• Glastonbury are to abandon the pre-registration system put in place in 2007 after they’ve failed to shift the 145,000 tickets made available to the public. Suggestions of ‘wordsmith’ Jaz-Z’s appearance on the bill being a culprit for the low sales has been flatly refused, though opening tickets up to the public in the more conventional manner last week has still failed to realise a sell-out.

• Sony BMG have become the latest major to join Nokia’s new music intiative ‘Comes With Music’. The project will see Sony BMG, along with Universal, offer free unlimated access and downloads of their catalogs on Nokia phones when you purchase certain Nokia handsets. The music will however be hampered by DRM and won’t play on your iPod, however the ownership won’t expire when they promotion does.

• Coldplay are joining the here’s-one-for-free bandwagon, as the moderate rockers prepare to give aware their first single of their new album Viva La Vida in the May 7 edition of the NME. The single, Violet Hill, will come in the form of a special edition 7” vinyl with B-side A Spell A Rebel Yell. The single will have it’s formal release on June 16.

...amazingtunes

So, the day has arrived! Adultery by the Little Comets is now available to download from the Little Comets profile page. If you are one of the lucky ones who has a postcard and you have already signed up to amazingtunes, get yourself to the Little Comets profile page, click on the “buy” icon and pop your unique code in and the little bundle of sonic joy is yours. If you don’t have a postcard, all is not lost. You can still buy the track. All you need to do is follow these steps;

Go to the Little Comets profile page

Click on the “buy” icon

Then login if you’re already an amazingtunes member or sign-up if not (it’s free and quick)

Input your payment details and download the track.

Robert’s your mothers brother. Now you can pogo about the living room to your hearts content. The Little Comets will be back soon with more exciting happenings so keep a weather eye out.

Being aware of the football fever that has enveloped the office I began thinking myself of the beautiful synergy that lies between the worlds of football and music. I obviously use the word ‘beautiful’ in a loose sense, like when Jarvis Cocker bared his rear at the Brits, or when a baby belches, but seriously, there is a definite place for song in sport. Maybe not quite so befitting when it’s a mullet laden Chris Waddle and Glen Hoddle, but playing some grooving samba over the top of a bit Brazilian wizardry is a bit like putting worcester source on cheese on toast. It works. Take ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ away from the Anfield terraces and you’d be removing the ‘twelfth man’, and what kind of disrepair would the game find itself in if fans couldn’t amend the lyrics of Jeff Becks ‘High Ho Silver Lining’ to ridicule the opposing manager.

Thanks to the wonders that be the Spice Girls found themselves releasing a Word Cup Anthem for England, as did Embrace, and Crazy Frog. Obviously errors in judgement can be made… but who could forget ‘World in Motion’ by New Order with ‘that’ John Barnes rap, and there’s always a place in my heart for the Euro ‘96 anthem ‘Three Lions’ from Baddiel and Skinner and The Lightning Seeds.

Anyhow, the guys at amazingtunes have opened the doors to your own efforts and I’d be lying if I were to say I wasn’t excited about the prospect. I’m – amongst other things reluctant to admit – a Sheffield Wednesday fan, which means I don’t really have much to sing about, but with the lows, comes the highs, and there are some clubs that would be desperate to cap a great season with a bangin’ anthem. I think it’s time to reignite the passion encapsulated in a good old English football anthem.

What if my girlfriend thought that the soccer in some way genuinely encouraged musical endeavors, never would week-night champions league football viewing be deemed counter-productive and “boring” again…. well…

...amazingtunes.com

Tesco has upped the ante for the digital distributors this week after announcing that it will revamp it’s current digital downloads service to take on the giants of iTunes and the like.

At first glance it’s easy to assume this is just the inclusion – maybe even just an adaptation of – one more competitor in a large marketplace, however Tesco could find themselves very quickly in a leading position amongst their rivals. It may be the case that Tesco already offer music downloads through their current service, however the model is incomplete, the tracks are locked with DRM, and the only offered format is Windows Media Audio, meaning no compatibility with your iPod and no copying, sharing, backing-up, moving of your purchased music.

Tesco however have announced that their new direction, named ‘Tesco Digital’, will look to offer the same kind of content coverage as iTunes – though no major labels have yet to publicly confirm their inclusion – and over 50% of the music will be DRM-free and thus compatible with your iPod. This 50% is hoped to become 100% within a year, and with the prospect of the major chain’s philosophy to sell-’em-cheap there could also be benefits for the consumer’s wallet, a potentially lucrative offering as the credit crunch beds in. Obviously the reductions will be limited and it would only be Tesco who would feel the pinch of undercutting competition, however Tesco have a number of very promising advantages that could bring about such a tactic. They’re practically omnipresent across the UK and have a widening range of physical products available in their stores that has gone to give them a reputation more toward a real world amazon.com that your bread and milk shop. Alongside this their online shopping is fast becoming a viable, and popular, alternative to a walk down those highly stacked aisles. But what I find most opportunistic for the company is the potential tie-in of these internet based outlets to their relatively recent broadband package. To consider that their early philosophy was always to work on loss-leaders, enticing the customer to walk down their aisle and wed their products, a move into the digital realm with very much the same philosophy could easily generate the same kind of success. A quick look shows that currently 1,000 Clubcard points are on offer when you sign up to their broadband service. Whose to say a monthly allocation of downloads isn’t next, all the while earning points for mums card while filling the kids’ iPods.

