Adele's "21" is top-selling U.S. iTunes album of 2012

 British singer Adele notched another accolade on Thursday as iTunes announced that her Grammy-winning album "21" was the top-selling record of 2012 in its U.S. store, extending the disc's successful run almost two years after it was released.
Adele, 24, who last year became the first artist to secure three iTunes milestones with top-selling album, single and artist of the year, came in ahead of country-pop star Taylor Swift's "Red" and British folk band Mumford & Sons' "Babel."
ITunes did not reveal its sales or download figures.
British boy band One Direction's debut album "Up All Night" and current Grammy nominees fun.'s debut "Some Nights" rounded out the five top-selling albums on iTunes in the United States.
"21," released in February 2011, has performed strongly in the U.S. music charts this year following the singer's Grammy-sweeping win in six categories in February 2012.
Adele also landed Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations for her sultry James Bond theme song "Skyfall" this week, becoming a strong contender in the best song category for Hollywood's awards season.
"Thank you so much for the honor of being included in something as brilliant as the Golden Globes! Never in a million years did I ever think I'd come close to such a thing! Truly wonderful ... thank you to the Bond family for giving me the opportunity," the singer said in a statement on Thursday.
ITunes U.S. compiled their Best of 2012 list by looking at the most downloaded items from the Apple iTunes store.
Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen had the top-selling track for her infectious breakthrough summer single "Call Me Maybe."
Post-apocalyptic action film "The Hunger Games" was the best-selling movie while the second season of British aristocratic period drama "Downton Abbey," another Hollywood awards favorite, was iTunes' top-selling television series.

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One Direction, Rihanna, Adele lead Billboard 2012 charts

Newcomer British boy band One Direction joined R&B diva Rihanna and British singer Adele to top Billboard's year-end music charts, released on Friday.
One Direction, who topped the Billboard 200 album chart twice this year with their debut, "Up All Night" in March and their sophomore album "Take Me Home" in November, were named Billboard's top new artist/group, rounding off a stellar year of U.S. success for the band.
Adele, 24, who became the first woman top score No. 1 single, album and artist on Billboard's 2011 year-end charts, continued her reign in 2012, when her Grammy-winning record "21" was the top-selling album in the U.S. and she was once again named artist of the year.
"21" has sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. since its release in February 2011, becoming a fixture on the Billboard 200, especially after Adele's six wins at the Grammy Awards earlier this year.
She is the only act to be named both top artist and have the top album in Billboard's charts for two years in a row.
Adele was also named the No. 1 female artist while R&B rapper-singer Drake was named No. 1 male artist and pop-rock band Maroon 5 were named No. 1 group.
Rihanna, also 24, was named the top Hot 100 artist after a year of chart-topping hit singles such as "We Found Love" and "Diamonds" on the Hot 100 chart, which measures top-selling singles each week.
But Australia's Gotye picked up the Hot 100 single of the year, with his heartbreak hit "Somebody That I Used To Know."
Billboard compile their end-of-year lists based on chart performances between December 3 2011 and November 24 2012, tallying data including album sales and streaming figures.

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Pop star Kelly Clarkson announces engagement

Kelly Clarkson, who became the first contestant to win "American Idol" a decade ago and went on to several chart-topping successes, has gotten engaged to her boyfriend, the singer said in a Twitter message on Saturday.
Clarkson, 30, previously revealed she had been dating talent manager Brandon Blackstock since early this year. Blackstock is the stepson of country singer Reba McEntire.
"I'M ENGAGED!" Clarkson said on Twitter. "I wanted y'all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night!"
She then followed that by posting a link to a photo of her canary yellow diamond engagement ring on a website. She wrote that her boyfriend helped design it and that she "can't wait to make Brandon's ring."
Clarkson's album "Stronger" hit No. 2 last year on the Billboard 200 sales chart, and she in previous years topped pop charts with her songs "My Life Would Suck Without You" and "A Moment Like This."
The Texas-born singer won the Fox television singing contest "American Idol" in the show's debut year in 2002, and has had more success than many of the show's stars from following years.
Clarkson has burnished an image as an artist willing to speak her mind, even confessing to feelings of loneliness.
Last month, in an appearance on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show," Clarkson said she had been dating Blackstock since earlier this year and was thankful to have him.
"I am not alone for the first time for Thanksgiving and Christmas and I'm very happy," she said on the show.
In the same November appearance, Clarkson said she expected to get engaged to Blackstock. "We will totally, probably elope," she told DeGeneres.

