Latest / The Price of Music / Massive Attack pull music from Spotify in protest; Ticketmaster sued by US government; Lizzo thinks that music videos are dead; More album-filing dilemmas; & people are listening to "My Humps" again?

Transcript

Massive Attack pull music from Spotify in protest; Ticketmaster sued by US government; Lizzo thinks that music videos are dead; More album-filing dilemmas; & people are listening to "My Humps" again? · The Price of Music

• 0:08
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
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  Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by all the fun and
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  games and finances of the music world, as explained each week by
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  me, Steve Lamac and him, Stuart Dredge.
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  If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music biz
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  and how it all works and how the figures stack up, then here we
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  are. Although, as always, we'll start
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  with a big number this week. A very big number, which is.
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  $100 billion. $100 billion relates to YouTube, I believe.
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  Yeah, I was going to say Doctor Evil, but I'm not going to call
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  YouTube Doctor evil because Google doesn't do as we know.
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  Yeah. So YouTube had this event last
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  week called Made on YouTube. It's kind of it's big.
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  It's half like bragging about how great it is and half
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  announcing new features and it's CEO got up and said, yeah, we've
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  paid out more than $100 billion in the last four years.
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  That is not just music though. That's everyone who gets paid by
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  YouTube. So it is musicians in the music
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  industry, but it's also every YouTube you can think of.
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  It's also media companies. So it's it's like all the
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  payouts coming from video being watched on YouTube is $100
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  billion in four years. That's a big, that's a big
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  number. Do you?
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  I mean, is it when they announce, when any company
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  announces how well it's doing? Is there, at the same time a
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  fear that this will call a, of course, an immense backlash from
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  the people who are making stuff and feel that they aren't
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  getting paid well enough, though, despite the fact that
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  they've paid out $100 billion, Is $100 billion enough?
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  Well, that's it. I mean, do you know, it's not A
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  few years ago the music industry was regularly having a go at
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  YouTube for not paying out enough.
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  And that would have been the reaction then.
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  But in the last few years, everyone seems very happy with
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  YouTube. Like the labels have stopped
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  because I think they're getting a lot more money now because it
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  has a subscription service and that's been growing.
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  So yeah, I don't know. I mean, if you're if you're a
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  YouTube and you're not very not getting much money, you probably
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  are looking at this going, well, it's all going to Mr. Beast, not
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  me or whatever. I was trying to do some reverse
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  engineering because like they YouTube has given out some music
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  stats in the past, but it's a few, it's a while.
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  So it was like 2022 YouTube today had paid out $6 billion to
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  the music industry in the previous year.
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  And I was starting to think what can I work out how much of that
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  100 billion might be music? But it's difficult because I've
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  not updated it since. But it was 6 billion a few years
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  ago to music. So it's it's big.
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  Let's do our top three stories then, which we picked out for
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  you this week from all the goings on that we've seen
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  reported over the past seven days.
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  We'll start with this first story, our top story.
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  More than 400 artists have pulled their music from
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  streaming services in Israel as part of a campaign called No
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  Music for Genocide. Meanwhile, and you may have seen
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  this one Massive Attack have pulled their music from Spotify
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  in every country around the world.
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  This is it's two stories really, although obviously linked around
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  the same issue. Shall we take them one by one?
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  What's what's happened? And what are the implications of
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  these announcements, starting with the 400 artists?
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  Yeah, this is a delicate 1, isn't it?
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  Needs a bit of explaining. So yeah, this was announced last
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  week. And the reason they've been
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  linked is Massive Attack announced them both.
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  So Massive Attack are kind of key.
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  But yeah, so it's it's called No Music for Genocide.
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  It's a new campaign describing itself as a cultural boycott
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  against apartheid, occupation and genocide of Palestinians.
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  So it's very much about what's happening in Gaza at the moment.
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  And as you said, more than 400 have basically said we want our
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  music taken off every streaming service in Israel.
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  We don't want to be making money from streams in that country.
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  And it's it's people like Fontaine's DC kneecap, massive
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  attack ammo and the sniffers. And to Shikari Venusa Warrior, I
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  mean, it's being LED from the UK.
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  I think it's fair to say these are the big artists, UK and
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  Ireland. And it's, I guess you could also
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  say that these are artists who have been making their views
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  known about Gaza for a while now.
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  So it's the most politically engaged with this, what's
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  happening there. I think who've started this.
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  And it was quite interesting reading the kind of the the
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  wording around it. So they're comparing it to two
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  things, basically. The first is what happened in,
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  was it 1980's, the boycott of South Africa from musicians?
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  And they're saying that was that happened because of our party
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  there. We're comparing to that.
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  But also they're looking at what happened in in Russia recently.
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  So when Russia invaded Ukraine, the music industry shut down its
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  offices there. All the international labels and
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  streaming services shut down. A lot of musicians pulled their
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  music from streaming services in Russia.
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  So basically this campaign is saying, look, these two things
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  are our kind of our reference points for what we're trying to
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  do here. We're trying to make our voices
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  now. And so I guess the next step for
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  this is going to be to hope that that launch signs up bigger
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  artists. So they'll be looking for, I
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  don't know, could they get you too?
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  Because they spoke out recently about Gaza, can they get the
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  likes of Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Drake, that the real big hitters
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  of streaming to join in? That's what would kind of take
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  it to the next level. I think beyond, well, these are
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  artists who who care a lot. But what's happening?
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  Cars have been talking about it. But yeah, it made quite a big
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  splash. I think because it's it's one of
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  the first, they've been a lot of artists speaking out about Gaza,
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  but it's one of the first examples of people doing
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  something in terms of right, we want our music taken down here.
