So in this, Music Choice’s 15th summer, as many of you will be aware, we’re celebrating with a special promotion giving your subscribers the chance to win sought-after tickets to some of the best outdoor music events in Europe. It’s our way to say thank you to everyone for listening.
Music Choice’s five favourite festivals are detailed below, plus:

• The 15 soul albums everyone should hear at least once
• Do bands reform for love our money? We offer our own guide to musicians of mature years who may be considering a comeback
• Our respect and accolades to the Midem Classical awards
• A review of the innovative ways that artists are marketing their music in the digital era

I am off to see some of my favourite big name artists this summer and a few small niche ones too; Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, an Eagles/Jackson Brown-esque group from LA, called Venice, and of course the incomparable Liza Minnelli.

Enjoy the summer and, if you’re going to a festival, perhaps we’ll see you there.

Margot Daly

The initial cross-fertilisation of gospel with secular rhythm & blues in the late 1950s by Ray Charles and others created the foundations for one of most satisfying and influential popular music genres of all time. The gospel element provided an unending supply of singers who had been trained in church since childhood and who by their late teens had developed powerful, expressive voices. The rhythm & blues element added the hottest dance rhythms; and channelled these celestial voices to expression that most human of emotions – unrequited love.

In our last newsletter we recommended the best Country music albums. To continue our series of recommending the best music of sometimes forgotten genres, we’ve selected 15 great soul albums that you simply should listen to at least once.

A couple of things to note. The albums are listed in chronological order – we think that they are all equally great and equally essential. With a few notable exceptions, soul music as a genre has always been defined by its artists and their hit singles. In consequence, many of the essential soul albums are artist compilations which bring the best of those singles together. This is not an exhaustive list – and so we have included a “Various Artists” compilation to make sure we cover as many of the lesser known greats.

The 15 soul albums you must own

Ray Charles – The Definitive Ray Charles (2005, WSM)
	The first collection to cover the best of both his Atlantic and ABC recordings, ranging from the mid-1950s to the 1970s and showcasing Brother Ray’s incredible talent and versatility which crosses genres to fuse Rhythm & Blues with Gospel and invent some of the earliest soul tracks.
Aretha Franklin – I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You (1967, Atlantic)
	The undisputed Queen of Soul. In her prime, Aretha was arguably the greatest ever singer of popular music, recording gospel in her early teens and secular music from a few years later. On this, her first album for Atlantic, she really came of age. This is soul drenched in blues and gospel. Her vocals are spine-chillingly brilliant whether she’s demanding Respect in her stunning version of the Otis Redding classic or telling her no-good man how she can’t stop loving him on the bluesy title track.
Bobby Bland – Two Steps From The Blues (1961, MCA)
	Fabulous collection of singles featuring the wonderful, controlled roar of one of the most riveting singers to come out of the American south.
James Brown – Live And Lowdown At The Apollo (1963, Polydor)
	The album that made the Godfather of Soul a star. The Apollo audience was notoriously hard to impress, but here they’re eating out of his hand from the start. So popular on release that radio stations would play whole sides of the LP in one go, it’s a lesson in the difficult art of translating world-class live showmanship into an audio-only format. It’s also probably the first great soul album that wasn’t just a collection of singles.
Sam & Dave – The Definitive Soul Collection (Rhino, 2007)
	The phrase “dynamic duo” might have been coined to describe Sam & Dave’s high-energy stage act. Their superb recordings back this up as well and this excellent double CD set is the only one to contain all of their hits.
Otis Redding – Otis Blue (1965, Stax)
	No soul fan should be without this superb album not only because of Otis’s unique beautiful singing voice, but also for the musicianship of his superb backing band – Booker T & MGs were stars in their own right who doubled as the Stax house band playing on hundreds of genre defining tracks; and even resurfaced later as the core of the band in the Blues Brothers movie.
Various Artists - Dave Godin’s Deep Soul Treasures, Volumes 1-4 (Kent, 1997-2004)
	Godin was one of the UK’s greatest soul experts and became obsessed with a genre of mostly 1960s soul that went for deep emotional impact, often at the expense of commercial appeal. The appearance of the first of these compilations was greeted with huge critical acclaim and far better sales than most comparable collections. While much of the content is obscure, these CDs contain some of the most powerful soul music ever recorded. Volume 3 is arguably the best, but there’s little to choose between them and anyone smitten with one CD is likely to end up with all four pretty quickly.
The Supremes – Gold (2005, Motown)
	Two-CD set combining three greatest hits collections by the greatest girl group ever. Featuring all the hits from Where Did Our Love Go through to post-Diana Ross classics like Stoned Love.
The Temptations – Psychedelic Soul (2003, Motown)
	Stunning two-CD compilation of their 1968-1973 Norman Whitfield era, kicking off with Cloud Nine and reaching its zenith with the epic Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On (1971, Motown)
	Widely touted as the greatest album of all time, this ground-breaking release had to overcome fierce opposition from Motown bosses agog at the prospect of commercial suicide: a whole album of social comment by one of their most established mainstream “pop” artists. The melodies are beautiful, the album sold by the truckload and Motown didn’t go down the pansurvived the shock.
Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (1972, Curtom)
	Curtis Mayfield was became the musical conscience of black America, snaffling this accolade even from Stevie Wonder and Marvyn Gaye. This soundtrack is amongst his finest work; with every song a devastating indictment of the mayhem inflicted by drugs on black communities.
Stevie Wonder – Innervisions (1973, Motown)
	Several 1970s Stevie Wonder albums could easily find themselves in this list. This is as good as any, showcasing his fabulous vocals, inimitably slippery melodic sense and lyrical genius. Highlights include the scorching funk of Higher Ground, the angry Living For The City and the delirious, Latin-flavoured fun(k) of Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing. There’s much more to like here.
The Isley Brothers – 3 + 3 (1973, T-Neck/Epic)
	Wherein the original trio, 15 years into their career, were joined by two younger brothers and a brother-in-law to update their sound, turning the soft rock Summer Breeze into a soul killer and updating their 1960s classic Who’s That Lady for the 1970s.
Earth, Wind & Fire – Greatest Hits (1998, Columbia)
	Earth Wind & Fire made several very fine albums, but a number of their greatest hits (such as September and, their wonderful reinvention of The Beatles’ Got To Get You Into My Life) were only singles. This is the most definitive collection of their hits.
Michael Jackson – Off The Wall (1979, Epic)
	The self-styled King of Pop’s first album as an adult superstar is a blinding collection of banging funk and disco and aching ballads, made when he was still unquestionably a soul singer.

