The Family Rain release their debut album today ‘Under The Volcano’ through Vertigo / Virgin EMI Records. Recorded over four weeks at Berlin's famed Hansa Studios, it’s ten tracks of primal, blues-powered rock 'n' roll. Nagging melodies combine with heavy, metallic riffs to produce a searing rock record of intelligence and wit.
To celebrate a career spanning a decade and three Top 10 albums, Hard-Fi release ‘Best of 2004 – 2014’ today, containing their biggest hits alongside band and fan favourites. Hard-Fi’s double Platinum debut ‘Stars of CCTV’ sold over 1 million copies worldwide, topped the UK album charts, and earned them a 2005 Mercury nomination. It spawned five Top 15 singles including ‘Hard to Beat’, ‘Cash Machine’ and ‘Living for the Weekend’, and made them the most played band on Radio 1 in 2006.
Universal Music Publishing is delighted to welcome Raleigh Ritchie to the UMP family. His musical style is a unique amalgamation of R&B, soul, indie and pop - of which Raleigh himself says, “I know what my kind of music is I just don't know what to call it”.
Looking for the perfect song for your sync? We’ve just launched our new online music platform UMPG Songs – designed to empower advertising, film, TV, and online creatives to quickly pinpoint exactly the right piece of music for their project. UMPG Songs contains hundreds of thousands of tracks available to stream, download and licence – from a writer’s full back catalogue to the latest releases, with new works added every week.
Pixies continue to tease out new material with the release of a second EP to follow last September’s ‘EP1’. ‘EP2’ builds on the momentum of the first release – showing Pixies to be a band far from content to mellow out. The EP features four new songs: ‘Blue Eyed Hexe’, ‘Magdalena’, ‘Greens and Blues’ and ‘Snakes’.
Talking about the tracks Black Francis says that ‘Blue-Eyed Hexe’ “took on different forms, different music and different sets of lyrics before it settled where it is now. It’s a tale from the northwest of the country and it’s a witch-woman kind of a song”. Of ‘Greens and Blues’ he says they were looking to create a “show closer... a good night song. A song that would – musically, emotionally and psychologically – sit in the same place that ‘Gigantic’ has sat”.
The nominees for the Brit Awards 2014 were announced yesterday, with songwriters and artists signed to Universal Music Publishing receiving an impressive eighteen nominations in total. Bastille and Disclosure lead the way with four nominations each., including the prestigious British Album Of The Year.
It’s been a phenomenal year for Bastille, and to top it off, their No. 1 Platinum selling album ‘Bad Blood’ has been named the UK’s biggest selling debut album of 2013, shifting over half a million copies. It was also the most successful digital artist album of 2013.
Angels Haze’s debut album ‘Dirty Gold’ is out now on Island/Republic. Talking about the album to Rolling Stone magazine, Angel Haze describes it as “a melting pot of a ton of different genres”. The Guardian has hailed 'Dirty Gold' as a “brave and original” debut, noting that “Haze is a smart, striking and original lyricist”.
The nominations for the 56th Grammy Awards were announced on Friday, with Disclosure, James Blake, Florence Welch, Adele and Coldplay amongst the UMP writers in the running for an award.
The Killers continue their very own festive tradition with a Christmas single and video released to raise money for Project (RED) - with all proceeds going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. ‘Christmas in L.A.’ finds a melancholy Owen Wilson drifting around L.A. at Christmas time, and slips between a film and an animation. It also features the voice of actor Harry Dean Stanton and folk rockers Dawes.