Tesco buys We7

Given that Tesco is having trouble with its core business right now, and critics are accusing it of neglecting being a shop while heading off on empire building sideplans, what to make of the purchase of we7?

The most notable thing is the price - £10.8million really is priced to move; perhaps that's why Tesco have waded into a business they don't have any experience of. Maybe it was such a good price - and perhaps placed near a checkout, making it too hard to resist.

For a company once part of the squad of potential iTunes killers to go for such a relatively small price is a hint that iTunes remains unkilled.

We7 are excited at the idea of working with their snow overlords; they hope that Tesco can bring the skill it no longer has for reaching consumers to their business, too.

We7 nearly makes a million

It's difficult to know exactly what the We7 financial results are telling us.

There's some good news: turnover trebled, to £965,374.

There's some bad news: losses were £2.97million.

There's some good news, in that the gap between spending and income has never been so small.

There's some disconcerting news, in that We7 must have known where they were before launching the not-universally-loved refocusing.

Although they're still running at a loss, there is some cash behind them:

We7 secured £3.6m in funding in May this year from investors, including Qualcomm Ventures and Pentech Ventures, with a further £2.1m to be paid in the final quarter of this year. It also won a government grant worth £1.8m for this year and 2012.

There's a lot of goodwill there, but it's now become a crazy game-show, trying to plug the losses before the cash runs out. Let's hope they make it.

We7 decides the kids are where it's at, relaunches

Decent-but-underloved digital music service We7 is relaunching with a new logo, and a belief that "younger" people is where it's at.

That's the old logo... and this:

This would be the new one.

The meat, though, is in focusing on people who want a free service, seeing the gap Spotify has left by scaling back its free operation; and simplifying the way things work:

Steve Purdham, chief executive of We7, said that the new-look site should be thought of as a 'personal DJ', likening it to the Pandora service in the US.

'Some people love the idea of going through the catalogue to create a playlist, but the vast majority of us who love music do not want to make that investment in time and just want to be entertained,' he added.

Not entirely sure "just wanting to be entertained" is the same thing as "loving music" - there's a difference between a zipless fuck and a romantic entanglement - but that's probably the least of We7's challenges.

In Spotify, it's taking on a service which has established itself as an almost generic name for streaming online services - and trying to get people to use We7 when they're thinking they're Spotifying is going to be tricky.

We7 throws down challenge to Spotify

The big tech announcement of the day - oh, alright, if you discount Honey, iBlew Up The iPhone, is that We7 is launching a premium, ad-free service in direct competition to Spotify.

The headline price is lower - £4.99 a month against Spotify's £9.99. But the main impetus to upgrade to a paid account is less the loss of ads, and more the ability to suck music to a mobile. And this is, in We7 parlance, "Premium Plus" (a premium on a premium?) and will cost another fiver. In other words: it's the same price as Spotify.

Spotify revealed the other day they've had 250,000 subscribers jump on so far. I'm not convinced there's many other people who want to spend £120 a year on a radio.

Adieu, La Roux

Somewhat oddly, La Roux has pulled their album and mostly everything else from Spotify. Except for the very few premium subscribers. Music Ally, which spotted the move, reports the tracks have also gone from We7, too.

The working-against-Spotify stance is puzzling as La Roux has helped promote the service in the past.

We7's Steve Purdham suggested to Music Ally that this might be an attempt to try and work out what impact the move will have on the market. Perhaps, in the same way that tugging wings off flies is a useful experiment to find out if flies enjoy being dicked around with.

Downloadable: Brett Anderson

The lovely people at We7 have teamed up with Brett Anderson to offer a limited-time eight track Anderson mp3 compilation. For free.

Streaming: Editors

NME.com is streaming the new Editors album through a We7-y widget.

We comes to i

New Media Age is reporting that We7 is about to launch an iPhone client:

Before the end of the year, We7 will offer listeners the option to pay a monthly subscription in return for receiving ad-free streams as well as mobile access via an iPhone app, mirroring Spotify’s premium offering.

So, in other words, you'll have to cough up to get the iPhone streaming, but at least you won't have the ads.

