Friday 23 December 2011, 11:00 | By Andy Malt

CMU Review Of The Year 2011: The artists and the music

Artist News

CMU Editor Andy Malt picks and reviews the big ten stories in the music world in 2011, from the major artist stories to the key musical trends.

01 AMY WINEHOUSE
Both the biggest and saddest piece of artist-related music news this year was the death of Amy Winehouse, aged just 27. The singer’s battle with drink and drugs was no secret, of course, but it did seem that she had managed to kick the latter. Still trying to ween herself off the drink, one final binge sent her five times over the drink-drive limit and proved too much for her body to take. She died in her sleep on 23 Jul.

In the months following her death, the Winehouse family set up a charity, The Amy Winehouse Foundation. Although its focus is not entirely clear, a key portion of its activities will be to lobby government to provide better support for young people battling drink and drugs. Meanwhile, this month a posthumous album (a compilation of studio outtakes, rather than her unfinished third long player), ‘Lioness: Hidden Treasures’, went to number one in the UK charts.

02 CONRAD MURRAY
Two years after the death of Michael Jackson, his personal doctor Conrad Murray was finally brought to trial this autumn, accused of causing the singer’s death by negligently administering the surgical anaesthetic propofol. The doctor had been providing Jackson with the drug as a cure for insomnia in the run up to the singer’s 50 night residency at the O2 Arena in London, which, of course, never happened.

Although Murray’s legal team initially seemed confident they could secure a not guilty verdict, the prosecution’s aggressive arguments and the debunking of some of the defence’s key theories meant things looked bad for the doctor from the outset. He was found guilty in November and sentenced to the full four year jail stretch possible by Judge Michael Pastor, who seemed very angry that Murray had twice refused to speak in court but had given his side of the story to a TV documentary instead.

03 JOSS STONE
In one of the year’s more bizarre stories, two men were arrested near Joss Stone’s Devon home in June apparently on their way to kidnap and murder her. The men were stopped by police and found to have swords, rope and a body bag, aerial photographs of Stone’s home, and even notes detailing where to dump her body.

Eventually charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, Junior Bradshaw and Kevin Liverpool appeared in court three times this year. In October, Liverpool entered a not guilty plea, while Bradshaw is yet to plead either way.

04 ADELE
Moving on to the business of actually making music, and Adele has undoubtedly been one of the biggest success stories of the music year, shifting millions of records on both sides of the Atlantic. And unusually for such a big seller, she’s signed to an independent label, Beggars Group’s XL Recordings.

2011 wasn’t all great for Adele though, as she failed to capitalise on her growing success in the States due to an ongoing throat problem, which forced her to postpone most of her US dates this year. She underwent surgery in November and is expected to make a full recovery. And as she says she is not planning to record another album for two years, there’s plenty of time to catch up.

05 THE GALLAGHERS
You might have thought that the end of Oasis in 2009 meant the end of Noel and Liam Gallagher’s sibling bickering. But no. If anything, it escalated this year as both launched new projects – Liam releasing the debut album by Beady Eye (aka Oasis minus Noel) and Noel releasing his debut solo album. Despite much bravado on Liam’s part, Noel’s album far out-performed Beady Eye’s sales-wise.

But that wasn’t the half of it. The biggest Gallagher news came in the form of a disagreement over the details surrounding their former band’s split. In a press conference to announce his new projects in July, Noel claimed that Liam had cancelled a V Festival performance due to a hangover and attempted to place adverts for his Pretty Green clothing company in the final Oasis tour programme. Liam sued for defamation, then Noel apologised and Liam apparently dropped the case. Though in November Noel’s countersuit emerged, which suggests this will all rumble on into 2012.

06 WESTLIFE AND THE STONE ROSES
Westlife and The Stone Roses get nestled together (as I’m sure they would wish to be) as the year’s biggest split and reunion respectively. Westlife decided to call it a day after fourteen years together in October, but not before a greatest hits compilation and one final tour, which will take place next spring. The split is apparently amicable, though it came only seven months after the band announced that they were leaving Simon Cowell’s Syco label and setting up camp at another Sony Music imprint, RCA, perhaps suggesting the end at least came quicker than anticipated.

It may have seemed like Westlife would never stop, but The Stone Roses had always insisted that they’d remain apart forever. When The Sun reported that a meeting at Mani’s mother’s funeral in April had convinced Ian Brown and John Squire to perform together again, the bassist reacted angrily, though it turned out in October that this was exactly what had happened. They will play three shows at Manchester’s Heaton Park next June, as well as numerous festivals, and are apparently working on new material.

07 REBECCA BLACK
She seems like something of a distant memory now, but for a brief period earlier this year Rebecca Black was the biggest pop star on the planet. Though for all the wrong reasons. Having made a music video with vanity record label Ark Music Factory to circulate amongst friends and family, her song ‘Friday’ went viral after featuring on the blog of US TV show ‘Tosh.0’, racking up millions of YouTube views in a matter of days.

As a result there was much analysis of the song and the bizarre company behind it, and Black herself was subject to horrendous abuse from many internet users. Undeterred, she announced that with new management and a top production team she would forge ahead with a serious pop career. Sadly, subsequent singles ‘My Moment’ and ‘Person Of Interest’ have failed to capture the public imagination. Still, with over 180 million views for ‘Friday’ (making it YouTube’s most watched video of 2011) who needs successful follow-ups?

08 JUSTIN BIEBER
What did Justin Bieber do in 2011? Well, he mostly carried on being Justin Bieber, although as he turned seventeen his squeaky clean image began to waver somewhat. There was the swearing at the paparazzi, the controversial interview in which he expressed his views on abortion, disobeying airline staff, getting a tattoo with his dad, crashing a Ferrari, and for the last few months a paternity case (albeit a highly dubious one).

But commercially the Bieber continued to deliver the goods. In February he released a movie, last month he released a Christmas album, and in between he found time to promote his own perfume, which has brought him millions of dollars already, and was recently pushed on fathers of teenage girls with some weird adverts. Oh, and he sold a lock of his hair for $40,000. He also had some eggs thrown at him. Good times.

09 PJ HARVEY
Having spent over two years working on her eighth studio album, ‘Let England Shake’, PJ Harvey finally released it in February of this year, instantly setting critics’ hearts alight. The album’s songs all deal with wars throughout history, right up to the present day, and are written from the perspective of those involved, Harvey having read hundreds of first hand accounts as research.

The album brought Harvey her second Mercury Prize win (this time under better circumstances, the last one having been handed to her on 11 Sep 2001), a lifetime achievement gong at the NME Awards, Best Album at the Q Awards, and saw her appear in many an end of year list, including our own Artists Of The Year rundown. Few, if any, albums managed to unite people in praise to such a high level this year.

10 DUBSTEP
If 2010 was the year that dubstep attempted to break into pop, 2011 was the year it kicked the door down and went mainstream – polarising opinion on the matter wildly. Although they had first made moves into the popular consciousness the previous year, artists such as Magnetic Man, Katy B and James Blake helped to bring previously underground sounds to a much wider audience in 2011. And Skrillex‘s beefed up and dumbed down sound continued the trend over in the US, infiltrating even metal with his brand of the genre when he teamed up with Korn.

On the plus side, it meant there were new and interesting sounds in the charts, and the world of dance added new and innovative movements to its repertoire with it. On the negative side, we reached a point where dubstep was seen as an acceptable genre to soundtrack a Weetabix advert.

CMU Review Of The Year 2011: The music business

Business News Labels & Publishers Live Business Retail

CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke looks back at the key trends and developments in the music industry in 2011.

01 EMI
Electric & Musical Industries has featured heavily in this here end of year review for years now, though this could be its last appearance. Well, probably the penultimate. There may well be no EMI this time next year, but the story is not quite over yet.

As expected, Terra Firma’s ownership of EMI ended this year, quicker than we had expected when the Citigroup bank repossessed the music major in February. We knew a sale would follow, though serious talks with bidders didn’t begin until early summer. EMI CEO Roger Faxon insisted the best option was to keep the EMI recording and music publishing business in common ownership, though few expected that to happen. And it didn’t.

After months of negotiations, in November EMI’s rivals Universal and Sony beat the favourites Warner and BMG to buy the EMI labels and publishing catalogues respectively. Though both deals are subject to the approval of competition regulators, and indie label trade body IMPALA is already opposing them. So, while EMI is at the end of its eighty-year history, we can expect a few more dramas in 2012 first.

02 WARNER MUSIC
While the EMI sale was expected, Warner Music’s announcement in January of a business review that could lead to a sale of some or all of its assets was more of a surprise. Was CEO and key shareholder Edgar Bronfman Jr looking to raise some extra cash to make a bid for EMI? Or had other key shareholders noticed a temporary surge in interest for content companies and spotted a good time to sell out?

Probably the latter. In May the company was sold outright to Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries. In August, Bronfman Jr stepped down as CEO, staying on as Chairman to work on a bid for the EMI labels. When that bidding was over (and lost) Bronfman gave up that role too. With Access now fully in charge, many expect big changes in 2012, as Warner deals with being the smallest music major competing with two much bigger rivals, ie the soon-to-be expanded Universal and Sony.

