Sunday 27 December 2009, 21:00 | By CMU Editorial

Chart update – w/c 28 Dec 2009

Artist News

So, we’ve had the excitement of Christmas, we’re all bloated from eating and drinking far too much, and the Groundhog Day-like effects of an extended stay with our families means that few of us even realise that yesterday was Sunday. It was Sunday, though. And that means it’s now time for the very last chart update of the year.

Typically, this is one of the year’s dullest charts, as most of the record buying public are too busy doing all that eating and drinking to be buying music. However, this year’s post-Christmas singles chart is more notable than most, as Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’ is at number two. Continuing to hold a high position despite the end of the successful internet campaign to get it to Christmas number one, it also marks the tenth week back on the chart for the song. Christmas chart loser Joe McElderry, meanwhile, is now at number one.

There are three new entries in the singles chart this week. At number 30 is Jay-Z and Mr Hudson’s painful cover of Alphaville’s already awful ‘Forever Young’, while limping in a bit bloody late are Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ and Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home For Christmas’.

In the album chart, there’s also a new number one, Michael Bublé having ousted Susan Boyle from the top spot and pushed her down into second position. Though, given that she managed to achieve the highest selling album of the year in just four weeks, she’s probably not that bothered to drop one place after five.

The number of new entries on the album chart this week is exactly zero, so you’ll just have to make do with a re-entry for Take That’s ‘The Circus’ at number 37.

I did warn you that the charts would be boring this week, didn’t I? Luckily, the Official Charts Company has also revealed the top five highest selling singles and albums of the year. Be excited, people.

Highest selling singles of 2009:

1. Lady Gaga – Poker Face
2. Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling
3. Lady Gaga – Just Dance
4. Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love
5. La Roux – In For The Kill

Highest selling albums of 2009:

1. Susan Boyle – I Dreamed A Dream
2. Lady Gaga – The Fame
3. Michael Bublé – Crazy Love
4. Kings Of Leon – Only By The Night
5. Black Eyed Peas – The End

Kings Of Leon’s ‘Only Buy The Night’ was also the third best selling album of 2008, which is good news for the Followill family. Released in September last year, it has now sold over two million copies and spent more than a year in the UK top 40.

All this chart information was compiled by The Official Charts Company in between turkey sandwiches.

HMV makes bid for MAMA

Business News HMV Timeline Live Business Retail

HMV has made a bid to buy the MAMA Group, and bosses at the live music and artist management firm have given it their backing.

HMV and MAMA are already business partners, of course, co-owning the Mean Fiddler network of venues. When that partnership was formed at the start of the year, insiders said an all out purchase of MAMA by HMV was also discussed.

Reports of such a deal reappeared earlier this month when MAMA management knocked back a takeover bid by Luxembourg-based investment firm SMS Finance. Both HMV and the top MAMA team were reportedly keen to stop SMS from getting control of the music firm. Talk of HMV buying MAMA gained more credibility when it was revealed the former had bought a 9.9% stake in the latter.

Confirming that HMV had now made a £46 million bid for MAMA, the retailer issued a statement this morning saying: “The acquisition of MAMA builds on the successful platform created by the formation of Mean Fiddler Group Limited in January 2009 and represents a further significant step for HMV as it continues the transformation of the HMV business begun in 2007. HMV believes it will be able to accelerate the growth of the live venues and the festivals business by bringing them under its ownership and will also be able to drive further cost and revenue synergies out of operating them alongside HMV’s existing businesses”.

Meanwhile a lengthy document from MAMA outlining the takeover proposals confirmed “the directors of MAMA intend unanimously to recommend that MAMA shareholders accept the offer, as they have irrevocably undertaken to do in respect of their own beneficial shareholdings”.

HMV has spent much of the last year diversifying its operations into areas of the music and entertainment industry other than high street retail, that being very much in decline, of course. MAMA is arguably a clever acquisition in order to further this strategy, as a company which has been busy for sometime expanding its operations in the more profitable areas of the music business, including venue management, tour and festival promotions, artist and producer management, and brand partnerships.

Borders is no more

Business News HMV Timeline Retail

The UK version of CD and books seller Borders finally closed its doors yesterday after administrators failed to find a buyer for the collapsing retailer.

I went to the Islington branch on Saturday with the closing down sale in full swing. It was depressing. I always liked Borders. It always seemed like one of the more sophisticated shopping experiences. On Saturday it had been transformed into a glorified pound shop where the fittings were selling as fast as the books and records. Still, I got sixty quid’s worth of books for twenty pounds. So not all bad news.

Bad news for the former retail chain’s staff though, who are out of work as of tomorrow. Such a shame.

Political types think Cowell is just brill

Business News Industry People Media

Culture Minister Ben Bradshaw has declared the ‘X-Factor’ as Britain’s biggest cultural export, and praised that Simon Cowell fella as a great example of the British entrepreneur, possibly the greatest.

Speaking at a recent dinner of the Labour Finance & Industry Group, Bradshaw said that the creative industries were playing an increasingly dominant role in the British economy, and that the ‘X-Factor’ is the UK’s “single greatest export in terms of the creative industries”.

Meanwhile the chair of that Labour group, Peter Slowe (pictured with Bradshaw), added: “Simon Cowell is the greatest example of a British entrepreneur who has made his mark in the creative industries, which to my mind is the future for our economy. No one has proven the influence of the media and the creative industries in our lives more than him. He has shown admirable drive and ambition, and we [encourage] him to motivate our young people, who are thirsty to take up the mantle”.   

Slowe added: “Less emphasis must now be placed on the financial services sector, which is clearly shrinking, and much more emphasis placed on the creative and knowledge industries and technology, which are our future”.

In sort of related news, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello has revealed that he has invited Cowell to introduce his band when they play that free gig in the UK to celebrate beating the ‘X-Factor’ franchise to the Christmas number one slot. Cowell is yet to respond to the invite.

BBC Trust approve Beeb involvement in Canvas

Media

The BBC Trust has given the OK for the Corporation to participate in the much previously reported Project Canvas venture, which aims to establish a standard for the way British broadcasters provide TV-over-IP, on-demand telly services received through special compliant set top boxes.

The Beeb was an early supporter of the venture, which now also involves ITV, Channel 4, Five, TalkTalk and BT, but their actual involvement in a commercial venture of this kind needed the approval of their main regulator, the BBC Trust.

The Trust gave that approval yesterday, albeit with some conditions to “help secure the public value” of the BBC’s involvement in the project.

Boy George banned from appearing on Celeb Big Brother

Legal Media

The High Court has banned Boy George from appearing on the next edition of ‘Celebrity Big Brother’, the once popular Channel 4 show best known for spearheading the revival of racism in 2007. George has been offered a reported £200,000 to appear on the reality show franchise next month.

The problem, of course, is that the singer is technically speaking still serving his time for that incident where he chained a male escort to the wall of his Shoreditch flat. Although he was released from prison just four months into his fifteen month sentence earlier this year, he was done so ‘under licence’, meaning there are restrictions on what he can and can’t do, administered by the Probation Service.

When they balked at the suggestion George be allowed to appear on the Channel 4 show while still technically serving his prison sentence, the singer’s lawyers went to court to try and get the probation people’s decision overruled. But this morning Mr Justice Bean backed the Probation Service’s viewpoint. And I should think so too.

George could still fight the ruling in the Court Of Appeal, he has until 3 Jan when the latest series of ‘CBB’ is due to start. It is not clear if his legal people plan to make a second appeal.

LiveMaster merger gets UK approval

Business News Live Business

The Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger has received the green light, in the UK at least. While the British Competition Commission expressed concerns about the two firm’s merger proposals in a preliminary report back in October, today it said it didn’t feel a combined LiveMaster would have any negative impact on the UK live entertainment sector.

Although the Commission itself admitted that such a total change of heart between a preliminary and final report in a merger investigation was “unusual”, the u-turn is perhaps not a total surprise. The Commission’s concerns centred on one particular complaint, from a German rival to Ticketmaster called CTS Eventim.

As previously reported, somewhat ironically Live Nation stopped using Ticketmaster’s services just a couple of months before they announced their intent to merge with the ticketing giant. The live music major took its ticketing in-house, and hired the services of CTS to help it with that venture in Europe. As CTS don’t currently operate in the UK, that deal would mean the German firm entering the British market for the first time.

Although the German firm quickly issued a statement when the merger was first announced saying it wouldn’t affect their deal with Live Nation, they later complained to the Competition Commission that a merged LiveMaster would not fully embrace the new partnership. That, CTS said, might mean they wouldn’t bother launching in the UK at all, which would, in turn, make the British ticketing marketing less competitive.

