Latest / The Price of Music / *How many* AI-generated songs are uploaded to streaming each week? Why are Radiohead's fans angry about tickets? Why has Spotify given users lossless music for free? And much more...

Transcript

*How many* AI-generated songs are uploaded to streaming each week? Why are Radiohead's fans angry about tickets? Why has Spotify given users lossless music for free? And much more... · The Price of Music

• 0:09
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:12
  Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by all the fun and
• 0:15
  games and finances of the music world as explained each week by
• 0:19
  me, Steve Lemack and him, Stuart Dredge.
• 0:21
  If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music
• 0:25
  business and how it all works with one or two revealing stats
• 0:29
  along the way. And here we are.
• 0:30
  In fact, we'll start, as always, with an interesting big number,
• 0:34
  which this week is Stuart, What have you got?
• 0:38
  It's 30,000. 30,000 Watt. It's not how much I'm spending
• 0:44
  on my son starting university this week.
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  Although not far off 30,000 is how many fully AI generated
• 0:51
  tracks are being uploaded to streaming service Deezer.
• 0:54
  But every single day. Every day.
• 0:58
  Every day. 30,000 AI tracks, just AI tracks every every day.
• 1:05
  What's that? What's that in percentage terms?
• 1:07
  Do we? Do we know?
• 1:09
  Yeah, so Deezer has been talking about this stat quite regularly.
• 1:13
  So in January it said that 10% of all its uploads were AI
• 1:16
  generated tracks. In April I went up to 18% and
• 1:19
  now it's 28%. So not far off a third of all
• 1:23
  the new tracks. And the thing here is that by
• 1:25
  implication, if it's happening on DS, it's probably the same
• 1:27
  for its big arrivals. So 28% of all the new music is
• 1:32
  fully. And I I did some maths.
• 1:33
  That's 210,000 tracks every week.
• 1:37
  That's nearly 11,000,000 a year, like 11,000,000 AI slop tracks.
• 1:44
  Yeah, I mean, I was doing some maths as well, because if, if
• 1:47
  roughly doing the maths, then if, if Deezer is putting up, if
• 1:51
  it's putting up, I don't know how many, how many tracks a day,
• 1:54
  100 if, if you do the maths, if 30,000, that's rough, roughly
• 1:59
  1/3. So Deezer is putting up 100,000
• 2:03
  tracks a day I mean. I mean, that's.
• 2:06
  That is, you know, that that is more maths.
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  That's 70 songs a minute. I mean, in the time that it
• 2:13
  takes us to finish this podcast, more than 2000 tracks will have
• 2:17
  been added, of which now we learn of which a third of those
• 2:22
  are quite possibly AI generated. I mean, how are we supposed to
• 2:26
  make sense of this? It's actually come down a bit.
• 2:28
  It used to be 120,000 a day, but that's come down.
• 2:30
  But yeah, so that I wonder the one thing is that a lot of the
• 2:33
  coverage of this stat, because it is quite, it sounds
• 2:35
  frightening, doesn't it? It's kind of worrying.
• 2:37
  A lot of the coverage has been like the Sky's falling in Hume,
• 2:40
  musicians are in trouble. These services are being overrun
• 2:43
  by AI music. But there's some other numbers
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  of these released that kind of may make you feel a bit happier
• 2:48
  about it or a bit more comfortable.
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  So these tracks, it's very careful wording, fully AI
• 2:54
  generated tracks. So it doesn't include like if a
• 2:56
  musician's used AI in some way to make their song, it's always
• 3:00
  been created only. They account for 28% of uploads
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  but only nought .5% of total streams on Deezer.
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  So let's half a percent. And it also says that 70% of
• 3:12
  those streams are fraudulent, which basically means someone
• 3:15
  has stuck an AI track up and is using bots to try and earn
• 3:18
  royalties from it. So if you do the maths on that.
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  So 30. So 28% of uploads, 30% of their
• 3:30
  streams are real humans only and nought .5% of total streams AI.
• 3:35
  That means that only nought .15% of all streams on Deezer are AI
• 3:39
  generated music by actual humans wanting to listen to it.
• 3:42
  So it kind of tells you that. Well, it's partly because Deezer
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  isn't recommending that music. It's got a policy.
• 3:47
  It won't put it in its playlist and it won't recommend it in its
• 3:49
  algorithm. So it's kind of squashing the
• 3:51
  promotion of it. But I think it also tells you
• 3:53
  that people don't want to listen to this stuff at the moment.
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  People want to listen to people. So if you're a human band going,
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  Oh my God, the Sky's falling in. Actually humans don't want to
• 4:03
  listen to this at the moment. And it could change.
• 4:06
  There could be some amazing bangers released and that will
• 4:08
  change things. But I mean, it's not it's not
• 4:11
  quite as sky falling in as it maybe seems at the 1st.
