Latest / The Price of Music / Why did Taylor Swift snub YouTube? Did Bad Bunny's Superbowl show boost his streaming numbers? Do teenagers want to go to gigs any more?

Transcript

Why did Taylor Swift snub YouTube? Did Bad Bunny's Superbowl show boost his streaming numbers? Do teenagers want to go to gigs any more? · The Price of Music

• 0:03
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:07
  Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the
• 0:09
  music industry while also bringing you stories and
• 0:12
  comments from the past week in the pop business.
• 0:15
  I'm Steve Lamac and hey, Stuart Dredge.
• 0:17
  This week, the artists prioritising fans over streaming
• 0:21
  services, Trump versus Bad Bunny and what's what are the key ways
• 0:26
  do you think of encouraging teenagers back to live music?
• 0:30
  All of that. But first, here's a stat to
• 0:33
  amaze your friends with. Our big figure this week,
• 0:37
  Stuart. OK, big figure this week is $60
• 0:40
  billion and that is how much money YouTube made last year,
• 0:46
  which comes from the financial results of its parent company
• 0:48
  Alphabet. And this is kind of interesting
• 0:51
  for us. Well, I hope it is anyway from
• 0:53
  because YouTube has become one of the pretty the second biggest
• 0:56
  payer of the music industry behind Spotify over the last
• 0:59
  years. So yeah, they released their
• 1:01
  financial results. They made about just over $40
• 1:04
  billion from ads last year. And I was looking at that
• 1:07
  thinking, I wish I knew how much they made from subscriptions
• 1:09
  because that's the other part of YouTube where you pay for
• 1:11
  YouTube either to get the music service or to just remove the
• 1:14
  ads. And I was thinking, I wish I
• 1:18
  knew that It's probably hard to work out if I was better at
• 1:21
  maths. And then during their earnings
• 1:23
  call where they talked to analysts about the results, one
• 1:25
  of the execs went, yeah, so last year, our earning revenues
• 1:27
  passed $60 billion. And even I can do that maths
• 1:31
  without too many problems. So $60 billion for YouTube, $40
• 1:35
  billion with ads. And that means that YouTube
• 1:37
  makes $20 billion a year from people paying for subscriptions.
• 1:40
  And that's something that the music industry is very happy
• 1:43
  about because it increases the royalties that they get.
• 1:46
  Brilliant. All right, here's this week's
• 1:48
  three main news stories then that we thought we should share
• 1:50
  with you, starting with, well, actually, some less good news
• 1:54
  for YouTube this week, as it lost out to Spotify and Apple
• 1:57
  Music for the premiere of Taylor Swift's new music video.
• 2:02
  Why is the premiere of a video important?
• 2:05
  And why did Taylor Swift swerve YouTube, do we think?
• 2:11
  I'm detecting a little bit of a premiere video is not important
• 2:14
  getting your voice there. No, I'm genuinely interested.
• 2:18
  Obviously. I mean, it brings people up.
• 2:20
  I guess if all of Taylor Swift's socials are pointing you in a
• 2:23
  certain direction, then the direction of travel, you know,
• 2:27
  the company at the end of it, they're very excited because
• 2:30
  obviously you can have an influx of millions of people to your
• 2:33
  site. But is it, I mean, I guess I've
• 2:37
  answered my own question, but is, is that it?
• 2:40
  Is there, is there bragging rights involved?
• 2:43
  Does it tell us something about Taylor Swift or Taylor Swift's
• 2:47
  management attitude to the various services where she could
• 2:50
  have gone? Yeah, well, it does, I think
• 2:52
  because, yeah, this the video came out last Friday.
• 2:54
  I don't know if you've seen it. It's it's quite interesting
• 2:55
  because it it features everyone who was on the sofa with her on
• 2:58
  the Graham Norton Show last October.
• 3:01
  That's the concept. And what happened was there was
• 3:03
  this actor Donald Gleason on it who said, I think he said, oh,
• 3:06
  I'd love to star in a Taylor Swift music video.
• 3:09
  And, lo, it's come to pass, which that seems to be how it
• 3:11
  works. So we we should think about who
• 3:13
  we want to star in a music video by say it and it'll happen.
• 3:17
  But yeah, so it came out Friday. And like you say, like it's a
• 3:19
  really big deal, especially for the for the sort of Taylor Swift
• 3:21
  and community, because every time she does something visual,
• 3:25
  whether it's a post or a video, it's full of Easter eggs and
• 3:28
  references and little things. And they can then spend days
• 3:31
  online decoding it and discussing it.
• 3:34
  So people do want to watch it as soon as it goes live.
• 3:37
  And on Friday, it went live. It was only on Apple Music and
• 3:39
  Spotify. It wasn't on YouTube, which is
• 3:41
  very unusual for a music video. Like you don't normally see that
• 3:44
  kind of windowing, it's called. And no one said why.
• 3:49
  Like Taylor Swift doesn't really say much about what she's doing.
• 3:51
  She just puts it out. There's one theory that there's
• 3:54
  an argument that's been going on in the US between YouTube and
• 3:56
  the people who do the charts there.
• 3:58
  Billboard, it's just pulled out of their charts because it
• 4:02
  thinks that all streams should count the same.
• 4:04
  And the chart people think that paid streams.
• 4:07
  So if you're paying for services, you count for more.
• 4:10
  So you pulled out. So there is a possibility, you
• 4:12
  could say, well, I'm going to put my video on Apple Music on
• 4:14
  Spotify for a couple of days because that will count towards
• 4:16
  the charts and YouTube won't. And then it goes on YouTube.
