Latest / The Price of Music / Ticketmaster cancel Oasis tickets, The Black Crowes relaunch Crowe-Mafia club

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Ticketmaster cancel Oasis tickets, The Black Crowes relaunch Crowe-Mafia club · The Price of Music

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Check responses for accuracy. Hello and welcome to The Price
1:21
of Music, the show that looks at the money behind the music
1:24
industry. With me, Steve Lemack and Music
1:26
Allies head of Insight. Stuart Dredge.
1:28
How's your week been, Stuart? It's been all right.
1:30
Yeah, there's there's not yet an explosion of news that happened
1:33
recently, but I did spend a happy half an hour getting to
1:36
the bottom of the Super Bowl halftime show on Monday.
1:39
That was quite fun and seeing what happened there, trying to
1:41
figure out who'd said what and what happened and who was going
1:44
to be offended and what it all meant.
1:46
How about you? Yeah, not a bad week.
1:48
I went, I'll tell you what, I went to a good little low fi
1:51
punk rock gig in East London last week, which maybe I don't
1:54
know if you've noticed this, but there's there's a whole early
1:57
90s slacker guitar thing coming back in at grass roots level.
2:02
And then I was, I was down at the Windmill in Brixton last
2:05
night and there was another one of these groups, so last two.
2:08
So in East London I saw this band of a quite like it's called
2:10
Middle Man who had this sort of slacker thing about them.
2:14
And then another band last. So I saw a group called Thistle
2:17
who reminds me a bit of Dinosaur Junior in places.
2:21
But I tell you could tell you, not a bad night down the
2:24
windmill Monday nights. It's new band night on a Monday
2:26
night. 4 bands, 6 lbs. An absolute bargain.
2:31
And these are, these are young people, Yeah.
2:32
It's not like old people my age playing No 90 stuff.
2:36
They're young, young. Yeah, it's a whole new
2:38
generation and very young audience as well, as I say, and
2:43
a bargain at £6, which leads us nicely into our first story, I
2:46
think, because we have talked a lot on the show about, well,
2:49
concerns over gig ticket prices here in the UK, well, similar
2:54
concerns in America. The Fix the Ticks Coalition have
2:58
been, well, very vocal in the last few days, Stuart.
3:01
Yeah, they have. And I can sort of explain the
3:03
background of this because Fix the Ticks is a coalition of
3:07
companies and music industry who have kind of got strong views on
3:10
ticketing and how it should be reformed.
3:11
And it's, it's everyone from it's run by the National
3:14
Independent Venues Association. And it's got, but it's got
3:17
Universal Music Group, it's got the labels body, the RA.
3:20
So it's a big kind of, it's like kind of the music industry's, it
3:23
puts out the views and ticketing and it campaigns.
3:25
And the other thing I've learnt about the US is you know how
3:28
here we have, we have a bill going through Parliament and
3:30
it's like people get it gets voted on and amended and debated
3:34
and immigrants law in the US, it seems quite normal.
3:37
There's to be a bunch of different bills, some of which
3:39
directly contradict one another, that are all kind of bobbing
3:42
around at the same time and you're never quite sure what's.
3:45
And then one of these things is called the Ticket Act, which has
3:47
been kind of been around for a while.
3:49
And it nearly became law right at the end of Joe Biden's
3:53
administration last year didn't. But now it's kind of been
3:56
reintroduced for another go. And it sounds quite good.
4:00
Like it sounds. It would make hidden ticket fees
4:02
illegal. It would ban speculative sales.
4:05
So you know when someone is like, I'm selling this many
4:07
tickets for this concert even though they haven't got those
4:09
tickets yet because they haven't been on sale.
4:11
Oh yeah, yeah. So it would ban that.
4:14
It would set out like refund requirements.
4:16
So if a show is preferred or cancelled, there'd be quite
4:18
strong rules on this, how refunds will work.
4:21
And it would launch a new study into the use of bots, so
4:23
computer software to kind of Hoover up tickets, which sounds
4:27
like good things, but then fix the ticks put this this thing
4:29
out saying we think some of this stuff is good, but we think
4:33
there's lots of loopholes still right.
4:36
So they want to it's stuff like they want that there'd be more
4:38
powers to find companies in secondary ticketing and do wrong
4:41
thing. They want to crack down on butts
4:43
hard rather than just look to study of what they're doing.
4:45
They want to make sure that resold tickets online.
4:49
They list the seat and section. This obviously applies to seated
4:52
gigs, which kind of means you know what you're getting if
4:55
you're buying it, but also might make it easier to cancel those
4:58
tickets. The promoter decided to do that.
5:00
So, so kind of this, this is Bill, It's got the support of
5:04
companies in the secondary ticketing world because they put
5:06
out their impressively saying this is brilliant, but the music
5:09
industry is saying, hang on a minute.
5:10
We think there's loopholes here. You need to fix them, fix them.
5:13
The fix it takes was to fix the loopholes.
5:15
But it is. But like you say, it's kind of
5:17
the US is seeing a similar debate about, I think everyone
5:20
there seems to agree that some kind of reforms are needed for
5:23
ticketing. But some people say it's all
5:26
about secondary ticketing and bots.
5:28
Other people say it's about breaking up Ticketmaster and
5:30
Live Nation. And that's the big problem.
5:33
And you've got this kind of mini Blizzard of bills or you had it
5:35
in the last few years, each kind of taking aim at one part of
5:38
that or from one person's perspective.
5:41
So I from over here, it's hard to work out.
