Latest / The Price of Music / Major label Universal to make AI-music service with Udio; How did Billie Eilish annoy Billionaires?; Spotify under fire over controversial ICE ads; Why are there no rap tracks in the US Top 40?

Transcript

Major label Universal to make AI-music service with Udio; How did Billie Eilish annoy Billionaires?; Spotify under fire over controversial ICE ads; Why are there no rap tracks in the US Top 40? · 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 enjoys nothing more than pondering the
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  finances and politics of the music industry while we're
• 0:13
  trying to make sense of this weird music landscape we live
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  in. I'm Steve Lamack.
• 0:18
  He's Stuart Dredge. If you want an easy guide to
• 0:20
  what's going on in the music biz and how it all works and how the
• 0:22
  figures stack up, then here we are.
• 0:25
  This week there are no rap records in the American Top 40
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  for the first time in 35 years. Also, why the massive success of
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  the computer game Battlefield 6 is good news for the music
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  industry. Spotify put their prices up.
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  Who's the highest paid dead celebrity of the past year?
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  And top of the pile, Universal Records have done a deal with an
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  AI company that until last week they were taking to court.
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  And that's much more interesting than it possibly sounds, with
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  various possible repercussions. But to start, as always, Stuart
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  has his big stat of the week, which this week is.
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  This week it is 11 and a half, $1,000,000, which is not my fee
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  for doing this podcast. Sadly, this is how much money
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  Billy Eilish is donating to climate and food equity
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  charities from religious world Tour.
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  So she's been on this tour Hit Me Hard and Soft, which is kind
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  of, I think it's going to do about 100 and something concerts
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  around the world. Like it's a massive, massive
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  tour. And it's, I think so far it's
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  grossed around $82.3 million, according to Polestar, the live
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  industry body. So a bit a decent chunk of that,
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  about an eighth is going to go to climate charities, which is
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  like something she's been keen on for a long time.
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  But the best thing about this story is it was announced at
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  this kind of Wall Street Journal conference in New York where she
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  was getting an award. So she's in this room and it's
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  it's a kind of a Wall Street Journal audience.
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  It's full of, like, business moguls.
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  And there were several billionaires there.
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  Like, Mark Zuckerberg was there from Meta.
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  George Lucas, the film director, who's a billionaire, was there.
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  And she got on stage to get this award.
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  And she addressed indirectly and was like, actually got something
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  else to say. I'd say if you have money, it'd
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  be great to use it for good things and maybe give it to some
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  people who need it. Love you all.
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  There's a few people in here who have a lot more money than me.
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  If you're a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?
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  No hate, But yeah, give your money away, which I think like
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  they people think like if you got put face to face with
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  billionaires, you might tell them do something good with your
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  money and she got the chance. She did it.
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  Yeah, so. I mean, it's, I mean, it seems
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  like it's becoming more common. Do you think for artists to
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  donate money from their live touring profits?
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  I mean, Coldplay, obviously another prime example because
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  they've always given a percentage of their tour profits
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  to a selection of different causes.
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  I mean, and also when no one's saying this isn't a laudable
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  thing to do. But as an aside, here's the
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  other thing. What this is doing is, is
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  throwing a lot of light on how much money some of these big
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  tours of the past few years have made.
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  Because I can remember a time when, you know, you get the
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  occasional headline about what a Rolling Stones or U2 tour might
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  have made. But this, this also, I think
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  it's showing how now live music at stadium level, it's never
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  been more popular or profitable, really.
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  So that's what's giving the, you know, giving the artist the
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  opportunity to donate to the causes of their choice.
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  But yeah, that's a massive figure.
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  Billie Eilish, right? Our top three stories this week,
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  selected from the headlines across the music world.
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  I thought it was relatively quiet week to start, but
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  actually it turns out there's quite a quite a lot of news
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  stories for us to talk talk you through.
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  But here's here's our favorite 3 starting with this.
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  Can you talk us through this, Stuart?
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  And then we can examine what it might mean for us as music fans,
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  but also musicians in the rest of the music industry.
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  But one of the first big lawsuits against an AI music
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  company has been settled. And out of this, though,
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  interestingly, has also come plans for a new streaming
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  service with AI creation. At it's heart, this is Universal
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  Music settling with the AI company Udio.
