By Mariel Concepcion 15 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - When rapper Flo Rida set a digital sales record with his single "Low," which moved 470,000 copies the first week of January despite not being available on an album, it was emblematic of an intriguing trend.

Digital hip-hop song sales are at an all-time high, but in terms of digital album commerce, hip-hop is lagging behind other genres. In 2007, of 500.4 million albums sold industry-wide, 10 percent were sold digitally. In comparison, of the 41.7 million rap albums sold, only 7 percent (2.9 million) of those were digital.

So far this year (through the week ending February 17), according to Nielsen SoundScan, overall album sales stood at 56.4 million, with 15.4 percent of that figure being digital (8.6 million). Of the 4 million rap albums sold, 11.2 percent have been digital (447,000).

Two indie labels are seeking a solution. Amalgam Digital, which claims it is the first hip-hop-specific online retail store, and Def Jux, which is finalizing plans to expand its label site to a full-blown digital store, are experimenting with new ways to boost the genre's download sales stats.

Amalgam general manager Jay Andreozzi believes that the label not only creates a platform for indie hip-hop artists who otherwise might find it difficult to get music featured on iTunes or Rhapsody, but that it also will aid in shifting hip-hop's digital figures.

The label is committed, Andreozzi says, to "new strategies like additional bonus tracks or a cappella versions of the album or exclusive digital-only albums."

An example of the latter is Joe Budden's "Mood Muzik 3.5." The digital-only album was made available earlier this year exclusively on Amalgam's Web site before the release of "Padded Room," the New Jersey rapper's official sophomore release, due this spring via the label. In addition, a limited-edition a cappella version of "Padded Room" will be made available free to fans who buy the album from the Amalgam site.

SINGLES VS. ALBUMS

Bill Crowley, vice president of digital/mobile for Koch Entertainment, says that although specialty stores have been successful in the past, he isn't certain a hip-hop-specific store will do as well.

"There's a really healthy hip-hop market on the digital side, but they aren't the most likely to buy full-length albums," he says, referring to the that hip-hop culture historically has centered on singles rather than full-length releases.

"While a lot of hip-hop fans can tell you their top 10 hip-hop albums, there are plenty that love the genre, but aren't embedded in the culture, that can't," says Jason King, artistic director at New York University's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. "Hip-hop has never really been a concept-album-driven culture."

Still, Def Jux plans on adopting the same free/bonus content policy Amalgam has implemented when it expands its online store in coming months. Currently, the site sells only music by Def Jux artists.

"You can put all the B-sides and exclusive digital content on there to further draw people in," label manager Jesse Ferguson says. "You can add CDs, sneakers, sweatshirts, plus an entire catalog digitally, and not worry about it being in stock or not."

Andreozzi believes that signing former major-label artists like Budden (whose 2003 self-titled Def Jam debut has sold 526,000 copies) to indie labels will further facilitate growth in online album sales.

"We had the highest-selling individual album on Amalgam with Joe, and now, when we do his next album, we will hopefully be able to do it on a bigger scale," Andreozzi says.

Crowley says, "There's a lot of success to be had when a high-profile artist finds their way to an indie," but he still believes singles sales will remain on top. "It all comes down to delivering tracks people want," he says. "Still, if they buy an album or a single, it beats the alternative of people not caring at all, or caring so little they'd opt to download illegally."

Reuters/Billboard

7 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony have reportedly named their newborn twins Max and Emme.

Lopez’ manager, Simon Fields, confirmed the babies’ names to People magazine on Friday.

The twins were born at a Long Island hospital on Feb. 22, with 5-pound, 7-ounce Emme arriving about 15 minutes before her 6-pound brother. The hospital’s name was not disclosed.

Fields said then that Lopez, a first-time mother at 39, was “thrilled” at the babies’ arrival. The 38-year-old Anthony has three other children.

The Latin music power couple married in 2004.

The babies arrived a day after both their parents were named as winners of Latin music’s “Premio Lo Nuestro” awards. Lopez won this year’s award for best solo pop singer, while Anthony was named salsa artist of the year.

___

On the Net:

People: http://www.people.com/people

Jennifer Lopez: http://www.jenniferlopez.com

By Ayala Ben-Yehuda 47 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Three years after Angel & Khriz's mega-hit "Ven Bailalo" rode the reggaeton explosion all the way to Europe, the duo is back with a quirky new song for an evolving genre.

"La Vecina," the first single from the Puerto Rican pair's March 11 "Showtime" album on VI/Machete, layers electric and acoustic guitar and trumpets over the familiar reggaeton beat.

Angel & Khriz have been featured on a couple of reggaeton hits since hitting No. 3 on the Hot Latin Songs chart with "Ven Bailalo" in 2005, but their new album represents something of a comeback. The two have toured Spain and Latin America, and parted ways with indie label MVP to join VI/Machete, home to superstars Don Omar and Hector "El Father."

