Friday 21 November 2014, 11:44 | By Paul Vig

Approved: Bugged Out 20th Birthday Party at Fire

Club Tip CMU Approved

For the second of their big London birthday parties the Bugged Out crew take over Fire this weekend. Ten DJs promise to play tracks from a specific era of the last 20 years: either the era when they started playing for the club, an era that reminds them most of Bugged Out, or an era they just fancy re-visiting. Prepare for a proper sonic adventure.

And oh what a line-up:

Andrew Weatherall
Brodinski (1997-2000 set)
Erol Alkan (2000-2002 set)
Heidi
Justin Robertson (1999-2001 set)
Kölsch (2011-2014 set)
Lemmy Ashton
Matt Walsh (2004-2008 set)
+ two mystery guests

Nuff said.

Saturday 22 Nov, Fire, South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, London, SW8 1UQ, 10pm – 6am, £17.50. More info here.

Lords pass proposed secondary ticketing regulations

Business News Legal Live Business Top Stories

The House Of Lords yesterday voted – just – to include a new clause in the Consumer Rights Bill that would force people touting tickets online to provide buyers with a bunch of extra information, a move designed to make it clearer who exactly it is reselling tickets, how big a mark-up is being added, and what the risks are to the consumer by buying tickets on the secondary market.

The amendment stems from a report published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group On Ticket Abuse back in April, which hoped to speed up the prospect of some ticketing touting regulation by amending the in-development Consumer Rights Bill, rather than having to promote bespoke ticket touting legislation to government or via a private members bill.

The amendment approved by 183 votes to 171 by the Lords yesterday would oblige a ticket seller using a resale site like Viagogo, Seatwave or StubHub to reveal their identity, declare the face value of tickets they are selling, provide seat numbers and booking refs associated with the ticket, and state whether the terms and conditions of the ticket being sold give the promoter the right to block entry to the event if they discover the ticket was resold. The secondary sites would also be obliged to ensure this information is given.

There are various motives behind the proposed regulations including: exposing the commercial touts who prolifically buy up tickets; making sure consumers realise that they are buying a touted ticket, the premium they are paying and the possible risk of being refused entry; and trying to stop touts from selling tickets they are yet to actually secure from the primary seller (sometimes before tickets are even on sale via the official route).

There is opposition to the proposals, which aren’t endorsed by the government. Although a number of key sporting bodies have been pushing for more regulation of the secondary ticketing market, the live music industry is of two minds, not least because some live music players are now in the resale game themselves.

Meanwhile, Live Nation’s Ticketmaster, which is in both the primary and secondary ticketing business, argues that over regulating the latter will force the touts onto online platforms outside the direct jurisdiction of the UK, where consumers are more likely to be the victims of ticket fraud. Ticketmaster reckons that any regulation should focus on those using clever software that enables them to buy up significant portions of primary tickets to in-demand events.

And while the APPG’s proposals have some key supporters in parliament, who secured the vote in the Lords this week, there are plenty in the political community who share Ticketmaster’s view. It will be interesting to see what the House Of Commons makes of the Lords-approved amend.

But welcoming yesterday’s vote, Lib Dem Lord Tim Clement-Jones, who was behind the Live Music Act in 2012, told reporters: “This is a victory both for the ticket-buying public and for the hugely important live event industry. The police and the entertainment industry have been clear that action needs to be taken on ticket touts to ensure that genuine fans can get access to gigs, shows and games without having to pay extortionate prices, and these new measures would do exactly that”.

Meanwhile the APPG’s chairs – Labour’s Sharon Hodgson and the Conservative’s Mike Weatherley – also welcomed the Lords vote.

Hodgson: “Ticket touts have operated with impunity for far too long. In no other market would we put up with not knowing who we were buying from or whether they even had permission to sell us a product. This amendment is a significant step towards tackling the scourge of touts and putting fans first, and I hope that the government now listens to the will of parliament.”

Weatherley: “It’s been clear for a long time that this market is not working in the interest of genuine fans or the people who put in all the hard work and investment to put on live events. Anyone operating honestly has nothing to fear from these changes, but they will make a big difference for ordinary fans. It’s imperative that the government doesn’t try to reverse this amendment when the bill comes back to the Commons”.

Wendy Starland wins over $7 million from former Lady Gaga producer for work discovering the popstar

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Lady Gaga’s former producer Rob Fusari has been ordered to pay $7.3 million to Wendy Starland, the talent scout who originally discovered the star. A US court ruled yesterday that Fusari had broken an agreement to split his earnings from Gaga with Starland.

Starland was tasked by Fusari to find “the female equivalent to the lead singer of The Strokes” in 2005. She eventually discovered 20 year old singer Stefani Germanotta and introduced her to him. The singer and producer then began working together, eventually developing her into Lady Gaga.

As previously reported, Fusari himself sued Gaga in 2010, claiming that he was due a bigger cut of her income than what he was already receiving for production credits on her first album. The pair eventually reached an out-of-court settlement.

That put behind them, Fusari became involved in a number of other disputes, including that with Starland – details of which Gaga attempted to have sealed by the court, on the grounds that some information in papers relating to the case was “sensitive, private and personal” and would “inflict significant personal and professional harm upon” her if it was made public.

A partial seal was granted, which made details of Gaga and Fusari’s settlement confidential, though other details have been made public. These include the singer’s deposition in the case, given in September, which seemingly helped Starland’s claim greatly.

According to reports, Gaga said: “My understanding was that Wendy and him had initially agreed upon 50/50 perhaps before Wendy ever found me, and after I was signed to Rob and made music, Rob began to change his mind”.

The singer added that Starland had pushed Fusari to sign a contract to put their verbal agreement in writing, but that he had continually delayed this, which had in turn put a strain on the friendship that had grown between Gaga and Starland.

Speaking to Billboard following the ruling, Starland said: “Fusari asked me to find an artist under the age of 25 who could be the female equivalent to the lead singer of The Strokes. I had attended about 50 live performances and searched for countless hours online before finding an artist who fit the bill. Someone who was edgy and bold. Someone you couldn’t take you eyes off of. These were the specific characteristics of the ‘Strokes girl’ Fusari identified that he would need to approve before signing her to a production deal. I only brought Rob Fusari one artist for us to work with and that artist became Lady Gaga”.

She added: “The original deal we made was in 2005. Rob had made several promises to honour our agreement before attempting to alter it in late 2008/early 2009. I was incredibly surprised when he did that”.

A rep for Fusari told Billboard: “We are very disappointed with the verdict and are in the process of analysing our options”.

BMG signs global deal with Chinese music firm

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Having entered the Chinese market earlier this year, BMG has announced a new partnership with Giant Jump, which will see the German company manage the Chinese music firm’s recording and publishing rights both domestically and internationally.

BMG China’s Chief Investment Officer Dora Yi said in a statement: “Giant Jump is a leading Chinese music company with strong entrepreneurship and clear strategic vision, making it an ideal partner for BMG. We look forward to working with them, developing new business models and delivering the value Chinese artists and rights owners deserve”.

Giant Jump founder Haiquan Hu added: “It is my great honour to partner with BMG. I believe Giant Jump will definitely enter into a new chapter with BMG’s international platform, know-how in music rights management and its unique position in China’.

