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Taylor Swift Reveals Next Album, Speak Now, Is Due October 25

‘Each song is a different confession to a different person, and I’m very excited for you to hear them,’ singer says during live chat. By James Dinh Taylor Swift Photo: UStream During a live chat Tuesday (July 20), fans were treated to some surprising news when Taylor Swift revealed that her new album, Speak Now, would be hitting stores October 25. The songstress also spoke about the album’s first single, “Mine,” shooting a video for the new song and how excited she is to share some of her life experiences from the past year. “It’s called Speak Now, and that pertains to the album as a concept and as an entire theme of the record more than I can even tell you,” Swift said during the Ustream chat , which eventually reached 58,000 viewers. “I’ve been working on it for two years, so ever since we put out Fearless, I’ve been writing for this record and sort of conceptualizing it and putting it together in my head and sort of figuring out what I want it to be,” she added. “I like to take a lot of time in between albums to work up the next one and see what it is.” The album, which Swift explained was written solely by her and is tentatively set to include 14 tracks, is full of firsthand experiences. “For me, I write everything that I live, so you got to give yourself a little bit of time to live a lot of things so you can write about a lot of things, and my only option is to write about what I’ve been through and what I’ve lived, so thankfully, in the past two years, I’ve experienced a lot of things that I’ve been dying to write about and a lot of things that I wanted to say in the moment that I didn’t,” she explained. “Mine,” which is set to premiere in mid-August, is about Swift’s “tendency to run from love.” “It’s been sort of a recent tendency, and I think it’s because, for me, every really direct example of love that I’ve had in front of me has ended in goodbye and ended in breakups and things like that,” she explained. “So I think I’ve developed this pattern of running away when it comes time to fall in love and stay in a relationship. The song is sort of about finding the exception to that and finding someone who would make you believe in love and realize that it could work out, because I’m never ever going to go past hoping that love works out.” Later in the chat, Swift spoke about filming the video for “Mine,” and while she didn’t speak about the clip’s concept, she did gush about the “gorgeous” location — even admitting that she’d love to live there one day. Earlier this month, the pop star was photographed shooting a wedding scene dressed in a cream gown and arm-in-arm with her groom. She was later spotted kissing the groom while boating on a lake in another scene. The singer spoke about a song called “Sparks Fly” that she’s performed on very few occasions, confirming that it will be included on the forthcoming album. “I played that song at one or two shows, and you guys really jumped on it and made it something I had to put on the album, because you guys really showed interest in it.” Aside from moving into her very own place, Swift told fans that she plans to tour after she releases the album. Back in May, the singer told MTV News that she was well under way with the project, citing “boys and love” as the album’s main inspirations. “I’ve been writing it for the last two years, so this summer it’s all about the finishing touches and getting in there in the studio and recording the last couple songs,” she said. What do you want to see from Taylor Swift’s third album? Are you excited for her return to the scene? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below! Related Artists Taylor Swift

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Taylor Swift Reveals Next Album, Speak Now, Is Due October 25

Aubrey O’Day Lands Reality Show On Oxygen

Show will follow the former Danity Kane singer as she tries to make her music comeback. By Gil Kaufman Aubrey O’Day Photo: Jason Merritt/ Getty Images Aubrey O’Day knows the reality-TV routine. The former Danity Kane singer, who was discovered while appearing in MTV’s “Making the Band” in 2004, will return to her roots with “The Aubrey O’Day Project,” an upcoming series on the Oxygen network. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show will follow the former Diddy prot

Kellan Lutz Loved Seeing Ashley Greene ‘Transform’ For ‘Warrior’

