Tuesday 23 August 2016, 10:05 | By

Samsung to close Milk Music next month

Business News Digital

Milk Music

Samsung has announced that it will close its Milk Music streaming service in one month’s time.

Milk was originally launched in the US in 2014, powered by existing personalised radio service Slacker. It eventually launched in Australia and New Zealand too, as personalised radio services tend to, and seemed to be quite popular for a time (albeit among a small userbase). But last year Samsung began reducing the number of staff it had working on the service, and earlier this year there was speculation that it would be shut down completely.

Well, congratulations speculators, you correctly speculated that another streaming service was about to disappoint. Though, given that everyone is always speculating that streaming services are about to collapse into dust, it’s not that great an achievement. And, truth be told, Samsung music services are more likely to disappear than most.

In a statement, Samsung says that it will be “sun setting” Milk Music in the US on 22 Sep, having already done the same in other territories. Is “sun setting” valid as a verb? When did we have the meeting to decide that? Does it really sound that much better than “kicking this fucking disaster into a ditch”?

The statement continues: “We have made the strategic decision to invest in a partner model focused on seamlessly integrating the best music services available today into our family of Galaxy devices. We believe that working with partners will accelerate innovation, enhance device sales and provide amazing new experiences for our customers”.

So, prepare yourself for some amazing, dairy free experiences in the near future.

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Tuesday 23 August 2016, 10:00 | By

New Norwegian TV talent show to use Spotify streams to pick winners

Business News Digital Media

The Stream

A Norwegian broadcaster is launching a new talent show in partnership with the major labels and Spotify.

Titled ‘The Stream’, the show aims to mimic the success of artists like Justin Bieber, by allowing contestants to be discovered online. Though in this case, being discovered online means A&Rs being forced to watch videos uploaded to the show’s website, which isn’t quite the same as someone in the industry spotting organic buzz growing around an artist on YouTube. But whatever.

So, yes, more than 1200 hopeful contestants have uploaded videos of themselves to the website of ‘The Stream’, with the 100 highest rated (from what I can tell, ratings are based on how long anyone can bear to listen to each track) going forward to the next stage of competition. From this group, A&Rs from Warner, Sony and Universal will choose 40 artists they’d like to work with. At the end of each week, each label will sign three of the acts and release their music.

Once the music is out there, the acts’ progress will be determined by the number of streams they get on Spotify, with the least streamed artist each week deemed to be too awful to continue working with and sent back to whatever boring life they had before.

You are indeed correct, this does sound like a terrible idea for a TV show, and an even worse approach for discovering new talent, but it’s too late to stop it now. And I’m sure it’ll be on prime time BBC One just as soon as Gary Barlow’s terrible new talent show is out of the way.

If you like, you can watch some of the crappy audition videos on the show’s website. Seriously, the number one act as I write this is fucking dreadful. Be warned though, it’s quite addictive. I just got through 40 videos before I realised what was going on. One of them was pretty good.

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Tuesday 23 August 2016, 09:52 | By

Mark Thomas guests as CMU publisher launches all-new culture podcast

Artist News Business News Gigs & Festivals Media

Mark Thomas

CMU’s sister publication ThreeWeeks has been celebrating its 21st year covering the Edinburgh Festival this month, and to mark the occasion it has launched a brand new podcast.

The TW:TALKS podcast will accompany ThreeWeeks Edinburgh each summer, and year-round cultural recommendations service ThisWeek London, by talking to great people from the worlds of comedy, theatre, music, musicals, cabaret and spoken word. The whole thing is launching with five interviews recorded at the Edinburgh Fringe itself last week, with five comedians who have appeared on the cover of ThreeWeeks over the last 21 years.

The first of those interviews is with Mark Thomas, which went live last week, with conversations with Brendon Burns, Susan Calman, Lucy Porter and Mark Watson all set to follow in the coming weeks. In each edition each guest talks through their Edinburgh Fringe experiences past and present, with Thomas beginning with his first memories of the Festival all the way back in 1982.

The podcast is hosted by CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke, though in his guise as TW co-Editor, so there’ll be no sneaky questions about copyright and digital licensing. Though he did discuss the role of direct-to-fan in comedy with Burns and Watson, and Calman brings up the impact of Netflix and Amazon on the comedy industry.

You can tune in and sign up to the podcast at thisweektalks.com – or listen to the first edition below. And talking of podcasts, the CMU Podcast is set to return on 9 Sep with a catch up edition looking at key music business developments over the summer, before properly returning with a weekly summary of music industry gubbins on 30 Sep. Sign up for that at completemusicupdate.com/podcast.

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Tuesday 23 August 2016, 09:47 | By

Laura Marling launches podcast about the lack of women in recording studios

Artist News Business News Industry People Media

Reversal Of The Muse

Laura Marling has launched a new podcast called ‘Reversal Of The Muse’, in which she interviews female musicians, producers and studio engineers to discuss why there are so few women working in studios.

“‘Reversal Of The Muse’ began as conversations between friends about female creativity”, says Marling. “In reversing the muse it became an experiment. As a small part of the global conversation about women in the arts, it became an obsession. It occurred to me that in ten years of making records I had only come across two female engineers working in studios”.

She continues: “Starting from my experience of being a woman I began to ask myself what difference it might have made had I had more women around, if any. I wanted to know why progress has been so slow in this area and what effect it would have on music”.

The first two episodes of the podcast have already been published, with Marling speaking to Haim and studio engineer Vanessa Parr. Listen here:

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Tuesday 23 August 2016, 09:42 | By

CMU’s One Liners: Absolute Label Services, Joni Mitchell, Carly Rae Jepsen, more

Artist News Business News Deals Digital Gigs & Festivals Labels & Publishers One Liners Releases

Carly Rae Jepsen

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Absolute Label Services has partnered with classical artists Carly Paoli, Parker, Jonathan Antoine and Gavin Greenaway and their respective record labels. “We’re THRILLED”, says Absolute Label Services Director, Mark Dowling.

