Latest / The Price of Music / Spotify's new superfan tier, Sony's multi-billion dollar revenues

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Spotify's new superfan tier, Sony's multi-billion dollar revenues · The Price of Music

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  Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by
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  North in Arlington, VA. Hello and welcome to The Price
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  of Music, the show that looks at the money behind the music
• 1:23
  industry. With me, Steve Lamarque and
• 1:24
  Music Allies Head of Insight. Stuart Dredge.
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  We have a handful of news stories for you this week and
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  then we're going to, as promised last week, answer a couple of
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  questions from amongst the queries we've been sent.
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  We'll get to those in a while, but for starters, Stuart, Sony
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  Records generated 2.7 billion from recorded music and
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  publishing in the last three months of 20, 24.
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  Do you want to flesh these figures out a little?
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  Yeah, sure. Well, we're into results season
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  where, well, any big company, it's public is kind of declaring
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  its results for the last quarter of last year.
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  And these came from Sony Music's parent corporation.
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  So Sony Corporation, which is everything from Playstations to
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  kind of devices to the music side, right.
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  And yeah, I want to give music business worldwide some credit
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  because these figures, when they come out, they're mixed in with
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  mobile gate. In Japan, there's a mobile games
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  bit of Sony that's part of the music bit, which is kind of
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  very, so they, they've done the work to kind of strip this out
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  and get to how much money Sony's making.
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  So, so yeah, $2.7 billion from recordings and publishing, which
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  is up 7.1% year on year, which is kind of the trend for the
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  major labels. They're all kind of growing
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  still publishing's up, recordings up.
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  And apparently it was, it was the first ever $10 billion
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  calendar year for Sony Music. So the first time they've made
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  more than $10 billion in one single year.
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  And it's, yeah, it's kind of, it's partly a mixed of streaming
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  growing and streaming subscriptions still growing and
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  all the business going up. But I thought MBW is quite
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  interesting because they went through all the acquisitions
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  that Sony's made over the last few years, like everything from
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  like Queens Catalogue and Pink Floyd to buying companies like
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  AWOL and The Orchard and EMI Publishing.
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  And so you get this sense that like all the major labels,
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  really the growth is partly about the industry growing and
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  streaming doing well for them, but it's also about them buying
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  up companies that can kind of help them keep that growth
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  looking healthy. So it's it's like organic and
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  acquisitive I suppose is the way business language for it.
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  But yeah, the business is very good for them.
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  Just before we move on from this, what are you sensing about
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  what the industry is feeling about these figures which are
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  being announced at the moment? Because on the one hand, as you
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  say, they seem pretty healthy. But there are commentators, I
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  think, who will say, well, you know, the big companies are
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  surviving off their biggest artists while at the same time
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  they're simply rinsing their back catalogues.
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  And that that sort of success is rather short termist.
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  Is there much support for that opinion do you think?
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  Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot
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  of, there's a lot of sense that this is kind of an inflection
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  point, I suppose for the major labels in terms of how the
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  industry is developing. So a lot of artists are now
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  thinking about staying independent or if they're in a
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  big major label deal, thinking about, well, when they that
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  ends, maybe they want to have more ownership of their master
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  recordings and, and more kind of creative control.
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  So I think, yeah, all the major debits are, are looking at this
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  future world where artist deals may be evolving to be more
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  weighted in the artist's favour. They're also looking at places
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  like Africa, India, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and
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  they're making a lot of moves in those.
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  We, we talk about this quite a lot, don't we, about how
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  they're, they're buying companies around there.
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  So they're looking at this world where they want to be doing a
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  lot more business in these markets that traditionally have
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  been not the biggest markets in the world.
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  So, yeah, it's, I don't think it's like a, it's not that it's
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  short term growth, but there is a sense that they're going to
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  have to evolve. It's the next stage of the
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  evolution if they want to stay as big as they are and keep
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  growing. And so they're dealing with
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  those challenges. And some of that is also about
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  layoffs. I think they're laying off
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  people in the US, in the UK, in the big markets, but they are
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  hiring people and buying companies in these new parts of
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  the world for them. So yeah, kind of changes afoot
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  and, and it's it's, I don't know, it's, it's a kind of a
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  really fascinating time, but I think also challenging because I
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  don't think they can take their dominance for granted in this
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  new world we're moving into. Now, last week, we was only last
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  week, I think, wasn't it? Weren't we talking about super
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  fans on the program last week and their contribution to the
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  music landscape? Well, do you think Spotify we're
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  listening? Because there has been growing
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  speculation, hasn't there this week, swirling around about
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  Spotify's plans for a super tier that could cost.
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  I think it's around A5 more a month.
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  That's that's, that's the word on the Grapevine that you're
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  hearing, I think, isn't it? It is, yeah.
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  And this weekend there were two separate reports, one from the
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  Financial Times and one from Bloomberg, who who both tend to
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  have very good sources. So what's either happened here
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  is they've been briefed, like Spotify has gone to them and
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  said, right, we want to tell you some details about what we're
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  doing and you can print articles that makes everyone excited.
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  Or they've just been canvassing their sources in the companies
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  because they know this is coming.
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  And it could be either of those. But yeah, and, and we, we
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  reported on Spotify's financial results, didn't we?
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  Was it last week or the week before?
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  And it's CEO Daniel Eck actually talked about this idea of a
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  super booming tier. And he told analysts that he's
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  testing it himself already. So it is it is the thing that's
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  happening. But yeah, so these two reports
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  that we can, the thing I thought was interesting was they both
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  had exactly the same details, which suggests that this is
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  exactly what it's planning. So it's going to cost, like you
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  say, it's $6 a month more in the US or up to that amount.
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  It's going to be called Music Pro, both these reports said.
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  So Spotify Music Pro, they want to launch it later this year.
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  And kind of both these reports noted that Spotify has just
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  renewed its deals with Universal Music Group and Warner Music
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  Group to make this happen. So it needed to renew those
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  deals to kind of make this possible, which kind of
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  implicitly hints that they probably want to get Sony Music
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  and the independent labels also signed up so they can launch
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  with everyone part of it. And they both mention the same 3
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  benefits, which is kind of where we get into the nub of what it's
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  about, higher quality audio. So they're going to kind of
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  match or even to pass Apple Music and Amazon Music.
