In February, Lady Gaga announced a handful of dates for her upcoming world tour, dubbed the Born This Way Ball. At the time, it was announced that the trek would eventually involve around 110 shows around the world, and news has finally come of some European dates for the jaunt.

The European leg of the tour will begin in Eastern Europe when the pop stars plays a show in Sofia, Bulgaria on August 14. She will then hit most parts of Europe before winding up in Barcelona on October 6. In between, she will make stops in Romania, Austria, Latvia, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Italy, among others.

Though a North American leg of the tour is planned, there have been no dates announced as of yet.

The tour itself will kick off on April 27 with a show at Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea. That show recently made headlines across the world when the South Korean government’s Media Rating Board declared that no one under 18 years old would be admitted to the show. Around 300 tickets had to be refunded to buyers under the age of 12. Lady Gaga spoke of the incident herself on her Twitter account.

“Thanku to all the adults in Korea who are speaking out for underaged who want to come to the BTW Ball. Maybe the gov. will change their mind,” she tweeted.”

Local Seoul media that a big part of the decision was influenced because the set list includes the song “Just Dance,” which was earned an over-18 rating from the censoring agency Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s Commission on Youth Protection.

After the Seoul date, Gaga will spend more time in Asia as she travels to Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. After that, she will perform a series of shows in Australia and New Zealand before heading to Europe.

Lady Gaga’s most recent album, Born This Way, has been out since May of last year and already has sold millions upon millions of copies, and now the eccentric artist has decided that it is time to take the show on the road.

Through Twitter, the singer released the first 11 dates of what will ultimately be a 110 show tour that will stretch into 2013 and take her around the world. Fittingly, the tour has been titled “The Born This Way Ball.”

Of those initial 11 dates, they are all in Asia or Australia, though the tour is also expected to hit North America, Latin America and Europe. The first date released is April 27 in Seoul, South Korea, and the last will be July 7 in Perth, Australia.

The tour will be coordinated by Live Nation with a team headed by that company’s CEO, Arthur Fogel. The same team directed Gaga’s last tour, “Monster Ball,” which consisted of 167 shows in 2010 and 2011 and grossed $188 million. Fogel told Billboard that tour put the artist on a worldwide stage.

“The last tour established her as a major act worldwide and I believe this tour will be an extension of that, particularly considering we’re going to territories she’s never been in, like Southeast Asia and Latin America,” he said.

As of now, plans include about 15 shows in Southeast Asia and Japan, and then around 15 shows in Australia, Billboard reports. With Europe and Latin America following those dates, Gaga likely will be in North America in January 2013.

Born This Way was only the 17^th album in history to sell over one million copies the first week it was released, though a contributor to the sales numbers was that Amazon.com sold digital copies of the entire album for 99 cents over a two day period during that first week. The resulting sales numbers prompted Billboard to revise its regulations on which album sales count toward calculations of chart performance.

Last Friday, it was announced that Lady Gaga and LMFAO will be added to the already star studded lineup for New York’s annual Jingle Ball this year. The festival, produced by well-known New York top-40 radio station Z100, had already announced performers like Demi Lovato, Kelly Clarkson, Pitbull and French DJ David Guetta. Demi Lovato was on hand at the Times Square Aeropostale store to make the announcement.

The show will take place December 9 at Madison Square Garden, and will feature a number of guest hosts including Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Lamar Odom, and Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan, a duo known as Karmin. Additionally, “surprise” artists and guest hosts are expected to appear unannounced at the show, which typically draws around 18,000 fans.

Furthering a tradition started last year, Z100 will also host an internet search for what they call a “Hometown Hero,” which will allow music fans to vote online for the artist they think should be able to play the Jingle Ball. Musicians from around the United States can sign up on Eventful’s “Demand It!” service, which will allow online users to vote on their favorite music. The winner will have a chance to play on the Coca-Cola All Access Lounge, which is the official pre-event to the Jingle Ball. Additionally, the winner of the contest will have their first video produced by Z100.

For those not in New York, and even for concertgoers who want to relive the experience, music channel Fuse will broadcast the event on December 18 at 7 pm Eastern.

Other artists scheduled to play the event are Foster the People, Hot Chelle Rae and Gym Class Heroes. In addition to Fuse, the event is also sponsored by clothing retailer Aeropostale. Tickets to the event will be available November 2, though VIP members—known as ZVIP—can purchase tickets starting at 4 pm Eastern on November 1.

Pop icons Usher, U2 and Lady Gaga have been asked to help celebrate the William J. Clinton Foundation’s 10th anniversary. Over the years the organization has made large contributions to different charities.