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  Yeah, that's true. Can I just mention two points
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  though? That's the storage for this
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  though. If, if we are creating these or
• 4:23
  somebody is creating these 30,000 tracks a day, it just
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  adds to, I mean, Spotify already have massive warehouses don't
• 4:31
  they, to, to house all this music.
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  Surely then, you know, this is only going to increase the
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  pressure as more and more tracks go on every day.
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  Some of which we really don't possibly need as, as you say, if
• 4:44
  people aren't listening to them, we don't need these tracks.
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  But it's going to cost us in the end because it all adds to
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  Spotify's running costs, the fact that they've got to house
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  all this music. And the climate, I mean, there's
• 4:53
  a, there's a, well, in fact, it's a wider issue about AI
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  technology and what's the impact on the climate of all the
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  servers needed. I know people who don't like to
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  use track GBT because they're worried about the climate impact
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  of it all. And there's an argument that
• 5:05
  here, yeah, the more music there is on servers that no one's
• 5:07
  listening to, there still is a cost and there still is heating
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  and water. So, yeah, it's a, it's worrying
• 5:12
  from that point of view. Nothing didn't.
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  You yeah, but the second point is it strikes if if obviously
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  somebody's making this music, no one's really listening to it.
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  It's taking up all this. But the only winners from this
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  are the are the start up companies which are offering the
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  AI software. I mean, are they the ones doing
• 5:32
  the victory lap around the office?
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  Because this the rate of growth of AI tracks seems to be gaining
• 5:40
  pace. Well, yeah, although it could be
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  a double edged sword there because I think what Deezer is
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  saying is most of the stuff, this stuff is being put up with
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  fraud in mind. And so if you're those services,
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  you, you, you don't want to get sued for copyright infringement,
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  which some of them are. And you also don't want to be
• 5:57
  associated with fraud. You don't want people kind of
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  saying, right, you're being used by criminals to try and make
• 6:02
  money. So in a way it's, I don't know
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  if they'll be doing a lap of honour.
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  It does show the growth of it in, in one sense it's yeah.
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  So it's a, but I mean, the other thing I saw, I saw in the last
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  up this week, Do you remember we talked a lot about the Velvet
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  Sundown a couple of months ago. So they were the AI band
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  creating and they had like 1.5 million listeners on Spotify.
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  And I think people are still quoting that stat and saying,
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  oh, did you hear an AI band had a million and a half listeners?
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  They've only got 320,000 now and that is a mark again of that was
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  one of the better examples, the more the better examples of AI
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  music and the audience the 5th because people were curious but
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  didn't want to come back to it. And I think a lot of the people
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  that that 300,000 people have seen the band pop up again in
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  there when there are playlists and gone.
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  I wonder what they're doing now. What's the latest stuff sound
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  like? Still curious.
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  So I think that's the message here is that, yeah, there's so
• 6:55
  much stuff being uploaded, but humans still by and large want
• 6:59
  human music and and, you know, don't, don't be too
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  existentially kind of fear fearful.
• 7:06
  News stories This week, once again, we've picked 3, which we
• 7:09
  think you'll be interested in. We'll start with this one, which
• 7:12
  we touched on last week, but it's it's the Radiohead gigs, or
• 7:17
  well, more pointedly, Radiohead's ticketing for the
• 7:21
  new tour, which was, I mean, entirely designed to try and
• 7:25
  shut out the touts. But more than 1000 tickets for
• 7:29
  the Radiohead dates were on via Gogo and similar sites before I
• 7:35
  think they even went properly on sale.
• 7:38
  I mean, I think I know the answer to why or how this may
• 7:41
  have happened. But as someone who applied for
• 7:43
  tickets and didn't get one, what's your take, Stuart?
• 7:47
  Yeah, it's interesting. Still I'm containing my
• 7:50
  disappointment. But yeah, I mean, obviously for
• 7:53
  anyone who hasn't been involved in it, you know, Radiohead got
• 7:56
  fans to pre register, didn't they?
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  And you had to register your details.
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  You then got some unlock code which got you into the sale on a
• 8:01
  chance of tickets or you didn't. You got an e-mail saying sorry,
• 8:04
  you haven't got one. And the the whole point is we're
• 8:07
  shutting out touts and bots. Only fans will get into the sale
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  to buy tickets. So, yeah.
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  So this follow on is that people have been listing them and, and
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  So what we don't know is if you're listing tickets before
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  they went on sale, you didn't have those tickets.
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  But that's the that's the nub of it, isn't it?
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  If someone listed those tickets on Thursday, the day before on
• 8:26
  sale, they didn't have a ticket to sell.
