Latest / The Price of Music / Exploding toilet cancels gig - but will the band and fans get their money back?; Is Spotify putting up prices again?; and yet more Baby Shark news

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Exploding toilet cancels gig - but will the band and fans get their money back?; Is Spotify putting up prices again?; and yet more Baby Shark news · The Price of Music

• 0:04
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:07
  Music Ally. It's the show that enjoys
• 0:10
  nothing more than poring over the finances music industry
• 0:13
  while bringing you stories and comments about the past week in
• 0:18
  the pop business. I'm Steve Lamack.
• 0:19
  Hey, Stuart Dredge, and this is your easy guide to what's going
• 0:22
  on in the music biz this week. A government minister talks
• 0:26
  grassroots venues, bizarre reasons for gig cancellations, a
• 0:31
  little more AI, and who is top of the John Lewis Christmas ad
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  charts. But to start, here's a big
• 0:38
  number from the man with all the stats.
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  Stewart astound us. Here we go, $2.45 billion is my
• 0:45
  big number of the week. This is not something people are
• 0:48
  very happy about in the music world.
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  It's this is how much controversial AI music companies
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  SUNO is worth. It raised some funding last
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  week. It raised $250 million of
• 0:58
  funding and every when you have funding rounds of start up, it
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  gives you evaluation how much the investors think you're
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  worth, nearly 2 1/2 billion dollars.
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  It's like that's a huge amount. And this funding, I don't
• 1:10
  suppose we know where it's all coming from, but whoever is
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  putting money into SUNO, they must be pretty convinced that
• 1:18
  this is an ongoing business. We're given that SUNO is being
• 1:22
  sued by all the major labels at the moment.
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  Do they have any inside knowledge?
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  I wonder as to are there deals coming down the line?
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  Because you know, there must, there must be a point where if
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  you're putting money in, you must, you must be thinking,
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  well, this is an investment which will turn turn out well
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  for us. We'll make something out of this
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  and not we're just going to put some money into a company that
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  effectively is at war with the music industry.
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  Well, that's it, Yeah. So obviously it's it's being
• 1:50
  sued by all the major labels still.
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  But yeah, so Billboard had a story, actually a follow up
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  story yesterday as we're talking, and they got the pitch
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  deck. So the kind of the slideshow
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  that it was showing to investors to convince them to chip in.
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  And there's all kinds of stacks in there.
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  Like apparently the SUNO claims that by 2028 it will have a
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  billion dollars of revenue a year.
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  It reckons it will be a 500 billion company in in a few
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  years time. So yeah, so there's, I mean,
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  interestingly there, there wasn't really anything in this
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  report about licensing deals funding, but in this league
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  pitch deck that billboard had, they kind of broke down what
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  they're going to spend the funding on.
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  So Suno said that it's going to spend about 30% of it on
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  computing power. So literally servers and the
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  stuff to make its thing work, 20% on buying companies, mergers
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  and acquisitions, 20% on marketing itself.
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  But then at this line, 15% of this funding is earmarked for
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  data. And this is, this is not
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  something musicians alike because to SUNO data is music
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  like it's all the music in the world that humans have made.
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  It's the music that it trained is more than.
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  So 15% of $250 million is about 37 and a half, $1,000,000.
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  So that could be money that's it's earmarked for licensing
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  deals. So there is a hint that it's
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  kind of reserved got putting some money aside ready for those
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  rumoured deals with labels and publishers.
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  So yeah, we could. We could see that we're going to
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  come back to AI companies making deals with major record labels
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  in a bit. But the first of our top stories
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  of the week, Spotify, there's reports this week that it is, it
• 3:26
  is preparing to raise its prices in America.
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  We've talked a little bit about price rises elsewhere, changes
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  in the difference tiers, the platform tiers and what they,
• 3:38
  you know, what they will end up delivering for you.
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  But they think the interesting thing here is because you've
• 3:43
  been you've been crunching the numbers to figure out if there
• 3:47
  is a price rise, how might this benefits musicians and how much
• 3:52
  extra revenue might be actually going to artists.
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  Yeah, because it's something that people don't really talk
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  about so much. We talk about, oh, it's going up
• 4:00
  by a quid or a dollar, but what does that actually mean?
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  So, yeah, this was the financial time.
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  So like quite a well sourced report.