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  And having higher quality streaming.
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  Early access to concert tickets was mentioned is the key part of
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  it. So some way of getting tickets
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  earlier for gigs, which we could talk about in a minute, and then
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  some kind of mixing slash remixing tools to kind of do
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  some music, which reading across both of them.
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  It's kind of unclear whether it's like just a nicer
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  crossfade, like, you know, nicer way of or whether it is the full
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  Eddie Temple Morris mashing up whatever tracks you like and
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  sharing the results. So there.
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  That's but the two reports were strikingly similar.
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  So it does seem that this is exactly what Spotify is planning
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  and it's being talked. About and, and is, is this
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  Spotify actually trying to support artists?
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  I know they like to appear to be artist friendly and wanting to
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  give out information. And obviously they've expanded
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  their service so you can see additional information about the
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  artists that you're listening to.
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  So is it partly an extension of that or is it that Spotify have
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  identified that there are users who might pay more for their
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  service and therefore think, well we can we can exploit their
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  enthusiasm by charging them a bit more or, or is it a bit of
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  both? I mean, it's a bit of both
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  really. I mean this all starts with
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  those that so Goldman Sachs, the big kind of investment bank,
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  they put this report out couple of years ago now, three years
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  ago now saying super fans are an unaddressed opportunity.
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  So that you know, super fans would in the old days they would
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  spend a lot of money on music and now they only have to spend
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  £11.00 a month and they get all the music.
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  And so that's been bubbling for what I think last year they put
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  the support out Goldman Sachs saying it's a $4.5 billion
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  opportunity if you kind of charge superfans more for stuff.
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  And so everyone who needs to be running around since then going
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  superfans, we knew we're very interested in superfans and
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  there is a certain amount of dollar signs that sign.
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  But there there is also a sense that superfans do want more
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  might pay. So there's that going on.
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  And I think Spotify in the labels, the major labels,
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  certainly, they are actually perfectly aligned on this.
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  The major labels really want the idea of a higher priced super
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  premium tier for Spotify of other services.
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  And they think superfans might be the way to do that.
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  And Spotify, what's that? Because it wants to make more
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  money too. So yeah, it's one of those
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  things where, and I'm going to choose my words carefully,
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  Spotify and the music industry are aligned on this.
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  Superfans will pay more. We can do stuff for them and we
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  can talk about artists in a minute because I think a lot of
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  artists increasing are talking about, well, we're interested in
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  our superfans too, but do we want to do that on Spotify or do
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  we want to do that ourselves somewhere else?
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  So there is there are some little differences there I think
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  within the industry. I mean, I've got lots of
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  questions to which probably you won't have the answers yet.
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  For instance, will this entail a higher royalty rate if you're
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  paying more money and it's a pro stream because the royalty rates
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  are different if you're a free user or a subscriber, does this
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  mean there might there might be a different royalty rate for
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  this? That's one question.
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  Another question is early access to tickets sounds like an
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  absolute mindful. How are you going to make that
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  work? Because you need artist and
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  promoter to say we will make the tickets available through
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  Spotify or to Spotify Pro users first.
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  I mean, there's all already all manner of incentives.
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  You know, some of I don't know if you've got an O2 phone,
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  sometimes you can get tickets early.
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  So there's going to be all these places where you might be able
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  to get tickets early, but only if you know there there'll need
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  to be a structure and a mechanic in place and then you've got to
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  have agreement from all the parties.
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  That sounds quite complicated. Well.
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  Yeah, and that's your own, you know how complicated that is.
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  I mean, I because I, we were talking last week about about
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  the the artist fan clubs and the CRO Mafia in my case, where you
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  can get early access tickets. You pay the Black Crows $10 a
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  month. Yeah, or so there is the thing
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  thing. Yeah.
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  What what will can Spotify get you in ahead of those the artist
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  fan club? So it feels like it's it's but
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  it does feel like something super fans do want is I want to
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  be able to sure I can get tickets.
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  So if they can make that work, it's a good thing.
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  I mean, I was thinking about this because high quality audio,
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  like it's nice. Like I, I love the idea of it
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  sounding as good as possible when I stream.
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  People have really not been paying more for that in huge
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  numbers. There was a point a few years
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  ago where Amazon were charging £5 extra a month for a high res
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  or I think it was called HD subscription, so better audio
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  quality. And then one day Apple Music
• 11:44
  said we're going to add HD music, higher quality music, but
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  we're not going to charge you any extra for it.
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  And that kind of killed the idea of charging more for higher
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  quality audio Dead and the remixing tools thing.
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  I'm really fascinated by that because it feels to me like to
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  be genuinely interesting, they might have to go beyond the
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  comfort zone of what the music industry wants to do.
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  Like, like, let me mash up, I don't know, Charli XCX with Fat
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  dog and and then let me share that on my socials with people
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  that I'm not sure the industry would go for that just yet, even
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  though that's what you know. So if it's just like things
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  sound nice and mixed together it because again, so there's these
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  these three things, they're kind of nice.
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  But what is missing? And I was writing about this
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  this morning, so it's fresh in my mind.
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  There was a survey a couple of years ago of super fans from a
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  company called Illuminate who do all the kind of big industry
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  data and they asked them what they want.
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  And they found apparently they're they're 59% more likely
• 12:44
  than the average listen to want to connect with artists on a
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  more personal level, someone access to the artists and
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  they're 43% more likely to want to participate in the community
• 12:53
  and fandom around that artist. So they kind of, when you ask
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  superfans what do you want, they say, I want more access to the
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  artists and more access to the fellow fans or a space where we
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  can go. And, and that's what's not
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  really in these leagues about what Spotify is doing.
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  There's no community aspect. So I do wonder A if they're
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  planning this and aren't talking about it yet, which is entirely
• 13:13
  possible, or B if if some of this stuff around here is how we
• 13:17
  get superfans to spend 5 more months risk missing the point of
• 13:21
  what keen fans actually want. You know, do you, do you not
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  think there will be some people who will just pay it because the
• 13:31
  more the more enthusiastic a super fan.
• 13:33
  If you're really into music and I'm guessing the the £5 a month
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  gets you better audio across the board.
• 13:40
  You're not just signing up to I get better quality idols music.
