• Live events giants Ticketmaster and Live Nation could soon been merging according to various US reports. A history of synergy between the companies, alongside the appointment of a new CEO at ticketmaster have led to the rumors.

• Coldplay have announced a forthcoming North American tour. Setting off from Portland, OR on July 10th the tour will take them through the US and Canada. You can see their complete tour schedule here

• In some lesser news, Goldie Lookin’ Chain’s P Xain has found time out of his busy schedule to brand current Number One artist Lily Allen “thick as pig ####.” He went on to remark “She’ll say anything to get in the news.” ensuring himself many a column inch in the Daily Star with his misplaced drivelling irony…

…amazingtunes.com

• The HMV poll of polls has been released revealing the critics top 50 albums of the year. Elbow walked away convincing winners with their Mercury Prize winning album The Seldom Seen Kid. Portishead’s long awaited release ‘Third’ and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ ‘Dig Lazarus, Dig’ came 2nd and 3rd respectively while Fleet Foxes’ and Vampire Weekend’s eponymous albums made up the rest of the top 5.

• Bjork has joined teams with Audur Capitol of Rekjavik in an attempt to encourage investment into Icelandic businesses after the country took a major blow in the global financial crisis. It’s estimated the involvement of Bjork will bring in almost $17 million in investment.

• Robert Plant has been voted the greatest rock singer of all time by music fans in a recent Plant Rock organised poll. The Led Zeppelin front man beat off competition from Freddie Mercury of Queen and Free’s Paul Rodgers to the one off gong. You can see the top 20 here.

…amazingtunes

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

…It appears the industry really is having a shake-down.

To all those fans of the ‘Material Girl’ it will be common knowledge by now that speculation is rising over Madonna’s future with Warner Music Group. With 2 album releases left on her contract with WMG – her career-long label – her attention is now moving towards a more suitable representative, with seemingly more impetus being placed on the live shows and world touring. Speculation surrounds a new deal with venues and promoters company, Live Nation, which seems to hint at a growing disillusionment with diminishing record sales amongst major artists and labels. This all comes soon after Sir Paul McCartney signed to the Hear Music label of Starbucks, the coffee house chain, via which his music could be fronted to a captive audience within the Starbucks stores. Starbucks have gone on to strike a deal with Steve Jobs’ iTunes, granting it’s customers free access to the iTunes stores, via which they can purchase the likes of McCartney’s releases from the coffee house chain – in effect bypassing the current fall in solid state media sales. I have yet to see a hint as large as this that the major labels are in a downward spiral. When a, albeit glorified, promoting agency and a major coffee chain can out-maneuver and out-earn the major labels through their better placement amongst the market place – essentially modeling themselves towards where tomorrows money lies – i would speculate that, unless the majors soon spark into a frenzy of adaptive activity, a shift in the housing of popular artistes maybe just around the corner.

As for the slightly more modest world of unsigned music and amazingtunes.com things are just as exciting (relatively!). After a sizable amount of early media coverage over the weekend for ‘tunes on both television and paper, an influx of new talent and expectant ears have fallen upon the site. I’m trying my hardest to get through everything that is being uploading, fully impressed by the array of styles I’m hearing, though my penchant for breakcore dance music and doom metal is still to be fully realised…

I’ll leave you with one of the more unusual tunes that has been uploaded over the last few days titled ‘Maybe It’ by Jazz Headburn. An open soundscape of a track, akin to Four Tet with hints of Aphex Twin’s Drukqs, and even some early Jaga Jazzist. Enjoy…

And if you want a bit more Madonna…

…amazingtunes.com