But the Commission now seems reassured that Live Nation’s obligations to work with CTS are binding and that their partnership will go ahead despite the merger. And while the live music conglom probably won’t now expand that partnership in the ways CTS had originally hoped, the Commission says that does not pose a serious obstacle to the German firm launching in the UK.

Many of Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s competitors say the merger will give the combined company too much power in the live music market, allowing them to strong arm artists into unfavourable deals and push up ticket prices. But in the US, where the regulator’s review of the merger has been much more public, the two companies have argued that as a result of the merger some of Live Nation’s competitors – most notably AEG Live – will stop using Ticketmaster and go elsewhere for ticketing services, thus making the market more competitive.

Regulators in other countries, most notably the US, are still investigating the merger. While US approval would normally be a given if European regulators are in support, some see this merger as a test for the Obama government and their willingness to stand up to overly ambitious big business. Nevertheless, it’s thought the deal will ultimately be approved worldwide, albeit with the possibility of some conditions to get the OK in the US.

RATM v X: Quotes round up

Artist News

Do you remember that time Rage Against The Machine beat ‘X-Factor’ winner Joe McElderry to the Christmas number one spot? It was yesterday I think. Well, people have said stuff about it. Here’s a quotes round up…

Chief rager Zack de la Rocha to the BBC: “We are very, very ecstatic about being number one. We really admire this incredible organic grassroots campaign and the spontaneous action taken by young people throughout the UK to topple this very sterile pop monopoly”.

Fellow rager Tom Morello in a statement released overnight: “Rage Against the Machine are honored to have been drafted by this historic grassroots campaign to make our song ‘Killing In The Name’ the number one song on the UK Christmas week pop chart. This is a huge victory by and for fans of real music and we extend our heartfelt thanks to every fan and freedom fighter who helped make our anthem of defiance and rebellion the Anarchy Christmas Miracle of 2009”.

X-Factor winner and Christmas chart loser Joe McElderry: “It’s been such an incredible couple of months and I got the best Christmas gift I could ever have asked for in winning ‘The X-Factor’. [And the campaign was] more against the show than me … if any other person had have won, the same thing would have happened, because the petition was going on before the winner had been announced”.

Tracy Morter, chief lady conspirer in the Beat Cowell campaign, to the BBC: “It was one of those little silly ideas that make you laugh in your own house. We really love music and remember when were were young the charts were really exciting. We just thought, wouldn’t it be funny if that song got to number one? It took something really strong and forceful to get people behind it”.

Jon Morter, Tracy’s fella and the chief conspirer, admitting last year he’d tried the same thing with a Rick Astley song: “From that experience we learned how the charts work and what you can get away with. When this year came around I just thought, let’s have another go. Last year was fun. This year it has gone stratospheric”.

A “gutted” Simon Cowell, bigging up Jon and Tracy: “I am genuinely impressed by the campaign they have run. It has been a good campaign with no dirty tricks and without any funding. They have been passionate and worked hard. I offered them jobs at my record company. It could be in marketing or perhaps even running the company! This is their first attempt at putting out a record and they got a Christmas No1, so they have not done badly at all. I wanted them to come and work for us. I [called them and] was deadly serious, but they haven’t taken me up on the offer”.

The aforementioned Jon M on Cowell’s phone call: “He was very nice, really nice to talk to. We had a little chat about music and just things in general really. He was lovely and he wished us well and he also said it was probably the best Christmas No1 race that he has been involved with”.

The always ridiculous Louis Walsh to The Sun: “You always have novelty records at number one for Christmas and ‘Killing In The Name’ is nothing but that. Joe has nothing to worry about at all. With all the fuss about Rage Against The Machine, people might fail to realise that Joe has still sold 450,000 records, which is phenomenal. He only lost by a tiny 50,000 sales. He will sell a million singles. I think ‘The Climb’ will be one of the biggest-selling singles of next year. Besides, it’s all about having a career – look at the albums chart. Alexandra Burke, JLS and Leona Lewis have all come from ‘X-Factor’ and sold millions”.

Rent-a-quote Paul Gambaccini speaking to The Guardian: “Not only was it the meeting of two incredible forces – Simon Cowell versus Facebook, physical versus digital sales – it was a story you could follow day by day. I rarely listen to the chart show these days but I did for the last half hour yesterday. They built up the suspense and milked it for all it was worth.”

the CMU Review Of The Year here, and Chris has written a piece all about it on his own blog here. You can read all our coverage of the RATM v X thing here.

File-sharing on the up, shocker

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

Record label trade body the BPI last week published research that showed that illegal file-sharing in the UK is on the rise, despite the growth of legitimate digital music services in the last 18 months, including platforms like Spotify which offers a large catalogue of music on demand at no cost to the consumer.

Although the levels of file-sharing over P2P networks was pretty static in 2009, other kinds of file-sharing – and in particular the download of MP3s from dodgy unlicensed websites – is on the rise. I don’t know whether the BPI tracked the rise of file-sharing by email and hard-disc swaps, but I suspect they’re on the up too.

I’m not sure any of this is news, particularly, but presumably the BPI are issuing the stats to put further pressure on political types to back the three-strikes proposals currently working their way through parliament, which propose suspending the net access of persistent file-sharers. While such measures wouldn’t stop serial file-sharers, who have the savvy to mask their file-sharing from the piracy police, a few high profile disconnections might prove a deterrent to more casual MP3 thieves.

Commenting on the research, BPI supremo Geoff Taylor told reporters: “There are now more than thirty-five legal digital music services in the UK, offering music fans a great choice of ways to get music legally. It’s disappointing that levels of illegal P2P use remain high despite this and the publicity surrounding imminent measures to address the problem. It’s vital that those measures come into force as quickly as possible”.

As previously reported, there has been a lot of vocal opposition to the three-strikes proposals, some of it from within the wider music industry, with some music business types seeing the ongoing file-sharing battle as a pointless distraction for record companies who should instead be investing time into forming partnerships with many more than the 35 licenced music services Taylor references. Indie label owner and music lawyer Anthony Hall recently resigned his post on the BPI’s rights committee in protest at the trade body’s support for the more draconian anti-piracy laws – more on that here.

Sky Songs sign up Merlin

Digital

Another digital music service within the Rupert Murdoch empire has entered into a licensing deal with indie labels digital rights body Merlin. The Sky Songs service, which launched in October with all four majors on board but no Merlin deal in place, will now also be able to offer music from the indie labels the rights body represents.

As previously reported, Sky Songs offers an unlimited play streaming service plus between 10 and 15 MP3 downloads a month for a set monthly subscription of £6.49 or £7.99. It is the BSkyB internet service provider’s first serious play in the digital music space, and in many ways competes with the recently expanded streaming service offered by MySpace Music, also part of the wider Murdoch media empire.

Confirming the Merlin deal Sky Songs GM Justin Moodie told CMU: “I’m delighted to add Merlin, and the fantastic music they represent, to the Sky Songs catalogue. We aim to constantly grow and improve the Sky Songs service and this addition is a welcome step in that direction”.

Merlin master Charles Caldas added: “We are delighted the Merlin repertoire will now be available on the Sky Songs service. Combining the strength and profile of our members’ artists, the comprehensive set of repertoire already available, and the strength and reach of the Sky brand, we believe Sky Songs will continue to encourage even more music fans to subscribe to access quality music online”.

NME launches on Digital One

Media

NME Radio has announced that tomorrow it will start broadcasting on the national digital audio broadcasting network Digital One, which has been rather lacking in channels of late given the number of commercially-owned digital stations that have gone off the air in recent years.

NME join Planet Rock, Absolute and that quirky unsigned-music-only station Amazing Radio on the national digital network, in a move that will greatly increase the reach of the music mag’s radio spin off. The station will initially appear on the national DAB network for a trial period of eight months.

Confirming the launch on Digital One, NME Radio top man Sammy Jacob told CMU: “Since launch, NME Radio has strived to increase distribution with constant requests for the station to be made available nationally on DAB. We are therefore delighted with this development as it will significantly increase the opportunity to listen to the station across the country. NME Radio is extremely passionate about the music it plays, especially the promotion of great new acts. Being able to share that passion with a wider audience will make it all the more worthwhile”.

CMU Track Of The Year 2009

Artists Of The Year

Since last month, CMU Daily readers, an 18,000-strong group featuring all the key players and opinion formers in the music and media industries, have been voting for their favourite tracks of 2009.

Voting closed on Friday and over the weekend the scores were counted, recounted, dropped, picked up, and then counted one last time. And so now we can officially tell you that (drum roll, please), the very best track of 2009, as voted by the always discerning CMU readership, is Grizzly Bear’s ‘Two Weeks’.

