26 or younger and have never attended MIDEM? Grab your reduction now!
Either studying or working in the music industry and never attended MIDEM, benefit from a special discount rate at 280 euros, more than 50% off October rate.

Networking: Seek out key contacts and extend your professional network; make deals with your partners and identify new business opportunities.

Educational content: access to the renowned MidemNet digital business conference at no extra cost; get concrete, practical knowledge and training from experts through workshops.

Live concerts: hook up with partners and new contacts at the Opening and Closing Night Parties; discover new international artists with Talent showcases.

MIDEM: the one stop destination for the world’s music community, 23-27 January 2010. Register now! Click here

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MIDEM 2010, Cannes: Intimate club venue available for hire in the Palais du Festival - to showcase your artists and bands.

4am license. UK bar prices. 400 Capacity. Private entrance. Staff and DJ supplied.

Leyline has teamed up with Splash Promotions in Cannes to offer production, event management and PR services.

Contact 020 7575 3285 [email protected] / [email protected]

www.splashpromotions.co.uk - www.leylinepromotions.com

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SHOREDITCH OFFICE, 764 SQUARE FOOT (15-20 DESKS), £1000 PER MONTH
Self-contained office space available in the centre of Shoreditch, on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Great Eastern Street, next to the CMU HQ. 5-8 minutes walk from Liverpool Street and Old Street tube stations. A top floor workspace with plenty of natural light in an exciting neighbourhood that is home to numerous music, media, PR and creative companies. 764 square feet, with room for 15-20 desks plus its own kitchen area and adjacent toilets. £1000 per month plus service charge and business rates (full breakdown available on request). Includes heating. Available from November. For more information contact [email protected].

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Advertise your stuff here: £120 for five editions - [email protected]

OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY TO CLOSE
The Observer Music Monthly supplement, possibly the music industry's favourite music magazine, is to close as a result of a raft of changes being introduced by the struggling Sunday newspaper. The demise of the OMM, long expected in media circles, was confirmed yesterday as Observer management announced a major revamp of their paper, a bid to save the entire title, which some expected to close altogether when its owners Guardian Media Group undertook a review of its operations in September.

As part of the revamp The Observer will shrink back to a four section newspaper, with a main section, a sports supplement, an expanded Review supplement and the customary glossy magazine. Business and media news will lose its own supplement and be merged into the main paper, while the travel supplement will be incorporated into the magazine.

But for music fans it is the abolition of three of the four monthly magazines that the Observer publishes which is of most interest. The four monthly titles constituted an extra supplement, with each of the four magazines appearing on a different week of the month. The sport, music and women's monthlies will go, with just the Observer Food Monthly remaining, the average Observer reader preferring to stuff their face with overpriced delicacies than do anything sporty, buy a new CD or, erm, be a woman.

Confirming the changes and cut backs, Observer editor John Mulholland told reporters: "Like all newspapers, we had to make changes both to the way we work and to the products we publish. It has been a difficult few months for staff while we have worked through these changes as part of Guardian News & Media's publishing review, and some hard decisions had to be taken given the extremely challenging economic environment for newspapers".

As expected, some of the Observer's operations will be merged with those of The Guardian - the two sister titles have, until now, been autonomous. However there won't, as some predicted, be a total merger of operations, which would have basically made The Observer the Sunday Guardian; a core Observer-specific editorial team will remain. It's not clear how many job losses will occur as a result of the cut backs, though a voluntary redundancy scheme has been announced.

The Observer Music Monthly was launched in 2003 and was edited by Caspar Llewellyn Smith from the word go. Probably aimed at those slightly older music fans who are keen to be in with the latest new music but who don't consume other music media, it was especially popular with music business types, especially the slightly older ones who were keen to be in with the latest new music but who don't consume other music media. The title will certainly be missed if the response to CMU announcement of OMM's closure on Twitter last night is anything to go by.

Whether the latest revamp will be enough to rescue The Observer remains to be seen. There has been a slow move at a number of national newspapers to merge the operations of daily and Sunday editions, and it seems likely that will continue at most newspaper firms until the only difference between the daily and Sunday titles is their, well, title.

