Mojo goes vinyl

Mojo are doing a vinyl covermount to mark the 40th anniversary of some Beatles record or other, which is quite interesting.

The Mojo editor-in-chief, Phil Alexander, said: "The Mojo vinyl edition is our way of celebrating the rebirth of vinyl which we've seen in recent years. Essentially, we created an incarnation of the magazine that we wanted to buy ourselves so it was something of a labour of love."

He added: "In terms of the album itself, we hand-picked the acts and they all paid tribute to the enduring power of the Beatles by providing new perspectives on a set of classic tunes."

It's not going to be the standard edition of the magazine, though - available through Smiths, HMV and record shops; buy a copy elsewhere and you'll get a CD. (Possibly - the MediaGuardian report isn't clear.)

It's not entirely unheard of for a vinyl covermout, even now - NME did one with Coldplay in 2008. Everyone got one of those. But, on the other hand, it was Coldplay.

Metal Hammer ratchet up price for Ozzy special

Metal Hammer is hoping to repeat the trick it managed with its Slash special back in April by lobbing out an Ozzy special for a healthy premium price.

The Slash one cost fifteen quid - in effect, it was an album that came with a free magazine - but the Ozzy issue is only going to be eight pounds; for that you get a "music download card".

What's interesting is the quote from Future's Chris Langham. Not that Chris Langham:

"I don't subscribe to the free music model, I don't think it sits very easily with hardcore rock fans," he said. "If people want to steal music online, they will. But there is a hard core group that want products they can touch and they are willing to pay for it."

Perhaps he was speaking in, I don't know, Greek and something got lost in translation? There's the suggestion that somehow liking Black Sabbath means you wouldn't support the idea of music being delivered without having to pay for it is confusing - presumably Kerrang Radio listeners send a cheque off whenever they hear a track?

Then the sudden leap that 'stealing music' is the opposite of having a physical product - what does that mean? That people who buy downloads online are somehow still stealing because they don't have a plastic box? He surely can't mean that? Does he not understand that online music sales are a large market, and there are people who don't want plastic records who also think that artists should get paid?

And, if there is a hardcore of an audience who want something physical, erm, why are you giving away a download card with the Ozzy pack?

The special issue is interesting in its own right, but why try and launch it by suggesting it has something to do with unlicensed filesharing? If anything, isn't this more about people not being as interested in having a physical magazine and finding ways to engage them?

Mirror Maths

Here's something strange:

Order your copy of the Daily Mirror for £3.15 and get the new Prince album 20TEN for Free.

The Mirror costs, what? 40p. Postage can't costs more than a pound, even if it's in an envelope. And that envelope can't be more than 50 pence worth.

So how does paying £3.15 for a 40p newspaper make the Prince album "free"?

It looks rather as if the Mirror is selling the Prince album for £3.15 from where I'm sitting.

Prince helps out the Mirror

So, how did the Prince album giveaway do for the Mirror? Pretty well, from the paper's perspective:

Their sales increased by 334,000 and 45,000 [for sister paper the Daily Record] respectively when compared with sales on the previous Saturday.

The Mirror hopes that people will have been so thrilled with the paper that came with the record that they'll be back for more Andy Capp and 3AM. Good luck with that, Mirror.

They're also convinced they've created something collectable:

According to the Mirror, copies of its Saturday issue have "become an instant collector's item" and the CD itself has "sparked a global bidding war" with copies "being touted for $22 - £14.60 - last night on the internet...

Perhaps. But you can pick it up for 99p right now. Which, to be fair, is still a profit - although the large number of 'no bids' suggests it might not have been such a canny investment after all.

Mail ejects CDs, DVDs

The Daily Mail (although, explicitly, not the McFly pushing Mail On Sunday) is going to stop giving away covermounts. Someone has apparently noticed that it's a bloody expensive way of adding short-term readers without providing any long-term benefits.

Did I just hear that correctly?

The Times is giving away albums every day this week - including The Jesus And Mary Chain. It's meant to be a promotion built around the records that every collection should have - although, surely, if a Times reader has no Mary Chain in their collection it could be because the right-wing press didn't exactly embrace the band during their first flush of fame.

