New New Musical Express - July 2008

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Link to my gang 08 - Featured Albums 2008


* Journal: New Music July 2008, by Nialloleary
* Journal: Paul Weller - 22 Dreams : Quick Album Review 4/5, by Babs_05
* Journal: Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes : Quick Album Review 5/5, by Babs_05
* Sci/Tech: We won't cut off users, says Virgin
* Sci/Tech: Google ordered to hand over millions of YouTube user details to Viacom
* Journal: Modern Guilt, a short review..., by v_for_violence
* Journal: I can't believe it's not beta...!, by Babs_05
* Journal: Killed in Cars - My New MP3 Blog, by pabanks
* The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me
* My Brightest Diamond - A Thousand Shark's Teeth
* Rogue Wave - Asleep At Heaven's Gate
* Video: Jeremy Warmsley - The Boat Song
* Video: Leona Naess - Heavy Like Sunday
* Exposure: Julian Velard
* James Hunter - The Hard Way
* Tea Break: H20 - Dream To Sleep
* Coldplay, Radiohead to be reissued on vinyl
* N*E*R*D - Seeing Sounds
* MP3 sales soar at 7digital
* Tea Break: Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Candy Says
* Is Radiohead the latest band to go open source?
* Revamped Last.fm boasts 'smartest' ads on the web
* Rights group faces off against Last.fm over payments
* Music Web Site Last.fm Launches Royalty Program

Page 2

* Last.fm app debuts on iPhone and iPod touch (video)
* Merlin Opposes Last.fm's Artist Royalty Program
* Delia Derbyshire, producer of Doctor Who theme music, has legacy restored
* Last.fm revamp criticised
* iLike Launches Full Song Previews
* Favtape Creates Mixtapes from Your Pandora and Last.fm Accounts
* The Beta Code, by Babs_05
* Journal: New Music August 2008, by Nialloleary
* Sky launches music download service
* Mercury Music Prize 2008 nominations announced
* Major ISPs to issue file-sharing warnings
* Video: Olympics 2008 Monkey Movie - BBC Sport
* Musicians welcome downloading reforms - (proposed annual tax)
* Joan as Police Woman - To Survive
* Video: Nneka - Heartbeat
* Robert Pollard - Robert Pollard Is Off to Business
* My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
* Video: Wild Beasts - The Devil's Crayon
* Brendan Campbell - Twilight Bird EP
* BBC Radio 3 - Doctor Who at the Proms
* Catherine Russell - Sentimental Streak
* Murray Perahia - Bach: Partitas Nos. 2, 3 & 4
* World music pioneer in web revival
* Video: Beck - Orphans
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Journal: Paul Weller - 22 Dreams : Quick Album Review 4/5, by me.



Extract:

I don't want to spoil the surprises too much for you but 22 Dreams is a showcase of everything Paul Weller can do and is capable of. It sweeps up genres he obviously enjoys and scatters them throughout the album. The hype actually didn't do him justice; it focused on the indie rock tracks and left it at that. This album is full of music, including a little bit of psychedelic noise. Bet no one expected that. 111

(see journal for more)

guardian.co.uk, Thursday July 3, 2008

Virgin Media customers who illegally share copyrighted files online will not face having their internet connection cut off, the company said today.

Last month the country's second-largest internet service provider started sending letters to a number of identified filesharers, outlining the nature of illegal downloading and pointing to internet services that offer music and videos within the scope of the law.

Following reports today regarding the letters, however, a Virgin Media spokesman told the Guardian that this was not a prelude to a "three strikes" policy which could see persistent offenders lose their internet access.

"As part of this we don't make any kind of accusation about the user — it could be somebody else in their house, their block of flats or they might have an open Wi-Fi connection," said the spokesman.

"We can't point the finger at the account holder, but we can point out what's happening with their connection. Often it's a lack of education that's causing the problem."

Source: The Guardian

Journal: Modern Guilt, a short review..., by v_for_violence

Beck's Modern Guilt is pretty stellar. It's not his most incredible piece of art, but it is a major achievement. Out of 10, it gets something like an 8.5 or so. Musically it seems a lot more experimental than his previous albums, which to me means that it's very hard to fall in love with a song upon first listen. In fact, I could see it being rather difficult for fans of Beck's earlier works to fall in love with this album immediately. It seems like most of the songs are dominated by percussion. Very subtly electronic, very dreamy at some points... but we do see some of Beck's old guitar play in the song Profanity Prayers, and speaking of which, that song reminds me a lot of the song Minus off of his Odelay album, for some reason.