• Ditto Music has launched a new service aimed at DJs and producers, called Ditto DJ Plus. The service provides digital distribution to electronic music focused stores like Beatport and Juno, as well as mainstream digital platforms.

• Joni Mitchell made her first public appearance at the weekend since been hospitalised after a brain aneurysm last year. A photograph of the singer attending a Chick Corea show in LA was posted to her official website on Sunday.

• To mark the first anniversary of her ‘Emotion’ album, Carly Rae Jepsen has announced that she is releasing ‘Emotion: Side B’ this Friday. What is that? Stop asking questions, you already know too much.

• Jimmy Eat World will release a new album on 21 Oct. This is the first single from it, ‘Get Right’. They’re playing two London shows next month, Bush Hall on 7 Sep and then Islington Assembly Hall on 8 Sep.

• Teenage Fanclub have released ‘Thin Air’ from their upcoming new album ‘Here’.

• Jagwar Ma will release their second album, ‘Every Now And Then’, on 14 Oct. This is first single ‘Give Me A Reason’.

• The Dillinger Escape Plan will play The Old Blue Last in Shoreditch tomorrow, ahead of their Reading and Leeds appearances this weekend.

• Following the release of their new album, ’25 25′, last week, Factory Floor will play London’s ICA this Thursday (25 Aug).

• Effie will play a launch show for her ‘Could Be You’ EP at the Old Blue Last on 14 Sep. Watch the new video for lead single ‘Pressure’ here.

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Tuesday 23 August 2016, 09:38 | By

Deezer US CEO jumps to e-cigarette company Pax Labs

And Finally Business News Digital

Deezer

The CEO of Deezer’s North American division, Tyler Goldman, has left the company a mere month after the streaming service finally went properly live in the States. Why? Because it’s depressing managing streaming service number eight in such a competitive market place where everyone else seems to have more cash and/or celebrity friends? No, not at all. It’s just he got the calling. The calling to make the world a better place through the wonder of e-cigarettes and related products.

Because yes, Goldman is now CEO of loose leaf e-cigarette maker Pax Labs, which makes products popular with marijuana smokers. Deezer hasn’t commented on its former American CEO’s new gig, but Pax has been bigging up its latest hire in a press release.

“Tyler has a tremendous track record in the tech industry, building premium brands by delivering products in new categories that super-serve consumers”, said Pax Labs co-founder James Monsees. “We have set out to do the same from day one, achieved a great deal of success in a short period of time and are confident that Tyler is the ideal executive to further accelerate our growth and lead us into our next stage”.

Goldman himself added: “Over one billion people in the world smoke. Almost all are looking for a better solution. While early, Pax Labs’ platform is offering these consumers better solutions and, in so doing, the company is transforming the smoking business. Pax Labs already has scale with two market-leading products, has developed incredible IP we can continue to leverage to better meet existing needs and address new needs, and is growing at a rapid rate – what’s not to like?”

Go on, admit it, you can’t think of anything. This isn’t Pax’s first music-linked move. Last year the company partnered with The Weeknd on a limited edition vaporiser, which I see now costs less than $300. Bargain. Cancel your Deezer account and start saving up for that instead.

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Tuesday 23 August 2016, 08:29 | By

Approved: Wovoka Gentle

CMU Approved

Wovoka Gentle

William J Stokes and twins Imogen and Ellie Mason first met when the Masons’ old band was supporting Stokes’ old band. Two discontinued projects later, Wovoka Gentle was formed.

The project is based loosely in Americana and folk, though experimental urges among all three members quickly layer numerous other influences over these foundations, leaving only glimpses remaining.

“Wovoka Gentle is an evolving project that demonstrates the importance of risk, experimentation and growth, challenging boundaries and opening up questions”, say the band. “We want to experiment enough to involve you. Our roots remain in traditional soil – we love the structure in songs, we love songwriting – but we want you to find your own narrative in our music and join in with us”.

Having released two EP’s last year – ‘Yellow’ and ‘Blue’ – their new single, ‘When Cameron Was In Egypt’s Land Let My Cameron Go’ sees them team up with producer and engineer Gareth Jones, known for his work with Depeche Mode, Wire, Erasure, These New Puritans and more.

Listen to ‘When Cameron Was In Egypt’s Land Let My Cameron Go’ here:

Stay up to date with all of the artists featured in the CMU Approved column in 2016 by subscribing to our Spotify playlist.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:48 | By

Pandora could launch on-demand service next month

Business News Digital Labels & Publishers

Pandora

Pandora could launch its much anticipated new on-demand streaming service in the US as soon as next month, as it comes closer to securing deals with the major labels, reckons the Wall Street Journal. The shift into on-demand streaming is part of the digital firm’s much previously reported programme of diversification, which also includes that move into ticketing.

Launching a service that would compete more directly with Spotify and Apple Music is risky, but would allow the company to expand into more countries. Currently Pandora is only in three markets, and mainly the US, where a specific compulsory licence for online radio made licensing its current personalised radio set-up much easier to achieve at the outset. That compulsory licence doesn’t cover fully on-demand though.

This move to diversify – which isn’t universally backed by the firm’s investors – is in part driven by a slowdown in growth for the main Pandora service. Overall active users have stalled at around 80 million, while only around four million pay a monthly fee to remove adverts from their listening.

As previously reported, last November, Pandora bought the assets of on-demand service Rdio, and more recently it hired rights admin company Music Reports to navigate the tricky world of mechanical royalties in the US – something its never had to concern itself with before because of the way personalised radio is licensed on the music publishing side.