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  We want to not be earning money from this because of our views.
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  So it's actually like the next concrete step I guess taken.
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  Yeah, or anyone else making money out of them.
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  That's the other thing, isn't it?
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  Massive Attack themselves. I mean no disrespect to Deerhoof
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  and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards who've already withdrawn
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  their music from Spotify, but Massive Attack are probably, I
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  guess the biggest name to date who've come out against Daniel
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  Ek and his investments outside of Spotify.
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  That seems to be the cause of this.
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  That was it and it was announced in the same Instagram post as
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  the new music phenicides, which is why a lot of people were kind
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  of conflating them and that's caused a bit of a Hoo ha.
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  So this is not about Gaza. It's about like you say, Daniel
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  X Investment. So he's got a personal
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  investment firm. It's called, I think it's
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  premium material. So it's the money he has earned
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  from selling shares in Spotify. He has an investment firm that
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  invests in different companies and we've talked about it
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  before, haven't we, when we took those bands.
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  So it's a company called housing.
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  They make AI drones and AI sort of defence technology.
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  And they're basically defence tech.
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  And yeah, Massive Attack talked about basically they they, they
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  don't want their, the money of fans and the creative
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  recommendations to. And the quote was that
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  ultimately funds lethal dystopian technologies and
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  that's why they're out. And it caused some afters.
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  So like this happened this this social post and then very
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  quickly this company Helsing put a statement out saying are tech
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  isn't being used in war zones other than Ukraine.
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  So what they were saying was we're the identity.
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  I'm paraphrasing here. We're the good arms guys.
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  We're being used to defend Ukraine.
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  We are we don't sell our stuff to other other countries and
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  we're not being using other. And then a Spotify exec called
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  Joe Hadley, who's like quite a senior exec at Spotify.
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  He posted a comment on massive attacks post saying one Spotify
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  in Helsing are two totally separate companies and they're
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  not involved in Gaza. And he said, actually, I thought
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  was quite interesting. We might come back to this.
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  He said, I know that because I asked that myself internally,
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  which kind of hints at in within Spotify even quite seems like
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  say I've been a bit like, hang on a minute, what is this
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  company about? Where are they selling their
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  arms to? We want to know too.
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  Yeah, I mean this because this brings up the questions really
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  doesn't it have about how much does this hurt Spotify?
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  Because probably it's a it's a drop in the ocean financially
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  for them, but reputationally, this seems to be where it's
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  beginning to hurt that they're being drawn into these kind of
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  debates. Yeah, Do you know a few months
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  ago I was doing, I was at an industry event and I was talking
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  to someone who was quite senior in industry, who I won't name.
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  And they were like, watch this story.
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  Because right now, dear Hoof, no one, no one who's not a Dear
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  Hoof fan knows dear. But he was like, this is going
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  to grow, I think, and it's going to become more problem for
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  Spotify and, and kind of you can see it matching like you say,
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  Deer Hoof King gizzard and Lizard Wizard.
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  Now Massive Attack and I was looking at so massive attack.
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  I mean, the music's still available.
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  It's taking a while to take it down.
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  But they have around just under 8 million listeners on Spotify,
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  which is a weirdly big number. If you think back to the the old
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  days of music industry, 8 million people listening to you
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  every month sounds like a lot. But like you say, in Spotify
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  terms, they're not one of the biggest acts and it won't hurt
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  the company. But well, tell me what you think
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  of this. I feel that Massive Attack have
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  got influence in terms of other artists.
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  I think their voice is quite loud, like in terms of their
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  political engagement. And so I think them talking
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  about this is going to bring it to the attention of more artists
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  and give it more publicity. So I think the impact is less
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  about it costing Spotify any money other than the ripple
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  effect of other artists who may read this and go, I'm going to
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  look into this. What is this housing company?
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  What's going on here? And what about Massive Attack
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  themselves? How much of A dense will this
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  put in their income? What's the cost of their stand
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  do you think, roughly? I mean, there is a cost to it
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  because 8 million distance a month, that's at least 8 million
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  streams, probably more. And streaming will be a lot of
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  their revenue. But I mean they put on big live
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  shows, so they have a live business.
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  They have other streaming services.
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  So I think Spotify is about 1/4 of the global streaming market.
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  So, you know, 75% of it is still getting streamed to massive
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  attack. So I think it's, it's definitely
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  a financial for them and it's, it's a, it's a, it's a stance
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  that's going to cost them some money, but I don't think it's
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  going to imperial their income overall, if that makes sense.
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  And, and it may actually drive some listening elsewhere.
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  It may drive people to go and buy their stuff, you know, so
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  there may be some, well, I want to say some of the upside, but
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  that's not why they've done it. I'm sure there's not there's not
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  any kind of sense of that. It's, I mean, the other thing I
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  suppose here is is it going to impact users?
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  Like is there going to be AI don't want my subscription to
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  fund the arms industry ultimately movement and I, I
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  suppose my suspicion, my pragmatic suspicion is it won't
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  like not as a meaningful proportion of Spotify
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  subscribers. I'm going to suddenly go, but I
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  think it will cement the views of people who don't like the
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  company for other reasons. So people who already think I
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  don't like the royalties model or I don't like streaming.
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  Oh, and now it's CEO is funding AI drones.
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  So I wonder if that dystopian technologies line is going to
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  stick a little bit more than the company would like.
