Influenced by David Lynch’s seminal TV Series ‘Twin Peaks’, ‘Laura Palmer’ is an epic, cinematic pop song laden with haunting strings, soaring vocals and pulsating beats. The band’s number 1 album, ‘Bad Blood’ is currently in its sixth week in the UK Top 10 album charts and reached gold-status (100,000 sales) within the first two weeks of release. Previous single, ‘Pompeii’ is still in the UK top five after seven weeks.

Watch the video for ‘Laura Palmer’ right here:

This milestone places him amongst the most popular people on Facebook and at number 17 in the highest ranked musicians on the social network, alongside over 8 million fans on Twitter. As the highest-ranking DJ in the list, this is yet another breakthrough for both Guetta and electronic music as its audience continues to grow daily. This announcement comes after Guetta recently won a VEVO certified award for reaching over 100 million views on 6 of his videos, with over 1 billion views of his videos in total on VEVO, making him the first DJ to be VEVO Certified.

To celebrate this milestone and show his gratitude to each of his 40 millions fans that have shown their support for him, David Guetta is giving away a free download of R3hab’s remix of ‘Play Hard’. Dutch DJ and producer R3hab has quickly asserted himself as one of the most exciting talents in dance music and his remix has quickly proved a fan favourite, racking up over 150k plays on soundcloud within a week of a short preview going live.

Get ‘Play Hard’ feat. Ne-Yo & Akon (R3hab Remix) here: http://smarturl.it/40Million

]]> http://www.emimusic.com/blog/2013/david-guetta-hits-40-million-fans-on-facebook-gives-away-free-download/feed/ 0 http://www.emimusic.com/blog/2013/universal-music-uk-launches-virgin-emi-records-2/ http://www.emimusic.com/blog/2013/universal-music-uk-launches-virgin-emi-records-2/#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:38:03 +0000 EMI Music http://www.emimusic.com/?p=13961 Universal Music UK chairman & CEO David Joseph has today announced the launch of Virgin EMI Records – a creative powerhouse bringing together the newly reinvigorated Virgin Records and its Universal Music sister company Mercury Records.

Virgin EMI Records will be an immediate contender for the UK’s number one label, launching with a roster which extends from Emeli Sandé, the biggest-selling artist of last year, to Jake Bugg, the biggest breakthrough artist of 2013 so far, alongside international superstars Sir Elton John, Rihanna, Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.

Reaffirming its place as one of the most illustrious and diverse labels in the history of British music, Virgin has already been building on the phenomenal success of Emeli Sandé – last week it celebrated a number one debut album with south Londoners Bastille. The label’s A&R team has releases lined up this year from widely-tipped Scottish trio Chvrches as well as established names Laura Marling and Empire Of The Sun from a roster which also includes Professor Green and Swedish House Mafia.

The addition of the executives and artists currently working under the Mercury banner means Virgin EMI Records will be home to international repertoire from the world-beating Island Def Jam label as well as Virgin US, next to an extensive and varied domestic roster featuring the UK-signed Arcade Fire alongside Chase & Status.  The new set-up also means Virgin, which became part of Universal Music following UMG’s acquisition of EMI last year, will return to being a full-service record company for the first time since its heyday.

Virgin EMI Records will operate two distinct A&R and marketing streams – Virgin and EMI, a move which secures the future of the historic EMI name in the UK.

Read the announcement in full here

Virgin EMI Records will be an immediate contender for the UK’s number one label, launching with a roster which extends from Emeli Sandé, the biggest-selling artist of last year, to Jake Bugg, the biggest breakthrough artist of 2013 so far, alongside international superstars Sir Elton John, Rihanna, Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.

Reaffirming its place as one of the most illustrious and diverse labels in the history of British music, Virgin has already been building on the phenomenal success of Emeli Sandé – last week it celebrated a number one debut album with south Londoners Bastille. The label’s A&R team has releases lined up this year from widely-tipped Scottish trio Chvrches as well as established names Laura Marling and Empire Of The Sun from a roster which also includes Professor Green and Swedish House Mafia.

The addition of the executives and artists currently working under the Mercury banner means Virgin EMI Records will be home to international repertoire from the world-beating Island Def Jam label as well as Virgin US, next to an extensive and varied domestic roster featuring the UK-signed Arcade Fire alongside Chase & Status.  The new set-up also means Virgin, which became part of Universal Music following UMG’s acquisition of EMI last year, will return to being a full-service record company for the first time since its heyday.