5:43
Will this become law? Is this going to be the one that
5:45
comes through? But yeah, everyone's arguing in
5:48
short. It's interesting, isn't it, that
5:50
this is being debated in America at the same point that the
5:53
government here have just launched that consultation on,
5:57
well, ostensibly secondary ticketing, but they're also
6:00
looking at other aspects of live music and ticket prices in the
6:05
UK. Talking of which I'd found
6:07
because I, I, I started wondering how much of ticket
6:10
prices gone up and whether there had been any research into this
6:13
recently. And the the one report, the
6:16
latest report I could find was something which the BB BC
6:19
published last year, claiming that ticket prices shot up by
6:23
23% in 2023 alone. And that was on top of the fact
6:27
that ticket prices has gone up 19% since the pandemic.
6:32
It also claimed that the average ticket price for the top 100
6:37
tours, so the big tours of 2023 around the world, the average
6:42
ticket price was 101 lbs. According to Polestar, a trade
6:47
publication which tracks things in the live music industry, 101
6:53
lbs for top end gigs. But as I say, obviously while
6:56
that's going on over there, in a weird moment of synchronicity,
6:59
the boss of Ticketmaster UK was being questioned by members of
7:03
the British government. I don't know if you you saw
7:06
this. Andrew Parsons appeared before
7:09
the business and trades Select Committee last week, which is a
7:13
separate thing to the secondary ticketing consultation, which is
7:16
also ongoing. But MPs, as I understand it,
7:21
called him in to come and talk about, well, mainly ticket
7:24
prices, I think, as well as some of the practices, you know, and
7:27
the concept of dynamic pricing. But prices were uppermost in
7:32
their thoughts and, and I read some of the, the report of the
7:38
Select Committee meeting and I they weren't taking any
7:41
prisoners, These MPs, which I suspect that's because there are
7:46
probably some MPs who think Ticketmaster have been sort of
7:49
dragging their heels really on this subject.
7:54
But one MP, Liam Byrne MP, apparently said that
7:58
Ticketmaster were, and I'll quote Mr. Payne here.
8:01
He said they were basically ripping off fans, to which Mr.
8:06
Parsons and his defence responded.
8:09
Well, essentially he said, look, we don't set the prices.
8:12
Don't don't blame us for the price of a ticket.
8:15
It's the band and the promoter who work out them sums.
8:19
We just sell the tickets. That's, that's, you know,
8:21
that's, that's all we do. That's our, that's our job.
8:25
But it was, as I mentioned, there was, I think some
8:27
discussion about dynamic pricing and there was 2 interesting bits
8:32
here. If you read into what Mr.
8:36
Parsons was saying was that, well firstly, when he said we
8:40
work closely with event organisers to be able to sell
8:43
tickets at the prices that they've determined, he added
8:48
there's no technology driven change to those prices.
8:51
They are prices which humans have agreed to.
8:54
There's not a computer or a bot behind it, which backs up what
8:59
we've been hearing on the Grapevine that Ticketmaster
9:02
simply, they don't have the kind of software that can react to
9:07
demand, online demand and increase prices automatically.
9:11
That was the first thing. And then secondly, and I mean
9:14
this next point, I mean, it could partly be an attempt to
9:18
draw attention away from, you know, the big rise in ticket
9:21
prices for major artists. But he also went, he went on to
9:26
say yes, while while there are big headline tickets going for a
9:31
song, he told the committee that these are, I quote again, a
9:36
small minority of the shows that we are selling.
9:38
In fact some research does show that around 75% of the tickets
9:42
that we are selling at the moment are under £35.
9:47
So I think it would be misleading to take the view that
9:52
all tickets are overpriced. So again, I think he's sort of
9:57
what he's, I guess what he's trying to do here.
9:59
He's trying to make the point on behalf of Ticketmaster that
10:02
look, not all tickets are £100 plus and also not all our gigs
10:08
sell out. I don't know whether that's
10:10
going to carry any any sympathy amongst MPs.
10:14
We shall, we shall wait and see. I tell you, who isn't feeling a
10:17
lot of goodwill though towards Ticketmaster this week?
10:19
Anyone who's had their Oasis tickets cancelled after being
10:23
accused of being a bot. Ticketmaster have contacted a
10:27
number of Oasis ticket holders we've we're told and withdrawn
10:31
their tickets saying that they had identified that bots were
10:35
used to make the purchase. What's the what's the latest on
10:39
this? Yeah.
10:40
Do you know, it's one of the things of the modern, it's one
10:42
of the things we suffer in first word problems now is when you
10:46
when you fail a test to be to not be a bot.
10:48
Yeah. Like I failed a capture test the
10:50
other day. I had to kind of tap on all the
10:52
every picture that had a Caterpillar in it and I got it
10:54
wrong. And it was like, no, you're a
10:56
bot. And I was like, look, I just,
10:58
I've got bad eyesight. That's a human problem.
11:02
But yeah, so this is, I think this is the follow on from I
11:04
guess last last year's Oasis ticket on sale.
11:07
And we kind of knew, I think, I think they said then that the
11:09
promoters and Ticketmaster would be cracking down on people they
11:11
thought had got these tickets through or got on gains.
11:14
And yeah, a bunch of humans, like you say, had been sent
11:17
emails saying you identified using bots with cancelling your
11:19
tickets. Although I kind of like the
11:22
headlines are very much like tickets cancelled, fans
11:25
distraught, all terrible. And then when you read it, it
11:28
goes, actually you can fill in a form kind of saying I'm not a
11:31
bot and the promoters will review it.
11:33
And my suspicion is all the fans who've been in the press
11:35
complaining, saying, look, I'm a human being, I suspect they will
11:38
get their tickets still because there will be a review process.
