Weekly Round Up (20 Apr 2009)

Hello everybody. After a slightly longer than expected Easter break, NME-Europe is back and firing on all cylinders. Down to business, then.....

Top Stories
Quite possibly the biggest music-related story of the past few days has been the outcome of the court case in which the four people behind the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay were found guilty of copyright infringement and handed one-year prison sentences, as well as being ordered to pay £2.4 million damages to various record labels.


Despite the verdict, the culprits remained defiant, as the following statement testifies; "Nothing will happen to TPB [The Pirate Bay], us personally or file-sharing whatsoever. This is just a theatre for the media."

The four are expected to appeal against the decision.

One of the first to offer an opinion on the subject has been Sir Paul McCartney. He believes the verdict was "fair", telling BBC Newsbeat that he believed that music should be paid for.

"If you get on a bus you've got to pay. And I think it's fair, you should pay your ticket."

He also suggested that file-sharing websites like The Pirate Bay were harmful to young bands.

"The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren't going to last forever. So if they have a massive hit, that's going to pay their mortgage forever. They're going to feed the children on that and if they don't get that money, if they don't see that money, I think it's a bit of a pity."

More fuel to the fire.... Any young bands got anything to say, as all we seem to hear on this subject comes from the bigger bands speaking in the name of the poor and needy. Macca's reference to the bus fare is all well and good, but I'm sure if the transport companies tried to charge 5 or 6 times the real value of a ticket in order to boost profits, a few more commuters might jump the queue as well.

Downloads and court cases seem to be the flavour of the week, so here goes a bit more...

Psychedlic rockers, Pink Floyd, are suing their record label, EMI, over royalty payments, claiming that they have miscalculated royalties owed to them through sales of their back catalogue.



The Observer reports that the amount the band are seeking has not been disclosed. However, if we take into consideration that they signed to the label in 1967 and since enjoyed enormous record sales, which have only been outstripped by The Beatles in the past 25 years, it's a safe bet they're in for a nice wad.

Finally, Coldplay have gone to court to discount claims that they copied the music for their song 'Viva La Vida', after Joe Satriani had claimed that they used his music for the track on their last album.

Satriani is saying they used “substantial, original portions" of 'If I Could Fly', whilst Coldplay's lawyer retorted that the similarities between their song and Satriani’s 2004 song were not enough to pay the artist damages on the basis that the latter "lacked originality". Chris Martin had already stated that any similarity was a mere coincidence.

NME-E will be releasing it's debut single, 'Blue', next week. Any similarities to Coldplay's hit 'Yellow' are purely coincidential....

Myspace Magic
Plenty of new music being uploaded this week, so I've selected three to follow (no disrespect to the rest).

Malta's finest The Does have uploaded a new track to their profile. 'My Better Side' is a cross between Bloc Party and The Police. Have a listen, they'll be featured here soon.


Scousers The Grande have been particularly prolific lately with no fewer than 8 tracks being uploaded to their myspace page. Anyone who likes a bit of americana/rock (with a tinge of The La's) should give these guys a chance.


Last but not least a special mention to So Shush, whose second album, 'Wistful Wanders', became available to download today on the usual pages. I was lucky enough to get an interview with them recently, which will be posted this week. They even sent me a preview of the new release which has been played to death on the iPhone over the past few weeks. If the whole album is as good as the four tracks I've heard, this could be one of the indie releases of 2009. Decide for yourselves before you buy, there's a few tracks on their myspace profile to whet your appetite.

Reviews
The have been almost too many releases in the past two weeks to keep track of, so I'm just going focus on two, maybe three. Apart from the aforementioned 'Wistful Wanders' by So Shush, I also owe a review to Doves' 'Kingdom Of Rust' and, if there's time, 'It's Blitz!' by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.


Festival Fever

The countdown to the Murcian festival SOS 4.8 is well under way, with the two-day festival just two weeks away. The organisers have at last posted details of play times, which can be downloaded straight from their page (link here).


My initial reaction is that it's disappointing to see Underworld clash with The Wombats for most of their sets, but it's still gonna be one hell of a 48 hour bash!


Well, that's me out of ideas. Remind me NOT to take such a long break next time. It's taken me ages to get back on track! More next week.

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