Mum Confirms Arctic Monkeys New Album Rumour
Strangely the other night, #ArcticMonkeys5thAlbum started trending on Twitter. I scoured the Internet for information, but thought it was just someone having a laugh. It turns out it was initially tweeted by @ArcticMonkeysUS, who claimed to have intimate (read: sexual) knowledge of the situation. It has now been confirmed by drummer Matt Helder’s mother – Arctic Monkeys are recording their fifth album (via Gigwise).
The band only just released the excellent Suck It and See last year. The gang are back out in the desert on the west coast of America, and might be re-teaming with Queens of the Stone Age singer, Josh Homme, who helped out on their third album. Either way, it’ll likely be a damn good album.
Indie Label Goes After Illegal File Sharers
Century Media, take note. Lars Ulrich and the Metallica gang went after Napster about 10 years ago, making no friends or fans in the process. Now, indie label Century Media have gone after about 7,500 people for sharing albums of two of their artists (via Digital Music News). The lawsuits are only targeting the IP addresses of file sharers for now, with 4,327 sought for sharing Iced Earth and 3,136 people sought for sharing Lacuna Coil.
Label representative, Jay McDaniel, spoke to NorthJersey.com and said “What many people don’t understand is that it’s the distribution that’s the evil influence. It does the real damage and harm, not just to the client but to the culture industry, and to creative endeavours in general. This kills the little producer and it has an extremely destructive effect on the entertainment industry. Record sales don’t drive the music business any more – touring does. So illegal sharing of music on the internet has killed an entire industry.”
Barely anyone will see your band if they don’t know your music though. So if they discover you via Spotify and you get that small percentage of 1 cent, or if they share it and discuss it online via piracy, does it really matter? I’m not saying piracy is necessarily good, but it goes against the argument presented in my opinion. Interesting to see if the bands agree with the pirate hunt.
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Tag Archives: Liam Gallagher
Watch! Beady Eye – Second Bite of the Apple
Beady Eye are in a different gear, yet still speeding towards the release of their sophomore album, BE. The Liam Gallagher-led outfit have another new video off of the Dave Sitek-produced album. You might have heard it earlier on PHM, but Liam wants to be seen.
The video is for Second Bite of the Apple, which I’m guessing Adam and Eve didn’t get. Or did they eat the whole apple? Research might’ve helped this blog post. Anyway, if you like Liam, you’ll like seeing multiple angles of him in Beady Eye’s new video. Give it a viewing or two below.
Beady Eye – Second Bite of the Apple
Morning Music Notes – From Two Words to Two Letters
Beck to Release Acoustic Album
Beck released the literally DIY album Song Reader last year, and is following that up with an acoustic album and a small tour. A press release noted “..these very special performances will feature never before heard material from an upcoming acoustic record. The record can best be described as a self-contained work, one that came in the form of a burst of inspiration following the completion of last year’s groundbreaking Song Reader sheet music album” (via Consequence of Sound). And here I was hoping for Song Reader part two, while I wait for a burst of inspiration to make the music to hear Song Reader part one.
John Williams Likely to Score Star Wars: Episode VII
It’s been a weird year for Star Wars fans. Instead of pining for future movies, they have been shocked with the news that Disney has bought the rights from George Lucas and plan to make a new film for 2015 and many years after that. Episode VII is the first one, and has landed some key players, such as J.J. Abrams to direct. Music fans want to know if John Williams will be back to cook up yet another epic score. Answer: possibility.
Abrams said at a Star Trek (boo, hiss!) press conference “Again, for Star Wars, it’s very early days, but I believe that, going forward, John Williams will be doing that film because he was there long before I was” (via Hollywood Reporter). By that logic, Jar Jar Binks should be doing the film, and we sure as hell don’t want that.
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Listen! Beady Eye – Second Bite of the Apple
Beady Eye are at BBC Radio 1 right now chatting with Zane Lowe, who is playing their new single Second Bite of the Apple. The band also put the tune up on YouTube and you can listen to it right now.
Liam Gallagher definitely continues his Beatles lovefest with this tune, which sounds like it wants to be on Revolver or maybe Rubber Soul. The track is off of BE, which is out June 10/11. So much for that radical shift in direction. But I love almost everything Liam does (bar that first Beady Eye album), and this is better than that, so it’ll get a few spins today. Check it out below – lots of horns happening on this new album it sounds like.
Beady Eye – Second Bite of the Apple
Morning Music Notes – Drug Free Like Liam
Daft Punk to Launch Their Album in Small Australian Town, Apparently Want Their Album to Bomb
When it comes to album launch parties, the general strategy is to let as many people know that you have a new album, and to celebrate it with your legions of fans. Daft Punk haven’t heard of this technique, and have decided to launch their new Random Access Memories album at the annual Wee Waa agricultural show in Wee Waa, New South Wales, Australia (via Rolling Stone).
