Will this year's Academy of Country Music Awards be a ladies' night? Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood are nominated for album of the year for their albums Fearless and Carnival Ride respectively, the Academy announced Thursday. George Strait (for Troubadour), Jamey Johnson (That Lonesome Song) and Montgomery Gentry (Back When I Knew It All) round out the category. The 44th annual ACM Awards will be hosted – for a record eleventh time – by Reba McEntire on Sunday, April 5, and be broadcast live on CBS from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Swift, Tim McGraw, Rascall Flatts, Sugarland and nominees Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert and Heidi Newfield are scheduled to perform, the Academy announced. Brad Paisley leads the group of ACM nominees with six nods this year, including for entertainer of the year and top male vocalist. (Other nominations were previously announced.) Other top nominees include Newfield, Strait and Johnson, who each received five nominations. Swift, Kenny Chesney and Underwood have four nominations apiece.

The sexed-up video for Ciara's first single "Love, Sex, Magic" from her third album Fantasy Ride, out May 5th, debuted Monday on her Web site. Last seen grinding against Chris Brown during their performance at the 2008 BET Awards, Ciara now gets a little help from Justin Timberlake in the Diane Martel-directed video. Timberlake, who co-wrote the track, makes a cameo with the R&B diva, who rocks an array of leotards and stilettos.

After three months of laying low in the wake of his felony charges for allegedly assaulting Rihanna, Chris Brown has finally broken his silence. In a short video posted on YouTube.com, the R&B star, 20, speaks to the camera about his upcoming album and makes an apparent allusion to the drama in his personal life. "I just wanna say 'What up?' because I ain't been out there in a minute," explains Brown (whose pal Bow Wow also makes brief appearances in the clip). "New album will be coming soon," he says. "We're working on it right now. Called Graffiti. Got everything on it, know what I'm saying? I'll be ready for that. I'm about to drop a single this summer for y'all. So we ain't going nowhere." Brown, who faced enormous backlash after his arrest in February, concludes, "Everybody that's haters, they just been haters. All my real fans, I love you all. I ain't a monster." Reps for Brown had no comment. Meanwhile, Brown's case continues to stall in court. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, is seeking access to LAPD records to determine if there was police misconduct in the investigation, which could be grounds for a case dismissal. A hearing is set for Thursday, but Brown is not required to attend.

**Whitney Houston** [1], Clive Davis and Gayle King were at a listening party for Whitney's highly anticipated new album, I Look to You, in NYC on Tuesday night. "I just think that the songs themselves will speak to you when you hear them, and you'll understand where I am [and] some of the changes I've gone through for the better," Whitney tells ET. "This album is really a very, very special one," Clive adds. "Whitney does find meaning in lyrics and songs that the composers don't even know was there, so she is really an all-time artist." [1] http://new.shoofeetv.com/celebrity/4606/whitney-houston#

Paris Hilton might be having trouble convincing the music industry to buy into her sophomore musical effort, but that hasn't stopped her latest album from blazing a glorious path across the Internet. Snippets of four tracks from the follow-up to Hilton's 2007 masterpiece Paris have made their way onto the Web.

Oprah Winfrey has announced that she'll interview iconic musician Whitney Houston for the premiere episode of her upcoming 24th season. Oprah is calling Whitney's first interview in nearly seven years, which will air on September 14, "the most anticipated music interview of the decade." Whitney's first new album in several years, "I Look to You," drops on August 31.

Whitney Houston debuted at the top of the Billboard charts with her comeback album 'I Look To You'. Despite a much-publicized misstep last week on "Good Morning America," the songstress still sold over 304,000 copies of her first studio disc in seven years. Houston beat back a challenge from teen singing sensation Miley Cyrus, whose new EP, "The Time of Our Lives," moved 153,000 units exclusively at Wal-Mart. Houston has won six Grammys, including the recording academy's two highest honors — best record ("I Will Always Love You") and album ("The Bodyguard") of the year (1993). That soundtrack spent 20 weeks at No. 1 while the single reigned supreme for 14 weeks. That was Houston's last time at the top of the album charts.

