Maybe record executives should read some papers

You have to worry about the experts in charge of the UK music industry - the plumetting share of UK music in global sales suggests they don't know much about music; their current behaviour makes it clear nobody at the BPI has a clue about the worlds of industry, either. Their initial demands that EasyInternet Cafes (part of the Stelios-Easyjet empire) pay a million pounds to make good the "losses" incurred by customers who may - may have burnt downloaded music onto a CD while on their premises was laughable, outrageous, and rightly ridiculed.

But now they've tried to take Easy to court in a bid to force them to keep details of further negotations secret. Do these people ever read the finance pages? Or even the adverts? Have they not seen that it's part of Easy's business ethos to appeal over the heads of lawyers straight to the people - so, disputes with BA tend to get fought as much in quarter page adverts and on the side of planes as in back rooms? And that trying to bully the orange-bedecked empire is always going to wind up blowing up in your face in a series of elaborately-orchestrated publicity stunts?

If the BPI had been less greedy, they might have avoided the whole parading of their demands through the press at all. As it is... well, if I was holding shares in a record label, I'd be asking questions of my boards as to who is exactly coming up with these increasingly ridiculous strategies.


Meanwhile, in today's Guardian letters page, an executive from Chrysalis condemns the paper for repeating the "myth" that there is a fair use exemption in the copyright act allowing people to copy their own records for their own use. She's half right - the Act says fair use is for private research, review or reporting.

But that misses the point that there's no exemption for the making of a back-up copy simply because that's actually covered by the licence under which you buy the record or CD in the first place - you're buying the recording, the sound, not the plastic disc, to use as you see fit for your own personal realm. Fair use exemptions are designed to cover the circulation of reproductions, not the making of a reproduction. Since we assume that Catherine Bell knows this, we presume she's trying to pull a fast one.

A FEW YEARS AGO: The NME had a cover featuring Bowie and Brett Anderson, with the headline "One day, son, all this will be yours."
This week, Suede's positivity entered the charts at 16. Bowie's Everyone says Hi went in at 20.
Not, actually, that this means Suede will be on tonight's Pops - Bowie will be, though. It occurs to us that Chris Cowey is in no place to moan about the shit state of the chart when he has more respoonsibility for what's played on TOTP than any other producer in its history, since he doesn't use the strict chart-position formula, and as such has a bigger opportunity to shape what appears in that chart.

YOUR LICENCE FEE AT WORK. UNLESS YOU'RE AMERICAN: There's been some muttering that the BBC Online presence hasn't really done very much that it couldn't have done with Ceefax, and we'd guess that collective is a step towards trying to right that wrong. Basically, it's a bit like the H2G2 site (also now kept within the peaty loins of BBCi), only with a sharper eye on credibility. OK, it's a glorified bulletin board, but it has clips and sounds and has potential to be an interesting web destination - currently offering Polyphonic Spree stuff alongside clips from Brotherhood of the Wolf...

GOOD GOODARD (JUNIOR): If there's ever been claims that its not who you know, but who you're descended from, look no further than Kiss' new hope - the son of Alvin Stardust. The only redeeming feature is that "the son of Alvin Stardust" sounds pleasingly like a Half Man, Half Biscuit song title.

Listen to your father

MediaGuardian is reporting thay Feargal Sharkey has been put in charge of all Northern Ireland radio regulation - which is an encouraging sign; considering that so much British radio is given over to the broadcasting of popular music, the more people who can actually distinguish rock from indie from dance in decision-making positions in the regulators, the better.
Course, his mam won't be happy - "why can't you work in television like your cousin?..."

I GOT YOU BY THE BALLS FOR THE CENTURY, BABE: The copyright furore is about more than just the right of some university students to avoid buying the new Eminem album. (And, no matter what Google tells you, this site does not host downloads of Holly Vallance's new single Down Boy, in MP3, video or - especially - Windows Media, thank you.) The problem is, the debate about what copyright is for, and what it can do, often gets lost in a whole host of silly nonesense about Chinese pirate copies of Matrix II, and kids downloading a thousand Phil Collins tunes before bedtime. Thanks to rocktober, then, for pointing us to this considered piece on the Sonny Bono copyright act, balancing out what would be lost without it (grandchildren living off other people's royalties) with what it would have stopped in the past (for example, Disney - prime movers of the new law - would never have been able to make Snow White or Cinderella). Worthwhile and thoughtful.

