In a lawsuit filed last April, lawyers acting for the band argued that EMI should not be entitled to sell Pink Floyd’s extensive back catalogue – a back catalogue second only to that of the Beatles’ in terms of value – as individual tracks online so as to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums”.

EMI argued that the contentious clause in Pink Floyd’s latest contract, signed in 1999, five years before the boom in legal digital downloads (which states that they have no right to sell any of Pink Floyd’s music as single tracks other than with the band’s express permission), only applied to physical copies and not digital ones.

EMI were ordered to pay an estimated £60,000 in costs, with fines still to be decided, and banned from selling Pink Floyd’s music online.

A challenge on the amount of royalties that band members receive from online sales has also gone in the way of Pink Floyd. It is the first royalties dispute between artist and record company ever to be held in private, as per EMI’s wishes.

So, a triumph for art over corporatism… or all a bit unnecessarily precious? Would you do the same for your music if you felt it were open to exploitation and if, through a lifetime of commercial accomplishment (which had created successful careers and all its trappings for many others, don’t forget), you felt you had very much earned the right to protect your work from being dissected and packaged in more profitable bite-size pieces to suit interests other than your own?

Are you disappointed that you may soon be unable to individually purchase Pink Floyd tracks online, or would you always choose an album in its entirety because of its characteristic “seamless” nature? Should it matter if the creators of the music would ideally prefer you to listen to their work as one continuous piece, or should the consumer always have the right to choose?

It’s cheaper to download an album than each of its tracks individually, after all.

Besides, isn’t love for the mellifluous the reason why such effort went into making Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd what it is (and why familiarity with the albums from which the songs were taken meant that, for many, Echoes didn’t really work)? That wasn’t merely a carve-up job with the songs idly presented in any old order.

Go on, as NME’s Luke Lewis set me off with his blog post yesterday, which songs – from any classic album, not just Pink Floyd’s – could you live without if you chose to purchase digitally rather than in the formats that many of us still cherish.

I’ll go first: Blood on the Tracks’ frenetic ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ by Bob Dylan. There, I said it. (Forgive me, Bob.) More often than not, it gives me an instant headache. As does Don Henley’s ‘Man With a Mission’ (from Building the Perfect Beast). But I can skip these songs when my head is feeling particularly delicate and they remain part of two of my favourite albums regardless. Granted, when purchased, there was no option to pick and choose each song, nor to preview them freely at leisure. However, I still feel that today’s wider choice is mostly irrelevant to me when it comes to downloading music, and surely this should be all the more true when it comes to concept albums.

In fact, of Pink Floyd’s more obvious concept albums, you’d be hard pressed to find a track that does not segue at either its beginning or end.

Can you imagine ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ not turning into ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’? Or ‘Overture’ from The Who’s Tommy not concluding with the joyous announcement that ‘It’s a Boy’?

I’d enjoy sharing your examples of the perfect song segue, if you care to.

So, lots of questions to end the week with and perhaps to aggravate you well into the weekend, but I have (almost) managed to refrain from asking whether we should condone public flogging as the only punishment befitting the heinous crime of savagely butchering Dark Side of the Moon.

Now, there’s a thought… Dare I suggest that maybe EMI got off lightly?

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Two albums released (in the UK) this week – yesterday, in fact – which I’m enjoying are Man Up by The Blue Van and Beat the Devil’s Tattoo by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I do think I should have saved more than £1-a-time by downloading and forgoing all that awful plastic, but that’s another matter entirely.

Marcus Bonfanti’s What Good Am I To You?, released last month, is also one to look out for. He’s touring at the moment, with tickets extremely reasonably-priced.

The above- and below-mentioned artist names, you’ve probably already realised and maybe even clicked out of curiosity, double as links to respective MySpace pages, should you care to give their tunes a few moments of your time.

Free downloads provide a good way of adding new material to your music collection. Here’s one from MGMT, and here’s another – it’s from Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back. Produced by Bob Ezrin, it’s a collection of orchestral covers of songs such as David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ and Elbow’s ‘Mirrorball’, to perhaps give two of the more enticing examples.

If you know of any other goodies, and they must be legal downloads, don’t forget, please don’t keep them to yourself.

