Tag Archives: downloads

➤ Gary Kemp and Tony Hadley in two-man Spandau reunion

Posted on 22 Jun 2013 | Leave a comment
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Tony Hadley and Gary Kemp: Mastertapes recording at BBC Maida Vale

➢ First part of the Radio 4 Mastertapes recording will be broadcast on Monday June 24 at 11pm BST: Ep 5, True with Gary Kemp and Tony Hadley:

“ John Wilson talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in two episodes, Wilson initially quizzes the artist about the album in question, and then the audience puts the questions.

“ Thirty years ago Spandau Ballet released their third album True. It peaked at number one in UK on May 14 and became a worldwide smash hit featuring tracks such as Gold, Pleasure, Communication and the title track, which spent four weeks at the top of the charts. Singer Tony Hadley and Gary Kemp, the man who wrote all of these songs, both went to the BBC Maida Vale studios last Thursday to discuss their inspiration and influence.

Spandau in the Bahamas, 1982: Martin, Gary, Steve, John and Tony. © Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis

Spandau in the Bahamas, 1982: Martin, Gary, Steve, John and Tony. © Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis

“ Released in 1983, True became one of the stand-out albums of the New Romantic movement. It was recorded at the Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, where producers Steve Jolley and Tony Swain gave the band a slicker, more R&B sound aimed at squarely at the charts. The B-side of the programme, where it’s the turn of the audience to ask the questions, can be heard on Tuesday June 25 at 3.30pm. ”

➢ Update June 25: BBC podcast available for download – Kemp and Hadley (A side) True 24.06.13

➢ Tony Hadley will release a DVD + CD package titled Live from Metropolis Studios in September, recorded in front of only 100 fans. A deluxe limited edition features pictures and an authentic signed picture for pre-orders before July 26.

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2011 ➤ Downloads explosion plus new definition of singles results in biggest sales for years

Posted on 3 Jan 2012 | Leave a comment

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❚ 2011 WAS THE BIGGEST YEAR for single sales in the history of the Official Charts (founded 1997), according to Official Charts Company data released by the BPI, which operates the OCC jointly with the Entertainment Retailers Association. Over the past seven years, the singles market has been redefined to include legitimate downloads. Since 2004, sales of singles have increased by more than five times, from 32m in 2004 to a record 177.9 million in 2011. The vast majority (99.3%) were sold as digital tracks and bundles. Last year, 1.1m CD singles were sold, representing just 0.6% of the total. All of the top 20 best-selling singles of 2011 sold more than 500,000 copies apiece.

Lady Gaga , Born This Way,albums,charts, pop musicAdele bagged two places in the 2011 year-end singles chart. The recorded and live performance of Someone Like You — recorded at the BRIT Awards — together sold 1.2m copies to become the top-selling single of 2011 overall, with Rolling In The Deep ending the year at No 9. Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera’s mega-seller, Moves Like Jagger, finished the year in second place and has now sold over a million copies despite never actually reaching No 1. LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem comes in at No 3. For all Lady Gaga’s exposure [above], Born This Way made only No 14.

GOVT ATTACKED FOR UK ALBUM SALES SLUMP

Michael Bublé❏ Overall sales of albums fell by 5.6% in 2011 to just 113.2m, and the UK has fallen behind Germany as a music market. BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “While other countries take positive steps to protect their creative sector, our government is taking too long to act on piracy.”

In the UK Adele’s 21 was by far the biggest selling album of 2011, ending the year with nearly 3.8m copies sold — more than double the 1.8m sales achieved by 2010’s top album, Take That’s Progress. 21 became the highest-selling album of the 21st century in December, achieving more sales in a single calendar year than any other album in British chart history. 2011 ended with Adele’s debut album, 19, in fourth place, alongside Top 10 placings for Michael Bublé [above], Bruno Mars and Coldplay.

BRITS DOMINATE TOP-SELLING DEBUT ALBUMS

jessiej,pop music,❏ Out of all the debut albums released last year in the UK, eight of the Top 10 are by British acts, topped by award-winning London singer Jessie J’s Who You Are [right] and Ed Sheeran’s +, which holds the record for the fast selling digital debut album in Official Charts Company history.