"We were (touring) all these countries and at the same time getting a little bit of each culture," Khriz (aka Christian Colon) says. "With the music we heard, we wanted to make an album that was for everyone. 'La Vecina' is an example of that."

As to what's happened in the years since Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina" was a massive crossover hit in 2004-05, Khriz says that reggaeton has firmly established itself as a genre with discerning fans, whether the music is trendy or not.

"Those who make good reggaeton will stand out," he says. "The genre won't die."

Reuters/Billboard

By Jill Menze 51 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - After dabbling in nearly every area of the music industry, Grammy Award-winning producer/musician and "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson is adding "solo album" to his already impressive resume, and he's bringing "Idol" colleague Paula Abdul along for the venture.

The Abdul-driven "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow" is the first single from "Randy Jackson's Music Club, Vol. 1," due March 11 via Jackson's new Concord Music Group imprint Dream Merchant 21. The 12-track collection showcases a diverse range of artists, from established vets like Mariah Carey, Travis Tritt and Richie Sambora to such up-and-coming talents as Barbi Esco and Kelli Selah.

For Abdul, whose last new single was 1995's "Crazy Cool," the collaboration with Jackson consummated several years of vague conversations about working together. But during July 2007 "Idol" auditions in San Diego, Jackson got specific.

"Randy kept saying to me, 'I've got the perfect song for you. It sounds like you, like now, it's like a nod to you and your past, but it's you now,"' Abdul says. "And he played it, and it was after the first two bars I knew it was a hit. I knew it was a total smash."

Jackson and Abdul premiered the single January 18 on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show in Los Angeles, and the song reached the Super Bowl audience in Abdul's pregame performance.

The track re-enters the Pop 100 this week at No. 57 and debuts at No. 80 on the Hot 100.

Jackson's album taps into a range of genres, from the duet of "Idol" alums Katherine McPhee and Elliott Yamin to Joss Stone and the Clipse's cover of Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By" to John Rich, Anthony Hamilton and Sara Watkins' countrified take of Michael Buble's "Home"

"I've never really wanted to do a solo record," Jackson says, adding that the melange of styles is a nod to his multicultural hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "But I always said that if I did one, I'd love to do one like those Quincy Jones albums like 'Back on the Block' (and) 'Dude' … They showcased new talent he was trying to break."

In addition to starting up his label, Jackson was recently named senior A&R consultant/producer for Concord/Stax and is executive-producing the MTV series "Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew." At Dream Merchant, Jackson is working on records for newcomers Esco and Selah.

He says the goal of the label is to stay small and cultivate talented singers and songwriters, not necessarily break the next big pop star. "Great writing and great singing — that's great artistry. That's what the label stands for, and that's why I called it Dream Merchant — where your dreams come true."

Reuters/Billboard

53 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - After seven years without a new studio album, the Black Crowes are particularly keen to play some fresh tunes.

So when they launch their latest tour in Sayreville, N.J., on Sunday to promote the March 4 release "Warpaint," they will perform all the songs from the album from start to finish.

"We want this album and we want these songs to have a little space and time on their own before they get mashed up into … all the other material we play," said singer Chris Robinson, who leads the Black Crowes with his younger brother Rich, the band's guitarist.

The Black Crowes' last album, "Lions," came out in 2001. After constant sibling rivalry, they went on hiatus for three years, and got back together in 2005.

The current lineup includes two new members, North Mississippi Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson and keyboardist Adam MacDougall, who join bassist Sven Pipien and drummer Steve Gorman.

"I feel the band has been very good the last few years, even with all the changes and things," Robinson notes. "We've done a lot of different things, really opened it up, played a lot of catalog, played a lot of covers. We've hit a lot of things musically that I think were interesting for us.

The "One Night Only" theater tour wraps March 20 in Los Angeles. The Black Crowes will then wing their way to Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 1991.

Reuters/Billboard

By Ken Tucker 39 minutes ago

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - After a professional dry spell and a period of personal turmoil, country star Chris Cagle has returned to the promised land.

His fourth album, "My Life's Been a Country Song" (Capitol Nashville), debuts at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums this week, his second chart-topper. The set, which sold 37,000 first-week copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, also debuts at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, his first top 10 entry on the big chart.

Meanwhile, first single "What Kinda Gone" is No. 9 on Hot Country Songs. It's Cagle's first trip into the airplay top 10 since "Chicks Dig It" peaked at No. 5 in late 2003.

The success follows a number of setbacks for Cagle. In addition to an ongoing lawsuit involving his former manager, Cagle suffered vocal problems and the shock of learning that a baby he thought was his had been fathered by someone else.

