LONDON — U.K. national newspaper the Times is to release a collection of live recordings by Oasis main man Noel Gallagher in a move aimed at raising funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust charity.
The initiative will see recordings from Gallagher’s March 27, 2007, performance with special guests at London’s Royal Albert Hall made available as downloads or in CD form.
The newspaper has teamed with iTunes to make five songs available online at a specific page on the U.K. iTunes Web site. Beginning Tuesday, the Times will print a link each day for five days enabling readers to download a different song free of charge.
Then on Sunday, the Times will give away 11 more tracks as a CD with each copy of the newspaper. The Times has made a donation to Teenage Cancer Trust in respect of the use of these recordings. Gallagher’s Albert Hall performance was during a series of benefit shows for the charity.
The recordings on the Times CD include cover versions of the Beatles’ “All you Need Is Love,” the Smiths’ “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” and the Jam’s “the Butterfly Collector.” The last-named track is a duet with the song’s writer, Paul Weller.
All 16 tracks involved — including Oasis hits such as “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” — make up a complete album titled “The Dreams We Have As Children (Live for Teenage Cancer Trust).” It will be available in digital form only from iTunes and selected online retailers with effect from March 16, again as a fund-raiser for the charity.
The Gallagher album is the latest in a series of high-profile CD and DVD “covermount” giveaways with the Times/Sunday Times. The practice has become increasingly popular in the highly competitive U.K. national newspaper market over the past five years.
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Sunday Times’ average net circulation between Jan. 26 and Feb. 22 was 1.21 million.
