For the second straight year, an act with Triangle connections will be center-stage at next February's Grammy Awards. Where it was Arcade Fire this past year, next year it will be Bon Iver -- whose frontman Justin Vernon used to call Raleigh home.

Bon Iver scored nominations in the prestigious record and song of the year categories for "Holocene," a track from the group's eponymous 2011 album. That was part of a four-nomination haul including best alternative album and even best new artist.

The latter category is odd because "Bon Iver" was the group's third release -- and its first two both made the top half of the Billboard 200 album sales charts. One of the other best-new-artist nominees also has North Carolina connections, Fayetteville rapper J. Cole, nominated on the strength of his chart-topping album "Cole World: The Sideline Story."

Industry observer Sean Ross, executive editor of the Ross On Radio newsletter, cites Nicki Minaj as this year's worthiest best-new-artist nominee. But he predicts that Minaj won't win because she and J. Cole "will cancel each other out," which might allow Bon Iver to sneak in there the way Arcade Fire did for album of the year back in February.

"Then it's Bon Iver's people-who-propelled-Arcade-Fire vote versus The Band Perry's combination mainstream-audience vote and the never-insigificant 'I don't really follow new music but I hear they're good' vote," Ross said.

The nominations were announced Wednesday night at a Grammy concert at Staples Center in Los Angeles, where the awards will be presented Feb. 12. As expected, Adele's top-selling "21" album led the field with six nominations. Bruno Mars, Mumford & Sons, Rihanna and Lady Gaga all picked up multiple nominations in the major categories, too.

As for other nominations of North Carolina interest:

Eric Church, an Appalachian State alumnus from Granite Falls, was nominated for best country album, up against a field including Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum and Jason Aldean.

North Carolina School of the Arts alumnus Jim Lauderdale, a two-time winner in past years, earned a nomination for best bluegrass album -- and also appears on a Tom T. Hall tribute album nominated for best children's album. Among Lauderdale's competition in the bluegrass category will be Brevard's Steep Canyon Rangers, sharing a nomination with comedian/banjo player Steve Martin.

Asheville guitarist Warren Haynes, a veteran of Gov't Mule and Allman Brothers, was nominated for best blues album.

Durham-based Merge Records, which captured last year's best-album Grammy with Arcade Fire, picked up a best-recording-package nomination for the expanded deluxe version of the same album. Zooey Deschanel, who records with M. Ward as the Merge duo She & Him, was also nominated in best song written for visual media, for the "Winnie the Pooh" song "So Long."

Marsalis Music, the label of Durham jazzman Branford Marsalis, scored in the category of best large jazz ensemble album for "Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook."

Levon Helm's live album "Ramble at the Ryman," nominated for best Americana album, includes "Anna Lee," written by Greensboro's Laurelyn Dossett. That song has already been on one Grammy-winning album, Helm's "Dirt Farmer," which won best tradtional folk album in 2008.

ADDENDUM: Another nominee with local connections is recording engineer Miles Walker, who grew up in Raleigh and mostly works out of Atlanta. Walker engineered records that scored a total of eight nominations, including hits by Rhianna, Katy Perry and Wiz Khalifa, sharing the nomination on two of them -- Rhianna's album-of-the-year nod for "Loud," and Perry's record-of-the-year nomination for "Firework."

SECOND ADDENDUM: I received a pretty detailed response about who does and does not qualify as a "new" artist in Grammyland from another industry pundit, former USA Today music editor Ken Barnes. I'm fascinated in wonky stuff like this, so I'm passing along the whole thing:

As a 25-year Grammy voter, I've watched the definition of a new artist "evolve" from super-strict (one prior guest appearance on someone else's album disqualified Whitney Houston from new-artist consideration in the '80s) to the current, almost-anything-goes guidelines.

It's basically a wording problem at this point; if the category were called "best emerging artist" or "breakthrough artist" or something like that, it wouldn't be such a communications problem. Basically what the Grammys try to do is establish whether, with a particular album, an artist has achieved a breakthrough to the general public. If Bon Iver was considered a critical/indie/minority-taste hit prior to this record, then the Grammys would declare them eligible. If the Academy felt a breakthrough had occurred with a previous record, based on sales, airplay, critical acclaim, buzz, mass acceptance, etc., then no.

With only rather generally worded guidelines, it's always dicey, and standards tend to waffle. So there's always one or two "new artists" that stick in journalists' craws, for good reason.