Hu is also one half of Yu Quan, one of the acts that will be covered by the deal. Others include Yun Hao, Jianxiang Huang, Xiang Li and Nic Li. All of whom I’m assuming you are familiar with.

BMG has already been very active in the acquisitions domain of late, announcing the purchases of Vagrant Records and Union Square Music this month. In September, it also bought Infectious Music and LA-based production music library Music Beyond.

Sony closes down Lily Allen label

Business News Labels & Publishers

Lily Allen is a vanity label boss no more, now that her relatively short-lived Sony/Columbia imprint In The Name Of has closed down.

ITNO, never really the hive of hyped new artists Allen had likely intended it to be, only had two acts signed to it – US band Cults and flaxen-haired jingle singer Tom Odell – since Allen started it back in 2011, reportedly earning a salary of £100,000 per year as head of the label.

A spokesperson for Allen has confirmed to The Sun that Odell, for one, has shifted back onto one-time ITNO distributor Columbia for his releases, something Lily is apparently “very happy” with, which is big of her.

Said spokesperson has also said that it isn’t all over for Allen’s ‘behind the scenes’ career yet, adding: “Lily will shortly be announcing a new signing/consulting role for another label”.

Sankeys boss on US club closures, first ever Sankeys festival

Business News Live Business

The month-old Brooklyn branch of white-knuckle-ride nightclub franchise Sankeys has had to shut down, leading Sankeys boss David Vincent to release a statement blaming the brand’s American franchisees for “failing to deliver” on their agreement. And some other damning accusations.

Brand Sankeys’ attempt to break the NYC party scene hasn’t gone brilliantly so far, what with the folding last month of Sankeys Manhattan after only a year in place, and now the accelerated demise of the Brooklyn site.

Vincent had initially said at the time of the big Brooklyn opening he was “taking direct control of all aspects of the venue, and leaving nothing to chance”, adding with confidence that “Sankeys is a basement-style club and needs an intimate low ceiling venue to create our magic. Our new venue in Brooklyn is sure to create this”.

Well he certainly isn’t saying that now, rather the opposite, as his press release (re-printed here by RA) proves. In it, whilst Vincent confirms that he and the team will “no longer be involved” with the former Brooklyn venue, SRB, he directs most of his anger at Sankeys’ Stateside franchise partners, writing that…

“In September, we were eventually persuaded by our franchisee and very much against our own better judgement, to help with their new venue in Brooklyn. We were promised direct and full control of all aspects of the new Brooklyn venue. We relocated key personnel from Ibiza to ensure the club would immediately come across as Sankeys, a social experiment rather than a franchised brand as in Manhattan”.

“In order to create that true Sankeys magic it was essential for us to have complete control, the sound, the artistic vision and the management being fundamental to our success. We were lied to, we never had control of any of these things and for that matter on pretty much anything in reality”.

Citing a range of last minute time constraints placed on the venue being finished as one of the major issues, he adds: “Once we committed to the move and started work, the franchisee failed to deliver on any of the agreed terms and we soon found ourselves in an untenable position being both unsupported financially and operationally. We were therefore left with no other alternative than to terminate our relationship with the franchisee immediately”.

And finally he says: “We know we would have made this work, but we cannot work with people who do not share our vision or stifle our creativity. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to our US fans, DJs and artists on this chapter, but as they say, ‘the show must go on’, and it will; but in another part of the world for now”.

The world’s remaining Sankeys nightclubs, for those keeping score, are in Playa d’en Bossa, Ibiza, and another on-off one in the brand’s city-of-origin Manchester. And to end on a Sankeys-style high, Vincent has confirmed the company will host its first ever UK festival at some point (he doesn’t clarify when). 2015 seems a fair bet.

Spotify goes into profit in France

Business News Digital

Following the announcement last month that Spotify’s UK division had gone into profit, its French arm has apparently followed suit. Spotify reportedly now also holds one-third of the country’s streaming market, where it faces stronger competition from domestic service Deezer.

According to L’Express, Spotify France saw revenues increase by 66% in 2013 to 18.75 million euros, resulting in a 311,426 net profit for the year. A spokesperson for the streaming service also told the newspaper that its premium subscriptions were up 76% year-on-year.

While many will no doubt be pleased to hear that Spotify is going into profit in more territories, this news will also fuel the ire of critics who believe the company should be paying higher royalties to rights owners and artists. Though, of course, market-by-market figures don’t necessarily tell us much, because it’s hard to know what costs are incurred at a global rather than a country level; overall the business is still likely posting a sizable loss.

Billy Bragg apologises to Taylor Swift, offers “full support” in “fight for transparency”

Business News Digital

Billy Bragg has apologised to Taylor Swift for suggesting that she had accepted money from Google to promote YouTube Music Key, after it emerged that none of her albums feature on the new streaming service.

It had been widely reported (including by us on one occasion, for which we can only apologise and then pass the buck) that Swift’s catalogue would feature on YouTube Music Key, minus new album ‘1989’, as journalists were told at a press briefing by YouTube last week. This despite the new YouTube set-up, like Spotify, having freemium and premium fully on-demand levels after Swift’s label had said that its problem with Spotify was compulsory participation in the free element of the service.

Though as people got access to the invite-only beta version of YouTube’s actual subscription set-up earlier this week, it became apparent that this wasn’t the case. Meanwhile, the singles that are available via the Taylor Swift ‘watch card’ in both freemium and premium actually come from Vevo, and the plethora of unofficial user-uploads of Swift’s tunes on the wider YouTube platform seem to be gone following a pretty efficient takedown spring clean by the singer’s reps.

Earlier this week, calling out Swift for bailing on Spotify over its freemium level, but then seemingly getting into bed with YouTube’s equivalent, Bragg wrote on Facebook: “What a shame that Taylor Swift’s principled stand against those who would give her music away for free has turned out to be nothing more than a corporate power play”.

However, writing a new Facebook update yesterday, Bragg said: “I want to apologise to Taylor Swift for accusing her of selling her soul to Google”.

He continued: “My criticism was based on the fact that Swift’s back catalogue was the central feature of a demonstration of the Music Key services given to journalists in London last week … Learning that Google were using Swift to promote Music Key gave me the impression that her music was going to be front and centre of their launch, the implication being that her Spotify boycott was a corporate power play, rather than an attempt by an artist to make the point that music has value”.

In conclusion, he said: “The time will surely come when content creators have to band together to challenge deals done between rights holders and service providers, details of which are kept from artists and their representatives. If Ms Swift is going to lead that fight for transparency, she will have my full support”.

He also barred journalists from using the headline ‘Bragg makes Swift apology’, which accounts for the clunky mess you see at the top of this story. Look at us, passing the buck twice in one story.

AC/DC ‘don’t have to fire’ Phil Rudd

Artist News

Whilst the rockin world is probably up to date on what’s going on with AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd as far as his criminal situation goes (ie that he will appear in court in New Zealand next week to face charges of threatening to kill and possession of cannabis and methamphetamine, not to make light of any of those by bracketing them) what isn’t as clear is Rudd’s position within the AC/DC line-up; as in, is he still within the band at all?