03 A UNIVERSAL/LIVE NATION ALLIANCE
Despite the various shifts in major label ownership this year, two companies still dominated over all, Universal Music and Live Nation, the former in music rights, the latter in live entertainment, ticketing and artist management. Smaller rivals of these two companies are already critical about their size and dominance, and will therefore be watching closely an alliance between the two firms, which began this year.

While Universal owner Vivendi moved into Live Nation’s territory by buying British ticketing firm SeeTickets in early September, less than two weeks later Universal and Live Nation bosses were announcing a new joint venture business focused on brand partnerships and direct-to-fan platforms. The actual outcome of that joint venture is yet to be seen, though the indie sector won’t like the two biggest players in their industry getting too cosy. And as the year ended, another Live Nation/Universal alliance was announced, with the two companies set to collaborate on Madonna’s next three albums.

04 HMV
Two years ago, as Terra Firma’s ownership of EMI started to crumble and it looked increasingly likely that the British music major would be split up and sold to companies abroad, some speculated that perhaps the then expanding HMV would end up being the UK’s last big music business. Buoyed by the demise of all its high street rivals, and with interesting moves into the digital, live and artist management sectors, HMV had become a very interesting company. Though City types worried about its core retail operations.

And rightly so, as it turned out. 2011 was not a good year for His Master’s Voice. General high street woes, and continued competition from Amazon, Apple and the supermarkets, meant HMV’s key retail revenues slumped, making it hard to service the debts run up by the aforementioned expansion and diversification.

The sale of Waterstones and HMV Canada raised some cash and placated bankers for now, but with retail revenues still in decline, and talk of having to sell live division the MAMA Group to survive, a move that would reverse those clever diversification efforts, many now wonder if 2012 will see the demise of HMV as well as EMI.

05 VAT LOOPHOLE
If HMV does indeed bite the dust, it’s arguable that a curious VAT loophole that aided offshore online music sellers played a part in its demise, even though HMV decided to become one of those offshore VAT-dodgers itself. After a long campaign, the UK government finally announced the loophole would go this year, though that decision came too late to save the many mainland indie retailers arguably put out of business by the tax dodge, and may be even HMV.

The loophole meant that mail-order companies on the Channel Islands selling products under £18 back to the UK – including CDs – didn’t have to charge VAT, giving them a 15-20% advantage on mainland retailers. All the big mail-order operators benefited, and although HMV joined the party, by that point it had lost far too much market share to Amazon, Play.com and websites operated by The Hut Group.

The loophole – called Low Value Consignment Relief – will be axed for Channel Island companies in 2012. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the founders of Play.com sold the company on this year, just before the loophole closed, for a neat £25 million.

06 ON AIR, ON SALE
Some in the industry continued to stress about piracy in 2011, though others would argue the big record companies have missed a trick in that domain by failing to get ‘on air, on sale’ off the ground. The artist management community in particular reckon that a certain portion of file-sharers primarily access illegal sources of music in the period between new songs appearing on radio and them going on sale a few weeks later, when legit purchases are not an option. “Why not put songs on sale as soon as they go on air?” they ask. “Because we can’t maximize first week sales to ensure a good chart position” the major label marketers argue.

Of course the impact on chart-based marketing plans would be less if every label embraced ‘on air, on sale’ for every release. And at the start of the year it looked like they might, with both Sony and Universal officially adopting that policy in January. But with EMI and Warner keeping their options open, and therefore getting a competitive advantage chart wise, Sony and Universal’s commitment to ‘on air, on sale’ soon started to wane. The Music Managers Forum was not impressed.

07 COPYRIGHT EXTENSION
The music rights industry was nervous of a government review of copyright law when it was announced late last year, aware that the review had been in part instigated in a bid to placate Google. In the end the recommendations of Professor Ian Hargreaves weren’t as radical as some expected, though labels and publishers are likely to lobby against his proposals to expand fair use rights in British copyright law in 2012. A government consultation on those proposals has now begun.

However, the big copyright development this year went in the record industry’s favour as the copyright term for sound recordings in Europe was expanded from 50 to 70 years, and just in time to ensure the Beatles catalogue, the earliest tracks in which date from 1962, don’t lose copyright protection in 2013. Record companies convinced the UK government of the case for extension in 2009, but it was only in September of this year that agreement was reached at the all important European level.

08 FILE-SHARING
Elsewhere in copyright news this year, efforts to get a three-strikes system up and running, forcing ISPs to send their file-sharing customers warning letters, didn’t come to much, even though the Digital Economy Act, which allows such a system, passed in April 2010. Media regulator OfCom is apparently still busy figuring out exactly how ‘graduated response’ will work. Meanwhile BT and TalkTalk have been busy trying to get the whole thing scrapped by taking the DEA to judicial review. Twice.

Internationally, three-strikes is now operational in New Zealand and France, while other countries – Spain and the US in particular – have been considering another approach to combating file-sharing, a system that forces ISPs to block access to copyright infringing websites. The UK’s DEA included such a system too, but with a ‘wait and see’ clause delaying its implementation. Though the Motion Picture Association found an albeit slower way to get such web blocks in place without the help of the DEA, forcing BT to block access to file-sharing website Newzbin through the courts, setting a precedent the BPI is now trying to use to force net firms to block The Pirate Bay.

09 TAKEDOWN FRUSTRATIONS
In the US, and beyond, some labels and artists spent the year becoming more and more annoyed with the ‘takedown principle’ set out in America’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which says that user-upload sites like YouTube, that routinely host unlicensed content, can avoid liability for copyright infringement provided they remove such content when made aware of it. American sites often assume protection globally under this system, though technically it is US copyright law.

Some rights owners claim certain websites operate deliberately shoddy takedown systems, so they get protection from the DMCA but are also able to host lots of unlicensed content, which generates traffic. This is possible, they argue, because the US courts have ruled user-upload sites need only operate very basic takedown procedures to get protection – a precedent reaffirmed most recently in the Universal v Veoh appeal ruling. Some now expect the US record industry to lobby for a change in the DMCA that sets out some specific requirements for such takedown processes.

Universal Music plays a big role in this saga, not least by leading the legal battle against one website accused of hiding behind a shoddy takedown system, Grooveshark. Universal launched a new legal attack this year – now supported by Sony and Warner – accusing Grooveshark staff of also uploading unlicensed content, which, if true, would deprive the US streaming service of DMCA protection.

Some on the other side of the fence, meanwhile, accuse the big rights owners of abusing takedown systems too. It was on those grounds that MegaUpload sued Universal earlier this month, claiming the major abused YouTube’s takedown process to have a video promoting the file-transfer site taken offline just because it didn’t like it.

10 THE DIGITAL ROYALTIES DISPUTE
Talking of Universal, lawsuits and all things digital, possibly the most significant bit of litigation in the music business this year was a dispute within the music community. A number of heritage artists in the US with pre-internet record contracts have previously criticised record labels for classifying download revenue as ‘record sales’ rather than ‘licensing deal income’. It’s a key distinction, because many artists get a significantly larger share of licensing money.

Most efforts to have that classification changed through the courts have failed, but then this year, on appeal, producer FBT Productions, who have a stake in the early Eminem recordings, won a lawsuit against Universal on this issue. The music major insisted that ruling relates only to FBT’s specific contract, and does not set a precedent. But the estate of Rick James, then Rob Zombie, and then Chuck D, all begged to differ, and are now suing for a bigger cut of digital revenue. If they were to win, the impact on all records companies could be huge.

That – and an argument over whether a 1978 clause in US copyright law, that allows the creator to regain control over their works after 35 years, applies to sound recordings (the labels insist not) – are likely to be big debates in the US record industry in 2012.

CMU Review Of The Year 2011: The media and the internet

Digital Media

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.

01 HACK-GATE
2011 was not a good year for British newspapers, even though, via their websites, most are now talking to bigger audiences than ever before. But print readerships and ad revenues continued to slump, while internet ad sales failed to grow sufficiently, mainly because of stiff competition from Google and Facebook for the ad man’s pound. With subscription websites not really working, most publishers now hope some kind of subscription-based app might be a solution, and some dabbled in that area this year.

But bigger than all of that was Hack-gate, a scandal that had been brewing for years, but which exploded when it was revealed in July that, as well as hacking the voicemails of celebrities and politicians, News Of The World journalists had accessed the answer phones of victims of crime too, most notably murdered teenager Milly Dowler. Worse still, a number of NOTW hacks were clearly involved, when the paper’s publisher, Rupert Murdoch’s News International, had always claimed there was just one.

Facing global outrage, NI took the radical step of shutting the NOTW down, but still public anger rumbled on. Former NOTW editor and then NI CEO Rebekah Wade resigned (eventually), Murdochs Rupert and James faced embarrassing questions in parliament, and it all ended up with a big government-instigated inquiry, with the crimes and lies of NI, the tactics of all journalists, and the tricky issue of privacy rights all combined into one big muddle. A major media story, if not hugely music related. Though George Michael got the boot in, and Charlotte Church appeared at the inquiry.

02 HACK ATTACKS
Hacking of another kind also cropped up in the headlines of 2011, as small groups of angry geeks around the world – many affiliated to the likes of Anonymous or LulzSec – targeted the servers of organisations, and sometimes individuals, who represented big copyright owners, or who it was felt were in some way censoring the internet.

