Latest / The Price of Music / Twigs Vs Twigs! Just how big is country music in the UK now?; Timbaland's new artist is unreal; Digging for deep cuts; and how much is AI Slop worth?

Transcript

Twigs Vs Twigs! Just how big is country music in the UK now?; Timbaland's new artist is unreal; Digging for deep cuts; and how much is AI Slop worth? · The Price of Music

• 0:03
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:06
  Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the
• 0:09
  music industry whilst also bringing you stories and
• 0:12
  comments about the past week in the pop business.
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  He's Stuart Dredge. I'm Steve Lamac.
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  Let's let us start with well, it's one of our financial facts.
• 0:22
  The sort of thing you can use to amaze your friends or colleagues
• 0:24
  with the next time you bump into somebody who has even the
• 0:28
  faintest interest in how the music industry works is Stuart's
• 0:32
  big number for this week. Which is Stuart, what have you
• 0:35
  got? Right, I wanted desperately some
• 0:37
  good news. It's basically where this comes
• 0:39
  from. We all need some good news.
• 0:41
  So the big figure is £50,000. That's not the price of a tank
• 0:46
  of petrol for your car just yet. That's so much Sam Fender has
• 0:50
  donated to charity Youth Music from his latest tour.
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  Oh, right. OK, so so 50 grand to youth
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  music. That's that's good.
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  And it's going what's, is there a specific project that they're
• 1:04
  going to use it for? Yeah.
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  So he he, it's from donations from ticket sales with new tour
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  and it's part of this Rescue the Roots campaign that youth music
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  runs to kind of support projects around around the country
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  working with young good music. So it's going to match fund it.
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  So 50,000 lbs becomes 100,000 lbs and it's going directly to
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  projects in the North East of England.
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  So it's kind of an example of actually he's not just giving
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  back to where he came from in terms of grassroots music.
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  He's given back to literally where he came from and projects
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  to find the next Sam vendor, you know, in Newcastle and that that
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  kind of region in the country. And this follows on from, do you
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  remember last year he gave he gave his 25,000 lbs Mercury
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  Prize winnings to the music venue Trust.
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  Yeah. So I mean, like, if you've got
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  friends listening, people listening, what friends who
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  think Sam Fender, he's rubbish. He's a good egg.
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  You need more of those in the world.
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  That's a feel good story for this week.
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  Here's three other talking points which we thought were
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  worth sharing with you, starting with this everyone.
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  Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Madonna, I guess most famously
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  Missy Elliott. They've all collaborated with
• 2:11
  the superstar producer Timberland, but his latest
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  musical partner is I'm, I mean, I'm going to have a run at this
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  Tata Tak to me. But here's the twist, she's not
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  real. Or, or is she is?
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  Is this open to debate? Wow, it's seemingly so.
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  So you know how we talk a lot about SUNO, the AI music
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  service, and how it's kind of quite controversial within the
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  industry and artists don't like it because it was how it was
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  trained. But Timberland is quite a fan.
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  He actually joined the company as a strategic advisor a couple
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  of years ago. And now he's got this company
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  called Stage 0 developing AI artists.
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  So they're going to be developing not just making AI
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  music, but actually creating the virtual artist to kind of
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  release it. And this first one is I'm going
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  to try to Tata Tatumi, I think so she's kind of a solo female
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  electronic music singer slash rapper.
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  The first video came out last year and actually Timberland
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  appeared in it. And it's a very strange video.
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  It's like Timberland sort of boogying around with a virtual
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  avatar next to him. And the new, the reason it's the
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  news is this this week they signed a record deal with this
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  company called Pacific Music Group, which is based in Asia.
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  So this virtual artist now has a record deal and a marketing sort
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  of partnership, and they're going to be trying to make her.
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  I say her. What do we say?
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  What, what, what pronoun do we use for this kind of thing?
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  Is it an it or her? Like, I don't know what you say
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  when the person is not a real person.
