NME relaunches to rave reviews – and no jokes about stilettos

The new-look NME.

The NME relaunched last week, with 10 different covers, a new design, new logo, and lots and lots of editorial touches that show the confident hand of new editor Krissi Murison, the first woman to hold the position in the magazine's rocky 58-year history. It looks gorgeous – slick and grown-up and, inside, texty and modern. Despite sales dropping year on year, it feels as though things are looking up for the NME, and all because of Murison.

People – writers, labels, readers – seem to like her, like that she's trustworthy, that she's grown up at the NME, that her weekends are spent at gigs, that she's friendly, intelligent, brave (putting Simon Cowell on their Christmas cover) and funny (ditto). And it shows. Readers appreciate that, under her editorship, there's more to read, fewer in-jokes, less hype, some have said, more "thought", more authority.

And, in a magazine previously soaked in testosterone, there are girls. While Conor McNicholas, Murison's predecessor, was once vilified for his comments about Beth Ditto's "stilettos", when Murison was quoted as asking to please be fired "if I ever so much as joke about a woman in a rock feature", a thousand indie girls leapt from their swivel chairs and punched the air. Here's hoping this is a brave new musical dawn.

The Rifles were refused credit by all four of the main high-street banks. Photograph: Jakubaszek/Getty Images

The future of the British music industry is being jeopardised by the refusal of banks to back the next generation of artists, labels and entrepreneurs, according to music industry executives.

The next government needs to deal with the refusal of high-street banks to offer credit to music start-ups because this is preventing the industry from accessing state sources of funding, they say.

None of the £1.3bn already made available in the past year under the government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG), for instance, has gone into music, despite the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills singling out "music composers and own-account artists" as a group worthy of assistance.

Brian Message, co-manager of Radiohead and chairman of the Music Managers Forum, said: "Whoever comes into power must recognise that we have naked discrimination against music and we need to do something about it: either fix the mechanism that we already have or create something new."

This week UK Music, the industry's umbrella group, called for the government to work in partnership with labels and managers. Its Liberating Creativity manifesto made improving access to finance a priority over the next decade.

Working with UK Music, Message has been investigating the EFG, which provides loan guarantees for small and medium-sized businesses that have little or no security with which to raise their own funds. To access the scheme, entrepreneurs first need to persuade a bank to offer them credit; the bank can then use the EFG to guarantee 75% of their loans. But, along with UK Music's chief executive, Feargal Sharkey, Message has made it clear to the government that the music industry is being kept out of the scheme because banks believe it is too risky.

"One bank manager told me: 'If you'd applied for a Domino's Pizza franchise you'd have got the cash straight away,'" he said.

Music contributes at least £5bn annually to the economy, of which £1.3bn comes from export earnings, according to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. But at a time when the industry should be experimenting with new digital models and finding new acts, access to funding is becoming tighter.

David Joseph, chief executive and chairman of Universal Music UK, said: "Time and again, grassroots companies support the first steps to the top of the charts. To take an example from our own roster, Mumford & Sons' manager used his own money to start developing the band's career before he brought them to us. Now they are one of the most exciting British breakthrough artists of the year."

When it was launched just over a year ago, the music industry hoped that the EFG would provide start-up capital to nurture new talent. Message tried a test case, using the East London four-piece the Rifles, a profitable touring band with a following strong enough to pack out venues such as the Roundhouse in London.

He approached his own bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, for £200,000 to fund the next album under the assumption that the EFG would guarantee three-quarters of the loan. The bank declined, even when Message said that he would guarantee the remaining £50,000 of its exposure with his own money.

So he tried Lloyds, which said that the plan was too risky. HSBC reckoned that the eligibility criteria for the EFG meant that it could be used only to support the trading of a business within the UK. As the Rifles were hoping to break into overseas markets, the business plan was considered unacceptable. Finally, Barclays said the band had insufficient trading history.

Message said: "This year, the Rifles should be out spending that £200,000, making their next album. Instead they are all going to be looking for jobs in a couple of weeks."

Damon Albarn at Glastonbury. The music industry contributes enormously to the UK economy. Photograph: Rex Features

Britain has the chance to leapfrog America as the world's biggest music producer over the next decade, but it needs government help to realise this ambition, according to UK Music, the umbrella group which represents UK labels, artists and managers.