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  I think they had three sources saying Spotify will raise its
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  prices in the US in the first quarter of next year.
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  And it's the world's biggest recorded music market, so it's
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  going to be the biggest kind of deal there.
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  And like, music layers and publishers love this.
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  They want streaming services to raise their prices more often.
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  They look at like Netflix and Disney Plus in the in the video
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  stream world who raise their prices a lot regularly.
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  So we should be more like that. You're getting the world's
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  entire catalog of music. But this report from the FT, it
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  had this number from it was JP Morgan's like the big financial
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  company and they have their analysts who are following
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  Spotify. And they apparently estimated
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  that Spotify raising its price by a dollar in the US will make
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  it $500 million more revenue every year.
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  So that's the payoff for Spotify in terms of extra spending, half
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  a billion dollars. And then I remember there's this
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  industry body called DEMA. So it's like the industry body
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  represents the streaming services.
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  So like, Apple Music is a member, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon
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  Music. And so whenever in the US
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  there's like political arguments, DEMA is the one that
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  is taught in the same way the live, you know, does advocates
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  for the live industry in the UK. DEMA has its report.
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  And in this report, every year, it has a graphic showing how
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  $100 spent on streaming descriptions is divided up.
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  So it starts with every $100 spent by people on streaming.
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  And the short answer is labels get about $58.60 of that,
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  publishers get $15.10. And then it works it down to how
• 5:30
  much do artists end up with and songwriters.
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  So there's like this whole infographic.
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  So I went back and said, OK, Spotify adds a dollar to its
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  price in the US. It gets $500 million more
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  revenue a year. And based on this breakdown and
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  in support by its industry body, that could mean around another.
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  And it came out as like just over $46 million for artists and
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  $41 million for songwriters. And so that's the kind of
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  numbers play. Well, you know, OK, they had a
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  dollar in the US. It's more than $45 million for
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  artists, which when you divide that up between all the artists
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  and bear in mind Taylor Swift gets a big chunk of it and so
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  on. But yeah, it just, it felt like
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  a good way of understanding what these price rises about because
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  I think maybe we tend to think of it as, oh God, I've got to
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  spend this much more money a month more, which is a valid
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  excuse, valid, A valid thing to think because cost of living
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  crisis. But it is a meaningful chunk
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  more money going towards musicians via labels and
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  publishers. So if and when it happens,
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  that's why I think it will be welcomed in the music industry.
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  OK. Going back to AI, we mentioned
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  Suno, SUNO still being sued or facing various legal threats.
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  Meanwhile, three other AI music companies, Udio, who we've
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  mentioned previously, Udio Stability AI and Clay Vision,
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  they've all been out having a much more positive conversation
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  with major labels because well, you said this the other week,
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  didn't you? I think after after Udio did a
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  deal pend a deal with Universal, you say other deals would surely
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  follow and it turns out yes, yeah, here they are.
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  I manifested it. Yeah.
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  I just saw where we were going. It's like when everyone said the
• 7:13
  son used to back The Who was going to win the election and it
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  was like they saw who was going to win.
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  Yeah, but it's true. But it was true.
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  That's what you said, wasn't it? And this sort of paves the way
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  if Udio can do a deal universal the other record labels we
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  queuing up to do deals with other party with Udio and
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  whatever other parties are out there in these conversations.
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  Yeah, definitely. I think we've been the music
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  industry been talking for such a long time now, hasn't it, about
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  like we want AI music and just to license properly and pay us
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  and ask permission and tell us what we're doing.
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  And yeah, it just feels like a Button's been pressed that a
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  bunch of these deals are happening and that's going to
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  carry on rather than going to the weeds of like all three of
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  them. I thought I'd just talk about
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  the broad brush things of what it means, Like what does this
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  mean? What kind of AI music services
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  are we going to see next year and what does it mean?
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  So Udio, we talked about recently it was being sued.
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  It's settled with Universal now. It's done the same with Warner
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  Music. So it has two out of three
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  majors and it's going to launch a thing next year where you'll
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  be able to go on and make AI music with model and also you
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  were to use to make remixes, covers and new songs using the
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  voices of artists and compositions of songwriters.
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  And this is to keep it who choose to participate.
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  So if you're an artist songwriter signed to warn a
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  music group, you will get to say I don't want to be part of this.