According to the WSJ, the deals for Pandora’s on-demand service are close to being signed. A potential sticking point that remains is the roll out of the personalised radio element in other territories.

Although the labels are generally more comfortable with personalised radio being free than with fully on-demand freemium Spotify-style – especially if it can then be used to upsell paid-for on-demand streams – under the US compulsory licence Pandora can include whatever it likes on the free level, whatever Taylor Swift or Adele may be thinking on any one day, or whatever exclusivity deals Frank Ocean has just done. Word has it that the labels want a little more control over the personalised radio catalogue outside the US.

Once those sticking points have been addressed, Pandora is expected to launch a two-tier on-demand set up, first in the US, and then elsewhere, initially in other English-speaking countries.

It’s worth noting that the Journal mentions only that Pandora is negotiating with the major labels ahead of its launch. Quite what that means for the indies isn’t clear, though one of the company’s first direct deals on personalised radio (ie circumventing the compulsory licence) was with indie-label repping Merlin, so hopefully they’re on the agenda somewhere.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:46 | By

MPA joins PIPCU’s Operation Creative

Business News Labels & Publishers

City Of London Police

The Music Publishers Association has joined Operation Creative, an initiative set up by the City Of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (aka PIPCU).

As previously reported, amongst other things Operation Creative aims to replace advertising spots on piracy websites with warning messages, informing users that the sites are under investigation for copyright infringement. Various partners from the creative industries help to identify infringing content. Already on board from the music industry are the BPI, IFPI and PRS For Music.

Head of PIPCU, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Ratcliffe, says in a statement: “I am pleased to welcome the Music Publishers Association to the Operation Creative initiative. The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit is committed to reducing the impact of intellectual property crime on the UK’s creative industries and in Creative we have a wonderful tool to disrupt the infringers’ revenue streams and hit them where it hurts them the most”.

The MPA’s General Manager Claire McAuley adds: “The MPA’s partnership in Operation Creative will strengthen and elevate our involvement in combating piracy, in particular with regards to sheet music, which is unique to the music publishing industry. We are excited to be joining the partners and look forward to working with them in our collective fight against online music piracy”.

The programme also feeds PIPCU’s Infringing Website List, which currently lists 1150 websites as copyright infringers.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:45 | By

Vevo seeking half a billion dollars of new funding

Business News Digital

Vevo

Vevo is attempting to raise between $300 million and $500 million of new investment, according to the Financial Times. The money will reportedly fund international expansion, potential acquisitions and the development of new mobile and television services.

The video platform, majority owned by Universal and Sony, is known to be developing a paid subscription service too, of course, which it aims to launch by the end of this year. One step on the road to that was signing up Warner Music, which held out against adding its content for six and a half years until a deal was announced earlier this month.

Vevo also recently launched a load of new social features, aimed at keeping people within its walls for longer, rather than just coming in, watching a music video and then bouncing off.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:43 | By

Disgraced music mogul Lou Pearlman dies

Business News Industry People

Backstreet Boys

The man who launched the careers of the Backstreet Boys and NSync, Lou Pearlman, has died, aged 62. He was eight years into a 25 year prison sentence for fraud.

Pearlman became known for his work with various boybands through his Trans Continental Records label in the 1990s. In the late 90s, all but one of his acts sued him for misrepresentation and fraud. Then things really began to unravel in 2006, when a federal investigation uncovered that the business that had been funding his success in music, Trans Continental Airlines, had been run as a ponzi scheme, defrauding around 1400 investors – mainly pensioners – of more than $300 million.

He fled the US, but was caught in Indonesia in 2007 and returned back to the States to face trial, where he was convicted for conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements during a bankruptcy. Despite this, he made occasional statements from prison insisting that he would regain his success as a music mogul.

As news of his death on Friday broke over the weekend, the Backstreet Boys’ Lance Bass tweeted: “He might not have been a stand up businessman, but I wouldn’t be doing what I love today without his influence”.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:34 | By

Canada closes down for The Tragically Hip’s final show

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

The Tragically Hip

Canadian band The Tragically Hip performed their final show on Saturday, bringing to an end a farewell tour which was announced after frontman Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer earlier this year.

The show in Downie’s hometown of Kingston was broadcast nationwide, with so many Canadians planning to watch people began proclaiming the country to be “closed” during the performance. The band played a three hour set with three encores before finally leaving the stage.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended the show, telling local paper The Kingston-Whig Standard: “Tonight is the night where the whole country is either literally or metaphorically in Kingston. We’re celebrating The Hip, we’re unfortunately saying goodbye to Gord as [this is] his last big official show, but it’s a moment to remember the soundtrack of our lives. For it to be rooted right here in Kingston is just wonderful”.

Here’s a quick crash course in the three decade career of “the most Canadian band in the world”.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:32 | By

Architects guitarist Tom Searle dies

Artist News

Tom Searle

Architects guitarist Tom Searle has died three years after being diagnosed with skin cancer, his twin brother and bandmate Dan Searle announced yesterday. He was 28.

“Many of you will be aware that Tom has been absent from various shows over the past fifteen months and I can now let you know that this was due to various surgeries that he had to have to treat the cancer”, wrote Dan in a Facebook post. “When we left for our European festival tour on 2 Jun, Tom was very unwell. He had been advised to stay in hospital to receive care but ultimately there was nothing that they could do for him and he signed himself out of the ward two days before we departed for Germany”.

He continued: “Some of you might view this as reckless but this is the way Tom wanted to do things throughout his last year because he never wanted the cancer to get in the way of what he loved. He got on stage and performed his last two shows at Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, which took him an incredible amount of strength but those are two shows that we will never forget”.

The rest of the European tour and a planned US tour were cancelled just a few days later when Tom was taken to hospital in Luxembourg and placed into an medically induced coma. Doctors said it was unlikely that he would ever wake up, but he did and was able to return home.