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  It is. So this is one of like you say
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  that there are two, two of the most prominent AI music
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  companies are Udio and Sooner. We've talked about them both,
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  haven't we, quite regularly. And they were both being sued by
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  all three major labels. But then last week, Universal
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  Music said, yeah, we've done a deal.
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  We've settled our lawsuit against Udio and we're working
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  together and yeah, they're going to launch a new, it's a the
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  quote is a music creation, consumption and streaming
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  service. Next year.
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  It's going to be trained only on properly licensed music and
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  labels and artists. We paid not only for the rights
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  to train on their music, but they'll also get paid for the AI
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  tracks that are created using their work.
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  So in theory, every song creating this new service will
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  generate royalties for the the music that was used to train it.
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  And yeah, it was interesting. I mean, there was, there was so
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  universal announced this and said we've settled, it's great,
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  we're all partners now. Lovely people, great bunch of
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  lads, to paraphrase UDO did a blog post saying what they're
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  working on a bit. So they they sort of said you
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  were to make songs in a style of certain artists.
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  You could like, write and make a song in a style of Kendrick
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  Lamar or Blur, whoever you've been, reimagined songs in new
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  genres and mash up different songs and artists.
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  But crucially, only if they're part of this, if they've agreed
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  to have the music be allowed to use this.
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  Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is, I mean, it's
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  going to be, it's a mess of nightmare though, isn't it?
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  For we've talked about this before, but how are you going to
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  keep track of if you're paying out on music which has been
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  trained on, which is, you know, the, the AI is being trained on
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  a particular artist, and then that influence has then been
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  used in another track alongside the influence of another artist.
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  How are you going to pay? How are you going to find ways
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  of paying paying artists and keeping track of all the
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  different bits of AI that's been used?
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  Well, that's it. And I think so.
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  This has been historically an argument where the music
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  industry said, yes, we want to be paid for the stuff that's
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  being created based on our work. And AI companies have sometimes
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  said, well, that's not possible. It's really hard and difficult.
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  And when I've talked to some AI experts who are not on either
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  side, what they say is actually you could do it.
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  You have to just build that in from the beginning.
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  So when you build your AI music service, you have to build that
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  in and say, we want to, it's called attribution is the word
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  that's used by it. We're going to put, so if you.
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  So this is what I think they're building a brand new service and
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  it seems like that will be part of this.
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  And they seem to think it's possible, but there's so many
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  questions around this, like, So what?
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  We don't know awkwardly, given that we're interested in money,
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  we don't know how much Udio paid UMG to settle this lawsuit, if
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  it paid any money upfront. And we don't know how that money
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  may be shared with musicians if there has been a payment.
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  We don't know how the royalties will work for this new service.
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  That's how they've been calculated.
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  And we don't know whether Udio is in talks with other labels to
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  kind of then be part of it, too. I don't think it would be a
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  Universal Music only thing. I I would assume they want to do
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  deals with other labels. And this, this, this kind of
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  this announcement does kind of pave the way for whether video
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  could settle with Universal. Presumably it would like to
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  settle with Water Music Group, Sony Music Group, and then also
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  kind of bring independence in. And the other thing I saw, and
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  there was a Wall Street Journal report on this where they talked
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  to them and that said that it was a little sentencing, like
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  artists who opt in to be part of this.
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  And my ears pricked up at that because that suggests that
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  artists will be able to say, no, I don't want to be part of this
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  if they don't want to. And that's quite a big point.
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  I think that if you're assigned to Universal Music, and I still,
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  even though they've signed a deal, even though they're not
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  being sued anymore, I still don't want to be involved.
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  It suggests that they will have the option to do that.
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  And what's what at the end of the and what do current Udio
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  users think of this deal, the fact that Universal are now
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  involved and obviously the goal posts will move at this point.
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  Yeah. Well, this is the other story
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  part of this, which we've been following this week.
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  So when Udio made this announcement, it said, oh, we're
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  also making some changes. While in the meantime, in the
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  transition period before we launch this new thing next year,
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  we're making some changes. And one change was if you're
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  using Udio to make tracks, you couldn't download them
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  immediately. You could not download them
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  anymore. All you could do is create
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  things and have them within Udio and listen there, but you
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  couldn't download them, for example, to upload them to a
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  streaming service or to work on them.
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  And this has caused a huge protest from users.
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  And some of those users are musicians who say, look, I was
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  creating stuff on Udio to then download and use myself and do
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  more with other people have just seemed quite entitled.
