Latest / The Price of Music / Radiohead's twenty-show limit; Spotify lets you tweak its algorithm; Steve's SXSW debrief; BTS' mega-livestream; and... Salt-n-Pepa!

Transcript

Radiohead's twenty-show limit; Spotify lets you tweak its algorithm; Steve's SXSW debrief; BTS' mega-livestream; and... Salt-n-Pepa! · The Price of Music

• 0:03
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music
• 0:06
  Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the music
• 0:09
  industry. We'll also bring you stories and
• 0:11
  comments about the past week in the pop business.
• 0:14
  He's Stuart Dredge. I'm Steve Lemack if you want an
• 0:16
  easy guide to what's going on in the music industry and how it
• 0:20
  all works. Then here we are reunited after
• 0:24
  last week when I was away in the States for the South by
• 0:26
  Southwest Festival, of which more later.
• 0:28
  But let's start, as always, with a financial facts.
• 0:31
  You can amaze your friends or colleagues with Stuart's big
• 0:35
  number for this week. What is it, Stuart?
• 0:37
  OK, big numbers week with the caveat that it may be completely
• 0:40
  made-up is 300 million and that is how many people reportedly
• 0:46
  watched the Netflix live stream this weekend of BT s s comeback
• 0:50
  concert. 300 million people watching which this in the times
• 0:55
  and Telegraph, but it didn't have a source so Netflix haven't
• 0:59
  confirmed it yet, but this was their their come out.
• 1:01
  They played a gig in in South Korea and it was stream live on
• 1:04
  Netflix and I think it makes it probably the biggest live stream
• 1:08
  of all time by do. You know how much Netflix
• 1:11
  Netflix paid for the privilege of having the rights to this?
• 1:17
  I don't know how much, but I mean, I would think it's a
• 1:19
  normal sum because they've also got the exclusive documentary
• 1:22
  about BTS coming back and that goes live later this week.
• 1:25
  So it's like a real, it's a double pronged Netflix sort of
• 1:28
  special. And the funniest thing was, I
• 1:32
  mean, so the new album Ary Rang came out on Friday, probably one
• 1:36
  of the biggest released of the year.
• 1:38
  And at the weekend every single big streaming service on
• 1:41
  Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon, they all posted on Instagram
• 1:44
  saying it's broken all our records like 1 after the other
• 1:47
  sort of competing to show how big BTS are on their service.
• 1:51
  Right, right. And I mean, do you, do you think
• 1:54
  with this TV deal or do you think that's there will be more
• 1:58
  of these type of deals then to come in the future?
• 2:03
  I think so. So Netflix also recently had the
• 2:05
  Harry Styles comeback gig. They didn't stream it live, but
• 2:07
  they kind of filmed it and put it on Netflix two days later.
• 2:11
  So they're doing more music stuff and they're doing more
• 2:13
  live stuff. Like, I don't know how closely
• 2:15
  you follow the world of pretend boxing matches.
• 2:18
  Not very closely is the answer. A couple of years ago, they had
• 2:21
  that influence of Jake Paul and fought Mike Tyson and Netflix
• 2:25
  through that. And at the time they said that
• 2:27
  fight, and I say fight, I mean, it was like, you know, when
• 2:30
  people get what, you know, men fight in pubs because they're
• 2:33
  drunk. Imagine if they were so drunk
• 2:35
  they're just sleepy and lazily pouring at each other.
• 2:37
  It was like that. But apparently 108 million
• 2:40
  people watched that live, Netflix said at the time.
• 2:43
  So it's they're. Kind of into these big things
• 2:45
  big. Things.
• 2:46
  I mean, I find it interesting because, you know, it is it's AI
• 2:50
  mean it's a favorite famous adage, isn't it?
• 2:52
  In the world of TV that music doesn't really rate.
• 2:56
  And this has played out with, well, the, I mean the, the
• 2:59
  termination of so many music shows in the end, certainly
• 3:04
  during the the 80s, we were better represented musically on
• 3:08
  TV in the 70s and 80s with the likes of the Old Grey Whistle
• 3:11
  Test and Revolve, all sorts of shows even into the 90s from the
• 3:15
  White Room and various experiments in trying to bring
• 3:18
  music to TV, all of which obviously came to an end.