It is calling for the government to form a "creative industries cabinet committee" to bring the numerous departments that deal with Britain's creative industries together with entrepreneurs and executives, and to report directly to the prime minister.

In Liberating Creativity, UK Music's manifesto to be published today, the organisation calls for easier access to finance, the ratification of a planned EU extension to copyright from 50 to 70 years, and looser venue licensing so pubs and small clubs can give the next generation of artists a chance to perform. UK Music argues that the success of venues such as the O2 and Glastonbury – which contributes an estimated £35m to the local economy each year – can only be sustained with a thriving grassroots live music scene.

Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones frontman and now UK Music chief executive, said the music industry – and other parts of the creative industries – are vital to the country's economic recovery and need to be taken seriously by government.

"It may sound a bit jingoistic of me – and frankly I don't care if it does – but the music thing is something we are really bloody good at," he said. "We are phenomenally good at it and we think we can go out there and genuinely dominate the world. We think we can give the Americans a good run for their money if not take them out, But we are going to need government's help to do that."

"I think people still look at music and think it is not a proper grown-up profession and that has got to change because ironically what some people in the world of finance might dismiss as nothing more than a couple of kids making noise in the back of a pub on a Friday night, when they grow up to be big boys and girls, the contribution and the impact that they will have on the rest of society is just – if not more – significant as some bloke with a double first from Cambridge working for a merchant bank in the City of London."

UK Music was formed in 2008 in response to the government's call for clarity on the industry's views on issues such an unlawful file-sharing. The result of some of its lobbying is making its way through parliament as the digital economy bill. Last week it was announced that the bill – which includes powers to sever the broadband connections of persistent unlawful file-sharers – would receive a perfunctory second reading in the House of Commons on April 6 before ending up in the pre-election "wash-up". There were protests outside parliament about the lack of debate.

Yesterday saw the launch of the industry initiative Music Matters. It's a two-pronged project with a range of short, animated films, illustrating how musicians have inspired and influenced people over the years. Currently, the artists featured are Blind Willie Johnson, John Martyn, Kate Bush, Sigur Ros, Nick Cave, Louis Armstrong, the Jam and the Fron Choir (who gave a beautifully moving performance at the launch).

The second part of the initiative is a trust mark, which will help music fans to identify if a site is legal. In a previous blog, I have advocated a Fair Trade mark for music sites that treat artists fairly. Though the Music Matters trust mark will not go that far, it's a step in the right direction. I sometimes meet fans who assume that professional-looking sites are legit – especially ones that charge a fee for downloads. This is not always the case.

But for the trust mark to work, we must first establish if music does, indeed, matter. If it does, it has an intrinsic value. I can only assume that, since you've taken the time to visit Guardian.co.uk/music, then music matters to you. I became a musician because music was source of pure joy when I was growing up, and the first thing I turned to when I felt misunderstood and lonely.

That's why it surprised me to learn that 56% of the UK population didn't make a single music purchase in 2008. Does this mean that, to the majority of people, music is just not that important? According to the BPI's latest figures, the highest percentage of music buyers are aged between 30 and 39 (52% of them bought music in 2008). Only 34% of 12-19-year-olds bought music, but the ones who did spent the most on average.

It's true that music has to compete with many other forms of entertainment, more than ever before. Still, figures released this week by the Entertainment Retailers Association show that the recession has hit music less than other forms of entertainment retail. Volume-wise (ie, in units), music sales (including music DVDs) went down by 0.6% between 2008 and 2009 while videogames went down by 9.5%.

But music sales statistics don't necessarily say how much music matters to people – the value is also in how we listen. In Piers Morgan's recent interview with Simon Cowell, the music mogul admitted he would never sit down and just listen to an album, giving it his undivided attention. He just couldn't see the attraction in it. He obviously would not follow the instructions on Gil Scott-Heron's latest album (turn off your mobile phone, don't listen on a portable player or in the car, get rid of all distractions and listen all the way through). In a recent Panorama special on the Digital Economy Bill, the parents of teenagers who downloaded music illegally shrugged their shoulders, saying: "Well, it's just music, isn't it."

In the last few years, many "experts" have been saying that the music industry (note, by that I don't mean just the record industry) should make up the loss of revenue from recorded music by making money from merchandising, branding and synchs (advertising, games etc). Music manager Chris Morrison, who's involved with Music Matters, disagrees. "Try telling Damon Albarn and Grace Jones that they're brands."