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  So you can sort of see this protest because if you go to
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  udionowitsudio.com and their homepage, it looks quite a lot
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  like Spotify in that you can go and create tracks, but it also
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  shows you what's trending. What are the top tracks other
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  people have created are being listened to.
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  And right now, I'd say about 60 or 70% of the stuff on the
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  homepage that is the most popular are protests with names
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  like fuck Udio and cancelling my account.
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  One's called Udio, exclamation mark UMG, exclamation mark
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  traitors. And I mean, the other thing
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  there was was there's this thread on on the Reddit website.
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  So what happened was Udio then quickly to EU turn said, OK,
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  we're going to let you have two days to download all your stuff
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  you've made. And they announced this on
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  Reddit website and there's a thread of people still
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  complaining and being crossed. And there was one comment that
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  said this is someone who's made tracks and video is now crossed
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  about them not being you robbed me.
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  I don't break into your home, rob you and then ask you to feel
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  sorry for me. And I did think that is someone
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  who's not been following this whole debate about musicians
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  saying, if you've been training on our music without permission,
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  you didn't ask us. And so there's a little bit
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  like, I do get that some people who use Udio are musicians and
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  are just using it to create bits, using their work.
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  And they're now like, if I can't download it, it's all this work
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  is gone. And I get that.
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  But there are quite a few entitled people saying, wow,
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  this is horrible crap. I hate UMGI, hate Udio.
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  And I think they're going to get little sympathy from the music
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  industry. And I suspect that Udio is aware
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  that it may lose those people, but it's better next year.
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  It can do something bigger. I'll be talking.
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  You mentioned, you mentioned Traces.
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  What I found quite interesting is, you know, up until a couple
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  of weeks ago, you had both Udio and Suno both in legal disputes
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  with the music industry, with the major labels and, you know,
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  and, and basically side by side using the same arguments, you
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  know, sticking together. And then Udio simply just swap
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  sides. It's like, it's like watching
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  celebrity traitors. This.
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  Yeah, we're we're right with you all the way, Suno.
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  Oh, by the way, no, we're not. But what happens?
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  What what's going to happen next?
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  Then with, I mean, with, I mean, obviously Suno is still being
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  sued. So will this?
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  Does this, does this? I don't know.
• 10:54
  Does this pave the way for more deals, do you think?
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  Imminently. I think so and I think this is
• 10:59
  the first of of several we're going to see.
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  So I think Universal was quite probably quite keen to go 1st
• 11:07
  and set the standard and say we're doing this.
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  So yeah, I would, I would expect studio to be wanting similar
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  deals. And Suno, I mean Suno has always
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  been the executives. There have always been the more,
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  I guess the more aggressive in public, like they've, they've,
• 11:19
  they've hit back against the labels arguments more, more
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  aggressively. But my, my assumption would be
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  for someone like a SUNO that's raising a lot of money at the
• 11:29
  moment, there's a report we see it's trying to raise hundreds of
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  millions of dollars. It probably doesn't need to have
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  deals and it needs to settle those lawsuits.
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  So yeah, I would, I would suspect that in the coming weeks
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  and months we're going to see a series of deals for these
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  companies, but also for other ones that haven't been sued.
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  So I think we're going to see because that's the other thing.
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  If you're an AI music company that's been doing things by the
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  book, you haven't been using music without permission.
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  You might be sitting there now going hang on a minute.
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  Have you just given the bad guys a head start on us?
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  Can we have that kind of deal? So I think I think you will
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  start to see more of these. And I think when I see musicians
• 12:03
  talking about this, they're in all kinds of two minds about
• 12:07
  this. Like some are saying it's good
• 12:08
  that we're doing deals and this is all going to be legit now.
• 12:11
  And others are saying we're still not sure this is a good
• 12:14
  idea. This could all end badly.
• 12:16
  So there was a lot of, I'd say not unrest as such, but I think
• 12:19
  musicians are really a little bit jittery about what this
• 12:22
  might mean and and whether it's going to be under the control of
• 12:25
  the music industry. Story 2 this week, Well, it's
• 12:28
  just two stories in one really, because while we were bringing
• 12:31
  you our Listeners Questions episode last week, among the
• 12:35
  stories we didn't cover was the Spotify UK price rise notice.
• 12:40
  They waited until we were looking the other way to do
• 12:42
  that. And since then, there's been a
• 12:45
  new boycott of Spotify as well. So these two, well, let's start
• 12:48
  with the price hike. You don't get, you don't get a
• 12:52
  price rise for years. And now it seems that Spotify
• 12:56
  are more confident in their ability to raise the price.