11:41
So it's not like everything's been cancelled and they've got
11:43
no recourse. But yeah, I mean, it made me
11:46
think though, like it does make you think, how accurate are the
11:49
technologies used to detect bots?
11:50
Because it's it's a constantly developing area of technology,
11:54
isn't it? And I think inevitable, some
11:56
humans are going to get caught in this, this crossfire of
11:59
trying to figure out who's an automated software and who's
12:02
not. Well, I think this is the worst
12:04
thing, isn't it? For anyone who has had their
12:06
ticket revoked, is you're sitting there going, why me?
12:10
Why have you identified me? What's the criteria?
12:12
How come you, you think I'm a bot And that's, that's, that's
12:15
the question which, you know, we've sort of want the answer
12:20
to, you know, because how are they doing it?
12:23
Is, are they filtering through? What are they looking for?
12:27
Is it an unfamiliar e-mail address?
12:29
Is it a, is it a too familiar e-mail address that comes up too
12:33
much? How do you?
12:34
Is it 17 tabs open, which I feel is the modern music fan strategy
12:37
for trying to get tickets? Yeah, you try and get in as many
12:40
times as you can as a human. I mean, yeah, it, I mean it all
12:43
That's yeah, it all comes down to how do you spot a bot?
12:46
But the, I mean, the thing about, and I'm no expert, of
12:48
course, but from conversations I've had, all the companies are
12:54
really looking for all they really can do, even with the,
12:57
you know, whatever technology they have, a lot of it comes
13:00
down to what are we looking for? And they're looking for patterns
13:04
and anomalies really. But it's, it's all part of a
13:08
much bigger war against the touts on a, you know, bigger
13:13
level. This comes back to the US
13:15
really. Like I think we music fans, we
13:18
want these companies to be cracking down on people using
13:20
bots to Hoover up all the tickets and sell them from flip.
13:23
So we we want and I think it's it's one of those things where I
13:26
genuinely, I mean, I can't imagine I would be distraught if
13:28
this happened to me. So I'm very much sympathetic.
13:31
I'm I'm not sure how I'm not sure how you avoid it happening,
13:35
but as long as you have that review process for someone to
13:38
say no, hang on, you've got this wrong.
13:39
I am a human. I didn't use any bot software,
13:42
which seems to be the case here, but yeah, it's pretty harsh.
13:44
Do you know the best thing about the story though?
13:46
When I was researching it, I I found myself on one of those
13:49
tabloid news websites, which I won't name, and I clicked on one
13:52
of the clickbait stories underneath it.
13:54
You know when you can keep clicking on things.
13:57
And it was. Busy day in the office was it?
13:59
It was I was hard researching this podcast and it was the
14:02
headline was 90s Rockstar looks unrecognisable as his band gets
14:05
really support Oasis. Right, right.
14:08
And so I clicked through and it's John Power from Cast who
14:12
looks absolutely 100% recognisable as what John Power
14:15
from Cars should look like 30 years after he was in the charts
14:18
before. You know, so you're sort of
14:21
seeing around this. There's already the click bait
14:23
is already building up about anyone involved in these gigs.
14:25
Yeah, of course. But I think, I think the fact
14:28
these fans have got publicity, it's been all across the media,
14:31
hasn't it? I think they'll get their
14:34
tickets, I hope, because they have a case of saying, you know,
14:36
as long as they didn't use bot software, which I didn't think
14:39
fans do. It's about touts, isn't it?
14:41
About touts at scale, I mean, not about fans.
14:43
Yeah, if I mean, if anyone is listening who, who's had their
14:47
ticket withdrawn, we'd love to hear from you,
14:49
priceofmusicpodcasts@gmail.com. And what is the process of
14:54
appeal and what's what were, if you've had your tickets returned
14:59
to you and you don't appeal, what's the refund process then?
15:03
Do you get your money back? And if you get your money back,
15:07
do you get all your money back, including all the booking fees?
15:10
You see, I would, I'd love to know.
15:13
And get down the windmill. Take all your friends with the.
15:15
Money saved, 6 lbs, four bands. You can see and get to the bar.
15:20
Yeah. Just to finish on the tout tout
15:23
thing, because it did remind me after one of our, I think it
15:26
was, it was one of our live meetings.
15:31
We went to the pub afterwards and I spoke to a couple of guys
15:36
from from ticketing companies. They were, they make this
15:40
because the the whole tout thing is so much bigger and better
15:45
organised than I think even we can imagine.
15:48
And they were saying, you know, the touts are always trying to
15:51
stay, stay one step ahead. While all the ticketing
15:54
companies, it's like a spy film. Ticketing companies are just
15:58
they're out gaining intelligence and where the touts, you know,
16:01
might strike next because they're always they're always
16:04
moving around the world and you'll suddenly get a big tour
16:08
will go on sale and someone in the know will say expect a block
16:16
booking from and just pick a random country like Belgium or
16:20
you know, something anywhere because they're always that.
16:24
Obviously they're all also, they're always using the
16:27
talents, false addresses, they get false details.
16:31
And I think probably all that type of all that kind of
16:35
behaviour or that mechanic that they're using involves, you
16:39
know, using, you know, all this data.
16:42
And I think that's the problem. That's why ordinary music fans
16:45
are getting caught up in all this.
16:48
Because it is. It is an ongoing attritional war
16:52
between the live industry and the talents.
16:55
And like you said, I think those fans are going why am I why you
16:58
said I was a bot. And of course, by definition,
17:00
Ticketmaster can't say can't explain it, can't say here is
17:03
exactly what we look for. That's bot to bot because if
17:06
they put that information public, the bot developers go
17:09
right, OK, let's that's our menu of what we to avoid now.
