Quick Takes: ‘Glee’ surpasses Elvis

The act with the most songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart isn’t the Beatles, Elvis or Michael Jackson. It’s the cast of “Glee.”

In just 18 months of appearing on the charts, the Fox TV series has set the record for the most songs on the Billboard chart in its 52-year history.

This week, “Glee” debuts six songs on the chart, giving it 113 in total — five more than the now second-place Elvis Presley, who had 108.

—Associated Press

Two singers in the courtroom

Fresh off his weekend Grammy win, singer Bruno Mars pleaded guilty to cocaine possession Wednesday but avoided jail in exchange for probation, community service and drug counseling.

Mars, 25, who had a breakthrough year in 2010 with hits “Just the Way You Are” and “Grenade,” made a brief appearance in a Las Vegas courtroom, where a judge sanctioned a plea deal worked out with prosecutors.

Meanwhile, reggae singer Buju Banton, who also won a Grammy on Sunday, took the witness stand Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., where he is on trial on several cocaine charges for the second time. The jury deadlocked in his first trial. If convicted, Banton faces up to life in prison.

—Wire reports

3-D ‘Siegfried’ on Met schedule

The Metropolitan Opera’s 2011-12 season will be dominated by its new production of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, including “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung” as well as three complete cycles scheduled for April and May 2012. The New York City company said “Siegfried” will feature 3-D technology.

“Siegfried” will feature Gary Lehman in the title role, replacing Ben Heppner, who recently withdrew.

Robert Lepage’s staging will use 3-D technology “to create an enhanced sense of theatrical realism for Siegfried’s forest dwelling,” the company said. A spokesman said that audiences won’t have to wear special glasses to experience the projection effects.

This will not be the first time that an opera has used 3-D. In 1998, a production of Philip Glass’ “Monsters of Grace,” directed by Robert Wilson, was performed at UCLA’s Royce Hall and other venues around the country featuring 3-D animated sequences. Audiences were required to wear special glasses.

—David Ng

Self-portrait by Warhol is sold

A self-portrait by Andy Warhol sold Wednesday for $17 million — double its pre-sale estimate — at a London auction.

Christie’s said the work had been in a private collection since 1974. It is one of a series of 11 self-portraits Warhol created.

The image of red and white silkscreen ink on canvas shows the artist with his hand to his mouth. It was executed in 1967, at the height of his career as the most important figure in American Pop Art.

Christie’s said the portrait was bought by an anonymous bidder.

—Associated Press

5 Browns’ father faces charges

The father of a prominent Utah family musical group has been charged with child sex abuse in cases that occurred in the 1990s, court records show.

Keith Brown, father of the members of the group the 5 Browns, was charged Feb. 10, according to Fourth District Court records obtained Wednesday.

The records don’t identify any victim by name,

but Kimball Thomson, a spokesman for the 5 Browns, said the charges involve Brown’s daughters and group members Desirae, Deondra and Melody, who are now adults.

The 5 Browns are a classical piano-playing group consisting of three sisters and two brothers from Alpine, Utah.

A court hearing had been scheduled for Brown, 55, on Thursday, but it was postponed after he and Lisa Brown, 54, the mother of the group members, were in a car crash late Monday.

—Associated Press

Finally

Villain returns: Michael Rosenbaum will reprise his role as Lex Luthor when the CW’s “Smallville” airs its final episode on May 13.

Singing out: Aretha Franklin, who had surgery in December, says she’ll return to performing with a May 28 concert in Buffalo, N.Y.

Dove awards: Chris Tomlin and TobyMac each got six nominations to lead the pack for the Dove Awards, the gospel and Christian music show that will be held April 24 in Atlanta.

White House: President Obama and his wife, Michelle, will mark Black History Month at the White House with a celebration of Motown music on Feb. 24. The event, which includes Smokey Robinson on the bill, will be taped for broadcast on PBS March 1.