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By Bill Altreuter

And speaking of the music biz, it is early days yet, but a contender for my Personal Hit Single of the summer is Duffy's "Mercy". (There's a fun video here.) This is the kind of thing, it seems to me, that it takes a label to break, and I'm fine with that. The history of popular music is littered with artists who got ripped off by their labels, but there are just as many who got clipped by their managers, or by someone else-- being a good business person is a distinct skill set for musicians, just as it is for lawyers, or anybody else. Good management hears a singer like Duffy, says "I can sell that", and then we get a cool song.

On a recent "Theme Time Radio Hour" Pulitzer Prize winning DJ Bob Dylan was talking about how unfortunate it is that there are no B-sides any more. As usual, he is quite right: what a serendipitous pleasure the B-side was. I like Duffy's "Warwick Avenue" so much that this year I think I'll nominate both a Personal Hit Single and a B-side (even though "Warwick Avenue" is an A-Side in the UK. Hey, singles with two hits are a venerable tradition too).

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on April 13, 2008 (boomark / email).