Nominations for the 11th annual Latin Grammys were announced this morning in Los Angeles and, as in years past, the list of nominees reflects a wide and eclectic view of contemporary Latin music. There was a mix of newer names sprinkled among the more well known.

Of particular note was the nomination for Album Of The Year of Spanish vocalist Bebe, for her album Y. She's more of an alternative artist, but she's rubbing shoulders with mainstream pop nominees Miguel Bose and Alejandro Sanz.

Another surprise was Spanish vocalist Concha Buika’s nomination for Song Of the Year for her track "Si Me Hizo Facil." It's unusual because her album was recorded with Latin jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, who is much older than Buika, and because the album is dedicated to Chavela Vargas, a legendary singer famous for her traditional Mexican music.

That combination is like having a traditional bluegrass vocalist making an album with an older rock 'n roller dedicated to American roots music. Oh wait — that’s not unusual any more!

Vocalist Nelly Furtado's Spanish album, Mi Plan, was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Album. The nomination seems to put a stamp of approval, at least from her music biz peers, on her transition from recording in English to  recording in Spanish.

The 11^th Annual Latin Grammy’s will be televised live on Spanish language network Univision on November 11, 2010 live from Las Vegas.

Enlarge Bloomberg via Getty Images

An HMV employee stocks shelves in London on a Monday, which is release day in the U.K. So why is it Tuesday in the U.S.?

Bloomberg via Getty Images

An HMV employee stocks shelves in London on a Monday, which is release day in the U.K. So why is it Tuesday in the U.S.?

Honestly, no one seems to know for sure. It's more like a tradition with murky origins.

And it happens on Tuesday in the U.S. only — in the U.K. and France release dates are Mondays, in Germany it's Friday.

So if Tuesday isn't the universally accepted best day to offer new music to customers and there's no law or grand business wisdom about it, why does everyone put out albums on the same day?

One explanation is Billboard magazine, which publishes its charts on Wednesdays. If you release an album on a Tuesday, then you get the maximum seven days of sales counted toward your total (including a full weekend).

The other is inertia — distributors are all set up to shuttle stock out to stores over the weekend and on Mondays. Most only do runs a couple of times a week.

So "New Music Tuesdays" has seeped into popular culture.

We wanted clearer answers so we've been asking around this week — and everyone is giving us different answers. The one explanation people share is a hazy recollection of something happening before Billboard (so, pre-1950s). They just don't remember what that was.

From what we've heard, this is why every other day of the week doesn't work:

Monday: If stores are told to begin selling CDs on Mondays, distributors need to ship them by Sunday, and stores need to pay staff to unpack, inventory and stock over the weekend. That is a bummer. Also, Monday is a government holiday more than any other day of the week.

Wednesday: Stores and musicians can tell people the new CD is available to buy in the middle of the week, but it usually takes a bit for people to motivate themselves on over to their local record store. By Wednesday the week is almost over (I wish).

Thursday: For the reason above, Thursday is more too late.

Friday: Even more too late. But it is payday.

Saturday: It's harder to get press coverage that people see on the weekend.

Sunday: Who goes to record stores on Sunday?

Got any other theories as to why Tuesday became release day?

Aliya Naumoff/XL Recordings

The New Yorker said the album contains songs "to be sung inches from someone's ear." The Guardian praised its "understated charms." In a glowing review, Pitchfork called its songs "copiously tidy" (and vaguely suggested that listening to it might cause pregnancy).

The self-titled debut album from the London-based trio The XX seems to have been crafted to collide with eardrums at minimal impact. But in the eleven months since its release, the band's cooing minimalism won over enough fans to earn the most prestigious music prize in its homeland, the Mercury Prize for Album of the Year.

The young band (none of the musicians are older than 21) beat out shortlisted artists Biffy Clyro, Corinne Bailey Rae, Foals, Paul Weller, Wild Beasts, I Am Kloot, Dizzee Rascal, Kit Downes Trio, Mumford & Sons, Villagers and Laura Marling for the prize.

After the win, guitarist and singer Romy Madley Croft told reporters that the band was in "disbelief," but the win was just the latest in a long line of successes. Without a hit single or a dancefloor-ready sound, the XX has built its audience slowly but steadily. According to a publicist for the band, xx has sold nearly 200,000 copies.

Responding to the award, the Guardian's Alex Petridis wrote that it's worth remembering that the Mercury Prize is about selling records, and imagines that the award might actually boost the XX "into the mainstream."

Every September there's one huge day for new album releases. There's no rule about it, but tons of labels — major and independent, putting out both physical and digital-only releases — hold their biggest albums for the same day.

