Thursday, April 05, 2007

Mutya Beuna - Live at Borderline 4/4/07


In one of those (why not) moments I went to see ex Sugababe Mutya Beuna last night at the Borderline. Dragged Pete along. Not exactly a long set - around 45 mins including encore, but tickets were only £7, so still not too bad.

The girl can sing. They did always say she was the Sugababe with the best voice. Musically she's not really my bag, kind of soul by numbers for the most part, but there were a couple of stand out tracks: The current single (which borrows Lenny Kravitz's - It ain't over til it's over') Real Girl; the upbeat and (live at least) rocky 'Strung Out'; and 'Just a little Bit'.

On last night's evidence she should be set for a successful solo career.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Avril wants to be my girlfriend

You can tell I am not at work with too much time on my hands. New Avril Lavigne song/video - girlfriend. Is is me or does this remind you of Hey Mickey by Toni Basil at times? Chessy (yes); Crap? (quite possibly) am I already humming the bloody thing? (oh yeah).

And I only thought of this today, but she kind of reminds me of Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars)

EMI agree to go DRM free and 256kbps

Steve Jobs was in town today (London) and the rumour mill had it that he was here to announce the availability of the Beatles back catalogue online. It wasn't that, however it was more importantly news that EMI (as suspected to be fair) is going to be the first of the Majors to take the DRM off their music they sell through iTunes (or at least for 'premium' material). What does that mean? as far as the UK goes:

79p/$0.99/€0.99/ single track- with drm and at 128kbps quality
99p/$1.29/€1.29 single track- no drm and 256kbps quality
Album prices unchanged with no drm and all at 256kbps quality

Well done EMI. Great news for album buyers (as no price increase) and even for those single track buyers, the quality will be doubled. Of course, the true way to go is the way of our russian friends as far as choice in format/quality goes, but this is a welcome start. At least they have decided not to take the blanket approach that all their customers and potential customers are music pirates (at long last).

The question now is will EMI licence sites such as eMusic (if they wanted access to their catalogue) to sell their drm free music as part of their subscription bundles?? I would guess not - for now.

Now once the rest of the majors follow suit (and they all will within 2007) we can then start to to address the issue of price, which still need to fall in relation to the cost of a CD (with all the additional value, cover-art, liner notes, lyrics and other info that is still mostly lacking for download versions costing almost as much and at far inferior sound quality)

Click here to listen to an audio webcast of the announcement press conference with EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli and Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and click here for the press release and photos

Marion Raven

The very lovely Marion Raven, who is currently on tour with Meatloaf, Kaz and Co has an album on its way and the first single off the album 'Heads Gonna Roll' is already appearing with a video that is a 14 year old male rock fans dream - yes we have nudity.



This song was co-written by Nikki Sixx

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Be in my video - Placebo

Ever wanted to be in Placebo Video? Here's your chance. Head over to motionbox, download the lyrics and the instrumental version of the track from the site, and simply film yourself singing along to their new single RUNNING UP THAT HILL.

Brian Molko says, "This is a great opportunity to get the fans involved in one of our videos.
"Knowing our fans, as visually diverse as they are, we expect some very creative feedback. (It) could make very interesting viewing and we look forward to it."

New Albums /Downloads

Another new bit for this blog. Each month a list of new things physically bought/downloaded the previous month.

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Grinderman - Grinderman
Paramore - All We Know is Falling
Mary Chapin Carpenter - The Calling
The Arcade Fire - The Neon Bible
Lucinda Williams - West
David Bowie - Outside
Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse
Dean Martin - Live at the Sands Hotel
Emma Burgess - Swim
20 Minute Loop - Yawn + House = Explosion
Jesse Malin - Glitter in the Gutter
Mandi Perkins - Broken Window