November 9, 2007

Friday Says Bye-Bye Music News Day

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And now, the Riff‘s crack Music News department follows up on stories we brought you here first. …Well, maybe not “first,” but, uh, in the past at some point, at least?

  • Okay, sorry, Prince. The Minneapolis superstar says he’s not suing fans (as we mocked here on the Riff the other day), but in fact just the opposite: his promoter released a statement saying that Prince wants to “provide Prince fans with exclusive music and images entirely free of charge, and bypassing unofficial and unauthorized phony fan sites that exploit both consumers and artists. The action taken earlier this week was not to shut down fansites, or control comment in any way.” So this turns into another one of those “he-said, Prince-said” things.

  • My Bloody Valentine: is really, truly going to release something new before the end of 2007, says bandleader Kevin Shields. The album will likely consist of “this 96-97 half-finished record, and then a compilation of stuff we did before that, and a little bit of new stuff.” Whatever, anything, who cares, just give it to us!!!

  • Radiohead are denying stuff too: they’re contradicting the recent reports suggesting 60 percent of fans who downloaded In Rainbows paid nothing, calling the data “wholly inaccurate,” and saying it “in no way reflected definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project.” Hmm, sounds like one of those denials-of-everything-but-the-facts. Anyway, you’ll be able to buy the physical version of In Rainbows on December 31st, and hopefully somebody will count those.

  • And finally, following up on the continuing Amy Winehouse saga: police raided the singer’s home and then arrested her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, in East London on Thursday, while a tearful Winehouse was present. Fielder-Civil was allegedly involved in an attempt to fix his own trial in an assault case of a bartender earlier this summer. The victim was apparently offered $400,000 to keep quiet. Mr. Winehouse sounds awesome, can I just say that? Anyway, Winehouse’s wobbly, slurring performance at the MTV Europe awards last week raised some eyebrows as well, and oh, it’s Friday, why not watch that here:
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    WE'LL BE BLUNT

    It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

    The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

    Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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