Incidentally, how much must O2 be delighted its all-you-can-eat data plans for the iPhone are going to be put to such use?

NMA also says this:

The ad-funded streaming model is thought to be a strong contender for fighting piracy, with 95% of all digital music estimated to have been shared illegally.

What does that actually mean? It would be nice if there was a source for this high-sounding estimate, at least as a start, but since "digital music" includes stuff encoded on CDs, and paid-for, and legitimately streamed and legally shared tracks, and music on digital relays of radio programmes and instances where the music has been licensed in reverse, and people who've recorded their own works and works in progress in the studio, the entire paragraph seems to be an enormous nonsense.

Dylan dumps digital duo

In a desperate bid to shore up his reputation as the world's grumpiest man, Bob Dylan has had his music tugged off from We7 and Spotify:

Clive Gardiner, we7’s digital music SVP, [told Music Ally]: “We took it off the site a few days ago. Spotify would have had the same instruction. But it may be a short listing and it may come back again.

“There are some artists that will take umbrage at this from time to time. We expect this sort of thing, especially with streaming, and it not being fully understood where it sits yet. “

It's not entirely surprising that Bob Dylan - a man who you suspect still doggedly gets up off the sofa and walks to the TV to change channels - is having trouble coming to terms with streaming, and just how different the figures are. Still, you'd have thought someone might have explained that choking off legal supply when there's still a demand isn't exactly a sensible financial approach, either.

Listen here: Enter Shikari

Thanks to the hosting skillz of We7, this would be the new Enter Shikari album, Common Dreads. To listen to, and to enjoy:

Free music - Common Dreads (UK Album)

We7 gives away Depeche Mode previews

The last Depeche Mode album was a surprising return-to-importance, so there's high hopes around the new one. If you want to know what Sounds Of The Universe sounds like, NME and we7 have hooked up to poke the sound to you through a widget. (Although, strictly speaking, if it's embedded in a page and can't be moved or borrowed or copied, it's not really a widget.)

Spoitfy are also streaming the album, but only to premium users. So, that's five points to Spotify and ten to... oh, hang on; we're not doing that at the moment, are we?

Easter track smackdown: So, what have we learned?

Four days. Twelve tracks. A bunch of points. But what have we discovered?

Amazon, it turns out, would have been the victor had their management decided to throw away any claims to a moral victory.

As someone pointed out in the comments, 'grey' material thrives on user-generated services - although even with this advantage, Imeem didn't do particularly well.

YouTube could probably save a fortune (and crush Imeem, actually) if it offered an option for people to upload just audio. Seriously, how much bandwidth and storage space are Google paying for to hold and transfer images of record labels and sleeves that people are only making in the first place because there needs to be something for the visual part of the video. Make an mp3 YouTube, Google. You'll save yourself a bundle.

The PRS' doomy claims that music is being switched off from YouTube is a little bit overstating the case - some good stuff is missing, but it's nowhere near as silent as you might think.

iTunes has pretty good coverage for a legal service.

Spotify might just have been unlucky, but to only hit one track out of twelve suggests that it might have more gaps in its memory than Sam Beckett that time he jumped into the hospital and got electroshock therapy.

We7 haven't ever claimed to be a home for obscure stuff, which is quite wise, but their people are lovely.

Bernard Cribbins' back catalogue has survived more successfully than most 1980s-90s indie.

It might be a good idea - we7, you can have this for free - if searches which turn up empty had a box saying "sorry we don't have what you're looking for, can you tell us about the song and we'll see if we can get it for you"?

Some people will do anything to fill their blogs over a bank holiday weekend.

And that, then, concludes the first ever Easter Track Smackdown, with Amazon hiding children from the gays; YouTube punching the air in triumph while humming Eye Of The Tiger, videoing itself doing so and then pulling its own video after complaints from Survivor's record label; iTunes trying to somehow create a Genius playlist out of the events of the last four days and hanging forever; and Spotify looking a little bit like the smart kid from sixth form who's just done his first university seminar and realised that things have just got a little harder.

Easter track smackdown: Final round - Hurrah!

