News Round-Up: 11/2/13

Beatport and Shazam join forces; DJ Koze and Four Tet bait the trainspotters; the demise of the music industry part 2,937 and IKEA target DJs and musicians with viral ad.

Wednesday saw the announcement of a deal between industry titans Beatport and Shazam which will see every track in Beatport’s catalogue added to Shazam’s database, making the app even more effective for identifying dance tracks. Having analysed and tagged the track in question, users will (of course) then be able to click through to Beatport in order to purchase it immediately.

As we see it, anything which makes it easier to identify unknown tracks is probably a good thing.

Ironically, the news comes in the same week as the release of two tracks which satirise dance music fans’ obsession with identifying new music in clubs and on podcasts.

DJ Koze and Caribou’s ‘Track ID Anyone?’ takes a slightly more subtle approach to poking fun at the trainspotters, while Four Tet’s ‘The Track I’ve Been Playing That People Keep Asking About and That Joy Used in His RA Mix’ goes for the jugular.

As much as we might wish for just one night when clubs weren’t illuminated by the glow of LCD screens as people compulsively text their friends, bid on eBay auctions or whatever else it is they feel compelled to do at 3am, the alliance of Shazam and Beatport will probably mean even more iPhones being held aloft on nights out. Nevertheless, if it means we see a reduction in the number of phones thrust in DJs’ faces, their screens bearing hastily typed messages requesting track IDs, that can only be a good thing for the atmosphere in and around the DJ booth.

Industry insight

In an interview with Billboard, Beatport CEO Matthew Adell explains the logic behind the Shazam deal and offers an ominous assessment of the state of the industry, declaring that the music business is “in pathetic, terrible, miserable, will-never-recover shape”.

Elsewhere, venture capitalist Hany Nada’s column for Billboard proposes a series of lessons which the music business could learn from the gaming and gambling industries, while news of Warner Music buying the world-famous Parlophone label from EMI for £487m shows that the major labels are still willing to invest significant sums of money in certain areas of the industry. Of course, it’s debatable whether any dance music label will ever have the cachet of the imprint which signed the Beatles and remains home to cash-cow artists like Coldplay, Blur and Kylie Minogue.

You Can’t Harry Love

Finally, if all the corporate machinations of the music industry are too much to take, a little light relief. UK hip hop DJ and producer Harry Love – best known as a former member of the Scratch Perverts and for his work with rappers including Verb T and Jehst – stars in this viral ad for IKEA. The Swedish furniture company comes to the rescue of Harry and family, transforming his studio and clearing the clutter out of the rest of his house so his wife can make toast and his son can play without fear of being crushed by a falling stack of vinyl. If you were in the 0.00001% of vinyl collectors who didn’t realise that Expedit shelving units were perfectly suited to storing 12″ records, this slickly produced clip will explain all.