• 3:23
  But I wonder if this suggests then that there is an appetite
• 3:26
  for music on TV, or at least there is if the if the artist is
• 3:31
  a big enough draw. But I wonder if there'll be any
• 3:34
  knock on effect of of this sort of success, this level of
• 3:39
  success when it comes to TV controllers and their thoughts
• 3:42
  around music. You know, because there was a
• 3:44
  moment a few years ago, I think, when Netflix got really big into
• 3:47
  stand up comedy and they started commissioning all these
• 3:49
  specials. And as a comedian, a Netflix
• 3:51
  deal was a really good thing for you because you could make
• 3:53
  decent money from. Putting them so.
• 3:55
  So it'd be interesting if they do go on that.
• 3:57
  So, so far done Harry Styles, done BTS.
• 4:00
  I wonder if they yeah, like you say, have they got ambitions to
• 4:03
  do a music show, performances show?
• 4:05
  Or is it to be the biggest artist they can get for live?
• 4:07
  Streams. Yeah.
• 4:08
  I suspect that's it's the latter, right?
• 4:10
  Three talking points from the past week.
• 4:12
  The first one, Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien has
• 4:15
  revealed the band's new way of planning tours. 20 shows each
• 4:19
  year. No more, no less.
• 4:22
  That's that's what we're going to do.
• 4:24
  Just going to put it, we're just going to tell you we're going to
• 4:26
  do 20 shows. Once those 20 have gone, they're
• 4:29
  gone. That's a lot, yeah.
• 4:31
  Would you remember like this is what happened last year, but
• 4:33
  they didn't say at the time, but but they did five.
• 4:35
  It was Madrid. Wasn't Madrid, London,
• 4:38
  Copenhagen, I think Berlin and somewhere in Italy, Bologna, I
• 4:41
  think it was five nights each. And so Ed was doing this
• 4:45
  interview about his new solo album and the journalist as you
• 4:47
  as they do so as as fast as were politely turned the conversation
• 4:52
  around to Radiohead. And yeah, he was saying, yeah,
• 4:55
  every year we're going to do a different continent and we'll do
• 4:57
  20 shows a year. So they give Europe last year,
• 5:01
  they're not doing anything this year, he said, but then next to
• 5:03
  you, they probably will. And so it'll probably be maybe
• 5:05
  North America or Latin America or Asia.
• 5:09
  And I love the quote he said. He said we're not spring
• 5:11
  chickens anymore. We can't do those kind of
• 5:14
  endless, endless tours. And they want to put their all
• 5:16
  into it. And it's interesting because it
• 5:18
  was also he was talking about that we want to put our all into
• 5:20
  our performance. We really want to make it a make
• 5:22
  show. I mean, I wonder how festivals
• 5:25
  fit into that. Like how far how how how
• 5:28
  breakable is the 20 shows rule if Glastonbury comes in and says
• 5:33
  how about playing next year and Radiohead around North American
• 5:36
  year and they've done 20 shows already.
• 5:37
  Like I hope there's some wiggle room there for them to play
• 5:39
  other things one offs. OK, um, secondly, well, last
• 5:43
  week saw the launch of the annual global music reports from
• 5:48
  the industry body IFPI, and it revealed how much money the
• 5:52
  industry made from recorded music last year.
• 5:55
  And that was how much? It was $31.7 billion.
• 6:01
  So this is like I say, it's recorded music.
• 6:03
  It's not live, it's not publishing, it's just the
• 6:05
  recordings bit. But it was up 6.4%, which is
• 6:09
  faster growth than the year before.
• 6:11
  And that's one of the stories we took away is that everything
• 6:13
  growth has been slowing down, but now it's speeding up a bit.
• 6:16
  And then here's the, I mean, it's just full of big numbers.
• 6:18
  I could do all these all at the beginning of the show, couldn't
• 6:20
  I? But I think it's now 837 million
• 6:23
  people using paid streaming subscriptions, which is up from
• 6:27
  702,000,000 the year before. So about 85,000,000 new people
• 6:31
  on a paid streaming thing last year.
• 6:34
  And then vinyl was the other start that jumped out.
• 6:35
  So vinyl sales grew by 13.7% and it's the 19th year in a row
• 6:41
  they've grown. And you know, people keep up.
• 6:43
  I keep seeing people saying well, surely this final boom is
• 6:46
  going to end sometime. It can't go on forever.
• 6:48
  But it's been 19 years now and it's still double digit growth
• 6:51
  like it's the real success story.
• 6:54
  I mean, obviously this is a global thing.