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  So I suppose there is, there is that, but it doesn't really feel
• 13:53
  like, yeah, as you say, super fans are generally super fans of
• 13:56
  one particular artist. And wouldn't it be better for
• 13:59
  the artists and probably make more economical sense for the
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  artists just to do this themselves?
• 14:05
  I mean, obviously you can't start your own streaming
• 14:07
  service, but offering the things that you've just mentioned is a
• 14:10
  lot easier to manage and we'll make more money if the artist
• 14:14
  does it themselves, if they can be bothered.
• 14:16
  Yeah, there's the, there's the, there's the gap in the market is
• 14:19
  for someone to come in and say we will run your superfan site,
• 14:23
  we will run your superfan service.
• 14:25
  It's £5 a month and we will take £1.50.
• 14:28
  You get £3.50 out of this. And that is that is happening,
• 14:32
  but it's all lots of small startups at the moment really.
• 14:35
  And the so the potential is for someone like a Spotify or anyone
• 14:38
  else. So YouTube and Apple, they could
• 14:40
  do this at huge scale and say, right, we know from our data,
• 14:44
  the 50,000 people who listen to your music every week because
• 14:48
  they have that data. And we can put them saying sign
• 14:51
  up to the idol superfan thing and then we'll take a pound from
• 14:54
  that. And so that could be part of
• 14:57
  these streaming services and it could arguably have it could it
• 15:00
  could get more kind of momentum because they have all the people
• 15:03
  listening to music and they have that data.
• 15:05
  But you're right, I think I feel like the future of super fans
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  is, yeah, you want access to the artist, you want them to be
• 15:12
  doing exclusive stuff for you. You want to be able to kind of
• 15:15
  watch a live stream with them, ask some questions, and you want
• 15:18
  to kind of be part of the fandom.
• 15:19
  I think that's the way it's going to go.
• 15:21
  And that could be within Spotify, but it's not what's
• 15:22
  being talked about at the moment, which again, this, the
• 15:26
  way these leaks work is Spotify may be doing this and keeping it
• 15:29
  under wraps for now, or it may be that that's something they're
• 15:33
  doing later on because it's the focus now.
• 15:35
  But it's, yeah, I feel like there's but there is that
• 15:38
  question I think you are, which is that if you are, if you are
• 15:41
  idols, if you are The Black Crowes, Fat Dog, whoever.
• 15:45
  Some artists actively don't want the the streaming service to
• 15:50
  have control over their superfan stuff.
• 15:53
  Because what they want is they want to be able to e-mail those
• 15:55
  fans. They want to be able to talk to
• 15:56
  them directly. And they they're already, as
• 15:59
  there's a certain amount of distrust of not just Spotify or
• 16:03
  streaming, but social media too, people who are in the middle and
• 16:07
  can kind of control how much and how often you can talk to
• 16:10
  people. Well, I mean, so that's the
• 16:12
  resistance maybe, yeah. Also what you get then if the
• 16:15
  artist does it is you own the data, you have the data, whereas
• 16:19
  in this case, Spotify has the data.
• 16:21
  Is that right? But, well, yeah.
• 16:23
  And the, the, the other interesting thing is that
• 16:24
  Spotify already has some stuff for podcasters, not for
• 16:27
  musicians, where they can charge subscriptions within Spotify,
• 16:31
  they can get the, the, the, the data on their plan of bikinis
• 16:34
  fans. So in a weird way, what Spotify
• 16:36
  is doing with podcasters shows what they could do for artists
• 16:39
  in the future. So I think that's why it's
• 16:40
  interesting. But I think if I zoom out again,
• 16:43
  it's a good thing. I think like even if you were
• 16:45
  just paying £17.00 a month for the entire history of recorded
• 16:51
  music at better quality, that's still a good deal like £12 a
• 16:54
  month or £11.00 a month. Is, is, I think people talk
• 16:58
  about it's a lot in the industry that's you're getting a very,
• 17:00
  very good deal. Music is maybe being undervalued
• 17:03
  there. So I think it's really good that
• 17:06
  all the instruments are look, thinking about, right, how can
• 17:08
  we, how can we charge more? How can we increase the
• 17:10
  royalties ball so we pay artists and write totals more?
• 17:13
  But then the key part of that is, well, what are people
• 17:15
  actually going to want? What's going to persuade them?
• 17:18
  And so you can sort of see, I think it's, it's still a period
• 17:21
  of experimenting and theorising really.
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  amazonbusiness.com. We've had, we've had this
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  lengthy conversation as as you always say, Stuart, given that
• 18:23
  we are recording this week's episode a day early, I'm in a
• 18:27
  different room as well, which I can hear a bird song in the
• 18:29
  background. I'm not sure if that's coming
• 18:31
  across on air. It's very, very pleasant up here
• 18:33
  in the loft. But given that we're recording a
• 18:36
  day early, by the time this comes, this podcast is finally
• 18:39
  online, they'll have announced everything, including some of
• 18:43
  the stuff we've just been speculating about.
• 18:45
  Well, we'll see right next the world's biggest major label is
• 18:49
  spending some money to support mental health within the
• 18:53
  industry. Can you tell us a bit about
• 18:55
  this? Yeah.
• 18:57
  Well, this story, and I think we talked about it a bit last week
• 18:59
  as well, this story starts at the Grammys with Chapel Rowan
• 19:02
  using her speech to talk about labels.
• 19:04
  Should pay a position to living wage and pay for the healthcare.
• 19:07
  And that was a specifically AUS point, I think because
• 19:09
  healthcare there is, if you're not a permanent employee, it's
• 19:12
  very expensive. But so yeah, she was basically
• 19:15
  saying to labour, you need to do more to support the, the health
• 19:17
  and the well-being of your people who work for you and your
• 19:20
  artists. And yeah, so Universal Music,
• 19:22
  it's launched a thing called, it's not doing exactly what she
• 19:24
  wanted, but it's, it's the music industry mental health fund.
• 19:28
  So it's not paying for people's health care, but it's kind of a,
• 19:31
  it's a, it's a thing you can turn to if you are a current or
• 19:34
  former music professional, not just universal acts and people,
• 19:37
  but anyone, if you need help with your, with your kind of
• 19:41
  mental health. And it will give you, it's
• 19:44
  really how you gonna have resources, it's gonna have
• 19:45
  money, It's gonna have, you know, support.