“He spent the last two months of his life fighting with everything he had to overcome the disease once and for all, and things appeared to be moving in the right direction”, wrote his brother. “But in the last two weeks it suddenly took a turn for the worse and finally he left us”.

The future of the band is now uncertain, he added, saying that “to pretend that Tom wasn’t at the heart of everything that the band created would be to show a complete lack of respect to the amazing talent that he was”. However, he said that the band would definitely proceed with planned tour dates in Australia, Europe and the UK.

“We want to carry on, that is important to say, and we will strive to do so”, he said. “But we will not release any music unless we truly believe that it is something that Tom would have been proud of. Whether or not we can achieve that is something that we will have to discover in time”.

Architects’ latest album, ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’, was released in May.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:30 | By

Frank Ocean releases new album Blond

Artist News Releases

Frank Ocean

It was a busy weekend for music-related pop-up shops. There was the Morrissey shop at Salford Lads’ Club. And Kanye’s worldwide chain of stores. And then, in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and London there were stores handing out free copies of Frank Ocean’s glossy ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ magazine, which came with a CD copy of his new album ‘Blond’ stuffed inside.

Yes, it happened. It really happened. Frank Ocean released his new album. His second of the week, if you count ‘visual album’ ‘Endless’. As well as being available as a magazine freebie, you can also listen to it on Apple Music. But only Apple Music mind. No Spotifys or Tidals here thank you very much. For now.

The 360 page magazine features photography and horoscopes by Ocean, interviews with his mum and Lil B, and poetry by Kanye West and Tyler, The Creator, among other stuff. As for the album, the physical and digital versions of the LP differ slightly, but both feature contributions from Beyonce, Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Yung Lean, James Blake, and more.

Following the release, Ocean posted on Tumblr: “I had the time of my life making all of this. Thank you all. Especially those of you who never let me forget I had to finish. Which is basically every one of ya’ll. Haha. Love you”.

Here’s the video for ‘Nikes’ from the album:

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:27 | By

Metallica announce new album

Artist News Releases

Metallica

Metallica have announced that they will release their eleventh studio album, ‘Hardwired… To Self-Destruct’, on 18 Nov. The follow-up to 2008’s ‘Death Magnetic’, the LP is produced by Greg Fidelman and will be released through the band’s own Blackened Records label.

“Has it really been eight years? Doesn’t feel like it! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink”, says Lars Ulrich. “We’re obviously beyond psyched to share new tunes with all our friends out there. We’ve been rockin’ along in the studio with Greg on and off for the last eighteen months firing up the creative engines again. Putting new music out there, getting in your faces once again and all that comes with it is what we love to do more than anything else, so strap yourselves in… INCOMING!”

The announcement of the album was accompanied by the video for first single ‘Hardwired’, which you can watch here:

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:24 | By

CMU’s One Liners: Mozella, St Vincent, Coldplay, more

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

St Vincent

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Songwriter Mozella has written an article on the negative impact she believes the US Department Of Justice’s decision not to amend ASCAP and BMI’s consent decrees will have.

• St Vincent has recorded a “bendy” version of the US national anthem for the NFL.

• Coldplay have released the video for their latest single, the title track of their ‘A Head Full Of Dreams’ album.

• Katie Melua will release a new album, ‘In Winter’, on 14 Oct, recorded with the Gori Women’s Choir. I have no music to offer you, but here’s an interview she did with The Guardian.

• Pitbull will release new album ‘Climate Change’ on 7 Oct. “I feel like every time we put out an album we change the climate in the music business”, he says of the title to Entertainment Weekly. Christ. Here’s the first single ‘Greenlight’.

• Korn’s new single is ‘Insane’.

• Craig David has announced that he’ll release his first album for sixteen years on 30 Sep, titled ‘Following My Intuition’. “I’m back in that sixteen year old kid mode, hungry, passionate and making music that I’m truly proud of”, he says. “I want to deliver the music that people have been asking for, for so long, following my intuition and coming from a great place”. Here’s first single ‘Ain’t Giving Up’.

• Tove Lo has released the video for her new single, ‘Cool Girl’.

• Sparks have announced that they will release a new “artisan crafted” album next year.

• 2NE1’s CL has released the video for her new solo single ‘Lifted’.

• The Devin Townshend Project have released another track from upcoming new album ‘Transcendence’. Here’s ‘Secret Sciences’. The band will be touring the UK next March, including a show at London’s Hammersmith Apollo on 17 Mar.

• Teleman have released the video for new single ‘Tangerine’. The band are touring this autumn, including a show at The Forum in London on 1 Nov.

• Anna Of The North has released a new single, ‘Us’. She will play The Lexington in London on 20 Sep.

• Jain will release her debut album ‘Zanaka’ on 21 Oct. She’ll also play the Lexington in London on 27 Sep. Here again is the single, ‘Come’.

• Get Inuit have aired their new single ‘Teriaki’, ahead of its official release on 2 Sep. The band are playing festivals and touring with Spring King until the end of October.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 11:16 | By

Liam Gallagher is ‘most punk rock dude ever’, says Tom Delonge

And Finally Artist News

Tom Delonge

Who takes the title of ‘most punk rock dude ever?’ Well, if you believe everything former Blink 182 guitarist Tom Delonge says (and I’ve heard you do), then it’s Liam Gallagher.

This opinion has been pretty long-standing, it seems. Ever since both Oasis and Blink 182 performed live on the same radio station years ago. Speaking on the latest episode of guitar string maker Ernie Ball’s ‘The Pursuit Of Tone’ show, he said he’d not paid much attention to the band when they first walked into the building, deeming them not to be punk rock and therefore not worth talking to.

