Another brand new interview with CDNOW.com confirms it: The Cranberries quietly moved onto the MCA Label last fall. MCA is not an entirely separate music label, but yet another under the huge umbrella of the Universal Music Group (thanks to Vance for the tip). The reason should be very obvious to any fan that remembers April 1999 well.

The merging of record companies is usually a mess-maker for both artists and avid fans. “Bury the Hatchet” received sub-par promotion, which can be tracked in sales figures and chart placing. But the band doesn’t care about that and neither do I. What they do care about, though, is when their own fans don’t even know that they have a new album out. This was be exemplified in Dolores’s 1999 interview with Craig Kilborn, where she said Bury the Hatchet was, “going pretty good, it’s just that alot of fans are coming up, going, ‘Oh, Dolores, have you guys got a new album coming out?’ And I’m like, ‘It came out six months ago!’, so it’s that kind of thing.”

She further continued with her dissent, “It’s [BTH] doin’ OK, like, but alot of people don’t really know it’s out and stuff, ’cause our record company [Island] got bought out, so at the moment it’s a bit messy over here [in the United States].” It may be because management decided that MCA could represent the band better than Island that the band made the move.

The Cranberries signed onto Island Records in summer 1991 for a 10-year 6-album contract. That 10-year mark is quickly approaching and the band has had four studio albums on the label. No doubt the March 20th release of “Bury the Hatchet: The Complete Sessions” in the US counts as one album release. As for the 6th, it’s vague at the moment. 1995’s “Doors and Windows” CD-Rom/B-sides disc may have counted as one album release. Also, Fergal noted last year in a chat with “El Foco” that the band has acquired rights to their 1991 “Uncertain” EP (originally on Xeric records) and that the band plans to do full B-sides release sometime in the future. Even so, it may be that the band won’t even be obligated to a 6th Island release because Island is now part of Universal and they will still be publishing the album on Universal.

Here’s today’s brand new info, stright form CDNOW.com:
The Cranberries Move Forward With Wake Up And Smell The Coffee May 18, 2001, 2:10 pm PT

Ireland’s Cranberries have decided on nine of the tracks that will help make up the band’s forthcoming album, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, due Oct. 23 on MCA Records.

In addition to the previously reported tracks “Analyze,” “Time Is Ticking Out,” and “Never Grow Old,” the band has decided on “This Is the Day,” “Dying Inside,” “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee,” “Chocolate Brown,” “I Really Hope,” and “Cape Town” for the album, which is the band’s fifth album and first for MCA.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, recorded at Windmill Lane studio in Dublin, Ireland (where U2 recently recorded All That You Can’t Leave Behind), was produced by Stephen Street (Smiths, Blur). The Cranberries signed to MCA Records last fall after a four-album stint at Island Records. Coffee is expected to contain 13 tracks.

– Kevin Raub

Partial Source: CDNOW.com