Rolling Stone's Rumors, Stories and small tid-bits:

02.02.01 - Madonna loses her underwear and more
If you've always wanted to get into Madonna's underwear -- which isn't as easy these days as it was back in the days when you just had to take a number -- there's still hope for you! A record dealer in the small town of Gerona, Spain, claims to have a black silk slip that once housed the assets of the Material Girl, until she left it at a hotel laundry several years ago. While we'd consider placing a bid on that bit of history -- or even the thigh-high stockings that once graced the gams of Debbie Harry -- first, we'd really have to find out if the items were devalued by actually going through the dreaded washing machine.

01.30.01 - A Message from Madonna
Another tabloid miracle! Only days after Madonna married Guy Ritchie, the London Daily Mail announced that it had an intriguing two-year-old answering-machine tape from the telephone of Andy Bird, one of her ex-boyfriends. Apparently, the singer-actor started dating Bird, a nightclub worker, after meeting him at a Los Angeles dinner party in 1997; they broke up about four months later. But the paper says that Madonna declared her love for Bird, 28, in 1999. "I can't get you out of my mind," she reportedly cooed in her message. "We have something special - we love each other." She also asked her daughter, Lourdes, to add, "You've broken mommy's heart." Madonna's rep isn't commenting, but a friend insists that it was Bird who couldn't let go: "When she told him it was over, he would call her nonstop." This isn't her first problem with Bird since their fling: Ritchie reportedly got into a barroom scuffle with him in London last year.

01.26.01 - Upcoming Madonna video to be directed by husband
After pinching his wife's hit "Lucky Star" for the soundtrack for his new film, Snatch, Guy Ritchie will collaborate more directly with wife Madonna by directing an upcoming music video. "I'd like to work with the missus, but I don't have an active project in mind that we'll do," Ritchie told British reporters last week. "I'll shoot one of her videos first and see how that goes. Creatively, we like the same sort of things, so it just makes sense to work together."

Ritchie, who began his film career in the U.K. directing music videos, will begin shooting the video for "What It Feels Like for a Girl," the third single from Madonna's latest album, Music, in mid-February in Los Angeles, where the newlyweds are camped until the singer's Grammy Awards performance on February 21st.

A spokesperson for the singer confirmed that the couple would be collaborating on Madonna's next video, but denied a December report in London's Daily Mirror that claimed that Madonna would star in Ritchie's next feature film, The Mole. The spokesperson also said that Ritchie will not be involved in a biography of Sixties pop star Dusty Springfield that Madonna is working on with film production partner Guy Oseary.

01.22.01 - Britney reveals plans for Madonna duet
Last week, Madonna's publicist put to rest the rumors that Madonna and Britney Spears were planning a duet when they crossed paths at Rock in Rio. But according to Britney the duet is still on, it's just a matter of timing. "Since we're both busy, we have to work out the best schedule to meet at the studio," Spears told reporters at Rock in Rio.

While Britney has long professed her admiration for Madonna, Madonna has recently done the same. At her New York show at the Roseland last November, Madonna wore a Spears' t-shirt onstage and in an interview with Elle, Madonna confessed to being a fan.

Meanwhile the two new friends will go head to head as Grammy nominees in the two of the same categories. Both are nominated in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album categories (Britney for Oops! . . . I Did It Again, Madonna for Music). Madonna is confirmed to perform at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards on February 21st on CBS.

12.22.00 - Madonna looks up a kilt
We thought that marriage to Guy Ritchie might prompt Madonna to keep her kinkier side in check for a little while, but according to reports out of bonnie ol' Scotland, the sorceress of sex plans on indulging herself even before her vows have finished echoing across the Loch. It's said that the Material Bride plans to invite a gaggle of voyeuristically minded pals to her nuptials -- and given them orders to use long-handled mirrors to peek up under the kilts of male guests with a mind to wear such garments. According to some reports, the future Mrs. Ritchie is hellbent on unearthing any smuggled cameras, but we're guessing she's merely intent on discovering whether or not those guys wear anything under their tartans . . .

11.06.00 - Madonna plays free show, rediscovers her inner club girl
Music has two phases -- the club night and the reflective morning after -- but for Madonna's purposes Sunday night at New York's Roseland Ballroom, it was all about the drive for the dance floor. In a free concert for radio contest winners and select celebs like Rosie O'Donnell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller and Donatella Versace, Madonna took the stage for a five-song set, her first New York club appearance since her surprise 2 a.m. stop at the Roxy on Valentine's Day, 1998.

Outside of that Roxy gig -- in which she only played four songs -- Madonna hasn't played a venue the size of Roseland (which holds 3,000) since before her Like a Virgin tour fifteen years ago. It's been strictly amphitheaters, arenas and stadiums ever since, which made this appearance even more of a rarity, especially considering she didn't tour for her last album and hasn't decided yet whether she'll hit the road for this one. But judging by her joyous, practically giddy return to the stage, she's going to have a hard time staying away.