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  And that's why people across the band's management was quoted as
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  saying this is this is bad. We're encouraging fans to stay
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  away from these tickets and we're going to be working to
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  shut down unauthorised sales. So if you already have fan going
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  on, I mean, like, I mean, I get the temptation.
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  If you missed out on tickets, if you didn't get a code or you
• 8:43
  didn't get tickets, you might want to go somewhere and say
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  I'll, I'll pay £500 to go and see these gigs.
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  They're going to be amazing. I understand that.
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  But you could then get to the gig and be turned away because
• 8:53
  your ticket was was sold so. I tell you what, one thing I did
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  enjoy about the Guardian report on this was they included a
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  quote from Reg Walker. And if if you ever see Reg
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  quoted anywhere in any story about secondary ticket sites or
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  anything to do with live music and ticket outs, listen to what
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  he's saying because he's legendary in live music.
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  I mean, actually, I mean said that I only heard about, I heard
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  of him last year. We were a few of us were in a
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  pub after a meeting I've been at.
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  He might have capacity as chair of life and the stories people
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  were telling about the lengths he's gone to to alert promoters
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  about the workings of the touting world absolutely breath.
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  It's the amount of Intel that he apparently has on the shady
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  world of boss attacks. And you know, the tactics that
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  touts are using take your breath away.
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  But anyway, in in that story, Reg actually said these tickets
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  don't do not exist. So it's a clear breach of the
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  Consumer Rights Act, which is designed to protect consumers
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  from fraud. What?
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  What are the actual companies saying though?
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  I know they always say we are owned.
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  We are. We are but the conduit for
• 10:06
  people to sell their tickets. But surely there is some
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  implication here that aren't you allowing people to sell tickets
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  that they don't have? This is the issue, I think,
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  because a lot of the statements are people have the right to
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  resell the tickets they're promoting that, you know, you go
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  into a go, go, there's Radiohead, a button on the front
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  page to go and find tickets there.
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  And they, they seem geared up for a fight.
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  They're like people have the right to resell tickets on our
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  thing if they want. But like I say, I, I had some
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  stats. So you know, feat, so FEAT who
• 10:34
  they campaign against dodgy resale practices.
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  And they did a lot of this research.
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  I think that was partly behind the Guardian article.
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  I think they found, I think it's like 1751 listings, like many of
• 10:45
  which more than the €1500 and some of nearly €4000 before the
• 10:50
  on sale happened. And that kind of, it's very hard
• 10:54
  to argue that those aren't speculative listings where the
• 10:56
  people were selling don't have tickets yet.
• 10:58
  I believe there was some claim that they might have got tickets
• 11:01
  to hospitality. I mean that might be true of
• 11:03
  some concerts, but it feels like everything radio have done has
• 11:06
  been to avoid this happening. But yeah, so I mean, the thing
• 11:10
  the thing I was writing for musical and I was trying to put
• 11:12
  this quite carefully because there's so many ways you could
• 11:14
  vent people. It is it is kind of a challenge
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  or it's going to be have to be quite sensitively handled by
• 11:20
  Radiohead and by their their partners.
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  Because I think a lot of fans are thinking, I didn't get a
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  code. Like I didn't even get a chance
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  to open 17 browser windows and try and get tickets for these
• 11:31
  concerts I'm really excited about.
• 11:33
  So people are disappointed at that.
• 11:35
  But if you're saying, well, the reason we did it this way was
• 11:38
  because to make sure the touts couldn't get tickets, you might
• 11:41
  go, OK, I get it. I was unlucky this time.
• 11:43
  Fair enough. But I understand the rationale.
• 11:46
  But then when lots of people are selling tickets on video, go,
• 11:49
  go. You're going to get cross, I
• 11:50
  think, and you're going to feel like, well, I I didn't get a
• 11:54
  chance to get tickets. And yet what they said they were
• 11:56
  going to prevent is happening anyway.
• 11:58
  So I think that's why it's quite important for the band.
• 12:01
  See the quotes and the band's manager, they're on this,
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  they're going to be cracking down and and I think that is
• 12:05
  quite important. It's a weird thing because I was
• 12:08
  thinking, because I, I am a veteran of 17 browser window
• 12:12
  ready a minute before a sale. Like it's just become what you
• 12:15
  do, isn't it? And you feel like that's you're
• 12:18
  getting a fair chance of tickets if you do that.
• 12:21
  But a lot of the reason that people are trying things like
• 12:23
  Raiderhead hard because that's not really fair because there
• 12:25
  might be thousands of bots ahead of you in the queue.
• 12:29
  And so that's the thing here is that I think they were, they
• 12:32
  were trying something to shut those people out.
