Adnan Sami’s new album Press Play which was released ahead of schedule to beat piracy has become an instant seller. The album had been illegally downloaded a few weeks ago and the release therefore had to be preponed. We now hear that each of the songs is expected to get a renewed shelf-life through music videos. Each of the tracks in the album will feature one Bollywood diva dancing with Adnan in the music videos.

This has happened to only two artistes Taylor Swift and Kanye West, and never to an Indian musician. Saturday 12 January would go down as a ‘dread’-letter day in music-maker Adnan Sami’s life. Adnan woke up on that fateful day to discover to his horror that his entire new album to be released at month-end, had been leaked on the internet. “Not 1, not 2, not 5 songs. But all 11 songs from my new album <em>Press Play</em> were out on 60-80 websites in no time at all. It was a frigging nightmare,” says Adnan with a shudder.

Adnan Sami intends to enhance his security. The two bouncers who travel with him were unable to hold back the crowds that stormed into his hotel room at Durban last weekend when Adnan descended on the city for a stage concert. The good news is that Adnan Sami’s concert in Durban on Saturday was attended by 25,000 people. The bad news is that a section of the fans decided they needed to get closer to their performing idol.

On Sunday evening last week while performing live in Oslo Adnan Sami broke down and wept in front of 40,000 people. The stunned audience which just seconds earlier was clapping and cheering and singing along didn’t know how to react to Adnan’s sudden mood swing. They sat in pin-drop silence as Adnan stopped mid-way through a song and …well, according to his wife Roya who was in the audience, he simply wept like a baby. In all these 25 years as a live performer Adnan has never been known to let his emotions take over his professional judgment. So what gave?

Although the Ambanis, Mukesh and Nita had a posh dinner at their Antilla residence and the Bachchans could not attend Adnan’s birthday because of their prior commitment to the Ambanis, it was a massive birthday turnout at Adnan Sami’s residence in Lokhandwala on Saturday evening. Some of the guests from the Ambanis’ list hop skipped and jumped over to Adnan’s party.

He was down from 230 kgs to 85 kgs. And now Adnan Sami has lost more 10 kgs …And he is growing his hair to shoulder-length. With reason. Ranbir Kapoor, move over. The new Rock Star in tinsel town is getting ready to hit the marquee. Adnan Sami’s happiness after the divorce seems to be taking him into the most unexpected areas of celebration. Adnan is all set to play a musician who battles the bulge, bickering <em>biwi</em>, slithering superstardom everything from obesity to anonymity to finally emerge triumphant.