How much should music cost?

We are now living in the age of streaming which allows you to legally listen to a huge catalogue of music for free. Artists do get paid, although we're told they don't get much.

As someone who wanted to make it big in the music business, I've always leaned more towards the idea artists should make money from recorded music, but within reason.

It was in 1992 when I was a Queen fan that my parents started giving me pocket money of £2 a week. Anything I specifically wanted to have had to come out of my pocket money including tapes. At the time a typical price for a tape was £8. I owned both Queens greatest hits albums and one studio album and figured out if I was to buy the remaining 13 albums it would take me a year, even longer if I fancied having a few mars bars along the way.

As it turned out, I bought 2 more albums but they were both on CD so cost even more. A year later I'd moved on in my music taste. I think the CDs cost £12 each, and I questioned whether it was right that a kid had to save 3 months worth of pocket money to buy 2 CDs that they wouldn't have any interest in listening to a year later.

A lot of my music collection in the early to mid 90s was copied tapes. It wasn't a very big collection but would have easily cost over £100 if I was to buy them all, tapes were more that £10 each by the mid 90s.

When I became a raver one of the advantages was actually the price I paid for the music. I bought a Best of Jungle compilation, which did cost £13 like most CDs but it was 4 CDs so £3.25 each seemed much more reasonable. Then there were Tape Packs, £20 for 12 tapes. You could even buy some individual tapes for £3. I managed to build quite a large collection in a short space of time despite getting just a fiver a week from my paper round.

By the late 90s you were looking at £17 for a CD which in my mind was ridiculous. At the same time, downloading music for free started getting more popular. Some people I know who would illegally download music were always going to do it regardless, but several people said they only did it because the price of a CD was a rip off.

I found an article which broke down where the money from a £8 CD sale goes to and it said £1.04 went to the artist. If an album went platinum (300,000 sales) and there were 4 people in the band that's £78,000 each, not bad but not exactly life changing either.

Considering you have no shortage of musicians with fortunes of over £100 million I think it's fair to say that album sales have made only a small contribution to that figure.

The price of a CD has dropped significantly in recent years. To give some perspective, in the days of £17 CDs you could have a night out down my local pub for less money than that. Around 3 or 4 years ago I went to HMV and bought a CD and then went to the pub afterwards, the pint of beer cost me more than the CD did.

People in the music business do complain about streaming or YouTube etc paying very little money. However, something many people would have said about certain songs in the past is "I like that tune but it's not one I'd go out and buy". I've said that about plenty of tunes but have probably listened to them on the internet and therefore the artist has made a small amount of money from it. Streaming hasn't prevented me from buying it as I was never going to buy it in the first place.

I do still buy CDs as I prefer the physical format, but streaming allows me to decide what to buy and what not to. Imagine if you liked a band and bought there latest album for £17 but found you didn't like it, you'd probably not buy an album of theirs again. With streaming you can determine you don't like it without spending money but it could be that you like every album they release going forward, you'll know it via streaming and therefore buy the album.

It is true to say I have bought albums I would have never bought otherwise had I not heard the music on the internet beforehand.

It's probably true to say the price of CDs has come down because of viable alternatives, but because they exist you'll always have people who won't see the point in buying a CD if you can listen to it for free on Spotify.

It would however seem that instead of encouraging streamers to buy CDs, artists are now trying to sell more CDs to CD buyers. A large number of albums in recent years have had deluxe anniversary albums released. So people are paying a lot of money for something they already own plus maybe a couple of remixes or tracks that weren't deemed good enough for the album the first time round. It's money for old rope, even Noel Gallagher admitted that when Oasis released a 20th anniversary edition of "Definitely Maybe".

Going back to basics though, we have the artist who wants to make as much money as they can from their music and the consumer who has a limited budget to spend on music. Despite my quite sizable CD collection there are many CDs I've never bought for financial reasons. If someone has £100 to spend on CDs and a CD is £10 they will only buy 10 CDs even if there is 50 they want to buy.

