Breathless lawsuits, streaming storms and fresh Aussie tracks

You Am I join the Hall of Fame, The Police fight over royalties, Spotify faces more backlash, plus new tracks from Lemon Joe and Hockey Dad. IA's groove whisperer, David Kowalski, brings you the latest music news.

ARIA Hall of Fame

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has announced its Hall of Fame inductee for 2025. This year, Sydney indie band You Am I will be honoured with inclusion into the Hall of Fame. They are one of the only bands who have had three consecutive studio albums debut at the top of the album charts: 1995’s Hi Fi Way, Hourly Daily in 1996 and #4 Record in 1998.

For all that, You Am I have never really had a hit single. Their highest charting song was ‘What I Don’t Know ‘bout You’ in 1998, at number 28 on the ARIA Singles charts. That said, they have won ten ARIA awards in their career from 31 nominations.

The band have had a storied career, seeing their albums released in the USA and Europe, the first two were produced by Lee Ronaldo from American indie legends Sonic Youth. They were also the chosen support act by Soundgarden on its Superunknown tour in 1994 and on the Down on the Upside tour in 1996/97.

Guitarist Tim Rogers seemed both honoured and nonchalant about it all.

In his statement, Rogers remarked:

“We are bemused, flattered and surprised to be asked to sit at the parents' table. The artists in the Hall have had musical adventures of grandeur and righteous acclaim. Our trail of desperation seems more haphazard and with less dazzle. Yet we are giddy and grateful to feel recognition from the music community. We’ll see you out there on the road of endless possibilities.”

Congratulations to Tim and the lads on their induction. The 2026 Hall of Fame will see a return to multiple inductees, instead of a single one each year. I look forward to seeing who gets the award next.

Police launch breathtaking lawsuit

In a battle that has raged on for over 40 years now, UK band The Police have opened up a new battlefront. The members of the band not named Sting (Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland) have launched legal action against their former bandmate, claiming they are owed a share of the royalties of their 1983 hit, ‘Every Breath You Take’.

The track is by far the most successful of all their hits and one that has had a second life as the basis of a Puff Daddy song from 1997, ‘I’ll Be Missing You’. Apparently, the song rakes in around £550,000 (around AU$1.13 million) per annum. Summers and Copeland think they deserve a slice of that and that it should be backdated.

The battle goes back to the fraught-with-tension recording sessions for what became the band’s final LP, Synchronicity, in 1983. Sting regularly came to violent blows with drummer Copeland and reportedly played some shows on their supporting world tour with broken ribs. Andy Summers claims his looping guitar riff improved Sting’s original moody demo so much that it saved the song from ending up in the bin.

Sting acknowledges Summers’ contribution to the song but insists the lyrics, structure and composition are all his.

My question is not whether the lawsuit has any merit or not, but why are they launching it now? Sting sold the rights to his entire music catalogue for an estimated US$250 million (AU$382.9 million) in 2022, so any royalty split moving forward will most likely be problematic. After Puff Daddy sampled the song for his million-selling single, that may have been a good time to take that issue up in mediation, perhaps.

Talks have already broken down in the aim of an out-of-court settlement and now they have opted to take the case to the British High Court. It’s going to get ugly.

Spotify walkouts

Also in the news is the ongoing saga and protest over Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s private investment firm investing loads of money in an arms development firm. The latest artist to remove their music from the platform is Australian film composer and art-pop musician David Bridie. He has made statements all over his account directing users to his Bandcamp account and has managed to remove some of his back catalogue from the platform, including his incendiary work with My Friend The Chocolate Cake, but a fair bit still remains.

This protest is somewhat righteous; however, I feel it partly misses the point. It is not as if the other major streaming platform, Apple Music, has done itself any favours in terms of its corporate behaviour of late. If it's royalty payments you have a problem with, Spotify is a small part of the problem. Apple Music pays US$0.002 more than Spotify does per stream and yet there is very little hatred directed at them. YouTube Music pays even less.

I agree that the entire streaming royalty system needs a complete overhaul, but I fail to see how directing one’s ire at the most visible of streaming services will make any difference. Still, it will make more of a splash for all the publicity it will generate, but beyond that… well, it remains to be seen.

Two new tracks before I go...

Lemon Joe — ‘Casino’

Lemon Joe is an indie rock band from the NSW Central Coast north of Sydney. They have been doing the beach festival circuit for a few years now and have been making their unique brand of music for even longer than that. ‘Casino’ is their latest banger and singer Jye Sharp is in fine voice here, even hitting a rare scream to round out this track.

It’s a bit more aggressive than their usual laid-back surf-and-sun vibe would suggest. Is that a nod to Judas Priest I hear in there?

The band have also celebrated a milestone in the last week or so by getting their first ever play on the main Triple J radio station, which will hopefully see them get played on rotation more frequently. They deserve it.

Hockey Dad — ‘All Hat, No Cattle’

From the Illawarra, south of Sydney but still coastal, is Hockey Dad. The band are releasing an EP of songs they have written but have been left orphaned, finding no home on their other releases.

This new EP is entitled The Clip and will be due out on 12 September 2025. The lead single is out now, and it is a deadset gem, named after a piece of eavesdropping the band heard while on the road. ‘All Hat, No Cattle’ was used to describe a gentleman dressed in cowboy regalia, but the outfit had not seen any actual farm work. It’s a clever way of describing the guy as a “poser”.

The track has all the hallmarks of the classic Hockey Dad sound and is a worthy addition to the summer road trip playlist.

Until next time...

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David Kowalski is a writer, musician, educator, sound engineer and podcaster. His podcasts 'The Sound and the Fury Podcast' and 'Audio Cumulus' can be heard exclusively HERE. You can follow David on Twitter/X @sound_fury_pod.