The album is out May 21, but Wee Waaians (not sure if that’s what you call people from Wee Waa) will get to dance their butts off on May 17. There are only 4000 tickets for the event, and no word if the tickets will also get you into the pet show, the showgirl competition, or the cross cut saw competition.
Liam Gallagher Makes a Drug Free Album
All rules were thrown out the window for the new Beady Eye album. They have apparently ditched their 90s sound, brought in Dave Sitek to mix up the production (hello brass section!), and now the 40 year old Liam says he had a clear head when he wrote the new Beady Eye album (via Telegraph).
Gallagher stated “We had a new-found focus when we were writing it – we really got our heads down and got our shit together – clear heads, none of that crap from the 90s.” Well, it only took him 13 years.
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Listen! Beady Eye – Flick of the Finger
Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye are about to release album number two. If they have the dreaded “sophomore slump” they could be in trouble, as album number one didn’t exactly set the world on fire. TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek has produced album number two, so exciting things could await us. KCRW in Southern California managed to pip BBC Radio’s Zane Lowe (who was supposed to have the world exclusive launch) and played Flick of the Finger. Someone ripped it and now its on SoundCloud for you to hear.
Flick of the Finger has Liam sounding like his vintage self. The track is horn filled, without a proper chorus, but strongly sung verses. Sure, it’s not the greatest song in the history of music, but is a good first attempt at distancing themselves from album number one and re-inventing their sound somewhat. The end of the track has a lengthy spoken word sample, which Liam seems so fond of. Check out flick of the Finger below.
Morning Music Notes – Daft Punk Won’t Be Playing at Your House
Guitarist for Matt Mays, Jay Smith, Died After Edmonton Show
Sad news in Canadian rock. One of guitarist for Matt Mays – Jay Smith – died after the band’s show in Edmonton. I just saw Matt Mays play at the SiriusXM Indies last Friday night, making this a little more surreal. His cause of death is unknown (via Spinner).
The band posted on their Facebook page, “Our guitar player and dear friend Jay Smith passed away this morning in Edmonton. As you can all imagine, we are completely devastated. However, in our heart of hearts we know that we need to Play on. Jay’s family as well as the band know he would have wanted it that way. All of the proceeds from the remaining shows will be put into a trust for his two beautiful children. Jay’s wit, charm, and unparalleled love of music will never be forgotten.
He was our brother and he will live in our hearts and song forever.
Matt, Serge Damien, Adam and Matt.”
Beady Eye Single to Premiere April 15
Liam Gallagher’s anxiously awaited follow up album for Beady Eye now has a single debut date. The song will premiere on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show on April 15 (via NME). The band have recorded their second album with producer / TV On The Radio member Dave Sitek. Either way, it can’t be worse than the first album, can it?
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Morning Music Notes – The Best Album Any Human or Animal Will Ever Make, Ever
Indie Music Accounted for Almost One Third of All 2012 Sales in the USA
The American Association of Independent Music has pointed out that 2012′s Soundscan stats show that indie labels accounted for 32.6% of music sales in the USA last year (via Hypebot). Well done, Indies!
As shown in the graph above, indie labels did better than each of the major labels, including Sony (23.0%), Universal (21.8%), Warner Music Group (14.5%), and EMI (8.2%). This also happened in 2011 – indie music (and indie music blogs!) are where it’s at.
Look Out, Liam Gallagher is Bragging About a New Album Again
Liam Gallagher is one cocky motherfucker. Being an Oasis fan, I will say that luckily for him, he has generally delivered. When Oasis split up and 4/5 of the band (including Liam) formed Beady Eye, I thought it might be a good thing. Album number one was not so good, despite near-record amount of hype from Liam. Now comes album number two, promisingly produced by Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio. Will it be good? Liam says it bloody will be.
“This is the record Oasis should have made after (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” Liam says to NME (via Gigwise). “I’m not saying it’s better than Be Here Now or it’s going to be this or that – I love Be Here Now, I won’t have a bad word said about it but when you’re selling 20 million records, you’ve got people there going, ‘Oh let’s just chuck out that formula again’. So I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t ever do it. But this f**king record: we’ve booted the door off the hinges and steamed right in there, into this other world.”
Will it deliver? I’m hoping for yes, and I’m thinking it’ll be better than their first album, but we’ll see if it touches Oasis’ heights.
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Morning Music Notes – Why is Turkey So Special?