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  But the other thing I found interesting was Timberland's
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  taken a lot of Flack about this project in the last kind of
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  couple of years. Like in the comments section of
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  Instagrams, people are saying, you know, why are you working
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  with Suno? Why are you making AI music?
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  And even like, why is your first AI artist an Asian woman?
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  Is there kind of a bit of a worry about cultural
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  appropriation here? And in this press release, they
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  had a whole point of saying, no, no, the artist behind
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  Tatataktumi is a Filipino heritage, adding a deeper
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  cultural dimension to the project.
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  And they said that her personal identity remains intentionally
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  private, which if you're a cynic, is a bit of a my
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  girlfriend goes to another school and you wouldn't know
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  her. But taking it at face value,
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  there is a human behind this. And this Tatatumi is kind of her
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  avatar. So it's one of those stories
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  about, yeah, they're, they're going to try and make this a hit
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  and it's got Timberland behind it.
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  But so far this artist has just over 2000 listeners on Spotify
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  and the biggest song has 45,000 streams there.
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  So there's quite a lot of work to do.
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  But yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a weird thing like because
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  Timberland is he, he, he and Missy Elliott particularly,
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  didn't they? They had such a huge role in
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  changing the way music sounded at that time and so people are
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  looking at that going right and this is what you're doing now
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  and quite a lot of people are not so keen on it but.
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  Just the will the Timberland brand though help this?
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  This is the difference between other AI artists popping up on
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  the streaming services. In this case, you know, instead
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  of being an anonymous producer, this is Timberland.
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  So will it's all being sold on Timberland I guess.
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  That's it. And if anyone's going to make
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  interesting sounds from a from an AI music thing, it should be
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  him. You know, and he's not just
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  going to be there pressing a button saying write me a song
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  about the club and, you know, Bosh it out like you'd think
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  he's going to be doing because sooner.
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  I mean, I think we talked about this last week a bit.
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  It's whole direction of travelers going.
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  Look, we've got all these tools for proper musicians and
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  producers to do complicated stuff with.
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  We're not just to press a button, a song pops out.
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  So, yeah. But I mean, there is this debate
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  like, will he will he help this? Will he help this get over
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  people's distrust? Or is the alternative Will, is
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  this going to harm his kind of standing and his legacy?
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  And, you know, obviously people who across on the Internet are
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  saying this, this trashes your entire legacy.
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  But I don't know. He should be able to do
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  something interesting with it. So we'll see.
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  But so far, she's only had a couple of songs out.
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  But I would assume now we have this deal, this this record
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  label deal. We'll be seeing more music in
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  the year ahead and we'll find out if it is any good.
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  So what they've really signed to the record label is Timberland
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  in a way, rather than, I mean, obviously they've signed the
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  artist, but the artist is manufactured by, well, whoever
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  the human is behind it and the Timberland brand, that's what
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  they've signed. Well, that's the interesting
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  thing, isn't it? Because does this depend on
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  Timberland being involved? Like if he got bored and didn't
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  stop doing it, what have they said that this got an artist
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  that who we don't know are behind it and and an avatar
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  character? So yeah, it's kind of weird.
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  Like what is a record deal for a virtual artist?
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  I mean, they obviously haven't released the details, but yeah,
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  I would think it's very much about they're working with
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  Timberland and it's, you know, it's Timberland's new music is
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  going to be coming out with this another.
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  But I think the plan is he's going to release a bunch of
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  virtual artists if this works so.
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  Right, OK, while we're on the subjects of AI and AI music,
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  obviously some artists have been getting very cross about fake AI
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  generated songs appearing on their own Spotify profiles.
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  But now, now Spotify doing something about it, they've
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  they've found a way of trying to trying to help out the real
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  artist here. Yeah, well, this has been
• 7:27
  happening more and more. And you've probably seen the
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  stories like I have, where an A song appears on an artist's
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  profile and all their followers on Spotify raffle music get a
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  thing saying here's a new song from artist X.
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  And then it turns out to be not them.