• 6:56
  I was thinking about this because what would I be right in
• 6:59
  thinking this the increase and because obviously you know, the,
• 7:04
  the figures of the figures are up.
• 7:05
  But are they up because, well, partly because of the expansion
• 7:09
  of music streaming or the increase in popularity of music
• 7:13
  streaming in, in emerging markets.
• 7:16
  So is it? It's not necessary.
• 7:17
  You could have countries which are plateauing, but the figure
• 7:21
  goes up around the world, worlds not necessarily led by America
• 7:24
  or the traditional European markets.
• 7:26
  It's because other places in the world are catching up and those
• 7:29
  are where the new listeners or streamers are coming from.
• 7:32
  Yeah, definitely. They gave they sort of gave,
• 7:34
  they had a launch event and they gave some of the stats out and I
• 7:36
  think it was, I think every and what was it?
• 7:39
  There was, I can't be how many countries they cover in this
• 7:41
  report, but all but one of them grew last year.
• 7:45
  OK. And I think the one that didn't
• 7:46
  grow, it was probably more to do with currency fluctuations
• 7:49
  because that's these things quite.
• 7:50
  Right, right. But yeah, I think so.
• 7:52
  The big place this Europe, North America, Asia, they're growing,
• 7:55
  growing still, but slower. Yeah, it is like the Middle
• 7:58
  East. It's Latin America, Africa.
• 8:02
  So yeah, in that sense, it's it's exciting.
• 8:04
  And one of the things that came across there was, yeah, it's
• 8:06
  exciting. It's growth all over the place.
• 8:08
  It's not just one market or one kind of music.
• 8:11
  So the other thing, actually China was the other thing that
• 8:14
  stood out from this. So China is now the fourth
• 8:17
  biggest recorded music market in the world.
• 8:19
  It overtook Germany last year. So you've got the US is top
• 8:23
  biggest, Japan is second and the UK is third.
• 8:26
  And Germany has always been 4th and those were the kind of
• 8:28
  biggest 4. But now China say it wasn't in
• 8:31
  the top 10A decade ago and now it's 4th, which is says
• 8:34
  something else about how things are changing.
• 8:35
  Because a decade ago or maybe a bit longer, China was basically
• 8:40
  a music piracy sort of like wasteland, like there was no
• 8:43
  money to be made in selling music there.
• 8:46
  Now it's the fourth biggest market in the world and
• 8:48
  everyone's quite excited about that.
• 8:50
  Here's a bit of good news. Back in Blighty, the British
• 8:53
  government has U turned on its preferred plan for regulating
• 8:56
  the way AIS can be trained on music and other forms of art.
• 9:01
  So this is, this must be this is good news for the music
• 9:04
  industry, is it? It is, yeah.
• 9:06
  So it's been bubbling for a while that the government's sort
• 9:08
  of figuring out, like every other government, what do we do
• 9:10
  about AI and copyright. And if AI company's going, we
• 9:13
  just want to Hoover up all the music, all the TV shows, all the
• 9:15
  books and train our models. And you've got the industry
• 9:18
  saying you need to ask permission and pay us.
• 9:21
  And this report came out last year where the government said
• 9:23
  we've got a few options here, but here's our preferred option,
• 9:26
  which was to say basically they could train on everything unless
• 9:29
  the rights holder, so the labels in our case had opted out and
• 9:32
  said, no, you can't train our music.
• 9:34
  And it was worth it. It reminded me of like, I mean,
• 9:37
  I'm a parent of two children. There were times when I was
• 9:39
  parenting them when I'd be like, I found a great compromise and
• 9:43
  everyone hated me because no one liked it because this, this,
• 9:46
  this, this option. I think the music industry hated
• 9:48
  us saying it was too, too much power to the AI companies to let
• 9:52
  them train everything unless you opt out.
• 9:54
  And the AI companies didn't like it either because they were
• 9:57
  like, this is too tight. We want looser rules.
• 10:00
  And essentially the government put this report out last week
• 10:02
  saying, yeah, no one likes it. No one can agree what we should
• 10:05
  do either. So we're going back to square 1
• 10:08
  and we're they're going to try and figure it out.
• 10:11
  So it was one of those stories where like the government
• 10:13
  announces it's kind of easy, U-turn like the thing we wanted
• 10:15
  to do, we're not going to do. And the music industry went
• 10:18
  hurray, you know, this is great news is a victory for our
• 10:20
  campaign because I don't know if you remember a bunch of famous
• 10:23
  musicians, Dua Leppard, all kinds of people came out and
• 10:25
  said, we think this is terrible, don't do it.