HMV’S ALTERNATIVE ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

❏ Totally at odds with the official year-ending charts, retailer HMV’s Poll of Polls announces its own Top 50 albums of the year, headed by an entirely different Top 10 for 2011 led by P J Harvey, Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes… The Dorset-born musician and singer-songwriter Harvey, who in September claimed a second Mercury Prize for her tenth studio album Let England Shake, scored an impressive 21 nominations in total from the 35 media outlets surveyed, including “album of the year” selections from NME, Mojo, Uncut, The Sunday Times and BBC music writers.


➢ Shapersofthe80s proposes a bunch of other
picky people’s musics of the year

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➤ Taste Masters from oop North aim to put passion back into pop

Posted on 30 May 2011 | Leave a comment
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“Anthemic pop” from Burnley: Super8 Cynics were session musicians assembled by vocalist Ady Hall

Laboratory Project, Fac251❚ HERE IS “A UTOPIAN VISION” as an antidote to the reign of Simon Cowell’s production-line X-Factor performers. The Preston-based Laboratory Project makes enormous claims about “supporting artists with integrity, skill and soul to break into the music industry”, backed by studio space and its production and engineering team, plus expertise in marketing and independent brand development. The project was founded in 2008 by Tony Rigg, a hospitality entrepreneur who previously spent 18 months as operations director at the Ministry of Sound.

Taste Masters, Laboratory Project, downloads, Tony Rigg,

Tony Rigg: “integrity, skill and soul”

The Lab is concerned to return both creatively and commercially to the roots of a band-led scene and to rekindle passion in the music-making that it promotes. The creative division claims to deliver “unparalleled music and multimedia experiences via a record label which represents a coalition of artists as a complete rethink of what a label should be for today”.

Rigg has said: “It has become more important how music looks than how it sounds. The X Factor is an extremely effective, headline grabbing, money-making machine. For many artists it is incredibly difficult to get original music heard. The Laboratory Project exists for the people who want something more from music.”

This weekend the label launched Taste Masters 2, its second eclectic compilation CD with 11 tracks of music “derived from human performance, solo artists and collaborations” — 80 musicians who include The Salford Jets, Jimmy Docherty and Antistar, as well as bands who had not previously released their work commercially such as Super 8 Cynics, Straightlaces, China White and Dresden. The original 14-track Taste Masters compilation album has been available for download since October and included Drama King, Evenhand, Fez, The Horn Brothers, Our Day Remains, Helvelyn 2 and Osiris.

➢ The Laboratory Project record label and store where
Taste Masters 2 is available as CD and download

Taste Masters, Laboratory Project, downloads, Our Day Remains ,alt rock,

Alternative rock from Bolton: Our Day Remains showcased their single Break Down the Bridge on the first Taste Masters album

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➤ When digital downloads mean lost income for stars like Eminem

Posted on 29 Apr 2011 | Leave a comment

THIS OPINION PIECE IN TODAY’S GUARDIAN may be weighted with legalistic argument, but it reveals the chaos that digital media — downloads and ringtones, for example — have brought upon the music industry. It also confirms the pitiful rates musicians and performers have been paid for their work in the past…

“At the centre of [recent lawsuits involving Eminem and the late Rick James] is the question of whether a download is a licence or a sale. A normal record deal today would usually give an artist 12–20% of revenue from sales depending on how successful they are at the point of signing (only the bigger artists get anything close to 20%). But if a song is licensed to be played in, say, a TV show or a film, they receive 50% of revenue. Buying a download on iTunes may make you feel like you own it, but the fact is that you’ve just bought the rights to play it. And so the court agreed that the Eminem downloads counted as licences.

“Universal argues that it was simply the wording of Eminem’s specific contract that resulted in them losing the case, and it’s true that standard contracts have changed since the advent of iTunes and now clearly state that download sales count as sales. But thousands of artists signed their deals way before iTunes. If they did so before 1980, chances are they’re on a sales royalty rate that is lower than 10% — some artists from the 60s and 70s were on 4%, minus packaging deductions — which means they can up their digital royalty rate more than tenfold.”

➢ Continue reading Why Eminem could spell major trouble for the major labels — by Helienne Lindvall in The Guardian, April 29, 2011

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