Ban this sick stunt

We were somewhat surprised to see an advert pushing today's Mail On Sunday free Pavarotti CD on television last night. Not that they were trying to flog the paper off the back of a hastily-assembled collection of tracks by a recently deceased bloke, but more the placing of the advert, slap in the middle of More4's showing of Brass Eye. The very episode which the Daily Mail had called "unspeakably sick" when it was shown in 2001.

Travis try a little Prince action

Yes, Fran and his team of other-members-of-Travis are hoping to be a little bit like Prince. Obviously not by making a funky record, but by giving away their new single with the Mail On Sunday.

Curiously, while the Prince giveaway angered the retail music stores, nobody seems that bothered by Travis giving away tracks that the shops haven't, well, been able to give away. Yes, they had a new album out last May. Nobody much noticed, did they?

The Prince and the poor-push

If the Official Chart Company really wanted to piss off the Mail on Sunday, it should have made the Prince giveaway eligible for the album charts - as, of course, it would also have had to have given the same treatment to the News of the World's spoiler Prince album (made up of bits of ropey old off-cuts). And since the NOTW sells more than the MOS, it would have comfortably beaten the official CD into second place.

EDIT: It turns out the NOTW was pulling even more of a flanker: it wasn't a covermount - they simply gave away 1000 copies of Purple Rain on a dial-in phone number, reports the Housequake Prince forum. I'd only seen the front of the paper in the store and hadn't been able to take a closer look...

Mail on Sunday wants to break the album charts

The Mail on Sunday is threatening legal action if the Prince album its giving away this weekend doesn't get counted for the charts. Although they're supposedly selling a newspaper and giving away the CD, and not the other way round.

It's not that MOS managing editor doesn't have a good reason for calling for his newspaper to be treated as an album:

"We are spending a fortune on this," said Mr Miron.

Words which failed to melt the hearts of the Official UK Chart company. So he tries some bluster:

"Given our belief that this album should still be included on the official UK album charts and having responded to your issues, I would urge you to reconsider your previous position as a matter of urgency, before we engage our lawyers for legal advice to force a challenge to this restraint on our trade."

We would have thought that it might have been a good idea to seek legal advice from your lawyers before sending threatening letters - especially since it's not clear how not qualifying for the album charts constitutes "restraint of trade": is it not going to be stocked anywhere because it falls foul of the rules? Does Miron believe that having a Prince album at number one will somehow help sales of the Mail On Sunday the following week, when it doesn't have a prince album to give away? Does he think people won't buy a record because it doesn't count towards the charts?

The Chart Company won't budge:

The Official UK Charts Company has refused to enter the album Planet Earth on its chart, saying it could not prove that newspaper sales were "genuine consumer purchases" and that it could not audit sales accurately.

Miron counters that this is, erm, a human rights issue:

"It's denying Prince his rights," Mr Miron told MediaGuardian.co.uk. "It will be number one in the UK chart and we think that's something that he should be able to do.

"The fact that they are referring back to rules put in place ages ago doesn't seem to fit with the way the music industry is now. I think they are mad."

Now, if you're going to throw around claims that people are "mad", suggesting that - somehow - the chart company should be enabling every newsagent, sweetshop and old bloke with a newsstand to function as a chart return shop by the end of the week might lead a few people to assume that Miron has a couple of bees loose in his processing-honeypot. And suggesting that Prince has a right to number one based on discs that will be given away with a newspaper that would have been purchased with or without the CD isn't exactly sane - does someone who sneaks CDs hidden into homes disguised as a Franklin Mint insert in You Magazine really deserve the chart position more than someone whose fans have actually, actively purchased the record?

Besides which, of course, even if you pretend that the paper comes free with the album, and not vice-versa, and even if the newsagents of Britain could be linked in to the chart return system, even then Prince still wouldn't qualify for the charts. The paper - sorry, CD - is just too cheap, coming in under £2.69 ceiling for "budget albums" and, as the chart eligiiblity rules state [pdf]:

Albums Chart: Budget Albums
Budget albums are excluded from all published Album Charts, except Classical Album Charts.