• 13:01
  Yeah, it's like buses, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, in the UK it's got
• 13:05
  the price to go up by quid. So it was 1199 a month, now it's
• 13:07
  1299. And if you're in a family plan,
• 13:10
  it's gone up from 1999 to 2199. And I think it's happening in
• 13:14
  Switzerland as well. And there's reports that the US
• 13:16
  may get similar rises early next year.
• 13:19
  And yeah, this is kind of what the music Commission had been
• 13:21
  calling for. Like you say, like it went a
• 13:23
  long time when stream music was 999 a month and never rose and
• 13:28
  labels across that. And I think what the music
• 13:30
  industry has been calling for is like, actually raise the price
• 13:32
  quite regularly. Do what Netflix does and put the
• 13:34
  price up every year, you know, And so far, whenever Spotify and
• 13:39
  its rivals have put prices up, there hasn't been this huge
• 13:41
  drain of people cancelling their accounts.
• 13:43
  People have seemed to be swallowing it.
• 13:45
  I mean, we are in like a cost of living moment still.
• 13:49
  So I think they won't take this lightly.
• 13:51
  They'll be watching very carefully to see if this is the
• 13:53
  quid that, you know, puts people over the edge.
• 13:56
  But I mean as a family, not not as a as a news person, as a fan.
• 14:01
  1299 a month for the entire history of music is still a
• 14:03
  pretty good deal I think. And, and, and that's, that's the
• 14:09
  good, I guess the good news for Spotify.
• 14:12
  There's lots of other Spotify related stories around this week
• 14:17
  being sued by people who say they're making money out of
• 14:21
  fraud. But what about what about this
• 14:23
  one? Tell us about Spotify and ICE.
• 14:27
  Yeah, this has been bubbling for a while.
• 14:29
  So the this is all about recruitment ads running on
• 14:32
  Spotify from ICE, which is the US immigration, is it
• 14:35
  Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency?
• 14:37
  I think so. This is the people who've been
• 14:40
  detaining and deporting people in immigration raids.
• 14:43
  And this has become a real focus of protest this year, hasn't it,
• 14:45
  against Donald Trump in the US in these raids.
• 14:48
  And so now ICE is running into recruitment and it's basically
• 14:50
  saying join us, you know, we need to recruit people.
• 14:53
  Some of these ads are targeting former policemen saying you
• 14:56
  don't you don't get to kind of you think we're not doing enough
• 14:59
  to get rid of immigrants to come and join us and kick them out.
• 15:02
  Like it's, it's quite it's the rhetoric isn't nice.
• 15:05
  And he's ads and they've been running on Spotify, but also in
• 15:08
  other places. They're running on YouTube and
• 15:10
  across like Facebook and LinkedIn and who.
• 15:12
  So it's not just a Spotify thing, but Spotify seems to be
• 15:15
  the one that's getting it a neck.
• 15:18
  So this this movement called indivisible.
• 15:21
  And it's one of the people who were involved in these recent no
• 15:23
  kings protests. And if you saw that on the news,
• 15:27
  So it was a it was a protest in the US across like a bunch of
• 15:30
  cities and people came out, I think 7 million people on the
• 15:32
  streets basically saying no kings, which is essentially
• 15:35
  saying we don't want a dictator in the US, we don't want a
• 15:38
  monarch. So it's an anti Trump Brit.
• 15:40
  It's a very big one. And this campaign is called
• 15:43
  don't stream fascism, cancel Spotify.
• 15:46
  So it's quite on the nose. And they're demanding that
• 15:48
  Spotify stop running these ads and calling on people to cancel
• 15:52
  their subscriptions if it doesn't.
• 15:55
  And this this movement indivisible, they have a million
• 15:57
  members. So it's it's quite a big thing.
• 16:00
  And it's asking those members not just to cancel Spotify, but
• 16:02
  also to tag in artists and labels on social media and try
• 16:05
  and kind of raise awareness of this.
• 16:07
  So it's a weird moment for Spotify because it's not the
• 16:11
  only place these ads are running.
• 16:12
  And it's a government advertising campaign.
