Latest / The Price of Music / Have world tours stopped doing the "tour" part?; Apple Music had 2bn(!) fraudulent streams in 2025; Spotify pays out $11bn; and Bonnie Tyler speaks out!

Transcript

Have world tours stopped doing the "tour" part?; Apple Music had 2bn(!) fraudulent streams in 2025; Spotify pays out $11bn; and Bonnie Tyler speaks out! · The Price of Music

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
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  Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the
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  music industry but also brings you stories and comments from
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  the past week in the pop business.
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  I'm Steve Lamack Heath Stuart Dredge If you want an easy guide
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  to what's going on in the music industry and how it all works,
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  then here we are. This week, fraudulent streams on
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  Apple business rate changes for venues could save arenas
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  millions of pounds and the amount of music we're watching
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  on YouTube. But first, as is our way, one
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  impressive figure that you can take away from this week's show,
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  which is. Today's figure is $11 billion,
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  and that is how much Spotify paid to the music industry in
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  2025, which it announced this week.
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  And that is up from $10 billion the year before.
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  So they've grown by 10%. Right.
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  And obviously Spotify will be happy with this.
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  What's the reaction being from the rest of the industry?
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  Well, quite, quite because it announced this during all the
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  pre Grammys, Hoo ha, last week and all the labels were more
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  focused on having their parties, I think.
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  So no one's really been talking that much about it.
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  But the the interesting Spotify did was it it made a point of
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  saying, yes, we grew 10% last year, what we paid out and that
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  compared to 4% for other industry sources.
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  So it's rivals. So it was kind of a big kind of
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  saying, look, we're growing faster than the rivals.
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  We're doing more paying out. But the other thing I wanted to
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  throw at you was that another stat they gave which I thought
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  was really interesting. So this is a quote from Charlie
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  Hellman, the head of music, who wrote this blog post about it,
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  saying there are now more artists generating over $100,000
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  a year from Spotify alone than we're getting stocked on record
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  store shelves at the height of the CD era.
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  So that is their argument, saying we are paying good money
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  out to more people than we're even in the shops in the in the
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  90s. Do they say which particular
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  shop? I mean, there was some very big
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  records. It's, it's this shop down the
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  end of the street, or is it, you know, the, the megastores back
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  in the day? I'm going to think I'd say it's
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  megastores. I think.
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  I think it would. They wouldn't do the comparison
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  if it wasn't the. Big what?
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  What? What are they saying?
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  How many do they actually give A figure then of how many artists
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  are receiving this amount of money over £100,000 from them if
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  they put a stat on it or if they just just use this comparison so
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  they don't have to? Yeah, so there is a number.
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  It's something Spotify released every year and this thing called
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  the Loud and Clear report, which is due to be updated soon.
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  The nearest I have last year is that in 2024, nearly 1500
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  artists made over $1,000,000 in royalties and Spotify.
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  So yeah. So they're kind of, it's
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  interesting that that and there was this phrase in the in the in
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  the blog post about announcing all this saying the rampant
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  misinformation about steering watches.
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  So this is kind of their punch back of people saying you don't
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  pay out much and them saying actually we're paying out more
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  than the other CD error. I mean, obviously it's a hefty
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  worth of money, but I mean, The thing is, despite what they're
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  saying about the spread of the money, when we know where most
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  of it goes, and it obviously goes to the most popular artists
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  at the top end, You know, and I think I think that Spotify is
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  problem when it comes to their reputation because, you know, if
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  if they think this is going to bring more people on the side,
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  and I think they might not be reading the room properly
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  because the majority of musicians at least won't
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  necessarily be applauding the fact that they've paid out more
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  money to the, you know, the top tiers of your global pop stars.
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  I mean, and good luck to them the verdicts.
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  But basically saying, yeah, we've made the big labels and
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  the big pop stars. More money is not the sort of
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  story that's going to help sway what a lot of people think of
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  them, even if they are saying. But there's loads of other
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  people who are also raking it in, unlike you at the bottom
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  level. Well, that's it.
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  And I think that's what this annual loud and clear report is
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  about, which should be coming. It normally comes in spring, I
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  think, and that's where they they start breaking out.