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  Still, I know they're licensing and you'll have that you'll
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  that'll be all right. And they'll get paid if they do
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  take part stability AI. They also recently did deal with
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  UMG and now they have Warner Music too.
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  So it was 2 Warner Music deals last year and they're making the
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  Discovery as professional grade tools.
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  So it's not really for everyone. It's more for professional
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  artists and songwriters. They're making stuff they can
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  use in their work. Stability I've written about in
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  a bit past like they have a thing already where you're you
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  kind of create sounds and samples and beats with it.
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  You don't create full songs. So it's very much like a tool
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  for professional. And then the third one is Clay
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  Vision, which is kind of this mysterious startup hasn't really
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  said exactly what it's doing, but it's got all three major
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  labels it announced last week. So it's got Sony Music as well
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  as Universal and Mourner. It's the first time I think an
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  AI company has got all three majors and it says it wants to
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  get independence as well, which is the other important part of
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  this. And there's this quote.
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  It said we're not a prompt based meme generating engine designed
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  to supplant human artists. Instead, it's an entirely new
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  subscription product that will uplift great artists and
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  celebrate their craft. Which is what?
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  What does that mean in In English?
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  We don't know. Well, yeah, there was like a
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  leak beforehand on Bloomberg and they said it will have and
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  there's a quote the features of a streaming service like Spotify
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  amplified bio technology that will let users remake songs in
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  different styles. So you know, you can you can
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  remake all they want for Christmas is you as AI don't
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  know a metal core K pop track, but I think what it so that the
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  broad zooming out, I suppose like there's three things like
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  what there's there's going to be services where you can make new
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  music, new AI music yourself. Go in and say I want a song
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  about dogs for three time, blah, blah.
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  The other ones that are going to be tools for professional
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  artists always So kind of another thing to use in the
• 10:15
  studio. And then there's this this
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  coming thing about remixing and mashing up existing songs by
• 10:21
  human artists and making songs in with the voice of an artist.
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  But the key is this is every to every one of these deals and
• 10:28
  stressed that it's licensed and the human musicians will get a
• 10:32
  chance to decide whether they want to be part of it or not.
• 10:35
  And that seems to be the model. So if you're an artist,
• 10:37
  scientist of these late majors, you won't just have your stuff
• 10:39
  suddenly given to every day I started that signs a deal,
• 10:42
  you'll get a choice. Good.
• 10:45
  All right. Any other business?
• 10:47
  I don't. Could you?
• 10:49
  You. You've had an audience with a
• 10:51
  government minister last week, didn't you?
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  Which was, well, kind of around Labour's ticketing reforms that
• 10:57
  we discussed last week, I think. But he also talks a bit about
• 11:01
  grassroots venues. Yeah, yeah.
• 11:04
  And it was because they set this interview up and it's Ian Murray
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  MP. So he's now the Minister for
• 11:08
  Creative Industries, Media and Arts.
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  So pretty much everything we talk about I think will be under
• 11:12
  his. He'll be involved in when he
• 11:14
  from point of view. And yeah, they sort of said
• 11:17
  ahead, we'll do, but he wants to talk about grassroots venues.
• 11:20
  So I was like, OK, fair enough, let's do that.
• 11:23
  And he had some stats which I've only got him saying this.
• 11:27
  I haven't actually checked it out yet with the live industry,
• 11:29
  but he said so you know, in the UK, well, you know, you
• 11:32
  obviously know this, but listeners, look, we've we've got
• 11:35
  this idea of a voluntary Levi. So on stadium and arena tickets
• 11:39
  I think it's a quid isn't? It yeah, it's a pound yeah.
• 11:42
  Voluntary contribution, we call it for.
• 11:46
  Yeah. For geeks above 5000 capacity.
• 11:49
  We're we're hoping that everyone will join us in, you know,
• 11:55
  getting behind this idea of you can put a pound from, you know,
• 12:00
  each ticket into a fund, which is the Live Trust.
• 12:04
  And the Live Trust will then distribute the money to various
• 12:08
  players at grassroots level, be it venues or artists or
• 12:13
  promoters, even festivals. So that's the theory, yeah.
• 12:17
  Yeah, And like, I think a year ago it was announced and there
• 12:19
  was the press release from the government was like, right, we
• 12:21
  want this to be voluntary, sort it out yourselves.