On Saturday October 15 the three performers will be sharing the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles to commemorate the William J. Clinton Foundation’s 10th birthday. The organization has raised more than $10 billion to help with causes like feeding the hungry and global AIDS/HIV treatment. The concert is scheduled to be broadcast via Yahoo exclusively on a worldwide basis. The event will also double as the belated birthday celebration for Clinton. On August 19 he turned 65 years old.

“A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating Ten Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation” is also going to include an acoustic performance by The Edge, the U2 guitarist, along with other celebrity guests and additional performers to be announced later.

Control Room is producing the concert. The organization has been the mastermind behind several other large scale events like Live Earth in 2007. An announcement was made by a spokeswoman that the general public will be able to purchase tickets. It is expected that proceeds will be going to charity.

The new iHeartRadio Festival is being billed as radio history’s biggest ever live music event (whatever that means). Organizers have pulled all the stops out to deliver a lineup that is loaded with many of the music industry’s biggest stars.

Steven Tyler, Carrie Underwood, Alicia Keys, the Black Eyed Peas, Nicky Minaj, Coldplay and Lady Gaga are among the artists scheduled to appear at the I Heart Radio inaugural festival, scheduled to take place in Las Vegas at MGM Grand on September 23-24. Joining them on the bill will be John Mayer, Kelly Clarkson, Rascal Flatts, David Guetta, Jennifer Lopez and Kenny Chesney, among others.

Organizers have promised that as the summer runs on more artists will continue to be added. Hosting the event will be the always busy Ryan Seacrest. The show will be streamed live via mobile devices and online at iHeartRadio.com as well as across all websites of radio stations owned by Clear Channel.

For those wanting to attend the event in person, liking iHeartRadio at Facebook will give fans the first chance at tickets. On Saturday at 1 a.m., the pre-sale will end. The general public sale will start at 1 pm that same day via Ticketmaster.com.

Since it is a radio fest, listeners are being given lots of opportunities for winning free trips to Las Vegas by Clear Channel to attend the event. Visit iheartradio.com for more information.

Downloads of “Born This Way,” the latest full length album from Lady Gaga, are being offered today (March 23) via the MP3 service of Amazon.com for 99 cents. It appears this morning that the normally bullet proof servers of Amazon weren’t able to handle the overwhelming demand.

On Monday morning, downloading just three tracks off the album took over 20 minutes, while the rest of the album wasn’t downloading at all. In the MP3 version comment section on Amazon.com for the new album from Gaga, there were many complaints from customers about failed or slow downloads.

Amazon promised in a Tweet that fans who ordered the download today will be receiving the download at the 99 cent price. However, they didn’t indicate when they would be able to get the problems solved.

The Tweet from Amazon said, currently we are experiencing very high volumes. Orders completed today will get Lady Gaga’s full album for only $.99. Thank you for your patience.

The album download of “Born This Way” on Amazon includes a digital booklet in addition to 20 GB worth of Amazon Cloud Drive storage. The service was recently launched by Amazon and allows users to stream and upload their music off of the internet and onto their Android cell phones. Today, Google announce plans for launching a Cloud service similar to Amazon’s. It appears Amazon is using the album from Gaga as an opportunity for gaining a leg up from their competitor to be.

On Monday, the “Born This Way” version that was selling for 99 cents on Amazon, had a sales price of $11.99 at iTunes.

Saturday Night Live’s 36th season finale, featuring Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake, received the highest household average metered market for a season ending SNL episode in seven years.

The finale last weekend received a 7.0 average rating and 17 share in household metered-market averages. This was the best number for the program since their finale of May 15, 2004 with Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen co-hosting and J-Kwon appearing as the musical guest. The 2004 telecast also received a 7.0 average. One of this year’s best sketches was “Three-Way” with Lady Gaga, Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake. Also, Bradley Cooper made a “Weekend Update” appearance and Jimmy Fallon on “Nicholas Cage Talk Show.”

This year’s telecast had a 21 percent increase over the finale from last year, which featured Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Alec Baldwin. That finale, at the time, was the top rated metered markets from Nielsen in four years.

May 2000 was the last time that a season ending of “Saturday Night Life” achieved a household rating of 7.0. Jackie Chan was the host and the musical guest was Kid Rock. That show receiving a 7.3 rating for metered-market households.

On Thursday, total numbers for demographics and viewers will be released.

Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Eminem and Rihanna are the leading finalists for Billboard’s 2011 Music Awards. They were announced on April 13 during a Las Vegas press conference.

The leading finalist is Rihanna with 18 award categories. They include Top Dance/Electronic Artist, Top R&B Artist, Top Female Artist and Top Hot 100 Artist. Rihanna’s chart-topping track “Love the Way You Lie” with Eminem placed her as a finalist in six of the song categories.