Paul McCartney to Guest Star on Hillsborough Charity Single
In England, the Hillsborough football disaster has been a pretty big deal for a couple of decades. This year, the truth behind the police’s falsification of many of the day’s reports came to light, finally giving some families closure. A charity Christmas single is being made for the Hillsborough Family Support Group, which includes families of the 96 people who died that day in 1989. The charity single will have a few heavyweights behind it – Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams, Mick Jones, the Zutons (who need to release something new soon), and a slew of other Liverpool celebrities (via Guardian).
The track is He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, which is a 1969 song by The Hollies. The track will be out December 17, and will likely be the number 1 track this December 25 (unless Rage Against the Machine come out of nowhere again).
Noel Won’t Reform Oasis for 20th Anniversary
The thing about splitting up a band these days is people constantly ask you when you’re going to reform. Oasis are still a couple of years away from their 20th anniversary, but are already being asked about a 20th anniversary reunion. Noel Gallagher recently said in Channel 4 “What would it take? It would take Liam or myself to be very skint, and I know for a fact that ain’t gonna happen. So other than that, I can’t see it” (via NME). Yeah, don’t see Noel being poor any time soon.
Noel also dished about how he’s going to deal with his kids doing drugs, noting he can’t really lecture them given his history, but will tell them “Everything in moderation, lads. And just remember: you will never be as cool as your dad. Remember that.”
Noel has been chosen to curate next year’s Concerts for Teenage Cancer Trust, where we saw Florence + the Machine this past year. Pick Oasis, Noel!
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Morning Music Notes – Pirate Hunting
Mum Confirms Arctic Monkeys New Album Rumour
Strangely the other night, #ArcticMonkeys5thAlbum started trending on Twitter. I scoured the Internet for information, but thought it was just someone having a laugh. It turns out it was initially tweeted by @ArcticMonkeysUS, who claimed to have intimate (read: sexual) knowledge of the situation. It has now been confirmed by drummer Matt Helder’s mother – Arctic Monkeys are recording their fifth album (via Gigwise).
The band only just released the excellent Suck It and See last year. The gang are back out in the desert on the west coast of America, and might be re-teaming with Queens of the Stone Age singer, Josh Homme, who helped out on their third album. Either way, it’ll likely be a damn good album.
Indie Label Goes After Illegal File Sharers
Century Media, take note. Lars Ulrich and the Metallica gang went after Napster about 10 years ago, making no friends or fans in the process. Now, indie label Century Media have gone after about 7,500 people for sharing albums of two of their artists (via Digital Music News). The lawsuits are only targeting the IP addresses of file sharers for now, with 4,327 sought for sharing Iced Earth and 3,136 people sought for sharing Lacuna Coil.
Label representative, Jay McDaniel, spoke to NorthJersey.com and said “What many people don’t understand is that it’s the distribution that’s the evil influence. It does the real damage and harm, not just to the client but to the culture industry, and to creative endeavours in general. This kills the little producer and it has an extremely destructive effect on the entertainment industry. Record sales don’t drive the music business any more – touring does. So illegal sharing of music on the internet has killed an entire industry.”
Barely anyone will see your band if they don’t know your music though. So if they discover you via Spotify and you get that small percentage of 1 cent, or if they share it and discuss it online via piracy, does it really matter? I’m not saying piracy is necessarily good, but it goes against the argument presented in my opinion. Interesting to see if the bands agree with the pirate hunt.
Click for more Morning Music Notes because they’re bound to be AWESOME
Morning Music Notes – Opie and Jay-Z
New Soundgarden Album Out in November
Chris Cornell has gone back to his ex-lovers, Soundgarden, and after a successive (read: profitable) tour, the band have recorded an album. This is old news, I know. But what’s new is the release date – November 13 (via Consequence of Sound). No word on the album name or tracklisting, or whether or not it retreads enough 90s ground to rope in all of the old fans.
Noel Gallagher Had to Give Permission for Liam’s Beady Eye to Play Wonderwall
I’m actually quite surprised that Beady Eye played this copyright game with Noel Gallagher, considering the egos at stake. As heavily rumoured, Noel Gallagher did in fact turn down an Olympic Closing Ceremony performance slot (via NME). Also, Noel was a bit of a prick about Beady Eye’s reworking of the track.
Noel spoke to XFM about the Wonderwall recording and said “They had to re-record it and then send it to me. I did play a bit of cat and mouse with them for a few days – I took it until Friday night at 10 o’clock before I said yes and they were shitting it. Not Beady Eye, the organisers. Because I had to say yeah and I was like ‘Meh, it’s alright, I’m not sure with this new string arrangement’ and they were like, ‘Fuck! The gig’s on Sunday,’ so I was like ‘OK, alright, you can have it then’.”
Why didn’t Beady Eye just play one of their hits? Oh yeah.
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