"I was beat up and broken-hearted and locked in a bottle, and there's a lot of the last couple years that I don't remember," he says. "At the same time, I had some growing up to do."

After selling more than 600,000 copies of each of his first two albums and scoring four top 10 airplay singles, including the No. 1 "I Breathe In, I Breathe Out," Cagle's third album sold less than 400,000 units and didn't produce any radio hits.

The new set features none of his own material — a departure from earlier albums. After sifting through hundreds of reviews, his new producer, Scott Hendricks, told Cagle that his material was keeping him from being a bigger star.

"That was hard for me to swallow," Cagle says.

Cagle and Hendricks turned to songs from Nashville's top tunesmiths, including Dave Berg, Craig Wiseman, Brett James, Wendell Mobley and Neil Thrasher.

"I'm a songwriter," Cagle says. "But the bottom line is, as an artist, you got to make the best music, period."

Reuters/Billboard

By RONALD BLUM, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Anthony Dean Griffey stood on the vast stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, leaning ever so slightly to his right, looking out to the auditorium and beyond it to the sea. Condemned by the citizens of The Borough, he collapsed as if he had been split in two.

Misfit or monster? Perhaps both.

Each audience member will have to make his own judgment at the Met’s new production of Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” the company’s first in 41 years. The staging by John Doyle, who directed reinterpretations of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” and “Company” on Broadway, is a driven, intense evening of opera as theater that leaves Grimes’ essence ambiguous.

“Grimes” is a dark work, with themes of ostracism and vengeance, and undertones of child abuse and homophobia. It’s a tough sell — there were empty seats at Thursday night’s opening and plenty of tickets are available for the remaining six performances, including the March 15 matinee that will be simulcast to theaters worldwide.

Yet, the tale of the iconoclast fisherman is the most powerful opera written since World War II, and Griffey’s fascinating performance should not be missed. Peter Pears, Britten’s partner, originated the role in 1947 and Jon Vickers owned it for two decades with an angry, twitching interpretation that Britten was said to have disliked.

Griffey shows fits of anger, slapping Ellen Orford, the widowed schoolmistress whom he hopes to marry, and locking his arm around the neck of John, his replacement apprentice. He alternates love and anger, as if he were bipolar before ultimately cracking up after John slips and dies.

With a sweet tone and soaring voice, and sweat dripping down his bearded face onto his gray sweater, Griffey brought to mind his portrayal nearly a decade ago of another outsider, Lennie in Carlisle Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men.”

Wanting to replace Tyrone Guthrie’s 1967 staging, which was mounted for Vickers, the Met originally planned a co-production with the Salzburg Easter Festival that was directed by Trevor Nunn. After that version was mounted in 2005, the Met switched course and hired Doyle. Then the Met parted ways with the original star, Neil Shicoff, and turned to Griffey.

A dark wooden wall that rises to the proscenium 54 feet above the stage is Scott Pask’s central set for the prologue and all three acts. The wall moves back and forth in sections to depict town hall, the city, the Boar Inn and Grimes’ hut, and it often serves as a huge barrier between the distrusted Grimes and his neighbors.

Based on a poem by George Crabbe, the opera begins with an inquest that determines Grimes’ first apprentice, William Spode, died of “accidental circumstances.” Grimes and Orford sing “Here is a friend,” but as they leave the stage on opposite sides, they shoot each other unnerving cold looks

Doyle misfires only at the end — when the set is being pulled back for the final scene, in which the village people watch Grimes’ boat sink, the noise from the set movement breaks the mood of Britten’s shimmering music evoking the sea and birds, which reprises the first of Britten’s famous Sea Interludes. For the final moments, about two dozen men, women and children in modern black dress were on a scaffold at the back of the stage looking on, with bright light behind them — they looked as if they were posing for a Gap ad. What was the point? That the story is timeless?

Griffey was surrounded by a strong supporting cast led by Patricia Racette as Ellen Orford. Dressed by Ann Hould-Ward as a suffragette, she alternated warmth and wariness, and comes off as somewhat detached. She sets the tone for the evening when she sings to the town: “Let her among you without fault cast the first stone.”

Both Griffey and Racette went out of their way to be precise in their diction of Montagu Slater’s libretto.

With mutton chops, John Del Carlo was pompous yet authoritative as Swallow, the town lawyer. Anthony Michaels-Moore was chilling as Captain Balstrode when he told Grimes to “Sail out till you lose sight of land, then sink the boat. D’you hear? Sink her. Goodbye, Peter.” Felicity Palmer was a caricature of a ninny as Mrs. Sedley.

Leah Partridge made her Met debut and sang sweetly with Erin Morley as the two nieces, and Teddy Tahu Rhodes made his Met debut as Ned Keane. Completing the cast were Dean Peterson (Hobson), Jill Grove (Auntie), Greg Fedderly (Bob Boles) and Bernard Fitch (Rev. Horace Adams).