With venue sets and decor designed by Italian duo Dolce & Gabbana, Roseland (as befitting Music's cover art and Madonna's latest cowgirl/clubgirl persona) was a neo-Western wonderland, with bales of hay, yellow-lit horseshoes and silver cactuses throughout the lobby and entranceway. Scantily-dressed cowboy and Indian dancers vogued pre-show in provocative poses, lassoing each other and twirling passersby as they skated circles around them -- like the Village People meets Coyote Ugly, roller disco style.

DJs Deep Dish -- who played thudding, pulsing beats before and after opening act Everlast, in his first public acoustic performance -- teased the crowd by sampling parts of Madonna's "Music" to give a false sense that she was about to take the stage. And when she did, it was via a second stage not often used at the venue, the set of which been draped with an enlarged American flag. To the beginning strains of "Impressive Instant," the flag lifted to reveal a pickup truck, which she crawled out of as four bare-chested male dancers encircled her, licking her on cue with her hushed commands of "Kiss me."

Though on record "Instant" is rife with studio tricks and vocoder effects, Madonna's voice was dry: no filters, no re-pitching, no compression, no echo, no delay -- the only manipulation that remained was that of her sexual gyrations. It made her voice sound thin, but less ridiculous on lines such as "I want to singy, singy, singy/Like a bird on a wingy, wingy, wingy."

Actually, all of the weirder, verging-on-annoying elements of Mirwais' Eurodisco production, not just Madonna's vocals, were flattened out, relieving "Don't Tell Me" of its purposeful anxiety since its acoustic guitar couldn't be electronically choppy. Mirwais (who joined Madonna on this one song) strummed the beginning of "Don't Tell Me" straight, so that the guitar line's similarity to "Sweet Home Alabama" was clear, the only real lick of hick to be found on Music, despite the album's country-western imagery.

It seemed like the rustic element was about to be dropped as soon as the second verse brought in a swoon-worthy string section, playing on the second stage as Madonna by then had crowd-surfed her way to the main stage. But she brought the song's underlying dance beats to the forefront as her two female backup singers joined her and the male dancers in a sort of techno two-step, an erotic party-girl line-dance that harnessed both country and electronic music dance moves. Odd, yes. But it was the moment that Music's incongruent music and style influences made sense, if only slightly.

Shedding the country-western jacket, Madonna revealed a slit-up-the-sides tank top with "Britney Spears" written on it in gold sequins, part of her winking dedication of "What It Feels Like for a Girl" to the teen pop imitator. Though soft in beat, the song is full of barbs like "When you open up your mouth to speak/Could you be a little weak?" which Madonna sang without irony. She seemed too happy to harp on anything, grinning madly as she shimmied and shook her hips to the throbbing bass and pounding beats. "I'm so happy to be on stage again!" she shouted at one point. "I'm kind of nervous. It's been a while."

Dancing quickly cleared up any anxiety, though, as she seemed to engage the crowd most when she just let the beats take over -- she stopped singing during "Music" just to move to the seamless procession of pulse and groove, and it didn't hurt the song a bit. Since the song itself, like many of her early singles, is a celebration of music's ability to liberate and bring people together, it suited the connection she shared with her fans. In some ways, "Music" is essentially "Everybody" -- even though Madonna's style keeps changing direction, it fits into an ever-evolving, ever-larger picture. It would have been nice had she been able to show this evolution, but that's not something she can readily do in a five-song set. Opening acts Deep Dish and Everlast (who was joined by N'Dea Davenport on "Love for Real") accomplished this in part for her, evoking Madonna's Music folktronic influences in their purest forms, Deep Dish with their trance beats, Everlast with his folk blues, so that she didn't have to commit to either one -- she can just continue to flirt with these styles until she finds a new one to adore and absorb.

08.14.00 - Baby Rocco born to Madonna, Guy Ritchie
Three weeks before her due date, Madonna gave birth to a baby boy on Friday in Los Angeles. "English film director Guy Ritchie and Madonna are delighted to announce the birth of their son, Rocco Ritchie," read a statement from the singer's record label, Warner Brothers. "Overjoyed mother, father, sister Lourdes and baby are all safe and sound at an undisclosed location."

Madonna confirmed rumors that she was expecting a son during a telephone interview with a Los Angeles radio station the day before and announced her plans to give birth in the United States, calling English hospitals "old and Victorian."

Madonna's first child, Lourdes -- fathered by her former personal trainer Carlos Leon -- was born in October, 1996.

Meanwhile, new Madonna music is on the horizon. In a recorded message on www.madonnamusic.com the soon-to-be forty-two-year-old singer tells fans, "You've probably been hearing about my new record Music for a while, but I just wanted to make sure that you know the single is going to drop very soon. I worked on this track with a French guy called Mirwais and he is the shit. The album will be released worldwide on September 19 and I hope you like my music."

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