Which as-yet unreleased albums are you most looking forward to? New releases are expected from Arcade Fire, The National, Radiohead, R.E.M. and U2 this year. The one I most eagerly anticipate, though, is a fresh offering from Fleet Foxes.

Black Rock by Joe Bonamassa comes out later this month, too…

And speaking (or blogging, rather) of guitarists, there’s also a ‘new’ Jimi Hendrix album out; called Valleys of Neptune, it’s made up of previously unreleased songs, and you could win a copy here, courtesy of the nice people at Fender. Good luck.

Your thoughts on any of these, plus recommendations for others, are, as usual, appreciated; as were the birthday messages for David, thank you all for those.

You never know, 2010 could turn out to be as good a year for music as… 2006?

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As I know that you’d like to do the same, because some of you have already started, I’ll let you get on with it.

My thanks, on David’s behalf, for the well-wishes.

If you’d like to continue discussing the illustrious John Peel and the great many Peel Sessions of note, you are very welcome to do so (but here, not here, please).

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Naturally, online campaigns protesting against the proposals have sprung up, and one name that has been mentioned repeatedly is that of much-loved and greatly-missed DJ, John Peel, who died suddenly following a heart attack in 2004.

As Phill Jupitus so simply yet perfectly put it, killing off 6 Music would be “an affront to the memory of John Peel.” David Bowie added that “6 Music keeps the spirit of broadcasters like John Peel alive, and for new artists to lose this station would be a great shame.”

Best known for his legendary Peel Sessions, which began in September 1967 and ran for 37 years, John Peel undoubtedly helped launch many a career, often by championing music that others would not play. In a 2002 BBC poll to discover the 100 Greatest Britons, he was even voted 43rd, some recognition for his services at BBC Radio 1 and with pirate radio station, Radio London, before that.

For anyone passionate about music, his Top Gear show on Radio 1 every Tuesday and Thursday night made for essential listening. Due to Musicians’ Union rules, he had to include a sizeable portion of non-recorded music in each programme, and, mercifully, live recordings were preferred to the usual chatter.

There exists a vast archive of Peel Sessions, containing 4,000 in all by more than 2,000 artists; including six by Pink Floyd and many from associated acts such as Roxy Music, Roy Harper and Robert Wyatt. Browse by artist or by year.

And so we return to 6 Music…

If you’d like to hear any Peel Session again, Marc Riley invites listeners to share which session they’d most like him to play – and why.

Everyone can listen to 6 Music online, so what better way to help a station in distress?

If you could, I’d like lots of Peel appreciation, as well as Sessions, today.

My favourite has to be Syd Barrett’s. Accompanied by David with Jerry Shirley on drums, recorded in February 1970 and aired the following month, this was later released on Peel’s Strange Fruit label and is an absolute must for any Syd fan.

Thoughts on 6 Music and the BBC in general are also quite welcome; I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking up other imaginative ways in which the corporation could cut back, rather than by scrapping their only radio station with a genuinely ‘alternative’ playlist and where, in true Peel tradition, new acts can be heard on a daily basis.

By the way, if you missed the John Peel tribute single – a version of the Buzzcocks number, ‘Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've)?’, featuring David on rhythm guitar and benefiting Amnesty International – do look/listen out for it.

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The 16th Fairtrade Fortnight, the UK’s annual campaign to encourage its consumers to buy products stamped with the Fairtrade mark (as shown) in order to help farmers in developing countries, began on Monday, as it was announced that UK sales of Fairtrade goods were up by 12 per cent last year – to an estimated £799 million.

This year’s ethical push, billed The Big Swap, aims to rally people to switch their everyday grocery items in particular for Fairtrade equivalents. Which is now easier than ever, of course, given that more than 4,500 products are now licensed to carry the mark.

Both Ben & Jerry’s and Green & Black’s have recently declared that they will be 100 per cent Fairtrade by the end of next year; Ben & Jerry’s promising that their ice cream will be 100 per cent Fairtrade globally by the end of 2013.

Sainsbury’s has claimed itself ‘the world’s largest Fairtrade retailer’ following a ten per cent rise in sales of Fairtrade-certified goods – to £218 million in 2009.