The band were already off on their Christmas holidays by the time the news came in, but Adam Brooks, Product Manager at their label Warp Records, told CMU: “‘Two Weeks’ is something special – a song that has undeniable pop hooks without sacrificing great musicianship, and a song that has played a vital part in Grizzly Bear’s emergence as one of this year’s most treasured alternative bands. It’s great to know that CMU Daily’s readers agree and for it to be voted track of 2009 is a fitting end to a fantastic year for the band”.

CMU Editor Andy Malt added: “Voting in this year’s CMU Track Of The Year poll has been tight, but Grizzly Bear’s ‘Two Weeks’ took an early lead and held it right up to the end. And deservingly so. It’s certainly the band’s most immediate and poppy track to date, but the standard they set in their songwriting and performance is as high as ever. A great track from a great album”.

The full to ten is as follows:

1. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
2. Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
3. Friendly Fires – Kiss Of Life
4. The Molotovs – Come To Grief
5. Biffy Clyro – The Captain
6. The Horrors – Sea Within A Sea
7. Dirty Projectors – Stillness Is The Move
8. Bon Iver – Blood Bank
9. La Roux – Bulletproof
10. Dizzee Rascal – Bonkers

A special mention must go to The Molotovs, who appear on a list otherwise made up of what you might call more obvious names. Their track ‘Come To Grief’, taken from their excellent mini-album ‘And The Heads Did Roll’, clearly struck a chord with a lot of fans this year, who managed to lift the band into fourth position in the poll.

But what about albums, you say? Well, we left it to CMU Editor Andy Malt to select the ten best long players, and you can check out what he picked here.

CMU Review Of The Year 2009: The artists and the music

CMU Review Of The Year 2009: The music business

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal Live Business Management & Funding Retail Top Stories

CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke looks back at the key trends and developments in the music industry in 2009.

1. THREE-STRIKES
In early 2008 the UK government indicated that if internet service providers would not play a more proactive role in tackling online piracy, they’d introduce new laws to force them to act. Most probably by making them to operate what became known as the ‘three-strikes’ system – two warning letters to illegal file-sharers and then net suspension. But by the start of 2009, despite a general lack of action from the ISPs, ministers didn’t seem too keen to pass those promised laws. Even though similar rules were being introduced in France and New Zealand, the government’s big ‘Digital Britain’ report in June suggested ‘three-strikes’ should only be considered a few years down the line.

But then, in August, something changed. Some said a lunch engagement between Lord Peter Mandelson and record/movie industry mogul David Geffen did it. Either way, when the Digital Economy Bill, the legislative follow up to DigiBrit, reached the House Of Lords last month, ‘three-strikes’ was in there. It’s still not clear how it will work. The big issue in France and New Zealand is how those accused of file-sharing can appeal before having their net connections cut. That issue hasn’t been entirely addressed here, either. And might never be. Some reckon the DEB will not get through parliament before next year’s General Election.

2. TENENBAUM & THOMAS
Before ‘three-strikes’, the record industry’s strategy for ending file-sharing was, of course, suing the kids who did it. It was meant as a deterrent. It didn’t work. So much so that at the end of 2008 even the Recording Industry Association Of America – this strategy’s biggest advocate – announced it would stop the lawsuits. Except, for some reason, the ones still outstanding. The most high profile of which were those of Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum, both of whom had decided to fight the RIAA in court (the former had already done so once before).

The law was on the trade body’s side, but neither defendant was likely to actually pay any damages awarded (neither was rich), and their high profile court cases would just further damage the record industry’s rep. The RIAA duly won the cases; despite a lot of promises from Tenenbaum’s Harvard prof of a lawyer, his defence was rubbish. But the defendants predictably announced they couldn’t pay the mega-bucks damages, and the record industry’s rep was, indeed, further damaged.

3. COPYRIGHT EXTENSION
In 2009, continued squabbling between EMI and Beatles company Apple Corps meant that the Fab Four’s music, while being re-released in remastered form on CD, and appearing in a version of the ‘Rock Band’ video game, and on a USB stick, was still not available from any legitimate download store. On 1 Jan 2013, the sound recording copyright in ‘Love Me Do’ will expire and enter the public domain. EMI and Apple Corps really ought to get a move on. Or they could try to get the sound recording copyright term extended. Perhaps to 95 years, like in America.

And the wider record industry, led by the BPI, collecting society PPL and the Musician’s Union, had another good try at doing just that this year. Despite the UK government previously being against extension, when the issue came up for debate in Europe at the start of 2009, ministers said they now agreed with it in principle. However, they didn’t agree with the industry’s exact proposal of how it would be achieved. That, and all out opposition from some other European countries, meant copyright extension ended up on the back burner once again as the year progressed. Yeah, Beatles people, better get ‘Love Me Do’ on iTunes while you still own it.

4. LIVEMASTER
In February, live music conglom Live Nation and ticketing and artist management giant Ticketmaster announced their intent to merge. Ironically, the announcement came just weeks after Live Nation had begun the process of taking its ticketing in-house, having previously used the services of Ticketmaster. That fact proved problematic as UK competition regulators considered the merger proposals. The German company Live Nation had asked to handle its in-house ticketing division in Europe – CTS Eventim – assumed the merger would mean they’d lose that work and kicked up a fuss. UK officials are yet to decide whether the merger is inline with British competition laws, though their provisional report in October wasn’t in love with the proposals.

Meanwhile in the US, where competition regulators are also considering the deal, the two companies found themselves countering all sorts of bad press. In particular, continued public concern over the growth of online ticket touting turned to TicketsNow, the ticket resale website owned by Ticketmaster. People didn’t like the fact the unofficial resale service was promoted via Ticketmaster’s official ticketing website. Lawsuits and political intervention followed. None of which helped the PR effort to convince US officials to OK the merger. Nevertheless, the two firms remain optimistic.

5. 696 AND THE LICENSING ACT REVIEW
Opposition had been growing to the Metropolitan Police’s 696 form in 2008, though it was this year that its opponents got a formal platform, as the government reviewed the impact of its 2003 Licensing Act. 696 was (and is) a piece of Met bureaucracy used to get information about future live music events. Opponents didn’t like it because it asked for lots of personal information about performers, and, some said, had leading questions about musical genre that could be used for racial profiling, and therefore lead to prejudiced assumptions being made about an event being planned.

The form is linked to the 2003 Act because, many argued, that legislation had given too much power to local authorities over live music licensing. As a result, London boroughs had made 696 compulsory for licensing applications. UK Music’s Feargal Sharkey led the opposition to 696 (and other bureaucracy introduced by the Act) when the whole thing was reviewed by parliament’s Culture Select Committee. He wanted 696 abolished. In May, the Select Committee agreed with him. Though, alas, the government did not. The Met subsequently revised the form anyway and announced their focus moving forward would be on easy-target urban-music clubs. So, opposition is less vocal than it was.

6. THE MARIAH MAG
Well, we couldn’t get through a whole review of the year without saying ‘three hundred and sixty’, could we? Actually, talk of the ‘360 degree record deals’ we’ve been hearing about for a couple of years now was less prominent in 2009. Record companies were still busy diversifying into areas of the music business other than selling sound recordings, and were quietly doing deals with artists that gave them rights to revenues other than record sales, we just didn’t talk about it so much. Perhaps because the artist management community are still nervous about record companies getting control over too many aspects of any one artist’s career, even if the up-front money is good.

Probably the most obvious manifestation of record companies diversifying (other than Sony and Universal launching its own ad-funded music video website Vevo, and Warner taking on the ad-sales for its own YouTube channels), was the new album from Mariah Carey. It came complete with a special Mariah edition of Elle magazine, ads in which, we were told, had basically paid for the production of the album. Brands sponsoring artists is nothing new, but record companies (Universal in this case) going after a brand’s dollar, and getting it by selling ads on a glorified CD sleeve, is. Mariah’s claims that she was reinventing the music business probably overstated the significance of the project, but it was still a landmark moment for the record industry.

7. FAN-FUNDING
But why would artists give up more revenue streams to the evil old record companies in the digital age? Surely the point of the internet era is that the old corporates are no longer needed; artists can do it all themselves, and retain all their copyrights and profits in the process. Some artist managers would probably agree. Now albums can, in theory, be produced, marketed and distributed on a shoe-string, why do a record deal at all? Except that even doing things on a shoe-string requires some money, and probably five figures worth of it. Where to get it from? Well, the management community, who began reinventing its trade body the MMF this year, have been increasingly looking into other sources of start up cash that don’t rely on the traditional record and music publishing companies.

One alterative much discussed in recent years is fan-funding. Get fans to stump up-front the money they’d spend on your record anyway, in return for other goodies. It’s a concept still in its infancy, but it gained some momentum this year, as Patrick Wolf and Electric Eel Shock released their first fan-funded albums, and more established artists started successfully raising funds from fans. Still, the biggest story in fan-funding, the announcement that Public Enemy would fund an album this way, ended on a negative note – so far they’ve only raised 28% of their target sum. Nevertheless, I reckon fan-funding will continue to grow in 2010, people just need to work out how and when it can work.

