CMU Daily 29.11.17: Sadiq Khan includes agent of change in his London Plan, BRITs Critics' Choice and Grammy nominations announced

Mayor includes agent of change in his London Plan
London mayor Sadiq Khan will include the much talked about agent of change principle in his new draft London Plan, it was confirmed earlier this week. This means that property developers putting new residential buildings next to existing pubs or venues would have to ensure the new build was designed to avoid any future possible noise issues.

There have been increasing calls for agent of change to be added to UK planning law in recent years after a number of music venues faced licensing challenges as a result of new residential developments that were built near by. The agent of change principle says that property developers must design new buildings in a way to ensure future issues are minimised, and cover the costs of any extra work required such as sound-proofing.

Various MPs are planning on talking up agent of change in Parliament next year, but Khan is already putting it in his draft London Plan, as part of measures designed to protect the capital's pubs, including those that stage live music.

A statement from the mayor's office stated: "Sadiq will introduce the agent of change principle in his draft London Plan. This means that developers building new residential properties near pubs will be responsible for ensuring they are adequately soundproofed and designed to reduce sound from nearby pubs, clubs and live music venues, instead of the crippling cost falling on the pubs and clubs".

It added: "[Planning committees in the London] boroughs will have to refuse proposals from developers that have not clearly demonstrated how they will manage this noise impact".

Khan himself said: "Pubs across the capital are often at the heart of our communities or of historic value and should be protected by local authorities in order to protect the capital's unique character. From historic watering holes to new pop-up breweries, nothing defines the diverse and historic character of the capital better than the Great British pub".

"That's why I've set out measures in my draft London Plan to protect pubs against redevelopment, ensure they can co-exist peacefully with nearby residential properties and ensure that councils across the capital recognise their importance to the city's cultural fabric".

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David Israelite signs new five year deal to head up NMPA
The National Music Publishers' Association of those United States Of America has announced that CEO David Israelite has signed a new five year contract to head up the organisation. This will see him in position until at least 2022.

"David has led NMPA into a new era of recognition of the value of songwriters and music publishers", says NMPA Board Chairman Irwin Robinson. "He has brought songwriter struggles to the forefront of the debate, and he is leading the charge for creators to be treated fairly by working to modernise laws and policies that govern the music industry".

Israelite adds: "Serving music publishers and songwriters as NMPA's President and CEO has been the greatest honour of my career. Working with the NMPA board is a privilege, and I am grateful that they have asked me to continue leading the fight on behalf of all songwriters and music publishers".

Prior to joining the NMPA in 2005, Israelite held a number of positions within the US government, including as chair of the Department Of Justice's Task Force On Intellectual Property.

If you've not yet listened to Israelite's recent interview on the 'And The Writer Is' podcast, you really should stop wasting your life. I mean, what have you been listening to instead?

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Symphonic Distribution raises new funding
Florida-based electronic-music-focussed digital distribution company Symphonic Distribution has announced that it has secured $4 million of new venture capital investment led by Ballast Point Ventures.

"We are excited by the possibilities that BPV's minority investment provides", says the company's founder Jorge Brea. "The Symphonic Distribution team has worked diligently to provide innovative products and superior customer service for our musician and label clients. With this funding, we will be able to attract more top talent and accelerate the development of the Symphonic Distribution platform".

Ballast Point Ventures' Robert Faber, who will also now sit on Symphonic board, adds: "Symphonic Distribution's industry-leading position in digital music distribution is a testament to the vision and platform developed by Jorge Brea and his team over many years. Under Jorge Brea's leadership, the Symphonic Distribution team has had great success without any outside capital to date and is well positioned for continued growth given the trends in streaming music consumption".

He added: "We are excited to partner with Symphonic Distribution and to work with Jorge and his dedicated team to continue building a leading technology company in the Tampa Bay region".

Launched in 2006, Symphonic Distribution currently distributes music from over 11,000 independent labels and musicians, including Marshmello, Waka Flocka Flame and Gravitas Recordings.

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Eventbrite partners with Twickets for face value ticket resale
Eventbrite is the latest primary ticket seller to team up with Twickets to offer the option for punters to resell their tickets at face value.

Event promoters will have to opt in to the feature for it to be available to ticket buyers. However, assuming they do, if a ticket holder finds themselves with a ticket they can't use, they will be able to put it back up for sale at the price they originally paid for it. Once purchased, the original ticket will be cancelled and a new one issued to the new buyer.

