Latest / The Price of Music / Oasis are back; The AI-generated band with a million listeners; Indies vs Universal Music spat gets grumpy; and who owns your songs if your label goes bust?

Transcript

Oasis are back; The AI-generated band with a million listeners; Indies vs Universal Music spat gets grumpy; and who owns your songs if your label goes bust? · The Price of Music

• 0:07
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:10
  Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by the fun and games
• 0:13
  and finances of the music world as explained each week by me,
• 0:17
  Steve Lamac and him, Stuart Dredge.
• 0:19
  And yes, we are back. Apologies that it took us longer
• 0:22
  than expected, but we've been fine tuning one or two things
• 0:26
  for our return. Although our mission remains the
• 0:29
  same, to help try and demystify the music industry and bring you
• 0:32
  some clarity around some of the big trends in music as well as
• 0:36
  their financial and in some cases moral implications.
• 0:40
  Coming up this week, Oasis tour starts, the band Deer Hoof quit
• 0:45
  Spotify over arms firm fears, and the universal downtown
• 0:50
  takeover gets increasingly fractious.
• 0:53
  But first, First off, Stuart is going to do a number on US, Give
• 0:57
  us a big number from the past week.
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  OK, I've got a really big number this time.
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  The number is 1.1 million. 1.1 million what?
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  1.1 million people on Spotify listening to a band called the
• 1:13
  Velvet Sundown, which has become the hot music industry story of
• 1:17
  the last week. Because the Velvet Sundown are a
• 1:20
  completely AI generated band and their music is completely AI
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  generated too. But they've got more than a
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  million listeners on Spotify. I'm John White reads this.
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  Some of our listeners will have already read this as well.
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  I know I mean I don't want to over exaggerate, but this is one
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  of the most frightening AI stories to date.
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  I think because of the there were just the implications of
• 1:40
  this massive and and and many in fact, when there were a couple
• 1:44
  of stories on this topic in the past week.
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  But just so give us the bare bones then.
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  So it's an it's an AI bands with AI generated music and and
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  photos and biog. Everything behind it has been
• 1:59
  put through the the the AI mixer.
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  Well, exactly. So this kind of popped up a
• 2:04
  couple of weeks ago when it was first people on Reddit, the
• 2:07
  Internet community platform started posting it out there.
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  This band that had appeared in their Discover weekly playlist
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  and they thought there might be AI.
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  They were sort of saying the music sounds like AI, the photos
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  look AI generated and it started there.
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  But this band already had like 325,000 listeners.
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  So that was why it was interesting that, and it's kind
• 2:26
  of, I mean, I don't know if you've heard the band, it's kind
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  of 1970s Californian rock, sort of that kind of, you know, that
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  Sunkist 70's rock kind of washes over you.
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  But as a casual list, to me, it sounds believable.
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  You, you'd be hard pressed to guess it wasn't a real band of
• 2:42
  humans. I think it's only if you're a
• 2:44
  producer or an artist or even Someone Like You.
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  I think you, you listen to a lot of music.
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  I think you might listen to it and smell a rat too.
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  But to a lot of people it sounds.
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  And then so anyway, so they had this much and I and I was I
• 2:55
  started digging a bunch of other journalists were also digging
• 2:57
  into this. And basically they had the band
• 3:00
  members, they had a biography on Spotify.
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  And the four named band members had no footprint online
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  whatsoever, no social profiles, no previous bands, no concerts
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  by this band, which is again, kind of, you know, quite a big
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  clue. And I had a quote from
• 3:15
  Billboard, the industry title in their in the biography, which
• 3:18
  was there was no record of that ever have been written by
• 3:21
  Billboard as well. So it was quite intriguing.
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  And then as the story moved on, two companies, so DS are the
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  streaming service and a French company called Ercam Amplify.
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  Both of them have AI detection tools.
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  They have tools designed to kind of detect AI music.
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  And both of them said, yes, this is AI music.
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  And then then it got even better.
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  So this account on X, formerly Twitter, popped up that was
• 3:46
  purportedly to be the Velvet Sundown, and they were having a
• 3:49
  go at all the journalists saying this isn't AI, we're not an AI
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  band. You haven't checked your facts.
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  You haven't even reached out to us.
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  You haven't come and see our concerts.
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  You're all lazy journalists. It was quite, it was very, very
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  sort of fighty. And then the guy behind this
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  Twitter account gave in to Rolling Stone and he was saying,
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  yeah, actually it's a bit of an art hoax, really.
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  And yeah, OK, maybe it was AI and quite evasive and dancing
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  around some of these aspects of story.
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  And then the next day this guy wrote a blog post saying I'm not
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  the spokesperson of the band, I've got nothing to do with
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  them. I made it all up because I
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  thought it would be good to insert myself into the story and
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  I want to prove that journalists are all lazy.
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  So to recap, a real human pretended to be the spokesperson
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  for a not real band and got interviewed by Rolling Stone.
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  And all the time this is happening, more people are
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  writing stories. It started being picked up by
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  broadcast media and their listeners kept growing and
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  growing. And now over 1,000,000.
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  Over 1,000,000 listeners and do do we know who is behind it
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  then? Because someone is inputting the
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  the you know, the data, the the music, potentially, I suppose
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  some sort of guidelines for lyrics.
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  Someone is behind this AI triumph.
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  Do we know who it is? We don't know who it is yet.
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  They have updated their bio on Spotify and I should say it's on
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  all the streaming services. Not it's not just a Spotify
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  thing, it's on a bunch of them and now their bio reads.
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  The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided
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  by human creative direction and composed, voiced and visualised
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  with the support of artificial intelligence, an ongoing
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  artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of
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  authorship, identity and the future of music itself in the
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  age of AI. So and, and, and which is kind
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  of word super a little bit, but there is there is some human
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  creativity behind this of saying, what can we do with this
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  technology and how believable can it be?
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  But they are at least being open about it now, which is because
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  at the beginning. But I mean, I guess there are
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  two things in my head about this that we should talk about.
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  And 1 is like, this is like the tip of an iceberg.