8. MUSIC RETAIL HIGHS AND LOWS
Following the collapse of independent distribution big boy Pinnacle, music-and-sweet seller Woolworths, and their supermarket-providing CD distributor eUK, all in the closing weeks of 2008, you might have thought this year couldn’t have been worse for music retail. Though given Zavvi went into administration just before Christmas last year, you’d probably have guessed 2009 was set to be another difficult year for music on the high street. Things actually went relatively quiet for a while, though an attempt to relaunch six Zavvi stores under the Head brand soon faltered, and as the year closed, CD and book seller Borders began a closing down sale.

The exception to all this, though, was HMV, who had a rather good year. Though given nearly all their competitors had bitten the dust, it would have been rather amiss of them not to see some uplift in sales. Nevertheless, HMV impressed City types with more than just increased revenues, interest also grew in their clever diversification strategy. They launched high street cinemas through a partnership with Curzon, bought half of high profile MP3 sellers 7Digital and entered the live sector via a JV with the MAMA Group. The master’s dog did well this year.

9. THE CONTINUED RISE OF MAMA
Which brings us to MAMA. We’ve written quite a lot in recent years about how the live sector has boomed while the record industry slumped. We’ve also written about the shift of power towards the artist management community. So it’s perhaps not a surprise that one of the big success stories of the music business in 2009 was the MAMA Group, whose primary (though not only) operations are in live music and artist management.

The London-based company saw its profits rise ten-fold this year, resulting in an optimistic (and knocked back) takeover bid. Among MAMA’s big announcements were the JV with HMV, which saw some of the group’s bigger venues shifted over to a new company, owned 50/50 by the two firms, and operating under the iconic Mean Fiddler name MAMA had acquired in 2007. On the management side a new venture with Brian Message’s ATC Management and Terry McBride’s Nettwerk, while as yet unproven, might just change the way the whole music industry works. I’d keep an eye on MAMA throughout 2010.

10. YET MORE EMI RUMOURS
Also trying to reinvent the music industry in recent years was Terra Firma’s Guy Hands, the curly-haired City geezer who bought EMI in 2007. While all of the major record companies struggled this year, as the ongoing CD sales slump mixed with the wider economic downturn, it was EMI that continued to dominate the business headlines. Although a big Beatles reissue programme brought in some money, and the firm’s ‘music services’ division (that’s distribution etc) seemed to be having some success, most reports about the major were of the negative kind.

After orchestrating the biggest roster and headcount cull in the record industry’s history, Hands seemed to wash his hands of EMI this year, making increasingly candid statements about what a bad idea it had been to buy the company, and, as 2009 closed, suing the bank who financed the acquisition, partly because they refused to write off a sweet billion of the music firm’s debts. All of which led to a renewal of the good old EMI/Warner merger rumours; so much so, that when Warner boss Edgar Bronfman Jr decided to move to London some people suggested he did so to engineer an EMI takeover. Such talk is highly speculative, though with enough substance that I’m going to predict an EMI/Warner will exist by this time next year. See you back here in twelve months to see if I was right.

CMU Review Of The Year 2009: The media and the internet

Digital Media Top Stories

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke look back at a year of digital music innovations and developments, and at the big stories and trends in the media industry.

1. THE PIRATE BAY
Oh The Pirate Bay, how ye entertain us so. After years of amusing those of us who pay extra attention to the world of file-sharing – with their contentious press statements, constant evading of the piracy police and grand plans to buy their own country (well, Sealand) to avoid litigation – the Bay entered the mainstream consciousness this year as the three men behind it, and their financial backer, faced both civil and criminal copyright infringement charges in the Swedish courts. They were initially bullish about their defence, especially when the prosecution dropped half its charges. But their legal arguments were weak, and they promptly lost the case. Mega-damages and prison sentences were ordered.

Not that they paid the damages or served the prison time. Claims of judicial bias and various appeals were launched. Defendant and Bay PR man Peter Sunde resigned. Then, in another court case in the Netherlands, the Bay’s lawyers denied any of the four defendants had ever actually owned the infamous BitTorrent tracker and search service anyway. For a while it looked like the Bay would be bought by a company called GGF, who were going to turn it all legit. It was a bold plan that never quite happened and nearly caused GGF to go broke. The Bay did turn off its BitTorrent tracker in the latter part of the year, though for technical rather than legal reasons. Despite everything, in a year in which illegal file-sharing of all kinds continued to grow, The Pirate Bay still operates and dominates.

2. YOUTUBE V PRS ETC
But what about the legit online content providers? Well, as 2009 started one of the biggest, YouTube, was busy blocking access to content owned by Warner Music, having failed to negotiate a new licensing deal with the major. Then, in March, the Google-owned video platform cut UK access to all “premium music content” after failing to reach a new deal with publishing rights collecting society PRS (or PRS For Music, as it renamed itself this year). A similar squabble followed with PRS’s German counterparts GEMA.

The issue? YouTube thought the labels and collecting societies were overcharging for their content. The music bodies thought they were being underpaid, and demanded a bigger share of the multi-billion dollar profits Google were making. Both sides were right and both sides were wrong. Record companies and music publishers always overvalue their content, and fail to see that charging less money now might result in more streams and downloads later, resulting in more cash overall. However, Google and their like undervalue content, while their business models, based around providing low-cost net services and selling bargain basement advertising, can’t really support it. Still, agreements were made between Google, Warner and PRS, so for now music videos are streaming on YouTube (outside of Germany that is).

3. SPOTIFY
Although music videos disappeared from YouTube, 2009 was still the year of the streaming music service. And one in particular dominated. Spotify only publicly launched in October last year, but by January it had already started a mini revolution in digital music. After years of being told that what we needed was browser-based, Flash-powered music players with all kinds of features, it turned out what we really wanted was a simple standalone program that was quick and easy to use. Who’d have thought?

The other major attraction of Spotify was the size of its catalogue, aided by the fact that they launched with all four majors and indie digital rights body Merlin already on board. Much of this year has been taken up with debates over whether or not the company can actually make enough money to survive and if they’re paying artists properly, but the catalogue continues to grow, the player remains popular and mobile apps for premium account holders have upped subscriptions income. One day the venture capital funding all this will run out. Let’s hope together the record industry and Team Spot can ensure their business is viable before that day.

4. MYSPACE MUSIC
Talking of streaming music, this year also saw the roll out of MySpace Music, the social networking giant’s expanded music platform, another streaming music service. When the new service launched in the US last year it was instantly hit with all kinds of criticism. A major sticking point was that it had gone live without the aforementioned Merlin on board, meaning most indie label content, which was arguably what got MySpace where it is today, was not available on the site. Negotiations continued this year, but still no deal had been done when the service arrived in Australia in October.

However, by the time it all kicked off in the UK this month, Merlin were in the mix, having been given sufficient benefits to justify joining the MySpace Music party. The service still came in for some criticism though. That said, CMU Daily’s Business Editor Chris Cooke noted that it was “not as shit as you might expect”. Though whether that’s enough for MySpace Music to both succeed, and save the flagging social network to which it is attached, time will tell. I’m guessing not.

5. GATELY, MOIR & TWITTER CAMPAIGNS
MySpace may be floundering, but 2009 was definitely the year social networking came of age and it was all down to a service so simple that it’s nearly impossible to explain – Twitter. Now social networking really did make us socially network with friends and like-minded individuals. Twitter linked together Facebook, YouTube and the blogosphere, and empowered the people who used and generated them. The first real proof of this power was seen when a certain boy band star died and a Daily Mail journalist declared “there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”.

Columnist Jan Moir called Gately’s lifestyle into question and, seemingly, suggested that it was his homosexuality that ultimately caused his death. Outrage spread across Twitter within hours, blog commentaries followed, a Facebook group explained how best to complain, and within days the Press Complaints Commission had received over 25,000 complaints – more than they’d had in the whole of the previous five years. Moir was forced to apologise, though also found column space to portray herself as a victim of the newly empowered Twitterati. Though, ironically, given the PCC can only act if a family member complains, it was actually the one complaint that arrived last week, from Gately’s widower Andrew Coyles, that potentially had real power.

6. SUBO
Social networking doesn’t just generate complaints, however. It can also turn a contestant on a British talent show into an overnight global superstar. It may have been Simon Cowell’s TV adventures that brought her to our attention, but it was the uncoordinated internet that caused this year’s biggest pop phenomenon – the rise and rise of Susan Boyle. Thanks to YouTube, Twitter, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, the fact Boyle could deliver a belting tune, despite lacking the pop star physique, was world news overnight. Cowell, not exactly the most net savvy of men, was still able to hear the ‘kerr-ching’ as the world flocked to the YouTube video of this Scottish spinster’s ‘Les Mis’ warblings.

