Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:34 | By Aly Barchi

CMU Artists Of The Year 2014: Kate Bush

Artists Of The Year CMU Approved

Every weekday in the run up to the Christmas break, we’ll be revealing another of our ten favourite artists of the year. See the full list of artists announced so far here. Next up is Kate Bush…

I think the world will always be waiting for Kate Bush; patiently waiting for her to do something else extraordinary. And it still feels that way today, even when she’s already given her all this year, playing night after night after night (over 22 nights) of ‘Before The Dawn’, her first live show since the only other live show of her now 56 years, 1979’s nationwide ‘Tour Of Life’.

Bush is the kind of artist one doesn’t mind waiting for: endlessly strange and exhilarating in what she creates, the old-soul daughter of a Bexleyheath doctor who wrote ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ when she was thirteen, and has since made some of the most astonishing music, pop and distinctly not pop, of our time. Strike that, of all time.

KB’s presence in recent times, before ‘Before The Dawn’ I mean, has been limited strictly to her rearranged ‘greatest hits’ LP of sorts ‘Director’s Cut’, 2011’s foggy, fantastical ’50 Words For Snow’ (great for disquieting the relatives over Christmas dinner), and the odd rare interview in the midst of it all where she talked very nicely, barely saying anything.

Then in 2012, everyone went wild imagining she might appear at the Olympics Opening Ceremony (as if) to sing to an extended remix of ‘Running Up That Hill’, her old adversarial adage. She didn’t. Then, in spring 2013, she received her MBE. Then nothing, white-out.

So, 2014 was (and still is, just) the year Kate Bush came back, came out from a quiet life in that house that’s sliding off a cliff, and ‘came home’ to the loudly sold out clamour of London’s Hammersmith Apollo, still the Odeon last time she deigned to step out on stage. In a cosmic sort of way the Apollo was like a portal linking the ‘Tour Of Life’ (which ended there) and ‘Before The Dawn’, one of the only constants of both shows and of both eras. Aside from Kate herself, that is, and the miniature world of it’s own that circles her.

Because ‘Before The Dawn’ featured not one single song from the book of ‘Tour Of Life’, and Kate’s wide-eyed slip-of-a-girl beginnings, instead chasing ‘the big hits’ from side one of 1985’s meaty, teeth-baring ‘Hounds Of Love’ with an unabridged performance of that same LP’s latter side ‘The Ninth Wave’, a 30 minute saga-at-sea that follows a lone woman floating on the waves “at the mercy of [her] imagination”.

Apparently (because like most, I wasn’t rich or quick enough to buy tickets for any of the shows) the ‘bringing to life’ of ‘The Ninth Wave’ was a thing of beauty, involving billowing drop-cloths (the waves) and stormy rhythms, a giant whalebone frame, hordes of ‘fish people’, and a score of spotlight moments from Kate and her son – the show’s other anchor – Bertie, who it seems were both in fine voice.

Then there was a real, live interval, after which came a re-enactment of ‘A Sky Of Honey’, a disc off 2005’s ‘Aerial’, in which, fittingly, Kate took a short flight on a woman-sized pair of crow’s wings. Then ‘Among Angels’, then ‘Cloudbusting’, then bed.

None of this was ever meant to gratify the neck-craning ‘treat-seekers’ who might’ve hoped she’d bend and sway her way into a chiffony ‘Wow’ or ‘Kite’ or… OK, ‘Wuthering Heights’ reverie, for old times’ sake. It sounds like it was just Kate Bush, with nothing to prove, moving on a mother’s instinct to sing the songs she loves the most to the fans’ whose love it always seems like she really appreciates.

“I was really delighted that the shows were received so positively and so warmly but the really unexpected part of it all was the audiences. Audiences that you could only ever dream of”, wrote Bush in a polite ‘thank you’ note of the kind you don’t see very often anymore.

“One of the main reasons for wanting to perform live again was to have contact with that audience. They took my breath away. Every single night they were so behind us. You could feel their support from the minute we walked on stage. I just never imagined it would be possible to connect with an audience on such a powerful and intimate level; to feel such, well quite frankly, love. It was like this at every single show”.

And with that, the wait began again.

Now Pirate Bay Facebook is deleted, though file-sharing levels seemingly unaffected

Business News Digital Legal Top Stories

As the future of The Pirate Bay remains uncertain following the server raid in Sweden that took it offline last week, Torrentfreak has noted that the controversial file-sharing site’s Facebook page has now also gone offline.

With over 470,000 likes, you might think that the Facebook profile would be useful for The Pirate Bay’s operators to communicate with their users while their site is offline. Though the file-sharing set-up hadn’t made great use of its page on the social network for some time, it being more of a hub for users to exchange messages, this last week mainly promote alternative torrent services and sites where the TPB’s database has been reposted online.

It’s not known whether Facebook itself deleted the page, presumably in response to a complaint or legal notice, or whether the people behind the Bay took the page offline.

If the latter, that might be linked to the news that the Swedish authorities are considering criminal prosecutions against those who have been running the site in recent years, that could result in jail sentences similar to those dished out to the service’s original three figureheads. Could the Facebook page deletion be Pirate Bay operators trying to cover their tracks? Presumably they’d know that nothing is ever really deleted on Facebook.

As previously reported, one of those operators has told Torrentfreak that the team behind TPB are currently considering their options regarding whether or not to try to get the site back online, though are in the main happy that other file-sharing sites – such as isoHunt – have published copies of the Bay’s database of torrent links.

But if The Pirate Bay itself is now offline for good, that would be the end of a significant and lively era in the music and movie industry’s long-running battle against online piracy. Though those monitoring torrent activity online reckon that the closure of the Bay has not had a particularly dramatic effect on overall file-sharing levels, with former TPB users finding alternative torrent search engines or those back-up copies of the Bay’s data.

ABBA man joins PRS, Michael Jackson Estate renews with BMI

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Are collecting societies announcing new signings too now? Well, that’s the crazy new world we live in, people. Every songwriter and recording artist in the world should move one collecting society to the left, then we could make this a regular column. Anyway, there were two big announcements in the collecting society membership domain yesterday.

First up, the UK’s music publishing collecting organisation PRS For Music announced Björn Ulvaeus was joining the organisation as of 1 Jan 2015, with the society set to administer the ABBA man’s song rights worldwide. Says PRS chief Robert Ashcroft: “We are delighted to welcome such an immense talent to the PRS For Music membership. Björn Ulvaeus’s catalogue includes some of the greatest songs of all time and we are extremely proud to represent such a remarkable songwriter”.

Meanwhile Stateside, the Michael Jackson estate has renewed its alliance with BMI, which will continue to rep the late king of pop’s songs catalogue for public performance licensing. Says BMI chief Mike O’Neill: “We are pleased to announce our continued representation of Michael’s extraordinary and vast catalogue. Since 1976, we’ve had the privilege of licensing his works and we’re honoured to continue this relationship with his estate”.

Ticketscript announces new CTO

Business News Industry People Live Business

Self-service ticketing system provider Ticketscript has appointed a new CTO in the form of André Buren, who will take over from the company’s co-founder Ruben Van Den Heuvel, who is shifting over to the job of Head Of Product Innovation.

Buren, previously CTO for Dutch leisure website Vakantieveilingen.nl, will oversee the international expansion of and further innovation at Ticketscript, heading up a team of over forty people around the world.

Confirming the hire, Tickescript CEO Frans Jonker said: “André holds the ideal combination of innovation, management and technology skills needed for this important position. With Andre’s depth of knowledge within IT and its various complexities, I am confident that Andre will help drive Ticketscript to the next level”.

Spotify loses ArtistLink merch integration

Brands & Merch Business News Digital

Spotify has announced that artists are no longer able to list their merch on the streaming service through Topspin’s ArtistLink. BandPage is now the only service through which merch sell-through can be done within the Spotify ecosystem.

The move isn’t entirely surprising. Spotify first announced the ability to list items for sale on the streaming platform’s artist pages using ArtistLink last year. But shortly afterwards, rival streaming firm Beats Music bought Topspin and then sold off pretty much every element of the direct-to-fan business except ArtistLink.

