Label:Life

www.offthewallgame.co.uk/ecard

www.offthewallgame.co.uk

www.dizzeerascal.co.uk

www.ninjatune.net/ringtones

www.skint.net/ringtones

www.skint.net/daveclarkeringtones

In last week’s edition, we told you about UK Company Inspiral’s involvement in MIDEM 2004, where they will act as a proxy for those companies unable to attend.

Unfortunately we gave you the wrong E-mail address. The correct address is roo@inspiral.org.uk

Promoting a new pop release in the UK, can be a difficult and expensive process and has long been the dominion of the major labels and larger Independents. Even without mainstream airplay, labels can enlist the services of other media outlets such as The Box, who have been influential in breaking a lot of top ten singles.

This sort of promotion doesn’t come cheap and could quite easily bankrupt your label. Spending tens and even hundreds of thousands on releasing a single is not a viable option for many smaller labels and even the larger labels are now beginning to cut back on their marketing spend as CD sales take a tumble.

One UK label, Vhp Records, has decided to call on music fans to help spread the word about their new single ‘Keep it turning’ and are actively recruiting music fans to ‘Keep it turning’ over Christmas with the launch of their new Preview and Review competition.

The way it works is quite simple. Fans are sent an email where they can click on the music and listen to it. They can then tell the label if they think it will be a hit or miss and make any other comments on the tracks. Once they have submitted their feedback, they can pass it on to their friends to have a go. The most active person i.e. the person who refers the song to the most people during the promotion, will win a bumper prize pack which shall include the UK top 10 Christmas singles chart, a signed collectible 8 inch version of the single, a CD promotional CD and other goodies.

“We are looking for music fans to give us their honest opinion on the tracks and not to just tell us what they think we want to hear. If they hate the track, then we want them to say so and to say it loudly. All the feedback we receive shall be collated and reviewed by us and then we shall decide what to do. It is a bit like the nation judging who they think should be a pop star,” said label boss Kenny Azeez.

Vhp Records want fans to be instrumental in sharing the tracks with their friends and colleagues, rather than blasting an email to hundreds of thousands of email addresses. This is to create a genuine viral campaign, without the artificial hype you get in a lot of other email marketing campaigns.

“We are looking for ‘each one to reach one’ or even 2 or 3. The fact is that we haven’t got the facilities to run a full ‘bells and whistle’ style PR campaign, we just want the music to do the talking. That’s what it is all about”. [more @ www.prweb.com]

This week’s pick of the week is nothing short of awesome. Play it on some big speakers and you’ll see what I mean! Sent to us this week from Candlelight Records, this track is called ‘Pilar Reconstruction’ (Syndrome 9 Remix) from the album ‘Death Machine’ by Myrkskog.

Although this track is some three years old, it is truly ‘out there’ and bolder than most of the music we’ve heard for a while. In fact it’s mental. A fusion of death metal, heavy breaks, acid and detroit techno, It really defies description. Just listen to it really, really loud…’Kin fierce! Listen here and visit www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

This clip is completely irrelevant but nonetheless amazing. We watched it five times before deciding to include it. Try this at the office party after a few bevvies! Watch here.

Coca-Cola is launching an Internet music download service in Britain next month, the first consumer brand to jump into Europe’s crowded Internet music market, the company said on Monday.

The soft drinks giant said that in January it will begin selling music downloads from a catalogue of 250,000 songs supplied from each of the five major music labels.

The artists range from Eminem to Elvis, delivered through a partnership with UK-based music download specialists OD2. The companies did not announce the pricing plan for downloads.

The European market for legal music downloads, though small at the moment, has attracted intense interest from major media companies and retailers ranging from Virgin Megastores to Time Warner’s AOL unit. [more @ www.forbes.com]

A resurgence in rock has had a spin-off effect by reviving the fortunes of the old fashioned seven-inch single.

While the format once faced the vinyl curtain, sales for the past quarter year have more than doubled compared with the same period two years ago, according to latest industry figures.

Although the sales represent only a small proportion of the UK’s music industry, they are bucking the trend for a huge decline in singles sales.

Bands such as The Darkness, The White Stripes and Iron Maiden are among acts who have released tracks on seven-inch recently.

In the year to September more than 700,000 seven-inch singles were sold – an increase of 35% on the previous year. [more @ www.news.scotsman.com]

Mean Fiddler increased its influence on the live music sector yesterday, bizarrely by selling off some of its stock. MF boss Vince Power sold 16.21% of his stake in the company to Denis Desmond, founder of Irish promoters MCD, for a reported £4.5 million.

The alliance expands Mean Fiddler’s interests in live music venues in London. Desmond has shares in the Brixton Academy and Shepherd’s Bush Empire, which will be added to Mean Fiddler’s shares in, among others, the Astoria, Mean Fiddler, Jazz CafE, Forum, Garage and the recently acquired Borderline.

Perhaps more importantly MCD has a stake in the V Festival, meaning Mean Fiddler now have interests in all of the three major summer music events in England – they already promote the Reading/Leeds Weekend and have a stake in the Glastonbury Festival.[more @ www.unlimitedmedia.co.uk]

The Cuban pianist Ruben Gonzalez, one of the leading members of the musicians that formed the Buena Vista Social Club, has died aged 84.

Gonzalez reached world stardom in the late 1990s but his career began in the 1940s at Havana’s Tropicana cabaret.

Buena Vista founder and musician Ry Cooder described him as “the greatest piano soloist I have ever heard”.

His death follows that earlier this year of another key member of the Buena Vista Social Club, Compay Segundo.

The young Gonzalez studied both medicine and classical music, with the intention of becoming a doctor by day and a pianist by night.

However, at the age of 22, he gave up his medical ambitions to become a full-time musician.

From the 1940s onwards, Gonzalez was at the forefront of modern Cuban music, blending jazz and Latin rhythms.
[more @ www.news.bbc.co.uk]

While fighting piracy with lawsuits does not seem to be helping to bring users back into the shops, Universal is trying a plan which music lovers have been asking for all this time: Lowering wholesale CD prices. As a result, retailers have lowered CD pricing by an average of 2% this year to $ 13.32 on average according to MusicWatch.

Some major retailers are even selling some new releases for less than $ 10 down from around $ 17 and over; prices not seen since the early 1990’s, although many are for a promotional period only. The world’s largest music company Universal Music Group has cut prices on new releases by 24% to 31% to retailers who agree to certain conditions. [more @ www.cdfreaks.com]