Nearly 40 years after breaking up, The Beatles are still breaking records for album sales. EMI Group PLC says consumers in North America, Japan and the U.K. bought more than 2.25 million copies of the Fab Four's re-mastered albums in the first five days after their Sept. 9 release. Most of the records were broken for most simultaneous titles in the top-selling charts by a single artist. On Billboard magazine's pop catalog chart, for example, the band had 16 titles in the top 50, including all 14 re-mastered CDs and two box sets. The Beatles' original U.K. studio albums were re-mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London over four years and released to coincide with the sale of "The Beatles: Rock Band" on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.

The Fox network says Carrie Underwood will host a two-hour variety special tentatively titled, "Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special," to air Dec. 7. The network says Underwood will perform new music from her upcoming album, previous hits and holiday classics. Musical guests will include Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley and David Cook. Underwood won season four of "American Idol." The 26-year-old country singer is a four-time Grammy winner. Her new album will be released Nov. 3.

The last time one of Michael Jackson's tours played the continental United States was 1988. So perhaps it's no surprise that "This Is It," Sony Pictures' film made from rehearsal footage for Jackson's planned London concert series, did more than twice as much business internationally in its first five days as it did domestically. "This Is It" opened to a studio-estimated $68.5 million in 108 foreign territories from Wednesday through Sunday and $32.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, where it started late Tuesday. Its biggest international market was Japan, where "This Is It" sold $10.4 million worth of tickets, the third-biggest opening of the year in the country behind a Japanese film and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Jackson became more popular in many foreign countries than the U.S. as he continued to tour there in the 1990s and controversy surrounding his personal life had less of an effect. The lopsided opening for "This Is It" puts it in a small group of films this year to sell more than twice as many tickets overseas as at home. All told, "This Is It" came in at the low end of expectations domestically but performed solidly overseas, bringing in $101 million worldwide. More important for Sony, however, the movie kept humming after its so-so $20.1-million start Wednesday. It's typical for concert movies to fall rapidly after an initial burst of enthusiasm from fans when they open. But "This Is It" held on well over the weekend, declining less than 10% from Friday to Saturday despite the occurrence of Halloween. That gave Sony hope that the well-reviewed film would fade slowly in the coming weeks. "I don't think it's going to be like a traditional concert movie that burns itself out very quickly," said Rory Bruer, Sony's president of distribution. Partly because of the studio's failure to reach an agreement with theater owners to release a DVD version before Christmas, "This Is It" will have a chance to prove Bruer's conviction. Sony announced Sunday that it was extending the run of "This Is It" beyond the previously planned two weeks. In the U.S., it will now stay in theaters until Thanksgiving. The audience for "This Is It" was somewhat older than expected, with 62% of moviegoers older than 25. That's good news for Sony, since adults are more likely to turn out after a movie's opening weekend than teenagers. "This Is It" will almost certainly gross more than $200 million worldwide, which should make the film at least modestly profitable for the studio and generate substantial returns for Jackson's estate and AEG Live, which was producing the "This Is It" concert. After theater owners take their approximately 50% cut of ticket sales, Sony will recoup the $60 million it spent on movie rights, as well as marketing costs believed to be in the low- to mid-tens of millions. It will also keep a distribution fee that one person close to the deal said is 13% to 20% of revenue, depending on the film's ultimate performance. All other proceeds go to the Jackson estate and AEG Live. The same split applies to home entertainment. The movie will come out on DVD in late January or early February. "This Is It" was the only new movie to open nationwide in the last week, as most studios wanted to avoid competing with trick-or-treating and Halloween parties. Sony was forced to pick the date for "This Is It" because it wanted to rush the film out this fall and every other weekend was crowded with major new releases. Two new movies opened in limited release Friday, however, to varying results. Apparition's "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" started with a decent $461,614 at 68 locations. That's more than 15 times the ticket sales for the ultra-violent original, an infamous flop in 2000 that found renewed life on DVD. Fox Searchlight's "Gentleman Broncos," from "Napoleon Dynamite" director Jared Hess, opened to a weak $10,000 at two theaters. Weinstein Co. expanded its August release of "Halloween II" to take advantage of the holiday, but grossed just $475,000 at 1,083 theaters. Overall, the weekend box office was a bit better than expected, as total weekend ticket sales rose 5% from a year earlier, Hollywood.com said.