Pop Star

"Someday my prince will come," Snow White sang. And Michael Jackson, also a noted Disney buff, must have been humming the same tune. Because yesterday, Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud rode to the rescue of the troubled pop star. Jackson and the Saudi Arabian billionaire said yesterday the two will hook up to produce entertainment ventures from theme parks to movies. "The Prince and myself will combine human and financial resources to be successful in all phases of the global entertainment revolution," Jackson murmured at the Paris announcement.

Moan all you want about the slickness of George Michael's image, but give him this much: The 24-year-old pop star knows how to entertain his audience. Last night, in the first of two sold-out shows at the Spectrum, Michael displayed an impressive clarity of purpose. He was there to sell George Michael, and, judging by the sustained shrill screams he soaked up between each song, he did it. Following a crowd-pumping six-minute buildup, Michael and his precise seven-piece band emerged from a huge cage to begin the show with "I Want Your Sex," which though politely funky, was hardly spectacular.

It's showbiz, baby: Robbie Williams knows it's a silly game, but that doesn't make it any less fun to play. The 25-year-old British pop star with the cheeky attitude and the catchy tunes began his assault on America this week with the release of his Stateside debut, The Ego Has Landed (Capitol), and a tour that brought him to the Theater of Living Arts on Thursday. The former member of Brit boy band Take That knows a thing or two about working the crowd. How's this for an entrance?

It's not often that pop stars with the No. 1 single and album in the land find themselves performing in relatively intimate, medium-size theaters. It's still rarer when it's an uncommon pop star like Sinead O'Connor, the 23-year- old woman whose hugely successful second album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (Chrysalis) has risen so rapidly on the heels of the Prince-penned soul ballad "Nothing Compares 2 U" that there hasn't been time for adjustments to scale. So the wildly enthusiastic crowd that packed the Tower Theater last night to see the Irish songstress can count itself lucky.

Ravi Shankar's name is synonymous with the popularization of Indian classical music in the 20th century. One of his daughters, Norah Jones, has become hugely successful in pop. Another, 26-year-old Anoushka Shankar, followed her father's path more closely and became a sitar virtuoso. There may just be room in pop for that as well. On her new album, Breathing Under Water, Shankar shares billing with tabla player, producer and songwriter Karsh Kale, a product of New York's underground electronica circuit.

Aussie pop star Kylie Minogue, 36, has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will undergo immediate treatment. In a statement, Minogue, who hit big in '01 with Fever, said her Australian Showgirl Tour will have to be canceled. "I . . . am sorry to have to disappoint my fans. Nevertheless, hopefully all will work out fine and I'll be back with you all again soon. " The BBC says Minogue's pop-star sister, Dannii, is cautiously optimistic: "The news is very upsetting. Although as the cancer has been diagnosed at such an early stage, we are all very optimistic that everything will be OK. " "We're all very thankful for the endless messages of love and support Kylie has been receiving.

NORMALLY CONSERVATIVE Indonesians, some of whom blanch at the sight of a bare shoulder, are grappling with their first-ever celebrity sex-tape scandal, casting aside social taboos as they swarm around office computers and mobile phones to watch clips allegedly showing a much-loved pop star with two girlfriends. Not at once, thank goodness. The country's collective head would explode. The sex scandal topped newscasts for a week and dominated chatter on Facebook and Twitter, competing with such deep thoughts as "Just finished laundry, yay!"

Parents, I went on a little reconnaissance mission at the Electric Factory Saturday night, and I'm happy to report that your teenage daughters are safe with 22-year-old lightweight pop star Ryan Cabrera. So his Chia Pet-meets-Tina Turner coif frightens you a little, and some of his post-Dave Matthews grooves could lead to suggestive dancing at the prom in a couple of months. But check this out: With a sold-out house of shrieking girls - some accompanied by good-sport boyfriends - in the palm of his hand, he opened his 65-minute show with a song about not rushing into "things" called "Let's Take Our Time.

The Swedish pop star Robyn strutted and vamped her way through an entertaining hour-long performance Wednesday at the Fillmore at TLA. The crowd only reached half-capacity but it was a devoted one that had visibly learned songs from Robyn's self-titled fourth album, which came out in Sweden in 2005 but only reached the States last month. The bulk of her set came from that album, beginning with the hip-hop-influenced "Cobrastyle. " Wearing a tight black one-piece with an elongated left sleeve and her signature half-shaved haircut, Robyn's look was sharp and smart, much like her sophisticated take on bouncy bubblegum and heart-on-sleeve ballads.

