There are parties all over the world for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince tonight at midnight and they will all be jolly and festive in their own special ways. BUT, none will be quite as impressive or regal as the special Potter party at Scotland’s thousand-year-old …

There are various levels of Pottermania: those who are interested but aren’t going to kill themselves to get Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the first few days; those who will make a point of getting their copy on Saturday, one of an expected 10.8 million copies to be …

Queen, the newly crowned all-time British album chart champs, had their concert scheduled for July 8 at London’s Hyde Park postponed a week by the terrorist attacks. New lead singer Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Company) announced that the concert, rescheduled for July 15, will be a tribute to the London …

Sylum Mastropaolo, 9, from upstate New York state, for a time was the only possessor of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, currently tightly under wraps until the publication date of July 16. Young Sylum bought the book from a store that mistakenly put it on display for less than …

Beginning tomorrow, July 14, Sheryl Crow is appearing in Dell television commercials nationwide featuring her anthemic upcoming single “Good is Good” (extended clip here). The first-ever Dell celebrity spokesperson, Crow will headline television commercials highlighting how consumers can tap into the power of technologies such as Dell’s Media Center PCs …

On July 16, ’05 millions of books were snapped up worldwide as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, number 6 in the young wizard’s saga of good, evil, friendship, magic and funny names, went on sale. Preince makes a triumphant return in paperback form in July, ’06, with …

The biennial publishing feeding frenzy that accompanies a new Harry Potter book release is almost upon us once again. Billionaire J.K. (Jo) Rowling’s sixth installment in the Potter phenomenon, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, goes on sale worldwide on July 16, but there has already been trouble up north, …

Punk poetess Patti Smith, still rocking at 58, received one of the highest French cultural honors, the Order of the Arts and Letters, from Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres at an AIDS concert in Paris yesterday. An abashed Smith said she accepted the award “from the most spiritual side …

Despite, or because of, their ultimate subjectivity and sand castle substantiality, rankings of such musical units as albums, guitar players, songs and album covers draw a vast amount of attention and heated debate: one man’s meat is another’s poison. In response to the outrage and disbelief over Spin magazine’s list …

A light earnestness hangs in the air when Sufjan Stevens sings, like desert air at dusk, warm but not oppressive, dancing not dripping. And though the singer-songwriter’s ambitions are grand — he has composed 90-minute concept albums for The Nine Planets, The 12 Apostles, and The Four Humors, and he …