Superstar Prince has been confirmed by Chugg Entertainment to tour Australia in May, and will be playing live on a 360-degree stage. He will only be visiting Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for gigs. More music news this morning with Antonino Tati at 9am (WST) on www.boomradio.com.au.

The press release was short and sweet, announcing that “Calvin Klein, Inc announced today that actor Zac Efron wore Calvin Klein Underwear while in Sydney yesterday to promote his latest film The Lucky One”. And that’s all that needed to be said, really. The stud muffin was photographed standing at a table (what looked like a glass of orange juice for breakfast) with his grey Calvins strategically sticking it out (by about 6 inches at the rear) of his slacks, pictured. Not sure why he bothered to wear the belt, then. But who’s complaining?

Image © 2012 Splash News.

If you think product placement in the movies and on prime time television was a pretty much contained concept, prepare yourself to be subjected to all manner of branded products in the hands of your favourite characters as a new online agency provides facilities for brands to “get clients’ products onto the right shows at the right price”.

C3B Hollywood have unleashed an online tool that allows companies to list the products they want to see in hit shows and big budget movies. Cameron Clement and partner John Fluke offer “personalised service to clients who decide what shows they want to see their products on and how prominent the placement is”, read one press release.

Product placement has proven successful for companies with blatant examples including Will Smith donning Converse in I Robot, Uma Thurman strutting in Puma in the Kill Bill series, Bond showing off his Omega in Casino Royale, Apple computers spotted in several scenes in Mission: Impossible, and even Head & Shoulders shampoo rearing its head in Evolution.

But the concept of corporations unabashedly flaunting their wares in cinema goes way back to when Humphrey Bogart first swigged from a bottle of Gordon’s Gin in The African Queen (1951, still pictured above).

And if you think that serious bastion of entertainment – cinema – is selling out big-time, turn on your telly and tune into shows like Gossip Girl, Glee, even new favourite Revenge, to see characters subtly endorsing everything from ‘smart’ water to smartphones.

Two of the biggest culprits are America’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in which the participants always appear to be brandishing Sears tools, and American Idol where host Ryan Seacrest constantly suggests viewers at home download contestants’ songs via Apple iPods as the judges sip copious amounts of Coke.

“For every product we put on a set, we can easily place hundreds more,” says Clement of C3B. “I tell many clients how easy it is to get their products on a show using this system and the response I often get is the same: ‘It can’t be that easy.’ But with our website, it actually is. And it has proven itself with many, many shows. We are always seeking more and more brands to take advantage of our system.”

Get ready for the marketing onslaught, then.

See what else these unabashed brand bashers are up to at their site www.c3bhollywood.com.

Mini kookster Nicki Minaj will be touring Australia in May. Well, Melbourne and Sydney, at least. The singer’s multi-platinum debut album Pink Friday boasts the most charted singles by any female rap album in Billboard history (count seven!). Them’s a hell of a lot of fast cussin’.

They say good things come in small packages, and the petite one has proven her worth already with sell-out live concerts across the US, on one tour with Lil Wayne, and another as special guest of Britney Spears.

Minaj is also set to release a new album called Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. Despite the first half of the album’s title borrowing from its predecessor, it is original material and includes her brand-spanking new single Starships.

As a special bonus for Aussie fans, those purchasing a ticket to either of her shows will have the opportunity to pre-order the new album. Go to www.ticketek.com.au for more information.

Tickets for Nicki Minaj live go on sale today from 10am.

‘Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded’ is out April 2 through Universal Music. 

So you think you’re a movie buff? Well let’s see if you can guess the 26 films depicted cryptically in the pic above. It’s an illustration commissioned by Optus as part of their Optus Movie Rewards campaign. Not only is the telco offering $10 movie tickets online any day of the week, along with other discounts (like on movie snacks, would you believe?), the brand is inviting Facebook users to play their ‘Movie Match’ game for a chance to win one of 5 Movie Gold Passes – with each pass granting the winner a year’s worth of cinema-going for nix! So study the picture carefully, guess the flicks correctly, and you could be an even bigger cinnie buff by the time 2012 is out.

Click here to enter.

Whenever we do our rounds of Perth CBD, we simply have to stop by Wasteland, the art gallery come fashion boutique come pop shop of sorts. Now the clever Wasteland folk are moving into online auctioneering of art. And not just any tatt, but high quality, ridgy didge works from the likes of Aussie rat-bag Ben Frost, London-based pop deconstructionists Miss Bugs, New York gadabout Mr Brainwash, and infamous enfant terrible, Banksy.

We’ll be sure to hop online come April 11, for example, to bid for the screen print of Brainwash’s brilliant Chocolate Vandal (above), or the hand finished silkscreen giclee of Miss Bugs’ Rip Your Heart Out (in which Snow White turns psycho killer) or and Carry Your Sins (Captain America looking like about to be crucified).

Bidding begins at 4pm (WST), April 11. More information at www.wastelandone.com.au.

