Grammys to feature first dance music segment

Grammy show producer Ken Ehrlich had considered putting dancing/electronica music into the ceremony in the past, but could never quite figure out how to incorporate the high-energy club feel in front of a sometimes staid audience.

He thinks he's figured it out this year. For the first time, the Grammy show will put the spotlight on the genre with a segment featuring Grammy nominees Deadmau5, the Foo Fighters, Chris Brown, David Guetta and Lil Wayne, all performing in a tent space amid 1,000 fans.

"We decided to go all out this year," Ehrlich said of the performance taking place outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where Sunday's ceremony will be held. "All we're going to try and do next week is to try and put the home audience in the middle of it. ... It is more than just sitting there and watching it."

Dance music did not receive its own category until 2003 with the best dance recording/dance field, and the music had not been featured with its own segment in the show.

"I don't know that I figured out a way to do it that felt right until now," Ehrlich said in an interview Monday. "My feeling about dance is it's such an immersive experience for the participant, that to put it on stage ... where the audience is not a part of it ... I don't know, honestly, until we came up with the idea of doing it this way, I don't know if it ever would have worked."

Ehrlich calls the performance the "most ambitious number that we've ever done outside the Staples Center." It will feature at least four cameras from audience level as Deadmau5 (pronounced dead mouse) and the Foo Fighters perform his remixed version of the band's song "Rope," which netted him one of his Grammy nominations, and as Brown and Lil Wayne perform with Guetta.

Ehrlich said the performance reflects the popularity of dance music over the past few years.

"As much as a recorded medium that it is, and the fact that it's selling a lot of CDs and downloads, it's really a live experience," he said. "It is more than just sitting there and watching it."

Other performers on the show include Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Brown, Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift for what Ehrlich boasted would be a "pretty amazing show."

"What I try and do when we're building this show is to think about the audience first. ... What can I do that's going to keep an audience for 3 1/2 hours watching the Grammy Awards?" he said. "I do try and look for how broad I can make it and still assume that people are going to tune in and stay with it."

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Nekesa Mumbi Moody, the AP's music writer, reported from New York. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi.

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Lana Del Rey has last laugh with high first Billboard

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - after weeks of media hype and ridicule, singer of Lana Del Rey had the last laugh Wednesday marking the debut more high of the week on the Billboard 200 album chart with his new record "Born To Die".

New York native Del Rey, who had Internet buzz especially after a volatile performance on sketch show "Saturday Night Live" U.S. last month, sold 76,000 copies of his album in its first week.

It was second only to the British singer Adele, who continues his reign for the week of 19 to no. 1 with "21."

In the wake of Del Rey a veteran singer Leonard Cohen, who has sold 41,000 copies of his 12th studio album, "Old ideas", a collection of songs recalling some prior and works the best-known Cohen as "Hallelujah".

Del Rey and new high entries of Cohen, they could not take first place Adele. It sold 121,000 copies of "21" in the week of his official return from throat surgery at the ceremony of the Grammy Awards Sunday.

The only other new entry in the top ten albums was singer of gospel, Fred Hammond, who have entered in table no. 8 with "God, love & Romance", while the party rockers LMFAO returned in the ranking with "Sorry for party rocking" at number 9 and ""Talk that Talk"Rihanna has jumped to the card to complete the top 10."

Battle of graph of next week will be seen if veteran rockers Van Halen can fall Adele first place with their new album, "A different kind of truth."

(Reports of Piya Sinha-Roy;) (Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Adele, Jason Mraz top 2012's first Billboard chart

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - British singer Adele kicked off 2012 just like much of 2011 -- at the top of the Billboard album charts, for a 15th week, with her best-selling "21".

Soul-pop singer Jason Mraz scored the year's first top song with "I Won't Give Up" at No. 1 on the Billboard Digital Songs chart, ahead of his eagerly anticipated fourth album.

"21" sold 124,000 copies, almost three times more than this week's No. 2 album, Drake's "Take Care." While album sales across the top 10 were down this week, the chart saw a resurgence of some of 2011's favorites, including Black Keys' "El Camino" up to No. 3, Coldplay's "Mylo Xyloto" back up at No. 5 and Rihanna's "Talk That Talk" up to No. 6.

The only new entry this week to break into the top 50 was alternative rock group SafetySuit's sophomore album "These Times," which entered the chart at No. 7.

In the digital songs chart, Mraz surpassed recent chart staples such as LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It," Rihanna's "We Found Love," with his new single.

The song was released after the singer posted a video on his website, which then spread through the social networks. It sold more than 229,000 download copies in its first week.

"I Won't Give Up" precedes Mraz's follow-up to 2008's "We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things," which included the hit single "I'm Yours" and earned a Grammy nomination.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Up for the first time since 2004 sales of albums in 2011 of the United States.

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U.S. 2011 album sales up for first time since 2004

(Reuters) - U.S. album sales rose in 2011 for the first time since 2004, partly reflecting cheaper album prices and special offers as well as a booming vinyl market, music industry analysts said on Wednesday.

Album sales grew by 1.4 percent to 330.6 million units in 2011 according to figures published in Billboard magazine, up from 326.2 million in 2010.

The small increase in the world's biggest music market will be welcome news to the industry after years of declining revenues.

"This can partially be due to aggressive pricing of albums in the marketplace, which are being priced a lot more economical for consumers, addressing their concerns that $10 for an album may be too expensive," Keith Caulfield, associate director of charts at Billboard.com told Reuters.

U.S. physical CD sales fell six percent last year, but the 20 percent increase in digital album downloads to a record 103.1 million more than made up for the losses, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

Digital song sales grew 8.5 percent in 2011 to a record 1.27 billion downloads, compared with 1.17 billion in 2010.

Vinyl album sales soared to 3.9 million copies, versus 2.8 million in 2010. Caulfield called the growth in vinyl albums "crazy," attributing it to an "untapped market."

"It's reaching two kinds of consumers -- the older consumers who remember vinyls fondly and may even have turntables, and the younger consumers who can have a physical copy in hand and have that artwork to look at," he said.

ADELE TOPS ALBUM, SINGLES SALES

As expected, British singer Adele's "21" was the top-selling album in the United States last year at 5.82 million copies, the highest annual tally since Usher's "Confessions" sold 7.98 million copies in 2004.

"21" outsold the second-best selling album, Michael Buble's "Christmas" ($2.45 million), by more than two to one. Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," rapper Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter IV" and country singer Jason Aldean's "My Kinda Party" rounded out the five top-selling albums.

Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" was also the best-selling U.S. single of 2011 at 5.81 million downloads, followed by LMFAO's dance track "Party Rock Anthem," which clocked in at 5.47 million. They were the only two digital tracks to cross the 5 million milestone in any calendar year.

Katy Perry's "E.T.," Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" and Pitbull's "Give Me Everything" rounded out the top five digital songs of the year.

Jim Donio, president of the U.S. National Association of Recording Merchandisers, said the increase in album sales was due to a variety of reasons "including more aggressive marketing efforts and offers, availability and consumer adoption of legitimate digital commerce models (and) the power of social media."

In Britain by contrast, album sales fell 5.6 percent to 113.2 million in 2011, according to figures from industry body BPI. Digital album sales rose 26.6 percent while CD sales slumped 12.6 percent to 86.2 million.

Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive, called on the British government to take tougher action against online piracy, the music industry's single biggest challenge.

"Unless decisive action is taken in 2012, investment in music could fall again -- a creative crunch that will destroy jobs and mean the next Adele may not get her chance to shine on the world stage," Taylor said.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White and Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant

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