• 19:50
  And it's with a nonprofit called Music Health Alliance, which has
• 19:53
  been doing this for a while. So it's with people who know
• 19:54
  what they're doing. So yeah, it's a positive step
• 19:58
  which kind of complements what's happening within labels.
• 20:02
  In terms of the how they're supporting their employees who
• 20:05
  maybe have mental health, we have mental health issues in
• 20:08
  terms of stuff they they're dealing with anyway, but also
• 20:12
  stuff that's kind of enhanced by how noisy everything is, how
• 20:15
  busy things are and the stresses of the industry.
• 20:17
  So it's those two aspects of well-being.
• 20:19
  OK, I'll tell you what people might find interesting as well
• 20:23
  on this topic. And I know this could seem a
• 20:25
  little biased because it's run by the organization of which I
• 20:28
  am chair. But live runs a series of online
• 20:32
  live talks which are organised by the brilliant Gabby
• 20:34
  Cartwright, which have, well, they've covered all manner of
• 20:39
  topics around and outside the music industry, but things which
• 20:42
  impact on people working in the industry.
• 20:44
  But the one from December, which you'll find online if you're
• 20:49
  interested, featured an organization over here called
• 20:52
  Music Support. Music Support is a charity that
• 20:54
  helps anyone who works in the UK music industry who might be
• 20:59
  experiencing challenges with substance abuse or mental health
• 21:03
  issues. And at a time where Music
• 21:07
  Support said recently they're currently supporting the highest
• 21:10
  number of individuals since it started and last year had a 51%
• 21:16
  increase in calls to its helpline.
• 21:20
  That's just last year alone, which is obviously a very
• 21:22
  worrying figure, but they they talk about friends and family
• 21:26
  support for people in music struggling with addiction or
• 21:28
  poor mental health. If you'd like to watch that, as
• 21:31
  I say, or any of the other talks, just go to Live Music dot
• 21:34
  biz and click on live talks, right?
• 21:37
  Finally, before your questions, songs made by children with the
• 21:42
  help of a virtual artist and AI have racked up 105 million
• 21:48
  streams inside a game on Roblox. We haven't mentioned Roblox for
• 21:52
  quite a while. So for people who don't know
• 21:55
  what Roblox is, Stuart, how would you describe it and how
• 21:59
  has it entered the the musical landscape?
• 22:03
  OK, yes. So yeah, we'll let you say we've
• 22:04
  talked about it before, not for a while.
• 22:06
  So it's kind of like a YouTube of games.
• 22:08
  So it's like a collection of millions and millions of games.
• 22:11
  Some of them are, most of them are created by kids.
• 22:13
  So kids can go on there and create their own games and share
• 22:16
  them. But they're also created by
• 22:17
  professional games firms, big brands and record labels.
• 22:20
  And they've been a few, a bunch of artists have had Roblox games
• 22:23
  they've launched from everyone from kind of Nicki Minaj to
• 22:25
  Coldplay have kind of got it. So this place where it's got
• 22:30
  really popular, it's got like 10s of millions of users a
• 22:32
  month. And it's one of the places where
• 22:35
  kids, I'd say like 6 and up now spend a lot of their time
• 22:39
  playing, which you might be coming into that world at some
• 22:42
  point. And one of the games on Roblox
• 22:46
  is called Splash, where basically you can, you can
• 22:49
  skateboard and you can DJ. Those are the two things you can
• 22:52
  do in this game. And you DJ with this sort of
• 22:55
  pad. There's quite like a sort of a
• 22:57
  professional where you have a pad of like drum loops and
• 23:00
  melodies and sound effects and you kind of trigger them by
• 23:04
  pressing them on it. And you basically do this in a
• 23:06
  virtual club with everyone else with their little character
• 23:08
  dancing on the dance floor, which is is is very, very fun
• 23:12
  and well done. Anyway, 4 million people a month
• 23:16
  are playing this game kids. So they're basically 4 million
• 23:19
  kids a month creating tracks from AI music loops and sharing
• 23:23
  them one another. And it's kind of under the radar
• 23:25
  of the industry, although increasingly not.
• 23:26
  But they've got this new thing called Kymix where they can also
• 23:29
  create their own songs where you go on and you say, I want to
• 23:32
  make a song about this. And I'm going to, you know, sort
• 23:34
  of here's the kind of, here's the lyrics of the melody.
• 23:38
  You can sort of hum and sing. And then it kind of it kind of
• 23:41
  finishes it off with this virtual artist called Kai, who
• 23:45
  to add to the confusion, she's a real person.
• 23:48
  She's the games developer who kind of invented Splash, but
• 23:51
  she's also a musician, so she's a real person.
• 23:53
  She's a virtual character of the game.
• 23:54
  So essentially you go on there, you make a tune, it's finished
• 23:57
  off by Kai and then it gets played within Splash on Roblox
• 24:01
  as a soundtrack. And that's where these 105
• 24:03
  million streams have been notched up by essentially kids
• 24:07
  making sort of AI music fuelled songs, which it's not Drake or
• 24:12
  Taylor Swift numbers, it's not like billions of streams.
• 24:15
  But it's still fascinating to me in terms of me being a way
• 24:18
  people are making stuff and getting heard that no one really
• 24:21
  thinks about much. And I mean, it's also
• 24:26
  encouraging young people to get into the art or craft of making
• 24:29
  music. And that's it.
• 24:31
  It's not just pressing a button and an AI tune pops up.
• 24:33
  They're kind of being encouraged to be creative.
• 24:35
  And the interesting now is that Splash has done this to show how
• 24:38
  it works, but what it wants to do now is partner with labels
• 24:41
  and artists so that instead of its own virtual artist, Kai
• 24:44
  being the person who helps you finish off your track, it could
• 24:47
  be any musician. Like it could be they basically
• 24:50
  do a licensing deal. So I don't know.
• 24:52
  Taylor Swift is an example. It would train and say eye on
• 24:55
  her music and then she would be the one you'd be making music
• 24:57
  with. And then there'll be royalties
• 24:59
  because kids have to pay to use this.
• 25:01
  That would go back to the artist.