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RIFT IN JACKSON CLAN OVER JACKO ESTATE
A rift is seemingly emerging in the Jackson clan, which isn't really a surprise. The rift is between Michael Jackson's parents, Katherine and Joe, with the catalyst being the former's acceptance of John Branca and John McClain as executors of the late king of pop's estate.

As previously reported, the Jacksons have been critical of Branca and McClain's role in Jacko's affairs ever since the 2002 will that appointed them as executors materialised. The family began legal moves to have Katherine named as a co-executor, and ultimately to have Branca and McClain removed from their roles in relation to the estate. Although Katherine and her lawyers led those legal moves, there were rumours that objections to Branca and McLain really came from Joe Jackson, who wanted to have more control over his late son's affairs for himself.

Then this week Katherine's new lawyer, Adam Streisand, threw his support behind Branca and McClain, and turned against Joe. He said Katherine was happy for the two men to continue to manage her late son's estate, while dismissing Joe's pubic objections to the executors, remarking that, as Michael had cut his father out of his will, Joe had no rights to question the positions of Branca or McClain or the validity of the will that appointed them. And according to TMZ.com, the judge overseeing the Jacko estate has concurred with Streisand.

Needless to say, Joe Jackson is not impressed with this turn of events. His lawyer, Brian Oxman, has told reporters he believes that Katherine has done a deal with Branca, hence her decision to no longer oppose his role as executor. Branca's lawyer Howard Weitzman denies any such deal has been done.

And what does this mean for Joe's attempts to get a monthly allowance out of the Jacko estate to keep him in new hats? Well, Katherine has let it be known she has no objections to her estranged husband getting some cash, but given her acceptance of Branca and McClain as executors it is not necessarily up to her.

Perhaps recognising that Joe's allowance claim may be affected by his failed attempts to have Branca and McClain removed, his lawyer has now told the estate that if they don't offer the Jackson patriarch an allowance they'll sue for breach of contract. What contract they'd base that on isn't entirely clear, but there's probably a few more interesting court hearings to go on this one.

In related news, it's been revealed that Michael Jackson's funeral cost a million dollars, and that's not the big public bash at LA's Staples Center, but the small private funeral held prior to his burial in September. A hundred grand was paid to the Forest Lawn Cemetery alone, half of which, TMZ reports, was paid upfront by Janet Jackson, possibly the only other Jackson with access to serious cash reserves. But before you start to lose any sleep, don't worry, she's had that back from the Jacko estate.

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GROHL TALKS COBAIN
Talking of dead pop stars, Dave Grohl has been talking about the death of his former Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain. In an interview with Radio 1 to promote the Foo Fighter's hits package, he said that he didn't expect his former bandmate to live to an old age, remarking that "sometimes you just can't save someone from themselves".

He continued: "There are some people that you meet in life that you just know that they are not going to live to be a 100 years old. In some ways, you kind of prepare yourself emotionally for that to be a reality".

Nevertheless, even Grohl didn't expect to lose his bandmate quite so prematurely. Calling Cobain's 1994 suicide "a terrible surprise", he said that the Nirvana frontman's death "was probably the worst thing that has happened to me in my life. I remember the day after that I woke up and I was heartbroken that he was gone. I just felt like, 'OK, so I get to wake up today and have another day and he doesn't'".

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ANDRE WINS DAMAGES FROM NOW
Peter Andre has won "substantial" damages off IPC-published Now magazine over allegations it made against the reality-TV-come-pop star back in July.

The magazine questioned Andre's parenting skills, alleging that his ex-wife Katie Price's disabled son Harvey had suffered as a result of two accidents while in the pop man's care. It also alleged that Andre forced Price into have "sick sexual threesomes".

Andre said all the allegations were untrue, and sued for libel. A judge yesterday ruled in Andre's favour, leading to a cash settlement believed to be in the region of £300,000.

Commenting on the allegations, Andre said: "The worst thing anyone can challenge is my parenting skills. Challenge me on anything, but not on that. One of the greatest responsibilities I have is as a parent. I take my responsibilities very seriously. I would not do anything to hurt my kids".