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  There are more of these artists and actually music business
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  worldwide have been doing investigating to other artists
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  who are AI generated. There's one called event this
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  who got a million listeners. There's one called Nick Hustles
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  who's kind of hip hop meets R&B. He's got 250,000 listeners.
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  Like I think they tracked about 11 of these artists that have
• 6:11
  got kind of significant audiences.
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  And I was looking, so I was looking at an example of a human
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  band, so Fat Dog, who we have talked about a lot.
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  They've got 200,000 listeners on Spotify.
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  So, and I'm not saying this to pick on them, but like they're a
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  band you've been championing. They've been putting those hard
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  yards in, playing around the the UK, building their fanbase.
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  And yet suddenly this band have come along and have five times
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  the audience. And I think that's why this is
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  causing quite a lot of soul searching within the industry
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  and with the musicians that this is, this feels like a sudden
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  thing that's happened and now it's bigger.
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  Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know, I almost don't know where
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  to start with this, but just I mean a couple of thoughts.
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  Not, not in any order of this, but first, obviously it's a
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  trust issue, isn't it? Because now, I mean, obviously
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  journalists have written about this particular band, but
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  there's, as you say, there's probably hundreds of other
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  fictional artists out there already that we don't know are
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  in fact just AI bots making music or it's music being posted
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  by AI bots. So how long is it until we have
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  to Fact Check every artist that we like on Spotify to make sure
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  that they're actually, you know, a genuine human group?
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  And as you say, Deezer, I mean, Deezer did put a marker on it,
• 7:27
  didn't they? But will the other on this
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  saying basically, we, we suspect AI is at play here, but will the
• 7:34
  other streaming companies, will they do similar?
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  Or is it just too difficult? Is it too big a task to point
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  out every artist that's used AI was mainly AI driven and then
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  point this out to listeners? I guess it's it would be a
• 7:52
  mammoth task, but it does leave us having to do all the work
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  ourselves going well, is this, is this real?
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  And I just to follow on from that, and this is the really
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  dangerous question. Is anyone going to care?
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  I mean, we all care and the artists will care, but there
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  will be, I'm sure, hundreds, maybe thousands of Spotify
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  listeners who, if they like the song, it doesn't matter.
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  I mean, they, they don't care. They don't know neither care
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  that a boss has made this because it's on one of their
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  playlists. And you know, they might like
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  it. Or it might just be, as in the
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  case of The Velvet Sundown, it may just be inoffensive enough
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  not to bother turning it off. And so the streaming figures
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  will will continue to rise. I.
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  Mean I think that is 11 argument that the culmination of this
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  culture of of things listing in the background means there will
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  be. But I think so one thing that
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  might be reassuring is so the figures are very big, like 1.1
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  million listings for this one band.
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  But that's not measuring how many people like them right now.
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  It's measuring who's read a story about it and being curious
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  enough to go and listen to a track or two.
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  So give it a month or give it two months.
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  Those people who came along listened to track or two and
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  then thought, no, this is not for me.
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  They'll be, they'll be out of those figures.
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  And so if in a month and a half they have like 100,000
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  listeners, you'll real you'll you'll realise the scale of it
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  is less. Than.
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  Your thing now? Yeah, in in this case, yes, but
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  hasn't it opened the door though in a way?
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  Now surely there will be people going.
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  Why don't you probably get away with this?
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  I mean, it took a load of journalists to point this out,
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  but if there's there's not, again, I don't want to over
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  exaggerate it, but there's just no brakes on AI in music at the
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  moment. There's nothing stopping it.
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  And the more people get to see that, well, there's some money,
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  we can make some money out of this reasonably easy, then
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  surely it's a phenomenal. It can only grow until somebody
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  or we find some way of doing something about it.
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  And, you know, I'd say, you know, people, people don't care.
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  But obviously the people who do care, care for a reason.
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  And there are a bunch of reasons, including the more AI
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  bands are out there taking up the space of real bands, you
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  know, the less chances for real bands.
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  Again, accuse me all you like of like Steve, this is not going to
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  happen. But it's just the start and all
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  this is happening so quickly that you know we're going to get
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  to the point where there will be no bands playing at your local
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  pub tonight. Because all the bands are
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  popular on the streaming services which seem to have such
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  a hold over the music industry and their streaming stats.
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  You know the they're not real. The ones who are popular.
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  Covers band. I mean, I mean, if nothing else,
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  sorry, it's just a final point. If nothing else, what you end up
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  with is a lot of music which is simply aping or remoulding music
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  that's already happened because that's how AI works.
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  And it will be in this. It's a stale way of, you know,
• 10:50
  treading musical water because it's just rehash after.
• 10:53
  I know some people also say at this point, yeah, but what did
• 10:57
  Oasis do? Isn't that what Oasis did?
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  But then, you know, I think even AI would have been hard pressed
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  to create a band like Oasis at the start of the 90s had there
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  been AI back then. Sorry you wanted to make a
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  point. Well, yeah, no.
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  So I've got 2 points actually in my head, 1 is so in.
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  I get caught up in this. In theory there's nothing wrong
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  with someone creating an AI band, creating I music for them.
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  There is creativity involved in it because you can't just press
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  a button, something good comes out.
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  You do actually do quite a lot of work to make it feel cogent,
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  you know. So in theory this is OK, but,
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  and this is where the music industry is going to is worried
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  about this. In this case, they use SUNO to
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  make the music that's been detected by these systems.
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  And SUNO is one of the companies being sued by labels accusing it
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  of scraping the world's music without permission or licensing.
• 11:46
  So if you think about that, this band, not only, as you say,
• 11:50
  could they be taking listeners away and royalties away from
• 11:52
  human bands, but arguably the the music they make has been
• 11:56
  built on the backs of generations of musicians who
• 11:58
  haven't been paid. So that's one thing that's being
• 12:00
  talked about in the industry. And of course, that's a legal
• 12:02
  case. It may be so the other way.
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  I'm not prejudging it, but that's where people feel unhappy
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  about this. It's not just that it's not a
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  real band, it's that what their system has been trained on, you
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  know, but also I think I think to your point about what happens
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  now, I think this is going to really accelerate pressure on
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  streaming services to decide what they're going to do with
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  this music. And so Deezer, like this is a
• 12:25
  good example. Deezer has said already, we're
• 12:27
  not going to take this music off.