And, the provision of a newspaper and two general-interest magazines "for free" with the Prince record would seem to fall foul of this rule, too, forbidding:

procuring the sale of a record in conjunction with a non-related or excessive gift, ie which gives the consumer a product, voucher or benefit or anything else which is either unrelated to the record concerned or of a value in excess of the value of the record without that gift (value means normal retail price)

Clearly, the Chart Company aren't going to back down on this one anyway - the precedent would mean any covermount CD would become eligible for the charts, and in effect the music industry would end up underwriting the costs of auditing magazines circulations.

HMV realises unable to beat them; join them

Last week, HMV was one of a bunch of record shops wailing about plans by Prince to give away his new album with copies of the Mail On Sunday - "absolutely nuts" was HMV chief eexcutive Simon Fox's response.

This week, they've decided to turn themselves into a newsagent and flog copies of the paper instead.

Virgin are livid:

HMV's move was attacked today by rival Virgin Megastores, which "expressed disbelief" at the company's decision.

"We're stunned that HMV has decided to take what appears to be a complete U-turn on their stance towards covermounts and particularly in this case, as only a week ago they were so vocal about the damage it will cause," said Simon Douglas, Virgin Retail managing director. "Simon Fox [HMV chief executive] labelled the Mail on Sunday deal as 'devaluing music' and 'absolute madness', now they appear to have joined forces to sell more copies of the very same paper," Mr Douglas added.

"It's not only retailers that suffer; the public will suffer in the long term by restricting choice on the high street. Of course people will take a free CD by a platinum-selling artist like Prince but you only need to look at what's happened to Fopp going into administration to get an idea of the potential long-term impact."

We're surprised to hear the impact of the Prince deal was so enormous that it managed to bring Fopp to its knees a month before it even happened, but those, we guess, are the apocalyptic forces we're dealing with here.

To be honest, we don't quite see why HMV is bothering - it's not like people are going to go out their way to buy the paper at HMV - "we could stroll into the village and get the paper, but instead let's drive to town and fight our way through the crowd of goths to get it"; they may pick up a few sales from people impulse-buying the paper at the checkouts, but we're not sure how many of HMV's customer base would be interested enough in Prince to buy the Mail On Sunday on a whim. Still, it's nice to see yet more consistent and joined-up policy thinking in the music industry.

Prince beats record shops with rolled-up Mail on Sundays

The continued struggle between free music and the people who are trying to make money from selling music has a whole new battle brewing: Prince is apparently talking with the Mail On Sunday about cover-mounting his new album.

Yes, his new album. He wants to give it away for free.

No, we don't know why he's chosen the Mail to be his vessel - surely he doesn't think the average Mail reader crosses over with his target market? - but it's not the paper, it's the very idea:

The Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) made no secret today of its anger over the Prince plans, saying the rumour of a giveaway "beggars belief".

"It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," ERA co-chairman Paul Quirk told a music conference. "It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music."

"If it turns out to be the case - and we're still trying to get to the bottom of it - The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday."

We love the suggestion that the record stores have, until now, been stocking records by one of the world's biggest selling artists as some sort of charitable endeavour, and not because they were selling them at a profit; and that they think that this puts Prince in their debt in some way.

It's sadly hilarious, though, that as an artist finds a way to make money off his music that doesn't involve record shops the record shop reaction is to throw the artist off their shelves. Because reducing your range even further is the way to tempt the customers in.

- Hello, record shop man - I was just enjoying this Prince CD I got free with my paper, and it made me decide to come and buy some of his other records. What have you got?
Record shop manager looks forlornly at smoldering remains of Prince's back catalogue

Tubular sells: Mail defends giveaway

Mike Oldfield's continuing complaints that EMI allowed the Mail On Sunday to give away the whole of Tubular Bells for free have brought about a wounded response from the paper. They've taken a two page ad in Music Week to defend their actions, even claiming that giving away the album boosted sales:

In response, the MoS has this week taken out a double-page advert in Music Week defending the move, arguing that covermounting helps promote music and claiming that sales of Tubular Bells rose by 30 per cent following the giveaway.

MoS managing director Stephen Miron said: “The whole argument is that we are devaluing music, but we are creating a stimulus.”

