| CMU Daily - on the inside 17 Sep 2002 |
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What achievement have The Beatles, Abba, Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart and Bon Jovi got in common?
Answer tomorrow
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MR SKINNER MERCURY FAVOURITE
Latest word is Mike Skinner, aka The Streets, is favourite to win the Mercury Music Prize tonight, with Merseyside band The Coral in second place. Just who wins that £20,000 prize (and many many more record sales) will be revealed at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel tonight.
William Hill, still taking bets on the award, are currently offering: Beverley Knight - 16-1; The Bees - 20-1; The Coral - 4-1; David Bowie - 16-1; Doves 9-2; The Electric Soft Parade - 16-1; Gemma Hayes - 6-1; Guy Barker - 33-1; Joanna MacGregor - 33-1; Ms Dynamite - 6-1; Roots Manuva - 8-1; The Streets - 7-4.
The judges, who will decide on the winner during tonight’s ceremony, have a history of not picking the favourite, but not going for complete outsiders either. Our money is on third favourites Doves, but we’ll be more than happy if The Streets take the prize. There is live coverage of the Mercury Music Prize tonight on BBC 4 and Radio 1, with highlights on BBC 2 on Friday at midnight.
Elsewhere in the music awards world, the UK Hip Hop Awards take place tomorrow at Sound in Leicester Square. The ceremony will be hosted by Kiss FM’s Big Ted and Lisa B, from children's TV channel Nickelodeon. Sponsored by Kiss FM and The Voice newspaper, this is the third year of the awards, so expect all the key players in UK hip hop to attend, with a few special guests from elsewhere in the world. More info at www.hiphopawards.co.uk
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BBC GET YOUTH CHANNEL GO AHEAD
The government has given the BBC the go ahead to rebrand it’s BBC Choice digital station as BBC 3 and officially go the youth channel route. But to avoid criticism of allowing the Beeb into a competitive commercial territory Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has added some of the strictest public service requirements ever issued to a television station.
While wranglings continued to allow the BBC go the youth route they have slowly developed their Choice channel to attract the 15-30 audience. The main difference on the new channel, when it is launched early next year, will be the amount of original programming – Choice still relies on a lot of repeats from BBC 1 and BBC 2. The emphasis will also be on new talent, even on bought in shows, which will prevent BBC 3 from competing with Channel 4’s youth network E4 who rely on premier screenings of major American shows to win an audience.
Ms Jowell said BBC 3 should be: "genuinely distinctive, genuinely public service and genuinely innovative" and a "powerhouse. I am determined BBC Three should be a distinctive public service channel that is not competing with what is already out there in a vigorous market place. I believe the revised format will see BBC Three emerge as a real powerhouse for new talent, within which the independent sector will have a strong voice. It will be a first for British broadcasting.” To be sure her ambitions are met the government plan to review the channel’s performance after two years.
Director general Greg Dyke welcomed the decision, saying: "This has been a tough decision for the Secretary of State and, looking back, I think she was right to push us to define the channel more clearly. The new channel will be launched in the New Year, and I'm confident that it will bring a new public service concept to this currently underserved audience." An ITV spokeswoman added: "We have consistently sought assurances that BBC Three will provide a genuine public service for younger viewers rather than competing head-to-head with commercial broadcasters.”
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MORE ELVIS REMIXES
Hot on the trail of Junkie XL, now DJ Tiesto is working on an Elvis remix – he’s currently playing around with ‘Burning Love’. He told Radio 1: "It's quite good because it's something completely different than I used to produce. It's more breakbeat - it's very good. In England the record company really likes it, but the family of Elvis decides if it's going to be released or not. So I haven't had an answer yet if they like it."
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PRINCE TO RELEASE 3CD LIVE SET
Prince is set to a release three-disc collection of recordings from his 'One Nite Alone' tour earlier this year. The CD set will initially be only available to members of his NPG Music Club, but will probably get a wider release later in the year. The tour, which supported his self-released album ‘The Rainbow Children’, saw Prince and his New Power Generation band revamp a lot of his older material to create an organic, jazz-influenced sound that fitted in with his new songs. The box set will come with a 48-page book of photos from the tour and liner notes with contributions from band members.
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SANCHEZ ON GALAXY
DJ Roger Sanchez will start a regular radio show syndicated on the Chrysalis’ dance based Galaxy network next month. Called ‘Release Yourself’ the show will air from 9-11pm on a Saturday night, with a repeat airing on Sundays at midnight – the show will launch on 5 Oct. Music wise Sanchez will play a mixture of soulful, funky house, moving on to a more tribal sound later in the show. He also plans to give white label and test pressing tracks a play.
Talking about the show he told reporters: “Release Yourself is very personal to me. It allows me communicate what I’m thinking and feeling musically at that moment directly with listeners. I force myself to deconstruct the way I work. I look at every song as a problem that I have to solve.”