Personally I never pay more than £5 for a CD these days and rarely pay that much. I've even bought CDs for 1p plus postage from Amazon in recent years. Whether or not that may seem too little, I bought my fair share of £17 CDs back in the day to justify that.

Top of the Pops: 25/01/2018

Top 40 Countdown

Number of eligible records: 13
New (26) Sigrid - Strangers
⬆ (25) Portugal the Man - Feel It Still
New (34) Jorja Smith ft Stormzy - Let Me Down
⬆ (17) Not3s - My Lover
New (40) Camila Cabello - She Loves Control
⬆ (12) Jax Jones ft Ina Wroldsen - Breathe
⬆ (8) Jason Derulo ft French Montana - Tip Toe
⬆ (2) Ramz - Barking
⬆ (1) Eminem ft Ed Sheeran - River

Missing Out
⬆ (7) Camila Cabello - Never Be the Same
⬆ (13) Settle ft Greatest Showman Ens - This Is Me
⬆ (15) Raye ft Mr Eazi - Decline
New (38) Troye Stan - My My My

Top of the Pops: 18/01/2018

Top 40 Countdown

Number of eligible records: 15
New (38) Dua Lipa - IDGAF
New (37) Steel Banglez ft Yungen & Mostack - Bad
New (33) Kendrick Lemar ft SZA - All the Stars
New (26) Zac Efron ft Zendaya - Rewrite the Stars
New (15) Justin Timberlake - Filthy
New (11) Liam Payne ft Rita Ora - For You (Fifty Shades Freed)
New (7) Bruno Mars ft Cardi B - Finesse
⬆ (5) Clean Bandit ft Julia Michaels - I Miss You
(1) Ed Sheeran - Perfect

Missing Out
⬆ (6) NF - Let You Down
⬆ (10) Craig David ft Bastille - I Know You
⬆ (12) Jason Derulo ft French Montana - Tip Toe
⬆ (18) NOT3S - My Lover
⬆ (33) Portugal the Man - Feel it Still
New (40) Cardi B ft 21 Savage - Bartier Cardi

Record of the Year 1995: Nush - U Girls (Look So Sexy)

Back in 1995 I was a massive fan of Happy Hardcore, most of which never got into the charts. The handful of those which did chart in 1995 are of the more commercial variety and not quite record of the year material.

Arguably the closest genre to Happy Hardcore in the charts at the same time was Hardbag. It was slower but had a harder edge to it than House music, which I considered to be too slow at the time.

If I had to pick a favourite Hardbag record of all time I would probably say "U Girls (Look So Sexy)" by Nush, therefore it kind of makes it the number one choice to be record of the year.

This was the only Top 40 hit for Nush, who were Danny Harrison and Danny Matlock. However, like many dance music producers they didn't stick with just one name. They previously tasted chart success in 1991 under the name Congress with the record "40 Miles".

Following Nush, Danny Harrison would return to the charts as part of 187 Lockdown and then further down the line as part of Disco Tex presents Cloudburst.

UK Singles Chart: 1995

In 1995 we had the return of Elvis Presley to the Top 40 after a 12 year absence, but Cliff Richard now had some distance on him in terms of number of hits. We had hits this year from 14 of the 19 acts who have had 30+ Top 40 hits. Here is the list:

	Artist	No of Hits	New Hits
1	Cliff Richard	110	Misunderstood Man, Had to Be
2	Elvis Presley	102	The Twelfth of Never
3	Elton John	52	Believe, Made in England
4	David Bowie	50	The Hearts Filthy Lesson, Strangers When We Meet/The Man Who Sold the World
5	Status Quo	47	When You Walk in the Room
6	Queen	43	Heaven for Everyone, A Winters Tale
7	Rod Stewart	41	You're the Star
8	Paul McCartney	40
=	Michael Jackson	40	Scream, You Are Not Alone, Earth Song
10	Diana Ross	39	Take Me Higher, I'm Gone
11	Stevie Wonder	38	For Your Love
=	Madonna	38	Bedtime Story, Human Nature, You'll See
13	Rolling Stones	37	I Go Wild, Like a Rolling Stone
14	Prince	35	Eye Hate U, Gold
15	Frank Sinatra	33
=	UB40	33	Until My Dying Day
17	Shakin Stevens	32
18	Roy Orbison	31
19	Lonnie Donegan	30

