Latest / The Price of Music / Phonk: the biggest genre you've (probably) not heard of; Only 20% of the 2025 UK Top 100 were performed by UK artists; What is 'radio plugging'?; and your ashes in an urn that's also a speaker...

Transcript

Phonk: the biggest genre you've (probably) not heard of; Only 20% of the 2025 UK Top 100 were performed by UK artists; What is 'radio plugging'?; and your ashes in an urn that's also a speaker... · The Price of Music

• 0:03
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:06
  Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of music
• 0:09
  industry while also bringing you stories and comments about the
• 0:12
  past week in the pop business. He's Stuart Dredge.
• 0:15
  I'm Steve Lamac. If you want an easy guide to
• 0:18
  what's going on in the music industry and how it all works,
• 0:20
  then here we are. Every week.
• 0:22
  This week is passive listening on streaming services, killing
• 0:27
  the UK music scene. Also a note that a new live
• 0:30
  music festival is coming to a town near you soon.
• 0:34
  Spotify announces how much it's paid out to British artists in
• 0:38
  the past year. And what is radio plugging?
• 0:41
  But first with his eye watering stat of the week.
• 0:44
  Here's Mr. Dredge with a huge number which this week is.
• 0:49
  This is 981,000,000. And that is how many people,
• 0:53
  neither of which is me or you, have listened to the music of
• 0:56
  Brazilian funk producer Slaughter last month.
• 1:00
  What? What?
• 1:01
  Before we go any further, what is What is funk?
• 1:04
  What is funk? Funk.
• 1:05
  It's so it's a genre that's kind of under the radar of Lockheed.
• 1:08
  It's it's kind of a sub genre of like hip hop and trap music with
• 1:11
  a bit of jazz thrown in. And it's very big online and
• 1:14
  it's big in the gaming world. So if you spend a lot of time
• 1:17
  watching gaming Tik Toks or Twitch streams, you'll hear a
• 1:20
  lot of it. But it's not like something
• 1:21
  that's maybe it's mainstream. And yeah, this is a slaughter
• 1:25
  with this Russian producer who now lives in Brazil, which is
• 1:27
  the big heartland for funk. And there was this New York
• 1:30
  Times article with YouTube talking to them about it,
• 1:32
  saying, yeah, he reached 981 million people in the last
• 1:34
  month. And to put that in context on
• 1:38
  YouTube, Taylor Swift reached about just under 400 million
• 1:40
  people last month. And Bad Bunny.
• 1:42
  So this guy who kind of a lot of people have never heard of is
• 1:46
  the biggest in terms of being heard on YouTube.
• 1:49
  But that's a key point, really. He's his music is in the
• 1:52
  background of a lot of videos and YouTube shots, so a lot of
• 1:55
  people are hearing him, which is different from people choosing
• 1:58
  to listen to him. But yeah, possibly the most
• 2:00
  listened to artist in the. World last month.
• 2:02
  That is something we'll come back to in just a moment.
• 2:05
  But the three top talking points of the week which we've picked
• 2:08
  out for you. Well, here's one which comes
• 2:10
  back to a subject we talk a lot about on this podcast, grass
• 2:14
  roots venues, because in the absence of a Glastonbury
• 2:17
  Festival this year, the music venue Trust is launching a
• 2:20
  nationwide alternative to Glastonbury, an alternative to
• 2:25
  the legendary field based festival which will take place
• 2:28
  in local venues around the country.
• 2:30
  It's called everywhere at once, which will be I think the
• 2:33
  tagline is EU KS biggest music festival on your doorstep.
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  It's organised by the MVT save our scene and the Association of
• 2:42
  independent promoters is backed by the National Lottery.
• 2:46
  And that's about nearly all we know.
• 2:48
  I think there's there's going to be, I think the figures are 1200
• 2:53
  gigs they're hoping to put on across the country in 500 venues
• 2:59
  during the final weekend of June.
• 3:03
  And I think this is another, another really good idea on a
• 3:07
  lot of levels really, because I mean, obviously I'll raise the
• 3:10
  profile of local venues, which is always good to do, but it
• 3:13
  also bring in hopefully bring in some trade during what's become
• 3:18
  is quite a lean period for small venues.
• 3:21
  Traditionally, we always used to look at the, the start of the
• 3:24
  year when everyone was skin after Christmas and worry about
• 3:28
  how local venues would make the meet their bills at the end of
• 3:31
  January. Uh, but there is thing, there
• 3:33
  are things going on now and of course it's independent venue
• 3:36
  week happens in January as well, but more more worryingly for,
• 3:40
  for a lot of venues, they lose audience due to, due to the
• 3:43
  festivals during the summer where they lose artists as well,
• 3:46
  because the artists are all book supplier festivals or there are
• 3:50
  clauses in the contracts of the festivals that you can't play
• 3:53
  local venues nearby and that sort of thing.
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  So they lose, they lose bands and artists.
