Europe awards: they’ll get their MTV

By Eileen Murphy

Dear, dirty Dublin will cement its reputation as Europe’s youngest, hippest and, well, most happenin’ when it hosts next year’s MTV Europe Music Awards Show.

The powers that be at MTV-E (hey, that rhymes!) are leaning toward holding the melodious — or is that malodorous? — megashow at the Point Depot, but they’re keeping an open mind.

MTV-E president Brent Hansen, fresh from this year’s blowout in Milan, told reporters: “I’ve always wanted to take it to Dublin. They haven’t had a major MTV show there before.”

Of course, no performers are set yet, but one can only assume that all of Ireland’s big names will be on hand for the festivities: U2, the Cranberries, Sinead, BoyZone, etc. And maybe there’ll be another “Riverdance”-type intermission show. . . . The rest, of course, would be history.

Happy, happy . . .

In addition to performing at next month’s Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony, the Cranberries have loads of other plans for the near future.

The Limerick-based band — who’ve been on hiatus for the last couple of years due to health and various other concerns — are fighting fit, and ready to reclaim their place at the top of the pop charts. They’ve finished work on a new album, which is scheduled for release in March. They’ve got a new single, “Promises,” which is due out in February. And they’ve got a fresh outlook on the world, though lead singer Dolores O’Riordan says this is really a throwback to the band’s early days, before they were awed by their own success.

“There’s a lot of bizarre material on it,” said O’Riordan. “There’s a lot of strange songs. In the early days, when the band started, we used to write more funny, freaky songs.”

After the band achieved international stardom with “Everyone’s Doing It, So Why Can’t We” and “Faithful Departed,” the tone of their songs changed.

“I think we were too much in the limelight, and we felt too freaked out, so the writing got a little bit sensible there for a while,” O’Riordan said. “Now it’s sort of silly again, with a sense of humor and a little bit of piss-taking and that sort of thing. The album sounds happy.”

. . . Joy, joy

After months of innocently batting their eyelids and denying that there’s a new album in the works, U2 — via longtime producer/collaborator Brian Eno — has confirmed that they are indeed back in the saddle again.

Eno told Hot Press that he and Daniel Lanois, another longtime U2 producer, have started work on the band’s new project, which will probably be released some time next year.

You’ll all be relieved to know that, after their recent, vaguely melancholy efforts like “Pop,” “Passengers” and even “Zooropa,” the boys are looking to create “joy.” Brian, explain.

“It’s too early in that project to say what new ideas are coming up,” he told the audience at the recent Belfast Festival. “The only thing that is appearing as a theme, as an idea, is an attempt to do the most difficult thing in music, which is to create joy. That is extremely hard.

“It’s easy to make energy, it’s easy to make cleverness,” he continued. “It’s easy to make intrigue, it’s easy to make glamour. But it’s very hard . . . to make music that really grips you and lifts you in some way.”

Eno admitted that he had been disappointed in “Pop,” which he considered “overwrought” and “too reliant on technology.” But he also revealed that his favorite U2 memory was the band’s concert in Sarajevo during the PopMart world tourNo ring’s around for Rosie

If you’re of a certain age and are feeling at all melancholy or close to tears, you may want to skip this next item. Then again, if you’re a bachelorette on the prowl for available singing stars, read on.

It seems that poor, wee Daniel O’Donnell, the sweetest, most eligiblest crooner to ever come out of Kincasslagh, is nursing a broken heart after splitting with his Scottish girlfriend, Rose Lynagh. The two have gone their separate ways — Daniel to his mammy’s home in Donegal, Rose to her parents’ abode in Glasgow — to nurse their aching hearts.

Friends deny that the whirlwind romance ended badly.

“There was no acrimonious split,” a source told the Sunday World. “Daniel had decided simply that the relationship cannot mature any further.” Well, not now, anyway.

Briefings

Worth a look: this month’s issue of “Life” magazine, which features a cover story by “Angela’s Ashes” author Frank McCourt on the perception of God and religion in America.

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U2’s “Best of 1980-1990” is still No. 1 on the Irish album charts, beating out George Michael, Oasis and Alanis Morisette.

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Looking for a two minute thrill? Got nine bucks burning a hole in your pocket?

Well, first, get your mind out of the gutter, and second, you might want to join the crowds at your neighborhood movie house to catch the preview for the upcoming Star Wars movie. (The film stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and a cast of thousands.) The movie won’t even open until next spring, but people are actually plunking down money just to see the commercial, and leaving before the main feature starts . . .

Home Alone 3

Gay Byrne’s “Late Late Show” viewers got a good laugh last week when a teenager tried to pretend that she was her own mother in order to win a car.

Eileen Wyler and her husband had gone out for dinner when Uncle Gaybo picked her name out of a hat and declared her the winner of the car. The only catch was that Eileen had to be home when Gay rang the house.

Eileen’s daughters, Jean, 18, and Christine, 12, were home alone when Byrne called. Thinking quickly, Jean tried to pretend that she was her mother, not realizing that she sounded extremely young for a middle-aged woman. The audience laughed uproariously as Byrne quizzed the teenager, who tripped up when asked her date of birth.

Though Mrs. Wyler was proud of the girls for doing their best to win, she reveals that “Jean’s absolutely mortified after it all.”

Byrne was impressed with the Wyler girls’ attempts to win. “Good thinking, but it didn’t work.”

The family did receive a consolation prize, though, unfortunately, it doesn’t feature four-wheel drive or a sun roof.