THE LICK CHART: I'm not about this - see, if I was Justin Timberlake, and I'd licked one of the most famous, if unseen, places on the planet, I don't think I'd need to be bribed into announcing it. And if I was Britney, I think I'd be less than pleased that our intimacy was blown away for thirty spins of a single on an obscure New York radio station. In fact, I'd be getting My People to leak the phrase "at least he was able to stick his tongue out a couple of inches" to the press right now. But if I was the radio station, I'd be pretty pissed off I'm lumbered with playing the track nearly three dozen times, and never even got to find out what flavour...

Career, um, Suicide?

Pitchfork are reporting that Suicide are on the point of releasing a lumbering comeback album, which is worrying. Sure, it doesn't have to be a pile of poop, and not every reactivated punk turns in a performance that smacks more of bottom line than headthrills (we've always been happy with the Buzzcocks now, and when Kurt dragged the Raincoats out of retirement it added to their ouevre rather than damaged their reputation) but we hope they'll look at those pictures of a pissy, beer-soaked Johnny Rotten and think again. There's a dignity in back catalogue that doesn't often survive Clear Channel friendly reunion tours.

TEN: Ping Pong Bitches Top Ten of the moment, cited in a rather fine Phinweb interview:
Firestarter - Prodigy
J'taime... moi non plus - Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin
I Love Rock'N'Roll - Joan Jett
Flashlight - P-Funk
French Kiss - Li'l Louis
Ms Jackson -Outkast
Up Middle Finger - Oxide & Neutrino
Cheree - Suicide
Bad Boy for Life - P Diddy
Baby One More Time - Britney Spears

TV TIMES: Further to a thing on pearls that are his eyes about Sigur Ros turning up on CSI, I know the main thought I was meant to take away from the show about Christopher Ecclestone discovering his real parents had learning difficulties [Flesh and Blood, BBC2] was "blimey, he sang Teenage Fanclub's The Concept to his baby", but that - other than 'can you imagine the shock the parents must have had to discover their kid had an unnaturally large ego?' - was pretty much the thing that stuck the most.

The labels should worry about file-sharing

Kazaza? The RIAA and the BPI should worry. There's a much bigger threat to their bottom line, and its not the kids swapping a few Linkin Park tracks amongst themselves. It's the new Simply Red album.
Because Simply Red have cut out the record label. Totally. Since they're loaded, they figured they didn't need a label to put up the cash to record their new collection. They bought in the services they needed, chose the people they wanted, and ran the whole show themselves. This is in a totally different league from the likes of Dodgy getting fans to lash in for a new album - the bands of the Simply Red size are the struts on which the record companies build their business; they're the groups whose success the labels are hoping they can recreate when they put out the new material, the ones who supposedly deliver the profits. If they walk away from them, taking their customers with them, then there isn't much future for the big labels at all, is there? If you've got EMI shares, I'd flog them now...

Britney? Not you, too

So, Britney is going to appear as the, um, face of the RIAA in a "hey, kids, don't steal" series of commercials. Didn't her career get kick-started by the record company making free copies of stuff available and getting it circulated on the web? Apparently she's going to explain that downloading music is "like going to the record store and stealing a CD" - erm, no it isn't, actually; if you take a CD, you're removing the item and permanently stopping other people from possessing it; the fact it's been shipped and stored and manufactured means that that specific CD has had a unit cost attached to it. Downloading a track doesn't stop the track from being available to others; there are no unit costs associated with the downloading of CDs. So it's not like stealing a CD at all, little Britney. The likes of Eminem, Elton John and Madonna are all joining in a campaign about how poor artists are going to starve as a result of file-sharing, which is heart-rending; I might send Elton a thirty-five pence postal order so that he can eat tomorrow, you know.

NEW MUSIC WE LIKE: The Flir are from San Deigo and remind us quite a lot of Slowdive, and from their website we think they'll know that we mean that as a testament of love rather than a complaint. Like the sort of things you'd watch Snub TV for, or Lush in a big hot bath...