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CHIPMUNK SUFFERING FROM EXHAUSTION
Chipmunk has cancelled all upcoming promotional commitments due to exhaustion, his label has announced.

According to the BBC, fans became concerned about the rapper's health after he posted a number of messages to Twitter, including "I want to die" and "Is suicide easy?". Although he later added: "This has been the most difficult time for me... But I will get through it!"

In a statement, Sony/Columbia said: "Since finishing his A-levels and completing work on his album, Chipmunk has been working incredibly hard on generating a successful music career which has taken its toll on such a young artist. Label and management have agreed to cancel all upcoming promotion and personal appearances to give the eighteen year old some much needed time off".

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EMPIRE OF THE SUN DOMINATE BACKSTAGE ARIA AWARDS
The Australian Recording Industry Association yesterday handed out its four Artisan Awards, gongs for people who work behind the scenes, and three of the four went to people associated with Empire Of The Sun.

Aaron Hayward and David Homer took the Best Cover Art prize for the artwork for the electronic duo's debut album 'Walking On A Dream', while Josh Logue won Best Video for the promo for the album's title track. The Empire boys themselves, Luke Steel and Nick Littlemore, along with Sneaky Sound System's Donnie Sloan and Pnau's Peter Mayes, won Producers Of The Year for the same album. So "woo" for them.

The fourth prize, Engineer Of The Year, had two winners, neither of them Empire Of The Sun. It went to DJ Debris for the Hilltop Hoods album 'State Of The Art' and Greg Wales for the You Am I album 'Dilettantes'.

The ARIA Artisan Awards are presented two weeks ahead of the main ARIA Awards, the Aussie version of the Brits, which will be dished out on 26 Nov. Four other premature ARIA Awards were also presented this week, the so-called Fine Art Awards for non-pop genres. They went to the following:

Best Classical Album: Australian Brandenburg Orchestra/Paul Dyer - Handel: Concerti Grossi Opus 6 (Universal/ABC Classics)

Best Jazz Album: Katie Noonan - Blackbird (Sony Music)

Best Soundtrack: Balibo (Universal/ABC Music)

Best World Music Album: Seaman Dan - Sailing Home (MGM/Steady Steady Music)

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ROBBIE SELLING WELL
Robbie Williams sold 85,000 copies of new album 'Reality Killed The Video Star' in the UK alone on its first day of release, and the long player is currently top in the iTunes chart in sixteen countries. Which is possibly good news if you happen to own a major record company whose entire future might depend on the success of this one album. Williams is currently ahead of JLS in the midweek charts, and could well get his ninth number one album come Sunday.

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RIHANNA TOPS BEST SONG OF THE DECADE POLL
Rihanna has topped a BT staged survey in which punters were asked to name the best song of the last ten years. Her track 'Umbrella' beat TaTu's 'All The Things She Said' to lead the survey. Here is the top ten.

1. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella
2. TaTu - All The Things She Said
3. Avril Lavigne - Sk8r Boi
4. Britney Spears - Everytime
5. Oasis - The Importance Of Being Earnest
6. Will Young - Leave Right Now
7. Katy Perry - Hot N Cold
8. Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
9. Madonna - Hung Up

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ARCADE FIRE WORK ON "SOME SONGS"
Bell Orchestre frontman and all-round multi-instrumentalist Richard Parry has revealed that his other band, Arcade Fire, are currently working on new recordings.

Speaking to The Quietus, he said that the band were currently in a New York studio recording "some strings for some new songs", though he would not say whether or not the songs were intended for a new album.

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RELEASE DATE SET FOR LIL WAYNE ROCK ALBUM
A US release date has been confirmed for Lil Wayne's "rock album" 'Rebirth'. The long player, originally schedule for release back in April, will hit the American streets on 15 Dec.

I'm guessing the UK release will be the previous day. That'll give Wayne two months to promote the album before he's due in court for sentencing in relation to those previously reported gun possession charges.

The album features guest appearances from Blink-182's Travis Barker, Lenny Kravitz and Fall Out Boy, while Wayne himself plays guitar.