Yes, the end is now in sight. And how better to greet the end of a four-day experiment than by calling for Hurrahs? More precisely, Hurrah's If Love Could Kill - "you had a boyfriend, hundreds of miles away/ I had a girl, away for a day". A tale of a quick shag unraveling four lives, a big favourite with the supposedly virginal Are You Scared To Get Happy fanzine and, sadly, Hurrah's passport to a major deal which quickly beat the attention to detail out of them.

Can it be found digitally?

For this final round - to build an air of tension or something - we're bringing on the competitors based on their positions on the leaderboard, lowest to highest. First to go then is:

Spotify:
It's not even the exclamation point confusing Spotify, which ends its campaign by muttering something about Hurrah! Another Year soundtracks.

Zero points, giving a total of 9.

we7:
"Gallant and Gay, we'll march away" is amongst the bemusing and wrong responses to a search for Hurrah. Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course. We7 marches away.

Zero points, giving a final score of 14

eMusic:
Again, this is yer basic indie, and the sort of thing that eMusic should be good at - especially as it calls for a subscription. But, no. Bip Bip Hurrah is not going to satisfy us, sirs.

Zero points, giving a final score of 19

Last FM:
Oh, no: disaster for Last FM just moments from the finish line. Having been very good at knowing bands, even if not having much of the music, it leaps to the conclusion that we're interested in a post rock band from Orlando. We are, actually, but not right now.

After a diversion into emo, the song title comes up trumps, but still mute.

One point off for jumping to conclusions, but one point returned for treating the exclamation mark in the band name as important, for a final score of 27.

Imeem:
Like it's suffering from time lag, or hasn't quite got over the last search, looking for the song title on this one brings up Psycho Mike by KillingxLove. Perhaps this is meant to be an semi-intelligent search, learning as we go. Or maybe it can't get over the word "kill". Like a Daily Mail search engine, it's all got to be about killing.

No marks for Imeem, bringing its final tally to 33.

iTunes:
145 search results for Hurrah!, and not one of them our Hurrah! It's nice to discover a Young Marble Giants album called Live At The Hurrah, but I'm not convinced that's going to get me singing along with a catch in my voice.

iTunes has added nothing to its total, and so winds up with 37

YouTube:
Nobody is doing especially well on the final round, as even YouTube tries to palm me off with Heart's If Looks Could Kill. There's not even a sniff of the band's 1987 Tube appearance, either.

No further points for YouTube, then, but they can wave their 41 points at the PRS in some sort of second-placed victory dance.

Amazon:
Nothing from Amazon, either, so they get no extra points.

However, since we started out on this experiment, the news has broken that Amazon has started to strip sales rank data from "adult" books, and throwing its adult net a little wide, to include stuff like Sexing The Cherry, self-help books for gay men and, erm, the hardcover version of John Barrowman's autobiography; because these sales ranks drive some of the searches and Best Sellers lists, effectively Amazon is making some books invisible. Because it's thinking of the children, apparently:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D

Member Services

Amazon.com Advantage

"Adult materials" - books, in other words, books with gay characters in just as a given. Some editions of Oranges Not The Only Fruit have had their rankings pulled; The Beautiful Room Is Empty is now bereft of its sales ranking. So, since Amazon are happy to apply capricious and idiotic rulings, so too shall we: fifty points off, with Amazon ending on minus three.

Join us for the final round-up in a couple of minutes.

Easter track smackdown: Round eleven - Das Psycho Rangers

There's a tussle at the top as YouTube, Amazon and iTunes struggle for supremacy in our Easter weekend battle to determine who's best at finding the random list of tracks we scribbled down in the late hours of Maundy Thursday. But now comes a big ask: who can give us a song by an act who are - despite having been on ZTT alongside Propaganda and Frankie - so obscure, they don't merit a Wikipedia page.

The Das Psycho Rangers (or, sometimes, Das Psych-oh Rangers) exist mainly in my mind as a haunting, 4ADesque Janice Long session. The standout track from that session was Homage. Do any of you digital stores hold the studio version?

Spotify:
Now, however much pity you might feel for Spotify, you're not going to expect us to give them marks for bringing up Power Rangers soundtrack songs in response to this search, are you? Zero, again.

