Label:Life

London’s independent self-styled ‘occasional providers of half decent house’, Hooj Choons, have gone bust after suffering long-term financial problems.

A message posted at www.hoojchoons.co.uk confirms the news, stating that, rather than blame “Sept. 11/any Middle Eastern conflict you care to name/downloading/the slump in the global economy/music industry/dance music industry”, the label simply “failed to react quickly or effectively enough” to the changes taking place in the dance industry.

Over 12 years, the label was responsible for 136 releases, amassing a back catalogue that reads like a tracklisting to a mix of some of the great moments in clubland’s history. The imprint showcased groundbreaking artists like Oliver Leib and 16B while also picking up classic tracks early on like Energy 52’s ‘CafE Del Mar’ and putting out highly rated mix albums like James Zabelia’s recent ‘Sound in Motion’. It will be sorely missed. [more @ www.ukclubbing.com]

Price Breaks Would Draw More Music Lovers Into Stores Than the Threat of Lawsuits

That’s what nearly three-quarters of the music buyers said in a recent VH1 poll about Universal Music Group’s (UMG) coming price reduction and the overall value of music today in an industry vulnerable to downloaders. Of the music buyers, 72% said they liked the idea of the price break and that they would buy more CDs.

But the poll revealed that the word isn’t exactly out about UMG’s new pricing strategy. Only a quarter (26%) of those polled said they knew of UMG’s price breaks coming October 1. 89% Say New CDs Are Not Priced Fairly.[more @ www.biz.yahoo.com]

Planning and arranging a US tour can be a nightmare given the many logistical hurdles you need to get over, particularly the process of getting tour members into the country.

It’s about to get worse, following recent changes to US immigration law as a result of continuing security concerns. It will take much longer to get the correct paperwork allowing each artist, band member and support crew into the country. Getting it wrong can mean a cancelled tour and loss of income. [More in Musicweek, 04/10/03]

It was always the intention with ‘Pick Of The Week’ to expose as much un-signed talent as possible. As we all know, next years big tunes could be sat on a DAT in a draw somewhere and never see the light of day unless someone puts it in your face/in-box. I’d like to take this opportunity to re-inforce this fact to any artists/managers/agents etc. who read this publication. Label:Life is read by thousands of industry professionals some of whom may have been looking out for music just like yours and ‘Pick Of The Week’ is a great opportunity to get your music straight to them.

Please send any submissions to the address at the bottom of this issue or e-mail me with on-line links to the track @ liam@yourrelease.com

AOL Time Warner Inc. may enter formal talks within days to sell its recorded-music division to British rival EMI Group, but the New York-based media giant hasn’t abandoned its five-month effort to enter a partnership with Bertelsmann, sources said.

The sudden emergence of EMI as a bidder follows the expiration of AOL’s exclusive negotiating agreement with German conglomerate Bertelsmann last week. EMI made an unsuccessful run at AOL’s Warner Music division earlier this year, and now it is trying to sweeten its offer, according to several people close to the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Under EMI’s plan, the publicly traded British company would provide AOL with a 25% stake in a combined Warner Music-EMI venture and a cash payment of about $700 million, with incentives that could raise the offer to $1 billion, sources said. [more @ www.latimes.com]

Europe’s independent music labels said on Monday they would lobby against a merger between music rivals EMI Group Plc and Warner Music in an attempt to persuade anti-trust regulators to block a deal.

Impala, Europe’s trade association for independent record labels, said a deal between the world’s third and fourth biggest music companies would concentrate the market in the hands of four players and further marginalise independent companies.

“The music industry’s problems cannot be solved by another merger. The current crisis is already the product of over- concentration and another merger will just exacerbate that,” Impala Deputy Secretary General Helen Smith told Reuters.

EMI said earlier on Monday it was in discussions with AOL Time Warner (AOL) about buying the U.S. media giant’s recorded music business to create the world’s second biggest music company behind industry giant Universal Music. [more @ www.foxnews.com]

Individuals who make copyrighted music available via file-sharing networks such as KaZaA are being sued in the US, but to date there has been no similar action in the UK. And the British Phonographic Industry’s (BPI) chairman Peter Jamieson wants to keep it that way.