Miron confirmed that the MoS was keen to continue covermounting entire albums, where possible. “I don’t think we are the enemy in this,” he said.

“I think people would like us to be the enemy. The issues that come about are from retailers putting pressure on the record companies not to do these things. In reality, the music companies would – given a free way – do much more of this.”

Lots for EMI to use to defend itself there, then - although, of course, it might choose not to. Because if it agrees that giving away an entire album for free boosts sales of that very album, never mind other works by the artist, then it can hardly continue to deny that filesharing can stimulate legitimate sales, can it?

And if the Mail On Sunday is telling the truth when it suggests that record companies would continue covermounts if allowed, why is this form of giving music away not educating people to get used to not paying for music, a common complaint about filesharing and online services raised by the labels?

What the pop papers say: The dereliction of duty edition

Stumble... the resurgence of The Face hits a rock in its path as the new Popbitch junta in charge attempt to move away from the stuff they know about. Hence, while they could have had a gorgeous Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover, they instead lead with “Why the undead are cool” (or glamorous or something) “again.” Riding the Buffy wave about three years too late, guys. Or is this A Couple Of Days After The Living Dead?

Talking of the living dead, boys, Muzik magazine is struggling to keep its nerve in a dance magazine market that’s under more pressure than Bobby Brown’s rectum. This month, they’ve tried to recast themselves as always having had a non-dance element to their magazine, going all Uncut style with Madonna, Prince or apparently someone else on the choice of three covers. Even more dubious, the covermount which goes with the theme has got Joy Division on it. Joy Division? You sick fucks - he wasn’t dancing, he was an epileptic.

The Guardian Saturday Review made space for Philip Horne’s review of Alluding to the Poets by Christopher Ricks, a study of the poetic tradition of reheating forbear’s words, often without attribution; interesting from a music point of view both aurally and lyrically - of course, nowadays, rather than smiling and saying “ah, Ashcroft is referencing Loog Oldham there - how clever” the reaction is to send a stiffly worded solicitor’s letter. “It’s a means of lightening what Walter Jackson Bate recognised in the 1970’s as ‘the burden of the past’ which has hung over the English poet since Dryden and Pope, the sense that everything has already been all too well said” writes Horne, demonstrating that even the Manic’s most famous war cry - “we know we’re derivative, but what else can we do? Everything’s been done already” - was itself a rip-off.

The Economist is virtually a pop issue, taking time to consider both Pete Townshend and The Music Industry In General. In the first case, the ‘mist slides into the same trap as most of the other papers in confusing the facts of Pete T and Matthew Kelly’s trouble with the cops. Kelly is being investigated, but has not been charged with anything, and as such the treatment of him as a soiled, boy-buggering monster is at best contemptuous of fairness and quite possibly a contempt of court. But Townshend - also yet to be charged with anything wrong doing - has been happily admitting his law-breaking, and conducting a loud and public defence in mitigation. As such, he’s moved the courtroom out into the wider press; his admission of downloading kiddie porn and forking out cash in return makes it unlikely that he’d plead Not Guilty in court and so the question is up for consideration by a judge who - surely - are selected to be above such tittle-tattle anyway?

Happily, because it’s more about figures and the sorts of things you can do with an MBA, the economist is better on the question of why the Entertainment Industry is wobbling. It pays lip service to the download boogerman, but then turns its fire where its surely more deserved - with management eyes being so busily fixed on convergence and content and all the geegaws of the brave new world (the paper doesn’t add “fighting their own customers”, but it could), the music industry has lost sight of how to produce stuff that people actually want. It points to the slow turn in EMI under Alan Levy, who’s split the pocketbook from the soul with the new regime at Virgin Records. One guy to sign the music, one to make sure the figures add up. At least there’s a place for creativity in that set-up. What’s truly disturbing in the way the Industry is trying to build fences round its copyright past is that it suggests that that’s all it sees itself as ever having that’ll be worthwhile to work with.

So, no longer hungover, our newsagent was able to pass us an NME - an NME so light that we almost thought it was missing something. But it’s not. Datsuns on the cover.