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  But yeah, I think I think the main thing is now I think it's a
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  it's a a thing that Spotify responded to very quickly and
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  that I think that suggests that it realises that this is not a
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  great position to be in. Who was to talk about how your
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  boss is funding the arms industry.
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  And so that line about two separate companies, I think
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  that's not going to hold that long because he's the chairman
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  of this company and he's invested $100 million.
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  But so I think we'll see more. I think we'll see more artists
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  maybe talking about this. And, and the question is whether
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  it goes beyond massive attack in terms of profile, like would
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  there be a bigger artist who pulls out?
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  But I also think we may see Spotify coming out and talking
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  more trying to combat this combat through one word.
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  Isn't it trying to trying to something that isn't a word
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  related to to wars? This Yeah.
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  Story 2 Then Live Nation and Ticketmaster are being sued by
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  the American regulator, the FTC, for, and I'll put this next
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  phrase in quote marks for illegal ticket resale tactics
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  and for deceiving artists and fans.
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  I mean, this sounds like a quite, I mean, it's quite a
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  major accusation. This isn't it.
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  Who are the FTC and what are they claiming Ticketmaster are
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  doing, allegedly illegally? Yeah.
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  Do you think this is the show we've done that's going to most
• 12:05
  likely to get me in trouble somehow?
• 12:06
  Yeah, it's. Quite, quite, but we're just
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  loading it up with contentious stories for you this week.
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  Student so this is this is basically a it's a big lawsuit
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  from the the big competition regulator, the big the big kind
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  of financial Commission regulator in the US.
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  It was rumoured before last week that it was investigating the
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  company and then it's dropped. So yeah, basically what it's
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  saying is that Live Nation and Ticketmaster, while they talk
• 12:35
  about fighting bots and fighting ticket touts, ticket scalpers
• 12:39
  from the US, actually, it claims they're kind of, if not
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  colluding with them, they're kind of turning a blind eye to
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  what they do. And so the the essential
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  accusation is they turn a blind eye to people buying thousands
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  of tickets that they shouldn't be able to buy and then they
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  make money from it because those tickets are then sold on the
• 12:57
  secondary ticketing market. So it was basically saying that
• 13:03
  and there's a quote here, I'll quote, it's a little easier.
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  So in public, Ticketmaster maintains that it's business
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  model is at odds with brokers that routinely exceed ticket
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  limits. So that is kind of when you can
• 13:11
  only get 8 tickets for an event and they're buying 8000 quote
• 13:16
  again. But in private, Ticketmaster
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  acknowledged and they have a bunch of emails and messages,
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  receipts here. Ticketmaster acknowledged that
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  it's business model and bottom line benefit from brokers
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  preventing ordinary Americans from purchasing tickets to the
• 13:27
  shows they want to see at the prices artists set.
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  So that's the the The main accusation here is that
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  Ticketmaster makes a lot of money from secondary sales, and
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  there's a number in the. Yeah, stop, stop there a second.
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  How is it making money from from secondary sales?
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  So you can sell secondary tickets on Ticketmaster, the
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  secondary part of the platform, and it takes a it takes a fee on
• 13:48
  those. So when someone sells up a
• 13:50
  ticket, resells ticket on Ticketmaster, it takes a fee.
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  In the lawsuit, there's a figure saying it made $3.7 billion in
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  fees on resale tickets between 2019 and 2024.
• 14:01
  So that's it makes a lot of money from letting brokers buy
• 14:04
  more tickets than they should be allowed to because they then
• 14:07
  sell it on its platform and it gets a cut.
• 14:09
  And there's a lot of detail. I mean, I was going through
• 14:12
  this, this lawsuit filing and it's the one bit was like a
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  table of like these five ticket brokers.
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  So these are people who buy tickets and then resell them
• 14:18
  like, but for a living. So it's not fans doing it.
• 14:21
  It's, you know, companies whose, and there were five of them,
• 14:24
  they controlled more than 6300 Ticketmaster accounts between
• 14:28
  these five companies and they got more than 246,000 tickets in
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  the period covered. So it's in a sense it's, and it,
• 14:36
  this is the thing ticketmasters always said, well, we, we try
• 14:38
  and stop this happening. We try and fight the bots that
• 14:41
  are used to Hugo tickets. And this is claiming otherwise.
• 14:45
  And there's been no official response.
• 14:47
  So at the time of time of talking, as far as I can tell,
• 14:52
  this year, Ticketmaster and I have been talking about having,
• 14:55
  addressing the fact that this sort of thing might happen, this
• 14:57
  kind of investigation and saying, no, we'd, we'd fight
• 15:00
  bots. We do, we do our best.
• 15:01
  We don't like to get people to get tickets.
• 15:03
  They shouldn't have a right to. But I mean, the, I guess the
• 15:07
  bigger picture here is we talked about this last year that the US
• 15:10
  Department of Justice is suing Live Nation, Ticketmaster and
• 15:13
  trying to break them up for antitrust violations, anti
• 15:16
  competitive behaviour. And now it's facing a lawsuit
• 15:19
  from the FTC. And I think it's seven U.S.
• 15:21
  states as well. So these are two quite scary
• 15:25
  foes legally for the company to be dealing with.
• 15:29
  And that we've talked about its revenues and how its business is
• 15:31
  doing very well. But it's got these two really,
• 15:34
  really kind of sort of big lawsuits on its hands now, which
• 15:38
  is going to suck up a lot of energy in time.
• 15:42
  Story 3, which again is actually two stories, although this time
• 15:47
  they are brilliantly contradictory.