WHAT ABOUT A SKULL AND CROSSBONES AND... HANG ON: The International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) have spent thirty minutes with a box of crayolas and come up with this:

(Try here if that doesn't show up. Anyone guess what it is? Nope, not PacMan - Cannibal Edition. Nor is it a symbol designed to be displayed on CDs of artists forced into an abortion by their management. In fact, it's the new international symbol to show that theCD-shaped thing in the CD case isn't actually a CD at all, but a copy-protected bastardisation that, chances are, won't play on the equipment you want it to. It's kind of the equivalent of "Parental Advisory", only with "Consumer Advisory:This CD doesn't actually work properly" on it instead.
Anyone fancy scampering down to Tower with a collection of "Also available on BearShare" stickers?
FOOTNOTE: This appeared on No Rock yesterday, but we were having trouble and took it down to see if it was this post's fault... so the stuff that follows is fresh...

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: It's a day late, but we got stuck edition:
Given away free in tescos (and that much would actually suffice as a review) it's the debut of Closer. Designed to provide an older counterpoint to Heat in much the same way that Sneak is a younger version, Closer is pretty much the HRT Heat, meaning a lot of shitty paparazi shots without the sark - Closer to the Star's views of themselves, then - and the odd Chat-style 'real life story.' They cover the Celebrity slim-a-thon that is Fit Club - notable for Rik Waller being described both as "morbidly obese" and "a waste of space" (a waste of a lot of space?), but doesn't ask why when it's ordinary proles, the show is Fat Club, but when it's minor celebs, it's Fit Club. Ian MacCaskill is, apparently, obese now - which shows the perils of retirement...

Another one of which would be reading the Daily Mail, which (we picked it up free in a Little Chef, alright) lamented the state of the UK charts in two pages of tutting. Strangely, while echoing Top of the Pops boss Chris Cowey's lament that the charts are rubbish now, the Mail's idea of a golden age seems to be something a bit more pre-Hailey. Funnily enough, my parents used to take the Daily Mail and I remember about twenty years ago the then-TV critic of the Mail Herbert Kretzmer wrote an almost identical piece. Kretzmer took Janet Jackson to task for the lines "I never asked for more than I deserved/And that's the truth/You seem to think you're god's gift to this earth/I'm telling you no way", which he derided as rubbish, without revealing that he was the man who wrote the racist pap that is Goodness Gracious Me. When your back catalogue has "It goes boom-de-de-boom-de-de-boom-boom-boom/well, goodness, gracious me" and "bangers and mash/minestrone/bangers and mash/macaroni" in it, you might think twice before slagging other people's work off. (Hmmm, pop papers chooses two decade old article as its focus - up to date, eh?). The 2002 version reckons that while you could once chart British Society through its charts, you can't nowadays - although we personally reckon that Atomic Kitten and the So Solids look more like the faces we see on the street than we'd assume the public school pastyness of 1973's chart gods were...

Which reminds us, of course, to Guardian Women's response to Ms Dynamite winning the Mercury - praising that her victory and tracksuits set a "good example" to girls that you don't need to bare your belly to be a star. Maybe if they'd googled on images of Ms Dynamite and counted the navels on display, they wouldn't have been so quick to reach this conclusion; maybe if they'd spent time with teenage girls who wear trackies by day, they'd have noticed that at night they tend to Kitten-up; Ms Dynamite is merely Everyday Girl in Daywear as surely as Natasha and Liz are girls in their nightclothes. Besides, why should we be so quick to applaud someone who dresses on stage as if they couldn't give a shit? It's possible to dress neatly without looking like the back row from the Windmill Theatre - do we really need Pop Stars, of all people - the ones who have a birthright to glitter and shimmer - to look like they've tumbled onto stage out the back door of McDonalds?...

For those of you who cut out and keep these things - mounted on a piece of card cut from the back of a Sugar Puffs box, we'd imagine - and like completeness, last week's nme had Oasis on the front. And, having not been near a computer since the Friday before, for us it was like old times - genuinely exciting, refreshing, hearing news we'd not already been piloting through the web for the previous week. Of course, the people at IPC might not find the news that the NME only neads to smash the internet to pieces to become a vital, thriving concern again very encouraging, but we do wonder if the big NTL fire could have been set as a result of a Kings Reach Tower focus group?...

