CLICK TRACKS: Ashlee Simpson worms back into the Great White Way, Courtney Love re-mounts Hole, and more

Published Nov 14 2009, 08:50 AM by Alexandra Cavallo

Thought Macbeth was the most cursed play in history? Think again. Former pop starlet/defensive hoedown expert Ashlee Simpson has been tapped to reprise her role as Roxie Hart in Chicago. On Broadway. That's the same Ashlee Simpson who just lost her TV gig because, apparently, her acting chops couldn't cut it on Melrose Place. The silver lining of this impending fiasco may well be watching Simpson attempt to jig her way out of a Milli Vanilli episode mid-"Funny Honey." (We're pretty sure the whole "acid reflux" trick only works once.)

It's been a long, strange, "Good Riddance"-paved road from the garage-band days of Dookie to grandiose "rock opera" American Idiot. And Green Day's trajectory is about to get even stranger and more grandiose: They're bringing American Idiot to Broadway. (Move over, Simpson.) No dates set yet, but apparently when the current off-Broadway American Idiot musical (this was news to us, too) wraps this month, the move to the Big Stage will commence.

The Fates convened and decided that, apparently, Britney Spears has not yet been through enough. Truth be told, we think that old gal deserves a break. The pop singer -- who recently rose from the ashes of a career placed inside a double-wide, doused in Jim Beam, set aflame, and left to die -- is once again under attack. The resilient Spears spoke out against accusations that she was (wait for it) lip-synching during performances in her Australian Circus tour. (We swear, the Ashlee Simpson theme running through this roundup was entirely unintentional.)

It wouldn't be a music-news roundup without a little Ga. Looks like Lady Gaga's latest video -- for her song "Bad Romance" -- is apparently the weirdest yet! Way to push those societal boundaries. Behold: decolletage pyrotechnics, boyfriends being burned alive, and the forced consumption of vodka. But if that's too tame for you, there's always the NFSW vids from Girls and the Flaming Lips.

I'mma let you finish, Fergie (yeah, not done with that one yet), but let's just interject something here. Your assertion that Kanye is the man responsible for making "hip-hop gay-friendly"? Amazing. There's long been speculation that West is perhaps not such a fan of the Lady Lumps, and hey, we're not above raking a little gossip muck now and again. Back to you, Fergalicious.

In an unprecedented incident of a Red Sox fan behaving fanatically, a Massachusetts man is suing Bon Jovi (as well as Time Warner and Major League Baseball) for $400 billion. Local musician Samuel Bartley Steele's suit claims that the New Jersey legend allegedly ripped off his musical homage to the Sox, entitled "[Man I Really Love] This Team," in the 2007 song "I Love This Town," which the MLB used to promote the playoffs that year. Bon Jovi responded, "Um, what?" A judge concurred, calling foul ball on the absurd lawsuit.

Chris Brown is apparently not beating himself up too hard (too soon?) about the whole Rihanna incident. The R&B singer now best known for abusing his girlfriend responded to Rihanna's emotional 20/20 interview by announcing: "Abuse of any kind is always wrong. The rest I leave it to God." Someone should tell a dude that saying a few Hail Marys does not a woman un-batter. But at least we can still bask in the warm glow of schadenfreude, as we watch Brown attempt to crawl back into the public's hearts with a disastrous "comeback appreciation tour."

Lovable hobgoblin Courtney Love has returned to the world of the living to resurrect Hole for a new album, Nobody's Daughter, tentatively due out January 2010 -- making it the first Hole record since Celebrity Skin. Of course, because Love cannot function unless she's stirred up some crazybrains controversy, you can find her Tweeting furiously at former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson, who takes umbrage at her attempt to reanimate the corpse of the long-dead band.