• 16:14
  You know, most countries, when the government runs public
• 16:16
  information campaigns, you know, everyone runs them because it's
• 16:18
  not controversial. And it's it gave a statement a
• 16:21
  few weeks ago when this started the bubble saying, so basically
• 16:24
  this is a government campaign. It doesn't break our rules,
• 16:26
  doesn't break any rules of our platform for advertising, which
• 16:30
  is correct. But that doesn't seem to be
• 16:32
  getting it off the hook. And it's kind of caught in this
• 16:35
  hard place now where there were protests about having these ads.
• 16:38
  But if it pulls them, given the way Donald Trump is, it could
• 16:42
  have a vengeful president, you know, on its back.
• 16:45
  So the companies haven't just figure out what it has to do
• 16:47
  anything or my suspicion is this ad campaign will come to a
• 16:50
  natural end and that will save it the problem of having to
• 16:53
  decide whether to pull them or not.
• 16:54
  But yeah, it's coming so soon after all the talk about arms
• 16:58
  dealing and the arms investments of Spotify CEO, it's really have
• 17:02
  facing this challenge now of people saying you are the bad
• 17:04
  guys. First it was arms investments.
• 17:07
  Now it's running ads for the immigration agency.
• 17:09
  So yeah, it's a real, it's a public relations moment of of a
• 17:13
  challenge for Spotify. Story 3 How long is it since
• 17:18
  we've done a tech startup story Must be weeks now, but a new
• 17:22
  tech startup in the UK wants to help musicians poison their own
• 17:28
  recordings. Not in not in the way you might
• 17:31
  be thinking. How does how does, how does this
• 17:34
  work? What is what is this about?
• 17:36
  It's because it was complicated when I read it.
• 17:40
  Yeah, so this is like we did a thing recently, we're running a
• 17:42
  contest at musical at the moment.
• 17:44
  We're sort of picking new start-ups.
• 17:46
  This is a brand new one in the UK And yet poison pill,
• 17:48
  basically it's about musicians who are like, we don't want to
• 17:51
  have our music used to train AIS without permission.
• 17:55
  And so I mean, I don't know how much I had to learn this term,
• 17:58
  this this poison pill term in the financial world is when I
• 18:00
  come to someone who's trying to buy a company, you don't want to
• 18:03
  be bought. You kind of, you do a poison
• 18:05
  pill clause, which basically means if they buy you, it's
• 18:07
  going to be really harmful for them.
• 18:09
  It costs them much money. So it's kind of a thing of like
• 18:12
  I've got a thing I don't want to be bought or in this case used
• 18:15
  to train, so I'm going to poison it.
• 18:17
  So I had to look into this. This starter is basically going
• 18:21
  to insert this technology called adversarial noise algorithms,
• 18:26
  which basically is a sort of a silent thing you insert into the
• 18:29
  music that basically books any AI trying to train on it.
• 18:34
  Really. Yeah.
• 18:35
  So it's kind of it doesn't you couldn't tell it you if you're
• 18:38
  listening to it, you don't hear anything different.
• 18:40
  But if you're an AI scraping it, it's kind of trying to confuse
• 18:43
  you, trying to make you, you know, not.
• 18:45
  So it's it's it's a really it's a clever sounding thing.
• 18:47
  I mean, I don't, I don't have the technology to know if it
• 18:49
  works, but it was fascinating to me that that's an idea.
• 18:52
  OK, right. We can't, we maybe can't stop a
• 18:54
  companies getting on music if they want to, but they can get
• 18:57
  they can download it illegally off there, but we can insert
• 19:00
  this stuff into it. That makes it just kind of
• 19:02
  confuses. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:06
  Any other business this week, there's quite, there's quite a
• 19:09
  lot of any other business. I think you, you wanted to
• 19:12
  mention, you wanted to mention Aussie Fire, Al Aussie Fire Algo
• 19:18
  mate back to Australia where I mean this is, I mean follows on
• 19:23
  from a story we did the other week.
• 19:25
  Really, it's trying to this is another way or another campaign
• 19:29
  to try and protect Australian musicians and boost their local
• 19:34
  music economy. That's it.
• 19:36
  So they've been worrying in Australia about how local
• 19:38
  artists have been getting a lower share of streams.
• 19:41
  There's been this talk about, well, should the government step
• 19:43
  in and make streaming services playlist them more and make
• 19:46
  strings recommend them more. But this is another, another
• 19:49
  solution to the problem. I really like it.
• 19:51
  So it's it's yeah, otify your algo.