Such attacks weren’t new, and had been prevalent in 2010, though an attack on Sony Corp’s servers, which enabled hackers to run off with the personal details of customers of both its PlayStation Network and streaming content platform (then still called Qriocity), was possibly the highest profile attack. And very embarrassing for an already struggling Sony company, whose handling of the crisis was widely criticised.

Though the authorities did start to fight back, with various hackers around the world accused of involvement in such attacks arrested, including some linked to the Sony attack, and more recently one accused of taking the website of Kiss man Gene Simmons offline in late 2010, after he said record labels should have sued all file-sharers.

03 NME V MORRISSEY
Back in 2007, Morrissey gave an interview to the NME in which he appeared to say that an “immigration explosion” had damaged Britain’s identity. Which a lot of people pointed out came across a bit racist. Morrissey, however, claimed that the interview had been reworked to make him sound racist by then editor Conor McNicholas and vowed to sue.

No legal action was forthcoming though, until this year, when the former Smiths frontman finally sued for defamation. In October a judge ruled that the case could go ahead, despite NME publisher IPC Media’s protestation that as Morrissey has released albums and toured successfully in subsequent years, his reputation clearly hadn’t been damaged by the interview, something that is required for a defamation case to succeed.

The case is now pending a court date next year, and though this type of dispute is often ultimately settled out of court, both sides seem so determined to prove their innocence that it looks likely it will actually reach trial. A statement apparently written by Morrissey and published in November made his anger abundantly clear.

04 THE RHYTHMIX DEBACLE
Little Mix recently won this year’s UK ‘X-Factor’, but they didn’t always go by that name. After being created on the show from solo entrants who weren’t deemed good enough to make it through to the final twelve on their own, the original name the girl group chose (or possibly had chosen for them) was Rhythmix, which has a nicer ring to it. Unfortunately, it was also the name used by a charity which works with children who have been bereaved, who are disabled, or who have been sent to youth detention centres, using music as a method to aid personal and communicative development.

The charity owns a trademark in the name for educational activities, but not for music, the space in which ‘X-Factor’ then applied for a registered mark. But the charity’s bosses, fearing Team X’s trademark would hinder their fundraising efforts, hoped that, once made aware of the clash, the show’s producers would change the girl group’s name.

But no, they told the charity that if they wanted to block the group’s use of the name they’d have to go to court. A very expensive pursuit. An online campaign in support of the charity began, though it was an open letter from the organisation’s CEO to Simon Cowell that finally brought ‘X-Factor’ in line, and Rhythmix became Little Mix. Though it took another open letter to actually get TV bosses to withdraw their trademark application, and a social media push to persuade Cowell and co to pay the charity’s legal costs.

05 A NEW BOSS AT RADIO 1
Former commercial radio chief John Myers undertook a review of the BBC’s national music radio stations this year, concluding that the likes of Radios 1 and 2 are vastly over staffed, and proposing a raft of changes, most of which would help the Beeb in it’s mission to radically cut its costs. Predictably, BBC Radio boss Tim Davie congratulated himself on commissioning the report and ignored most of its recommendations.

But there was a little change at Radio 1 as Andy Parfitt, boss there for thirteen years, finally left the BBC after three decades with the Corporation. His former number two, Ben Cooper, took over, so radical changes seem unlikely, although he has already reshuffled the station’s specialists show DJs and pledged to work with more indie producers on programmes.

While we’re talking about Radio 1, we probably ought to remember that one of the station’s most iconic presenters of old, the one time face of ‘Top Of The Pop’s, and, some would argue, the first ever DJ – Mr Jimmy Saville – died in October.

06 STREAMING GETS BIGGER
This seemed to be the year that streaming music services really started to take off, not that any made any money, and several revamped their offers to cut back on the costly-to-run freemium on-demand options, Spotify in April and We7 in September. Nevertheless, most streaming platforms saw their user numbers grow, and there seemed to be big announcements from the sector every week, whether it was Pandora’s flotation, Spotify’s final long-time-coming launch in the US, or Deezer’s arrival in the UK and planned expansion to more countries than exist.

Success brings backlash of course, and both artists and smaller labels started to hit out at the royalties these services pay out. Whether that matters really depends on whether you think being on Spotify et al has a negative impact on iTunes sales. In the US Century Media, and in Britain STHoldings, both reckoned it did. The big record companies, though, were generally supportive of the streaming services, though they are possibly getting much better royalties. And nevertheless, some big artists, Coldplay among them, did keep their new albums off the streaming platforms. This debate will rumble on in 2012.

07 FACEBOOK PARTNERSHIPS
In September Facebook had a big party to make a big announcement. Everyone there seemed very excited. Alas, the technology changes happening in the background, which were possibly significant, were far too complicated to understand, so everyone focused on the content partnerships also revealed.

Said content partners could now make available widgets that would publish every song a user ever listened to, or every article they ever read. Quite why anyone would want that still isn’t clear, though lots of content partners have made such apps available, and apparently lots of people are signing up to their services as a result.

Possibly the most high profile partner was Spotify, who were brought on stage at the party to demo their app. The Spotify/Facebook love affair meant existing Spotify accounts synced to Facebook would automatically share data, and new Spotify users would have to sign up via their Facebook accounts. Some existing subscribers responded badly to this news, forcing Spotify to make it easier for said users to opt out of the Facebook love-in.

08 APPS
Talking of the app word, as the use of smartphones and tablets continued to grow this year, so too did the use of music apps. Most streaming services now have a premium subscription allowing users to access music via mobile devices using an app, this being seen as key to converting free users to paying subscribers.

Apps also became a routine addition to many artists’ promotional campaigns. Though while many (though not all) artist apps simply collate music, videos and text that already exists online, the bar was pushed high by Björk, who had special apps built for each of the songs on her ‘Biophilia’ album. The apps allowed users to manipulate the songs through various games and activities, as well as providing visual scores of the recorded versions and more.

Whether the app should be seen as a new type of album, a slick promotional tool, or a waste of time, is still being debated, but the trend for artists being creative with their apps will continue.

09 DIGITAL LOCKERS
Digital locker services for music have been around for several years now, the most high profile until this year being MP3.com founder Michael Robertson’s MP3tunes – a service that is locked in a legal battle with EMI which rumbles on despite a judgement in August.

But in March, Amazon decided to launch one too, making music-based lockers suddenly big news. Did the company get licences from the record labels and publishers to make this happen? No. As far as Amazon was concerned, no licence was required to simply store your music somewhere. Those pesky rightsholders, however, argue that there is if you want to then stream tracks back through a player attached to that storage.

At the same time Google was also preparing to launch a digital locker service, and it did get in touch with rightsholders first. However, when Google became frustrated with the slow progress of negotiations, it launched unlicensed too. Only Apple, which arguably has the most compelling offer of the three with its iCloud service, actually gained licences, and as a result is the first of the big players to launch a locker in the UK.

10 STEVE JOBS
Talking of Apple, the IT giant’s co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs died in October this year, having been suffering from pancreatic cancer for some time.

His health problems had been high profile in recent years, of course, and were enough to cause Apple’s share price to dip at one time. But he had always returned to work after his various leaves of absence, so when he finally announced in August that he was unable to continue leading the company and stepped down, many feared the worst.

Jobs, of course, was not a music industry person, but such was his and Apple’s effect on the music world with the iPod, iTunes and more that it would seem strange not to mark his passing in our review of the year. His is a legacy that will live on for many years to come, in music and many other fields.

CMU Artists Of The Year 2011

Artists Of The Year

Each December we select our ten favourite artists of that year, acts we think have made an indelible mark on the last twelve months and offered that little bit more than their contemporaries. The votes are in, the squabbling has been done, and so here are our ten Artists Of The Year for 2011 – click the images to read the full articles. And click here to listen to a CMU playlist featuring tracks from each of our artists of the year.

Björk
In nearly 35 years as a performer, Björk has never been conventional and has done much to push the boundaries of music in her time. But for her latest album, ‘Biophilia’, she experimented not only musically but also with how the music itself was released. ‘Biophilia’ is an ambitious project that will act as a marker music.

Amon Tobin
Traditionally the whole of an artist’s activity is a sum of various parts. You write an album, you record an album, you get on the road and tour to promote that album. And while I’m sure that in part the same is true for Amon Tobin, it at least appeared that in 2011 he was working on one complete project, a feat of joined up thinking where each piece was as important as the others.

PJ Harvey
It was apparent from the first listen of PJ Harvey’s eighth album, ‘Let England Shake’, that it was going to be one of the year’s best, and one that would dominate end of year lists. Released in February, it has since swept up numerous accolades, including Harvey’s second Mercury Prize win, recognised for its brilliant songwriting and the sheer work that went into making it.

Beyonce
Beyonce’s ‘Run The World (Girls)’ launched her fourth studio album, ‘4’. Although not as successful as hoped, the ‘4’ crusade strutted on, with second single ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ coinciding with a headline set at Glastonbury, a marathon demonstration of her supreme stagecraft, and one of the more glamorous showbiz spectacles yet to flood the Pyramid Stage’s iconic outline.

Wiley
2010 was a bit of a strange year for Wiley, a mixture of chart success and label disputes. Somewhere along the way, he cracked. He announced via Twitter that he had sacked his manager, before uploading a series of zip files containing over 200 previously unreleased tracks. But since wiping the slate clean and signing a new deal, he returned this year triumphant.