Then, of course, Apple bought Beats Music. And in August, Spotify partnered with BandPage, expanding the options for artists wanting to sell products via the streaming service.

Although the BandPage deal possibly suggested that Spotify was preparing to bail on the ArtistLink system now it was owned by a rival, the streaming firm said yesterday that it was ArtistLink which decided to sever ties, possibly because it’s now being developed as an entirely Beats (and/or iTunes) integrated service.

Spotify said: “This means that, as of today, any merchandise which was being distributed to Spotify artist pages via ArtistLink will no longer be displayed to users and artists will not be able to use ArtistLink to add new merchandise to Spotify. So if you had previously used ArtistLink to send merch to Spotify this will no longer work”.

Users of ArtistLink are, as you might expect, being encouraged to switch to BandPage.

Bandcamp launches new tools for labels

Business News Digital Labels & Publishers

Bandcamp has launched its previously reported new label-focussed tools, with the likes of Sub Pop, Ninja Tune, Fat Wreck Chords, Relapse, Innovative Leisure and RVNG already on board.

Many labels already use Bandcamp, of course, though these new tools aim to streamline things for record companies that choose to do so, and make it all a whole lot easier to manage.

Amongst other things, it provides improved accounting and allows artists who have previously self-released through Bandcamp to include their label-released tracks on their own profile, but all plugged into to their label’s store. Oh and there are stats. Because everyone loves stats.

“Bandcamp for labels is a goddamn dream come true! We can now seamlessly and uber-efficiently manage our entire roster of 80+ bands from one dashboard, plus analyse an unprecedented level of statistics, bulk upload releases, you name it. Truly an essential tool for the music industry in the 21st century”, says Relapse Records’ Bob Lugowe. And I believe him.

This’ll all cost you $20 a month for up to fifteen artists, or $50 a month if you have more. All the info is here.

TuneCore buys location-based content-delivery app

Business News Deals Digital

Digital distributor TuneCore has acquired a start-up called DropKloud with plans to add that company’s location-based app product into its portfolio of artist services.

DropKloud lets artists provide fans with exclusive content, accessed via a mobile app, at specific locations, which might sound a bit gimmicky, but could be used to deliver gig-specific content, for example. The founders of the company, James DeNino and Kedar Frederic, will join TuneCore and head up an “innovation lab” for the firm, tasked with developing other app-type technologies that can give the indie distributor an edge over its competitors.

Confirming that he and his company were now joining TuneCore, Frederic told reporters: “Our mission of providing independent artists with innovative services that don’t exist today is completely in-line with the TuneCore philosophy”.

Scott Cohen joins Psonar as Chairman

Business News Digital Industry People

Psonar, the UK-based pay-as-you-go streaming music company that first emerged in 2011, has announced the appointment of artist manager and The Orchard co-founder Scott Cohen as non-executive Chairman. The digital firm will presumably be hoping that Cohen’s knowledge of and contacts in the wider music industry, including the artist, label and digital communities, will help it roll out its alternative approach to music streaming.

Confirming Cohen was joining his board, Psonar co-founder and CEO Martin Rigby told reporters: “We are delighted and excited to have Scott Cohen join the Psonar board as non-executive chairman. It is a strong endorsement of the Psonar pay-as-you-go music streaming model by a successful music industry entrepreneur. Scott brings great insight and knowledge of the music industry, especially in the development of digital music service and expansion into international markets”.

For his part, Cohen added: “Music consumption is changing radically Streaming is fast becoming the dominant consumption model and many, less affluent, music fans can’t afford subscription priced at £9.99 or $9.99 per month. The alternative is either suffering the intrusive experience of ads or accessing pirated content”.

He went on: “Psonar Pay As You Go music is a compelling alternative for younger music consumers in particular, and well-suited for developing countries where the PAYG model can provide affordable access to streaming music for millions of mobile users. I’m enthusiastic about Psonar’s potential to expand access to streaming music massively to the benefit of consumers, artists and other rights holders alike”.

CMU spoke a bit more to Martin Rigby about the service and where he sees it sitting within the streaming eco-system last year. Read all about that here.

FlyLo, Jon Hopkins and Kaytranada in line for Radio 1’s 2015 Residency

Artist News Media

BBC Radio 1’s Residency – the station’s way of giving interesting players in dance music a late-night ‘in’ to its programming – will next year consist of b2b slots by the likes of Kaytranada and Flying Lotus, George Fitzgerald and Jon Hopkins, and Heidi & Solomun.

The first show, featuring mixes by existing R1 resident Skream and rising house DJ Hannah Wants, will air at midnight on 8 Jan, with latter shows going live weekly from then on.

Now it’s time for some talking, first from Canadian XL-signing Kaytranada, who says: “During my high school days, I used to listen to my favourite DJs mixes on BBC and now, here I am. Damn. I’m going to play the best music for y’all”.

A similarly pleased Flying Lotus, meanwhile, says: “I still can’t believe this is about to happen. It’ll be a pleasure to invade the UK airwaves for the months ahead”.

Radio 1’s Head Of Programmes Rhys Hughes tops that all off by saying: “In 2014 Radio 1’s Resident DJs brought our audience an incredibly diverse mix of music from the dance music world. To continue in this vein for 2015 we’ve enlisted a who’s who of the most exciting DJ and production talent in the world. It is a stellar, global line-up that demonstrates the breadth of dance music across Radio 1”.

Arts Council announces Darren Henley as new CEO

Business News Industry People

Arts Council England has announced that Classic FM MD Darren Henley will take over as its new CEO. He will replace Alan Davey at a date still to be agreed.

Says Henley: “Alan Davey leaves quite a legacy. He made sure that the Arts Council enabled great work to happen. I want to build on that by working with our National Chair and the Chairs of our Area Councils to champion the importance of art and culture in so many aspects of our lives – personal, social and economic. Of course we must be responsive and adapt to the world around us, but the foundation stone is laid in terms of the Arts Council’s ten year strategy”.

One of the things launched under Davey’s tenure, of course, was the Momentum Music Fund, which for the first time made Arts Council money directly available to contemporary musicians outside jazz, classical and folk. Earlier this month it was announced that the scheme would run for a further year beyond its two year pilot period.

Laura Marling trails Short Movie

Artist News Releases

Critics’ darling Laura Marling has shorn all her hair off in time to confirm details of her fifth LP, which is entitled ‘Short Movie’, and will be released on 23 Mar. It’s co-produced by Marling, Dan Cox and Matt Ingham, the last of whom plays drums in Marling’s touring band.

Of the climate in which ‘Short Movie’ was written, Marling says: “I realised that I hadn’t been in a place for longer than two or three weeks since I was sixteen. I thought, ‘I wonder what will happen if I try and root myself somewhere [and] look back over the past eight years'”.

Listen to the record’s title song, which is set to a nice little animated clip, here, and look down a bit for the tracklisting in full.

Warrior
False Hope
I Feel Your Love
Walk Alone
Strange
Don’t Let Me Bring You Down
Easy
Gurdjieffs’s Daughter
Divine
How Can I
Howl
Short Movie
Worship Me

Serial soundtrack released as final episode of series one goes live

Artist News

Despite claims made by everyone else in the CMU office, the podcast known as ‘Serial’ is a thing that has been incredibly popular since it launched in October. I mean, you can’t move for it on Twitter when a new episode comes out. How the hell have my colleagues not heard about it? It makes me worry about what else they’re missing, to be honest.

Anyway, the ‘This American Life’ spin-off (you’ll be telling me you haven’t heard of ‘This American Life’ next) has been so popular that the composer of its original score, Mark Henry Phillips, is releasing it as an album by popular demand. Hear that, colleagues? BY POPULAR FUCKING DEMAND!

Phillips apparently had so many requests to release the score that he began putting tracks up on SoundCloud, but now he’s realised he could actually be making some money from it, so he’s making it available on iTunes.

Speaking about how he approached scoring a podcast, he explains: “When we were first discussing working together, I told them I wanted to approach it more like a film than a podcast. Often that means having simpler music that creeps in and doesn’t really announce itself to the listener. There’s an adage that the best score is one that doesn’t get noticed at all and I really aimed for that”.

