Evans claims to have gone to great lengths

The rift between Adele and her dad runs deep--Evans, 49, walked out on his daughter and her mother when Adele was only 3 years old. However, he did manage to be a presence in her life, as Adele would spend holidays with her paternal grandparents. By the time she was a teenager, their relationship appeared to have improved. Unfortunately, in 2011--at the peak of Adele's rise to fame--he spoke to the press about their difficulties. The superstar responded with fury to what she considered a major transgression by telling Vogue in 2012 she'd "spit in his face" if she ever saw him again.

Evans claims to have gone to great lengths to reinstate himself in his daughter's life--including embarrassing pleas to her management and label staff to intervene on his behalf--but Adele has been firm in not allowing him to approach her. Evans says he has never met Konecki and he longs to build a bond with his grandson. "I'm missing out on so many of the joys of being a grandfather. Simple pleasures like taking him out for a walk in his buggy," Evans lamented to the Daily Mail.

Evans notes that his daughter maintained a good relationship with his parents and was particularly close to her grandfather before he passed away in 1999. In fact, he says he learned about her pregnancy secondhand from his own mom.

With her powerful voice

Gong Linna continues to reshape folk music on the contemporary stage, Chen Nan reports.

From the day that Gong Linna became an Internet sensation for her lyricless song Tan Te, or "Disturbed", she was known as an unconventional Chinese folk singer who breaks all the rules.

With her powerful voice, wide vocal range and dramatic facial expressions, she attracts attention and gets rave reviews when she releases each new song.

Fa Hai, You Don't Understand Love, Gong's latest song - which, like Tan Te, was composed by her German husband, Robert Zollitsch - has conjured up yet another wave of attention and controversy.

First performed at the New Year's eve gala of Hunan Satellite TV on Dec 31, the new song soared to popularity overnight thanks to its contagious melody and quirky lyrics.

"Fahai, you don't understand love. The Lei-feng Pagoda will fall down," sings Gong, 38, in a white glittering dress, playing the role of White Snake, the protagonist of the Legend of the White Snake.

The song's melody and lyrics are direct and simple. After the debut performance, the song has been remade over and over by fans on the Internet. The video has been watched more than 100,000 times online.

I love This Masquerade

A big mistake would be to change what an audience knows," he cautions. "People came to hear what they know. After you finish with that, if you want to go to the moon and go crazy, that's up to you. But I learned this from Duke Ellington: once a song becomes a classic, you don't mess with it. You leave it alone. And he was right. So I leave it alone. And it works.

"I love This Masquerade, Turn Your Love Around, On Broadway. If people want to hear it, I'm happy to play it. It's a two-way street: What can I do to make them remember why they loved the song in the first place?"

In Macao as the end of an Asian tour that started in Seoul and included stops such as Singapore, Benson admits that it was his first visit to the former Portuguese enclave.

"Yesterday, I went on a long tour to see all the different aspects of the city," he recalls. "Where normal folks go to shop, the residential areas with nice houses. Then the casinos. I've never seen anything quite this extensive. Inside, you can play football and baseball in any one of them - they are massive. We have a brand new casino where I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's very nice, but it looks like a toy compared to this.

"When I hear (casino mogul) Steve Wynn talk, I know that he's a guy who understands. He says that he is building another casino in Vegas. He must have confidence in the future. I don't gamble myself. I'm a family man. I've got seven boys and eight granddaughters. I want to make sure that they have a couple of dollars to spend.

A hard act to match

While he was describing the opera in general terms two centuries ago, feared Vienna critic Eduard Hanslick could have been referring to Erraught's performance when he wrote: "This ... Cinderella is in fact a Cinderella in clothing only; her singing brims over with pearls, velvet and silk."

A hard act to match — and as Don Ramiro, Angelina's prince, Dmitry Korchak was almost equal to the task.

"Almost," only because his light tenor initially threatened to get lost in the orchestra. But Korchak gained in confidence — and his voice in power — effortlessly pinpointing his high C's in "Si ritrovarla io giuro," as he declared that he will find the girl who so enchanted him at the ball, no matter what it takes.

But to do so, he must get past Angelina's step-father, who keeps her in ashes while he plots the prince's marriage to one of his two daughters. As the bumbling Don Magnifico, Alessandro Corbelli was indeed Mr. Magnificent Saturday, bringing the mean and scheming persona to life in a humorously endearing way.

