Eukatech Chief Blames Giveaway CDs for Club Crisis

Free compilation CDs on dance magazines (covermounts) are to blame for the decline of Britain's dance culture, according to Eukatech chief Hans Hess.

"Kids see dance music as something that has been cheapened through magazines giving away their endless covermounts, leading to people no longer wanting to buy music," Hess said this week. "This could lead to the death of dance."

His comments to skrufff were prompted by the views expressed by Conor McNicholas, the Muzik editor recently promoted to NME, who told Skrufff last week that the dance industry itself was largely responsible for its own problems.

"Fashion moves on and demands new things and the industry didn't move fast enough," said McNicholas.

"Too many people were taking the old promoter attitude of milking the market for as much as they could before things collapsed, which of course they inevitably did. There wasn't enough experimentation, development of new sounds, new nights, investment in the future."

Hess accepted labels bear some responsibility, though insisted the covermount factor remains the key issue.

"Hopefully labels will soon realise one of the main reasons for the decline and stop giving their music away for free to covermount CD," he said. "But music people are very fickle and they will carry on giving away their music, probably even when the bailiffs arrive."

http://www.ucmg.co.uk
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