• 25:02
  And they're right. So it's kind of a, it's like a
• 25:04
  sort of a demo of something it wants to do with real artists,
• 25:07
  which I was sort of thinking about this like, but nobody,
• 25:12
  least of all me, wants me to go into the studio with Blair or
• 25:14
  The Chemical Brothers to make music.
• 25:16
  Like I could ruin everything with a single button press, you
• 25:19
  know, Like it's not, it's not something I think it's not
• 25:21
  something my generation maybe thinks about.
• 25:23
  Like I want to make music with my favorite artist.
• 25:26
  But I think for kids, the idea of making music with your
• 25:29
  favorite artist in some kind of virtual world, whether it's a
• 25:31
  game, whether it's a kind of an online thing aided by AI, I
• 25:36
  think there's something really powerful there.
• 25:38
  Like it plays into. I think a lot of the research
• 25:40
  you've seen about Generation Z or Generation Alpha now, I think
• 25:43
  it is the youngest, younger children.
• 25:45
  They love to create stuff. They want to.
• 25:47
  They want to make stuff with their favorite musicians, don't
• 25:49
  just want to listen or watch them.
• 25:51
  I mean, I mean. So.
• 25:53
  If if if nothing, if nothing else it is a brilliant
• 25:56
  introduction for would be musicians.
• 25:59
  Isn't it at a very early age that you can work really hard,
• 26:04
  create an amazing piece of music and not get paid for it?
• 26:09
  They that's that's set you up for a career in the current
• 26:13
  climate in in music. Sadly you can even do a Co write
• 26:18
  for one of your biggest artists and you will see nothing back
• 26:22
  from it. Well done, got up to the music
• 26:24
  business. I didn't.
• 26:25
  I did an interview today with a guy called Mark Mulligan from
• 26:28
  Media Research. He's a really interesting man.
• 26:30
  And he was talking about what people want, what young people
• 26:32
  want. And it turns out the first thing
• 26:33
  they want is they want. He was talking about it's like
• 26:37
  they want, they want the stuff they're, they want.
• 26:39
  They want love. They want people to tell them
• 26:41
  the music they've made is good. They want the kind of likes,
• 26:44
  which is kind of, I guess the way digital culture has gone,
• 26:46
  you want you want the likes for everything you do.
• 26:48
  So in a way, what they want is my song was played in the
• 26:52
  soundtrack of this game I love and it got loads of streams.
• 26:55
  And maybe I don't think about money yet, but yeah, you're
• 26:57
  right. It is kind of a but I think the
• 26:59
  other good thing about this is like so often when when when
• 27:03
  fans are playing with music, there aren't there isn't any
• 27:07
  money going back to musicians. So if you are, you know, if
• 27:10
  you're creating a remix of a track without a permission.
• 27:13
  So at least with this, it's like, how can we do this and how
• 27:15
  can we make it a partnership with labels and artists rather
• 27:18
  than it be done to them? So yeah.
• 27:20
  But someone, someone's going to make some money out of it
• 27:23
  somewhere down the line, yeah. Yeah, and the the principle of,
• 27:26
  you know, if you are an artist who let someone train around you
• 27:29
  and people do stuff with it, you get paid for it.
• 27:31
  So that's a good I think as well.
• 27:32
  OK, right, that's the news questions then.
• 27:36
  Well, thank you very much to everyone who's been in touch
• 27:39
  with us. We welcome your feedback, your
• 27:41
  knowledge and your queries at the Price of Music
• 27:44
  podcast@gmail.com. We'll do a couple this week.
• 27:48
  Here's one question from Sean Foster, My local venue, The Half
• 27:52
  Moon in Putney often has Sunday afternoon gigs.
• 27:57
  The few I have attended have been packed with plenty of beer
• 27:59
  coughed and Sunday roasts scoffed, shows usually done and
• 28:03
  dusted by 5:00 PM, giving you plenty of time to not only
• 28:06
  recover before school on Monday but also to avoid the rum public
• 28:11
  transport that often blights going out on a Sunday night.
• 28:14
  Whilst the pub like the Half Moon will have an all day
• 28:17
  license, our venues generally restricted to an evening
• 28:20
  license. Surely some venues could make
• 28:23
  weekend matter day shows a financially viable proposition
• 28:26
  to make it worthwhile applying for a license?
• 28:30
  I think part of the answer to this, Sean, lies probably in the
• 28:33
  last line of give you a question as to whether it's financially
• 28:36
  viable for some venues. Because obviously what they
• 28:39
  would have to do for a start is or do the maths.
• 28:42
  So you would need to book and pay an artist to perform, you'd
• 28:47
  need to pay the bar and door staff.
• 28:51
  And then obviously the venues have to turn the lights and the
• 28:53
  heating on, or at least the lights, which as we know is not
• 28:57
  as cheap as it once was with increasing energy costs.
• 29:00
  So you Add all that up and then the question you have to ask is
• 29:03
  will enough people come and in obviously in some places there
• 29:07
  might be an audience in others might not be you just you just
• 29:12
  you don't know. I mean, in a lot of cases, I
• 29:15
  think certainly long running clubs, which I know about, which
• 29:19
  happened on the weekends at venues, some of them have taken
• 29:23
  quite a while to establish themselves or to build, you
• 29:26
  know, their profile or reputation.
• 29:28
  So, so again, it's, it's a question of can we afford to
• 29:31
  lose a few Bob early on to make a few Bob in the long run, which
• 29:36
  with the margins as tight as they are for a lot of venues,
• 29:40
  might be a bit of might be a bit of a gamble.
• 29:42
  So, so First off, it's if, if, if they can, I mean, I'm sure
• 29:46
  venues are, are thinking about this all the time, trying to
• 29:50
  find new ways of bringing in revenue.
• 29:53
  But you have to start off with thinking is will it make, will
• 29:57
  it make any money? Although I haven't, here's the
• 30:00
  thing, Sean, I saw your e-mail, saw the question came on an
• 30:05
  e-mail and coincidentally when I read it, I was in the middle of
• 30:13
  having an exchange of emails with Gareth Barber, who's one of
• 30:16
  the team at the excellent Esquires venue in Bedford.
• 30:20
  So I hope you don't mind, but I showed him your query and he
• 30:24
  said I can't speak for other venues, but we've we've always
• 30:27
  had an early license here at Esquires.
