Britney Spears Breaks Radio Records, Rumored To Perform At Grammys
'Hold It Against Me' also tops iTunes chart on its release day.
By Jocelyn Vena
Britney Spears
Photo: Fame Pictures
It's been a big Tuesday (January 11) for Britney Spears. As her single "Hold It Against Me" became available for purchase on iTunes, it shot to #1 on the site and broke radio records.
According to a press release from Jive Records, the tune, from Brit's March album, broke all previous records for the most spins in the first day of release, according to radio-industry analyst Kevin McCabe. The song had 619 spins at Mediabase on Monday, and at BDS, she had a record-making 595 first- or one-day spins.
"Top 40 outlets across the country immediately put 'Hold It Against Me' in rotation and received instant-reaction airplay at America's most-influential stations, including Z100 and WXRK in New York and KIIS and KAMP in Los Angeles," McCabe said in a statement.
"When I originally heard it in December, it blew me away from the first listen, and the same thing happened when we played it on Elvis Duran's morning show [Monday]; our Facebook and Twitter pages exploded," Sharon Dastur, program director at New York's Z100, told MTV News on Monday. "People are going crazy for it. They heard the leaked version and loved it, and now they're loving the official version too. I can see it being another huge hit for her."
As if that weren't big enough news for the singer, she's also rumored to be performing at the Grammy Awards next month. A rep for the show had not responded to MTV News' request for comment, but a rep for the singer did respond to Perez Hilton, who originally reported the rumor. "We have not confirmed a performance at the Grammys at this time," the rep told Hilton.
If the performance does happen, a source told Perez that the singer "has been rehearsing for weeks and it's gonna be a truly great performance!"
Are you hoping Britney will perform "Hold It Against Me" at the Grammys? Let us know in the comments!
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Beyoncé - Video Phone (Extended Remix)
- Artist: Beyoncé
- Label: Columbia, Music World Music
- Director: Hype Williams
- Album: I Am...Sasha Fierce
Source: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1236911&vid=455581
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Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' Single To Get 'Glee' Treatment
Guest star Gwyneth Paltrow's character will also hook up romantically with Mr. Schuester.
By Mawuse Ziegbe
Lady Gaga
Photo: Ian Gavan/ Getty Images
Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" single isn't available for public consumption yet but the track is already slated to be covered by the McKinley High crooners on "Glee."
Co-creator Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Weekly that the song will be featured in an episode set to air in either March or April. The storyline will focus on gay bully Karofsky, played by Max Adler, who is in the closet. Murphy said he chose to revamp the track because of its inspirational vibe; a theme he plans to thread throughout the episode.
"I love that that song is [an] anthem," Murphy said. "This show is by nature optimistic and I think a character like Karofsky could turn to booze or pills or alcohol and kill themselves or do something dark. But I also love Max and I love that character and I sorta want that character to have a happy ending. So I don't really know what that's going to be, but I do know we're going to do a whole episode that's about that song."
The episode will likely be bookended by the release of Gaga's single in February and the drop date of her Born This Way album, which is set to hit shelves in May.
Gleeks will not only get more Gaga, but Gwyneth Paltrow will also return as saucy substitute teacher Holly Holliday, and this time she gets to heat things up with faculty heartthrob Mr. Schuester.
"Gwyneth is coming back for two episodes. She's coming back specifically to date Will [Matthew Morrison]," Murphy confirmed. "Those two have become really good friends in real life and had really good chemistry. She's coming back as a sex education teacher. Gwyneth and I are emailing, talking every week: What are we gonna sing? We're trying to do something fantastic. So she'll be [in episodes] 15 and 16. She comes back [to film] in January and she's with us for three and a half weeks I think."
Are you looking forward to more Gaga-and-Gwyneth-packed "Glee"? Let us know in the comments!
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Usher, Ke$ha And More Help Dance Music Go Pop In 2010
But is it here to stay? Our music-industry experts weigh in.
By Akshay Bhansali
Ke$ha
Photo: Andreas Rentz/ Getty Images
In 2010, pop princesses, R&B icons and chart-dominating newcomers all danced to the same beat. Not only did dance music go pop, but pop music caught the club-music bug.
