Universal-ish deal

Well, Universal Music Group is committed to offering 43,000 tracks for download - only to music fans, mind. The exact when all forty-three thousand will be availble isn't clear; they're starting off with a Mariah Carey song, which suggests that they're a bit reluctant to put anything good up, and are equally cool about her career. They say stuff will be burnable to CD and "secure" portable devices - they've plumped for Liquid Audio technology which, while at least not being bloody Windows Media still isn't what people actually use. But most odd of all is the price - 99 cents per track in the US.

Let's compare that with the price of Now Thats What I Call Music volume 10 in the US - a similar proposition, we'd suggest. For twenty tracks, you pay at Amazon, USD15. In the shops, even if you don't get a place which offers a handsome discount, it's twenty bucks. Or roughly ninety-nine cents a track. And there, you get a booklet and don't have to buy your own CD to store it on. Plus, there's the whole panoply of distribution, warehousing, retail mark-up.

So, basically, then, in the US, the price is a rip-off. They claim that it satisfies "public demand" (but don't they say the public don't want to pay at all?) and the need to "compensate artists and copyright owners" (our stress) - but which artists are getting a dollar a track?

What they actually mean is that at ninety-nine cents, they'll actually be making increased profits on a system that has very little expense involved for them. They're taking a risk that the public are that stupid.

Scary

We know, with a sinking heart, that the bloody Bohemian Rhapsody would be in there - but how on earth can a World Top Ten have 'We Don't Talk Anymore' by Cliff Richard in it?

What the pop papers say: Part one

"I think she did a pretty good job. She researched it well" admits Louis Walsh, talking about Kathy Foley's book on his life. So, does this mean that the story lifted from it for the current Private Eye - that, during a bout of pout from the Westlife boys, he screamed "I'll show you your fucking fans", marching them out to a carpark and showing them the boot of his partner's car, full of copies of their CDs - is true, and that Westlife's bemusing run of number ones has been helped by Louis' enthusiastic purchase of their stuff?...

Moby pops up in Q's Cash For Questions segment - asked who the most unlikely people to try and licence one of his tracks are, he says "apparently the pro-fox hunting lobby tried... I don't think they would have been so keen to do that if they'd known I was an animal rights activist and a vegan." Really? Only that car manufacturer didn't mind that you were meant to be a serious environmentalist, did they? There's claims on Groupie Central that the little bald fella is "sexually transmitted disease on legs", which Moby reckons is down to a friend he'd fallen out with - "I still haven't figured out why he was so angry." Maybe you gave him the clap? Best of all, though, Moby - a man who posted a notice on his website denying he was in any way a pervert because he'd been talking on TV about porn the night before - preambled that when Badly Drawn Boy had been interviewed by Q "Damon Gough took himself so seriously, I was stunned..."

Craig Nicholls believes England can win the Ashes. Thats okay, Craig, there's some English cricketers who believe that The Vines will have a number one single...

Q has some exclusive pages from Kurt Cobain's journals. Is there anywhere that doesn't? Even Country Life has got a spread (two pages of him doodling a woman with a perm while on the telephone, a letter to the milkman asking for "three strawberry yoghurts and a pint of gold top" - never sent, we can only speculate why and a fourteen page review of a Mudhoney album)...

David Quantick and Lemmy team up to investigate how rock and roll Busted are. This is a little bit like sending Benjamin Franklin and Ernie Wise to examine the intellectual rigour of Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror, but those are the days we're living in. Busted offer their credentials - they've thrown a TV out a window. Frankly, these days that's not rock and roll at all - it's somewhat music hall. Back in the 60's, TVs represented hugely expensive items and the pinacle of technological achievement, and destroying one was quite a statement to make. In 2002, it's the equivalent of Led Zep having screwed up a copy of Titbits, or perhaps having pencilled moustaches on the pictures in the West Sussex Gazette...

It takes two thirds of a page to explain how the Q reviews "work", you know, which suggests the readership who they hadn't made up ("overstated") can't be the sharpest, although extra points for comparing Robbie William's Escapology to George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice - Volume 1. So, duff with pretentions; the album that people buy and shudder 'he's had his chance', then...

It's the end of the year, and so the first Best Albums of 2002 has appeared. Amongst q's choices are Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Idlewild, Electric Soft Parade and Pete Yorn...