• 12:35
  And that's a good thing. But a lot I think keeping the
• 12:38
  fans on site will depend now on on successfully cracking down on
• 12:42
  anyone who has. It's interesting when we've
• 12:45
  mentioned this on a few occasions recently, but the
• 12:48
  government is currently working on a report on secondary
• 12:51
  ticketing, which we were sort of expecting to arrive around now,
• 12:57
  but still hasn't emerged. And we don't know the exact date
• 13:00
  when it will be, when it will be published.
• 13:02
  But I imagine some of this, I wonder if they'll have to hold
• 13:05
  up the report again to add in the implications of this
• 13:10
  particular incident. Well, which we'll see.
• 13:14
  Story 2 this week. Spotify has finally added higher
• 13:18
  quality lossless music, nearly five years after they first
• 13:23
  promised it. Unexpectedly, though, we won't
• 13:27
  have to pay more for it. Can you tell us what Lossless
• 13:30
  is? Because what Lossless sounds
• 13:32
  like the title of a My Bloody Valentine album that never was.
• 13:35
  What? What is?
• 13:36
  What is Lossless and why? Why?
• 13:38
  Why aren't they charging? What?
• 13:40
  What's what's changed? That is it.
• 13:42
  It's it's a lost moment of Anton album they've added.
• 13:45
  It's very, very anticipated now. I mean, do you know, I actually
• 13:49
  went spent 10 minutes trying to think how it explained lots of
• 13:51
  music. It's basically higher audio
• 13:53
  quality. It's the absolute.
• 13:55
  So technically it's it's you're listening to this song without
• 13:59
  some of the audio data being discarded during the process of
• 14:01
  compressing it. So when it's being compressed to
• 14:04
  make it kind of easier to download or stream, you lose
• 14:07
  some of the stuff you use some of the audio.
• 14:09
  And lossless is claim to be what it seems.
• 14:12
  And then you can get into if you go on certain Internet forums,
• 14:15
  you can get into big debates about what is true lossless and
• 14:17
  is it what it says it is and so on.
• 14:19
  But basically it's much higher audio quality.
• 14:22
  Caveat depends what you're listening on.
• 14:24
  If you're listening on a shit pair of headphones, it won't
• 14:26
  sound great. You know, if you're listening on
• 14:27
  the great. Noted.
• 14:31
  But you must have good pairs of headphones, surely I.
• 14:34
  Mean it's a reasonable pair, I won't lie.
• 14:37
  But yeah, so like you said, nearly five years ago, Spotify
• 14:40
  said it was going to launch this new thing called Spotify hi-fi,
• 14:43
  which would be higher quality audio and you would pay more for
• 14:46
  it. So it'd be more expensive than a
• 14:48
  Spotify subscription to get better audit quality and then a
• 14:51
  big announcement. And then it never came.
• 14:55
  It never happened. And the main reason for that was
• 14:58
  of that year, Apple Music said we're adding lots of music to
• 15:01
  Apple Music and it won't cost anything more.
• 15:04
  And then Amazon did the same and suddenly you it became very hard
• 15:08
  to charge more for better audio because.
• 15:10
  It was being OK, yeah. So it's, so essentially what's
• 15:13
  happened is Spotify went back to the drawing board.
• 15:16
  It's it's said all the way along, we're still working out.
• 15:18
  We want to offer better audio quality.
• 15:19
  And earlier this year and we talked about it something,
• 15:21
  didn't we? There were these rumours of a
• 15:23
  new super fan tier on Spotify and the three key things you get
• 15:27
  will be a like early access to ticket, pre sales, higher audio
• 15:30
  quality and some kind of DJ style mixing feature.
• 15:34
  And so what's happened now is they launched this DJ style
• 15:37
  mixing feature a few weeks ago for premium users and now lots
• 15:40
  of music, but it's part of a premium.
• 15:41
  So if you have a Spotify script, you will now be able to get lots
• 15:44
  of music and you won't have to pay more.
• 15:46
  So it kind of begs the question, what is going to be in this room
• 15:49
  with superfan tier if it's not these two things?
• 15:51
  Yeah, yeah. Which I guess the answer is
• 15:55
  either different stuff like they're in their roomies yet,
• 15:57
  but what different stuff, but different stuff, or maybe
• 16:00
  they're doing this. You could conceive.
• 16:02
  We think, well, they'll launch this, give everyone a taste of
• 16:04
  it and then save, right? But now you have to pay for the
• 16:07
  more expensive super fan T if you want to carry on having it.
• 16:10
  That's possible. It'll be quite a, you know, it
• 16:12
  might be quite a kind of bad PR thing for them to do.
• 16:14
  People we cross, but yeah. So it's sorry, Stuart, I just
• 16:20
  love that. I love the way you, the way you
• 16:22
  pronounce the word cross, because you're when you say
• 16:27
  cross, I mean it actually indicates a whole lot of
• 16:30
  emotions mostly, which are well, you could use a much stronger
• 16:36
  word for rather than. Absolutely.