Emika
Pulling on all sorts of permutations of UK bass music and Berlin techno, plus a dose of 90s R&B, ‘Emika’ is an album that has its own sound, with no artists clearly definable as influences. It’s dark and edgy but also filled with hooks, and somehow both loud and quiet. Very few artists manage to create such a distinct world in which to place their songs.

Odd Future
Odd Future had their unofficial coming out party at this year’s SxSW; toasted as a hip hop revelation and the true torchbearers of the underground flame. Ever since the LA collective’s many factions have prolificly released singles, albums and mixtapes, harnessing the social potency of Tumblr and Twitter on a scale bordering on revolutionary.

EMA
EMA made the move from South Dakota to LA aged eighteen, taking her first footsteps into the music world with alt-rockers Amps For Christ and releasing a 2007 album with drone-folk pairing Gowns before electing to strike out on her own. Her debut album, ‘Past Life Martyred Saints’, has a broad but clearly defined sonic palette, which allows for diverse variety of styles.

The Weeknd
A dark, downbeat confection of songcraft and samples, swirled through with a lush falsetto, and made shadowy flesh by Canadian producer-singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye. I’m talking, of course, about The Weeknd, who this year confounded critics with his ‘House Of Balloons’ and ‘Thursday’ mixtapes, each of which conjured a fireball of fuss.

Three Trapped Tigers
Three Trapped Tigers’ sound is complex, and can be difficult to explain succinctly. Rogerson described it to us with a riddle, saying: “How do you play Aphex Twin live? Answer: make it sound a bit like Lightning Bolt”. But that description doesn’t get over how much they’ve created their own universe of music with their own instantly recognisable sound, unlike any other band.

Playlist: CMU Artists Of The Year 2011

CMU Playlists

Each December we select our ten favourite artists of the year just gone, acts we think have made an indelible mark on the last twelve months and offered that little bit more than their contemporaries. You can find our articles on each of the artists we selected here, and for your listening pleasure we’ve also put together this playlist of tracks by (or featuring) those acts.

CMU Editor Andy Malt says of this year’s selections: “This year’s Artists Of The Year rundown is an eclectic list, showing off what a diverse year it was for contemporary music, spanning wild experimentation to pure pop. I think it also shows that 2011 was a year in which musicians really pushed themselves in lots of different ways. Here’s to more of that in 2012”.

CMU ARTISTS OF THE YEAR TEN
Click here to listen to the playlist in Spotify, and then read on to find out more about our choices.

01 Björk – Crystalline
The first track to be released from Björk’s ‘Biophilia’ album, ‘Crystalline’ starts out with a music box melody before bowing out five minutes later in a burst of drum n bass. The entire ‘Biophilia’ project was as wild and experimental as this promised – more so – ensuring her place at the top of our Artists Of The Year list.

Read our full feature on Björk here

02 Amon Tobin – Goto 10
Like Björk, Amon Tobin tied all his projects together into one whole this year, with his ‘ISAM’ album at the centre of it. A mix of sound design and an innovative view of electronic music, the album sounds like no other. Even when Tobin makes an attempt at creating dubstep on ‘Goto 10’, it ends up twisted into a new, monstrous, robotic form.

Read our full feature on Amon Tobin here

03 PJ Harvey – The Words That Maketh Murder
Bagging her a second Mercury Prize win, as well as numerous other accolades, PJ Harvey’s eighth album ‘Let England Shake’ is an examination of the emotional effect of war, which took over two years to research and write. ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’ is one of the album’s stand out tracks but also features some of its bleakest lyrics.

Read our full feature on PJ Harvey here

04 Beyonce – Best Thing I Never Had
The second single from Beyonce’s ‘4’ album, ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ was the track which really got fans excited, after a slightly faltering initial reception to its predecessor ‘Run The World (Girls)’. The release also coincided with the singer’s headlining set at Glastonbury, one of the more glamorous showbiz spectacles yet to flood the Pyramid Stage’s iconic outline.

Read our full feature on Beyonce here

05 Wiley – 100% Publishing
2010 was a bit of a strange year for Wiley, but in 2011 he returned on top form with his latest album ‘100% Publishing’, of which this is the title track. Publishing rights aren’t an obvious topic for any song (the general public for the most part having no idea what they are), but if someone’s going to tackle them you can be sure it’s the wonderfully eccentric Wiley.

Read our full feature on Wiley here

06 Emika – Pretend
Pulling on all sorts of permutations of UK bass music and Berlin techno, plus a dose of 90s R&B, ‘Emika’ is an album that has its own sound, with no artists clearly definable as influences. It’s dark and edgy but also filled with hooks, and somehow both loud and quiet, as shown on ‘Pretend’. Very few artists manage to create such a distinct world in which to place their songs.

Read our full feature on Emika here

07 Frank Ocean – Novacane
Representing Odd Future in this playlist, Frank Ocean is one of the hip hop collective’s less controversial figures. The group’s resident R&B crooner, Ocean has arguably overtaken Tyler, The Creator as the member most likely to succeed. And despite lending his voice to Kanye West and Jay-Z’s ‘Watch The Throne’, he declined to have West feature on his debut album (the follow-up to his ‘Nostalgia/Ultra mixtape, out next year), wanting to make sure that success was his own.

Read our full feature on Odd Future here

08 EMA – Marked
‘Marked’ is the centrepiece of EMA’s debut album ‘Past Life Martyred Saints’, a song which sounds like the calm at the centre of a storm, the sparse instruments all given a washed out, degraded sound. Lyrically it features an almost overwhelming emotional rawness, brought on as much by the lyrical content as the awkward silence in her vocals after the line: “Don’t you know that I would never hurt you, you are such a pretty thing”.

Read our full feature on EMA here

09 Drake – Crew Love (feat The Weeknd)
Drake didn’t make the final cut for our 2011 Artists Of The Year, rather his partner on this track did. The Weeknd, aka Canadian producer-singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye, released a series of mixtapes this year featuring a dark, downbeat confection of songcraft and samples, swirled through with a lush falsetto.

Read our full feature on The Weeknd here

10 Three Trapped Tigers – Cramm
The opening track from Three Trapped Tigers’ stunning debut album ‘Route One Or Die’, ‘Cramm’ is a perfect example of their complex sound. Their style can be difficult to explain succinctly. The band’s keyboardist and occasional vocalist Tom Rogerson described it to us with a riddle, saying: “How do you play Aphex Twin live? Answer: make it sound a bit like Lightning Bolt”.

Read our full feature on Three Trapped Tigers here

Approved: Best Of Approved 2011

CMU Approved

Over the course of 2011, we’ve featured nearly 200 new artists in our CMU Approved column. Here are some of our favourites, who we hope to hear even more of in 2012 – click the images to read the original articles.

Lana Del Rey
Approved for her debut single ‘Video games’ in September, Lana Del Rey quickly became a household name. Much faster than anyone, including her management, could have anticipated and possibly a great deal quicker than she would have liked. But still, if she manages to ride the hype and delivers an album that matches up to her initial relases, 2012 will be a big year for her.

Icona Pop
Despite featuring on the tenth edition of Kitsune’s ‘Maison’ compilation series last year, Icona Pop first piqued our interest via a sample in Chiddy Bang’s saccharine rap-hop treat ‘Mind Your Manners’. Less cool, perhaps, but it set the Stockholm-situated duo are firmly within our sights with a line in eccentric electro-pop at its most accessible.

Bleeding Heart Narrative
One of the very first artists we featured in the Approved column in 2011, Bleeding Heart Narrative was originally a solo project for composer Oli Barrett combining his classical cello training and Sound Art & Design degree. Now a six-piece experimental pop outfit, they cemented their place in our affections last year with a beautiful performance at London’s Union Chapel.

The Dying Seconds
Featuring in CMU for the first time in August, The Dying Seconds released their debut single, ‘Mora Minn’, the following month, a subtle and wonderful mix of piano, percussion and glitchy electronica, its vocals becoming ever more forceful, with a video to match the song’s mood. Later in the year we were treated to their altogether more intense live show.

LA2019
LA2019’s debut EP features cinematic, synth-based music that brings to mind Vangelis’ ‘Blade Runner’ soundtrack. But this is more of a starting point than an all-out influence, producer Tom Skyrme has treated each three minute track as its own epic journey and in doing so has created his own series of vivid microcosms.

Friends
Back in September we worried that the hype might kill Friends before they really got started. And we still do, so you might think putting them here is a bit perverse, but with the BBC Sound Of nod under their belt it’s too late now. Plus, ‘I’m His Girl’ is still a great song whatever happens. Fingers crossed they’ve got more up their sleeves for 2012.

A Winged Victory For The Sullen
A Winged Victory For The Sullen is a collaboration between Stars Of The Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and pianist and composer Dustin O’Halloran, a classical project that saw them recording often minimal compositions in large acoustic spaces, including the thirteenth century Begijnhof in Brussels, before mixing the album in a seventeenth century villa near Ferrara in Italy.

Death Grips
Dark hip hop outfit Death Grips released their ‘Ex Military’ mixtape in the summer, Flatlander’s heavy production complemented by Zach Hill’s frantic drumming almost drowned out by MC Ride’s aggressive vocals. The sound is intense, to say the least. Even sampling the Pet Shop Boys fails to calm the situation.

