Year Was Eminem Born

Early musical notes

Plus, 21 by Adele, racked up 2.5 million album sales, 1.5 million physical albums and 992,000 digital album sales in the first six months of the year, while the single Rolling In The Deep has been downloaded more than four million times.

And we can also tell you that Lady Gaga’s Born This Way experienced the biggest first-week album sales of 2011 with 1,108,000 units – the biggest first-week album sales since 50 Cent’s Massacre in 2005. The album sold a record 662,000 digital albums in the first week of release.

Oh, and ET by Katy Perry topped the chart for best selling digital song for the first six months of 2011 with 4.1 million downloads.

“The consumption of music continues to be greater than ever,” says Eric Weinberg, president of entertainment for Nielsen. “The sales figures for the first half of 2011 show the increased purchasing behaviour is being driven by digital album sales, which are up nearly 20% over 2010, and the increased purchasing of catalogue titles. While digital music sales continue to see strong growth, the CD still accounts for two out of every three album purchases.

Kanye West, Robyn, More: The Other Videos Of The Year | 1HPK.Com

Last week, the nominations for the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards were revealed in a live special that featured plenty of surprise guests (like multiple-nominees Katy Perry, Bruno Mars and Tyler, the Creator) and just as many actual surprises.

Perhaps nowhere was the latter more apparent than in the Video of the Year category, which saw Perry’s “Firework” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” grab noms (as predicted), but also featured a trio of rather unexpected inclusions: Mars’ “Grenade,” the Beastie Boys’ “Make Some Noise” and Tyler’s “Yonkers.”

In fact, though they’re all worthy selections, this year’s Video of the Year category might best be remembered for the clips that didn’t make the cut. And we’re not just talking about high-profile vids like Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie,” Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” or Britney Spears’ “Till the World Ends” either. There were plenty of videos that wowed us in 2011, from artists both big and small. And after some rather zesty debate in the MTV Newsroom, we’ve compiled some of our favorites. Have a look at our picks for the Other Videos of the Year.

A stirring, somber clip that’s part political treatise (the perils of colonialism, the erosion of civil liberties, etc.), part social commentary (the steady advance of adulthood, the preponderance of the past) and all compelling. It’s part of a larger film from director Spike Jonze and the band. Proof that sometimes the best artists actually do make the best art.

A collection of seemingly random images — Karate! Some dude drinking milk! Bowling! A girl licking a doorknob! — tossed in a blender and whirled into a seizure-inducing syrup. The end result is a blissed-out, kinetic trip, and while it doesn’t make an ounce of sense, when paired with Battles’ spastic strut, it almost does. Almost being the operative word, of course.

A clip that’s as sumptuously simple as the track it backs, “Limit to Your Love” is little more than scenes of urban malaise — a darkly lit apartment, a decadently unmade bed, a decaying wooden floor — but its true power lies in the wonder it creates within those confines. Appliances limp to life, fruit hovers in the air, and a churning sea appears out of thin air. Like Blake’s music, there’s magic in the minimalism.

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Eminem

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