Plus, it's poll time. Ian McCulloch pops up to claim a Long Time Dead Award - "I'd love to meet myself" - and Dave Gahan collects something similar for Depeche Mode, offering "we really need people like Casey Spooner in the music business" - proof, if it be needed, that heroin really does fuck you up beyond repair. Best act are Radiohead ('act' is always a funny term, suggesting they've gone head to head with Lenny Henry and Archie's Educated Chickens) and Best Album is, predictably, A Rush of Blood To The Head. Coldplay's Chris Martin talks porn - "I don't like pornography. It's not a moral objection but I don't... it's the blokes. I don't like the idea of watching men having sex." Chris Martin shies away from the paranoid bedwetting virgin tag, but he's a grown man who's never heard of Lesbian Spank Inferno...

Pink wins a prize for best video. For Get The Party Started. Which is giving the right person the wrong award, and then giving it for the wrong song anyway. "I'm glad I'm your favourite queer" she says, by video link "- we can't think what else Q stands for." I now don't feel so bad I never worked out it was a pun on Cue, which they didn't want to use in case people thought it was a snooker magazine...

PInk is also on the front of The Face. And all over the insides. Now, this is, of course, good, because it means there's lots of Pink. But it's also a bit of a pity - The Face should have been the herald of New Pink, running the "it's not just another R&B singer" stuff at least last spring, rather than clattering to catch up in the winter. Wanna know why we love her? Because when she first signed, she burned through her advance, and you know what she did? She got a job in a petrol station. LA Reid's son saw her, told his dad, and his dad went down and bawled at her. She said "Pay me what I get in my pay cheque, or I'm not quitting." Do you *really* need us to prove any more why Alecia Moore isn't just another J-Lo? Can you imagine Samantha Mumba, say, throwing a strop over not being allowed to work in a BP Select?.

Sheryl Garret's piece on Pink is good, but fundamentally flawed - she misses the vital difference between yer Pinks and your Gareths, your Dannis, your -insert name of hundred other pop stars here- "Pink always knew she'd be famous" she starts, but that's not quite right. As Garret says, when she was at school, she'd tell teachers she'd get them concert tickets and so on. Pink didn't want to be famous, she wanted to be a rock star. She didn't want to be on magazine covers, she wanted to be on Rolling Stone. She didn't want to be famous at any price - she wanted to be famous for singing...

Pink's in the nme, too. Or rather, she should be. We don't know, as the free covermount CD seems to have fucked up the distribution and it wasn't in the shop when we went this morning - kind of shooting yourself in the foot if you want to put on readers, isn't it? So, we'll pick this up when the paper arrives...

You can own Christina's stains

We'd normally be filthy and sniffy about an ebay auction where you can bid on a tshirt worn and stained by Christina Aguilera, but as it's being auctioned in aid of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, we can't really. It's generous of Christina to donate the top, although since she doesn't actually wear clothes any more it's not going to cause her many problems.

There's a lot of other stuff up for grabs as well, including a load of chances to meet Tori Amos. Worth checking out.

Man misses man biting dog

In an all-time classic of missing the story, South Africa's News24 reports the crowd gathering outside of the Berlin hotel waiting for Michael Jackson to appear. And misses the baby-dangling incident totally.

And the stories that you tell

Probably more truth in the remember the 80's news that Duran Duran are going to have a musical based on their back catalogue than the supposed "forthcoming bond theme" claim - the owners of the 007 franchise surely will have learned of the dangers of giving spent 80's stars the chance to warble over the credits of their movies with the current effort on Die Another Day.

Also in rt80s is Toyah saying she's going to stop trying to keep asylum seekers out the country long enough to appear in a wonderful spin on Pop Idol - apparently a load of 80's minor stars are going to be taken to the states to see if they can become stars all over again in an environment where their reputations don't precede them. They're also asking Fish.

The question is: why do they need to go to the US to find an audience who'd go "who?" - couldn't they just get people under 35?

Coasting home

The baritone with the Coasters, Billy Guy, has died at the age of 66.

I hope the RIAA will make an example of him

In Shirley Manson's latest tour diary, she tells how Piers Sellars, the British astronaut, took a Garbage CD into space to play. Only it was a Russian Bootleg. Dammit, does this man not realise he's stomping down on music?

Meanwhile:

"I will be sick and tired of pink tutus by the time thanksgiving comes round."

Noooo!

Jolly Rogers

The Commercial Radio Association is taking its own action against pirate radio - fair enough. But we have to ask whether the claim that pirates are "endangering people's lives", which solicitor Phil Sherrell tells the Guardian.

Now, back when the emergency services were all tucked up the top of the FM waveband, there might have been a point. But surely no pirate broadcasting on FM should be anywhere near the emergency frequencies? And this bit:

"Just last month a jet coming in to land at Heathrow had instructions from ground control drowned out by a garage music pirate station.

sounds like a bit of a cod to us - what, the pilots were communicating with the ground on an RSL licence?

