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FRIDAY 5TH NOVEMBER
Remember, remember, the fifth of November. EMI, ending, or not.

Yes, the big question today is this: what does the future hold for EMI? As you may have seen, yesterday the music major's owners - equity group Terra Firma - lost a very big lawsuit against US bank Citigroup. Terra Firma boss Guy Hands claimed Citi man David Wormsley tricked him into purchasing EMI back in 2007 too soon and for too high a price. As a result he and his financial backers have lost millions and are saddled with a company that owes its bank - Citigroup again - three billion pounds.


 
I think most people expected Terra Firma to lose the case. Citigroup's lawyers did a good job of portraying the lawsuit as a bad case of sour grapes on Terra Firma's part - Hands was a bitter man, they said, who orchestrated a bad deal and now wanted his bank to bail him out. When they wouldn't, he sued.

But whatever you think of the legal squabble itself, now Terra Firma has lost, what does it all mean for EMI? Well, the official line is that it means nothing at all. Both Terra Firma and EMI boss Roger Faxon said yesterday that it was business as usual. Which is good news. Because, if you take the three billion debt out of the equation, the EMI of 2010 is actually a moderately successful music company, streamlined and revamped for the digital era, and still able to sign the sort of great new talent that sells well; most notably this year Tinie Tempah, though there's some great stuff lined up for 2011 too.

But the problem is, you can't take that debt out of the equation. For starters, everyone knowing EMI owes the bank its owners unsuccessfully sued three billion has to make signing new artists to long term deals tricky. Plus, more worringly, we know Terra Firma will almost certainly have to pump in the region of £100 million into EMI next summer so it can fulfill the terms of the Citigroup loan. It had to do that earlier this year too, and we know a few of Hands' financial backers didn't like having to hand over new money. Next time round some doubt Hands would be able to raise the cash, even if he wanted too.

And then Citigroup would probably repossess EMI and sell it off to get back its money, most likely by splitting the company up and selling each bit off to the highest bidder. And that would basically mean the end of EMI - a terrible turn of events.

Having been a major player throughout the history of pop music - founded, as it was, in the UK in 1931 - EMI holds in its archives a huge cultural heritage, not least the entire catalogue of The Beatles' recorded output. They also own the iconic Abbey Road studios. Seeing all that spun off to God knows who is depressing.

So much so, on his Deleting Music blog, industry commentator Andrew Dubber suggests that the government should nationalise EMI to preserve it as a cultural artefact for the British people. I don't know about that; I'm a firm believer in the idea that if something is unsustainable, it should be allowed to die. But I'm not convinced that EMI is unsustainable.

A lot has changed at EMI since Terra Firma took over - the whole operation has been streamlined and new approaches introduced. The process was traumatic for those that worked there, and obviously the result isn't 100% perfect. But, actually, whether by accident or design, the modern EMI has the look of a decent major music company able to adapt to the changing world. And it's a shame that a squabble between the two rich City blokes that orchestrated EMI's 2007 takeover might now result in that, and a whole lot more, being lost.

If you're interested in all the ins and outs of the court case, and what the future may hold for EMI, you can read all of CMU's coverage here.

In more upbeat news, this week in the CMU Weekly we have a playlist compiled by the wonderful comedian and poet Tim Key, who releases an album of his poetry next week and also co-stars with Steve Coogan in the new online Alan Partridge series. Following that, as well as the usual gubbins, we have what may be the greatest hip hop beef of all time in Beef Of The Week.

Andy Malt
Editor, CMU
 


  TERRA FIRMA LOSES EMI LAWSUIT
As expected, Terra Firma failed to convince a New York jury that Citigroup misled it into bidding too soon and too high for EMI in 2007, costing them millions. Terra Firma insisted it had been right to pursue the case. No word on whether they'll appeal. Meanwhile, the whole thing has led to new speculation on whether Terra Firma can and will keep hold of EMI. If not, most expect the last British major music company to be split up.
     
  LIL WAYNE RELEASED FROM PRISON
Lil Wayne isn't in prison any more, which is nice for him. He was released from Rikers Island jail in New York yesterday after serving eight months for illegal possession of a handgun. Speaking to MTV News, the rapper's business partner Mack Maine confirmed that a big party was being put together to celebrate Wayne's release this Sunday, followed by a trip to a strip club. How nice.
     