Well, in a recent interview with Sirius XM’s Howard Stern, AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson has said that he and the band are going to leave Rudd’s fate to the legal system to decide. Or in his words: “I don’t think we have to do anything – fire him or anything like that. I think the situation is going to take care of itself”.

Using the same rather understating ‘pickle’ phrase as guitarist Angus Young did earlier in an interview this month, Johnson added: “He’s got himself into a pickle and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re talking about criminal courts, judges and juries. But we are going to go on tour, and nothing’s going to stop us”.

As previously reported, AC/DC say they have had no contact with Rudd following his arrest earlier this month, prior to which the band have said he was behaving erratically, prompting them to shoot the video for ‘Rock Or Bust’, the title song to their forthcoming LP, with Buck & Evans’ Bob Richard standing in on drums.

‘Rock Or Bust’, a title that’s becoming more and more fitting as time goes on, comes out on 1 Dec.

Ennio Morricone postpones European shows

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

86 year old Italian composer Ennio Morricone, off of all the greatest Sergio Leone, John Carpenter and Oliver Stone film scores you can think of, has postponed his forthcoming December tour of Europe while he recovers from a spinal injury.

Though UK dates at Birmingham’s LG Arena and Manchester’s Phones 4U Arena have been postponed indefinitely, while shows at London’s O2 Arena and the O2 Arena in Dublin will now take place on 5 and 7 Feb respectively.

In a press release Morricone says: “I am most grateful for the loyalty that my audiences around Europe have shown. It was with great sadness that I have had to cancel and reschedule so many concerts during the past year”.

He adds: “Many people have asked if this coming tour is my last one. This is not the case. I feel rested, inspired and excited to be back. I consider it a comeback after a terribly long period of absence. I greatly enjoy conducting my music for my dear audiences and I intend to ‘conduct myself’ in recognition of their esteem and lasting patience”.

And here he is appearing very rested, inspired and excited, saying similar things in Italian in a video:

Annie Mac details first ever AMP festival, Lost & Found

Artist News Gigs & Festivals Live Business

Do-a-lot dance DJ and ‘tastemaker’ Annie Mac is to doing another thing; and this time it’s hosting, via her AMP live events series, a new weekend festival in (or on) Malta called Lost & Found.

Taking place on 3-5 Apr, it’s a collaboration with promotions companies The Warehouse Project, Sound Channel, Drop the Mustard, Metropolis, Fresh Events and Lights Out, and has on its initial line-up the likes of Car Craig, Duke Dumont, Eats Everything, Julio Bashmore and Kaytranada. So that’s cool.

Advertising the fest, Mac says: “Having attended festivals all my life, I did not enter into this project lightly. I’ve worked with the team involved for ten years now, we’ve visited Malta, toured the event spaces and hotels, and all worked together to curate what I think is an incredible line-up. Expect boat parties, beach parties, night time open air raves and plenty of AMP surprises. It’s going to be a very special weekend”.

Exciting. Early bird tickets are already available via the Lost & Found site.

CMU’s One Liners: The O2 x YPlan, Meghan Trainor, American Football and trillions more besides

Artist News Business News Deals Digital Gigs & Festivals Live Business One Liners Releases

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• London’s ‘The O2’ has got into bed with live listings app YPlan in a deal that will see the latter become the arena’s official ‘going out partner’, so that’s cute. Set at three years to start with, the alliance will reach to other AEG-owned live spots like the Brooklyn Bowl and Wembley Arena.

• Australia-based streaming service Guvera is now available in Russia and Ukraine in a launch assisted by Ominifone. This is the latest phase in a time of large-scale worldwide growth for the company, which in the past year has spread to sixteen countries in five continents.

• The Beach Boys’ own Mike Love is going to release a book on his life as a Beach Boy titled ‘Good Vibrations: My Life As A Beach Boy’, confirms Billboard, but not until 2016. Biographer James S Hirsh will assist him.

• The back of pop princess Sia’s head is tempting fans to donate to the Kickstarter campaign for her husband Erik Anders Lang’s documentary on golf (GOLF.), ‘Be The Ball’, with incentives like an unreleased cover of ‘Iko Iko’, video greetings, and personalised singing experiences. Sia’s remaining breath isn’t on sale though, sorry. The deadline on the campaign is 17 Dec, so go browse now via this link.

• Healthy popstar Meghan Trainor has said she’ll release her very first LP, titled ‘Title’, on 26 Jan. Which means she probably will. Bear that in mind whilst you view the new video to Trainor’s new single ‘Lips Are Movin’.

• ‘Appaz’ Lorde’s Twitter whipping boy Diplo has made “a record” featuring approved glitch-pop oddity Sophie, and Madonna, and Nicki Minaj. And he’s “going to be releasing it”, says he in this interview with inthemix.

• THE main man Squarepusher is back after a little time away, and will premiere his all-new live show at London’s Barbican on 18 Mar 2015. Get tickets here.

• Emo-tional rock band American Football (pictured), from Chicago, will play their first British shows in… well, ever, in May 2015. The band, who formed in 1997, split in 2000 and reformed again earlier this year, will hit London’s Electric Ballroom (14 May), Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club (15 May) and the Manchester Gorilla (16 May). Tickets go on sale Monday via the AF site.

• Approved Sacred Bones-signed artist Amen Dunes, maker of this year’s really excellent ‘Love’ LP, is playing a rare UK show on 26 Nov (so quite soon) at The 100 Club in London. Buy up last minute tickets to that here, and click here to see the video to lead ‘Love’ single ‘Lonely Richard’.

CMU Beef Of The Week #233: Neil Young v Coffee

And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week Brands & Merch

After the runaway success of last week’s Beef Of The Week (literally only one person described it as “pants”), I’m going to continue on a theme. After all, why should ‘beef’ get all the action? Just because that particular consumable got randomly selected as the new term for ‘disagreement’. It could have been coffee. I see no reason why in a parallel universe this column wouldn’t be called ‘CMU Coffee Of The Week’ to mean exactly the same thing.

So, luckily for every single goddamn one of us, Neil Young has just noticed that Starbucks might be a company of dubious morals. Really, he’s just spotted that. Until recently he used to queue up with all the other start-up CEOs to get his morning latte. But not anymore.

Actually, despite my tone so far, he’s making an admirably principled stand (I’m just always confused by anyone who isn’t already boycotting Starbucks, at least on the grounds that their coffee tastes awful). He claims, based on a campaign recently launched by US campaigning website SumOfUs, that Starbucks is “supporting a lawsuit that’s aiming to block a landmark law [in the state of Vermont] that requires genetically-modified ingredients be labelled. Amazingly, it claims that the law is an assault on corporations’ right to free speech”.

He wrote in a message to fans on his website: “I used to line up and get my latte every day, but yesterday was my last one. Starbucks has teamed up with [GM seed producer] Monsanto to sue Vermont, and stop accurate food labelling. Tell Starbucks to withdraw support for the lawsuit – we have a right to know what we put in our mouths. Starbucks doesn’t think you have the right to know what’s in your coffee. So it’s teamed up with Monsanto to sue the small US state of Vermont to stop you from finding out”.

