News & UK Play Chart

Here at Soundnet, we've always been committed to offering our customers affordable products and services. As one of the leading digital jukebox music suppliers in the UK, we're proud to provide pubs, restaurants and bars with an exciting selection of background music packages at low prices. Since 2009, we've built a solid reputation as one of the market leaders in audio and visual content and we're constantly looking at ways to offer our customers more.

From February, we’re extending our commitment to value even further as we launch a new entry-level package for customers. For £27.50 per month, we're offering Premium 20K a landmark service for customers with a Sound Leisure SoundWave or Starburst digital jukebox, providing coin operators with the best music at the lowest prices.

We understand that a jukebox is a big investment and the launch of this new deal is a sign of our determination to respond to customer needs. As a result, the new package features 20,000 audio tracks, contains all the most-played songs from over 15,000 jukeboxes. It also includes the most popular albums from the past five years and a collection of classic tracks from a variety of different decades. As ever, the packages offer peace of mind in regards to legal issues and offers consumers absolute piece of mind.

It's been an exciting time here at Soundnet. Regular readers will remember that we recently revealed a variety of exciting announcements at the EAG show in London, unveiling Premium 20k as well as embarking on a partnership with online music hub Last.fm.

It's all very exciting here at Soundnet Towers today. Inspired by the latest feature on music goliath NME, we've been hastily debating our best albums of the past 15 years. While the NME list features classic albums such as Radiohead's OK Computer, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Californication and Amy Winehouse with Back to Black, our own collection of our records is looking a bit more varied. Here's just some of the 'classic titles' we plumped for in the office:

Laura Marling: Alas I Cannot Swim

Laura Marling was a mere 18 years old when she released this little gem of an album. It's exceptionally mature for a debut offering and, quite frankly, makes us a bit suspicious that it was written by her mum or something. Laura's latest song, The Muse, is quite happily sitting within the top 100 tracks on our digital jukeboxes.

The Streets: Original Pirate Material

Mike Skinner is a nice bloke. We met him once in a pub in Birmingham. Anyway, Mike's the genius behind The Streets (sadly no longer with us) and their first album, Original Pirate Material, was something of a wake-up call for the UK garage scene. Track nine, Don't Mug Yourself, is the standout song on the album.

Belle & Sebastian: The Life Pursuit

This 13-track monster was the 6th album from the Glaswegian indie kings. It's a witty bit of work and contains a number of excellent tunes. If you had to push us, 'Funny Little Frog and 'The Blues and Still Blue' would be our favourites from the collection.

White Stripes: Elephant

Elephant, the sophomore album from the White siblings, kicks off with the cobweb-destroying Seven National Army (a song which deserves to be played at least once a night). The album itself is full of excellent songs, notably 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself' and 'Little Acorns'.

Badly Drawn Boy: The Hour of Bewilderbeast

The debut album from Damon Gough is quite the library of songs. It's the perfect album for a lazy Sunday, full of twanging guitar strings and gentle melodies. The opening ditty, The Shining, gives you a lovely taste of what to expect in the remaining 17 tracks.

The Foo Fighters: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

 As the sixth studio album - this was the record that opened up the band to a wider audience. It was ESPG that merged the Foos driving hard rock themes with acoustic slices encaptulated in their acoustic tour in 2006.

The album was the most successful on Billboard’s Alternative/Rock chart since Linkin Park’s “Meteora” and won a 2008 Grammy for best Rock Album and Best International Album at the 2008 Brits.

On the back of the album tour they sold out the new Wembley Stadium for two nights in June 2008 and put Grohls band in the firmament as the current “Greatest Rockband in the world”.

Women across the country let out a collective 'oh, that's not brilliant news' this week as rumours began circulated regarding the fate of the US band Kings of Leon.

The reason for this collective groan came from reports that the American four-piece, fronted by their dreamy Caleb Followill, would soon be no more; the band recently cancelled their US tour quoting 'exhaustion', while Jared Followill tweeted the band had 'big problems'. The bell, if news sources are to be believed, is about to toll for the US group. Still, it's not all bad news and those ladies keen to keep the memory of their favourite band alive will be able to do so via the magic of Soundnet.

Indeed, we're proud to play host to a number of the Kings of Leon's greatest hits. Load up any Soundnet machine and you'll be able to play a barn-full of hits from the Tennessee rockers, including Sex on Fire, Molly's Chambers, Use Somebody and The Immortals. But, only if you really want to. We're not just celebrating the career of this particular band though and, here at Soundnet, we're honoured to offer a collection of songs from groups who have long since broken up.

On our MiM package, you'll find hits from the likes of Girls Aloud, Destiny's Child and Westlife. To play it, your customers just need to enter the song title or band name. We offer this service, because we believe that a good song shouldn't disappear with the demise of the band that created it. Good music crosses decades and great tracks, music from Queen, The Beatles and Pink Floyd, crosses generations. You'll need a digital jukebox that accommodates that then.

A heavy-handed approach to fighting online file-sharing has seen a case against a teen dropped by Teeside Crown Prosecution Service. The decision to charge the case as criminal, rather than civil, seems to have been the cause for its collapse, with a number of holes in the prosecution emerging.

Sounding like something more suited to an anti-terror raid, six people, among them police officers, members of the BPI and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry entered the teen’s home, seizing material and ultimately charging him with the distribution of copyrighted material.

The allegations were based around files he’d made available on a BitTorrent site, but the copyright holders were never asked to identify the tracks in question, and the choice of trying the case as criminal seemed excessive, with the CPS acting almost as a proxy for the private prosecutor whose copyright had been violated.

With the new Digital Economy Bill 2010 and the fight back against online piracy and copyright infringement, this is a clear warning about the danger of going overboard, and the need for a measured approach to safeguard the music industry’s future. While it’s important to crack down, we shouldn’t treat teens as public enemy number one. Let’s teach them the importance of legal downloads.