However, he recalls, that all changed when Liam Gallagher came backstage to their dressing room after their performance. “He goes ‘you’re the best I’ve seen in America'”, Delonge says. “[And] I’m all ‘you like us!’ and he goes ‘I didn’t say that, but you’re the best I’ve seen in America’ and he slammed the door. I looked at everyone else and I went ‘oh my God, that’s the most punk rock dude I’ve ever met in my life'”.

Ensuring that he maintains the title in Delonge’s mind, Gallagher tweeted in response: “The most punk rock dude ever? Ha ha, you’ve seen fuck all yet, mate. As you were”.

I’m not sure if that means Liam knows of someone more punk rock, or he himself is going to do some extra punk rock stuff in the future. The rumour is that he’s about to launch his solo project, so maybe that’ll be it.

Here’s Tom Delonge talking:

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Monday 22 August 2016, 10:25 | By

Approved: Vanessa Anne Redd

CMU Approved

Vanessa Anne Redd

One half of folk duo Six Years and a member of electronic act Rubicks, Vanessa Anne Redd describes her debut solo album as a “simple grunge-folk affair”. That both sums it up perfectly and undersells it at the same time.

Roughly recorded alone in a house in the French countryside, the simple, very personal sounds were then brought back to a London studio, where Redd added strings.

On first single ‘Invisible Strings’, this added instrumentation really complements the soft lament that was already there. Meanwhile, the effect of the final studio embellishment is more pronounced on title track ‘Behind The Wall’, which is driven by a repeating guitar riff for its first half, before a shift in tone, drama and tension, ramped up with the help of a commanding string section.

The album, ‘Behind The Wall’, is due for release on 7 Oct. Redd plays an album launch show on 14 Sep at the Kings Head Members Club in London.

Watch the video for ‘Behind The Wall’ here:

Stay up to date with all of the artists featured in the CMU Approved column in 2016 by subscribing to our Spotify playlist.

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Monday 22 August 2016, 09:00 | By

CMU Digest 22.08.16: Ticket touts, RAO, Fabric, Reddit, MegaUpload, Cash Money

CMU Digest

Ticket touts

The key stories from the last seven days in the music business…

Sharon Hodgson MP put new pressure on the government over ticket touting,after reporting how many touts were selling tickets at a recent football game at Wembley, even though it is illegal to tout tickets to football matches. As a starting point, Hodgson wants new Culture Secretary Karen Bradley to start work implementing the recommendations of the recent government review of secondary ticketing. [READ MORE]

The organisation that collects a private copy levy in Russia announced that it was ended its alliance with collecting society RAO. RSP will start paying RAO’s songwriter and publisher members any royalties they are due directly. Russian society RAO is currently battling allegations of fraud that resulted in its chief being arrested. [READ MORE]

Fabric confirmed it was cancelling another weekend of events in the wake of two recent drug-related deaths at the London venue. It transpired that the club’s licence has actually been suspended at the request of the Metropolitan Police, pending a review by Islington Council’s licensing sub-committee, which should happen in the next month. [READ MORE]

Reddit pushed back on efforts by Warner Music to get the IP address of a user who published the link to a pre-release copy of Twenty One Pilots track ‘Heathens’. The major says the leak screwed up its marketing plans for the record. It seems to think an employee must have been involved in the leak, but Reddit argued that the label didn’t have a good enough case for it to assist in trying to identify the leaker. [READ MORE]

An American appeals court denied Kim Dotcom’s latest attempt to regain assets seized when the US government shut down his MegaUpload operation in 2012 on copyright grounds. Judges said that while Dotcom continues to fight extradition he qualifies as a fugitive so is not entitled to get his money back. Needless to say, Dotcom’s lawyers vowed to appeal again. [READ MORE]

Universal imprint Cash Money announced an alliance with Apple Music. Despite some initial chatter over whether or not this was a record company locking itself to one streaming platform for exclusives, it transpired the partnership was to create a new documentary about the label and its founder. As well as scoring exclusives, original content is another way streaming services are endeavouring to differentiate themselves. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• The Madison Square Garden Company bought into Townsquare [INFO]
• Karma Artists and Imagem partnered on a new publishing company [INFO]
• Hospital Records signed up to Proper Music for distribution [INFO]
• Universal announced a deal with INXS-repping Petrol Records [INFO]
• Producer Shift K3Y launched an imprint with Sony [INFO]
• David Gray signed with Kobalt Label Services for a greatest hits release [INFO]
• Capitol signed Paul McCartney [INFO]

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:33 | By

Sharon Hodgson MP calls on new Culture Secretary to act on secondary ticketing

Business News Legal Live Business Top Stories

Ticket touts

Sharon Hodgson MP, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group On Ticket Abuse, has written to new Culture Secretary Karen Bradley calling on her to implement greater protections for sport and music fans against ticket touts, not least by enforcing existing laws regarding the resale of tickets, both online and old-school outside the venue.

Following the previously reported launch of the music industry-led anti-tout FanFair campaign, which came in the wake of the government’s own report on secondary ticketing, Hodgson, Kerry McCarthy MP, Nigel Adams MP and Reg Walker of Iridium Consultancy went on a ‘fact-finding mission’ to Wembley Stadium. There they observed touts selling tickets to a football game between Liverpool and Barcelona. Unlike music events, selling tickets to football matches without authorisation is illegal in the UK.

In her letter to Bradley, Hodgson notes that there was touting openly going on, starting at Wembley Park tube station all the way down to the stadium, with around 30 touts offering tickets to the match. Listing some of those who lost out because of this situation, she said that a teenage Barcelona fan had been sold a ticket for £170 and told its face value was £100, when it was in fact £26. A Spanish family, meanwhile, were turned away at the gate, when they were told that tickets they had bought from a tout were invalid for entry.

