The Week In British Music – Sunday 27 January 2013

Freddie Matthews writes from London: Depeche Mode, from Basildon in Essex – they have sold 100 million albums – have announced their 13^th album release due in March but as yet are to reveal the title. That said we do now know that the first single from the world’s most popular electronic band ever (according to Q magazine) is to be called Heaven and we can get our hands, or ears, on it from 5 February.  However this is still all speculation for the time being but according to an inside source at Sony Germany the album is confirmed and Heaven isn’t even the best track on it. It’s a fact that the Depeche Mode world tour does kick off on 7 May in Tel Aviv but you’ll be very hard pushed to get a ticket to any of those venues now, without paying 10 to 25 times the face value from a tout that is!

Just when we thought we wouldn’t have to put up with the X Factor again until September time now there’s news, more bad than good, of a pending musical about the X Factor show in the pipeline. Surprisingly, the only thing holding the idea up is Simon Cowell himself. Comedian Harry Hill is involved with the scriptwriting, which actually could mean the show will be funny but it’s all down to whether or not Cowell gives the show the go ahead. Let’s hope not eh?

The 10^th anniversary of Katie Melua’s recording career has been spread over many a broadsheet in the UK recently. The Welsh singer has had hits with songs like: The Closest Thing To Crazy, Nine Million Bicycles and The Flood, as well as 5 studio albums that have all amassed huge sales. Now, having spent 10 years in the music business Katie Melua is to celebrate the anniversary with a concert at the Camden Roundhouse performing her favourite songs. With her totally unique voice, Miss Melua will also use the performance to showcase some new material she’s currently working on for her up and coming 6^th studio album, although it’s very early days on this project as yet. I had the pleasure of seeing her live a couple of years ago and although it wasn’t really my kind of gig, there was something very special about that night, or maybe I’d had too much vodka!

When will the Pigeon Detectives realise they’re past it and call it a day? Isn’t it time to resign themselves to that one successful album Wait For Me, back in 2007? Or maybe they think they have more to offer because they’ve just signed a new record deal for album number 4. We don’t have a name for this new studio album as yet but it will be released in the spring, with the first single called Animal available as a free download. Now that’s what I call ‘generating more publicity’ by giving away a freeby.

It’s been a while since we’ve given JLS a mention in the weekly British music news but just a few days ago they were revealed as the ‘hardest working British group of 2012’, by PRS for Music, for the second consecutive year. JLS are the most performed artists to headline at major venues during 2012. They performed 34 shows at major concert venues. Irish band Westlife were second with 31 performances followed by Steps at 25 shows. Is that really correct? I’m just thinking that there must be other hard working bands out there but then again we’re only talking about British bands, so maybe not. It’s probably more a case of I don’t want the winners of Hardest Working Band to be a cheesy, crap and untalented boy band.

And finally we reported a few weeks ago that Suede are releasing some brand new material in 2013. Well so are another band who are great friends of Suede’s front man Brett Anderson. The Stone Roses may have reformed in late 2011 to play a series of comeback shows in 2012 but now the Suede singer has revealed that The Stone Roses have finished enough new material for a brand new studio album. Stone Roses’ last album was 1994’s Second Coming, which makes a new album in 2013 an amazing feat. Meanwhile, the next Suede album called Bloodsports is released on 18 March.

Here marks the end of another week on the British music scene.

–End–

2 Comments

1. Lewis says:

   January 28, 2013 at 10:47 pm

   Like the Style this music news are written! Here is an expert not a unreflected fan! Like to read more of this! Cheers, lewis
2. 1Sausage says:

   January 30, 2013 at 8:48 am

   Hey Lewis I agree with you there, this Freddie Matthews knows his stuff, I’ve been reading a lot of it for a few months. Good news ref Stone Roses and hopefully new material will result in a tour that more of us can get to this time around, cause last year was a joke.