• 10:28
  It was a quite an organised campaign, but it doesn't mean
• 10:33
  it's not going to happen. It just means that the
• 10:34
  government is going right back to the drawing board and saying
• 10:36
  we don't know what to do yet. So what they eventually decide
• 10:39
  to do could still be bad for the music industry.
• 10:41
  It could still. But yeah, there was a kind of a
• 10:44
  mini celebration. And actually at this IFPI event
• 10:47
  last week, the boss of the IFPI, Victoria Oakley, was asked about
• 10:51
  this. And she said she thinks that
• 10:53
  governments and politicians are coming round to the music
• 10:56
  industry's arguments. So for a while they thought, oh,
• 10:58
  God, they're going to go towards the AI companies.
• 11:00
  They're going to say, yeah, train on whatever you want
• 11:02
  because AI is our future. And she said that they think
• 11:06
  they've been looking at what the music industry been doing, for
• 11:08
  example, signing deals with the AI companies and doing
• 11:11
  partnerships. And she reckons that is having
• 11:13
  an effect and that politicians are saying, OK, not so fast,
• 11:17
  let's figure out a way to do something that doesn't hurt
• 11:20
  musicians. So there is a good little trend
• 11:23
  there for the industry, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't
• 11:25
  suddenly swing again in the future.
• 11:27
  OK, any other business for this week?
• 11:30
  I mean, I was gonna bring you, you know, all the, all the news
• 11:33
  from the South by Southwest festival, but we ended up, we
• 11:38
  had a bit of problem we had, we had some problems getting to
• 11:41
  Austin last week. I've told this story a couple of
• 11:43
  times, but just in case you don't know, we were on a flight
• 11:46
  from the UK taking off on Thursday at midday. 4 hours into
• 11:52
  the flight, the captain came on the intercom and said the the
• 11:56
  plane is reporting a fault because apparently the plane
• 11:59
  automatically reports it's own faults.
• 12:01
  So it was reporting a fault back to Heathrow and the captain was
• 12:06
  saying and I don't know what it is, although I've been told it
• 12:09
  can't be fixed in Austin. And so we're turning the plane
• 12:13
  around and we're going back to Heathrow.
• 12:15
  So we got 4 hours to, I think we were just over Greenland when we
• 12:19
  did EU turn and came back to Heathrow and the rearranged
• 12:23
  flight wasn't until the following afternoon.
• 12:26
  So we ended up getting to Austin basically a day and a bit late.
• 12:31
  We arrived at, we arrived at the hotel where we were staying at
• 12:35
  11:30 Austin time, which that's 4:30 in the morning UK time.
• 12:42
  So I mean to be I still managed to get out and see a couple of
• 12:45
  bands that night, but it meant it meant going to bed something
• 12:49
  like 6:30 UK time and I don't usually we get jet lag going
• 12:53
  out, but this time. But anyway, what it meant was we
• 12:56
  had to because we have a show to do on Monday, a live show for
• 13:00
  six music, which with the time difference meant going on air at
• 13:05
  11 in the morning Austin time. So really we only had Saturday
• 13:08
  and Sunday to to prepare a whole 3 hour programme.
• 13:12
  So I didn't in the end, I don't think I didn't get to 1 panel
• 13:15
  because obviously South by Southwest during the day there's
• 13:18
  lots of talk shops, workshops and panels where people are
• 13:21
  discussing all the things which we discuss here.
• 13:23
  You know, I always impact the future of music.
• 13:27
  The only the only thing I did see was because it was in the
• 13:32
  venue where we were broadcasting from, was a man who was
• 13:37
  obviously selling a new way of lighting a gig and spent a good.
• 13:43
  I mean, I was there for 15 minutes where he was just
• 13:46
  reeling off specs and showing how the light it's worked in
• 13:50
  different, you know, if you programmed them differently.
• 13:52
  So I didn't see anything. I don't, I didn't really get the
• 13:54
  impression, I'm not sure. I'm not sure any real decisions
• 13:57
  were made or there was any huge news coming out of South by.
• 14:00
  But as I say, that's possibly because we were just running
• 14:03
  around like headless chickens really.
• 14:05
  I did get to amongst the people I spoke to, though, I spoke to
• 14:07
  Dev Sherlock, who I really like, who's one of the, he's one of
• 14:11
  the eight. I think there's a team of eight
• 14:13
  music bookers who programmed the music part of South by
• 14:18
  Southwest. And he's a, he's a bit of an
• 14:20
  Anglophile, as Dave would say. I like him a lot.