In the end, she lost the final ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ viewers vote, and started to lose her mind under the tabloid glare. Still, combine that momentum, Simon Cowell and a decently produced covers album and the world is your oyster. Within three weeks of releasing debut album, ‘I Dreamed A Dream’, Boyle had sold over six million copies worldwide, over a million of them in the UK, smashing all kinds of records along the way. Even Cowell surely couldn’t have predicted just how big a goldmine his ‘BGT’ franchise could become thanks to the power of social networking. Though, of course, the social networkers turned against him when it came to his other TV show – and so the ‘stop X-Factor getting to number one’ campaign began – but presumably Cowell’s interest in social media next year won’t be in stopping future ‘anti-X’ projects, but in trying to repeat the SuBo phenomenon for a second time.

7. OBSERVER MUSIC NEVER
But what about the traditional media? It’s all very well talking up the bloody internet and all this social networking whatnot, but what about the good old fashioned music magazine? Well, it’s not good news, people. With only a couple of exceptions, all music magazines lost readers this year, in print at least. One industry favourite – the Observer Music Monthly – was closed down completely, though more because of the crisis in the newspaper industry than anything else, more of which in a minute.

Conor McNicholas may have surrendered the NME editorship this year (so that both rock weeklies – NME and Kerrang! – now have ladies in charge, which is nice), but his strategy of brand extension will have to stay on the agenda of any music magazine wanting to survive the next decade. Web-TV services, radio stations, club nights, tours, books, you name it, diversification is the name of the game. We’ve all known that for a while, of course, though I’m still not sure anyone has cracked how to ensure there’s consistent editorial identity across all the spin offs. Conor got close, but, frankly, we could all do better.

8. DAB DISAGREEMENTS
Radio ratings remain high in the UK, even if the commercial radio sector has been struggling to sell enough advertising to make ends meet. Still, with the aforementioned Spotify competing for both listeners and advertisers, the radio sector (whose internet adventures outside the BBC have been pretty mediocre) should probably have a serious rethink to ensure future survival. With back-to-back streams and music-on-demand all over the net, radio could do worse than refocus on good presenters, quality specialist shows and close knit listener communities.

In 2009, the radio industry focused more on battling to get rid of industry regulation from OfCom, and agonising over what to do about digital audio broadcasting, the flagging digital radio network into which the radio industry has pumped millions. Still theoretically the most efficient way to broadcast in the digital age, the BBC is still backing DAB, even though many commercial digital-only stations have been closed and sales of DAB receivers, while up, are still slow. The commercial sector is still split over what to do about DAB, so much so its trade body, RadioCentre, has lost two of its smaller but significant members, who fear big boy Global Radio’s thoughts on the issue are getting too much attention. These are squabbles set to continue, distracting radio types from the real challenges at hand.

9. EVERYONE HATES THE BBC
God, the bloody BBC, eh? Wasting all our money with their overpaid execs and money-guzzling star turns. Still falling over themselves to apologise over last year’s Sachsgate scandal, and with both Labour and the Conservatives calling for radical cuts, and maybe the shift of some of their licence fee money to other broadcasters, the BBC has had a difficult year.

It’s a tricky one. We all love to diss the Beeb, despite most of us probably thinking they make most of the better British telly programmes, operate the superior radio stations, and provide one of the best websites on the internet. One hopes that, especially if the Tories win next year’s General Election, BBC top brass can get Corporation spending back into the real world, but without letting the politicians and commercial media moguls cut its services into pieces.

10. IT’S END OF THE MEDIA AS WE KNOW IT, DO YOU FEEL FINE?
Of course, one of the reasons the commercial media – the big TV operators and especially the newspaper owners (who increasingly compete with the Beeb in the internet age) – have been so vocal in criticising the BBC this year, is because they’re all fucked. This was the year when the big media firms all began to properly admit they were in a real mess. The internet meant they were probably talking to more people than ever before, but no one had managed to turn that fact into substantial sums of money.

All of which means that the media industry, who have been reporting on the plight of the music business for years now, have suddenly realised they are facing exactly the same issues as their record company counterparts. The public is more eager to access music and media than ever before, and it’s easier and cheaper to provide it. But the internet has conditioned everyone to want all of this for free – either because that’s how content owners have been providing it so far, or because others have been distributing it illegally. This is all well and good, but with a limited amount of advertising money available, and content still costing a sizable sum to make, how can this all add up?

The future is surely subscriptions. Whether that be Spotify’s premium service, or Rupert Murdoch’s planned pay-to-read Times website, or Virgin Media’s add-premium-content-to-your-ISP-bill proposals, somewhere out there there’s a model that will work. If you find it on your travels, do dust it off, it’ll be worth a fortune. Will we find that dream business model in 2010? Possibly, though it’ll take a good few years to hone, I suspect. But, as 2010 approaches, I’m more optimistic than ever that – while the big music and media firms may, in some ways, be fucked for now – the future for all of this looks rather rosey. This, people, is the big period of flux. It’s risky, but it’s fun. And it’s certainly great to write about. Hopefully you like reading about it too. So keep it CMU for another year, and let’s see how it all turns out together, shall we?

Morello on his Xmas No 1

Artist News

Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello has just issued a statement regarding his band topping the UK Christmas singles chart yesterday.

And here’s what he says: “Rage Against the Machine are honored to have been drafted by this historic grassroots campaign to make our song ‘Killing In The Name’ the number one song on the UK Christmas week pop chart. This is a huge victory by and for fans of real music and we extend our heartfelt thanks to every fan and freedom fighter who helped make our anthem of defiance and rebellion the Anarchy Christmas Miracle of 2009”.

He continued: “As promised we will play a free concert in the UK in celebration of this incredible upset victory over the heavily favored ‘X-Factor’ single. We are also pleased that so much money has been raised for homeless charity Shelter and are happy to donate as well to aid this important cause. While there are many lessons that can be drawn from this historic upset, the main one is this: that ordinary people, banding together in solidarity, can change ANYTHING, be it the pop charts or the world”.

RATM win Christmas chart battle

Artist News

So, in the end the anti-X brigade won one of the fiercest chart battles in recent years by quite some margin. The decidedly un-Christmassy (unless, I suppose, you interpret the story of Christ as that of one man’s fight against an oppressive establishment, which you might) ‘Killing In The Name’ from Rage Against The Machine takes the coveted Christmas Number One slot for 2009 after outselling second place Joe ‘X-Factor winner’ McElderry by some 50,000 units. Of course the 1992 RATM track beat the X-Factor winner thanks to the much reported Facebook-led campaign by rock fans across the UK to stop the Simon Cowell factory from scoring its fifth consecutive festive chart topper.

According to the Official Charts Company, the RATM track sold over 500,000 units this week thanks to the Facebook campaign, making it the first download-only Christmas number one, and meaning it has scored more download sales in one week than any other one track has before. Not bad for a seventeen year old shouty rock assault with more than its fair share of lyrical ‘fucks’.

McElderry’s cover of the rather tedious Miley Cyrus song ‘The Climb’ sold 450,000 copies to take second place. The RATM buyers were, of course, making a stand against the ‘X-Factor’ and its perceived power over the charts, rather than trying to show any ill feeling towards Joe himself, who can presumably still expect as good a chance at a full-on pop career as any previous winner of the talent show once attention is turned to his debut album in the New Year. If Team Cowell had a sense of humour they’d include a cheesy pop version of ‘Killing In The Name’ as a hidden track on that long player. I’m not sure they do though.

RATM were ahead from the word go in this chart battle, having a nearly 24 hour head start, with McElderry’s track not available to download until after the talent show’s final last Sunday evening. However, Joe had a CD release on the high street too, which was expected to provide a boost as the weekend approached. And it did, by Friday afternoon sales of the two tracks were very close, and reports on Saturday morning put McElderry ahead. RATM, though, enjoyed a last minute flurry of extra downloads.

Had Joe equalled first week sales of last year’s ‘X-Factor’ winner Alexandra Burke – who sold 575,000 copies of her ‘Hallelujah’ cover – he’d have won the battle. But despite all the media hoo haa about the chart race he failed to match Burke’s sales. Some might say the snowy weather, keeping some more casual pop fans away from the high street, may have had an impact (so, divine intervention in RATM’s favour). Though Cowell’s choice of one of the dullest songs ever written is more likely to blame.

Either way, of course, Cowell’s business partners Sony Music win big time, releasing, as they did, both records, and therefore enjoying over 950,000 sales out of this chart battle. With McElderry still hot property, while Cowell may have had his ego a little bashed by this defeat, he’s still quids in, of course. And while the social networking phenomenon, that really came of age in 2009, was responsible for this defeat, it also helped turn his other talent acquisition of the year – Susan Boyle – into an overnight global megastar, so on balance I think the internet has been kind to Cowell this year.