The previous year, the Co-operative became the first UK supermarket to convert all its own-brand beverages to Fairtrade. It has supported Fairtrade since 1992.

Starbucks has pledged that all coffee sold in the UK and Ireland will be Fairtrade-certified, which would make it the largest purchaser of Fairtrade coffee in the world.

From last year, cosmetics brands could also carry the Fairtrade mark.

This year’s Fairtrade Fortnight focus is on tea.

We drink more than a billion cups a day – 165 million, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the UK. Globally, the tea trade is worth nearly $4 billion and more than 20 million people in the developing world rely on it (some three million in Kenya alone), yet today’s producers receive barely half of what they did 30 years ago.

10 per cent of the tea sold in the UK is now Fairtrade, but the target is for that figure to rise to 50 per cent by 2012. If it did, the lives of millions around the world would alter drastically, as Mica Paris discovered on a recent visit to southern India.

Recent research found that two-thirds of UK consumers either buy Fairtrade tea already or would like their favourite brand to be Fairtrade. Subsequently, the five brands that, between them, account for 72 per cent of the UK tea market – PG Tips, Tetley, Twinings, Typhoo and Yorkshire Tea – were asked to switch all their products to Fairtrade. As yet, they haven’t done so.

By the way, all of Co-op’s, Marks & Spencer’s and Sainsbury’s own-brand tea is 100 per cent Fairtrade; Clipper has been carrying the Fairtrade mark since the mid-Nineties; and Cafédirect has been selling Fairtrade tea for over a decade (all their teas, coffees and hot chocolates are completely Fairtrade, in fact).

Buying Fairtrade products not only helps farmers and their families achieve a higher standard of living, but also sends a message to the movers and shakers: ‘I don’t agree with the current system that you have for so long manipulated. Its unfair trade rules keep people trapped in poverty; fairer means of trading could lift millions out of it, which would have consequences for all of us.’

Yet doesn’t Fairtrade also enrich those same exploitative forces while nicely covering up the less favourable practices of global household brands? (Personally, albeit somewhat tactlessly, I don’t care if Kit Kats are Fairtrade now; they’re still Nestlé.) Do you think the public are being deceived by such labels and shamed into paying more for them? Or doesn’t it matter if you can afford to buy them? After all, there’s exploitation and then there’s exploitation, and if you’re reading this you’re not one of the two billion people – roughly a third of the world’s population – still existing on less than $2 a day and unable to taste the fruits of their toil.

The Fairtrade Foundation’s target this year is for ‘swaps’: giving up a product in favour of a Fairtrade equivalent, ideally one million of them, proving that the UK wants producers in the developing world to get a better trade deal at long last.

As this is an international blog, many of you will not be able to give numerical support to this campaign, but we can all make a difference by changing our shopping habits. Ethical consumerism does change things. Your purse, wallet or plastic card of choice can, at times, prove itself to be equally effective as the pen you use to write letters of complaint, sign petitions or even mark ballot papers.

The domination of global agriculture by large corporations, combined with the ever-increasing influence of supermarkets in supply chains, has grown considerably: half the world’s coffee beans are purchased by Kraft, Nestlé, Proctor & Gamble, Sara Lee and Tchibo. The ten leading food retailers control around a quarter of the $3.5 trillion world food market, just three companies control a whopping 90 per cent of the world’s grain trade, and the top ten seed companies control almost half the $21 billion global commercial market.

Two billion of the world’s poorest people are dependent on small-scale farms, so you’d think it crucial that we support them. Doing so would increase food production and thus reduce global poverty, after all. They produce the bulk of many developing countries’ food (up to 80 per cent of Zambia’s, for example) and small, integrated farming systems have been shown to yield more per hectare in the long-term than larger ones. Vietnam, for example, has gone from being a food-deficit country to a major exporter of food due to higher productivity in family farms. It is now the second largest exporter in the world.

Add to this the obvious advantages of local farmers spending their income on local goods and services, which in turn boosts their local economies.