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Sirius XM to pay higher music royalty fees

Sirius XM Radio Inc will pay a bigger percentage of revenue toward music royalties for sound recordings, following a decision made by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, the satellite radio provider said on Monday.
Judges at the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board determined last Friday that Sirius should pay higher royalty rates over the next five years to SoundExchange, the non-profit group that collects royalties from Sirius as well as Internet radio and cable TV companies on behalf of recording artists and record labels.
Sirius currently pays 8 percent of a portion of its gross revenue to SoundExchange, but after Friday's ruling, the rate will rise each year until 2017, when the agreement expires.
ISI analyst Vijay Jayant estimated the company paid about $250 million to SoundExchange in 2012, and will pay $324 million next year.
Analysts, on average, expect Sirius to generate $3.41 billion in revenue in 2012, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The royalty will increase to 9 percent in 2013, 9.5 percent in 2014, 10 percent in 2015, 10.5 percent for 2016, and 11 percent for 2017, Sirius said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sirius XM and SoundExchange were involved in lawsuits over the fees.
The new rates were better than expected and will be "modestly positive" for Sirius' earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization," according to ISI, an investment research firm.
Last Friday, when the Copyright Royalty Board issued its decision, Sirius XM shares rose 6 percent.
"With increased clarity on the royalty fee front, we now expect there could be upside" to the company's earnings forecast next year, said Macquarie analyst Amy Yong said.
The board oversees copyright licenses and royalty payments in the United States.
Sirius, the largest U.S. satellite radio provider with more than 23 million subscribers, approved a $2 billion stock repurchase program on December 6 and issued a special dividend.
Its shares dipped 2 cents to $2.89 on Monday.

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The top 10 songs and albums on the iTunes Store

iTunes' Official Music Charts for the week ending Dec. 17, 2012
Top Songs:
1. "Locked Out of Heaven," Bruno Mars
2. "I Knew You Were Trouble," Taylor Swift
3. "Ho Hey," The Lumineers
4. "Stupid Boy," Cassadee Pope
5. "Scream & Shout (feat. Britney Spears)," will.i.am
6. "Diamonds," Rihanna
7. "Beauty and a Beat (feat. Nicki Minaj)," Justin Bieber
8. "Thrift Shop (feat. Wanz)," Ryan Lewis,Macklemore
9. "Gangnam Style," PSY
10. "Die Young," Ke$ha
Top Albums:
1. "12-12-12 The Concert for Sandy Relief," Various Artists
2. "Unorthodox Jukebox," Bruno Mars
3. "Jesus Piece," Game
4. "Christmas," Michael Buble
5. "Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album, Vol. 3," Glee Cast
6. "Red," Taylor Swift
7. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)," Howard Shore
8. "O.N.I.F.C. " Wiz Khalifa
9. "The Lumineers," The Lumineers
10. "Babel," Mumford & Sons

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School Modesty Club Says Cover Up

High-school freshman Saige Hatch was sick of seeing her peers revealing too much skin when she came to school each day.

The 15-year-old saw midriff-grazing tops, exposed cleavage, short shorts.

"From elementary to middle school, and then to high school, I noticed immodesty," she told ABCNews.com. "I really wanted to start a club to bring awareness to it and bring remembrance to what modesty is."

Inspired by her brother's No Cussing Club, Hatch started the Modesty Club at South Pasadena High School in South Pasadena, Calif., in September to bring attention to her cause.

"A shift is coming, sneaking through the literal fabric of our culture," read a statement on the club's website. "Our bright heroic women are being made the fool. A fool to think that to be loved they must be naked. To be noticed they must be sexualized. To be admired they must be objectified."

While South Pasadena High School has a dress code that requires students to cover the "range of skin from armpit to 'The Bottom Line,'" defined as "a hand's width below the bottom of the buttocks," Hatch is crusading for a more traditional definition.

She said she views immodest dress as showing cleavage, showing one's midriff or one's shoulders. Immodesty also includes shorts, dresses, pants and skirts that are too short or tight, she said.

The Modesty Club only boasts 17 members at school, but Hatch said the website has helped to garner more than 1,000 members who come from all 50 states and 14 countries.