• 16:40
  This is when when you say cross, you're politely saying very
• 16:45
  paved off. Very, very jolly peeved off.
• 16:49
  But it's so the gist here is like this is this has been a
• 16:51
  long way to feature. People are quite excited about
• 16:53
  it, but it's kind of interesting.
• 16:56
  The music industry used to hope that you'd get a charge more for
• 16:58
  lossless music, high quarter music.
• 17:00
  And now it seems maybe you can't, but maybe you can charge
• 17:03
  more for other things. Story 3 America may be the
• 17:08
  world's biggest music market, but I don't know if anyone saw
• 17:12
  this. The new figures which came out
• 17:15
  the other day say were claiming that the American Music market,
• 17:20
  only it grew by just nought .9% in the first half of the year.
• 17:26
  Has something gone wrong or is the market, has it simply
• 17:30
  reached something of a plateau? That's what people are asking.
• 17:34
  Really unclear. I mean it's like it's a new
• 17:37
  record. It's like $5.59 billion, which
• 17:40
  is a new record. So that's good, but it's very
• 17:42
  slow. I was looking at the past year.
• 17:44
  So the past they released this mid year report every year
• 17:47
  saying what's happened in the first half of the year.
• 17:49
  In 2021 it was up 27 percent, 2022 up 9.1 percent, 2023 up
• 17:55
  9.3%, so kind of the same then last year 3.9% and now not .9%.
• 18:00
  So this is quite a rapid slowdown in terms of the growth.
• 18:04
  So digging into it, music subscriptions doing quite well.
• 18:07
  I mean, like the, the money made from music subscriptions was up
• 18:10
  6.3% in the US last year. And that's more than the
• 18:13
  previous year, higher rate of growth.
• 18:15
  But free streaming was down. Other kinds of streaming were
• 18:18
  down. Like they have a thing called
• 18:20
  personal radio, which is when you kind of, you can't just
• 18:23
  choose any track, you sort of pick a station and it it plays
• 18:26
  music. That's those things are down
• 18:28
  South. Other kinds of streaming beyond
• 18:29
  subscriptions are struggling a bit.
• 18:31
  But even physical sales fell and even vinyl sales fell, but they
• 18:35
  were down 1%. And that's been the big story.
• 18:36
  Like vinyl has been growing and growing and growing year after
• 18:40
  year, and those sales were down. So it's like a mixture of things
• 18:43
  happening. It's physical sales having a
• 18:45
  wobble. Free streaming, which I think
• 18:47
  music industry has been complaining about quite a lot
• 18:49
  recently, free streaming isn't doing well enough.
• 18:51
  That's down. It's kind of interesting as
• 18:55
  well. There's a bit of finger pointing
• 18:56
  starting to happen. So Spotify came out quite
• 18:58
  quickly and said we grew faster than the market in the US.
• 19:01
  We paid out more, which kind of was a way of saying, look at our
• 19:06
  rivals, They're the ones letting the team down.
• 19:09
  There's already a bit of finger pointing what's going on here,
• 19:12
  Who's to blame happening over there?
• 19:16
  And this is something I think we're going to see maybe more of
• 19:19
  this year. Just this idea of, like,
• 19:21
  streaming's growth was kind of quite exciting for a long time.
• 19:25
  Are we reaching that ceiling, like you said?
• 19:26
  Are we reaching a ceiling of like, well, everyone who wants
• 19:28
  to pay is already paying? People do disagree with that.
• 19:31
  They say there's still more growth to be had.
• 19:34
  But yeah. And if So, what does the
• 19:36
  industry do and what do the streaming services do to try and
• 19:38
  reignite that growth? OK.
• 19:41
  Any other business? Oh, I'm not you wanted to
• 19:44
  mention because I, I don't know the answer to this, but the King
• 19:48
  Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard didn't didn't like there was
• 19:52
  some there were massive on band camp, the digital albums chart
• 19:56
  last week and I couldn't work out why.
• 19:59
  What what what they had about every album in the top 20 or
• 20:02
  something? Top 30 Top. 30 right?
• 20:06
  OK, so why was why were King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
• 20:10
  the entire top 30 of Band Camp's digital album chart then explain
• 20:15
  to. Us yeah, it involves me saying
• 20:17
  King Gizzard and the lizard wizard lots which do you know if
• 20:19
  you're the same? I always say wizard lizard.
• 20:21
  That seems more natural to say like that will be that will be
• 20:25
  much more helpful if they call themselves that like it's it's I
• 20:28
  constantly I write and I wrote the story about that.
