All Music are reporting that after Ed Harcourt being dropped by EMI recently has been signed to the US label Dovecote Records with the right to distribute Ed’s last album The Beautiful Lie (a fine one at that). The sad thing is that like many other small American indie labels I’m sure that Ed will start to do well and will continue winning ‘hearts and minds’ with his work, with us UK fans probably having to wait a lot longer for the material.

One of the problems of DRM has really come home to roost for MSN Music users. According to Digital Music News, Microsoft have informed users in writing that music purchased through MSN Music will not be transferable after August 31st 2008 to other devices or machines. This means that MSN Music users must continue to keep their existing equipment (and working) to not lose their investment.  So if after August you experience a catastrophic failure of your computer then game over, your investment is lost.

My personal view is that given you have paid for the right to have a copy of the music to play that Microsoft in this situation should carry the cost of transferring MSN Music users to their Zune infrastructure which is replacing it, or allow people to re-download the music in a DRM free format.

Horace Andy who has provided vocals for a number of Massive Attack albums has been talking with the NME about song lyrics he has been provided with to record for the new album.  The article (here) also suggests that they maybe on the road later in the year as well.

1 Giant Leap are returning with new material. Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Catto  who started out working with Faithless.  The new project called What About Me? follows the same basic approach as their debut, of travelling around sampling music and interviews from around the world and weaving them together to tell musical stories. What About Me? has again resulted in an audio visual offering.  Those in the UK will be fortunate enough to see at least some of this feast over the next couple of months as from April 23rd Channel 4 will be showing seven chapters spread over 7 weeks.

I’ve not yet seen release dates for the anticipated album and DVD.

The first piece picks up where the first album left off with Maxi Jazz and Michael Stipe.

Links:

• http://www.whataboutme.tv/
• http://www.1giantleap.tv/

 Helienne Lindvall as song writer has written on the Guardian music blog an interesting, if a little dispiriting article (here) about how she gets emails asking her to write and pitch songs in a particular style modelled on specific hits and artists (e.g. “Estelle’s American Boy and Duffy‘s Mercy, with an Amy Winehouse flavour to it.”).  The situation is comically tragic to hear A&R working in such a manner, and as Helienne says its not surprising that EMI have suggested sacking (or shooting) their A&R department.

  The story from Last.fm about how they’ve found that providing free music has helped stimulate sales (Free Music Encourages Sales)is certainly doing the rounds reaching the inkies as well as numerous music blogs.

Although the article relates to making tracks free on Last.fm and linking them to affiliated paid download sites.  I’m sure the clear evidence here is going to be used by to add weight to the claims that P2P sharing doesn’t do as much to hurt sales as the major record labels would like everyone to believe.

The Guardian online have written a good piece about what has happened to Talk Talk and their main man Mark Hollis.  The article can be found here.  A worth while ready as some of the battles between Hollis and his record labels have had long and important impacts on other artists contracts.