Supporting them would also help the environment: they manage a large share of the world’s water as well as vegetation cover, and farm far more sustainably than those industrial-scale, intensive monstrosities that trouble many of us so, thereby reducing soil erosion, increasing biodiversity and preserving soil fertility.

So, what exactly is Fairtrade? (Apparently, 30 per cent don’t know, so, should you fall into this category, allow me to try and explain.)

On the condition that small-scale farmers are organised, usually into democratically-run co-operatives (by being organised in this way, farmers increase their collective power and can claim a larger share of their profits, as opposed to being exploited by unscrupulous middlemen), and meet standards that promote sustainable agriculture, farmers receive a guaranteed minimum price for their goods, which covers their production costs and is above the world market price.

Fairtrade coffee producers in Nicaragua, for example, currently earn 20 cents per pound more than non-Fairtrade producers.

Coffee farmers in Oromia, Ethiopia, receive twice as much per pound of coffee beans by selling to Fairtrade buyers as opposed to private buyers. Considering that the average farmer produces around 1,300 pounds of coffee per year, if all of it was sold at the Fairtrade price rather than the conventional price, these farmers would earn $1,300 more each year.

Sadly, only a small proportion of their coffee is currently sold as Fairtrade, hence why farmers need the Fairtrade market to expand in order to attract more buyers.

The Fairtrade premium, an additional sum per kilo paid by Fairtrade buyers, is for social and community development. The Fairtrade premium received by the member societies of the Ankole Coffee Union in Uganda amounts to 10 cents per pound. The entire community now has access to clean water because of it.

The premium awarded to Mabale Tea Growers’ Factory, also in Uganda, has helped improve roads and erect leaf-sheds to protect the tea leaves from the elements during sorting. It has also helped build new classrooms and funded the construction of health clinic, both invaluable to the community.

Again, only around two per cent of Mabale’s tea is sold to Fairtrade buyers. If that suddenly became 22 or, better still, 82 per cent, think of the possibilities.

Of course, governments should act to support their farmers and protect them from exploitation. Yet if the people in the richest corners of the globe buy Fairtrade items, they play their small part in making things a lot better for a great many.

The farmers producing tea – the people behind your cuppa, if you like – can scarcely afford to drink their own product. Shouldn’t we, the ones fortunate enough to able to afford it and even more fortunate to be able to effect change through doing something so simple as buying one thing instead of another, at the very least help create for them a better standard of living? What an easy, almost effortless way to make a difference. Hell, we should even be ashamed of that.

Something else to consider is that, in developing countries last year, according to UN Millennium Development Goal figures, an estimated 50 to 90 million more people were thrown into extreme poverty.

I’d like to hear of your favoured Fairtrade products and swaps. Please take a moment to help the campaign to make every cup of tea in the UK Fairtrade by encouraging, in a few mouse clicks, the big five to switch to Fairtrade.

Oxfam are swapping tea for donations right now. In exchange for your unwanted goods, you will receive a free box of Cafédirect tea bags.

As a thank you for swapping to Fairtrade, Cadbury Dairy Milk has released an album entitled Big Swap Songs, which includes five UK chart hits covered by Ghanaian group, The Big Ghana Band. It is free to anyone who switches to any Fairtrade product during the fortnight. Download a free copy of the album by sharing which items you’ve swapped, or visit your local newsagents during the second week of Fairtrade Fortnight (that’s next week) to receive a free CD.

I very much enjoyed reading your views on this topic last year, so look forward to finding out if they’ve changed at all or if you’ve re-assessed any other consumerist habits for the better. Maybe you’ve become more cynical? If so, do tell. (Rainforest Alliance certification is something, no doubt, but 30 per cent just does not impress quite like 100, and it does smack of ‘greenwash’ to me.)

Apologies, naturally, that much of the above is of most relevance to UK-readers. Links to local campaigns or other Fairtrade retailers are very welcome.

©2010 The Blog. All Rights Reserved.

If you’ve been wondering, Lance’s clay sculpture is now complete – and here’s the finished article. A video of its development can be viewed here.

Thanks again for sharing it, Lance.

The chatroom will be open tomorrow from 3pm (UK), so have some of the Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll lined up and we’ll chat about… something completely unrelated, I’m sure.

Keep those songs coming, please.