• 15:49
  Depending on who you believe, either video clips on social
• 15:54
  media are the future for artists looking for success or video
• 15:59
  clips on social media don't really help an artist's career
• 16:02
  much at all. Both of these differing opinions
• 16:06
  emerged over the past week. Should we do the defence of
• 16:10
  viral videos first, which comes from the American hit maker
• 16:14
  Lizzo, who reckons the golden age of music video is over and
• 16:18
  the artist should focus on viral clips on social media instead of
• 16:23
  making old fashioned videos. Yeah, and you actually delivered
• 16:28
  this message via video on social media, of course.
• 16:35
  Yeah, and all. That so what's so essentially
• 16:38
  don't waste your money on a video for, you know, for for
• 16:42
  YouTube, just just make some interesting clips post on
• 16:46
  TikTok. Is, is that the is?
• 16:48
  I mean, is, is that kind of what she's saying?
• 16:52
  Kind of what she was saying, there's no money to waste on
• 16:54
  music videos. So one of our points was there's
• 16:56
  no budgets anymore. Like from the heyday in the kind
• 16:59
  of 90s and and 2000s, the budgets don't exist anymore
• 17:02
  because no one makes any money from them.
• 17:04
  And she, she talked about there's never going to be
• 17:05
  another Thriller, Lady Marmalade or Ladies night because because
• 17:09
  critical mass and mainstream culture doesn't exist anymore.
• 17:12
  Which, which gave me this because I don't know if you ever
• 17:14
  saw this, but in the 80s there was the making of thriller was
• 17:18
  a, was Avhs video you could buy and watch and it was like, I
• 17:21
  don't know, half an hour long. And like, the that video was so
• 17:25
  big that the making of it became its own products.
• 17:29
  And yeah, so basically, I mean, this is the other thing.
• 17:31
  Lissa has started giving this music industry comment recently
• 17:33
  on TikTok, which is I think I've always welcomed it.
• 17:36
  Like, we didn't hear more from artists giving their views on
• 17:38
  the industry. But she's doing my job, I guess,
• 17:41
  which I couldn't return that by doing her job because I haven't
• 17:44
  got the chance moves. But so she said she she's made a
• 17:47
  music video for her new single, but she hasn't even bothered
• 17:49
  putting it on YouTube. It's just on her Instagram
• 17:51
  account. And she said, yeah, you're
• 17:53
  better off making small, digestible, potentially viral
• 17:55
  clips of your social media platforms, especially if you're
• 17:59
  a new artist, as you say. Yeah, new artists, you probably
• 18:02
  have many motors because you should be doing this instead.
• 18:03
  Make a bunch of short clips rather than one big video.
• 18:07
  Right, the case. So that's that's the case in
• 18:11
  favour of viral clips. The case against comes in a new
• 18:16
  report which suggests that going viral on social media may not
• 18:21
  actually help artists build their fan bases.
• 18:24
  Yeah, so this is Media Research, one of the more respected
• 18:27
  companies and they surveyed 10,000 people.
• 18:29
  So it's a decent size survey. And they basically their their
• 18:33
  main finding was and the quote is discovery is getting stuck at
• 18:36
  the song clip. So basically a lot of people,
• 18:39
  especially young people, they discover songs on TikTok,
• 18:41
  Instagram, wherever and they might like them, but they don't
• 18:45
  then feel the need to tap through and like listen to the
• 18:47
  song in full or follow the artists on Spotify, Apple Music
• 18:51
  or become fans. And it's big thing was like,
• 18:54
  these clips don't create fandom, and fandom is the really
• 18:58
  important thing now as an artist you need because a fandom is how
• 19:00
  you make your money from people who love you, which And yeah,
• 19:05
  this quote, this kind of chilling quote, the music they
• 19:07
  hear on TikTok, Instagram and other social platforms is enough
• 19:10
  for them. So it's kind of worrying if
• 19:12
  you're on Spotify as well as if you're an artist.
• 19:15
  I mean, there have been cases, though, where certain songs have
• 19:18
  become hits, one off songs, but are they haven't it so it it
• 19:24
  does work on occasion, But they're saying, though, this is
• 19:28
  not it's not the blueprint for an artist, though, Don't think
• 19:31
  don't just hold out for the off for the off chance that your one
• 19:36
  song might be one of the rare times where a viral clip does
• 19:41
  turn into a hit in other spheres.
• 19:45
  Yeah, it's weird because I think the social media apps are going
• 19:47
  to disagree. And there may be some afters for
• 19:49
  this where they could put stuff out saying, because I know
• 19:51
  TikTok, for example, they've got this feature called Add to Music
• 19:54
  app where if you hear a song on ticked on, like it, you tap a
• 19:56
  button and you can add it to your library on Spotify or Apple
• 19:59
  or Amazon. And I think this year they said
• 20:02
  that that's done, that's done billions of streams from that
• 20:04
  feature alone. So I think they're going to have
• 20:06
  some arguments against us saying, no, no, we are getting
• 20:09
  people to tap through and play songs in full.
• 20:13
  But I mean, I kind of, I see Lizzie's point of view here,
• 20:17
  like instead of making a music video.
• 20:19
  Make some clips where you're talking about yourself, telling
• 20:22
  people your story, showing them behind that.
• 20:24
  That gets people to know you. And I think there is a good
• 20:27
  argument for that. Creating fandom because people
• 20:29
  want, it's not just a glossy music video, it's actually
• 20:31
  people seeing who you are. I think that's that's quite
• 20:34
  important nowadays, people to understand what you think.
