The British music industry lost about £165m last year due to CD piracy, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said.

The losses amounted to more than the combined sales of the top 13 albums last year, including James Blunt, Coldplay and Robbie Williams.

The BPI says about 37 million pirate CDs are sold across Britain each year. According to an independent study of 2,000 people aged 15 years and above, 45 per cent would have bought the original if fakes had not been available. The survey was carried out in February and March this year.The BPI urged the police to make intellectual property crime more of a priority and called for regulation of car boot sales and markets, as well as making company directors liable when employees took part in piracy.

"Already the UK has a world-beating recording industry, but it will struggle to remain that way with its piracy problems worsening," Peter Jamieson, the BPI's chairman, said.

Source: Reuters

The pressures of performing live for solo artist Jamelia has proved far too much. The singer who was performing tracks from her new album at the AOL Sessions forgot her lyrics nine times – and those were from her old songs.

The singer, who hasn't performed live in two years, was playing at London venue The Hospital. The gig started well but soon went pear-shaped when she came to perform, Beware of the Dog. The singer had to stop in the middle after forgetting the lyrics. She gave the song a second shot and succeeded but stumbled again when she came to do her cover of Coldplay's Clocks. She retried that song six times, then moved on to another, which she also failed twice.

It all got too much for the songstress who then took a ten-minute break. She kept her sense of humour about her ordeal though, telling the crowd, 'I'll try clocks again ...so it could be a long night.'

More on this story here

She wasn't even born when her fellow countrymen The Beach Boys released California Girls.

But it seems the spirit of the band's most famous track is alive and well on Gwyneth Paltrow's current beach holiday.

The 33-year-old actress swopped the breakers of her birth place California for some rather more tame water near the home of her husband Chris Martin's parents in Cornwall. Not only were the waves smaller, but the sky was surely a little greyer and the air a spot colder than back home.

Read the full article here

Its sort of hard to imagine the current crop of bands still going strong 25 years after their debut. Can you picture Coldplay in 2022? Or The Kaiser Chiefs in 2028? Or even Orson in 25 years (where they will mostly be in their sixties I should imagine). Can you see these bands still releasing albums of new material in the whizzy exciting twenty-twenties?

Well, Sonic Youth can still manage it, and are at the stage where new records just slip out, with little fanfare. The beauty of their career now is that there is not a whole lot of expectation for them to "better" their previous efforts or to bring out that show-stopping album. This must be quite a nice state of affairs to be in, knowing that you can just produce the music you want to make without the weight of the world on your shoulders, hanging onto every beat, waiting for you to slip up and make a misjudgement. Sonic Youth can just get on with things, making music and, when its ready, release it. A luxury not many bands have in this day and age.

Read the full review here

It's the age old question, how to follow up a critically acclaimed album? For The Dears, that time is now. Breaking through with 2004's "No Cities Left", a swirling Brit-influenced album full of the joys of Britpop and the sorrows of Morrissey, they captured the imagination - dragging you kicking and screaming into their dark and heavily layered world. "Gang of Losers" however, is a very different beast. Instead of treading the same paths created by "No Cities Left", they've found a different road, a larger more mainstream highway full of rapturous choruses and catchy guitar riffs. Unfortunately this isn't what The Dears originally sold us.

Sure, it's not a bad album, but it's missing the breadth of vision encountered previously, even the subject matter of the songs seems banal in places (see "There Goes My Outfit"). They've traded their dark, dense songs for the "big sound", epic production found on Embrace, Coldplay and Keane. We have nifty guitar riffs and Murray Lightburn's (still) fantastic voice rollicking along at a fair old pace, but it lacks the heart and emotional depth that won them their fans originally.

Read the full review here

Aaaah, don’t they make great dads. Showing yesterday that they’re up for a spot of fun with their kids are Chris Martin and Michael Douglas.

Coldplay frontman Chris, in trademark black combats, treated daughter Apple to a day at London Zoo. Dressed all pretty in pink, she was soon playing on the climbing frames.