  POLICE HUNT FOR BEZ
Greater Manchester Police have confirmed they are hunting high and low for aging Madchester space cadet Bez after he breached a restraining order put in place after he was found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend and baby-mother Monica Ward. Said ex has claimed Berry has pestered her with text messages and phonecalls since being released for prison, where he served four weeks in jail for the assault after refusing to do community service.
     
  LILY ALLEN HAS SECOND MISCARRIAGE
Lily Allen has suffered a miscarriage, a spokesman for the singer announced this week. Allen was around six months pregnant. She previously lost a child during pregnancy in 2008. In a statement, the spokesman said: "It is with great sadness that we have to confirm that Lily Allen and Sam Cooper have lost their baby. The couple ask that their privacy be respected and that they be left alone at this deeply distressing time". Lily herself today tweeted to thank her fans for all the good wishes they had sent.
     
  NATO CANCELS ARCADE FIRE GIG
Arcade Fire have been forced to cancel a gig in Lisbon on 18 Nov because of security concerns relating to the NATO summit taking place in the city the next day. In a statement, the band's manager said that promoters had been told at the weekend they would not now be able to use the Atlantic Pavilion venue that had been booked. Attempts were made to shift the show forward but to no avail. It seems Arcade Fire just attract too many terrorists as fans.
     
  NELLY JOINS CHOICE
London-based radio station Choice FM has announced that Nelly will present a weekly show throughout November. The Nelly radio programme will air each Saturday afternoon this month, with a repeat on Tuesday night. Let's hope Nelly's time with Choice goes better than when Akon was recruited to host a weekly programme on another Global Radio owned London station, Capital FM. That show lasted, erm, one week.
     
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Tim Key
Having begun his career as a member of Cambridge Footlights in 2001 (having tricked the organisers of the Cambridge University revue into believing he was a student), Tim Key has gone on to build a successful solo comedy career - including TV and radio work with the likes of Mark Watson, Charlie Brooker and Alex Horne - while also performing with the rather fine sketch comedy group Cowards. He also co-stars alongside Steve Coogan in the new online comedy show, 'Alan Partridge's Mid Morning Matters', which launched today.

His comedic poetry has seen him win the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award, and become resident poet on Charlie Brooker's 'Screenwipe' and 'Newswipe', and Mark Watson's Radio 4 show. And next week he releases his first poetry album, 'Tim Key. With A String Quartet. On A Boat', which will be available in a limited edition run of 1000 copies on vinyl. He officially launches it with a free performance at Rough Trade East in London on 9 Nov.

Of the album Tim says: "I just got the sense that it was the right point in history to make a poetry album and produce it on vinyl but in quite a limited edition way. For one thing I had loads of long poems kicking about collecting dust and what's more I also had my management set-up in my ear, increasingly using phrases like 'I think you should make a poetry album with a string quartet providing musical accompaniment'".

To celebrate the arrival of the new album, we asked Tim to jump into the world of Spotify to put together a Powers Of Ten playlist for us.

Once he'd done that, we asked him to explain his thinking behind how he'd put the playlist together. He said: "I mainly listen to Russian music. I like Leningrad, Lube and some Mummy Troll. I also enjoy classical music but noticed that a lot of the previous Powers Of Ten playlists tend to avoid Russian rock and classical. So let's just take it as read that I like listening to Haydn's 'The Clock' and get on with it. I mainly listen to music when I'm running or putting together a makeshift CD of merry tunes for an audience to listen to before I come on and do my poetry at a gig. The thinking goes, even if they think I'm a load of old horseshit at least they'll have listened to some uplifting girlband from the sixties, so the evening wasn't a complete write-off".