Eminem, meanwhile, is included in 16 award categories as a finalist, including Top Rap Artist, Top Male Artist and Top Billboard 200 Artist.

Lady Gaga is next with 12 category finalist placements. Three of her releases are competing in the Top Dance/Electronic Album: “The Remix,” “The Fame Monster” and “The Fame.”

Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars, the pop heart throbs, are each competing in 11 categories. They will face off in the Top Male Artist and Top New Artist categories. Other contenders for Top New Artist are Taio Cruz, Nicki Minaj and Ke$sha. Taio Cruz’ song “Dynamite” has been nominated for five awards, which includes Top Hot 100 Song.

Billboard’s Music Awards show will take place in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday May 22 to announce the winners. The show will air on ABC from 8-11 pm ET and PT. To purchase tickets visit Ticketmaster.com.

A holistic view of artist performance is taken by Billboard’s Music Awards. It is based on musical-finalists’ interactions with the fans. Winners are determined from looking at streaming and social activity as well as chart performance chronicled on Billboard.com and Billboard Magazine during the February 28, 2010 through March 1, 2011 eligibility period.

The basis for Billboard’s 46 award categories are from measures that are provided by their data partners. They include Nielsen SoundScan sales data, radio airplay that Nielsen BDS monitors, streaming data that Neilsen BDS and Tubemogul measures, social media consumption measured by Next Big Sound, as well as tour grosses that Billboard Boxscore tracks.

Lady Gaga is probably used at people being pissed at her, as her eclectic lifestyle and eclectic image in pop culture is always a cause for a debate.

But after Gaga’s recent upstaging antics during a Mets game pissed people off causing her to give them all the “finger” – the middle finger, that is – and subsequently, causing the Mets’ front office to transfer her to a more obscure location, one man is just indignant with what just happened, that is comedian, avid Mets fan and owner of the luxury box Gaga was relocated to, Jerry Seinfeld.

“This woman is a jerk. I hate her…I can’t believe they put her in my box, which I paid for…”, Seinfeld said in an interview with radio sports show WFAN, seems like a pretty shallow reason to be infuriated about, but Seinfeld immediately followed it up with “You give people the finger and you get upgraded? Is that the world we’re living in now? It’s pathetic.”  Now that’s a sound and valid argument Mr. Seinfeld.

The front office of the Mets have apologized to the comedian for their indiscretion, while the comedian back handedly complimented the pop diva, “She is talented…I don’t know why she’s doing this stuff.”  The “stuff” being referred to by the comedian was the disrespectful antics Gaga had to pull just to gather attention.

But speaking of bad publicity, Gaga did not spare the other New York baseball camp, the Yankees, from the same embarrassment after showing up still allegedly drunk and in almost nothing, just like she did during the Mets game.  But that’s not all, she even went up to the Yankees’ locker room after the team’s devastating loss to their Big Apple rival.

Following this incident, reports have swirled that Gaga was banned from the Yankees’ clubhouse and games, which was denied by the team’s GM Brian Cashman, however, he reprimanded the singer’s actions on that day, “There is a time and a place for that, and it’s certainly not after a loss and not at the expense of the media doing their job.”

With the All-Star Game just around the corner, the Mets have certainly put the controversy way behind them but used it to gear up their “Go Gaga for Wright Night” campaign to support the Mets’ third baseman in his quest to take part in the upcoming All-Star Game which will feature Keith Hernandez and Jerry Seinfeld broadcasting the game live.

Lollapalooza returns to Chicago’s Grant Park on August 6-8 for its 2010 edition of the longest-running outdoor music festival. It comes complete with the newly reformed Soundgarden, Lady Gaga and Green Day. Other key acts include Arcade Fire, MGMT, The Strokes, Phoenix, The Black Keys, Erykah Badu, Spoon, Hot Chip and the New Pornographers. For those looking to fill in the artist blanks, head over to the Lollapalooza site for an exhaustive list of performers.

The newly minted Soundgarden will be the band’s first time back together in 12 years. The previously played the Lollapalooza stage in 1992 and 1996. Green Day debuted back in 1994 when they were still punk and cool, and Lady Gaga took an inauspicious side stage in 2007. Last year’s festival featured big name acts like Jane’s Addiction, Depeche Mode, Lou Reed and Tool.

Tickets are currently on sale. The three-day general admission pass will set you back 215 clams while the bigwigs out there will want to extend your wallet a bit further and plunk down $850 for the VIP passes. Full details are available on Lollapalooza.com.