We’re not exactly an easy bunch to surprise here at Ears To The House – once you’ve been writing about dance music for just a few months, you start getting a sense of how...
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Just pay everything to Lucian Grainge and be done with it! Spotify is changing its royalty model from next year to combat streaming fraud – but who will REALLY benefit from the move?
Everyone seems to agree that the streaming model doesn’t pay in the way that it should. Even the major labels admit that there are issues within the current system – despite them being by...
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Kerri Chandler’s Madhouse Records is closing down after 31 years, with the boss taking his catalogue with him – so what’s behind the decision?
Mervyn Medalie might be a name that doesn’t ring any bells to the average dance music fan – but many within the world know exactly who he is. That said, little has been written...
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Spotify should raise their prices, says Warner Records boss
It was Baz Luhrmann on his 1999 song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” who commented that you should “Accept certain inalienable truths; prices will rise, politicians will philander. You too will get old, and...
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After FN Meka is dropped, how stupid do Capitol Records look?
Two weeks ago, Capitol Records made the decision to sign an artist to their label. Label does what label does, you might say. Which is true – but what was unusual in this case...
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Why Moby doesn’t want to be commercial anymore
Moby has decided he doesn’t want to appeal to the corporate machine anymore, it seems. He’s launched a new record label, called Always Centred At Night. And the purpose of this label, exactly? To...
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Dave Clarke can’t get the rights back to his Archive One album from 1996, despite it barely being available to stream and forget about downloads – the mad state of play 26 years later…
Record labels attract some of the pettiest people alive. I luckily never came across them during my five years of releasing music – but I heard no end of stories from others who weren’t...
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I wondered what Larry The Loafer was doing these days! BPI boss Geoff Taylor delivers an end of year message – but whose hand was up his back passage as he wrote it?
Everyone seems to think they’re The Queen these days. Such is this sententious and pompous urge felt by many public figures to give the world some kind of end of year message. And for...
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Four Tet has been given permission to pursue breach of contract claim against Domino Recordings in their messy legal fallout – but could the case end up in the High Court as a result?
The falling out between Four Tet and Domino Recordings has been messy so far. The dispute is primarily about Four Tet disputing streaming royalties from three albums originally released in 2001 – when online...
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The next big scam in the music industry? Criminals pretending they own the rights to records and coining it in – as two US men face charges of stealing $20million of royalties…
Criminality has never been a million miles away from the music world, as I outlined in an article recently about “dark forces” in the major labels working overtime to stop themselves having to give...
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Is there something they’re not telling us here? They don’t want to pay Four Tet more in royalties – but Domino Recordings DO want to pay someone to assist the staff who pay out the royalties…
Over the past week, I have noticed that the long-running legal dispute between electronic musician Four Tet and Domino Recordings. The spat is over the way Domino appear to have interpreted how much to...
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Want to know why Amateur’s House backs the #BrennanBill? These four men are worth over £3½ BILLION between them, yet they preside over an industry where a third of musicians made nothing this year – things cannot go on like this…
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll have no doubt seen the above photo a few times. It features Daniel Ek, Rob Stringer, Stephen Cooper and Lucian Grainge. They are the CEOs of Spotify,...
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As MPs get ready to vote on Kevin Brennan’s renumerations bill next week, will they listen to the artists who want a fairer share – or major label lobbyists who don’t?
One story that’s been bubbling away in the background over the past year or so is the #BrokenRecord campaign. The mission behind this crusade sounds like a simple one – streaming doesn’t pay artists...
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They bring it on themselves, don’t they? Now Universal ban artists from re-recording their music for longer – whilst profiting as Taylor Swift does exactly the same thing!
There are few people more cynical in the world right now than Universal Music Group. This one is a whopper, even by their standards. In 2018, Republic Records – whom they own – signed...
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Warner Music Group reached 249 million people last month on their own platforms – Spotify reached 381 million in that time… so is it time for Warner to say adios to Daniel Ek yet?
For the last few years, I’ve predicted that some kind of seismic shift is due in the music streaming world. The streaming sites don’t make any money, the artists don’t make any money. Only...
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Maybe they DO think they work for the Mafia after all! Those “dark forces” making threats to those talking about UMG boss Lucian Grainge’s pay have mob tendencies in their genes…
Yesterday morning, I wrote about the deeply suspicious behaviour of a number of “dark forces” within the music industry. They’re currently not very happy about people asking questions regarding the £150million that Universal Music...
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