Do we care the singles don't sell? The what?

Popstars: the Rivals - of course, the bands will be shite. But why would anyone care when its already made GBP3.75m from text message voting?

Other music blogs are available

We've heard good things about No Matter What You Heard, and so we finally hauled our ass over there and, lo, it is good. We suspect if we wait long enough it'll make us obsolete, and we can dedicate our time to baking cookies and teasing the neighbourhood cats.

Charity news

The Electric Soft Parade are going to do a gig at Dingwalls in aide of resolution daes, a dyslexia awareness charity. They've already got support from Gomez and Belle & Sebastian, and their website has that rare thing - an interview with kevin shields

Simply years ahead

Gerry Wirtz may be our friend. He's in charge of the copyright office at Philips, and he's suggesting that they'll be taking a hard line on copy-protected CDs. There's a possibility of a massive lawsuit looming...

A mother's worries

If your daughter had been the target of a kidnap plot, and was left nervous and afraid, it really would be the kindest thing to ring up Heat and say "I think she needs to see a shrink", wouldn't it?

All part of the healing process.

[UPDATE - added 19/11/07: Just to clarify, this post was about the alleged plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham and her children, which made sense when the original link to an Ananova story was still live.]

Good news... bad news

GOOD NEWS FOR EMI! Profits up, up, up. Erm, how can that be with all that downloading going on?

BAD NEWS FOR EMI! Robbie Williams, the label's only hope, has given an interview to the Sun saying he can't be bothered to try and crack the States.

"I've got an amazing audience here and over in Asia and I don't need to

- which isn't true, of course - his contract actually states that he does need to; and if he wasn't that arsed about the US, why would EMI have had to promise to make him a star there in order to get him to re-sign with them?

What's actually going on here looks more like a wave of panic engulfing Williams, Inc. - the last few months have seen the consensus emerge that if he can't make it there, he's failed. Now they're trying like buggery to make it look as if its no big deal, which sounds as if they've realised that Cheeky Chappy From Stoke ain't gonna play in the Mid West. Can we get a builder in to help you lower those expectations, Bob?

The case is answered

Becky Bamboo goes to see Neko Case at Bimbos:
the openers were jim and jennie and the pinetops and boy howdy were they ever cool. just hard and fast bluegrass with all sorts of twang. great, great stuff. if I hadn't been broker than a former dotcom executive, I would've bought everything they had for sale.

ms. neko came out soon after (quickest turnaround at bimbos I've seen) and proceeded to hush the room. man, that voice is just so... I don't know. it's so unique and clear and powerful as heck. she was backed by only two boyfriends, jon rauhause on table (?) steel (I don't know the official name for it - morag?), slide, guitar, etc. and some other old guy with a beard on stand up bass, who played the tambourine with his left foot. they upped the reverb on the mic, which gave her recent songs a spookiness that they deserve. the highlight was 'set out running' which just blew off the roof.

'running out of fools' would've been another, except a very drunk couple decided they were going to push their way up behind me, spill their drinks on my feet, and sing very loudly, despite not knowing either the words or the tune. I was not amused. neko told us all of her christmas shopping trip to good vibrations (a female friendly sex shop) with her friend the wildlife gynocologist. there was also talk about sexual fantasies involving nuns and her ass mirror. you know, I've heard from more than one person that she's an absolute bitch in person. I try to avoid thinking about that because I find her so funny and personable on stage. I prefer my idols to stay on their pedestals.

We're not turning into smuggins, are we?

Anyone who believes that U2 are nothing more than a self-satisfied husk of ego hanging like a proud dustsheet over their mighty past won't find anything in the Edge's chat to Launch to force them to embark on a revision of that opinion:

"I think we kinda check ourselves every once in awhile, just to make sure that it's still working for us. And I think the criteria's always been the same, you know, 'Are we still making great records? Are we still relevant? Is it still working?"

Kind of like that episode of The Simpsons where they go to the motivational speaker, and Ned Flander's inner child just gives him the thumbs up. You wonder by what measure they check to see that they're still relevant, don't you? "Hey, Bono, take off the comedy horns and big amber goggles, and put down the picture of you standing next to Bush - we need to make sure we're still keeping it real..."

"You know, 'Are we, are we enjoying it, and are the people that listen to the records enjoying it?' And so far, we can answer 'yes' to all those questions."

Then we, like, stand up and give each other a round of applause and have a group hug - it's nice to be nice to one another...