On this day in 1969, David’s pick of his Desert Island Discs – ‘Dancing in the Street’ by Martha and the Vandellas – was a UK Top Five hit behind Diana Ross, the Supremes and the Temptations (‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’), Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely?)’, ‘Blackberry Way’ by The Move and Cardiff’s very own Amen Corner, with ‘(If Paradise is) Half As Nice’. Would you nominate any of those as a song that shaped music?

If ever a recording studio influenced music more than most, it’s Abbey Road. We’ll talk about this legendary London landmark next week, by which time there may have been a decision made as to its new owners. Fingers crossed.

Until then, here’s something to consider: Should the National Trust try to save it?

Lastly, in continuing with references and bold directions to old posts that you might like to re-visit: Oasis won the BRIT’s Album of 30 Years award, by the way.

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Which got me thinking of answers to two questions:

1) Are there any David Gilmour/Pink Floyd songs in there (and if there aren’t, should there be)?
2) Have any of the songs written and recorded in, say, the last 30 years really influenced the way popular music has evolved?

Take a look at the list of 500, as chosen by a gaggle of curatorial staff at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum with a little help from rock critics and historians, or perhaps don’t just yet, because other than your thoughts on what has been listed, I’d like to know which songs you would select without first being influenced by what the exhibit values most highly.

I’m sure that we could come up with a decent list of 500 between us, so please list as many or as few as you wish, but please do bear in mind that these are songs that have shaped Rock and Roll, influencing and inspiring others to take up instruments, be they of the writing or the musical sort, and to get creative. Therefore, they almost all will have to have been popular, if not hugely commercially-successful (but many of them are most likely to have been worldwide hits, rightly or wrongly). And, of course, you don’t have to like them; you just have to acknowledge their influence, even if it is somewhat grudgingly.

All musicians and all genres. Songs only, not albums, please. If you think of an artist that absolutely deserves inclusion, but cannot decide on a song, do list him or her and perhaps others can chime in with suggestions for most deserving entry.

Looking forward to what you come up with.

Here are a few to get us started, which you may or may not agree with:

- Beach Boys, ‘Good Vibrations’
- Bill Haley & His Comets, ‘Rock Around the Clock’
- Sam Cooke, ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’
- Carl Perkins, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’
- Queen, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Now we just need another 495…

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Tricky one, this. In spending time thinking about it, whilst simultaneously compiling a list for one of next week’s topics in addition to a Favourite 50 Liverpool Goals countdown (the latter for personal amusement, although it did start as a kind of therapy), and unfortunately not knowing when the voting would cease, I’m now mentioning it too late to positively affect the votes. Unless you follow the comments and tweets, that is. I’m sorry.

To make matters worse, I’m none the wiser for the time spent pondering and have given up trying to confidently produce a completed form.

So I leave it to the experts to enlighten, secure in the knowledge that there are plenty of you who know much more about Country and Jazz guitarists than I ever will or indeed would care to admit. I look forward to your commendations, particularly if you could suggest a song or two to go with the name.

Now that this is just for fun and the nominations cannot be transferred to the voting form irrespective of Guitar Player’s far stricter rules, your choices do not have to exclusively reflect recent activity, either on the road or in the studio, so you need not limit yourself to the creative outpourings of the last year, nor to the 36 days of this one. I trust that makes it much easier.

Best guitarists in as many of the following fields as you can muster, please (I know, Best again; should be Most Popular or at least Most Respected): Acoustic, Blues, Classical, Country, Jazz, Metal, Rock, Slide, World.

Told you it was tricky, but remember: it’s good for the brain to strain and stretch for those names, faces, riffs and melodies that are so often tantalisingly out of reach. And far less monotonous than Sudoku, I like to think.

Joe Bonamassa has been claiming the Best Blues Guitarist accolade in recent years – I think it’s four in a row for him now.

Other 2009 winners include Eric Clapton, Kirk Hammett, Fareed Haque, Warren Haynes, Pat Metheny, Brad Paisley and Derek Trucks.

Who do you predict will be triumphant in 2010?

If you really know your stuff, there were also categories for Best New (Guitar) Talent, Best Outsider/Experimental Guitarist, and Best Overall Guitarist.