• 4:20
  So yeah. So I mean, that's the theory,
• 4:22
  but no one has confirmed it or denied it.
• 4:24
  But it meant that if you're a fan, you had to go to those two
• 4:27
  platforms to watch and which is not great news if you're a
• 4:29
  Taylor Swift fan, you know, not on Spotify or Apple Music.
• 4:33
  But as we speak, it's Tuesday now and the video went on
• 4:37
  YouTube on Sunday. And it's currently the number
• 4:39
  one trending music video on YouTube instead of five and a
• 4:41
  half million views. So like all's well, it ends
• 4:44
  well. But it's it'd be interesting to
• 4:45
  see if other videos go the same way.
• 4:47
  If they say, well, actually, we could go.
• 4:50
  I mean, the other thing that would happen here is if you're
• 4:52
  Spotify and Apple Music going to give that video an almighty
• 4:54
  push, you're going to put it in front of everyone who might
• 4:56
  conceivably like Taylor Swift. So there might be an argument
• 5:00
  there for saying we'll do these this deal and they'll really
• 5:03
  push it and then it can go on YouTube.
• 5:05
  Yeah, Bad Bunny did the Super Bowl on Sunday, which, I mean,
• 5:11
  it might have passed you by, created virtually no news
• 5:14
  whatsoever. It was universally applauded in
• 5:18
  the hang on a minute. There was obviously, as you
• 5:22
  predicted last week and even before the Super Bowl took
• 5:27
  place, there was a gap in our running order which was
• 5:30
  specifically left for reaction to Bad Bunny's performance at
• 5:34
  the Super Bowl. And a certain president didn't
• 5:38
  disappoint. He didn't, No.
• 5:40
  And it was, I mean, I didn't. I don't know if you stay up for
• 5:42
  the Super Bowl. I'm too old for that now.
• 5:45
  I can't, I can't function on a Monday if I stayed up till 6:00
• 5:48
  AM watching American football. But yeah, I think it's probably
• 5:51
  the one of the most anticipated musical moments of the year
• 5:54
  already, isn't it? Because Soup Bowl is a huge TV
• 5:58
  event. Bad Bunny is a huge superstar.
• 6:00
  But then there's a whole politics swimming around it.
• 6:02
  And I think did we did we talk about this?
• 6:05
  He was at the Grammy Awards and he spoke out about ICE
• 6:08
  immigration agency in the States and said that it's terrible
• 6:11
  what's happening in Minneapolis. And then everyone on the kind of
• 6:15
  right wing of things in the US has been saying this is
• 6:17
  terrible. He shouldn't be doing Suf bowl.
• 6:18
  He sings in Spanish. That's not American, you know,
• 6:21
  all that kind of stuff. But he did it.
• 6:23
  Yeah. So he did it.
• 6:24
  The, the, the it's on YouTube. People can go and watch the half
• 6:26
  time show. It's kind of, it's an amazing
• 6:29
  thing. Like it's the whole performance
• 6:30
  is kind of a love letter to Puerto Rico, where he's from and
• 6:35
  he goes and he had the guests included Lady Gaga, Ricky
• 6:38
  Martin, like all kinds of people came out.
• 6:40
  It was one of those Super Bowl moments where lots of it's like,
• 6:43
  I guess it's the it's the US equipment of Glaston free
• 6:45
  moments if you do the Super Bowl and you have guests on.
• 6:49
  So it was, it was like a really good, I thought, you know, and
• 6:53
  I'm not really a big Bunny fan. And then, yeah, so you've got
• 6:56
  the president of the US disagreeing and posting on his
• 6:59
  own social network saying the Super Bowl halftime show is
• 7:02
  absolutely terrible, one of the worst ever.
• 7:05
  It makes no sense. And then should I get political
• 7:09
  now? I'll spare you having to do it.
• 7:11
  The Trump went on to say nobody understands a word this guy is
• 7:14
  saying. And the dancing is disgusting.
• 7:17
  Sound like some. And this is not only sounding
• 7:19
  like someone's granddad, but also this comes days after Trump
• 7:23
  posted that racist meme of the Obamas, which if anything, is
• 7:28
  disgusting. That's been that's been the view
• 7:30
  coming through. But yeah, he found Bad Bunny
• 7:33
  playing music. Pop music.
• 7:35
  But I mean, and the dancing, don't leave the dancing out.
• 7:38
  Oh. God, those young people, they
• 7:39
  just don't wear any clothes, do they?
• 7:41
  They dance. It was like someone's granddaddy
• 7:44
  way. They like most of his, but it
• 7:46
  turns out like there's there's another, there's another kind of
• 7:50
  way to assess the performance and that is how many people went
• 7:53
  away and streamed his music after the performance.
• 7:57
  Apple Music said that apparently Bad Bunny streams were up 7
• 8:00
  times after after the performance, so 7 times what
• 8:03
  he'd been getting before. Which which wouldn't have been
• 8:06
  inconsiderable anyway, given the success that he's had over the
• 8:09
  past year. It's not as if he was starting
• 8:11
  from a low base. That's seven times what was
• 8:15
  quite a lot already. Yeah, and on Spotify, Spotify
• 8:19
  said just this today that his Bad Bunnies global streams were
• 8:22
  up 210% on Sunday compared to last week.
• 8:25
  And in the UK, and just to keep saying it's not just AUS thing.
