Jeremy Corbyn is taking on Napster

Today was Jeremy Corbyn's big digital plans launch. If we boil it down to 'I don't really understand this sort of thing but it's important so I guess we should do... something' it sort-of-all-works as a first stab.

But the detail. Oh, the detail:

Downloading music for free sounds fine, he says. But this means musicians do not get paid. That is why digital rights are so important. He says he has not produced the last word on policy on this yet.

Yes, much as some aspects of Corbyn's industrial policy are still based on the 1970s, his digital rights policy seems to be fixated on sometime around the first flush of Napster.

The X Factor - it's like a total amateur contest

The X-Factor. It's back, apparently. And busily giving a leg-up to acts who wouldn't stand a chance going through normal channels.

A group called Yes Lad did well in the opening weekend of the season.

I don't know this because I watched it - I know it because their, erm, agents sent me an email to tell me.

Two things.

First: what the hell is a group in a singing contest doing with agents already?

Secondly: Yes Lad isn't the name of a band. It sounds like a rejected Arthur Mullard catchphrase.

Jaime Harding goes inside

Sad to hear that Jaime Harding has been sent to prison - sad to hear that his life, which he had got back on track, has fallen apart again.

The band have issued a statement:

MARION OFFICIAL STATEMENT / REISSUES RELEASES
- AUGUST 2016 -

"It is with great sadness that we unfortunately have to inform Marion fans of Jaime's incarceration at Strangeways (HMP Manchester), following his arrest due to drugs earlier this year.

This forces us to now cancel the planned Marion live shows for 2016, which we had scheduled following prior notification that Jaime's case would not be dealt with until December.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the disappointment and any inconvenience caused, Jaime is devastated at this outcome and we can confirm that the Marion shows will be re-booked at the earliest opportunity upon Jaime's release. Please stay tuned to here and www.marionthegroup.com for updates.

In the meantime, we can end this statement on a positive, with the exciting news that Marion's UK Top 10 selling debut album 'This World and Body' will be reissued as a 3 CD Deluxe edition (with reissued Vinyl to follow) and Marion's Johnny Marr produced 2nd album 'The Program' will also be reissued as a 2 CD Deluxe edition, all through Demon Music Group's Edsel Records on 16th September 2016, with the CD Deluxe editions already available for pre-order on Amazon.

Following on from Edsel's Deluxe CD releases on 16th September, Demon Records will release a special 20th Anniversary Edition of Marion’s debut album 'This World and Body' on 180g Red Vinyl on 4th November 2016, which is now available to pre-order."

I'm not sure the best place to plug your reissues is a post about your lead singer being incarcerated because he burned his girlfriend's clothes when she refused to answer his calls, but I suppose more people will have visited the Marion website as a result of this news than would have come in the last year.

This week just gone

The most popular search terms so far this year:

1. No rock and roll fun
2. Is kt tunstall gay
3. Noel gallagher gay
4. Das psycho rangers
5. Simon bates
6. Drybaby
7. Suede glastonbury 2015
8. James blunt naked
9. Morrisons supermarket playlist
10. Amy Winehouse bondage

These had just come out the last time we updated the side bar:


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