• 12:29
  We're going to leave it up on our service.
• 12:30
  We are going to tag it as saying maybe they are generation tools
• 12:35
  and they're also not putting in their recommendations.
• 12:36
  So if you're on Diesel and you get your your personal playlist
• 12:39
  of what's out this week, it's not going to be in there.
• 12:42
  Obviously that depends on them detecting it.
• 12:44
  You know, stuff may get through, but that's their policy.
• 12:46
  We're not going to recommend it to you and we're going to market
• 12:48
  clearly, but there are options. So so options include streaming
• 12:53
  services could just leave it there.
• 12:54
  They could take it out of the recommendations that these has.
• 12:57
  They could say we're going to pay at lower all if he's not at
• 12:59
  all. That's an option.
• 13:00
  No one's taken that yet. Or they could boot it off
• 13:03
  entirely and say, actually, if you want to go and listen to AI
• 13:05
  dream music, go over to Suno, go over to Udio where those
• 13:08
  platforms are like streaming services too.
• 13:09
  You can find stuff. So I think labels are going to
• 13:12
  be sort of talking to the big streamers and saying, look, what
• 13:15
  is your policy? And we'd like you to be quite
• 13:17
  tough on this. But I mean, it's it's kind of
• 13:21
  the other angle to this as well. And this is not to do with the
• 13:23
  Velvet Sundown. But there are questions around
• 13:26
  how these these virtual artists, how AI music, how it gets played
• 13:30
  on services like Spotify. If they're using anything
• 13:33
  illegal like bots, if they're artificially inflating their
• 13:36
  streams, that's straight streaming fraud.
• 13:39
  And they will be kicked off and their royalty will be paid.
• 13:42
  And there's no evidence of that happening in this example yet.
• 13:44
  But that's the other thing people will be looking at, OK,
• 13:47
  if an AI band has suddenly got, you know, hundreds of 1000
• 13:50
  listeners, how did they get that many?
• 13:53
  Was there anything dodgy going on?
• 13:54
  And if so, they will come down quite quickly.
• 13:57
  OK, All right, here's our top three stories of the week,
• 14:01
  outside of that one, which has had a lot of people talking.
• 14:04
  I just mentioned Oasis. You can't not mention Oasis.
• 14:06
  The Oasis tour started in Cardiff on Friday, their first
• 14:09
  dates in 16 years, a fact that the media never missed the
• 14:12
  chance of reminding us it's their first dates in 16.
• 14:15
  Yeah, we know 65,000 people or thereabouts attended each night
• 14:21
  in Cardiff. I mean, it's been crazy, hasn't
• 14:24
  it? Did you watch, did you watch any
• 14:26
  of the BBC coverage on Friday evening?
• 14:29
  Because the, the, the they had a dedicated live channel.
• 14:33
  Did you see that? I mean so that.
• 14:35
  I was reading, I was on the Guardians live blog as well.
• 14:37
  I was kind of following it live without.
• 14:39
  And there was, I think there was a guy who in the audience who
• 14:41
  live streamed the first half an hour, which you're not supposed
• 14:43
  to do. And he was getting enormous
• 14:45
  viewing on YouTube, I think, wasn't he?
• 14:47
  Well the BBC of course, I mean they were treating it like a
• 14:49
  rolling news story with without of course any rights to show any
• 14:54
  of the gig itself because the Oasis camp very early on hadn't
• 14:57
  they had to come out and said this, this gig will These gigs
• 15:00
  will not be televised, although you can tell they are being
• 15:04
  filmed, I imagine for cinema or streaming release by Oasis at
• 15:09
  some point. But that that meant all the BBC
• 15:13
  had was people talking about because they were in an OB
• 15:18
  studio close to the venue. This is an entire hours of this.
• 15:22
  They started about four hours before the gig started and I
• 15:25
  only noticed it after I put my daughter to, to bed, came
• 15:28
  downstairs and they're in the studio just with that and a
• 15:31
  succession, I guess reliving there around about 9:30.
• 15:35
  He said right back to the studio where we're joined by Matthew
• 15:38
  from Dodgy. I mean, I'm, I'm not even
• 15:40
  joking, Dodgy. You're on the settee talking
• 15:43
  about, oh, they've got a reporter outside the venue, 2
• 15:46
  reporters live blogging from inside the venue, song by song.
• 15:51
  I mean they, they really went for it.
• 15:53
  Really, dude? It's and it's it's been, do you
• 15:57
  know what interesting though, that that all the coverage of
• 15:58
  the actual concert seemed to say it was brilliant.
• 16:01
  I haven't seen anyone saying they were they were crap or they
• 16:04
  were surly or, you know, it seems to have been they've
• 16:06
  they've knuckled themselves together and put on a good show.
• 16:08
  Yeah, I'm also quite surprised that there haven't been more
• 16:11
  stories of people being turned away because their tickets were
• 16:17
  bought from unofficial resale sites.
• 16:20
  I think there was, somebody told me who was at the gig, said
• 16:25
  there, there was a queue of people, small queue of people
• 16:29
  who had been turned away possibly because they bought a
• 16:32
  dud ticket. But so far not as many stories
• 16:37
  about that as as as I thought. In fact, not many stories really
• 16:40
  about the finances either, which I mean no one's leaking as far
• 16:45
  as I can tell. Usually around around now there
• 16:48
  would be some figures starting to fly around from indiscreet
• 16:53
  sources, but nothing so far really.
• 16:56
  You know, in terms of it's all still conjecture about how how
• 17:00
  many millions the Gallagher brothers are getting or you
• 17:03
  know, were offered as a minimum fee because they would have been
• 17:06
  offered his X amount of his X £1,000,000.
• 17:10
  You'll definitely have this. This is your guarantee whatever
• 17:13
  happens after this and that with with we think is an 8 figure.
• 17:18
  It's obviously, you know, 10 million upwards or something,
• 17:21
  but we don't know where, what, what the actual figure figure
• 17:25
  is. I imagine that's we, there will
• 17:27
  be more, I imagine speculation about that to come though.
• 17:31
  Do you think in in the weeks to come?
• 17:33
  I think so. I mean, I've the most I've seen.
• 17:35
  I mean, I've a lot of people are trying to put numbers out around
• 17:37
  it. They're unofficial, all right.
• 17:39
  There was a personal finance company today estimating that
• 17:42
  the economic impact of the whole UK to could be just over £940
• 17:46
  million, and that was based on what they were spending.
• 17:49
  And interesting, that seems to be a thing now.
• 17:51
  I don't know if you've noticed this.
• 17:52
  It was with the same with Taylor Swift recently that people are
• 17:55
  trying to calculate what is the economic impact of these
• 17:57
  enormous concerts on the cities they're hosted in, which is kind
• 18:02
  of adding up. Not just ticket sales, not just
• 18:04
  merchant stuff, but also people going and eating out beforehand,
• 18:06
  the travel. And I don't know if it's partly
• 18:09
  because the music industry is getting more wise to the fact
• 18:11
  that to tell convince governments to do stuff for you.
• 18:14
  Yeah. Tell your economic impact beyond
• 18:16
  just we're making loads of money.
• 18:18
  Yeah, I'll tell you somethings 1 figure which also relates back
• 18:22
  to government and and bear in mind, as many of you probably
• 18:27
  know, I am currently I'm chair of live, which is the live music
• 18:32
  trade bodies, live music industries trade body.
• 18:34
  And this is this is one of our bug bears, the fact that 20% of
• 18:38
  the ticket price is VAT. So 20% of your ticket price is
• 18:43
  COA Oasis. That's that sort of face value.
• 18:48
  So not including it's the money you spend on the ticket, not the
• 18:51
  additional fees. But if you bought, say a
• 18:53
  standing ticket for Oasis in Cardiff, which was £150, then
• 18:58
  20% of that was VAT, which will go to the governments because we
• 19:04
  still, we have one of the highest rates of VAT on gig
• 19:07
  tickets anywhere in Europe. In Germany, by comparison, I
• 19:10
  think it's it's 7%, but it's, it's still 20% here, which, and
• 19:16
  I did some rough calculations. So say the average ticket price
• 19:20
  for Cardiff was £200. I mean, I think that's probably
• 19:23
  quite conservative given some of the Vox pops where people were
• 19:26
  saying I spent 300 and 5400 100 lbs or whatever.
• 19:30
  But on the initial sale of tickets, say it's £200, the
• 19:34
  total audience, Well, I mean the, the capacity of the
• 19:39
  Principality Stadium, I mean, it differed depending on which
• 19:43
  report you read. But let's say it's 65,000
• 19:46
  people. So 20% of 200 is £40 right, £40
• 19:52
  * 65,000 people, 2.6 million quid, £2.6 million in VAT just
• 20:02
  for one gig. And if you want to take that a
• 20:04
  step further, an estimated 1.4 million fans will see Oasis on
• 20:09
  their reunion tour. 1.4 million * 200 lbs take off 20% in VAT.
• 20:15
  That is £56,000,000 in VAT for the government.
• 20:22
  I'll just leave that there. Oh, I, I want to start doing
• 20:25
  sums on like how many nurses salaries that pays for and so
• 20:28
  on. But I know that's not how VAT
• 20:30
  works. But maybe that's a good news
• 20:32
  story, you know, the, the tax stuff and that might that money
• 20:35
  could be used to do good things. So it could be wasted on
• 20:38
  something rubbish. But you know.
• 20:39
  You've got, you've got a good Oasis stat though when it comes
• 20:42
  to radio, which we might as well slip in here.
• 20:45
  It's not, it's not, it's not essentially tied to the gigs,
• 20:49
  but obviously anyone who's got any Oasis figures at the moment
• 20:53
  is desperate to stick them in a press release and send them to
• 20:55
  you. Well that is the thing.
• 20:57
  So this is this is from PPL in the UK, so the collection
• 21:00
  society. So apologies to international
• 21:02
  listeners. It's very much AUK stat.
• 21:04
  But yeah, apparently since the beginning of this century, Oasis
• 21:08
  have wrapped up over 7 years of cumulative airplay on UK radio
• 21:12
  and TV stations alone, and their songs are played on average 120
• 21:16
  times a day on TV and radio. Which interesting.
• 21:19
  I you would have maybe thought Wonderwall was their most played
• 21:22
  track on rating TV, but it's not.
• 21:23
  It's doing the back in anger. So yeah, in the in the chart of
• 21:27
  Oasis songs on the airwaves, it's very much the early stuff
• 21:31
  dominates the list. As as was the set actually, as
• 21:35
  it goes, looking at that set list, right, big story #2 now
• 21:40
  this is this is this is proper industry related this and it's
• 21:43
  something we have covered before.
• 21:46
  Things though, are getting distinctly tetchy in the
• 21:49
  arguments surrounding whether Universal Music Group should be
• 21:53
  allowed to buy the independent music company Downtown Music.
• 21:58
  Can you explain to to in layman's terms what's been
• 22:03
  happening, why it's important, and why both sides are getting
• 22:08
  quite hot under the collar about it now?
• 22:10
  Yeah, sure. So to recap, I mean, Downtown
• 22:12
  Music might not be a familiar name to everyone who are just
• 22:15
  music fans, but it's one of the biggest independent companies
• 22:17
  that it owns. It owns a publisher.
• 22:19
  So I mean, it signed songwriters, but it also has it
• 22:22
  also owns CD Baby, who distribute music.
• 22:24
  They're one of the things that independent artists use to put
• 22:27
  the music out. It's got a division called Song
• 22:29
  Trust that collects royalties, publishers and songwriters, and
• 22:32
  it's got a company called Curve that has software for processing
• 22:34
  royalties. It's used by a lot of people.
• 22:36
  So it's got its fingers and a lot of different pies in
• 22:38
  independent music. And as a mark of how big it is,
• 22:42
  Universal Music has agreed to buy it for $775,000,000.
• 22:45
  And this was announced kind of last year.
• 22:48
  And what's been happening since it was announced, a lot of
• 22:50
  independent music bodies and labels have been protesting and
• 22:53
  saying this is this will be a really bad idea.