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  And then if you're not doing good enough to with that, we'll
• 12:26
  make you, we'll do we'll do laws to do it.
• 12:29
  So that was the kind of thing. And so I asked him, how's it
• 12:31
  going? Like, you know, where are we at?
• 12:33
  And he said, OK, He said they're touching apparently 40% of
• 12:36
  tickets this year and had the spawn delivery and 32% of next
• 12:41
  year's tickets are ready. They're aiming for 50% next
• 12:45
  year. And he reckons we'll definitely
• 12:46
  get to that. But he was interesting because
• 12:47
  he was like, he wants to get it to 100%.
• 12:49
  He wants to get it as close as possible to every single ticket
• 12:51
  for a big gig. Yeah, I mean that any that would
• 12:54
  be terrific. I mean, I think that's everyone.
• 12:55
  Well, that's certainly that's that's our hope live that it
• 12:59
  will become the norm that this is this just what you do.
• 13:02
  There's a pound from this. We'll go into this fund and I
• 13:06
  think it will be, it'll be easier convincing people that
• 13:08
  this is a good thing once we see where the money's going and what
• 13:13
  it's actually doing, what it's achieving.
• 13:15
  Because if you take some of the, you know, the some of the pounds
• 13:18
  and you give them to people who can make a difference at
• 13:22
  grassroots level, they can come back and say, well, we helped
• 13:25
  this venue stay open or we helped this venue get a new PA.
• 13:29
  Or the the artists will be able to say, well, I wouldn't have
• 13:32
  been able to go on a long tour of, you know, 30 days if had it
• 13:36
  not been for this money. So once, once there is actual
• 13:40
  evidence of what this can do. But that's where I think
• 13:43
  everyone's hoping, Well, this will be even more convincing
• 13:46
  arguments. And yeah, then the percentage of
• 13:49
  tours going on sale. I mean, you know, we we have to
• 13:53
  you can break it down by promoter.
• 13:55
  I'm not sure if Ian mentioned that.
• 13:57
  And you know, some promoters are far more active in this than
• 14:03
  others, I would say. He said, I did ask what the
• 14:06
  barrier, what are the barriers to get into that in 100%.
• 14:09
  And he said that. So he's the word producers,
• 14:11
  which I think he means promoters.
• 14:12
  Yeah, he said some, some big reasons.
• 14:14
  They're sort of and he said one of the arguments of saying is
• 14:16
  that they're they're artists already do donations and
• 14:18
  philanthropists and tickets. And this is on top of that and
• 14:20
  they're not too sure. And he kind of basically, I
• 14:23
  don't really buy that argument. So it was do you know, it was
• 14:26
  good because I, I don't interview that many politicians
• 14:28
  really in my job, like it's more tech people and music people.
• 14:31
  But he came across well, he was plain speaking at one point.
• 14:34
  He goes, I'm not going to bamboozle you with government
• 14:36
  speak. And then and then and then sort
• 14:38
  of didn't, which was nice. But he was quite like on that.
• 14:42
  He was like, I don't buy that argument.
• 14:43
  And even in ticketing he was talking about the arguments of
• 14:45
  StubHub and via Gogo. And he said, I don't think
• 14:47
  that's true because so he was quite, he seemed to be quite on
• 14:50
  top of the brief. And he's been very well briefed.
• 14:52
  Yeah, yeah. That's.
• 14:54
  So good news. Promising.
• 14:56
  While we're talking about life, live music and the grassroots, I
• 15:01
  know. Well, here's a question for
• 15:03
  everyone. What's the most bizarre reason
• 15:05
  that a gig that you've been going to has been cancelled at
• 15:09
  the last moment? Because here's one I've
• 15:12
  certainly not come across before.
• 15:14
  And I know this might sound like an early silly season story, but
• 15:18
  there are. I guess there are financial
• 15:20
  ramifications for this as we learn that the band Fickle
• 15:23
  Friends were forced to cancel their gig at Glasgow King Tuts
• 15:26
  last week due to an exploding toilet as.
• 15:32
  I'm fairly sure Exploding Toilet played King Tut Swallow a few
• 15:36
  years ago, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, so this is we have, we
• 15:39
  have the band say so about this. They post about on social media
• 15:42
  saying 30 minutes before the gig it's been cancelled, Exploding
• 15:45
  Toilet and there's a brilliant social post in the support act.