"It's great to be partnering with Eventbrite, who share our commitment to providing fair ticket resale", says Twickets founder Richard Davies. "We are happy to be bringing face value resale to more events through this partnership, giving event-goers the peace of mind that they are not only getting a fair deal, but also that they will be guaranteed entry to the event itself with an officially reissued ticket. We're also very excited to be bringing Twickets to new audiences in New Zealand and look forward to our future in the country".

Eventbrite's UK & Ireland General Manager Joel Crouch adds: "There are a number of technology solutions that we have already put in place to help our larger events prevent unauthorised resales of their tickets. At the same time, we want stay true to the fans, who often have perfectly valid reasons to sell their tickets. Partnering with ethical peer-to-peer exchange platforms like Twickets enables our promoters to allow their fans to easily sell their unwanted tickets at a fair price, and assures the buyers of those tickets that they have obtained official, authorised tickets that will get them in".

Existing Twickets resale partners include Adele, Ed Sheeran, ticket agency Gigantic and the End Of The Road festival.

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Young people don't care if other people enjoy gigs, research finds
Over a quarter of young people think that photographing or filming live music events on mobile phones should be outright banned. This according to only slightly dubious research from ticketing company Skiddle.

A survey of 1200 Skiddle customers aged between sixteen and 30 found that 27% thought that using phones to record gigs shouldn't be allowed at all.

Meanwhile, 37% of respondents said that people holding up phones to photograph or film the act performing was distracting, and 34% said that phones being waved around takes away from the experience. Not sure why this wasn't 100% on both counts. Maybe they worded the question wrong.

It's not clear if the 27% who were in favour of a ban felt that government should legislate, of if venues should just employ snipers to shoot phones out of people's hands. It has to be one of the two. But still, only 27% people felt this strongly, and only a little more than a third were even bothered. What of the remaining soulless arseholes?

Of those not in favour of a ban, 52% said that they film or photograph shows in order to relive them later, because apparently they have no capacity to memorise things that happen to them. In addition, 24% said they like to share their experiences on social media, while 13% said buying a ticket to a show permitted them to do whatever the fuck they want with their phones. I'm not sure they always read the terms and conditions of their tickets in massive detail though.

"The issue of banning mobile phones at gigs is one that has been hotly debated in recent months and it's certainly a subject which almost everyone has a strong opinion on", says Skiddle's Ben Sebborn. "We found the results of this survey particularly interesting because of the age of respondents. Typically banning filming and photography is an opinion most commonly associated with older generations - however this survey shows that many younger people agree that live music experiences are best enjoyed without handheld technology present".

However, he went on: "Despite the issue been highlighted by artists, gig-goers and venues on an almost weekly basis, it does appear that an overwhelming majority think that filming and photography should be allowed at live music events, which shows any crackdown will result in a high proportion of unsatisfied music fans".

Various artists have attempted to convince fans to watch gigs with their fucking eyes in recent years, with little effect on the general population. Recently, A Perfect Circle went as far as to eject people who were found to be photographing or filming shows on their recent US tour.

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Little Mix announce 2018 summer tour dates
Having completed their lengthy 'Glory Days' tour with two shows at the O2 Arena in London over the weekend, Little Mix have marked the occasion by announcing another lengthy run of shows next summer.

Tickets for the 'Summer Hits' tour are on sale now. Here are the dates:

6 Jul: Hove, First Central County Ground
7 Jul: Swansea, Liberty Stadium
8 Jul: Colchester, Weston Homes Community Stadium
12 Jul: Northampton County Ground
13 Jul: Hull, Craven Park
15 Jul: Huddersfield, John Smith's Stadium
19 Jul: Derby, 3AAA County Ground
20 Jul: Lincoln, Lincolnshire Showground
21 Jul: Norwich, Earlhanm Park
22 Jul: Maidstone, Kent Event Centre
26 Jul: Gateshead International Stadium
27 Jul: Falkirk Stadium
28 Jul: Aberdeen, AECC
29 Jul: Inverness, Bught Park

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Jorja Smith, Mabel and Stefflon Don make BRITs Critics' Choice shortlist
The shortlist for the 2018 BRITs Critics Choice award has been announced. On it are Jorja Smith, Mabel and Stefflon Don. So for the first time ever, someone good is guaranteed to win it. This, of course, is the new talent focused BRITs gong, the winner of which is confirmed well before the awards show itself, hence the early shortlist.