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MOGWAI FILM TRAILER ONLINE
A trailer has been put online for 'Burning', the Mogwai film which follows the Scottish band while they play in Brooklyn. The film will be screened as part of the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival on 13 Nov. The trailer is at this URL:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DD5sy_EnvE

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SINGLE REVIEW: We Were Promised Jetpacks - It's Thunder And It's Lightning/Ships With Holes Will Sink (FatCat)
Seen somewhat as successors to Biffy as the Scottish champions of loud, passionate, indie post-rockers We Were Promised Jetpacks are only getting bigger every day.

Fortunately for us, WWPJ are sticking firmly to old-school Biffy as an influence, rather than the dreadful neo-prog pretension those guys are hawking these days. They keep with the always fulfilling clean-intricacy-to-awesome-distortion approach, while letting forceful vocals that marry rage and wonder evoke a vital passion.

As pleasing as this all is, though, it's a work lacking in ingenuity somewhat, with both sides on this double-A side sounding rather alike. It doesn't really matter for the time being, but some new ideas must be forthcoming for these guys' rise to continue. TM

Physical release: 30 Nov
Press contact: FatCat IH [all]

Buy from iTunes
Buy from Amazon

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DUBAI SOUNDCITY: MORE EDUCATION, DIFFERENT PACKAGES, 360 DEALS - SUCCEEDING IN THE FREE MUSIC AGE
Even if politicians can be persuaded to suspend the net connections of persistent file-sharers, the music industry needs to do more to educate consumers about copyright. That was one of the conclusions of the final panel debate at last week's Dubai SoundCity, which focused on how the music industry can cope with an increased expectation that music be free.

"There is still a lot to be done in educating people as to how the music business works", PRS For Music's Myles Keller observed. "We need to better communicate which of the free music services out there are legitimate and which are not licensed. And to better explain why the music community has to charge for content, and the link between consumers paying for music today and the new talent of the future". PRS, Keller admitted, had a role to play in that education process - and indeed are already performing that role - but the industry at large needed to collaborate to better communicate its message regarding copyright.

CMU Publisher Chris Cooke, also speaking on the panel, argued that neither piracy nor the idea that some elements of music should be free were new concepts. "As a child of the eighties, I grew up surrounded by free sources of music", he said, "some legal, some otherwise. I turned on the radio, free music. If I liked a song, I taped it, free music. If I like the artist a lot, I'd get a friend to tape me a copy of their album. Lots of free music. However, as I grew older, and had more expendable income, I opted to buy CDs, and more recently buy music through iTunes, simply because it was more convenient".

Cooke conceded that the sources of free music in the internet age were more bountiful, easier to use and provided music in a higher quality. "But the principle remains, music has always been available for free, but people will pay for it if you offer them some compelling, or more convenient".

He concluded: "It's just that in the internet age record companies need to be cleverer in the way they offer content - make it more compelling, more convenient. Create and monetise more periphery content, and package it in different ways. That's not to say education, and even three-strikes style piracy crackdowns, don't have their place. But there are commercial solutions to these challenges also".

Of course some of the ways record companies can enhance their products so to compete with free will involve bundling recording-based products with merchandise or tickets to live events. Which brings us back to the 360 degree record deal.

"Of course record companies are going to want to move into my territory if that's how they can get back their investment" observed legendary Aussie concert promoter Michael Chugg. "And I don't have a problem with that, providing they don't screw it up! I think all players in music are now looking across the industry for opportunities - we're about to release our first record - and that's very exciting. There's still lots of way for us to make money from music. Yes, those who make the initial investment need to make sure they are linked into some of the return. But that's entirely possible, and makes this industry a more exciting place to be".

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EA GAMES ANNOUNCE JOB CUTS
If the future of the music industry is music-based gaming, well, bad news people. 'Rock Band' co-owners Electronic Arts have announced job cuts of 1500 after reporting increased losses for the second quarter of the year, despite a revenue increase aided by demand for the Beatles edition of their pretend-to-play game.

While the gaming industry is still more buoyant than the music business, the big games firms have also been feeling the bite in recent years.

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MAJORITY OF WEB USERS DON'T CURRENTLY EXPECT TO PAY FOR ONLINE CONTENT
The good news is that more people are paying for music online than for any other types of content. The bad news is that only a quarter of web users say they expect to pay for online music services in the future, and over half say they don't see themselves ever paying for web-based content services.