A number of the touts in attendance were already well-known to authorities. One of them, Roger Leigh, is the business partner of David Spanton, who was recently jailed for selling unauthorised tickets.

Commenting on the visit to Wembley, Hodgson says: “Following our fact-finding mission to Wembley, we uncovered the scope and scale of ticket touts operating on the ground and fleecing fans desperate to get tickets to a hotly anticipated football match at our national stadium. The fact-finding clearly reaffirmed the need for action to be taken by the government”.

She continues: “This is why I have written to the new Culture Secretary asking her to support our campaign by working with her colleagues in the Department For Business, Energy And Industrial Strategy and begin to implement the recommendations in the Waterson Review and with campaign groups, like FanFair Alliance, and finally ensure fans are put first is this unfair market”.

Read Hodgson’s letter in full here.

Elsewhere in secondary ticketing news, online face-value ticket exchange Twickets is partnering with HMV’s Fopp stores to provide drop-off locations nationwide. People wishing to buy or sell unwanted tickets at their original face value will be given the option to make their exchange using Fopp as a middleman. The service opened at Fopp’s Manchester store yesterday, with plans to roll out to other locations in due course.

“We want to make it easier for music fans to purchase official gig tickets at face value, and stop them losing out to touts and secondary sites selling at inflated prices with exorbitant booking fees”, says Twickets founder Richard Davis. “It’s fantastic to be working with highly respected specialist retailer Fopp, and we hope this new in-store service will allow more fans to be able to see their favourite artists without needing to scrimp and save to pay scalpers’ fees”.

CMU Premium subscribers can read our recent analysis of the secondary ticketing market here. To become a premium subscriber for just £5 per month, click here.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:31 | By

This time anti-piracy group BREIN knocks out a file-sharing Facebook group

Business News Digital Labels & Publishers Legal

BREIN

Dutch anti-piracy organisation BREIN continues in its previously reported bid to target prolific individual file-sharers, and also to demonstrate that it’s targeting those who share music and movie content without permission in an assortment of different places – this time by sharing links via a Facebook group.

Since stepping up its efforts against individual online pirates once again, BREIN has successfully pressured file-sharers using both KickassTorrents and Usenet to commit to no longer share content without licence. The latest targeted file-sharer uploaded music files to cyber-lockers and then shared links to the content via a Facebook group.

As with previous cases, BREIN secured an ex-parte court order against the man which would mean the file-sharer would incur regular fines if he continued to infringe copyright in this way. When presented with the order, the man agreed to comply, as well as to pay the anti-piracy organisation 7000 euros in damages.

According to Torrentfreak, the man wrote on his file-sharing Facebook group, which has since been shut down: “Ladies and gentlemen, by order of BREIN I have to stop uploading music. I will therefore quit effective immediately. In addition, I will leave the group today, both as administrator and as a member. I wish everyone all the best”.

The 7000 euro fine is lower than that paid by some of the others recently targeted by BREIN, though it seems that the size of payment demanded is in part linked to the file-sharer’s ability to pay.

Of course, some might argue that this activity on BREIN’s part is merely tapping at the tip of an iceberg, with many file-sharers hard to identify, or located in inconvenient jurisdictions. Though the anti-piracy group presumably reckons this new strategy is worth the effort, taking certain key file-sharers offline, with fines sufficient that some other prolific uploaders – in the Netherlands at least – might worry they could be next.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:29 | By

Kanye West opens global retail chain (for the weekend)

Artist News Business News Retail

Kanye West

Kanye West is opening 21 pop-up ‘Pablo stores’ around the world today, where you’ll be able to buy some stuff he’s thrown together and then slapped an inflated price tag on. It’ll be fun. Good old-fashioned expensive fun.

Following smaller scale pop-ups in New York, LA and Paris earlier this year, West today opens thirteen shops in the US, plus others in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cape Town, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney.

The London store, which takes over the Kachette event space on Old Street, opened its doors at 10am and will be open until 7pm tonight. The same opening hours will be in operation on Saturday and Sunday. So you could go along to that, or you could have a nice sit down somewhere else.

Look at a map of all the locations here, if you want.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:28 | By

Madison Square Garden Company buys into US radio and events firm Townsquare

Business News Deals Live Business

Madison Square Garden Company

The Madison Square Garden Company has taken a 12% stake in US media firm Townsquare, it has been confirmed, with plans for the two companies to seek strategic alliances moving forward.

MSG spun off its own TV and radio company, MSG Networks, into a standalone company just last year. Townsquare, meanwhile, owns 310 radio stations and 325 websites, including various music sites it has acquired in recent years.

Though it is possibly that it’s more Townsquare’s live events business – which includes a number of country music festivals – that is of my interest to the MSG company, which now has its core operations in venues and sport.

According to the Wall Street Journal, as well as MSG taking the equity stake in Townsquare, the two companies hope to “jointly explore marketing, sponsorship and booking opportunities”.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:25 | By

National commercial radio stations will qualify for five year renewal of AM/FM licences

Business News Media

OfCom

The UK’s three national commercial radio stations operating on AM and FM – so that’ll be Classic FM, Talksport and Absolute Radio – will all qualify for a five-year renewal of their licences from media regulator OfCom.

According to Radio Today, OfCom has confirmed that as the three radio stations’ respective AM/FM licences come up for renewal in 2018, it will repeat the process employed last time, which is that the station’s owners – Global, Wireless and Bauer – will be able to apply for a five year renewal, rather than having to compete against other bidders.

There has been a lot less bidding for analogue radio licences in recent years because of uncertainty over how long the traditional analogue networks will be operational as radio slowly shifts over to the DAB digital network.

Though given how long that process seems to be taking, and a reluctance in political circles to do what they did with TV – ie force digital on everyone by announcing a switch-off date – it now feels like good old fashioned FM will still be here for the foreseeable future.