• 8:29
  Over the last month in the UK, Bad Bunny Spotify streams are up
• 8:32
  nearly 700%, Spotify said yesterday.
• 8:35
  So it is there is these two courts of public was it the
• 8:37
  court of public opinion and the court of one man sitting on his
• 8:41
  in his bedroom based on social opinion.
• 8:43
  But yeah, it was AI would say it was a very big moment.
• 8:47
  And now we're in the follow on where everyone is giving their
• 8:50
  view on what it was. And they're, they're the
• 8:52
  funniest thing I saw was, you know, those two influence Jake
• 8:54
  Paul and Logan Paul. I do.
• 8:57
  I do. I'm not aware of their work, no.
• 9:00
  They're like big. There were Youtubers and now one
• 9:03
  of them's a boxer. He may be a wrestler as well.
• 9:06
  It might be those two of them. And one then came out and said
• 9:08
  basically, this is terrible. I can't understand what you're
• 9:10
  saying. He's not, he's not American.
• 9:12
  And then the other one of these brothers came out and said, no,
• 9:15
  he is American, Puerto Rico's American, which is American
• 9:18
  territory. So even the kind of even the
• 9:21
  big, the big influencers who tend to be on the right wing.
• 9:25
  So they're disagreeing about whether this was good and what
• 9:27
  it means. So yeah, we're going to have
• 9:29
  another few days of this discourse, I think.
• 9:30
  But we can. We can wrap it there I think.
• 9:33
  Third story of the week Just to let you know this year's Record
• 9:36
  Store Day is happening on April the 18th in the UK and the full
• 9:42
  list of the records available is now being posted on the website.
• 9:47
  I did have a quick flick through it.
• 9:49
  I mean there's stacks of stuff. It just really depends on how
• 9:53
  much money you have to burn and whether whether you buy records
• 9:57
  because they look great in some cases because there's ever
• 10:01
  there's quite a lot of reissues but reissued on fancy coloured
• 10:04
  vinyl and lovely sleeves, possibly with an extra track
• 10:08
  they found in a cupboard, that sort of thing.
• 10:10
  It's also it's very good news though for you if you are a fan
• 10:14
  of Elton John and his, well let's say more dance floor
• 10:18
  orientated work. Which is right isn't it?
• 10:21
  Positivo, which was big dance label in the 90s, is putting out
• 10:26
  an Elton John dance album. Yeah, Polativa presents Elton
• 10:31
  John the remixes, which I don't know if that's new, new remixes
• 10:34
  or has he always had dance remixes on this stuff?
• 10:36
  Throughout the years, I guess they must have been at some
• 10:39
  time, but you know, one of the mixes is by Blessed Madonna, so
• 10:42
  that can't be. That's not like it's decades
• 10:44
  old, is it? So I imagine some of the stuff
• 10:47
  has been commissioned before, but now all together on one
• 10:51
  handy album available in April. Yeah, and it's interesting.
• 10:55
  I always find it fascinating, the list of names taking part
• 10:57
  because there's you've got like Elton John and Madonna, Blair,
• 11:01
  Charlie XCX, like Bruno Mars, Kevin, and then you've got
• 11:05
  sleepy Pokémon Beats, which is one of the big ones, and Bluey,
• 11:10
  which I think for certain elements of audience, the Bluey
• 11:12
  1 is the one they're going to be queuing up for, for pain of
• 11:15
  someone, a child at home being really crossed when they get
• 11:17
  home. It's interesting, isn't it?
• 11:19
  Like at the at the start, obviously the very starts there
• 11:23
  was, there was a lot more catalog that hadn't been
• 11:26
  available on vinyl for years and years and years.
• 11:30
  And it wasn't, there weren't a lot of huge acts.
• 11:34
  I mean, people were already pillaging David Bowie's back
• 11:37
  catalog the early years, but there wasn't.
• 11:40
  It's, it's changed, though. The makeup of it has changed
• 11:44
  now. But at least now with more
• 11:46
  pressing plants, we do know that, you know, you won't if
• 11:49
  you're an indie band trying to get a record pressed in the
• 11:53
  first, you know, two months of the year.
• 11:56
  There was no chance because all the majors have piled in, booked
• 11:59
  all the pressing plants so they could repress their stock for
• 12:04
  Record Store Day. I imagine it's slightly easier
• 12:07
  now, but I remember talking to Mungos hi-fi, the Glaswegian
• 12:12
  reggae collective and they always put out a single in the
• 12:15
  old days on record store day. But they had to.
• 12:18
  They were basically working almost a year in advance to make
• 12:21
  sure that they could get a slot. So with about 5 months in
• 12:25
  advance record store day otherwise they knew there but no
• 12:28
  chance of them getting their record pressed.
• 12:31
  I imagine that hopefully has eased a bit now, but there is
• 12:35
  there is a terrific selection of records though some there's
• 12:38
  there's some beautiful looking things I must say and.
• 12:41
  How does it work? I mean, this is where you're,
• 12:42
  you're the expert really. How does it work?
• 12:44
  Presumably there's more than 300 shops taking part, but every
• 12:47
  shop hasn't got every release. Like do you have a certain, is
• 12:49
  there a certain amount of strategy in where you go
• 12:51
  depending on which ones you want to buy or?
• 12:53
  Well, yeah, yeah, depends. I mean, obviously the, some of
• 12:56
  the shorter runs, the record shops apply for copies.