Last FM:
The CBS team aren't bemused by the two names - in fact, they've never heard of the Psych-Oh spelling. But there aren't even any suggestions for tracks from the band, so zero.

iTunes:
Please, pleads iTunes, Powersearch. I'm sure my power search will turn up something.

But, no. Not a thing. Zero.

we7:
Again, nothing. Last FM is starting to look a lot cooler, because at least it's heard of them, even if it has to make that noise you do when asked for an opinion on a band whose existence you have registered without having ever heard their music.

YouTube:
The comments on the band's one appearance on YouTube, with Love Terminator, suggests they were trying to rip off Zodiac Mindwarp - and from here, you can see where that charge might have come from:



But why would you try to steal ideas from Zodiac Mindwarp, which was essentially Motorheadinjury?

A two point bonus to YouTube for having something, although it does piss a bit over the memory of the Janice Long session iteration of the band. Which, to be fair, is something Zodiac Mindwarp might have done.

Amazon:
When Amazon flops, it flops badly. "Hey - how about picking up this Kelly Clarkson song instead?" Zero.

Imeem:
An almost empty results page tries to interest me in a Psycho ringtone. I walk away, backwards, slowly, smiling... no fast movements, no fast movements... - zero

eMusic:
Roy Rogers? Are you joking? Zero.

There's a salutary lesson here, if you wish to hear it: ZTT were indie, but not, by any means, an insignificant force in the 1980s music scene. That no legal service offers anything approaching their complete catalogue shows how far we are from having everything online. We're not even near everything you'd expect yet.

With that thought, let's take a look at the latest standings:

Amazon 47
YouTube 41
iTunes 37
Imeem 33
eMusic 19
we7 14
Spotify 09

Finally: a fanzine favourite's heart-break classic to round us off.

Easter track smackdown: Round ten - Stop The Violence Movement

Welcome, as the sun rises on the fourth and final day of the Easter Track Smackdown as we attempt to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, what your best bet for finding tracks on the internet is.

Before we move onto the first of our final three slightly obscure tracks, some correspondence which has been entered into: We7's John Taysom popped up to offer a spirited defence of his company's USP - no need to download anything, free to stream stuff before you buy - and asks if he can have their point back.

To be fair, We7 might not have the tracks we've been seeking, but they're pretty usable. And given that they're not doing very well on points, but still happy to actually take the time over a bank holiday weekend to write a proper comment that - unlike QTrax and their nasty astroturf - is polite and measured, yes: you get a point back.

So, then, to today's first tussle, and we're looking for Self Destruction by the Stop The Violence Movement. A Band Aid style project pulled together by KRS-One in the wake of the murder of Scott La Rock, the 1989 record attempted to persuade rappers to put down their guns.

It wasn't, you'd have to say, a major success, and perhaps was doomed to fail when you consider Miss Melody's line that "you ain't guarding a door, so what you got a gun for?", which seemed to just open a loophole when zero-tolerance was probably what was needed. Also, given the way violence was about to spill out into war, only having East Coast artists might not have been the best move.

But it was a well-intentioned effort, and it sounded a lot better than Ferry Aid. (Is it wrong to compare charity singles like that? Have I had three points taken off my mortal soul score somewhere?) The question, though: does it exist online?

Spotify:
Ask Spotify for Self Destruction, and it throws up goth, not rap. Poor show, Spotify. Zero. Again.

Last FM:
The best thing about this being the last day of this event is that I won't have to see that bloody Boat That Rocked banner ad any more. Bill Nighy, what were you thinking? Does Richard Curtis hold your soul in a small metal container, and won't let you have it back until he's stopped making romcoms? And even if he does, did you have to sign off on that photo? Seriously?

Anyway... not only does LastFM know of the track, but it's smarter than us, knowing the song was credited to the Stop The Violence All Stars. Doesn't have it to play, though, but - in the words of Fry And Laurie being Robert Robinson - an extra point for being so clever.

iTunes:
It's smart enough to suggest that Boogie Down Production's track called Stop The Violence might work, providing you scroll far enough through the results. Four points for being near enough.

we7:
Again, suggests the BDP version might fit the bill for KRS-One related anti-hiphop violence tracks, which garners four points. And a warning to all to stop copying from their neighbours.