• 15:49
  Who's Alexia who said flew 25 hours from Australia to Glasgow
• 15:53
  to play a sold out show but the toilet blew up and there was
• 15:56
  ship flooding the venue so it got cancelled and now I'm trying
• 15:59
  a deep fried Mars bar. Of all the things you want to
• 16:02
  eat after seeing a venue and covered in a deep fried Mars bar
• 16:07
  would not be my choice. I mean, you see, here's the,
• 16:10
  here's the thing. I mean, obviously there's the
• 16:12
  inconvenience. I mean, I mean, she's got to be
• 16:15
  playing more than one gig, right?
• 16:17
  I mean, there's no, there's no way.
• 16:19
  I've just flown in from Australia to do 1 date at
• 16:21
  Glasgow. So hopefully there were other
• 16:23
  dates which went ahead. I don't know, I didn't, I didn't
• 16:26
  check, but fingers crossed. But here's so apart from so it's
• 16:31
  inconvenience for everyone, isn't it?
• 16:33
  But in terms of the money, well, I get, I mean, you get, you
• 16:36
  would imagine that TUTS or whoever was promoting the gig
• 16:40
  would have some sort of insurance, would they?
• 16:43
  I mean, not specifically. There's not a line in the
• 16:45
  insurance for exploding toilets. Can I take it out?
• 16:48
  This will cost you, this will cost you an extra of £2 a month
• 16:52
  premium for the specific exploding toilets insurance.
• 16:57
  But you know, for, but insurance for a big, for a gig being
• 17:00
  cancelled. Otherwise, Well, it's not just
• 17:03
  the convenience, of course, everyone's out of pocket because
• 17:06
  you'd have to refund the tickets, ticket price to fans,
• 17:11
  unless the gig's being rearranged.
• 17:13
  It's being rearranged. You know, maybe not coming back
• 17:16
  from Australia to do the gig next month.
• 17:19
  Pickle friends, though, which I, I don't know where they came,
• 17:22
  where they come from, but you think they're from the South
• 17:24
  Coast somewhere. I think South Coast.
• 17:25
  That's a long drive, isn't it? They might be on tour, of
• 17:28
  course, but but you know, there's the everyone's,
• 17:31
  everyone's out of out of pocket here, so refunds the ticket
• 17:37
  price. I don't know about the bands.
• 17:41
  The band probably don't really get any money back, I guess.
• 17:46
  I don't know. Yeah.
• 17:47
  And it's weird because I sort of it's intrinsically funny and
• 17:49
  exploding toilet. But it's this is quite guilty a
• 17:51
  bit because this is for everyone.
• 17:52
  It's it's a real it's a worry, isn't it?
• 17:54
  You know, if you lose a night's a night's revenue as a venue
• 17:57
  like the band. Yeah, I mean, yeah.
• 18:00
  And even the venue, of course, because you know, they've booked
• 18:03
  the staff, you know, they've opened up, they've turned the
• 18:06
  lights and the heating on. So you know, that's.
• 18:09
  The chains, that's where it went.
• 18:12
  Wrong. Anyone.
• 18:12
  Anyone at anyone at the legendary King Tut's listening.
• 18:16
  If you are, do do do get in touch.
• 18:18
  We're not. We're not taking the Mickey out
• 18:20
  of you. Because it is those things that,
• 18:22
  as you say, sounds like it sounds like a gag until you
• 18:25
  suddenly realize, crikey, that this is how fragile, you know,
• 18:29
  the a venue's livelihood is. It all comes down to, well,
• 18:34
  hoping that everything works. And This is why, again, coming
• 18:38
  back to the Live Trust, if you can put more money back into the
• 18:41
  grassroots, then you know, you can you can spend more money on
• 18:46
  the facilities at the venue to avoid things hopefully like
• 18:49
  exploding toilets definitely gone.
• 18:53
  Oh yeah. This was something which you
• 18:55
  mentioned earlier on in the week.
• 18:56
  Do you want to talk to us through this?
• 18:58
  There's I'd, I'd not come across this before, but there's a
• 19:00
  website and app which is called Who Sampled and it allows you to
• 19:05
  basically trace where the samples have come from in your
• 19:08
  favorite tracks. So you so you've got the song
• 19:10
  going. I wonder what that samples from?