The tight turnaround on the weekly podcast episodes also mean a tight turnaround on the music. Phillips says: “Sometimes I only had 20 minutes to get a piece sounding good. But in a way it was liberating. You can’t really get caught up in the small stuff like how the bass sounds. I was forced to focus on the bigger picture: how can the music help the story?”

The final episode of the first series of ‘Serial’ is also out today. Will we find out if Adnan killed Stephanie? Wait, maybe it’s already out now. I don’t have time to listen right now, so don’t you say a bloody word if you have listened to it already.

Here, instead, why don’t you listen to these selections of Mark Henry Phillips’ music for the show:

CMU’s One Liners: Beggars Group, St Vincent, Calvin Harris and an embarrassment of other riches

Artist News Business News Gigs & Festivals Industry People Labels & Publishers One Liners Releases

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Current Matador PR man Stuart Davie will, at the end of the year, leave his post to take an internal Beggars Group promotion to the newly-created role of E-commerce Manager.

• An increasingly shirtless Calvin Harris has taken his top off again in order to model a ladder, and some clothes, as the new ‘face’ of Emporio Armani’s SS15 campaign.

• Man band Future Islands have this week released the Jay Buim-directed ‘Road Dawgs’, a seven minute film following them over the year. Look at it here.

• Next-wave rapper Tink has released the video for her track ‘Around The Clock’, the beat to which is by Timbaland. “Raw and simple”, says Tink of the clip’s general vibe. And here it is.

• One of CMU’s Artists Of The Year, the great and holy St Vincent, has a new video on show for ‘Birth In Reverse’ a high spike of her spiny latest LP ‘Strange Mercy’. And like most things she does, it is amazing. Watch it here.

• Psych-rock band Pond have revealed the official video for their new single ‘Sitting On A Crane’, which will appear on their new LP ‘Man It Feels Like Space Again’ when that’s released on 26 Jan. The track itself is available for free via the Pond website, and this is the video.

• Approved production corps Future Brown have, in collaboration with director Rory Mulhere, abstracted the sounds of their Maluca-featuring track Vernaculo’ into this video, which is, apparently, “an observation of the senseless world of beauty advertising, positing Future Brown as a universal foundation for all”. Beats me.

• Lo, MC Wiley’s three nationwide ‘Snakes & Ladders’ shows, which were meant to take place this week but got cancelled erm… this week, have been moved to new dates in January. The first is at the London Scala on 27 Jan, with shows thereafter billed in Birmingham (30 Jan) and Manchester (31 Jan).

• The Who have postponed their final two shows of the year – one of which was meant to go ahead last night at London’s O2 Arena – and the next tonight, as Roger Daltrey has been advised by doctors to save his voice. The band will try again at The O2 on 22 and 23 Mar.

Slayer’s ugly Xmas jumpers are still a thing

And Finally Artist News Brands & Merch

As is now an age-old Christmas tradition of, oh, three entire years, Slayer have made available their highly unattractive ‘pentagram and skills’ Xmassy(ish) sweater, online.

It costs $89.99 (that 99 cents really is rich), and comes in sizes small to XXXL, so you can get one for all the family! Buy some for any (largish) children you know, just for laughs. Or you could wrap a cold little kitten in one. Or you could get six and throw them all straight in the bin because they are so horrific to look at. Or you could not buy any in the first place because they are 90 dollars each.

Any or all of the above options will do. Happy Christmas!

CMU Artists Of The Year 2014: Babymetal

Artists Of The Year CMU Approved

Every weekday in the run up to the Christmas break, we’ll be revealing another of our ten favourite artists of the year. See the full list of artists announced so far here. Next up is Babymetal…

When the music of 2014 is boiled down to three and a half minutes of reminiscence delivered by six rent-a-talking-heads in 20 years time, it would be a major oversight to miss out a mention of Babymetal. Their emergence into the world, and into the unlikely embrace of the metal community, may well be one of the most 2014 things to happen in 2014.

When I attended the Tokyo International Music Market conference earlier this year – the band having already played Sonisphere by that point and with a Brixton Academy headline show then looming – by far the most common question I was asked was: ‘Why do you think Babymetal have become so popular overseas?’ Initially it might seem like an easy question to answer, but there are variables on both the Eastern and Western sides that complicate matters.

For one thing, though a jarring novelty in the UK, mixing extremes of music isn’t quite so uncommon in Japan. There’s a whole side of J-pop ‘idol’ culture that allows for wild, experimental creativity within a manufactured pop system.

The CMU Approved Dempagumi.inc, for example, make pop music played at hardcore punk speeds; Momoiro Clover Z worked with ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman, amongst others, on their second album ‘5th Dimension’; and BiS (whose weird, failed gimmick was to attempt to destroy the idol system from within) went to number seven in the Japanese charts this year with digital hardcore track, ‘Stupig’.

More recently, new act Necronomidol have launched themselves as an occult-influenced idol act – having been forced to rethink their original black metal schtick when it became apparent that the atmosphere-sucking metal sub-genre was not entirely suited to pop shows.

For the most part though, J-pop acts don’t pick up much attention in the West beyond a fairly niche audience. So you can see how Babymetal’s sudden popularity over here might be slightly perplexing.

Which is not to say that Babymetal don’t stand out in Japan too – they do – but their combination of pop and metal was perhaps less unexpected there, making all the interest their genre-clash has caused in the West a surprise. Certainly when the video for the first single from the band’s debut album, ‘Gimme Chocolate!!’, first hit the internet, the reaction to it was bigger than most people probably expected, sending the YouTube post viral and sparking vast amounts of debate.

Still, when their first UK live booking at this year’s Sonisphere festival was announced, it looked like things were about to come crashing down. The path to stardom is littered with acts who took the comedy booking slot at a big rock festival and died under a shower of piss-filled bottles.

But that isn’t what happened. People seemed genuinely into the idea of a metal pop group. OK, not everyone, but enough people for the Sonisphere show to go well and another show at the Electric Ballroom in Camden two days later to sell out, followed by that other show at the Brixton Academy last month.

“The reaction was so different than in Japan”, singer Suzuka ‘Su-metal’ Nakamoto told MTV Iggy earlier this year. “At first I was nervous, because I wasn’t sure whether anyone would turn up. And yet, some fans came in ‘cosplay’ or knew all the dance moves. Some of our lyrics use quite difficult Japanese words, but I think the crowd in England sang along even more than our fans at home”.

Part of their success, I think, can be attributed to their name – it explains quickly and simply what they do. And then there’s the tendency for metal fans to have a bit of a sense of humour about their genre of choice.

Giving his view on it all, the group’s producer and founder Key ‘Kobametal’ Kobayashi told The Guardian recently: “Rock music hasn’t changed much over its history. When a group from the other side of the world suddenly appears playing something so weird, it captures your attention”.

“I think the reason people like us is because we make ‘kawaii [cute] metal’, and no one else does that”, pondered Su-metal to MTV Iggy. “The three of us started out with no personal interest in metal; we all just thought the music seemed like fun. And that means that even people who aren’t usually interested in metal might be interested in our music in a similar way”.

Doing something different almost certainly did help the band get their start, but their continued success throughout 2014 really comes down to the fact that Babymetal are really, really good at what they do.

Conceived and formed by Kobametal in 2010, initially as a spin-off of more traditional girl group Sakura Gakuin (which translates as Cherry Blossom Academy), since then the producer has worked hard to ensure that both the pop and metal sides of the group are as strong as each other. So it’s not just a case of a few riffs being chucked into the mix to make a quick buck off the gimmick. The three frontwomen – Su-metal, plus Yui ‘Yuimetal’ Mizuno and Moa ‘Moametal’ Kikuchi – are impressive and engaging performers, while the group backing them is made up of seasoned and very talented metal musicians.

And that’s what really does it. You might not like what they do, but you can’t argue with the fact that the realisation of Babymetal has been done very well. And it appears all the more amazing if your first experience of the group came this year, meaning you missed the more than two years of them working it all out. They just turned up in February and were amazing.