Jamieson was making the keynote address at the “In the City” conference on 14th September, when he turned the spotlight on internet piracy and the individuals who perpetrate it.

In the UK, music sales fell 3% in value last year after a five-year growth run, and the industry attributes blame to the unauthorised peer-to-peer services that make songs available to users as free downloads from other users’ computers. The industry has begun gearing up to protect itself.

So far, this action has amounted to advertising campaigns to educate the public, and the only legal action has targeted web sites or FTP servers that host unauthorized music files. According to Jamieson, the BPI’s Anti-Piracy Unit has taken down 363 of these so far. The BPI has also taken action to remove around 2,500 auction sites together with over 150,000 MP3 files that infringed its members’ copyrights. But so far no action has been taken against individual file swappers. [more @ www.out-law.com]

[The complete transcript of Mr Jaimeson’s speech is available Here -ED]

BMG Entertainment plans to release a compact disc today that allows consumers to download and copy a limited number of songs, the music industry’s latest experiment to come up with a viable alternative to the free trading of music over the Internet.

R&B singer Anthony Hamilton’s “Comin’ From Where I’m From,” which BMG label Arista will price at $13.98, is a CD designed to play differently on a computer than on home and car stereos, Walkmans, boomboxes and so forth.

When consumers pop Hamilton’s CD into their stereos, they should notice no difference from any other CD. But when they load it into their computers, an interactive box will appear on the screen that shows Hamilton’s picture, a list of 12 songs and several options for users to click on.

One option allows the consumer to copy all of Hamilton’s songs from the CD onto the computer and portable devices, such as MP3 players (but not yet Apple’s iPod). Once in the computer, the software lets the consumer copy the songs on up to three CDs. There is nothing to prevent those CDs from being recopied, though the next generation of the software will include such copy protection. [more @ www.washingtonpost.com]

The battle against pirate radio stations received a boost today as new powers of arrest under the Communications Act came into force.

The police, working with Radio Communications Agency investigators, will be able to arrest a pirate broadcaster or anybody suspected of supporting or facilitating illegal broadcasting. Previously police could only detain someone if they suspected them of giving a false name and address or another criminal act, such as a breach of the peace or assault. The new powers of arrest will also extend to acts of deliberate interference with radio communications and hoax calls, especially false distress calls.

Communications Minister Stephen Timms said:
“These new powers will be an important weapon in the campaign against pirate broadcasters”.
“By interfering with communications services which are vital for public safety, pirates can put lives at risk. They also cause interference with other licensed radio users and can be a social nuisance to those who live near pirate stations.”

[And provide an outlet for the best of British Urban Music a La Dizzee Rascal, Ms Dynamite, Roni Size etc. 1Xtra can’t do it on their own -ED] [more @ www.mi2n.com]

Producers used to live on the B-side of the music business: behind the scenes. They were masters of the mixes that pushed pop songs up the charts, but still slaves to the rhythms of record labels and fickle divas. Yet, while file-sharing hogs the headlines in music’s digital evolution, there’s been a quiet revolution in the studio, where the music gets made.

The tools of professional sound production keep getting faster, cheaper, and smaller. The time-honored, king-sized mixing station is now a luxury item reserved for sonic chauvinists, and even the industry-standard Pro Tools is getting squeezed from below by pure desktop systems. As youngblood and old-school producers alike are finding out, the new technology means creative freedom, a chance to dance to the beat of a different drum machine, to sample sounds from around the world and back through time.

Now the production wizards themselves are rising up from the digital underground, armed with unlimited content and unprecedented control. Their trademark styles attract a growing parade of pop singers eager for a piece of the new sound. And so a generation is stepping out of the shadows to rule the record industry: They’re hitmakers and powerbrokers, and their names have moved from the liner notes to the front of their own albums. They’re the new rock stars. Meet the Superproducers. [more @ www.wired.com]