• 13:01
  You know, you, you will have a form and then I would like 10 of
• 13:04
  these, you may end up with two or three of three of those
• 13:08
  copies. So yes, the, the actual, the
• 13:11
  real, the ones that are really going to be in demand, you know,
• 13:15
  and they will fly off the show. And that's why people queue
• 13:19
  from, you know, from Dawn. I liked the, I don't know if
• 13:24
  they still do it, but Sister Ray records actually have a actually
• 13:29
  go out into the queue with a sheet.
• 13:32
  So asking people, what are you here for?
• 13:35
  And looking on the sheet and go, well, we sold out of that
• 13:38
  already. So you'd see people go, well, I
• 13:40
  was only queuing up for that and then just walk off.
• 13:44
  But otherwise, you know, it's still worth queuing because the
• 13:46
  stuff is still in stock. But Sister Ray, they, the
• 13:49
  basement, which is usually part of the shop, just becomes the
• 13:52
  storeroom for the day. And they have a queuing system
• 13:55
  where you, we go in and basically, you know, you know,
• 13:58
  the releases, you ask, have you got this?
• 14:01
  And somebody brings it up from the basement, goes here's your
• 14:04
  record, fills the bag with the stuff, brings it up.
• 14:07
  It's all terrifically well organised.
• 14:09
  You've got to take your hat off to the record shops on the day
• 14:12
  because, well, in the week leading up to it, all this stock
• 14:15
  arrives. Imagine, you know, it's more
• 14:18
  than a year's worth of stock probably for some people.
• 14:21
  You've got to put it somewhere and then you've got to organise
• 14:24
  it and it's, I'm sure it's very exciting.
• 14:27
  Just the smell of opening boxes of vinyl must be, you know, must
• 14:31
  be great. But yeah, it's quite a, it's
• 14:35
  quite a thing. Anyway, it's what did I say?
• 14:37
  Well, April the 18th, Record Store Day.
• 14:39
  So good. Time to plan isn't there I
• 14:41
  think. Plan your list, have what you
• 14:42
  want to get. Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:45
  Any other business, well, this is this is something, this is a
• 14:48
  kind of trend which is catching on.
• 14:51
  And I find this quite interesting because the music
• 14:54
  industry is always looking for what it calls new models, which
• 14:58
  basically translates as either A, new ways for labels to sell
• 15:03
  more records than the competition or B, ways of making
• 15:09
  more money in general. That's what they're looking for
• 15:11
  in a in a new model. But this new is a model, which I
• 15:15
  mean, appears to be, you know, so far a bit more artist and fan
• 15:19
  led. And there is this growing trend
• 15:22
  and it's for bands who are selling their new albums to fans
• 15:26
  first before they put them on the streaming services.
• 15:29
  So they sell records via, I don't know, band camp or or
• 15:34
  other online online stores or physical shops.
• 15:36
  You put your record out first where you can actually make it's
• 15:39
  possible to make tangible money before you then put the album on
• 15:45
  the streaming services. That's sort of how it works,
• 15:47
  isn't it? Yeah, and we talked about
• 15:49
  someone recently, we really love Russell, who was the guy who was
• 15:52
  selling his album to his super fans 1st.
• 15:54
  And then yeah, Music Colours conference recently, there's a
• 15:58
  chap called Darren Hemings on the panel and he runs a
• 16:00
  marketing agent. So you work with the likes of
• 16:03
  Run the Jewels and Robbie Williams and Jungle and the
• 16:05
  Spice Girls. So the full gamut.
• 16:08
  And he took, he basically said it's a quote.
• 16:10
  We work with artists where for them streaming is the last place
• 16:13
  the music will wind up. So it's quite common to see
• 16:15
  record go up on band camp for immediate sale with digital
• 16:18
  download and then it will move to vinyl sales.
• 16:21
  And basically what he said was for that for an artist means
• 16:23
  that they they sell some copies 1st and that brings money
• 16:26
  straight into them directly. I'm going to wait funk for it
• 16:30
  and then when that when that has been when everyone who wants to
• 16:34
  buy it early has bought it, then they'll put it on streaming and
• 16:39
  and it basically is, it's not an anti streaming policy.
• 16:41
  It's just we think people want to buy this.
• 16:45
  And it ties in with the word I've been hearing a lot
• 16:47
  recently, which is 2 words. So one is friction and one is
• 16:51
  scarcity. People are talking about this
• 16:53
  idea of streaming is very easy, everything comes to you easily,
• 16:56
  but do you value it if it's just like a thing on a playlist or
• 17:01
  and people are saying actually, maybe we need even more
• 17:02
  friction. People were looking back at the
• 17:04
  days when you had to go and hunt down records in record shops.
• 17:08
  And also that idea of people value something if they've got
• 17:11
  it and not many people other other people haven't.
• 17:14
  So if you've got if you're if you're hearing a record a few
• 17:17
  days before most people are you value that?
• 17:21
  So, so this is this is these conversations are swimming
• 17:23
  around the industry even at higher levels.
• 17:25
  Because at the moment, I would say people going to band camp
• 17:27
  first, they're all probably independent artists, not the
• 17:30
  biggest ones, but there is this talk.
• 17:33
  But yeah, so if you if you go straight to streaming, are you
• 17:36
  maybe, are you maybe not making money?
• 17:39
  You could have been if you do a different thing.
• 17:42
  And the only, the only risks that I think you can see or the
• 17:45
  only worry you might have as an artist is am I going to get
• 17:48
  penalized by the streaming services for doing this?
• 17:50
  Will they not put me on playlists as a result?