Now there’s nothing wrong with putting out a new greatest hits album every once in a while – though the appearance of a new greatest hits album every time an act goes on tour could bring out the cynic in some people – but some acts will insist on recording new material to prove their renewed creative relevance. Or at least putting out a live album as a tour souvenir – most reformed acts have enough sense not to take the recording process any further than this, and even the Rolling Stones, while stubbornly persisting in putting out new material, have made five live albums (one for every tour) as against four studio albums in the last twenty years.

And if five, ten or twenty years away from the people with whom you endlessly shared a tour bus hasn’t revived the song writing mojo that was looking a bit pale before you split, jumping back on the bandwagon for another round of stadiums and hotels isn’t necessarily going to either, however impressively you can bash out the old hits (and a decade or two away from them can work wonders – as witness the Sex Pistols’ and Led Zeppelin’s surprisingly impressive live shows last year.)

So major respect is due to those rare acts who prove the exception to the rule that artists who revive or maintain a rock or pop career in middle age seem to have the greatest of difficulty coming up with top quality new songs. Stand up Take That (not quite middle-aged, and certainly not sounding it), whose triumphant return with two #1 singles showed them to be firing on all cylinders creatively. Stand up Blondie, whose reformation in 1999 also produced a #1 single in the shape of Maria, whose continued airplay on oldies stations shows its initial popularity wasn’t just wishful thinking on the part of nostalgic fans. And Crowded House, while not setting the singles chart alight, have certainly shifted units of their well-received comeback album, Time On Earth.

All of which might go to explain why Music Choice plays music by artists in their prime – whether they’re 18 or 60 – and not by those that are reliving past glories.

To honour classical music, the fourth annual Classical Awards took place in Cannes. Prizes were awarded in 12 categories including early music, baroque music and solo instrument.

Our congratulations go to the winners of the Midem Classical awards and here we have picked our favourites from the Classical Awards:

The 2008 MIDEM Classical Awards’ accolade of Record of the Year went to Daniel Barenboim’s wonderfully wise and humane traversal for EMI Classics of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. It was filmed for DVD in 2005 over three weeks at eight live concerts in Berlin’s prestigious Philharmonie (home of the Berlin Philharmonic). A truly great artist captured at his peak, no doubt about it.

In the Choral category, veteran maestro Michael Gielen celebrated his 80th year with this towering, superbly paced account with his massed SWR forces of Arnold Schönberg’s colossal and intoxicating Gurrelieder. Expertly assembled from live concerts in Frankfurt and Freiburg, the sense of being present at a genuine ‘happening’ is simply irresistible.

As for the Concerto category, Lisa Batiashvili enhanced her growing reputation as one of the finest young fiddlers on the classical circuit with a wonderfully accomplished and substantial pairing of violin concertos by Sibelius and fellow Finn Magnus Lindberg (b.1958). Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra offer wholly idiomatic support.

