You know at Kollector we're very much into people taking pride in their work as artists and while mainstream music rules fine in most cases, there's nothing like someone standing up from the crowd and being the voice of a generation, or a cause, or a movement, (or just for himself) but with a difference: a unique individual who never takes NO for an answer.

And Joe Strummer, who sadly passed away December 22 2002, was that: a loud, opiniated but charming man, very politically aware that stood up for the rights of the People, but also an exceptional artist : he was member of the iconic band The Clash and helped give Punk its best letters. He was also very involved in politics and took part in many Rock Against Racism concerts, AIDS campaigns, and his last records were actually pressed carbon free as Joe Strummer had trees replanted to offest the carbon foot of his releases...

Together with The Clash, they released two of the best rock albums ever: Sandinista and London Calling.

Julian Temple, an excentric and adorable english movie maker, has made a magnificent documentary on Joe Strummer http://www....

In an interesting blog entry from Tunecore, numbers show that only about 6.000 artists made more than a 100 $ in their monthly statement. Not afraid of big numbers ? Ok, Tunecore artists are...600.000: so that's only ONE percent of musicians making a decent (and sometimes very, very decent, income from their art)
(http://digitalaudioinsider.blogspot.com/2011/11/tunecore-releases-some-f...)

This is why it's not surprising the Occupy Movement started in NY a few months agois reaching more and more musicians as they are also part of the 99% of people off the Rich Grid, and they suffer directly from the effects of the big R, the recession hiting the planet. Moby, Kayne, The Kiils and many, many more artists are joining in as the peaceful movement grows and grows. What are the Occupy Wall Strert about ? Simple, yet worth the effort:

"Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of...

Freddie Mercury was larger than life, a genuine entertainer, a great singer, an exuberant baroquian character that came up with some pure gems of songs. He passed away twenty years ago but his way of doing things still resonates in many bands today, be them Mika or Lady Gaga. We included here a documentary about him as the man deserves attention, he was far more than just a singer fronting a band.

At Kollector, we've been tracking 10 Queen's songs, and collectively they have been broadcast more than 19.000 times ! "Bohemian Rhapsody" of course is at the front with 4115 trackings since june 2011 with most of the trackings from canadia rock classic Radio K97 but Australia is the country most addicted to Queen's airplay. The song has been played 183 times these last 24 hours. Impressive, non ?

Racism is a very sensitive issue but it needs to be tackled and chased.

Too often, pop videos portray the artists like semi-Gods living a dream, and this Florence And The Machines vidéo does just that but worst: it's drowned in horrendous pure-white-woman VS evil-black-man clichés and some of them carry very despictable racist imagery and creepy hidden meanings. The video has already attracted nearly 1 million viewers on Youtube and starts to make quite a noise because it does indeed make you travel thru white supremacy ideas and dogmas at the sound of a seemingly innocent pop song...

We leave you with this excellent article from Racialicious.com who dismantle the imagery behind what seems to be an innocent video...

http://www.racialicious.com/2011/11/22/no-light-no-light-white-supremacy...

Sometimes, it's ridiculous. When you're talking about Keith Richards (and friends) taking the stage and knowing he's about 67 years old, one can wonder where he find the energy, stamina, boldness to still go up there and perform. This said, nobody would ever blink twice if we had to tell you 'famous 67 years old bluesman takes the stage'.

There's something magical about old men still playing great songs that made them famous decades ago, but when the songs are about teenager frustration like I Can't Get No (Satisfaction) or controversial subjects like Sympathy For The Devil (the song most associated with the Hells Angels stabbing at Altamont in 1969), one cannot hide it might be time to retire...

But then again, no one says anything against an old painter having a new exhibition or a movie director finishing a hit movie at the age of seventy something so why should we even mention the fact they've been around a few decades and just concentrate on how great their latest work is....

here's Keith Richards talking about his latest project: a jam with his old friends from The Rolling Stones...

In a bold move, ST Holdings, a UK company distributing more than 200 labels, has decide to take away all its music from Spotify, arguing that streamed music is cannibalizing sales.

It isn't the first time an indie label, or an indie distributor, declares Spotify is detrimental to music sales (and even Coldplay says so as they decide to not let portals stream their latest album) but this time a NPD Group study comes up with a survey clearly showing that streaming services eats up music sales as the legal streaming music users are less likely to buy music now that they have access to all the music they want for less that 10 € a month...

Spotify replied by saying they are offering a solution that works against piracy but this is clearly missing the point: streamers have to come up with a reasonable income for creators and labels, not only for huge acts or majors who are counting on massive numbers to hide for low retribution.
An example: 5.000 Spotify streams will get you about 10 € (5.000 x 0,002 € a stream) when 5.000 track downloads at iTunes generates 4.950 €...
See what we mean ?

...

Build in 1876 to host 500 classical music students, the Conservatoire de Bruxelles has today more than a 1000 students and welcome the world famous Concours Reine Elisabeth once a year.

Now,...it's a dump ! Ceilings are falling, some of the rooms are deemed dangerous of access by the Fire Brigade, and even the majestuous Hall's activities have to be tone down as the place is now becoming a risk hazard... Look at the clip directed by the students themselves, it's...embarrassing that a state funded school like that is being neglected. Try a society without culture and art and watch it crumblinb back to the Dark Ages !

But lets be positive: this will probably trigger some to open up their wallets and come with some welcome doe and resolutions so this place gets the lifting its students and teachers deserves.
They have a website dedicated to finding funds http://www.conservamus.be/cms/index.php?lang=en and a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=139446508486&ref=ts

In a recent survey done by GMR, a few minor mindblowing ideas have been shattered. Seems like the Y generation (people born between 1980>1999) is shuffling the cards very differentely that others before them.

First: 68% of them don't mind too much the connection between music and brands. That's a radical departure from the X generation (people born 1960>1980) who dispised as much as they could the interactions between their favorite bands and commercial companies.
Secondly: 75% of the people would rather have no sex than having no music ! This data is brutally different when asked women (92% of women needs music more than sex while only 55% of men can do without sex. Hardly surprising :)
Thirdly: 48% of people think the internet is a better place to find music than asking their friends. Ouch, that hurts.
Four and last point: commercials is the right place to break a band as 69% of the people have been introduced to new music by commercials...This and movies: lots of work can be achieved thru placements.

This pictures a rather strange image of the youngsters, no ?

The Music Industry is in a bad state as we all know...
The Majors are slowly eating up each other, Itunes is snapping a giant bit in all the songs they sell, Spotify and other streaming platforms keep on hammering great offers they can't refuse to music lovers and small/medium labels are suffering a lot: each release see them holding up their breath as no one knows these days if it will sell some, or just sell 1/3 of what the last album sold...
But we can cry about it or we can fight about it. More and more crowdfunding platforms are emerging here and there, usually there are a couple in each country, and the system does work for most.

In a general coup d'oeil, Paidcontent goes over the succes story of some of these crowdfunding site. Quite a few known bands have been going thru that business model: fans subscribe to a project, pre-pay for it. and follow its evolution as more and more fans gather. If the project doesn't get enough financial support, the money isn't used and everyone goes home. If the funding is a success, that allows the artist to go forward with his project. Some big names have used crowdfunding: Gang Of Four, Funeral For...

Well, it's time to dig up one of the worst secret of rock music: all the incredible stories you hear about bands are probably true. And if they are not, just relax and wait as they will come true some days :)

Slipknot, the very visual Nu Metal band, is gross, and in fact, they're making it part of the attraction: the worst they get, the more their audience will love it and frankly why not ?
Some bands are selling the sex appeal of their female lead singer and one can wondering why not selling horror and disgust, sickening images and dense anxiety with Silent Of The Lambs imagery ? It works !