Team Me
Next up are Norwegian sextet Team Me, who we wrote about in February when they marked the release of their debut EP with a videogame soundtracked by a song from it. The five track EP proved to live up to the promise of that song, and they proved to be a great live band too. The band have just announced that they will release their debut album in March.

Listener
Describing their sound as “talk music”, Listener are a band whose frontman Dan Smith has been said to sound like a tramp ranting. But in a good way. They released their latest album, ‘Wooden Heart’, in July and, when they arrived in the UK to promote it a month later, played one of CMU Editor Andy Malt’s favourite gigs of the year.

AlunaGeorge
Here we take another look at alt-pop duo AlunaGeorge, who in August were about to release their brilliant single ‘You Know You Like It’. Currently courting various labels to release their debut album you can catch them live at The Nest in East London on 8 Dec for a special end of year party, with Riton, Lapalux, Canblaster, Sam Tiba and Raffertie also performing.

Paul Thomas Saunders
Paul Thomas Saunders was featured back in June ahead of the release of his debut EP, ‘Lilac And Wisteria’. This Approved piece includes a brilliant live video of a track from that EP, ‘Appointment In Samarra’, a song which we were lucky enough to see performed in the flesh at this year’s Apple Cart festival in London.

Dirty Beaches
Again in June we approved Dirty Beaches, aka Taiwan-born and Canada-based musician Alex Zhang Hungtai, and his dirty, grimey, reverb drenched rock n roll. At the time, he was just about to play two UK shows, including one in the back room of The Victoria in Dalston, which was a packed out, sweaty affair that sealed our admiration for him.

CMU Artists Of The Year 2011: Björk

Artists Of The Year

In nearly 35 years as a performer, Björk has never been conventional and has done much to push the boundaries of music in her time. But for her latest album, ‘Biophilia’, she experimented not only musically but also with how the music itself was released.

Having released the theme tune for a Moomins film and soundtracked fashion photographer Nick Knight’s short film dedicated to mutual friend Alexander McQueen in 2010, Björk revealed in January this year that she was in the process of recording her eighth solo album, but refused to elaborate further. Then two months later she announced a three week residency at the Manchester International Festival in June and July, with a blurb that posed the question: “Where do music, nature and technology meet?”

The answer was apparently ‘Biophilia’ “a multi-media project encompassing music, apps, internet, installations and live shows” designed to celebrate “how sound works in nature, exploring the infinite expanse of the universe, from planetary systems to atomic structure”.

It was evidently an ambitious project, even if it wasn’t entirely clear what Björk had planned. Then in June, it was announced that each track on the ‘Biophilia’ album would come with a separate app allowing fans to “interact with the song as well as associated visuals”, released one by one but all housed in a “mother-app”.

Although this idea has been written off by some as little more than a marketing tool, the idea had its origins in 2009 when Björk was trying to think of something that would turn her recorded music into an experience, rather than a collection of tracks that could simply be half-heartedly pirated online. She explained to Wired earlier this year that her original plan was to have different songs playing in different rooms of a house “like a museum” and a 3D film directed by Michel Gondry. The film was scuppered when Gondry became unavailable, but the music house idea grew and changed with the launch of the iPad.

Björk used Apple’s tablet computer in both the writing and recording of ‘Biophilia’, but all the time work was also going on to develop the apps through which the music would be released. And it’s clear that the final result is anything but a quickly thrown together marketing endeavour. With an introduction by David Attenborough, the apps do provide a different way to experience the album. True, I have probably listened to the record far more via more traditional means, but the various software experiences do give you a different relationship with the music, particularly those which allow the user to manipulate the music itself.

Add to that the score and lyric visualisations that come as extras and you’ve got the thing that anyone who’s ever complained that no one sits down and looks at album artwork in the digital age should be crying out for.

In the accompanying live show, Björk unveiled some of the custom instruments she had built for the recording of the album, including one constructed from a Tesla coil for the song ‘Thunderbolt’, which had the added bonus of being visually impressive. With it giving off (albeit artificial) lightning, it was one of the ways the themes of nature that run through the album were represented. With a stage set that designed to look like a Victorian hall, and a combination of video footage, narration by David Attenborough and a 25-piece Icelandic choir thrown into the mix, it was certainly a spectacle.

‘Biophilia’ as a whole is a hugely ambitious project, and one that perhaps overstretches itself at times. The music at its centre is not perfect, with ever shifting odd time signatures ensuring it’s not an easy listen. But there are plenty of successes within it, and plenty to keep drawing you back in. Songs like ‘Crystalline’ and ‘Mutual Core’ find the album at its most accessible, while opener ‘Moon’ is one I think I would enjoy less had I not spent time playing with its app.

And I don’t see that fact that Björk sometimes overstretches herself as a bad thing, per se. She clearly attempted to push herself, her music, and technology as far as she could with ‘Biophilia’, and if that means occasionally slipping over the edge then so be it. She still succeeded in her aim, and created something (or indeed some things) that will act as a marker in music, and the music and technology industries. We need more people like Björk.

Below is a video of Björk performing ‘Thunderbolt’ live at the Manchester International Festival earlier this year:

Find more of CMU’s ten Artists Of The Year here.

Sky blocks Newzbin

Digital Legal Top Stories

Sky’s internet division has blocked its customers form accessing file-sharing website Newzbin after receiving a court order demanding such a block. The court order was requested by the Motion Picture Association which earlier this year won a similar injunction against BT having convinced the UK courts that such web blocks were the only way to tackle Newzbin, which relocated outside the UK after an earlier court ruling said the website was liable for copyright infringement.

Confirming that it was blocking access to Newzbin after receiving a court order, a spokesman for Sky told reporters: “Sky is working with the rest of the industry to implement a sustainable framework for tackling piracy. When presented with clear and robust evidence of copyright theft, we will take the appropriate action in respect to site blocking, as we have with Newzbin2”.

As previously reported, both Sky and Virgin have been more sympathetic towards the content industries regarding their fight against piracy than other net providers, mainly because through their respective TV businesses they are content providers themselves and are directly impacted by file-sharing, especially when movies are illegally downloaded. That said, both ISPs have said they will only instigate web blocks when a court order instructs them to do so. Virgin says it is yet to receive any such order relating to Newzbin so hasn’t as yet blocked the site.

To be fair, TalkTalk, usually the most resistant to requests by the content companies for help in combating online piracy, has also said it would instigate a web block if a court order was issued. A spokesman told the BBC: “We are not in principle against blocking, provided a court decides. [But] we have received no such order in respect of Newzbin”.

That no ISP is keen to block infringing websites without first receiving a court order has been demonstrated in responses from the net sector to the BPI’s recent attempt to have The Pirate Bay blocked.

As previously reported, the record label trade body recently wrote to various net firms asking that, bearing in mind the precedent set in the Newzbin case (that the courts will issue injunctions forcing web blocks on infringement grounds), they voluntarily start blocking access to the rogue BitTorrent search engine. But from what we hear no ISP has agreed to do such a thing voluntarily, and the BPI will now have to begin legal proceedings in a bid to block access to the Bay.

Of course more prolific file-sharers can install software that circumvents such blocks, and Newzbin claims many of its users have done just that. Though most content owners would probably say they are happy just to know that more casual web users will not be able to reach copyright infringing websites, especially those who discover such sites via search engines and are ignorant of that fact the content available there is unlicensed.

EMI sued over rights in Santa Claus Is Comin To Town

Legal

See, we’re being festive, we’re reporting on a bit of pop litigation relating to a Christmas song.

The estate of the late songwriter J Fred Coots is suing EMI’s music publishing company as part of a long running attempt to wrestle back control of ‘Santa Claus Is Comin To Town’, that much covered Christmas track that, although clearly tarnished by Justin Bieber’s terrible version having been allowed into the public domain, is nevertheless a big earner at this time of year.

The legal dispute relates to a feature of US copyright law that allows songwriters who assign their copyrights to a third party, usually a commercial entity, to revoke that assignment, just once, after a period of time. For songs where original assignment took place after 1978 (when the current termination clause was introduced) that period of time is 35 years (which, maths fans will notice, means the impact of this 1978 law is only just about to really kick in, so look out for that).

But for pre-1978 songs, like the 1934 song ‘Santa Claus Is Comin To Town’, it’s slightly more complicated, though this dispute isn’t about whether a termination right exists in theory, rather EMI says that Coots has already used up his termination card.

Coots, who co-wrote the Santa Claus track with Haven Gillespie in 1934, originally assigned the copyright in it to a music publishing company headed by one Leo Feist. The song remained with Feist’s company, and its successors, until the early 1980s. In 1981 Coots sent a notice of termination to the successor of Feist’s company, but subsequently agreed a new deal, so control stayed with that publisher. That publisher was later bought by EMI.

Coots died in 1985. Then, in 2004, his estate sent a new termination notice to EMI, subsequently doing a deal with Warner Music’s publishing company over Coots’ songs. EMI, however, is trying to hang on to Coots’ catalogue, arguing that US copyright law only allows one termination, and that occurred in 1981.