This week, Michael Cacciotti, the mayor of South Pasadena, commended Hatch for her efforts and granted her a proclamation. The city has declared Dec. 3 through the 7 "Modesty Week" in South Pasadena.

Cacciotti had granted her brother a similar proclamation when he started his own club.

"People are afraid to stand up," Hatch said. "I know there are a lot of people who wanted to start it, but sometimes it's hard to stand up and take the courage to start a club."

But Brent Hatch, Saige's father, said he was hesitant to let his daughter start the club after he saw what his son went through. When Saige's brother, McKay, started the No Cussing Club in 2009, it spurred thousands of hate messages.

"During the death threats and the bomb threats and the packages and the calls and all the chaos, my daughter said to me when she was in the fifth grade that she wanted to start a modesty club," said Hatch, who co-authored "Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-Rated World," with his wife, Phelecia. "I laughed and said it's not going to happen, especially with what McKay's going through.

"I said, 'You're going to get made fun of at school for going against the grain,'" he said. "My son, I could handle. But my daughter, I didn't know what was going to happen."

Saige was persistent, and ultimately her father caved.

He's finding that even though she has support, the mocking has returned.

"My van was egged, people graffitied on it," he said. "We had people call our house making threats again."

Saige said that as she moves forward with the club, she plans to put together an online petition to members of the film and magazine industries for more modest attire.

She has plans to write to clothing designers to make more modest clothing for women, in general, and to arrange to have a vote in school to enforce the dress code or switch to uniforms, she said.

But her biggest inspiration remains her brother.

"I want to make a change in the world, like he did," she said.

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Australian prank call radio to donate profits to nurse's family

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Australian radio station behind a prank call to a British hospital will donate its advertising revenue until the end of the year to a fund for the family of the nurse who apparently took her own life after the stunt, the company said on Tuesday.

Southern Cross Austereo , parent company of Sydney radio station 2Day FM, said it would donate all advertising revenue, with a minimum contribution of A$500,000, to a memorial fund for the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who answered the telephone at the hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife, Kate.

The company has suspended the Sydney-based announcers, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, scrapped their "Hot 30" programme and suspended advertising on the station in the wake of the Saldanha's death. Southern Cross said it would resume advertising on its station from Thursday.

"It is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts continue to be with the family," Southern Cross Chief Executive Officer Rhys Holleran said in a statement.

"We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time."

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Lady Gaga accused of illegal gay rights promotion in Russia

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A political ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking legal action against American pop star Lady Gaga for promoting gay rights to minors during a concert on Sunday.

Vitaly Milonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in the St Petersburg assembly and the architect of a city law that bans gay "propaganda", accused the singer of breaking the law at the beginning of her show.

"We saw that in addition to music, songs and such, there were direct calls for 12-year-old citizens to support the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community," Milonov said, adding that he would file a complaint to prosecutors over the singer's actions.

He had unsuccessfully called on authorities to bar people under 18 from attending Lady Gaga's show.

A vocal defender of lesbian and gay rights, Lady Gaga said offstage that her managers had received a call threatening her with arrest or a $50,000 fine if she spoke in support of the LGBT community, according to media reports.

The lower house of parliament is expected to consider legislation similar to the St Petersburg law later this month.

It is not clear whether it will pass. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, now the head of United Russia, said in an interview last week that "not all human relationships are subject to legal regulation".

Lady Gaga took Medvedev's comments as a sign of support for her show and thanked him on her Twitter microblog.

"Thank You Prime Minister Medvedev for not standing by your party's anti gay propaganda law & instead supporting my show+fans all over Russia," she said in her tweet.

Lady Gaga has a concert in Moscow on Wednesday.
Last month, a St Petersburg court rejected a $10 million compensation claim against U.S. pop star Madonna initiated by Milonov and a group of anti-gay activists who accused her of hurting their feelings by promoting homosexuality at a concert in the city in August.
Madonna has called the city law a "ridiculous atrocity".

Homosexuality, punished with jail terms in the Soviet Union, was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, but much of the gay community remains underground as prejudice runs deep.

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Rapper Big Boi brings electro sounds to new album

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rapper Big Boi  is trying new sounds and styles for his highly anticipated second album out on Tuesday, carving a successful solo spotlight beyond OutKast's devoted following.