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  They didn't think about it. And they say, hang on, that's
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  not me. The best and best The the crazy
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  example was there was a country musician called Blaze Foley who
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  had some new music suddenly pop up and he's been dead since
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  1989, which isn't always a barrier to releasing new music
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  if it's been found in the vaults.
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  But so yeah, the point here being like the way stream works
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  is, is if if music comes out attached to your profile as an
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  artist, your followers get pinged.
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  It appears in their new music playlist that Friday and it gets
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  it in front and spot as as always, Spotify gets the lion's
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  share of the criticism for this, even though it's not a one
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  company province everywhere. So it's got this new thing
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  announced last week called it's called artist profile
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  protection. And it's quite simple really.
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  If you're a musician, you can say nothing goes live on my
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  profile unless I approve it, right?
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  And if something comes up that's not me, I can decline it and it
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  won't go live with me. Right.
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  I mean, I say very simple, you know, the stuff to make this
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  work is probably quite hard work.
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  It does mean you have to remember to approve your own
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  releases. Because if you forget that
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  you've got a single coming out and you haven't said Spotify,
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  this is definitely me. It won't.
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  So they've warned people you have to do that.
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  But but yeah, it's the first real streaming service to say,
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  OK, this is the problem and this is what we're doing about it.
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  And unashamedly good a good thing, I think, you know, giving
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  giving good job back. So in theory, this should mean
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  that your favorite artist doesn't suddenly release a
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  techno banger when there are roots American artist, which is
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  just the sort of thing that's been happening in the last year.
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  Music's latest bitter lawsuit is, ladies and gentlemen, twigs
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  versus twigs. That's FKA tweaks versus the
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  indie band the Twigs. So it's a spat over who owns the
• 9:25
  name or Yeah, Well, 1-2 Twigs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Who came? Who came first, Twigs or Twigs
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  2? Good Twigs, Yeah.
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  So, yeah, the the Twigs came first.
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  So they're this American independent band.
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  They've been releasing music since 1996.
• 9:44
  It's a very, very an FK Twigs. Obviously she, I think her first
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  time came out in 2014. So, and actually that year the
• 9:52
  Twigs did sue her for trademark infringement when she was about
• 9:55
  to kind of play a gig in the US. And at the time they, they, the
• 9:58
  lawsuit was withdrawn and there was kind of reports saying
• 10:01
  they'll probably reach a deal now.
• 10:03
  You know, she'll probably pay some money to allow them to
• 10:04
  coexist because that's what you can do with trademarks.
• 10:06
  You can, you don't have to win or lose.
• 10:08
  You can actually reach a deal where you both coexist.
• 10:11
  Right, OK. And now this year, apparently
• 10:15
  the twigs sent her suddenly out of the blue at cease and desist
• 10:17
  all they're saying we're going to threaten you with a court
• 10:19
  injunction if you carry on using this name.
• 10:22
  And now she is suing them right back saying there's no trademark
• 10:26
  infringement here. It's not a thing.
• 10:27
  You're just trying to get money out of me.
• 10:29
  And that's the accusation. They're just trying to get
• 10:30
  money, which is I mean, it's it's it's so if I could buy
• 10:35
  legal hat on. The whole point about trademark
• 10:38
  infringement is there needs to be confusion.
• 10:42
  You need to prove confusion. People will think that the twigs
• 10:44
  are FKA twigs or vice versa. And FKA twigs lawyers are saying
• 10:49
  that's not happening. No one thinks the twigs are me.
• 10:51
  No one thinks I'm twigs. You know, we're in different
• 10:53
  genres, different levels of popularity.
• 10:56
  It's quite a brutal bit in the filing where they compare their
• 10:58
  Spotify numbers. But the twigs, presumably for
• 11:02
  they do have a case. And then like the other thing
• 11:03
  about trademarks is you kind of have to protect them or you lose
• 11:06
  them. It's the reason why, like if I
• 11:09
  write in an article, if I write Biro in an article, when I mean
• 11:11
  PEN, I'll get a letter from Biro's lawyers pointing out that
• 11:15
  Biro is not a generic name for PEN, it's a brand because they
• 11:18
  have to protect their trademarks.