• 22:55
  It would make Universal Music or really the biggest major label
• 22:58
  too powerful. And so there's been a succession
• 23:02
  of open letters and guest columns for for media outlets.
• 23:06
  And essentially the arguments here are if you let Universal
• 23:10
  buy this company, it'll be bigger and it can go to
• 23:14
  streaming services and say, look, we're bigger and we want
• 23:16
  you to do this and this and that.
• 23:18
  They have more leverage to kind of push streaming services
• 23:20
  around in a way that might not benefit independent artists and
• 23:23
  labels. They also say it have access to
• 23:26
  lots of data from the independent world.
• 23:28
  So this is this is quite important to this.
• 23:29
  So downtown music, like I said, it has a division that deals
• 23:33
  with royalties, has divisions that collect royalties.
• 23:36
  It would get a lot of information on how much money
• 23:38
  independent music is making and how many streams it's getting.
• 23:42
  And their argument is, well, imagine what you could do with
• 23:44
  this if you were being a bit nefarious.
• 23:46
  You could maybe see when an artist was worth poaching
• 23:49
  because they're doing well. Or you could see when when a
• 23:52
  label is doing well and make them an offer to buy them.
• 23:53
  So a lot of the arguments are if they this deal goes through,
• 23:57
  Universal Music might do these things that are bad.
• 24:00
  It's very much kind of ifs and buts, and those arguments have
• 24:04
  been targeted mainly at regulators.
• 24:06
  So people who have to say yes, this deal can go through with
• 24:09
  the green light. So that's the European
• 24:10
  Commission in Europe. And last month the European
• 24:14
  Commission said yes, we are actually going to investigate
• 24:16
  this deal, we're going to have a look at it.
• 24:19
  And that's when things have got quite hot under the colour.
• 24:22
  So yeah, I think last week the fightback began.
• 24:25
  There were kind of two things. So a guy called Kenny Gates, do
• 24:28
  you know? PS The Independent Label Group,
• 24:31
  they were bought by, they were bought by Universal last year.
• 24:33
  But Kenny Gates, the Co founder, he wrote this column for music
• 24:36
  business quite well and he kind of came out swinging and said
• 24:38
  look, there is lots of competition still.
• 24:42
  This isn't going to hurt Indies as much as other things are.
• 24:44
  And he sorts of things like AI and short video isn't making
• 24:48
  enough money and big investment companies are buying rights.
• 24:50
  He said these are the problems to focus on.
• 24:52
  You shouldn't be thinking about majors versus Indies as that
• 24:55
  opposing thing. So he was quite punchy in his
• 24:57
  view. And then Virgin Music Group,
• 25:00
  which again, to to people like, Oh yeah, it's a label.
• 25:02
  Virgin Music Group is the bit of Universal Music Group that deals
• 25:05
  with independent artists and labels.
• 25:08
  So it's their kind of division that kind of deals with that
• 25:10
  side. And if it buys downtown music,
• 25:13
  it would be part of Virgin Music Group.
• 25:16
  And the Co founders came out with this memo they sent
• 25:18
  internally that was quickly leaked to journalists.
• 25:20
  And again, they were saying this is all lies.
• 25:23
  It's, it's just bad faith. We're not going to use data to
• 25:26
  do anti competitive things. We're not, it's not too big and
• 25:30
  powerful. We care about the Indian
• 25:32
  community. And they, they sort of just
• 25:35
  phrased juvenile offensive and just falsehoods.
• 25:39
  So they're really kind of saying we're really cross about being
• 25:41
  people assuming we're going to do terrible things if we buy
• 25:43
  this company. So it's got quite heated in
• 25:47
  public and it's kind of, yeah, it feels like a big moment
• 25:52
  because I think we've talked about this, haven't we, the last
• 25:54
  year, this idea about there are these these arguments about, OK,
• 25:57
  what's happening with independent music?
• 25:59
  Companies are getting bought up by majors.
• 26:02
  Independent music is quite a big business for major labels now.
• 26:04
  And they have these arms that do distribution.
• 26:07
  And there's a lot of worry. And this is going to be the
• 26:09
  case. That is kind of the moment where
• 26:12
  where people are saying, right, is the regulator going to say,
• 26:15
  no, you can't do this Universal Music Group or are they going to
• 26:18
  wave it through? And so that's what the arguments
• 26:20
  are preparing for that that decision.
• 26:22
  The the people who are opposed to the takeover, who are trying
• 26:27
  to preserve the status of, you know, major independents or
• 26:34
  independent groups. Who's that?
• 26:37
  I did notice even just before we came to record this episode that
• 26:43
  there was a joint letter from a collection of people from, you
• 26:47
  know, major Independent Record labels, including Beggars Group,
• 26:51
  which obviously includes Rough Trade and four AD strictly the
• 26:58
  American label. People like that are standing
• 27:02
  fast though, for in defiance of the takeover.
• 27:07
  Is that right? They are actually Sir Martin
• 27:10
  Mills, the founder of Beggars Group.
• 27:12
  He he gave this quote a few months ago talking about I think
• 27:16
  he was not saying, you know, they're saying they're going to
• 27:17
  be really good to an independent artist, but he's like, beware,
• 27:19
  there's a wolf behind that Cape. And that was that was quoted in
• 27:23
  this memo from Virgin music group And they're really cross
• 27:25
  about this say we're not wolves. I kind of in a way that the
• 27:29
  awkward thing here, I think is that the people who work within
• 27:32
  major labels on the independent side of their business, the
• 27:35
  people who work with independent labels and artists.
• 27:37
  So people like Virgin music group, the Orchard at Sony's an
• 27:41
  example. It's a famous distributor, but
• 27:43
  that's those people, they see themselves as being part of the
• 27:46
  independent music industry and they see themselves as working
• 27:48
  really hard for independent artists.
• 27:50
  And so I do understand actually why they would be upset and feel
• 27:53
  under attack at kind of being said you're you're people on
• 27:56
  major labels and you're going to do bad things and undercut the
• 27:58
  community. So I do get the, I do get the
• 28:01
  kind of the the personal hurt here.
• 28:04
  But I think, yeah, it's it's it's also about trust, like you
• 28:08
  say. I think a lot of the defence of
• 28:11
  this deal is we won't do those bad things you say we will.
