Deciding "you only live once", Dosen threw herself into songwriting, which in turn led her to performing.

"I feel as if I've never really sought the stage but just ended up here. I think a lot of songwriters are, like me, just people who like to compose songs and aren't necessarily born for the stage," she says.

"It's the number one fear of people: getting up in front of an audience. People are more afraid of getting up on stage, talking in front of other people, than they are of death. Most people would rather die than do what I do."

After moving to London while making A Lily For the Spectre, Dosen ended up playing most every night. "It's like camping in your high heels," she says of touring.

Stephanie Dosen was raised on a peacock farm in Wisconsin. One day while sifting through flotsam in the attic, she found an old guitar covered in dust. It was her secret prize. During the feather harvest, when everyone was busy, she would sneak up into the attic to compose songs for boys at school. She also wrote many lullabies for her two favorite pets, a swan and a fox.

Stephanie now writes mostly for ghosts with a rusty tape player named jean-pierre that follows her everywhere. He has made it through 7 states and 2 minor sets of injuries but still holds onto her twilight written songs with happiness. The influence of the nightly peacock mewing and swan swimming can still be heard in her music.

Her new record a lily for the spectre is filled with driving cradlesongs for ghosts gone astray. She has recently teamed horses with Simon Raymonde (Bella Union Records, Cocteau Twins) who blesses a lily for the spectre with bass and filigree sounds for lost peacocks.

Sheryl Crow, Avril Lavigne and Fiona Apple are among the artists who will perform Saturday, October 27 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Irvine, CA at the first annual day-long concert extravaganza of chart-topping female musicians and such up and coming female artists as red hot Colbie Caillat (whose single "Bubbly" is a smash pop radio hit) and iTunes sensation Sara Bareilles--both of whom hail from Los Angeles--as well as Antigone Rising. The festival is the brainchild of Right Arm Entertainment, who also produced the sold-out Rock On The Range Festival at Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, among others. Look for the festival's promoters, Right Arm Entertainment and Live Nation, to announce more performers in the coming weeks for the inaugural event.

Each ringle is expected to contain three songs -- one hit and maybe one remix and an older track -- and one ringtone, on a CD with a slip-sleeve cover. The idea is that if consumers in the digital age can download any tracks they want individually, why not let them buy singles in the store as well? It also enables stores to get involved in the ringtone phenomenon.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which came up with the ringle idea, and Universal Music Group are going to be the first out of the box with ringles. The former will unleash 50 titles during October and November, while UMG will have anywhere from 10 to 20 titles ready. The Recording Industry Association of America has approved the "ringle" name, and there is an industrywide logo to help brand it. But except for Sony, each major still needs to cut a deal with a digital aggregator to allow consumers to redeem the ringtone.

Meanwhile, label profit margins for the format are considered slim. The majors are gambling that the ringle can instill in consumers the mind-set to connect to the Internet via the CD.

What her legions of fans don't realize, however, is that Ms. Digby's career demonstrates something else: that traditional media conglomerates are going to new lengths to take advantage of the Internet's ability to generate word-of-mouth buzz.

Ms. Digby's simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit "Umbrella" has been featured on MTV's program "The Hills" and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Records label declared: "Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marie Digby Signs With Hollywood Records."

What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of "Umbrella" to iTunes and radio stations.

IS this guy completely insane. You think it's that easy? That you get signed and suddenly everything's taken care of for you!!!?? DO you think that my record label came to my house, my bathroom! and told me what songs to sing and told me that in a matter of weeks i'd be some "youtube" phenom??!?!

Wake up - I am GRATEFUL to be signed but you know what, Labels don't come to your house, hold your hand, and direct youtube videos for you.

I have so many dear friends who were signed to the biggest record labels in the world, made amazing albums and were DROPPED. that's it.....

The actress admitted last week to posing nude in a photograph, apologized and is now hoping she didn't just ruin her chances to continue with the multimillion-dollar "High School Musical" franchise. It's not the slip-up that has Hollywood talking, it's the way the 18-year-old handled it that's earning her praises and may have just catapulted her career to the next level.

It was something that was never meant to become public. A series of photos of a young Hudgens sans clothing in a bathroom spread across the Internet last week.

"This was a photo, which was taken privately," said a statement from Hudgens' publicist. "It is a personal matter and it is unfortunate that this has become public."

But, according to a new report from an anonymous source in People magazine, the photo was meant for someone.

That someone is Drake Bell, a 19-year-old actor who is currently starring in "Drake and Josh" on Nickelodeon. Hudgens reportedly sent the photos to Bell two years ago as an admiring fan before she was famous. Bell's representative, Jill Fritzo, said her client was unaware of the photos.

He's hand picked the featured artists that are on the MySpace Music homepage, which include Mos Def, Jay Z, Feist, Daft Punk, Justice, and more. The purpose is to offer known and unknown artists face time on the popular network. As part of this guest curator spot, Kanye West has also done an exclusive behind-the-scenes video interview during his stay in London, talking about his upcoming album "Graduation" which is to be released September 11th. This is further hyped by the rivalry going on between Kanye West and 50 Cent, who will also release his album on the same day.

Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian tenor whose clarion lyric voice and performances from concert houses to outdoor stadiums made him a pop icon and the most famous opera singer since Enrico Caruso, has died. He was 71.

Pavarotti, who underwent surgery in New York for pancreatic cancer in 2006, died today at his home in Modena, Italy, according to his agent, Terri Robson. He was hospitalized in Modena in August for a high fever.

"In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness," Robson said in a statement.

The bearded Pavarotti was the king of tenors from the late 1960s through the 1990s. He popularized opera more than any other singer through recordings that made him the best-selling classical artist ever and concerts in parks and stadiums around the world that were televised to millions.

With his huge frame, at times 300 pounds or more, and trademark white handkerchief that he used to wipe his brow, the charismatic Pavarotti became what his former manager Herbert Breslin called "a rock star for people over 30."

The countdown has begun on the Backstreet Boys' Web site for their Oct. 30 Jive album, which is as-yet-untitled. Group member Nick Carter tells Billboard.com the Boys are still tweaking things in the studio and will cut vocals for a couple more tracks today (Aug. 10).

"We are just putting the finishing touches on it and it sounds incredible," Carter says. The album, whose first single, "Inconsolable," goes to top 40 radio Aug. 27 but can be sampled now on BackstreetBoys.com, will include 11 or 12 songs, Carter speculates.

"We didn't needed to cut that many because I think that we're back into our rhythm of what the group is about," he says. "I felt like 'Never Gone,' the last album we did [in 2005], was basically an experimental album in the sense that we'd been away for four years. We were just trying to find out niche again and I think now we're back in that pocket."

Disney Channel averaged a whopping 17.2 million viewers for its premiere of "High School Musical 2" on Friday night, making it the most-watched basic-cable telecast on record. It's also the largest aud for any television program on any net in about three months.

The average audience for the premiere Friday, according to preliminary Nielsen estimates, makes it well more than double the 7.7 million who tuned in for the premiere of the original telepic in January 2006.

Of course, the original pic became a phenomenon, with millions of kids and tweens watching it multiple times over the last 19 months, helping build anticipation for its sequel to a fever-pitch. Disney also picked a great date for the weekend launch of the second pic, timed to the when youngsters were prepping for the return to school as well as the start of the summer cool-down at the box office.