• 20:36
  Yeah, I mean, or do or do both. Once again, I can only cite my
• 20:40
  daughter's favorite artist Conan Grey, who made videos for the
• 20:45
  main the key tracks on his latest album, but I noticed the
• 20:49
  other day she was watching a video which was the making of
• 20:53
  his videos. So he's essentially done both.
• 20:56
  So he's done the actual video, but while making the actual
• 21:00
  video has obviously got clippable content of, you know,
• 21:04
  him talking to the other actor and, you know, explaining how
• 21:07
  where they're filming and what they're doing.
• 21:10
  So he's done done the two. Maybe, maybe, maybe it's just a
• 21:13
  matter of, you know, making complimentary content.
• 21:18
  Yeah, and the other thing I think that's interesting is
• 21:19
  Lizzo talked about how she's her latest music video is not on
• 21:23
  YouTube and so on, but she has made a music video for a new
• 21:25
  song. Which I think speaks to the fact
• 21:27
  that I think a lot of artists still like the idea of making
• 21:30
  full length music videos because it shows off something about
• 21:33
  them or it gives them their vision.
• 21:35
  So I I think that's the other thing is people will still want
• 21:38
  to make them. And maybe it's a case like, say,
• 21:40
  of being clever about how you get them to people.
• 21:42
  Yeah, certain songs as well just lend themselves to being videos.
• 21:47
  There are types of music which are very well illustrated by
• 21:51
  videos and particularly songs which tell a kind of story.
• 21:54
  I mean if it's a very, if you've written a song in your bedroom
• 21:58
  and it is 3 minutes of bedroom angst, I don't get a video out
• 22:02
  of that. But there are there are other
• 22:04
  songs which really benefit from the video treatment.
• 22:09
  I think still I would, I would say, and aren't, you know, you
• 22:13
  can't clip out, I mean, you can clip out 1 chapter of a book and
• 22:17
  say, look, this, this is the best bit.
• 22:21
  This is why you should, you know, invest in the whole book.
• 22:23
  But you know what? Maybe you know, maybe the whole,
• 22:26
  the whole book needs its own little film.
• 22:29
  That's that's my theory. The other thing as well, it says
• 22:31
  there's a few, there's a few companies now who have these
• 22:34
  shows on YouTube like there's colours is 1.
• 22:38
  There's also what's the one called Mahogany Video.
• 22:40
  There's a few publishers who like their whole thing is they,
• 22:43
  they film performances of new artists and then they put them
• 22:46
  out on YouTube and other places. And I wonder if that is
• 22:50
  something that's quite good. Like if you're a new, new
• 22:52
  artist, rather than making your own video, maybe you do go and
• 22:55
  do one of those things and then there is a video of you playing
• 22:59
  a song on YouTube, but you have not to fund it.
• 23:03
  I didn't have the money works quite around that.
• 23:05
  But so I think there are ways to do videos that are like if
• 23:07
  you're, if you're a great performing band, then maybe
• 23:10
  that's what you do. Find someone who'll film you and
• 23:12
  put it out. So there's I think, but Lizzo's
• 23:14
  thing is that, yeah, experiment. And I think that's maybe the
• 23:16
  common ground here, more experimentation to figure out
• 23:19
  how you get stuff. That's your news for this week.
• 23:22
  Our top three stories. Any other business?
• 23:25
  I I got an I guess we should start with this because I got an
• 23:28
  e-mail from Stuart earlier. Stu's weekly Taylor Swift
• 23:33
  e-mail. Did we go whole week?
• 23:35
  Do you think that was last week? Did we do a whole week without
• 23:38
  Taylor Swift last week? She's back.
• 23:40
  She's back. What's what's she done now?
• 23:43
  What's so important? You were bothering me at 9:00 in
• 23:45
  the morning with a another Taylor Swift e-mail doesn't.
• 23:48
  Does no one else bother you in the morning about Taylor Swift?
• 23:51
  No, you're the only. You're the.
• 23:53
  You're the only one. OK, so yeah, so her new album's
• 23:56
  coming out 3rd of October. It's going to be like it's going
• 23:58
  to be inescapable over the next kind of week or two, everywhere,
• 24:02
  every platform, everything. But this is, I think this is
• 24:04
  really interesting. So she's announced this thing
• 24:06
  called, so it's called The Life of a Showgirl.
• 24:08
  And she's announced the official release party of a showgirl,
• 24:12
  which you might think involves going to a bar with some sausage
• 24:14
  rolls and saying Hooray, a new album's out like it would be for
• 24:17
  most artists. But it's it's a movie.
• 24:19
  It's an 89 minute movie that's going to be in cinemas around
• 24:24
  the launch of the album. And there's it's going to
• 24:26
  include a premiere of a new music video.
• 24:27
  There's going to be some she's going to show lyric videos for
• 24:29
  the other songs on the album, behind the scenes footage, her
• 24:33
  talking about what inspired the tracks.
• 24:35
  So this is the kind of stuff that you would normally put out
• 24:38
  on YouTube or socials around the loose of an album, you know, all
• 24:42
  the all the background. But it's going to be in cinemas
• 24:44
  like in 100 plus countries around the world.
• 24:47
  It's going to be a movie in cinemas.
• 24:48
  And in one day, she sold $15 million of tickets for the US
• 24:52
  screenings of this event. Wow.
• 24:54
  And Deadline, who who are like a Hollywood news site who know
• 24:57
  they're onion, said they reckon it'll make 30 to $50 million in
• 25:00
  the US alone. And to reiterate, this is from
• 25:03
  the launch promo for the new album.
• 25:06
  Could be a $50 million product in itself.
