We need to talk about '11: August

With Boris Johnson off having a jolly time in the rockies, nobody was looking after London and the populace turned to rioting. Noel Gallagher, inevitably, had something to say as his brother's trouser shop was robbed. More seriously, large swathes of indie records were destroyed as criminals used the riots as cover for a raid on Sony's distribution centre. Not everyone was supportive about the attempts to help out stricken labels, though. Thank God, though, that Joe McElderry was safe.

For some reason, the National Trust released a punk album. Predictably, John Lydon had a moan. Equally unhappy were the small shops who helped the young Jay-Z as he signed an exclusive deal with Best Buy.

Pukkelpop was called off after high winds and collapsing stages caused deaths shortly after a similar thing happened in the US.

The NME saw circulation fall below 30,000 and Rolling Stone's influence was questioned.

After a prank DCMA claim, for a brief spell all Justin Bieber videos vanished from YouTube. Equally refreshingly, we might be grudgingly allowed to rip our own CDs and write parodies. Perhaps that's why Jay-Z and Kanye redoubled anti-piracy measures for their CD. EMI awkwardly lost a key copyright case that weakened their hands negotiating with cloud services.

Given what a great job he did at EMI, where better for Charles Allen to go next than the Labour Party? Also doing well under difficult circumstances, the organisers of the Michael Jackson memorial realised that inviting someone who called him a paedo might not be the best idea.

Brian Harvey is fighting the power. Or the power companies, at least. Okay, he's not paid his electricity bill. Talking of struggling with money, the Mathew Street Festival tried tip boxes.

The Kings of Leon tried to get footage of Caleb's meltdown vanished from the web. Somebody rushed the stage to try and stop Avril Lavigne while eggs were tossed at Beyonce.

Linda Perry diagnosed the problem with pop. It's Katy Perry, apparently. Gary Numan suggested it was an obsession with the past and then fled the UK.


Splitting: Alexisonfire nad Those Dancing Days. Parting: N-Dubz and DefJam. Reforming: The Libertines.


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Part of We Need To Talk About '11