Global, Wireless and Bauer will be able to begin the process of applying for a renewal of the Classic FM, Talksport and Absolute licences later this year.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:22 | By

Frank Ocean releases new album (not that one)

Artist News Digital Releases

Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean has released a new album. What? Oh, no, not that album. A different album. But the album you’ve been waiting for seemingly endlessly is still coming, apparently. What arrived on Apple Music this morning, though, is a new ‘visual album’, appropriately titled ‘Endless’.

So, right, as you’ll surely remember, Frank Ocean’s second album, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, has been a long time coming. Its release was originally hinted at in July 2015. Then in March this year it was “maybe a month” away. It was not.

In July this year, Ocean’s website suggested it was imminent. And since then it’s been expected within 24 hours and then failed to emerge roughly twice a week. Good news though, Frank Ocean’s second album ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ may now only be 24 hours away. Although it’s not called ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ anymore, according to Rolling Stone.

Nor is it called ‘Endless’, but ‘Endless’ is the Frank Ocean album we’re here to talk about. Earlier this month, Ocean broadcast a livestream on his website showcasing instrumental music. Last night he returned to the same warehouse location for a second livestream, again playing recordings of some new material, only this time finished songs with vocals.

The stream included musical collaborations with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, James Blake, Jazmine Sullivan, Sampha and Arca, and at the end of the broadcast the ‘visual album’, featuring much of the music aired on the livestream, was released on Apple Music. Though Apple insists this isn’t the aforementioned long-awaited second album.

An Apple spokesperson did tell Pitchfork to “keep an eye out this weekend for more from Frank”. Which may mean that Ocean’s second album proper is coming this weekend. Or it may mean that nothing is going to happen at all. He might decide he doesn’t like being rushed and go back to tinker with the album a bit more.

Anyway, you can watch ‘Endless’ here.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:19 | By

James Bourne’s new Busted musical premieres in Brighton

Artist News

Busted

James Bourne has only gone and written a second stage musical based on his own work. And having already plundered the entire one-album Son Of Dork catalogue, he’s now moved on to Busted. ‘What I Go To School For’ premiered at Brighton’s Theatre Royal yesterday.

The jukebox musical, featuring a selection of Busted’s hits, as well as new songs, runs until Saturday, starring a cast of 40 chosen from the Brighton branch of the Youth Music Theatre. The story follows a group of teenagers who dream of breaking out of their hometown and seeing the world, then doing exactly that. You know, like Busted. Because the show is based on the story of Busted. So that’s why.

“The show quite accurately tells story of the band from 2001 to 2005, though some characters are real and some characters are made-up versions of real people”, Bourne tells the BBC. “Eventually it would be nice to open in the West End after we’ve had more time to develop”.

“Matt and Charlie have been asking me lots about the show and they are very interested in what’s going on”, he added, of how his bandmates view the production. As well they might.

For more details, and to book tickets, click here.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:17 | By

Oasis release new version of D’You Know What I Mean with re-cut video

Artist News Releases

Oasis

A new version of the video for Oasis’s 1997 single ‘D’You Know What I Mean’ has been released, to coincide with a new nineteenth anniversary re-issue of the band’s ‘Be Here Now’ album.

Back in 1997, ‘D’You Know What I Mean’ was largely considered to be the signal that Oasis were past their creative peak. Its high budget video, with all helicopters and that, only magnified that view. Now, of course, the song is considered by all living humans to be the band’s crowning achievement. Possibly.

Director’s Dom & Nic say of their re-cut video, which is accompanied by a new mix of the original track: “This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to bring the quality of the original video up to today’s high definition standards, and also to look at the film again with fresh eyes and see what we could improve”.

“Back in those heady days we shot the video on beautiful looking 35mm film, then the height of movie making technology, just like it was a feature film”, they continue. “Shooting like that today would be unthinkable for a music video of this scale, film simply costs too much compared with digital cameras for all but the most extravagant projects”.

“We also had the help of The British Army”, they add. “Who cleverly saw it as the perfect recruitment drive, though questions were later asked in the House Of Commons concerning the British taxpayers helping Oasis make music videos!”

On the process of reworking the video, they say: “The 35mm film from the original shoot had been stored safely in the Oasis archive, which meant we could go back to the original film to re-master and recreate the video. This was the film equivalent of finding the band’s long lost studio master tapes in pristine condition. During the process of re-editing we discovered even more powerful performance moments from the band, more epic helicopter shots and a new pacing with greater drama and energy than before”.

‘Be Here Now: Chasing The Sun Edition’ is due for release on 7 Oct. Watch the new video for ‘D’You Know What I Mean’ here:

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:11 | By

CMU’s One Liners: David Gray, Rick Astley, Universal, more

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

David Gray

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Kobalt Label Services has announced that it will be working with IHT Records to release a new ‘best of’ from David Gray in October, which will include an ‘ever changing tracklisting’ version for the streaming platforms.

• Rick Astley has signed to booking agency WME for worldwide representation. He’s currently on tour in the US, ahead of the October release of his latest album, ’50’, over there.

• Universal Music in the US has appointed Samantha Fink to the role of SVP Human Resources, reporting into EVP of HR Gautam Srivastava.

• Spotify has launched its first documentary film as park of its ‘Landmark’ series. ‘Metallica: The Early Years’ is available on the platform now. You can watch part one of the four part series on YouTube here.

• Earlier this week, Danny Brown announced that the guests on his new album will include Kendrick Lamar, Kelela and Earl Sweatshirt. New single ‘Pneumonia’ features none of them, but is ace.

• Loyle Carner has stated his recorded music format preference on new track ‘No CD’.

• Kiran Leonard has released a new track, ‘Coayacán’. You can catch him on tour in the UK next week too.