Better-known as a piano virtuoso, Zoltán Kocsis is beginning to make waves as a conductor. His Hungaroton coupling of Bartók’s early, rousing tone-poem Kossuth and magical full-length ballet The Wooden Prince represents a high-class achievement all round, with delectably stylish and characterful orchestral playing from the Hungarian National Philharmonic – a deserved winner in the Orchestral category.

Last but not least, in the Solo Instrument category, the 26-year-old Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin dazzled in an all-Scriabin programme for the Swedish company BIS (winner of the Label of the Year Award), crowned by dauntingly accurate and hair-raisingly intense readings of the Second, Fifth and Ninth sonatas.

Your subscribers can taste these and other classical greats on Music Choice Classical Greats, Classical Orchestral and Classical Calm.

They might not make money - not at first, anyway. But the digital universe has provided a gateway to reach the world at large. They still crave the A&R man to shower them with riches and celebritydom, but for now, he can wait just a bit longer.

Established artists make this work for them too. And the more famous they are, the more creative and original they can afford to be about pushing back the boundaries, expanding their horizons and creating more headaches for the bean counters at the record labels. Here are just some of the innovative ways in which music is now reaching the market – both free and not so free:

Name your price

With Radiohead having fulfilled their contractual obligations to EMI, they were in control of the release of their 2007 album In Rainbows. So the CD could wait.

Initially, the band invited consumers to download the album and pay only what they thought it was worth. The band is said to have received only a fraction of the sum a music retailer would have earned from an album. But that’s not the end of it.

Critically acclaimed In Rainbows was also available direct from Radiohead as a vinyl box set. And when the CD was released on XL Recordings 10 weeks after the pick-your-price download, it quickly hit number 1 in both the US and UK.

Buy direct

Nine Inch Nails completely bypassed the record companies by releasing their instrumental album Ghosts on their website. Several versions were available, under a “creative commons” licence with consumers invited to make a contribution at various price points, including a $300 ultra-deluxe limited edition. Conventional distribution through retailers eventually followed. Front man Trent Reznor has since released a high quality free download of his next album, The Slip, before its CD release this summer.

Hush it up

When the Raconteurs completed work on their second album Consolers of the Lonely this spring, they rushed to the CD presses. The record hit the shops within three weeks, its existence barely known about, in order to stop any internet leaks. Even so, iTunes spoiled the party, with an inadvertent early release. Although the album is issued through established labels, Warner Bros and XL Recordings, it has bypassed the typical label marketing machine.

Leverage new partners

UK indie band The Charlatans and US punk act Pennywise have both used third parties to give away new albums for free this year. The Charlatans’ was available through the website of UK radio station Xfm and Pennywise’s through Myspace and Textango (a mobile music distributor). Even Prince caused a storm, by giving away his new album with a British Sunday newspaper.

It pays to advertise

Some artists love it. Others hate it. But there’s little doubt that getting your music on a TV ad – and being paid for it – helps sell records. Now the rules of the game are changing to include product placement. So the video for Fall Out Boy’s Thnks Fr Th Mmrs was paid for by using product placement for Tag deodorant spray. It was also made available free for download before it went to air on TV.

The single’s yours for nothing

Singles have always been marketing tools for albums. And small bands have often given away free downloads as tasters of their work on their websites. But when megaband Coldplay announced it was to give away its new single for free, this was unchartered territory. Two million consumers said “thank you very much” during the week’s window in which the song could be downloaded for free. It remains to be seen how this will boost album sales.

Sweden is a country that loves its Eurovision! Every year the biggest local stars compete in Melodifestivalen – an annual music competition that determines the Swedish representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. In the 2007 Melodifestivalen final, 4 million people tuned in. Not bad considering there are 9 million people living in Sweden.

It’s a contest that takes over the whole country and it is not uncommon for the entire top 10 sales and airplay charts to be completely overtaken with the year’s Melodifestivalen entries.

Previously, Melodifestivalen has produced 4 Eurovision winners for Sweden. We all know about the ultimate Eurovision song - Abba’s Waterloo but Carola’s Fångad Av En Stormvind, Charlotte Nilsson’s Take Me To Your Heaven and The Herrey’s Diggi Loo Diggi Ley have similarly legendary status – at least in Sweden!

The image of the contest has heavily evolved throughout its almost 50 year existence but one word has defined the music of the contest – Schlager! In Sweden, Schlager represents any song associated with the competition but is originally a German word meaning ‘hit’.

This year, almost 4000 entries battled it out for the final 32 places in the contest. Two former Eurovision winners Carola and Charlotte Nilsson (now Charlotte Perelli) were back. Carola was entering Melodifestivalen for the 5th time having won it 3 times previously – you could liken Carola’s pop star status in Sweden to that of Madonna in the rest of the world! The press immediately billed this year’s Melodifestivalen as battle of the divas. However, shockwaves rocked Sweden when their Queen of Pop Carola (in a duet with Andreas Johnson) failed to even qualify for the final, leaving Charlotte to romp home to victory with her Schlager-by-numbers anthem, Hero.

