Superstar songwriter Ne-Yo had Shania Twain and Faith Hill in mind when he wrote Beyonce Knowles‘ biggest hit IRREPLACEABLE. The song became the biggest hit of 2007 and is a favourite to land the coveted Record Of The Year at Sunday night’s (10Feb08) Grammy Awards - but it almost became a country anthem. Ne-Yo wrote the tune with Norway’s Stargate duo Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen, and now Hermansen has spoken out about their initial plans for the hit. He tells VH1.com,

“Nobody expected it to be the phenomenon it was, it surprised everyone. For one, it crosses every boundary… and it’s a song people from all walks of life can enjoy. “When we wrote it with Ne-Yo it was done first with a male vocal, and we thought, ‘This is more of a female vocal part.’ We liked it and so did Ne-Yo, but he said, ‘Who will cut this?’”

Ne-Yo, who felt the song could be a massive country hit, favoured Twain or Hill, but Hermansen suggested Knowles because he’d recently been penning tunes for her. The rest, as they say, is history.
- Contact Music

Grammy nominations were announced an hour ago and Beyonce received 2! I think that she should definetly win Record of the Year, Irreplaceable really deserves it.

Record Of The Year:
“Irreplaceable” - Beyoncé
“The Pretender” - Foo Fighters
“Umbrella” - Rihanna Featuring Jay-Z
“What Goes Around…Comes Around” - Justin Timberlake
“Rehab” - Amy Winehouse

Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals:
“Steppin’ Out” - Tony Bennett & Christina Aguilera
“Beautiful Liar” - Beyoncé & Shakira
“Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)” - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
“The Sweet Escape” - Gwen Stefani & Akon
“Give It To Me” - Timbaland Featuring Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake

I’ve added 27 High Quality pictures of Beyonce doing a signing in South Korea today. Looks like she had a great time!

      

The live DVD from The Beyonce Experience will be out on NOVEMBER 27, 2007! Sony sent out an email yesterday about the DVD being released! I personally can’t wait…it was the best night of my life meeting/seeing Beyonce. Absolute perfection. Make sure yall preorder or BUY the DVD! Let’s make Beyonce #1!

P.S. I’m working on getting my scans from the tourbook up…but they’re so big! So lemme try and do that this week!

Hey guys, fans are pulling together to help what seems to be Beyonce’s last single (maybe?) ‘Green Light’ in the United Kingdom! Here is a banner that Jason from DC3FOREVER created! Make sure you follow em!

Here’s my review for last night! It was literally the best night of my life! You guys honestly have no idea how much I loved her before the M&G and concert and now after all of that, I’m just basically on a high right now! I also took pictures of the Tourbook! They have been changing a lot through this whole tour. I think the one I got is the one that will stay unless they revamp it with live photos. Enjoy!

      

THE M&G

So I’m ready, I’m geared and so nervous/excited to meet Beyonce because I’ve only dreaming of this everyday since 05 (literally). My mom and me get to the door, and the security guy says he wanted to see my email from the fanclub guy. So my mom had to go all the way back to the car in the parking garage to get the papers but she told me to go back and see if I could just get in showing him on my kick while she got the papers. So then I got back and the guy wasn’t there anymore lol. So I just walk in! My mom had to come all the way back just to give me my ticket lol cause she had it.

The girl who I would later find out to be the person I’d be hanging with through the whole thing spotted Jeanette! So we go up to Jeanette (we weren’t sure @ first) and of course it was her. We got our stickers and waited in line until…hmm, 7? Then we went upstairs, and I swear we waited for an hour until we started moving.

— While we were waiting I saw Divinity come around with some red headed chick and I didnt know who that girl was. So I ask the girl who won the contest with me to come up to her with me lol. Divinity was just chillin there next to Jeanette opening her sidekick lol. So I go up to her and I’m like “Hi! You’re the bass player! you’re on the new Dereon ad and I saw you all over the internet and you’re so great!” Something like that lol. Then she puts her hand out for me to shake it and my dumbass had my sidekick in my right hand so it took me a minute to get her hand lol. But she was cool, she laughed @ it lol. She’s a real cool girl! I wish I met BiBi too!

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The nominees were announced about 2 days ago. Sorry I’m so late! I just found out that I’M MEETING BEYONCE TONIGHT!! I’m so excited! So here are the nominees!