• 11:19
  So in a way, as a band, you do have to protect this.
• 11:22
  But I mean, I think it's, it's maybe a sign of the times really
• 11:26
  that we're running out of names, yes.
• 11:29
  Well, I mean this, this is this has been true ever since I think
• 11:34
  the, the 90s. I mean, there was a, there was a
• 11:36
  whole raft of British bands who had to alter their name even
• 11:40
  slightly because there was a band mainly in the States who
• 11:46
  said, hang on a second, we are, we're suede and suede became in
• 11:50
  America the London suede, of course, right, isn't it?
• 11:54
  And then Charlatans UK and the weirdest one, when I was running
• 11:58
  Deceptive Records, our first signing was a band.
• 12:01
  And this tells you how badly we have run out of names.
• 12:06
  We we signed, our first signing was a band called Collapse Lung.
• 12:10
  And we had a letter from the States from a band called
• 12:12
  Collapsing Lung. Oh, wow.
• 12:15
  So yeah, but I, I think they, they were, I think they were of
• 12:21
  sort of new metal origin collapsing lung.
• 12:24
  So there wasn't too much of A crossover, and it seemed to
• 12:27
  have. Any football songs?
• 12:28
  That Yeah, no, no, they had no, yeah, they wouldn't understand
• 12:31
  Eat my goal for a start, would they?
• 12:33
  So there's Yeah, there was no. Touchdown.
• 12:35
  No. That big hit?
• 12:36
  I think, yeah, no confusion to be had there.
• 12:40
  But yes, well, that's. The thing I think, yeah, so like
• 12:42
  this is a case like FK Twig is saying they're just trying to
• 12:44
  get money out of me. But the the Twigs may well feel
• 12:46
  like we need this is our, This Is Us, and we need to defend it.
• 12:49
  So we'll find out. I mean, should I do the usual
• 12:53
  line that we do? Yeah, probably get settled out,
• 12:56
  of course. OK, and this should this this
• 13:00
  feels like an example where they should be able to coexist as
• 13:03
  different artists and in their own lanes.
• 13:04
  But for now, FKA Twigs is suing, and the twigs are threatening to
• 13:09
  sue. OK, Any other business you've
• 13:11
  got a correction to the BTS story from last week's episode?
• 13:16
  That figure, what was the figure?
• 13:18
  We said 300 million people watched their concert on
• 13:20
  Netflix. I think that was a little OTT.
• 13:25
  It was, and it's not my fault. I never thought it was,
• 13:30
  genuinely never thought it was. This is fake news from the Times
• 13:33
  and the Telegraph newspapers, right?
• 13:35
  And in fact, I think if we go back, I think I said this is not
• 13:37
  an official stat, so we should be careful.
• 13:40
  Yes, At least I hope I said that.
• 13:41
  Yeah. But yeah, BTS played a concert
• 13:43
  in CL Netflix stream it live. And yeah, these reports said 300
• 13:46
  million people watch, but Netflix put a press release out
• 13:49
  saying it was 18.4 million people.
• 13:51
  Right, which is some discrepancy, dear broadsheets,
• 13:57
  we we understand you have been known to exaggerate in the past
• 14:00
  but this this is a triumph of exaggeration but.
• 14:04
  It is, and I don't know where the number came from originally,
• 14:06
  which, but I mean, it's The thing is it's, it's still a huge
• 14:09
  number, isn't it like 18.4 million people watching your
• 14:12
  concert? Yeah, it's a huge, you know, but
• 14:14
  it just suddenly seems a bit small because of the previous
• 14:17
  claim. But but yeah, I mean, that's
• 14:19
  that's still a lot of people. And we we talked last week, I
• 14:21
  think about how Netflix maybe doing more of this stuff.
• 14:24
  I mean that that to me counts as a success.