But I hope Chris doesn’t get in trouble when mum Gwyneth Paltrow sees this pic of Apple with a lollypop in her hand – I can’t imagine they sell macrobiotic ones at the zoo.

Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk

Gwyneth Paltrow has hailed London life for the benefits it affords her young children.

The Shakespeare In Love star is married to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and loves spending time in her garden with the couple's children, Apple, two and Moses, four months. She explains, "Most days I'm in my garden, in sweatpants, with the children. It's so nice to have a big garden with a lawn in the middle of the city.

In New York, we just don't have that sort of thing. "I love the idea that I can get dressed up and go to galleries or the theatre, but then I come back to the quiet Hampstead area, which is like Santa Monica, California, where I grew up when I was little. "There's an easy living here."

Meanwhile, we hear that Chris Martin has whisked his missus Gwyneth Paltrow and their two young kids off to Cornwall for their summer break.

We do hope it wasn't too Cold to Play out...

Source: contactmusic.com and mirror.co.uk

The 2007 Brit awards will be broadcast live on TV for the first time in almost two decades, it has been revealed.

The ceremony was shown live until 1989, when a shambolic show hosted by Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox led to the decision to tape the awards in advance. "British music is in one of its most exciting phases," said Peter Jamieson from the Brits committee. "So what better time to take the show live?"

Organisers have dropped the best rock and best urban act awards for 2007. The best pop act category, which this year was won by James Blunt, has also been discontinued. "The Brits has to be about celebrating the very best of music across the board," said the awards' co-chairman, Nick Phillips.

Read the full article here

Armin Van Buuren is one of the forerunners of the modern dance music scene. Consistently voted by fans to the top 5 in DJ Mag's annual DJ Poll, Armin has gained popularity through his relentless touring, top-notch original productions, as well as his weekly syndicated radio show, A State Of Trance.

Q. What are some of your favorite non-dance albums or artists? Or what music from outside your given genre do you draw inspiration from?

AVB: I'm a music addict and when I'm not in the studio I'm often online ordering new CDs. There's a lot of great music out there. I recently discovered the albums of Zero 7, Keane, Imogen Heap, and I'm a big Coldplay and Pink Floyd fan. If you look at my iPod you would probably laugh because there's a lot of different stuff on there, classical music, rock, ambient, anything really...

Read the full article here

Jack Johnson, Queens of the Stone Age and Coldplay all donated items to be auctioned off Thursday at 12 Galaxies for a fundraiser for the 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival.

Michael Franti and Spearhead's annual, daylong call for peace is Sept. 9 at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park and will feature Franti, Blackalicious, Los Mocosos and New Monsoon. Thursday's fundraiser will feature beatboxer extraordinaire RadioActive and the JP Cutler Band.

Go to powertothepeaceful.org for details.On August 24, beatbox wizard RadioActive, psycho-delicrock ensemble JP Cutler Band, Women In Rock founder Bernadette & Friends and Making Dinner perform for a fundraiser for Michael Franti & Spearhead’s

“Power to the Peaceful Festival.”

Long-time Spearhead collaborator RadioActive headlines the fundraiser on August 24th. His long-awaited debut full-length recording effort BMMNM Vol 1. Breakbox highlights his prodigious vocal beats, rhymes and scratches. An emcee, beatboxer, writer, painter and B Boy, RadioActive is a pioneering musical force on the San Francisco scene, a genuine innovator taking the human voice to ambitious heights. The JP Cutler Band shares the bill with their Rock/Americana tunes drenched in Indian classical psychodelic soundscapes. Berndatte & Friends will perform original soulful tunes, and Making Dinner open up the night with their folk influenced repertoire.

While the state of the world is so quickly changing overnight, with wars abroad violently ripping apart long-standing cultures and people, it’s often the duty of musicians and artists to raise awareness of the most pressing injustices and world issues. Come join us for a special evening of fundraising for Michael Franti’s “Power to the Peaceful Festival.”