"It's an honour to be recognised amongst such incredible emerging talent", says Smith. "2017 was a very special year and there's so much more to come from me in 2018!"

Mabel adds: "Being nominated for the Critics Choice award really is a dream come true for me. So much hard work has gone into getting to this point, so to be acknowledged by something like the BRIT Awards means the world".

Meanwhile, Stefflon Don comments: "I am so excited to be nominated for this amazing award. A big shout out to all my fans and dons for their support. 2017 has been lit and I can't wait for 2018! Mad love to you all".

Of course, with this announcement a load of people are going to go and look up all these artists' music to check them out. In the case of Stefflon Don, they're going to find her recent collaboration with Skepta, which heavily samples fucking terrible novelty song 'My Ding-A-Ling'. Maybe someone should have thought about that before that was allowed out into the world.

Both Stefflon Don and Jorja Smith actually featured in the longlist of the BBC's Sound Of 2017 poll when it was published a year ago - with Smith ultimately coming fourth in that list of new acts to watch this year.

Does this mean the BBC's pundits are now getting a bit ahead of themselves? I don't know, the winner of the 2017 BRITs Critics' Choice prize was Rag N Bone Man, who also came second in the 2017 Sound Of poll. Maybe we should all stop thinking about these things so much.

The winner of this year's Critics' Choice award will be announced on 4 Dec. The main BRITs ceremony will then take place at the O2 Arena on 21 Feb.

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Hip hop and R&B dominate big awards in 2018 Grammy nominations
The nominations have been announced for all 84 categories of the 2018 Grammy Awards. There are so many people up for prizes it's easier to tell you who isn't in the running.

Possibly the biggest upset is Ed Sheeran, who is nominated, but only in two categories, and neither of them headline-grabbing categories. I'm sure he'd love to take home Best Pop Solo Performance for 'Shape Of You' or Best Pop Vocal Album for 'Divide', but those releases were also expected to appear in the Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Record Of The year categories. I wouldn't worry too much about that though. After all, 'Divide' really isn't all that brilliant an album.

Harry Styles, meanwhile - who seemingly wrote an album designed to win awards by not sounding like you'd expect - got no nominations at all. This may be because that long player is also a bit rubbish. The only former member of One Direction to get any mention at all is Zayn Malik, and in both cases not for anything he did (ie his tracks are nominated, but not for his performance, rather other people's writing and production).

Another big draw would have been Taylor Swift, but she went and released her new album too late to be eligible for the 2018 Grammys bash. This is par for the course for Swift though, who has had to wait for her Grammys for exactly the same reason in the past. She'll get them next year, I'm sure.

As for who is nominated in the big categories, R&B and hip hop is well-represented this time - a turnaround following accusations of a lack of diversity at the awards in recent years.

In fact, it's the first year since 1999 that no white men have been nominated for Album Of The Year. Jay-Z scores big with eight nominations across all categories. Kendrick Lamar meanwhile has seven nominations, and Bruno Mars six. SZA is the awards' most nominated woman, with five nods.

There are some notable omissions on the shortlists from those genres too though, of course. Q-Tip lashed out on social media following the nominations announcement because A Tribe Called Quest's final album 'We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service' isn't shortlisted for anything.

In a video on Instagram, the rapper said: "Y'all think it's a caveat because a white man wasn't nominated in no major categories and shit? We were the most black cultured group out. That's all we stood on. This fucking album that we just put out, this last Tribe album, it stands with everybody's shit that's up there. I don't give a fuck".

Drake also received no nominations for his 'More Life' album, although it turns out that this is because he didn't actually submit it for consideration. He did not attend the 2017 ceremony either, even though he was named winner of two awards there for his track 'Hotline Bling'. He later took issue with the fact that one of those prizes was for Best Rap Song, a category in which he (and many others) said the single should not have been appeared, it not featuring any rapping.

There was further controversy surrounding the 2018 nominations when word went around that Cardi B was not in line to win a trophy for her hit 'Bodak Yellow', which is nominated for Song Of The Year. That prize goes to the writers not the artist, and Cardi B's name is not listed among the songwriters of the track. But then someone at the Grammys pointed out that she was actually up for that award as a co-writer of the track. She had been credited on the nominations list under her songwriting alias Washpoppin, so that's all fine.