I’ll tell you what’s in your Starbucks coffee – fucking horrible coffee. But anyway, we’ve covered that. Young goes on: “There’s much more at stake here than just whether GMO foods will be labelled in a single US state. Vermont is the very first state in the US to require labelling. Dozens of other states have said that they will follow this path – in order to encourage this, we need to ensure that Vermont’s law stands strong. That’s why Monsanto and its new allies are fighting so hard to kill GMO labelling in Vermont. But whatever you think of GMOs, corporations should not be using massive lawsuits to overturn legitimate, democratic decisions with strong public backing”.

Young concedes that Starbucks itself isn’t pursuing this action, but says the coffee giant is just keeping itself at arms length – possibly for PR reasons – with the action actually being fronted by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, of which the coffee company is a member.

But “not so” says Starbucks, which insists it is not part of the GMA’s movements in Vermont. In a statement responding to the SumOfUs campaign last week, the company said: “Starbucks is not a part of any lawsuit pertaining to GMO labelling nor have we provided funding for any campaign. And Starbucks is not aligned with Monsanto to stop food labelling or block Vermont State law. The petition claiming that Starbucks is part of this litigation is completely false and we have asked the petitioners to correct their description of our position. Starbucks has not taken a position on the issue of GMO labelling. As a company with stores and a product presence in every state, we prefer a national solution”.

So, can we hate Starbucks on this point or not, that’s the question. Possibly not. There’s still the whole tax thing, of course. Plus, have I mentioned that I really don’t like Starbucks coffee? Oh, and as a coffee shop that once operated a record label, it could be said that Starbucks once compared music to coffee. And I think you all now what I think about that.

Approved: Efterklang – The Last Concert film

CMU Approved

Having seen Efterklang’s live show develop over the best part of a decade, in recent years they seemed to have hit upon a good thing. Touring the world and hooking up with orchestras in each city certainly carved them out a niche, and allowed them to play decent-sized concert venues to a procession of enraptured audiences.

A good thing it was, but the last time I saw them it also occurred to me that the basic premise of the show hadn’t developed in a while. What they were doing seemed to have found its natural level and had stopped there. Which wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Certainly I never saw them play a bad show, or look like they were anything less than overjoyed to be doing it.

Which probably made the decision to stop doing all that all the more difficult. But earlier this year the band announced that it was “time to reflect and time to move forward … to fundamentally change what it means to be Efterklang and how we operate, create and perform”.

And so, on 28 Feb this year, the last performance by Efterklang as they were took place at the Alsion concert hall in Sønderborg, Denmark. Performing with the South Denmark Philharmonic and South Denmark Girls Choir, along with various other guests, they ran through a set featuring songs from across their back catalogue, as well as others that had never been released.

The performance was captured on film in all its glory by director Vincent Moon (who also directed 2011 Efterklang documentary ‘An Island’), wandering amongst the performers with a single camera as they performed, making it a concert film seen from the band’s perspective rather than the audience’s.

You can watch the film in full below, and listen to the complete unedited audio of the performance here. And while you’re at it, you can hear the first steps of the new Efterklang too.The audio from the first show by new band Liima – a collaboration between Efterklang and percussionist Tatu Rönkkö is here.

Billboard to include streaming and single track sales data in US album chart

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Billboard, having adding streaming data into its main singles chart back in 2012, has announced that it will include the same in the calculation of its Billboard 200 album chart from later this month.

“All of the major on-demand audio subscription services are considered”, says Billboard, specifically naming Spotify, Beats Music, Google Play and Xbox Music. Chart compiler Nielsen will take 1500 streams from one album as being equivalent to one sale. The updated album chart will also measure single track sales – equating ten track sales from an album to one full album sale.

Billboard says that the changes, if already launched, would have had an impact this week on artists like Ariana Grande, Hozier and Maroon 5, whose streaming and single track sales are outperforming full album sales. Also, while mainstream artists traditionally push for high first week sales, thus often seeing a steep drop off in chart position in later weeks, it’s likely that the changes will mean pop acts in particular maintain a higher position over time.

This is perhaps interesting news for Taylor Swift, who of course is currently not making her music available through a number of streaming services – notably Spotify and (contrary to earlier reports) YouTube’s new Music Key.

As much reported, her stance is that she wants no part in the “grand experiment” of ad-funded freemium streaming tiers on on-demand services. Though it will be interesting to see how the chart changes affect her chart position (her number one already assured by her impressive full album sales figures) and if potentially seeming to fall out of favour quickly shifts her opinion at all. It’s unlikely that the effect will be great this time around, though by her next album the landscape is likely to be very different.

Explaining the changes, Billboard’s VP Of Charts And Data Development, Silvio Pietroluongo said: “Adding streaming information makes the chart a better representation of music consumption activity. While an extremely valuable measurement, album sales would mostly capture the initial impulse only, without indicating the depth of consumption thereafter. Someone could listen to the album just once, or listen to one track or a number of tracks 100 times. We are now able to incorporate those plays as part of an album consumption ranking throughout one’s possession of an album, extending beyond the initial purchase or listen”.

Supporting the addition of streaming stats to the album chart, Sony Music EVP Of US Sales & Distribution, Darren Stupak added: “The new methodology for the Billboard 200 is a welcome and necessary evolution of Nielsen and Billboard’s album chart data. The ways in which fans consume music, and the ways in which music is monetized, have grown beyond the traditional metrics of album sales. Music consumption in today’s marketplace is a diverse mix of access and acquisition, including on-demand streaming, track and album downloading, and physical product purchasing. The introduction of this expanded scope chart brings the Billboard 200 more closely in line with the multi-platform, multi-format experience of music fans”.

The UK is likely to follow suit next year, The Official Charts Company’s Martin Talbot told AIM’s IndieCon conference earlier this week that it was “a matter of when, not if”.

The first Billboard 200 chart to incorporate streaming will be published on 4 Dec, covering listening from Monday 30 Nov.

Duke Garwood signs to Heavenly, confirms LP

Artist News Deals Labels & Publishers Releases

Quiet Englishman (and singer-songwriter) Duke Garwood has signed to Heavenly Recordings to release his next LP ‘Heavy Love’.

A spotlight-dodging collaborator to the likes of Mark Lanegan, Josh T Pearson and Tinariwen, Garwood says: “When I was young and pretty, I could’ve become a star. Luckily, I didn’t have any inkling to. I didn’t know what I was doing; I wanted to play music the way I wanted it to be played. That probably saved my life”.

Meanwhile Jehnny Beth of Savages, who features on the ‘Heavy Love’ title track, says Garwood’s voice is like a “thin and full Chet Baker turned into a midnight wolf”, adding: “I met Duke at The Luminaire. He was playing sweet ballads with a tint of free jazz. The first question was ‘who is this guy?'”

Who indeed? Well, here’s who:

I hate saying “intriguing”, but… hmmm, this is all quite intriguing. ‘Heavy Love’ is out on 9 Feb 2015, and Garwood will play UK shows in its name at London’s Slaughtered Lamb (on 21 Jan), at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club (on 24 Jan, this as part of Heavenly Recordings’ 25th anniversary weekend festival), and again supporting Mark Lanegan at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire (28 Jan).