But this week's nme is another matter. We knew that the game was up for the Melody maker the first time it came with a sheet of stickers. It wasn't so much the fact of the stickers - although they did signal an abandonment of any claims to seriousness - but the way in between the band logos and pictures there were stickers with "amusing" catchphrases and "funny" slogans that were only ever used by the Melody Maker...
We mention this now because this week's nme comes with stickers. And it has ones that say "You cock" and so on. Sigh. We really might be in endgame...

news: why is "London is great; it's got loads of gigs" being treated as news when it's pretty much the usual nme message anyway?; nme hints that The Streets blew the mercury when Mike Skinner said he wouldn't show up, as not having the winner there would make for bad TV (last year, of course, the rumour was the prize was given to Polly Harvey because she was stuck in a post-Pentagon(e) Washington and her inability to turn up was good headline); Zane Lowe now the favourite to take over the ridiculously gaunt one's slot at the Evening Session amidst questions over Dave Pearce's future at Radio One; Courtney love did a days worth of programming at MTV2 in the states - presumably wall-to-wall Pearl Jam and Wedding Present; Apparently Escapology is supposed to "revive slow UK album sales" - not wanting to rain on Robbie's parade, but album sales in the Uk are three per cent up on their level this time last year, and so not really in need of saving; Morrissey punched a fan "accidently" when he ran on stage at his UK comeback gigs - always did like a spot of boxing, didn't he? But can you imagine the shame of having to admit "You should see the other guy - he's a gladioli waving guy with thining hair"?; Marilyn Manson's paintings have gone on display - we can't imagine why, they're even more shit than McCartney's; Graham Cxon has had a pop at Fatboy Slim, saying that he's consulted his lawyers - let it go, now, Graham, let it go; there's a fourteen minute Beatles tune which is going to come out at long last - Noel says he'll listen to the first couple of minutes certainly, but Liam probably won't be able to concetrate that long - although, apparently, Oasis are now working with Status Quo, which befits their status as The New Donkeys of Pop slightly more - they've also commented that "My Opinion means nothing" about Iraq - no, Noel, even your dumbass views count in a democracy; Fisherspooner "rarely play live because their gigs are hugely expensive to produce" reckons the nme - well, compared with the two men and a dog likely to go and see them at the Fake Lomax and Bristol Old Fire Station, yeah. We're delighted to see they're on at the aptly named Old Fruit Market in Glasgow, though; John Lydon shouted "you're a turd" at someone who threw beer at the Pistols as they haul their sad car crash carcass round the US; from the paper which brought you "Who is Elvis", it's "Who the hell is Jeff Beck?" - presumably because there's no sticker for him...

Dave Grohl burns ten tracks on a CD - Cat Power, Slayer, Pixies...

The latest nme useless is gimmick is "text us if you see a star", thereby making the lamest part of Popbitch into a feature - we recommend you use 07752 146472 only for finest spottings of the Grumbleweeds and the bloke who used to be Crossroads...

On bands - Radio 4 (not to be confused wirth the nightclub or the station of the same name); martinit Henry Rifles (not to be confused with new wave of pig fuckers, apparently)...

"Maybe I'm a fucking miserablist, but there's no bands that mean anything to me - none of the 'the' bands... i don't even know if I particularly like rock music" - not the words of someone at Radio One, but Mark Greaney from JJ72...

"Fans send us pots of jam. And there's the ones who go on about monkeys" says Ben Cooper Temple Clause...

The Polyphonic Spree are "driven by a righteous devoition to spread their musical word; the good angels on the opposite shoulder of pop to the So Solid Crew" reckons Mark Beaumont, and he may never have said a truer word. Even if it does make them sound more Ned Flanders than they actually are...

lps: the datsuns - the datsuns ("paved with a whole lot of fun", 8); busted - busted ("kelly jones will hate it", 8); supergrass - life on other planets ("worth it - for now", 7); suede - a new morning ("old fans will love them for it", 7); his name is alive - last night ("as intense as great sex" - then how come it only gets 8?); the future & the human league - the golden hour of the future ("you have to doubt if even Phil's mum will be listening", 3)...

sotw is the liberines - up the bracket ("chas&dave loving") and not hoggboy - upside down ("No name by numbers") or garbage - shut your mouth ("irrelevant suits them well")...

live: the music in dublin and belfast ("the best band since Oasis in '94" says a fan); the eighties matchbox b-line disaster in camden ("best new band in Britain today"); datsuns in camden ("swot up on them")

and, finally: in the small ads, someone called sheena tries to trace a bloke called Ju who she appears to have allowed to shoot his juice into her at a festival. "We should do it again soon" she says. Sheena, even if he is called Ju, he's not going to have believed you were called Sheena, is he? Maybe you should try Jim Wirth instead.

A TOP TEN FOR CENTURY 21: BigChampagne are the kings of Peer To Peer market research, measuring, recording, watching, and producing a top ten of stuff zinging the most from computer to computer. It's pretty interesting stuff, and if Chris Cowey really wanted a chart for TOTP which reflects what people like, maybe he should consider using this instead?

YOU DON'T NEED US: This is what the useful blog drone had to say about The Forthcoming tour of Britain by Pink:
"Im a bit nervous to see if i can go through the summer :-( Im going to see if i can take a shower. Im going to go see the mexican in a little while. Seriously guys im going to go f that tree if yall dont get me a woman. "

DON'T BE A SPAMBAND: We tend to berate acts we catch in the act of spamming, but do we offer alternative suggestions? No, of course we don't; we're not your bloody mothers. But a group - who do sound a bit rubbish - asked Slashdot for advice on how to turn themselves into an online phenomenononon, and people responded with lots of advice. But please note, the guy who suggested spamming was being ironic, m'kay? We came across this through soundspy, who offer a few tips of their own.

TWANG TWANG TWANG: Westlife sign 'GBP20million record deal'? Yeah, and our cat's made it to the shortlist for Fame Academy.

PREPARING FOR RE-ENTRY INTO SOCIETY: Atomic Kitten get experience working in shops

HANK WILLIAMS ROBBED: His grave has been turned over - police are said to be interviewing Ryan Adams

HERE COMES PINK: Hurrah! She'll tell us what to do...
Manchester Apollo - November 5
Birmingham Academy - November 11
London Brixton Academy - November 12
Hmmm... wonder what she'll be doing between the fifth and the eleventh? Besides trying to out-run us...

POPBITCH TWANG: While we have no doubt that they're putting the finishing touches to a robo-band of Atomic Kittenalikes, would any label decide to call them Syrens when, um, there's already another band with the same wackily mispelled name? Could we suggest Circe's Piggies instead?

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE: Since when was teenage girl has bit too much to drink a news story? And since the Sun caught on that it was nearly "two years to the day" since Fifi's mother Paula died, wouldn't it have been kinder to consign this non-story to the spike?
Talking of the Sun, they're also claiming that the Appleton debut album is being put back because of the furore over the Abortion Book. Hmmm, of course Polydor wouldn't want to be seen to be "cashin-in" from the publicity, would it? But isn't it a bit more likely that the first single sold so few it's been decided not to let the album get swamped in the Christmas rush?

THE CURSE OF WILSON: Also from Undercover, it looks like Brian Wilson (out the Beach Boys) may not be touring Australia as soon as was planned, since his promoter's being investigated for fraud. Confusingly, they're suggesting that Wilson may have to pay back his advance as a result.

HIS HEART IS GOOD: His kidneys, not so, as Undercover is reporting that Walrus of Love Barry White is in need of a new kidney.
Which seems as good a point as any to point out that anybody in the UK who wants to offer bits of their bodies up for raffle in the event of their going to meet Ian Curtis can do so with a temporary donor card which can be downloaded here. Even if your kidneys don't end up purifying the pee of one of the soul greats, it's still worth doing. Don't put it off any longer.

ABOUT TIME TOO: Yeah Yeah Yeahs finally announce details of new single. At this rate, it'll be a new album by 2007...

SHOWBIZ IN ACTION: Two stories from ananova's music front page, as they originally appeared, one straight after the other:
Justin Timberlake to record anti drink-driving advert
Justin Timberlake is to team up with American anti-drink driving campaign group Recording Artists, Actors & Athletes Against Drunk Driving.
10:17 Wednesday 25th September 2002
Lance Bass to play Nose Picker
NSync's Lance Bass is to appear in a new musical film called Nose Pickers From Outer Space.
09:23 Wednesday 25th September 2002
Spot the Jason Orange.

THE CAPTION CONTEST EQUIVALENT OF AN EMPTY GOAL: It's just too easy, isn't it?

COINCIDENCE MAKES ME HER BITCH: I had been going to visit vain, selfish & lazy since it was recommended by , but then discovering that we score highly when people are searching for "Mariah Carey's tits", I idly clicked to see what other sources of information are offered for this request, and discovered a link to V,S&L there, too. So, if Mariah's overexposed bossom tells me to check it out too, I do it. What else could I do? And - hey - it's pretty good, too.