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  Here's how many people earn $10,000.
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  And you know, so we see the other thing I thought was
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  interesting about this was so there are any, there's only
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  really two streaming services that announce this kind of
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  payout figure regularly. So Spotify does it every year
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  and YouTube Music is the other one.
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  So last year YouTube said it paid out $8 billion to the music
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  industry in the previous year. So it's kind of interesting that
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  every year that's like $19 billion from Spotify and YouTube
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  alone, which if you go back 20 years to that CD era and told
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  someone, yeah, in 20 years time, a streaming service will pay $19
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  billion, People would have been like, what?
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  You would have to explain what streaming was, obviously first.
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  But so. Yeah, so but you say it is these
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  big figures, and it does if you're an artist sat in your
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  bedroom with a small royalty check, feeling really, really
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  sort of sad. Yeah.
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  That almost the more big numbers that come out, the worst you're
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  going to feel because you're not seeing it.
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  How much profit do Spotify themselves make?
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  They they've they were unprofitable for a long time.
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  They've just started making profits recently.
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  Because that's it. That's the other.
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  That's the other thing is we, we, we are paying out a lot of
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  money. We ourselves, though, are now in
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  profits and also how much of our shares worth quite a lot of
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  money. So who's, you know, there are a
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  lot of people making, making money.
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  It's it's not a philanthropic business.
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  This Spotify is still going to make a lot of money, however
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  much money they're paying out. Do you see what I mean?
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  Yeah, You know, they are doing very well out of this as well.
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  You know, deflect it as much as you like.
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  Say, aren't we the good guys? We've just paid out all this
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  money and made more people, you know, put more people on a
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  decent career footing and are bringing in a decent annual
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  wage. That's all fine.
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  But, you know, at the same point, they're doing all right,
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  Spotify. Well, yeah.
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  So then in the third quarter of last year, they made I think was
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  €582 million of operating profit, but it was interesting.
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  So there's this blog post, people can go and look it up.
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  If you look up Spotify for the record, which is their press
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  website, most of this blog post was talking about, and we keep
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  30% of the money we earn and this is what we're spending on
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  this year. And there's a lot of talk about
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  the tools they're going to launch for artists, new
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  features. And there was this phrase new
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  features that will help more artists turn listening into
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  tangible support from their fans.
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  So that was part of this argument as well.
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  They were saying, yes, we do keep some of this money and this
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  is what we're spending on for artists.
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  And the other stat in this actually, which I hadn't seen
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  before, you know, you can get tickets from Spotify like you
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  can if he's an artist like this. So here's any concerts, buy
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  tickets. They reckon they've helped
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  artists sell more than a billion dollars of tickets to that
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  feature, which they've never announced before.
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  So I think you're right. I think that they're seeing
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  these arguments and they're trying to comment and say, look,
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  this is what we're doing. This is how we're investing and
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  it's how we're helping artists. But I mean, like you say, people
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  will have different opinions, but that ticketing figure made
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  me think, OK, if you're an artist right now, you need to
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  have your concert dates on Spotify and be trying to, you
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  know, have it point people to tickets because that is clearly
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  getting a little bit of traction that feature people are seeing
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  it and buying tickets. So you know.
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  Yeah, I mean, alternatively, I mean that, but that's driving an
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  artist to put their music on Spotify where, you know, the
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  royalty, right might not, you know, will not bring them as
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  much money as if they were selling directly to to their
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  fans or maybe on another service.
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  What the what the ticketing thing is doing is giving them
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  another reason. I mean, there are places where
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  this might surprise you, where you can buy gig tickets already
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  and Spotify are basically taking part of that to bring more
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  people to them. That's one.
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  So if I'm, you know, if I'm going to play devil's advocate,
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  there is, there is that side of the argument, isn't it?
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  Well, I think in this sense, it's more they're pointing you
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  towards the other ticketing place.
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  So they're not taking a cut of those sales, right.
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  So, but yeah, you're right. I mean, it's it's it's part of
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  the package like beyond here, you could do this, but but it
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  does make me think if you are going to be on there then and if
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  you're an artist who hasn't connected up your concert dates
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  with Spotify so that it can like that is worth doing.
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  So that was one thing I took away from this this this thing
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  was like, because they've always had they've had this feature for
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  a while. And I was like, I wonder how
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  many tickets are being actually sold because you can put your
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  ticket, your ticket on Spotify. And that's so yeah.
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  But yeah, I mean, it's a, it is interesting because I think
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  they, they give out the most information about the money
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  they're paying out and what they're doing, but at the same
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  time they get the most criticism.
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  So it's a, it's a kind of a, you know, it's a, it's a free for
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  all whenever they put figures out.
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  But that's good. Arguably the more insight we
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  have into what they're paying out, the more we can discuss
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  where it's going and how fairly it's being shared.
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  So you know. OK, aside from that, three of
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  this week's big talking points, or at least three which we
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  thought you might be interested in starting with this talking
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  and streaming services. There's another big number
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  actually this week from Apple Music, and it's the number of
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  fraudulent streams on Apple in 2025, which is, as I say, quite
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  a big figure as well, isn't it? Well, it sounds like a big
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  figure and then the context for it maybe says not so much, but
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  yeah, so fraudulent streams. I mean, just to catch up, anyone
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  who's not been following that, that's when there's a songs on a
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  streaming service and they're being played not by humans in a
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  real way. So they've been played by bots
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  or someone's got a warehouse of computers streaming around the
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  clock. So that that's what streaming
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  fraud is. And yeah, last year this is an
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  interview with Oliver Schuster, who he used to be the boss of
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  Apple's music business, and now he's more senior, but it's still
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  under him. Yeah, up to 2 billion fraudulent
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  streams last year on Apple Music alone.
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  Right, OK. Which is, is interesting because
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  he was, this sounds bad at first glance, isn't it?
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  But then his next thing was like, but we identified those.
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  And basically what he said was we, we, we take the stream
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  counts off the fraud streams don't count.
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  We take them out of the charts and we take the money and put it
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  back into the pool. So it goes to honourable
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  artists. So it's kind of a, it's a boast
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  really. He's saying 2 brilliant streams,
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  we've spotted them and we took the money away from them going
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  back to human artists. So it's kind of a pitch there.
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  It's all it's all big figures though this week, Spotify with a
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  big payout and Apple being able to say how many streams,
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  fraudulent streams they've spotted.
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  And that brings us to Story too, which is the amount of music
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  we're watching on YouTube. And again, that's quite a big
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  figure. It is, yeah.
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  So this is from a company called Omdia, which is one of those big
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  research companies that that digs into stats from all the big
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  Internet services. Yeah, music videos are 33% of
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  YouTube's total viewing time. So everything anyone watches on
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  YouTube from what the traditional cat videos, gaming
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  videos, vlogging, but 1/3 of everything is music videos,
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  which is actually it's grown. So five years ago the then head
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  of music YouTube said that it was music was 25% of its watch
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  time. So it's a quarter, then it's a
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  third narrow. So music is getting more and
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  more important to YouTube. It's the kind of, well it's sort
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  of positive news. Like music's important because
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  there's a lot of things it's competing with on there, but at
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  the same time, it might be the spare for music labels to go
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  well and you should be paying us much more because look how
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  important we are to your business.
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  So it could spark a few a few arguments.
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  Yeah, that's so in in a way good, good news for for the
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  industry. Yeah, I think so.
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  I mean, what it didn't breakdown and what I wanted to do was how
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  much of those actual sort of music videos for adults and how
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  much of it is wheels on the Bus, as we discussed before here, you
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  know, popular kids videos. But yeah, I think so it's it's I
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  think one that one like the things that people in the music
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  industry that keeps them awake a bit at night sometimes there's
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  all these other things they have to compete with nowadays.
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  They're competing with with games, they're competing with
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  Netflix, they're competing with all these other things you can
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  spend your time watching and listening to.
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  And yet people go to music, go to YouTube and what they want to
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  do is play music and listen to music.
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  I mean, you just start to come out.
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  This is a stat to kind of quote in the pub.
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  There are now more than 29 billion videos on YouTube and
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  and most of those aren't getting watched like like in streaming
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  most songs on it listen to, but it's just observing how many.
• 12:29
  Yeah, no, I think it's good news, I think.