The Music Matters initiative is trying to highlight that music has a value in itself. Morrison – who manages Blur, Gorillaz and Grace Jones – mentions the Radiohead In Rainbows pay-what-you-like model. "How offensive it would have been for someone to not pay a penny. Why do you want to have it if it doesn't hold any value to you?" he says. "It's not about how we slice the cake, it's about if there is a cake."

Some believe that because music is much more available than ever before, like water from a tap, it has become disposable. Many people who have tens of thousands of tracks on their hard drives barely listen to a fraction of them. When I was growing up I'd save money to buy an album. That gave music value in itself, and I'd listen to the same record for months, years even. I rarely bought merchandise – just music. So admittedly a campaign trying to establish that music matters seems, to people like me, like a campaign promoting breathing (Popjustice has already responded to the Why Music Matters campaign: "How about 'because it's fucking amazing'?").

Not everyone will have grown up with this relationship to music, however. Music Matters plans to show the short films in schools. If watching them inspires children, it would accomplish something important – it would remind them of music's intrinsic emotional value. It's a value that isn't mentioned enough in debates about the future of music, but it's why music matters to me.

The long pre-release window pushes fans toward piracy before an album is legally available to download on sites such as iTunes. Photograph: Martin Ruetschi/Corbis

A year and a half ago, Behind the Music brought up the problem of staggered releases, and how the custom of servicing songs to radio months before the record is legally available to download drives music fans to use illegal downloading sites. Last summer, I pointed out that acts like David Guetta lost sales to cover artists who released their own versions earlier than the original versions. Last week MusicTank organised a discussion involving Radio 1, NME, indie labels, the Official Chart Company and artist managers to discuss this issue. The event was called No.1 With a Bullet: Is Pre-Release Killing Our Business? Who says the music industry is slow to react to the internet?

To most people it seems obvious that fans will use any means available to them to get a track they like. So why do record labels still wait months to release a record that is gaining momentum? The labels say they're just doing what they have always done but blame the media for jumping the gun. Emily MacKay, reviews editor at NME, says they won't consider reviewing a single weeks after its been all over the internet. They're not the only ones. Newspapers, magazines, music bloggers and specialist radio shows: they all want to be the first to feature a new single. If they're the only place where fans can hear the record, even better.
 
The Guardian has had success with exclusive streams of Gorillaz's Plastic Beach and Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back, and there has been talk about how, in the future, every review would give you the chance to stream the record as you read it, providing the labels allow it. This would be a step in the right direction, though the fact that people often still have the option of downloading these records illegally to listen to them when they're offline remains.
 
Another reason the labels wait to release records is the power of the charts. Though George Ergatoudis, head of music for Radio 1, maintains that his station doesn't rely on the sales charts when they work out their playlists he says the majority of commercial radio stations do. "They look at Radio 1 and, secondly, to the charts." He says commercial radio stations decide when to add songs depending on what would gain the biggest audience. They want to minimise the risk element.
 
Getting an artist into the top 10 in the charts is the holy grail for labels, not just because of revenue (albums are still where labels make a decent return on their investments), but as it guarantees inclusion on the radio playlists. If a single enters the charts in the nether regions it's deemed a flop by radio and won't get playlisted. Without radio exposure there's much less chance of the record selling well, and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
 
Martin Talbot, managing director of the Official Charts Company (OCC), says that today you have to sell 65% more units to become number one than in 2004 (17% more units than a year ago). Compare that to the US, a country with five times the UK population, where you can get to number one by selling just twice that amount.
 
This is a bigger problem for new artists than established ones. "It's important for new artists to build up familiarity," says Ergatoudis. "Established artists should probably release early." The hunger for a new Jay-Z or Coldplay record could easily push it to the top of the charts without any marketing build-up.
 
Sometimes it seems this marketing build-up gets longer and longer. At the end of last year, Radio 1 touted Ellie Goulding as being the newcomer most hotly tipped for stardom in 2010. She's had a high media profile ever since, yet her first single wasn't released until the last week of February. Pendulum's new single, Watercolour, was Zane Low's single of the week, last week – it's not due for release until 3 May. But if you Google the track you'll find that you can download it today from at least six different torrent sites.
 
The problem of pushing fans towards piracy also only applies to the first single of an album. Once the album is out, people can use à la carte music services like iTunes to download single tracks, sometimes dictating to the labels what the next single should be (Lady Gaga's Poker Face being an example, as the label had, allegedly, planned on releasing another track as a single at the time).
 