There are a few obvious reasons people selling music would want to hold albums that are ready in July or August for September: TV shows that feature performances are back with new episodes; people go out and buy albums since they're not on vacation anymore. Some theorize that labels overwhelm customers with new music on purpose. They hope you say, "Since I'm already here, I might as well pick up three CDs instead of just one." And the labels make the Sept. 30th deadline for Grammy nominations.

This year Super Tuesday happens next week on Sept. 14th. There are so many albums streeting that day that NPR is premiering 14 of them a week ahead.

But some albums buck the second Tuesday trend. We wondered why — so we asked an executive at one of the majors and the director of publicity for one of the biggest indie labels why they're releasing records this week that could be big for them. And then we asked one label why it stuck to the 14th.

Even at great record stores, you can't always find the albums you want. Sometimes the store has a particular specialty, sometimes the local audience doesn't support a genre, sometimes the price of an album doesn't justify the shelf space. Each Tuesday, we call record stores to see if they have three brand new CDs in their store.

This week, we checked on Robyn's second album release in the past 3 months, Body Talk Pt. 2, The Thermals' Personal Life and Interpol, the Brooklyn band's self-titled release. Since we're feeling all back to school about today, we called three stores in the college town of Ann Arbor, Mich.

Even in the doldrums of summer, musicians, Steve Jobs and lawyers for the majors are not resting.

—Apple's announcement about Ping — the company's attempt at a social media site built around music — had people talking, though most spent their time listing its failings. Bob Boilen gave the service a try and came back disappointed. He's got a few questions for Apple, mostly because he really does want to find out what music fans are listening to, not just what they bought on iTunes.

—One of our commenters, Ty Garfield (TyGarfield), points out that the Ping announcement could be the first of many from Apple. Back in 2008 the company submitted a patent for technology to enable communication (or a passive information exchange) between groups of people based on their proximity to one another — for example, people at a concert or a conference. It's called iGroups and the launch of Ping might just be an opening gambit in a much broader play by Apple for a bigger piece of the social media pie.

—Digital Music News quoted a source from inside Universal saying the label has "declared legal jihad against Grooveshark." The free music search engine and streaming service allows anyone to upload sound files from their hard drive and then makes them available for anyone to stream. Universal served the service's parent company back in January, and Apple says a takedown notice from UMG UK is the reason it pulled Grooveshark's iPhone app from its store two weeks ago. Grooveshark settled one lawsuit with EMI, but DMN says Universal isn't interested. Actually, it says that lawyer Harvey Gellar is "a ferocious 'bulldog' who is 'committed to burying these guys.'"

—Rock Band is diversifying its roster. The game added its first songs in Spanish last month — six by Colombian superstar Juanes. And next week it'll add its first rap songs with eight of Snoop Dogg's. It's about time for some hip-hop karaoke, though how easy will the guitar part be?

—And then there's Doggystyle 2: The Doggiementary. Snoop Dogg and Swizz Beatz posted this video (Advisory: So much swearing) on Thursday. They both seem excited, which is cool to see, but is it really a sequel if it's produced entirely by Swizz instead of Dre?

—Rapper T.I. and his wife were arrested Wednesday night after cops noticed a "strong odor of marijuana" emanating from the car in which he and his wife were riding in Los Angeles. The police also took a handful of white pills for testing. T.I., who had the number one movie in America at the time of his arrest was charged with possession of a controlled substance. This is sad news for people who followed his VH1 show, TI's Road To Redemption.

istockphoto.com

On Pop Off this week, there was a fascinating conversation between commentator Maura Johnston and readers about the glossy, computer-perfect sound that's dominating the singles charts right now.

Maura put words to one of my big frustrations with the music on the TV show, Glee: the songs are studio-perfect, even when they are supposedly performed in the halls of the high school or Rachel's bedroom. Even when they are covering a Jazmine Sullivan song, like "Bust Your Windows:"

The version of the song sung by Glee actress Amber Riley (playing the jilted Mercedes Jones) sounds significantly brighter than the original; it's pitched in a higher key and, even though the full versions of the two songs are nearly identical in length, it feels as if it's moving along at a slightly peppier pace than its source material. More importantly, Riley's voice is much smoother than Sullivan's, both in timbre and in the way it's presented technologically. . . I'm a fan of musicals, and I don't recall the obvious lip-syncing being that jarring, which makes me wonder if Glee is another example of Jay's point that the software used to perfect music today just does its job too well, wiping out any traces of extraneous sound until all that remains is a dead room.

Most of our commenters agreed with Maura's discomfort with all of the electronic polish on the pop charts. Here are some choice examples:

Carol Shepherd (carush) wrote:

"Autotune is the audio equivalent of Photoshop. These tools are used to remove the pitch inflections and overtones, the beauty spots and the normal-sized waists, and the other unique aspects of us, leaving behind some cyborg corporate idea of abstract perfection."

Roy Wayne Mays (RoyWayne) appreciates that something is lost when computers "perfect" a song:

"But I ... work out to music with headphones. I do not want crackles, pops, warbles, heavy bass, heavy percussion, and anything that distracts from the smoothness. I *love* the over-perfect sound. It has a place, and when the machine is plugged inside my eardrums I *want* it perfect."

Marian Moore (mmoore) made specific reference to the Pop Off on Morning Edition when she wrote:

"During the story I imagined a Supremes' hit "Stop in the Name of Love" dropped into the middle of the stream of songs played. As sappy as that song was, it would have stood out and would have been noticeable. It had silences that pulled your attention to the times when the song was not silent. The use of auto-tune is bad enough, but what is worse is the constant babble in the lyrical music now. There is no pianissimo. Everything is forte."

Maura and Jay have an extended discussion on our podcast, where they dive deeper into the way that every generation has its own idea of what perfection is, plus singers who optimize autotune with their vocal techniques, and what it all has to do with bebop.  Want more?  Check out NPR's past coverage on The Loudness Wars for more on how we hear music.

Enlarge Devin Dehaven

Leela James.

Devin Dehaven

Leela James.

As I worked on this story about R&B/soul singer Leela James, I was struck by an interesting dichotomy that seems to be the result of how fragmented the media landscape has become.

Even though she was born after the heyday of Stax, the storied label for which she now records, Leela James is an A+ student of soul music from the 1960s and '70s, citing Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight as her heroes. James has received plenty of positive attention from some Black media: She's been featured on The Tom Joyner Morning Show and profiled by Essence magazine, Houston Style Magazine and blogs like Singersroom.  But James does not really fit in with the “soul revival” that’s been taking place over the past five years or so.

Artists like Bettye LaVette and Sharon Jones favor a more traditional, analog sound. James, on the other hand, is not averse to slicker production (although, her live show is another story), and that might explain why James has been embraced by Urban AC (Adult Contemporary) radio, but hasn’t enjoyed LaVette’s or Jones’ crossover success. For their part and despite their pedigree, neither Jones or LaVette have been embraced by Urban AC.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings have a much grittier sound. Jones has a gorgeous, knock-out voice and great charisma, and the band has a regular presence on NPR Music. This year, Jones did a duet with Michael Buble on Saturday Night Live and The New Yorker just profiled the group.  These are media outlets that draw a largely white audience.

For the Leela James story, I interviewed Stephanie Williams — music director for The Tom Joyner Morning Show. The nationally syndicated radio show reaches a largely African-American audience of about 8 million, so Williams has a lot of power in the so-called “Urban” music business. When I asked her about Sharon Jones, I was surprised when she said she’d barely heard of her. She said she’d never even received any of the group’s CDs. I don’t want to make too much of this, but it did make me wonder if the folks promoting Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings figured their music was too old-school for commercial Black radio.

Today, there are exponentially more media outlets where an artist can find an audience than there were even 10 years ago. That also means there are more narrowcast music formats. In another era, songs by Leela James and Sharon Jones might’ve been played on the same stations – in the 1960s and '70s, Motown provided the soundtracks for black and white lives alike. But, for the moment anyway, James and Jones are reaching very different audiences — even though they are both supremely talented singers, rooted in the same great R&B/soul tradition.

Participation ribbons for everyone!

We recently compiled a list of ten women music writers to read now, as recommended by other writers. We also asked for your reccomendations on books, blogs, articles or Twitter feeds written by a woman and focusing on music. You responded enthusiastically via the story comments and on Facebook with some obviously over-looked classics and surprising new favorites. Here are five more writers that you would add to the reading list.

• theoriginalsoundtrack.com, by Geeta Dayal
  Dayal writes about the intersections between sound, visual art and technology
  —Michaelangelo Matos (@matoswk75)

• Rachel Maddux at Paste Magazine
  Paste has announced that they are discontinuing the printed magazine, but Maddux will live on at @rachelmaddux
  —Zach Ames

• Patti Smith
  Smith's recent book, Just Kids, is about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe
  —Caroline Turley

• the music criticism at tigerbeatdown.com
  —Alyx Vesey, who blogs at feministmusicgeek.com

• Lindsay Zoladz at cokemachineglow.com
  —Mike Mahoney

Please send us more!