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  But I do think next time YouTube is in a room with a label
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  thrashing out a licensing deal, they will be pointed to saying,
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  I see how much more important we are to your whole business, so
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  we want more money. So I have to kind of deal with
• 12:42
  that. Story 3 and I thesis I've been
• 12:44
  banging on about this since before Christmas.
• 12:46
  The changes in ratable values for venues big and small, while
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  at the same time, as we reported there were changes around
• 12:56
  business rate relief for venues in the government's last budget
• 12:59
  just before Christmas. And together these things, well,
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  I mean the the threat was if, if, if, if nothing changes two
• 13:08
  things. One, this would lead potentially
• 13:11
  to humongous rises in venues business rates, which in turn,
• 13:17
  if the venues were going to pass on this increase to fans may
• 13:22
  lead to a threatened 3 pounder ticket extra in the cost of
• 13:27
  going to see your favorite artist at an arena show.
• 13:30
  And while all that's happening at the top end, then almost
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  certainly amongst the grassroots venues at the other end of the
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  scale, we'd see probably, you know a raft of closures as soon
• 13:43
  as the new business rate kicked in in April.
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  But good news this week because you might have seen this story,
• 13:50
  but last week after, well, I think there were nearly 50
• 13:54
  Labour MPs sent a letter to the chancellor calling on her to act
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  and in some way to help both venues and pubs actually as it
• 14:02
  goes. But there when it came to venues
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  also, there was a lot of lobbying of the treasury from
• 14:10
  the live industry and particularly, I have to say from
• 14:13
  Live, the live music trade body. All of which eventually lead to
• 14:19
  this government announcement last week that from April it'll
• 14:22
  be giving venues of 15% discount on their business rates in 2627,
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  while also promising to freeze their rights in real terms for
• 14:33
  the following two years. And 15% might not sound a lot.
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  Whether it's enough for the grassroots scene, we're still
• 14:42
  sort of waiting to find out. But certainly I was told
• 14:44
  yesterday that even a 15 percent, 15% worth of rate
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  relief that would help save one leading live music arena venue
• 14:55
  in the UK somewhere in the region of £1.2 million in the
• 15:01
  next year. And that of course is a £1.2
• 15:04
  million bill, which, as I say, would, could otherwise have been
• 15:08
  been likely passed on to fans through increased ticket prices.
• 15:13
  So that, as I say, is a, is a win.
• 15:15
  I mean, we still need a proper review of venues, ratable values
• 15:19
  to take into account the, you know, the, the margins they
• 15:22
  operate on and, and also how much they bring to local
• 15:25
  communities, you know, both creatively but also financially.
• 15:29
  If you think about how much money a big arena venue
• 15:33
  generates with, you know, a string of concert, how much
• 15:36
  money does that bring into the community?
• 15:38
  All these things are points which are constantly being made.
• 15:42
  But yes, the 15% business rate relief 11 bright one bright spot
• 15:49
  from from last week. OK.
• 15:52
  Any other business, Stuart? Yeah, well, I did something.
• 15:56
  Want to heart back to a story we covered last year and we talked
• 15:59
  about Bonnie Tyler's Spotify royalties, if you remember.
• 16:02
  And why would you not? Obviously there's been a follow
• 16:05
  up. So there was a story.
• 16:06
  So Total Eclipse of the Heart, her biggest hit, has just joined
• 16:08
  Spotify's Billions Club. So it's got one more than 1
• 16:10
  billion streams on that service. And BBC News did a little story
• 16:14
  about it and she interviewed Bonnie Tyler and she was very
• 16:16
  positive, seems like a very positive person.
• 16:19
  But when they asked her how much she makes from streams of that
• 16:21
  song, she said basically, oh, it's nothing, just about
• 16:23
  nothing. Which then sparked in sparked
• 16:26
  this kind of follow up where Spotify actually got in touch
• 16:29
  and told me how much it paid her last year or paid out for her
• 16:32
  music last year. So it paid out more than $1.4
• 16:36
  million for a whole catalog last year.
• 16:39
  And that follows on from the number we talked about last
• 16:41
  year, which was $1.3 million in 2024.
