Nosey

For a start, Prince was supposedly paid about a million pounds for the 'free' givaway, and even if the figure is incorrect, it's a safe bet that they actually got paid. In the case of someone like Prince, he's already made millions, so music can be a hobby for him, so it's fine for him to want as many people as possible to own his new music so when they go to the concert the aren't all waiting for him to sing 1999 and Purple Rain. In fact, everyone you mention there have career that are funded by people paying for their music. If they wanted to give away everything they produce from now on, I'm sure they could. But what about all the new music and artists who need the funding? At some point, there needs to be some income stream for people making music that isn't the big arena tours normally reserved for established artists. And yes, some people give away free tracks before an album. That's called advertising. Have you ever been given a free sample of anything when you are in a shop, or with a magazine? It's done on the basis that enough people will come back and buy something later. I don't even have particular qualms about people downloading the odd track for free, especially if it's hard to get elsewhere, or if people genuinely aren't sure if they'll like it. What does bug me is that some people will brazenly brag about never actually paying for any of the music they obtain. It might be good for your personal pocket, but don't kid yourself that it's good for the industry if everyone did the same.

Fantastic show. Quite a few singers this year, even if Robbie is going to be on the sidelines. Craig David Gareth Gates Danny from McFly Nicky from Westlife And presented by PJ and Duncan!!! :dance: Not too sure about Jonathon Wilkes being captain. He probably deserves it, because he was part of coming up with the idea, but the tv people might prefer someone who is famous in their own right. :wacko:

Keep on buying them I say. If you like the format and can be bothered with all of that effort, go for it. I rarely buy a physical single these days, but I like to know there are some available, so I'm glad there are people like you who still buy them regularly. No-one should be proud of illegal downloading, especially on a music forum for music fans. I know it's a part of life, and some music fans do it for obscure things they can't find elsewhere, but it you haven't actually paid for any of your music in years, you are helping to damage the business, which is not good for mankind. :angry:

I voted number 2, and I might have voted number 1 if the option was available. The song is of a much higher quality (IMHO) than anything they've released in ages, so it deserves to do better, but that might be limited by people who wouldn't dream of buying anything with McFly's name on it. The over-keen fans don't help with this. Releasing the download a week early means they might suffer chart-peak wise too, and will this be their first single since Woolies stopped stocking them?

Distant Dreamer is my favourite and I also think it would have been easier to get a couple of remixes for it to generate a bit of interest as a single release.

I've not liked much of what McFly have done for ages, and hated One for the Radio, so was shocked when I realised that I seem to genuinely like this one. If I was going to criticise, I'd say the vocals don't do the song justice, but it's their best actual song for a long time. I still don't understand what they've done with their free album that turns out not to be their proper album, but it sounds as if it was best avoided anyway! :lol:

It's not slamming Miley, and I don't think she intended that. You have to blame the sensational journalist for reaching that conclusion. I was liking Katie, but her comments about herself only serve to make herself sound tedious and contrived. I'll not hold it against her yet, because she came across well in the other interviews I've heard. Hopefully she was just having a bit of a laugh and was a bit bored with people asking about her being a role model.

I'd love it to be something about Alesha's single being completely and utterly amazing, but I'm not sure why that would be a secret, even for the sake of hyping it up. It could be about a collaboration, or some event that Alesha or any of the other favourites are involved with. It's already public knowledge that Alesha was working with Xenomania, so unless she's going to be teaming up with Jay-Z or something, that might be false hope on my part.

I was going to add Bananarama to the list, although that was for singles. I don't know about albums. I don't think there is any point arguing about who deserves it in the musical sense. Save that for the normal chart squabbles, but I do think it's a shame when an artist almost gets to number one several times, but doesn't quite get there. On the other hand, it can sometimes be a millstone for them if they have a flukey number one with a song that is of a lower standard than some of the ones that almost made it.

I think it'll be low top 10 or high top 20. He's not really a singles artist, but now I've finally heard it, it's better than expected after some of the things I'd read on here. But the album will do very well so long as he steps up the promotion. It's all a bit low-key so far, but maybe that's what they have in mind. Build it up towards Christmas.

Tesco and Asda used to sell them, but they seem to have stopped doing that in most if not all their stores. Obviously there wasn't the demand, or at least they thought they could make more money if they put DVDs or video games on the same shelves. I think the supermarkets sometimes makes exeptions, such as for the X Factor winning single, or something like the Katie Melua charity single in Tesco. The problem is, the supermarkets have to be pretty confident of big sales before they'll bother. I admit I don't buy physical singles very often these days, but part of that is that I am rarely anywhere that sells them. I always used to browse the new releases and charts when I was in a shop that sold them, and would make impulse buys. It's not just bad news for the Westlifes and McFlys, it's bad news for pretty much everyone who doesn't make the crucial playlists. There is the argument that it will encourage artists to pick their single releases more carefully, but that might just mean picking the songs they think radio will play a lot and we'll have even more and more old songs hanging around for months and months.