Virgin EMI Records will operate two distinct A&R and marketing streams – Virgin and EMI, a move which secures the future of the historic EMI name in the UK.

Universal Music UK Chairman & CEO David Joseph says: “Virgin EMI will be a creative powerhouse for the UK music industry. It has an exceptionally strong A&R line-up, with sensational domestic and international artists, combined with the ethos which has served the company so well over the past 40 years.”

Virgin EMI Records will be led by Ted Cockle, who joined Virgin as President in January from sister label Island. He says: “Having filled the top two positions in the albums chart this month for the first time since the Spice Girls and The Verve did it in 1998, Virgin is already feeling ready to compete at the very highest level. In the label’s 40th year, to have this incredible line-up of British artists and US repertoire of such pedigree it feels like Virgin EMI will have everything in place to help the very best talent flourish fully.”

After seven years running Mercury, Jason Iley is setting up an international marketing and management venture and will continue to work closely with Universal Music on some projects. He says: “I’ve had an incredible journey at Universal, having worked at Polydor, Island and Mercury, and been privileged to work with some inspiring artists and executives over the past 15 years. I look forward to continuing these relationships in a new capacity and wish Ted all the very best with Virgin EMI.”

Virgin EMI Records will sit alongside Island, Polydor and Decca as one of Universal Music UK’s frontline labels. A fifth company will join the line-up when the Capitol label opens its doors in the UK for the first time – details of this significant label launch are expected by the end of April.

The Mercury label will continue as an imprint within Universal Music.

Dan Smith and his band have taken a short break from their current UK tour to play a series of dates at SXSW. They return to the UK next week to continue the tour which includes two sold out shows at Shepherds Bush Empire. In May the band headline the Great Escape Festival and will feature at most of the summer festivals including another headline slot at Blissfields in July.

As the creative force behind Bastille, much of Dan’s childhood was spent dreaming of being a film editor, a writer or a journalist, any profession in which he could tell a story. Film was an early obsession of Smith’s; a precocious love of horror movies led to an appreciation of Dario Argento and esoteric European cinema. Later, he would be swept into Mulholland Drive and the work of David Lynch, all of which have influenced his music. His song Laura Palmer uses the story of Twin Peaks’ mysterious murder victim, and for a while he even wore his hair in an Eraserhead cut.

In a weird way, thanks to Bastille, Smith is doing exactly what he always intended: not only is he now making films for his songs (and reluctantly appearing in them too; the video for Pompeii being his vision of “the novel ‘I am Legend’ if it were shot by the director of ‘Drive’”), most of all he’s telling stories.

Joytunes was formed in 2010 to transform the way people learn and practice music and has so far released two apps – Piano Dust Buster and Recorder Master which use gaming to teach musical skills either through a real or virtual instrument. To date Piano Dust Buster has been downloaded more than a million times with its users currently playing more than 800,000 songs a week.

The latest EMI Innovation Challenge was held in London on March 5 in assocation with UK-based music business consultancy Music Ally.

Presenting the company to the latest EMI Innovation Challenge, co-founder, Music Director and principal oboist in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra Yigal Kaminka said: “This is just the beginning. We will very soon be expanding to more audiences and more instruments.”

Pictured left to right: Neil Tinegate – EMI VP Digital Projects, Yigal Kaminka – Joytunes co-founder and Musical Director, Bertrand Bodson – EMI EVP Global Digital, Tahir Basheer – partner in the Interactive and Digital Media Groups, Sheridans (event sponors), Paul Brindley – co-founder and CEO, Music Ally

Congratulations guys! Here’s JoyTunes themsevles explaining a bit more about how they work:

The latest EMI Innovation Challenge, which was established as part of the OpenEMI initiative, was held on 5 March and attracted an audience of developers, music technology start-ups, investors and other music industry professionals. Eight entrepreneurs pitched to the panel of judges which comprised executives from EMI, event sponsors Sheridans, venture capital firms DN Capital and Index Ventures and Nadav Porav, founder and CEO of Whosampled which won the last EMI Innovation Challenge in October. The business models pitched ranged from crowd-sourced concert footage and interactive live event apps to online music production and augmented sheet music. The eight entrants at the sell out event were: 45Sound,  BuddyBounce, Makelight Interactive, Musemantik,  Six3,  Spins.FM, Weezic and the winner, JoyTunes.