• 14:22
  But he was saying that because I mean, South by Southwest is
• 14:26
  partly there to spot trends in music.
• 14:29
  And he's a sort of barometer of what's going on globally in
• 14:32
  music and trends in music. And, you know, he was, he was
• 14:36
  saying there was there was a huge representation of Latin
• 14:40
  artists in town, which reflects everything we've been saying.
• 14:45
  But I mean, you also, this is an interesting point which he made,
• 14:48
  which is that singing in a different language to English is
• 14:53
  which used to be a barrier to having a hit.
• 14:56
  Is, is now it's makes no, hardly makes any difference.
• 15:00
  Isn't it's not a barrier anymore to success.
• 15:03
  You don't, you know, And if you know, a big, a big star on the
• 15:07
  global stage can now sing in a different language to English.
• 15:10
  And that's quite a shift to where we've been in the past.
• 15:13
  But yeah, from the UK perspective, the showcases went
• 15:17
  well. There was the British Music
• 15:20
  Embassy was set up again, this is this Department of Business
• 15:25
  and trade get involved in trying to, you know, obviously showcase
• 15:30
  the UK music industry in one place.
• 15:33
  So it's the hub for all things British.
• 15:36
  And there are showcase gigs in the afternoon and one in the
• 15:39
  evening. And, you know, they get people
• 15:42
  together and it's it's, it's, it's a place where people can
• 15:46
  can obviously network and anyone who's interested in British
• 15:48
  music, you know, will pop by at some points.
• 15:52
  But yeah, it was, it was interesting.
• 15:54
  I would say. I mean, I've got no figures to
• 15:56
  back this up, but it did feel like there were slightly fewer
• 15:59
  delegates from the UK in attendance.
• 16:02
  One or two familiar faces I always see weren't there.
• 16:05
  And I mean, there's could be loads of reasons for this.
• 16:07
  One is the expense of getting to America now and you know, you
• 16:13
  and applying for visas if you don't have a visa.
• 16:16
  So it's time consuming and it's expensive, but also those
• 16:19
  meetings that you went to America to do face to face are
• 16:23
  some of those people from America coming to South by
• 16:25
  Southwest in London. And therefore, of course, you
• 16:29
  don't, you don't have to go there because some of them are
• 16:31
  coming here. So that might be an explanation.
• 16:35
  But yeah, it was all right. As I say, more more Latin music,
• 16:38
  a lot actually weirdly talking about China as well.
• 16:40
  More, more music from Japan and China, all I mean, there's the,
• 16:47
  yeah, the diversity I think is, you know, is has increased.
• 16:51
  Also, the other thing, and this comes back to remember we were
• 16:53
  saying no bands in the Top 40 here in the UK less, far less
• 16:58
  bands playing and a lot more solo artists, which is partly a
• 17:03
  musical trend but partly obviously I think speaks volumes
• 17:07
  about the economics of being an artist in the present day.
• 17:12
  But. You know, I'd, I'd, there was
• 17:14
  not much news in my inbox from South by this year.
• 17:16
  The one thing I did get is there was a showcase event of music
• 17:18
  being made by plants. There's a tech company, you have
• 17:22
  a thing where they, they basically connect up various
• 17:25
  things to plants and it makes sounds.
• 17:26
  And I, I almost sent it to you thinking, well, you know, you
• 17:29
  might have an hour on your hands to go and see some plants, make
• 17:32
  music and see what it's like. There is a lot of bonkers stuff
• 17:35
  out there. I mean, Can you imagine how many
• 17:37
  startup companies are in town? Because that the other thing
• 17:40
  obviously this year was usually the the film part of South by
• 17:44
  and the tech by and the music Lego South by.
• 17:48
  They all run one after the other.
• 17:50
  Whereas this year it's the first time they experimented with
• 17:53
  everyone being in town at the same time and all of them
• 17:55
  running concurrently. So it was quite, it's quite
• 17:59
  because they all the lanyard, obviously for the different
• 18:03
  parts of South by they're all different colours.
• 18:07
  So you can work out the tech people by the colour of their
• 18:11
  lanyard. And when you're at a gig, you
• 18:14
  can easily identify someone in tech, not just by the way they
• 18:18
  are standing and nodding at the music or scratching their chins.