Black Butter joins Sony Music UK

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

British indie label Black Butter has signed a new deal with Sony Music UK to become a standalone imprint under the major. Sony’s CEO for the UK and Ireland, Jason Iley, who was appointed to the role in April, has said this partnership is the first sign of his new vision for the company.

Responsible for the rise of acts like Rudimental, Clean Bandit, Gorgon City and Jess Glynne, Black Butter founders Henry Village and Joe Gossa will remain with the company, becoming co-presidents, while Nick Worthington will head up its A&R team. Worthington has been working with Black Butter for three years already, previously holding positions at XL and 679, and signed artist such as Plan B, Basement Jaxx and The Streets in the past.

Iley said in a statement: “Black Butter is the most exciting label to have emerged in the last five years, so this is a real coup for us. Henry and Joe bring with them a rare talent for spotting exceptional acts. The deal is a significant benchmark in Sony Music UK’s growth plan for the future. Henry and Joe’s vision and enthusiasm is incredible and they’re the perfect fit for the new look Sony Music”.

Explaining that Iley’s approach was not entirely out of the blue, Village added: “Jason was very supportive early on in Black Butter’s ascendancy and has always made it very evident he wanted to work with Joe and I as soon as we were ready. I’ve always been a supporter and now that he’s taken the helm at Sony, the time felt right”.

The new partnership will cover all newly signed talent, while pre-deal acts on the label will remain covered by any previous agreements – Rudimental’s debut ‘Home’, for example, was released through Warner Music.

UK Music launches Internship Code Of Practice

Business News Education & Events Labels & Publishers

UK Music yesterday launched a new Internship Code Of Practice for the good old music industry, in partnership with action group Intern Aware.

The trade body has published a guide, which informs employers of their responsibilities when hiring interns – including how much they should be paid – and offers young people advice on how to avoid poor quality or unpaid positions.

Launching the code of practice, UK Music CEO Jo Dipple said: “Music is one of the UK’s strongest cultural assets, to maintain our standing, we must ensure that our businesses are filled with the most talented people, constantly refreshed from the widest pool of creative talent. Internships are a fantastic way for a young person to get their foot in the door, but we must attract and retain people from all walks of life and all backgrounds. Diversity is a necessity, not an option”.

She continued: “Our research shows that despite common myths, people perceive music as an open industry. This means we must ensure that music companies offer paid internships to maximise the number of candidates applying to any role. The policies and advice in this guide will ensure that employers respect every young person for their talent and not their ability to work for free. Adherence to this code will benefit both the employers and the intern”.

Intern Aware’s Gus Baker added: “Unpaid internships make access to the music industry exclusive and rule out talented young people who can’t afford to work for free. We are delighted to be supporting UK Music’s fantastic new guidance which will help ensure fair access to the music business”.

Download the guide for music companies and young people here.

Justin Timberlake buys into AfterMaster audio co

Brands & Merch Business News Deals Digital

Having possibly slowly and quietly backed off (as one might from a rabid wolf) from his role as flashy promotional prop to the still-ailing Myspace, popstar, actor and man Justin Timberlake is now chancing his arm at the ‘audio quality enhancement’ game, having joined tech company AfterMaster Audio Labs Inc as a co-owner.

Timberlake says: “I’m thrilled to be a part of this groundbreaking company. The first time I heard audio, post AfterMaster, I knew that I had to be a part of this company and that we had something revolutionary on our hands”.

So speaks a changed man. And now to hear from another, AfterMaster CEO Larry Ryckman, an old hand at the audio business having, along with AfterMaster’s head engineer Shelly Yakus, launched audio tech company QSound along with present-day Beats chief Jimmy Iovine all the way back in 1986.

Ryckman says: “Justin is an audiophile. He really understands quality audio. We’ve worked with the world’s biggest artists, and not all of them have a focus on audio quality on their own; they look to their producers and their engineers. Justin loves technology, completely understands audio and he’s very powerful and respected in the entertainment community”.

The software format of AfterMaster, via which musicians can upload songs, generate a remastered version and opt either to pay to download it or not, will be available next month. Products like headphones, TVs and mobiles containing an AfterMaster chip, meanwhile, will follow early next year.

In the meantime, fans of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ can get a taste of the wonders AfterMaster has wrought on the first 20 seconds of the track via the ‘listen’ page on the company’s site. I mean wow, that creaking door sound is MIND-BLOWING in high quality.

Beats Music to become default app on iOS from March, says FT

Business News Digital

After the phenomenal success and universal joy that greeted U2’s new album ‘Songs Of Innocence’ when it was pushed out to iTunes users everywhere earlier this year, Apple is planning to have another go. The company will force Beats Music on all iPhone owners next year, according to the Financial Times.

Apple, of course, bought Beats Electronics – headphones, streaming service and all – back in May, and since then there has been much speculation about what the tech firm will do with its new music streaming company.

Various Apple product launches have come and gone with no mention of Beats Music. But, reckons the FT, Apple is now planning to include the app in a forthcoming update of its iOS mobile operating system. It would make the streaming software a default app for all iPhone users, possibly as early as March, though people would have to opt-in to paying monthly subs to actually get any music out of it.

The FT reckons that the service will be rebranded under the iTunes name – sitting alongside the download store and the existing iTunes Radio Pandora-style streaming service – and will remain a paid-for-only service. Presumably the hope is that by having the app pre-installed more people will click on it and sample the service, giving iTunes Beats an edge on its streaming competitors.

Though whether customers will go with the flow remains to be seen. It could annoy people if something suddenly appears on their phones without asking and immediately starts asking for money. Even U2 wouldn’t do that.

Surgeon lists Bono’s bike crash injuries, as U2 confirm Films Of Innocence

Artist News Releases

Bono’s surgeon has confirmed that, whilst the U2 man’s bicycle crash last Sunday was more serious than was at first reported, his prognosis for a full recovery is still good.

Though it was known at the time that the singer required surgery for the injuries sustained during the accident, NYC-based trauma surgeon Dean Lorich has since revealed a long list of multiple fractures to Bono’s eye socket, shoulder blade, little finger and, most acute of all, his upper arm; not least the three metal plates and eighteen screws inserted into the singer’s elbow.

Releasing all the details in the form of a statement via Rolling Stone, Lorich added that Bono “will require intensive and progressive therapy, however a full recovery is expected”. All of which makes it pretty understandable that U2 had to cancel their planned ‘Tonight Show’ residency after the incident.

And another U2-related thing. The band are releasing a non-free series of ‘street art’ films, each paired with a track off their ‘priceless digital gift’ of an LP, ‘Songs Of Innocence’.

Graffiti artists Oliver Jeffers, Robin Rhode, D*Face, Mode 2, Chloe Early, Ganzeer, Vhils, Maser, ROA, DALeast and Todd James have all participated on the visual side of ‘Films Of Innocence’, which “celebrates the unique democratic power of urban art takes the political murals of Northern Ireland as a reference point”.