Duffy and Duffy for me. I've played Duffy's album loads since I got it, but I just can't take to Adele. She's already suffering from over-exposure and over-hype. I think the Brits thing could do her more harm than good. She went from being thought of as the one to watch to being a product of industry hype. I admit to being a massive Bernard Butler fan, so a lot of my love for Duffy's album could come from that, but if she didn't have the voice, it wouldn't work, and she comes across well in interviews too. Unlike Adele who come across as quite childish and brattish.

That may be part of it, but most people have known that for years. The main sales advantage of a charity single is the intense promotion that normally comes with it. The song gets used in trails, and the artists crop up on just about every show going to talk about the charity in question and no-one objects to plugging the release date etc. That just didn't happen. Even on the night of CIN there wasn't any real way of distinguishing between the Spice Girls' offering and that of everyone else promoting their new single. Once their tour tickets sold out fast, it is as if they stopped trying. It's daft to knock their success, but this chart position is embarassing for them.

G4 and Shayne etc released the week before Mother's Day, and sales dropped sharply after that, so while I think Leona's album will do better overall, I'm not sure it'll beat their first week sales, because most of her sales will be people buying for themselves. I'm going for a more modest 100-150k, but with sales staying strong until Christmas as people start to buy for mums and aunties and a new lease of life if the next single is good.

Albums: Annie Lennox (I can't believe I'm the first person to name her :cry: )

This looks great. Something to add to my Wishlist. I think sometimes it's out of their hands, and depends on the say-so of the record companies.

Is he aspiring to be the Jodie Marsh of music? :lame: Nasty man.

There's some music on her MySpace if you follow the link. If I had to describe it, I'd say think Tory Amos come PJ Harvey come Amy Winehouse. It's hard to tell for sure what it will be like, because they are clips from live performances. It also says she's signed to the 19 label. It's interesting what is written about her stage-fright. She showed so much promise before, but never could quite deliver, which was a shame.

I really like both tracks, but Robyn clinches it for me.

Big publicity stunt. I don't think anyone is taking the request for it to be counted seriously. I can't see the MOS caring if the OCC think the offer and request is a joke. They don't need the respect of the OCC, but if SBMG were seriously annoyed with the deal, they could withdraw their artists from doing interviews. Not that I think anyone cares that much, apart from using it as an opportunity to make some noise.

It's a great album. It's funny people all have different ideas of what is great and what's terrible, but well worth a listen to decide for yourself. You can always skip the ones you don't like, but I've found that I like them all. It's just that some took longer to get used to than others, because I was too busy thinking of what it should have sounded like!!! :D

I think quite a lot of fans would agree with you. Maybe not that the song is terrible, but that it was a terrible choice for a lead single given the choice of much more commercial and radio friendly music on the album. This is the song that most fans want to see as a single, and it offers good contrast with what was released so far. I thought AOMS was worlds apart from Changes musically, but for some it was 'another ballad', so as Suedehead2 suggests, it wasn't given a fair hearing. "Lost in You" was written by Gareth, G Clark, and P Gordeno, and mixed by George Tandero. Gareth said that it was one of the first songs written for the album, but also the last one they finished, because they couldn't get it to sound right. He said there were five or six versions before they got to this one. I'm glad they persevered.

I agree - it's only taking the thread OT to talk about them, which is probably what they wanted in the first place. The rest of us seem agreed that they are out to cause trouble, and we don't believe them to be genuine, so let's not spoil a perfectly good thread by mentioning them more than we have already. If they post again, we can take it for granted that we all know what they are doing, without having to say so. The strangle-hold certain people have over playlists is very frustrating, but the big labels don't just exert their influence in terms of a radio plugging monopoly. They do deals to get all of their acts onto the festival circuit as a job lot, and onto the music channels, and to a certain extent, providing the pointers to the media so they can "discover" music on the internet. Don't be fooled into thinking that the Sandi Thom phenomenon was down to people power. The whole thing was stage managed within part of a major record deal. Fortunately, for those artists who already have a fan-base, the part of their fan-base that is online can at least find out what they are doing and hear their music. :)

The more I hear this song, the more I love it. It's much better in full than it was in the clip.

He's been floating between 25 and 30 on the iTunes album chart for the past couple of days. Although I don't expect Gareth's album to hold its chart position all that well, I do think it's very promising that his iTunes position is much better than it ever was for the singles, and not that much lower than the physical. I know this is helped with there being a link on the front page, but it shows there is interest beyond the core fan-base.