• 28:15
  We promise we're not going to do those things.
• 28:18
  And if you step back from picking a side, that's what
• 28:24
  regulation of big acquisitions all about.
• 28:26
  It's like saying, well, actually, if people don't trust
• 28:29
  you do that, how can we make sure you stick to your word?
• 28:31
  Do we need to have certain safeguards in place?
• 28:34
  One thing in other deals have done is they've made them sell
• 28:36
  off bits. So for example, in this thing
• 28:38
  they could say to you, you can buy them downtown music, but you
• 28:41
  have to sell off this bit that works with independence and that
• 28:43
  bit to make sure that they still have options and that you're
• 28:46
  using data. So I think that's what it's
• 28:48
  going to come down to is the promises on one side saying
• 28:52
  you're saying we're going to do this and that, but we're not.
• 28:54
  And then the regulators say, OK, well, here's how can we make
• 28:57
  sure of that. But it could go anyway.
• 29:01
  It could be, it could be blocked, it could be allowed
• 29:04
  through with certain restrictions or certain
• 29:06
  divestitures. I think it's a word where you
• 29:08
  have to sell bits of or it could be waved through.
• 29:10
  And whatever happens, based on the last kind of few weeks, it's
• 29:14
  going to be quite a tense moment because everyone has been so
• 29:18
  cross about it before they seem to be made.
• 29:19
  So yeah, when we know what they decided, the arguments could
• 29:23
  break out even more. Our third key story of the week,
• 29:28
  American band Deerhoof are quitting Spotify in protest and
• 29:32
  it's CEO leading a €600 million funding round for a military
• 29:39
  drones manufacturer. Tell us more about this.
• 29:43
  Yeah, so I mean Deerhoof. I mean, I'm sure you must know
• 29:47
  know them. They've been around.
• 29:49
  I think they're about 19 albums in.
• 29:50
  They're like a very long standing indie rock band.
• 29:55
  And yeah, they came up with this.
• 29:55
  So you remember they said, yeah, we're leaving Spotify.
• 29:58
  And the story starts with this company called Helsing, which is
• 30:01
  a defence technology company based in Germany.
• 30:03
  And they make military Jones, they make AI defence software.
• 30:07
  And they've got this policy of they only sell that tech to and
• 30:10
  the, the the phrase is sovereign democracies, which basically
• 30:13
  means we don't sell our stuff to dictate us.
• 30:16
  It's not the get out clause it may seem, because sovereign
• 30:19
  democracies do some bad things with weapons as well.
• 30:21
  So, you know, it's a it's a bit a bit hedging around the book,
• 30:25
  but yeah. And Spotify's boss Daniel, like
• 30:26
  he has an investment fund and actually this is not a news
• 30:29
  story. Back in 2021, he he led a
• 30:32
  funding round for housing and he joined its board.
• 30:34
  So he's been involved with this company for a while.
• 30:36
  But then recently he led a new round of €600 million for the
• 30:39
  company. He became its chairman.
• 30:41
  And this was reported and obviously in the tech and
• 30:44
  investors was like, wow, Spotify CEO is investing this big round
• 30:47
  into housing. This is an exciting news for the
• 30:49
  defence industry. But then when he just got back
• 30:52
  to music, it's obviously, it's obviously caused some different
• 30:55
  feelings. And yeah, dear, who've basically
• 30:56
  said this post saying we don't want our music killing people.
• 31:00
  We don't want a success being tied to AI battle tech.
• 31:03
  And they went on to give Spotify both bowels and say, look, it's
• 31:05
  an already widely hated data mining scam masquerading as a
• 31:09
  music company. So there's a bit of bite here.
• 31:11
  They're not fans. And but this is based on the
• 31:14
  fact that Daniel, like other Spotify execs, he's made a lot
• 31:16
  of money from selling shares in Spotify that he owned.
• 31:19
  And what he's doing with that money, he's investing it.
• 31:21
  He's got a big investment in a, in a health startup as well.
• 31:25
  One of the things we can go and get your body scan and check for
• 31:27
  health. And that hasn't really caused a
• 31:29
  controversy. No one's worried about that.
• 31:31
  But this company health singer has made musicians.
• 31:34
  And the thing here is, I mean, I really like to hoof like I've
• 31:38
  liked for a while. They've got less than 110,000
• 31:41
  listens on Spotify, which kind of cuts both ways.
• 31:44
  So for them, and they said this, we're not going to lose a lot of
• 31:46
  money. We make a lot of money from
• 31:47
  playing live anyway. So it's not going to it's not
• 31:50
  really a thing that's going to drastically hurt them equally.
• 31:53
  It's not this sudden uppercut to Spotify that's going to make it
• 31:57
  make make him pull out of this investment rate change.
• 31:59
  You know, it's not yet spread to bigger artists who Spotify would
• 32:03
  be more worried about losing. But talking to people, people
• 32:07
  said to me, watch this story because do you remember last
• 32:09
  year we talked about music festivals that had sponsorship
• 32:12
  from companies linked to the arms industry.
• 32:15
  Like I think it was South by Southwest got some heat.
• 32:17
  The Great Escape got some heat. Like this has proven to be quite
• 32:21
  a quite a heated issue for the artists feel strongly about.
• 32:24
  And so I do wonder if more are going to see this Deerhoof story
• 32:28
  and be considering their own things or, or at least speaking
• 32:31
  out and saying we don't like this.
• 32:32
  But it's hard to see anything changing because it's his
• 32:35
  personal investment fund. He can invest it where he wants.
• 32:38
  And, you know, presumably he will be.
• 32:40
  He'll be fronting up to the critics.
• 32:42
  That's your top news stories for this week.
• 32:45
  Any other business before we go Oh, you've got you wanted to
• 32:48
  mention a a Sabrina Carpenter tour, financial tour fact.
• 32:54
  Yeah, well, also, did you see she got Simon Le Bon out for a
• 32:57
  concert this weekend in London? Did you?
• 32:59
  Make it, you make it sound like she Simon Le Bon is in a in a
• 33:03
  cupboard or in a flight case and it's she's got Simon Le Bon
• 33:06
  actually just opened up this. She opened up the flight case
• 33:09
  and guess who was in there? Simon Le Bon.
