Carrabba's Dashboard Confessionals brought a slicker, softer side to the post-hardcore-influenced emo. His followers include Owl City and Say Anything. And judging by her 2010 album, maybe even Taylor Swift.

Wednesday night at the Troubadour, Chris Carrabba is scheduled to play the first of three sold-out shows commemorating the 10th anniversary of “The Swiss Army Romance,” his debut album as Dashboard Confessional. The gigs are billed as solo appearances, but Carrabba will almost certainly enjoy the robust accompaniment of his fans, who are famous for singing along with their tattooed hero as though he were a counselor at Camp Emo. Hit up YouTube for clips from Dashboard’s 2002 “MTV Unplugged” and you might find yourself paying less attention to the headliner than to the earnest-looking kids pitching in from their cross-legged positions on the studio floor.

As it happens, his listeners’ voices aren’t the only ones Carrabba has inspired over the last decade. Originally the post-hardcore province of brainy Washington, D.C., bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace, emo softened and slickened throughout the ’00s thanks in large part to Dashboard Confessional’s mainstream-scraping influence. Here’s a look at what the Pied Piper of Pain hath wrought.

Acoustic alchemy

In the old days, emo guys demonstrated their emotional intensity just like non-emo guys: with volume. Yet for “The Swiss Army Romance,” which Carrabba recorded during a break from his band Further Seems Forever, the musician ditched the electric guitars and went acoustic, utilizing folky, no-frills arrangements to underscore the sensitive sincerity of his heartbroken story-songs. After Dashboard’s “Screaming Infidelities” became a hit on MTV, a generation of capo-clutching copycats was born.

Some have transcended those humble roots and discovered voices of their own: Missouri’s Never Shout Never, for instance, brightens Dashboard’s moody emo-folk sound with a touch of old-school Everly Brothers pop; others, such as the turgid (and aptly named) Secondhand Serenade, make Carrabba sound like the Good Humor man.

Carrabba’s acoustic style gave rise to a deal of freelance busking, as well: In 2009, the frontmen of several successful emo groups (including Orange County’s Thrice) inaugurated an “Unplugged”-style tour called “Where’s the Band?,” while members of Avail and Hot Water Music have released stripped-down solo albums in Dashboard’s wake.

 
Digital music sales, which over the years have provided optimism for the music industry in the face of crumbling CD sales, are starting to flatline as consumers turn to a growing number of free and legal ways of listening to hit songs whenever they want.

Sales of individual digital songs grew just 1% in 2010, down from 8% in 2009 and 27% in 2008, according to a report released Wednesday by market research firm Nielsen SoundScan.

The slowing digital numbers are a sign that the market for digital music is maturing, said Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, a digital music consulting firm. Garland believes the numbers point to another change in the market -- the emergence of free and legal alternative sources to music online, such as YouTube, Vevo and Pandora.

“What's changed is that people are listening to vastly more free music without breaking the rules,” Garland said. “That can have a cannibalization effect.”

The decline in the growth rate of digital song sales occurred as record labels pushed for iTunes to raise the price of top-selling songs 30%, to $1.29 from 99 cents, on the company's iTunes store, which accounts for the majority of digital music sales. That's preventing a corresponding slowdown in revenue growth.

“The vast majority of the top 200 digital tracks are now $1.29,” said David Bakula, a Nielsen music analyst. “So while sales of singles are flat, their revenue is absolutely going up.” Nielsen does not report dollar sales.

The increase in the price of singles has made the cost of $9.99 albums look more attractive, boosting digital album sales 13% last year compared with 16% in 2009 and 32% in 2008.

Apple continues to account for most music sales online, commanding a more than 60% market share, according to industry research firm NPD Group. Amazon.com, which generated numerous headlines in 2010 for deep-discounting albums by the likes of Taylor Swift, Kanye West and the Arcade Fire to $3.99, is a distant second. Fire-sale pricing aside, albums are still about one-third of overall digital music sales.

Pop artist Peter Max has whipped up a new portrait of Taylor Swift to add to his portfolio of the celebrity paintings he’s created over the last four decades.

Max had done an interpretation of the cover for Swift’s 2008 album “Fearless” after he found out she was opening her concert tour in Tampa, Fla., the same week he was having a gallery showing there.