• 14:26
  And and and you know BTS are continuing to set every
• 14:29
  streaming services records alike.
• 14:31
  Yeah, I've got a question for you listeners.
• 14:35
  Have you ever been to a gig where the first band on started
• 14:40
  the moment the doors opened? Or possibly they were on as the
• 14:45
  doors opened? This.
• 14:48
  I thought about this after on Friday night just gone.
• 14:52
  So I was at the Six Music festival.
• 14:54
  We did a show live to wear in the evening, but then I deejayed
• 14:58
  as part of the Six Music Indie Forever club night, warming up
• 15:03
  for Nick and Beth. Beth Diso and Nick Grimshaw were
• 15:08
  on after after me. But yeah due to what I can only
• 15:13
  imagine is or can describe as some some cock up in the
• 15:20
  timings. My set started at midnight, the
• 15:25
  doors opened at midnight. So when I played my first
• 15:29
  record, there were I counted 5 people in the room as I as I
• 15:35
  started. So have you ever come across a
• 15:38
  band being on stage so early that that the crowd had yet to
• 15:43
  arrive? And I mentioned this partly
• 15:45
  because the one this brings up the the great Coldplay story.
• 15:49
  When they were playing Reading, it was the first time at
• 15:53
  Redding. So they were very young, not
• 15:56
  very well known Coldplay first on opening the, the enemy Radio
• 16:03
  One stage, whoever the sponsor was that year, probably both of
• 16:06
  them. But that stage, the 10th, um,
• 16:09
  and uh, yeah, there was a problem with the gates opening
• 16:12
  and the gates were going to open late, but the stage manager, who
• 16:15
  I guess didn't want the stage to run late.
• 16:19
  You don't want, you don't want stages running late.
• 16:22
  That's, that's the stage managers.
• 16:23
  That's the one thing which really, well, one of the things
• 16:27
  that irritates the stage manager is if bands overrun or your
• 16:31
  stage is running late. But the stage manager said,
• 16:33
  well, yeah, yeah, you've got to go on.
• 16:37
  And so Coldplay went on before the gates opened and played to
• 16:43
  an empty the first part of their set, played their set, legend
• 16:48
  has it to an empty tent. And I don't know how.
• 16:52
  I mean, obviously I think they were quite irked by this, as you
• 16:55
  would be, but, and I don't know if this is the reason, but
• 16:57
  Coldplay never played Reading again.
• 17:02
  Ever. Ever since then, since that.
• 17:05
  So examples of bands going on before the doors opened or as
• 17:10
  the doors opened. We'll give you the e-mail
• 17:13
  address a bit later and sorry, go on, I.
• 17:16
  Was going to say this is not quite right but I once saw Guns
• 17:19
  and Roses play in the stadium and they came on on time and and
• 17:24
  30,000 people had to rush from the bar because no one goes to
• 17:29
  conspiracies assuming they'll be on on time.
• 17:31
  So they came on to like 1/2 about 1/3 full standing stadium
• 17:36
  because everyone assumed they'd never come on that time.
• 17:38
  It was great. It was like those, you know
• 17:40
  those time lapse videos you see of people going into a gig it's
• 17:44
  like empty. It was like that in real time.
• 17:46
  People running from the bar going Jesus, they're on.
• 17:50
  Very good. As I say, we'll give you the
• 17:52
  e-mail. I see.
• 17:53
  Talking of getting in touch with the programme, here's an answer
• 17:57
  to a listener question. Thank you very much, Pete
• 17:59
  Feldon. Pete, got in touch.
• 18:00
  Say hi guys. At this time of year, various
• 18:04
  commentators on the BBC, both specialist and others, tell us
• 18:08
  that country music is the fastest growing genre in the UK.
• 18:13
  Is this true? I know it's bigger than it used
• 18:16
  to be, but for several years running it has supposedly been
• 18:19
  growing faster. So will this growth eventually
• 18:22
  lead to the eclipse of all other music genres?
• 18:27
  Is is country music the fastest growing genre in the UK?
