p2p news / p2pnet: UK band Arctic Monkeys is doing well. Really well, not thanks to the efforts the Organised Music cartel.

“Music charts began as a way for record labels to market their acts,” says The Economist, going on:

How galling then for the industry that the number-one spot in this week’s chart was taken by Arctic Monkeys, a band from Sheffield whose first professional single owes its existence not to the image-makers but to internet file-sharing. The band began by handing out free CDs with rough versions of songs at concerts. Songs were made available on the band’s website and e-mailed between fans. Now, says Johnny Bradshaw of Domino (the label that belatedly signed the band), when Arctic Monkeys play concerts, 1,500 people sing along to songs that have not yet been released. Even more sweetly, the band seized the top spot from the Sugababes, a manufactured pop act with sculpted eyebrows and perfect hair. Though bands have used the internet to market themselves before, none has won such commercial success without the help of a record company. ‘If I were a major record label, I’d be firing my A&R man,’ says Mr Bradshaw. There is some comfort for the industry as it contemplates the threat to its revenues from the internet, though: at least enough fans went and bought the single to send it to number one.

Drenched in coffee
Quite a while back we had a couple of emails on the plight of farmers in third world countries who are being ripped off by the korporate klans. We’d have liked to have posted on the subject, but we couldn’t figure out how, even as an OT item.

But when we were surfing around the Arctic Monkeys site, we clicked over to their Make Trade Fair section which, among other things, points to, “Colin Firth drenched in coffee, Alanis Morissette buried in wheat, Michael Stipe covered in milk,” and all in support of Oxfam’s campaign to make trade fair.

“These incredible images illustrate a story,” it goes on. “A story about how poor farmers are being ‘dumped on’ every day by rich countries and rich companies and about how you can change this by joining the Big Noise petition to make trade fair. If we all join together and make a big enough noise politicians and corporate bosses will have to listen.”

Enough said.

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See:-
The Economist – Monkey Business, October 27, 2005