• 20:30
  I had to literally spend 5 minutes checking I got Lizard
• 20:32
  and Wizard in the right order or hadn't called them King Wizard
• 20:35
  and the Gizzard Lizzard or you know, anyway, Australian rock
• 20:38
  band, lots of fans. This this story begins in July.
• 20:41
  Actually, they quit Spotify. And if you remember, they
• 20:44
  remember those stories about the Spotify CEO Daniel Leck had an
• 20:47
  investment in an arms company and it's also there the chairman
• 20:50
  of the board and a few bands have quit Spotify and printed
• 20:53
  like Deer who've quit Spotify. And then King Gizzard and
• 20:56
  Elizabeth had quit and they gave this quite contingently.
• 20:58
  It's like, fuck Spotify. We just removed our music from
• 21:01
  the platform. Can we put pressure on these
• 21:03
  doctor evil tech pros to do better?
• 21:05
  So they came out very strongly against.
• 21:07
  We're taking our music off spot because you don't agree with.
• 21:09
  This I would say they were cross.
• 21:11
  They were very cross. Very Cross is a graduation of
• 21:15
  that, yeah. And so yeah, so they've been
• 21:18
  pretty more focused on band camp and what they did last week,
• 21:20
  they had the entire top 30 albums.
• 21:22
  And what they've done is they made every single one of their
• 21:25
  albums pay what you like, and that included paying nothing.
• 21:28
  So you can go on band camp to their pay their store and you
• 21:31
  can get any other albums for nothing or you can choose what
• 21:34
  to pay for it, you know, a couple of dollars up to
• 21:37
  whatever. And so that's why they're the
• 21:39
  top 30. It was kind of A to do with this
• 21:41
  pricing strategy of like anyone could do that.
• 21:43
  And from their point of view, what they're doing is they're
• 21:46
  reaching new fans who've given them a try, but they're existing
• 21:51
  fans. This is something I've we've
• 21:53
  looked into both that Jimbo and Radiohead did In Rainbows and
• 21:55
  how to pay what you want thing. And I think there's a lot of
• 21:57
  evidence that actually the keen the fan, the more they'll pay,
• 22:01
  even if it they could just put in zero.
• 22:04
  So what's happening here is that we fans of the band who are
• 22:06
  actually paying for the albums. So they're making money from
• 22:08
  sales, but they're also reaching anyone on bank camp who's
• 22:11
  curious at all about what they sound like.
• 22:14
  So it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's they're making this work
• 22:17
  for them and it's difficult. I don't know how many artists
• 22:21
  could do that. Like any artist could go to band
• 22:23
  camp and say, right, my entire catalog is essentially free.
• 22:26
  How about it? It's quite a, you'd have to,
• 22:29
  it's quite a bold strategy. Some people will be like, I
• 22:31
  don't know if I won't do that. What if it kind of realizes
• 22:32
  everything else? But it's working for them.
• 22:35
  Working for them. Here's something we should
• 22:37
  mention because this this came up in the lock in last week but
• 22:43
  has since been creating controversy in offices and homes
• 22:48
  across the UK. Do you file PJ Harvey under P or
• 22:55
  H? Some updates?
• 22:59
  What about the Music Ally office?
• 23:02
  We we did it and it it just split like so last week we said
• 23:05
  it and we we basically disagreed, didn't we?
• 23:07
  Politely. Yeah, no, they were set to get
• 23:09
  cross and said musical office split.
• 23:12
  I said, you know, PJ, Howie POA still went P obviously, and
• 23:16
  someone went H at the same time. So yeah, because I was API was
• 23:20
  AP man, that sounds wrong. I was I, I thought P, But you
• 23:23
  thought H, didn't you? I still find underage, Yeah.
• 23:26
  PJ Harvey underage. I mean, I'm not saying I'm
• 23:28
  right. And we didn't get round to John
• 23:30
  Spencer Blues Explosion properly.
• 23:32
  Where do you put John Spencer Blues Explosion?
• 23:36
  Our producer would say where do you put Van Morrison?
• 23:38
  But that's him. That's obviously him, isn't it,
• 23:41
  Van Morrison. Should be.
• 23:44
  Yeah, keep your face. No.
• 23:46
  No, you see, I'm not disagreeing.
• 23:47
  I'm saying it should be M but but in my head, I'm like, V was
• 23:50
  my first thing I I need, I need to bounce something on you
• 23:53
  actually, because I was chatting to producer Joe and we had an
• 23:55
  e-mail from a listener, actually, Yeah.
• 23:57
  And we wanted to bounce it on you to see what you said without
• 24:00
  any preparation. Oh, OK.
• 24:02
  All right. OK.
• 24:03
  And this is from James the Joyner.
• 24:04
  You remember our fan in our Super Fan Not.
• 24:07
  Today, James. Yeah, he got into, she said.