• 16:43
  So essentially Spotify has paid out $2.7 million in the last two
• 16:48
  years for Bonnie Tyler's music, but she makes just about nothing
• 16:52
  from her biggest hit. And both of those things could
• 16:54
  be true because what we're missing is all the middle stuff
• 16:56
  about what deal she has with the label at the time, how money is
• 17:00
  being paid through to her. We do know she didn't write the
• 17:03
  song. It was written by Jim Steyman of
• 17:05
  of Meatloaf fame. So the publishing role has been
• 17:08
  going to his estate. But yeah, so it's one of those
• 17:11
  mysteries where the headlines will about how Bonnie Tyler
• 17:13
  makes nothing from streaming and yet streaming is paying out
• 17:16
  money for her stuff. And so it comes back to this
• 17:19
  age-old mystery of what happens in the middle of it being paid
• 17:22
  out. And the the artists sat at the
• 17:24
  end waiting for money shop in their account.
• 17:26
  But you know, Billions streams to that song.
• 17:28
  That's it's one of those things where like it's you can very
• 17:32
  quickly get to a billion streams if you're the latest song from,
• 17:35
  I don't know, Drake or The Weeknd, but quite regularly on
• 17:38
  YouTube and Spotify, you get these kind of 80s or 90s songs
• 17:41
  that suddenly have got to a billion.
• 17:42
  I think we're like the Cure did one that got to a billion.
• 17:44
  Reason it and it always makes me kind of smile that there's it's
• 17:47
  not just about the new stuff that's reaching these big
• 17:49
  milestones. It's it's some classics too.
• 17:52
  Back on the subject of live music, this is something which
• 17:55
  the BBC News website ran a piece on and it's all about, well, how
• 18:00
  major pop stars, major artists are visiting less towns and
• 18:06
  cities. So artists, and this is a this
• 18:10
  is a trend which is, I don't know, it's post, obviously it's
• 18:15
  it's post lockdown, but particularly, I suppose over the
• 18:18
  last two or three years, this has become more noticeable where
• 18:22
  somebody like Harry Styles who's just put on that sale a tour.
• 18:26
  It is it a tour though, when you're basically spending a lot
• 18:30
  of time in three or four cities rather than actually travelling
• 18:33
  around the country. So artists are travelling less,
• 18:36
  which means fans are having to travel more.
• 18:40
  And so the cost for the fan goes up.
• 18:42
  But yes, essentially less travelling costs for the artist,
• 18:46
  more travelling and accompanying accommodation costs possibly for
• 18:49
  the fans. As I say, this is becoming quite
• 18:51
  a trend, isn't it? It is, yeah.
• 18:53
  I was looking at the Harry Styles to he's doing 30 nights
• 18:56
  at Madison Square Garden, like a full month of dates and 12
• 19:01
  nights of Wimby 10 in Amsterdam. Yeah.
• 19:05
  And it and it seems to be things like I said, Beyoncé did a bunch
• 19:07
  of dates in London. Ariana Grande is doing about 10
• 19:10
  nights I think in London next year.
• 19:12
  Coldplay. Do you remember the Coldplay 1
• 19:14
  when it was like many nights at Wembley and then two at Hull I
• 19:17
  think, Yeah. So it was kind of a random
• 19:20
  random like that was it was Hull the warm up to Wembley?
• 19:22
  Were they kind of doing a smaller stadium first or there
• 19:25
  was a reason wasn't there to go there?
• 19:26
  I think. Yeah, there was also, also, to
• 19:29
  be fair to them, they had been, they had already done a run of
• 19:32
  UK dates where they'd been to other places.
• 19:35
  So this was sort of filling in some of the gaps, I think.
• 19:37
  Yeah. And it's weird because like you
• 19:38
  say, it's double edged swords. So, you know, every year, like
• 19:41
  UK music, they put out a report saying celebrating music
• 19:45
  tourism, like people coming to the UK and travelling to spend
• 19:48
  money and see concerts. And that's a good news story,
• 19:51
  the economic value of music tourism.
• 19:53
  But like you say, those costs are on fans and there's also a
• 19:56
  climate cost as well. You know, the whole fan travel
• 19:58
  is one of the biggest contributions to to the climate
• 20:01
  impacts a lot of music. So it's it's a weird thing
• 20:04
  really. I mean, I think.