17:12
And you know, they have to be by by necessity, they have to be
17:15
completely untransparent about how this technology works
17:18
because that's the only way they can fight the bots.
17:20
So it is, it's frustrating for fans being caught in the middle
17:22
of it, but hopefully everyone will get the tickets back and
17:24
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coverage match limited by state law.
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Not available in all states. Elsewhere, the Iva's Academy say
18:29
that the rules around songwriters, pay and protections
18:33
need urgent reform. Just to make sure everyone knows
18:37
what and who we're talking about.
18:38
What's the Iva's Academy? Yeah.
18:40
So the Iva's Academy is the industry organization that, that
18:43
represents songwriters in the UK, but also they have global
18:47
thing and they, they run the Iva's awards, the IVA novella
18:50
awards as it used to be. So that they're kind of the
18:52
biggest, which is the biggest, booziest industry awards I've
18:55
ever been to because it starts at midday and everyone goes to
18:58
the pub afterwards. And it's, it's increasingly.
19:02
So they do a lot of things with some writers that do education,
19:04
they kind of, but they also do advocacy, don't they?
19:07
So they they'll be there in these government meetings about
19:09
what to do about the streaming economy and they're kind of
19:11
campaigning and and it's two people actually, it's Roberto
19:15
Neri who's the boss. He's like a publishing industry
19:17
veteran. But it's also Tom Gray, the
19:20
chair, who we've talked about before, you know, Tom Gray of
19:22
Gomez of politician or attempted politician.
19:27
And he's been a long time activist, hasn't he, for saying
19:29
this is what's wrong in the market.
19:32
So basically this week, the government's holding this, this
19:34
series of working groups to kind of figure out what, how to
19:37
reform the music industry. And one of them is on
19:39
remuneration, which I'm getting better and better at saying
19:42
every time we cover it, how musicians get paid.
19:46
And it's basically a roomful of the industry bodies who have a
19:49
range of views, sometimes very directly opposed about what
19:52
should be done. And this week the Irish Academy.
19:54
So Tom and Berto are going in and saying, right here are our
19:57
ideas about what you should do to improve things for
20:00
songwriters. And it was interesting.
20:02
So they, they, they set out a bunch of kind of things they
20:05
want, they want a minimum daily allowance like a per DM.
20:08
For songwriters, when they're working with artists, if they're
20:10
working with artists in the studio or kind of creating songs
20:12
to them, they want labels to assign 4 royalty points from
20:17
recordings to the songwriters of those songs.
20:20
So we've kind of talked about probably when Ray was talking
20:23
about it at the Brits, but if you're a songwriter now, you you
20:26
get paid for the publishing royalties of a recording, but
20:29
you don't get paid for the actual streams of that recording
20:32
itself. They go to label an artist, So
20:34
what they're saying is actually set aside 4% of the royalty and
20:37
recordings for the songwriters because that kind of UPS their
20:41
earnings. They also want streaming
20:44
services to pay more to longer pieces of music, which I think
20:47
is about things like classical music and jazz where, you know,
20:50
you might have like a 12 minute or longer piece of music, but
20:53
you only get paid the same amount as a 3 minute pop song.
20:56
So he wants to change that and they want streaming services to
21:00
kind of, they say, like ensure the song is fairly valued by
21:03
engaging in negotiations with publishers in parallel with
21:06
labels. So this is getting back to this
21:09
talking point that recordings take a bigger share of streaming
21:12
revenues than compositions that underlying songs.
21:16
And one of the things that publishers have said is that
21:20
that's because the labels sort their deals with streaming
21:22
services and then what's left goes to publishers.
21:24
So we can't say what the biggest share we don't think.
21:27
So that's they want to fix that. And they also want the
21:30
government to introduce contract adjustment mechanisms.
21:32
So I've been learning all these new terms this week, but this is
21:35
about essentially, if you signed a contract a long time ago and
21:38
it turns out those terms were unfair and you're not being paid
21:40
enough, it gives you that right to go back and renegotiate and
21:43
say, look, I want to renegotiate this.
21:45
So it's kind of this, this slit of things.
21:47
And I, I would say if you, the labels and the label who's
21:50
sitting in that meeting would have been like kind of
21:52
mystically, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
21:55
This is kind of not what their they think should be done, but
21:58
this is what the Ivar's Academy thinks would improve.
22:01
And they actually, I don't know if you saw the Grammys, I don't
22:03
know if you stayed up to watch the Grammys.
22:05
I. Didn't know I didn't.
22:07
But Chapo Rowan won best new artist and she gave this speech
22:10
and, and, and part of her speech was calling on the music
22:12
industry to to kind of give musicians a living wage, pay
22:17
them a living wage and pay for their healthcare, which is
22:19
obviously AUS issue, paying for healthcare because they're, if
22:22
you don't have paid healthcare, you're in trouble.
22:25
But the IVS Academy sort of seized on that and said, look,
22:27
she said this at the Grammys. We're going to take this on now
22:30
and say, yeah, these are the concrete measures you can do to
22:32
make sure that songwriters have a living wage and can sustain
22:36
themselves and things could be improved.
22:38
But I don't know what the reaction was.
22:39
They announced it before they went into the room.
22:42
So I wanted to be a flower on the wall looking at the faces to
22:44
gauge what labels thought of it. But the real audience was what's
22:48
his name? Is it Sir Chris Bryant, the the
22:51
minister? Yeah, it is.
22:52
He was, I believe he was at this meeting.