Of course, they aren’t without their critics. Many are troubled by the fact that a group of teenagers, aged between fourteen and sixteen, have been placed at the front of a band who play a style of music they admit they’d not heard of before they were asked to join the outfit. Although that argument does ignore the fact that very few manufactured pop acts get to perform music they actually like (or at least would choose to make given complete artistic freedom).

Sure, this is an extreme case, but there’s no sign that they’re not enjoying it now. They may still be slightly perplexed by their audience (“I’ve never been in a moshpit”, said Yuimetal to The Guardian. “I think I’d get smashed to bits”), and there are certainly some general criticisms that could (and should) be levelled at sections of Japan’s pop music industry, but Babymetal actually seem to be one of the better treated and happier acts out there.

Su-metal described meeting Slayer at Sonisphere to MTV Iggy as a “really special experience”, though that viewpoint emerged after she’d see them play live; having met them before their set, her original thoughts were that they seemed like “really nice old guys”.

Speaking to The Guardian, Moametal admitted that it was supporting Lady Gaga in the US that made her friends “quite envious”. Though she added that those friends also “sing Babymetal songs whenever we go to karaoke”.

Who knows if they’ll continue to be popular in 2015 and beyond, but I hope they do. Their particular brand of genre mashing feels like the kind of thing we’ve always been promised as the internet blurs the boundaries of people’s tastes. There aren’t many acts that could say they’ve comfortably shared bills with Slayer and Lady Gaga.

And here’s the Gimme Chocolate!!’ video that got them there:

Apple defeats anti-trust case over iPod software

Business News Digital Legal Top Stories

It took the jury in the big Apple anti-trust case less than three hours yesterday to rule that the IT giant had not behaved in an anti-competitive manner with the software updates it made to the iPod back in the big bad days of digital rights management on downloads.

As previously reported, a class action lawsuit alleged that Apple kept updating its FairPlay DRM system on the iPod in the latter half of the last decade so that only its iTunes store could sell DRM-protected tracks that would work on what was then the market-leader digital music player.

Some of its rivals, especially RealNetworks, tried to engineer their own versions of FairPlay so that they could sell DRMed music that would play on the iPod. But Apple’s software updates kept making those FakePlay tracks stop working (indeed it was alleged that software updates actually deleted unofficial tracks).

Apple claimed that the regular updates to its FairPlay software were to make the DRM system better, and that while they would have liked to allow other companies to use the software for their own download stores, opening it up to third-parties would have made the whole thing less efficient. One Apple exec cited how problematic Microsoft’s rival DRM software, which was opened up to third parties, quickly became.

The jurors hearing the case sided with Apple after hearing arguments from both sides. Updates to FairPlay were about making the system better, the ruled, and not a deliberate attempt to block out competitors and skew the market.

Welcoming the ruling, a spokesperson for Apple said yesterday: “We created iPod and iTunes to give our customers the world’s best way to listen to music. Every time we’ve updated those products – and every Apple product over the years – we’ve done it to make the user experience even better”.

One of the lawyers pursuing the case against Apple indicated his intent to appeal, though during the trial most of his actual clients – ie consumers claiming to have been negatively impacted by Apple’s alleged behaviour – were struck off the lawsuit as it was proven they hadn’t, in fact, been affected by any software updates. Indeed a new primary claimant had to be signed up at the last minute, with the case already approaching completion.

Of course, Apple’s FairPlay refinements ceased to be an issue once the major record companies finally agreed that DRM was not needed on downloads, meaning iTunes rivals could start selling unDRMed MP3s, which had always been playable on the iPod.

Then downloading became irrelevant, the streaming model came of age, the royalty issues all got solved, and everyone forgot about iTunes. Yeah, OK, none of that has quite happened yet. But given how long it took this case to get to court, by the time any appeal is through that’ll probably all be true.

Beyonce sued by Hungarian folk singer

Business News Legal

A Hungarian Roma folk singer is suing Beyonce for allegedly sampling and “digitally manipulating” part of one of her songs as the intro to ‘Drunk In Love’, the Grammy-winning lead single off Bey’s latest LP ‘Beyonce’, without seeking permission.

The New York Post reports that Monika Miczura Juhász, aka Mitsou, also names Beyonce’s husband Jay Z and six other ‘Drunk In Love’ co-writers (not least Timbaland) as defendants in the claim, which relates to a single she released with the band Ando Drom in 1995, titled ‘Bajba, Bajba Pelém’.

Mitsou’s lawyers state that “altogether, Mitsou’s vocals are featured for over one and a half minutes of the five and one half minute song. [‘Drunk In Love’ exploits her voice] to evoke foreign eroticism alongside the sexually intense lyrics performed by Beyonce and Jay Z”.

“[Mitsou] has never signed any documents that would permit anyone to use her voice for advertising or trade purposes… and never granted any of the defendants permission to use her voice for any purpose”, continues the suit, adding: “Blatant unauthorised use of [Mitsou’s] voice for trade purposes is causing irreparable harm and emotional distress”.

This all follows the dismissal last week of another sample-based lawsuit filed against Beyonce’s co-defendant in this latest case Jay Z, concerning the use of the word “oh” in his and Rihanna’s 2009 track ‘Run This Town’.

Man arrested after Pirate Bay raid now out of custody

Business News Digital Legal

The man arrested when Swedish authorities seized servers used by The Pirate Bay has been released from custody, according to Torrentfreak.

It was rumoured last week, as the server raid took The Pirate Bay offline, that one man had been detained. Although he has now been released, police investigations are ongoing, and both he and others may as yet be prosecuted.

The man in question was seemingly a moderator of the Bay. On the arrested person, prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad told reporters: “The suspicions relate to a violation of copyright law. Everything is being analysed now and new hearings may possibly be held”.

It’s thought that might mean the Swedish authorities are planning on prosecuting more people over their involvement in running The Pirate Bay. The service’s three original figureheads, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Peter Sunde, and a key funder of the site, Carl Lundström, were all convicted of copyright crimes in Sweden in 2009, and all served custodial sentences for their involvement in the Bay.

But by the time they were in court they’d passed running the controversial file-sharing website onto a new generation of operators and moderators. It’s thought that up to 50 people are now involved in the site, likely based all over the world. It remains to seen if any others are now arrested; presumably those within the Swedish jurisdiction are most at risk.

Although the custodial sentences for the original Pirate Bay Four were somewhat controversial at the time, other operators of file-sharing sites that exist to encourage and profit from copyright infringement have since been jailed in other jurisdictions. Rights owners and law enforcement agencies hope that such tough sentences will convince the operators of other unlicensed file-sharing services that it’s not worth running the risk.

As previously reported, one of The Pirate Bay’s current operators has told Torrentfreak he and his colleagues are now reviewing their options since the site went down last week, while watching with interest the rise of copycat sites republishing the file-sharing service’s data in other locations online.

Sony Music signs deal with Tencent in China

Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers

Sony Music has announced a partnership with Tencent, which will grant the Chinese internet company exclusive online rights to distribute the major label’s music in the country.

The deal covers both Chinese and international acts, and follows a similar deal between Tencent and Warner Music last month. It will see music placed on Tencent’s QQ Music service, which will also distribute tracks to other Chinese music platforms.

Tencent’s Senior Executive Vice President Downson Tong said in a statement: “We have had a relationship with Sony Music for many years, this is a step up, to develop the Chinese music market. The market in China is a evolving rapidly and through QQ’s massive userbase we can offer online and offline activity for Sony Music’s entire roster of artists”.

Tong added that piracy remained a problem in China, and that “a closer partnership between content owners and Tencent will help combat that”.

Sony Music Entertainment International CEO Edgar Berger called it a “landmark deal”, adding: “Through its advanced digital systems operations and huge customer base Tencent understands the amazing scope of the market for both Chinese and international artists. We share the vision that China can easily become within a relatively short period of time one of the world’s largest music markets and look forward to developing greater consumer engagement and services”.

Van Morrison to release next LP via RCA Records

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Jazz-cat-in-a-hat Van Morrison has signed to Sony’s RCA Records division, his first stint ever on Sony, which’ll cover the release of his mystery-titled 35th LP in “early 2015”. That will make it three years, give or take, since his last one ‘Born To Sing: No Plan B’, which was released in 2012 via classic jazz label Blue Note.