Lawyers for the Coots estate, however, argue that the 1981 termination notice was never filed with the US Copyright Office and was therefore invalid. Meaning the 2004 notice is legit, and EMI should relinquish control of Coot’s songs, including ‘Santa Claus Is Comin To Town’, to Warner. And with that in mind they’ve now filed legal papers with the Florida court seeking judicial confirmation of their claims.

But EMI is sticking to its interpretation of events. A spokesman told the Hollywood Reporter: “US copyright law provides authors and their heirs with the one-time right to terminate a grant of US copyright. J Fred Coots and his family exercised that right in 1981, and were then paid a significant amount – and continue to be paid significant amounts – for a new grant of rights. Their contention that the supposed failure to file the 1981 notice of termination with the Copyright Office is meaningful is completely inconsistent with the plain language of the Copyright Act. The heirs have no right to terminate a second time. Their claims are baseless and EMI fully expects that they will be dismissed”.

So, there you go, Santa Claus is coming to town for a big legal barney over a bit of American copyright law. Have a happy holiday, people.

Spanish man arrested over Madonna demo leak

Legal

A man has been arrested in Spain over allegations he leaked a demo of a new Madonna single onto the internet. It’s not clear how the man, described by Reuters as a “Madonna fan”, got hold of the demo to start with, but police say they found copies of the recording in his possession.

As previously reported, Madonna’s manager Guy Oseary said the singer was “very upset” when the demo of ‘Give Me All Your Love’ surfaced online last month, adding in a Tweet: “Madonna told me this morning ‘my true fans wouldn’t do this’… whoever is responsible for this leak, we ask that you please stop! I’m very happy with the positive reaction to the demo, but we are very upset with whoever leaked the song!”

The Spanish man, identified only by his initials by police, was charged over the leak and then bailed. As previously reported, Universal’s Interscope is set to release Madonna’s new album in the new year, her first since 2008, which will include the finished version of ‘Give Me All Your Love’.

Exchange sound engineer dies

Business News Obituaries

Nilesh Patel, a popular sound engineer who worked for Camden-based mastering studio The Exchange for over 20 years, has died.

Patel joined The Exchange in 1989 after studying at The School Of Audio Engineering. As a mastering engineer he worked on countless tracks and albums, perhaps most notably Air’s ‘Moon Safari’, Björk’s ‘Homogenic’ and Daft Punk’s ‘Homework’. His death was confirmed by The Exchange yesterday.

Numerous artists and producers paid tribute via Twitter, with Ewan Pearson noting: “Very sad to hear of the death of Nilesh Patel, mastering engineer at The Exchange – he cut my Soma [Records] album and singles and was a lovely chap”, while Erol Alkan wrote: “In my eyes and ears, he was the best mastering engineer on Earth. [We] spent so many afternoons together talking like nerds”.

Guns N Roses may reunite at Hall Of Fame, but probably won’t

Awards

Organisers of the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame seem optimistic that all seven members of Guns N Roses’ most classic line-up will attend next year’s Hall Of Fame ceremony, when the band are due to be inducted. Unduly optimistic though, since the band don’t seem especially keen.

Hall Of Fame CEO Joel Peresman says: “Who will be invited, obviously, is the original five, and Dizzy and Matt. All have RSVP’d that they will show. Everyone’s said they’re coming”. By ‘everyone’ then, he means originals Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler, plus keyboardist Dizzy Reed and drummer Matt Sorum who first joined GNR in 1990.

But Slash has already tweeted to the contrary, writing: “For the record, I didn’t RSVP, or in any way commit to attending the RRHF”.

Meanwhile Axl Rose has been keen to play down any reunion talk of any kind, telling the LA Times: “There is no plan yet. There really is no plan. We’re still busy with this line-up. We’re gonna be busy – we’re gonna be busy all next year. We’ll be putting out new stuff as soon as we can figure out what our deal is with labels, blah blah blah”.

He may be all ‘blah blah blah’ now, but Axl wasn’t feeling quite so stoic at a Guns N Roses gig this past weekend, when he ordered a fan to leave the show for reasons unknown. At some point during a performance in Vancouver, Rose took a dislike to a man in the crowd, shouting: “Out, motherfucker! Out! Get the fuck out! Yeah, you! See ya, you dumbass motherfucker”. The man was then removed.

Before resuming the set, he told the audience: “That’s the first person I’ve had thrown out for 100 shows… like the good old days”. So, that’s a bit of nostalgia on Axl’s part then, perhaps he could yet be talked into catching up with his former bandmates next April. Though we don’t recommend anyone, Peresman included, hold their breath.

U2 top tour tally for 2011

Business News Live Business

U2’s 2011 tour was the year’s highest grossing, according to Billboard Boxscore. The band performed 44 shows, all of which sold out, bringing in $293,281,487 (£187,085,502) in revenue. In the course of all that, they performed to 2.8 million people.

Here’s the top ten live music performers for 2011:

1. U2
2. Bon Jovi
3. Take That
4. Roger Waters
5. Taylor Swift
6. Kenny Chesney
7. Usher
8. Lady Gaga
9. André Rieu
10. Sade

See who earned what here.

R Kelly needs money for more closet action

Artist News

R Kelly has revealed that he has another 32 episodes of his ‘Trapped In The Closet’ musical soap opera written, but needs an investor to fund the filming of them.

The first series of ‘Trapped In The Closet’ was released in 2005, with a second following in 2007. The final episode of series two promised that the story would be continued, but so far no new episodes have been released. But this week Kelly told TMZ: “It costs a lot of money to do … so we’re actually looking for investors”.

So there you go. If you have any money knocking around, please give it to R Kelly. This is important. And if you’ve not yet sampled the delights of ‘Trapped In The Closet’, well here’s chapter one to get you started:

The Darkness discuss new LP

Artist News

Since The Darkness’ Christmas hit ‘Don’t Let The Bells End’ is ringing in our ears this festive season, now seems as apt a time as any to hear about their in-progress new album. Doesn’t it?

Having reunited with the group’s original line-up earlier this year, frontman Justin Hawkins tells Billboard: “[We’ve got] nine of the required songs done, all finished, all sounding shining and good. We’ve got about two weeks of recording in January, and bits of it are already going off to be mixed even as we speak, so it’s kind of nearly finished now”.

His brother Dan adds: “Rather than a big-name producer we decided to do it ourselves, as per the first record. We just wanted to develop the songs and make sure they were really spot-on and basically take a minimal approach across the board – apart from when we needed to go really over the top”.

Justin also hinted that he’d like to release the as yet untitled LP on his birthday, which is 17 Mar.

The Weeknd releases third mixtape

Releases

One of our CMU Artists Of The Year, dark R&B sorcerer The Weeknd, has just dropped ‘Echoes Of Silence’, which follows predecessors ‘House Of Balloons’ and ‘Thursday’ as the final instalment of Canadian singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye’s acclaimed mixtape trilogy. It features production by Clams Casino, opening with a warped cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘Dirty Diana’.

You’ll find a link to download it at the-weeknd.com It’s all free, by the way.

Tracklisting:

DD
Montreal
Outside
XO/The Host
Initiation
Same Old Song
The Fall
Next
Echoes of Silence

Soap&Skin announces album, London date

Releases

Austrian soloist Anja Plaschg, aka Soap&Skin, has announced a sequel to her pure and poignant debut long player, ‘Lovetune For Vacuum’, in new album ‘Narrow’. The album’s release via [PIAS] on 19 Mar will precede a rare live appearance by the singer-songwriter at London’s Scala on 11 Apr.

You can watch the video for ‘Boat Turns Toward The Port’, a track taken from the new LP, here:

Lianne La Havas to release second EP

Releases

Having already sold out a four night residency at London’s The Social, due to kick off next month, on the strength of her debut EP ‘Lost And Found’, London-based singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas is now poised to release a second suite in the new year.

Featuring production work from Two Inch Punch and Aqualung’s Matt Hales, the five-track EP is due out via Warner Music on 13 Feb. Lianne’s debut album is then slated for a springtime release. Meanwhile, here she is doing her best to ignore Willy Mason’s ghost in ‘No Room For Doubt’, as taken from ‘Lost And Found’.

Sinead O’Connor to tour

Gigs & Festivals

Newlywed chanteuse Sinead O’Connor has announced a UK tour in support of her new album ‘How About I Be Me And You Be You’, which will be released via One Little Indian on 21 Feb.

Here are the dates:

9 Mar: Brighton, St George’s Church
10 Mar: London, Queen Elizabeth Hall
12 Mar: Bristol, St George’s Hall
14 Mar: Glasgow, Oran Mor
15 Mar: Manchester, Manchester Cathedral

Festival line-up update – 22 Dec 2011

Artist News Festival Line-Up Update Gigs & Festivals

ROSKILDE, Denmark, 5-8 Jul: Friendly Fires and Tune-Yards have freshly signed up to play at this diverse Danish four-dayer, joining Bon Iver, Wiz Khalifa, Yelawolf, and headliners Björk and Bruce Springsteen. www.roskilde-festival.dk/uk/

ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL, Seaclose Park, Newport, Isle Of Wight, 22-24 Jun: New additions to the Isle Of White billing include Crystal Castles, Tinie Tempah, Labrinth and The Charlatans, whose set will see them play their 1997 LP ‘Tellin Stories’ in its entirety. Also accompanying previously announced joint headliners Pearl Jam, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band are The Milk, Zulu Winter, Spector and Band Of Skulls. www.isleofwightfestival.com

HIT THE DECK FESTIVAL, Various Venues, Nottingham, 22 Apr: As headed up by Kids In Glass Houses, those acts set to grace multiple stages as part of this one-off event include Deaf Havana, The Wonder Years, Imperial Leisure, Violet, Wolves Like Us and Yashin. www.hitthedeckfestival.com

Live Nation forming Japanese alliance

Business News Deals Live Business

Following the news yesterday that Live Nation had opened a new division in South Korea, we are getting reports that the live music conglom will be operating in the Japanese market in 2012 also, via a partnership with one of the country’s leading promoters Creativeman Productions.