• 19:53
  It's telling music fans, look, if you go and search for
• 19:56
  Australian artists on your streaming service and if you
• 19:58
  play them and save them and follow them, you'll be giving
• 20:01
  their algorithms a strong message of like, find me more
• 20:03
  like this. I want to hear Australian music.
• 20:06
  And that is how this works. Like if you do search for
• 20:10
  anything. Like if you search for a certain
• 20:11
  genre. It will say, ah, I see you like
• 20:13
  that, I'll recommend you more of that.
• 20:15
  And so it's kind of a positive, constructive way of tackling
• 20:19
  this problem of, of lower, lower streaming share for Australian
• 20:22
  artists. And they've got a bunch of of
• 20:24
  independent artists who are backing this as well.
• 20:27
  And yeah, it's just, I don't know, I think it's a really
• 20:30
  clever idea and I think it's something other around the world
• 20:32
  people could do where, where people are worried about, well,
• 20:35
  local artists here aren't getting as much priority as they
• 20:37
  should be. You can say the government
• 20:40
  should step in and that becomes a big argument, but actually you
• 20:42
  can get artists to go and explain it to fans and say,
• 20:44
  look, if you search for us and save us, you'll hear more and
• 20:47
  you'll hear discover more great bands.
• 20:48
  So yeah. Good idea.
• 20:51
  Here's here's something which I noticed on I think Stereo
• 20:55
  Gunwal, one of the people to pick up on this.
• 20:57
  There's no rap records in the American Top 40 this week, and I
• 21:02
  don't think there were last week either.
• 21:03
  So no rap songs in the Billboard Top 40.
• 21:07
  I mean there's 12 Taylor Swift songs I noticed in the US Top
• 21:10
  40. But it's yeah, I mean it's a
• 21:14
  really long time since you know, Billboard had 0 rap songs.
• 21:18
  It's like 35 the exact the dates.
• 21:20
  I can tell you the last time there were no hip hop songs in
• 21:23
  the Billboard Top 40 was February the 2nd, 1990.
• 21:28
  And I mean, part of this, according to commentators, is
• 21:32
  down to a recent Billboard chart rule change, which revolves
• 21:38
  around moving singles from being current to being recurrent,
• 21:42
  which as I understand it is. Well, when that happens, songs
• 21:46
  are essentially barred from the top 100.
• 21:48
  And it's, it's quite a complicated sliding scale.
• 21:50
  But for instance, if your song is below #25 in the chart and
• 21:57
  it's been around for more than 26 weeks, then that's it.
• 22:02
  It's it's Cheerio. It used to be 52 weeks.
• 22:05
  So a song is current for 52 weeks, which means that a lot of
• 22:09
  hip hop songs were just hanging. The bigger anthems are hanging
• 22:12
  around all year. But now if you below #25 in the
• 22:16
  charts after 26 weeks, that's it.
• 22:19
  Off you pop. So that's wiped out a host of
• 22:22
  rap songs. But it also, I mean, it also
• 22:25
  begs the question, aside from Drake and Kendrick Lamar
• 22:28
  journalists in the States, critics are saying, well, where
• 22:31
  are the rap superstars? And, you know, because one of
• 22:34
  the reasons we mentioned this is in terms of dollar, hip hop has
• 22:39
  been such a powerful force for three decades, but currently
• 22:43
  it's got nothing to stand up to to Taylor Swift or Sabrina
• 22:46
  Carpenter or or even K pop demon hunters.
• 22:50
  So is this, is this a giant source?
• 22:52
  Is this, I guess, is this a, what is this a sea change in?
• 22:57
  You know, just as rock music kind of fell out of favour in
• 23:00
  the American mainstream, is it happening to hip hop now or is
• 23:04
  it just a blip? Well, all of the above.
• 23:08
  I mean, you you put your finger on it with K pop, you know
• 23:11
  Taylor Swift, so Taylor Swift have got 12 songs K pop Demon
• 23:13
  Hunter has got 7 songs in Top 40.
• 23:15
  So that is 19 in the Top 40 gone to those two things.
• 23:18
  So it's the moment if Drake pops out an album tomorrow, he'd
• 23:21
  probably have 12 songs in the Top 40 next week and we wouldn't
• 23:24
  be talking about this so much. So to some extent it is that the
• 23:27
  big tempo releases I think there are.
• 23:30
  So I think Cardi B had an album recently and that's not in the
• 23:33
  Top 40 at the moment. But I mean, so yeah, there is
• 23:37
  there is a moment of this blip at the moment.