Joining their voices in song, RCA President/COO Tom Corson and CEO Peter Edge commented: “We are thrilled to have Van Morrison, the iconic musical visionary and legend, join the RCA roster. He is one of the most prolific and talented songwriters and performers in music today and we are honoured to have him join us at the label and work with him on his forthcoming new album”.

And hearing that, Morrison added: “I am looking forward to working with Tom, Peter and the RCA team as we plan release of the new project for next year”.

The Pop Group do label services deal with !K7

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

!K7 Artist & Label Services has announced a partnership with The Pop Group to release the post-punk band’s first album in 35 years.

The band’s Mark Stewart said in a statement: “It’s an honour to be collaborating with !K7 – the koolest kidz on the block – and especially with Mr Adrian Hughes, the fastest gun slinger in town, for The Pop Group’s comeback. Let the freak flag fly!”

Mr Adrian Hughes, head of !K7’s Artist & Label Services division, added: “It’s incredibly exciting to be working with such an iconic and important band as The Pop Group on their amazing new material. Everyone here at !K7 is utterly thrilled and totally buzzing!”

As previously reported, The Pop Group will release their Paul Epworth-produced new album, titled ‘Citizen Zombie’, on 23 Feb.

Sentric Music and Imperial College granted funding for new digital publisher tools

Business News Labels & Publishers Management & Funding

Government funded Innovate UK (what was the Technology Strategy Board, in case you wondered) has awarded music publishing service provider Sentric Music and Imperial College London funding to carry out a project titled ‘Data Exploration And Predicative Analytics For Music Publishing’. Sounds exciting, no?

Using Sentric’s catalogue of over 300,000 songs from more than 65,000 songwriters and the brains contained within ICL’s Department Of Mathematics, the project aims to “create tools and algorithms [that] will enable predictive modelling based on data drawn from a wide variety of sources, including song registrations, royalty reports, streaming media, social media, and crowdsourced reviews”.

Are you following this? Good. Anyway, once the boffins have polished up these tools and sharpened their algorithms, Sentric plans to use them to identify artists and tracks that have potential to become super popular, and identify instances where royalties are being underreported. The company’s clients – labels and artists primarily – will be given access to these tools via online and mobile apps.

I think that means you’ll be able to put a song in and it’ll tell you that no one is ever going to like it, but that there are royalties not being claimed on the few plays it has got. So everyone’s happy.

Sentric CEO Chris Meehan said of the new funding: “Our successful funding application is a great measure of validation for the technology that we’ve been building and deploying that will be further developed to become more useful to the music business and our artists”.

Dr Christoforos Anagnostopoulos from Imperial College London added: “Our collaboration with Sentric Music is a unique pathway to ensuring that cutting-edge advances in machine learning and data science can permeate the music publishing industry, introducing efficiency gains for Sentric, and empowering the songwriter community, while simultaneously inspiring exciting developments in statistical methodology, designed to handle the heterogeneity and complexity of the song-songwriter data ecosystem”.

And I think that we can take some comfort in how long and impenetrable that last sentence was. This project’s in good hands.

Taylor Swift debacle means “we have to do more to convince artists” says Spotify chief

Business News Digital

Spotify big cheese boss man Daniel Ek has admitted that the whole Taylor Swift debacle has confirmed that he and his colleagues still need to do more to convince artists of the benefit of the streaming business model, and especially the ‘loss-leading freemium to drive premium subscriber’ approach pursued by his firm.

When Swift pulled her whole catalogue from Spotify last month, the streaming service initially published a pretty flippant statement. But when the move by one of the world’s biggest popstars kickstarted a very vocal debate in the artist and wider music community on how the streaming business was evolving, Ek issued a long statement defending his firm’s approach, and insisting it was good for the whole music business.

Speaking to Billboard about the whole hoo haa, Ek said: “What it has highlighted for us is we need to do a better job explaining to artists how streaming benefits them. The point that’s been lost is that Spotify’s the fastest-growing revenue source the industry has. There are many artists to whom, through the labels, we’re paying out millions a year already. Those cheque sizes will just keep increasing”.

To be fair to Spotify, the company has done more than most of its rivals to reach out to the artist community, though a lot of that activity has been focused on the European rather than American music community. And actually most artists and most labels are pro streaming, and pro Spotify, even if they have concerns about how freemium works, and how the money paid by the streaming sector into the music rights domain is split between different stakeholders (labels generally get way more than artists, songwriters and publishers).

But Ek still insists that he’s not going to change his freemium level – which some argue is too generous – and nor will he allow big name acts to opt out of free and just take part in premium (which is basically what Swift wants to do).

He went on in the Billboard interview: “There’s a lot of other places where you can access that music for free, so our view is the only thing that happens by not being in the free service is that the consumer then has to go to another service to get the song, and they will”. Having that consumer listening to songs on Spotify freemium makes them much more likely to become a premium subscriber, Ek adds. Plus Spotify does actually pay a royalty for free plays, even if it’s significantly less than for premium plays.

For the time being – and as Ek looks to the next round of licensing deal renewals at the major labels – Spotify is more focused on making premium more attractive than limiting the functionality of free. “Just like we’ve had deluxe edition of albums, everyone is thinking about how does that look like in a future world? Lossless music – is that a higher priced tier? Is that something that comes with deluxe editions? How should we package subscriptions to consumers? That’s a very big topic right now on the label side”.

Of course, while Ek does need big name artists in his firm’s catalogue to compete, the bigger problem with things like the Swift spat is that it hinders the PR spin that Spotify is THE future of music, something that the firm needs Wall Street to believe in order to maximise the value of the company when it floats. Though it helps that the majors and Merlin-affiliated indies have a stake in Spotify – and therefore a vested interest in Wall Street buying into that story – so with the exception of loose cannon artists like Swift, there shouldn’t be too many headline-grabbing names out to rock the boat.

Until, that is, after Spotify’s IPO. Once the firm’s founders, early investors and label partners have all cashed in their stock, that’s when things will get really interesting. Artists left out of the equity kickback will be looking for a better deal, and the publishers – currently only seeing about 10% of the money – might start threatening to pull if they don’t get a bigger cut of the loot. Most of that is actually for the music community itself to sort out – while Spotify et al are loss making the percentage split they hand over to the music rights owners ain’t going to go up – but a post-IPO Spotify could be caught up in the crossfire.

So that’s something for everyone to look forward to, isn’t it? Merry Christmas one and all.

Man shot in ‘disturbance’ at The Garage, Wiley shows cancelled

Business News Gigs & Festivals Legal Live Business

North London venue The Garage was closed temporarily after a shooting took place outside it on Monday night. The victim, a 25 year old man, was admitted to hospital with non-threatening injuries, and is said to be in a stable condition.

Police have confirmed to the NME that officers were called to the Highbury venue following a “disturbance” shortly before midnight. Whilst no arrests have yet been made, and investigation by Trident officers and Islington Police is ongoing.

The incident meant that a show headlined by grime MC Wiley, slated to take place their last night, has been postponed, as have additional December dates (in Birmingham and Manchester) celebrating the recent release of his ‘Snakes & Ladders’ LP.

A spokesperson for the show’s promoter SJM Concerts has confirmed that replacement dates will be revealed “soon”, taking place in early 2015.

In a statement to press, SJM added: “Following an incident which took place outside The Garage in London last night, the main venue is unable to open this evening. It is with regret that the venue has no option other than to cancel tonight’s Wiley show, which is a decision in no way related to Wiley, his management team nor his support acts”.

Kasabian lead NME Awards nominations

Artist News Awards Media

The nomination shortlists for 2015’s NME Awards, always a pinpoint monitor of the nation’s tastes, have been released. Kasabian lead with eight ‘Eez-eh’ noms, closely followed by Royal Blood and Jamie T.

Keeping their commentary short, sweet and free of city-dissing expletives, Kasabian have said: “2014 has been such an incredible year for us, and being nominated for eight NME Awards is a better Christmas present than getting Castle Greyskull in 1986! Thanks very much”.