‘Ashley’s friggin’ talented,’ he raves about his ‘Twilight’ co-star. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Audrey Kim Kellan Lutz arrives at the 2010 VH1 Do Something! Awards Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images After playing Ashley Greene’s vampire brother in three “Twilight” movies, it could have been weird for Kellan Lutz to play her love interest in the upcoming movie “Warrior.” But at the 2010 VH1 Do Something Awards , where Lutz won recognition for his work with animals, the actor had the highest praise for his co-star. In the movie, set for release sometime in 2011, Lutz plays a lacrosse player whose life spirals out of control after his father dies. “Ashley’s friggin’ talented. It’s really cool to see your friend [in a different way] and to work with a friend, let alone her being so talented, to see her transform from one character to another,” he raved of Greene, who plays a girl named Brooklyn. “Alice is a fun little pixie character, and then Brooklyn, you know, is a sweet, lacrosse-player type of coach’s daughter. It’s fun working with her and seeing her transform herself.” Despite their on-screen romance in “Warrior,” Lutz said that in real life he and Ashley are like brother and sister. “It’s very much like working with family,” he explained. In late 2008, Greene spoke to MTV News about the project. “[‘Warrior’] is about Kellan’s journey,” she said. “It’s very much Kellan’s movie, which is really exciting for him. It’s his journey that he goes through, with trials and errors, and his temper and stuff like that. And I join forces with him, and my dad doesn’t like that very much, so we deal with that.” Are you excited to see Lutz and Greene in “Warrior?” Tell us in the comments! For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Photos Demi Lovato, Joe Jonas Attend The 2010 Do Something Awards

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Kellan Lutz Loved Seeing Ashley Greene ‘Transform’ For ‘Warrior’

‘The Walking Dead’ Zombies Take Over Atlanta, Then Your TV

‘I’d like to do 20 years of zombie TV,’ executive producer Frank Darabont says on the set of new AMC series. By Rick Marshall A Zombie on the set of “Walking Dead” Photo: MTV News ATLANTA — There is carnage on the streets of the ATL. At least there was, when MTV News went down South, to visit the set of “The Walking Dead.” There we found a horde of living dead prepared to bring Frank Darabont’s live-action adaptation of the hit comic books to life when the series premieres on AMC in October. We also found Darabont, “Walking Dead” comic creator Robert Kirkman , and many of the creative minds behind the show. “We have blocks of Atlanta shut down here, and there’s a tank behind me, if you can’t see it,” said Kirkman, who also serves as the series’ executive producer and a screenwriter for two of the first six green-lit episodes. “Just the scale of everything,” he marveled. “Everything is being done exactly the way I would’ve wanted it. And it’s better than I could have ever envisioned it. The whole thing is just amazing.” “The Walking Dead” follows a small group of human survivors in a world overrun by flesh-hungry zombies. Unlike zombie stories of the past, however, the comic book series and its small-screen adaptation focus on the effects a zombie apocalypse would have on the people who survive it. Instead of the zombie outbreak, it’s the zombie aftermath. And what an aftermath it is, as the project’s team brought the devastation of a zombie plague to the streets of downtown Atlanta — complete with overturned vehicles, scattered debris and yes, even a tank. “We’re going to follow the Robert Kirkman narrative pretty closely, but we’re giving ourselves permission to veer off path and find the interesting detours,” Darabont told MTV News. “We’ve got hundreds of zombies. We’ve got a downed helicopter; it just goes on and on. It’s crazy — all on a TV budget.” “The cool thing about it is, Frank Darabont, everything that he’s doing is him looking at the book and going, ‘I think there’s something here that would make it better,’ ” said Kirkman. “And I’ll be damned if he’s not right every time.” During our visit to the set, Darabont gave direction to series lead Andrew Lincoln, who plays police officer Rick Grimes, as hundreds of extras in full zombie makeup waited in the wings, ready to crawl, shamble and drag themselves into action. Given the 95-degree temperature on the day of our visit, the performance of the zombie horde was impressive. “There’s a certain look that we’re going for,” makeup effects supervisor Greg Nicotero told MTV News. “We want real gaunt, real thin features. … Tall, so that then we can make it look like they’re malnourished. So far, we’ve had some great performers, and they bring the makeup to life.” Darabont said he’d love to make the series a regular part of his career well beyond the first six episodes, much like Kirkman himself has done with the long-running comic book series. “I’d like to do 20 years of zombie TV,” he laughed. “Every day I’m at the monitors, and I’m going, ‘This is really, really cool.’ ” Much of the show’s team will also be attending this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego and will host a “Walking Dead” panel on Friday at 11:30 a.m. in Room 6BCF. Related Videos ‘Inception’ Clips

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‘The Walking Dead’ Zombies Take Over Atlanta, Then Your TV

After ‘Inception,’ What’s Next For Leonardo DiCaprio?