There is no doubt that the love of Schlager is spreading beyond Scandinavia and Germany. London pub ‘The Harcourt Arms’ had to go ‘all ticket’ to prevent over-crowding when it screened every Melodifestivalen heat this year. For the past 12 months, also in London, there has even been a successful monthly club night that is packed out with Schlager fans! What used to be a mainstream music genre in Sweden and Germany is now breaking out and quickly establishing itself as a cool niche genre in the UK. And as Swedish artists like Robyn, September and Bodies Without Organs continue to take over the UK charts maybe there could soon be demand for Schlager channels outside Scandinavia and Germany like in the UK and beyond. Who would have ever predicted this trend!

Charlotte Perelli’s Hero and the biggest of this year’s Melodifestivalen entries can be heard across the board on Music Choice. Check out Total Hits Sweden, Total Hits Nordic, Schlager Sweden and Freedom Sweden.

There’s no better feeling than to be out in the sunshine with your friends, enjoying great music. And even if the sun doesn’t shine all day long, provided the music is memorable, the chances are that you and your friends will have a day to remember and life will be a beautiful thing. This summer, Europe’s festival trail is bigger than ever with more festivals and many more of the world’s best bands performing live at numerous outdoor music events.

We at Music Choice are all huge festival fans. To celebrate our 15th anniversary, we have decided to give our listeners all over Europe the opportunity to share in the excitement by offering the chance to win tickets to no less than 10 of this summer’s most prestigious festivals including Melt! (Germany); Pukkelpop (Belgium); Montreux Jazz (Switzerland); Roskilde (Denmark); Lowlands Festival (Netherlands); Lost Weekend (Norway); Stockholm Jazz festival (Sweden); Jazz Festival Saalfelden (Austria) and the O2 & Big Chill Festivals (UK).

To whet your appetite, we have highlighted our favourite festival acts who are playing shows across Europe this summer. All these bands can be heard featured on our Music Choice channels including Classic Rock; Rock Anthems; Harder than Hell; Indie; The Alternative; Hip Hop and Classic RnB/Soul.

Rage Against The machine

Having split up in 2000, Rage Against The Machine reformed last year to play a couple of shows in America and are now spending the summer in Europe. Known as much for their political message as their incendiary live show, Rage Against The Machine is true great rock act.

See Rage Against the Machine at:

• Electric Weekend (Spain)
• Pinkpop (Netherlands)
• Rock Am Ring (Germany)
• Rock Im Park (Germany)
• Hultsfred Festival (Sweden)
• Nova Rock (Austria)
• Optimus Alive (Portugal)
• T In The Park (Scotland)
• Oxegen (Ireland)
• Rock en Seine (France)
• Reading (England)
• Leeds (England)

Metallica

After a battle against alcoholism and the traumas of a poorly received album, St. Anger, Metallica releases its new album this October. This is their first album release since 5 years. Before that, go see them live. They’re a great live band and guaranteed to put on a show. So if you like your concerts with big riffs and bigger pyrotechnics, see the kings of metal at:

• Pinkpop (Netherlands)
• Electric Weekend (Spain)
• Pukkelpop (Belgium)
• Rock Am Ring (Germany)
• Rock Im Park (Germany)
• Leeds (England)
• Reading (England)

Radiohead

Despite their longevity, Radiohead is a band for today. In Rainbows, their best album in a decade, changed way the music industry thinks about distributing music. See the digital pioneers live at:

• Southside Festival (Germany)
• Hurricane Festival (Germany)
• Roskilde (Denmark)
• Rock Werchter (Belgium)
• Main Square (France)

Neil Young

From Buffalo Springfield, through Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and onto his solo career, Neil Young is a living legend. His 30 albums span 40 years, and he’s one of this summer’s biggest festival draws at:

• Rock In Rio, Madrid (Spain)
• Werchter (Belgium)
• Roskilde (Den,mark)
• Bospop (Netherlands)
• Optimus Alive (Portugal)

Jay-Z

After retiring in 2003, Jay-Z returned two years ago to critical acclaim. Now he’s playing the European festivals, including Glastonbury, where, controversially, he’ll be the first major hip hop artist to headline the hippest of the old hippie festivals. He’s also appearing with Linkin Park at their Projekt Revolution show at Milton Keynes, UK, so expect collaborations galore.

See Jay-Z at:

• Glastonbury (England)
• Projekt Revolution (England)
• Rock Werchter (Belgium)
• Wireless (England)
• Open’er (Poland)
• Roskilde (Denmark)
• Hove (Norway)

Check out our website www.musicchoice.co.uk for the full Music Choice festival calendar.