Those stats come from a new survey from Forrester Research, which comes out as an increasing number of content companies reach the conclusion that only subscription-based online content services will be commercially viable in the long term.

Of the web users Forrester surveyed, 14% said they were already paying to access music online, which is, probably unsurprisingly, more than are paying for movies and ebooks (8% and 4% respectively). 25% of those surveyed did say they expected to pay for online music at some point in the future, but 58% said they did not.

The report remarks: "Music is the most advanced market [on the internet] but still far from maturity. While the proportion of European internet users who claim to have paid to access music online - 14% - is relatively high, the sector is a long way from reaching its potential. Just one-quarter of European internet users say they would pay for online music in the future, suggesting that the current portfolio of music services fails to meet their needs".

Nevertheless, Team Forrester do offer some optimism for those crafting pay-to-use online content services. They conclude: "Free content may still dominate the web, but as more services are launched that actually meet users' needs, we can start to map a future for paid content, too".

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4AD ADD SESSIONS STRAND TO WEBSITE
Beggars label 4AD has launched a new section to its website which will feature live sessions from artists signed to the label. The new section follows a pilot live session from Deerhunter, which was posted on the label's website last year. The sessions will mainly be used to promote new 4AD releases. The first band to appear are Tune-Yards, who are plugging their debut album 'Bird-Brains'.

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WE7 DO DEAL WITH FANSHAKE
Fan networking website FanShake, which aims to bring together followers of certain bands and offer them rewards for being jolly good fans, has done a deal with streaming music service We7 which will mean the ten most popular tracks for each artist featured on the network will be available to stream on-demand. UK users of FanShake will be able to enjoy full track streams, while outside the UK thirty second clips will be available.

And look, we've only gone and got you a quote from We7's Clive Gardiner about the partnership, cos we're great. Here it is; "Building on the work we have done with music labels, this partnership offers another fantastic means to deliver music straight into the arms of the fans that love and support it, totally free of charge. We7 was founded by people who are passionate about music with a desire to make music accessible to others with that passion so this partnership with FanShake is a natural extension".

In other We7 news, the digital music service has done a deal with digital distributor state51 Conspiracy, which will give users of the streaming platform access to music from another 120 indie labels.

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OFCOM REFUSE TO INVESTIGATE JEDWARD VOTE
Media regulator OfCom has said it will not investigate complaints made by 'X-Factor' viewers that dynamic duo John and Edward Grimes were not voted off the talent show last weekend, on the basis anyone who thinks that complaining about such a thing to OfCom is a good idea is clearly an idiot. The regulator admitted it received a number of complaints about the latest developments on the pop talent show, while ITV said some 3000 viewers complained.

Viewers seem pissed off that the show's boss Simon Cowell basically let Jedward stay on the show by forcing the judging panel's vote to be a draw, meaning the viewer vote decided whether the twins or rival wannabe Lucie Jones should be chucked off the show. Jones lost the vote.

While Cowell claims he didn't know who had the most public votes when he made his decision, cynics say the label exec wanted to keep the twins on the ITV show, even though he has been publicly critical of their abilities, because doing so is good for the telly programme's ratings. Some said cynics have set up Facebook groups calling on viewers to boycott the show. Because some people actually think the show has something to do with singing.

As previously reported, it's thought some viewers vote for the twins, despite their questionable talents, because they think doing so pisses off Cowell, who has said it would be a disaster if the pair were to win the show and the record contract that comes with victory. But, of course, such voting is really playing into the pop mogul's hands. While Cowell probably doesn't want the duo to win this year's 'X-Factor' competition (and they are unlikely to), it's in his interest to keep them in the show until just before the end, given the press coverage they are creating.

And, indeed, Westlife's Mark Feehily has claimed Cowell was bigging up the twins even before this series of 'X-Factor' began, believing they'd create the sort of tabloid story that would keep his telly franchise in the news. A correct belief, of course. He also presumably knows that the more he disses the duo in public, the longer the public will vote for them, ensuring even more column inches for his flagship franchise.