If you subscribe to the theory that a rising tide lifts all boats, right now is a very fine time to be signed to Durham-based Merge Records. It is the Baltimore duo Wye Oak's good fortune to be putting out a new album at a moment when Merge is about the closest thing the music industry has to King Midas.

"They seem to be kinda killing it on all fronts right now," Wye Oak's Andy Stack said in a recent interview. "And not just the Grammy, either, that new Destroyer record is my favorite of the moment. It's hard to know how much Merge's success helps a band like us -- it sure can't hurt. But the thing about working with Merge is that none of it rubs off on them like you might expect, because they've proven again and again that they're just interested in music and artists. That whole label is built around creating music, not selling it. The selling part is a nice bonus."

For more, including details on Wye Oak's Chapel Hill show next week, see the preview in Friday's paper.

Going into Sunday night's Grammy Awards ceremony, conventional wisdom was that Durham-based Merge Records would win one. But almost no one could have predicted that it would play out as it did, with Merge's Arcade Fire losing in two minor categories before unexpectedly walking away with the evening-ending grand prize: album of the year, over a field of nominees including Eminem and Lady Gaga.

Merge co-owners Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance missed seeing it in-person because their band Superchunk is about to start a Japanese tour. McCaughan was already in Japan by Sunday, while Ballance turned her phone off and went to bed because she had a flight early Monday morning.

But Merge publicist Christina Rentz and retail director Jamie Beck were at Los Angeles' Staples Center to bear witness. And Beck actually called Arcade Fire's victory in advance.

"Maybe I'm naive, but I'm hopeful all the time," Beck said. "We found out Arcade Fire was playing last, and I knew that the album-of-the-year winners are usually panting when they accept because they've just come offstage. So we had theories about them slipping in and surprising everybody."

Still, Arcade Fire seemed like the longest of longshots to take album of the year -- especially after losing to Black Keys for best alternative album, which most observers expected Arcade Fire to win. Things looked even more dire when Black Keys also beat out Arcade Fire for best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals.

Just under five hours after that announcement, Arcade Fire took the stage to play, the last album-of-the-year nominee to perform. Barbra Streisand was the presenter, and she seemed almost puzzled as she called out the winner.

"When Barbra Streisand stuttered out their name, we just screamed at the top of our lungs," Rentz said. "We were up on the second level and everybody around us was leaving -- they had no idea who we were or the band was. We were completely stunned."

After a quick acceptance speech by frontman Win Butler, Arcade Fire went back to their instruments and played a second song as a victory-lap outro while the credits rolled. The band's after-party was a jubilant affair, with bassist Richard Parry declaring, "We robbed a bank!"

"We were saying that it kind of felt like the world tilting a little bit," Rentz said. "I did tell Win that the best way to celebrate this would be for them to come play in North Carolina -- 'C'mon, guys, we'll have a barbecue for you!' They were leaving for England the next day for the Brit Awards and I told them, 'Good luck topping this!' They just laughed and said, 'Don't worry. It won't.'"

ADDENDUM (2/20/11): Dissent!

Grammy saved its best for last for Merge Records. It looked like the Durham-based label was going to strike out despite earning three nominations for Montreal rock band Arcade Fire's "The Subburbs." After losing both alternative album and rock performance by a duo or group with vocals to the Black Keys, Arcade Fire seemed like a long shot to win album of the year.

In a stunning turn-around, however, Arcade Fire won the prize over Eminem, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. It was the final award handed out, and the first Grammy that Merge has ever won. And in a nice little extra bonus, the group got to close the telecast with another performance -- the only group that got to play more than once. The Grammy Award sitting on an amp was a nice touch.

It looks like Arcade Fire, and Merge, won the Grammys.

Merge Records' year of living fabulously continues. The Durham-based label has picked up three nods in the latest round of Grammy nominations, for Arcade Fire's chart-topping "The Suburbs," including album of the year. That one's a longshot, but Arcade Fire looks to be the front-runner for best alternative music album. If that comes through, it will be Merge's first-ever Grammy. The album is also nominated for best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals.

The Grammys will be presented on Feb. 13.

Other Grammy nominations of local interest:

Carolina Chocolate Drops scored a nomination for best traditional folk album with their major-label debut, "Genuine Negro Jig."

Triangle gospel institution Shirley Caesar's "A City Called Heaven" was nominated for best traditional gospel album.

High Point "American Idol" Fantasia's "Back To Me" picked up nominations for best R&B album and best female R&B vocal performance. "Bittersweet," a track from her album, was nominated for best R&B song (a songwriter's award).