Lyrically, it seems that this album sways toward the gloomy side, but not that kind of gloomy side we saw on the Sea Change album. We visit Beck at an almost philosophical level on tracks such as: Walls, Modern Guilt, Profanity Prayers, and Volcano.

Yeah, so... all in all it's a pretty solid album. Very relaxing, but you won't find many songs that you will instantly fall in love with. If you're looking for another Girl or The New Pollution then you're out of luck really.

Very sophisticated...

Amazon UK

After her first album, Bring Me the Workhorse (2006), was re-released last year, and after an album of remixes, we finally get a true second album from My Brightest Diamond - A Thousand Shark's Teeth. Although, strictly speaking, this album pre-dates her debut.

Her style is very experimental. She'll take the fragile and rock it up in her own way, or she'll veer off into the unknown and take you with her. Apples, below, is such a track.

It isn't available in Last.fm yet. There are a couple of tracks on her MySpace. She has always reminded me of Kate Bush but other reviewers are saying she's a female Jeff Buckley. Now I know that, I can hear it.

Here is a live performance of the pointillist Apples.

Jeremy Warmsley - The Boat Song, featuring Emmy The Great.

An interesting piano man for a change.

Julian Velard is a 28 year old New Yorker now living in London. His Dad designed the first ATM software. (I don't know why that's so interesting, but it is, it's the same as knowing Mike Nesmith's Mum invented Tippex.)

Despite graduating from Fame school, it seems Julian Velard took his time and a circuitous route to get here. You can hear it in his music. I am more reminded of Billy Joel than anyone else, although comparisons range from Tom Waits to the Morrisons (Jim and Van).

In his MySpace he says, ""I want to get back to that innocence... When people were just making music and being great. I think it was sometime in the middle of 1974. Even though I wasn't alive, I can tell it was a lot more fun back then."

It's a pleasure to tag him for our 08 radio.

The Movies Without You

Last.fm

I've waited years to see this again. The track appears on Edge Of The 80's, released in March.

H20 - Dream To Sleep

Last.fm

N*E*R*D - Seeing Sounds


I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. N*E*R*D is so mainstream and I should be investigating the weird and wonderful, but I can't help it. I'm very excited about what's happening in hip-hop these days. It seems to be picking itself up from its decade-long dip and becoming super-fly again.

Slowly but surely, we're seeing modern classics. I've no doubt 'Seeing Sounds' is another one. Keep it coming!

The Velvet Underground Cover, Paleo Festival, 2003

Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Candy Says

Video

July 17, 2008

Interactive advertising will be at the heart of the next generation of web marketing, says the social music site

A new type of web advertising that interacts with the site on which it appears is to make its debut on Last.fm, the social music site.

Last.fm, which announces a major relaunch today, will start showing advertising that can tap into the community features of the site, making adverts more engaging, the site said.

An example of the new "smart" adverts displays an image of a mobile phone handset which changes according to what the Last.fm user is doing. For instance, if someone is listening to Bon Jovi, the phone would appear to start playing a Bon Jovi track, showing off its MP3 player.

Hotel chains will be able to tap into a Last.fm user's list of favourite artists and display adverts for hotels in cities where those artists have upcoming gigs. Train companies, similarly, will be able to advertise services running to other music-based events that may be of interest to the user.

"It's really about using the functionality of the site to help the brand come up with an ad that is more immersive, and entertaining," Spencer Hyman, the chief operating officer of Last.fm, said.

He cited a recent example of a partnership with Motorola, where the company sponsored a new feature on the site which allowed a user to get a customised print-out of a festival programme, showing bands they were likely to enjoy based on their music collection.

Last.fm's technology enables the site to recommend music to its users by analysing what they have in their collections and how often they play songs. That information is then compared with similar data from other users who listen to the same music, via a process the site calls "scrobbling".

The site interacts with iTunes, Apple's music software, and updates its recommendations every time a user listens to music using the program. It also employs a team of "music scientists", who constantly mine the data produced by the site to match particular genres of music with certain demographics.

