A common complaint that arose from reggaeton’s first brush with an English-language audience was that all the songs sound the same. It’s true, the loping “Dem Bow riddim” continues to underpin a significant proportion of new releases, but reggaeton has always been more diverse than critics are prepared to accept, and the current crop of hits is no exception. Encompassing everyone from hard-edged rappers to polished boy-band heartbreakers, it’s questionable whether the Puerto Rican pop phenomenon can really be seen as a cohesive genre at all.

Leading the charge is veteran singer Don Omar whose Danza Kuduro has been ubiqutous across Europe over the last 12 months. Ten weeks at No 1 in Italy and 400m YouTube hits may make the song’s top-20 status in the UK look a relatively modest achievement but any success in this stubbornly monolingual market has to be recognised as impressive. Follow-up Taboo, a fairly straight reinterpretation of the lambada, exploits a similar sun-kissed summer holiday theme. Stripped of the swaggering macho bluster associated with artists such as Kendo Kaponi or De La Ghetto, this is pop aimed squarely at commercial radio and a younger, wider fanbase.

Few explore the softer side of reggaeton as well as duo RKM & Ken-Y. Last year’s Mi Corazon Esta Muerto, a bouncy combination of radio-friendly rap and emotive pop balladry, is typical of the sound that has helped turn a new generation of Puerto Rican stars into idols throughout the wider region.

Inevitably for an island so closely tied to the US, the swapping of musical DNA with its imposing neighbour is an ongoing process. Just as San Juan’s pop-rap has influenced wildly successful American stars such as Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez, the incorporation of slick R’n'B and the club music of Miami into reggaeton has been a feature of many recent smashes.

Still one of the biggest names in the scene, Daddy Yankee’s Ven Conmigo exemplifies this trend. Replace the vocals and the single could have come straight off the most recent J.Lo album. Yankee also turns up on Farruko’s infectious Pa Romper la Discoteca, its wheedling, Auto-Tuned vocal line reminiscent of any number of hits on US top-40 radio. What sets both apart, though, is an irrepressible energy that frequently makes their counterparts to the north look flat in comparison.

Following in their footsteps, with much smaller shoes, is 11-year-old Xavi the Destroyer, whose flow on Move Your Body comes as close to justifying the outlandish name as can be expected of someone still 18 months away from being able to legitimately register for a Facebook account.

Perhaps the most exciting act Puerto Rico has to offer, however, is Calle 13 – whose members view themselves as being only tangentially related to reggaeton’s stalwarts despite being responsible, in Atrevete-te-te, for one of the movement’s most enduring classics. With provocative videos and lyrics throwing their weight behind the effort to rid the territory of its “colonial master”, the US, radical politics are at the heart of their work but the songs are never allowed to become overly didactic. The recent single Latinoamerica gracefully sets out their vision of a transnational cultural identity, drawing on everything from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Maradona sticking two past England in 1986.

Puerto Rico’s complex set of relationships with its neighbours may be at the root of political tensions but it has also given the territory an incredibly rich musical heritage to draw from. Now, more than ever, that unique combination is helping to define what the rest of the world is listening to.

A year and a week ago, before delivering a mesmerising version of her heartbreak ballad Someone Like You at last year’s Brits – which has now been seen more than 85m times on YouTube – Adele was trembling with nerves.

At the same venue, the O2 in Greenwich, on Tuesday a conspicuously more confident Adele was recognised for the eyewatering commercial and critical success of 21, her second album. Her unashamed “breakup record” has sold 17m copies.

As Kylie Minogue announced Adele had won the best British female award, even cynical music executives took to their feet to give the singer a standing ovation.

Adele thanked her record company, the independent label XL, for letting her “be the artist I wanted to be”, and added a word for her fans. “No one makes me feel like you, so thank you so much.”

Later she delivered a punchy performance of Rolling in the Deep, the other standout song from 21. “She’s taken over the world,” remarked the Brits host, James Corden.

Winning best album – the key award of the night – Adele told the screaming audience she was “so proud to be British”. But despite taking the major honours of the evening the singer was cut off in her moment of glory and looked peeved as host Corden interrupted her to make way for Blur because the televised show was running out of time.

A visibly upset Corden told ITV2 afterwards he wished he had not cut off Adele on her big night. “I don’t quite understand why I was made to.” He said: “I just feel bad about having to cut Adele off.

“I don’t understand what happened but I’m upset about it. Blur get to play for 11 minutes and she gets to say thank you once.”

Backstage Adele explained: “I flipped the finger but it wasn’t to my fans. I’m sorry if I offended anyone but it was the suits that offended me.