• 23:39
  The pop is having a huge and I actually looked at Spotify's
• 23:42
  global chart and pop is having a huge moment.
• 23:44
  Like you say, it's Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, K Pop Demon
• 23:47
  Hunters, Olivia Dean. This is this is what's happening
• 23:53
  in this month. But I think it was Billboard had
• 23:57
  some stats. So I think in 2020 was the peak
• 24:00
  of hip hop in terms of its share of overall listening.
• 24:02
  And it was nearly 30% in the US then, and now it's 24%, but it's
• 24:07
  still nearly 1/4. So it's still a lot of
• 24:10
  listening. It's just that it's spread out
• 24:12
  and it's below the Top 40 at the moment.
• 24:15
  Yeah, I think, I think that's why that's part of the point,
• 24:17
  isn't it? It's is without big, without the
• 24:22
  big names, the the next wave of artists.
• 24:26
  If no one is going from being quite big to massive, then
• 24:30
  you've got lots of quite big artists.
• 24:32
  But none of those are making it into the Top 40.
• 24:36
  Just what I mean. And they're the they're the
• 24:38
  trailblazer. And this obviously is sort of
• 24:39
  what happened with rock music to a certain extent as well.
• 24:42
  Yeah. And seeing as it's sick, isn't
• 24:44
  it, I think that like something has predominance for a while and
• 24:46
  everyone goes, Oh my God, no one likes guitars anymore.
• 24:50
  And then and then it eventually comes back and I think that's
• 24:53
  what's happening. I think the other thing is that
• 24:56
  in the pop world, people have learnt from what made hip hop
• 24:59
  artists so popular in 2020. I think some of the strategies
• 25:03
  and the approaches to streaming have have spread out.
• 25:06
  So I think again, it's the case of everyone is learning to do
• 25:10
  streaming like hip hop stars did.
• 25:11
  And so you have a right there. I mean, the other thing is just
• 25:14
  weird stuff. I mean, I was looking at the
• 25:15
  Spotify chart and it's all Taylor Swift cable to your
• 25:18
  hands. Pop hip hop were very low.
• 25:21
  And then Radiohead's Creep is the 28th biggest song in the
• 25:23
  world on Spotify right now. I was like, why is that?
• 25:26
  To your point about rock music seeming out of fashion suddenly
• 25:29
  Creepers back in the top 30s? So yeah, but I think I think
• 25:34
  it's like you said, I think there's a lot of, and I was, I
• 25:38
  was, I was watching some people talk about this.
• 25:40
  I think there's a lot of really interesting great stuff being
• 25:43
  done hip on them, which isn't at the superstar level.
• 25:45
  But in a way, I think we're in a moment of some really
• 25:49
  interesting stuff coming in from the margins and the niche, the
• 25:53
  kind of edgy stuff. And Drake is not releasing his
• 25:56
  new album yet. Kendrick Lamar is not releasing
• 25:58
  when the big superstars come back, though, back in the
• 26:01
  charts. But yeah, it's a, it's a weird
• 26:03
  thing. I didn't know it's 30, five
• 26:04
  years. That's a long run.
• 26:05
  Isn't it? Yeah, isn't it?
• 26:08
  As always, your thoughts please or industry insiders, do let us
• 26:12
  know what you think is going on and should we do more in the way
• 26:15
  of chart regulation here? By the way, to
• 26:17
  help.freshenupthechartthepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com new video game Battlefield 6
• 26:23
  sold 7 million copies in just three days.
• 26:28
  Why is that now good news for the music industry?
• 26:32
  Yeah, 7 million copies. It's a Taylor Swift of the
• 26:34
  gaming world, but we'd like more guns and explosions.
• 26:38
  A few more guns and explosions. Yeah.
• 26:39
  So I mean, I play football games mainly.
• 26:41
  Like, I'm terrible at games involving running and shooting.
• 26:44
  So Battlefield is not my game, but it's a lot of people's game.
• 26:47
  It's like the one of the biggest releases this year.
• 26:50
  And yet when it came into my orbit was after launch, the
• 26:53
  publisher, EA, they added these radio stations to the game.
• 26:56
  So now you can be yomping around with the guns while listening to
• 27:00
  music. Radio stations.
• 27:01
  I think it's a rock, pop, rap, electronic, which is kind of
• 27:05
  something I associate with the Grand Theft Auto games.