Number ones from Take That and Michael Jackson put them in the list of acts to have 6 or more number ones with Michael Jackson having the Christmas number one with "Earth Song":

	Artist	No of #1s	New #1s
1	Elvis Presley	17
=	Beatles	17
3	Cliff Richard	13
4	Abba	9
5	Rolling Stones	8
6	Madonna	7
=	Take That	7	Back For Good, Never Forget
8	Slade	6
=	Rod Stewart	6
=	Michael Jackson	6	You Are Not Alone, Earth Song

As for several years now the act with the longest streak of hits has been Cliff Richard, but I thought it would be interesting to include a list of those acts on a streak of 7+ years. Here's the list:

	Artist	Hits Every Year Since
1	Cliff Richard	1979
2	Prince	1983
3	Whitney Houston	1985
4	Wet Wet Wet	1987
5	Gloria Estefan	1988
9	Cher	1989
=	Madonna	1989

The announcer for the Christmas Top of the Pops of 1995 summed up the year as the one where Robbie left Take That, Louise left Eternal, but we gained Robson & Jerome.

Robson & Jerome were one of three acts to score two number ones this year. Their number ones were their only hits of the year and were both double a sides and covers which were "Unchained Melody/(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" and "I Believe/Up on the Roof". The man behind this was Simon Cowell and this was the first number one he was behind.

Take That were another act that had two hits which both reached number one. These were "Back For Good" with Robbie and "Never Forget" without him.

The other act to score two number ones this year were the Outhere Brothers. The number ones were "Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)" and "Boom Boom Boom". They also had top tens with "La La La Hey Hey" and "If You Wanna Party". Despite their huge success this year, they would only have one minor hit beyond this year.

East 17 had three hits this year, "Let It Rain" which reached number 10, "Hold My Body Tight" which was number 12 and then in October they scored a number 4 with the first single of their new album with "Thunder".

Having made their debut in late 1994, Boyzone had a further three hits this year with the number threes "Key To My Life" and "So Good" and the number two "Father & Son". Fellow 1994 boyband debutants Let Loose had a mixed year scoring a top ten with "Best In Me" but failing to make the Top 10 with their other hits "One Night Stand" and "Everybody Say Everybody Do" with the latter just making number 29.

Ultimate Kaos were struggling with their follow up hits with their most successful this year being the number 17 "Hoochie Booty" which sounded quite similar to future Peter Andre number one "Flava". EYC had their final hit with the number 33 "Ooh-Ah-Aa (I Feel It)". There was a new boyband for 1995 with Gemini debuting with "Even Though You Broke My Heart" which only made number 40. Things would improve for them, but not by a great deal.

We had the debut of MN8 with "I've Got A Little Something For You" which made number two. They followed up with the Top Tens "If You Only Let Me In" and "Happy", but their fourth hit "Baby It's You" only made number 22. They would be back, but would have no more top tens.

It took until October for a Post-Louise Eternal to have their first hit of the year, but it seemed to do them no harm with "Power of a Woman" reaching number five. Their follow up "I Am Blessed" reached number seven.

There was no shortage of R&B in the charts in 1995 with debuts from Brownstone with "If You Love Me", Montell Jordan with "This Is How We Do It", Brandy with "I Wanna Be Down", Monica with "Don't Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days)", Mark Morrison with "Crazy", Beverley Knight with "Flavour Of The Old School", D'Angelo with "Brown Sugar" and Xscape with "Feels So Good".