• 18:21
  It's because of the I can see it's the lanyard.
• 18:26
  But anyway, yeah, it was. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Interesting. I think.
• 18:31
  What's next? Oh, there was a report about the
• 18:35
  the importance and influence of black music culture for the
• 18:39
  music industry. Tell us, tell us about that,
• 18:42
  because I miss this being a white.
• 18:44
  Yeah, well, this came from UK music, the industry body, and
• 18:47
  it's a really big undertaking because they were trying to
• 18:49
  basically get to the bottom of, OK, what all the value the music
• 18:52
  industry created in the last 30 years, How much of that derives
• 18:55
  from black music? And it's capital B capital N
• 18:57
  like A, the support was making a definition of it's not just
• 19:01
  music made by black musicians, it's what they've influenced the
• 19:04
  genres they've kind of created. So everything from thinking
• 19:07
  about like Chuck Berry's influence on The Beatles or
• 19:10
  Chicago houses role in UK rave or you know, even reggae and
• 19:14
  dub, their their kind of intersection with punk.
• 19:16
  Like it's just it's such an interwoven thing that it's
• 19:21
  really hard to get to the bottom of it economically, But that's
• 19:23
  what they've done. So they, they support basically
• 19:25
  just, yes, 24 point 1/2 billion quid out of 30 billion.
• 19:29
  The total market in the last of the years is from black, black
• 19:33
  music. And I guess that the point of
• 19:35
  the support was not just to come up with a number.
• 19:38
  Because I think if you, unless you're racist, you have a, you
• 19:43
  have a sense of this sense of how, how, how important black
• 19:47
  musicians music has been. But the reports are saying,
• 19:49
  right, well, look, now we've got a figure now we've kind of
• 19:51
  quantified the value. Let's talk about making sure
• 19:55
  that black musicians now have opportunities to kind of do as
• 19:57
  well as they can. Let's make sure the industry is
• 19:59
  diverse. So it's kind of almost a call to
• 20:02
  action. It's saying, look, celebrate
• 20:04
  this, but also stuff needs to be fixed still to give people
• 20:07
  opportunity. So I thought it was a really
• 20:09
  good point. It wasn't like a it wasn't a
• 20:10
  complaining report, it was a celebratory report.
• 20:13
  And also here are some things we need to do now to unlock further
• 20:17
  grace. So it's a really interesting
• 20:18
  report. If anyone go on this UK, it's on
• 20:20
  UK Music's website, I think in their reports section.
• 20:23
  But it's well worth it. I'll tell you what, this is a
• 20:25
  bug bearer of mine, but are you annoyed occasionally that
• 20:29
  Spotify doesn't really seem to understand you?
• 20:33
  Well, it's now testing a feature where you can give its algorithm
• 20:38
  maybe a shove in the right direction.
• 20:40
  As I say, it's constantly a bug of mine because it it suggests
• 20:45
  music which clearly, patiently, I'm not going to like.
• 20:51
  I mean, I know I'm a contrary bugger at the best of times, but
• 20:54
  you know, the, the idea that the algorithm is, it's just not,
• 20:59
  it's not well honed enough to do the job for for me.
• 21:03
  So what can I now do to help? Yeah, well, this is being
• 21:08
  tested, but I think it's a fascinating thing.
• 21:09
  So this is about something called taste profiles and taste
• 21:14
  profiles in Spotify, what it thinks it understands about you.
• 21:19
  Everyone has got a taste profile based on everything we've
• 21:21
  listened to and when. And so it's kind of testing this
• 21:25
  in New Zealand at the moment. But what normally happens is it
• 21:28
  starts in one market that and it rolls out to the other English
• 21:30
  speaking countries first. So I think we'll get it soon and
• 21:34
  it will show you what your taste profile.
• 21:35
  It will tell you here's what I think you are.
• 21:38
  And there's like a, there's a screenshot they publish showing
• 21:40
  someone's taste profile. So I'll read it out to you.
• 21:42
  You can sort of see so your music taste is a vibrant mix of
• 21:46
  contemporary pop sounds with artists like Gracie Abrams and
• 21:49
  the K Pop group Ilid frequently in irritation.
• 21:52
  You also gravitate towards a distinctive hip hop inferences
• 21:54
  of artists like Don Toliver showing a preference for modern
• 21:57
  vocal during tracks. Which is it just quite weird
• 22:01
  when you read it out or read it. But everyone has got this
• 22:03
  paragraph that summarises them in Spotify's eyes mindfully.
