Music Notes: Madonna Cancels Concert

Aug. 3 -- Madonna's hectic pace on the "Drowned World" tour is apparently catching up with her. The singer canceled tonight's New Jersey appearance after coming down with laryngitis.

The Continental Airlines Arena concert will not be rescheduled, her spokeswoman said. It would have been her seventh and final sold-out New York-area performance of the tour.

"Her voice just gave out," publicist Liz Rosenberg told Reuters. "She wouldn't do a tour unless she was at her fullpeak. It's not Madonna."

News of the cancellation came as a surprise to a fan at Thursday night's concert. "She sounded great last night," concertgoer Liz Gatto said. "No strain in her voice, she was bopping and dancing and swinging and singing."

Gatto had just one complaint about the singer's overall performance: "I wish she did some more oldies."

Madonna now has several days to recuperate. Her next scheduled performance is in Boston on Aug. 7. That concert had been previously rescheduled due to logistical reasons.

Founder of Grammy-Winning 5th Dimension Dies

The 5th Dimension is mourning the loss of founding member Ron Townson, who died Thursday in Las Vegas at age 68 after suffering from kidney disease.

Townson helped form the smooth-sounding pop group in the 1960s, winning four Grammys in 1968 for the Jimmy Webb song "Up Up and Away."

He retired from the 5th Dimension in 1997 to deal with his illness, but had hoped he would some day return to singing.

"Ron always felt that he would get well enough that he wouldperform again," his wife Bobette told The Associated Press. "He never lost his desire to dothat."

Townson formed the group in 1965 with his childhood friend LaMonte McLemore, and Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis.

'N Sync Nearly Ties Themselves

Critics have said teen pop is out of fashion. 'N Sync is laughing all the way to the bank.

The boy band is setting the record for the second biggest album debut in history, selling 1.88 million copies of Celebrity, according to Soundscan. They're only outranked by themselves. Their last album, No Strings Attached, sold 2.4 million when it debuted last year.