Monroe native Calvin Richardson's "You're So Amazing" got a nod for best traditional R&B vocal performance.

UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus Lewis Black's "Stark Raving Black' was nominated for best comedy album.

Durham-based Merge Records routinely places albums at the top end of the Billboard 200 nowadays, so it's not exactly big news for the label to have a new release debut at No. 85. But this is special because the album in question is "Majesty Shredding," by the iconic local punk quartet (and founding Merge act) Superchunk. It's the band's first to draw ink on the big chart. Kind of amusing and surreal to see the group on there, sandwiched between platinum-selling acts Nickelback, and Paramore.

Well, Merge Records' stay in the chart penthouse didn't last long, but the Durham-based label didn't fall too far down the Billboard 200 album sales chart. After debuting at No. 1, Arcade Fire's Merge release "Suburbs" has dropped to No. 2 -- behind Detroit rapper Eminem, who reclaims the top spot.

Meantime, Duke University alumnus Mike Posner is also in the top-10 with his debut album, "31 Minutes to Takeoff." It debuts not far behind Arcade Fire, at No. 8. The Posner album's first single "Cooler Than Me" is also hanging in at No. 6 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart.

It came down to the wire, but Merge Records has topped the charts for the first time ever. The Durham-based label will be No. 1 on the Billboard 200's Aug. 21 album-sales chart with "The Suburbs," the highly acclaimed new album by Montreal rock band Arcade Fire.

"The Suburbs" sold 156,000 copies its first week out, Merge's biggest-ever one-week sales total. The album just beat out Detroit rapper Eminem, whose "Recovery" registered sales of 152,000 to come in at No. 2.

"We definitely had all hands on deck with everybody working to get the word out the past week," Merge co-founder Mac McCaughan said. "The band had an amazing week, too, selling out two nights at Madison Square Garden. And of course, the biggest thing of all is that it's a great record."

The top of the charts is a long way from Merge's humble origins 21 years ago, when its "office" was co-founder Laura Ballance's bedroom in Chapel Hill. Merge was putting out cassette tapes and vinyl singles rather than compact discs and digital downloads back then, with sales in the hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands.

Two decades of steady growth later, Merge is a chart fixture. The label has reached Billboard's top-10 before with Arcade Fire, Texas rock band Spoon and the pop duo She & Him. Getting to No. 1 was the last remaining milestone, although not everyone is impressed.

"For me, it's sort of akin to sports -- this need to be the winner, No. 1," said Ballance. "Sure, I think it's great. But I also feel a certain distance from it. We always do everything we can to sell records and maybe we're getting better at it. Or maybe it's a sign that the record industry as a whole is not doing well."

Merge is one of the industry's few bright spots nowadays. Thanks to the digital revolution, the record business has been mired in a decade-long slump; sales are less than half of what they were at the turn of the century. Merge, however, is thriving.

Under McCaughan and Ballance's leadership, Merge has prospered by not trying to grow too much or too fast. The label's focus remains alternative rock, but with room for spaced-out country (Lambchop), atmospheric folk-rock (M. Ward) and strange experimentation (Music Tapes).

The label has 14 employees and will release 16 new full-length albums in 2010 -- a fraction of what the Interscopes and Sonys of the world put out. But Merge stays focused on working a few releases at a time, which can pay big dividends. Arcade Fire is the label's top seller, with three albums that have sold more than 1 million total copies.

"Merge is one of the great success stories of the modern era," said Steve Knopper, who covers the music industry for Rolling Stone magazine. "They're just much better at talent discovery and artist development than most labels. By now, they're one of the great independent labels, going all the way back to Motown, Island, Sun, Chess. And it's extraordinary that they're doing it at a time when records just don't sell like they used to."

Chart accomplishments are getting to be old hat for Triangle-based Merge Records, but here's another: She & Him, the too-adorable-for-words pop duo of M. Ward and actress/singer Zooey Deschanel, debut this week at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 with their latest Merge release "Volume Two." Following Spoon's No. 4 debut on the same chart back in January, that gives Merge two top-10 albums in a single year for the first time since 2007 (when Spoon and Arcade Fire both turned the trick).

Durham-based Merge Records rang up a mighty nice chart debut this week with Texas rock band Spoon's "Transference." The album sold 53,696 copies to crack the Billboard 200 at No. 4. That represents Merge's best top-10 showing since 2007, when albums by Spoon and Arcade Fire both debuted in the top-10.