Obviously there are aspects which I have eluded to here, one very interesting omission is Tesco’s plans to enter the mobile contract market, which has been reported here, with it providing a viable means to selling their products via mobile phones – undoubtedly this will have implications on selling tunes to modern phone/mp3 player hand sets. I also find it worthy of noting that Wall Mart, up until very recently, were the leading physical, and overall, sellers of music in the States (only overtaken by iTunes in the last month). Should strong synergy across Tesco’s products be put in place it could find itself in a dominating position within the technological front across a whole range of products, not just music.

...amazingtunes.com

It’s a given that Sony BMG are fairly active in the world of piracy due to the current state of affairs in the industry, bringing to justice those ‘evil’ propagators and perpetrators of illegal file sharing.

It turns out however that they’ve been busier than you may think; in between the numerous individual court cases and the anti-piracy software that they hid in their CDs – to the outrage of many – they’ve found time to bag themselves a slice of the free illegal software pie.

PointDev, a software company from France, got tipped off to Sony BMG using their software with a pirated license code, with a subsequent raid confirming the illegal usage of the software. To further taint Sony BMG’s image, and illuminate their hypocrisy, the Business Software Alliance suspects that up to 47 percent of the software installed on Sony BMG’s computers could be pirated.

It’s all a bit ironic really.

...amazingtunes.com

• U2 have followed in Madonna’s footsteps to reiterate the thought that the money is no longer in record sales, but in merchandise and gigs by signing a 12 year deal with Live Nation. Not a 360 deal, like Madonna’s, but close to it, Live Nation will manage U2’s tours and work with the band on their official website. The financial details of this deal however have not been disclosed.

• Groove Armada have left Sony BMG and have now signed for Bacardi’s musical arm. The drinks manufacturers will manage the bands touring and releases, and the band will manage a newly acquired drinking problem.

• The award for Longevity-in-Music-to-the-Point-of-Worrying-Productivity goes to REM who are about to release their 14th studio album, Accelerate, at the end of March. Points go to anyone who can name all fourteen. Paul Smith, our radio guru, managed 13 – in chronological order I hasten to add! – so can anyone else go one better.

• In other news that I’ve found slightly disturbing Yoko Ono has reportedly been in talks with a clothing company from the states discussing a range of John Lennon ties, as well as nightwear and, rather oddly, boxershorts. Also, Kurt Cobain has endorsed (how, I don’t know) the trainers that he ‘chose’ to die in.

...amazingtunes.com

BPI has written up their own suggestions on their website to combat the illegal music sharing dilemma that goes to outline the idea of getting Internet Service Providers to undertake a three strikes system. That is, all those people that currently partake in downloading illegal files will be given two warnings from their ISP before a third line of action will be taken to block their internet access.

It’s been hitting the UK music headlines more and more in the past few weeks, with the demand for an agreement between the Internet Service Providers and the BPI that addresses the issue – and time is of the essence. The government have already confirmed that they will take control of the situation if the problem cannot be resolved between the respective parties before April ‘09. That may sound like a way off, but the BPI have been speaking to the Internet Service Providers for well over 18 months now without much headway.

Feargal Sharkey, once of The Undertones and now CEO of British Music Rights (BMR), last month jumped on board calling for action from an audience of internet industry insiders (finding time to comment on the matter while undertaking his reviews of the UK copyright law – a discussion concerning the Gowers Review that is, itself, stirring up a controversial debate within the industry and the government about copyright extension.)

Getting back to the point at hand, it was initially reported in The Telegraph last week, though since denied by the BPI, that Virgin Media had agreed on a pilot scheme that would see two warning letters sent out to offending users before a third course of action would be taken to block the users access. Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, denied the papers claims saying that while they were encouraged by all these service providers’ admissions that the illegal downloading was a problem, there was a concern that it was yet to be backed up by action. Fear from the ISPs is thought to be at the centre of this as “even those ISPs that accept the need to act are concerned about taking action before their competitors do so.”

The BPI has outlined their thoughts on a fair and seemingly achievable system that seems not to hand over any rights to privacy. The suggestion works solely on getting the [already publicly viewable] IP address of offending users and forwarding them to the Internet Providers who will then send the owner of that IP address the letters of warning. The ISPs will also be encouraged to educate their users, alongside these communications, on how to reduce others using their connection for illegal file-sharing and how to better protect their own internet connection.

You can check out the BPI suggestions here. Are they fair, discriminative? Should ISPs be right to hold out, or are they protecting their own interests? Let us know what you think.

...amazingtunes.com