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Music vs Politics: Primal Scream mistake themselves for The Dandy Warhols, while Sony/ATV spots a disguised song in Nicaragua

It was the Conservative Party Conference this week, the third of the three main UK political parties’ annual get togethers. As you’ll probably have seen, Prime Minister David Cameron sparked controversy when he suggested that everyone should help out the … Continue reading

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American Juggalo

This short documentary made up of interviews with Insane Clown Posse fans at the annual Gathering Of The Juggalos is kind of fascinating. Partly it’s just intoxicated people saying stupid stuff, but the continuing theme of them all being a … Continue reading

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Facebook and Spotify have confused recommendations with shouting

On Sunday night I went to see Death Grips at XOYO in glittering East London. To say it was not really a Sunday night kinda show would be a bit of an understatement. If you’re not familiar with Death Grips, … Continue reading

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Bloc Party v Bloc Party

Right, now I will grant you that this was not a story that really warranted almost 1200 words. However, it came time for me to write CMU’s Beef Of The Week column and this was the pop scuffle that most made … Continue reading

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Mark Zuckerberg and the verbs

So, after months, nay years of speculation, yesterday Facebook announced its new music offering. It wasn’t, as many had once thought, an in-house music service, nor did it bring Spotify streaming in-browser, as was also suggested. It was, basically, a … Continue reading

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Copyright extension: win or lose?

So, copyright extension. Ccooopppyyyyrriiiiiigghhhtttt Eeeeexxxxtttteeeeeeeeennnsssssiiiioooooonnnnnn. It’s not fun, but we’re going to talk about it because it’s the big music business story of the week. Actually, it’s not even this week’s story really. The move to extend the sound recording copyright … Continue reading

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AlunaGeorge – You Know You Like It

Comprising vocalist Aluna Francis and producer George Reid, pop duo AlunaGeorge self-released their double A-side debut single, ‘Analyser/We Are Chosen’, in May. Along with a handful of demo tracks posted online, it instantly marked them out as a name to … Continue reading

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Listener

Listener are so hard to describe. “Post-rock bluegrass” is probably the closest I’ve heard anyone get. Although “like a tramp ranting” isn’t that far off either. What they call ‘talk music” is one man shouting poetry over a variety of … Continue reading

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Esther Gordy Edwards

I wrote four obituaries this week. That’s quite a lot by normal standards. And what struck me as each one of these deaths was announced was how much each person had done for music and the music industry. In the … Continue reading

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A Sugababe vs some Sugababes

It was way back in November 2009 that former Sugababes member Mutya Buena quietly applied to own the European trademark in the group’s name. So quietly that no one noticed until March the next year, when the application was marked … Continue reading

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