Word has it that Creativeman’s CEO Naoki Shimizu announced an alliance with Live Nation at his company’s Christmas party on Monday, the result of which will seemingly be a new joint venture to stage tours in Japan for artists working with the US conglom, possibly including Madonna and U2.

Shock founder steps down

Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers

David Williams, co-founder of Australian independent music company Shock Entertainment, is stepping down as CEO after 24 years. He will be replaced by Scot Crawford, currently the company’s Executive General Manager.

Originally founded in a Melbourne terrace house in 1988, Shock grew to be one of the most high profile names in the Aussie independent sector, though found itself facing financial problems two years ago resulting in the firm’s acquisition by CD manufacturer and distributor Regency Media in 2010.

Williams stayed with the company under its new ownership, but said yesterday that “after a successful couple of years of rebuilding the business it is the perfect time to hand the reins over to the next generation of music, TV and film enthusiasts”.

VEVO boss says no IPO on the agenda

Digital

VEVO chief Rio Caraeff has denied his company’s owners, Universal Music, Sony Music and the Abu Dhabi Media Company, are planning to float the firm in 2012. Though the fact that both he and founder Doug Morris have popped up in the Financial Times talking up their music video business might suggest that at least some thought is being given to impressing City types, just in case an IPO does suddenly become an option down the line.

As previously reported, The New York Post reported rumours last month that the video site, owned by the two majors and powered, and in part promoted, by YouTube, would be spun off as a stand alone company via an IPO.

Recent interest in City circles in digital companies could make such an IPO lucrative for Sony and Universal, both of which could do with some extra cash to fund their respective EMI acquisitions (though, technically speaking, Sony Music owns a slice of VEVO while Sony/ATV is buying EMI Music Publishing). And with plans to further expand the VEVO service, possibly into its own TV channel, Universal’s co-ownership of the prominent video site in particular is likely to raised when competition regulators review its EMI acquisition plans.

But in the FT interview, Caraeff insists VEVO is not for sale, adding he has “no interest personally in running a public company”. Morris, who created VEVO while running Universal, though remains a key stakeholder in his new job heading up Sony Music, is slightly less dismissive of the IPO proposals, though does stress “it would be important for record companies to maintain some control”.

The FT article, which refers to Morris as “the man who made music videos pay”, tells the VEVO story as well as dropping in some stats provided by the video site, who claim to have 600 advertisers and to have paid out $100 million in royalties to the labels whose music it carries, which includes its owners and EMI. Of course a lot of VEVO’s traffic comes from YouTube users who inadvertently land on the video site, though I suppose that’s not really a criticism but testament to Morris’s decision to collaborate rather than compete with the Google service when he set up his big music video website.

Read the FT piece here.

GEMA licenses iTunes Match

Digital

Well, an albeit mini-survey of CMU readers on Twitter has resulted in almost universal praise for iTunes Match, the scan and match service offered by Apple to simplify the process of setting up a digital locker on the IT firm’s servers. So, German readers, go play why don’t you, because yes, German collecting society GEMA has licensed the service. And that’s news, people, because GEMA, representing German songwriters and music publishers, is notoriously hard to please when it comes to digital services.

GEMA has licensed Apple’s digital locker on a suck-it-and-see basis, with a one year agreement. Says the collecting society: “A temporary one year contract with GEMA made this agreement possible. [Fees for] iTunes Match are to be collected in the first twelve months and the terms of the contract adjusted if necessary at the end of this period. Under the terms of the agreement, copyright holders are to receive a certain flat-rate portion of sales per user”.

GEMA has been coming round to more digital business models of late, with Deezer and Rara.com recently licensed to enter the German market, to compete with the likes of Simfy, a German-based streaming platform.

Of course the big one is Spotify, which is still not available in Germany because of GEMA, though with the Swedish service having reduced the extent of its freemium option (which GEMA bosses didn’t like) it’s thought even that could finally get a licence from the German collecting society at some point in 2012.

Radio 1 to put evening shows into daytime for a week again

Media

Radio 1 will again put its evening show presenters into daytime for the first week in January, meaning that the daytime line up on the nation’s favourite will be Zane Lowe on breakfast, and then Annie Mac, Huw Stephens and Nick Grimshaw in that order.

A line-up I think most music fans would quite like to see permanently installed at the BBC station. It sort of makes me think that Radio 1 should launch a +12 service on DAB, so that those who prefer their DJs to have a least a little bit of music credibility could listen to the previous night’s output while working during the day.

Radio 1 has also confirmed that the documentary series ‘International Radio 1’ will return next year, which will see Pete Tong, Jaymo & Andy George and Gilles Peterson reporting on music scenes in Las Vegas, Milan and Tokyo respectively.

Elsewhere in Radio 1 news, petitions have been filed this week with the BBC Trust over plans to axe the weekly regional slot on the station, which features BBC Introducing shows focused on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that air in those respective regions. The regional shows are due to be phased out to save costs, but music communities in the three countries have hit out at the move, saying it reduces Radio 1’s ability to discover and champion new talent in those areas.

Dutch magazine editor quits over Rihanna racism row

Media

The Editor-in-chief of Dutch magazine Jackie has resigned following accusations of racism after it published an article on how to dress your child like Rihanna, in which the singer was referred to as “the ultimate niggabitch”.

As previously reported, Editor-in-chief Eva Hoeke said in a statement published via Facebook and Twitter that the use of the term had been “meant as a joke”, claiming it was a slang term regularly used on TV and radio and not intended to cause offence.

Rihanna herself disagreed, saying via Twitter that the magazine was a “poor representation of the evolution of human rights”, accusing it of putting “two words together, with the intent of abasement, that made no sense”.

In a new statement yesterday, announcing her decision to step down from her position at Jackie, Joeke said: “I realise that my first reaction through Twitter, in which I indicated that it was a joke, has been an incomplete description of what I, and also the author of the article, meant. The term ‘niggabitch’ came from America and we solely used it to describe a style of dress … [the article] had no racial motive as its basis. Through the course of events, the publisher and I have concluded that because my credibility is now affected, it is better for all parties if I quit my function as Editor-in-chief effective immediately”.

Jackie Magazine is now expected to invite Rihanna to share her feelings and thoughts on the article in a future edition.

Kanye West ejects card-throwing fan

And Finally

Kanye West had a fan escorted from one of his and Jay-Z’s ‘Watch The Throne’ concerts last week, having spotted the audience member throwing business cards onstage at Washington’s Tacoma Dome.

Threatening to eject part of the crowd unless the culprit confessed to the act, West said: “I see it come from that direction… Unless one person raises their hand and says: ‘I’m the one who did it’, all that whole section gotta go”.

He added: “We risking are lives up here, you can’t go throwing shit that we gonna slip on”.

Fearing Ye’s wrath, the fan eventually owned up and was led from the venue by security. And quite right too, no one likes a shameless self-promoter.

CMU Artists Of The Year 2011: Amon Tobin

Artists Of The Year

Traditionally the whole of an artist’s activity is a sum of various parts. You write an album, you record an album, you get on the road and tour to promote that album, and eventually you get to go home and start the process all over again. And while I’m sure that in part the same is true for Amon Tobin, it at least appeared that in 2011 he was working on one complete project, a feat of joined up thinking where each piece was as important as the others.

‘ISAM’ was announced in February, causing the kind of excitement news of any new Amon Tobin album creates, but as time went on it became apparent that ‘ISAM’ was not just an album. It was launched with an art installation by Tessa Farmer, who created the album’s artwork. Nestled in the crypt of St Pancras Church in London, it expanded the images from the record sleeve into a full insect battle scene – created with real (dead) posed insects and animal bones hanging from the ceiling, with smaller scenes dotted around the dark tunnels. All the while, music from the ‘ISAM’ album rattled off the brickwork, lending further creepiness to an already unsettling atmosphere.

The music and the art complemented each other perfectly. Farmer’s installation, despite being organic in its source materials, felt somewhat unnatural. Meanwhile, Tobin’s music on the ‘ISAM’ album sounds industrial and heavily electronic, though many of the sounds contained within it come from samples of acoustic instruments and field recordings.

The album itself is a mix of sound design and an innovative view of electronic music. Often very mechanical sounding, it also has a surprisingly warm feel throughout much of it. Sounds are used in unusual ways to create a record that sounds like no other. Even when Tobin makes an attempt at creating dubstep on ‘Goto 10’, it ends up twisted into a new, monstrous, robotic form. The record is a triumph of Tobin’s continued development over the last fifteen years, not so much leading the way as cutting his own path and leaving behind obstacles to hinder any followers.

