February already… I really am starting to feel the "time flying by", these days. No - I am not getting old, just keeping busy! Sting and Snow is a pretty full time job - if "thinking about ways of making it better" counts as working. I spend a lot of time "mulling over" ideas and am very pleased when I receive suggestions from any of you about ways to improve our product or the service around it. So keep the ideas coming! Yes I know that February is the month of love etc. - but I am far too busy for that…

UNINTENTIONAL OPT-OUTS (how to avoid being one) Each month we have a few e-mails that "bounce-back" for one of several reasons. The recipient changes their e-mail, and does not register again; the e-mail is marked as Spam, therefore we get an error message back from some providers (Like AOL). On occasion some mail servers will try to deliver a mail a number of times over 3-5 days and then "bounce back" the e-mail. If you should stop receiving the monthly e-mail and your wish is to continue to receive it, the easiest remedy is to go to the home-page and re-subscribe; we want you to know what we are doing! It would be very helpful if you could take a moment and check to see that your friends are still receiving the news-letters.

On to the annual survey - our major achievements for 2007 include:

• During 2007 we released 22 new tunes, thus hitting our target of 2 releases per month, all of these releases have been made available simultaneously in vinyl, CD and MP3. For those who might be interested, the revised split between media types shows a marked change; digital is "taking over!

• ALL of our 2007 releases featured in the top 10 Best Sellers, which is marvellous! These results gave us 4 No.1s, 3 No.2s, 4 No.3s, 4 No.4s, 1 No.5, 4 No.6s, 1 No.7 and 1 No.10. This is an improvement on last year's figures (which were pretty darn good) giving an index value of 7.2 (as opposed to 6.3 for last year); the index value is determined by giving a value to each position, 10 for a No.1, 9 for a No.2 etc., so - if they were all No.1s - the index value would be 10. Check out last February's Newsletter for the full details of the actual 2006 positions.

• As part of our on-going process, we have made 33 previous released tunes available, for the first time, on CD; these are made from the original studio masters (where available), or the "cleanest" copy that exists and include Higher and Lower Key variations (on singing calls) - there are 104 tracks still to be released at the rate of 3-per-month! Check the Future and Latest options on the RECORDS Drop-Down (above), for details.

• When you consider all of the above, it has to be obvious that our total output for 2007 is impressive! With all the fantastic new music that we recorded, during 2007, we shall be aiming to equal this output (if not exceed it) in 2008 - stay tuned…

Now for the other news:

BEST SELLER LISTING (positions on the December 2007 listing)
No.3 - I Wonder, Do You Think Of Me? - SNW 1107
No.7 - Cold, Cold Christmas - SIR 369

NEW RELEASES (February 2008):
Lily The Pink - SIR 377 - vocal by: Paul Bristow
Toodle-Pip / Ticketty-Boo - SNW 511 - Double Instrumental Patter

NEW CD RELEASES - also available on MP3 & Vinyl (in most cases) / (February 2008):
Goodnight Irene - SIR 208 - Vocal by Ingvar Pettersson
On The Road Again - SIR 802 - Vocal by James Wyatt
Verity / Twizzler - SIR 509 - Double Instrumental Patter

INDIVIDUAL RECORD HISTORIES including ALL THE ADDITIONAL LYRICS: To find these, just click on the book symbol next to the title on the Catalogue, Future Releases or Latest Releases pages, this month's record histories features our newest singing call release: Lily The Pink.

If you want to hear how these top-selling recordings sound, just click on the musical note symbol.

Okay, I have got a few more ideas to "mull over", so I need to work on those. In the meantime, I must practice my "love songs", for the 14th of the month; I will "speak" with you on the next NewsLetter…

Go Squareful! - Paul Bristow (Owner and Producer Sting and Snow Records)