New Eminem track surfaces

The Internet has been rife with talk in recent weeks about an as-yet-untitled forthcoming Eminem album, his first proper studio album in almost three years. But the talk was mostly limited to the word from Dr. Dre that the superproducer would be focusing Slim Shady's album for the rest of 2007 and reports that Eminem was mining his brief fling with Mariah Carey six years ago for material.

But now, the first evidence of a new Eminem album has surfaced, via a snippet that appeared on the radio show of longtime Shady affiliate DJ Whoo Kid and leaked online. In it, Eminem calls himself "the ghost of Christmas past" and talks about the 2003 controversy that followed the discovery of a 1988 recording of Eminem using a racial slur. "I can do anything and apologize for it later as long as it ain't a racist tape from '88," he rapped. Stay tuned.

Wu-Tang retracts sample claim

Looking to generate buzz for its forthcoming album, the Wu-Tang Clan made a post on its MySpace blog on Monday that the group had "cleared the first-ever Beatles sample" for a song on the album.

But when the song, "The Heart Gently Weeps," leaked online, it became clear to many that it was not a direct sample of the Beatles' 1968 classic "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Late Beatles' guitarist George Harrison's son Dhani Harrison plays his father's signature guitar riff on the new track, making it an interpolation rather than a direct sample.

"The statement that we made yesterday was incorrect and we apologize for any confusion it may have caused. We DID NOT sample the Beatles, I repeat, we DID NOT sample the Beatles," the group posted in an addendum.

The track, which also features Red Hot Chili Peppers' guitarist John Frusciante, with Erykah Badu singing the chorus, is being streamed exclusively at Loud.com. The album's release date has been pushed back from November 13 to December 4.

Love slams Grohl over Foo song

More than 13 years after the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, his wife and his drummer continue to spit venom at one another, although in entirely different ways. This week, it was Cobain widow Courtney Love's turn, hitting out at former Foo Fighters' frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl about the band's new song "Let it Die," which is purportedly about the relationship between Cobain and Love.

The songs lyrics include the lines, "A simple man and his blushing bride/Intravenous, intertwined...You're so considerate/Did you ever think of me?" Writing on her MySpace blog this week, Love said: "As for that drummer, well he's hit on me so many times. He's just a very, very conflicted guy about me, which is why he continually writes songs about me to hear he 'hates' me more than 'anyone else.' Kurt loathed HIM more than anyone else [except a journalist]. In his will, he made a codicil that Grohl was no longer a member of Nirvana. I just ignored the guy and will continue to."

"Dave knows this, and he takes it out on me!" Love continued. "Hey, it wasn't MY band and it wasn't MY idea! It's funny he 'hates' me since I don't think about him. He's just submediocre kind of [guy] who does this 'nice guy' nonsense. There isn't a word he could he say that would ruffle my feathers, honestly. ANYWAY what a fun, fabulous, special evening!"

Vanity Fair paints ugly picture of Pearlman

It's hard to believe that the story of Lou Pearlman, the boy band impresario who faces a litany of charges for bilking investors and evading the law, could get any worse. But a new profile in the latest issue of Vanity Fair does just that. In the story, posted online today, the magazine suggests that Pearlman's criminal acts were not confined to the financial sector and that he was also a pedophile who preyed on the boys who worked for him.

"I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator," Steve Mooney, an aspiring singer who was Pearlman's assistant, told the magazine. "All the talent knew what Lou's game was. Some guys joked about it. I remember [one singer] asking me, 'Have you let Lou [fellate] you yet?' "

Mooney said he once asked Pearlman, who was known as "Big Poppa," what it would take for him to get into a band. "I'll never forget this as long as I live," Mooney said. "He leaned back in his chair, in his white terry cloth robe and white underwear, and spread his legs. And then he said, and these were his exact words, 'You're a smart boy. Figure it out.'"

Phoenix Stone, an early member of the Backstreet Boys, told Vanity Fair that Pearlman was "definitely inappropriate" with Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, and the magazine spoke with Carter's mother Jane, who declined to get into specifics. "Certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family," she told the magazine. "I tried to warn everyone. I tried to warn all the mothers...I tried to expose him for what he was years ago."

Another one-time Pearlman protégé, Tim Christofore of the group Take 5, recalled that during a sleepover at Pearlman's house, the music czar swan dived onto his and another boy's bed and wrestled with them wearing only a towel, which came off. "We were like, 'Ooh, Lou, that's gross.' What did I know? I was 13," Christofore told the magazine.

Pearlman, 53, is in a Florida jail awaiting trial on bank fraud charges. Prosecutors say he scammed more than 1,000 investors out of $315 million. He'd been a fugitive until June when he was busted in Indonesia, living under a fake name.

Free Foxy site launches

Foxy Brown, a political prisoner if there ever was one, is the subject of a new Web site, FreeFoxyBrown.com. The site hopes to use the one-year jail sentence at Riker's Island in New York to promote her forthcoming album, Brooklyn's Don Diva which hits stores November 20 on Koch Records. Brown was jailed following a series of charges, including multiple assaults and probation violations.

In a statement on the site, Brown looks to connect herself with the Jena 6, the group of African-American youth in Louisiana whose arrest last month on assault charges has sparked a firestorm over of protest and charges of racism. "I will not surrender, I'm fine, but we must free the Jena 6!" she wrote.