Speaking of songwriters, 2018 is a big year for them at the Grammys. This will be the first time that songwriters are listed alongside the artists in the Album Of The Year category. This follows a campaign from the songwriting community, which resulted in a change of the rules by the Recording Academy earlier this year. Those new rules mean James Fauntleroy is the first ever non-performing songwriter nominated in the category, for his work on Bruno Mars' '24k Magic' album.

Now, here are the nominations for the three awards that people actually talk about:

Record Of The Year

Childish Gambino - Redbone
Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee feat Justin Bieber - Despacito
Jay-Z - The Story Of OJ
Kendrick Lamar - Humble
Bruno Mars - 24k Magic

Album Of The Year

Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love!
Jay-Z - 4:44
Kendrick Lamar - Damn
Lorde - Melodrama
Bruno Mars - 24k Magic

Song Of The Year

Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee feat Justin Bieber - Despacito
Jay-Z - 4:44
Julia Michaels - Issues
Logic feat Alessia Cara & Khalid - 1-800-273-8255
Bruno Mars - That's What I Like

The 2018 Grammy Awards will take place at Madison Square Garden in New York on 28 Jan. I've checked and there's nothing that can be done about it now.

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Lovebox, Metallica, Eminem, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• ASCAP has hired Stephanie Ruyle as its new Executive Vice President Of Licensing. She replaces Vincent Candilora, who is retiring.

• Sony's Columbia UK label has not one but two new Managing Directors. Stacey Tang has been promoted into the role, while Manish Arora has been brought in from Universal's Polydor.

• The Lovebox and Citadel festivals have announced that they are following Field Day in moving from East London's Victoria Park to South London's Brockwell Park.

• Metallica have launched a website for their All Within My Hands Foundation. The charity has also been announced as a recipient of funding from a new initiative from Spotify and Starbucks, which is dishing out $1 million to charitable ventures. Part of that money will also go to Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation and Chance The Rapper's Social Works.

• Eminem's new album 'Revival' will be released on 15 Dec. So now you know.

• Billy Corgan's silent film, 'Pillbox', is out. "I thought it was a different approach to listening to an album, to watch it in essence with a related, albeit non-linear, silent movie", he says.

• US Girls, aka Meg Remy, has announced that she will release new album, 'In A Poem Unlimited', on 16 Feb. Out now is new single 'Velvet 4 Sale', of which she says: "Men are lucky women (and children) have yet to take up arms. And although I hope this never happens, and I completely disagree that violence is ever effective, this very idea was ripe for a song".

• Juanita Stein has released the video for 'Black Winds' from her 'America' album. She'll headline a show at the Shacklewell Arms in London tonight.

• Nightwave has released new track, 'Limelight', taken from new EP 'Sanctuary', which is out on 2 Feb.

• All Points East has announced that Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds will headline one of the new East London festival's standalone shows on 3 Jun. Support will come from Patti Smith, St Vincent and Courtney Barnett. I mean, fucking hell, we've all got to go to that, haven't we? Tickets on sale on Friday.

• Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily - updated every Friday.

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Amazon to push 'U2 experience' out to music streaming apps
Taking note of what a massive success it was when Apple snuck a free U2 album onto everyone's iPhones, Amazon is going to push out a collection of interviews and live performances by the band to users of its streaming service.

'The U2 Experience' will feature new and archive interviews with the band, as well as live performances from their new album, 'Songs Of Experience'. It'll basically be like that upcoming BBC One show, but you'll be able to shout at it to shut up.

OK, I suppose you can shout at the BBC One show to shut up, but the Amazon thing is being pushed out to the company's Echo voice controlled speakers, so it will actually have some effect.

"I hope you don't need to know anything about U2, or anything about the context, to enjoy ['Songs Of Experience']", says The Edge, basically telling you not to bother with this Amazon thing, which is a funny thing to do in a quote promoting it. "I think it's an album of just classic songs, great melodies great hooks, great lyrics".

Amazon Music's global head of programming, Alex Luke does a bit of a better job, saying: "Few bands have as storied a career as U2, and we saw an incredible opportunity to build a broadcast for their fans. This all goes back to voice innovation, and what we've built is an immersive, ephemeral listening experience for our customers, with a wealth of interviews and content going back nearly 40 years".

By "immersive", he just means you can choose which bits you listen to, I think. Sounds like there's quite a lot of it to get through though, so I guess you could metaphorically drown in U2 content. Drowning is immersive. He's basically saying that 'The U2 Experience' will slowly suffocate you.

UK-based Amazon Music users will be able to get access to that experience from 11pm tonight. More info here.

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