• 18:31
  And if so, can we prove that or disprove that?
• 18:34
  So yes, with caveats. The caveat being that fast is
• 18:38
  growing from a small base. Yeah.
• 18:41
  So there's probably things growing faster that were invent
• 18:44
  genres were invented two years ago that have grown 7000% in two
• 18:48
  years. But yeah, so I've got two
• 18:50
  sources here. 1 is the BPI, which is the labels body here
• 18:53
  and the other is Spotify who pulled some data for us
• 18:55
  exclusively. So the BPI actually put a report
• 18:58
  out in 2024, well last year for 24, saying that since in the
• 19:04
  last two years country had doubled its share of the UK
• 19:06
  singles market and this is where the small base comes in.
• 19:09
  So in 2022 we had 1.6% of the UK singles market, had two point 1%
• 19:15
  in 2023 and 3.3% in 2024. So it's doubled, but it's still
• 19:20
  just three-point 3% that year. We haven't got the figures for
• 19:22
  last year yet, but that makes it the sixth biggest genre behind
• 19:25
  pop and rock and hip hop and R&B and dance.
• 19:28
  It was the sixth biggest genre and I think it was just under 3%
• 19:31
  of albums, streams and sales at year 2.
• 19:34
  So it's big growth, but from a very, very small base.
• 19:39
  But then Spotify, I asked them about what's what they're seeing
• 19:42
  in the UK and they've told me since 2020.
• 19:44
  So the last sort of five, five years there's been a 238% rise
• 19:49
  in country streams in the UK and that's comfortably the biggest
• 19:52
  of any country in Europe. And again, so Rick there who
• 19:56
  just said there comms, he said it's it's probably not the
• 19:59
  fastest rising genre in percentage because something
• 20:01
  like funk has probably grown by thousands of percent.
• 20:04
  But the other thing he said was nearly half.
• 20:07
  So 45% of the Spotify country streams come from people aged
• 20:11
  under 30. So it's kind of a lot of young
• 20:13
  people listen to countries that's driving this trend.
• 20:17
  And then looking at some of the stuff that's been making this
• 20:19
  happen. So the big country stars like
• 20:21
  Morgan Wallin and Jelly Roll, they've, they've had a big
• 20:23
  impact. Shibuzi had a really big track
• 20:26
  in 2024. There was a like a huge pop hit
• 20:29
  in a way. It was, it was big in the
• 20:30
  charts. It wasn't just a country.
• 20:32
  And that was the year that Cowboy Carter came out, the
• 20:34
  Beyoncé album, Post Malone had a country album that year.
• 20:37
  So that was a year of particular sort of lots of stuff going on,
• 20:41
  not just like core country artists, but the big pop artists
• 20:43
  who were getting into country. And yeah.
• 20:46
  And then the other thing people were saying when I was saying
• 20:48
  how what's happening now is they were saying it's it's almost
• 20:51
  starting to become a bit blurrier to track because I
• 20:55
  know. So who's a good example?
• 20:56
  C Matt, for example, she's definitely got a strong country
• 21:00
  influence, but it's not just that she's not a country artist
• 21:03
  only. And there's more artists like
• 21:05
  that who've been influenced by what's happening.
• 21:07
  But yeah, so I suppose to answer the question, it is probably the
• 21:11
  fastest growing big genre in the UK, but it's not going to
• 21:15
  eclipse everything else for a while yet.
• 21:18
  But but I mean, as as it's grown it, it sort of has a self
• 21:23
  perpetuating effect because it's now worth big country stars
• 21:26
  coming over here to play concerts.
• 21:28
  They know they can fill arenas and stadiums.
• 21:30
  So more of them do it. And at the same time, people are
• 21:34
  listening to country music as the barriers to listening to it
• 21:37
  have really come down in that if you, if you like 1 country song,
• 21:41
  1 country artist, you'll get recommended more by your
• 21:44
  streaming service. You'll gradually find your way
• 21:45
  into it. So, yeah, it's growing and it's,
• 21:48
  I think it's an exciting thing for people who work with country
• 21:50
  artists because this is a good market for them.