• 22:07
  Just says Jesus Christ, Stuart, layoff the hairy rock with you.
• 22:12
  But like, so what's going to happen is you'll be able to go
• 22:14
  and see this in Spotify's app, see what your profile is.
• 22:16
  And then you'll be a little prompt box like like talking to
• 22:18
  an AI chat bot. It'll be a prompt box and you
• 22:20
  can say I want to hear more British young bands or play me
• 22:25
  some more classic rhyme tracks, or you don't.
• 22:27
  I want to get my big beat nostalgia on or whatever you
• 22:30
  want. You talk to it in natural
• 22:31
  language, you'll say, right, Actually, I like this.
• 22:34
  Not that I don't know if you, I assume you can be negative too.
• 22:38
  I assume you can say never play me the Red Hot Chili Peppers
• 22:41
  ever again. And actually I was doing a show
• 22:44
  with producer Joe yesterday and we were talking about like, what
• 22:46
  if you could say never play me AI generated music?
• 22:49
  Would it take that on board? Basically, you're going to talk
• 22:52
  Spotify and tell it what it's got wrong about you and tell it
• 22:55
  what you want more of, which genuinely feels like if it
• 22:59
  works, a step forward because like you say, I think everyone's
• 23:02
  had those moments in like, why was this played to me?
• 23:05
  I've been using you for 10 years.
• 23:07
  Why don't you understand? I hate this.
• 23:10
  Yeah, I'd love to hear. I mean, it'd be interesting.
• 23:11
  I mean, we should. If it ever comes here, we should
• 23:13
  see what our taste profiles are and see how accurate.
• 23:15
  We think they are, yeah, I'm all up for that.
• 23:17
  But given given that Spotify thinks I'm 100 years old from my
• 23:22
  music test and and the stuff that it churns out that it
• 23:26
  thinks I might like, I'm not hopeful it will be an entirely
• 23:30
  accurate profile of who I am. Right finally.
• 23:37
  Now, do you say have we got a winner for when it comes to the
• 23:41
  big nostalgia tour? Because there's a big nostalgia
• 23:45
  tour coming your way, which I mean, could be this raises the
• 23:50
  bar somewhat. Tell us the line up.
• 23:53
  Doesn't it just I got it's main book yesterday.
• 23:55
  It's salt and pepper. Yeah.
• 23:57
  TLC and On Vogue, which I was going to say was the ultimate
• 24:03
  90s nostalgia trip, but salt and pepper 80s aren't they so.
• 24:06
  Yeah, yeah. But it's going to be, it's only
• 24:08
  North America for now. But my God, I'd go and see that
• 24:10
  here because having seen I think on both did Glastonbury last
• 24:14
  year and they were great. Saw on TV TLCD Glastonbury year
• 24:19
  before they were great. So.
• 24:21
  It's they're quite up for the package tour, aren't they in
• 24:24
  sort of nostalgia in the States? I mean, I know we do, we do as
• 24:28
  well. I mean, all the time.
• 24:30
  I mean, just just before starting this, I noticed the
• 24:32
  wonder stuff going out on tour with Inspiral Carpet supporting.
• 24:35
  And that's sort of, but you need three I guess to be a package
• 24:39
  store, don't you? But I know in America, I know
• 24:41
  some British artists have teamed up in the States and are now
• 24:44
  replicating those tours where two big UK bands play together.
• 24:49
  They've done it in America because obviously the they were
• 24:52
  never as popular in the States as they were here in terms of
• 24:57
  profile and record sales and stuff.
• 24:58
  But if you put the two of them out together, there are enough
• 25:01
  angular files and fans of both bands that when you put them
• 25:04
  together, they'll fill a decent sized venue.
• 25:08
  But, but, yeah, but now I think that idea is coming back This
• 25:12
  way. I'm alluding to a tour that I
• 25:14
  can't mention. Oh man.
• 25:16
  Would I like it? There, yes, you would I think,
• 25:20
  yeah and and it's not being announced for I think another
• 25:23
  month yet, but OK, I'll tell you off air, but yeah, the package
• 25:28
  tour big in the States. I had an idea actually for for a
• 25:31
  bit, but when I I don't know the bad the bripper bands that won't
• 25:34
  reunify to like menswear, elastico and long pigs.
• 25:39
  How much money? How much money bribery
• 25:41
  persuasion I'm fisting would that need?