• Kaiser Chiefs have released a new song called ‘Hole In My Soul’ and will be touring the arenas of the UK in February and March next year. Sentences like that are never going to get any less confusing.

• Cat’s Eyes have announced that they will be touring the UK this autumn, starting with a show at King’s Place in London on 31 Oct.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 09:03 | By

CMU Beef Of The Week #319: Taylor Swift v Northants Police

And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week Legal

Tom Hiddleston & Taylor Swift

Northamptonshire Police have admitted that they got themselves into “hot water” by posting a photoshopped image of Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston on Twitter to promote their Prevent counter-extremism team.

It’s hard to know where to even begin with this one. I mean, I assume you know that Taylor Swift and actor Tom Hiddleston started dating pretty much the second she split up with Calvin Harris. And that this has been documented through a series of weirdly staged photos of them being all happy together. Right, good.

Maybe you’re not aware of the UK government’s Prevent programme, which aims to stop people from succumbing to extremism, but has been accused to doing the exact opposite. Among the tactics used by the Northamptonshire Police Prevent team is to try to engage people on Twitter using humour. It’s not in itself a bad idea – listen to this edition of the ‘Invisibilia’ podcast for more on how meeting hostility with warmth can work – but the way it has been carried out has been a bit of a shambles.

This whole Swift/Hiddleston thing was the peak shoddiness of a weekly series of tweets on the @NorPolPrevent account called #FamousFriday. The first of these, back in May, explained: “Every Friday famous people will say quotes (that I have adapted) about Prevent”.

Just in case you’re thinking that that might actually be a fun thing to see pop up in your Twitter feed once a week, the first one (which really needed to be a strong one to get things rolling), was a picture of Mr T with the caption: “I pity the fool who doesn’t know Prevent = safeguarding”.

I know, right? But it got worse for all involved last month, when they posted a screengrab of a tweet from a Taylor Swift fan account which pictured Swift and Hiddleston frolicking in the sea. “Taylor and Tom at the beach today!” the grabbed tweet said. “Tom is wearing an I ♥ Prevent t-shirt”. It also added the hashtag #TomSaidNoToBondBecausePreventDontSpy.

Seems like a weird thing for a Taylor Swift fan account to say, but if you looked down at the photos, you could clearly see Hiddleston wearing a t-shirt saying “I ♥ P” – the rest of the word obscured.

But it was all a lie, dear reader. The screengrabbed tweet had been edited, and so had the picture of Tom’s t-shirt. He’d actually been wearing a t-shirt saying “I ♥ TS”. Which… let’s not even start on that. The important thing we need to remember here is that the police had tampered with some evidence to make it look like something else.

Then late last month all the #FamousFriday tweets were deleted and it was announced that it would be replaced by something else new and fun instead. Now every Friday you can enjoy #FunFactFriday, which provides facts entirely unrelated to Prevent and with no mention of the scheme.

A spokesperson for Northants Police said that the tweets had been removed “to avoid anything being misconstrued”, which is a funny old thing to say.

In a statement to the BBC this week, they said: “We can confirm that @NorPolPrevent use Twitter as a means to engage with local communities and this has, on occasion, included using images to portray messages in a non-confrontational or humorous manner. As part of our ongoing training of force social media users, we provide guidance on effective and appropriate use of social media and, on this occasion, some tweets were deleted by the users of the account to avoid anything being misconstrued”.

Though redacted police emails obtained by Middle East Eye via a Freedom Of Information request show that a complaint following the Hiddleston/Swift tweet put the wind up them somewhat.

“We’ve received a complaint from [REDACTED] regarding the below”, says one email. “Did we photoshop this? And can it please be deleted ASAP”.

The complaint is quoted as saying: “Photoshopping [REDACTED] to suggest [REDACTED] is irresponsible in the extreme”.

So that was a bit of fun that went too far, you could say. Though a more senior police officer chipped in: “I don’t want to detract from the good work @NorPolPrevent do via Twitter, but probably just helpful to be mindful of editing pics of ‘celebrities’. They spend a lot of money and carefully craft their public images, and associations with contentious topics can be concerning for them! Also from a copyright perspective, we can be treading in hot water! Like I said, I can see the merit in trying to myth bust and use humour… just advising to be careful”.

Good to see the police have such a good grasp of copyright law. That’s reassuring, isn’t it? All of the tweets featured presumably uncleared images of various celebs being associated with a controversial government programme. And it’s always good to remember that doing that sort of thing “can be treading in hot water”.

Meanwhile, in a video Q&A for The Hollywood Reporter this week, in which he was talking about his role in ‘The Night Manager’, Hiddleston was caught off guard by a question about his relationship with Swift.

“We all live in a world where every phone has a camera and there’s nothing new, really, about the spotlight on me. I think that’s what happens when you’re a public figure”, he said. “I’ve learned that there are many sides to a story, and that sometimes there are a lot of stories out there which are false and the hardest thing is to try to not let those falsehoods affect your own life, that’s what I would say”.

Like when local police force in the UK starts tweeting slightly doctored images of you claiming that you are in love with a government anti-extremism campaign.

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Friday 19 August 2016, 08:55 | By

Vigsy’s Club Tip: Polo at Proud Camden

Club Tip CMU Approved

Fabio & Grooverider

Drum n bass pioneers Fabio & Grooverider will headline Proud’s weekly Polo night tomorrow, going back to their roots with a house set.

Best known for their work in dnb of course, Fabio & Grooverider were also among the first DJs to bring house music to the UK. Fabio dips his toes back into house from time to time solo, but it will be interesting to see what they come up with together.

Also on the bill is Philgood and Polo’s resident DJs.

Saturday 20 Aug, Proud Camden, The Horse Hospital, Stables Market, Chalk Farm Road, Camden Town, NW1 8AH, 10pm-2.30am, £5-8. More info here.

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