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Fair enough, though I think you can't understate the huge extent to which album sales have gone down. MX is still on track to be the highest selling rock album since No Line on the Horizon (which was itself regarded as something of a commercial disappointment despite actually selling fairly well.)

Charlie Brown Should've been the first single, Hurts Like Heaven the second single. That Said, I totally understand why the chose ETDIAWF before the summer festivals as it totally fit the tone of that type of tour.

I'm by no means an expert in such matters, but U.S. sources are reporting that sales drops, while a bit steep, are within industry norms. (of course, that only applies to U.S. charts.)

Thanks! Those photos are awesome, the level of detail in those paintjobs is amazing, and it's really cool to be able to see them up close.

Where did the photo of Jonny's Strat come from? Are there photos of the others?

Rhapsody's been around for almost 10 years and has a much bigger subscriber base than Spotify, so I'm not sure about bigger, but Spotify has certainly garnered more media attention than any other streaming service.

I think for whatever reason, someone in the band's camp just doesn't like these services. Looking at the MX promotion alone, digital channels have played a huge role (as they did for VLVODAAHF before it.), so it's obvious they're not averse to digital distribution itself. Personally, I don't really see why there's so much fuss over this as up until about a year ago, I subscribed to Rhapsody, and there were always major artists missing from their library (or with less than there full body of work available.) I don't know if it's still the case, but at that time Radiohead wasn't even available and they're widely regarded as the most fully embracing "big band" as far as digital music goes.

There's a difference between accepting the reality of a certain amount of illegal downloading, and essentially being insulted by having you work valued at so little. I suspect pride is a huge motivating factor in so many artists who otherwise embrace digital music having ill feelings about streaming services.

IMHO it probably comes down to principal than anything else. Coldplay sold around a million records last week. They're not in a position where they need to grasp at every revenue stream, therefore can make decisions based on other principles. The bottom line is streaming revenues are so low that even the most streamed artists make essentially no money from the streaming (almost the same as illegal downloading), yet the ridiculously low streaming royalty allows companies like Spotify to act all righteous as though they're saving the music industry, when the reality is the difference between most bands' financial situations with and without streaming is negligible. Frankly, I can see how artists might be tempted to give a f**k you to spotify and other companies like it. Spotify's pitch to bands (and labels) earlier this year was that they NEEDED streaming services to be viable. Coldplay just proved that they don't (at least not bands on their commercial level.)

They were probably based out of LA for the entire duration of their California promo tour. Especially since the band's presence at the Jobs memorial was a last minute decision.

After reading that one, now I really can't blame them.

The more I read about them the more Spotify seems to have some really dodgy business practices. Add that to the fact that the spotify royalty is only .0016 cents per play, and I don't blame any artist for not working with them.

It could be a creative decision like the article claims. We've seen the band pass up money making avenues (ie use in advertisements) before, in favor of some sort of artistic principle. I guess when you're already pulling in the dough they do, you don't have to scape up every last dime.

That's the sole reason I care about this. Bands where things are unequal have a decided tendency to split up (or have umpteen lineup changes ie. Oasis.) If the rest of the band wants him to have more money, that's cool, but if he's given himself a pay raise at the expense of giving the others a pay cut, that's bad for the stability of the band, which is bad for us, the fans.

It's still reported in almost every article about the band (the Billboard one, the Sunday Times One etc.) Articles like this are usually very tightly controlled by the band's camp, virtually nothing gets mentioned if it's not the band's official line. Even if that's not the case, if it were no longer true, there would be someone willing to "expose" that fact, which would itself be newsworthy in the right circles.

Several articles (notably the one in Billboard which had a direct quote from Dave Holmes) have said that the tentative plan is for the world tour proper to begin in April of next year. If that holds true, dates for the first leg(s) should probably come out around January sometime.

I stand corrected.

I always thought the rule only pertained to cocaine. Not sure if I picked that up somewhere or it just got into my head somehow.

As far as I know, no band member has mentioned it since the X and Y era,and it seems to have gone omitted in articles about the band since around the same time.

So you're saying that A-Ha is not a phenomenally commercially successful band? That is simply untrue.

I'll see if I can find anything on it. I know I've heard both Chris and Will mention it.

Guy's already pretty much confessed to doing some drugs (mainly pot I think) in the early days, He's just careful never to say it explicitly.

I can't see that any of the others would stick around if they felt they weren't being treated equitably. They all have enough of a profile in the industry as members of such a huge band to attract enough attention to a new project if that's what they wanted. Heck, Guy's still in the band and he's already got like 16 other ventures going.:laugh3:

Exactly. That's the kind of thing that breaks up bands.

Ok,I know I'm seriously spamming this thread, but I've been having more thoughts about the royalties issue. It really doesn't make sense to me that if the split is no longer equal, so many news articles on the band are still reporting that it is. Things like that in articles are almost always fact checked and even if they weren't the information that can apparently can be easily looked up would have been picked up and reported on by someone by now, and yet all reports still repeat the equal split line. This goes double for a band like Coldplay who have legions of detractors who would jump at the chance to expose something like this, especially if the band is actively disseminating the fact that they're equal partners. All I can think is that there must be more to this situation than meets the eye.