And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week Digital

CMU Beef Of The Week #221: B*Witched v Supergrass

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 29 August 2014

“Gotta let me in”, sang B*Witched on their enduring 1998 hit ‘C’est La Vie’. “Let the fun begin”.

This week it emerged that anyone listening to Supergrass’s eponymous 1999 album on Spotify, instead of hearing lead single ‘Pumping On Your Stereo’, would instead find themselves listening to that B*Witched song in its place.

The response from Supergrass fans alerting Spotify to this on Twitter did not conclusively prove or disprove the theory posited in those B*Witched lyrics, that is to say, they were let in, but did the fun then begin? Opinion remains divided. It’s also still a bit of a mystery as to how exactly this happened.

It’s believed that the audio was submitted to Spotify incorrectly, and as of this morning the error has been fixed by Warner. But the more astute among you will remember that Supergrass were never actually signed to Warner Music before they split in 2010. The first five of their six albums, including ‘Supergrass’, were released by Parlophone.

Parlophone, of course, has been passed around a bit over the past couple of years, before settling down as a Warner subsidiary. It was briefly linked to Universal too, after a long stint as part of EMI. But the one major it’s not rubbed up against is Sony, which, through its Epic imprint, released B*Witched’s debut album. So a simple mix up of tracks from the same catalogue released at a similar point in history isn’t the answer.

I’m holding out hope that this was a deliberate act by an unknown person, who has conducted the greatest ever mutation of the ‘rickrolling’ phenomenon.

It’s not clear how long the switch was in place before Digital Spy picked up on it this week, but imagine how long that possible someone was potentially waiting for their joke to come to light. The quiet chuckles to themselves late at night. The occasional plays of the track to check it was still there. If this was a conscious act, the private joy of whomever did it must have been overwhelming.

The artists involved also saw the funny side too, which isn’t really in the spirit of the beef. “I realise I sound remarkably like and have a similar girlish figure to B*Witched, but this is somewhat surprising”, tweeted Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes.

Meanwhile, B*Witched’s Lindsay Armaou told CMU: “Haha! What can I say! We have B*Witching powers. It’s an interesting mix-up. I think we need to do a B*Witched/Supergrass remix – it could be genius! I wonder if Gaz would be up for it?”

The group’s Keavy Lynch added: “It’s hilarious. I’m not sure Supergrass would be too happy if someone believed it was them, but who knows?! Maybe a collaboration is on the cards!”

Maybe indeed. I mean, look at the success of McBusted. Band reunions via mergers with other bands are clearly the next step for the music industry. Supergrass should get on this quickly, before the moment has passed. Keavy even suggested a name for the project: Superwitch. And you have to admit, that is a better name than McBusted.

So look! This is no beef at all. For all the criticism Spotify gets, it really does have the power to bring people together.