 
TIM KEY'S TEN
01 The Shangri-Las Give Him A Great Big Kiss
  I like songs where people talk in them. The Shangri-La's are never shy of having a chat half way through. It's a slightly rawer but equally intoxicating take on the sort of stuff I imagine happens in the film 'Grease'. Cute.
02 The Rolling Stones She's A Rainbow
  I fell in love with this cheeky piece of baroque pop the moment I first heard it and still listen to it at all times. From the beautifully simple first eight little piano notes, through to the other guys joining in on their shakers and violins and the man singing about a girl, this song is drenched in magic.
03 Freddie Stevenson Easy Now
  "JK Rowling's been following me around". Witty, left-field lyrics, matched up with passionate warbling and a cool beard and hat. Stevenson's stuff is tight, tuneful and I love it.
04 Ishtar O Julissi Na Julini
  I found myself watching the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest two years ago. Bit of a low, social-life-wise. This turned my night around. I open my stageshow with it now and it makes me feel unrealistically happy. It's the Belgian entrant and didn't get through to the final.
05 Eminem Lose Yourself
  Love Eminem. Love '8 Mile'. Essential on my playlist for when I do running and useful in this list to break up the more camp offerings and make me appeal to real men.
06 Ennio Morricone Meti Una Sera A Cena
  Morricone writes the coolest, breeziest soundtracks. He's the dude who did all the spaghetti westerns back in the day and made up that whistly one from 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly'. This one's less famous and chilled to the point of sleep-inducing.
07 Blondie Denis
  Blondie just reiterates again and again that she's in love with this Denis fella (presumably French). She's relentlessly positive and her tribute is gloriously catchy. In other news I, in turn, am in love with Blondie.
08 Regina Spektor Apres Moi
  Epic. Regina Spektor's my favourite. She just sits in her crazy bubble and does A-grade singing. In this one she also says "ugh!" quite a lot and yet it still sounds beautiful. I once shook her hand. It was as meek and electrifying a handshake as you'd imagine.
09 The Divine Comedy Sweden
  When I first moved to London I bought a bad version of an iPod and couldn't make it work so I only had one album on it - 'Fin De Siecle'. Pretty happy with it, though. This song's stupid but comfortably makes my top ten.
10 The Streets Dry Your Eyes
  I was really inspired by The Streets. I heard this when I was writing a play about a little man in a difficult friendship group and it knocked me backwards. By turns seriously funny and incredible poignant. And with brilliant music smeared all over it.
 
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George W Bush rates Kanye West's 2007 claim that he "doesn't care about black people" the lowest point of his time as American President: "He called me a racist. I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now. I resent it, it's not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency. My record was strong, I felt, when it came to race relations and giving people a chance"
     
 
Kanye West says he understands George W Bush's displeasure: "I can understand the way he feels to be accused of being a racist in a way, because the same thing happened to me [after interrupting Taylor Swift's MTV VMA acceptance speech in 2009]. And I really connect with him on a humanitarian level, because the next morning, when he felt that, I felt that too"
     
 
Weezer's Rivers Cuomo says he's not ready to retire: "There's a cut-off point, maybe 60. Assuming the audience still wants us to do this, I can see myself doing this for another 20 years or so. Then somebody's got to pull me off the stage. It's so hard to leave this relationship once you're in it. Now it's easy for me to say, 'I should retire by the time I'm 60'. But when I'm 59, I'll be thinking, 'No! I don't want this to end!'"
     
 
The Chemical Brothers' Tom Rowlands says that, having influenced the genre, the dance duo are considering a move into dubstep on the next album: "We made a record in 2002 called 'My Elastic Eye' and apparently it's pretty big in dubstep. It's like proto dubstep, so maybe we'll return to it and make a dubstep album. I'm sure we could make a great album"
     
 
Frontman of The Drums Jonny Piece on the departure of their guitarist Adam Kessler: "It's one of those things where victory comes through struggle and you get shaken up and you pull together. We're more confident than we've ever been. I know that sounds silly but Adam leaving the band gave us some more insight into who we actually are as individuals and as a band"
     
 
This may come as a huge surprise to all of you, but it turns out that Damon Albarn doesn't think 'X-Factor' is all that great: "It's not good because, though from time to time they may stumble across a beautiful voice, they put them through a food processor and make them fast food. A cow is definitely a more beautiful thing before it hits the hamburger factory"
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  Tinchy Stryder & friends. New online this week, the video for Tinchy Stryder's track 'Game Over' features fellow British rappers Giggs, Professor Green, Tinie Tempah, Devlin, Example and Chipmunk, as well as Tinchy himself. A series of consecutive verses, it is more of a shop window of UK rapstars than a proper track, but it takes them all into musically darker territory than they'd normally be associated with to great effect - youtu.be/3wpCf0FsZKQ
     