• 20:06
  The BBC article did a good job of saying some of the reasons
• 20:09
  why it can be good to sort of do fewer, fewer different cities
• 20:12
  and 1 of this like the complexity of the sets and the
• 20:14
  productions and if you're going to have to take them all down
• 20:17
  and set up in another stadium, you know, another city.
• 20:21
  So I do understand where that comes from that you're sort of
• 20:23
  thinking, I want to put on the best show possible with.
• 20:25
  I meant to know how many costume changes Harry stars are.
• 20:27
  But you remember the Taylor Swift tour where it was just a
• 20:31
  mammoth, like a lot. It was long, lots of set
• 20:34
  changes. And doing that in one city does
• 20:39
  make more sense to the artist. So I guess we're going to see it
• 20:42
  more. I mean, I kind of just think
• 20:43
  about what's equivalent for small bands because you know,
• 20:45
  you always sweat Little Granddad and you see them in the Windmill
• 20:47
  in Brixton. Are they also touring?
• 20:50
  Are they also playing other venues or have they been
• 20:52
  basically playing there at this stage of their career?
• 20:54
  Like is this is there an equipment for small bands as
• 20:56
  well where they stay in one place?
• 20:58
  No, and this is the this is the thing, this is the difference,
• 21:01
  isn't it? Yeah, I think maybe we might get
• 21:04
  onto this in the lock in, I think in response to something
• 21:07
  which our guest last week, Ricky Bates from the Southampton join
• 21:10
  us was talking about how, you know, that's really there's
• 21:13
  struggle as tours become smaller, but that's that's an
• 21:17
  economic thing rather than our choice.
• 21:19
  Because when you're a big artist, of course the fans will
• 21:22
  go to you. But when you're a new artist,
• 21:24
  you have to go to the fans, I think.
• 21:27
  And yes, little granddad, well, they were on tour during
• 21:30
  independent venue week. So they they are finally getting
• 21:33
  out and about. But you know, so first of all,
• 21:36
  you've got to find your, you've got, you've got to play in front
• 21:39
  of people and get quite good. And then you can go out and you
• 21:42
  know, do some, do some dates. Out when you're all standing.
• 21:45
  There the other. Thing about Harry Styles I
• 21:47
  thought was interesting. So the other, the other, the
• 21:49
  worrying thing I suppose is if you have to spend loads of money
• 21:51
  going to see Harry Styles in London because you need a hotel,
• 21:55
  you know, all that stuff, does that mean you're less likely to
• 21:57
  go to a nearest small venue because you spent it on the big
• 21:59
  gig? And that's something we
• 22:00
  discussed before. But then the flip to that is, as
• 22:03
  you said, last show, I think that Harry Styles is one of the
• 22:05
  artists who is chipping in with a levy in each ticket.
• 22:08
  So in his case those those those is it 1213 nights at Wembley.
• 22:13
  Now each of the tickets sold for that is going to benefit small
• 22:16
  venues. So it's kind of give it's
• 22:19
  there's pros and cons, aren't there in terms of.
• 22:21
  The impact, yeah, yeah, venues and promoters and all sorts of
• 22:27
  groups wherever the Live Trust decides to distribute the money.
• 22:31
  But it covers loads of yeah, and some artists as well that we pay
• 22:35
  back to artists at the bottom ends of the scale who can't
• 22:38
  afford to do those extra two dates on their their tour.
• 22:42
  It's all stuff like that. Talking talk of staying with
• 22:45
  life, talking of not travelling very far.
• 22:47
  Bruno Mars basically almost didn't get out of bed for his
• 22:50
  last gig, but still attracted 12.8 million people because yes,
• 22:56
  as you probably guessed, it was an online performance.
• 22:59
  But that's a that's a huge amount of people logging in
• 23:03
  Bruno Mars. It absolutely is.
• 23:05
  And and to start this story, I need to talk to you about a
• 23:07
  thing called brain rot. OK, which I'm not being rude
• 23:11
  about Bruno Mars music there. OK, so look, I'm going to watch
• 23:14
  your face as I tell you this. So brain rot is this trend very
• 23:18
  big for kids. There's basically like
• 23:20
  nonsensical AI generated characters.
