Touring acts heat up Houston
With this being my last column, I would like to say thanks to my adoring, loyal fans that have supported me (yeah, right). 1998 has already been a year of twists and turns in the music industry, and the rest of the year should prove to be a wild one.
The flocking of hip-hop artists to the movie industry is becoming a trend. Look for multi-platinum sellers such as Usher, Snoop Doggy Dogg and the Puffmeister (aka Puff Daddy) to appear on the big screen in the coming months.
Usher will be appearing in a Scream-like movie due out next year while Snoop will star in a feature film entitled Bones. Puffy is currently listening to offers from every producer in Hollywood.
If you plan to have some extra dough and want to blow it on discs this summer, scheduled releases include new collections from Leann Rimes, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, Hole, Garbage, Xscape, Too Short, Smashing Pumpkins, Gloria Estefan, Brandy, Trisha Yearwood, A Tribe Called Quest and Maxwell.
At the top of the album charts this week is ... you guessed it, the Titanic soundtrack. Selling almost 200,000 copies this week, Titanic barely squeaked past George Strait's One Step at a Time which sold about 170,000 units.
Coming in at number three, four and five, respectively, were the soundtrack to City of Angels, Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love and Savage Garden's self-titled album.
Beating out the competition for the third straight week in a row on the Hot 100 Single Charts is the edgy R&B trio Next with "Too Close." Falling just short are Mariah Carey's ballad "My All," which entered the charts at number two, and country-to-pop crossover Shania Twain's "You're Still the One."
Also making the top five this week are "Everybody" from the Backstreet Boys and Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply."
Attention Tori Amos fans: Run to your local record store Tuesday for the release of Tori's new album, From the Choirgirl Hotel (Atlantic). Also expected in stores are rapper Jay Z's Streets is Watching (Roc-A-Fella), and the band that should win some kind of an award for the most unique name, The Jesus Lizard with Blue (Capitol). DJ extraordinaire Junior Vasquez is also scheduled to drop his latest mix disc, Live Vol. II, next week.
Hitting Houston like a storm this weekend is the Westheimer Street Festival. Featuring tons of local bands and starting at the 100 block of Westheimer and extending all the way to the 1000 block, it's sure to be a rocking weekend. The festival will include a Latino stage, a KLOL stage, a Blues stage and a KRBE corner (whatever that means). As usual, plenty of food, games and homemade arts and crafts will be available for the two-day event, which kicks off around noon Saturday.
Also hitting the live local scene is the always entertaining Reverend Horton Heat, who will shake, rattle and roll Numbers night club Monday, with doors opening at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15. Also, Boyz II Men roll into the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Friday, May 8, along with opening acts Destiny's Child, Next and Uncle Sam. The show starts at 7 p.m., and tickets are $25 and $35.
E-mail me at Jslim22@aol.com if you wanna drop me a line.