• 30:29
  When I I've gone a squad a decade ago, I inherited the long
• 30:34
  running regular Sunday Blues sessions which are still going
• 30:37
  weekly to this day. We run 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
• 30:41
  We have Gareth adds though. We have also though started
• 30:45
  running quite a few ticketed shows as matinees on a Sunday.
• 30:49
  Recent guests have included Steve Ignorance, the fellow from
• 30:52
  Crass, Millie Millie, Manders Henge and Giles Peterson.
• 30:58
  I think it's a positive thing for venues to try as there are
• 31:00
  only so many days that you can program gigs where people aren't
• 31:04
  bound by work. The key to all this though is
• 31:07
  being as diverse as possible in order to survive.
• 31:11
  But I do think that people get a kick out of a day party, says
• 31:15
  Gareth. Which is true isn't it?
• 31:17
  Particularly at the moment you know, whether it's a gig or the
• 31:21
  increasing number of daytime discos you can find happening
• 31:24
  around the country. I was going to ask you about
• 31:25
  that. Have you ever played one of
• 31:26
  those? Because I always see those ones
• 31:28
  that Brit pop daytime Disco or can daytime raves.
• 31:31
  I'm always like, oh, I do fancy that, but I've not been.
• 31:34
  Yeah, no, I did save one of those.
• 31:35
  Yeah, No, I did change it. The star shaped 1, you know,
• 31:37
  star shaped the the Brit pop outfit who DJ all, you know,
• 31:42
  various festivals and stuff and have run clubs, obviously.
• 31:45
  But that, yeah, they, they do, they do one on the South Bank,
• 31:50
  which I did just before, just before Christmas.
• 31:52
  And there's, I mean, there's the there's John Mcclure's day fever
• 31:56
  as well, which seems to be doing great business, doesn't it?
• 31:59
  And I think, I think the success of that has certainly prompted
• 32:03
  other people to try and emulate the idea of a daytime or an
• 32:07
  afternoon disco. I remember.
• 32:09
  When those came in and it it when those daytime.
• 32:12
  It wasn't. I think it was written about
• 32:15
  parents. You can bring your bring your
• 32:16
  toddlers to a thing in the daytime.
• 32:18
  Yeah, yeah. And then it's it's evolved into
• 32:20
  hang on, it's parents who want to come out without their
• 32:22
  toddlers and. Dart in a day, yeah.
• 32:26
  But it's interesting that like what the half million Putney is
• 32:28
  doing sounds interesting because like like if you are, if people
• 32:30
  are coming to your gig and you can sell them a roast dinner
• 32:32
  too, that's got to be good for the margins I would think as
• 32:36
  well. If you can, kind of, you can
• 32:38
  sell them food as well as. Yeah, which I think works more
• 32:42
  for the pub venue, doesn't it, than than it does.
• 32:45
  No disrespect to the Half Moon at all, because they're lovely
• 32:48
  people who run it and everything.
• 32:49
  It works in certain scenarios. But you couldn't sell a Sunday
• 32:53
  roast at the Brood and that well, maybe you could in the
• 32:57
  bar, I suppose, but I don't know if that's coming.
• 33:00
  Coming back to what fans want. What do fans want?
• 33:03
  They want to go out, have a pint, see a see a band or have a
• 33:06
  have a dance, depending on you know, what you like.
• 33:08
  I mean, but going back to the idea of running gigs and would
• 33:13
  they be popular? I went to it was before we
• 33:16
  started this, I think, but I went to see Yard act when they
• 33:19
  launched their first album. They did an out store at the 100
• 33:23
  Club, which is like a record shop in store, except it's an in
• 33:26
  store, but not in the shop. It's it's for the shop, but they
• 33:29
  did theirs. It's the 100 Club on a Saturday
• 33:31
  lunchtime. They were on about 1213 done by
• 33:34
  two. It was brilliant.
• 33:36
  It was, it was well had an absolutely great time.
• 33:40
  Obviously then you get into logistics though before you know
• 33:43
  because it becomes far more difficult.
• 33:44
  If you're a band on promotion, you're on tour, you you might
• 33:48
  well still literally be on the road at the time where you could
• 33:52
  be playing a matinee gig unless you can travel in a bus
• 33:56
  overnight and then you can load in and sound check early.
• 33:59
  But I mean, yeah, given the current financial climate, I
• 34:02
  think it's something that's venues, you know, venues are
• 34:05
  considering. And I think it's a it's a good.
• 34:08
  Yeah, it would be, it would be a great thing.
• 34:10
  More. I'm up dead up for more
• 34:12
  maternalities. I think we've talked before
• 34:14
  about how promoters and venue owners, they are amongst the
• 34:17
  most resourceful and adaptable people in this industry.
• 34:19
  If there's something that's worth trying, they will.
• 34:21
  I mean, I would definitely lack energy in the mosh pit if I had
• 34:23
  a roast in there beforehand. My only, my only thing is with
• 34:29
  an idea like this, if people, I imagine lots of people who
• 34:33
  looked at it and if they, if they're not doing it, there are
• 34:36
  reasons why it's not being done. If you are a venue, by the way,
• 34:42
  if we've missed any, any angles of this particular question and
• 34:47
  you have some insights on this topic again, drop
• 34:49
  usalinethepriceofmusicpodcasts@gmail.com. Just as often.
• 34:52
  A slight tangent we should probably mention as well.
• 34:56
  There's a, it's a sort of offshoot of Independent Venue
• 34:59
  Week. Ivy are working on this project
• 35:01
  to make more use of live venues. Not not necessarily just at
• 35:05
  weekends either and not not not even possibly gigs, but they're
• 35:10
  trying to they're trying to work around a series of different
• 35:14
  sorts of events that you can use the venue space for.
• 35:18
  So that's something which is being championed by an
• 35:20
  independent venue community. You can find more details of
• 35:24
  that on the IVW website. Question from Paul Bell right?
• 35:30
  This goes back to I think this might have been prompted by
• 35:33
  remember your list of the most expensive videos of all the
• 35:36
  time. And then we were talking videos
• 35:39
  and how much they cost back in the old days with Simon Raymond
• 35:42
  that the other week. But Paul says, thinking about
• 35:45
  Limp Bizkit and the megabucks they spent on their music
• 35:48
  videos, I wondered, what's the average spend on a video today?