• 23:23
  It's like 3 legged sharks and crocodiles that also bomber jets
• 23:26
  and drums that are waving baseball bats.
• 23:29
  It's almost like the kids responding to all this AI slop
• 23:31
  that grown-ups are seeing and saying, OK, we're going to
• 23:34
  celebrate this. We're going to create new
• 23:35
  characters out of it. And there's all these games that
• 23:37
  have got brain rot in the title and have these weird characters
• 23:39
  in. And there's a game called Steal
• 23:42
  a Brain Rot on Roblox, which is one of the biggest games.
• 23:44
  And then to give you a a sense of how big it is, last October,
• 23:48
  more than 25 million people were playing it at the same time, all
• 23:51
  these kids. And so Bruno Mars or his team,
• 23:55
  whoever round him said the biggest game on Roblox, let's go
• 23:58
  and do a concert there. And they played this concert and
• 24:01
  12.8 million people showed up and I think another 53 million
• 24:05
  views on social media. So this thing people went and
• 24:07
  visited and watched him, his virtual Bruno play a concert,
• 24:11
  but then they also posted about it elsewhere.
• 24:12
  And it was this ripple effect all I think it was the day
• 24:15
  before his new album was announced or his tour was
• 24:17
  announced or the new single came out.
• 24:18
  So it was all part of the the promo.
• 24:22
  And I guess the thing that is really interesting about this
• 24:25
  for me is like these games, like this brain rot thing, it's
• 24:30
  completely under the radar for most people and most adults.
• 24:34
  And if you know about it, it's because you're a parent going,
• 24:36
  what the hell is brain rot? And why is my child playing
• 24:38
  games called brain rot? Should I worry?
• 24:41
  And I felt like I suddenly realized that it's probably the
• 24:43
  equivalent for parents today as like, I don't know, like the Sex
• 24:47
  Pistols were to parents of punks.
• 24:50
  You know that thing your kids do that you don't understand?
• 24:52
  You fear it and you don't like it.
• 24:54
  And it can't be music nowadays because your parents will be
• 24:56
  like, oh, yeah, I like, you know that band you like too because
• 24:59
  everything's on Spotify. But they will never understand
• 25:02
  brain rock. Came some Roblox.
• 25:04
  And that's why all the kids are doing it.
• 25:05
  And that's where the big superstar artists are going,
• 25:07
  right? We need to part of this.
• 25:09
  Let's do a concert. So yeah, Bruno Mars, brain rock.
• 25:12
  That's that's the crossover explained.
• 25:14
  And finally, just in case you thought we were going to get
• 25:17
  through an entire episode without any mention of AI, no,
• 25:21
  it's the chart that's no one was asking for, but here it is
• 25:24
  anyway. The first global chart for AI
• 25:27
  generated music has been launched.
• 25:32
  Who, who was, who was #1 I mean, and it's we better what, what's
• 25:37
  the, what are the, what are the chart eligibility rules?
• 25:41
  You have to be entirely AI generated in this case or part
• 25:45
  AI generated. Is this going to work in reverse
• 25:48
  to what sort of music we're allowing on, you know, major
• 25:51
  streaming services? Do you have to be entirely 100%
• 25:56
  AI to be eligible to be in the AI chart?
• 26:00
  Yeah, it's like a reverse Turing test.
• 26:01
  Prove you're not human. You know, it's this new company.
• 26:04
  I've never had them before. Called Sonic Intelligence
• 26:06
  Academy and and the rules here are, yeah, they won't include
• 26:10
  songs that are copying real human artists.
• 26:11
  So if you're cloning a real human, you can't be in this
• 26:13
  chart. And they're they say they're
• 26:15
  watching out for bots and fraud, although that's quite a tough
• 26:18
  task. But yeah, they've got this new 2
• 26:20
  charts actually. One is AI music top 101 is top
• 26:23
  100 AI covers. And the idea is that they want
• 26:27
  to just have a little ranking of what is catching on, what's
• 26:29
  genuinely being listened to. And the first chart came out for
• 26:33
  the week of the 31st of January. And what I do, if you had a
• 26:36
  chance to listen to it, but it's it's this country song called I
• 26:39
  don't care by how do we say it? I don't like saying an artist
• 26:43
  because they're not an artist. They're an AI.