In this rather surreal exposé, Slipknot tells 7 crazy and frankly gross stories that happened to them. Sometimes you need to read them twice such the story seems impossible or demented. But no, they are true..

oh, btw, this Slipknot video has been seen by more than 20 million people. There's a market for gross stories :)
the 7 stories: http://www.spin.com/articles/crazy-clown-time-slipknots-7-grossest-stories

Ever wondered where you saw that movie poster before ? Sometimes, differences between two movie posters from two different movies are very few and far between indeed. This said, it's obvious the message has to be clear and directly touch the targeted audience: there's not much room for doubts and wandering toughts. But sometimes the lack of difference is...uncanny at best !

Let us take you to http://www.ufunk.net/insolite/les-affiches-de-films-se-ressemblent-toutes/ when Christophe Courtois has assembled together movies posters that look so much like each other one wonder why they just didn't use the original poster and just changed the title....

"Dancing Queen", a disco hit dating back from august 1976 from superstar swedish band Abba, is still rising high on the radios playlists. We introduced the song in Kollector and let a few days pass, just to see how a 35 years old back catalogue song would do. And surprise, surprise, there's still life in the old dog ;)

In the last month, "Dancing Queen" has enjoyed no less than 1200 radio airplays and it still hold on very well on radios as its been favored especially in (by order of airplays received) Germany (158 trackings), United Kingdom (154 trackings) followed closely by France, Canada and The Netherlands. To give an idea of the performance, Swedish House Mafia's "Save The World" has enjoyed"only" 4 times more airplays during the same period, which shows how resilient and still royalties wise important "Dancing Queen" is !

Kollector can help all in the music community. You betcha it can!

There is no doubt Portishead and Massive Attack are to be highlighted as some of the best bands from the Nineties, and as the most known acts from a mainly UK scene called Trip-hop.
Trip Hop was basically an experimental sounding leg of breakbeat with influences from soul, reggae/dub, ambiant, funk and jazz which occasionally made it into the charts with songs like Unfinished Sympathy (Massive Attack huge hit) or Glory Box.

In an interesting and frank interview, Geoff Barrows from Portishead answers questions about the band, the state of the trip hop scene, why Nineties bands are part of pop culture, or not, and an bold, but probably true, statement about why the music scenes don't glue together no more. Interesting, didn't we say ?

the interview http://www.spinner.com/2011/10/07/portishead-interview/
Portishead website http://www.portishead.co.uk/

(do look at this clip, it has Slash doing a most amazing solo...)

"Le Freak c'est chic" must be one of the biggest let's-go-dancing anthem ever: even tho it was written and released more than 30 years ago it always works... That's when you know you have a classic on your hands...

The story of his co-writer (Nile Rodgers wrote this song back in 1978 with the sadly departed Bernard Edwards) is one of these amazing rollercoaster stories: starting as a guitar player and session man, he played with various acts like Screaming Jay Hawkins (i puuuuuuut a spell on you), Parliament or Ben E. King, Rodgers met Edwards early seventies and some years later they would be one of disco's greatest assets with hits like 'Le Freak C'est Chic' and the absolutely gorgeous 'I Want Your Love". They also produced and penned songs for Sister Sledge. In a way, they were Disco. Later on they produced many acts, like for instance Diana Ross and her famous "Diana" album.

Nile Rodgers loves music and his history is one of love and care for artists and sounds, one that transcends music genres, races and creeds (he produced Duran Duran, Bowie and Madonna) but he's also a man who had to...

We were talking a few weeks ago about the Majors' decision to let the CD behind, to concentrate on digital and only use the shiny plastic for limited editions - be them "pure edition" (low cost low packaging CD) or luxury editions.

This move is commandeered for several reasons but here are two obvious ones: digital sales is picking up steam against CDs and retail shops are simply disappearing from the main streets.
In an era where social recommandation is the talk of the town and allows nearly every music startup a decent first round of the table, the end of the record shops (the ultimate place for real curated, knowledgeable recomm') sounds like an ending to all hope to see a music industry rise above the last ten gloomy years. That would be true if the love for music had disappeared but many, many people across the globe still have that special relationship with music, be it on vinyl or CD. And even tho they disappear from Main Street, we can see dedicated music shops appearing here and there. There will always be a place for music lovers to gather around.

The music loving english director Jeanie Finlay has done a beautiful crowdfunded documentary on...