• 25:44
  But this, this, this Salt and Pepper TLC.
• 25:46
  There's another layer to this, which is like, you know, we
• 25:48
  often talk about how artists of a certain era maybe didn't
• 25:51
  necessarily have the best time with their labels.
• 25:54
  So Salt and Pepper are currently suing Universal Music to try and
• 25:57
  get their masters back. TLC famously stormed into their
• 26:01
  labels offices saying where's our money at the height of their
• 26:04
  fame. And I think Arne Vogue was sued
• 26:06
  by one label at one point because they said they'd broken
• 26:08
  a contract. And then there was some stuff
• 26:10
  about how little they were earning from their early albums.
• 26:13
  So all these three artists, they've all been in that era
• 26:16
  when contracts were actually put this a little bit.
• 26:21
  And so now they're getting together, going out on the road,
• 26:22
  hopefully making some good money.
• 26:24
  So that's the other thing here, I think.
• 26:26
  I think that's maybe the rationale.
• 26:27
  Package tours is like get together, get some big crowds,
• 26:30
  play some big venues and and make the money that maybe you
• 26:33
  you you possibly missed out on in the past.
• 26:35
  God, that's kind of imagine the level of grumbling.
• 26:38
  Can you imagine? I mean, there's one.
• 26:40
  What are we going to talk about backstage before we go on?
• 26:42
  Well, here's something we all share our absolute hatred of how
• 26:48
  we were dealt with by the music industry.
• 26:50
  Let's let's have a chat about that for an hour or two.
• 26:53
  Can you ever think on the tour bus this will take us from, you
• 26:57
  know, from New York to LA? Then another thing.
• 27:00
  OK, but then the other thing here is like there's there's
• 27:02
  there's some crossover. So I think Sultan Pepper and En
• 27:05
  Vogue did what a man, which is a cast iron banger.
• 27:08
  So like, right, of course they're going to play that
• 27:09
  together. So I like that aspect when there
• 27:11
  are groups that have global like even when was it the Mannix and
• 27:14
  Suede went off on tour together, didn't they?
• 27:17
  Yeah, I was. Thinking I really hope they all
• 27:18
  get on together at the end to do something.
• 27:21
  Wouldn't that be fun? I don't know if we did.
• 27:23
  Yeah, yeah. All right, that's it for this
• 27:26
  week. Thank you very much for
• 27:28
  listening. As ever, if you are enjoying the
• 27:30
  show, please do spread the word. You can also support us via
• 27:33
  Patreon. In fact, if you sign up to be a
• 27:36
  super fan, you get to join us for our weekly lock in, where
• 27:40
  some of you get to stay behind after hours for more of this
• 27:44
  sort of stuff. For 1520 minutes of bonus
• 27:48
  material this week. More from South by Southwest and
• 27:51
  Tina Turner versus ABBA, amongst other things.
• 27:54
  So you can gain access to that by becoming a super fan of the
• 27:57
  show at patreon.com/the Price of Music.
• 28:02
  Alternatively, if you'd just like to get in touch with us, if
• 28:05
  you have any questions for us, send us an e-mail.
• 28:08
  If there's anything you don't understand about how the
• 28:11
  industry works or anything in terms of tips or advice we might
• 28:16
  be able to give you, yeah, drop us a, drop us a line.
• 28:19
  Thank you to everyone who's been in touch already.
• 28:22
  We we're working on a couple of more answers of questions that
• 28:26
  we've had. There's a specific one for next
• 28:28
  week, isn't there, that you've been researching?
• 28:30
  So should I keep it secret or should I?
• 28:32
  I think, I think you can say just as a teaser, just give us
• 28:36
  the top line. What is it?
• 28:37
  Country music and is it the fastest growing genre in the UK?
• 28:41
  Because that's something that is said often and I have been
• 28:45
  actually going to some people who know the stats for country
• 28:48
  music in the UK. So we're going to be able to
• 28:50
  talk about that. So yeah, I'll be wearing my
• 28:51
  cowboy hat. If only I'd brought one back
• 28:54
  from Austin. We'll do that amongst all the
• 28:57
  other stuff on next week's programme.
• 29:00
  In the meantime, it's the Price of Music podcasts@gmail.com.
• 29:04
  If you'd like to get in touch. The Price of Music
• 29:07
  podcasts@gmail.com. Until next week, as I say, thank
• 29:11
  you very much for listening. Look after yourselves, Cheerio.