Word: virginal
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...MICHAEL JACKSON AND HIS WIFE Lisa Marie Presley began divorce proceedings last week, his little sister Janet Jackson was renewing her vows in a very big way. Janet's bond, however, was not to a man, but to a company. Virgin Records had just signed her to a new record contract that could be worth as much as $80 million and is, by some accounts, the most lucrative record deal in history. Questions remain about the pre-nups to this corporate marriage. Did she get what she wanted? Was this megadeal a strategic coup for Virgin? Then there's this...
...that vision...is extremely important to me." But clearly money, and lots of it, is also important to her. Late last year she and her lawyers approached four record companies, Sony, PolyGram, DreamWorks SKG and Disney, asking for a $100 million deal. Unsatisfied by their offers, she returned to Virgin, for which she has previously recorded, and got her $80 million. In part this may be because Thorn EMI, Virgin's parent company, is rumored to be looking to sell its music holdings and thus needs to hang on to assets like Jackson to ensure those holdings remain attractive...
...Jackson sets off a new round of megawheeling and megadealing, it would not be the first time. In 1991 Virgin signed her to a $40 million contract--which was then unprecedentedly large--and that pact led the way for big-money deals by Prince, the Rolling Stones and others. This wasn't totally ego driven: the development of the CD has led to a decade of steady growth in the recording industry, which has seen its sales increase from $4 billion a year to $12 billion a year since...
...SMASHING PUMPKINS Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Virgin). Raucous and sweet, pretentious and populist, this Chicago-based alternative rock group's hubristic double CD soared as high as its lofty ambitions, an Icarus with wings that worked. Bandleader Billy Corgan is adept at turning out swift, radio-ready hits, yet he also excels at creating epic art-pop songs that explore enigmatic ideas and twisting melodic pathways. For listeners looking to take a journey, not just a joyride, this is a trip that shouldn't be missed...
...week, it must have been painfully clear to even the most common of commoners that Diana wasn't selected for the princess job on the basis of intelligence or loyalty or wit. The qualifications were simple: she had to be a presentable Protestant from the upper class and a virgin. The last criterion has to do less with morality than with the purity of the product. She was, to put it crudely, enlisted as a breeder, charged with the job of transmitting the Windsor genes from Charles to his eventual replacements--"an heir and a spare," as some British delicately...