But enough of that, I know what you're really thinking. We don't care what OfCom think about the Jedward phenomenon, what does John Lydon think? Well, good news people, he's had his say on the issue via the Evening Standard. He said: "They're just lazily untalented. It's not fair, it's not right - a perfectly good singer [Lucie Jones] gets voted off while that dopiness gets promoted. How is that singing?" See, told you some people still think it has something to do with singing.

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THIS WEEK'S SUB.TV PLAYLIST
Hey look people, it's the music videos that are playing this week on the Sub.tv network of video screens in students' unions all around the god darn United Kingdom of Great Britain and whatnot. New additions marked with a *. More info on all things Sub.tv from [email protected].

A List
Beyoncé - Broken Hearted Girl
Biffy Clyro - The Captain
Britney Spears - 3*
Calvin Harris - Flashback
Chase & Status - End Credits (feat. Plan B)*
Dizzee Rascal - Dirtee Cash
Florence And The Machine - You've Got The Love
Foo Fighters - Wheels
Jason Derulo - Whatcha Say*
Jay Sean ft Little Wayne - Down
Jay-Z - Empire State Of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys)*
JLS - Everybody In Love
Kids In Glass Houses - Youngblood (Let It Out)
La Roux - Quicksand
Panic! At The Disco - New Perspective*
Snow Patrol - Just Say Yes

B List
Alesha Dixon - To Love Again
Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone
Basshunter - I Promised Myself*
Bombay Bicycle Club - Always Like This
Dionne Bromfield - Mama Said
Ellie Goulding - Under The Sheets
Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown*
Ke$ha - Tik Tok
Lily Allen - Who'd Have Known?
Little Boots - Earthquake*
Mika - Rain
Newton Faulkner - Over and Out*
Paolo Nutini - Pencil Full Of Lead
Pixie Lott - Cry Me Out*
Stereophonics - Innocent
Sugababes - About A Girl
Taylor Swift - Fifteen*

Tip List
3OH!3 - Starstrukk (feat. Katy Perry)*
Alicia Keys - Doesn't Mean Anything*
Chris Brown ft Lil Wayne - I Can Transform Ya*
The Flaming Lips - I Can Be A Frog*
Frisco - Girls*
Tiesto - Escape Me*

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JOSS STONE DIGS DOPE
Joss Stone has been bigging up dope. Which presumably means she'll be fired by Alan Johnson later today. Speaking to Star magazine, Stone says: "I smoke weed, but I don't think it's really a drug. It's more of a herb. I don't regret saying that at all. I think everyone smokes weed and people who say they don't are lying! Weed has been given this evil stamp, but how is it dangerous? It's going to make you laugh your arse off? You might go to sleep? I think alcohol is much more harmful".

Just for the record I don't smoke weed, and I'm not lying when I say so. I do consume a lot of heroin, but I don't think of herion as a drug. It's more of a sherbet really.

Anyway, Stone's dope promoting hasn't gone down well with everyone. David Raynes, head of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance, told reporters: "She should consider the effects that her comments have on other people, especially young fans who look up to her. People like Joss Stone should keep their mouths shut about things like this. It is terribly damaging and she clearly hasn't considered the wider effects of the drug, although she clearly didn't get to become a pop star because she is a student of social sciences. We already have a drug culture in the UK and she is simply adding to that".

I'm not sure Raynes has anything to worry about. If the cool kids think Stone is smoking dope, they'll be off the drug with immediate effect.

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TAKE THAT RESCUED FROM FOG BY AIR FORCE
Take That were reportedly flown out of Inverness by the RAF yesterday after freezing fog grounded all planes at the Scottish city's airport. Which is a great use of the armed services' stretched resources.

Gary Barlow, Jason Orange and Howard Donald were in the Highlands, of course, for the wedding of bandmate Mark Owen. Explaining why the man band needed the help of the Royal Air Force to escape the frosty North of Scotland, one source told Bang Showbiz: "They must have only had a few hours' sleep, the last thing they needed was their flight getting delayed".

Quite, just imagine what could have happened if a slightly tired pop band had to sit out the fog in an airport lounge.

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