It’s all coming out on 9 Dec, costing £6.99. This is the trailer:

Jamie xx to score ballet adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer novel

Artist News

Jamie xx has composed the score for a ballet inspired by author Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Tree Of Codes’. The piece will receive its premiere at next year’s Manchester International Festival.

Choreographed by Wayne McGregor, it will be performed by dancers from The Paris Opera Ballet and McGregor’s Random Dance Company, with set design by visual artist Olafur Eliasson. Which is all very exciting.

And, in what may be the most pretentious and patronising quote we have ever published (which is really saying something), Eliasson said of the show: “Clearly Jamie’s music can’t live without movement and space. Clearly Wayne’s choreography can’t live without sound and space. Clearly my art can’t live without sound and movement. Clearly creativity can change the world”.

The show will run from 9-10 Jul next year at the Manchester Opera House. Tickets will go on sale at 10am this Saturday here.

Fuse ODG discusses pulling out of Band Aid 30 over its representation of Africa

Artist News Releases

The fourth iteration of the Band Aid single, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, is due to hit number one in the UK singles charts this week. It is also already the fastest-selling single of the year so far (a record it broke within its first 24 hours on sale), and by mid-week had shifted over a quarter of a million copies. But, if you’ve been anywhere near the internet this week, you’ll no doubt be aware that not everyone is that happy about the latest Band Aid sing song fundraising venture.

There’s been a lot of criticism of Band Aid, and of Bob Geldof, a lot of which has been quite shouty. But a more measured response yesterday came from rapper Fuse ODG, who – as has been widely reported – pulled out of appearing on the new recording shortly before it took place on Saturday.

Writing for The Guardian, he said that he had been sceptical of the project from the off, having concerns that it would portray (and has portrayed in the past) the entire continent of Africa in a negative light.

“I was sceptical because of the lyrics and the videos of the previous charity singles”, he writes. “And I worried that this would play into the constant negative portrayal of the continent of Africa in the West. Geldof and I spoke at length about this and he agreed with me on many levels, assuring me that we could use it as an opportunity to showcase the positives of Africa”.

However, he continues: “On receiving the proposed lyrics on Thursday – two days before the recording was due to take place in London – I was shocked and appalled by their content. The message of the Band Aid 30 song absolutely did not reflect what Africa is truly about and I started to question whether this was something I wanted to be a part of”.

“[Though] in truth, my objection to the project goes beyond the offensive lyrics”, he goes on. “I, like many others, am sick of the whole concept of Africa – a resource-rich continent with unbridled potential – always being seen as diseased, infested and poverty-stricken. In fact, seven out of ten of the world’s fastest growing economies are in Africa.

He says that he is “not disregarding the fact that Ebola is happening and that people need help” but adds: “That image of poverty and famine is extremely powerful psychologically. With decades of such imagery being pumped out, the average westerner is likely to donate £2 a month or buy a charity single that gives them a nice warm fuzzy feeling, but they are much less likely to want to go on holiday to, or invest in, Africa”.

Fuse ODG’s debut album is titled ‘TINA’, an acronym for This Is New Africa, which represents his vision for showing Africa in a different light.

Read Fuse ODG’s article in full here, and watch the video for ‘TINA’, the title track from the album, here:

CMU’s One Liners: Radiohead, Faith No More, Tink x Sleigh Bells and heaps more

Artist News One Liners Releases

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Radiohead are in the studio recording right at this moment. Well, maybe not this exact moment. But recording is a thing they’re doing. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood told BBC Radio Oxford that the band are currently in the studio “talk[ing] about different approaches and … trying a bunch out”.

• Faith No More have premiered their first new song for seventeen years. It is called ‘Motherfucker’. It’ll be released in the US as a seven-inch for Record Store Day Black Friday on 28 Nov. So there you go. And here it is.

• Co-approved rapper Tink has ‘gone in’ with Sleigh Bells (all pictured) on a new single sponsored by one of those brand-backed collaboration-type programmes, in this case Red Bull Sound Select. Hear ‘That Did It’ via this link.

• A Kanye West-produced Pusha-T track titled ‘Lunch Money’, which may or may not feature on Pusha’s TBC new record when that is finally ‘Ced’, has appeared online. Listen to a not-quite-official stream of it here.

• Electronic entity Oceaán, real name Oliver Cean, has peeled back ‘Candour’, a bare-all track from his new EP ‘The Grip’, which is set to arrive intact on 8 Dec. Buzz off over to SoundCloud to listen to it now, go on.

• Lone-star folk artist Angel Olsen has released a video for the agonising last track to her latest LP ‘Burn Your Fire For No Witness’. Watch the clip, a profile of Angel Olsen’s blocky fringe throughout history, RIGHT NOW.

• Emika has previewed the A-side to the first single released by her fresh new label Emika Records. Share in ‘Melancholia Euphoria’ here.

• Approved pop swamplings Bernard + Edith have signed to Bella Union, immediately releasing a weird video for their weirder new single ‘Wurds’. They’ll baptise the track with a coming-out party at the Eagle in Manchester on 3 Dec. Hear it in the space between here.

• CMU Approved (both in his old and new guises), George McFall, aka CGIV, has released another excellent new track and he nudges ever closer to a new album. Due for release on 24 Nov, have a listen to ‘Autumn’ here.

Lorde deigns to explain Diplo diss

And Finally Artist News

Lordly popstar Lorde has clarified why it was that she dissed her friend and ‘Hunger Games’ score collaborator Diplo (and his “tiny penis”) for all to read and retweet on Twitter.

Logistically speaking, by the way, it was a means of chiding Diplo after he tweeted a link to a man’s ‘charitable’ [read: demeaning] campaign to ‘get Taylor Swift a booty’.

Having since ostensibly made peace (if only on Twitter) with Diplo, a Hong Kong-based Lorde has told The Fader what exactly drove her to ‘belittle’ the producer – real name Thomas Wesley Pentz – in this way.

She says: “I think often I say things and realise that Americans hear what I say differently to how I hear it. I love Wes and he’s a big brother to me and one of my first friends in the industry, and part of having a friendship with someone like that is not letting them say stupid shit. Taylor’s my friend as well, and I’m a girl, and if I see some weird body-shaming on my feed I’m going to be like, ‘Hey man…’ [But] we do still love each other, hopefully”.

Asked if she’d always had that same confidence to ‘call people out’, Lorde added: “I wasn’t always that type of person. I’ve been notoriously quiet my whole life, so it wasn’t until I started to be able to run a board meeting and direct people in the way I wanted things to go that I gained confidence as a leader. As a businessperson, I got confident in saying, ‘Hey, this is whack'”.

I’m rashly translating that last bit as Lorde directly saying that Diplo is whack. Because Diplo is pretty whack; if not all the time, then at least at the time of the Taylor Swift tweet, and in this Instagram photo, in which he’s wearing sunglasses, at sea, at night. And playing a white grand piano. And ignoring his friends. And all the other ways in which it is whack. In fact, let’s play a game of how many whack things we can spot in this photo/caption Diplo posted to Instagram. GO.

One Direction sing a song for U on Sesame Street

And Finally Artist News

Sure, One Direction have achieved a lot of things in their short career, but everyone knows you’re still a nobody until you’ve been on ‘Sesame Street’. So well done 1D for finally ‘making it’.