YouTube:
At first, this looks like a fan video. Then, as you get to the scene which looks not unlike that Comic Relief PG Tips/Admiral/Meerkat/Smash boardroom set-up, you realise it's the real deal:



Ten effortless points for the Googleplex, and a surprised guffaw that they started the video making it look like the sort of thing the Chart Show would lob on if there wasn't a video to show.

Amazon:
Amazon coast to an easy four points by listing Boogie Down Productions - in about seventeen different versions. Including an instrumental. An instrumental? Isn't that like releasing Das Kapital, but only with the pictures.

Imeem:
The track? Oh, yes - neatly filed under all the names of the artists taking part. And the video. Almost tempted to give 20 points, but since that would mess with the results, Imeem can have thirteen.

eMusic:
Fifty nine songs called Self Destruction. None of them are the ones we're after. Zero points.

So, we're begging ourselves not to fight, but what has this round done to the rankings?

Amazon - 47
YouTube - 39
iTunes - 37
Imeem - 33
LastFM - 27
eMusic - 19
we7 - 14
Spotify - 09

So, YouTube sneaks ahead of iTunes, while eMusic starts to feel we7's breath coming up behind it. And Spotify discovering that, when the chips are down, you need more than a lot of favourable press coverage to satisfy the further-flung desires of the listener.

But still two tracks to go, with only LastFM's mid-table position seeming secure. Coming next, label mates of Frankie Goes To Hollywood: surely they must be easy to find?

Easter track smackdown: Round eight - Wilfrid Brambell

Oh, yes, digital world - you might have no problem serving up a slice of Bernard Cribbins playing it straight. But what of Wilfrid Brambell's Second Hand? Can you find me that?

This is, by the way, a lovely song - Brambell clearly playing off his most famous role as Albert Steptoe, lamenting that everything he's ever owned has been found, borrowed or pre-enjoyed, before concluding that even his wife was second hand. You could write a book about what the song says about attitudes to female sexuality in the post-War era.

But not before you've heard the song, of course. Can you help, the internet?

Spotify:
It's probably not surprising, given Spotify's disappointing performance, that it can't help here. Although it does suggest Steve Winwood's Second Hand Woman might fill the gap. No points.

Last FM:
Tantalisingly, Last FM has scrabbled its scrobbles and says that, in all of recorded history, it's spotted three people playing Wilfrid Brambell but, shrugging, it doesn't even know the name of any songs he might have sung. Zero.

iTunes:
iTunes doesn't have a clue. And considering a search for Bernard Cribbins tried to palm us off with the Frenzy movie, you'd have at least hoped they would have come up with Steptoe And Son Ride Again. Apple fail. Zero.

we7:
Once we can stop it getting excited about the prospect of "advert free days", we7 unsurprisingly offers nothing by Wilf, but does bring forward a surprising number of songs called Second Hand. It's not exactly a brand new name, is it? [You may now chuckle, if you wish. No? Oh.]

YouTube:
Lots of Wilf on YouTube, of course, including his appearances on Citizen Smith, Holiday On The Buses and in the Beatles movie with Beatles. But doing Second Hand? Not a sniff. No points.

Amazon:
Even our leader Amazon can't help with this one, although it does suggest - in order - a Steptoe box set, a photo of Wilf Brambell, and an audio cassette. A tape. A point off for making a suggestion from the wrong bloody decade.

Imeem:
Imeem doesn't offer any suggestions at all - not even something from New Boots And Panties - and shows an advert which seems to suggest a weight-loss product might also perform surgeryless gender realignment. And YouTube worry they have trouble attracting quality advertising. Zero.

eMusic:
Completing another failure on the part of the Internet As A Whole, eMusic doesn't have anything, either. It does score a point for suggesting I might like to look at tracks composed by Wilfrid Brambell, and then loses it for instead listing other composers called Wilfrid.

So, as the web proves to not be quite all it's cracked up to be, no change in the rankings, then:

Amazon - 43
iTunes - 34
YouTube - 29
LastFM - 22
Imeem - 20
eMusic - 19
We7 - 09

Coming later today, round nine; and a band named for a Tony Robinson series, with a hymn to someone off Red Dwarf. Can the internet do better?

