Gordon in the morning: Astley crashes engagement party

Let's not detain ourselves too long on the headline on Gordon's coverage of Paul Weller's engagement:

Weller's the changingman

It doesn't make any sense at all, does it? Engaging Man, surely?

Mind you, the story itself is just as odd. It starts off sounding like it's being written by Ena Sharples:

PAUL WELLER has an extra spring in his step - he's just got engaged to a girl less than half his age.

Less than half his age? (So she must be, what, less than 64?) Is she - and I'm guessing here - also no better than she ought to be? Maybe she's a flighty one, that one.

The Modfather's fiancée, HANNAH ANDREWS, was wearing a huge sparkler on her wedding finger as they hit the shops in London at the weekend.

A huge sparkler? Suddenly we're out of Weatherfield and caught in the middle of a heist caper.

By the way, it's called a ring finger. Unless Andrews has an extra finger. Or maybe a third hand. Maybe it's a marriage hand.

If the crashing style is strange, the next paragraph gets really odd. We've heard Weller is engaged, and his fiance has a ring. Can you guess where Gordon is going next?

And Eighties icon RICK ASTLEY popped up on Sunday behind the drums for new band THE LUDDITES, at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, Surrey.

It's not just that there's no apparent link between the two stories, it's that "and", which suggests there's something that connects them - not only did Weller pop the question, but he made Rick Astley play drums.

I'm not quite sure why Smart is so puzzled by Astley appearing with the Luddites, either - given the band is called Rick Astley And The Luddites. But then 'Astley popped up with Rick Astley & The Luddites' might have just been too odd, even for this column.

Pete Waterman: If you have tears, pretend to shed them now

As the PRS campaign against Google swings into what I suspect they're considering is "action", more of the songwriter's cash has been burned through on holding a press conference to launch FairPlayForCreators.com. And, just to help stress the idea that this isn't about making rich men even richer, they invited Pete Waterman to be the star turn.

Yes, there'd be nothing crocodile-like in tears shed listening to forty-times-over-millionaire Pete Waterman complaining that he only got a few quid from YouTube. You would have thought that if PRS really felt the need to spend cash on an event to promote its pretend-debate site, they might have been better off finding someone to whom a quadrupling, or even dodecarupling, of the YouTube money would make a blind bit of difference to. But they won't find anyone, because they know that there's so little money in individual plays on YouTube it won't help anyone over the poverty line. It's a bit of extra; it's money for jam; it's pin money.

So, instead, PRS invite us to think sad thoughts of a multi-multi-millionaire not making much extra:

"There was I sitting at Christmas thinking, 'I must have made a few bob this year with the old Rickrolling'," he said.

"I rang my publisher and they said 'You'll be all right', until I saw the royalty statement. £11.

"If 154 million plays means £11, I get more from Radio Stoke playing Never Gonna Give You Up than I do from YouTube."

Yes, you're right, Pete - smaller radio stations probably are being strangled by having to play large royalty fees for records. Someone should look into that.

Oh, that wasn't your point, was it?

Firstly, Pete, again you don't mention all the extra royalties that you earned as a result of media coverage of Rickrolling, Astley being invited to turn up and play at places like the Macy's parade, and so on. Earnings that, without YouTube, you would never have seen. Which is at best intellectually dishonest of you.

Secondly: 154 million plays. Where did you get this figure from? The most watched versions of the video seem to be hovering around 15 million plays each - is 154 million a guess?

Third: Even if we take 154 million plays as a fact, doesn't PRS only collect for artists having their work consumed in the UK? Which is why the (limited) removal of music videos as a result of the PRS battle are in the UK, not of UK artists worldwide. So a large proportion of those 154 million views would have been elsewhere in the world, and not subject to PRS royalty collection. It's like having the most-played record on US radio and complaining you've not got any PRS money as a result, isn't it?

Fourth: You're sharing the money with Stock and Waterman, too. You didn't mention that.

Fifth: Yes, it's not very much. But that's because it's not worth very much. And, let's not forgot, that payment was under a deal agreed by the PRS. Shouldn't your wrath be directed at the organisation who - it appears - failed to represent your best interests last time round, rather than suggesting that everyone puts their faith in them again?

Still, no harm done, eh? It's not like you essayed an absurd and offensive position in your defence of demanding more, is it?

"Panorama did a documentary on the exploitation of foreign workers in Dubai," he said.

"I feel like one of those workers, because I earned less for a year's work off Google or YouTube than they did off the Bahrain government."

Waterman failed to explain how everyone else linking to, uploading, playing and enjoying a song he wrote twenty years ago is "work" in the sense that labouring for a pittance in the hot desert sun is, but I'm sure the PRS will be posting an explanation online sometime soon.

YouTube vs the PRS: PRS summons a mob

The YouTube - PRS dispute is, let's be clear, about the level of royalty paid by the video host to the royalties agency. That is all it as about. YouTube place one value on a play of a video; PRS believe it's something different.

You might not guess that from watching the PRS "Fair Play For Creators" site, where songwriters are given the chance to put their case directly, and have a bit of a moan about Google:

Just remove advertising from the 'offending' pages. These pages would earn no money...Google ARE becoming evil.

Roy Williams (Nervous Records), PRS for Music publisher - 24 March 2009

Roy seems to be referring to Google AdWords appearing on sites which allegedly host unlicensed music - a talking point that seems to have bubbled up from nowhere in the last couple of days. And, yes, although he might have completely oversimplified the idea (you can tell an offending page, presumably, by the tiny Skull and Crossbones in the address bar) it's not a bad demand. And one that Google complies with, when sites breaching its AdWrods terms and conditions are reported.

And, much more importantly, one which has nothing to do with the YouTube-PRS skirmish.

PRS for Music exists to ensure songwriters and composers are paid their rightful reward for the music they create. It is not a commercial organisation, but a not-for-profit collective of songwriters, composers and publishers. Google is a big commercial entity which must properly pay the very people who make the YouTube service a success.

Jools Holland, (Broadcaster - Squeeze), PRS for Music songwriter - 24 March 2009

Well, yes, Google is a big commercial entity. That's hardly relevant, though, is it? If someone was booked to go on the Late Show's Later With Jools Holland and demanded a fee based on the number of hits the BBC News website gets worldwide, rather than the audience the specific programme on BBC 2 gets, you might wonder if your guest had lost control of their faculties.

YouTube, financially, isn't a success; it's doing alright, but not printing cash when you take into account its scale. And the company does want to pay, the dispute is over what a fair rate is.

And why is it significant that PRS is "not for profit"? Sure, it makes it sound a little like a charity, which it isn't, and it's lovely that PRS only creams off a little over one pound out of every ten to pay for its administration, and luxury central London offices, and expensive rebranding operations, and campaigning websites. But "PRS is not for profit and Google makes a profit" is hardly a convincing argument, and until PRS starts to campaign for EMI to be nationalised, we're chalking that one up to attempts to disguise the row as being about 'how much money'?

Abba are angry, too:

I get cross when internet companies paint the picture of a faceless and immensely powerful 'intellectual property industry' as their main enemy just because it suits them. Those under attack are people of flesh and blood, who are passionate about their profession. When I speak with younger colleagues about their current situation I feel a strong sense of compassion for them and I understand their anxiety about the future. Some of them feel that their work is being degraded. There are those crusaders for the right to share files who say: 'Why don't they go on tour and sing for their supper'. This argument shows a staggering ignorance of the fact that so many of the people who write the songs have more often than not never been in contact with artist life. They are producers and songwriters, full stop.

Björn Ulvaeus (Abba), songwriter - 24 March 2009

Well, yes... when, exactly did Google or YouTube characterise the PRS as part of the "intellectual property industry" (even although, of course, that's exactly the industry that PRS is in, even if Abba aren't.)

Bjorn is right, of course: there's less money about for songwriters. But isn't that a structural thing, a side-effect of music going from being scarce and distributed through very limited, tightly controlled channels to being not-scarce, and distributed through an unlimited range of outlets beyond anyone's control? Yes, it's terrible that that makes music - in a strict financial sense - less valuable than it was. But why would you conclude that YouTube has a moral duty to recompense on the basis of the 1989 music industry model instead of the 2009 one?

It becomes increasingly obvious that this is the problem facing YouTube: songwriters and musicians are selling a product whose financial price has tanked, and need someone to blame. It's unfortunate they're blaming one of the few companies which seems to genuinely be interested in trying to help them extract as much value as possible from their songs.

Pete Waterman, at least, does put some figures into his argument:

YouTube is not alone in the online hall of shame where the worthy notion of greater consumer choice is used as a cloak to disguise the fact that copyright infringement happens on a grand scale.

I co-wrote 'Never Gonna Give You Up', which Rick Astley performed in the eighties, and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube - owner Google. My PRS for Music income in the year ended September 2008 was £11.

Music videos and music generally is at the very heart of User Generated Content sites. It is the hard work and creative endeavour of songwriters and musicians everywhere that has been the bedrock upon which many of these websites have been built, creating along the way huge value for their owners. As well as arguing with them over royalty rates, we should be fighting them to get proper recognition for the part we've played in building their businesses.

Pete Waterman, (co-writer 'Never Gonna Give You Up'), PRS for Music songwriter - 24 March 2009

Ignore the first paragraph, which has nothing whatsoever to do with trying to agree a royalty rate with a specific company - it's like BAT insisting that Tesco pay more, wholesale, for fags, to make good its losses when people flog knock-off tabs - and instead, let's look at his figures.

He's done a lot of smudging, of course - he doesn't quite say what period the payment actually covers (was it before Rickrolling really took off?), and his claim of "more than 100 million times" seems a bit unlikely - as of now, the two most popular versions of the video on YouTube have hit about 35 million between them, so "more than 100 million" by the end of September might be a bit of an inflation.

Let's also remember that YouTube counts starts of the play, not full play, and given that Rickrolling was a gotcha moment, it's probably that most of those plays were by people who didn't really want to see the song and would have only heard the first few seconds before pulling a wry grin and clicking elsewhere.

And there's three songwriters for the track. So that does treble the amount to £33, plus ten per cent which went to PRS to pay for its staplers and staff, so that's £36. Not a massive amount.

To be fair, Waterman does concede that the use of Astley on YouTube in this way generated massive mainstream media coverage, and lots of events using the tune as well, bringing with it much more substantial PRS earnings that, but for YouTube, he would never have seen. Oh... hang on, he doesn't, does he?

Still, £36 for millions of views. Is that much?

Consider this: Radio One pays £18 per minute for music paid on its most popular programmes. So, two plays of a three minute song on Chris Moyles show, with an audience of 7.5 million, equates to £108 for the equivalent of 15 million single plays; ten per cent off for PRS comes to about £98; between three people, that's a little over £33 for Pete from 15 million "views". Three times as much as he earned from YouTube, perhaps. But again: not an enormous sum of money.

Also: didn't the payment of which Waterman is complaining come through an agreement negotiated by the PRS in the first place?

It's great that songwriters are joining the debate. But all the while they're blaming Google for the world having changed, it's not really going to get us very much further, is it?

MTV Europe Music Awards: An apology

I might have given the impression during a post on No Rock And Roll Fun last Thursday that I somehow doubted the word of the spokesperson for the MTV Europe awards when he applauded the success of Rick Astley in the best act ever category.

"Rick's fans have obviously decided that he deserves recognition as a pop icon and no doubt they are determined to make sure he wins on the night," said the award show's producer Richard Godfrey.

I should like to apologise for the suggestion that, perhaps, MTV was having its leg pulled and trying to put a brave face on matters.

Indeed, the discovery of the automated voting program online and the amusing confession by the Los Angeles Times that they voted 961 times for Rick makes it clear that, in fact, Godfrey was right and it's nothing more than genuine Rick Astley fans building machines to ensure that he wins his deserved recognition. In no way has a badly-thought-out voting system left MTV with a choice of either clambering down with egg on its face and barring Rick's votes, or waiting until the evening of the vote and presenting the prize to Astley.

MTV Rickrolled

The MTV Europe Awards are having their leg pulled, as Rick Astley finds himself doing quite nicely in the Best Act Ever category online vote.

How do MTV react? Do they chuckle, admit they've been had and their faith in the wisdom of crowds has been tickled, and move on?

Oh, no. MTV are, with a straight face, attempting to paint this as a genuine result in a scientifically-rigorous poll:

"Rick's fans have obviously decided that he deserves recognition as a pop icon and no doubt they are determined to make sure he wins on the night," said the award show's producer Richard Godfrey.

Yes. That'd be it. Rick's fans, who have - for some reason - kept quiet for all these years are suddenly deciding that he deserves the recognition of an MTV Award. It's in no way connected to Rickrolling, where the unsuspecting are duped into a surprise appearance of Rick Astley online. That that should have been happening this year is just a coincidence.

Nobody believes you, Richard Godfrey. And even you don't believe you, really, do you? If you really thought that the MTV Europe awards audience had a hitherto unprofessed love of Rick Astley, you wouldn't be flying Beyonce in to do the opening number; you'd be asking around on Edge Lane if anyone had phone numbers for the Reynolds Girls. Even Rick Astley knows it's a joke, dammit:

I don't think I'll be buying a train ticket to Liverpool. I think it's a wind-up to be honest.

I never took it too seriously while I was doing it and it's a long time ago now so I don't take this seriously either.

Hey, Astley: you better - those legions of fans are counting on you.

This is why they want to keep children from computers

We suppose, at least, the current fascination with the 'Rickroll' (whereby one links something random to Never Gonna Give You Up on YouTube) isn't being driven by a marketing company trying to flog deodorant or training shoes.

What is rickrolling?

As far as we can tell. It's a bit like a slightly less infernal version of that 2inches.com stunt you used to see all the time on Popbitch, back when you used to read Popbitch all the time. A link promising one thing, but delivering something else.

Rick himself is being good natured about this blast of kind of fame:

“I think it’s just one of those odd things where something gets picked up and people run with it,” Astley said. “But that’s what brilliant about the Internet.”

Rickrolling is being co-opted into direct action, too, reports the New York Times:

Former Scientologists protesting against the church, for example, have been playing and singing the song this year outside Scientology offices in London, Washington, Seattle and other cities.

Although singing 'Never gonna give you up' outside a cult office is surely the wrong message, isn't it?

It will all help ticket sales for this summer's Here And Now tour, where he shares billing with Bananarama, ABC, Paul Young, Curiosity Killed The Cat, Johnny Hates Jazz and the Cutting Crew. (Since H&N promises 'only the hits', surely those last two won't be on stage very long?) It'll help with sales, that is, providing that someone links to the actual ticketshop and doesn't just rickroll the curious.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Mum rock

You can't have failed to notice that, this year, Mother's Day is being cranked up a notch by the stores - there's a slightly unnerving sense that they've just swapped the signs on the Valentines stock to "For your Mum". Indeed, with sparkling wines, heart shaped chocolates and even - I swear - John Lewis slapping a "For Mother's Day" sign on its sexy knickers stand, the sense is that the shops are seeing Oedipus as their key customer this year.

The Independent has considered what all this means for the music industry and, naturally, called HMV's Gennaro Castaldo for advice:

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said consumers could expect to be bombarded with a dizzying array of deluxe editions, new material and back catalogue collections over the next few days."The idea that mums are all in their 60s and 70s and are happy with a box of chocolates or a pot plant on Mother's Day is completely out of date," he said. "Many are in their 30s and are still very much in touch with popular culture. An album is seen as a very credible and cool gift for them, particularly by their children."

Aha. And The Indie then tells us what the key sellers for this "credible and cool" market segment are:

This year a plethora of compilation albums featuring housewife favourites such as Michael Bolton and Rick Astley are already lining the shelves. Among the most-high profile offerings is Simply Red's multi-million-selling Stars, being re-released for those anxious to relive their glory days.

Oh, yes. In touch with popular culture and that Rick Astley.

Acceptable in the 80s: Rick Astley

And as we're sat here thinking about Miki and Lush and enjoying the past, here's a reminder of why nostalgia used to be considered a mental illness: Rick Astley's back, and getting interviewed in the Echo. After all this time, it seems he's still annoyed about being labelled the PWL teaboy:

“It’s all rubbish,” he laughs. “You might as well say I knew his younger brother’s cat’s sister’s mother.

“I was playing the club circuit in Newton-le-Willows as a singer in a soul band. Pete Waterman came to see us, and he said he liked my voice, but not the band. We went on like that for ages; him offering to sign me, me only wanting to be signed as part of the band.

“He was going out with a hairdresser at the time, and I think she was from Warrington. She may have come to see my band, but it wasn’t her Christmas party.

“Then, through knowing Pete, I started work at the PWL recording studio, where I did all kinds of things including, on occasions, making tea for Bananarama - see that’s where that story comes from, make one cup of tea and you’re the teaboy."

Mmm. Must be almost as frustrating as making one decent pop record and being considered a popstar.

Actually, Rick is quite self-effacing, explaining that he gave up pop after realising he'd been off on tour and missed his kid's first steps and apologising in the middle of an anecdote about meeting Burt Bacharach for going on about it. And, though, some act of global balancing, the child who persuade Rick to give up pop was also his reason for returning to it:

Rick made the decision last year to take part in an 80s revival gig in Tokyo.

“My daughter had been asking to go to Japan for a while, and she’d never seen me do a gig, so I agreed.

“It was weird. After so long I was worried it would feel like I was doing someone else’s songs, like karaoke, but I enjoyed it.

“It was quite emotional. It made me realise I was so, so lucky. Most people in the street don’t get an outlet to do things like that, to sing in front of thousands of people.

“So when they asked if I wanted to do this tour, I said yes.

“I’m only doing a week, and part of it’s Liverpool, so my mum can come and see it. My daughter and my girlfriend are going to come up and spend some time with the rest of the family, so for me it’ll be something special."

He insists this comeback is just for the hell of it, and not part of a longer term slog round the cabaret and Pontins circuits. Unless, presumably, his daughter suggests it might be fun to sleep in a cabin by the seaside...