News The Week That Was: Etta James, Megaupload & The National

This time last week here at The Week That Was we found ourselves reporting the news that both Refused and At The Drive-In had decided to reform, which made lots of people very happy. This week, however, has been considerably less joyful - with the sad news yesterday of the death of soul legend Etta James at age 73 leaving the music world in mourning. The much-loved singer, best known for songs ‘At Last’ and ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’, died at a California hospital after battling with Leukeamia.

Also this week, the music world heard of the news that file-sharing website Megaupload was dramatically shut down by the FBI, with prosecutors accusing the site of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue. Equally as dramatically, hackers retaliated to the news by bringing down the website of Universal Music, among others. The site’s founder and executives then found themselves before a court in New Zeakand and jailed in remand, having also had around $50 million worth of assets seized. Ouch.

Besides from multi-million dollar piracy websites shutting down, bands and PR people continued to work hard this week to get their worth of column inches - with the following at least partially successful:

Some band called The Shins announced a one-off London show in March. US-rapper Azealia Banks signed to some label called Universal Music. The National decided that a trip to Butlins would be a jolly good idea (they’ve got a wave machine, y’know?), while also agreeing to bring some musical friends along for some festival called ATP. And some singer called Lana Del Rey was very busy; performing on Saturday Night Live, posting snippets of album tracks, and getting her songs remixed. Though I’ve never heard of her - is she any good?

The drummer for the Fleet Foxes this week decided he no longer wanted to be in a successful band, announcing on Tumblr of all places that he was instead opting to perform on his and be known hereon as ‘the ex-drummer of successful folk band Fleet Foxes’. Well, probably. Three brothers from Wakefield did some conversating about their forthcoming Johnny Marr-less new album. Acid Glasses continuned sounding like a weirdo after unveiling a brand new track for free download. The Isle of Wight added the likes of Dry the River, Best Coast, and Miles Kane to their line-up. Wild Beasts announced that Alt-J would be supporting them on their February UK tour. The cancellation UK music festival The Big Chill was announced this week, apparently to not clash with the Olympics.

If you actually wanted to listen to music this week rather than simply reading words about it then firstly: well done for getting this far, and secondly: read on. Everybody’s favourite new band Bos Angeles unveiled a brand new track, with the likes of Sleigh Bells, Azealia Banks, Bon Iver and Cursive all preemptively following their lead. If one song isn’t quite enough, First Aid Kit, Islet and Cloud Nothings decided to give those with access to sufficiently fast internet the option to stream their forthcoming full-lengths.

If sitting in your bedroom listening to music doesn’t excite you, then maybe standing in a dark, smelly, crowed room listening to music will. You’ve a range of options to test out that theory, with The Phenomenal Handclap Band, The Wave Pictures, Sleigh bells, Fanfarlo, Los Campesinos!, and even Ryan Adams all plotting tours of the UK.

And that was that. What more could you ask for? A joke you say? Well, alright. Knock Knock.

Interrupting cow.

MOO.