Featuring:

RadioActive w/ Mike D + Johnny Downer (Free Peoples) & Kevin Carnes (Broun Fellinis)

JP Cutler Band,

Bernadette & Friends,

Making Dinner

+

*SILENT AUCTION*

Thursday, August 24, 2006

at 12 Galaxies

2565 Mission Street

San Francisco

Doors: 8pm / Showtime: 9pm

Ticket Info: 415.970.9777

$12 GA / $25 VIP

The country's poshest residents are paying the price for their affluent ways. Environmental monitors have revealed that Chelsea is suffering serious damage - from pollution by Chelsea tractors.

The discovery that the borough - which has generated more 4x4s than it has spawned Gianfranco shops or Joseph outlets - has been hailed as poetic justice by environmentalists.

Chris Martin, the frontman of British band Coldplay, a supporter of fair trade and all things 'green', got people talking last year when he had a prang while driving his 'Chelsea tractor' in London . Fortunately, his vehicle was so much bigger than the Honda he bumped into that it escaped unharmed.

Read the full article here

Gwyneth Paltrow admires single parents. The Hollywood star - who has two children, two-year-old Apple and Moses, four months, with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin - says she doesn't know how one parent families cope.

She told Harper's Bazaar magazine: "I do not know how single mothers have more than one child with no help. It requires so much of my life, and I don't have to change sheets and clean toilets, you know. My hat goes off... no, my clothes go off to the single mother with no help. I stand naked, bowing before her."

Meanwhile, the actress has revealed her daughter is a huge Madonna fan. The 'Shakespeare in Love' actress says Apple can't get enough of the singer's latest hit.

Google launched a new Labs project called Music Trends. The site shows popular songs based on Google Talk data (aggregated from the US, for now – note that Google Talk has been updated to ask for permission to send your data). Google on their help page says:

When Google Talk users opt in to Music Trends, we’ll capture information about the music they’re listening to from their music player. We then anonymize the information and add each musical vote to our Music Trends page. The more users that are opted in, and the more music they listen to, the more accurately the Music Trends page will reflect the world’s musical tastes.You can select different charts based on music style, like “Blues”, “Folk” or “Heavy Metal.” For example, the current week’s top 5 for “Alternative” is:

1. Map Of The Problematique by Muse

2. Fix You by Coldplay

3. The Eraser by Thom Yorke

4. Green Eyes by Coldplay

5. Analyse by Thom Yorke

Clocks by Coldplay

Every song and artist is linked and takes you to the respective Google Music page, which shows the song album, lyrics, and a couple of related links (like the artist’s website). And, of course, some Google ads.

Source: http://blog.outer-court.com

There are sad songs — like Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You" or "The Scientist" by Coldplay — and then there are songs that induce such melancholia they make Kurt Cobain sound more like Jack Johnson.

Author Tom Reynolds analyzes the latter variety in his recently released book, "I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard."

Both popular hits (à la Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You") and nearly forgotten songs (think Richard Harris' version of "MacArthur Park") are dissected with Reynolds' humorously acerbic insight. The "most depressing song mantle" carries certain characteristics, including maudlin or macabre lyrics, overwrought production or artistic pretension. In his introduction, Reynolds, a Los Angeles-based TV writer-producer, clarifies his methodology for selecting the music: "In short, sad songs offer the listener empathetic comfort, reflection, and wisdom. Depressing songs just make you want to stick a Glock-9 in your mouth."

Descriptive chapter titles help categorize the songs. John Prine's "Sam Stone" — about a morphine-addicted Vietnam vet — can be found in the "If I Sing About Drugs, People Will Take Me Seriously" section. "The Freshmen," in which the Verve Pipe describes a college coed's suicide from the perspective of two guys who dumped her, is filed under the "I'm Telling a Story Nobody Wants to Hear" chapter.

The best (or maybe worst?) depressing songs are classified as "Perfect Storms." One such tempest is Bobby Goldsboro's 1968 hit "Honey." Simply told, it's about a man mourning his dead wife, but according to Reynolds, the song reaches the upper echelon of depression because songwriter Bobby Russell's lyrics include every schmaltzy trick in the book — "blooming flowers, puffy clouds, angels, singing robins, planted trees, and the puppy."