So this is what globalization looks like: a half-Colombian, half-Lebanese, bleached-blond, belly-dancing pop star who can balance a candelabra on her head while rocking out in Spanish and English. This is Shakira's world, where Bon Jovi-esque power ballads mix with flamenco guitars, and Middle Eastern vocal flourishes give way to reggae dancehall grooves. And one album this year can't contain the ambitions of our 4-foot-11 Latina heroine. First came Fijaci?n Oral, Vol. 1, the Spanish album that pictured the 28-year-old Shakira Isabel Mebarek Ripoll clutching a baby to her breast, in what she has called a Freudian image expressing the idea that "through our mouths we discover and explore the world.

The award-winning journalists at the People's Paper have a new peer. Beyonce. The New York chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists will award Beyonce the first-place prize in arts and entertainment in its magazine category for a story she wrote for Essence magazine. Her first-person piece, titled "Eat, Play, Love," appeared in the mag's July 2011 issue. In it, the World's Most Beautiful Woman, per People, talks about how taking a break from music changed her life.

You know how Jar-Jar Binks' eyes pop up out of his head? That was from watching too many 3-D movies back on planet Naboo. So, be forewarned. George Lucas has done a stereoscopic retrofit of his 1999 prequel, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace , and it's being released in theaters Friday. Arguably the lamest installment in the " long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" canon, the new 3-D version was not previewed in advance for critics, and really, why should it have been?

LOS ANGELES - In the small, crowded Los Angeles courtroom, 6-foot-5 Dr. Conrad Murray is an imposing figure. Another imposing figure will loom over the room on Tuesday: the persona of the man he is accused of killing, Michael Jackson. One of the most famous pop stars of all time will be present in the words of those who knew him, in snippets of video, and in the faces of his famous family watching from the courtroom gallery. Murray, 58, has said little in public, except that he most definitely did not cause Jackson's June 25, 2009, death.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haiti's pop-star-turned-president-elect donned a conservative gray suit Tuesday for his first news conference since his upset victory as Haitians wondered how this charismatic musician with a bad-boy past would govern the country in crisis. As he did on the campaign trail, Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, 50, avoided any specifics about how he would lead but appeared as far as possible from his outrageous stage persona as he spoke of reconciliation with political opponents and improving the lives of people in the most desperate, star-crossed nation in the Western Hemisphere.

WILL A starring role on "Glee" turn Matthew Morrison into a pop star? Morrison said at the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy party that he will release his solo album (with three duets) in May, with a first single out in three weeks. He described the sound as "very eclectic," saying he's an "old-school soul" and that he drew inspiration from the music he grew up on, like Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr . So Morrison is going to turn into a pop star. In 1963.

9 tonight DIY NETWORK It's hammer time for '90s pop star Vanilla Ice, aka Robert Van Winkle (right), who abandoned his music career (or did it abandon him?) to become an ace home renovator in this new series.

The first sounds heard on M.I.A.'s new album Maya (Interscope, . ) - M.I.A. being the agit-pop provocateur Maya Arulpragasam - are made by fingernails tapping on a computer keyboard. Then a bass-heavy beat starts to rumble, air raid synths sound an alarm, and, over the sound of M.I.A.'s own distorted voice, some dude repeats this digitech twist on a children's song: "Headbone connects to the headphones, headphones connect to the iPhone/iPhone connects to the Internet/Connects to the Google/Connects to the government.

NORMALLY CONSERVATIVE Indonesians, some of whom blanch at the sight of a bare shoulder, are grappling with their first-ever celebrity sex-tape scandal, casting aside social taboos as they swarm around office computers and mobile phones to watch clips allegedly showing a much-loved pop star with two girlfriends. Not at once, thank goodness. The country's collective head would explode. The sex scandal topped newscasts for a week and dominated chatter on Facebook and Twitter, competing with such deep thoughts as "Just finished laundry, yay!"

Give Britney Spears a little credit: It was a mere 2? years ago that the pop star, who brought her three-rings-in-the-round "Circus" spectacle to the Wachovia Center on Sunday, was a baldheaded tabloid train wreck with a career seemingly beyond repair. K-Fed was the least of her concerns: The teen-pop tease had grown up to be the out-of-control poster woman for poor parental decision-making. And when the story got out that the Associated Press had a Spears obituary ready, it seemed only logical, considering what an apparent danger she had become to herself.