• 35:52
  Assuming that smaller bands, many smaller bands, do things
• 35:56
  DIY, do they still need people like editors and producers?
• 36:00
  And I guess the answer to that is depends on your level of
• 36:03
  popularity, really. If you're a mega star, you can
• 36:07
  probably still name your price. If you're a new artist just
• 36:11
  starting out, probably going to have to do most of it yourself.
• 36:15
  If you've got a bit of budget or you know someone who knows
• 36:18
  someone who can pull a favour, then you can probably still get
• 36:22
  a director. But if you're say, if you're new
• 36:25
  and if you're new and signs there might be a little bit of
• 36:28
  money, not very much. But this goes back as I say,
• 36:31
  Simon Raymond and I were talking about this, Simon Raymond, who
• 36:34
  runs Bella Union Records, he was formerly of the Cocktail Twins,
• 36:38
  said in our interview the other week when we were comparing how
• 36:41
  much people spent on videos in the 80s and 90s compared to now.
• 36:45
  He said, I quote, you'd be probably lucky to get a couple
• 36:48
  of 1000 lbs, couple of 1000 lbs at best.
• 36:53
  You've been doing some stuff on this as well, Stuart.
• 36:56
  Yeah. Do you know this comes just
• 36:57
  after I was watching one of those Top of the Pops reruns and
• 36:59
  they had, do you remember that Fugees video?
• 37:01
  I think it was Rumble in the Jungle.
• 37:03
  But it was like, it was like introducing to all the Pops as
• 37:05
  the most expensive music video ever made.
• 37:08
  And that was the time, wasn't it, when it was like it was a
• 37:11
  badge of honour how much it's going to be look at the
• 37:13
  helicopter. Yeah.
• 37:14
  So I think now, I think if you're a big superstar artist,
• 37:16
  you can probably find it yourself now.
• 37:18
  Like if Drake wants to jump out of a helicopter in a video, he
• 37:22
  can probably afford to pay the people to make that happen.
• 37:24
  You know, pay hire Tom Cruise in to do the jumping out the
• 37:26
  helicopter bit. But I think that's the that's
• 37:30
  what's going. If you want to make a really
• 37:31
  expensive video, you probably can, but you you're less likely
• 37:34
  to get your label to pay for it now.
• 37:36
  So I was looking about something like like I was thinking again.
• 37:39
  So the other day during the band OK, go I do.
• 37:42
  Yeah. Do you remember they did that
• 37:44
  video with treadmills? It was really clever.
• 37:48
  Yeah, you're right. And.
• 37:51
  That was a cheap video, but it was very clever.
• 37:53
  And then they've actually parlayed that into this career
• 37:55
  where often they partner with brands so brands will pay for
• 37:58
  them to do their next big concept timing video.
• 38:01
  So that is 1 route. You can try and find tech
• 38:03
  companies or brands who will foot the bill in order for their
• 38:07
  stuff to be in a video or for them to promote you.
• 38:09
  And a bunch of artists do like Apple sometimes that Apple does,
• 38:11
  like music videos made with an iPhone.
• 38:14
  And every time a new iPhone comes out, there'll be a music
• 38:16
  video someone's made using it with the help.
• 38:18
  But then at the other end, I think I was talking to somebody
• 38:22
  earlier and they were talking about the I study.
• 38:23
  Like music scenes are really just music scenes.
• 38:26
  They're kind of creative scenes, aren't there?
• 38:27
  So there'll be musicians hanging out together, but there'll also
• 38:30
  be film makers and videographers and designers.
• 38:33
  I think increasingly with bands at that end of the spectrum,
• 38:37
  they just, they collaborate with people they know who can direct
• 38:41
  a video or can you know, or have never done it before, but have
• 38:43
  ideas. And so I've seen a lot of like
• 38:47
  bands I've never heard of before doing really cool videos where
• 38:49
  it's just been the people around them they've made it with.
• 38:52
  It's not a hotshot director. So I think that's the thing now.
• 38:57
  But I was also looking into like the obvious how AI is going to
• 39:00
  come in and do do all this soon. And there, there are already
• 39:04
  services where you can kind of create videos with, with using
• 39:07
  an, using an AI. So there's one called Brocha
• 39:09
  video. It's been around for a while
• 39:10
  where you basically upload your album artwork and whatever video
• 39:13
  clips you've shot and whatever music you have and it will
• 39:16
  create you music videos and lyric videos.
• 39:18
  So it has, it has a kind of algorithm to do that for you.
• 39:21
  And that's somewhere where I think you could do a music video
• 39:24
  while using that for like 40-50 quid just with whatever artwork
• 39:28
  you have. And that's going to become an
• 39:30
  option, I think for some artists who who don't have someone to
• 39:33
  add the. Thing is, the thing with that is
• 39:35
  you don't have somebody's vision going back to, you know, your,
• 39:38
  your community of creatives. Mind you.
• 39:41
  Having said that, I, I saw some storyboards for videos back in
• 39:46
  the 90s. I I was very friendly with Andy
• 39:51
  Ross who Co ran food records and I won't say the name of the
• 39:55
  band, but he had a band and they were about to make a video and
• 39:59
  there were so many video companies around at the time
• 40:02
  because there was so much money sloshing around this this part
• 40:06
  of the industry. And he showed me some of the
• 40:09
  storyboards. And some of some of the plot
• 40:12
  lines were terrible. I mean, you know, the really
• 40:16
  just take the title and make a literal video out of it.
• 40:20
  And I think probably there is something to be said as well,
• 40:22
  isn't there? There's always a point where the
• 40:25
  the, you know, the less money you have, the more creative you
• 40:28
  have to be with it. And very, you know, famously
• 40:32
  Geffen only gave Nirvana, I think it was $5000 to make the
• 40:36
  video that smells like Teen Spirit.
• 40:38
  And they managed to make that amazing video out of it, which,
• 40:43
  you know, is one of the reasons why.
• 40:44
  I mean, there were other bands at the time.
• 40:47
  The one thing about the fact that, you know, hundreds of
• 40:50
  thousands of pounds on being he isn't being thrown at videos
• 40:54
  means that there will be less artists signed to labels now who
• 40:57
  won't be shackled with trying to repay the cost of these very
• 41:01
  expensive videos well into their into their 70s.