“Thank you all very much and thanks to my fans. I don’t want them to think I was swearing at them.”

ITV offered Adele its apologies after her speech was curtailed. A spokesman for the network said: “The Brits is a live event. Unfortunately the programme was over-running and we had to move on. We would like to apologise to Adele for the interruption.”

Brits insiders, who had up to that point regarded it as a vintage night, were keen to play down the mix-up.

Sales of 21 are already at 17m and are expected to top 20m. It is comfortably the best-selling record of the century so far, and has moved beyond the constraints of music, becoming the biggest-selling “entertainment product” of 2011, beating the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and the latest Harry Potter DVD, according to figures from the Official Charts Company.

Last month Adele won six Grammys, including the top three awards, and in the US 21 has sold 6.6m copies and topped the charts for 20 weeks.

In other ways it has been a difficult year for the singer. Last November she was forced to deny rumours that she had throat cancer, following the cancellation of her remaining 2011 tour dates, after undergoing surgery for a haemorrhaged vocal cord. Telling her fans that she had “absolutely no choice but to recuperate properly and fully, or risk damaging my voice forever”, she is set to resume touring this year, using her comeback performance at the Brits to demonstrate that she is fully recovered.

Blur made their first appearance at the awards in 17 years, picking up the award for outstanding contribution to music. Damon Albarn said: “What happened that night seemed to have a profound effect on our lives, so it’s nice to come back and say thank you very much for this honour.”

The band later rolled through a very abridged greatest hits, including Girls and Boys, Song 2, Parklife, This is a Low and a joyous rendition of Tender with a full gospel choir.

Their accolade came on the day they were announced as the headline act at the 2012 Olympics closing celebration concert in Hyde Park. New Order and The Specials will also feature in the event, billed as the “Best of British”.

It was always going to be an uphill struggle for the singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran to shine with the spotlight so firmly on Adele, but he shared the honours – also winning two awards, for best British male solo act and best breakthrough act.

The singer-songwriter may have boasted “My shit’s cool … I didn’t go to Brit School” on his hit You Need Me, I Don’t Need You, but he was cheered on by hordes of Sheeranators, as his fans are known.

Leading the wave of a new generation of artists eager to prove that the right artist can have success without the backing of a major record label, Sheeran has been releasing his own records since 2005 and was finally signed to Atlantic records after an EP of collaborations with grime artists eventually made it to No 2 in the iTunes charts. And if critics are unconvinced – a Guardian Guide article on the “new boring” referred to his album as “a 12-bore shitgun (13 if you count the bonus track)” – Sheeran’s use of YouTube and social networking have helped him sell more than 1m copies of his album, +.

Best British single – voted for by the public – was won by One Direction, for their poppy hit What Makes You Beautiful (choice lyric: “Being the way you are is e-nu-nu-uff”), to the delight of speed-dialing teenyboppers throughout the UK.

An unusually overdressed Rihanna took home the best international female award. The singer-songwriter Bruno Mars – whose hit, Just the Way You Are, was one of the anthems of the past year – was named best international male solo artist.

Ethan Johns – who has worked with Kings of Leon, Crowded House, Laura Marling and Crosby, Stills and Nash – took home the award for best British producer, while Emeli Sandé, a former medical student from Scotland whose first single went to No 2, won the critics’ choice award. Lana Del Ray was named international breakthrough act, a nod to the huge success of her single Video Games.

But it was also a good night for the oldies. Foo Fighters – formed in Seattle in 1994 – were named best international band, while Coldplay showed their brand of inoffensive stadium rock continues to appeal. The band – whose recent album, Mylo Xyloto, had the highest first week album sales ever on the iTunes Store worldwide – took home the prize for best British group.

Galactic doesn’t enforce any trademark sound. While New Orleans funk is laced through the album, it’s freely collaged with all sorts of other things. So “Ha Di Ka,” featuring Big Chief Juan Pardo and his Mardi Gras Indian tribe, Golden Comanche, isn’t just one more Indian chant backed by a band; it’s got fat-bottomed electronics, a deranged psychedelic guitar and explosive samples grappling with Galactic’s keyboard funk.

“Voyage Ton Flag,” alluding to an old Creole Carnival song from bayou country, crosscuts between a distorted guitar groove, an electronically stuttered Creole vocal (from Steve Riley) and bits of Clifton Chenier’s zydeco accordion. A remake of the 1960 Mardi Gras standard, “Carnival Time” — heartily sung by its songwriter and original performer, Al Johnson — throws together brass-band horns, Latin percussion and a determinedly funky clavinet.

