Managerobit: Jill Sinclair

A grim press release from SPZ:

With deep regret, the SPZ Group and the Horn family announce that Jill Sinclair passed away on Saturday 22 March 2014, aged 61.

Wife of Trevor Horn and mother of Ally, Aaron, William and Gabriella, Jill co-founded the SPZ Group in 1984. She quickly became one of the most successful managers, and headed up some of the most successful publishing, record label and studio businesses, in UK music history.

She died peacefully at home in London, from cancer.

On behalf of the whole family, Trevor Horn, comments: "Jill was an inspiration in every aspect of her life, as my wife and as the mother of our children. She had an adventurous, maverick spirit and built up music businesses - and made her way through life - successfully and independently, and always on her own terms. She will be sorely missed."

A funeral was held on Monday 24 March. The family ask that no flowers are sent, preferring donations to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability (www.rhn.org.uk), Cancer Research (www.cancerresearchuk.org), or the JTJ Trust Fund (www.jillsinclairandfrjimteelingtrustfund.com).

No further statement or comment is available at this time.

Jill has been seriously injured in a shooting accident in 2006; she spent three years in a coma and according to Horn, in 2006 "the only expression she can show is of discomfort."

In 1999, Horn and Jill did a 'my partner and me' interview for The Independent, where they spoke about their relationships, professional and personal:

We got married but didn't go into business together for a year or two [says Trveor]. When my partner left me on my own, I said to Jill: "The good thing is that you can manage me now." Fifteen seconds after I appointed her, she told me I would have to give up trying to be an artist and concentrate on being a producer. She thought I could be the best producer in the world.
[...]
[Jill says] I never had any doubts that Trevor would be an enormous success, but it was only when I was named Businesswoman of the Year that I thought about my own career at all. I had just worked and never had a plot. When I did some training recently, the guy said: "What do you want to achieve?" That stumped me. World peace? I've no pretensions to be able to write or sing. I sing all the time, but heaven help us if my career depended on it.

I've learnt from Trevor. He's not one for confrontation; he's a dreamer. I'm more pragmatic, I've never been much of a one for subtlety, but these days I'm much more patient and able to see things from the other point of view. I think the strength of the partnership is that we both do such different jobs. We get things wrong but we both know that we are doing our utmost. We're both forgiving. And there isn't anyone I'd rather be with.

Face '83: Malcolm McLaren

Well, as we seem to be keeping some sort of arbitrary score on the grounds of whether The Face should be blushing red for its 1983 choices, we better factor in the over-familiar tracks we've skipped so far into the reckoning.

So Michael Jackson was such an obvious choice, it counts against the idea of being taste-forming. 2-2. Blue Monday, on the other hand, might be over-familiar but still sounds fresh, they can have that. 3-2.

And Prince's 1999 could have been viewed either way by the future, so it was a brave choice, so it works as a choice. 4-2.

This brings us to Duck Rock.

I guess if you viewed Buffalo Gals, or even Double Dutch, you might consider that Trevor Horn just about saved Malc from himself. But The Face recommends the whole album.

Which means this is part of a recording they would point to and say "1983! This was the year!"



Duck For The Oyster. They don't usually mention that when they get misty-eyed about Malcolm's influence, do they?

4-3, The Face.

[Part of The Face's best recordings of 1983]

Buggles: back again

A press release with the heading "The Return of The Buggles" can only be opened with a sense of trembling anticipation. And, being a press release, can only lead to a slight "oh" of disappointment.

They're not returning. But Trevor Horn's post-Geoff Davis Buggles album, Adventures In Modern Recording, is getting a spiffed-up re-release. With extra demo stuff. Including Videotheque being demoed by Buggles, who were going to do it orignally. Before Horn gave it to Dollar. It would make a bit more sense as a Buggles track, when you think about it.

This is all out on the 19th April, on the Salvo label. Salvo are working their way through the archives of ZTT:

This album is part five in the Element Series, a brand new stream of reissues of classic albums from the Zang Tuum Tumb label. Look out also for Element 06: Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Deluxe Edition) by Frankie Goes To Hollywood (out 26.04.10) and Elements 01 to 04: deluxe, double-CD reissues of 808 State's ten year legacy of dance innovation (out 22.03.10).

Can this mean a reissue of Das Psych-Oh Rangers stuff is in the future?

Spotify get an eye-catching first of dubious value

It's big for Spotify, of course:

It’s our pleasure to announce that this Friday 6th November, we’ll be unveiling Robbie Williams’ comeback album “Reality Killed The Video Star”, exclusively to all of our users in the UK, in advance of the album’s official launch on EMI's Virgin Records on November 9th.

The full album, which was produced by Trevor Horn and features twelve brand new tracks, including the singles “Bodies” and “You Know Me”, will be made available exclusively to every one of our UK users at midnight, 00:00 GMT, this Friday.

So what will fans make of “Reality Killed The Video Star”? Before next Monday’s official launch, there’s only one way to find out.

Interesting that it's Spotify getting the big reveal; equally interesting that it's all users and not just premium members who are being invited to hurt their ears. That, you can extrapolate, means that access to all Spotify users is more valuable for EMI than the fear of people using, say, AudioHijackPro to push ripped copies of the album onto the torrents.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Gordon in the morning: Another return to form for Robbie Williams

As everybody at EMI crosses their fingers and hopes that the record will allow them to at least pay the milkman this month, it's no surprise to see Gordon rushing to the front of the crowd to cheer Robbie Williams' return:

ROBBIE WILLIAMS is back with an almighty bang.

I have had the exclusive first listen to Bodies, the much awaited single from his new album Reality Killed The Video Star.

This, of course, must be different from the single much more usefully reviewed yesterday by Popjustice, then.

This would also be different from the return from the wilderness Gordon was proclaiming back in January 2008, in some way.

Readers with even longer memories will recall Gordon's boss and predecessor Victoria Newton running a panty, thrilled review of the Rudebox album, only to change her tune a few months later when (a) she'd actually heard it and (b) it became clear it wasn't very good.

Still, Bizarre isn't a voice in the wilderness this time, as Gordon is quick to point out:

Radio 2 are already planning to make the track record of the week and Radio 1 have stuck it on the playlist six weeks before its release.

Although, since you're the only person to have heard the record, Gordon, with your exclusive first listen, they must be doing that unheard, right?

This time round, Trevor Horn is doing the production:

He has returned from the wilderness and gone back to the winning formula of good old-fashioned commercial pop, produced by veteran knobs-and-dials man TREVOR HORN. His influence is a stroke of genius, with a rich new electronic sound.

So it's a rich new old-fashioned electronic commercial pop record, is it? One of those.

For most people, having Horn on board would be enough. But this is Williams, who can't stop the theatrical winks just in case we don't get it. Hence, the album is called Reality Killed The Video Star. The second choice was "With Trevor Horn Out Of The Buggles Making It And He's Cool And Everything, Right?"

Gordon ends with a chilling prediction:

I'm off to stick a few quid on at the bookies for The Brits to be "The Robbie Show" next year.

Let's not picture Gordon, down William Hills, pushing across a betting slip with 'Brits to be The Robbie Show' across at the cashier, and just spend some time weeping with our head in our hands. Because there's every chance, given the Brits' ability to be so very wrong, that he could be right.