SPLITSVILLE IN CYRUSTOWN

...and other Thursday headlines!
Listen starting TODAY to score your tix to see THE PLAIN WHITE T'S, our next Q92 Stripped Down show...what is this, like the 30th concert we've done this year? 35th? Damn we're awesome!!





ACHEY BREAKY HEART...
MILEY CYRUS' parents, BILLY RAY and TISH, are getting divorced after 17 years of marriage.

They issued a statement saying, "As you can imagine, this is a very difficult time for our family. We are trying to work through some personal matters. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers."

Billy Ray and Tish have three children together...Miley, who turns 18 next month...a son named Braison, who's 16...and a daughter named Noah, who's 10.

Billy Ray also adopted Tish's son and daughter from a previous relationship...21-year-old Trace (from the group METRO STATION) and 23-year-old Brandi.

And Billy Ray has a son named Christopher, who's about the same age as Miley. Billy Ray and Tish weren't married at the time Christopher was conceived...and Christopher was raised by his mother.

Billy Ray was the one who filed the papers, but so-called "sources" say the divorce was a long time coming, and no third party was involved.

Dang. Parents getting divorced. Hopefully, this won't cause Miley to act out by dating older guys and dressing like a slut. Oh, wait...






MORE ON XTINA...
TMZ asked SAMANTHA RONSON if she's dating CHRISTINA AGUILERA. She said no. And that's all she said. Still makes me wonder if that means BENJI from GOOD CHARLOTTE is involved...see my story from yesterday (next entry down)





KID SLAMS STEVEN...
If you think about it, it's interesting that none of STEVEN TYLER'S rock 'n' roll peers spoke out against him accepting the judging gig on "American Idol". I mean, that's one of the LEAST rock 'n' roll things he could've done.

But now someone HAS: KID ROCK. And he was pretty harsh.

In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", he says, "I think it's the stupidest thing he's ever done in his life. He's a sacred American institution of rock 'n' roll, and he just threw it all out the window. Just stomped on it and set it on fire.

"I think whoever's advising him, we should bring back the guillotine, or whatever they call that thing. And if it was himself, he needs some serious counseling. I love him to death, but I gotta speak the truth."






DRAKE SAYS 'YES' TO MORE HIP-HOP...
If you think DRAKE should be doing more singing than rapping, bad news...he disagrees with you.

He says, "I been rapping a lot lately. Me and [my producer] 40 have been doing some great rap music, so I sort of took a hiatus on the R&B for a second.

"It's cool to do R&B...I love it...but it's just hard for me to always commit to it. Because some nights, I get in there and 40's beats, as melodic or R&B-driven as they may be, just have that right pocket that I just wanna spit."

What's the difference? Was anyone categorizing Drake as an R&B singer even when he wasn't "rapping" as much? And even if he was, it's not like this is a major career shift.

Drake seems to be part of a new school of hip-hop that strikes a balance between singing and rapping...along with Kid Cudi, Wale, Jeremih, and even Chris Brown and Kanye West.

The new style seems to make hip-hop more accessible and commercial...in my opinion anyway.






IN THE CAR MARKET...
"Consumer Reports" just put out the results of their annual survey about the most reliable car brands. And there aren't too many surprises.

MOST RELIABLE. Porsche, Honda, Toyota, and Volvo all scored the highest in reliability. Other brands that did well were Acura, Hyundai, Infiniti and Scion. Ford was the most reliable of the American car brands.

LEAST RELIABLE. Chrysler did the worst in the study...the Dodge Ram 1500 was their ONLY vehicle ranked as reliable. If you've heard "Fix It With Fred" on The DeLuca Show, you know he echoes that! Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Land Rover also came in near the bottom of the list.

MOST IMPROVED. GM is usually near the basement in these lists, but they worked their way up. They're still not at the top of the pack, but they did better than ever before...69% of their models were ranked as average or above average.

MOST RELIABLE OVERALL VEHICLE. The Porsche Boxster was named the most reliable car in the country.

LEAST RELIABLE OVERALL VEHICLE. The least reliable vehicle was a tie between the Audi A6 and the Jaguar XF.







TUBELESS TP!!!
It's kind of amazing it took so long for someone to think of this: On Monday, the first toilet paper without a cardboard tube in the middle started hitting stores. And that could mean BIG THINGS for the environment.

Kimberly-Clark is the company that makes Scott toilet paper, and they started testing the tubeless toilet paper at Walmarts and Sam's Clubs in the Northeast. If it catches on, it should go nationwide and global soon.

Instead of keeping the hole in the middle of the roll with a cardboard tube, Kimberly-Clark uses a special winding process. The holes aren't perfectly round, but they still work in any bathroom.

The last few pieces are glued together to keep the roll intact until the end. And yes, it's safe to use the glued together pieces at the end...there is ZERO waste with these rolls.

This is a pretty big "green" effort by the toilet paper industry. Americans throw out 17 billion cardboard tubes from toilet paper every year...accounting for 160 MILLION POUNDS of trash every year.

If they were stretched end to end, the amount of cardboard toilet paper tubes we throw away in a year could stretch to the Moon and back...twice. That's well over one million miles.

Kimberly-Clark says that if the toilet paper tests go well, they could also start producing tube-free paper towels, too.







Have a great Thursday!