Voting closes on 16 Jan, and the awards-giving will go down on 18 Feb at London’s Brixton Academy.

All I can add at this point is, Slaves’ Facebook to win Best Band Blog/Twitter.

THE NOMINATIONS:

Best British Band: Alt-J, Arctic Monkeys, Chvrches, Kasabian, Royal Blood, The Libertines

Best International Band: Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, Haim, Interpol, Queens Of The Stone Age, Tame Impala

Best Live Band: Arctic Monkeys, Fat White Family, Foo Fighters, Kasabian, Royal Blood, The Libertines

Best New Band: Circa Waves, FKA Twigs, Jungle, Royal Blood, Slaves, Superfood

Best Solo Artist: Jack White, Jake Bugg, Jamie T, La Roux, Lana Del Rey, St Vincent

Best Album: Jamie T – Carry On The Grudge, Kasabian – 48:13, La Roux – Trouble In Paradise, Royal Blood – Royal Blood, Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 2, St Vincent – St Vincent

Best Track: Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting On You), Jamie T – Zombie, Jungle – Busy Earnin’, Kasabian – Eez-Eh, Noel Gallagher – In The Heat Of The Moment, Royal Blood – Little Monster

Dance Floor Filler: Iggy Azalea feat Charli XCX – Fancy, Jamie T – Zombie, Kasabian – Eez-Eh, Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk, Metronomy – Love Letters, SBTRKT feat Ezra Koenig – New Dorp. New York

Re-issue Of The Year: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II, Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible, Oasis – Definitely Maybe, Pixies – Doolittle, Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Smashing Pumpkins – Adore

Best Video: Fat White Family – Touch The Leather, FKA Twigs – Two Weeks, Jamie T – Zombie, Jungle – Busy Earnin’, Peace – Lost On Me, Royal Blood – Figure It Out

Best Music Film: Nick Cave, 20,000 Days On Earth, Finding Fela, Kasabian: Summer Solstice, Pulp: A Film About Life, Death And Supermarkets, Supermensch: The Legend Of Shep Gordon, Edwyn Collins: The Possibilities Are Endless

Best Film: Boyhood, Frank, Get On Up, God Help The Girl, The Inbetweeners 2, Northern Soul

Best TV Show: Girls, Game Of Thrones, Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways, Peaky Blinders, Sherlock, True Detective

Book Of The Year: Bernard Sumner – Chapter And Verse, Ian Curtis – So This Is Permanence, Jesse Frohman – Kurt Cobain: The Last Session, John Lydon – Anger Is An Energy: My Life Uncensored, Viv Albertine – Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, Steve Hanley – The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall

Hero Of The Year: Alex Turner, Dave Grohl, Kate Bush, Noel Gallagher, Russell Brand, Taylor Swift

Villain Of The Year: Bono, David Cameron, Harry Styles, Nigel Farage, Russell Brand, Taylor Swift

Worst Band: 5 Seconds Of Summer, Bastille, Blink-182, One Direction, The 1975, U2

Best Festival: Bestival, Glastonbury, Isle Of Wight, Latitude, Reading & Leeds, T In The Park

Small Festival Of The Year: End Of The Road, Festival No 6, Field Day, Liverpool Psych Fest, The Great Escape, Tramlines

Music Moment Of The Year: Alex Turner’s BRIT Awards speech, Jamie T’s comeback, Kasabian headline Glastonbury, Kate Bush returns, The Libertines reunite, Nirvana reunite at The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

Best Fan Community: Jamie T, Kasabian, La Roux, Muse, Peace, Royal Blood

Best Band Blog/Twitter: ?uestlove’s Twitter, Alana Haim’s Twitter, Albert Hammond Jr’s Twitter, Fat White Family’s Facebook, Liam Gallagher’s Twitter, Slaves’ Facebook

CMU’s One Liners: James Murphy, Rustie x AG Cook, Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame and a side of chips

Artist News Awards Gigs & Festivals One Liners Releases

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• James Murphy has packaged his previously reported “algorithmically generated soundscapes”, which incorporate match data taken from machines at the US Open tennis tournament, for a digital release (via the IBM SoundCloud) on Friday (19 Dec). This is a snippet of one of the tracks, ‘Match 176’. Game over.

• Enter Shikari released a video for ‘Slipshod’, an exclusive iTunes bolt-on to their next LP ‘The Mindsweep’, ahead of the latter’s release on 19 Jan. Watch the clip, which is animated by ex-‘Ren & Stimpy’ storyboardist Peter MacAdams, today, if possible.

• Thrifty post-hardcore band Make Do And Mend will, on 23 Feb, self-release their new eleven track long player ‘Don’t Be Long’. Get hyped for the premiere of its lead single/title track via this Noisey interview.

• The LuckyMe label’s advent calendar is, like most advent calendars, giving up a new daily gift in the approach to Xmas. Yesterday’s was a Rustie edit of ‘Beautiful’, a single originally released by AG Cook, aka boss of one of CMU’s favourite artist congloms of 2014, PC Music. Stream the remix here.

• The rockin and rollin Loveless bros (of Drenge) are hitting the road early on in the new year, with shows newly confirmed in Leeds (19 Jan) and Manchester (20 Jan), plus an already in place NME Awards Show date at London’s Tufnell Park Dome (12 Feb). Get tickets here and then let’s never speak of this again. Ever!

• Electronic lady Grouper, or Liz Harris, is to play a one-off UK show as part of the St John Sessions on 23 Apr, at St John of Hackney Church in London, as a live compliment/complement to her peculiar latest LP ‘Ruins’. Tickets are available already so go and reserve them, already.

• Next year’s London Electronic Arts Festival and very mini convention, aka LEAF, will feature ‘in conversation’ events with Nile Rodgers, DJ Harvey, and the Black Butter Records and RAM Records teams, and some other speakers that haven’t been revealed yet. The first-confirmed headliner is Modeselektor, and tickets to the event, which goes on between 6-7 Mar, are on sale now via the LEAF site.

• FAO anyone planning on going to either of Tove Lo’s forthcoming shows at London’s Koko (22 Jan) Manchester’s Academy 2 (23 Jan): DO NOT GO TO THOSE SHOWS. For they have been postponed. Whilst Tove recovers from an ongoing inflammation of her vocal cord, that is, which she says means she’ll be inactive for two months or so. Read this very sorry Tove Lo Twitter note for more info.

• Synth-pop band Scarlet Soho have improved on news of their European tour by adding some UK dates at last: at the Railway in Winchester (20 Feb) and The Islington in London (26 Feb). SS’s forthcoming album ‘In Cold Blood’ drops worldwide on 13 Feb, and this a trailer trailing it.

• Green Day, Lou Reed, Bill Withers and Joan Jet & The Blackhearts are amongst the ‘class of 2015’ of acts being thrown into the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame as part of its latest wave of inductions. They’ll be locked in and left to rot for all eternity.

50 Cent inks pants deal

And Finally Brands & Merch Business News

50 Cent claims to have done “a deal for $78 million for underwear” with the brand Frigo, of which, it’s stated on the fashion line’s website (which I’ve been searching intensively for evidence of the new deal), he was already a ‘celebrity backer’.

And here he is making that claim on Instagram. It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal. In other news, here’s a photo of Fiddy sitting on his worktop eating a nice money sandwich. Good thing he’s toasting some more dollar-bread (nice detail), too, to go with all that papery green filling.

50 Cent, everyone.

CMU Artists Of The Year 2014: Run The Jewels

Artists Of The Year CMU Approved

Every weekday in the run up to the Christmas break, we’ll be revealing another of our ten favourite artists of the year. See the full list of artists announced so far here. Next up is Run The Jewels…

Killer Mike and El-P, two 39 year old married-with-kids rappers, ripped another big, noisy rent in the hip hop fabric earlier this year when they released ‘RTJ2’, their latest LP as Run The Jewels.