• 25:08
  Yeah, the way this rather walks over everything we've just been
• 25:10
  talking about for the last 5 minutes, doesn't it?
• 25:12
  Sorry, Liz, not only has Taylor Swift made the video, she's also
• 25:16
  made the clips and veranda and and then extended this into an
• 25:22
  actual film. So it shows what you can do if
• 25:25
  you've got the money. But I.
• 25:27
  Should get a size of popcorn sales too.
• 25:28
  Actually, it's a launch party film.
• 25:30
  So you go along with fellow fellow Taylor, Taylor Swift fans
• 25:35
  and Fayla Smith. I quite like actually, I mean,
• 25:39
  stumbled on it. So.
• 25:42
  And you sit there and she explains the record.
• 25:44
  I mean, this is essentially, it's a great way of getting out
• 25:47
  of doing any promo, isn't it? You don't have to sit down with
• 25:49
  anyone on breakfast TV in America and talk about your
• 25:52
  album because you're telling the audience about the your audience
• 25:57
  directly about the album, but in a cinema.
• 26:01
  Direct to fans by the. Region though How What the How
• 26:04
  long this film? How long is the film?
• 26:07
  89 minutes. 89 minutes sat in a sat being being having the album
• 26:14
  explained to you. Wow.
• 26:16
  Well, I mean, it's going to be lyric.
• 26:17
  I think a lot of it be watching the videos and hearing the music
• 26:19
  and maybe hearing the music for the first time to be watching.
• 26:21
  But I mean, I think we've talked about it before when she had her
• 26:24
  concert film. It's going to be really exciting
• 26:27
  for Taylor Swift fans because that sounds I mean, it's it's
• 26:34
  it's the let me explain this before you take the piss out.
• 26:36
  I mean it's like a room full of them experiencing this together.
• 26:42
  Like that's the exciting thing, I think.
• 26:43
  But this kind of event is it's not just about them watching
• 26:47
  this. It's about bringing people into
• 26:49
  the same space together. And like my niece went to the
• 26:52
  the eras to a concert movie and apparently it was brilliant.
• 26:56
  She got chatting to people around her because they're all
• 26:58
  tales with friends from her where she lives.
• 27:00
  So I think not to be the the optimistic and cynical guy, but
• 27:04
  I, I do think there's something really powerful here.
• 27:06
  And this can only work for art like a handful of artists.
• 27:09
  But I don't know if you're BTS, they could do it.
• 27:13
  If you're, I don't know who else could do this thing.
• 27:16
  Coldplay could probably do it for a new album get to in
• 27:18
  cinemas, like for a handful of artists.
• 27:20
  This idea of it's not just about making loads of money in ticket
• 27:22
  sales from and popcorn sort of affiliate sales.
• 27:26
  I think it is about bringing people together to celebrate
• 27:29
  something. And that's quite cool.
• 27:30
  You are so desperate to go, aren't you?
• 27:32
  You're so desperate to go. I, I want to go for research
• 27:35
  purposes. I mean, you know.
• 27:36
  You know what? I like that research purposes
• 27:40
  hang on. I need, I need to take someone
• 27:43
  as a fan along, otherwise I'll just look like a weird bloke at
• 27:46
  the back, you know, you need to have someone, someone there who
• 27:49
  who wants to go. I mean, that's, I mean,
• 27:53
  obviously there's a lot, I mean so much money in Taylor Swift's
• 27:57
  orbit. But the, this is something I was
• 28:00
  talking to somebody in the music industry about the other night
• 28:04
  where, you know, we're always saying, well, where is the money
• 28:07
  going? You know, the record companies
• 28:10
  are making a lot of money, particularly out of catalog
• 28:13
  these days and you know, always announcing record profits.
• 28:16
  Part of it though, because if you are, and this is happening
• 28:20
  increasingly, if you are a band, an artist with a bit of a buzz
• 28:26
  round you that a record company think in the long term are going
• 28:30
  to be very investable or are going to make some money.
• 28:33
  Then the size of record deals is going back up again to levels
• 28:37
  which I've not experienced since probably the 90s really.
• 28:41
  I mean I've, I've heard of at least 2 deals recently which
• 28:46
  have been just shy of £1,000,000 and even over here a couple of
• 28:54
  guitar groups have signed for in the region of 350,000 lbs.
• 28:58
  When everyone has got used to the idea that getting an advance
• 29:01
  of £40,000 was, you know, was payday was, was amazing.
• 29:06
  And that's if you're lucky enough to get an advance at all.
• 29:09
  But the but off the back of this and this goes back to the States
• 29:13
  though, then this news came along because there's this
• 29:16
  artist, Zana Monet Zania. Monet.
• 29:21
  Zania Monet has signed a multi $1,000,000 record deal and is
• 29:26
  climbing the US charts, but the only thing here that's going to
• 29:30
  make us all stop and stare is Zania Monet isn't real.
• 29:37
  She's not real, no. This is the latest AI artist.
• 29:42
  So this was an article so OK so this is anyway she's an R&B
• 29:45
  artist created by someone called Talisha Jones.
• 29:48
  So there was a human behind this who made the music on SUNO.
• 29:52
  The controversial AI music service created the artist and
• 29:55
  then a bidding more quotes as high as $3,000,000 began and
• 30:00
  then she signed a multi $1,000,000 to a quote marks
• 30:02
  multi $1,000,000 deal with a company called Hallwood Media,
• 30:05
  which like this new label set up by a former Geffen exec.
• 30:08
  So a guy from the major label world has come out.