22:54
And I think he is the real audience for that, that he
22:56
they're trying to convince him that the government should take
22:59
this up and and make it happen. I don't know what what the
23:01
reaction was. We shall see.
23:03
We'll keep an eye on that story. New research from From your own
23:08
Backyard, Stuart. New Music Ally research shows
23:11
that the UK's music business is recording record revenues but
23:16
simultaneously struggling to break new acts.
23:20
Tell us about this. Yeah, well this is the thing,
23:22
not to plug us, but this is the thing we do every month we do a
23:25
country profile looking at a different place in the world and
23:27
what's happening there. And the UK was a latest 1
23:30
written by a journalist called Ben Cardu who's really good.
23:32
He could talk to a lot of people and yeah, it kind of covered the
23:35
stuff we've sort of talked about before in that terms of
23:38
everything was up last year in terms of listening was up nearly
23:41
10%, streams were up 11%. Spending was a 20 year high £2.4
23:46
billion. And apparently there's more than
23:48
30 million streaming subscribers in the UK now.
23:50
So people who are using a paid streaming.
23:52
So we've only got, I think it's like 68.5 million people in, in
23:55
the UK. So it's not quite half, but
23:57
it's, it's getting towards half the population paying, which is
24:01
good. But then the stuff we've talked
24:03
about for us, again, I think 9 of the Top 40 tracks here were
24:06
by British artists last year. There were no British accents
24:09
Spotify's top 10 artists or tracks or albums.
24:13
And what this piece of research did was, was it kind of talked
24:16
to and it talked to actually Doctor Joe Twist at the BPI.
24:18
And she was, she was pretty open about what she sees as the
24:20
issues. And it's, it's partly about the
24:22
big US stars. So that was like a very big year
24:25
for Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish and so
24:27
on last year, including in the UK, because this is one of the
24:31
key markets for them. It's partly about countries in
24:34
Europe having really strong local scenes.
24:36
So like loads of German acts in Germany are doing really well
24:39
singing in German as well, same in France.
24:42
So that those markets are maybe it's less fertile ground for
24:46
British artists to import because they've they've got
24:48
loads of brilliant local acts. And then it's also about K pop
24:51
artists and Afrobeats artists and Latin American reggaeton
24:54
artists like this, this new world we're in where stuff can
24:57
come from anywhere. And it's all coming together for
25:00
the UK to make people say, hang on a minute, we haven't, we're
25:02
not breaking superstars. But what I wanted to pick you
25:07
up. Oh, go on.
25:07
No, I, I was just going to say at that point, that's it.
25:10
We're not making it easy for ourselves and neither is anyone
25:14
else. I mean, it's, if you're going to
25:18
break an artist, there is a tricky point where you can get
25:20
so far, but only so far between before you really have to go and
25:26
work, you know, around the world.
25:28
And it's so expensive for bands to obtain visas to the, to the
25:35
United States to get a visa and then pay for a visa and then
25:38
tour in America. And I don't see that getting
25:40
much easier anytime soon. And of course post Brexit it's
25:45
incredibly difficult and again slightly more expensive now to
25:50
go and tour around Europe. You've got to fill in all the
25:54
carnage forms again. We've gone back in time to when
25:58
it used to be really hard touring Europe in the 80s.
26:01
And so, yeah, there is. So there's a lot so we can't go
26:05
to. So there would be less British
26:07
bands probably going to places like Germany.
26:10
And it's that. So we get this, you get to a
26:12
level, but you can't get any further than that.
26:17
I think that's that's one observation about this.
26:20
Definitely. I think so.
26:21
And it's weird because that one, the two things came out well,
26:23
two things in my mind from this piece of research.
26:25
One is I did an interview the other week, which I haven't
26:27
written yet with someone and they were talking about the,
26:30
the, the risks of the UK of trying to become a mini me of
26:32
America. Like if we judge us by why can't
26:36
we break our own Sabrina Carpenter?
26:38
The answer is that she's always going to own a bigger marketing
26:40
budget than the British version. Like if we're just trying to
26:43
follow what the US is doing, they're bigger, they've got more
26:45
money. So it needs to be about finding
26:47
your local, your kind of local thing and riffing on from that
26:50
in, in this article, it talked about actually, it's not just
26:54
about superstars. It's not just about top of the
26:56
charts and actually the people Ben talked to you for this
26:59
article we're talking about, there's lots of exciting stuff
27:02
going on in the UK below the kind of top ten.
27:05
There's like, I mean, I'm British jazz artists, for
27:07
example, having a real, I've been having a moment for a while
27:09
now, haven't they? Not just things like Merky
27:12
Prize, but in terms of filling rooms in terms of, you know,
27:15
that's been going on. There was a mention of this
27:18
thing called brick core. I don't know if you've heard of
27:20
this. What is Brick Core?
27:22
It's a new trend. It's basically a trend about
27:24
this champion British rock bands, but it's on TikTok and
27:27
some places like that. So actually it's kind of
27:29
apparently it's combining British rock bands with kind of
27:33
meme culture. So it's basically young kids
27:36
applying the way they talk about music to British rock bands and
27:40
then finding traction. So on TikTok now you have this
27:42
brick core thing which is about bands, which is quite exciting.
27:47
Central C people mentioned as well a lot.
27:48
It's like actually there has been a breakout British star in
27:51
the last kind of couple of years.
27:52
Central C did really well in the US and, and there's there's,
27:56
there's there's like a surge in British rap from outside London
27:59
as well. Like there's all this stuff
28:00
going on. And like people were saying,
28:02
look, don't just look at how many people are in the top ten.
28:05
Look at the culture and look at the scenes.