“She is one of the most beautiful and talented stars we have today,” Max said in a statement issued Thursday in which Swift recalled admiring Max's paintings in an art gallery in New Jersey when she was growing up.

His images of Swift will be available starting Sunday exclusively on her website. Her latest album, “Speak Now,” released on Oct. 25, on Monday was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Assn. of America, signifying sales of more than 3 million copies.

-- Randy Lewis

The music business doesn't have an overabundance of sure things these days, but a holiday-themed album from Susan Boyle probably comes close. Like a warm cup of cider, Boyle's "The Gift" is all yuletide comfort, and Boyle fans have propelled the album to more than 1.1 million in sales in four weeks, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In the last week alone, the album has sold 272,000 copies.

In its return to the pole position on the U.S. pop chart, Boyle knocks out Kanye West, whose "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" slides to No. 7 in its second full week. A return to hip-hop after the downbeat "808s & Heartbreak," West's "Fantasy" has generated a bounty of media attention and given the artist a solid two-week total of 605,000 copies sold.

Boyle has a lead over Taylor Swift on the Billboard-managed tallies. The country star's "Speak Now" has already sold more than 2.1 million copies, racking up an additional 182,000 copies sold this week. A number of holiday albums infiltrate the charts, including Jackie Evancho's "O Holy Night" and the latest collection of music from the Fox show "Glee." The two sit at Nos. 3 and 4, each selling a little more than 128,000 copies.

 
Taylor Swift’s 2011 “Speak Now” tour will encompass 87 shows in 19 countries on four continents starting Feb. 9 in Singapore and reaching Los Angeles for a pair of shows, on Aug. 23 and 24. She’ll also play in California on Sept. 1 and 2 (San Jose) and Sept. 3 (Sacramento).

Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" album is officially the fastest-selling album in half a decade, logging 1,047,000 copies during its first week of release, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That will handily let it debut at No. 1 on the national sales chart, which formally will be announced Wednesday.

The 20-year-old country-pop singer and songwriter bested rapper Lil Wayne, the last act to surpass the seven-figure mark in a debut week. His "Tha Carter III" sold 1,006,000 copies in June 2008. Swift posted the best initial-week figure since rapper 50 Cent sold 1,141,000 copies of his album "The Massacre" in March 2005.

In some respects, Swift's numbers may be more impressive than 50 Cent's, in that overall album sales have been dropping in double-figure percentages nearly every year since 2005. Swift's album also registered the second-highest single-week sales of any country album since SoundScan began tracking retail sales in 1991, according to Billboard. It's second only to Garth Brooks' "Double Live" album, which sold 1,085,000 in 1998.

And "Speak Now" tallied the biggest opening week for a female artist in more than a decade, since Britney Spears' "Oops! I Did It Again" sold 1,319,000 in 2000, Billboard noted. Swift's third album almost doubled the first-week sales of her previous effort, "Fearless," which sold 592,000 copies in November 2008.

The first-week sales record still belongs to boy band *NSYNC's "No Strings Attached," which sold 2.4 million copies, also in 2000.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Taylor Swift backstage at Club Nokia. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Perhaps the bus simply got lost on its way to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Or perhaps Team Taylor Swift wanted to celebrate a soon-to-be No. 1 album by splitting a Mickey's Masterpiece, a $30, eight-scoop sundae from Disney's Soda Fountain.

Nevertheless, NBC cameras were rolling as a Swift-branded Starline double-decker parked in front of the El Capitan on late Friday afternoon. After tweeting earlier in the day that she would have an impromptu Los Angeles performance, Swift, her fans and a camera crew brought traffic to a halt near rush hour at the pivotal intersection of Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.

To the delight, no doubt, of her faithful, Swift performed "Long Live," a misfits-conquer-the world-type singalong ballad. It's the rare Swift song that contains the word "dragons," which helps endear it to this particular writer, and it captures the more grown-up flavor of her recently released "Speak Now." Those, however, who were trying to make their way to the 101 on a Friday night might have wished that she had picked a song that was not five-plus minutes. 

