Introducing… Popjustice Hi-Fi

This is something that has been bubbling under for a while but HERE IS THE NEWS: we're doing a Popjustice record label.

Key points:

» It's called Popjustice Hi-Fi.

» We're releasing some singles, then hopefully some albums, and doing some other things as well.

» It's sort of an indie label but it's sort of a major label. Basically we have convinced Virgin Records to give us some cash (amazing) and we'll be releasing some stuff ourselves and some other stuff through Virgin.

It's all very exciting.

The first release is a single by Swedish pop­warbler Rosanna — you'll remember we banged on about her a while ago. She was the sort of popstar we were thinking about when we first started to think about the label so it's quite nice that we can put her debut single out. It's a track called 'Waterfall' and it is basically fucking amazing. This is what it sounds like, in the context of one of those slightly self-con­sciously over-stylised 'teaser videos' we believe are all the rage in the world of the record label.

The next release will be by Bright Light Bright Light. As we have mentioned once or twice in recent months we love Bright Light Bright Light with a depth and intensity that would be frowned upon in cultures less enlightened than our own, so putting out 'Love Part II' is VERY EXCITING.

As for what happens next — well, we've got a few more things lined up but we're open to sug­ges­tion so if there's something you think needs releasing just get in touch. You know the sort of stuff we like so we don't need to really spell it out soundwise. You might not like everything we release but pop music's always gone tits up when trying to please everyone all the time, so that's fine.

The Virgin Records con­nec­tion is amazing. It's a label with a long, rich history covering acts as diverse as Kavana, Billie Piper and Caprice so the future of pop is in safe hands. Obviously some of you might (quite under­stand­ably) be concerned about how all this will affect Popjustice's editorial inde­pend­ence as a website. It's a tricky one. We thought about not covering EMI artists, but that didn't seem quite right, then we thought about intro­du­cing some sort of quota on ref­er­ences to EMI acts, which just seemed ridicu­lous, and we spent so much time thinking about how we could try to make it 'fair' that we missed the blind­ingly obvious: that the only way to make it really fair is to not try at all, and to simply carry on as normal, which is what we're doing. Kylie's great, Katy Perry needs to stop pulling those annoying stupid "who me? You want me to do what? Oh go on then" faces, Roll Deep's 'Good Times' is amazing, the Professor Green album only has two good songs on it. And so on and on. We know you'll keep an eye on this for us — and that a few of you will be taking daily notes — but the main point here is that Popjustice's editorial inde­pend­ence is as important to us as it is to you.

Clearly it's also important that we don't spend too long HARPING ON AND ON about Popjustice Hi-Fi releases. It seems right that we give each single a Song Of The Day, for example, because Popjustice Hi-Fi releases will by default be Literally Amazing, so it would be silly not to trumpet their arrival. More intricate stuff like unveiling artwork is probably something that's best done on the Popjustice Hi-Fi site, or even on other blogs and sites if they like the stuff we're putting out. We'll probably put a little 'upcoming Popjustice Hi-Fi releases' box in the sidebar or something, so it's there but not too in your face.

So that is that. Every single thing about this is basically amazing. We'll revisit that statement in two years but really, at the end of the day, we just release what we release and if anyone else likes it that's a relief.

Further reading
» Main site: www.popjusticehi.fi
» Twitter: @popjusticehifi
» Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/popjusticehifi
» MySpace: www.myspace.com/popjusticehifi