Notable R&B hits of the year include R Kelly with "Bump N' Grind", Aaliyah with "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number", Jodeci with "Freek 'N You" and TLC with "Waterfalls".

There was notably less Rap/Hip Hop in the charts this year though, although we did get our fourth number one from that genre, "Gangstas Paradise" by Coolio featuring LV.

We had the debut of Method Man with "I'll Be There For You - You're All I Need To Get By" which featured Mary J Blige, Notorious BIG with "One More Chance / Stay With Me", Bone Thugs-N-Harmony with "1st Of Tha Month" and Skee-Lo with "I Wish".We also had the only hits for Paris with "Guerilla Funk", Rappin' 4-Tay with "I'll Be Around" and Eusebe with "Summertime Healing".

Having their final hits this year were Naughty By Nature with "Feel Me Flow", House Of Pain with "Over There (I Don't Care)" and Guru with "Feel the Music". Other Rap/Hip Hop hits of the year included Warren G with "Do You See", Dr Dre with "Keep Their Heads Ringin" and Cypress Hill with "Throw Your Set In The Air".

Reggae shows no signs of going away, with one of the acts who kicked off this revival in 1993 scores his second number one with Shaggy topping the charts with "Boombastic". Another big hit of the year was the only one for Ini Kamoze with "Here Comes The Hotstepper".

There were also hits for China Black, Apache Indian, Aswad, Bitty McLean, Pato Banton, Shabba Ranks, C J Lewis, UB40 plus solo material from Ali Campbell. Of these acts though, only UB40 and Pato Banton would return to the UK Top 40 beyond this year.

There was lots of different varieties of dance music in the charts this year. It was the biggest year to date chart wise for Hardbag with tunes like "Fee Fi Fo Fum" by Candy Girls and "U Girls (Look So Sexy)" by Nush. There were also hits from Rollo with "Love Love Love - Here I Come" and Sister Bliss with "Oh! What A World".

More significantly though to the dance music world was Rollo and Sister Bliss collaborating to bring us the debut of Faithless with "Salva Mea (Save Me)" and followed up by "Insomnia". However it wouldn't be until they were rereleased the following year when they would have the big impact they had.

In the Trip Hop world we had the debuts of Portishead with "Glory Box" and Tricky with "Overcome" whilst Massive Attack would also be present in the charts this year.

The rave scene was very much split into Happy Hardcore and Drum & Bass/Jungle by this year and we had two Top 40 hits a piece. The Happy Hardcore ones were "Tears Don't Lie" by Mark Oh and "Move Your Ass" by Scooter and the Drum & Bass ones were "Fire" by Prizna featuring Demolition Man and "Inner City Life" by Goldie. Baby D charted with a record in the pre-rave scene split style with "(Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving".

Early rave scene pioneers the Prodigy had moved into a new direction, Big Beat, with the hit "Poison". This paved the way for the debut of Big Beat pioneers the Chemical Brothers who had hits with "Leave Home" and "Life Is Sweet".

We were also starting to see Trance emerge as a scene in it's own right from a chart perspective with the first example of the year coming from Paul Oakenfold with "Reach Up (Papa's Got A Brand New Pig Bag)" by Perfecto Allstarz. This was followed by the debut of BT with "Embracing The Sunshine" and then we had the debut of Grace with "Not Over Yet" which also involved Paul Oakenfold. Another significant record which came at the end of the year was "Are You Out There" by Crescendo.

The first number one of the year came from Rednex with "Cotton Eye Joe" which hit the Top 40 in late 1994. They followed up with the very similarly sounding "Old Pop In An Oak". There was another Eurodance number one which originally charted in 1994 with Livin Joy reaching the top spot with "Dreamer".

It was once again a very strong year for Eurodance music, other notable hits included "Baby Baby" by Corona, "Scatman" by Scatman John and "Everybody" by Clock.

