for a North American solo tour this spring in support of his recent “Just Roll Tape” album.

Natalie Finn Thu Jan 3, 1:31 PM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - One of the greats is still going.

Singer-songwriter Stephen Stills, the first artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice in one night, underwent a successful operation to treat prostate cancer on Thursday in Los Angeles, according to his wife, Kristen Stills.

"Stephen's procedure went remarkably well and he couldn't be better," she said. "He will be home by noon tomorrow and the pain will be minimal."

The 63-year-old musician and activist, who along with David Crosby and Graham Nash makes up the iconic folk trio Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes, with Neil Young, an iconic quartet), revealed Dec. 17 during an appearance on Larry King Live that he had been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and would have surgery on Jan. 3, his birthday.

As of now, Stills is still planning to attend the Jan. 25 premiere of the documentary CSNY Déjà Vu at the Sundance Film Festival. The Bernard Shakey-directed film followed CSNY on their 2006 Freedom of Speech tour, with the Iraq war serving as a political backdrop.

Stills, ranked 28th on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, is also scheduled to tour this spring in support of his latest solo release, Just Roll Tape, most of which consists of tracks he cut in 1968 in a recording studio that had been vacated moments before by folk singer Judy Collins.

In 1997, Stills entered the Hall of Fame twice during the same ceremony—once with Buffalo Springfield, with whom he made three albums and penned the classic wartime anthem "For What It's Worth," and again with CSN.

By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer 11 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Tommy Tune will return to musical theater, directing “Turn of the Century,” a world premiere that will be part of an ambitious 2008-2009 season at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.

“The show is an original — not based on a movie, a novel, or a made-for-television anything,” the nine-time Tony winner said Thursday in explaining what attracted him to the project. “It’s unique.”

“Turn of the Century” came to the Goodman through Rick Elice, who co-wrote the show with Marshall Brickman. The Tony-winning writers of “Jersey Boys” have concocted what Robert Falls, artistic director of the Goodman, calls “a wonderful comic romp.”

“The basic premise involves a young songwriter-piano player and his girl singer who find themselves through mysterious, supernatural, `Twilight Zone’-ish activities thrown back to the turn of the century, the 20th century,” Falls said in a telephone interview from Chicago.

“They are playing a gig on the eve of the 21st century and at the strike of midnight, they find themselves thrown back to the dawning of the 20th century,” Falls said.

The score will be composed of great American standards written by giants such as Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and more, according to Tune.

“The fun part is that the couple, Billy and Dixie, realize the songs they are performing haven’t been written yet — so they decide to write them,” said Tune, who has directed Broadway musicals such as “Nine,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “My One and Only,” “Grand Hotel” and “The Will Rogers Follies.”

“The two become the toast of the town,” Tune continued. “But for every action, there is a reaction, so they face the results of this fame, fortune and karma and find their relationship is unraveling.”

“The hard part is choosing the songs,” he said. “That’s our work between now and the time we open.” Falls said the musical will go into rehearsal in late summer and open in either September or October.

The Goodman’s 2008-2009 season also will feature Brian Dennehy in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s rarely seen “Desire Under the Elms”; the world premiere of Lynn Nottage’s “Ruined,” set in a civil-war-plagued Congo; and “Yohen” by Philip Kan Gotanda, a look at the long relationship between a Japanese-born woman and a black American who first met in post-World War II Japan. The last will be a co-production with Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project and will be performed at Silk Road’s small Loop theater located near the Goodman.

Dennehy and Falls have collaborated on four other O’Neill revivals including “The Iceman Cometh,” “A Touch of the Poet,” “Hughie” and a Tony-winning production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

“O’Neill is the Everest of American playwrights,” Falls said. “You can’t climb that mountain without spilling a lot of blood and sweat and tears. For this play, you need three extraordinary actors.” The two other lead roles are still to be cast.

“Desire Under the Elms” will be part of a major Chicago celebration of the playwright, which Falls is calling “O’Neill in the 21st Century.”

“I have invited a number of theater artists, both directors and companies from around the world, to present works by O’Neill in a festival setting,” he said. “There probably will be four or five productions playing in January, February, early March 2009.

“The celebration is still coming together but we are looking at theater companies from South Africa, Brazil, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Russia. I don’t know where it’s going to land but there is some major work being done around the world on the plays of O’Neill, and we hope to get them here.”

28 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Rapper Flo Rida's "Low" led Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart for a second week Thursday, setting a new record for digital sales.

The track sold 470,000 copies, breaking the single-week record held by Fergie's "Fergalicious" at 294,000.

Alicia Keys' former champ "No One" held at No. 2, as did Timbaland's "Apologize" featuring OneRepublic at No. 3 and Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" featuring T-Pain at No. 4.

Soulja Boy's "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," another former chart-topper, rebounded six places to No. 5. Fergie's "Clumsy" slipped one to No. 6, while Colbie Caillat's "Bubbly" kept the No. 7 spot warm.

Rock troupe Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer" fell two to No. 8, Sara Bareilles' "Love Song" held at No. 9, and Jordin Sparks' "Tattoo" fell two to No. 10.

The week's top debut at No. 62 was "Witch Doctor" from Alvin and the Chipmunks featuring Chris Classic. Other tracks from the animated rodents' hit film — covers of Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" and Lipps Inc.'s "Funkytown" — entered at No. 67 and No. 86, respectively.

Other debuts included Janet Jackson's "Feedback" at No. 84, Flyleaf's "All Around Me" at No. 93, 3 Doors Down's "Citizen Soldier" at No. 99 and Nickelodeon star Miranda Cosgrove's "Leave It All To Me (iCarly Theme Song)" featuring Drake Bell at No. 100.

Reuters/Billboard