Weekend Rock Question

We're just two weeks away from the Super Bowl. Football is fine and dandy, but our main interest here is Beyonce's halftime show. What songs will she perform during the Destiny's Child reunion set? Will she truly sing live? Will Jay-Z come out during "Crazy in Love?"

Now we have a question for you: what is your favorite Super Bowl halftime show of all time? There's no need to stick to Madonna, Prince, Bruce Springsteen or other acts from recent years. You can go all the way back to the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band in 1967 or Up With People in 1980. There was even an Indiana Jones skit in 1995. Anything is fair game, but please only vote once and only for a single performance.

You can vote here in the comments, on facebook.com/rollingstone or on Twitter using the #weekend rock hashtag.

Muse Open U.S. Tour With a Bang

Muse is not a band for stripping things down. Last night at the first of three concerts at Staples Center in Los Angeles, the British trio kept its reputation intact for flash and sweeping rock gestures. It was the second night of the band's U.S. tour behind The 2nd Law, Muse's sixth studio album, and it was heavy with ambitious new songs between heroic, earth-shuddering hits from the last dozen years.

Hardly a critical favorite, Muse is frequently dismissed as a band hewing too closely to their influences and replacing subtlety with helium-fueled intensity. But they know how to fill a stage, delivering their songs with energy and obsession, performing beneath an endlessly morphing pyramid of lights, lasers and flashing images.

Muse mingled brooding electronics with epic Queen-like flourishes and an of-the-moment taste of dubstep on The 2nd Law's "Unsustainable," which opened the show. One radio hit from the new album is "Madness," performed at human-scale as a gospel/U2 hybrid, in contrast to the explosive visuals: purple and blue lasers firing above the crowd and Matt Bellamy's dark glasses, with lenses that helpfully flashed lyrics for fans to sing along to the singer's breathless, emotional reading.

Manhattan Production Music

Even if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Black Keys aren't too pleased with a Louisiana casino's commercials. The Ohio rockers have filed a lawsuit in New York federal court against Pinnacle Entertainment, who run the L'Auberge Casino Resort Lake Charles.

And Manhattan Production Music, a company that makes music for commercial advertising, claiming the companies used their Brothers track "Howlin' for You" in advertisements. The complaint alleges that a September ad for the L'Auberge Casino used music "substantially similar" to "Howlin' for You," and also claims Pinnacle used "infringing music" in an ad for another casino the following month.

If companies are unable or unwilling to secure licensing rights to popular songs, they often hire music production houses to create similar-sounding pieces of music for their advertisements. The melody or key usually sports enough variation to avoid lawsuits, but the Black Keys assert a "blatant and purposeful infringement" of copyrights in their complaint.

Joy Formidable roars again on Wolf Is Law

Two years after The Joy Formidable barreled to the fringe of the rock mainstream with the lush and brute "The Big Roar," the Welsh trio returns with an even bigger and squalling encore. "Wolf's Law" is the arrival of a headliner.

It's a deserved reward. This is wonderfully noisy and hooky, shimmering with guitar-pop accessibility. So what if standouts such as "Maw Maw Song" and the whirlwind "Bats" have the nagging feeling of sounding familiar — maybe a head-bopper from the alt-rock heyday of the '90s or another Brit rocker making massive songs for arenas like touring mates Muse. In the voice and guitar-hammering hands of frontwoman Ritzy Bryan, surprises (usually loud ones) are around every corner.

In the opener "This Ladder is Ours," Bryan begins with an inviting "Let's take this walk/It's long overdue." She isn't kidding. Where was an exciting rocker like this in 2012, and how soon before we can have another?

Beyonce had a definite fan

James Taylor kicked off the musical performances, strumming his guitar and singing "America the Beautiful." Kelly Clarkson followed with a different arrangement of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Then Beyonce was introduced and the crowd again roared its approval.

Beyonce had a definite fan in Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who applauded eagerly after she finished singing the national anthem. She offered R&B-esque vocal riffs as she sang on and the crowd seemed to love it, cheering loudly as she finished. Clarkson, too, hit high notes.

Beyonce may have been the star musical attraction, but she had plenty of company from Hollywood at the Capitol on Monday. Katy Perry and John Mayer sat side-by-side, with Perry in an orange-striped coat and wide hat, and Mayer in dark sunglasses. Singer-songwriter Ke$ha was there, too.