Easter track smackdown: Round five - The Field Mice

The Field Mice. Springing from the at-least-for-a-while seven inch fetishists at Sarah Records, some of the back catalogue has moved into CD form - so has it completed the journey and popped up online?

For our next round, can we find September's Not So Far Away online?

Spotify:
Oh, Spotify. You poor, poor beast. Not only does it boast a single Field Mice track (although rather more from the Toxic Field Mice, who sadly aren't an evil alterego band), but the album it comes from, Sarah Records compilation Electric Common has got the names of the songwriters where the title tracks should be. This is what a fail sounds like. Minus one.

Last FM:
Eleven pages of Field Mice tracks, half of which have had a single scrobble. CBS might want to invest some money in finding ways to tidying up their data, mightn't they? Anyway, just four full tracks, and not even a thirty second burst of September's Not So Far Away. Zero points.

iTunes:
Two (count 'em) identical versions of the song to choose from. But because the software is buggering about with an update, it's going to lose a point. Nine.

we7:
Did you mean the Field Mob?

No.

Zero.

YouTube:
The Field Mice might be a difficult ask for YouTube - the didn't come from a label which invested heavily in promotional clips; and while their fans were obsessive, coming before iMovie and Windows Movie File Manipulation Tool, there's not likely to be many home-made videos... is there?

No! Here it is - with an admission that "the copyright is owned by artists & corresponding record companies" - and perhaps a less-than-inventive visual:



Ten points. Minus one, to be given to the artists, and one, to be given to corresponding record companies.

Amazon:
Amazon has a surprising amount of Field Mice mp3s, including September's Not So Far Away. Ten points.

Imeem:
Having been a bit of a let-down so far, Imeem comes up with the goods this time, thanks to someone who's uploaded the whole of Field Mice compilation Where'd You Learn To Kiss That Way. And they've also got My Little Airport's song When I Listen To The Field Mice, too. Eleven points.

eMusic:
If eMusic's claims to be the kings of the indie mp3 are to have any value, they're going to have to score here. And they do: besides the compilation, they've also got other gems from the Field Mice's work. Twelve points.

So, let's have a look at the old score board:

Amazon - 35
iTunes - 24
YouTube - 18
Last FM - 12
Imeem - 12
we7 - 09
Spotify - 09
eMusic - 08
Sweeping The Nation - 0.5
The Internet As A Whole - -10

We'll be back later this evening with the greatest band ever to hail from the home of Oliver Cromwell.

Easter track smackdown: Round four - Bernard Cribbins

Welcome back to Easter Track Smackdown, a definitive attempt to prove which online music service is the best by asking them to offer up some tracks of variegated scarcity and rarity, and awarding points on a borderline unfair basis.

We enter into the second day with Amazon's mp3 store in the lead, while much-fancied golden boy Spotify is turning into the Lewis Hamilton of the competiton, yet to score. eMusic has been punished for its poor usability and elevation of putting its sign-up page ahead of actually letting people explore its catalogue.

So, now one that will separate the Zunes from the iPods. Described by Danny Baker as "the most sublime reading of the most sublime lyric", can our competitors bring us Bernard Cribbin's version of I've Grown Accustomed To Here Face?

Spotify:
Spotify, what say you? Yesterday, you came back with nothing. Can you save your face?

Why yes, you can: thirty-two slices of Cribbage, including the very song we're looking for. Suddenly, it looks like we might have a competition on our hands. Ten well-earned points.

Which is just as well, as this would really drag if it was all going to go Amazon's way, right?

LastFM:
Oooh, so close - by virtue of listing The Very Best Of, I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face is there for the scrobbling, but the only full track on offer is Right Said Fred. No points for you, Last FM.

iTunes:
Again, The Very Best Of... turns up trumps for its digital overlords, and I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face can be yours for 79p. Only iTunes has, so far, pointed out that as well as a touching love song about the scent of perfume in the air, you can also enjoy Cribbins' role in Frenzy, but no extra points for suggesting tie-related murders. Ten points.

we7:
Whoever would have thought that this one would prove so easy? Even We7, so far resigned to sitting on the sidelines, has The Very Best Of. 88pence for the track, though, so docked one point for being greedy.