Between Katy Perry's "Firework," Ke$ha's "We R Who We R," Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)," Enrique Iglesias' "I Like It," Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" and countless other singles, established artists definitely looked to dance beats for surefire hits. And two of this year's biggest success stories in music were Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz; could there be a soul left in this country who hasn't heard "Dynamite" or "In My Head"?
The love went both ways, with dance music's biggest stars finding mainstream success this year. Dance-music maestro deadmau5 took up house-artist duties at this year's VMAs, and Swedish House Mafia and Usher teamed up for a medley of their gems at the American Music Awards.
So how did this happen? We caught up with some music-industry experts to get their takes.
"You definitely saw tempos go up this year," Jon Caramanica of The New York Times told MTV News. "And I think what you had are a lot of producers who are really familiar with nightclub stuff. They are familiar with Europe. Things are happening on a more global scale now."
"I think everything from Europe, and sometimes even Asia, it comes to America, and we just adopt things a little bit slower," said Jared Eng of JustJared.com. "I think it was just a change. People like different types of music at different times. And dance was of this moment."
Noah Callahan of Complex magazine added: "I think 2010 saw the merging of the pop and dance genres. Pop artists realized that there were best practices that could be borrowed from dance music. And, ultimately, [all] pop music that has been made in the past 20 years had ended up being remixed for the club by dance artists. I think they basically just cut out the middleman and went straight there."
Dance music being introduced into the hip-hop and R&B realms was particularly notable this year.
"I think David Guetta kind of at the end of last year and the beginning of this year spearheaded it," said freelance writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. "He produced a lot of tracks. I think as trends go, people revile 'unst-unst.' But it's just coming back around. Big-room techno was a way for people to get decadent in a year that no one could get decadent."
"You have someone like will.i.am, who's like, 'Well, I spent all this time in Ibiza, and this is what they are doing,' and he wants to find a way to bring that into his music," Caramanica said of the Black Eyed Peas mastermind. "R&B especially became dance music. And especially with your Jason Derülos, Taio Cruzes. Guys like that would have literally been blocked at the border two years ago. That would not have made it through customs. And now all of a sudden they have #1 songs. I think will.i.am had a lot to do with that last year."
Elliott Wilson of RapRadar.com added: "It's actually even affected hip-hop. I was talking to Q-Tip, and his next record, I feel like that's gonna kind of go in that vein. I know that was also Jay-Z's thought process with Blueprint 3 at first, that he wanted to make a little bit more of a world music [vibe], a little more dancey. I think the kids today want to go to the clubs. They wanna have a good time. They wanna dance. So I think the artists of today are trying to kind of feed that audience."
"I think it's caught on this year because the people who've done it have been successful," offered Clover Hope of Vibe magazine. "Like 'OMG,' with usher, he didn't have success until he made a dance record. He had 'There Goes My Baby' and these really, like, adult-contemporary records that didn't really catch on. And then once you see that everybody is doing it and that people are liking it, they are like, 'OK, let me just try this out.' It's like Auto-Tune. Like, 'Let me see what I sound like on a record by David Guetta.' They end up liking it and doing more of it."
So does the club-music trend have staying power. According to our tastemakers, not so much.
"I do think it's a blip," Caramanica said. "I don't think that's gonna be something that lasts in America. I think this is gonna be a moment we'll all look back on and go, 'Wasn't that weird when Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz had #1 records?"
"At some point, these R&B artists will get kind of sick of it and be like, 'Let me go back to my soul background,' " Hope said. "When you actually have to say something, dance doesn't really lend itself to substance. And I think that R&B artists, they really want to talk about love and in a deep way, and to do that, you need to do, like, a soul or a traditional R&B record. I want to say that it's kind of a fad."
"I think music is very cyclical," Eng offered. "So I think dance music might be here for a little bit, but I'm sure it will phase out at some point."
Wilson called dance music "the sound of today. I think that people want more aggressive, faster beats, and I think that that probably has legs until at least next summer."
What do you think? Is dance music here to stay? Let us know in the comments!
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