• 21:53
  And I'm based in Europe too. I once saw, I think I once saw
• 21:56
  Deezer, I once had a map of like genres unexpectedly popular in
• 22:00
  different countries of the world.
• 22:01
  And apparently Germany was huge for country music at that time.
• 22:05
  And they had like a big cowboy hat on this on Germany in this
• 22:07
  map. So.
• 22:09
  So it's been like all kinds of things I've run.
• 22:11
  But yeah. So yeah, it's growing.
• 22:12
  It's not the biggest genre. And yeah, rock and pop aren't
• 22:15
  under threat just yet. It's obviously isn't this
• 22:18
  country, but you mentioned like the UK and it's sort of
• 22:21
  happening in Europe. It's happening in the States as
• 22:24
  well to a certain extent where at least with a sort of new wave
• 22:28
  of country artists. And I only know this because it
• 22:31
  was something that came up in conversation with Deb Sherlock,
• 22:33
  who's one of the programmers for South by Southwest, who was
• 22:36
  saying that for obviously South by Southwest, starting in
• 22:40
  Austin, TX 40 years ago, you know, the majority of music was
• 22:46
  country linked, you know, and then country music began to
• 22:53
  stagnate for quite some time. But he was saying there were far
• 22:56
  more country artists at this year's South by Southwest than
• 22:59
  previous years because there's been more experimentation with
• 23:02
  the genre. There's a new wave of younger
• 23:05
  artists coming through who are not just just repeating what's
• 23:09
  gone before. So it's it's even happening
• 23:13
  happening there to a certain extent.
• 23:15
  Yeah, I once did an interview, but we did a whole report about
• 23:17
  country music a few years ago from Music Colour, and someone
• 23:19
  there was saying, yeah, streaming is helping country
• 23:22
  reach more people around the world, but streaming has also
• 23:25
  helped more music from around the world reach young country
• 23:27
  artists. And so their influence palette
• 23:30
  is much wider. And yeah, so it's kind of, it's
• 23:33
  interesting. I mean, I don't know, I
• 23:34
  sometimes feel like I should know more about country, like I
• 23:36
  need to spend some time like investigating the new artists.
• 23:39
  Because I think a lot of Brits, we still have this cliched
• 23:43
  thoughts, don't we, about it's what country music is.
• 23:46
  So I need to spend a day just like going, right?
• 23:48
  Who are the ones who are new and exciting?
• 23:52
  And so finally for this week, by the way, thank you very much,
• 23:55
  Pete, for that question. Do you prefer deep cuts to big
• 23:59
  hits? If we do, can we point you in
• 24:02
  the direction of a new website which is called The Hidden Jams,
• 24:06
  which is trying to help people discover the obscurities in
• 24:11
  bands catalogues. So essentially, and this is this
• 24:15
  is obviously fan driven, isn't it?
• 24:19
  And who knows what this is going to throw up.
• 24:21
  But the idea is, yeah, if you want to find a really good, I
• 24:26
  don't know, Radiohead track, say that isn't one of the big hits
• 24:30
  hits, then this is the place where you can go and recommend
• 24:33
  something. So it's it's shining a light on
• 24:36
  the yeah, on the obscurities in a band's catalog.
• 24:40
  Yeah. Or alternatively, it's going to
• 24:41
  start a lot of arguments because yeah, it is.
• 24:45
  So it wants to be, I think I've got a press release, but and it
• 24:47
  wants to be the the Wikipedia of deciding which songs are best in
• 24:51
  the band's catalog. So you go, you register as a
• 24:54
  fan, and then you vote on your favorite tracks and it turns
• 24:57
  those into rankings. And it's starting with rock
• 25:00
  bands because that that obviously seemed the the place
• 25:03
  to start. So it goes from like Pink Floyd
• 25:05
  and Led Zeppelin, R.E.M. Through to Arctic Monkeys and
• 25:07
  Radioheads, some modern bands and it's interesting.