If you’re a teen or close-to-teen sensation fond of peels of pristinely produced power-pop guitar and lyrics that hint vaguely (or not so vaguely) at romps you’ve had with fellow stars, you have a certain favorite month. So, what is that month? Is it October? Um, no, totes boring. Is it November? Getting warmer (or cooler) but still not where it’s at. The best month for poetic symbolism? The kind you scrawl in your lyric notebook while wearing a single fingerless lace glove, perhaps? It appears to be December.

The Rolling Stones once referred to themselves as December’s Children, the partial title of their fifth album and a way to point out their wintry, difficult, rebel-may-care cool, as opposed to the Beatles spring-time, lovesick happiness. It seems that December has been similarly reclaimed in teen-pop circles, as shorthand for a time of regret, or difficulty or breaking away from what you know.

It all started with Kelly Clarkson’s album, “My December.” To refresh your memory, Clarkson’s 2007 follow-up to her multiplatinum “Breakaway,” which carried the smash hit “Since U Been Gone,” was mired in difficulty. Vying for more control of her career, Clarkson famously clashed with label grandpapa Clive Davis, split with her management and had to cancel her tour, due to low ticket sales. The album may have been a bit hexed from the start: Clarkson wrote the batch of 13 songs at what she describes as a personal low point, crashing hard from months of demanding touring. And surely, as anyone who’s spent any time in Irvine, knows, naming a song after such a locale would be curse enough. At any rate, one could imagine that “My December” has become synonymous with “Wow, I wouldn’t like to do that again” in the Davis and Clarkson households.

The Grammy Awards went young -- and pop -- in 2010, awarding crossover teen star Taylor Swift the show's top crown -- album of the year. For such a seemingly wholesome and beloved artist, it was seen as a somewhat controversial pick.

The Grammys have typically skewed older -- Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Herbie Hancock, U2, etc. -- and rarely award an artist without a lengthy body of work. Unlike Norah Jones and Lauryn Hill, Swift's detailed tales of teenage life seemed aimed at a direct audience, and when she gave a wobbly vocal performance with Stevie Nicks, Team Swift was on the defensive. 

The Grammys can't win. Even when they gift its top prize to America's pop sweetheart, complaints pour in. But the Swift win did hint that Grammy voters are willing to go more mainstream than ever, and she competed in a field that also included the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, the Dave Matthews Band and Beyoncé.

One could argue that such a field represented the genre-hopping tastes of the iPod generation, or one could note that the choices were almost stubbornly old school. Voters went with all major label artists, all major stars and carefully spread the picks amid pop, rock, country and R&B fields. A year for the unexpected it was not.

Whether the trend continues, or voters throw in a Radiohead, Hancock or White Stripes-like surprise, will be answered soon enough. Grammy ballots are due Nov. 3, and nominations will be revealed in early December. Before voters put down their pencils, here's a look at some of the likely nominations -- and perhaps some deserving ones. 

(This is Part 1. Stay tuned to Pop & Hiss for a continued look at album of the year front-runners.)

Eminem, "Recovery" (Aftermath/Interscope)

Grammy potential: Despite his sometimes penchant for shock-and-awe rap, Eminem has been one of the rare hip-hop artists to graphically explore violence and sex and still earn Grammy recognition in the major categories. Twice Eminem has been nominated for Grammy's top prize. Sales, of course, have helped his cause, and Eminem has a trail of critical accolades behind him. "Recovery" is seen as a more a serious turn than 2009's "Relapse," and little makes an artist more appealing to Grammy voters than getting older.

Grammy deserving: When Eminem released "Relapse," it was his first album of new material in five years, and it captured an artist who had become a cartoon. As rapid and clever as his rhymes were, the drugged-up serial killer shtick was just that, and its appeal was based on whether or not one could see it as humor or some sort of metaphor. "Recovery" is full of anger, but it's largely directed at Eminem himself. It's a moody, lacerating examination, and one that has sold close to 3 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The fact that it's perceived as a more thoughtful album than "Relapse" should make it Grammy bait. 

 
Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now” album, which was released Monday, is shaping up to have possibly the biggest first-week sales of any album this year, according to Billboard. The 20-year-old singer-songwriter’s third album is expected to log sales of at least 800,000 to 900,000 copies by Sunday, Billboard reports.  That would put it ahead of the year’s current first-week sales champ, Eminem’s “Recovery,” which posted initial sales of 741,000 in June.