It’s a collaborative mine that’s proven richer than anyone, least of all the pair themselves, can ever have anticipated. At least, richer than you might have expected at this point in the two men’s respective careers, give that, at their age, many an MCs’ best years, and bars, are behind them. That’s certainly not so with ‘RTJ2’, a record alive and twitching with the vital signs of the pair’s respective personalities, strengths and skillsets, which have shone for so long solo, and shine all the stronger when linked together over one of El-P’s dense, serrated beats (which, aside from the pair’s ‘chemistry’, remain one of their most kingly assets).

Both consistently insistent forces in hop hop since the 1990s, NYC-based alternative chief Jamie ‘El-P’ Meline and Michael ‘Killer Mike’ Render – an Outkast associate and old pro of the Atlanta circuit – first banged heads circa Render’s 2012 LP ‘RAP Music’, which El-P produced. Both say they felt like doing something less “intense” than ‘RAP Music’ and its El-P-released parallel, tar-black dystopia ‘Cancer 4 Cure’, and so the two joined voices like it was the most natural thing in the world, releasing ‘Run The Jewels’, their first LP, last year as a free download (pushing sales of the physical release), and then following it with a similar free giveaway of ‘RTJ2’ back in October.

“We wanted to just jump in and do something”, El-P tells Rolling Stone of the project’s modest-sized origins. “Neither of us really felt like we wanted the next thing to be something really heavy. We didn’t want it to be our next big statement in terms of our solo careers. We just wanted to keep a vibe going that we had: having fun together and having a great time working together”.

“The most beautiful thing about making this record was we made [it] from the standpoint of ‘We don’t give a fuck, it’s dope’, and that was it”, adds Killer Mike.

“When we do something, it feels good” he goes on. “For the most part, man, it’s just a celebration of dope. It’s like two classy veterans that end up on the same team. Like [the way I see it], I’m at the championship. And I know I’m gonna get it with this little ginger motherfucker right here. There’s no question in my mind. There’s nothing like waking up knowing that. And that’s straight up – we’re unfuckwitable”.

And he’s dead on, the real beauty of Mike and El as Run The Jewels is exactly that: it isn’t contrived… it just ‘is’, and is dope, end of conversation. Tracks like muscular ‘RTJ’ intro ‘Jeopardy’, which kicks off with a pumped-up clip of Killer Mike shouting in the booth, and ends on a lethal El-P line (“‘Run The Jewels’ is the answer, your question is ‘WHAT’S POPPIN?'”), are the combined two-way noise of the duo having the time of their lives, matching A-game alpha male verses like hi-fives, and playing off the hard-earned lyrical athleticism of their 20 years apiece in the game.

But Run The Jewels are about a lot more than that hard-faced ‘unfuckwitable’ bravado and verbal agility, though no doubt those sit high in the RTJ armoury. But it’s also the comic book-style conviction you come away with; having heard any one of their songs or watched or read any interview, you feel both Mike and El are acting on the side of right, or at least trying to… that they’re two good men doing their best in a weary world.

Not that it’s an easy fight; on timely ‘RTJ2’ title ‘Early’, Mike, a family man and son of a police officer, a short-lived crack dealer and lifetime activist who “[respects] the badge and the gun”, lets fly on “pigs” who’d stop and frisk him for no good reason, in front of his wife and son.

Long and constantly vocal against “gang-like” police brutality and racial profiling in the US, this year Mike became an international spokesman for the protest over the police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black eighteen year old, in Ferguson, Missouri. Having spoken about the situation both on CNN, and written about it in a painfully insightful op-ed for Billboard, he was also filmed giving a speech ahead of a Run The Jewels show, hours after a grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown.

“You motherfuckers got me today”, said Mike, his voice cracking. “You kicked me on my ass today, because I have a 20 year old son and a twelve year old son, and I’m so afraid for them today”.

“But I can promise you, if I die when I walk off this stage tomorrow, I’ll let you know this: it is not about race, it is not a class, it’s not about colour, it’s about what they killed [Martin Luther King Jr] for. It’s about poverty, it’s about greed, and it’s about a war machine. It’s about a war machine that uses you. So as I go tomorrow, I might go the day after, the one thing I want you to know is that it’s us against the motherfucking machine!”

To close, for now, from ‘RTJ2’ this is ‘Oh My Darling (Don’t Cry)’:

Pirate Bay operators taking a break as copycat sites gain momentum

Business News Digital Legal Top Stories

One of the current operators of The Pirate Bay has told Torrentfreak that the community of up to 50 people who have run the site in recent years are now considering their options after Swedish authorities seized servers crucial to their operation last week, knocking the always controversial file-sharing website offline. But despite past boasts that the Bay was now pretty much raid-proof, they are yet to seemingly agree concrete plans to get the service back online in an official form.

Although the recent generation of Pirate Bay operators have been generally less vocal than the site’s one-time spokesman Peter Sunde back in the file-sharing hub’s heyday, the fact that no statement had been made at all about last week’s shutdown was surprising. But one anonymous Bay operator has now spoken, basically saying he and his colleagues are using the outage as an opportunity to take a break from running one of the most infamous piracy sites in the world.

Said the operator to Torrentfreak: “We were not that surprised by the raid. That is something that is a part of this game. We couldn’t care less, really. We have however taken this opportunity to give ourselves a break. How long are we supposed to keep going? To what end? [And] we were a bit curious to see how the public would react”.

Since The Pirate Bay went down, and it became clear that it wasn’t going to spring back up with the day, various copies of the site have appeared online, and some of these are now starting to add new content to their databases. Amongst them is oldpiratebay.org being run by the guys behind isohunt.to, which itself was a site that emerged after the original isoHunt website was shut down after its operator lost a legal battle with the US movie industry.

isoHunt’s homepage reads: “As you all probably know, the beloved Pirate Bay website is gone for now. It will be missed. It will be always remembered as the pilgrim of freedom and possibilities on the web. It’s the symbol for a whole generation of the internet users. In it’s honour we are making oldpiratebay.org search. We, the Isohunt.to team, copied the base of The Pirate Bay in order to save it to the generations of users. Nothing will be forgotten. Keep on believing, keep on sharing!”

On the copycat sites, Torrentfreak’s Pirate Bay man said: “Copycats are to be seen as a higher form of the proxies. If [The Pirate Bay’s] code [wasn’t] so shitty we would make it public for everyone to use, so that everyone could start their own Bay. Of course, there is a problem if [any TPB clones] try to scam people. But overall, we’d love to see a thousand Pirate Bays”.

Closing arguments given in Apple anti-trust case

Business News Digital Legal

Lawyers presented their closing arguments yesterday in the legal battle over whether or not Apple behaved in an anti-competitive way in the earlier days of the iTunes music store, the legal team leading the charge against the IT giant having found another plaintiff last week.

As previously reported, Apple is accused of deliberately developing the software that ran on its iPod players so to stop rivals from launching download stores that worked with the then market-leading digital music player.

Although iPods could always play MP3s, for the first half decade that iTunes was in business the major labels would only sell digital tracks that came with digital rights management controls, and the only DRM system that worked on the iPod was Apple’s own, called FairPlay, and only iTunes was allowed to sell files using that technology.

Rivals, most notably RealNetworks, tried to backwards engineer their own DRM systems that would work with FairPlay, but Apple kept tweaking its system to stop those files from playing; to the extent that it’s alleged that updating software on the iPod resulted in tracks bought from rival download stores being deleted. The whole thing led to Apple having huge dominance in the digital music market, especially in the US and UK.

All this seems rather antiquated in 2014, given that the majors eventually dropped their insistence on DRM so that iTunes rivals could sell MP3s, and anyway, Apple is now rapidly losing its dominance over the digital music market as things shift over towards subscription and streaming services.

Nevertheless, long-running consumer-led legal action accusing Apple of anti-competitive behaviour only reached court recently, and if the IT firm loses the class action it might have to pay out compensation to any former customers affected by the software updates, plus an interesting precedent will be set in the tech sector.

As previously reported, those pursuing the case against Apple hit a snag earlier in the month when it turned out – the parameters of the case having been narrowed – that none of the specific claimants listed at the top of the class action could claim to have been directly affected by Apple’s alleged dodgy practices. A class action needs at least one named individual attached to it, but lawyers subsequently managed to recruit Barbara Bennett, a 65 year old ice dancer no less, to fulfil that role.