28:08
And that's also a measure. And so I actually came out after
28:11
reading this article thinking, yeah, actually, it's not just a
28:14
worrying terrible time when no one's succeeding.
28:17
It's just success is maybe below that radar of top ten artists on
28:21
Spotify, you know, top of the charts at the end of the year
28:24
lists. But won't won't the British
28:27
music industry at some point need a?
28:32
They don't. They need flagship acts though,
28:36
otherwise their power on the global stage is diminished, do
28:40
you think? There is that, and I think
28:42
that's the worry about, you know, it's about it's about kind
28:45
of the, the, the competing with the BTS is competing with the
28:48
kind of Taylor Swift's and yeah, I mean, I guess who'll be the
28:51
last one, I guess Ed, Ed Sheeran, I mean, Dua Lipa kind
28:54
of. But then her second album didn't
28:57
do it quite as well as everyone was hoping to do it.
28:59
It didn't push on to the extent maybe.
29:01
So, yeah, it's been a while since you've had that level.
29:04
And I think a lot of this is going to comes back to
29:06
politicians and policies, unfortunately.
29:09
We talk about that a lot. But this idea of what support
29:11
does the industry need? And I think maybe there's this
29:13
message emerging like actually we need certain kinds of help
29:16
that will help us to break superstar artists.
29:19
But also, and we talk endlessly about grassroots music.
29:22
But I think that's part of the debate too, saying actually we
29:24
need those. We need those levels supported
29:27
so that not just the future superstars can play, but also
29:30
these really interesting scenes that could could become the next
29:35
pool, I guess, of town. So actually weirdly, I came out
29:38
this feeling more optimistic, like there's stuff going on, but
29:40
it's like, OK, what does it need now to push it on and to kind of
29:43
support it, whether that's. I mean we, I mean, we also, I
29:48
mean, we have to, I mean, there are so many questions really and
29:52
observations around this. I mean, for, for one thing, I
29:55
mean, it could, I mean, any of us could be getting it wrong as
29:59
well. And that's the reason why we're
30:01
not breaking artists. I mean, it could be, it could be
30:04
the, maybe the A&R people at the big labels are just signing the
30:08
wrong things. Maybe they're signing things
30:10
that don't have that level of popularity in them.
30:14
Maybe it's, maybe it's the media's fault.
30:16
Maybe we're out of touch. And, you know, the artists who
30:20
are being championed aren't, you know, aren't as, I don't know,
30:25
aren't just aren't the sort of acts that a lot of people out
30:30
there are going to be into. That's the thing.
30:34
So it could be, it could be, it could be a whole load of
30:37
reasons, you know, just we, we badly market bands.
30:41
I think there's a there's another thing as well that what
30:45
you're right, we have, there is always loads of great stuff
30:49
going on at grassroots level. It's what then captures the
30:54
imagination at the centre of pop music, what's accessible enough
30:58
to a big enough audience to make it into the Top 40.
31:05
And I guess it's harder and harder to get to that level
31:09
because because we're so good at, you know, coming up with new
31:14
artists and there are so many of them.
31:16
The problem is because there's two finites here on there, 1 is
31:21
the amount of time people have to listen to music and the
31:24
second is the amount of money people have to engage with music
31:29
and the more stuff that's out there and we've got so much
31:32
stuff. There are thousands of bands and
31:34
you know, acts out there at the moment and they're, you know,
31:37
increasing, they're increasing all the time it feels.
31:40
But that means there is a less time to spend with, you know,
31:44
each the, the time stays the same.
31:46
But if the amount of bands increases and the money stays
31:49
the same, if the amount of artists increases of the time
31:52
and the money is spread more thinly, Jasoo, Romain, it's got
31:57
to be shared out amongst, you know, more and more musicians,
32:00
which is it's harder for for the artists to earn a living out of.
32:07
It's their their craft, but it's also harder to then get to the
32:13
next level because you need a bit of money and need a bit of
32:15
support and you need a bit of profile to get to the next step.
32:17
And then you've got to do it all over again and so on until you
32:20
know, you make your breakthrough.
32:22
So the other thing is complicated I think.
32:24
It is. And the other thing I think is
32:26
that a lot of this stuff, when we worry about things, it's
32:28
based on recorded music only, isn't it?
32:30
It's based on charts it's based on.
32:33
But at our conference recently, I think someone was talking
32:37
about Bring Me the Horizon as an example, and how much money they
32:40
make from things like merch, because they have got a really
32:44
good relationship with their fans and they're very they're
32:47
they're really. And so when they put something
32:48
out, it sells out straight away. And so I think that's another
32:52
thing of success is like, it's not just about charts, it's
32:55
about other artists who are sustaining themselves in other
32:58
ways. And that's kind of the
32:59
unmeasured side of the industry because no one, no one to come
33:02
out and say, hey, we made £5,000,000 from March last year.
33:05
That's not a thing you do as an artist really.
33:08
So I think there's, there's a lot, but like you say, it's it's
33:10
it's all interesting and a lot of it is geared towards right,
33:13
can we have more support for the industry to help us break
33:16
superstars? And then at the other side, can
33:18
we have more support to make sure the grassroots structures
33:21
stay there to support everything going on?
33:23
So yeah, I feel quite obviously, I feel more optimistic after
33:26
reading this article and talking about it than I did maybe a
33:29
couple of weeks ago when everyone was talking about just
33:31
there's no one in the charts, it's all going to.
33:33
Park. Yeah, yeah.
33:34
But you are, you are the glass half full to my glass half
33:37
empty. Yeah.