Big Love was the best music festival of the year

Director of the festival Chen Shu made a public statement after being taken to the police station to settle disputes with the contracted companies. He admitted there were problems with the management of the festival, and he would try to pay back the 8 million yuan ($1.26 million) he owes contracted companies as soon as possible.

I interviewed Chen last year, when he was preparing to hold the festival in October, in Mianyang, another city in Sichuan. He seemed very optimistic and estimated that an overall audience of 200,000 would attend the festival. That didn't work out because the local government changed its mind, but Chen was still optimistic about his festival and decided to hold it in Chengdu, in June.

In terms of lineup, Big Love was the best music festival of the year, with top-notch Chinese artists like Cui Jian, Xie Tianxiao and Miserable Faith, pop artists Chyi Chin, Alan Tam and Chang Chen-yue. There were also international acts like Extreme, Suede and Lisa Ono.

Chen had hoped to attract a huge audience by assembling the best musicians. He succeeded in this, but he failed to generate enough income.

Barry Drinkwater

Laura Zebersky, executive vice president of sales at Jazwares, said: "With more than three million twitter followers and a debut album that has gone gold and platinum across the globe, it's clear that the guys from One Direction are superstars that tween and teen fans can't get enough of.

"We are thrilled to add One Direction to our portfolio, and look forward to developing our programme with the band to bring personal and innovative electronics to their millions of fans."

Barry Drinkwater, founder and owner of Global Merchandising Services added: "We are very excited to partner with Jazwares.

"They are a perfect partner in this category and we know the fans will agree."

The products will be available in the UK, US, Latin America, Ireland, and Canada.

Meanwhile, the group - who formed on UK TV talent show 'The X Factor' in 2010 - admit they are still stunned by their worldwide success.

Niall told MTV News: "To be honest, if you had said to us a year ago, and this sounds so cliché, [but] if you had said to us a year ago that we were gonna be touring America, we would absolutely have fell on the ground laughing at you.

About half the songs of Shinhwa

Shinhwa" means "legend" in Korean, and many pop fans believe the six-member namesake South Korean boy band lives up to its moniker. While most other South Korean pop outfits have faded within five years, Shinhwa has been at it for 14 years.

About half the songs of Shinhwa's Guangzhou show will be dance tunes. Songs will include such classics as T.O.P. and Hey, Come On.

The group became the earliest among South Korean pop outfits to enter the overseas market around 2000.

Shinhwa launched its comeback tour concert in Seoul, South Korea, in February. The group will perform another concert at Beijing's MasterCard Center in Beijing on July 7.

I browse through the 2011 handbook

A few Chinese rock groups have financed themselves to perform at international festivals. The typical comment from foreign audiences is: "I didn't know that you had this kind of music in China."

When I browse through the 2011 handbook of WOMEX (the World Music Expo), I find no Chinese musician, agency or promoter in the list of participants. But there are names from our neighboring countries, such as South Korea, Japan and Pakistan.

That means Chinese music has not really been represented on the international level. It's true that music is a business. But not every good musician or group has enough commercial value to afford international tours, especially when Chinese music as a whole is not yet fully recognized by the world.

The second half of the show

Working with Taiwan producer Jim Lee, she combined classical music and pop rhythms, with piano and violin in Por Una Cabeza, a popular Argentine tango by Carlos Gardel.

The second half of the show saw her pay tribute to some established Mandarin pop stars by singing Jacky Cheung's Autumn, Teresa Teng's South Sea Girl and Chyi Yu's Dreamland.

Zhang, who rose to fame after winning the 2005 Supergirl singing competition, is known for singing in various languages, such as English, French and Spanish, in addition to Mandarin.

She is also known for hitting the high notes, which is why she is known as "Dolphin Voice". Zhang has been compared to Mariah Carey, whom she has admired since she was a teenager.

Her five studio albums and two EPs released since 2006 have all topped the Chinese music charts. She has also won best female singer awards over the past three years.

"I have been trying to sing in different styles because I want to find a style that belongs to (me)," she says. "I love music, but during the past seven years, I just wasn't enjoying myself singing."

Looking 4 Myself

American R&B star Usher scored his fourth No 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with "Looking 4 Myself", topping new releases from Rush, Josh Turner and Ed Sheeran.

