This week has shown us the good, bad and ugly sides of the music industry. Beginning on a good note, at the time of going to press it is estimated that sales of the ‘Helping Haiti ‘ charity single are likely to top 500,000 by the end of the week, demonstrating the positive and transformative power that music can have. There is no challenge for the number one position this week, with Owl City's 'Fireflies' selling approximately 10% of the sales of 'Everybody Hurts'. More money will be raised with the US all-star charity single remake of ‘We are the World’, originally released in 1985 in aid of African famine relief. The lineup is a who’s who of A-list music stars including L'il Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, Pink and Barbra Streisand. Their efforts – also expected to raise millions for Haiti – will be played for the first time during coverage of the Vancouver winter Olympics next week before being released worldwide. Music lovers internationally are excitedly awaiting the outcome of this massive collaborative effort, whilst also contributing to the most worthy of causes. Definitely the good side of the music industry.
The bad side of the industry was exposed when two of our biggest major labels Warner Music and EMI revealed that they are on the brink of collapse. Warner, whose artists include Jay-Z, Green day, Madonna and Muse, made a loss of £10.9 million in the last 3 months of 2009 alone. EMI, home of Robbie Williams and Coldplay, said it had recorded a net loss of 1.6 billion pounds for last year. The overwhelming reason, of course, is a drop in record sales. Please let these figures be a message to all of you out there who download your music illegally. I know it’s tempting, but if everyone keeps doing it then there really will no longer be a music industry for all of us to love. And those of us who want to make a career in music will not have any prospects of doing so. It really is a very sorry state of affairs.
Now to the ugly – well it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Jedward’s debut single, a hideous cover mashup entitled “Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)” – Freddie Mercury will be turning in his grave – very verySusan Boyle. nearly reached the number 1 spot in our UK top 40. They entered at number 2 begging the question, are many British citizens tone-deaf? Or taste-deaf? I guess they must be, following the success of the stunningly below average
Finally my tip for the week... Sky Ferreira.
17 year-old LA singer-songwriter and straight-up party girl Sky Ferreira made Michael JacksonBloodshy and Avant (Britney), Paul Epworth (Annie) and Dallas Austin (Sugababes) for her debut album. She’s rumoured to have a similar vocal range to Mariah Carey, and yet her MySpace tracks are not in any way showy. They are just cool. Like Sky. Every article describes her as this decades’ teen Lolita and it’s easy to see why – when it comes to Sky, precocious is an understatement. However, when you are in your mid-teens and writing songs for the likes of Britney Spears and Whitney Houston, counting artists such as Katy Perry as your best buds, and being jetted around the world to record your own debut album, being mature for your age doesn’t seem to hurt. Expect big things from Sky in the coming year. cry when she was just 11 years old. This is not because she says ‘I’m not trying to have a clean image, but I open my books not my legs” (although let’s face it, it could well have been in Michael’s case) but because of her lovely, hypnotic voice. She’s been very busy working with producers such as
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| Sky Ferreira - the next big thing? |
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