• 30:11
  Now, my caveat is both these quotes and figures I think come
• 30:15
  from Hallwood Media itself. And it's a long industry
• 30:17
  tradition of maybe talking up numbers like this to make
• 30:21
  something exciting when maybe, you know, did other major labels
• 30:25
  really bid as high as $3,000,000 or is this kind of part of the
• 30:28
  launch pro? You know, who knows?
• 30:30
  But yet this artist is in the Billboard charts.
• 30:32
  She's had, she had 10 million streams in a week in the US
• 30:34
  There's something there. People are enjoying this music.
• 30:37
  And that was kind of before these articles explaining that
• 30:40
  she wasn't real. So it's maybe one of the first
• 30:44
  one, one of the early examples of, of an AI artist coming
• 30:47
  through that has got some traction, not because they're an
• 30:50
  AI artist, but it's already causing some.
• 30:53
  I thought I saw, is it Kehlani? A couple of artists have come
• 30:56
  out and said we don't think this is good.
• 30:57
  Well, human artists getting these advances, you know, but
• 31:01
  it, it coincided this news with I, I did another interview with
• 31:04
  a guy called John who's maid his artist name is Whitlove, but
• 31:10
  it's a guy called John. He's made the first full length
• 31:13
  AI assisted country album and. Two of my favorite subjects,
• 31:18
  country music and AI coming. Together at last.
• 31:22
  He's made a country and AI assisted country music album.
• 31:27
  I mean, that's surely, surely that's the easiest of all
• 31:32
  musical genres for AI to handle. Isn't it I don't you've you've
• 31:38
  called Taylor Swift Taylor Swift and now you're picking on
• 31:40
  country. I think you're in trouble after
• 31:41
  this episode online. Absolutely, I'm not I'm locking
• 31:44
  the doors and cancelling all my social but but sure, but you
• 31:47
  know what I mean though, because country music has a for the most
• 31:50
  part has has a formula, doesn't it?
• 31:53
  Or or am I out of date? Is is.
• 31:56
  Well, there were there were some strong tropes on it.
• 31:58
  You could say make me some songs about whiskey Dirt Tracks 4 by
• 32:02
  fours. I guess the thing about country
• 32:04
  recently is the interesting stuff has broken out of that.
• 32:07
  So it's more, yeah, like bad sort of by the books.
• 32:13
  Country is easily recordable. Maybe not the news, but yeah,
• 32:16
  this but this guy, so he he wrote all the words for this
• 32:18
  album. And I think that's country,
• 32:20
  particularly the lyrics are really important.
• 32:22
  So, you know, and then he used Suno again to make the music and
• 32:27
  the vocals. So he's not singing on the
• 32:29
  album, but he's written all the the stories, the words, and his
• 32:32
  point of view was, I think that I am an artist, but I just
• 32:36
  couldn't play this music or sing it, but I wanted to get these
• 32:38
  stories out. And so he spent like hundreds of
• 32:41
  hours making this album sooner. So again, it's not like just
• 32:44
  pressing a button make me attract a country track with
• 32:46
  violins on like spent hundreds of hours fiddling.
• 32:50
  And that is what's making me think.
• 32:52
  There's these two projects, these two virtual artists, but
• 32:56
  there's a human behind each of them who's done some creative
• 32:58
  stuff. So in his case, lyrics, in the
• 33:01
  case there's anyone here again, I think lyrics but also creating
• 33:04
  the actual artist in the persona.
• 33:06
  But they're also using Suno, which is still being sued by
• 33:09
  labels. And actually this week labels
• 33:10
  doubled down on their lawsuit and added some new claims in it.
• 33:13
  So it's and and his interview, he actually, yeah, I'm I think
• 33:16
  about these ethics and I would rather have artists be paid for
• 33:20
  their work when they're trained. So there's obviously some he was
• 33:22
  aware of some of the insurance and outs.
• 33:24
  Yeah, I mean, this is interesting though, isn't it?
• 33:26
  Going back to if you've got an AI artist taking up the space of
• 33:30
  an actual human artist in the the charts and being offered,
• 33:34
  you know, millions, allegedly millions of pounds, which could
• 33:38
  have gone, could have been spread around a bunch of
• 33:40
  different artists rather than going to a songwriter.
• 33:43
  But you in this case, on the one hand, he's basically said, you
• 33:48
  know, I, I haven't found the people to make the record with,
• 33:52
  so I've made it with AI. That would be his argument.
• 33:56
  The opposing argument would be you have just put four session
• 34:01
  musicians out of work who could have been the band who could
• 34:05
  have created the music to go with your lyrics.
• 34:09
  You see what I mean? And I'm not I'm not I'm not
• 34:11
  having a go at you, John. I understand this.
• 34:14
  But you know, in some ways being able to do it all yourself means
• 34:18
  you don't have to have constant arguments with a drummer.
• 34:20
  Redundant doesn't play. So I I sort of I sort of get it.
• 34:25
  But those are the arguments because AI, as in this case,
• 34:29
  because this is the over, you know, the overwhelming argument,
• 34:32
  isn't it? How much, how many jobs is AI
• 34:35
  going to kind of wipe out? And in this case it would be
• 34:39
  that the musicians jobs. But as I say, John, I'm not
• 34:42
  having a go at you. I'm not having a go at country
• 34:45
  music. I take everything back.
• 34:47
  You very much were having a go at country music.
• 34:50
  He did say actually he wants to work with humans.
• 34:52
  He hoped this would be a stepping stone to realizing his
• 34:54
  work with humans in the future. So he's.
• 34:55
  OK. All right.