• 19:12
  That's where you go to Whose samples?
• 19:14
  But whose samples been bought out by one of one of the biggest
• 19:17
  companies in music. Yeah.
• 19:19
  And so like a. Circular thing we get back to
• 19:21
  Spotify because it's Spotify who's bought it yeah.
• 19:24
  Who samples one of those? It's it's one of those if you
• 19:26
  know, you know websites and obviously it's most random
• 19:29
  people who listen to music that's got a lot of samples in.
• 19:31
  So it's big with hip hop fans, it's big with dance fans.
• 19:34
  I think it's got like more than 1.2 million songs and you can
• 19:37
  look them up and find out where their samples came from.
• 19:40
  And it's a bit like Wikipedia and it's got this.
• 19:42
  I think it's about 40,000 people have contributed to this
• 19:44
  database of samples. So it's, it's not just a bunch
• 19:47
  of experts in a room. It's like everyone who's part of
• 19:49
  the community. So it's brilliant.
• 19:51
  It's been going for a long time. And it's one of those things
• 19:53
  that people love, but most people don't know about, but
• 19:57
  people love you. And yeah, last week Spotify was
• 19:59
  announcing some new features on its service.
• 20:02
  And this casually slipped in by the way we bought who sampled,
• 20:06
  which was quite a surprise to people.
• 20:09
  And what? What?
• 20:10
  What was the what did they say? How much they paid for it?
• 20:14
  No, I mean it. Was it was in terms of people,
• 20:16
  it's a small operation I was looking at.
• 20:18
  I was looking for its accounts and I think there's about maybe
• 20:19
  two people. So it's like a proper sort of,
• 20:22
  what do you call it, cottage industry.
• 20:27
  But a really good like, in fact, I met the founder, the guy
• 20:29
  called another a long time ago. He was a really nice man, like
• 20:32
  one of those people. You meet him and just you end up
• 20:34
  talking about music straight away.
• 20:36
  You didn't sort of picture your startup.
• 20:37
  You end up talking about something you love.
• 20:38
  So a good egg. But yeah, so we know what
• 20:42
  Spotify is doing with it a bit because it's got this new
• 20:44
  feature, which is what was being announced called Song DNA, which
• 20:48
  is a bit like rock family trees, but for songs rather than
• 20:51
  people, if you've ever seen that.
• 20:52
  So if you're a subscriber, you'll be like browse this big
• 20:55
  map of connections between like songs and collaborators and
• 20:59
  samples and covers and just kind of go down these rabbit holes
• 21:02
  of, of how a song has been sort of, you know, covered and
• 21:05
  sampled and so on. And it's being used Who sampled
• 21:09
  is being used for that, although it's carrying on as its own app
• 21:11
  and website too. So yeah, Tyler Tyler, the
• 21:16
  Creator who's had quite a big year, has now got a big award.
• 21:21
  I mean, a physically big award from I think it was Apple Music
• 21:26
  was that it was. Yes, every year Apple Music
• 21:29
  choose their Artist of the year and it's a very Apple thing that
• 21:32
  it's not about who's got the most dreams.
• 21:34
  It's not like a chart topping thing.
• 21:35
  It's like a who is the person they want to celebrate, who's
• 21:38
  affected the culture, you know, So it's normally like this is
• 21:42
  the most significant artist of the year.
• 21:44
  And yeah, it's Tyler, The Creator who I said it's because
• 21:47
  he's kind of gone under my rear of this year.
• 21:48
  I knew he had stuff out, but apparently to Apple Music he
• 21:51
  had, he had 4.5 billion minutes of listening time on Apple Music
• 21:54
  alone this year. He had a couple of albums out
• 21:57
  and he's also had starring in the film Soon.
• 22:00
  So he's had a really big year. But this is, I mean, I don't
• 22:03
  know, I sent you, I don't know if I sent you a link, but
• 22:04
  there's a photo of him with this award.
• 22:06
  And it's it's not like a little true for you hold aloft like a
• 22:09
  Mercury Prize or a Brit. It's it's like a sort of
• 22:12
  speaker, a big speaker size tool.
• 22:14
  And it is in the press release he describes upon his Apple's
• 22:18
  custom silicon wafer suspended between a polished sheet of
• 22:21
  glass and a machined and anodized aluminium body.