• 41:06
  I think it's true When you can't.
• 41:07
  Yeah. I mean, because you're just not
• 41:09
  going to repay and it's just going to never recoup.
• 41:11
  Are you? Do you remember, do you remember
• 41:14
  comic strips, bad news that spin off the heavy metal spin off bad
• 41:17
  news. Oh.
• 41:18
  Yes, yeah. I think it was in the second one
• 41:21
  of those where Bad News are shooting a video.
• 41:23
  They're on the, you know, the set when they get told, well,
• 41:27
  you know, you're paying for this.
• 41:29
  You pay forever, including the catering.
• 41:31
  You're, you're paying for this. And then one of them tries to
• 41:34
  only eat all the food because he's realized that he's paying.
• 41:38
  So there's, there's less, there's less of that.
• 41:40
  But yes, I mean, obviously I lived through an era of the 90s
• 41:43
  where labels would cheerfully sign off 30 to 60 grand budgets
• 41:47
  for bands who hadn't even had a Top 40 record yet.
• 41:52
  But. I always think of the Dandy
• 41:54
  Warhols dancing syringes 1. Was that like $1,000,000 video?
• 41:57
  You know, he last junkie on earth and someone was like, what
• 42:00
  if this was a Busby Berkeley musical with dancing?
• 42:04
  But I think the other thing I've been thinking about is nowadays,
• 42:08
  like the three or four minute music video is still a thing and
• 42:11
  you can do great things with it, but there's this whole world of
• 42:14
  video you need to do as an artist.
• 42:15
  Like so say you've got a new song, you need a looping canvas
• 42:20
  video for Spotify, which is the thing that plays in the
• 42:22
  background. That's like a 7 second video.
• 42:24
  You need a music video if you want to do YouTube well, you
• 42:28
  need the music video, you need the lyric video and you need
• 42:31
  maybe the kind of acoustic in the studio performance video
• 42:34
  like and you need video for you need stuff for TikTok, you need
• 42:38
  stuff. So there's like this in a way,
• 42:40
  if you have a piece of music coming out now, thinking about
• 42:43
  making one music video for it is is not just the thing you have
• 42:46
  to do. You have to think about all the
• 42:47
  other things and the creative way of doing that is making a
• 42:50
  music video that you can use for these other things by chopping
• 42:52
  it up and and re redoing it. But I think like you say, it's
• 42:56
  about creativity. It's not about how much money
• 42:58
  you spend, it's about how creative you can be and who you
• 43:00
  can rope in. Yeah.
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  Going back to the question, do people still use editors and
• 44:09
  directors? There are still editors and
• 44:11
  directors and companies who will make videos to a budget.
• 44:15
  But alternatively, these companies, they might come and
• 44:18
  film live gigs for bigger artists or work on special
• 44:23
  visual projects. Because I know a couple of
• 44:25
  people who freelance in in that world and even that shrunk a
• 44:28
  bit. But there are definitely
• 44:29
  companies still out there. And there is, there are ways of,
• 44:33
  you know, making videos. But the budget in general is,
• 44:36
  yeah, seems to have shocked. I mean, it basically comes.
• 44:39
  It does feel when you talk to artists sometimes, particularly
• 44:42
  ones who are assigned to a major label, it feels like the major
• 44:45
  employs just one man in marketing that when you phone up
• 44:48
  and ask for money for anything, touring or videos, just says,
• 44:52
  no, there is no money or it's a fourth, you know, it's 1/4 of
• 44:57
  the money that you want to do this thing.
• 44:59
  What? Was that no, the politician left
• 45:01
  for the other politicians. All the money's gone.
• 45:02
  But I mean, I think in a way that question though, do you
• 45:06
  still need like, I think, OK, you don't need an A little
• 45:09
  producer for your music video. Now you don't need one.
• 45:11
  Do you want 1 though? There are reasons why you would
• 45:13
  like, it's the same in journalism.
• 45:15
  Like I can write you an article that has no one sub editing it
• 45:19
  and it will be a certain level of quality.
• 45:20
  Someone gives it a good sub editor, sub edits it, it'll be
• 45:22
  better. And so, you know, sometimes you
• 45:25
  don't need something, but if you have it, it improves it.
• 45:28
  So a great editor or director, whether they're a professional
• 45:32
  or just someone who's who's new to it but talented, can make a
• 45:36
  brilliant thing. So there's, yeah, it's that need
• 45:38
  versus what do you want? And sometimes you might still
• 45:40
  want that. Yes, I was going to say it feels
• 45:43
  like with a lot of areas of the music industry, there's there's
• 45:47
  probably potentially less opportunities for young people
• 45:50
  to get into these careers. Unless of course, as you say,
• 45:53
  you go off and do it yourselves until until finally you you
• 45:57
  catch a break. I mean, are quite a few quite a
• 46:00
  few bands that I've liked to have pulled favours from up and
• 46:03
  coming directors. And the other thing that you do
• 46:06
  get is you get that director's name in your press release,
• 46:10
  which gives that track a little bit of extra kudos.
• 46:15
  So what you're paying for is not only someone to make you a
• 46:17
  really nice video, but you're also you.
• 46:21
  You also get as a bonus the idea that oh so and so is up and
• 46:25
  coming and has done some good stuff, has done this band's
• 46:28
  video. So they must think that there's
• 46:30
  something, you know, that's worth spending their time and
• 46:33
  that probably for very little money.
• 46:35
  And those relationships can be longer term, can't they?
• 46:38
  You know, you work with someone on their way up as director to
• 46:41
  do your video. At some point they're making a
• 46:43
  film and they they put your music in it or get you to
• 46:45
  collaborate on the soundtrack. You know those it's about, it's
• 46:47
  about, it is about collaboration, isn't it?
• 46:49
  And those relationships between people who are visual artists
• 46:53
  and music artists, and that whatever the money is involved,
• 46:57
  sometimes the creative collaboration bit can be equally
• 47:00
  exciting a space. So yeah.
• 47:02
  Thank you very much for your question, Paul.
• 47:03
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• 47:07
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• 47:10
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• 47:14
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• 47:16
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• 47:19
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• 47:39
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• 47:42
  everybody. Tira.