Despite it's failure to get to number one, there is a strong case to argue that the biggest dance record of the year comes from the Original with "I Luv U Baby". It would have actually been number one if it wasn't for the big chart battle of the year, Blur vs Oasis, as it was the number three that week.

Blur of course won that battle with "Country House" reaching number one and "Roll With It" by Oasis reaching number two. It was the first number one for Blur whilst Oasis managed their first earlier in the year with "Some Might Say".

It was the strongest year to date for Brit Pop music with many notable debutants such as Sleeper with "Inbetweener", Supergrass with "Mansize Rooster", Boo Radleys with "Wake Up Boo!", Reef with "Good Feeling", McAlmont & Butler with "Yes", Verve with "This Is Music", Black Grape with "Reverend Black Grape", Bluetones with "Are You Blind Or Are You Blind", Cast with "Finetime", Menswear with "Daydreamer", Ash with "Girl From Mars" and Marion with "Let's All Go Together".

However, all Brit Pop seemed to be was a way of lumping all British guitar based bands that don't easily fit into another genre together.

Hard rock music is looking quite dated by 1995 with no debutants from that genre this year. The hits came from Guns 'N' Roses, Thunder, Van Halen, Wildhearts, Gun, Skin, Ugly Kid Joe, AC/DC and Def Leppard.

Heavy Metal has old timers Iron Maiden chart with "Man on the Edge" and Ozzy Osbourne with "Perry Mason" whilst we have "Jonestown Mind" by the Almighty and the only hit from the Rollins Band with "Liar / Disconnected". Megadeth have their final hit with "Train Of Consequences".

A post Nirvana grunge scene see's Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, the other three of the big four all chart this year. Kurt Cobains wife Courtney Loves band Hole debut with "Doll Parts" and follow up with "Violet". Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl debuts his new band the Foo Fighters with "This Is A Call" but has moved away from Grunge music.

Pop Punk steps up a gear this year with further hits from Green Day including "Basket Case". We also see the debut of Offspring with "Self Esteem" and Weezer with "Undone - The Sweater Song" which they followed up with "Buddy Holly" and "Say It Ain't So". There is also the only Top 40 hit for the reunited Go-Go's with "The Whole World Lost Its Head" which fits in nicely with the Pop Punk scene.

We have the first act from Barbados chart this year, Rayvon, who collaborated with Shaggy on "In the Summertime". He would have one further hit which was also a collaboration with Shaggy.

We also have the debut of Finn with "Suffer Never". This means that three of the five chart acts to date who come from New Zealand feature Neil and Tim Finn, the other two being Split Enz and Crowded House and the other two New Zealand acts being John Rowles and Kiri Te Kanawa.

On the subject of nationalities, we have the only chart hits from Eurogroove who is Japanese and we have the only chart hits from Tokyo Ghetto Pussy who are an alias of Jam & Spoon who are German.

As mentioned in my 1994 review, there is a 1955 debutant returning to the charts this year. Perez 'Prez' Prado & His Orchestra had a number 2 with "Guaglione", his first hit in 37 years and his third and final hit.

We also had a return to the charts after 13 years for the Beatles who had hits with "Baby It's You" and "Free As A Bird", the latter reaching number two.

Finally it's worth giving a mention to "Think Twice" by Celine Dion which spent 7 weeks at number one. It was released in 1994 but took until February 1995 to reach the top spot and was the fourth Top 40 hit for Celine Dion.

The best way to sum up 1995 is that it very much seemed like the mid point of the 90s. Will 1996 seem the same or will it take us into the late 90s?