Video of the Year
»Amy Winehouse: “Rehab”
»Beyoncé: “Irreplaceable”
»Justice: “D.A.N.C.E.”
»Justin Timberlake: “What Goes Around … ”
»Kanye West: “Stronger”
»Rihanna (featuring Jay-Z): “Umbrella”

Female Artist of the Year
»Amy Winehouse: “Rehab,” “You Know I’m No Good”
»Beyoncé: “Irreplaceable,” “Beautiful Liar” (featuring Shakira)
»Fergie: “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal),” “Glamorous” (featuring Ludacris), “Fergalicious” (featuring Will.I.Am)
»Nelly Furtado: “Maneater,” “Say It Right”
»Rihanna: “Umbrella” (featuring Jay-Z)

Most Earthshattering Collaboration
»Akon (featuring Eminem): “Smack That”
»Beyoncé and Shakira: “Beautiful Liar”
»Justin Timberlake (featuring Timbaland): “SexyBack”
»Gwen Stefani (featuring Akon): “The Sweet Escape”
»U2 (featuring Green Day): “The Saints Are Coming”

Quadruple Threat of the Year
» Beyoncé
» Bono
» Jay-Z
» Justin Timberlake
» Kanye West

Best Director
»Beyoncé and Shakira: “Beautiful Liar” (director: Jake Nava)
»Christina Aguilera: “Candyman” (directors: Matthew Rolston and Christina Aguilera)
»Justin Timberlake: “What Goes Around …” (director: Samuel Bayer)
»Kanye West: “Stronger” (director: Hype Williams)
»Linkin Park: “What I’ve Done” (director: Joseph Hahn)
»Rihanna (featuring Jay-Z): “Umbrella” (director: Chris Applebaum)

Best Editing in a Video
»Beyoncé and Shakira: “Beautiful Liar” (editor: Jarett Figl)
»Gnarls Barkley: “Smiley Faces” (editor: Ken Mowe)
»Justin Timberlake: “What Goes Around …” (editor: Hollee Singer)
»Kanye West: “Stronger” (editors: Peter Johnson and Corey Weisz)
»Linkin Park: “What I’ve Done” (editor: Igor Kovalik)

Best Choreography in a Video
» Beyoncé and Shakira: “Beautiful Liar” (choreographer: Frank Gatson)
» Chris Brown: “Wall To Wall” (choreographers: Rich & Tone and Flii Styles)
»Ciara: “Like A Boy” (choreographer: Jamaica Craft)
»Eve: “Tambourine” (choreographer: Tahesha Scott)
»Justin Timberlake (featuring Timbaland): “SexyBack” (choreographer: Marty Kuldeka)

You guys can also pick up one of these banners I made to promote Beyonce! Also, I’ll have the other file types that I got some e-mails about of MiTRL and I’ll have the videos up from TRL tomorrow! Maybe some pictures from the show tonight too!

For some reason the promoshoot for B’Day wasn’t in the gallery. So I was originally going to upload the ones I had, but then I decided to do some searching for some more and I found some that well, I haven’t really seen anywhere! These photos have to be some of my favorites from B. Enjoy the photos!

      

Hey guys, so this will be my last post until next week. But incase you all didn’t know, from July 10 to July 18 is the OFFICIAL ‘Get Me Bodied’ download week! What makes this more remarkable is that Beyonce’s Official Fanclub is a big supporter of this week-long project! They’ve sent e-mails to people who have subscribed and even posted a banner on We Love Beyonce! So you can use the banner below (Created by Jason) to help promote this project! Don’t forget to download at least ONE LEGIT copy of ‘Get Me Bodied’!!

Itunes (.99 cents)
itunes

Wal-Mart (.88 cents)
WalMart

MSN Music
MSN Music

Rapsody
Rapsody

Napster
Napster

PureTracks U.S.
PureTracks

FYE Download Zone
FYE

AOL Music Now
AOL Music Now

Yahoo! Musicmatch Jukebox
Music Match Jukebox

Passalong
Passalong

VIRGIN DIGITAL
Virgin Digital

Three weeks after celebrating her second B’Day, Beyoncé is pulling the plug — at least for now — on the re-release of her recent solo LP. Thanks to a pending lawsuit over her cover of Des’ree’s “I’m Kissing You” on her B’Day - Deluxe Edition album and video anthology, the singer and her label have agreed to stop distributing the albums and DVDs with that song.