These are all valid reasons to close the pre-release gap, but just as the internet has opened up fantastic opportunities, piracy has changed the rules of the game. "What's going to happen when the first kid is up in court next year accused of falling foul of the Digital Economy Bill?" says Jon Webster, chief executive of the Music Managers' Forum. "If the pre-release window isn't closed they will be able to plead 'not guilty as I couldn't buy the music anywhere'. How's that going to make the music business look?"
 
So what can be done? If record labels work collectively to close the pre-release window it would go against the rules of free competition. Webster proposes a change to the chart rules. If there were a rule saying that as soon as a track goes to radio it's considered to be on sale, then everyone would have to adapt.
 
This, however, is a solution that the OCC is not too keen on. Will the record industry adjust itself without any intervention – or will we be having the same discussion again in another year and a half?

Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said that the growth of streaming of copyrighted works is a major threat to jobs in the creative industries. Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

A quarter of a million British jobs in the music, film, TV, software and other creative industries could be lost over the next five years if online piracy continues at its current rate, according to a study backed by European unions and the TUC.

Across the EU, as many as 1.2 million jobs are in jeopardy as piracy looks set to strip more than €240bn (£218bn) in revenues from the creative industries by 2015, unless regulators can stem the flow. In 2008, the creative industries contributed €860bn to the EU's GDP – almost 7% – and they employ 6.5% of the EU workforce, or 14 million people.

As well as a clampdown on peer-to-peer filesharing of unlawfully copied material, the government has agreed with the Conservatives to put a new clause into the forthcoming bill that will deal with websites and online repositories used to store unlawfully copied material.

The survey, commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce, followed the publication by the Conservatives of their technology manifesto last week. The party pledged to create the fastest high-speed broadband network in Europe, creating 600,000 jobs and setting Britain up as a "European hub" for the digital and creative industries.

The survey, by independent Paris-based economics firm TERA Consultants, shows that Britain will be worst hit of the leading European countries not least because the creative industries account for more than 9% of GDP, a higher proportion than in other countries.

The core creative industries – film, TV, music, publishing and advertising – in the EU's 27 states added almost €560bn to GDP in 2008, roughly 4.5% of total European GDP, according to the report. The value added by the all industries connected with the creative sector – which includes distribution, logistics and hardware companies such as TV and set-top box manufacturers – was €860bn in 2008, an estimated 6.9% of total European GDP. In 2008 the core creative industries employed 8.5 million people, while the entire sector's workforce was 14 million.

Across the EU, 'Building a Digital Economy: The Importance of Saving Jobs in the EU's Creative Industries' reckons that in 2008 the creative industries most hit by piracy – film, TV series, recorded music and software – lost €10bn in retail revenues which contributed to the loss of more than 185,000 jobs. In the UK, retail revenues lost to piracy last year topped €1.4bn, with the creative industries shedding 39,000 jobs.

The survey has been endorsed by the British union groups including the TUC, Unite, Equity, the Musicians Union and Bectu as well as global arts union UNI MEI and the European Coordination of Independent Producers. Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said the study stressed that "the growth of unauthorised downloading and streaming of copyrighted works was a major threat to the creative industries in terms of loss of employment and revenues. The scale of the problem is truly frightening now". – let alone in the future if no firm actions against illegal filesharing are taken. If there was ever the proof needed to demonstrate why the Digital Economy Bill is imperative for the protection of our creative industries, this report is it."

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the UK music industry body the BPI, added "we're approaching a tipping point where investment in our talent will dry up due to mass illegal downloading".

"That won't just be a problem for the music industry, or even the entertainment sector as a whole. It will do serious damage to the UK economy and destroy huge numbers of jobs."

The report comes after research from Skillset, the industry body which supports training in the media, warned that half of British media companies believe they have a 'skills gap', with a shortage of talent in crucial areas such as digital technology and broadcast engineering, as well as a lack of commercial knowledge in some areas.

Its report, Strategic Skills Assessment for the Creative Media Industries, shows that graduates now make up 73% of the workforce, compared to 66% in 2003, and more than half of their degrees are in media. But the proportion of people with relevant technical or vocational qualifications is a mere 7%.

One in four employers say more training is needed in multiplatform content and new technology, while one in 10 argue that greater management and leadership skills are a priority.