  Katy B. While on her last single, 'Katy On A Mission', Katy B was erupting into the room, on 'Lights On' she's being forcibly ejected from the club. Well, she will be if she carries on demanding the DJ plays one more song and refusing to leave. Luckily, she's got Ms Dynamite with her, who has a reasoned and forceful argument for the bouncers. Released next month, this looks like being another hit for the singer - youtu.be/cJNXXuAxkfk
     
  Various. Having gone quiet since last year, Various returned last month with the first in a new monthly series of singles, available exclusively through their website. Part two arrived this week, a cover of The xx's 'Infinity', which is available from various.co.uk now, along with a Jonquil cover of the same track. Although it possesses many of the same sparse, soulful qualities as the original, it's at the same time completely different - snd.sc/9dSUsC
     
  Trash Talk. Hardcore boys Trash Talk will be on tour in the UK later this month, and to celebrate the band are giving away a free download of their new single, 'Eyes & Nines'. The download also comes with a cut-out stencil, which you can use to decorate, um, other sheets of paper, or something. I'm sure the band would be appalled if they learned you'd been using it to spray paint their logo all over town - mediafilesccc.com/Trash_Talk.zip
     
  MNDR. Amanda Warner goes by the name MNDR. She self-released an EP, entitled 'EPE', in April, which generated some attention, but the real boost to her career was providing vocals on the first single from Mark Ronson's 'Record Collection' album, 'Bang Bang Bang' alongside Q-Tip. Right now, she's giving away a free download of 'Caligula', a track from her in-production debut album on her blog - mndrmndr.com/blog/
     
  William Shatner. Everyone loves William Shatner's spoken word renditions of pop hits, don't they? Yes, everyone does. So you're all going to love seeing him perform Cee-Lo's 'Fuck You' on US TV show 'Lopez Tonight'. For anyone unfamiliar with William Shatner, his bizarre spoken words musical career or Cee-Lo Green, you can enjoy it too. It's a video of a man swearing a lot - youtu.be/d5hae6PlPYA
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#42: MC Hammer v Jay-Z
Beefs in hip hop are generally quite tedious, and mostly laid on for promotional purposes. This one, however, is brilliant. MC Hammer has penned a new track, and filmed an accompanying video, after taking offence to lyrics added to a new Kanye West track, 'So Appalled', by Jay-Z.

Jay-Z rapped this: "And Hammer went broke so you know I'm more focused. I lost 30 mil so I spent another 30, cause unlike Hammer 30 million can't hurt me".

It's not clear if Hammer was offended by the slight against his ability to smartly invest money, or Jay-Z's vulgar display of wealth. Whatever, this week he uploaded the video for his "official Jay-Z diss" track called 'Better Run Run'. That's right, it's an official diss.
 
The video sees Jay-Z (well, a lookalike) chased through some woods by the devil while Hammer threatens to "knock him out". Eventually Jay-Z stumbles across Hammer by a lake, who fends off Satan before turning his attention to his rival and - yeah, you know what's coming - he baptises him.

Following the release of the video, Jay-Z gave his reaction to the track in an interview that will air on DJ Semtex's 1Xtra show tonight.

Speaking to Semtex, Jay-Z said he wasn't aware that discussing Hammer's past money troubles was off limits as a subject: "I didn't know I was the first person to ever say that. Am I? I mean... I'm not, am I? I know I've heard that before. I didn't know I was the first one to say it. I guess when I say things people believe me so much that they take it a different way, it's not rap any more at that point. Now it's like it's a personal attack".

He added that in his forthcoming book he's written about his respect for Hammer: "He's gonna be embarrassed. I said some really great things about him in the book and about people's perception of him. I said really great things about him. But, whatever, it is what it is. He took it the wrong way, I didn't know it wasn't on the table for discussion. I didn't know I said anything wrong. I don't know if I said a lie".

Asked if he was planning to respond with his own diss song, he said: "No, of course not".

Spoilsport.

Watch MC Hammer's video here: youtu.be/XFtQML2O5B0
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Andy Malt
Editor
Chris Cooke
Business Editor &
Co-Publisher
Caro Moses
Co-Publisher
           
Eddy Temple-Morris
Columnist
Paul Vig
Club Tipper
Harriet Harman
Head Of Diversity (Non-Ginger)

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