• 34:57
  I think it is a reminder, I think that there are humans
• 35:00
  behind some of these AI artists, but there's also a very, very
• 35:03
  complicated mess of ethical, moral, kind of like a
• 35:08
  philosophical issues around it, which is why I find it so
• 35:10
  fascinating. It's why I like these stories
• 35:12
  looking, talking to those humans and what what they're doing and.
• 35:15
  Why? Let's finish with a stat and a
• 35:18
  story. And finally, this week, why are
• 35:20
  lots of Spotify listeners checking out my humps IN2025I?
• 35:28
  Just want to leave that hanging for a little while.
• 35:31
  To to producer Joe do leave that in, even though if it's edited
• 35:35
  out and put over a piece of music, someone's going to create
• 35:39
  an AI track with just that line on it.
• 35:43
  What's the deal? Yeah, so this is part of so this
• 35:47
  20th anniversary, which I'm sure you were celebrating, of Black
• 35:50
  Eyed Peas, My Humps, which is one of those stats.
• 35:53
  I mean, I I don't like these stats when it reminds you how
• 35:55
  old you are by saying it's 20 years since my humps came out.
• 35:58
  You know, 30 years since this album.
• 36:00
  But yeah. So 2.4 million people have
• 36:03
  discovered Black Eyed Peas for the first time this year through
• 36:06
  my Humps and it's biggest day of streams ever was in June for a
• 36:12
  20 year old track. Which, and apparently 60% of
• 36:15
  those people discovering Black Eyed Peas are Gen.
• 36:17
  Z. So young people, which ties in?
• 36:20
  Do you remember we were talking about Tiktok song of the summer
• 36:22
  earlier earliest month. And the the second biggest song
• 36:26
  on Tiktok song was a 2009 track from Black Eyed Peas.
• 36:29
  So there's this weird thing happening where these old tracks
• 36:32
  by by that kind of group are suddenly for no, there's no big
• 36:37
  reason. It's not like it was in a
• 36:38
  certain Netflix drama or it's not one of those sync stories.
• 36:41
  It's just it's making its way my humps is making its way into the
• 36:44
  ears of a whole new generation. Which is slightly strange to
• 36:47
  think about, but. I know I said that was our final
• 36:50
  story, but can I just mention a couple of listeners who've been
• 36:54
  in touch on the subject of, well, it's it's the it's this
• 36:58
  week's instalment in our great album filing debate.
• 37:02
  So thank you very much. Dave Sparks, who says on the
• 37:05
  subject of filing records, which was brought up on your pod, how
• 37:09
  do you file Ben Folds and Ben Folds 5?
• 37:12
  Obviously Ben Folds goes under F, but Ben Folds 5, being the
• 37:17
  band name, would presumably go under B, But then it feels odd
• 37:22
  having them not together in my own collection, says Dave.
• 37:25
  I followed them both under B and it pains me every time I look at
• 37:30
  it. And same.
• 37:32
  Here I've got lots of Ben Folds, and I think it's B because Ben
• 37:35
  Folds Five came first. You've already got Ben Folds 5
• 37:37
  under B, and when the solo stuff comes out, I think you put it
• 37:40
  next to it like he has. I think he's right there.
• 37:42
  OK, All right. There's an endorsement of your
• 37:44
  taxes there, Dave. Thank you very much, Dave.
• 37:47
  And Ian Beresford, where does Prince go, given he was just a
• 37:50
  symbol? Well, he goes with Chick, Chick,
• 37:53
  Chick and everyone else at the back.
• 37:55
  That's where I'd put Prince. Also those those the albums from
• 37:58
  that era, you don't need to have them with all the good Prince
• 38:01
  albums to need to separate them off.
• 38:04
  And Peter Gage adds to the question from last week, Where
• 38:08
  do you file Van Morrison? Peter?
• 38:10
  Bless you. Lovely to hear from you, Peter.
• 38:12
  Well, the where to file Van Morrison question is very easy
• 38:16
  to answer in the bin, right? We've done Country Van Morrison
• 38:21
  and Taylor Swift this week if you'd like to get involved.
• 38:26
  I'll give you the e-mail address in just a second, but we're out
• 38:29
  of time. Thank you very much for
• 38:30
  listening. If you are enjoying what we're
• 38:31
  trying to do here, please do spread the word.
• 38:34
  Anything from leaving a review to telling some of your friends
• 38:39
  posting on your socials, That would be amazing.
• 38:42
  Alternatively, you can support us via Patreon.
• 38:45
  In fact, if you sign up to be a super fan, you get an extra 1520
• 38:50
  minutes or so of us. That's me and him chatting about
• 38:54
  music and money in a fairly free form kind of way.
• 38:59
  Can we just say hello in fact, and welcome our new super fans?
• 39:02
  Mike Walsh, Bless you, Mike, that's very community minded of
• 39:05
  you and Mark Ayers. Thank you, Mark for your support
• 39:10
  as well. If you would like to join us,
• 39:12
  you can become a super fan of the show at patreon.com/the
• 39:16
  Price of Music. Alternatively, as I say, if you
• 39:19
  just like to get in touch with us, you can use our socials or
• 39:22
  send us an e-mail. Anything you don't understand
• 39:25
  about the industry or how it works or something that you
• 39:29
  think we may know something about, we may be able to make
• 39:32
  sense of for you. Or
• 39:33
  indeedanyguidanceoradvicefromtheprofessionalsitsthepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com, That's the Price of Music
• 39:41
  podcast at gmail.com. Until next time, take care of
• 39:45
  yourselves. Bye for now, goodbye.