Depressing music continues to infiltrate even the current pop charts. During a recent phone interview, Reynolds singles out James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" and Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" as two of today's more depressing songs. Because they're overplayed, he says, "whatever cathartic effect they had wears off."

So be careful the next time you change the radio dial or hit "play" on the iPod: You might think about hiding sharp objects and butter knives first.

Source: http://www.calendarlive.com

EMI, the British music group behind Coldplay and Gorillaz, has confirmed it is holding talks with YouTube, which could see it offer its content on the popular social networking website.

YouTube said yesterday that it has held discussions with a number of record labels in a bid to offer music video downloads. Warner Music Group, which was earlier this year involved in a takeover battle with EMI, also confirmed it is talking to the website.

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen said the site hopes to "have every music video ever created" within 18 months. Although YouTube, which was this week named one of Time magazine’s "coolest websites" has spoken with music groups, no formal agreements have yet been reached.This week The Times reported how the site created a new online hero when a 79-year-old British widower’s video monologues became the hottest sensation on the web, attracting more than a million downloads.

The website is now aiming to go beyond being a site for sharing home videos to becoming a provider of mainstream entertainment.

YouTube hosts homemade videos, but pirated commercial clips can be found. The site has an estimated 43 per cent of the market for online video, according to Hitwise.

A spokesman for EMI said: "EMI is talking to YouTube about a variety of possible business models."

YouTube sprung out of nowhere a year ago and now claims to show more than 100 million videos a day. It is negotiating for rights to post current and archive music videos on its site, and said any commercial model it decides on will offer the videos free.

The social networking website plans to allow users to add the music videos to their own profiles and post reviews.

Mr Chen said: "Right now we’re trying to very quickly determine how and what the model is to distribute this content and we’re very aggressive in assisting the labels in trying to get the content on to YouTube."

Earlier this year, YouTube agreed a deal with US broadcaster NBC to promote its autumn schedule on the website. The broadcaster had previously had to ask YouTube to remove unauthorised footage of its shows posted by users.

The news form YouTube the week it emerged that internet arm of News Corporation will sell Fox films and television content in an attempt to take a corner of the burgeoning online content market.

Fox is making its movie and television content available for download on Microsoft’s Windows devices. Movies available for Windows in October will include X-Men: The Last Stand,Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties and The Omen.

The digital music market is growing at a rapid rate and a deal with key internet players like YouTube would make sense for music groups. EMI said in April that digital music revenue jumped more than 150 per cent in 2006, stripping out currency fluctuations, and was likely to account for more than 5.5 per cent of recorded music revenue.

Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk

Perth music fans are not giving up on the Red Hot Chili Peppers coming to Perth next year, despite WA being left off the band's Australian tour schedule.

Radio station Nova 937 has launched a petition to bring the American rockers to Perth. Nova promotions and marketing manager Rachael Speight said there was still hope.

"There's no date, but signing a petition will help,'' she said. "It worked with Coldplay, and we had a (successful) Robbie Williams petition for a second concert.

"We hope the petition will help bring them to Perth and secure a gig.''

Read the full article here

Brit pop outfit Keane made grown men weep in its Bangkok concert last week. Edward Gomez was in the crowd with tissues in hand.

Keane, so detractors continue to claim, has enjoyed tremendous success by shamelessly nicking Coldplay’s sound.

But why merely wag the accusatory finger at the band for the thematic and chordal similarities between Somewhere Only We Know and Yellow?

Read the full article here

John Lee Hooker once came up with a nice slice of pop wisdom that few students can afford to leave home without these days. The best things in life are free, he opined, but you can leave it to the birds and bees, just give me money. A degree is certainly not free anymore. Most students try and fill the gaping hole in their overdraft with the old favourites of bar work and retail. But beyond the minimum wage lies the strange, hopeful wild west of well-paid student work.

Coldplay once said that as students they found they had a choice between either starting a band or getting all too familiar with daytime TV favourites like Diagnosis Murder. The danger with getting too ambitious with your free time is that ready cash will always have a seductive draw for the down at heel student that the library obviously often lacks. Something your dons, who have chosen the library over ready cash, can find hard to understand. Be warned.