• 22:25
  But my thought was like, Christ, that's not going to go on the
• 22:27
  matter because a big mantelpiece, if it's going to go
• 22:29
  on the mantelpiece, I mean, if people could Google it, they can
• 22:32
  totally create an Apple Music award.
• 22:34
  Yeah, he looks, he looks kind of he's he.
• 22:36
  He looks like he's thinking, where the hell is this going?
• 22:39
  What are we going to do with this?
• 22:40
  Mixed with I mean, that's just showing off Apple he's going to
• 22:45
  give which I mean, that's that's PR.
• 22:48
  That's that's what that is, that's APR, that's he's in good.
• 22:51
  Company, though Billy Eilish has won it twice the weekend Bad
• 22:54
  Bunny, Taylor Swift, so you know he's he's in good company Billy
• 22:57
  Eilish has. Probably had to move house then
• 23:00
  find find a bigger house for the Oh no, you've won the Apple
• 23:03
  award. Oh no again, what am I going to
• 23:06
  do with the other ones out in the garage?
• 23:10
  You know, we, we touched on Christmas songs last week time
• 23:13
  for our weekly Christmas song updates.
• 23:15
  We mentioned Mariah Carey in the middle of November was already
• 23:19
  in the Spotify Top 40. Is she is she in the top 10 yet?
• 23:23
  I mean, probably. Is she well, well and.
• 23:26
  Truly. Well, I've just been checking so
• 23:28
  we so the the official, I'll start with the Official Charts
• 23:31
  Company in the UK because they have this first look chart that
• 23:34
  comes out on Monday. So Friday is when the actual
• 23:36
  chart is released, isn't it? Worms.
• 23:38
  Last Christmas is number 10 and all I want for Christmas to you
• 23:41
  is #15 and the Top 40 includes Brenda Lee, The Pogues and
• 23:45
  Kirsty Mccole. Shakin' Stevens is back in the
• 23:48
  top 50, Top 40. And also, here's the thing,
• 23:51
  Kylie Minogue has got a Christmas song in the Top 40 of
• 23:54
  the first Looks chart, and it's only on Amazon Music.
• 23:56
  It's one of those explicitly, yeah.
• 23:58
  We mentioned that last the other week, don't we?
• 24:00
  Yeah. So it's in the.
• 24:01
  Top 40 on Amazon streams alone, which suggests that if you're
• 24:05
  going onto your smart speaker and asking Christmas music, it's
• 24:07
  right at the top. Yeah.
• 24:09
  Yeah, of course. But then today.
• 24:11
  I looked at Spotify's top 50 globally, So the global Spotify
• 24:15
  daily chart, Mariah's number 4, she's been played 4.2 million *
• 24:19
  a day and it's not a real week off December and people are
• 24:22
  playing and Worms number six, Brenda Lee's number 9.
• 24:26
  So yeah, it started. That's as well and truly off and
• 24:29
  running, I'll add. This as well, because I've sent
• 24:31
  a press release about this and this is another major annual
• 24:35
  festive talking points. Yes, the John Lewis TV ad,
• 24:39
  although apparently according to this new piece of research,
• 24:42
  it's, it's got its impact is on the wine slightly.
• 24:44
  But the interesting thing here for us is which, what was the
• 24:47
  most popular John Lewis ad ever and what was the music for it?
• 24:53
  By the way, they, they do the, they compile this top 10 by
• 24:57
  measuring the increase, the seasonal increase in searches on
• 25:01
  Google for John Lewis. So when the ad comes out,
• 25:04
  usually there's a massive spike in searches for John Lewis,
• 25:07
  which I mean, I don't know whether that stands up as
• 25:09
  mechanic, but you know, they've gone to all this trouble.
• 25:12
  So in 3rd place, 2014's Monty the Penguin advert musical
• 25:17
  accompaniment, Tom Odell covering John Lennon's Real
• 25:20
  Love. In second place, 2012 Gabrielle
• 25:24
  Aplin's take on Frankie's The Power of Love, and the most
• 25:28
  popular John Lewis ad. Any guesses?
• 25:31
  It's not Lily Allen? No.
• 25:33
  Was it Lillian? You're right, 2013 yeah, The
• 25:38
  Bear and the Hare ads which featured a cover.