• 17:54
  Because in the past, there have been examples when, when, when
• 17:57
  people have done like in the old days of streaming, you get
• 17:59
  exclusive from where someone would say, my, my stuff is on
• 18:02
  Apple Music 1st and not on Spotify or vice versa.
• 18:05
  And then people worried about, well, the ones I'm not going
• 18:07
  with first are going to just not bother promoting me because I'll
• 18:10
  be cross. Yeah.
• 18:12
  So that would be the worry here I think.
• 18:14
  Will they, would they be that petty?
• 18:16
  I mean, they're not going to take it out.
• 18:17
  I imagine YouTube aren't necessarily going to take it out
• 18:20
  on Taylor Swift after, you know, she's put a video somewhere
• 18:24
  else. And similarly, I think wouldn't
• 18:26
  if her music went up on one of the other services.
• 18:30
  Would Spotify take Umbridge? Would that?
• 18:33
  I would hope not, because this is independent artists figuring
• 18:35
  out a way to sustain themselves, is it?
• 18:37
  And that's why confidence but they will say they will force.
• 18:40
  So I've not seen any evidence of this happening.
• 18:42
  But I guess if you and I just that would be your only worry is
• 18:44
  to be doing this but. There was something, wasn't
• 18:46
  there? Wasn't there an American band
• 18:48
  recently who did this? And they sold, you know, 200,000
• 18:51
  copies of something shed loads of physical product in in the
• 18:54
  first week to put them in the chart just because everyone
• 18:57
  went, oh, well, I want to hear the record.
• 19:01
  And there's probably, you know, there were probably people who
• 19:04
  might not have bought the record, but now they've bought
• 19:07
  the record. Well, I think the other thing
• 19:08
  this relies on is you've got to have a way of, of reaching those
• 19:11
  people who want to buy it. So I think you can't just stick
• 19:14
  something on bankrupt and make loads of money.
• 19:16
  You need to have your fan community, you need to have a
• 19:18
  good mailing list. You need to do all those things
• 19:20
  so you can tell your fans who would buy it.
• 19:22
  We've got a record out here's where you can buy it.
• 19:25
  So that that is the other thing. I don't think it works for
• 19:27
  everyone. It works.
• 19:28
  People who actually have their have a way of communicating with
• 19:30
  their keenest fans and you can then tell them that you know.
• 19:34
  I mean, what? What I like about this, though,
• 19:36
  is, you know, it's not, not necessarily putting extra
• 19:39
  financial pressure on the on the fans, is it?
• 19:42
  If you compare, if you compare the different approaches to
• 19:46
  music fans, you know, most labels, I mean, some artists
• 19:50
  admittedly, but most labels are looking to super fans these days
• 19:54
  to make them more money. You know, the, the labels and
• 19:57
  the streaming services. And there is all this talk of
• 20:00
  what can we do for super fans and, you know, in brackets that
• 20:03
  means how can we make more money out of an artist's hardcore?
• 20:08
  Followers close brackets. So like extra, extra money, you
• 20:11
  know, super like super fans are some sort of new cash scene that
• 20:15
  they can mine. Whereas this is just fans, I
• 20:19
  mean, albeit the very eager ones being given a sort of incentive
• 20:22
  to buy the album, many of whom would have bought the album
• 20:26
  anyway. And I think that's what I like
• 20:28
  about this. Yeah.
• 20:29
  And the other thing, I mean, also when you receive big
• 20:31
  industry stats, this is like one of those little nuances in it.
• 20:35
  So if you look at the big, how much money there is in recorded
• 20:37
  music every year, streaming is growing, but slower.
• 20:40
  Physical has been doing very well, vinyl sales and growing.
• 20:43
  And normally you look at the figures for downloads, digital
• 20:46
  dollars and you say they're just, they've fallen off a Cliff
• 20:48
  a few years ago and they're never coming back.
• 20:49
  You know, it's tiny now, but for an individual artist who's
• 20:53
  saying I'm going to put my album on band camp as a digital
• 20:55
  download, they can make decent money.
• 20:58
  And so if you're an artist looking at that thing saying
• 20:59
  well, downloads of old hat, no one does them anymore.
• 21:02
  But actually your level, they can they can be meaningful for
• 21:06
  you. And like like Aaron said, the
• 21:08
  money comes straight into you. And then that can help you if
• 21:11
  you're going on tour, whatever it is you're doing, and then you
• 21:14
  get it on streaming. And then streaming is where you
• 21:16
  reach people who don't know you already.
• 21:17
  And that's why it's still important, I think.
• 21:19
  So beyond those bands. There is a there is another way.
• 21:23
  Artists can now make a bit of extra cash and this does go back
• 21:27
  to superfans and having to spend more.
• 21:30
  If you have deeper pockets, bands selling off early demo
• 21:34
  tapes, studio kits, even instruments through, well,
• 21:39
  there's a come. Tell us more about this company
• 21:41
  called Wax Poetics. Yeah, well, it, so it, it
• 21:45
  started as a magazine in Brooklyn, I believe about 25
• 21:47
  years ago. And, and that instantly gets me
• 21:49
  out because I'm not, I was never cool enough to read music
• 21:51
  magazines from Brooklyn. So I didn't know it until
• 21:54
  recently. But it's become this kind of
• 21:56
  almost like an eBay for music memorabilia where you can buy
• 22:00
  this rare stuff. So like last year, for example,
• 22:02
  they sold one of Mariah Carey's best to make cassettes for like,
• 22:05
  I think it's more than $54,000. It was one of our earliest and
• 22:09
  there's the Tony Wilson Factory Records collection where you
• 22:12
  could buy his business card for $650.