"Looking 4 Myself", the seventh album from 33-year-old Usher, sold 128,000 copies in its first week according to Nielsen SoundScan figures, falling far below the "Scream" singer's last set, "Raymond v Raymond", which debuted with sales of 329,000 in 2010.

Usher will face strong competition for the top spot next week from his protégé Justin Bieber, whose highly anticipated album "Believe" was released this week and topped the iTunes chart.

Veteran Canadian rockers Rush came in at No 2 with "Clockwork Angels", selling 103,000 copies and pushing British songstress Adele to No 3 with her Grammy-winning "21", which has spent 69 weeks in the top ten.

Rush, who have been in the music business for four decades, have yet to score a No 1 debut on the Billboard album chart.

Country music singer Josh Turner entered the Billboard 200 at No 4 with his "Punching Bag", selling 45,000 copies in its first week. The record also topped the Billboard Country Albums chart.

Working with Dr Luke

When you are writing in the studio, it's like the people who are in the studio with you are a dysfunctional family," he said. "You are basically like a therapist. It's psychology."

His colleagues say one of his studio tools is a wicked, self-deprecating sense of humor, which he uses to break tension. "He's so funny, it's crazy," the rapper Spank Rock said.

Working with Dr. Luke taught Mr. Blanco about song structure and dynamics, about creating rising drama and moments of respite from that drama.

Over the last two years, he has started collaborating more with the Swedish songwriters Shellback and Max Martin and, more recently, with Bruno Mars. He relishes the role of newcomer.

Mr. Blanco said: "I want to be that new guy that no one wants to work with."

here is another problem with the current model

There is already progress compared to five years ago, when artists and production companies got practically nothing from websites who offered free downloads. Now most major websites pay some fees to the copyright owners.

But that fee is obviously not enough to sustain the music industry. China didn't provide much original and exciting music in the last decade compared to the previous one, although cheap-sounding works made through amateur computer software are flourishing.

There is another problem with the current model of websites paying royalties with advertising proceeds, and netizens downloading music for free: In the long run, it will not be ourselves who decide what we hear, but the major websites.

It is unclear when the payable music

During the early phase of the Internet, people used to say that the Internet freed us from the tyranny of major record companies that decided what people should hear, but now it seems we have shifted to become slaves of major websites.

It is unclear when the payable music downloading will be put into practice in China. The negotiation between music content holders and websites may take some time, but how to balance the interests of different parties is just a technical question. Charging for music downloading in the future is inevitable.

Hopefully this will be a positive factor for Chinese music. After all, we all want to hear good music. Why not support your favorite musicians by buying their works so that you can hear more in the long run?

His break up with his fiancee

Indeed, love and relationships have been a huge influence in his music.

"It could be because my parents divorced when I was 4 or that I had my heart broken when I was in sixth grade. Throughout my 20s and young life, I've been curious to see who I would fall in love with and where that would take me. And, also, my love of music has catapulted me through life," he once said.

His break-up with his fiancee Tristan Prettyman in the summer of 2011 also contributed to the album.

His Chinese fans call Mraz a "wizard". "I experienced so much love and support from my Asian fans even from the earlier stages of my career, which makes me want to come back again and again," he says.

"There is definitely something special about Asian audiences, and as a performer you can't ask more from these kind of passionate fans It's always a pleasure going back to those places where the audiences truly enjoy and appreciate your music."

The foundation of MTV

Notable moments came from "Batman" star Christian Bale, who gave an emotional introduction to an exclusive trailer for the upcoming film, "The Dark Knight Rises," after footage of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker character was shown from the second installment of the Christopher Nolan "Batman" franchise.

Music, the foundation of MTV, played a key role throughout the show with first-ever house DJ, Martin Solveig, providing movie score mash-ups from "Jaws," "Pulp Fiction" and "Drive" between awards.

Rapper Wiz Khalifa performed new song "Work Hard, Play Hard" and indie band fun. sang their hit single "We Are Young" with Janelle Monae to open the program.

Phoenix Legend in the United States

The moves are a blend of yangko, a form of folk dance popular in northern China. After the number, Wang reminds the dancers to wave their hands as if they were holding fans, a typical prop in yangko dance.

Wang, 26, first used the music of Phoenix Legend in the United States at the 2010 Zumba Convention - Sino Fusion Beats East Meet West.

For nearly two hours, he led more than 700 people in dance, making him an instant sensation in the US, and back in China through the Internet.