We love our chocky like most people do but that doesn’t mean we have to overdo it during Easter. So besides the obligatory purchases: one large packet of Red Tulip Birds Eggs, a tray of white Ferrero Rocher, and the biggest bar of Lindt you can find (thank you), we’ll also make do with clever alternative gifts this googy season.

And beauty brand Lush’s new bath and body products are indeed clever. One super cute Easter treat is the Hoppy Easter pack with a reusable carrot shaped bubble bar and fluffy egg bath bomb ball, all wrapped cosily in cloth with ends tied like a bunny’s ears. It’s pretty good value at RRP $17.50 – in fact, cheaper than a couple of Humpty Dumpties…

Available at Lush stores nationally or through Lush mail order on 1300 587 428.

Visit www.lush.com.au.

Sony this year goes beyond the focus of “creating the next better model” to hone in on intense user experience. And what better new product to give users the proverbial orgasm than the Personal 3D Viewer.

Looking like something right out of RoboCop, the nifty gizmo offers a spectacular new style of viewing in the luxury of your own living room, bedroom or anywhere else you’d care to scare children into thinking they’re about to be confronted by a cyborg.

If you can be bothered to sift through the technical jargon (the HMZT1 has been equipped with a 0.7-inch, High Definition OLED 1280 x 720 semiconductor silicon drive panel) then you would learn that this thing delivers a heck of an image: a mother-load better than anything available in homes before. If you didn’t already know, when you go to a cinema you’re watching an image with a viewing angle of 45 degrees. While at home, we’re all watching an image that has been scaled down to something closer to 38 degrees. The Personal 3D Viewer actually replicates the image found in cinemas and makes it look like you’re sitting about 20 metres away from a 20-metre wide screen, even though it’s about 2 cm away from your eyes.

The only negative thing about this product is that it has a big long clumsy wire coming out of it, which connects into a small rectangular box that then connects into your chosen media device.  It would have made more sense to make it wireless but, hey, we’re pretty sure they’re saving that for the next model.

The thing we love the most about this is that it can connect to any device delivering video. That means it plays DVDs and Blu-rays, TV and what we are most excited about: games! Yes folks, you can plug the viewer into your PS3 or remarkably even into the non-Sony related X-Box 360 and play games like you just don’t give a damn about expectations society has on being social.

Naturally, like us, you’re mind has wondered into that dirty realm and you’re imagining already what porn might like through the personal 3D viewer. Suffice to say that proverbial orgasm might sometimes turn into an actual one…

The Sony Personal 3D Viewer is available now RRP $899 through Sony centres nationwide.

For more information visit www.sony.com.au.

Oh look, nothing shocks us in the world of music video anymore. Least of all the sex-intertwined-with-religious-connotating shenanigans of Madonna. Today sees the official release of her MDNA album on iTunes and in stores, as well as the release of her much hyped Girl Gone Wild video. We get the ‘Adam & Steve’ bit where two of her male dancers are biting into an apple but when they seriously start going for it on said pomme, you’ve got to wonder, er, why? Surely, there were cuter fruit on set than an actual piece of it? Anyway, click on any of these images, above or below, and see the full clip for yourself. But if you’re prudish, look away. Much of it is dirty, dirty, dirty…

For a full review of ‘MDNA’ click here.

Don’t be too surprised by the sudden release of a second single from the forthcoming Madonna LP. And upon first listen to Girl Gone Wild, it’ll feel like a buzzing mosquito is annoying you for a full three and half minutes.

Clichés abound throughout, from its Catholic prayer-like opening to the song’s bottom line message that “girls they just wanna have some fun” (as if we hadn’t heard it all before).

Of course Madonna is no stranger to plagiarism, let alone a little self-reductivist tactic. We’ve already heard the emulated chant of Toni Basil’s Mickey, the subtle stabs at Gaga (“L.A.D… d-d-d-don’t make me…”) and the referencing of her own songs Lucky Star and Beautiful Stranger in Give Me All Your Luvin.

Girl Gone Wild just takes the pastiche thing to a more distorted neon level. Thank goodness, then, that producers Benny and Ale Benassi have taken a leaf out of William Orbit’s book of esoteric trance to pave an hypnotic dance groove that draws the listener in and allows you to forgive all the bastardisation at play.

On the subject of Orbit, he’s returned to produce half of the new album (the second half) and - from tracks what we’ve heard so far - although it’s not exactly of the rawer sentiment that shone through Ray Of Light, some of the music is well worth highlighting, namely the stirring, sonic depth of Falling Free (where lyrically Madonna finally swallows some pride), the surprisingly touching confession I Fucked Up, and tinges of gospel and Sixties doo-wop in I’m A Sinner.

Elsewhere on the LP, the pop-pilfering is also blatant. Gang Bang, with its unfortunate title, is like Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang (I Shot You Down) sent through the Bamix; Superstar namechecks an army of icons in the same way Vogue did; and I’m A Sinner delivers some catchy “ooh oohs” that sound as though they’ve been chopped from the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil.

It’s all clever postmodernist pastiche fun that, sonically, should delight fans of her Confessions period in particular. And, heck, if poaching pop left, right and centre is good enough for Gaga…

‘MDNA’ is out now through Interscope / Universal.