• 25:11
  I mean it is interesting because I, I don't know, I thought of it
• 25:14
  as deep cuts, but it's maybe some of the the thing tracks at
• 25:18
  the top aren't exactly unknown. So like the top ranked track for
• 25:22
  Radiohead is paranoid Android, which is I know it's not it's
• 25:26
  not creep, you know it's not, but it certainly wasn't an
• 25:30
  under, you know, under the radar.
• 25:32
  Non did it get to #1 it was #1 and #2 wasn't it?
• 25:35
  It was a big, It was a hit. Yeah, it was a big hit.
• 25:38
  To be fair, like Weird fishes are pedgy is second, But I think
• 25:41
  even that sort of TikTok viral moment, which which is the other
• 25:44
  thing here, like some of these tracks that you thought of as
• 25:47
  obscure deep cuts a few years ago are now like the biggest
• 25:50
  tracks of that band because they've gone big on TikTok
• 25:52
  randomly. So it's.
• 25:54
  Hard to define what deep cut is. And that and that's played out
• 25:57
  on the streaming services in a lot of cases, isn't it?
• 25:59
  So this sort of this almost exists for some bands already
• 26:03
  because there's that Pavement track that wasn't one of their
• 26:05
  best known tracks that became, as you say, had its moment and
• 26:09
  that's top or second in their Spotify rankings.
• 26:12
  I think there's their most listened to tracks, but that was
• 26:15
  because you know it for a time, loads of people listen to it.
• 26:20
  That's it, yeah. And there's like, you know, even
• 26:22
  like for R.E.M., for example, Radio Free Europe is their top
• 26:25
  ranked song on this platform, right?
• 26:26
  That's because that's what the fans have chosen, or the fans
• 26:29
  who've registered. I'll spare you the Black Rose
• 26:31
  one, but I'll send that as you playlist if you like.
• 26:33
  Very much this follows. I mean there are some fans of
• 26:38
  certain bands have all might have done this sort of work
• 26:40
  already. I think I remember what when I
• 26:42
  was I was interviewing Radiohead, I can't remember for
• 26:46
  what record. And looking online, doing some
• 26:50
  prep, I found a fan site that had listed every, every
• 26:56
  Radiohead song in order of you know, how much they liked it and
• 27:00
  importance and you know how much the fans liked it and
• 27:03
  everything. So it was all of Radiohead's
• 27:06
  songs from top to bottom. And I just read out what their
• 27:10
  worst four songs were and they were and they were set there
• 27:14
  going. There was one from there was one
• 27:15
  from the Poppy's Dead EP, I think.
• 27:17
  And they went, Oh, yeah, Oh, yeah, that was, that wasn't
• 27:20
  good. But it's it's like, yeah, the
• 27:23
  entire, the entire Radiohead back catalog ranked by a fan.
• 27:29
  I mean, there is fans. It can be a brutal wake up call
• 27:32
  guided because I suppose the interesting thing would be to
• 27:34
  compare some of these rankings on this hidden jam site with
• 27:36
  with the streaming totals. Are they going to, are they
• 27:39
  going to match those and follow them or they'd be different?
• 27:41
  Because it's, if you're a band planning a tour, this could be
• 27:45
  quite useful information if if you're not sniffy about seeing
• 27:48
  what the fans like and playing it.
• 27:50
  Yeah, You know, maybe the kind of band that looks at this thing
• 27:52
  is right. We're not playing any of the top
• 27:53
  10 from here because we're an artist.
• 27:55
  We're playing all new material that's not even on this site
• 27:58
  yet. That's it for this week.
• 28:01
  Thank you very much for listening.
• 28:03
  If you are enjoying the show, please do spread the words.
• 28:06
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• 28:21
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• 28:24
  And it's actually quite a good time to mention and welcome
• 28:28
  another new Super Fan, Steven Rayner.
• 28:30
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