Next time, T-Boz, call Kim Wilde

"He's got more money in cars than what I make in a year" claims gardener suing TLC's T-Boz, apparently unaware that her husband Mack 10 isn't the main breadwinner in the family. But fifteen thousand dollars worth of snapdragons? Blimey...

Up in the loft to dig out your old superfreak puns again

Rick James says he never dunnit, this time, anyway.

London at risk

It may come as a surprise to some to learn that garage, jazz and the cut-up -shut-up-and-dance of Coldcut aren't, in BBC London's opinion, part of the "musical heritage" or "multicultural landscape" of our capital, according to the station's excuses for pulling most of its specialist music shows.

You may think we're overblown

Sure, we might make the experts sound like paranoid nutcases, but... the Ipod as nuclear suitcase? - we can't keep up with the sense of hysterical idiocy offered by real life.

Massive assumption

Reporting the new name for the new Massive Attack album, Radio 1 News (or "the BPI's bitch") tells its readers that '100th Window' refers to the threat of internet music piracy, even although 3D's quote is

"The idea that no matter how careful you are, no matter how many security devices you have on your windows, you will leave one of them unprotected - everyone can and will know everything about you and there will be truly nowhere to hide."

But, of course, why should 3D know what the title means, it's only his band. We wonder if this application of a BPI-friendly reading could work for all album titles. With which in mind, here's this week top ten UK albums, with the titles explained by an expert RIAA elf:

1. Unbreakable - Westlife
A collection of anthems to the secure Digital Rights Management available through Windows Media

2. One Love - Blue
A subtle reminder that you pay for the CD once, you can use it once. Working title 'Don't make any copies of this, you thief' abandoned at focus-group stage

3. The Greatest Hits 1997-2002 - Elton John
The cut-off date is an ironic glance at how, if we don't crack down on the threat of the web, after 2002 there will be no music, no songs, no hits at all

4. Slicker Than Your Average - Craig David
Music internet pirates, Craig reminds us, are devious little monkeys. We must be on our guard against their slick, thieving ways

5. A New Day At Midnight - David Gray
It is midnight, it is a new day. So why should you still have the right to play tunes that you paid for yesterday?

6. The Best of 1990 - 2000 and B-sides - U2
Who knows what this title refers to? Bono is, after all, a puckish genius whose words are set to puzzle mere mortal.

7. What My Heart Wants To Say - Gareth Gates
A moving paean to the difficult position artists are put in by music downloaders. Of course, it's stealing - the same as if you walked into a bank and forced a gun in someone's face, screeching 'give me the money, you bitch', over and over, making the frightened cashier fill your bag with notes, and emptying the Children In Need collection bucket into your own pockets, like some kind of monster - but it can be hard to say that to people like you - YOU - who just don't understand how evil you're being. What Gareth's heart wants to say is that you're no better than a stinking child rapist. But it's hard for him.

8. Missundaztood - Pink
Pink's deliberate misspelling of the title apes the way Napster users attempted to laugh at the BPI by misspelling song titles in the hope that we wouldn't notice. Fools! Soon they will see our power, when we crush them like bugs.

9. Nirvana - Nirvana
The paradox of Nirvana - Nirvana. Can there be two Nirvanas simultaneously? Of course not, for Nirvana is a single entity, a single state. In the same way, a music industry cannot exist simultaneously with a file-sharing system. So, as the album calls into question the possibility of duality, so the scum who steal records make the chances of Frances Bean ever being able to afford to go to college receede into the distance. She'll probably wind up as a hooker, or something, and all because of file sharing. I hope you're happy

10. Sentimento - Andrea Bocelli
Europe? Rife with bootleg CDs, you know.

Surely some mistake

As we were poking about on the polydor site - looking to see if they'll be following the precedent set when The Corrs re-released an augmented version of Talk On Corners, and so will be giving us some money for having bought the less-good version of Sophie Ellis Bextor's Read My Lips - we came across a slight spin.

"Polydor Fact #8" suggests that the New Seeker's 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing' was "later" adopted by Coca-Cola. Naturally, nobody in the music industry seems to care about anything before 1998, but any fule kno that the New Seeker's song was a coke ad first, and just re-written to be more acceptable to the BBC...

Rubbish Robbie Williams tracks uploaded to the web

... the other ones are fake

Filmstar

TMFTML suggested that it might be a bit early for a Live Forever - a retrospective movie on Britpop, but, of course, has the advantage of being American and so avoided seeing the "I Love..." franchise eat its own butt with a nostalgia show for 1999 in the year 2001. ("Do you remember..." Of course I do, do you think I'm Audrey Bloody Roberts?).