• 33:11
  She got Simon Le Bon out. Yeah, they get hungry like the
• 33:14
  wolf, which has released a full 17 years before she was born,
• 33:17
  which I thought was quite. What is what is going on?
• 33:19
  You've got Olivia Rodrigo at Glastonbury hauling on Robert
• 33:25
  Smith to do Cure cover versions. I know took Robert Smith out of
• 33:29
  a box. Come on, Roberts, imagine if you
• 33:33
  got. Imagine if you got the Simon Le
• 33:35
  Bum box who you thought was that it was actually the Robert Smith
• 33:37
  box that we. Got yeah, I've got me.
• 33:40
  How you see these pop stars mixed up?
• 33:42
  That's not the stat. What what was what was it?
• 33:44
  It's it's, it's a donation from tickets, I think.
• 33:48
  Yes, so she a year ago, Sabrina started working with this
• 33:50
  nonprofit organization called plus one in the States and it
• 33:54
  basically it helps artists raise money for the causes they care
• 33:57
  about South in her case, I think it's a dollar from every ticket
• 34:00
  sold to a concerts in the US and Europe was was kind of rooting
• 34:05
  to this fund. And then this fund makes
• 34:06
  donations to charities in it's three things mental health,
• 34:09
  animal welfare and LGBTQ plus rights.
• 34:13
  And this is a a trend like, So Sabrina Carpenter has her fund,
• 34:18
  actually, Olivia Rodrigo, you mentioned, she's got a thing
• 34:20
  called fun for good. And she donates to charities for
• 34:23
  women and girls, like reproductive health, freedom,
• 34:26
  that sort of thing. And the reason I think it's so,
• 34:29
  yeah. So Sabrina Carpet's fund has
• 34:30
  raised $1,000,000 in a year, one of the fastest funds of its type
• 34:33
  to do this. But why I think it's interesting
• 34:35
  is it's not just like artists doing good work for charity.
• 34:40
  It's kind of it's a political statement in a way, but
• 34:42
  especially in the US right now, like raising money and donating
• 34:45
  to causes around LGBTQ plus rights and reproductive health,
• 34:51
  those aren't things necessarily looked upon fondly by the
• 34:54
  current people in power in the US.
• 34:56
  So if anyone's ever snobby about these big pop artists, it's
• 34:59
  something I point to say, look, they're actually sticking their
• 35:01
  necks out quite a bit here by saying I care about these
• 35:03
  causes. I'm going to raise money for
• 35:05
  them, and they're under attack. And then the other thing this
• 35:08
  month we've seen is a lot of artists in the US, big pop
• 35:10
  artists speaking out about immigration policies and raids
• 35:13
  there. So there's this kind of climate
• 35:15
  of the artists who almost have most to lose because of the big
• 35:19
  pop artists playing big, big stadium gigs.
• 35:22
  They are actually saying, no, we're going to put our money
• 35:23
  where our mouth is and we're going to support things we care
• 35:26
  about. So yeah, good on there.
• 35:28
  I, I, can I just fire you a question which occurred to me
• 35:31
  the other day. And by the way, listeners, this
• 35:34
  is where we will be answering your industry questions or
• 35:38
  enquiries. If you're, I don't know if
• 35:40
  you're a musician, might be looking for advice or you're or
• 35:43
  anyone who's listening who's always had a question about how
• 35:47
  the industry works and never known the answer.
• 35:50
  If there's anything you'd like us to try and get to grips with,
• 35:54
  the e-mail address for your questions is coming up.
• 35:56
  But it's something I if a record label, right that this came to
• 36:01
  me because I was actually thinking about football teams
• 36:03
  going past, but then it suddenly occurred to me, if a record
• 36:06
  label goes bankrupt, what happens to the rights of its
• 36:10
  catalog? So all its back catalog, all the
• 36:13
  records it's put out and it owns the recording rights for all
• 36:16
  these records. So what do the do the rights do
• 36:20
  the rights revert to the artist or or do they just go down the
• 36:23
  Swanee with the failed label? Because if there's no label
• 36:26
  there to put any of the records out and but they still own it,
• 36:30
  then the records don't come out. What?
• 36:33
  Any ideas what's what the deal is with this?
• 36:35
  Or would I? Do yeah I dug into this and I
• 36:37
  got I got 2 experts. I got I got Cliff Louise, one of
• 36:40
  the top music lawyers in London, and Annabella Coltrick from the
• 36:43
  MMF, the managers body to check my answers.
• 36:46
  And they both said yes. So yeah, if a label goes bust,
• 36:49
  the rights don't get stuck in limbo or float around.
• 36:51
  They're basically assets of the company, just like the cash in
• 36:55
  it bank account or the furniture in its office and the computers
• 36:58
  and everything, everything is an asset.
• 37:00
  And So what will happen is an administrator or liquidator will
• 37:02
  come in and they've got to make as much money as possible to pay
• 37:05
  off the debts that that label will owe.
• 37:07
  And the catalog is usually the most valuable thing they own.
• 37:10
  Like it's more valuable than the office furniture.
• 37:12
  Yeah. So what happened is they'll try
• 37:14
  and sell that off and they'll either agree a deal with another
• 37:16
  label or someone who buys music rights, or they'll auction off
• 37:19
  the rights, you know, and see who kind of who'll pay most.
• 37:23
  So as an artist, essentially you watch this process to go, right,
• 37:26
  someone's going to buy my rights.
• 37:27
  Don't know who it'll be. You could try and buy the rights
• 37:31
  yourselves. You could go to the
• 37:32
  administrative and say, hey, I'm, that is, can I buy these
• 37:35
  rights back? And if you've got enough money,
• 37:37
  you can make them an offer. But the one thing that there is,
• 37:41
  is there is this thing that can be in a contract, and it's
• 37:44
  called a reversion clause. And a reversion clause
• 37:47
  essentially says, right, my contract, this label, if a label
• 37:50
  goes bust or if they don't pay my royalties or breach my
• 37:53
  contracts, the rights come back to me.
• 37:56
  Now, Cliff said that's not super common.