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But that's actually interesting you mentioned, you know, merch
34:46
and engaging with fans because we'll finish with this this week
34:50
because you you were only saying the other week that maybe even
34:55
in this day and age of social media, maybe it's time for
34:59
artists to try reaching their fans in different ways.
35:02
Maybe go old school, bring back the mailing list, you know, just
35:05
change the way that artists communicate with their fans and
35:09
take control of things which they'd like to share with their
35:12
audience. And now, of course, now, now we
35:14
know why. What's behind all this?
35:16
Because Stuart Dredge favourites the Black Crows have relaunched
35:22
their CRO Mafia club for super fans.
35:26
What a what a day that must have been in the Dredge household
35:29
when you read that. Do you know it break the same
35:32
day Dolly Parton announced a new wine.
35:35
It was catnip podcast day. OK, so I'm going to I'm going to
35:38
talk about this in a way I'm I'm going to a pitch you on this fan
35:41
club and try and sell it to you. I'll try and make it relevant to
35:44
everyone who doesn't give a toss about the Black Crays, which I
35:47
appreciate is but yeah. So Chromo Murphy was actually
35:50
their fan club in the old days when they were huge and it was
35:52
like a traditional fan club. And it's a really funny video of
35:55
I think they appeared on the is it Jimmy Fallon, the US talk
35:58
show host? And he was like, I was a member
36:00
and he showed them his badge, you know, on the show.
36:04
And now it's back in a digital sense.
36:05
So basically you pay $10 a month and you get and it's it's like
36:09
you get new and unreleased songs.
36:11
You get to see unseen live footage Today.
36:13
They've been kind of basically digging in their vaults, the
36:15
band's vaults of everything they've got.
36:17
There'll be new live streams, there'll be a community chat.
36:20
You'll get first dibs on pre sale tickets.
36:23
You get to get into the venues early, barely pronounced.
36:26
And and this is the thing I think might make you run for
36:29
your wallet now. You get a sew on black crows
36:31
patch for your clothes like a physical a physical patch which
36:36
is. This, I mean this, this sounds
36:38
like that sounds like the fan clubs that comics in the 70s
36:43
used to join the Beno fan club or something.
36:46
We get a little wallet and a card do.
36:49
You know, I was my, my first thing I joined was Newsround had
36:51
their press pack. It was a Newsround baby
36:54
journalist and you got you got a badge then.
36:57
But like, so they're they're using this app called Chorus,
36:59
which is one of those superfan startups and I think it has
37:02
Modest Mouse and Bell and Sebastian also on its roster.
37:05
So the Black Crows Bell and Sebastian link that I never
37:08
expected to talk about, but I've been thinking, This is why I
37:12
want to pick your brains, because if there's any band I'm
37:14
going to pay a tenner a month to, it will be the black crows
37:17
because I do. I've, you know, I've grown up
37:19
loving them and there's a really strong like the culture and the
37:22
band. And I think this is a lot
37:24
better. This fans like those rarities
37:28
are famous. Like a lot of Black Crowes fans
37:29
could tell you about the songs they recorded but didn't release
37:33
the famous live performances. Like there's there's a kind of a
37:35
whole culture of like people understanding what these
37:38
rarities are and why it's exciting.
37:40
They're being released finally. So it could tap into that.
37:43
But I'm still a bit like, OK, but are they really going to do
37:45
it? Like, is this going to be great
37:47
or are they going to lose interest after two months and
37:48
three months and they won't be anything?
37:50
And so I'm still on the fence as much as I should be, like,
37:52
here's my tenor straight away. Yeah, always a little bit
37:55
instinctively, you know. Yeah, because if somebody like
37:58
Radiohead said they were going to do this, you would trust
38:01
Radiohead, wouldn't you? Because there's a lot of stuff
38:03
in the vault and, you know, they, they would want to make
38:06
it, you know, a piece of art as well as a piece of marketing.
38:09
But yes, I don't know. I mean, far be it from me to say
38:13
put the wallet back in your pocket.
38:15
Don't. Do not.
38:16
I mean, but now, now you've got to sign up because it's research
38:19
now. That's true in terms.
38:22
We're never going to know the answer to your question whether
38:25
they get bored until you find out whether they get bored or
38:28
not, so. And it's, it's one of the other
38:30
thing that made me think, and I think I've mentioned this
38:32
before, is, is like this is all being fuelled by them, that the
38:36
brothers in the band get digging into everything they've ever
38:39
had. And I did, I remember talking
38:41
recently to someone who works on the archival for bands and they
38:44
were saying, yeah, when you were tiny, when you're a smaller,
38:46
smaller band starting out, keep everything, catalogue
38:50
everything, archive everything, because you never know when in
38:52
the future that's going to be valuable.
38:54
Every demo, everything. Like I feel like I've been up on
38:57
on on stories of like demos being found in lofts.
39:01
That seems to be the way you stored things in your orders.
39:03
You stick it in a box somewhere and hide it in the garage.
39:06
Your parents would keep it. It's a good point though.
39:08
So in every band, there should be at least one hoarder who just
39:12
keeps everything. Yeah, and.
39:14
And because everything is digital now, it's simultaneously
39:16
easy to keep and easy to lose and delete.
39:18
So, you know, but this stuff, I mean, it is if you become that
39:22
kind of band where people do care about hearing the demo you
39:25
recorded that song or then. So, yeah.
39:27
So it's kind of it's, it's exciting and it's interesting.
39:30
And I, I really hope it goes well because I'm, I, I see the
39:34
value in me paying some money to sustain an artist I love so they
39:38
can carry on making new music too.
