Lily Allen’s days of being a “neo-luddite” look to be over as she has returned to Twitter. So why the four month break in the first place? Did she just fancy a break from the endless publicity and press attention or is there more to it than that?

Lily Allen had a strange second half of 2009. She threw her hat into the ring as being against file-sharing, setting up a blog to explore the issues surrounding it. And then she quit the blog, quit Twitter, MySpace, and her BlackBerry, and threatened to quit music.
Her last tweet from September read, “I …read more

Well there’s a turn-up for the books. There we all were thinking Lily Allen was retiring from music, moving out of the media spotlight, and leaving her fans to stew on Twitter and MySpace. But it seems this isn’t strictly true.

Talking to The Daily Star after winning a Q Award for ‘Best Track’ for The Fear, Allen denied the claims over her desire to leave music behind. However, rather than promising new music, it looks as though she is now more keen to disappear more behind the scenes. She said:
“I never win anything for my music so I’m very happy. …read more

To say Oasis have had a troubled past would be akin to saying Adolf Hitler was a naughty boy – it’s an understatement of epic proportions. And it looks like another bust-up is on the way, with the Gallagher brothers seemingly at each other’s throats yet again.

Oasis as they are today are very different to what they were years ago. There has been numerous line-up changes with the only original members of the band left being Liam and Noel. The rest have either been fired, got bored and moved on, or left after getting fed up of the rows.
Bizarrely, the …read more

U2, their manager, and their record label, have all been very vocal about their hatred towards music piracy and albums being shared online. So much so, in fact, that they were determined that new album, No Line On The Horizon, wouldn’t befall that fate.

Obviously, once an album is out there on the streets and available for all to buy, it will be made available on the Internet, via peer-to-peer networks and in the form of torrents. That’s just a fact, and there’s not really anything anyone can do about it.
However, bands can try to prevent the album leaking ahead of …read more

Lily Allen has never been one of those artists who has struggled to come to terms with new technology or the way the music business is evolving. In fact, you could argue that MySpace made Allen famous. The social networking site at least helped her build a massive fan base.
Now, a week before it’s released in the UK, Allen has put her new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, on MySpace. Anyone visiting her profile page can stream the full album, made up of 12 tracks, completely for free.

Radiohead are collaborating with their fans in ever more intriguing and interactive ways. Not only did they decide to give their album away for free, but they now seem to be regarding In Rainbows as belonging to the fans as much as it belongs to the band itself.
Such was the case with the new music video for Reckoner, which was actually made by a fan for a competition. The band liked the promo so much that they decided to make it the official video instead of just a contest winner. Thom Yorke was even impressed enough to give the video …read more

The new Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul, is as good as The Beatles classic album, Revolver, often cited as the Fab Four’s best long player.
At least that’s the opinion on Alan McGee, the former boss of Creation records who signed Oasis to his record label after seeing them play live in Glasgow in 1993.
In a Guardian newspaper article titled ‘Why the music world needs Oasis’, McGee recounts meeting the Gallagher brothers last year, a meeting that ended with typical Oasis debauchery.
Then he waxes lyrical about the new album and explains why he thinks it’s as good as …read more

I’ve covered Oasis quite extensively here on Brit Music Scene in the run up to the release of their seventh studio album, Dig Out Your Soul.
While most of the coverage has unfortunately been about Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher’s attempts at gaining publicity (obviously successful) from slagging off their fellow musicians, it’s finally time for the music to do the talking.
Dig Out Your Soul isn’t out for another month (October 6th), but the first single from the album, The Shock Of The Lightning is preceding it. Here it is embedded below (after the cut) for your visual and aural …read more

After all the bitterness surrounding Oasis and Jay-Z after they had a little spat earlier in the year, it seems that the two artists have put their differences behind them and teamed up.
Or maybe not. But there is a mixtape featuring them both now available online.
The spat between Oasis and Jay-Z began when Jay-Z was announced as a headliner for Glastonbury 2008. Noel Gallagher stated in no uncertain terms that Jay was wrong for the traditionally more rock festival. Then Jay-Z actually played his set and mocked Gallagher by covering Wonderwall.
The spat carried on when Gallagher criticized Mark Ronson …read more

Mark Ronson is a confident (some would say cocky) young man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He’s a super-producer who has not only been one of the main reasons for Amy Winehouse‘ worldwide success but has also released his own album full of cleverly re imagined covers.
So the man knows his stuff, which is why it’s no surprise to see that he is the first person to have reacted to Noel Gallagher’s drunken rant about various musicians and artists the other day. In fact, rather than just defend himself, Ronson went on the attack, and owned Gallagher.
Speaking to Radio One, …read more