• 25:42
  It was cover of Kings Somewhere Only We Know sung by Lily Allen,
• 25:46
  which currently has 387,000,000 Spotify streams.
• 25:51
  And according to Spotify streaming calculation analysis,
• 25:55
  this means Lily Allen has earned from this track an estimated
• 25:59
  £1,000,000 in streaming royalties.
• 26:03
  Happy Christmas everyone, rather than.
• 26:06
  Do you know, it's weird, isn't it?
• 26:09
  I feel like there should be a separate chart that measures it
• 26:11
  by how many, how many, how many things John Lewis sold that
• 26:14
  year, like what actually sold kettles and sofas and whatever
• 26:18
  else. Because they do, you know, like
• 26:20
  this is this is the actual impact of it, that they must
• 26:23
  have that figure somewhere where they're going.
• 26:24
  Yeah, we won't book so and so again because we didn't.
• 26:27
  It got left with loads of mugs this year.
• 26:31
  Well, there you go, there's your top three.
• 26:33
  And finally, for this week, in our ongoing attempt to keep you
• 26:37
  fully updated with the licence to print money, kids song Baby
• 26:42
  Shark, the company behind Baby Shark, has floated on the South
• 26:45
  Korean Stock Exchange and is now worth how much?
• 26:50
  300 and. $72 million, there you go.
• 26:54
  Not bad business. This is the Pink Fong Company,
• 26:57
  which is one of those companies that started doing something
• 27:00
  like did educational books or something.
• 27:02
  And then in 2015, we're like, I know we've got this cartoon of a
• 27:05
  shark singing. Why don't we put that on
• 27:06
  YouTube? Yeah.
• 27:07
  And A and a brown was born. Yeah.
• 27:09
  So rest is history. Apparently it.
• 27:11
  Made $67 million of revenue last year, which is and it has other
• 27:16
  things. It's one of those you could you
• 27:17
  get, you see the press releases like, yeah, we've launched this
• 27:19
  other character and this other thing and this other thing, but
• 27:22
  really it's still the Baby Shark Company.
• 27:24
  Yeah. And.
• 27:25
  Probably forever will be. I think so, but.
• 27:29
  Don't forget it's Boxing Day this year.
• 27:31
  The Baby Shark meets Peppa Pig. That's going to be the big
• 27:33
  Christmas post. Christmas hit this year comes
• 27:35
  out on Boxing Day. We are.
• 27:37
  Out of time for this week. Thank you very much for
• 27:39
  listening. If you are enjoying what we're
• 27:41
  trying to do here, All you need weekly Baby Shark updates.
• 27:45
  Do do spread the word, tell your friends, leave us a review
• 27:50
  online, all that kind of caper all helps.
• 27:53
  And obviously alternatively, if you happen to have some loose
• 27:58
  change, you can also support us by Patreon.
• 28:02
  And if you sign up to be a super fan, you get an extra 1520
• 28:05
  minutes of us to chatting about music.
• 28:08
  This week in our lock in we'll be doing Bands of the Year and
• 28:13
  more gig cancellation stories amongst other things.
• 28:16
  It's plus you get other occasional benefits.
• 28:19
  For instance, Super Fans will be playing a very important role in
• 28:22
  our up and coming Price of Music Super Fans Christmas Pop Quiz,
• 28:26
  which we are both very nervous about.
• 28:29
  So if you'd like to know more, you can become a super fan of
• 28:32
  the show at patreon.com/the Price of Music.
• 28:36
  Alternatively, if you'd like just like to drop us a line or
• 28:39
  you have a question that you think we might be able to answer
• 28:42
  for you. By the way, Stuart Ferguson will
• 28:45
  be dealing with your e-mail. That's amongst some of the one
• 28:48
  of the things, well, some of the stuff we'll be doing on next
• 28:51
  week's programme for Stuart. Thank you very much for getting
• 28:53
  in touch. We've got one or two questions
• 28:56
  which we must try and get through before Christmas, but
• 28:59
  anything that you don't understand about how the
• 29:00
  industry works or something you think we might be able to make
• 29:04
  sense of for you, It's the price of music. podcast@gmail.com,
• 29:09
  thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. We'll be back next Wednesday.
• 29:14
  Till then, bye bye.