And that’s even more true when you factor in the ‘ISAM’ live show. For his 2005 ‘Chaos Theory’ tour, Tobin began performing with a self-built Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound speaker system. This year he added visuals to the mix.

Live projections have been a staple of live music for some time now, of course. But when Amon Tobin premiered his ‘ISAM’ show in Montreal in June, he took things to a whole new level. Performing inside a huge blocky structure, backlighting reveals the producer at work at its centre at various points in the show, but mostly he remains hidden and the visuals fill the audience’s view. Through the magic of technology and design, the huge arrangement of cubes appears to move and change shape, becoming machinery, then filled with smoke, and then a surface on which a virtual Tobin manipulates streams of light, and all of this locked into the precise, industrial sounds of the ‘ISAM’ album.

And at times it looks like it’s not actually there, just something you imagined, thanks to the incredible precision of the projections and the amazing skill that has gone into creating them.

Watching the show at The Forum in London last month was a jaw-dropping experience. It was one of the most visually amazing performances I have ever seen. And it was more than just visual, thanks to deep bursts of bass knocking the wind out of me at regular intervals.

Each piece of this ‘ISAM’ puzzle creates a fully merged whole, rather than a collection of things that can be easily taken apart.

You can watch a short behind the scenes documentary about the making of the ‘ISAM’ live show here – and see it in action below.

Find more of CMU’s ten Artists Of The Year here.

IFPI rates Google on anti-piracy efforts: “Incomplete”

Digital Top Stories

The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry and Recording Industry Association Of America have published an overview of Google’s efforts to stop its various platforms – including the search engine, YouTube, Android app store and Google advertising network – from assisting music pirates, either by providing exposure or direct revenue.

The overview relates to pledges made by Google on these issues in December last year, and concludes that while those promises are to be commended, the web giant has much still to do to make good on its commitments.

Says the IFPI report: “While Google has taken some modest steps to deal with copyright infringement online, the promises made by Google remain unfulfilled. Despite its steps, the simple fact is that Google continues to both receive financial benefits from sites and applications that engage in piracy and place artificial road blocks in rights holders’ efforts to protect their content online, contrary to the [America’s] Digital Millennium Copyright Act”.

The IFPI paper also plays down Google’s claim at a recent congressional hearing in the US that it had invested $60 million in the last year to crack down on violations of its advertising polices, by saying: “While that may seem like a large number, it has to be looked at in relation to Google’s revenues. That same year (2010), Google had revenues of more than $29 billion, of which more than $28 billion were derived from its advertising business. This ‘investment’ in efforts to prevent violations represents only two tenths of a percent of their revenues. Not such a big investment, after all”.

On specific areas, the IFPI says that…

– Google’s tools for issuing certain takedown requests need more scale (the daily limit for takedown requests is far too low, the IFPI says, especially for larger rights owners).

– More piracy-aiding terms need to be removed from Google’s search engine auto-complete tool.

– More should be done to stop piracy sites from carrying Google-generated advertising, especially new sites.

– There should be joined up action, so that if an app is removed from Google’s Android store on piracy grounds, the corresponding website should be deprived Google-generated advertising.

– Google should factor takedown requests into its search algorithms, so authorised content providers come up higher in searches than unauthorised ones.

The report also says that Google needs to do more to speed up its response to takedown requests by copyright owners, especially when it comes to copyright infringing Android apps – though Google might argue that that would be easier to do if certain big content owners didn’t submit dubious takedown requests relating to content they don’t own (yes, Mr Universal Music, that would be referring to you).

So, lots for Google to be getting on with, assuming there is a genuine desire at the web giant to help combat online piracy, or at least a desire to ensure the big music companies stay supportive of its Google Music service, which, unlike YouTube, is yet to reach the sort of critical mass where rights owners would be totally shooting themselves in the foot to withdraw their content.

You can read the full IFPI/RIAA review, should you wish, here.

Universal loses Veoh lawsuit at appeal

Grooveshark Timeline Legal

Universal Music has lost an appeal in its legal battle with one time YouTube rival Veoh.

Which basically reaffirms the precedent that such sites need only operate basic takedown systems – that remove copyright content at the request of copyright owners – in order to benefit from the safe harbour provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the bit of US law that means content sharing sites are not liable for copyright infringement even if they host user-uploaded content that is unlicensed.

Universal’s lawsuit argued that Veoh management were aware that their website routinely hosted unlicensed videos and therefore should have done more to ensure such content didn’t go live, presumably by introducing the sort of automated takedown technology YouTube has adopted in recent years. But on first hearing in 2008, and now on appeal, US judges have said there is no obligation on video site owners to run anything but the most basic of takedown procedures, even if they are aware that means they are inadvertently hosting unlicensed content most of the time.

Appeal court judges added that while there was an obligation on Veoh to deal with takedown requests “promptly”, Universal had no evidence that it hadn’t done so. In fact the music major hadn’t sent any takedown requests before beginning legal action to test the company’s efficiency. And it can’t issue any test takedown demands now, because Veoh shut down in February 2010, citing the costs of fighting the Universal lawsuit as being key in its demise.

So, the ruling and precedent set in the original hearing on this lawsuit stands. That content-sharing sites need only operate basic takedown systems to get DMCA protection was also confirmed in the ruling on the subsequent higher profile legal battle between MTV owner Viacom and YouTube, which focused on the takedown procedures operated by the market leader video-sharing site in its earlier days.

As previously reported, various players in the US music industry have expressed frustration of late with the low standards expected of takedown systems by the American courts, which – some artists, labels and music publishers argue – puts far too much onus on rights owners to have to constantly monitor video sharing sites for illegal uploads of their content.

As technology to automate the takedown process, to an extent, becomes more readily available, many in the music industry would like the use of such technology to be mandatory for any sites with user-upload functionality. Rulings in the Veoh and Viacom v YouTube case contradict that desire, but we may see the record industry begin to lobby Congress for amendments to be made to the DMCA to better define, and increase, the obligations of video site operators. The Recording Industry Association Of America has already indicated this is something being considered.

But in the meantime of course, Universal knows pursuing new litigation against user-upload sites, which hide behind DMCA protection despite operating allegedly shoddy takedown systems, is a risky game, which is why Universal’s lawyers have been trying to find other ways to sue Grooveshark – one such site in their eyes – in a way where DMCA safe harbours do not apply. Hence the company’s most recent lawsuit focusing on allegations that Grooveshark staff, and not users, upload much of the unlicensed material.

Friday 23 December 2011, 11:00 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Adele | Amy Winehouse | CMU Review Of 2011 | Conrad Murray | Joss Stone | Justin Bieber | Liam Gallagher | Michael Jackson | Noel Gallagher | PJ Harvey | Rebecca Black | The Stone Roses | Westlife

Friday 23 December 2011, 10:59 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: CMU Review Of 2011 | DMCA Takedowns | EMI | File-Sharing | HMV | Live Nation | LVCR | Release Window | Universal Music | Warner Music

Friday 23 December 2011, 10:58 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Amazon | Anonymous | Apple | BBC Radio 1 | Bjork | CMU Review Of 2011 | Deezer | Facebook | Google | Little Mix | LulzSec | News Corp | News International | Rhythmix | Sony Corp | Spotify | Steve Jobs | We7 | X-Factor

Friday 23 December 2011, 10:57 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Amon Tobin | Beyonce | Bjork | CMU Artists Of The Year 2011 | EMA | Emika | Odd Future | PJ Harvey | The Weeknd | Three Trapped Tigers | Wiley

Friday 23 December 2011, 10:56 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: CMU Artists Of The Year 2011

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:19 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: A Winged Victory For The Sullen | AlunaGeorge | Best Of CMU Approved | Bleeding Heart Narrative | Death Grips | Dirty Beaches | Friends | Icona Pop | LA019 | Lana Del Rey | Listener | Paul Thomas Saunders | Team Me | The Dying Seconds

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:18 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Bjork

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:17 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: British Phonographic Industry (BPI) | BTCopyright | File-Sharing | Music Publishers Association (MPA) | Newzbin | Piracy | Sky | The Pirate Bay

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:13 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Copyright | EMI | J Fred Coots

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:10 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Guy Oseary | Madonna

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:06 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Nilesh Patel | The Exchange

Thursday 22 December 2011, 12:01 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Axl Rose | Guns N Roses | Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame | Slash

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:58 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Billboard | U2

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:56 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: R Kelly

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:54 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: The Darkness

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:50 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: The Weeknd

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:48 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Soap&Skin

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:46 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Lianne La Havas

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:43 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Sinead O'Connor

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:42 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Hit The Deck | Isle Of Wight Festival | Roskilde

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:39 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Japan | Live Nation | Naoki Shimizu

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:37 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: David Williams | Scot Crawford | Shock Entertainmen

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:27 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Rio Caraeff | VEVO

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:26 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: GEMA | iTunes Match

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:24 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: BBC Radio 1

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:22 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Eva Hoeke | Rihanna

Thursday 22 December 2011, 11:19 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Kanye West

Wednesday 21 December 2011, 12:08 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Amon Tobin

Wednesday 21 December 2011, 12:07 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Google | International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry (IFPI) | Piracy

Wednesday 21 December 2011, 12:06 | By CMU Editorial

READ MORE ABOUT: Universal Music | Veoh | YouTube