With two 2010 box office hits to his credit, the in-demand actor has his pick of pictures from helmers like Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott. By Eric Ditzian Leonardo DiCaprio at the “Inception” premiere Photo: Robyn Beck/ Getty Images The 2010 box office has been very kind to Leonardo DiCaprio. In February, “Shutter Island” delivered his biggest opening to date, with $41 million in ticket sales, and went on to gross $128 million domestically. This past weekend, “Inception” performed even better , grossing $60.4 million, likely setting itself up to rake in even more dough in coming weeks. Where does the 35-year-old actor, now clearly at the top of his Hollywood game, go from here? He’s got a slew of projects lined up, all in various states of development. Let’s take a look at some of his most high-profile potential films and see how Leo’s cinematic future might shake out.

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After ‘Inception,’ What’s Next For Leonardo DiCaprio?

Nicki Minaj Is A Top-Five Candidate For ‘Hottest Breakthrough MCs Of 2010’!

Winner will be revealed on MTV2’s “Sucker Free Summit” Sunday at noon. By Shaheem Reid Nicki Minaj Photo: Young Money/Cash Money It is here: As promised, the top-five vote-getters in our poll for “Hottest Breakthrough MC of 2010” will be revealed this week. These are the artists you guys voted for over the past month, and we can’t express enough how overwhelmed we were by your participation in this project. More than 200,000 votes came in, and they were tallied as of midnight Friday. Keep in mind, the unveiling of the names this week are the top five, but in no particular order. The winner of the “Hottest Breakthrough MC of 2010,” as voted on by the MTV News audience, will be revealed Sunday (July 25) at noon on the “Sucker Free Summit.” Chosen One: Nicki Minaj Rising in the Ranks : Nicki Minaj went from working at Red Lobster to being the red-hot current face of female hip-hop in less time than it takes to complete college. She’s as much an iconic figure for her standout fashion and beauty as she is for tearing up the mic alongside your favorite MCs. Her rabid following has bought into Minaj’s entire package. The hype is backed by true talent, and she’s unique and feisty. And while every photo you see in the press personifies her glamorous life as a Young Money superstar, Minaj is no different from every other MC who has ascended the heights of their genre. The native of New York’s Jamaica, Queens, neighborhood started at the bottom and had to grind her way to the top. First discovered by Lil Wayne on the street-DVD series On the Come Up, Nicki couldn’t get any love from DJs in her hometown, so she moved to Atlanta. It was there she recorded some verses for Weezy’s Gangsta Grillz: Dedication 3 mixtape — singing and rapping on songs such as “Still I Rise” with the rest of Wayne’s then-mostly unknown crop of new talent, including Drake . Nicki also aligned herself with Gucci Mane, adding heavily to her street credibility and profile. While her sexy image was our first impression of Nicki (who can forget that bathing-suit photo in which she paid homage to Lil’ Kim ?), Minaj really found her own lane during the spring of last year with the Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape, which she put together with Atlanta’s DJ Holiday. Nick showed us she has boundless personality on the mic, bringing forth her Barbie persona and all the charismatic outfits, rhyme flows and vocal inflections that go along with it. Records from the tape — “Kill the DJ,” “I Get Crazy” with Lil Wayne and “Itty Bitty Piggy” — bubbled on the streets for months, allowing Nicki to hit the club circuit with her own shows. In the summer of last year, Nick was spotlighted on the Young Money Presents: The America’s Most Wanted Music Festival , and by the fall, seemingly all the guys in music wanted to get with her. Minaj’s career went to the next level when she started turning in show-stealing cameos, which have carried well into this year. Diddy, Robin Thicke, Ludacris, Sean Garrett, Usher, Jadakiss, Trey Songz, Gucci Mane, Sean Kingston and, of course, her Young Money family all know that she’s developed into one of the most versatile performers in hip-hop — and she still hasn’t released her debut album , which is due late this year. Early Insight : “With [my debut] album, I think it’s more important that people get accustomed to seeing a female rapper again,” Nicki said. “People don’t even know what a female rapper does. We’re so not used to seeing it. We don’t get nominated. I need to work [the people] up to accepting a female rapper again and accepting my style and all of that — then the album will come.” Blistering Ballistics : ” Now all these bitches wanna try and be my bestie/ But I take a left and leave ’em hangin’ like a teste/ Trash talk to ’em, then I put ’em in a Hefty/ Runnin’ down the court/ I’m dunkin’ on ’em, Lisa Leslie/ It’s goin’ down, basement/ ‘Friday the 13th,’ guess who’s playin’ Jason?/ Tuck yourself in, you better hold on to ya teddy/ It’s ‘Nightmare on Elm Street,’ and guess who’s playin’ Freddy?” — from Ludacris’ “My Chick Bad” Forecast : Nicki, who is also a member of the Diddy-led all-star Dream Team, didn’t get an overwhelming response for her debut official single, “Massive Attack,” but the misstep did nothing to hurt her popularity. Her follow-up, “Your Love,” is already a #1 hit (with no video yet!). It was a leaked track that the fans loved so much, program directors on radio were forced to add it. Minaj is working on her yet-untitled first album with Young Money and Swizz Beatz. If she continues to attack her own tracks with the fervor she does on her guest appearances, the LP should be a hands-down winner. MTV News will be rolling out the top-five candidates for “Hottest Breakthrough MCs of 2010” all week — with the winner being revealed on MTV2’s “Sucker Free Summit” on Sunday at noon! Related Videos Top Five 2010 Hottest Breakthrough MCs Related Artists Nicki Minaj