• 26:45
  Haven't you know, by a project called Kane Walker.
• 26:48
  It's like this grizzled country country sort of thing is top.
• 26:53
  And then this song called by by again a virtual artist called
• 26:56
  Jacob called and I I my Swedish is terrible.
• 26:58
  Sorry, Swedish sisters, Yag vets Do our Intermin, which is a song
• 27:04
  released in Sweden, an AI song that was banned from the real
• 27:07
  Swedish charts recently because it was AI.
• 27:09
  But it's #2 in this one. So it's that it gets that sense
• 27:12
  of like, this is the, this is the other place where these
• 27:14
  things are celebrated. Yeah, that's that track, which
• 27:17
  is #1 the country song simply sounded like the theme tune for
• 27:22
  something on Sky Atlantic. I mean, that's it was a City
• 27:26
  Atlantic TV theme tune. That's what it sounded like to
• 27:28
  me. Do you think good enough to be
• 27:30
  here? Like is it?
• 27:31
  Is it about? Oh, yeah, Yeah.
• 27:32
  And then, you know, once again, here's the problem.
• 27:35
  Already people who write TV theme tunes are thinking, well,
• 27:38
  all our jobs are going because someone is coming up with
• 27:42
  something that sounds, you know, moderately right for the mood of
• 27:47
  the program. You know, I mean, how many
• 27:50
  times, how many times have you watched the detective series on
• 27:53
  any, on any platform, on any TV station recently where you got,
• 27:58
  I know exactly what this is going to be.
• 28:01
  And it's got because it's just there is a style of how you do
• 28:05
  it. Once there's a style to what TV
• 28:09
  commissioners want, then you can make that style on that one.
• 28:13
  Could train them, train all them, yeah.
• 28:14
  Got Dennis Waterman spinning in his grave.
• 28:16
  Listen, he because he used to be the TV theme tune king.
• 28:19
  But yeah, I mean, but I looked up this Kane Walker project and
• 28:22
  he's got 1.2 million listeners on Spotify.
• 28:25
  So it is something that's got traction.
• 28:27
  So this might be a good, I think this chart might be quite a good
• 28:31
  way of seeing what stuff is actually being listened to from
• 28:34
  the AI side and then keeping track of it.
• 28:36
  Is it any good? And like you say, the level now
• 28:38
  is TV theme tune on Sky Atlantic.
• 28:40
  So this chart should be quite interesting if if it's good.
• 28:43
  I mean, what the thing like that worries me is like there is so
• 28:46
  much fraud around AI music at the moment.
• 28:49
  Like there was a stat from Deezer recently saying 85% of
• 28:52
  streams of this music on it. So it's a fraud and they're
• 28:55
  bots. So I don't know how you really
• 28:58
  protect your chart from anyone who's doing that.
• 29:01
  Like it's expensive, complicated business, but I'm quite
• 29:05
  interested to see it'll be a good way of seeing which a
• 29:07
  artists are popping up anyway and keeping tabs on those.
• 29:11
  And that's it for this week. Thank you very much for
• 29:13
  listening. If you are into what we're
• 29:15
  trying to do here, which is, you know, basically bringing you
• 29:19
  some of the stories and themes while demystifying the industry
• 29:22
  one small step at a time. Do feel free to pass the word on
• 29:26
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• 29:31
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• 29:33
  Patreon, in fact, sign up to be a super fan.
• 29:37
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• 29:41
  which we record after we've finished this.
• 29:43
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• 29:46
  the show at patreon.com/the Price of Music.
• 29:49
  Or if you simply like to get in touch any any reactions, any
• 29:53
  comment on any of the stories this week or any thoughts you'd
• 29:57
  like to share with us, or indeed any questions about any aspects
• 30:00
  of the music industry that you'd like explained as best we can,
• 30:04
  drop us a line thepriceofmusicpodcasts@gmail.com.
• 30:08
  Until next week, take care everybody.
• 30:10
  Cheerio. Goodbye.