When Beyoncé previously sat down with MTV News to discuss the new material featured on B’Day - Deluxe Edition, she mentioned that the interpolations — which is incorrectly called “Still in Love (Kissing You)” on the reissue — wasn’t originally intended for release and that she had just recorded it because she “always loved it.”

“It was one of my all-time favorite songs,” she said. “It gives you this emotion — I don’t care who you are, you just feel it. So I just did it for myself — a lot of songs, I do like that — and I let people hear it and they were like, ‘You are crazy, you have to put it on the album.’ So I did. It was a last-minute decision.”

Indeed, Beyoncé’s team’s paperwork — included in the copyright-infringement suit filed in New York’s Manhattan Federal Court last week — depicts a rush to get permission to use the track granted, with letters sent back and forth up to and including the day of the deluxe edition’s release. According to the suit, Beyoncé’s team originally sought clearance on February 13 to use “interpolations” of the Des’ree song, which became a hit when it appeared in the Leonardo DiCaprio/ Claire Danes movie “Romeo + Juliet” in 1996. Lawyers for the two sides (Beyoncé and Des’ree’s publishers the Royalty Network) started talking, and by March 3 — a month before Beyoncé re-released her album — Beyoncé’s side had a “confirmation letter and license request” ready to submit.

On March 5, the Royalty Network’s lawyers answered by submitting a counter proposal in which they granted permission — within certain limits. For one thing, they would allow use of the song, but not in video form. They would also allow use of the song only if the title were not changed. The Royalty Network’s lawyers at Epstein Levinsohn Bodine & Weinstein said in the complaint that “despite follow-ups,” they didn’t hear back from Beyoncé’s camp. And on March 27, according to the complaint, they discovered that Beyoncé and her record label planned to proceed with her re-release containing the song in question anyway. In a letter they wrote to Beyoncé’s lawyer and her distribution group Sony, the Royalty Network called the move “completely unacceptable.”

“First, no agreement has been reached in connection with [the song],” the letter read, “and Sony has no right to proceed … absent an agreement. Second, the retitling of the composition puts TRN at risk for claims from more than one third party, and this is a risk that [Beyoncé] and Sony were or should have been aware of in light of the circumstances surrounding the discussions relating to this potential license.”

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Beyonce Knowles has been a very busy bee.

She’s currently on the first leg of her world tour, which kicks off on the heels of the re-release of her “B’Day” album in a deluxe format. The reissue features the addition of some new songs, including some Spanish versions.

On top of that, she put together a companion DVD called “B’Day Anthology Video Album,” and she filmed eight music videos to go along with it in just two weeks.

Now she tells Access how she was able to accomplish such a feat.

“It was difficult, but it was a lot of determination. Not only from myself, but my whole team.”

She explains that it all came down to being prepared. Everything from choreography, to fittings, to hair and makeup design were done ahead of time.

“I basically shot the videos with my personal videographer, and sent it to the director so they knew exactly the shots we wanted. It was just a lot of preparation, so by the time we started to film the videos,” she says with a snap of her fingers, “we did it.”

As for the reason behind the Spanish recordings, Beyonce says that after performing in Spanish at the Latin Grammy awards with Destiny’s Child five years ago, they got a lot of positive feedback from their Latin fans. That positive reaction, coupled with her love for the culture, eventually led to recording the new tracks.

The funny thing is, Beyonce doesn’t speak Spanish. “It’s been a challenge,” she says of getting the language right. “I had to learn everything phonetically. It was a little frustrating because I’m used to getting my vocals done really, really fast. But we did it, and it’s been an incredible response.”

Perhaps the greatest response is over the song “Irreplaceable,” which has not only proven to be a mega-hit for Beyonce, it’s also become an empowering anthem, of sorts, for women.

“It’s amazing,” she remarks. “I know sometimes we need to hear songs like ‘Irreplaceable’ so we can remind ourselves that we’re strong and worth being treated the way we deserve to be treated. I didn’t write the record, but I instantly knew it was a hit. I’m so happy it’s kinda become this anthem.”

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