The trade publication gives it a shot at topping 1 million copies in its first week, which would make it the first album to hit that mark since Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” sold 1,006,000 copies in 2008 during its first week.

Swift’s collection appears to be doing better than retailers expected. A month ago, Billboard cited industry projections of 750,000 copies for "Speak Now" in the first week. It also is generating largely favorable reviews, scoring an 81, out of a possible 100, at the Metacritic aggregrate review site.

The enthusiastic response to the album runs counter to the downward trend of overall record sales, which in the latest reporting period were 14% lower than in the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Just two weeks ago, Toby Keith’s “Bullets in the Gun” set a new record for the lowest sales figure for a No. 1 album debut –- 71,000 copies -- since SoundScan began monitoring retail sales in 1991.

Swift also would counter the trend of artists who have been unable to match or top their previous sales figures. Her 2008 sophomore album, “Fearless,” debuted at No. 1 after selling 592,000 copies in its first week of release.

Swift is in the midst of a blitz of media appearances this week in conjunction with the release of “Speak Now”; next year, she plans to embark on an international tour.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Taylor Swift performing at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Taylor Swift sleeps with a night light on. She makes this confession -- hardly the flashiest on her new album, “Speak Now,” but possibly the most revealing -- in “Never Grow Up,” a kind of answer song to Brad Paisley’s 2007 country chart-topper “Letter to Me.” Both songs are gentle tearjerkers related by a narrator digging up undervalued memories. Paisley moves forward by offering reassurance to the gawky adolescent he once was. Swift, nearly 21, longingly looks back: “I could still be little,” she sings, teeth clenched.

Swift knows that she’s lying to herself. She is one of the world’s biggest pop stars, one of the few probably still able to sell a million albums in a week. Many say the fate of the conventional music industry rests on her often artfully displayed white shoulders. Yet her impossible commitment to staying little is the key to Swift’s success.

Her third album, “Speak Now,” is meant to be a masterpiece of major declarations -- two-thirds of it recounts broken love affairs with fairly identifiable fellow celebrities, and she offers glimpses that finally confirm she’s not a princess, but a modern young woman who stashes clothes for the morning at her boyfriend’s place and isn’t above calling a rival a mattress gymnast. Swift is naming names during the media cycle accompanying this release -– the guitarist John “The Player” Mayer is the cradle-robber in “Dear John,” Taylor Lautner the lost prince of “Back to December” -- but the gossip surrounding the music is much less interesting than the maturation of her sound.

"Mean" is a word that often comes up in my house. As the mother of a first-grader, I'm constantly acting as an interpreter of scenes only partially witnessed: playground wars and lunchtime sessions of the silent treatment, enacted between kids who, five minutes earlier, seemed bonded for life.

"Lila was so mean," declares my Bebe, and then it's half an hour deconstructing exactly what that state of being encompasses. Did Lila commit an act of aggression -- did she pull her hair? Was another law violated, perhaps involving the stealing of Silly Bandz?  Or, perhaps, do we need to refine our language? For a parent, the utterance of that word creates a teaching opportunity combined with a sleuthing exercise.

 "Mean" can mean many things: indifference ("she wouldn't play with me!"), carelessness ("I gave her a bite of my Oreo, and she ate half!"), the expression of prejudice ("She said my curly hair was ugly!"). It might also refer to a friend's stubborn adherence to a different point of view. Lila preferring blue over orange is not technically mean. But to a kid, it can feel that way.

To a pop star too, apparently. Taylor Swift's new song, "Mean" smacks down critics who say she can't sing (I stand accused) by declaring that someday she'll be "livin' in a great big city" and they'll be drunk in some dive bar, bloviating into the void. "The cycle ends right now," drawls Swift as a banjo plays in the background, signifying country gumption. Playing the populist underdog, she imagines the obliteration of different points of view (about her particular gifts, at least) as a moral victory.

Never mind that this is pretty much already the situation. Massively popular and completely uncontroversial, unlike other megastars who press the hot buttons of race, gender or sexuality, Swift receives very little meaningful negative media attention, while critics ... well, let's just say that the profession, always disdained, is now drenched in the blue Slushie of its own irrelevance. Swift is hardly the first musician to snap back at detractors -- but she might be the most powerful and universally lauded artist to bother to notice the few voices who question her perfection.