39:40
And although the Black Crows are playing big gigs as well,
39:42
they're making money nowadays. But yeah, I mean, I was
39:44
wondering, I've got to ask you, when do you, do you ever have
39:46
that thought about? Are there any bands that you
39:48
would instantly go right ten a month?
39:49
Done. I think that I think I would
39:54
chop and change. That's that's the only problem
39:56
is that there there is a point where you go, yeah, I'm just so
39:59
fascinated or so into this thing.
40:04
I don't know. I mean, actually there are.
40:07
I think in a way there are some record labels which I'd probably
40:10
give 10 lbs to as much as some artists as well, just to see
40:14
whether it's Trojan Records or Domino Records or even, you
40:19
know, what's, what's Simon Raymond at Bella Union got you
40:22
know, and I know a lot of labels do do singles clubs or
40:26
subscription services, don't they?
40:28
Third Man Records at the moment, actually.
40:31
I mean, they've got one which is really, as you can imagine, Jack
40:33
White. Jack White doesn't lose interest
40:36
in putting out limited editions for people who subscribed.
40:39
In fact, I think with one of their release, what they do,
40:42
they have a thing called the Vault where they just press up
40:45
something from the vault and give it to people who subscribe.
40:48
But bands, yeah, they're probably, yeah, they're, you
40:51
know, there are. I'd cheerfully give Hamish Hawk
40:53
a tenor at the moment, just because he's at that stage where
40:56
you think probably not really. He's given up his job, but he's
41:00
can't lounge around. I don't know if you if you sold
41:04
it to me as look, does he stay on the road and keep earning a
41:09
little bit of money or would you like to spend A10 or a month so
41:12
he can put his feet up, put his feet up, put his feet up and
41:15
right that he can be in a rehearsal room with his band.
41:18
Yes, yes, I probably would. I don't know.
41:20
And then, but it's that's almost like going back to the old
41:24
crowdfunding, isn't it? I will give you some money so
41:27
that you can get on with your art.
41:30
And that's the thing, and this is the other, the point I had,
41:32
which is more general, which is that I think we've talked about
41:34
supervans quite a bit. And last year there was this the
41:37
superfans buzzword was an interesting, it was all about
41:39
there's so much money to be made here from superfans.
41:43
And this year that's that discussion I think is evolving
41:47
into it's not about rinsing those people.
41:50
And it's, it's the worst thing. If you say I've got superfans,
41:52
how can I? It's all about it's one when
41:57
it's about what do they want and serving them.
41:58
Like what do they actually want from you?
42:01
Whether that is. And it's also about that idea
42:04
about people want to give you money to help you sustain
42:07
yourself. And it's not about trying to
42:08
sell them any old shit. It's about them wanting you to
42:11
be able to carry on doing what you do and finding that happy
42:14
medium where you know, you're kind of.
42:15
So it's, it's, I think the conversation around all this
42:18
stuff is, is evolving to, to a better place than just sell them
42:22
shit, which is last year's conversation.
42:25
So in this case, and I, I know I said I was worried about, but
42:27
generally this, all the stuff that the Crows have announced
42:30
for this, for me as a fan, it's exact.
42:33
It ties into what the fan culture is, which was we want
42:35
the rarities. We want to have that song that
42:38
everyone talks about as mythically brilliant, but never
42:40
went on an album because they were fighting at the time.
42:42
So it has been done, I think, with a thought of what your fans
42:46
want and what would they love. So they just, I love the idea
42:49
that you you can get into a gig early like.
42:53
I know. I don't know if that means the
42:54
sound check or whether it means just you get a special line.
42:57
I don't know what that means. Yeah, like, well, that's, that's
43:00
what you, that's what I want to see though.
43:02
I just want to see everyone with their Black Crows patch all
43:07
stood in a line just to see what a line of Black Crows fans,
43:12
super fans looks like. And that's the point.
43:14
Like they've said, the idea about these patches is you wear
43:16
it so you can recognise each other at the gate again, I
43:19
think, I think. And, you know, I know that is
43:22
funny, but there's something really powerful and interesting
43:25
there about taking this online thing into the real world and
43:29
saying, I mean, I'm, I remember going when I was in my early
43:33
20s, I, I remember going to Camden meetups.
43:36
It was mainly of like chat rooms, like you're on a certain
43:39
indie chat room and going and meeting people rough and how
43:41
powerful that was meeting someone that you only knew is
43:43
this, this name online? So there's something there.
43:46
So yeah, if I get the patch, I will absolutely be wearing it
43:49
and going. To Gates and sort of if you get
43:50
if you get the patch, we'll have to you'll have to take take a
43:54
photo and put it on our social media streams that we're out of
44:00
time. That's it for us this week.
44:02
Thank you very much as ever for listening.
44:04
We do appreciate it. Please feel free to tell friends
44:08
and passing musical acquaintances about us because
44:11
every little helps. Believe us.
44:13
Or if you're feeling just a little flushed and you'd like to
44:15
support the show with some loose change, we now have a Patreon
44:19
page where you can become a pricing music fan or super fan.
44:22
That's WWE www.patreon.com/the Price of Music.
44:27
And Oh yeah, of course I should ask a few questions.
44:32
I promise we will get round to some of your questions very
44:35
soon. But if you have a question,
44:37
because it's a while since we've done a question show, but if you
44:40
have a question which you'd like answered or just an inquiry or
44:44
you'd like to drop us a line about what we're doing here,
44:49
just e-mail us at the Price of Music podcast,
44:53
podcast@gmail.com. That's the price of music
44:56
podcast@gmail.com. For now, though, thank you very
45:00
much again for listening. Take care of yourselves.
45:03
Till next week. Bye bye.