EMI Signs With Ad-Supported Download Sites QTrax, Spiralfrog

More than five months after its faulty launch, legal peer-to-peer download site QTrax is finally making strides toward getting up and running after inking a deal with EMI Music. The deal allows users of the ad-supported music service to have unlimited streams and downloads of the EMI catalogue. EMI is the second major label to align with the service after Universal Music signed a contract with QTrax last month. QTrax was supposed to launch in January, but then they realized the deals they thought they had with the four major labels didn't exist. Yesterday was a busy day for EMI, as the label also agreed on terms with Spiralfrog, another ad-supported music download site.

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

More Song Stories entries »

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