Read the full article here

It’s all about the music, thanks to special hearing aid technology

When Troy Spracklin opened Switch computers in September 2004, the South Surrey resident must have thought he was living the dream.

Then, a few months later he received a call that would change his life. That call was from Etymotic Research Inc., an Illinois-based firm specializing in hearing-aid technology for scientists, people with hearing impairments and musicians. The company needed someone to meet with U2 – at the time the biggest band in the world – which happened to be rehearsing its upcoming tour in Vancouver.

For Spracklin, a life-long U2 fan, it was the chance of a lifetime. “U2’s been my favourite band all my life,” said Spracklin, who has Canadian distribution rights for Etymotic. “It was truly a dream come true. “As I walked into GM Place they were sound-checking Vertigo. It was a surreal, emotional experience.” A few weeks earlier, U2 guitarist Edge had been on a flight with producer Steve Lillywhite. He was listening to Lillywhite’s iPod, which included a pair of ER-4 earphones, made by Etymotic. “He said, ‘Why is my listening experience nowhere near as clear as these?” Spracklin said. “He was blown away by the sound quality, and someone like Edge knows what sound is.”

Spracklin fitted the guitarist, and a number of U2 sound engineers, with their own earpieces, for use during performances. He now spends part of his time traveling to concerts throughout North America and working with the band.

He’s also working with the British band Coldplay, and a number of smaller acts.

“With U2 I’ve been to probably seven or eight shows across North America, with Coldplay about the same. We go down and make sure everything is the way it should be. We talk to the engineers and get feedback,” he said. “For me it’s work, but it’s the greatest work you can do. “Working with this band is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Etymotic’s ER-4 Earphones are tiny silicone buds which mold to the inside of a person’s ear, muffling ambient noise. For a typical user it can block converstion, traffic, air conditioning and other distractions.

For a musician who plays to 15,000 screaming fans, it can make or break a performance. “The impact is a better performance all the way around. It is so important that when Edge comes in on lead guitar, (bassist) Adam Clayton and (drummer) Larry Mullen and Bono all hear exactly the same thing,” Spracklin said.

“It basically lets him hear his instrument on stage. You can imaging how hard it is for him to hear his instrument while on stage.”

And by using Etymotic’s ER-4s, Spracklin said the guitarist can block out external noise without having to crank the sound to dangerous levels. “It’s hearing himself as close to perfect as available. It helps him hear himself better, because it takes out the ambient noise. “I love the fact our product makes him better at what he does.”

Source: peacearchnews.com

New York rock act Interpol has parted ways with indie home Matador Records and will sign a new deal with Capitol, sources say. The group is now being managed by Dave Holmes, whose clients also include Capitol flagship artist Coldplay.

Billboard.com understands the group will hit the studio in the fall to begin recording its third album, which is tentatively due in mid-2007. In July, the group wrote on its Web site that it had already spent six months crafting material but had yet to begin recording.

The quartet found immediate success with Matador thanks to its 2002 debut, "Turn on the Bright Lights," which has sold 438,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Its 2004 follow-up, "Antics," has shifted 435,000 units, and debuted at a career-best No. 16 on The Billboard 200.With its Matador contract up, the band was a highly coveted free agent in recent months and was courted by a number of major-labels. Sources say Capitol had expressed interest in Interpol as early as 2001, when label president Andy Slater met with the band prior to its signing with Matador.

The news follows quickly on the heels of Capitol's signing of U.K. phenom Lily Allen, who scored a No. 1 single earlier this month with "Smile." The label also snapped up indie rock titan the Decemberists, whose label debut, "The Crane Wife," will arrive Oct. 3.

VH1 Classic has acquired the exclusive U.S. TV rights to the final episode of the BBC’s long-running music series Top of the Pops, which aired in the U.K. at the end of last month.

The one-hour special features performances by Madonna, The Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Jackson 5, David Bowie, Wham, Sonny & Cher, Coldplay, Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls.