Big Boi, whose real name is Antwan Andre Patton, is best-known as one-half of hip-hop duo OutKast with Andre 3000. The group, which went on indefinite hiatus in 2007, scored hits including "Ms. Jackson" in 2001 and "Hey Ya" two years later.

While Andre 3000 has remained relatively quiet, occasionally featuring on other artists' projects, Big Boi is releasing "Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors," following his critically successful 2010 solo debut "Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty."

Georgia native Big Boi, 37, described his latest album as "one-half OutKast, one whole of me," and told Reuters that the title was an homage to his late grandmother, who said before her death that if she were to write her life story, that would be the title.

Following his 2010 album release, the rapper spent 18 months on the road, touring a wide range of music festivals with eclectic rosters. The result?

"This album is more electronic," Big Boi said. "I've been doing 50- and 100,000-seat festivals all over the world. The crowds were not your typical hip-hop crowds. You bump into people backstage and you click naturally."

The rapper invited a few of the acts he met over his touring travels to his studio in Atlanta. Out of his sessions came collaborations with New York-based electro-pop duo Phantogram and Swedish band Little Dragon, who featured on one of the rapper's favorite tracks, the closing song, "Descending."

"('Descending') is just raw emotion. It's a form of therapy - just mourning my father. It was an emotional time for me recording that song," the rapper said of his duet with Little Dragon vocalist Yukimi Nagano.

Big Boi pledges that his sound will always be funky, regardless of evolving trends and influences.

"It's just more electro-funk. I used a lot of brass on the last album - a lot of traditional instruments. I still use the brass, but not as much. But the beats are still hitting hard."

The rapper has been making music since the early 1990s.

"I met Dre (Andre 3000) when we were in the 10th grade. We sat down like, 'Man, let's do it.' From that day forward, music has been the main focus of my life's journey. I love it."

His sound has evolved into a fusion of traditional hip-hop and R&B with electro-funk and soul, creating throwback songs with contemporary beats.

"The albums are like time capsules. They actually capture your life since the last time the listener heard you."

So far in his solo career, Big Boi has earned positive reviews from fans and critics, and said he was "humbled" by their warm response.

"I'm pleased that the people still love digging the music and that they're not scared to experience new sounds."

As for a possible OutKast reunion, Big Boi is tight-lipped.

For now, he remains dedicated to his solo efforts and has already completed more than half of album No. 3, which will contain some surprises for fans.

"I know people are like 'Damn, how does he keep doing it after all these years?' But this is what I was born to do and I'm still having fun. I'm just getting started."

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Jenni Rivera's family hopes Mexican-American singer still alive

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The family of Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera  said on Monday they are holding onto hope that she may still be alive, although U.S. officials said earlier that she died on Sunday in a plane crash in Mexico.

"In our eyes, we still have faith that our sister will be OK," Rivera's brother Juan told reporters outside the family house near Long Beach, California.

"We thank God for the life that he has given ... my sister," said Juan Rivera, also a singer. "For all the triumphs and successes she has had, and we expect that there will be more in the future."

Rivera, 43, died after the small jet she was traveling in crashed in northern Mexico on Sunday, U.S. officials said. Rivera's father, Pedro, told Telemundo television on Sunday that everyone on the plane had died. So far, authorities have not announced the recovery of any bodies.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was helping Mexican authorities with the investigation of the crash of the private Learjet LJ25.

The plane crashed at about 3:30 a.m. local time (4.30 a.m. EST) in the municipality of Iturbide some 70 miles south of Monterrey, from which the singer and six others were en route to Mexico City.

Rivera was to perform in the city of Toluca, 40 miles southwest of Mexico city, in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey on Saturday night.

It is not clear what caused the crash, and the Mexican transportation ministry said the wreckage was strewn so far about that it was difficult to recognize the crash site.

Rivera was born in Long Beach to Mexican immigrants and lived in suburban Los Angeles. She was a giant figure in the Mexican folk nortena and banda genres.

She had sold 15 million albums in her 17-year career and garnered a slew of Latin Grammy nominations.

"The entire Universal Music Group family is deeply saddened by the sudden loss of our dear friend Jenni Rivera," the singer's record label said in a statement.

"From her incredibly versatile talent to the way she embraced her fans around the world, Jenni was simply incomparable," Universal added in the statement. "Her talent will be missed; but her gift of music will be with us always."

In recent years Rivera had branched out into television with a reality television show and as a judge on the Mexican version of the singing competition "The Voice."

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