• 24:09
  He was very, very confident about our superfan lock in as
• 24:12
  well, but he was in Waterloo Records in Austin looking for
• 24:14
  the David album from the artist 86 TV's.
• 24:18
  Yeah. So if you've been working there,
• 24:20
  where would you have filed 86 TV's and the name is 8/6?
• 24:25
  8-6 yeah. So it's, yeah, it's numbers.
• 24:26
  So you see in my record shop, if I had a record shop, because
• 24:31
  this all started the listeners after I once offered my services
• 24:34
  to work behind the counter at the marvellous Resident Records,
• 24:38
  the shop in Brighton. And yes, I've worked, I've
• 24:44
  worked behind the counter. Obviously lock in listeners know
• 24:47
  all about this. This is the sort of anecdotal
• 24:49
  goals you can expect in the lock in.
• 24:51
  Anyway, you start the day by putting out new records in the
• 24:54
  racks. That's where this conversation
• 24:55
  began. In my record shop, I would have
• 24:57
  something which was numerals. So I think I'd put them all
• 25:01
  there. Although having said that, once
• 25:04
  there was a band called 1001 Thousand Violins, I think that
• 25:07
  was 1000. Was that 1000, the numerals or
• 25:10
  was that were they 1000 violins? I don't know, but I would
• 25:15
  because actually I put 1000 violins, that's different,
• 25:19
  difficult. OK, right.
• 25:22
  One, it would go in the numeral section.
• 25:25
  If not, it would go under E. OK.
• 25:28
  So James said it was filed under E for 80.
• 25:30
  Yeah, but then Joe and I were talking, we would think, where
• 25:34
  does the numerical section go? Does that go before A or after
• 25:37
  Z? Oh, it comes at the end.
• 25:40
  Every everything comes at the end.
• 25:42
  You know, weird compilations, different genres.
• 25:46
  Yeah, Chick, chick, chick. You can have your own thing.
• 25:49
  It's right at the. Very end punctuation section
• 25:51
  after before numerical section. It's a minefield, isn't it?
• 25:56
  But it is. It is if you have any other
• 25:59
  filing dilemmas that you'd like to share with us or present for
• 26:04
  us to debate, then do get in touch.
• 26:07
  One last bit of any other business.
• 26:09
  I think actually we're a couple of because I do want to mention,
• 26:13
  I know we're going to you wanted to mention this, this is a Bad
• 26:17
  Bunny story. But can we just add, and this is
• 26:20
  coming off the back of last week's show, Morrissey.
• 26:23
  We lightly ribbed Morrissey for putting his back catalog, all
• 26:27
  his rights in The Smiths, up for sale via an slightly anonymous
• 26:32
  e-mail address. Morrissey announced within I
• 26:36
  think hours of us going live last week that the e-mail
• 26:40
  address was coming down because it had so many offers and he was
• 26:44
  now going to well, siphon off the best and worst, I suppose.
• 26:50
  But he was going to sift through sift through all the office.
• 26:52
  But the the e-mail address no no longer exists, I'm afraid.
• 26:55
  Everybody right? This is the last bit of any
• 26:58
  other business Latin American star, Bad Bunny.
• 27:01
  This is news from last week. Bad Bunny is filling stadiums
• 27:05
  across the world, but not in mainland US.
• 27:10
  And why is this? It's a little complicated and
• 27:13
  it's a bit political. It is, yes.
• 27:15
  And mainland is quite important there because he has played the
• 27:17
  big run of gigs in Puerto Rico, which is is sort of part of the
• 27:21
  US, but not mainland. It's where he's from.
• 27:23
  Yeah. He's on this huge stage.
• 27:24
  He's like the breakout won the breakout Latin American artist
• 27:27
  of recent years, isn't he? And he's playing stadiums.
• 27:29
  He's playing stadiums in London, in Madrid, Paris, Sydney.
• 27:33
  And he gave us an interview saying why he's not visiting the
• 27:35
  US on his tour. And he said basically, ICE could
• 27:38
  be outside my content, my concert, not vanilla rice,
• 27:43
  although that would be, of course, ICE being the US
• 27:46
  Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
• 27:48
  I can't hear as I made a lightheaded joke about ICE.
• 27:53
  They've been running these rays to pain and deport suspected
• 27:56
  illegal immigrants. Very controversial entity.
• 27:58
  Lots of kind of discussion and lots of kind of anger about what
• 28:02
  they're doing. Yeah, right.
• 28:04
  So that's what is that why he's not?
• 28:07
  Yeah, because essentially a Bad Bunny Stadium gig would involve,
• 28:10
  you know what, 6070 thousand fans coming together, a lot of
• 28:14
  whom might be of Latino heritage.
• 28:16
  And he's worried that ICE will be waiting outside of the end to
• 28:19
  cart off anyone they suspected of being.
