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Welsh vocalist Duffy was the big winner at the 2009 BRIT Awards, taking home three trophies tonight (Feb. 18) at London’s Earls Court. Duffy, whose debut album, "Rockferry" (A&M/Universal), was the U.K’s top seller in 2008, won BRITS for British female, British breakthrough act and British album.

Collecting her first award for British female, she commented, "It’s a good job my mother didn’t have a boy." She beat rivals M.I.A., Adele, Beth Rowley and Estelle in that category.

For her final award, for British album, Duffy was tearful as she accepted it from fellow Welsh singer Sir Tom Jones. She also performed "Warwick Avenue" at the ceremony.

The awards show, aired live on ITV1, was opened by U2 performing its new single "Get on Your Boots." Bono sang on a platform in front of a giant screen showing images of the British union flag and the Irish flag.

Nashville rock band Kings Of Leon won the international group award as well as the international album BRIT for "Only by the Night" (Hand Me Down/Sony Music Entertainment). The current Billboard cover stars acknowledged the importance of the British market to their success.

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NASHVILLE – If anyone had any doubt that touring is where the money is in today’s music business, a look at Billboard’s top moneymakers of 2008 should hammer the point home.

Regardless of genre, retail sales or radio play, each of the 20 acts on the moneymakers list toured last year. For almost all of them, touring generated the most revenue. And in a year when recorded-music sales declined yet again, many earned more at the box office than ever before.

Madonna was No. 1 on the list with $242.2 million. She had the 50th-best-selling album in the country and ranked 14th on the list of digital track sellers — but had the highest-earning 2008 tour.

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This singer-actor’s sophomore major label disc comes four years after its initial release date. Whatever the hold-up, the Texan wunderkind, now 19, has grown into her voice, bringing subtlety and resonance to womanly tunes such as "Lover Man" and "My Baby Just Cares For Me." Her rich, graceful sound is a cross between Tierney Sutton and Christina Aguilera, and hitmaker David Foster has her dishing up jazz-flavoured pop big-band style on standards such as "You’ve Changed" and the title track. She’s been called a female Michael Bublé, which isn’t far off the mark.

Source: The Star.ca

If you’ve only seen videos of Katy Perry singing "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot N Cold," looking like the love child of Zooey Deschanel and an anime character, you might take her for a lightweight. She giggles, does exaggerated pantomimes of femininity, and jumps into cakes at award shows. Nothing about her screams gravitas
But Perry doesn’t mind underplaying her hand. While she was "failing"—being dropped by three record labels before the age of 24—she was taking notes the entire time. And when she arrived at Capitol, she made sure to land on her feet.
"I Kissed a Girl," the first single from her album "One of the Boys," spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 during the summer of 2008 and has sold 3.1 million downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The follow-up single, "Hot N Cold," reached No. 3 on the Hot 100 and has sold 2.9 million downloads. Her third single, "Thinking of You," shipped to radio Jan. 12; it has sold 97,000 copies.
Her album has sold 806,000 copies since its release in June, but if she was hitting 15 years ago, she’d probably be reaching Alanis Morissette levels of album sales.
That change in the music business is not lost on Perry. "People got burned by too many uneven records," she says. "I personally can’t live without iTunes."

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