We like the way Damon now claims that his participation in the chart war with Oasis left him feeling "stupid and very confused" - yeah, Damon, that's right - you were being ironic, weren't you?

Obviously, we've not seen the film - we don't go to London unless we absolutely have to - but it sounds like a well-meaning attempt to join up completely the wrong dots. The chart battle isn't interesting for the chart battle, but the way Justine Frischmann was treated as a lump of meat by both sides; the Damien Hirst video and the extent to which cheesecake Benny Hill-esque images really can keep their ironic detachment; the bitterness that Blur was turning on former mentor Dave Balfe and... we're sure there must be something interesting about the Oasis tune, too. The... um... words or something.

When dinosaurs attack

The joys of cease and desist letters - now crumbly old cradlesnatcher Bill Wyman is writing to people called Bill Wyman telling them to stop using their own name. And, no, this isn't made-up.

The search monster commeth

If you're really keen to see "sophie ellis bextor PETA photo", try here. The person searching for "sophie ellis"+"silk cut" - you wouldn't be trying to dig up evidence of the new face of anti-smoking campaigns enjoying a ciggie in the past, would you? "rspca advert dead kitten" and "drink driving car crash photos" - do we look like a repository for public information films? The searcher looking for "pictures of Holly Vallance twat or cunt" - we thank you for your flexibility - would chuff or minge do? And "Playboy Meg White"? Dream on, boy...

Happy birthday. If you can call it 'happy'

Marking 50 years of singles charts, Christina Aguilera makes number one with Dirrty Skanky Ho Upskirt Will You Rub My Tits As Well Rub My Clitring.

People have gone out and bought this record.

In God's name: why? If you have bought it, please, please just take a couple of moments out of your apparently busy schedule to explain why.

Email christinaaguileria@bothsidesnow.co.uk and tell us what made you do it. Thank you.

Your music sounds black but your guitarist is white - can you fill me in?

The story about Craig David being told to dump his white friend and guitarist because it'd confuse his position in the US market looks set to join the Herbie Hancock video story as one of the standard tales of the nasty racist undertow of the music industry. Hats off to Mr D for making a stink about the 'suggestion' rather than just accepting the advice and ploughing on.

What we find odd, though, is this piece by Wilber Wilberforce (a name we're adding to a list headed by Magnus Magnusson and Edward Woodward), the bloke in charge programmes of 1xtra. At first, he seems to want to defend the instruction to David:

" In America though, the rules are different and if Craig wants to succeed over there he will have to play by them. [...] In England it might be seen as an issue of race, but as far as the Americans were concerned it's business. In fact, they probably thought they were being helpful when they suggested that Craig get rid of Fraser. They'll have said to him: "Do you realise that people will ask what kind of act you are? Are you pop? Are you urban? You need to make a decision."

Right, so it's not "race", then, it's business. So, erm, that's alright then, is it? So, presumably if a sandwich bar in Alabama decided to was going to market itself exclusively to a white audience, and as such instituted a policy whereby it wouldn't hire black staff, as that would confuse its clientèle, Mr. Wilberforce would be relaxed with that?

Or if he went for a job with a US news station and was told "sorry, we're aiming for a clearly defined market and your face doesn't fit", he'd accept that that was business rather than racism?

He then shoots himself in his foot about two or three times by trying to suggest there's the same sort of thing happening in the UK, only it's on music snobbery lines rather than race lines. Firstly, from a man who's just stated

"In the US, though, the whole system is far more refined. Be it country and western, rock, pop, or rap every act has its proper place and has to stay there"

to then complain that in the UK

"an "underground" artist always has to hit a fine balance to make sure they don't go "pop" and lose their audience, just as pop stars run the risk of losing their original audience if they try to get street cred"

makes no sense - but then, the claims that Americans can't have black and white artists in the same act makes no sense in article that then goes on to observe that in the US

"In America, though, rap artists record with big names all the time (the latest Tom Jones album has been produced by Wyclef)."

So, Wyclef can record with Tom Jones - who, fair enough, is more orange than white, but still Welsh - and still be urban, but Craig David can't have a white guitarist and be urban? Sorry, Wilber, this sounds like trying to explain away racism to me. It probably isn't the worst example of racism in the industry, and, sure, its a twist for a white guy to be the victim, but let's not try and find a way of understanding it. Let's just admit it stinks, shall we?

Here come the payola kings

We knew it was a danger, and after the Queen's Speech announced that the broadcasting legislation is going to come ahead in the current Parliament Clear Channel have admitted they want to get their sweaty little paws on Capital Radio Group. Good news for any company who wants to buy their way onto Capital, Beat, X-FM or Century, then.