Advertising that targets groups or individuals by monitoring their web behaviour has attracted criticism from privacy campaigners. Phorm, which conducted trials of targeted advertising earlier this year, was accused of invading people's privacy by tracking every website that they visited.

The Information Commissioner's Office ruled that Phorm did not breach pricacy because it did not collect information that would identify individual users, but the system may now face a challenge from Europe. Viviane Reding, the EU communications commissioner, said yesterday that she was concerned about the British Government's lack of action.

"It is very clear in EU directives that unless someone specifically gives authorisation [for web tracking] then you don't have the right to do that," Ms Reding said, according to the Dow Jones Newswire.

Mr Hyman said that web advertising had always been able to target customers because of the information sites had about their users, citing Google, which tailors adverts according to what a person is searching for.

Last.fm, too, had run targeted ads, he said, giving the example of a British bank which wanted to target Polish builders. The site was able to deliver adverts to people who listened to Polish music or who were in the UK but using the Polish language version of the site.

Increasingly, however, the success of web adverts would depend on making them more engaging, Mr Hyman said. "The reason TV ads have been so effective is because there has been a whole creative industry behind them," he said, suggesting the web had been slow to catch up.

Among the features of the newly relaunched Last.fm is a "recent activity" list which alerts users to what their friends have been listening to, a bit like the news feed on Facebook and the ability to share recommendations more easily.

Last.fm, which is based in London, has more than 1.5 million users in Europe, according to Nielsen Online, 10 per cent of which are in the UK. The site was bought by CBS, the US television network, for $280 million in May last year.

Source: The Times, UK

07.11.08

Music Web site Last.fm this week launched a royalty program that will pay artists a percentage of the company's advertising revenue for streaming their music on the site.

"This is a big day for independent artists as it marks the first time that musicians not affiliated with a label or royalty collection agency can collect revenue direct from a free streaming music platform," Last.fm's Jeff Marois wrote in a blog post.

CBS-owned Last.fm announced plans for the Artist Royalty Program earlier this year in conjunction with the launch of its on-demand music service.

"We're not printing money to pay for this—but the business model is simple enough: we are paying artists and labels a share of advertising revenue from the Web site," Last.fm's Richard Jones said at the time.

Musicians or songwriters can only collect royalty rates from Last.fm if they own all the rights to their music or videos. Songs that have been assigned or licensed to a collection society like SoundExchange or a record label that already collects royalties, as well as cover songs and songs recorded with a composer, are not eligible.

If you're in a band, you have to get permission from all members and anyone else who contributed to the production of the track or video – including directors and actors. The band will then have to select one member who will collect and distribute payment.

Compensation for the royalty program varies depending upon which Last.fm service a track is played. Songs played on its free radio service will get 10 percent of the share of Last.fm's net revenue. Songs played on Last.fm's personalized, premium radio station with get either 10 percent of net revenue or $0.0005 for each complete stream – whichever is greater.

For tracks on Last.fm's on-demand service, copyright owners will get 30 percent of Last.fm's net revenue from the on-demand service. Songs played on the premium, on-demand service will the great of either 30 percent of revenue or $0.0005 per complete stream.

Participants must earn at least $10 before they can withdraw funds.

Owners can pull their songs from Last.fm at any time, and any royalties accrued on a deleted song will be credited to a user's account at the end of the quarter.

Musicians looking to cash in on existing Last.fm popularity are out of luck; royalties can only be collected based on streams that occur after the July 9 start date.

That didn't sit well with Merlin, a group that represents more than 12,000 independent record labels. Merlin reportedly sent an e-mail to its membership Wednesday questioning the fact that Last.fm's program "does not appear to offer any compensation for any past illegal use" of independent artists' songs.

The Last.fm royalty program fact sheet says that those members who suspect their material has been uploaded by someone else must follow the procedure set out in its terms of service. "Last.fm will not be responsible for any royalties that are incorrectly paid by Last.fm to any third party who claims ownership of your content," according to the fact sheet.

Last month, Merlin released a statement that said it was in discussions with Last.fm, MySpace, and other major digital companies regarding royalty payments. Talks with Last.fm, however, have reportedly stalled, according to Merlin's Wednesday e-mail.

Merlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source: PC Magazine