Galactic is a more straightforward backup band for the hard-headed, humorous rappers Mystikal and Mannie Fresh in “Move Fast,” and for Cyril and Ivan Neville in “Out in the Street.” It meshes some wah-wah guitar with the hefty brass of the KIPP Renaissance High School Marching Band in “Karate,” and leans toward hard-bop in the instrumental “Attack.”

The Brazil Carnival connection is forged in “O Côco da Galinha,” a collaboration by Galactic and Moyseis Marques, a samba singer from Rio de Janeiro, that meshes New Orleans and Rio rhythms. A version of Carlinhos Brown’s “Magalenha” features a New Orleans Brazilian band, Casa Samba; Galactic zaps the song’s Bahian beat with synthesizer swoops. And the 57-second “Guero Bounce” places a bluesy harmonica over Brazilian percussion and New Orleans’s hip-hop-tinged bounce beat.

In other words, variety reigns. Galactic doesn’t set out to document Mardi Gras and Carnival traditions but to extrapolate from them every which way, and the Carnival spirit of wide-open possibility comes through. Galactic is to perform on Saturday night at Terminal 5 in Clinton. JON PARELES

But Sleigh Bells fans expect the visceral, and that’s what the band — the two members, their recorded tracks and Jason Boyer on second guitar — served up on Friday night at Terminal 5 in a typically short (51 minutes), forceful set. With or without tongue in cheek, Sleigh Bells have fully embraced the shtick of the big dumb loud rock band. A dozen Marshall speakers were the stage backdrop; there were hyperactive strobe lights. Ms. Krauss, formerly a schoolteacher, played the rocker chick as a cussing party animal, wearing a studded leather jacket, pink top and short shorts. “Push it! Push it! True shred guitar!” she barked in the set’s first song.

It was mightily effective. As recently as last year Sleigh Bells had trouble living up to their recordings onstage; Ms. Krauss’s singing voice isn’t a huge one. But experience, and some vocals joining the drums in Sleigh Bells’ recorded tracks, have pumped up the band’s stage presence. Strutting authoritatively around the stage, head-banging and gesticulating, yelling, “Here we go!” and working the chants of old songs like “A/B Machines” into shout-along crescendos, Ms. Krauss stoked the crowd into dancing, clapping, hand-waving, screaming euphoria. In “Rill Rill,” she went crowd-surfing twice; she might want to consider using a wireless microphone.

The paradox is that Sleigh Bells’ newer music has more on its mind than elemental impact. Under the salvos of programmed percussion, new songs like “End of the Line,” “Comeback Kid” and “Leader of the Pack” were anthems of mourning and consolation. At times distorted guitars made way for resonant ones for a few pensive moments. But that didn’t last very long; the stomp and screech came back immediately and often. After the live onslaught, Sleigh Bells fans are going to have to discover the new songs’ subtleties on their own.

It will be the first time the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, will play the 11-year-old festival, which is held annually on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn.

The confirmed acts so far range from acoustic Americana groups like the Avett Brothers and the Civil Wars to electronic dance music producers like Skrillex, SBTRKT and Flying Lotus. Indie bands are well represented with Bon Iver, the Shins, Feist and Tune-Yards. Blues acts slated to play include Alabama Shakes and Gary Clark Jr. On the rap front, Das Racist and Yelawolf will perform.

So far, other groups who have committed to the festival include Phish, Black Star, Alice Cooper, Flogging Molly, Childish Gambino, Ben Folds Five, the Roots, Bad Brains, St. Vincent, Punch Brothers, Dawes, the Joy Formidable, Group Love, Kurt Vile & the Violators and Big Freedia.

Chris Thile, their charismatic frontman, has been described in the Washington Post as probably “the most virtuosic American ever to play the mandolin”; he looks like a cross between Jude Law and Jonny Lee Miller and plays his instrument with swivel-hipped motions. Thile created the band six years ago to record an experimental, 40-minute quintet he had composed. And while the blazing ambition of their music has not dimmed a single watt, their latest album, Who’s Feeling Young Now?, the follow-up to 2010′s Antifogmatic, is the one that promises to transmit it to a wider audience.

The Punch Brothers perform in the Guardian studios. Link to this video
“We’d been having fun playing with musical ideas the way some people play with puzzles, you know, sudoku or whatever,” says Thile. “We were erring on the side of the intellectual. We’re now quick to discard something that doesn’t hit us in the heart or the gut.”