Bored with the usual gym workouts, he also mixed traditional Chinese folk dances with disco, hip hop and salsa, which were widely enjoyed at the Zumba Convention.

Another highlight will be Canadian violinist

China Philharmonic Orchestra will give the China premiere of the symphonic poem Red Cheongsam at Midnight by US-based Chinese composer Fay Wang under the baton of Yang Yang. The composer uses a Peking Opera melody to depict the interactions of Chinese and Western cultures.

Another highlight will be Canadian violinist Lara St John's cooperation with the China Philharmonic to perform Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto in D Major.

One Sweet Morning, the co-commissioned work of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic (NYPO), will stage its Asia debut in Shanghai.

One Sweet Morning expresses composer John Corigliano's calls for world peace. It was first performed by the NYPO in New York in September 2011.

Shanren used the standard Western rock format

Returning Money is about a man who's crazy to get back money he lent. Study pokes fun at Yunnan natives who speak Putonghua with an accent. Thirty Years is about the difficulty people from the provinces have finding jobs in big cities. Shanren uses many Chinese instruments, most of which are from Yunnan's non-Han ethnic groups. They include xianzi, a plucked instrument of the Yi ethnic group; bawu, a Hani wind instrument; and the Jino's sun drum.

Shanren used the standard Western rock format of guitar, bass and drums when it was founded in 1999. But they found the instruments' limitations made it difficult to forge their own style.

"We couldn't make breakthroughs with Western instruments but discovered endless new possibilities with Chinese instruments, especially those belonging to ethnic groups," Qu says.

"We also learned different harmonies when we visited Yunnan's folk musicians."

They often dance onstage, because they believe dance is inalienable from music.

"Only when you dance can you really feel the music," Qu says.

Qu and drummer Xiao Ou are ethnically Han, while Ai is Va and Xiao Budian (a stage name that translates as "The Little One") is Bouyei.

Basketball player Yao Ming

Phoenix Legend, the hottest Chinese pop duo, has fans from all strata of the society and is fast gaining recognition overseas. Chen Nan reports in Beijing.

Basketball player Yao Ming is not the only Chinese export to NBA Houston Rockets. The music of Phoenix Legend, one of the hottest pop music groups in China, has also reached the NBA. One of their hit songs from three years ago, The Hottest Ethnic Trend, was used by cheerleaders during a NBA Houston Rockets game in April 2012.

"We have no idea how the songs reached America," says Ling Hua, 32, one of the two members of Phoenix Legend. The other half of the duo is 33-year-old Zeng Yi. "Maybe we should thank Yao Ming because NBA wants to attract more Chinese fans."

The song has also become an Internet sensation after being remixed and re-edited by fans across the world during the past several months.

In fact, this is not the first time that Phoenix Legend's songs have been improvised or heard internationally in a public setting. Workout dance instructor Wang Guangcheng has been mixing the duo's songs to the beats of salsa, disco and hip hop, and even brought their songs to the US Zumba Convention in 2010 and 2011.

Riding on the wave, the group is collaborating with Wang to release a new album in June, remixing their popular hits just for gyms.

Underwood tops Billboard album chart Beastie Boys return

"American Idol" winner and country music star Carrie Underwood topped the Billboard 200 chart on Wednesday with her fourth studio album "Blown Away," while the Beastie Boys returned after the death last week of Adam "MCA" Yauch.

"Blown Away" sold 267,000 copies in its first week according to Nielsen SoundScan, coming only second to Madonna's "MDNA" earlier this year, which sold 358,000 copies in its initial week of release. This is Underwood's third album to debut at No. 1 on the chart.

The death of Beastie Boys' Yauch last week led to a rise in sales of the band's catalog of albums, as their 1986 record "Licensed To Ill" re-entered the Billboard 200 at No. 18 with 19,000 copies sold.

Six other Beastie Boys albums also re-entered the Billboard 200 chart, with collective sales of 55,000 in the two days following Yauch's death last Friday. Online music streaming site Spotify said it saw a 1700 percent increase in people listening to Beastie Boys songs between May 3 and 4.

Grammy-winning blues singer Norah Jones' fifth studio album, "Little Broken Hearts," entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2 after selling 110,000 copies, while the new "Now 42" music compilation of current hits including those by Kelly Clarkson, Chris Brown and Gotye, entered the chart at No. 3 with sales of 95,000.