The show will go on in Utah for The Material Girl and her controversial televised concert performance, minus the scene featuring a mock crucifixion.

Madonna issued a statement Thursday following the final date of her record-breaking Confessions tour, which wrapped up today in Tokyo, defending her mock-crucifixion as not being “anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous.”

Barry McGuire had his 15 minutes of fame - and lived it to the max.

Vatican accuses her of blasphemy and provocation

Andrae Crouch battled racism on way to legacy in Christian music

Madonna has defended a controversial mock crucifixion in her stage show, saying it is part of an appeal to the audience to donate to Aids charities.

Pop superstar Madonna has hit back at criticisms the crucifixion stunt on her Confessions tour is disrespectful to Christians, arguing her motives are honorable.

Finnish Eurovision winners Lordi have been defended against claims of Satanism by their country's ambassador to the UK.

Madonna has launched her first world tour in two years, delighting an enthusiastic Los Angeles crowd by hanging herself from a cross, insulting US President George Bush, and dusting off some of the sexy moves that have sustained her career for more than 20 years.

"Every song is a cry for love," crooned Ireland's Brian Kennedy during Saturday night's 51st Eurovision Song Contest. He obviously hadn't heard Lordi, the Finnish horror rock sensation which beat him and acts from 21 other countries to clinch the most emphatic ever victory in the annual festival of kitsch pop.

The Devil is said to have the best tunes, but what do they sound like? A new film about the history of heavy metal highlights the so-called Devil's Interval, a musical phenomenon suppressed by the Church in the Middle Ages.

The BBC is taking a big risk with a pop Passion performed on the streets of Manchester, says Peter Stanford

Kirk Franklin talks bluntly about salvation, challenges

Although she remains one of the most distinctive and soulful singers to emerge in the '90s, in recent years Sinead O'Connor has been known as much for the controversies she's caused (starting with her notorious Pope-bashing appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992) and the confusion over her public pronouncements (among them her statements on religion and the news that she was retiring from singing) as for her music.

Religion and rock have never mixed that well, but the BBC is hoping to change all that with a spectacular live televised event in Manchester this Easter.

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