• 28:22
  So it's a really sobering moment.
• 28:24
  He's basically, I don't want to tour the USI don't want my fans
• 28:26
  to be targeted in these immigration rates and to bring
• 28:31
  that back to business from politics.
• 28:33
  Like Latin music is really growing.
• 28:36
  For several years they've been growing faster in the US than
• 28:38
  the overall market. Like the RIA actually puts out
• 28:41
  Latin music figures every year and they show it's it's growing.
• 28:45
  It's it's a really powerful part of the industry there.
• 28:47
  But now one of its biggest artists is saying, I don't want
• 28:49
  to tour that market. And and the US is still, I think
• 28:51
  it's the biggest live music market in the world, isn't it?
• 28:54
  By by so the biggest Latin artist is not touring the
• 28:57
  biggest live market because of what's happening in in politics
• 29:01
  and immigration policy. Yeah, weird moment.
• 29:05
  All right, and finally, for this episode, Bjork's latest release
• 29:12
  costs how much? 4499 that's dollars or pounds.
• 29:20
  44904499 What do you get for that?
• 29:25
  Well, so this is a thing called Von Accurate VR Remastered.
• 29:29
  So, you know, Bjork has always been into new, new technology.
• 29:32
  She's always found ways of putting music out.
• 29:34
  I remember she did an app back in the day that was brilliant,
• 29:36
  one of the first music apps on iPads.
• 29:38
  So she released a virtual reality version of her album for
• 29:41
  an occur in 2019. And now it's been remastered.
• 29:43
  So like, this is, this is something to make you feel old.
• 29:46
  Like it's not just albums being remastered in the 70s.
• 29:48
  It's it's virtual reality apps are getting remastered versions.
• 29:53
  And it's now out for Apple's Vision Pro headset, which is
• 29:55
  Apple's kind of, you know, VR headset.
• 29:58
  And so you put it on and you get these immersive visuals, you get
• 30:01
  surround sound, music, I've seen demos and it looks wonderful.
• 30:05
  So I'm, you know, not, but it, this is the price, £45, which I
• 30:10
  was thinking that's a bit much. But then I looked at what a
• 30:13
  Vision Pro headset costs and you have to pay three and a half,
• 30:17
  $1000 for a Vision Pro headset in the 1st place.
• 30:21
  So once you've paid that $45.00 for a Bjork album that's really
• 30:25
  interesting is maybe not such a big stretch perhaps.
• 30:28
  And I suppose if we're comparing it to some the other price of a
• 30:32
  coloured vinyl, well, a double album on vinyl, it's not
• 30:35
  actually that much more expensive in a way for
• 30:39
  considering what you get. It's just the, it's just the
• 30:43
  outlay, outlay for the for the hardware that's going to cost
• 30:48
  you. That's it.
• 30:48
  And I and I honestly, I love, like, I love the fact that she's
• 30:51
  been doing this. She does this stuff with
• 30:53
  technology and it's never to make a quick buck.
• 30:55
  In fact, I think she often spends loads of money on it and
• 30:58
  doesn't necessarily make it back because it's part of her art.
• 31:00
  So honestly, if you have a vision pro and you have a word,
• 31:04
  give it. It looks wonderful.
• 31:06
  But yeah, I need to, I need to put it on my Christmas list and
• 31:09
  hope someone hope someone wins a lottery.
• 31:11
  Have you? If you've got enough money to
• 31:13
  have one yourself, come sponsor this podcast.
• 31:16
  And that's it. We're out of time for this week.
• 31:19
  Thank you very much for listening.
• 31:20
  If you are enjoying what we're trying to do, please do spread
• 31:24
  the words, tell your friends or leave us a review online if you
• 31:28
  get a chance. That really helps to put us in
• 31:30
  front of new audiences. Alternatively, you can support
• 31:33
  us via Patreon. In fact, if you sign up to be a
• 31:36
  super fan, as mentioned, you get an extra 15 minutes or so of me
• 31:41
  and him chatting about music and money in a fairly free form kind
• 31:46
  of way. This week it will centre mostly
• 31:50
  around my ire regarding the Mercury Prize nominees.
• 31:55
  If you'd like to join us for that, become a super fan at
• 31:59
  patreon.com/the Price of Music. Alternatively, if you'd just
• 32:02
  like to get in touch with us, it'd be lovely to hear from you.
• 32:05
  You can use our socials or send us an e-mail.
• 32:07
  Anything you don't understand about how the industry works
• 32:11
  that you think we might be able to make sense of for you, or any
• 32:14
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• 32:17
  thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. That's the Price of Music
• 32:21
  podcast@gmail.com. Until next time, take care of
• 32:25
  your ourselves. Bye for now.