YouTube:
While stacked with various versions of the more-familiar comedy stuff, YouTube can't offer us the Cribmeister doing this particular song. Indeed, it looks like Google has no evidence at all of Bernard's straight music career - how right the PRs are to characterize them as buffoons of the highest order.

There is, though, a strange, potato-like stop-motion animation version of Right Said Fred, which I'm sure once popped up on TV as a filler item during some sort of technical or industrial relations breakdown. And scarred me for life. They're not getting points for that.

Amazon:
Amazon also have The Very Best Of loaded and ready to pump at you faster than you can say "Star Turn Challenge". And since they're ten pence cheaper than iTunes, for the sake of consistency Amazon get 11 points.

Imeem:
Only The Hole In The Ground and Right Said Fred. It's like an ITV documentary version of his work. Zero.

eMusic:
Usability meltdown nightmare time. Yes, says the search, we have Bernard Cribbins. Step this way... only to show a compilation album with 49 tracks, of which you can only see the names of 15 tracks at a time, and none of which have the names alongside. Until you leave the artist page altogether.

And then it turns out that they've got Sit Down, You're Rocking The Boat. One point for having something, taken away again for being cussed.

So, four rounds in - here's the leader board:

Amazon - 25
iTunes - 15
Last FM - 12
Spotify - 10
YouTube - 10
we7 - 09
Imeem - 01
Sweeping The Nation - 0.5
emusic - -04
The Internet As A Whole - -10

This afternoon, we go searching for something that originally came in a plastic bag. No, not Pete Doherty's "lunch".

Easter track smackdown: Round three - Mohobishopi

[Follow the Easter Track Smackdown tag for all the pieces to date]

With Amazon holding onto a slim lead over Last FM, we reach round three of this weekend's battle to prove, sort-of-conclusively, which of the various online music services are, by some measure, "the best".

The third challenge is MoHoBishOpi's Names For Nameless Things. Coming out of Wales in 1996, briefly the Mos - or were they the Bishes? - were forced to trade under the weight of the NME's next big thing label. Although only for a couple of weeks. They were brilliant live, but there's no way you can say that without making it sound like the faintest of praise; they managed a handful of singles and a single album before falling apart in 2002.

But: does their spirit live on online? Or has their clumsy punctuation doomed them to hide from the faithful forever? Let's see:

Spotify:
The name, punctuated or not, fails to generate a response. The song title fails to generate a response. Spotify, you were meant to be the future of music: you're looking like an empty ship right now. Zero, again.

Last FM:
Using asterisks rather than dashes, Last FM turns up the band, but Names For Nameless Things isn't part of the music on offer. There are two full tracks, though, so two bonus points for a good try.

iTunes:
Scratches its digital head faced with the band name, and suggests trying a "power search". Which fails to find Names For Nameless Things, and suggests trying another "power search". No points.

we7:
What? Don't worry about what you're looking for - we've got digital versions of Black Sabbath. And Kings Of Leon. Will that do?

No points.

YouTube:
The search engine starts off by guessing that you're looking for experts in matters Islamic before falling quiet and offering a Sweeping The Nation playlist which features the clip for Hear The Air, but more importantly has this:



The Popguns from Brighton, doing Waiting For The Winter - and, as if to crystalize the 1980s indieness of it all, it's taped from Yorkshire TV's legendary Transmission programme.

So, YouTube offers a couple of tracks by the band, but scores zero, while Sweeping The Nation gets half a point for having The Popguns. If you don't like the way the scoring is working, complain to Ben Goldacre.

Amazon:
Their search engine reveals there are no downloads on offer, but does point towards some physical records you can buy. Which is fine, and does include a second-hand copy of Names For Nameless Things for a penny, but isn't instantaneous, is it? No marks.

Imeem:
Unhelpfully, when looking for the track name, suggests that I might want to watch a video exploring if the Harry Potter books are any good. Zero.

emusic:
The rotten search engine spits back when asked for MoHoBishOpi, and suggests that 'it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing' is, somehow, a match for the song title. Man, their search needs help.