Commenting on this week’s chart race, the boss of the OCC Martin Talbot told CMU: “Congratulations to Rage Against The Machine on their number one – as we have seen in recent years, beating any ‘X-Factor’ winner in the race for the Christmas number one is no mean achievement. The popular support we have seen for the record this week has been truly amazing – and handed them two all-time records”.

He continued: “But congratulations too should also go to Joe McElderry. In taking the number two spot, he has still achieved one of the highest weekly sales of any single this year – in almost any other year, 450,000 copies would have given him the Christmas number one. Through this week, these two tracks have accounted for more than 950,000 single sales, a fact which is truly remarkable”.

RATM said yesterday that if they topped the Christmas chart they’d play a free gig in the UK to celebrate. Details of that will presumably follow. Quotes from both sides are flowing in regards the result of this race – we’ll have more on those here on the News-Blog tomorrow.

Single Review: Mew – Repeaterbeater (Sony/Columbia)

Single Reviews

There’s this genre of music I like to call goosebump-pop. You know, the kind of music that makes the hairs on your arms stand on end, and your heart race, and your eyes tear up a little (but only when you’re alone, of course). M83 makes this kind of music, as do Sigur Rós and Oceansize. And, of course, Mew. I think Mew maybe even invented it.

‘Repeaterbeater’, the latest single to be taken from Mew’s fifth album, ‘No More Stories’, is heavy-paced and thumping, but at the same time, light as a feather. In every possible brilliant way. It’s spine-shivering, throat-tightening, uplifting stuff we have here, and proof that Mew have every right to act as superior as they like.

You can’t really say, ‘Hell yeah, Mew are back on form!’, because… well, they never fell off ‘form’ in the first place. They’ve always been fucking stellar. And that’s that. TW

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CMU Albums Of The Year 2009: Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

Artists Of The Year

As we head towards the end of the year, we’ll be revealing, in no particular order, our ten favourite albums of 2009. Today, Grizzly Bear’s ‘Veckatimest’.

Beginning as a solo project for singer-songwriter Edward Droste in the early part of the decade, Grizzly Bear’s popularity has risen in sharp spurts with the release of each of their albums. 2006’s ‘Yellow House’ brought the band wide acclaim and a reasonable level of commercial success. Still, if you had described to anyone the shape their 2009 would take at the beginning of the year, I’m not sure anyone would have believed you. Not until they’d heard ‘Two Weeks’, the lead single from ‘Veckatimest’, anyway.

‘Two Weeks’ is what you might call Grizzly Bear’s crossover hit. It’s certainly the closest they’ve ever got to writing a proper pop song – catchy, upbeat and easy to sing along to, but without compromising their smart, ethereal folk sound. Although, it’s not the album’s only pop moment. The chorus of ‘While You Wait For The Others’, in particular, sees the band again getting infectious.

But it’s not just catchiness which makes this album one of the best of the year, it’s much more that no note is wasted. The band make every single sound on the album count, to such a degree that you can barely believe these songs were written by real people. Okay, maybe that’s a step too far into hyperbole, but they certainly take indie-folk to a very different and infinitely more interesting place than the painful tedium of Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver.

More so than any other album in our 2009 round-up, I am convinced that this is one with real staying power. The kind of album people will be discussing in too much detail on TV shows and in magazine articles of the future.

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New Zealand government publishes revamped three-strikes system

Business News Legal Top Stories

Remember how New Zealand was the first country to introduce the good old ‘three strikes’ flim flam? But then someone pointed out that no system had been proposed as to how the whole thing might work, and that was a bit of a problem? Especially for anyone accused of file-sharing, because they had no way to say “hang on mate, you havin a laarf? Me file-share? Not on your life, you fuck muppet”. A quick Google search assures me “fuck muppet” is a common slang term for “complete idiot” in Australia. I only used it in that example to piss off any New Zealander readers, on the assumption everyone in New Zealand is far too sophisticated to say anything as vulgar as “fuck muppet”. Happy holidays everybody.

Anyway, yes, three-strikes in New Zealand, or Section 92A of the Copyright Act, to give it its proper name. This is the provision that will force internet service providers in the country to send out warning letters to persistent file-sharers, with the threat to disconnect their net connections if they don’t stop accessing and sharing unlicensed content. Following a load of online outrage to the original ‘three-strikes’ proposals when they technically speaking became law earlier in the year, the legislation has been reviewed and ministers released the revised law this week.

The new document outlines the system through which content owners can instruct ISPs to send out the warning letters, of which three must be sent before action can be taken. That action will be launched through a new strand of the country’s Copyright Tribunal, who will have the power to fine persistent file-sharers up to NZ$15,000 if it can be shown defendants continued to access unlicensed content despite the warnings. Net suspension or disconnection is still technically on the agenda, I think, though that would seemingly involve a second stage of court action on the content owner’s part.

Those who were most vocally against the three-strikes proposals when they first became law – consumer rights groups and internet firms – do seem to be a little placated by the proposed system, assured that it won’t result in content owners having people’s internet connections disconnected on whim. Though all sides remain a little cautious.

Bronwyn Holloway-Smith of the Creative Freedom Foundation told reporters that the new proposals were “a real improvement” on the original Section 92A of the Copyright Act, and that she was pleased that the courts would be involved before any actual action could be taken against the accused. However, she says she’s concerned about the proposed fines, telling reporters: “They say fines will be in proportion to offending but there isn’t any guidance on how fines will be structured”. Her conclusion: “There are still some issues to resolve”.

For the music industry, what remains slightly unclear is just how tedious the Copyright Tribunal bit of the process will be and, perhaps more importantly, how much it will cost, given the content owners will most likely have to foot the bill of any court action. Whether or not the rules have any impact whatsoever on file-sharing rates will presumably depend on how easy it is for content owners to take at least a handful of infringers through to the fine and/or disconnection stage of the process, and whether doing so in isolated cases proves to be a deterrent for all.

Again, it was cautious welcomes all round really. Anthony Healey of the Australasian Performing Right Association told Billboard: “It sends a strong message that illegal file-sharing is a serious issue and has a negative impact on the entire creative community. It will also encourage the development of new online business models. However some of the detail in the proposed legislation is unworkable and we will continue to work with government to ensure the law is a fair and reasonable one. Now, have a good Christmas, you fuck muppets”. Well, he said some of that.

EMI sue Vimeo

Legal

EMI are suing YouTube competitors Vimeo for copyright infringement, over allegations the video site encourages users to upload videos of themselves lip syncing to songs, even though the video service, unlike YouTube, does not have any licencing agreements with the record companies or music publishers. The major’s lawsuit claims that even Vimeo staff have uploaded said unlicensed lip syncing vids.

EMI’s litigation says this: “The lawsuit is about a commercial, for-profit venture that has built a business by reproducing, adapting, performing, and distributing works that it knows contain the plaintiff’s copyrighted recordings, and then knowingly profiting from the draw created by making these works available for free to millions of its users”.

I think Vimeo say that they remove any copyright infringing videos as soon as they are made aware of them, which technically speaking means they are not liable for the infringement that occurs before the video is taken down (well, depending on your interpretation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, though that is the prevailing interpretation). However, EMI says that the video service only removes specific videos it is alerted to, not other videos featuring the same sound recording. They also make no effort, EMI say, to spot infringing content themselves (something YouTube is doing, increasingly through its automated content blocking system).

Vimeo, which is owned by IAC, which is run by Ticketmaster chairman Barry Diller (fact fans), are yet to respond. Perhaps they could get Barry to lip sync to the closing minute of ‘Killing In The Name’ and stick it up on Vimeo.

Brooks sues hospital

Legal

Country & Western man Garth Brooks is suing a hospital in Oklahoma in a bid to get a $500,000 donation back after the medical facility failed to fulfil a promise to name a new wing of their building after his mother. I think Brooks donated the cash to the Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon during a fund raising initiative to help pay for a $27 million extension programme. The problem arose because, in the end, the particular extension that was to be named in honour of Colleen Brooks was never built.

Brooks’ lawsuit says he has been trying to reach a settlement with the hospital regarding his 2005 donation and their naming pledge for two years. The hospital are yet to respond to the lawsuit. Slackers, they’re probably off saving lives or something inane like that.

Oscar best song shortlist revealed

Awards

Want a list of the 63 songs on the long-list for the Best Original Song (in a movie) category at next year’s Oscars? Even though it includes five from the ‘Hannah Montana Movie’?