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Nicki Minaj Is A Top-Five Candidate For ‘Hottest Breakthrough MCs Of 2010’!

NYT Finds ‘Bellicose’ Bloggers Against ‘Monument to Religious Tolerance’ (i.e., a Mosque) at Ground Zero

The New York Times continues its delicate, sympathetic coverage of NYC-centric Muslims issues with its treatment of the controversy over the Cordoba House, a proposed Muslim community center, to be topped by a mosque, that would be raised at the sight of the World Trade Center. Wednesday’s Metro section story by Javier Hernandez, ” Planned Sign of Tolerance Bringing Division Instead ” certainly made a lot of positive-sounding assumptions (starting with the headline) about the ideas behind the mosque, but failed to probe the secret details of the financiers behind it or to question the propriety of building an Islamic worship site at the same spot where thousands were murdered by radical Muslims in the name of Islam. The Cordoba House was supposed to be a monument to religious tolerance , an homage to the city in Spain where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together centuries ago in the midst of religious foment. Its 15 stories, home to a Muslim community center and a mosque, would rise two blocks from the pit of dust and cranes where the twin towers once stood, a symbol of the resilience of the American melting pot, its supporters said. But instead of inspiring mutual respect, the center has opened deep divisions marked by vitriolic commentary , pitting Muslims against Christians, Tea Partiers against staunch liberals, and Sept. 11 families against one another. And so what began as a gesture of combined good faith by Muslims and non-Muslims has turned into a familiar game of New York City political football. The bellicose discourse was on full display on Tuesday in an auditorium at Hunter College in Manhattan as the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission considered whether to grant one of the buildings that would be torn down for the project, at 45-47 Park Place, status as a protected landmark. The entire center would occupy 45-51 Park Place. …. In recent days, politicians have called for an investigation of the group’s finances and expressed concerns about the views of its leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf , who has held services in a small mosque in TriBeCa since 1983. The Internet has featured fury from all sides, and some bloggers have labeled the proposal a sub-rosa effort to spread extremist Islam. Many Muslim-Americans have been taken aback by the intensity of the reaction, saying it was a sign that discrimination was alive and well nearly nine years after 9/11. But they said the vigorous opposition underscored the need for the $100 million center, which would include a 500-seat auditorium and offer a range of programs modeled on the Y.M.C.A. and the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. El-Gamal refuses to say where the funding for the $100 million project is coming from, a detail Hernandez skips even while saying the project “began as a gesture of combined good faith by Muslims and non-Muslims.” So who are they, exactly? Hernandez wasn’t curious. Neither did he raise Rauf’s recent refusal to call Hamas a terrorist group . A 9-11 victim’s group that opposes the construction rounded up details on The Cordoba Initiative, the consortium backing the plan, the name of which didn’t appear in the Times’s article. The Times has a history of soft, sympathetic pseudo-coverage of local Muslim initiatives and controversies, going so far as to blame rival papers like the New York Post for ” relentless criticism,” in the case of principal Debbie Almontaser, dismissed from a Muslim academy in Brooklyn for defending distribution of a T-shirt by a related organization that read “Intifada NYC.”

