The first decade of the noughties was one of unprecedented change in the way music is consumed online. The first legal file sharing site Wippit came & went but it was iTunes that really impacted the most on music & single handedly revolutionised the charts. Since then Myspace, Youtube came into the fray although with semi legal services. What does 2010 hold for music ?

We believe the freemium juggernaught will continue to make inroads with Spotify, We7 leading the audio way, however the biggest revolution will be made by the likes of Youtube (already the default place for seekers of music who don’t want to risk viruses).

You see the problem with Spotify & others is in the licensing. without a global licensing deal, they will make small dents into illegal filesharing. Semi legal sites like Youtube will continue to flourish. Myhotmusic suggests labels set up their own version using tools that are readily available. Sites such as Youtube, Blip.TV & Muzu.tv are now sharing revenue and labels stand to make a lot more if they use them. It makes a lot of sense for people to watch a video with buy links underneath it & if they want to get the audio they’ll just click through to your site and order it on CD or mp3 rather than put up with the incovenience of saving it and converting it.

One of Britain’s most successful r&b acts and the UK’s answer to the Jacksons. Five Star’s legacy is that they were the first all singing and all dancing UK r&b acts to cross over and become megastars in their own right. With a string of hits, a huge profile and best of all it was totally in-house. They should have had much more success in the U.S than they did.

This song was my older brother’s favourite song and it was the first Evelyn King I liked and still rocks on the dancefloors around the world even today.

You just can’t listen to 80s r&b, rap and hip hop and wonder where all the innocence went. The music back then wasn’t all about bling, guns, n***as, bitches and hoes. I managed to dig this up and it even features a young Whitney Houston when her star began to shine. Something for the younger generation to get inspired.

British black music is always at its best when it combines soul and pop and Phil Fearon was one of its early pioneers. Enjoy.