Note ‘The Climb’ (The ‘HM’ song Simon Cowell chose for the ‘X-Factor’ winner’s debut single) does not appear. You might think that’s because it wasn’t specifically created for the film, and the Oscar people noted the recent decision by the Grammys people to take the track off its Best Original Song For A Film shortlist for that reason. But that is not the reason it does not appear on this list. It’s not on here because it is a shit song. A shitty shitty shitty song. Possibly the shittest ever. You don’t believe me? I spoke to Mr Oscar, and he confirmed it himself. Actually, that’s not true. Happy holidays everybody.

‘All Is Love’ from ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
‘Almost Over You’ from ‘My One and Only’
‘Almost There’ from ‘The Princess and the Frog’
‘AyAyAyAy’ from ‘The Maid’
‘Back to Tennessee’ from ‘Hannah Montana The Movie’
‘Being Bad’ from ‘Duplicity’
‘Blanco’ from ‘Fast & Furious’
‘Brothers in Arms’ from ‘Brothers at War’
‘Butterfly Fly Away’ from ‘Hannah Montana The Movie’
‘Cinema Italiano’ from ‘Nine’
‘Colorblind’ from ‘Invictus’
‘Depression Era’ from ‘That Evening Sun’
‘Don’t Walk Away’ from ‘Hannah Montana The Movie’
‘Dove of Peace’ from ‘Bruno’
‘Down in New Orleans’ from ‘The Princess and the Frog’
‘Fly Farm Blues’ from ‘It Might Get Loud’
‘Forget Me’ from ‘I Love You, Beth Cooper’
‘God Bless Us Everyone’ from ‘Disney’s A Christmas Carol’
‘Here’ from ‘Shrink’
‘Hideaway’ from ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
‘Hoedown Throwdown’ from ‘Hannah Montana The Movie’
‘I Bring What I Love’ from ‘Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love’
‘I See You’ from ‘Avatar’
‘(I Want to) Come Home’ from ‘Everybody’s Fine’
‘If You’re Wondering’ from ‘The Lightkeepers’
‘Impossible Fantasy’ from ‘Adventures of Power’
‘Innocent Child’ from ‘Skin’
‘Invictus 9,000 Days’ from ‘Invictus’
‘Legendary’ from ‘Tyson’
‘Let Freedom Reign’ from ‘Skin’
‘Loin de Paname’ from ‘Paris 36’
‘Ma Belle Evangeline’ from ‘The Princess and the Frog’
‘My One and Only’ from ‘My One and Only’
‘Na Na’ from ‘Couples Retreat’
‘Never Knew I Needed’ from ‘The Princess and the Frog’
‘New Divide’ from ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’
‘New Jersey Nights’ from ‘Adventures of Power’
‘New York Is Where I Live’ from ‘Did You Hear about the Morgans?’
‘No Time for Love’ from ‘Simon & Malou’
‘One Day’ from ‘Post Grad’
‘Only You’ from ‘The Young Victoria’
‘Other Father Song’ from ‘Coraline’
‘Petey’s Song’ from ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
‘Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea’ from ‘Ponyo”
Possibility’ from ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’
‘Raining Sunshine’ from ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’
‘Running Out of Empty (Make Ourselves at Home)’ from ‘Lymelife’
‘Smoke without Fire’ from ‘An Education’
‘Somebody Else’ from ‘Crazy Heart’
‘Stu’s Song’ from ‘The Hangover’
‘Take It All’ from ‘Nine’
‘Through the Trees’ from ‘Jennifer’s Body’
‘Trust Me’ from ‘The Informant!’
‘Un Bouquet des Violettes’ from ‘New York, I Love You’
‘We Are the Children of the World’ from ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’
‘We Love Violence’ from ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’
‘The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)’ from ‘Crazy Heart’
‘When You Find Me’ from ‘Adam’
‘Winter’ from ‘Brothers’
‘The Word Is Love’ from ‘Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!’
‘You Got Me Wrapped around Your Little Finger’ from ‘An Education’
‘You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home’ from ‘Hannah Montana The Movie’
‘You’ve Been a Friend to Me’ from ‘Old Dogs’

Frusciante confirms Chili departure

Artist News

John Frusciante has confirmed that he is no longer a member of Red Hot Chili Peppers, although he says he actually left the band over a year ago, halfway through their two year hiatus, from which the remaining members have just emerged.

Frusciante originally joined the band in 1988, going on to record the ‘Mother’s Milk’ and ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ albums, before quitting in 1992. He rejoined in 1998, sparking a resurgence in the band’s commercial success with the albums, ‘Californication’, ‘By The Way, and ‘Stadium Arcadium’.

Writing on his own website, Frusciante said: “When I quit the band, over a year ago, we were on an indefinite hiatus. There was no drama or anger involved, and the other guys were very understanding. To put it simply, my musical interests have led me in a different direction. Upon rejoining, and throughout my time in the band, I was very excited about exploring the musical possibilities inherent in a rock band. A couple of years ago, I began to feel that same excitement again, but this time it was about making a different kind of music, alone”.

Can we write about RATM every day this week? Yes we can

Artist News

I really thought we might get through one day this week without talking about this whole Rage Against The Machine v ‘X-Factor’ thing, but then Zach and the boys performed live on BBC 5Live’s breakfast show and everything went all Bruno Brookes.

The band joined Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty from a US studio for an interview and, perhaps bizarrely for a talk station, a live performance of ‘Killing In The Name’. Prior to the performance, guitarist Tom Morello said that the campaign had “tapped into the silent majority of the people in the UK who are tired of being spoon-fed one schmaltzy ballad after another”.

Frontman Zach De La Rocha added: “Simon [Cowell] is an interesting character who has profited greatly off humiliating people on live television and has a unique position of someone who can not only capture the attention of some people on television but also on the airwaves”.

The band then performed the song, with De La Rocha initially removing the swearing from the lyrics, but managed to shout “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” four times over the end of the song before being faded out. Fogarty then announced, seemingly without irony: “We asked them not to do it and they did it anyway”.

But you don’t need me to tell you all this, the BBC videoed the whole thing. You can watch it here (with bleeps) right now: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8418158.stm

A spokesman for the BBC said in a statement later: “We had spoken to the band repeatedly beforehand and they had agreed not to swear. When they did, we faded the band out and said sorry immediately. We apologise again to anyone who was offended”.

Meanwhile, back to the RATM v ‘X-Factor’ battle itself.

And what does Simon Cowell think of the whole thing? Well, he thinks it’s stupid, we already know that. But now he’s come out and accused everyone who’s bought the Rage Against The Machine single of bullying. He told The Sun: “If you take me out of the equation, you have a teenager with his first single being attacked by a huge hate mob on Facebook. It almost feels like a little kid being bullied. It feels like a spiteful campaign aimed at an eighteen year old who won a talent competition. It’s David versus Goliath and it’s not fair on Joe. It’s getting out of hand”.

Just to clarify, he’s saying that the ‘X-Factor’ winner is David and RATM is Goliath. Though he did then concede that it was good to have a bit of competition for the Christmas number one, and agreed that the result would be close, saying: “One part of me says, good for you guys for bringing on some competition. The other part isn’t sure about the point they are trying to make. I think they’ve got a shot at making number one. The retail numbers are very, very encouraging for us but this Rage record now has a momentum of its own”.

But what does Joe McElderry’s ‘X-Factor’ mentor Cheryl Cole thing about the whole thing? Well, she’s none too happy about it and is starting her own campaign to rid the charts of foreigners (possibly). She told The Sun: “I would be devastated to see Joe lose out. He put his heart and soul into every single week of ‘The X-Factor’. I cannot bear to see him lose to a mean campaign that has nothing to do with his efforts. If that song, or should I say campaign, by an American group, is our Christmas number one I’ll be gutted for him and our charts”.

But what does last year’s ‘X-Factor’ winner think of the whole thing? Well, she’s backing Joe McElderry. Alexandra Burke told The Sun: “I think Joe McElderry should be number one because it’ll be his first number one, bless him. I support him dearly. It’s all about what the public want Christmas number one to be – nobody else can dictate that, it’s what they want to buy. End of”.

She also said that she would have been upset if a similar campaign had been launched against her after she won the show last year. You know, say, if people had tried to get Jeff Buckley’s version of ‘Hallelujah’ to number one instead of hers, or something like that. She said: “I would have been upset for sure but what people fail to remember is that the ‘X-Factor’ isn’t forcing someone to be number one. This is not what the show is about, it’s not about forcing people to buy into the single”.

But what does Dave Grohl think of the whole thing? Well, he’s backing Rage Against The Machine. He told Rock Radio yesterday: “We were on our way here and we stopped at a rest stop. It was 4.30 in the morning, I hadn’t slept all night and there was nobody in there except the one guy who works at the sandwich stand. I was paying for my sandwiches and he said: ‘Are you going to buy the Rage Against The Machine single this week?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think I might have to!’ There’s some music that I question for its intention. I think when people rise up and decide, hey man, I’m sick of this, let’s derail this other thing for something real – I’m all for it. It’s an incredible song and it’s meaningful – maybe people are craving something that actually means something”.