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Best known for helping to create the most flawless of harmonies and for penning deeply meaningful lyrics, as well as for all those much-loved pop classics of the early Sixties, Graham, of resolute social conscience, has also been a loyal campaigner for issues that mean most to him, such as environmental causes (establishing NukeFree.org, for example).

He also gave his support – and song – to help Gary McKinnon’s campaign to challenge his extradition on charges of computer hacking. If you missed it or just want to enjoy it again, you can find ‘Chicago (Change the World)’ featuring David, Chrissie Hynde and Bob Geldof, with all-important download links, here.

Did you know that Graham is also a keen photographer and collector of photographs? If you share a passion for photography, have a look and perhaps, in addition to sharing which of Graham’s songs you like best, you can also comment on his diverse collection – there’s plenty to listen to whilst you browse.

Aside from the obvious (‘Just One Look’*, ‘Carrie Anne’, ‘Dear Eloise’, ‘King Midas in Reverse’, ‘Teach Your Children’, ‘Marrakesh Express’), a selection of my favourites would have to include ‘Postcard’, ‘Southbound Train’, ‘Helplessly Hoping’, ‘Liar’s Nightmare’, ‘Military Madness’ and this one, ‘On the Line’.

As a life-long Hollies fan, I’m really pleased to say that they will – finally! – be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next month in a ceremony at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria. It’s about bloody time, too.

Congratulations, and Happy Birthday, Graham.

* ‘Just One Look’, you may not know, was co-written by one Doris Troy/Payne, probably best remembered ’round these parts for being one of the acclaimed female backing vocalists on The Dark Side of the Moon. Here’s her 1963 original.

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They are as follows:

- Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
- Dido, No Angel
- Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms
- Duffy, Rockferry
- Keane, Hopes & Fears
- Oasis, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
- Phil Collins, No Jacket Required
- Sade, Diamond Life
- The Verve, Urban Hymns
- Travis, The Man Who

The thing is, the BRITs being the music industry’s own awards, to be eligible you had to have already won a BRIT Award – in the Best British Album category – and you win this in the first place based on sales figures.

So, I had a look and found the other past winners… and realised that the shortlist probably is as good as it can get, although I would definitely substitute the two Manic Street Preachers albums at the expense of pretty much any of them bar Brothers in Arms and Urban Hymns. I would also like to see Annie Lennox (Union Jack-et negotiable) win a BRIT each year, even though she has seven already.

Do you favour any of these over the actual nominees? If, as many believe, Britannia ruled the (air)waves in the ’60s and ’70s, are these award-winning albums conclusive proof that things have gone downhill dramatically ever since?

- Adam and the Ants, Kings Of the Wild Frontier
- Blur, Parklife (Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell had been nominated)
- Coldplay, Parachutes and X&Y
- The Darkness, Permission to Land
- Fairground Attraction, First Of a Million Kisses
- Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw and the Cooked
- Annie Lennox, Diva
- Manic Street Preachers, Everything Must Go and This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours
- George Michael, Listen Without Prejudice
- Seal, Seal
- Stereo MCs, Connected
- Sting, Nothing Like the Sun

If, like me, you initially find the idea of the ten albums in contention representing the pinnacle of 30 years of British music as depressing as a bowl of cold porridge on a wet winter’s morn (and the use of ‘Best’ as contentious as, well, the last equivalent survey we discussed), you might find this stirs you from your malaise.

Ten ‘better’ albums, even if they weren’t as commercially-successful – from 1980 onwards, please. From UK artists only, don’t forget. (The Division Bell… Hello?)

Should you care to vote, voting closes at 9pm (UK) tomorrow – Thursday 28 January. The winning album will be the one with the most votes when voting ends.

You have to register to vote and the registration form asks for everything other than your shoe size, which may prove off-putting to some. (Slight exaggeration there, but why should one’s date of birth, not to mention telephone number, be required? Presumably the only advantage to registering is being able to cast a vote and leave a comment, not buy cigarettes, and nobody should expect a ring-back.)

The 2010 BRIT Awards will take place on 16 February. Will you be watching?

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