Top of the Pops: 11/01/2018

Top 40 Countdown

Number of eligible records: 17

New (40) Jackman ft Settle, Efron & Zendaya - The Greatest Show
New (30) G Eazy ft Halsey - Him & I
New (24) Jax Jones ft Ina Wroldsen - Breathe
New (37) Camila Cabello - Never Be the Same
New (28) Settle ft Greatest Showman Ens - This Is Me
⬆ (8) Ramz - Barking
New (29) J Hus - Bouff Daddy
⬆ (3) Big Shaq - Mans Not Hot
(1) Ed Sheeran - Perfect

Missing Out
Re (15) Craig David ft Bastille - I Know You
⬆ (17) Dave ft Mostack - No Words
Re (19) Jason Derulo ft French Montana - Tip Toe
Re (22) Raye ft Mr Eazi - Decline
Re (23) NOT3S - My Lover
Re (25) Pink - Beautiful Trauma
⬆ (7) MK - 17
Re (35) Portugal the Man - Feel it Still

Black Eyed Peas are back

I'll be honest, I didn't realise the Black Eyed Peas had been away but it turns out they've been on a break since 2011. For several years prior to that they were responsible for some of the most dreadful music I've ever heard, but it wasn't always like that.

I was first introduced to the Black Eyed Peas around 2000 by a work colleague at the time who played it in his car at lunchtime and I thought they were good. Shortly after that I saw them on the music channels with "Request Line" and again I thought it was a good tune.

Then in 2003 they became a household name with "Where Is the Love?" which I also liked and so did everyone else it seemed. They now had a singer in the group, Fergie. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, they did feature Macy Gray on "Request Line" after all.

However, when I heard the follow up "Shut Up" I thought oh dear. It reminded me a bit of Big Brovaz (remember them?) a group I completely detested at the time. I didn't think "Hey Mama" was very good either but I must admit the next single "Let's Get Retarded" is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Still they had simply gone from a group that was good to one that was not so good by this point, unfortunately this is what several groups have to do to sell records. The point where they became a dreadful group in my opinion is when they released "My Humps". What a ridiculous tune, Fergie had become the rapper and the rappers had become singers, kind of.

It just seemed to get worse and worse though, David Guetta got involved and they became an EDM group and seemed so far removed from how they started. The solo careers of will.i.am and Fergie were just as bad.

Now they're back, but without Fergie who apparently is still part of the group but not at the moment. What they seem to have done is picked up from the time before Fergie was in the group. It's actual Hip Hop music, not EDM, no auto tune to be heard. It's hard to forget what has happened over the past 15 years, but the fact remains it's still the same people who did "Joints & Jams".

It's also quite good to see that the members don't actually appear themselves in the video given how will.i.am has basically become a marketing campaign in recent years it seems. In fact you almost forget there are two other rappers in the group given how much will.i.am hogs the limelight.

I guess they had the ultimatum after their first two albums, turn pop or go back to the day job, so you can't really blame them for doing that. Now they're presumably rich beyond their wildest dreams it's given them the freedom to go back to doing the sort of music they set out to do in the first place.

Looking through the comments on the YouTube video people are basically saying welcome back. I agree, it's the sort of record which made them good it the first place. Whether they can carry this on when Fergie returns, only time will tell.

Top of the Pops: 04/01/2018

Top 40 Countdown

Number of eligible records: 21

New (39) Sia - Santa's Coming For Us
New (38) Kylie Minogue - Santa Baby
New (34) Michael Buble - Holly Jolly Christmas
⬆ (17) Andy Williams - It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
⬆ (19) Leona Lewis - One More Sleep
⬆ (21) John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Re (22) Bing Crosby - White Christmas
⬆ (2) Wham! - Last Christmas
(1) Ed Sheeran - Perfect

Missing Out
⬆ (5) Pogues ft Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
⬆ (7) Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas
⬆ (9) Brenda Lee - Rockin Around the Christmas Tree
⬆ (10) Shakin Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone
⬆ (11) Elton John - Step Into Christmas
⬆ (13) Michael Buble - Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like
⬆ (14) Chris Rea - Driving Home For Christmas
⬆ (15) Wizzard - I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday
⬆ (28) Ariana Grande - Santa Tell Me
Re (29) Boney M - Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord
Re (31) Coldplay - Christmas Lights
Re (32) Kelly Clarkson - Underneath the Tree