As big a star as Griffey was the chorus, which in its vicious condemnation of Grimes serves as a model for an oppressive majority. Lined across the stage, appearing monolithic in black clothes with dark green jackets, it lent a haunting mood, and the singing was outstanding.

Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles, a rare lefty on the podium, made Britten’s magical score shimmer.

___

On the Net:

http://www.metopera.org

54 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Carly Simon has joined former husband James Taylor, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell on the roster of Starbucks' Hear Music label. Her first release for the company, "This Kind of Love," will be available April 29.

The 13-track set, Simon's first album of original material since 2000's Columbia Records release "The Bedroom Tapes," boasts a Brazilian-heavy sound.

"You don't have to be singing bossa nova or samba to get the essence" of Brazilian music," Simon says. "There are songs that fit no one rhythm or generic type or song progression."

One song each was written by Sally and Ben Taylor, Simon's children with Taylor.

Reuters/Billboard

By Stefano Ambrogi 26 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The architects of British punk have been quietly passing on the baton to a new generation in a tiny London bar, but the secret is out and about to hit America.

Founding members of the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Generation X and a collection of young bands have revived the spirit of 1970s London punk rock at a series of small gigs in the Clash's old stomping grounds in London's Notting Hill neighborhood.

Clash founding member Mick Jones has returned to his roots and, judging by the six-week residency at the packed out Inn On The Green, is staying true to his punk ideals.

Fronting his latest band Carbon/Silicon with Tony James, formerly of Generation X, the pair have used a regular ticketless Friday night rock extravaganza to promote a string of local bands many of whom can't be a day older than 15.

For just 10 pounds ($20) at the bar door, teenage bands like the Sandanistas belt out covers of the Clash's "White Riot" and "Magnificent Seven" to a 150-capacity crowd as Jonesy, clearly enjoying himself, dances in the audience.

"We wanted to do something for local acts, local talent," said Tony James, calmly rubbing shoulders with fans at the bar ahead of a recent gig.

"We'd never of thought it was gonna be like this!" a beaming Mick Jones dripping with sweat tells a mostly 40-something rapturous crowd who queued around the block to get in.

His band, then storms through songs laced with Clash-style riffs and harmonies from Carbon/Silicon's first commercially available album released last year.

And there are surprises for old punk aficionados too. Lots of them.

The first show saw ex-Clash drummer Nicky "Topper" Headon take to the stage for encores of Clash classics "Train in Vain" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go." It was the first time the pair had played together for 25 years.

Subsequent nights have seen the Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock and Paul Cook step up from the audience to do show stoppers like the Pistols' cover of "Stepping Stone."

Other guests have included Manchester's punk poet John Cooper Clarke, who regularly opened for the Pistols, Buzzcocks and Joy Division during the 1970s; Liverpool's Pete Wylie from Wah!, and even members of The Pogues.

Don Letts, film director and musician, credited with fusing punk and reggae when DJing at the infamous Roxy club in London in the 1970s, films the shows.

In between numerous local acts, like the colorful Rotten Hill Gang, playing a mash up of rap, dub and rock, and talented buskers whipped off the street by Mick Jones, BBC DJ Gary Crowley spins vinyl on the decks.

Carbon/Silicon play a final ticketless seventh show, dubbed "a spectacular finale" at the Inn On The Green on Friday ahead of their first 19-date North American tour in March and April.

Full venue details for the shows are available on Carbon/Silicon's official website at http://www.carbonsiliconinc.com/gigs.aspx

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Paul Casciato)

($1=.5045 Pound)

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer 16 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Is will.i.am angling for a job in a Barack Obama White House?

The Black Eyed Peas frontman on Friday released another star-studded music video in tribute to the presidential campaign of the Democratic senator — this one is titled “We Are The Ones.”

Backed by a simple vocal refrain of “O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!,” stars such as Jessica Alba, Ryan Phillippe, Kerry Washington, George Lopez and others explain why they support Obama while others such as Macy Gray croon the candidates’ last name to the will.i.am-penned melody.

The song is a follow-up to his inspirational video “Yes We Can,” a viral sensation that has garnered more than 5 million hits on YouTube.com alone. That song features Obama’s voice from a New Hampshire concession speech set to will.i.am’s music and melody, plus vocalizations of the speech from the likes of Scarlet Johansson, John Legend, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Herbie Hancock and other celebrity supporters. The chorus is one of Obama’s campaign slogans: “Yes We Can.”

The “We Are The Ones” video comes before Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio. Obama is leading his rival, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the delegate count for the nomination.

___

On the Net:

http://www.WeAreTheOnesSong.com