Wrapping up the case for the jury yesterday, Patrick Coughlin, repping Bennett and former iPod owners everywhere, told the court, according to CNET: “[Apple] don’t believe that you own your iPod. They believe that they still have the right to choose for you what third-party player can play on a device that you bought and you own”.

Noting the allegation that iPod software updates deleted unofficial tracks, he said that Apple set out to “degrade your experience” so that there were songs “you can play one day [and then] you can’t play the next”.

But Apple’s defender Bill Isaacson hit back, arguing that the idea everyone was losing their tracks with every iPod update was made up, and that this whole case was about lawyers postulating for the sake of it, and in doing so stifling technical innovation. He told the court: “This is all made up. It’s lawyer argument. [There is] no evidence that [track deletion] ever happened … there’s no consumers, no iPod users, no surveys, no Apple business documents”. He concluded by pleading that the jury not “hold a great company liable and tell them to stop innovating – to stop innovating based on nonsense”.

As previously reported, Apple’s official line is that the FairPlay updates were necessary to ensure the IT firm fulfilled its commitments to the DRM-hungry major labels, and that while it would have liked to make its DRM technology available to third parties, that risked making the system unreliable and consumer unfriendly.

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:34 | By Aly Barchi

Every weekday in the run up to the Christmas break, we’ll be revealing another of our ten favourite artists of the year. See the full list of artists announced so far here. Next up is Kate Bush…

READ MORE ABOUT: CMU Artists Of The Year 2014 | Kate Bush

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:33 | By Chris Cooke

As the future of The Pirate Bay remains uncertain following the server raid in Sweden that took it offline last week, Torrentfreak has noted that the controversial file-sharing site’s Facebook page has now also gone offline.

READ MORE ABOUT: The Pirate Bay

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:32 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: Abba | Bjorn Ulvaeus | BMI | Michael Jackson | PRS For Music

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:30 | By Chris Cooke

Self-service ticketing system provider Ticketscript has appointed a new CTO in the form of André Buren, who will take over from the company’s co-founder Ruben Van Den Heuvel, who is shifting over to the job of Head Of Product Innovation.

READ MORE ABOUT: André Buren | Ticketscript

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:28 | By Andy Malt

Spotify has announced that artists are no longer able to list their merch on the streaming service through Topspin’s ArtistLink. BandPage is now the only service through which merch sell-through can be done within the Spotify ecosystem.

READ MORE ABOUT: ArtistLink | Spotify | Topspin

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:27 | By Andy Malt

Bandcamp has launched its previously reported new label-focussed tools, with the likes of Sub Pop, Ninja Tune, Fat Wreck Chords, Relapse, Innovative Leisure and RVNG already on board.

READ MORE ABOUT: Bandcamp

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:26 | By Chris Cooke

Digital distributor TuneCore has acquired a start-up called DropKloud with plans to add that company’s location-based app product into its portfolio of artist services.

READ MORE ABOUT: DropKloud | TuneCore

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:25 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: Psonar | Scott Cohen

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:24 | By Aly Barchi

BBC Radio 1’s Residency – the station’s way of giving interesting players in dance music a late-night ‘in’ to its programming – will next year consist of b2b slots by the likes of Kaytranada and Flying Lotus, George Fitzgerald and Jon Hopkins, and Heidi & Solomun.

READ MORE ABOUT: BBC Radio 1 | Flying Lotus | George Fitzgerald | Hannah Wants | Jon Hopkins | Kaytranada | Skream

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:23 | By Andy Malt

Arts Council England has announced that Classic FM MD Darren Henley will take over as its new CEO. He will replace Alan Davey at a date still to be agreed.

READ MORE ABOUT: Arts Council England | Darren Henley

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:22 | By Aly Barchi

Critics’ darling Laura Marling has shorn all her hair off in time to confirm details of her fifth LP, which is entitled ‘Short Movie’, and will be released on 23 Mar. It’s co-produced by Marling, Dan Cox and Matt Ingham, the last of whom plays drums in Marling’s touring band.

READ MORE ABOUT: Laura Marling

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:21 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Mark henry Phillips | Serial

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:20 | By Aly Barchi

Other notable announcements and developments today…

READ MORE ABOUT: Beggars Group | Calvin Harris | Future Brown | Future Islands | Pond | St Vincent | Stuart Davie | The Who | Tink | Wiley

Thursday 18 December 2014, 10:19 | By Aly Barchi

As is now an age-old Christmas tradition of, oh, three entire years, Slayer have made available their highly unattractive ‘pentagram and skills’ Xmassy(ish) sweater, online.

READ MORE ABOUT: Slayer

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:37 | By Andy Malt

Every weekday in the run up to the Christmas break, we’ll be revealing another of our ten favourite artists of the year. See the full list of artists announced so far here. Next up is Babymetal…

READ MORE ABOUT: Babymetal | CMU Artists Of The Year 2014

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:36 | By Chris Cooke

It took the jury in the big Apple anti-trust case less than three hours yesterday to rule that the IT giant had not behaved in an anti-competitive manner with the software updates it made to the iPod back in the big bad days of digital rights management on downloads.

READ MORE ABOUT: Apple

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:35 | By Aly Barchi

A Hungarian Roma folk singer is suing Beyonce for allegedly sampling and “digitally manipulating” part of one of her songs as the intro to ‘Drunk In Love’, the Grammy-winning lead single off Bey’s latest LP ‘Beyonce’, without seeking permission.

READ MORE ABOUT: Beyonce | Jay-Z | Mitsou

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:34 | By Chris Cooke

The man arrested when Swedish authorities seized servers used by The Pirate Bay has been released from custody, according to Torrentfreak.

READ MORE ABOUT: The Pirate Bay

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:33 | By Andy Malt

Sony Music has announced a partnership with Tencent, which will grant the Chinese internet company exclusive online rights to distribute the major label’s music in the country.

READ MORE ABOUT: Sony Music | Tencent

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:32 | By Aly Barchi

READ MORE ABOUT: RCA | Van Morrison

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:31 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: !K7 | The Pop Group

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:30 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Imperial College London | Innovate UK | Sentric Music

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:29 | By Andy Malt

READ MORE ABOUT: Daniel Ek | Spotify | Taylor Swift

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:28 | By Aly Barchi

North London venue The Garage was closed temporarily after a shooting took place outside it on Monday night. The victim, a 25 year old man, was admitted to hospital with non-threatening injuries, and is said to be in a stable condition.

READ MORE ABOUT: The Garage | Wiley

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:27 | By Aly Barchi

The nomination shortlists for 2015’s NME Awards, always a pinpoint monitor of the nation’s tastes, have been released. Kasabian lead with eight ‘Eez-eh’ noms, closely followed by Royal Blood and Jamie T.

READ MORE ABOUT: Kasabian | NME | NME Awards

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:26 | By Aly Barchi

Other notable announcements and developments today…

READ MORE ABOUT: AG Cook | Drenge | Enter Shikari | Green Day | Grouper | James Murphy | LEAF | Make Do And Mend | Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame | Rustie | Scarlet Soho | Tove Lo

Wednesday 17 December 2014, 12:25 | By Aly Barchi

50 Cent claims to have done “a deal for $78 million for underwear” with the brand Frigo, of which, it’s stated on the fashion line’s website (which I’ve been searching intensively for evidence of the new deal), he was already a ‘celebrity backer’.

READ MORE ABOUT: 50 Cent | Frigo

Tuesday 16 December 2014, 10:59 | By Aly Barchi

Every weekday in the run up to the Christmas break, we’ll be revealing another of our ten favourite artists of the year. See the full list of artists announced so far here. Next up is Run The Jewels…

Killer Mike and El-P, two 39 year old married-with-kids rappers, ripped another big, noisy rent in the hip hop fabric earlier this year when they released ‘RTJ2’, their latest LP as Run The Jewels.

READ MORE ABOUT: CMU Artists Of The Year 2014 | El-P | Killer Mike | Run The Jewels

Tuesday 16 December 2014, 10:58 | By Chris Cooke

READ MORE ABOUT: The Pirate Bay