The Good The Bad And The Queen Apple

EMI have announced the introduction of higher quality DRM-less MP3's on the iTunes Music Store for £0.99. DRM encased MP4's will remain on sale at the traditional price of £0.79.

The Good

Higher Quality EMI MP3s will be available and will not feature copy protection (DRM).

EMI Music Videos will also be available at the same price without the copy protection.

A 256kbps DRM-less album will cost the same as an album encoded at 128kbps with DRM

This is the first concrete step by a major label towards a new legal digital music environment. Free us from paranoid copy protection please.

EMI's competitors (Sony, Warner and Universal) are likely to be under unstoppable pressure to follow suit. Independent labels are already able to sell DRM-less tracks on eMusic and so it is likely they will strike similar deals with iTunes.



The Bad

Customers will have to pay £0.99 for each of these 'premium' downloads.

I have bought the whole Joss Stone and Air albums already at 128kbps, can I upgrade for free as I bought the whole album? Can I upgrade my Robbie Videos for free?

The Beatles catalog is still not legally available online.

The Apple Queen



We tried out the new some of these 'Higher Quality' MP3's by buying EMI's first offering, The Good The Bad And The Queen (TGTBATQ). Ironically this album is available on the bands website via an iTunes rival, 7digital.

TGTBATQ is actually not the name of the band, its the name of the album. Damon decided it was stupid for them to have an actual name because they were all rock orphans from somewhere or another (Blur, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley, The Verve, The Clash...)



You can tell the difference between 'premium' MP3's and the normal ones. Its not mind blowing though, for the most part 128kbps is completely adequate for most people. Funbongo recently spoke to someone in the 'industry' and he mentioned that they felt people were concerned about the sound quality of their legal MP3 collection. Really? I haven't met anyone that genuinely finds 128kpbs a problem or not up to scratch.

It seems to me like an excuse to justify hiking up the prices and reducing the potential revenue loss from piracy. 'Lets rip those off music fans who already use iTunes a little'. They should have offered the all the MP3s without the copy protection. This would be a more genuine and positive move.



Funbongo would have been far more impressed if the DRM was stripped from £0.79 downloads as well. The restriction is still there, you can only purchase liberated MP3 if you are pretentious enough to pay more and fit into Steve Job's invisible class of 'audiophiles'.



Although this development falls short of what we had hoped it is certainly a fantastic move; three cheers for EMI and Apple. You have uncuffed one of the hands of legal music downloading. We predict that over the next few years these new offerings will become normalised across all internet music stores, regardless of record company affiliation. Once we have reached that stage the pressure will increase uncontrollably to abolish DRM altogether. The extinction of DRM was a bridge to far today. lets all hold hands, share iPod headphones and listen to 256kbps encoded music without the devilish copy protection. John Legend, I mean John Lennon would be proud.

Download The Good The Bad and The Queen (Premium Edition) here

EMI Press Release


PS The Good The Bad and The Queen LP is quite good.

Joss Kicks Amy and Lily to the curb

USA Billboard Chart Entries

Joss Stone - Introducing Joss Stone = Number 2
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black - Number 7
Lily Allen - Alright Still - Number 20

The UK seems disinterested. However over 100 000 Yanks lapped it up this week, Shucks! All even more impressive given the huge push Universal have given Wino Stateside. Mo' Money Mo' Problems, go where you are loved young Joscelyn.



Ignoring chart positions, we love them all. Amy the least though because she slagged off Joss and was rubbish before she met Mark Ronson. Britain now has the three best 'Urban' female artists in the world. A very debatable claim (we will make it anyway, leave a comment if you disagree).

Albert says

'Is Mika one of dem three girls? Phuck Mary J Blige AKA The most over-rated artist of all time, the Brits gals rule A-OK'

Joss Stone - Girl They Won't Believe It

Ghostface Killah - You Know Im No Good Ft Amy Winehouse

Lily Allen - LDN Live

Here is the strangest content I have seen on iTunes...

Lily Allen - You Get Me (video)
Lily Allen - You're Out Of Luck (video)
Lily Allen - Laters (video)
Lily Allen - He is Just A Flash (video)
Lily Allen - Stop Giving Me Beef (video)
Lily Allen - The Party Was Nang (video)

Mika - Stuck In The Middle

Joss Stone Live... Josstina

God Only Knows

Joss (born '87) is one of those lucky pop stars who can be recognised in musical conversation without their surname. Others include:

Lily...Allen
Mariah...Carey
Conall...Cassidy
Britney...Spears
Shabba...Ranks
Alanis...Morissette
Fat...Joe
Robbie...Williams
Gwen...Stefani
Albert...Hoxton
Kylie...Minogue

Funbongo does not think she has gone all Americano on us



Joss - Put Your Hands On Me



This was the strangest gig of the year with Joss arriving an hour, not two and a half hours late. Sadly for her she was singing to a very skeptical industry heavy crowd. Josshua did herself no favours by naively starting the performance with a collection of new songs the crowd didn't know. The first half of the show was limp (without the Bizkit)



After 45 minutes of confusion and rambling Joss said goodnight and left the stage. The crowd was so disinterested they could barely generate enough noise to inspire the customary encore.



To her credit Joss saved the show with the second half; it was fantastic. She finally played to the crowd by performing some songs they knew. Joss then upped the ante during a 20 minute jamming session with her band; it was world class. Having struggled to adapt to the poor KOKO sound system in the first half, she bossed the stage and showcased the mouthwatering musicianship of her Raphael Saadiq led band. Renditions of 'Son of a Preacher Man' and Luther's 'Never Too Much' finally gave the crowd something to cheer about.



Joss' gig/showcase received a lot of bad press, some of it was justified. I am not really sure why the Winehouse thought she should take shots at Joss during her BBC 1 Session (aired 09/03/07). Those in glass houses Amy...

The BBC session seems to have been filmed on Wednesday, just before Amy Housewine went on the lash and canceled her two London gigs. It was horrible performance, a real let down for her fans. Joss may have played a misguided set but she wasn't drunk and actually wanted to be there.



Step forward Lily, she may not have the voice of Joss or Amy but is the only one who can actually command her live audience.

Lily - LDN Live at Bush Hall



Happily for Joss and Amy their latest albums are great.

Joss seems to becoming a British Christina Aguilera.

They are both annoying when they speak.
They hark back to the great singers of the 60's and 70's.
Since their teens they have been told they are 'the voice of their generation'.
They both fully believe this.
Their albums are a mixture of glorious pop and self-indulgence.
They are often both on the Fashion/Hair police's list of most wanted.