It also includes rare footage never before seen in the U.S. of The Bee Gees, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Cliff Richard, John Lennon, Rod Stewart, ABBA, Status Quo, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Adam Ant, Elton John, Frankie, Eurythmics, Bryan Adams, Wet Wet Wet, Bros, Nirvana, Oasis and U2, among others. It will make its debut on VH1 Classic on Saturday, August 19 at 8 p.m.

More on this here

After a couple of years off the shelves the 1st Merz album is to be re-issued by Gronland Records. Originally released by Sony in 1999 in UK & France it will shortly be available across Europe and other shores. The new release will be a double CD with the original album on one and a selection of extra songs and remixes on the other. In addition to the original artwork the booklet will also include all the single artworks.

A bumper value package of Merz music from the last century!

"Merz sounds like nobody else in the world, and the world would be alright if it listened to nobody else. We absolutely love him" Chris Martin, Coldplay

Read the full review here

Blueline Medic was on Fueled by Ramen Records back when the label wasn’t just an incubator for the majors. Their first EP, A Working Title in Green, was a catchy little four-song exercise in Bad Religion and Jawbreaker-influenced indie rock and emo. Their last full-length, Text Bomb, was terrible. But The Apology Wars, which came out the same day as blink-182’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, is phenomenal.

But this album’s strength is not just in its poetic lyrics, though that is quite clearly its strongest point. The music is not only able, but captivating. Blueline Medic jumps from two or three-chord pop to guitar-heavy indie rock and almost Coldplay-esque moodiness in songs like “At Least We Had the War” (take it from someone who hates Coldplay, they make it work). Some moments (“Shuffle and Scrape”) suggest that the band takes some of the same influences as Jets to Brazil.

Read the full review here

Hollywood hot mama Gwyneth Paltrow tells September’s issue of Harper’s Bazaar she was “horrified” by her post-baby pudge after giving birth to daughter Apple, but with her new son, Moses, her body is “much less frightening.”

“The first time, you are horrified,” the Oscar winner says. “It’s all lovely when you are pregnant. But when you are not pregnant - and you haven’t been for a couple of months and you are still carrying tons of extra weight and everything’s all hanging and sagging - you think ‘How is this ever going to go back?’ But it does.”

Paltrow, who claims to have gained 40 pounds with each pregnancy, lost a whopping 20 even before leaving the hospital. She said she regains her svelte figure by doing “a lot of working out . . . but not dieting because I am a milk machine!”Now that the 33-year-old star has settled into family life with her husband, Coldplay rocker Chris Martin, and their two kiddies, Paltrow says she’s ready to mix her life up a bit.

“For a long time I thought, ‘I’ve done it. I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do. I’m not interested. I just want to be home with my family,’ ” she recalls. “I had no spark for work, but I feel like going back. And I’m excited about the prospect. I want to do something fun. I want to do a really great funny weird character.”

And she does in Amherst native Augusten Burroughs’ hilarious memoir, “Running With Scissors,” due out in October. Gwynnie stars as the quirky spinster daughter of an off-the-wall shrink.

Harper’s Baazar is on newsstands now.

Source: http://thetrack.bostonherald.com

Mud. Mushrooms. Men on stilts. Mad mantronics breathing fire... it's safe to say there's nowhere like Glastonbury. Those who saw the Julien Temple film of the festival when it came out earlier this year probably watched it with a weird and awkwardly visceral feeling of nostalgia. Old memories are evoked, smiles creep on to our faces and a muddy spliff is raised to Michael and family. While the film, and now this accompanying CD, fill the void, they remind us how great the gathering is but also turn the knife that we're not there right now, in a city-sized field, dirty, messed up and having the time of our lives.

Classic pop abounds, Babyshambles, Scissor Sisters, who dedicate 'Laura' to their first lady, and Pulp seem to have kidnapped Hayseed Dixie's fiddler for 'Common People'. The inclusion of David Gray is hopefully a cheeky slice of irony. Another means of inclusion here is flattery. Coldplay's entry features Chris Martin gushing "Give me weather that does no harm... Michael Eavis and Worthy Farm... Give me mud up to my knees... the best festival in history..."

Read the full review here"glastonbury" [glastonbury]

glastonbury