Who’s Feeling Young Now? targets both. Thile’s lyrics major on broken or longed-for relationships, of connections missed or misunderstood; some songs, such as “No Concern of Yours”, seem to be a manifesto for better community. In the otherwise lighthearted “Patchwork Girlfriend”, its serially unfaithful narrator pleads: “I’m not sure what I’m saying, I just need you to believe me.” Thile says he’s fascinated by “the way we well-meaningly deceive each other and ourselves and justify our activity or try to take mulligans [second chances]. Can I have a do-over please?” He pauses. “Unfortunately, sometimes the answer’s ‘no’.”

Musically, the album seems about to burst its skin, with influences from Swedish folk to punk to minimalism’s Steve Reich. There’s even a woozy, bluesy interpretation of “Kid A”: Radiohead covers have long been a Punch Brothers speciality (check out their “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box” on YouTube). “Everyone talks about how depressing Radiohead are. I don’t hear it,” says Thile. “They’ve created their own universe and it is dimly lit, but it’s not inherently dark.”

Punch Brothers recorded in Nashville’s famous Blackbird studio last autumn; I was there to see them work on “Don’t Get Married Without Me”, the track that is now the album’s finale. The needles on the sound desk hopped to the song’s distinctive bluegrass chop while fiddle player Gabe Witcher made arpeggios flutter like birds. The songs’ complex arrangements were roughly a year in the making, but when they play live each member improvises their individual solos, and it’s a spontaneity they’re keen to capture in the studio; there’s little distinction between a warm-up and a take. “We can trust each other enough to leave some things open-ended,” says Witcher. “We’re trying to capture on the record the first time these songs really come together.”

Their instrumental talents are prodigious: Witcher and bassist Paul Kowert are classically trained; Eldridge was mentored by acclaimed acoustic guitarist Tony Rice. Noam Pikelny was recently chosen by a panel of the world’s best banjoists (including the instrument’s eminence grise, Earl Scruggs) as winner of the inaugural Steve Martin prize for excellence in banjo and bluegrass.

It might sound like a joke award, but it came with a very serious $50,000 cheque from the comedian’s own pocket. I ask what he spent the money on. “It afforded me the luxury of travelling separately from the rest of the band,” he deadpans. “For one day.” No treats for his bandmates? “Yes, I bestowed on them the gift of a solo banjo album,” he laughs. Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail came out earlier this year and includes contributions from the rest of the band.

Of the five, only Eldridge, whose father was a founding member of influential bluegrass outfit the Seldom Scene, actually comes from the south. Thile grew up in California, where he formed Nickel Creek with brother and sister Sean and Sara Watkins; when they recorded their first album, with Thile’s dad playing bass, he was only 13. “I didn’t have stage parents,” he says, “and sometimes I’ve envied people who did because I felt like, I guess, I’m compulsively worried I’m not accomplishing enough. Since I was little, I’ve always put a lot of pressure on myself.”

By the time Nickel Creek disbanded in 2007, their 18-year career boasted platinum-selling records, a passionate following and a reputation for pushing musical boundaries. Thile, recovering from a divorce at the tender age of 24, channelled his hurt into The Blind Leading the Blind, the four-movement bluegrass suite that was to be Punch Brothers’ first project. Not all of Thile’s fanbase were ready to follow him in his new direction, however. “It was a case of, sorry, guys, if that’s what you’re looking for, better go check off one of the Nickel Creek knock-off bands…” smiles Thile.

“As many advantages as Thile gave us,” adds Pikelny, “in getting our foot in the door with promoters, sometimes it’s harder to reinvent yourself.”

Thile’s current oeuvre establishes him as one of the most progressive musicians in the States. When not on the road with Punch Brothers, he has been mixing it with major classical and jazz practitioners such as Hilary Hahn and Brad Mehldau, and last year he collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma on the cellist’s bluegrass/classical hybrid The Goat Rodeo Sessions. “I just want the opportunity to transcend my personal boundaries and the only way you can do that is by latching on to other people’s coat-tails,” says Thile.

So it was no surprise to see Punch Brothers joined on stage, at the end of their Bush Hall set, by Marcus Mumford, whom they met at the Telluride bluegrass festival in Colorado a couple of years ago. Together, they sang an Irish drinking song that they recently recorded for the Coen brothers’ latest film, set in the world of 70s folk; when Inside Llewyn Davis is released next year, Punch Brothers can hope for a lot more exposure. For Thile, it couldn’t come at a better time. “This is where to start listening to us.” He laughs and pounds the table. “We’re ready to be heard!”

