LONDON, March 18, (Agencies): David Bowie returned to the top of the British album charts on Sunday for the first time in 20 years with a collection of new recordings acclaimed by one critic as the “greatest comeback in rock’n’roll history”. “The Next Day”, recorded in secret over two years, shot straight to number one in its first week on release, shifting over 94,000 copies to become the fastest-selling album of 2013, the Official Charts Company said. Bowie surprised fans and the music industry in January with the unexpected release of the single “Where Are We Now?” on his 66th birthday and the announcement that an album of fresh recordings would be issued in March. He had shunned the limelight since suffering a heart attack on tour in 2004 and last performed on stage since 2006. Produced by his long-time collaborator Tony Visconti, “The Next Day” is Bowie’s first new work since “Reality” a decade ago, and his first chart-topping success since 1983’s “Black Tie White Noise”.

Praise
Critics have showered praise on the album, which topped digital iTunes charts in 40 countries in the days after its release on March 8, according to Bowie’s official website. “David Bowie’s ‘The Next Day’ may be the greatest comeback album ever,” said The Independent’s Andy Gill in a five-star review. The question will now be how the recording fares in the United States, where Bowie has never had a number one album. American sales data from Billboard will show on Wednesday whether Bowie has outsold “What About Now”, a rival new release from US rockers Bon Jovi, beaten into second place in the British charts. Also new in the week’s album rankings were British synth-pop duo Hurts at number nine with “Exile”. In the singles charts Justin Timberlake held on to the top spot with “Mirrors”, while former Pussycat Doll singer Nicole Scherzinger was new at number six with “Boomerang”.
 

DES MOINES, Iowa: Rapper Tone Loc didn’t want to be hospitalized after collapsing on stage during a weekend performance in Iowa. Loc, whose real name is Anthony T. Smith, collapsed after finishing a song during a Saturday night concert on a downtown Des Moines bridge. The concert ended abruptly while the 47-year-old was treated. Three employees of the Des Moines Register who were at the show said several minutes after Loc collapsed, fans were asked to leave. Police Sgt Steve Woody told the newspaper that paramedics responded after Loc collapsed, but he refused to be taken to a hospital. Loc’s representative did not respond to messages Sunday, and it wasn’t clear why he collapsed.

Seizure
It wasn’t the rapper’s first time collapsing on stage. Loc, who is best known for his 1980s hits “Funky Cold Medina” and “Wild Thing,” collapsed and had a seizure during a 2009 concert in Pensacola, Florida. Authorities said he had apparently overheated.
Loc also collapsed in 1995 while attending a Los Angeles Lakers game. The reason he collapsed wasn’t given.
Loc has also appeared in a number of television shows and movies, including “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” with Jim Carrey and “Heat” with Al Pacino. Loc has also been the voice of several animated characters.
 

He shot to fame as a music video director, framing some of pop’s most notable names including Moby, Katy Perry, Lana del Rey and Rihanna.
Now, France’s multi-talented creator Woodkid has turned the spot-light on himself, releasing a widely anticipated debut album set to merge Tolkien and Bergman as much as it does electro and classical strings.
With “The Golden Age”, Woodkid, or Yoann Lemoine, spills his heart out in an ambitious and personal four-year musical project that was to begin to hit the shelves as of Monday. And the album has not only been awaited in his native France.

His first two singles “Iron” and “Run Boy Run” have already sold 300,000 copies world-wide and the video for the latter was even nominated as Best Short Form Music Video at the Grammy Awards. In an interview with AFP, the 29-year-old classically-trained pianist from Lyon says Woodkid was born after he mixed pretty much everything that inspired him: sounds, texts, and visuals. “And I realised a story was being created.” “This is the story of a being — you don’t really know if it’s a child, an adolescent, an adult,” he said. “This album talks about the moment when you walk out your parents’ door, the one when you have to create your character,” the bearded musician explained, forearms tattooed and sporting a baseball cap on his shaved head. The music, romantic and much reminiscent of a childhood spent “listening to a lot of movie soundtracks and imagining the images”, could almost have been a Hollywood production considering the finesse and work put into it. The French National Orchestra, the Paris opera, DJ SebastiAn and electro-group The Shoes, have all contributed to the project that “confronts wood and marble, (the) organic and digital, past and future, classic and avant-garde”.

But Woodkid has not just made an album. He has also made videos and written a book to go along with it.
The music videos, shot in black-and-white, bear notions of films such as “Metropolis” and “The White Ribbon” and movie-makers such as Michel Gondry and Guy Maddin. The most personal fragments of the story — homosexuality, being in exile and war — have been brought together in a book available with the album’s limited edition. Written together with his cousin Katarzyna Jerzak, a literature professor, Woodkid embarked on the project tracing his eastern European family, Poles whom he said “denied their Jewish roots after the war”. “With this project, I almost did an archaeological psychoanalysis, (and) I managed to answer some questions,” he said.