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Pick at the pops: 21 January 2008

Our weekly round-up of the weird and wonderful world of pop music...

The record industry is crumbling around our ears. Well, EMI is, anyway. Following last week’s panic about Robbie Williams not handing over his latest collection of increasingly desperate bandwagon-jumping half-tunes, The Rolling Stones announced their departure from the label. What on earth will EMI do without a Stones album every seven years or so, shifting literally 10s of units with each release? They can’t rely on The Verve – the Wigan space-rock plodders are also holding back their new material until the storm blows over – but seeing as EMI has waited 11 years already, they possibly weren’t relying on it.

It’s China we feel sorry for. Intriguing reports this week revealed that more than a million surplus copies of hapless Robbie’s Rudebox album are being sent to the Far East to be crushed and used for street lighting and road surfacing. It’s going to be dark and bumpy without all those spare Verve albums.

But EMI isn’t the only corporate beast in turmoil, oh no. Sony BMG was hauled over the coals recently for the callous dumping of Saint Annie Lennox. As she announced that she’d been dropped, Annie moped that she’d known things were amiss when the company wouldn’t take her phone calls. The label was bemused – they haven’t let Lennox go at all and are looking forward to renewing the contract. A tip, Annie: give your record label more than one album a decade, and you’ll have a fighting chance of keeping up to date with phone numbers – it’s not 0171 anymore.

Let’s end all this chat of industry gloom on, erm, a gloomy note. He might be riding high with his first solo UK Top 10 hit, ‘Superstar’ – but rapper Lupe Fiasco is already planning his retirement, and it’s sooner than you’d think. The 25-year-old intends to hang up his mic after his next album, saying: “There are other ways besides putting out an album that allow me to channel my creative energy and I’m writing a book about a window washer.” He wouldn’t be drawn on whether it’s a George Formby biog or a saucy ‘70s romp starring Robin Askwith.

Matthew Horton

Picture: PA Photos

• 14/01/2008: Robbie and Coldplay turn on EMI >>
• 07/01/2008: Out with the old, in with the new >>
• 2007 archive >>
• 2006 archive >>