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NYT Finds ‘Bellicose’ Bloggers Against ‘Monument to Religious Tolerance’ (i.e., a Mosque) at Ground Zero

‘Mission: Impossible IV’ Still Moving Forward With Tom Cruise

Paramount is ‘excited’ about star, despite the underwhelming performance of ‘Knight and Day.’ By Eric Ditzian Tom Cruise Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage Paramount and Tom Cruise chose to accept another “Mission: Impossible” in February , and despite a slew of questions surrounding the project, both the studio and its leading man remain committed to one another. “We absolutely are excited about having Tom Cruise star in this movie,” Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore told The Hollywood Reporter. Yet the fact that Paramount even had to go on record in support of Cruise highlights the issues surrounding “Mission: Impossible IV” four years after the last installment in the franchise. Last month, Cruise’s action comedy, “Knight and Day,” opened to an underwhelming $20.1 million box office haul, and Paramount is reportedly keeping a watchful eye on the overseas numbers to see if the actor can sustain his appeal to foreign audiences. “It all depends on whether Tom Cruise brings in foreign bucks,” an executive not involved with the film told THR. For the moment, preproduction on “M:I 4” continues. Brad Bird (“The Incredibles”) is reportedly onboard to direct, with J.J. Abrams producing, and Paramount is said to be expecting a final script within weeks. Shooting would reportedly begin by the end of the year with a theatrical release planned during 2011’s holiday season. The studio is targeting a budget of around $140 million, significantly less than the $165 million budget of “M:I 3,” and Cruise is not expected to receive a $20 million payday, as he had not long ago. “Everybody will do their best to make it work,” said a Cruise rep about the star’s “M:I 4″ payday. And then there’s the ongoing talk about just what Cruise’s role in the movie will be. There is a long-standing rumor that his Ethan Hunt character might not even be the face of the franchise for the new film, but that he’d hand off the reigns to a younger actor or even an ensemble. ” ‘Mission: Impossible’ is a brand,” an unnamed former studio chief said. “It didn’t have anything to do with Tom Cruise in the beginning.” Do you think Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt should be the main character in “M:I 4”? Share your thoughts in the comments. Check out everything we’ve got on “Mission: Impossible IV.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .

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‘Mission: Impossible IV’ Still Moving Forward With Tom Cruise

The Real Housewives of New Jersey: Country Club Chaos!

It was totally on last night between Danielle Staub and Teresa Giudice. Complete country club chaos broke out on the Bravo hit, highlighted by these self-centered stars going at it. Let’s see what our Real Housewives correspondent had to say about the exciting episode… Seriously?

Angelina Jolie Dishes On Her ‘Private Self’

‘Maybe that’s why I liked it so much, getting to play this character,’ she tells MTV News of her complex ‘Salt’ role. By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Angelina Jolie Photo: MTV News The action/thriller “Salt” finds Angelina Jolie in a near-constant state of flux: first blond, then brunet; one minute a loyal CIA agent, the next on the run as an accused Russian spy. “Maybe that’s why I liked it so much, getting to play this character,” she told MTV News recently. “I got to be all different people all the time. I think there is [a complex] element to all of us. That’s why we like espionage.” A bit of complexity might be universal, but it’s just that sort of ambiguity that scared studios off from the script for so many years. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had been trying to sell the project as a Jason Bourne-style thriller to studios for years — for a while Tom Cruise was attached to star — but he couldn’t get anyone to green-light the movie. “One of the strengths of the movie is one of the things people were initially scared about, which is you don’t know at times if you should root for or against her,” di Bonaventura told us. “The script does not follow conventional rules.” Eventually, di Bonaventura switched gears entirely, re-conceiving Salt as a woman instead of a man and recruiting Jolie for the starring role. Much like her part in 2005’s “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” Jolie found in Salt a character whose purposely vague double life she could both exploit and understand on a personal level. “There’s a part of us that has a private self,” she said. “We also have these sides to us that maybe we think it’s not as much keeping secrets, but there’s that side that not everybody knows about you or things that you’re capable of that you haven’t yet explored, that you’re waiting to do when the opportunity arises.” As for the 35-year-old actress herself, she’s hopeful she still has a few secrets under wraps — like the true meaning of her newest tattoo — that will keep audiences guessing in the future. “I hope so,” Jolie laughed. “I’d be bored if there wasn’t something.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Salt.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Salt’ Related Photos “Salt”

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Angelina Jolie Dishes On Her ‘Private Self’