The boyband recorded their appearance on the kids’ TV show almost a year ago, as part of the recently commenced 45th season of the show. Amongst their contributions was a reworked version of their song ‘What Makes You Beautiful’, retitled ‘What Makes U So Useful’. As you’ve probably guessed, the lyrics explain why U is such a great letter, because it makes words like ‘ukulele’ and ‘unicorn’ possible. Though I think there’s a good argument for banning the letter if it also got rid of ukuleles.

Is the new version of the song any good though? Well, no. It’s really not. They do their best with the clunky new lyrics, but the damage was already done before they started. And quite unfairly, this is only compounded by their video on YouTube going straight into a preview of Janelle Monáe being pretty stunning during her appearance on the show.

But anyway, we’ve talked about it long enough, here’s what happened when One Direction went on ‘Sesame Street’:

Approved: Fake Laugh

CMU Approved

I’ve had ‘Freely’, the six-track latest EP by Lovepark’s Kamran Khan, aka Fake Laugh, ‘on repeat’ again and again (so basically, on repeat repeat) since its release via Khan’s cassette label Violent Tapes – and Bandcamp – in September.

An autumnal fall of wistful, light-stepping guitar music to skim stones and stare through rain-blurred window panes to, it twirls and flutters lightly in a Real Estate-sian vein, all with Khan’s butter-kissed call skimming bird-like over the top.

Listen in here:

<a href="http://fakelaugh.bandcamp.com/album/freely-ep">FREELY EP by Fake Laugh</a>

Irving Azoff continues to put pressure on YouTube over song rights

Business News Digital Labels & Publishers Legal Top Stories

Despite being best known as a veteran artist manager and, from his time co-running Live Nation, a key player in live music, Irving Azoff has fast become a vocal figure in the music publishing domain since launching his new Global Music Rights venture, which is seeking to directly represent the public performance rights of 42 songwriters, from Smokey Robinson to Pharrell Williams, where previously licencees would likely have relied on licences for collecting societies, or ‘performing rights organisations’ if you prefer.

As previously reported, as YouTube got busy unveiling its new Music Key service last week, Azoff claimed that – while the Google subsidiary might now have deals in place with most of the record labels to launch its stepped up freemium services and in-beta subscription offer – it did not have the right licences relating to the copyright in the songs (as opposed to the recordings) created by GMR’s songwriter clients. Azoff reckons that this affects some 20,000 songs in total.

Legal letters are now being exchanged between Azoff’s company and YouTube, resulting in a debate that could test a number of areas of American copyright law.

That would include the reach of licences provided by US collecting societies ASCAP and BMI; the definition of a stream in copyright terms, in particular what elements of the copyright (performance, mechanical copy etc) are being employed when music is streamed; and whether an audio track plus image (which will become more common as YouTube adds album tracks into its system) should be classified as a video or audio stream.

And, perhaps most importantly, the reach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbours in enabling YouTube to run an ‘opt out’ rather than ‘opt in’ system at the core of its music service.

According to Billboard, the main flow of conversation between GMR and YouTube so far has been for the latter to claim it does, in fact, have licences covering the song rights the former refers to. But GMR counters that YouTube has not yet made it clear on what grounds it believes it has those licences in place (is it relying on BMI/ASCAP licences, or a licence from a collecting society abroad, or some sort of direct deal with a corporate music rights owner?), and Azoff’s company wants some clarification.

GMR’s legal rep Howard King is quoted in Billboard thus: “Obviously, if YouTube contends that it has properly licensed any of the songs for public broadcast, a contention we believe to be untrue, demand is hereby made that we be furnished with documentation of such licenses”.

If it transpires that YouTube does not have the right licences – or if it’s easy for GRM to revoke any agreement via which the video site is accessing the rights to its writer’s songs – then the next big debate is how Azoff’s company can go about having the songs remove from both the Google firm’s new Music Key service and the YouTube platform at large.

As a user-upload set-up, YouTube, of course, has always said that if rights owners don’t want their content on the site they need to spot it and issue a takedown notice, as described in the DMCA. The firm’s Content ID system is there to help with this process, but ultimately it’s the rights owner’s job to police its content as it appears on the YouTube platform.

This is a pretty accurate interpretation of the DMCA, though plenty of rights owners have complained about the onus it puts on labels and publishers. And Azoff might yet take YouTube to task on this point, he having remarked that “they hide behind safe harbour, but that doesn’t protect a knowing and wilful infringer”.

That latter part of that remark is key, because the notion of “wilful infringer” has been debated in some recent US court cases as a possible way of limiting the DMCA safe harbours, albeit with limited success so far. Meanwhile others have noted that, as YouTube starts to pump content into its system itself as part of the album track element of Music Key, it won’t necessarily be able to rely on DMCA safe harbours – which cover only user uploads – so may have to go further to ensure it isn’t violating the copyrights of song owners, even if the content it self-uploads comes from its label partners.

Azoff says he’s not planning on going legal on all this just yet, though the language being employed by GMR and its lawyers might be more threatening in tone than YouTube is used to. Certainly this whole element of the YouTube v music community debate is one to watch.

Though for now YouTube itself is adopting a conciliatory tone, telling Billboard: “We’ve done deals with labels, publishers, collection societies and more to bring artists’ music into YouTube Music Key. To achieve our goal of enabling this service’s features on all the music on YouTube, we’ll keep working with both the music community and with the music fans invited to our beta phase”.

New Executive Board chair at PRS

Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers

The UK music publishing sector’s collecting society PRS For Music has announced the appointment of Stephen Davidson to chair its Executive Board, and also to lead its licensing and nomination-remuneration committees. Davidson replaces Peter Bamford, who stood down from his external director role at PRS last month after six years with the society.

Confirming the appointment, PRS CEO Robert Ashcroft told reporters: “Stephen’s experience at the helm of so many global companies positioned him ideally for the role of Chairman of our Executive Board. The breadth of his knowledge, particularly of media and telecoms, perfectly equips him to help to drive our business forward and I am delighted to welcome him to PRS For Music”.

Bob Marley estate seals deal on world’s first global cannabis brand

Brands & Merch Business News

Already a high-earning dead celebrity, with official lines in clothing, coffee and ‘earth-friendly headphones’ retailing in his name, Bob Marley’s name and image will now front ‘the world’s first global cannabis brand’, Marley Natural.

The late reggae star’s estate has confirmed a deal with Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based private equity firm with expertise within the blossoming recreational weed trade, via which it will start shipping various forms of ‘the herb’ (only to areas where it’s legal to sell, of course) towards the end of 2015.

And those forms are, in the main, “heirloom cannabis strains”, plus cannabis and hemp-based lotions and balms, and, at long last, official Bob Marley-branded ‘accessories’ and smoking paraphernalia. One love.

Speaking via The Guardian on his vision for the company in light of the blossoming international trade in legal cannabis (this especially post the passing of pro-weed-legalisation in some American states) Privateer’s Chief Executive Brendan Kennedy has said: “We are in a state of rapid transformation, some 70% of Americans now live in a state where cannabis in some form is legal”, apparently adding that he imagines Marley Natural potentially one day matching a post-prohibition alcohol brand. Or Starbucks.

