According to the International Herald Tribune, they may just be seeing sense (article here) and are now looking at selling music as MP3s.  Arriving at this situation is not surprising, with several different trends:

• Going to MP3s would give them a means to break the strangle hold that Apple and Microsoft currently hold over them. Particularly with the resent friction with Apple over pricing models.
• As home media systems become increasingly integrated users will become more frustrated about restriction on which devices can play their music.
• The IFPI and RIAA‘s war against P2P sharing is only having limited impact and only driving more sophisticated solutions to sharing both in terms of technology – look at the rise of Bit Torrents after the attacks on older P2P solutions and in legal means – setting up indie record labels, buying their own islands etc. No to mention its alienating the very people they want to sell to.
• Research shows that more people download, typically the more music they’ll buy.

I always seem to get excited at the start of a new year, looking forward to the forth coming music releases.  so to start the year, I thought I’d start with a few items of news ….

• Sting to reform with Andy Summers & Stewart Copeland for a Police 30th Anniversary tour
• U2 thinking about change of direction, and possibly going acoustic with an 07 release
• New release from Norah Jones next month
• New Stooges album in March!
• Kaiser Chiefs release album in Feburary (more here)
• Keane to cover the Cult (more here)
• Aqualung release a new album in March (more details here)
• New Air album
• New Tom McRae album
• Bryan Ferry finally delivers a new album in March!
• Another offering from Joss Stone.
• Speculation for releases from Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Cat Power and Ryan Adams

On a sad note we have to farewell to James Brown and Ahmet Ertegun.

Thom Yorke’s current solo website http://www.theeraser.net/ has a couple of free remixes (you need to select the buildings to get access to them).  The only problem is that the site is implemented as flash, so making downloading them a little annoying without a download tool.

I’ve come across a new amazing resource – an on line library of Live Concert recordings.  If you know much about radio performances, aside from the currently very hot KRCW Morning Becomes Electic, the wonderful John Peel Sessions and from the states in the 70s and 80s King Biscuit Flower Hour.  It appears that the Wolfgang Concert Vault (click here) has a lot of these and more. Currently the site only offers a streaming solution, but according the Big O Magazine news email – they’ll be offering a download service soon. There is of course still the Archive.org source for live material as well.

I thought the days of the BBC banning particular songs was long gone, and that the worst they did was consign the song to a minor playlist or worse.  But this wouldn’t seem to be the case, as according the AlbumVote.co.uk the BBC have banned the latest single by The Sparks – Dick Around (a reference to time wasting) (article here).  Understandably with BBC 6 Music and some of Radio 1’s alternative programming being one of the few potential outlets to get the single heard the Mael brothers are pretty pissed off.

The irony is, that they performed the song live on BBC 1 TV only last Friday as the closing performance on the Jonathon Ross show!  Plus having just searched the BeeB’s website already been plaid a number of times on BBC 6 Music. A little late now to band the song?  Doesn’t this smack of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax?