We're well aware that nearly half our news bits over the past month have been related to internet file sharing, and the topic's been debated to the point of illness, but we wanted to point everybody to a really fantastic article on the topic that's been written and posted... by JANIS IAN of all people.

TRAVIS have cancelled all forthcoming European tour dates, as drummer Neil Primrose is in hospital with a suspected broken vertebrae. Primrose was injured in a pool accident in France, where the band are currently on tour. The official word from the Travis camp: "Whilst relaxing in the pool, Travis drummer Neil Primrose struck his head and was knocked unconscious. After realising his predicament, other band and crew members dragged Neil from the pool and gave him assistance. He was taken by ambulance to the local hospital in Belfort to receive treatment and to undergo tests.

Bjork announced the tracklisting of her upcoming 'Greatest Hits' album to be released in September. The tracks were chosen by fans on bjork.com for the as-yet-untitled project. She will also be releasing a DVD of her Royal Opera House concert in August. Click the 'Read More' link for the tracklisting.

The Shining have postoned their US tour. As mentioned before, the Shining are a new band with a couple ex-members of the Verve. They were scheduled to play three dates (NY, Toronto, and LA) next week but have pulled out. But hold on to your tickets because they will play those shows and we'll let you know as soon as they reschedule. If you haven't bought tickets, then enter to win tickets at the US Shining site.

NOT a good way to end a Thursday afternoon, folks. Breaking news has just hit the AP wire that JOHN ENTWISTLE, bassist for THE WHO, has died today in Las Vegas. The Who were scheduled to begin a massive summer US tour in mere days. Cause of death is yet to be released. Entwistle was a mere 57 years old. Play Quadrophenia LOUD tonight.

Salon has another article about the the current state of pay-for-play (or payola) between the record labels and the radio stations. The process is pretty simple, instead of labels directly giving money to radio stations (which is illegal), they hand it over to independent promoters. These promoters then pay radio stations to add songs to the playlist. Even if the program director added a song on his/her own doing, the label for that particular artist would still get an invoice.

Nick Bowman send in this link with a little behind-the-scenes look at Audiogalaxy written by one of their programmers. It's pretty interesting and I'm surprised that Audiogalaxy lasted as long as it did. Once Napster went down, did they even stand a chance?

As mentioned earlier ex-Verve members Simon Jones and Simon Tong are in a new band called The Shining. They are coming to the US with a massive 3-date tour with stops in NY, LA, and Toronto! :) Allstar's got a little blurb about the band and how they've inked a US deal with EMI. Their debut album, 'True Skies', will be released this fall.

AUDIOGALAXY is done. Financially bereft of funds to fight their ongoing RIAA lawsuit, the beleagured file sharing site yesterday settled their suit and agreed to block ALL non-authorized titles. Which means that, though the site still remains up, you can no longer use the Audiogalaxy Satellite to download songs (except the very few authorized by record labels.)

I saw this link to Sunspot on Slashdot about how Universal and Sony are going to start offering you to purchase downloadable music (with the ability to burn the audio to CD) this summer. The prices are set around a buck for a song, and ten bucks for an entire album.