• 22:15
  Well, someone bought his business card and the best, the
• 22:18
  best thing I found there was Bootsy Collins sold AI didn't
• 22:21
  have to say this Farfizer. People who know these things
• 22:24
  weren't Farfizer compact combo organ used on his with the with
• 22:30
  with the proviso that the item does not turn on.
• 22:33
  It may still work with the right mechanical know how or it will
• 22:36
  still make a nice collector's piece.
• 22:38
  So it's broken organ. And anyway, this company, so
• 22:41
  they've been sort of quietly growing.
• 22:42
  They've been working with different artists and they've
• 22:44
  just raised $1,000,000 of funding just announced this
• 22:47
  morning, actually, to be able to grow, run more auctions, work
• 22:50
  with more artists. And it just reminded me of that
• 22:52
  conversation we had before about like, if you're an artist, hang
• 22:55
  on to everything like hang on like.
• 22:58
  And I was thinking about like bands who like to smash up
• 23:00
  guitars, for example. It's like, how often do those
• 23:04
  smashed up guitars just get put in the bin by the road like
• 23:06
  exasperated roadie? Right.
• 23:08
  And you're suggesting they all go in a warehouse somewhere to
• 23:10
  be to be sold, to be to be sold further down the line?
• 23:13
  Smashed up guitar from early gigs that they'll be good money.
• 23:16
  So it's just that other. But yeah.
• 23:18
  So this is this where we every so often we do that we talk
• 23:21
  about auctions and things going and like there is real value in
• 23:24
  stuff that artists had. And I think this company wax
• 23:26
  projects it's it is things like instruments and it's not just
• 23:31
  kind of signposts or photos. It's interesting stuff.
• 23:34
  So yeah. So you so you so you buy a peak
• 23:37
  Townsend guitar, but we it comes with a provides with the caveat
• 23:41
  may not work anymore on the street.
• 23:43
  Hang on the head's completely broken.
• 23:46
  May not work anymore with the right, you know with.
• 23:50
  Mechanical know how well do you think what we what we worth more
• 23:54
  a peak Townsend guitar that's been smashed up or one that was
• 23:56
  in perfect condition? I think the smashed up 1 might
• 23:58
  be worth more. It could well, but.
• 24:01
  Well, your story, yeah, as. Yeah, it does wax poetics.
• 24:05
  That's if you're interested, that's where it's ahead.
• 24:08
  Here's one more thing that might be worth talking about a bit
• 24:12
  more. And this comes from our Price of
• 24:14
  Music inbox from Kate Collins, who says, and this all comes out
• 24:19
  of conversations with, well, originally our conversation with
• 24:22
  Ricky Bates from the Southampton join us about the the fears that
• 24:26
  younger people and teenagers are drifting away from getting into
• 24:30
  the habit of going to gigs. Kate says my children, 14 and
• 24:34
  11, despite playing instruments and creating electronic music
• 24:38
  themselves, plus having attended music festivals since they were
• 24:42
  each a year old and having been to concerts, Slash gigs with me,
• 24:46
  have not expressed any individual interest in going to
• 24:50
  gigs themselves. And most of the music that they
• 24:53
  and their friends are familiar with simply comes from video
• 24:55
  games or from from what they learnt from Primary School
• 24:58
  Breakfast Club. As I say, this came out of the
• 25:01
  interview with Ricky from the joiners because he was saying
• 25:06
  that there's been a drop off in teenagers going to gigs.
• 25:08
  It also weirdly, this challenge was something which I was told
• 25:12
  when I was in a meeting last week in my role as chair of
• 25:16
  live. And we were talking about this
• 25:18
  and the need to encourage the next generation of gig goes.
• 25:21
  But they were saying that you know, that they'd seen how like
• 25:24
  the culture has changed and specifically at festivals where
• 25:28
  in the old days, you know, people if you went to a
• 25:32
  festival, you went to her festival to see 100 bands.
• 25:36
  You spend all day on the guy going, you know, I'm going to
• 25:38
  see 2 bands in this tent that we're going to run over here and
• 25:41
  then back to the mainstage and we'll camp there for the
• 25:44
  headliner. And that's, you know, that was
• 25:47
  the plan wasn't it? But these days they were saying
• 25:50
  even kids who go to events like for instance, Reading and Leeds
• 25:54
  festivals, which I mean they are particularly Reading Festival.
• 25:58
  When I was, when I was working at the Enemy and even through my
• 26:02
  days at Radio 1, you could see Reading Festival was a rite of
• 26:05
  passage. Wasn't it GCSE results weekend?
• 26:08
  Isn't it GCGCSE results weekend? Everyone got them.
• 26:12
  So you could the demographic is yeah, exactly that.
• 26:16
  It's people have just got exam results.
• 26:18
  But they were saying are you even even there now?
• 26:22
  People aren't as interested in music as much as they used to be
• 26:27
  and they go for the social side of it.
• 26:29
  But then this is actually, this is an actual quote.
• 26:33
  They were saying they turn up and this is the quote.
• 26:36
  They have a list of 6 artists that they want to see across the
• 26:39
  weekend and they spend the rest of the time in the campsite.
• 26:43
  And that's how things have changed.
• 26:46
  So I don't know if this is something we we just have to
• 26:49
  accept or is there something we're missing?