Galaxy began life as Manchester’s Kiss FM. When EMAP bought the London dance station, Chrysalis bought the Northwest frequency and rebranded it Galaxy. They have since rolled out the formula around the UK with a similar pop-dance music policy to Kiss. Sanchez’s show will be broadcast on all five Galaxy stations - Galaxy 101 (South Wales and the West), Galaxy 102 (Manchester), Galaxy 102.2 (Birmingham), Galaxy 105(Yorkshire) and Galaxy 105-106 (North East) and will be webscast at galaxyfm.co.uk.
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ISPS COULD BE LOSING OUT ON FILE SHARING TOO
Although ISP’s in the US are resisting record labels' demands to release the names of individuals who illegally distribute copyright music, it seems they too may be losing out to the Napster style peer-to-peer networks. A study by Canadian network management firm Sandvine claims sharing files over the internet is increasing running costs for ISPs because they have to ‘access the internet infrastructure’ more often and for longer, for which they incur a network access charge from the company who owns said infrastructure.
Many ISPs ‘cache’ (store copies) of popular websites on their own servers so that users do not access the web infrastructure so often – but this is not possible with peer to peer exchange. For those ISPs who offer ‘anytime’ access for a set fee the increase in expensive file sharing can threaten their profit margins. "By inflating the financial pressure on service providers' already low margins, P2P is quickly undermining the business model for basic internet access," the report says.
How ISPs will react to this finding is unclear. A Freeserve spokeswoman, who admitted P2P exchanging accounting for 60% of the traffic on their networks, told the BBC: "It is up to customers what they do online but it does use up large amounts of costly bandwidth and the cost has to be shared by all consumers." But some fear that if ISPs increase subscription fees to cover their new costs those customers who only use their internet access for simple emails and web browsing will lose out. Some ISPs have floated the idea of having a tiered pricing system, barring P2P activity on cheaper packages. But others fear such moves would create bad PR: "These approaches can easily be positioned as punitive by internet lobby groups and competitors, generating dissatisfaction amongst subscribers," the report says.
But it is more likely ISPs will look for a way of turning the popularity of P2P networking into an commercial opportunity, rather than discouraging it. Quite how, though, remains to be seen.
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OSBOURNES WIN EMMY
MTV’s ‘The Osbournes’ won the Outstanding Non-Fiction Programming (Reality) Emmy Award on Saturday at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles. A precursor to the main Emmys next weekend, the ceremony was awarding mainly technical achievements in broadcasting. Sharon Osbourne accepted the award for her family, saying "Ozzy, I love you!"
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ROXETTE GIRL HAS TUMOR
Marie Fredriksson of pop duo Roxette has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, her manager confirmed yesterday. The 44-year-old singer was examined at the Karolinska hospital and is resting in her home while doctors decide how the tumor can be treated. Best known for their late eighties / early nineties hits the duo have a new single out this Autumn and were planning a European tour. No word yet on how Fredriksson’s illness will affect these plans.
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BONO'S IMPROMTU STONES CAMEO
Bono yesterday made an impromptu appearance at a Rolling Stones gig in Chicago where he sang a version of the band's 'It's Only Rock 'n' Roll' before disappearing without making any comment. Bono is in the US for an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show to discuss his campaigning work.
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INXS RARITIES TO BE RELEASED
Two previously unreleased tracks will be included on an INXS best of this Autumn. The tracks are 'Tight', recorded during the 1992 ‘Welcome to Wherever You Are’ sessions, and ‘Salvation Jane’ recorded at the same time as the album ‘X’. The former will also get a single release with a number of remixes. The compilation album – ‘The Years 1979-1997’ - will span the three record labels INXS were signed too, Deluxe (BMG), Warner Music and Universal. Expanded versions of ‘Kick’, ‘X’ and ‘Welcome to Wherever You Are’ with extra tracks from relevant sessions will also be released, as will ‘Stay Young’ featuring tracks from the band’s early days. The remaining members of INXS will be touring the UK alongside Blondie later this year:
5 Dec: Braehead Arena, Glasgow
6 Dec: Sheffield Arena
8 Dec: Manchester Evening News Arena
9 Dec: Newcastle Telewest Arena
10 Dec: Nottingham Arena
11 Dec: Cardiff International Arena
13 Dec: Bournemouth BIC
14 Dec: Birmingham NEC
16 Dec: Brighton Centre, Brighton
17 Dec: London Docklands Arena
18 Dec: Wembley Arena
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COLDPLAY'S CAR PARK GIG
Coldplay had to cancel their Atlanta gig this weekend after freak weather damanged the venue - Atlanta Masquerade Music Park. But the band kept fans happy by playing an impromtu set in the car park. Singer Chris Martin and band member Jonny Buckland played acoustic version of 'Yellow, 'In My Place', 'Green Eyes' and 'The Scientist'. According to NME.com they were later seen on stage at the city's Echo Lounge where The Frames were playing. Members of both Coldplay and Ash, touring with the group, apparently got up on stage for another impromptu performance.
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Answer to Monday’s pop quiz:
Which boy-band chart topper from 1995 proved not to be true?
Take That’s ‘Back For Good’ – within a month Robbie had quit, and less than a year later the group split up.