When is that woman from the Daily Star going to turn up and do something for the news desk? At the moment she’s still being a Bitch - whose quality Private Eye points out included running as “spotted” “the queen, leaving Buckingham Palace in a car” - one step away from “Huw Edwards, reading the news - on the telly.” Still, we’re sure games will be lifted when she’s running the nme news desk. On the other hand, when its leading on the news that Noel has re-recorded Wonderwall - what were we just saying about how you start to cherish the past only when there’s not much bright in the future? - you wonder if she’ll need to bother.

Other things on the news page: What fans thought of 8Mile - um, unsurprisingly, being fans, they liked it; you can use a voucher to get cheap CDs at Virgin (this isn’t news, this is an advert, surely - and the fact that Page 41 needs a big up on page four raises the question - how far does the average reader make it through these days?); Didz from the Cooper Temple Clause got an infection when he had his appendix out; you’ll remember that last week the Home Secretary was going to impound our ears and only allow Blair-approved tracks to be listened to - there was a big spread in the nme all about it? Well, this week the cloud seems to have totally blown over - two letters in angst and a quick interview with Jay-Z (he’s asked a stupid question: ‘do you feel responsible for violent crime in the UK’) and Corey Taylor, for some reason, who says “The notion of government approved rock music is like military intelligence, an oxymoron.” Well, it’s good that you’ve at least listened to some Michael Franti, Corey, but ‘government approved rock music’ isn’t an oxymoron; it may be unpleasant but it’s not actually contradictory in itself. Somehow, then, last week the paper was telling us to get to the barricades, now it seems to have made some sort of retreat; Oooh - kelly osbourne *got* *drunk*. Who says she’s not a rock rebel, eh? If you want to measure how bright KO fans are, there’s a comp in an ad for her new single - the question is “Who is Kelly’s famous dad?” It’s a multiple choice. Dude, anyone who has any interest in Kelly will only have that interest because of her famous dad. Why not just ask “What is the name of Kelly Osbourne?” Courtney rings the NME to say that whoever started the rumour about her throwing herself on Joe Strummer’s casket “should be shot, with the gun and bullets then being mysteriously wiped clean of any prints.” Okay, we made the last bit up. More funeral news, as Maurice Gibb’s being laid to rest is interrupted by Lulu throwing herself on the casket, wailing and gnashing. She had to be pulled off by Angus Deayton and Helen Shapiro.

The Thrills get a turn to burn a imaginary CD, choosing Al Green, Dexys and Gladys Knight. We suspect they may spend their evenings compiling CDs to be covermounted on New Woman magazine.

The Polyphonic Spree - are they still here? Apparently.

There’s an almost fanziney feel to the Interpol piece - good work, people. Carlos has compiled a list of their obsessive, neurotic fans - Lego Girl, Gerbil Boy, Children of the Corn Girl. They have “Rock Band Found In Pieces By Lake” written all over them.

New Zealand is a hotbed of garage rock - apparently even those singing cows from the anchor advert have adopted an edgier sound. But kudos to Sylvia Patterson who has the cojones to ask Dolf “It would never cross your mind to be ground breaking? Original? Create the dawn of the absolute new?” Dolf’s response - “who says you should progress?” Which, in a way, is even more dispirting, and soul destroying, than that time the Stereophonics admitted to being a meat and potatoes band, and seemed quite proud of the fact.

reviews:
albums:
zwan - mary star of the sea - “for the first time in nearly a decade, [Corgan’s] egotism seems valid”, 8
pale - how to survive chance - “a band with no care for sniping fashion”, 4
more fire crew - more fire crew cv - “destined for success [a year ago]”, 7


singles
sotw: the warlocks - hurricane heart attack - “scrapes your brain”
easyworld - junkies - “indie so faceless it couldn’t be identified by its dental records”
tatu - all the things she said - “the russians are coming. quite literally, too.”

live
flaming lips (“a genius of goodwill”) and british sea power (“genuinely distracting”) - glasgow barrowlands
the get up kids - london ulu “growing up, but at least gracefully”

its funny because it’s true: an nmemail writer says “i was once the sort to quote Urusei yatsuri B-sides to people, but NME started me on other stuff... like music where the musicians have girlfriends.”