Whitney Houston’s daughter was reportedly taken to hospital today just hours after her mother was found dead in a hotel bathroom.
Bobbi Kristina, 18, was rushed out of the Beverly Hilton hotel on a stretcher at around 10.30am this morning. She was reportedly suffering from anxiety after learning of the devastating news.
It comes as the first picture emerged today of Whitney Houston’s on-off boyfriend Ray-J leaving the hotel with his head in his hands, completely distraught.
Miss Houston drowned alone in a bathtub having accidentally overdosed on a cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol after two back-to-back evenings of out-of-control binges, it has been claimed.
The star was found dead under the water by her bodyguard in a luxury hotel suite said to have been littered with bottles of prescription pills. She was 48.
Ray-J mentioned ‘missed calls’ from Miss Houston, according to the International Business Times, adding: ‘We all gotta live with that.’
Paramedics battled to revive the singer but she was pronounced dead at 3.55pm yesterday afternoon, hours before she had been due to perform at a pre-Grammys party at the Beverly Hills Hilton in LA.
At first it was thought that Ray-J had found Miss Houston’s body but a statement was later released by his spokesman saying ‘he was nowhere near the scene but no less distraught’.
According to reports on gather.com moments before the news broke, Ray-J was seen trying to console Bobbi Kristina, who was screaming, in the lobby of the hotel.
The singer/reality TV star and Whitney Houston dated between 2007 and 2009 but it was believed they had recently picked up their romance after being spotted at an LA restaurant.
Ray-J, 17 years younger than Miss Houston, is the youngest brother of the singer Brandy and made a sex tape with Kim Kardashian in 2003 which was reportedly ‘leaked’ on to the Internet.
Bottles of Lorazepam, Valium, Xanax and a sleeping medication were found in the hotel room, it has been claimed. The drugs were believed to have acted as sedatives, causing her to fall asleep in the bathtub once they had been mixed with alcohol from the previous evenings.

Category 49—Best World Music Album—comprises discs by Nigeria’s Femi Kuti, South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mali’s Tinariwen and by the cross-cultural project among Cuban and Malian musicians known as AfroCubism, whose self-titled album is excellent. Apparently, nominators couldn’t find a fifth worthy album among the thousands released world-wide or bring themselves to celebrate artists based in Asia, Europe or South America. But it’s a solid class as is.

Laudable discs by Alison Krauss & Union Station, Jim Lauderdale, Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers, the Del McCoury Band, Ralph Stanley, and Chris Thile & Michael Daves make up the Best Bluegrass Album category. (Yes, that’s six nominees. Are the Grammys saying bluegrass pickers and singers deserve more attention than world musicians?) Perhaps one or two of these albums might have enriched the Best Americana category, which is rife with talented reliables Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm and Lucinda Williams; only Ms. Williams’s “Blessed” is a superior work. The fifth nominee in the Americana category is by Linda Chorney, who wooed nominators via a Grammy website. Her amateurish “Emotional Jukebox” is instantly forgettable, her nomination an embarrassment to the process. Americana is one of the richest veins of contemporary music, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by how badly the Academy botched this list.

Down at Category 55 is Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, which asks voters to evaluate music without the context for which it was created—to support story and character in film. “Black Swan” by Clint Mansell, “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2″ and “The King’s Speech,” both by Alexandre Desplat, “The Shrine” by Ryan Shore and “Tron Legacy” by Daft Punk are the nominees, but can voters appraise them in a vacuum? For example, the Daft Punk score, which worked well within the film, seems ponderous when it stands alone. Mr. Shore’s work is appropriately creepy, as befits its duty in a horror film, but doesn’t move much. By the way, among these nominees only Mr. Desplat’s 2010 score for “The King’s Speech” was up for an Oscar. Last year’s Oscar winner, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s “The Social Network” score, isn’t among the Grammy nominees.

The academy must think highly of electronic dance music: Best Dance Recording and the Best Dance/Electronica Album are categories nine and 10, just below the slick pop classes. The latter is a strong group: “Zonoscope” by Cut/Copy; “4×4=12″ by Deadmau5; “Nothing but the Beat” by David Guetta; “Body Talk, Pt. 3″ by Robyn; and “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” by Skrillex. None of these albums sold as well as the nominees for Album of the Year—Adele’s “21,” Foo Fighters’ “Wasting Light,” Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” Bruno Mars’s “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” and Rihanna’s “Loud”—but dance and electronic music, say the genre’s artists, tends to be shared by its fans in greater numbers than traditional pop albums. Perhaps its elevation to Top-10 status is recognition by the industry that sales aren’t the ultimate measurement of what’s popular or what’s good.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock.