Remixes dragged back from the memory hole

It's not often you find yourself looking at a major label and thinking "that's a worthwhile thing to do", so let's raise our glowsticks to Universal, who have set to work collecting the billions of additional mixes that used to pad out 12 inch singles back in the 90s. They're then sticking them online for the first time:

“Key areas of our catalogue were unavailable to a modern audience, so there were lots of missing reference points to the younger fan on why electronic music sounds the way it does today,” said Universal’s Robin Jenkins.

Six reworkings of I Feel Love; the Mad Thatcher Disease remix of That Petrol Emotion's Hey Venus; four flavours of one-hit-wonder Crystal Water's Making Happy. It's a strange mixture, but worth a couple of minutes of a dig through.

Somehow Paris attacks have become about Morrissey

And so we turn once again to Morrissey, who has somehow managed to turn the murders in Paris into a thing about him. True To You, the fanzine which effectively functions like Pravda to Morrissey's Kremlin, published this email:

Universal Music, the approach made to David Joseph, since denied by David Joseph


On 18 Nov 2015, at 15:29, Boz Boorer -------------------- wrote:


Dear David,


My name is Boz Boorer and I represent all of the musicians who played
on I'M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PARIS (Morrissey).


We are shocked that you have made no move this week to promote the
above song (download/special 7-inch/special CD) to support the people
of Paris. Any other artist would be number 1 with this song RIGHT NOW.


Why are you doing nothing? There is no other song in modern music that
aptly supports the people of Paris.


Most sincerely yours


BOZ BOORER


JESSE TOBIAS
GUSTAVO MANZUR
MATTHEW IRA WALKER
MANDO LOPEZ.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------


From: John Reid --------------------
Date: November 19, 2015 at 6:39:51 PM GMT-2
To: Boz Boorer --------------------
Subject: Re: Paris


Dear Boz

Thank you for copying your email to me.

I think we all know that this would be an appropriate and compelling gesture.

I spoke with David Joseph today. His position is that owing to Universal having a very close connection to the events, much as they see your point, they are not intending to release any records in response to the tragic events of last Friday. They feel it is too raw for them given the death of one of their staff members and instead they are going to show support and solidarity in other ways, including concerts in Paris later this year by some of their artists.

However, I believe that Universal would licence the song back for eg a release for proceeds to relevant charities (which I assume would be the plan). In short there may be a possibility here but it would have to be a release via a third party. Personally I think there could be a very forceful statement to be made. It will of course require M's input. Have you discussed this with him - I assume so.

If you want me to pursue this, please let me know. Time inevitably is of the essence.

Yours sincerely

John

John Reid
Partner
Russells Solicitors

It's an odd situation to be in, feeling sympathetic towards a major label, but... actually, their line of "it's too soon to do something like this, but let's talk about doing something" seems to be more appropriate a response than an email going "we should be number one by now".

That reference to number one could be put down to clumsy phrasing, were it not for this bit:

There is no other song in modern music that aptly supports the people of Paris.

Not "this song is a love letter to the people of Paris". Not just "this song aptly supports the people of Paris". Not merely "we believe this there is no other song that supports Paris as aptly."

Just an arrogant assertion that there is no other song at all, in the whole of modern music, which supports the people of Paris.

One thing this sorry tale needs less of is fundamentalism.

Joe Elliott doesn't like streaming services

Streaming services, amirite? They're like the work of a demon. A minor demon, perhaps, but a demon nevertheless. Tell us why, Joe:

"I signed up for the Apple one, Beats. It's kind of semi-evil, because whoever owns Spotify is worth more than 50 times than Mick Jagger, who's been in this business for 50 years. And that's just not right.

Mick Jagger, according to The Richest, is worth 360 Million Dollars. So to be worth fifty times that, you would have to be an eighteen-fold billionaire. 18 billion is roughly the GDP of Honduras.

Just to be clear: Daniel Ek is not Honduras. In fact, according to Time, he's worth 300 Million Dollars, which puts him behind Mick Jagger in terms of wealth.

Obviously, the point Joe was trying to make was that it seems absurd that a person who works in the tech industry is worth a lot of money compared with someone who works in the music industry for fifty years.

Although that doesn't make sense generally: it's not like the tech industry away from music is known for being a place where the bosses take home tiny pay packets.

It also doesn't make any sense in this specific case. First of all, it could be possible that Mick Jagger had just invested incredibly badly, or had been generous with his money.

Secondly, although Mick has been in the industry fifty years, Ek's not exactly a newcomer - he started when he was 14, so nearly twenty years, and he made a fortune selling his first advertising business. So it's not like he's built his money up entirely from not making Mick Jagger even richer.

Also: both these people have obscene amounts of money. Even if Daniel Ek was fifty times richer than Jagger, that would mean Jagger had six million dollars. You can buy a bionic man with that.

But you had a point, Joe, to make:

Because when you read stories about Lady Gaga getting 127 dollars for 60 trillion plays, or whatever, you're thinking, this is bullshit.

Well, yes, there were stories five years ago that GaGag got USD127 for a million streams - it's funny that Elliott was spot-on with the amount there, when so many of his other figures are grossly overestimated in favour of his argument, but then I think we all know people in our own jobs who do that.

But why was GaGa doing so poorly out of streaming? Not because of the semi-evil streaming services, but because of the fully evil record labels:

[In] some explosive comments made by Gaga's ex-manager Troy Carter. Carter states that Gaga's label, Universal Music, cheated the artist out of streaming royalties due to her from Spotify and other streaming services during the height of her pop popularity.

Carter, who is no longer handling Gaga's career but is active as a music and technology entrepreneur and investor, said, "We've always gotten screwed from record royalties ... So when you look at it, the live business and the merchandise business have always been the bigger piece of the pie. And with record labels, I think it's more of just chickens coming home to roost. Well, let's rephrase that: labels made a significant amount of money off of Spotify that didn't match up to the artist royalty statements ..."

How evil of Spotify to, erm, not be party to the main point where artists are getting ripped off.

Anything else, Joe? Do you perhaps have an "I can remember when it was all trees round here" argument to offer?

And when you get on Spotify, it's very insular. Which the whole industry has become. Everybody is on headphones now. It's just Zombieland, and we're all guilty of it. I do it too, but only when it's necessary, like on an airplane.

Yes. People listening to music on headphones. In the old days, people used to go to their bedrooms to be insular and listen to music. How can Spotify have ruined that by, erm, inventing headphones or something or... what?

The Dancing Baby is free to dance

Eight years after a dancing baby created a shitstorm, a Federal Appeals Court has told Universal that it needs to think things through before issuing takedown notices:

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that copyright holders like Universal must consider fair use before trying to remove content from the Internet. It also rejected Universal’s claim that a victim of takedown abuse cannot vindicate her rights if she cannot show actual monetary loss.

“Today’s ruling sends a strong message that copyright law does not authorize thoughtless censorship of lawful speech,” said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. “We’re pleased that the court recognized that ignoring fair use rights makes content holders liable for damages.”

The baby in question danced for a few seconds while a Prince song played in the background. Universal sued with a straight face claiming that this would stop Prince from being able to make a living.

Smiths shuts down This Charming Charlie

So the amusing mash-up of Smiths lyrics and Peanuts frames is being hounded off the web, because copyright:

The Smiths’ licensing company (Universal Music Publishing Group) has started requesting posts be removed from This Charming Charlie. So far 6 posts have been removed, and it is increasing every hour. If you like the page, please save copies of the comics to your own computer. I will repost the images on my personal site.

To be fair to Universal Music, there's clearly a fundamental threat to their business because I've certainly stopped buying Smiths records now that I can read a single line of a song in a speech bubble coming from Linus' mouth. Obviously.

Johnny Borrell: When you give life lemons, someone will make lemonade

You know how you can tell when your record sales are really bad? It's when your label stops trying to talk up your record, and joins in the gales of laughter.

I wouldn't normally plonk down an entire press release, but Stiff Records' giggling at Johnny Borrell's sales deserves to be read in full:

Stiff Records is proud to announce first week sales figures for its latest album – Johnny Borrell's 'Borrell 1' – of 594.

'Borrell 1' is the début solo LP from the former Razorlight vocalist and is the first new album on the highly prolific Stiff Records since 2007.

That last album was the multi million-selling two-volume set, '30 Years Of Stiff Records' (although admittedly that was a free cover-mount with 'The Independent on Sunday').

"First week sales of 594 makes 'Borrell 1' the 15,678th best selling album of the year to date," comments a Stiff spokesperson. "So far we've achieved 0.00015% sales of Adele's '21' – and 0.03% sales of this week's No. 1 album from Jahmene Douglas – so we feel like it's all to play for as we move into the all-important week two."

“We might even break the Top 100.”

'Borrell 1' is out now on Stiff Records. If they're dead, we'll sign them.

You could almost feel sorry for Borrell - after all, it's unlikely Stiff warned Borrell that failing to sell any copies beyond his immediate family would result in public humiliation; and, as we know, Borrell does have a precious self-image which might struggle with knowing there are another fifteen and half thousand more popular albums than his. This year alone.

Johnny Borrell is people, after all. And, let's face it, while he might make terrible albums, it's not his fault that someone at Stiff - which is now just a tiny outcrop of Universal - decided to spend money on releasing it.

And given that marketing and promotion is what the major label is meant to provide in return for its cut, this is a bit like an inept surgeon mocking the dead guy on his operating table.

On the other hand: 594. I know Razorlight were growing ranker than a week-gone bobcat left to fester in an open drain towards the end, but were there no curious fans left by the end?

[Thanks for the tip to @curiousiguana]

Sanctuary finds new home

Universal sold Parlophone to Warners. And now, Sanctuary has gone to BMG.

I suppose that at least, this time, it's not gone to an existing major label - BMG used to be half-owners in Sony-BMG until they sold up in 2008, but haven't been a major for half a decade. Apparently, though, they're kinda regretting that, and want to be a major label again:

Hartwig Masuch, chief executive of BMG, said: "We have made no secret of our ambition to create a new force in the music industry focused on delivering service and revenue to artists."

He added: "We believe this deal will be good news for those artists, good news for our partners, particularly in the independent sector, and good news for the music industry as a whole.

To be fair, selling off your major force in the music industry and not doing it for five years was a pretty good way of making a secret of these ambitions.

It's not entirely obvious how owning the Iron Maiden back catalogue is going to create a new force in the music industry, but who knows?

Parlophone moves from one empire to another

As part of the deal to allow EMI to become part of Universal, Parlophone had to be put up for sale.

The idea being that if you take EMI out of the marketplace, power becomes highly concentrated in just three major labels' mechanised-hand-like-claws, and that would be a bad thing.

So, who has bought Parlophone, to save us from this idea that most of the Western world's chart music will be held by just three companies?

Universal.

I know what you're thinking: how does Parlophone being held by a different major make things more competitive?

But that is to misunderstand competition law: it exists not to allow everyone to compete equally; it functions to ensure that those who are already rigging the market play nicely amongst themeselves.

The Independent, by the way, thinks the key detail in this deal is something else:

Russian-born billionaire Blavatnik buys Blur and Coldplay in £500m Warners Parlophone takeover

Obviously, given the person paying for the ink and the Windows licences at the Indie, being Russian-born is rather more significant for that paper than it might be for the rest of us.

Gary Barlow closes label so his money can spend more time with his family

Who even remembered that Gary Barlow had set up a record label?

He doesn't any more, as he's folded it.

He told The Sun it was just a time thing:

"It's been a very difficult decision but it came down to time. I've had a lot going on recently and I want to spend more time with my family."

It seems the four million quid he'd lost on the adventure had slipped his mind as easily as it had seeped out of Future's balance sheets.

It's hard to believe that a label featuring such delights as Aggro Santos and Emma's Imagination - winner of Sky's Must Be The Music, of course - could grind to a halt.

Let's just cast our mind back to how it was in the early days, when Gordon Smart predicted great things:

SIMON COWELL had better look out – a talented, younger and more popular music mogul is shaping up to steal his crown.

Industry insiders at the bash revealed GARY BARLOW has been given his own record label by his Universal bosses so he can snap up hot new acts.

He has already started work signing his first artist – a young male singer – and the lucky lad is now working with Gary and songwriting pal CATHY DENNIS.

The lucrative agreement is Gary’s reward from Universal’s head honcho LUCIAN GRAINGE for the amazing success of TAKE THAT’s comeback.

An industry source said last night: “It’s a masterstroke. With Gary’s incredible writing ability and contacts, the acts will be in the best possible hands.”

Oh, Lucian. How you must be wishing you'd just got him a really nice vase as a reward instead.

Telegraph sees hope for HMV

There's some cheerful news for HMV today, as the Telegraph has some words of encouragement about the chain's future:

It is understood Universal is liable for the rent on approximately 40 HMV stores after buying the retailer's former parent company EMI earlier this year. The rent liabilities highlight the close relationship between HMV and its suppliers, which are trying to support the retailer with a series of initiatives.

EMI guaranteed rental agreements on HMV stores when the retailer was spun out of the record label in 1998. It is understood that Universal then assumed these guarantees when it acquired troubled EMI.

Obviously this is good news of the 'you need chemo, but you look good in a hat' variety.

First, it's not actually anything to do with the core business - not about selling things, merely suggesting that as the decline continues the's a bit more strength in the props.

Secondly, Universal are obviously only one supplier to the chain - they might have an interest in keeping the thing alive (beyond the cash all the majors are pumping in to help Nipper keep his nose above water), but why would the other labels - or studios, or manufacturers of games or headphones - give a raspberry fart about how much extra hurt Universal would feel if the store vanished?

Sure, Universal has its mitts on a massive share of the music business, but if a store could survive by its catalogue alone, there would be Universal-branded shops on the high street.

Finally, the fact that the bill will only sting Universal if no new tenants are found for the stores - true, times are tough. But these are the 40 stores which HMV have stuck with since being spun out of EMI in the last century. Presumably the reason why these branches haven't moved or been closed already is because they're in great locations - Universal are underwriting the best bits of the network. And a good location for HMV is probably going to be no worse for a Sainsburys Local. It's hugely unlikely that Universal would have to pick up the tab for every place.

In short, then: less "good news for HMV", more "mildly discomforting news for Universal but they can always do with more tax write off".

Apart from anything: the likely cost of writing off an HMV failure would have been factored into the price Universal paid for EMI this year.

Record labels lose odd-smelling YouTube views

YouTube have been tidying up view figures, removing dubious counts.

Who has been especially hit by this purge o'views?

Why, record labels. The Daily Dot reports:

Universal's channel is the one that took the biggest hit. According to figures compiled by the YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, the record company's YouTube channel lost more than 1 billion views from its preexisting tally of 7 billion views Tuesday.

Sony/BMG was the second largest sufferer, dropping more than 850 million views in one day, bringing its total number of views to a mere 2.3 million. RCA, which got off scot free by comparison, dipped 159 million views. Its tally now sits more modestly at 120 million views.

Of course, there's no evidence of wrong-doing, and Google is known for its caprice in how it handles, well, everything.

But it does look as if, once again, the labels haven't quite been living up to the virtues they expect the rest of us to achieve.

[UPDATE: Billboard thinks it can account for nearly all the lost views. The "nearly" is significant]

We'll never know how it ends

The high-profile battle between Eminem and Universal over digital royalties has ended in a slightly more low-key way.

There's a settlement, but it's secret.

So we can only conclude that the cash Universal are giving Eminem is large enough to persuade them they don't want other artists to know how much, and large enough for him to be persuaded to keep his mouth shut.

Fuller swoops for EMI offcuts

There's a clutching of handkerchiefs to mouths at the news that Simon Fuller might buy the bits of EMI regulators are making Universal sell as the price of merger.

Fuller! Imagine! He did the S Clubs and game show pop stars! The very idea.

And, yes, the idea of an already rich and poweful man becoming a bit more rich and powerful is hard to celebrate.

But there's actually an upside, which does make the idea of Fuller rummaging in the EMI bins something we should welcome.

First of all, he's apparently thinking of buying all the bits - Mute, Parlophone, the 50% of Now Thats What I Call Music - the whole lot, rather than taking a couple of bits.

It'd actually be enough, surely, to count as a fairly considerable label in its own right; and still based firmly in the UK. Wasn't the loss of that something we were meant to mourn when EMI was sold off?

Also, whatever Simon Fuller's other faults, he is a pop music man. Isn't it better for Parlophone to be owned by the bloke who put together S Club 7 than Guy Hands and his Motorway Service Station business? Or, indeed, than Universal, a tiny part of a conglomerate that might have spun off its water business but still doesn't seem to moved on from pushing sewage about?

It would be lovely to think Parlophone could be turned into a worker's co-op, or Mute become a John Lewis style concern, but that's unlikely to happen. Also, can you imagine the meetings when Chris Martin started to pipe up?

So, the whole thing in the hands of a man who understands how to sell music? Could be worse.

And at least it's not Cowell.

EU, US allow Universal and EMI to decline together

It's been a long, slow process, but today both the EU and American authorities have sighed and said it'll be fine for the two decaying bodies to merge themselves into a single, leeching exercise.

As part of the deal, some chunks of EMI will be cut off and left to flounder on their own - Parlophone will be looking for a new, different owner to manage its decline.

Experts nodded wisely at the news that the Universal-EMI merger will finally happen, noting that formal EU approval officially kick starts the long, slow process towards Universal-EMI merging with Warners.

UMG lob even more out the balloon

Is the hot-air-balloon of the UMG takeover of EMI rising high enough yet?

Apparently not - even throwing Parlophone (except the good bits) out of the merged company isn't pleasing European regulators, and so UMG is now looking about for other parts of the company to divest in order to keep everyone happy.

If it keeps agreeing to sell off bits at this rate, Universal might wind up smaller than it was before it tried to swallow EMI. The whole thing is starting to feel like the sort of 'what is point' that Quentin Letts might feel like investigating.

Universal takeover of EMI hits more grief

In Europe, Universal are pleading with the EU like a dumped boyfriend trying to respark a relationship ("How about if I stop with the Parlophoning? Babes, I'll get rid of Virgin if you want me to...").

Now the EMI takeover is running into trouble in the US, with the Senate starting to wonder if it's good news. MediaGuardian reports on the meddling:

Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate antitrust subcommittee respectively, have written a six-page letter to FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz urging him to closely scrutinise the deal to see if it will substantially injure competition in violation of anti-trust laws.

The letter raises several concerns, including that the new combined company could threaten the development of new digital music services and that CD prices could rise.

"We believe this proposed acquisition presents significant competition issues significant competition issues that merit careful FTC review to ensure that the transaction is not likely to cause substantial harm to competition in the affected markets," the letter says.

Universal could always play the "hey, we already act like a monopoly - that's what the RIAA is for" card. But that might not help.

Universal throw more stuff away from EMI takeover

Universal is now so desperately scared of not being able to takeover EMI that it has proposed a deal whereby it'd offload European rights to the EMI catalogue:

EMI chief executive Roger Faxon has written an internal email to his staff outlining which parts of the music business Universal has proposed to sell off, including Mute, Chrysalis (excluding the Robbie Williams catalogue) and Ensign labels.

Included in that disposal would be the Pink Floyd catalogue and the recently concluded new deal with Guetta, along with his catalogue.

Pink Floyd's EMI catalogue includes Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall – albums that still sell extensively and are believed to bring in millions of pounds a year.

Faxon said the divestments only relate to the exploitation of EMI's repertoire in Europe.

It's an interesting move - if only because it might raise a question for American regulators about why Universal thinks a combination of it and EMI would distort the European marketplace, but not the US?

Offloading Parlophone

As Universal continue to try throwing things out the basket to see if their EMI takeover can get lift-off, the latest plan is to try and flog Parlophone to BMG.

Yes, yes, BMG had stopped being in the recorded music business when it withdrew from what is now Sony alone, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be interested in getting back into such a vibrant, profit-loaded sector, right?

There is a slight problem with the plan, thought. The idea is to convince that the EU that the embiggened Universal wouldn't control too much of the market for the biggest selling acts, but, says MediaGuardian:

One source with knowledge of the situation said that any potential sale of Parlophone, one of EMI's most famous labels, would include Universal "cherry picking" key artists to keep such as the Beatles and, potentially, Coldplay.

It's like those hoarding programmes where the guy agrees to get rid of his enormous collection of plastic horses, only to get to the shop and announce that he's keeping all the dappled ones.

Universal get more time

As the Universal takeover of EMI gets caught up in regulators' worries about monopoly, Citibank have offered Vivendi longer to complete the deal.

The cash was supposed to have changed hands by September; now, to give time for the company to work out how to offload enough parts to keep everyone happy.

Hilariously, Richard Branson is talking about buying back Virgin:

"Richard Branson and Virgin have been assessing how to get back into recorded music business for many years," said a spokesman for Virgin Group. "The potential disposal of Virgin Records by Universal Music offers a wonderful opportunity to recreate a dynamic independent label in the market."

For many years? He can't have been assessing how to get back into music for more than five years, as up until 2007 Branson was part-owner of V2. Which was, erm, sold to Universal.

(It's worth noting that when Branson founded V2, he only owned 5% of it; the rest was held by Morgan Stanley. I know, imagine a record label mostly owned by a bank. Crazy, huh?)

While it might be fun for Richard to buy back Virgin, the failure of V2 should be evidence enough that he doesn't have a magic touch. And V2 was founded in 1996, when the music business still bore a superficial resemblance to the one in which Branson thrived in the early days of Virgin. And while the Virgin Group had a retail network.

However much people might want to believe that Beardie back at Virgin Records is a Leno-returns-to-Tonight story, it's much more likely to be akin to that awkward couple of episodes where Bet Lynch went back to Corrie, look confused and was swiftly written out again.

Def Leppard clone themselves

Def Leppard have got the hump with Universal taking the lions' share - or, rather, the Leppard's share - of their royalties, and have recorded 'forgeries' of their old stuff:

The band's frontman Joe Elliott said to Billboard that the disagreement has led to the band deciding to phase out their recordings for Universal and replace them with a whole new collection of their songs, which they're calling 'forgeries'. "We'll just replace our back catalogue with brand new, exact same versions of what we did," he said.

There's a glorious philosophical conundrum here - are these now new originals? Are the cover versions? Could the 2012 studio version of Pour Some Sugar On Me be considered merely a later take from the original suspended 1987 session?

This is a different class of re-recording from, say, Kate Bush's director's cuts reworking of earlier albums, as the Lep (as they must never, ever be called) are trying to recreate the songs exactly as they were; it's closer to those soundalike albums ("sings the hits of") which unsuspecting parents would buy children to make Christmas mornings so disappointing in the 1970s.

It's not quite the unique event you might think; certainly, back in 1981 Flux Of Pink Indians launched their own Spiderleg Records with a cloned version of the '1970s Were Made In Hong Kong' ep they'd made for Stortbeat Records as The Epileptics a couple of years earlier. That was over a royalty dispute, too.

[Thanks to @jamesthegill for the tip]