• 26:52
  I mean, I haven't got any easy answers to this.
• 26:55
  If you'd like to put your two penis in, do drop us a line,
• 26:58
  listeners. Stuart, can you cure this
• 27:01
  problem in? I mean, so Kate, Kate is a
• 27:05
  obviously a really strong music fan herself and she's been
• 27:09
  taking her kids to music festivals and to gigs.
• 27:11
  Maybe they're just like, we'd rather mum pays for it all so
• 27:13
  we'll go with her. Maybe they're being quite smart.
• 27:16
  But yeah, I don't know. I mean, the other thing I think
• 27:18
  is, I mean, she did what video games?
• 27:21
  I mean, I had this. I mean, I think I may have told
• 27:23
  this anecdote before, but I was, I know someone who took, I think
• 27:26
  it was their nephew took them to see Slipknot at the O2.
• 27:30
  And they checked before and said, have you been to concerts
• 27:32
  before? And they got, and they were
• 27:34
  like, nephew was like, oh course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:36
  And when they got there, it emerged that they'd only seen
• 27:39
  concerts on Fortnite in Roblox before, hadn't been to an actual
• 27:43
  physical kick. And then it was Slipknot, which
• 27:45
  is probably one of the most in your face gigs you can go to,
• 27:49
  but that was it. But the interesting there was in
• 27:52
  that, in that person's, in that teenagers mind, going to a
• 27:55
  concert on Roblox and Fortnite was indistinguishable from the
• 27:59
  real world. They didn't see them in separate
• 28:01
  things, so. I think you make an interesting
• 28:03
  point about the money and getting somebody else to pay for
• 28:07
  it, because I think, I mean, it was always it.
• 28:09
  Now you've never got enough money to go to gigs, whatever
• 28:12
  era you grew up in, but I think there is, it is quite expensive
• 28:17
  now, not necessarily for, for the ticket.
• 28:19
  I mean the ticket at the top end, obviously arena gigs.
• 28:23
  That's, I mean that's a lot of weeks Saturday job money, isn't
• 28:28
  it? But even if you, if you move
• 28:30
  down, you know you can get, you can find hopefully locally.
• 28:33
  If you do, if you're fortunate enough to have a local
• 28:36
  grassroots venue, you can probably go through a gig for
• 28:39
  less than a tenner, maybe £5. Maybe, you know, certain London
• 28:43
  venues, they'll let you in for free during the week at
• 28:46
  somewhere like the Old Blue Last.
• 28:48
  The problem is though, is how much it cost to get a training
• 28:52
  from the suburbs and you know how much it cost to get a drink.
• 28:56
  I mean, I, I remember having, having just about enough money
• 29:00
  for a pint and a half, you know, when I was in my late teens and
• 29:04
  that was it. And you'd have to make that last
• 29:05
  all night. But it's, it's so, but you know,
• 29:09
  you could do that, but it's so expensive.
• 29:11
  Now. One of the things I really
• 29:13
  notice is it's particularly during the week, less teens,
• 29:18
  less early 20s fans coming up from the suburbs into London,
• 29:23
  because that used to be used to fill a London gig, not with
• 29:27
  people who lived in London. We did some research at the
• 29:29
  Enemy Ones which said something like 81 percent or something of
• 29:34
  people who went to gigs in London didn't live in London.
• 29:37
  So you have to travel to get to the gig.
• 29:40
  And I wonder if that's off putting or do we have to throw
• 29:43
  our hands up and say, well, is the music which is around at the
• 29:46
  moment, is it, is it emotionally charged enough?
• 29:50
  Is it revolutionary enough? Does it make you want to lie
• 29:54
  down in front of a moving vehicle?
• 29:56
  Or, you know, I mean, it's is it, is it engaging enough with
• 30:00
  people that they they have to go and see an artist?
• 30:04
  Or is a large part of the audience now made-up of music
• 30:08
  fans Who? I have a playlist, like 3 songs
• 30:11
  by an artist. Saw some clips on TikTok.
• 30:14
  Yeah, I like those songs. I don't like those songs enough
• 30:17
  and I'm not invested enough in the artist to want to go and see
• 30:20
  them. Just like the songs.
• 30:22
  The songs are fine. But you know, I don't know.
• 30:25
  I don't. And if you haven't got the album
• 30:28
  and you haven't got inside a band's head and they don't say
• 30:31
  you know anything about your life, then you're not going to,
• 30:34
  then you're not going to go, are you?
• 30:36
  Maybe not. And the other thing, I think if
• 30:38
  you're if you were talking like early teens, 1111 and 14 here,
• 30:42
  if you're, if you're, if what you're into is not pop music.
• 30:45
  So I think if you're into pop music that, you know, there's a
• 30:47
  lot of teenagers who are getting their parents to buy Taylor
• 30:49
  Swift tickets or Sabrina carpeting tickets or Harry
• 30:53
  Styles tickets. So there's a lot of you can get
• 30:55
  your parents to buy tickets and go with you to a big arena and
• 30:57
  stadium gig. If what you're into is
• 30:59
  electronic music or bands, I don't know if you really want to
• 31:03
  get your parents to take you to a smaller grassroots if I need
• 31:06
  to see a band you like. So I think you need to have
• 31:08
  friends to go with. Don't you like maybe there's a
• 31:10
  different pattern of going to concerts there and it's only
• 31:12
  once you get some friends who all want to go to gigs together
• 31:16
  that you do that. Maybe you don't go to the and
• 31:18
  you don't go to see maybe electronic artists with your
• 31:20
  parents unless your parents are in the industry or so.