So, although we had a lovely swerve into the Popguns, the actual song we were looking for is beyond the fingers of digitalisation. Ten marks off for the internet as a whole.

After three rounds:

Amazon - 14
Last FM - 12
YouTube - 10
iTunes - 05
Imeem - 01
Sweeping The Nation - 0.5
We7 - 00
Spotify - 00
eMusic - -04
The Internet as a whole - -10

Three more rounds tomorrow, Sunday and Monday at roughly the same times as today's went live. Coming next: can Tim Berners Lee bring a showtune classic as rendered by the Dalek's foe into our living rooms?

Easter track smackdown: Round two - Gary Clail

So, it turns out you can browse eMusic without being logged in, but the big "SIGN UP" splash-screen doesn't give you a browse button; it's only later, when you've tried to get your password back that you find it. They do have Fire Escape, but are fined seven points for being a horrible experience. And, also, for having a glacially slow 'retrieve your password' service.

On to round two, and it's On The Wire/Snub TV favourite Gary Clail with his proto-Peta veg-pusher track Beef. Beef! How low can you go? Hear the cattle cry - death row. You know the one.

Officially credited to Gary Clail On-U Sound System featuring Bim Sherman, this made it to 64 in the charts back in 1990. And impacted on sales of sausages at the far end of student halls of residences for about a week.

You have to wonder: had the On-U Sound System ever got the success they deserved, and its component parts branched out into their own fashion ranges, would Bim Sherman constantly have had his clothes seized by trading standards, alongside Gooci belts and DYKN sunglasses?

Come on, then, competiting music services - can you give me a side of Beef?

Spotify:
After a wobbly start with Rote Kapelle, at least Spotify can point to a few Gary Clail tracks. But no Beef.

I am, of course, pondering at which point to deploy my 'where's the Beef' gag. Don't want to go too soon with it.

Last FM:
They come up with the goods - or, at least, thirty seconds of the goods. It's a minced Beef. To add insult to injury, it's a snatch of an extended version. What's the point of that, exactly?

Zero.

iTunes:
Again, iTunes offer a smattering of three Gary Clail tracks and one he's done a dub all over. But no Beef. Zero for them, too. This is turning into a rout.

we7:
"Did you mean Gary Clark?" enquires we7, suggesting, in the digital-stores-as-1980s-high-street metaphor, they're occupying the role of an assistant who's been shifted from the Book department to the WH Smiths record department, struggling with the paper catalogue but desperate to help. Zero.

YouTube:
Pushing aside the young pretenders, YouTube comes up with the goods:



Ten points. Although it's lucky we're not docking points for visual clarity.

Amazon:
Bemusingly, Amazon's mp3 store has no Gary Clail tracks, but offers three ways to search him to get no returns. Minus one for taking the piss a bit.

Imeem:
There's no Beef on Imeem, but they do have more Gary Clail stuff than anyone else bar YouTube. A point for the effort.

eMusic:
Bloody hell, I've used eMusic in the past and don't remember it being so user-hostile. A search on Gary Clail comes up with this:

Artist names matching gary clail (623 results)

* Gary Numan
* Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette
* Gary Peacock
* Gary Moore
* Gary Burton
* Gary Stadler
* Gary Jules
* Gary Versace
* Gary Hoey
* Gary Lewis and The Playboys
* Gary Cooper
* Rev. Gary Davis
* The Gary Tesca Orchestra
* Gary Bartz
* Gary Numan / Tubeway Army

more

How, exactly, does Gary Numan "match" Gary Clail? This is the Woolworths' assistant suggesting "ooh, there was a lad lived up the road called Gary; he was Elsie's eldest, went to sea, I think; his brother married a nutritionist." After a lot of pushing, eMusic eventually offers up rapidly-forgotten late-90s Dutch dub act Beef, which earns them a point for fighting obscurity with obscurity.

At the end of the second round, then:

Amazon - 14
LastFM - 10
YouTube - 10
itunes - 05
Imeem - 01
Spotify - 00
We7 - 00
eMusic - -04

We'll be back in the evening with the next round: Ready for some NME-praised mid-90s Welsh rock, anyone?