He adds: “Partnering with us is a way of protecting his image. We’ve learned a lot over the past year about Bob’s views towards cannabis and how he viewed the herb differently. We are honoured to work with the Marley family to bring his voice to a professional, authentic and modern brand that will be a defining first in the cannabis industry”.

Meanwhile, speaking for the Marley family, Marley Sr’s daughter Cedella has said: “My dad viewed the herb as something spiritual that could awaken our well-being, deepen our reflection, connect us to nature and liberate our creativity”, adding that the creation of Marley Natural is an “authentic way to honour his legacy by adding his voice to the conversation about cannabis and helping end the social harms caused by prohibition”.

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:44 | By Paul Vig

READ MORE ABOUT: Bugged Out | Fire

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:43 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: House Of Parliament | Mike Weatherley | Seatwave | Sharon Hodgson | StubHub | Ticketmaster | Tim Clement Jones | Viagogo

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:42 | By Andy Malt

Lady Gaga’s former producer Rob Fusari has been ordered to pay $7.3 million to Wendy Starland, the talent scout who originally discovered the star. A US court ruled yesterday that Fusari had broken an agreement to split his earnings from Gaga with Starland.

READ MORE ABOUT: Lady Gaga | Rob Fusari | Wendy Starland

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:41 | By Andy Malt

Having entered the Chinese market earlier this year, BMG has announced a new partnership with Giant Jump, which will see the German company manage the Chinese music firm’s recording and publishing rights both domestically and internationally.

READ MORE ABOUT: BMG | Giant Jump

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:39 | By Aly Barchi

Lily Allen is a vanity label boss no more, now that her relatively short-lived Sony/Columbia imprint In The Name Of has closed down.

READ MORE ABOUT: In The Name Of | Lily Allen | Sony Music

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:38 | By Aly Barchi

The month-old Brooklyn branch of white-knuckle-ride nightclub franchise Sankeys has had to shut down, leading Sankeys boss David Vincent to release a statement blaming the brand’s American franchisees for “failing to deliver” on their agreement. And some other damning accusations.

READ MORE ABOUT: David Vincent | Sankeys

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:37 | By Andy Malt

Following the announcement last month that Spotify’s UK division had gone into profit, its French arm has apparently followed suit. Spotify reportedly now also holds one-third of the country’s streaming market, where it faces stronger competition from domestic service Deezer.

READ MORE ABOUT: Spotify

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:35 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Billy Bragg | Music Key | Spotify | Taylor Swift

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:34 | By Aly Barchi

READ MORE ABOUT: AC/DC | Brian Johnson | Phil Rudd

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:33 | By Aly Barchi

86 year old Italian composer Ennio Morricone, off of all the greatest Sergio Leone, John Carpenter and Oliver Stone film scores you can think of, has postponed his forthcoming December tour of Europe while he recovers from a spinal injury.

READ MORE ABOUT: Ennio Morricone

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:33 | By Aly Barchi

Do-a-lot dance DJ and ‘tastemaker’ Annie Mac is to doing another thing; and this time it’s hosting, via her AMP live events series, a new weekend festival in (or on) Malta called Lost & Found.

READ MORE ABOUT: AMP | Annie Mac | Lost & Found

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:32 | By Aly Barchi

Other notable announcements and developments today…

READ MORE ABOUT: Amen Dunes | American Football | Diplo | Guvera | Meghan Trainor | Mike Love | Sia | Sophie | Suqarepusher | The O2 | YPlan

Friday 21 November 2014, 11:31 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Neil Young | Starbucks

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:43 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Efterklang | Vincent Moon

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:42 | By Andy Malt

Billboard, having adding streaming data into its main singles chart back in 2012, has announced that it will include the same in the calculation of its Billboard 200 album chart from later this month.

READ MORE ABOUT: Billboard

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:41 | By Aly Barchi

Quiet Englishman (and singer-songwriter) Duke Garwood has signed to Heavenly Recordings to release his next LP ‘Heavy Love’.

READ MORE ABOUT: Duke Garwood | Jehnny Beth

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:40 | By Andy Malt

British indie label Black Butter has signed a new deal with Sony Music UK to become a standalone imprint under the major. Sony’s CEO for the UK and Ireland, Jason Iley, who was appointed to the role in April, has said this partnership is the first sign of his new vision for the company.

READ MORE ABOUT: Black Butter Records | Jason Iley | Sony Music

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:39 | By Andy Malt

UK Music yesterday launched a new Internship Code Of Practice for the good old music industry, in partnership with action group Intern Aware.

READ MORE ABOUT: Intern Aware | UK Music

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:38 | By Aly Barchi

READ MORE ABOUT: AfterMaster | AfterMaster Audio Labs | Justin Timberlake

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:37 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Apple | Beats | Beats Music

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:36 | By Aly Barchi

Bono’s surgeon has confirmed that, whilst the U2 man’s bicycle crash last Sunday was more serious than was at first reported, his prognosis for a full recovery is still good.

READ MORE ABOUT: Bono | U2

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:35 | By Andy Malt

Jamie xx has composed the score for a ballet inspired by author Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Tree Of Codes’. The piece will receive its premiere at next year’s Manchester International Festival.

READ MORE ABOUT: Jamie XX | Manchester International Festival

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:33 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Band Aid | Band Aid 30 | Bob Geldof | Fuse ODG

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:32 | By Aly Barchi

Other notable announcements and developments today…

READ MORE ABOUT: Angel Olsen | Bernard + Edith | Emika | Faith No More | GCIV | Kanye West | Oceaán | Pusha T | Radiohead | Sleigh Bells | Tink

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:31 | By Aly Barchi

Lordly popstar Lorde has clarified why it was that she dissed her friend and ‘Hunger Games’ score collaborator Diplo (and his “tiny penis”) for all to read and retweet on Twitter.

READ MORE ABOUT: Diplo | Lorde

Thursday 20 November 2014, 10:30 | By Andy Malt

Sure, One Direction have achieved a lot of things in their short career, but everyone knows you’re still a nobody until you’ve been on ‘Sesame Street’. So well done 1D for finally ‘making it’.

READ MORE ABOUT: One Direction | Sesame Street

Wednesday 19 November 2014, 10:51 | By Aly Barchi

I’ve had ‘Freely’, the six-track latest EP by Lovepark’s Kamran Khan, aka Fake Laugh, ‘on repeat’ again and again (so basically, on repeat repeat) since its release via Khan’s cassette label Violent Tapes – and Bandcamp – in September.

READ MORE ABOUT: Fake Laugh

Wednesday 19 November 2014, 10:50 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: Irving Azoff | Music Key | YouTube

Wednesday 19 November 2014, 10:49 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: PRS For Music | Stephen Davidson

Wednesday 19 November 2014, 10:48 | By Aly Barchi

Already a high-earning dead celebrity, with official lines in clothing, coffee and ‘earth-friendly headphones’ retailing in his name, Bob Marley’s name and image will now front ‘the world’s first global cannabis brand’, Marley Natural.

READ MORE ABOUT: Bob Marley | Marley Natural