• 31:23
  Maybe maybe that maybe maybe Kate's kids are just waiting for
• 31:26
  that moment where they can go and see some of what they're
• 31:28
  creating. Electronic museum sales.
• 31:30
  Maybe they'll be playing gigs before they go to gigs is
• 31:32
  another thing. You know, they might be.
• 31:34
  But yeah, it's a bit I have. I mean, I don't know how you
• 31:36
  feel about this, but I remember having this terror as a parent
• 31:39
  about I don't mind what kids my kids are into, but I would like
• 31:43
  them to be into music because it's brought me so much joy.
• 31:45
  And if they just don't like music, I'd be so I'd be a bit
• 31:47
  sad because of how much joy it's brought me.
• 31:50
  And I think a lot of parents now who love music have that thought
• 31:52
  of like, oh God, they're really into games.
• 31:54
  They're not into music at all. But I think people do find their
• 31:57
  way way there. And and the next, you know what
• 32:00
  we'll do right in a minute maybe is 1 route to that.
• 32:03
  Your observations are so gratefully received on this.
• 32:06
  And finally, for this week, Well, some good news at least.
• 32:11
  Good news for listeners. And I'm sure there are many of
• 32:13
  you who would like to play the video game Fortnite dressed as
• 32:16
  Chapel Roan in a Joan of Arc outfit.
• 32:19
  Mind you, it'll cost you. It will so this follows on from
• 32:23
  Kate's e-mail of of of of people discovering music through games.
• 32:27
  So Fortnite popular video game has a music game within it
• 32:30
  called Fortnite Festival and it runs in these TV style seasons.
• 32:34
  So, you know, Season 3 will be headlined by Billie Eilish, the
• 32:38
  latest season's headline by Chapel Rowan.
• 32:40
  So some of her music will be in the game, and you can play along
• 32:42
  to it. And you can buy outfits,
• 32:45
  including Roan of Art, which is basically Chapel Roan dresses
• 32:48
  Joan of Arc, which sounds bizarre, but I think it was a
• 32:51
  real costume she wore for an MTV Awards one year.
• 32:53
  So it's kind of one of her stage costumes turned into a game
• 32:56
  item. And what I think is interesting
• 32:59
  about this is how much it costs. So I went looking.
• 33:01
  So if you're a Fortnite player and you want the Roan of Arc
• 33:04
  outfits, you can run around dressed as Chapel Roan.
• 33:06
  It costs you 1800 V Bucks, which is Fortnite's in game currency.
• 33:11
  That's around £12 if you're buying V bucks.
• 33:16
  If you want a pink pony sidekick, like a little pink
• 33:18
  pony pet that follows you around, that's 1500 V bucks.
• 33:22
  It's around a tenner. And if you want to play along to
• 33:25
  Hot to go, the big hits that cost you 500 V bucks from the
• 33:28
  store, which is about £3.50. And I think that's what's
• 33:31
  interesting here, like people are paying £3.50 to be able to
• 33:36
  play along with this song in a game.
• 33:38
  And the same time we've talked about how downloads fell off a
• 33:41
  Cliff and how what will people pay for in music?
• 33:43
  Will people pay for music? But there are people out there
• 33:46
  spending £12 on a on a Rowan of Ark outfit in Fortnite. £3.50 to
• 33:53
  play along with a song, which you know what that reminds me
• 33:55
  of? They're talking of formats and
• 34:00
  cash cows that no longer exist. You know what that is?
• 34:04
  Ringtones. Or ringtones when people used to
• 34:07
  spend actual cash on having the hit single as a ringtone do.
• 34:14
  You know, when, when I in my, I was once in the mobile industry,
• 34:18
  mobile content industry, writing about things like ringtones and
• 34:21
  games. And the most bacchanalian party
• 34:23
  I've ever sort of seen was the company that had Crazy Frog.
• 34:28
  Because they had so much money in that period of time when the
• 34:32
  Crazy Frog ringtone, because they were the one of the
• 34:33
  companies that did that thing where you you bought a ringtone,
• 34:36
  but you accidentally signed up to a subscription.
• 34:38
  Agent. And honestly, like, if you think
• 34:41
  about like the music industry stereotypical parties from the
• 34:45
  1980s, it was like that because ringtone money was so big.
• 34:49
  So, yeah, so now that maybe that's maybe that's what Chapel
• 34:51
  Roan's people can do now. They can have a big party with
• 34:53
  the the Road of Arc income. That's where we'll leave it for
• 34:57
  this week. Thank you very much for
• 34:58
  listening. If you're enjoying the show,
• 35:00
  please do spread the word. You can also support us via
• 35:02
  Patreon. In fact, if you sign up to be a
• 35:04
  super fan, you can get to join us for our weekly lock in where
• 35:10
  somebody gets stayed behind after hours for an extra 15
• 35:13
  minutes or so. It's it's bonus material.
• 35:17
  It's, it's the discussion equivalent of demos and
• 35:19
  rarities. You can gain access to that by
• 35:22
  becoming, as I say, a super fan of the program at patreon.com
• 35:26
  slash the price of music. We welcome this week new
• 35:29
  Superfam, Adam Webb. Thank you very much, Adam, for
• 35:33
  joining us. Alternatively, if you've got any
• 35:36
  comments or questions that you'd like us to deal with,
• 35:39
  sendusanemailitsthepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. Until next week, take care,
• 35:46
  Cheerio.