According to emimusic.com “The EMI Group is the third biggest major record label in music sales. They accounted for 13.4% of the market in 2005”

EMI Music is known to be one of the world's leading music companies  The EMI record label include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Latin, Capitol Records Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, EMI Records Nashville, Manhattan, Parlophone, Virgin Classics and Virgin Records. Some Artists on EMI record label includes Lily Allen, Bat For Lashes, The Beatles, Beastie Boys, Luke Bryan, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Gorillaz, David Guetta, Iron Maiden, Norah Jones, Lady Antebellum, Massive Attack, Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry, Pink Floyd, Corinne Bailey Rae, Sir Simon Rattle, Snoop Dogg, Tinie Tempah, Thirty Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall and Keith Urban as well as international artists such as Amaral (Spain), Air and Camille (France), Empire of the Sun (Australia), Tiziano Ferro and Vasco Rossi (Italy), Flex (Mexico), LaFee (Germany) and Hikaru Utada (Japan).
The original company of EMI was founded by the inventor of the gramophone Emile Berliner.  EMI was well engaged to the new genre of music which was digital music when it began in the 1990’s
Some examples of the main artists that is connected with EMI music are listed below,

- Tinie Tempah
- Katy Perry  
- Kylie Minogue
- Robbie Williams
- Snoop Dog
- The Beatles

EMI is not doing as well as it expects to do.  Recently the label has lost $2.4 billion which was added to its previous debt making it a total of $4.5 billion in debt to CitiGroup.  I think the downturn could be linked to people not paying for music. It is also obvious that people are making high purchases compared to before; but the problem is that they are often buying some tracks and not the whole album.


Independent label: RAP-A-LOT
Rap-a-lot was first founded by James Smith in 1986 and soon became an independent hip-hop label in the region. In 1991 the label calibrated up with Priority Records to manufacture & distribute releases. This deal continued until 1994, when Rap-A-Lot switched over to Noo Trybe Records which was under Virgin Records America, Inc. for distribution. 1995. Around 1997/98 Virgin Records became the main parent label for Rap-A-Lot until around 2003/04. Currently Asylum Records is the parent label of Rap-A-Lot Records.
Some main artists that signed up with Rap-a-lot records are listed below:
- 5th Ward Boyz
- Belo Zero
- Big Lurch
- Big Mello
- Big Mike

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were asked to purchase a music magazine catering for a music genre. our task was to select a current and interesting article within the magazine and to explain what the articles expresses.

I chose to purchase the source magazine; The Source magazine is an American music magazine that caters for the Hip-Hop music genre.

The source magazine’s main article is about Jay-z and his blueprint album, the magazine is celebrating the albums 10^th anniversary. Shawn Corey Carter also known as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur.  Jay-z The Blueprint album was released in September 11, 2001 which was also where the 9/11 attacks took place. According to Wikipedia “Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks.” The Blueprint album by Jay z went straight to the top of the charts despite the tragic moment. It is described by www.vancouversun.com that “The Blueprint redefined an entire genre in the midst of one of the darkest moments in U.S. history, albums becoming the soundtrack to the months following the attacks on the World Trade Centre. But thankfully the albums did not touch upon politics, war or religion”

The American artists wanted to change the tragedy into triumph by releasing significant albums to help them achieve that. The blueprint by Jay-z was not the only album released on 9/11.  The source magazine covers the different types of albums that were released around the 9/11 attacks. Some examples are listed below:

-          “Pain is love” by JA RULE (Released date: 2^nd Feb)

-          “Iron flag” by WU-TANG CLAN (Released date: 18^th Dec)

-          “Infamy” by MOBB DEEP (Released Date: 11^th Dec)

-          “Genesis” by BUSTA RHYMES (Released Date: 27^th Nov)

-          “Stillmatic” by NAS (Released Date: 18^th Dec)

-          “Dirty Money” by UGK (Released Date: 13^th Nov)

As well as celebrating the birth of the album “the blueprint” by jay Z. The Source magazine is also celebrating other artist achievement of albums that helped some people to overcome the disastrous day.

Do you think this was an effective way to take the attention away from 9/11 attacks?