• 37:58
  Like usually the rights just get sold off.
• 38:00
  But there is, in theory, this thing you can have in your
• 38:02
  contract saying, yeah, if bad things happen, the rights come
• 38:05
  back to me. They don't get sold off, right.
• 38:09
  And the other thing I heard is it's quite bleak for artists.
• 38:13
  If you're an artist and your labels to owes you royalties,
• 38:15
  you're a creditor of label yourself.
• 38:17
  It owes you money and you have to join the line with all the
• 38:20
  other creditors, the taxman, everyone who it owes money to,
• 38:23
  to try and get the royalties that you're owed.
• 38:27
  If someone buys your catalog from the label then they'll
• 38:30
  they'll they buy the they they also buy the responsibility to
• 38:32
  pay you royalties. Oh, really?
• 38:34
  OK. So you will get still get paid
• 38:36
  for your stuff but to a certain extent as artist you haven't got
• 38:39
  lots of money to try and buy them yourself.
• 38:40
  You just have to wait and see who buys it and hope they're a
• 38:43
  good owner and and you know someone you can work with.
• 38:46
  Excellent. There you go.
• 38:47
  Well done. That's the first, First question
• 38:49
  of our return answered very comprehensively.
• 38:53
  Anyone, by the way, if anyone's been through this particular
• 38:55
  situation, do drop, do drop us a line.
• 38:58
  And as I say, any questions you have for us, the address coming
• 39:03
  up very shortly. But finally, this week, Abba's
• 39:07
  Dancing Queen has reached a big milestone on YouTube.
• 39:12
  It has it's joined what YouTube calls its billion views club.
• 39:15
  So the dancing Queen music videos and watched more than 1
• 39:17
  billion times. And I've got, I've got 2
• 39:19
  questions for you on this, right?
• 39:22
  So first question, it's the second oldest song to join
• 39:25
  YouTube's billions views club and dancing Queen came out in
• 39:28
  1976. So can you guess the oldest song
• 39:31
  to have reached a billion views on YouTube?
• 39:33
  Oh, so I mean, is it one of those, you know, the most
• 39:37
  popular songs ever? Things like, I don't know,
• 39:40
  something about Christmas. Is it something by Frank
• 39:43
  Sinatra? I don't know.
• 39:44
  Is it something how, how, how old?
• 39:47
  Is it Elvis Presley? Is it The Beatles?
• 39:49
  It's. 1965 but it was a Christmas #1 but it's not a
• 39:53
  Christmas song, it's Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
• 39:55
  Oh, right. OK.
• 39:56
  Right, yeah, and you should put some stats out.
• 39:59
  Apparently 41% of Dancing Queen's views in last year came
• 40:02
  from people aged 34 and under. So it's not just people who are.
• 40:06
  It's not it's not even their Best Song though, is it dancing
• 40:09
  Quite. It's rubbish.
• 40:10
  ABBA song. Dancing Queen.
• 40:13
  That's right. I mean, it's it was, don't you
• 40:15
  say? Well you, you look like you're
• 40:17
  about to fight us for over this now dancing is 1.
• 40:20
  People love isn't it though? It's the one people like have
• 40:22
  have so many memories. I find it of their of their
• 40:25
  catalog one of the most turgid. And you know, I'm not averse to
• 40:29
  ABBA, but dancing? Quite least favorite.
• 40:33
  Come on, people. I asked you my second question,
• 40:36
  I once went at the Great Escape one year, they had an ABBA DJ
• 40:39
  night and there were like 3 hours of deep cuts before they
• 40:43
  played all the hits and some of those deep cuts were fantastic,
• 40:45
  like proper disco bangers. But my second question for you,
• 40:49
  YouTube has stats on where people listen.
• 40:51
  So can you guess which city in the world is is the biggest one
• 40:55
  for YouTube views of Abba's music?
• 40:57
  And I'm going to be clear, it's not Stockholm and it's not
• 40:59
  London. New York.
• 41:01
  No. Is it would it be?
• 41:10
  I'm trying to think of countries where ABBA might be popular,
• 41:14
  Australia. Somewhere I don't know.
• 41:16
  I'll put you in misery. It's Mexico City is it?
• 41:19
  And, and 2nd is Lima in Peru and 3rd is Santiago, right?
• 41:24
  The three biggest cities for ABBA YouTube viewing are in
• 41:26
  Latin America, which kind of is, is partly a function of those
• 41:29
  cities being massive streaming places like lots of people.
• 41:33
  But also, yeah, who knew ABBA And on Spotify, the biggest city
• 41:36
  for ABBA listening is Jakarta in Indonesia.
• 41:38
  So this is the world we're in nowadays.
• 41:40
  Well, now we know. Now we know where that virtual
• 41:44
  reality ABBA show, which is running in the East End of
• 41:46
  London, we know where that's heading.
• 41:47
  Next thing you need to go back to the city.
• 41:49
  Yeah, yeah, go to the city. All right, that's where we'll
• 41:52
  leave it for this week. Unless, unless you are one of
• 41:56
  our kindly Patreon subscribers, because if you are, stay
• 42:00
  listening. We're having a lock in for you
• 42:02
  nice people, an extra section of the show where this week we'll
• 42:06
  be discussing, amongst other things, Stuart's obsession with
• 42:09
  the Black Crows. And if you'd like to join us for
• 42:11
  the lock in and support what we're doing, you can sign up to
• 42:15
  become a fan or indeed super fan of the show at patreon.com.
• 42:19
  Thank you very much to new superfan subscribers this week,
• 42:24
  Ian Beresford and Ian Jones. Thank you very much, fellas.
• 42:27
  We'll be giving shout outs to all our new superfans over the
• 42:30
  coming weeks. Just said to patreon.com/the
• 42:33
  Price of Music for more details. Otherwise, it would be lovely to
• 42:37
  hear from any and all of you. Of course.
• 42:39
  Any correspondence? Then here's the address
• 42:41
  itsthepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. Any questions about the industry
• 42:46
  you'd like us to try and answer? The Price of Music podcast at
• 42:50
  Gmail dot com. Thank you very much for
• 42:53
  listening. It's lovely to be back, Cheerio.
• 42:56
  Goodbye.