But what does Paul McCartney think of the whole thing? Well, he’s leaning towards Rage Against The Machine, despite appearing on the ‘X-Factor’ final last week. He told Sky News: “Everyone expects Joe to do it. If he goes to number one then good luck to him. He’s just some kid with a career ahead. I’ve got nothing against that, but it would be kind of funny if Rage Against The Machine got it because it would prove a point”.

But what do the record buying public think of the whole thing? Well, they’re still backing Rage Against The Machine, too. Just. The band maintained their lead after their first day of competing with sales of the CD single of the ‘X-Factor’ track, which, unlike most physical singles, is expected to sell very well. Yesterday morning the band’s lead had dropped from 65,000 to just under 37,000, and as of this morning it stands at just 9000, having sold 306,000. Just over half of McElderry’s sales have been physical CDs so far. As previously mentioned, the true test for RATM will be Saturday, when shoppers most likely to buy the ‘X-Factor’ single on CD will be out in force.

But what do Ladbrokes think of the whole thing? Well, despite reopening the book on the chart and putting RATM at the top on Wednesday, they’ve shifted their allegiance back to McElderry. The company’s spokesman, Nick Weinberg said: “Joe has recovered from his black Wednesday. Earlier this week there was a very real chance that he could miss out. But that’s diminishing with every day that passes”. William Hill have also made McEldery their favourite.

We’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out the result, of course. The votes (or sales, if you want to call them that) will continue to be counted up until midnight on Saturday.

PS: While many people have pointed out that Sony Music, and therefore the mainstream music industry, will be the winner either way in this battle, because they released both songs, the wider record industry will, in one way, be the loser again. That very well made mash-up video making ‘X-Factor’ contenders seem to sing the RATM song has been taken off YouTube because of a copyright claim made by record label trade body the BPI. Others have re-uploaded it, but presumably YouTube will continue to take it down when they can. It means that when people click on the video snippets many media have posted on their websites people see “removed because of a copyright claim by British Phonographic Limited”.

Presumably the BPI are acting on behalf of Sony, or someone else related to the ‘X-Factor’ or ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ machine, on this. But when people see ‘BPI’ they read ‘the record industry at large’. So, once again the industry looks, at best, like a bunch of boring spoilsports, and worse like a bunch of evil bastards. When will the major labels and their trade body learn about the importance of public perception towards their businesses and industry if they want political support for anti-piracy measures and copyright extension? Can I come and give every record label chief some basic corporate PR training in the New Year please? Things like this drive me insane.

—

UPDATES ON THIS STORY…

FRI 1.30PM: According to 7Digital sales of the two tracks are now neck and neck.

FRI 4.30PM: I see the Daily Mail is quoting sources who say Team Cowell think BBC TV and radio are giving RATM excessive plugs as revenge for the ‘X-Factor’ trouncing ‘Stictly Come Dancing’ in the TV ratings. That assumes a lot more coordination than the Beeb is probably capable off.

FRI 5.30PM: Former CMU columnist Ben Myers shares some interesting thoughts on the chart battle in The Guardian here. You should read it. We did.

SAT 9.00AM: Last day of record buying begins. Joe McElderry’s CD single is expected to sell well today. RATM fans have one last push. Meanwhile, overnight Tom Morello announced RATM would play a free gig in the UK if they get the Christmas number one.

SAT 11.00AM: 7Digital report that X-Factor Joe is now 11,000 sales ahead of the Rage boys. I wonder if there’s a bunch of RATM fans thinking of buying last minute?

SAT 12.00PM: The Sun played Joe X ‘Killing In The Name’ and wrote down what he said – “They can’t be serious! I had no idea what it sounded like. It’s dreadful and I hate it. How could anyone enjoy this? Can you imagine the grandmas hearing this over Christmas lunch? I wouldn’t buy it. It’s a nought out of ten from me. Simon Cowell wouldn’t like it. They wouldn’t get through to boot camp on ‘The X Factor’ – they’re just shouting”. [Insert your own variation of “well, duh” here].

SAT 11.30PM: Oh look, the cut off for buying RATM or Joe X in the race for Christmas number one approaches. We’ve just heard Jedward have approved of the RATM campaign. Good job this only came to light this late in the day – I’m guessing Jedward support could have seriously hindered the RATM campaign. They’re quoted in the Birmingham Sunday Mercury: “Every ‘X Factor’ winner knows they will be No 1, but we think the competition is a good thing. It is cool that someone else hasn’t just sat back and let it happen. We think it is cool there is competition”.

SUN 12.00AM: Race over, now just 18 hours and 50 minutes until winner announced. Apparently the snow might have hindered Joe X’s retail sales today. See, God did his bit too.

SUN 7.00PM: And so, the big count is done and RATM are victorious – more here.

Interpol go orchestral

Artist News

Interpol fans can expect the band’s third album, which they are currently in the process of recording, to have a more classical feel. Frontman Paul Banks told BBC 6music: “Carlos [Dengler, bassist] has gone to total new levels of crazy sophisticated orchestration. There’s some really classical stuff going on. I think he brings that elegant, orchestral quality and he’s gone even further with that. Daniel [Kessler, guitarist] and Carlos, they’ve really pushed what they do. It’s very atmospheric but it sounds really different in my mind. What we’ve worked on is a real step forward and just very different and very relaxed in what we’re doing, but it certainly doesn’t sound like anything we’ve ever done before, to me”.

Oh No Ono announce new single

Releases

Oh No Ono release their new album, ‘Eggs’, via The Leaf Label on 1 Feb. And very good it is too. The band also release a new single from said album, ‘Helplessly Young’, on 18 Jan. You could wait until then to buy it, or you could go and download it for free now before you buy it next month.

While you’re deciding, I’ll just leave the link here. The group have also made three videos for the song, which you can find here.

Kid Cudi departs Lady Gaga tour

Gigs & Festivals

Kid Cudi is no longer supporting Lady Gaga on her current US tour, following the appearance on YouTube of footage of the rapper punching a fan at a show last weekend. The question now is, was he pushed out because of that attack, or is it just because he’s suddenly realised he’s got a load of recording and acting to do?

An official statement on the subject claims the latter. A spokesperson said: “Kid Cudi has decided to take an early leave of absence from Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour, in order to balance his schedule surrounding the recording of his next album and acting commitments. Cudi does not want to disappoint his fans and will move forward with his individual show dates in December and throughout the month of January”.

As previously reported, audience member Michael Sharpe earned himself a punch or two after a wallet was thrown on stage at a gig in Vancouver. Cudi initially seemed relaxed about it, and threw the wallet back into the audience. But it was caught by Sharpe, who was not its owner, and he therefore tossed it back onto the stage. It didn’t land anywhere near Cudi, and clearly wasn’t aimed at him, but the rapper nonetheless took offence and gave Sharpe a bit of a roughing up.

But Sharpe has said that he will not press charges over the assault, telling Rap Radar: “When he came down I thought he was gonna pull me on stage and I was like: ‘Shit, I’m gonna get on stage’. I was just in awe. Pretty funny though, good story to tell my grandchildren when I’m old”

Why? announce UK dates

Gigs & Festivals

US indie fellas Why? will be back in the UK in March for their first gigs since the release of latest album, ‘Eskimo Snow’.

The shows will take place on these very dates:

16 Mar: London, Heaven
17 Mar: Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
18 Mar: Glasgow, Stereo
19 Mar: Manchester, The Deaf Institute
20 Mar: Bristol, Thekla
21 Mar: Brighton, Komedia

Marina And The Diamonds tour dates

Gigs & Festivals

Marina & The Diamonds, aka Marina Diamandis, has announced that she will release a new single, ‘Hollywood’, on 1 Feb via 679, ahead of her debut album, ‘The Family Jewels’, on 15 Feb.

We asked Marina to tell us about her album. This is what she said: “It’s inspired by family, being sad, drive, ambition, being average, being unique. Anything that I’d felt strongly about over the past four years. I would like my album to touch people. I’m after people’s hearts rather than their pockets”.

She’ll be touring in support of the releases from the end of January. These are the dates:

26 Jan: London, Dingwalls
29 Jan: London, The Tabernacle
14 Feb: Norwich, Arts Centre
15 Feb: Brighton, Audio
17 Feb: Nottingham, Bodega
18 Feb: Newcastle, Digital
19 Feb: Glasgow, Òran Mór
21 Feb: Manchester, Deaf Institute
22 Feb: Bristol, Cooler
23 Feb: London, Bush Hall

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