“Innovation in the digital music area is rampant and investment in digital music start ups is accelerating,” says Rob Wells, Universal Music Group’s President, Global Digital Business. “The EMI Innovation Challenge event is a colorful petri dish of digital music ideas and opportunities brought together with investors and venture capitalists and is an indication of the leadership position that UMG/EMI has taken in this fast growing arena.”

JoyTunes was formed in 2010 to transform the way people learn and practice music and has so far released two apps – Piano Dust Buster and Recorder Master which use gaming to teach musical skills either through a real or virtual instrument. To date Piano Dust Buster has been downloaded more than a million times with its users currently playing more than 800,000 songs a week.

Presenting the company to the EMI Innovation Challenge 2013, co-founder, Music Director and principal oboist in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra Yigal Kaminka said: “This is just the beginning. We will very soon be expanding to more audiences and more instruments.”

EMI Music’s VP Digital Projects Neil Tinegate said: “These events provide a great opportunity for people within all areas of the music industry to meet some of the most innovative and exciting start ups and strike up new relationships and share ideas. Thanks to all the pitching companies, judges and audience for making our latest innovation challenge such a fun and productive evening.”

-ENDS-

Built on the Mobile Backstage platform, the five apps offer fans an innovative listening experience based around fan community and creating deeper connections between the artist and their fans around the world.  By utilising Spotify’s ‘Libspotify’ API  - which allows developers to access and build Spotify’s music streaming services into apps – the new fan apps allow users to both play music in an interactive context  and stream full singles and albums (Spotify premium users only, since it requires an account for mobile)  without leaving the app environment, creating a seamless user experience with unparalleled music access.

The fan app features include:

• Stream albums and songs from Spotify within the app ecosystem (if Spotify premium user)
• Social features that allow fans to interact with each other and the artist to share their experiences
• Send a private message to an artist/band member via text, audio or video message
• Artist/band profiles
• Access and rate artist/bands’ posts including images, video clips and text
• Integrated content from Twitter and Facebook
• Access gig listings and buy tickets
• iTunes Music Store integration

The apps, which are now available to download from iTunes app store, will give fans access to the full audio catalogue of each specific artist users simply click, play and listen while still being able to access the other feature of the app.

Says Paul Sonkamble, Head of Innovation & Insight, EMI Music Nordic: “We have specifically collaborated with five artists whose fans value being able to consume music portably and want to feel closer and more connected with the artist through social media experiences. By partnering with Mobile Backstage and Spotify, two cutting edge digital innovators, we have created five apps that enable artists to reach and interact with their fans like never before, whilst providing fans with a plethora of ways to connect with the fan community and immerse themselves in their favourite artists’ music.”

Download the apps here:

Alina Devecerski: Link to App Store

Christopher:  Link to App Store

Magnus Uggla:  Link to App Store

Morten Abel: Link to App Store

Susanne Sundfør: Link to App Store

Emeli leads the nominations overall with three individual nods for Best Female, Best Album and Best Single for ‘Next To Me’. Emeli’s collaboration with Labrinth, ‘Beneath Your Beautiful’, is also up for the Best Single award.

Coldplay have two nominations – British Single for ‘Princess of China’ with Rihanna, and British Live Act, Richard Hawley is up for British Male and Bat For Lashes for British Female. Damon Albarn is nominated in the British Producer category.

This year’s Brit Awards will be held at the O2 Arena in London on February 20.

The Scottish singer-songwriter’s new DVD collection includes performances of all of her hit singles so far including ‘Daddy’, ‘My Kind Of Love’, ‘Clown’, ‘Read All About It Pt. III’, ‘Heaven’, ‘Beneath Your Beautiful’ and ‘Next To Me’.

The live concert spectacular, directed by Paul Dugdale – whose previous work includes Coldplay Live 2012 – features guest performances from Labrinth and Professor Green

The release of ‘Live At The Royal Albert Hall’ comes fresh from Emeli’s debut album ‘Our Version Of Events’ being named the top-selling UK record of 2012. Emeli is also the first solo artist to notch up an unbroken run of 47 weeks inside the Official Albums Chart Top 10 with a debut album from release, and only the second act in history to achieve such a feat behind The Beatles, who scored 62 consecutive weeks in the Top 10 with their 1963 debut ‘Please Please Me’.

‘Our Version Of Events’ has been certified five times platinum and sold over 1.5 million copies in the UK since its release in February 2012.