• 27:08
  They really popularized the of having in game radio stations
• 27:11
  where whatever you're doing, you're, it's not just a
• 27:13
  soundtrack, it's actually a radio, you know, a studio radio
• 27:17
  station. So, yeah, so now all those 7
• 27:20
  million people are going to be hearing whichever artists have
• 27:23
  been chosen to go on these stations in game, right?
• 27:26
  There you go. And finally for this week, and I
• 27:31
  think this, this broke the day we're today, the day we're
• 27:34
  recording this week's episode on the Tuesday.
• 27:39
  Tell us about this new chart of the highest paid dead
• 27:43
  celebrities. That's the highest paid dead
• 27:46
  celebrities of 2025. Who is in this chart and who's
• 27:51
  right at the top? Yeah, it's a chart no one wants
• 27:54
  to be in. And they think, yeah, do you
• 27:56
  know, this has been going for like 25 years, actually, I'd
• 27:59
  never heard of it before. Yeah, it's Forbes, which is
• 28:02
  obviously Forbes. Whole thing is counting money
• 28:04
  for whether it's billionaires or musicians.
• 28:07
  And so, yeah, the top of the chart is we're not surprised if
• 28:10
  anyone who follows these things, it's Michael Jackson.
• 28:13
  And estimated how much. How much money did Michael
• 28:16
  Jackson make being dead? So $105 million this year, which
• 28:22
  is obviously music royalties, but also there's like 5
• 28:25
  productions of the jukebox musical based on his music and
• 28:28
  there's a Las Vegas, so it's a Late Show.
• 28:30
  So it's all kinds of stuff there.
• 28:31
  And apparently so he died in 2009 and in the 16 years since
• 28:36
  his death of four years, he's been top of this chart for 13 of
• 28:39
  them. So it gives you a sense of, you
• 28:42
  know how just how big a money making thing and I think Forbes
• 28:46
  had a number for it. Let me just check it out.
• 28:47
  It was, I think it's three, 3 1/2 billion dollars since his
• 28:53
  death. Ryan I.
• 28:54
  Was earnings. And are there any other
• 28:57
  musicians in this chart? I mean, coming back to hip hop,
• 29:02
  are there any of the the hip hop stars who have passed?
• 29:05
  Are they are they still popular and making money?
• 29:08
  Yeah, there are. So Doctor Zeus, well, not a hip
• 29:10
  hop star, Dr. Zeus is in second place.
• 29:12
  So it's not just physicians. But then so Pink Floyd's Rick
• 29:15
  Wright and Sid Barrett are in 3rd place jointly with
• 29:17
  $81,000,000, which I think may be related to the sale of their
• 29:20
  catalog. Like if you sell cattle for a
• 29:23
  lot of money, it's some of yours to shoot up this thing.
• 29:25
  Notorious BIG is in there as well.
• 29:28
  He made $80 million this year, and then Miles Davis, Elvis
• 29:31
  Presley, Jimmy Buffet, Bob Marley and John Lennon are in
• 29:34
  the top ten. So the top 10 is mainly
• 29:36
  musicians and it's to do with royalties and catalog sales.
• 29:43
  And there you go, that is the posthumous pop chart for 2025.
• 29:50
  And that's it from us for this week.
• 29:53
  Thank you very much for listening.
• 29:55
  As always, if you are enjoying what we're trying to do here,
• 29:57
  please do spread the word. Tell your friends, leave us a
• 29:59
  review online. Alternatively, you can support
• 30:03
  us via Patreon. In fact, if you sign up to be a
• 30:06
  super fan, you get an extra. I don't have 1520 minutes or so
• 30:10
  of me and him chatting about music and money this week.
• 30:14
  That may well include the Lily Allen album, UK album charts and
• 30:20
  the Rules around the UK album chart and quite possibly gigs
• 30:24
  and value for money. We might get to that as well.
• 30:27
  You can become a super fan of the show at patreon.com, The
• 30:32
  Price of Music. Alternatively, if you'd just
• 30:34
  like to get in touch with us, it'd be lovely to hear from you.
• 30:37
  You can use our socials or send us an e-mail.
• 30:39
  Anything that you don't understand about the industry
• 30:42
  and how it works or anything that's you think we might be
• 30:47
  able to make sense of for you, or indeed any guidance or advice
• 30:51
  from the professionals. The e-mail address
• 30:53
  onceagainthepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks again everybody.
• 30:58
  See you next week, Torah.