Grammy Awards honour Taylor Swift and Lady GaGa

Pop stars Lady GaGa and Taylor Swift have each picked up two early Grammy Awards at the start of the prestigious music ceremony in Los Angeles.

Risque singer Lady GaGa won best dance recording for Poker Face and best electronic/dance album for The Fame.

Taylor Swift won best country song and best female country vocal performance, both for her track White Horse.

Both artists could add to their hauls later. Their main competition comes from Beyonce, who has 10 nominations.

Beyonce's first award of the night came for best female R&B vocal performance for her track Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).

Winners in 100 of the 109 categories are being announced before the main televised ceremony begins.

Beyonce, Swift and Lady GaGa are all nominated in the main three categories - song, record and album of the year - which will be announced during the main ceremony.

Other early winners included Indian composer AR Rahman, who won two trophies for his soundtrack to the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

Rahman won best compilation soundtrack for a motion picture, while his hit Jai Ho won best motion picture song.

Film composer Michael Giacchino also won a pair, for best score soundtrack album and best instrumental composition for his work on the Pixar animation Up.

Neil Young won the first Grammy of his career, taking best art direction on a boxed or special limited edition package for Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972).

And two of Bob Marley's sons triumphed. Stephen Marley won best reggae album for Mind Control - Acoustic - the fourth time a member of the Marley family has won that category in the last five years.