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  And as I say, most, a lot of people, they go to less geeks
• 4:03
  because they're spending their money on festivals.
• 4:05
  So it, it is a sort of lean period, which hopefully, you
• 4:09
  know, this will help redress the financial balance in a way.
• 4:13
  So at least for one weekend and that weekend is June the 26th to
• 4:17
  to the 28th. More details to follow.
• 4:21
  We have here's another one as our second story, which we
• 4:25
  picked out for you. You may have already seen this,
• 4:27
  but talking a live music, this came up last week.
• 4:31
  The team behind the historic Sheffield venue The Lead Mill
• 4:35
  are looking for a new home and they've started crowdfunding to
• 4:40
  get fans involved so they can they can open a new new lead
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  mill. I think that's the idea, isn't
• 4:46
  it? Is it, and it sounds strange,
• 4:48
  isn't it? Because I always, it's easy to
• 4:49
  think of a venue as the building, but in this case, the
• 4:52
  people running the gigs would, would not the people who owned
• 4:55
  the building. And there was a parting of the
• 4:57
  ways last year. And yeah, so I mean, they want
• 5:00
  to move it somewhere else and they're looking for location.
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  And and this, this crowdfunding campaign is all about the fact
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  they haven't got any money from the council.
• 5:05
  They haven't got any government grants.
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  They really want to power it all by fans chipping in.
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  And so this crowdfunding campaign, I think you can chip
• 5:12
  in. It's like 510 or 20 lbs or
• 5:14
  whatever you can afford. And they're trying to raise
• 5:17
  £30,000 to kind of cover the costs and deposits and, and
• 5:20
  actually kitting out. So it launched last week and at
• 5:25
  the moment I look this morning, it's raised over 7000 lbs.
• 5:28
  So that's a decent start because it's got like 77 days left.
• 5:30
  It's quite a long campaign, yeah.
• 5:32
  It doesn't sound like a lot of money for me. 30,000 lbs as a
• 5:35
  starter, but you know, but again, maybe it's a it's a
• 5:39
  realistic target to just as you say, set the set the ball in
• 5:43
  motion. There's a gap as.
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  Well, like, like, I think it's 391 people have chipped in so
• 5:49
  far. And one of the stats in the
• 5:51
  announcement was that more than 10 million people have been to
• 5:53
  concerts at Leadmill over five years.
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  So there's definitely, there's definitely room there to get a
• 5:58
  few more of those people to chip in and and maybe the artists
• 6:01
  too, you know, some of the artists who played them on the
• 6:02
  way up. Yeah, maybe what they need is
• 6:05
  and you, if you're a, if you're a super fan, you'll already know
• 6:09
  this from our lock in from last week.
• 6:11
  But the Margate venue, where else were, Well, I, I think they
• 6:17
  may have finished fundraising now, but they set a target of
• 6:20
  £40,000 to keep the venue alive. And part of that because the
• 6:26
  last time it looked there were up to 38,000 lbs I think.
• 6:29
  But part of that was down to the fact that Bob from Pavement had
• 6:33
  given them a gold disc for pavements.
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  Harness your hopes, which went for more than 7000 lbs.
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  That one item alone in a charity, an auction for where
• 6:44
  else? I think it's seven and a half
• 6:46
  1000 lbs for Bob from Pavements gold disk.
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  So if anyone at the lead mill still has anything Arctic
• 6:53
  Monkeys related they'd like to auction off, that's the way to
• 6:57
  go. Maybe right.
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  Thirdly, now this is always moment that starts a debate
• 7:03
  around streaming services. As if we needed any more debates
• 7:06
  about streaming services and how much they pay out.
• 7:10
  But Spotify has revealed that it's paid out more than 8, £160
• 7:14
  million for British artist music over the last year.
• 7:19
  It's also it's also responded to something which has been
• 7:23
  worrying us a little bit recently and we've seen
• 7:26
  happening elsewhere in the world, certainly in Australia,
• 7:30
  which is the big American stars are starting to squeeze out
• 7:34
  local artists in the UK. But talk us through the talk us
• 7:37
  through the headlines 1st and the figures.
• 7:39
  Yeah, sure. So these were figures that came
• 7:41
  out just before the British awards.
• 7:42
  That was the timing of it And, and yeah, the the usual caveat,
• 7:45
  This is Money paid out to the labels and distributors, not to
• 7:48
  the artist directly. So how much the artist got of
• 7:50
  that depends on their deals. Yeah, £860 million.
• 7:53
  That's up 6% on the previous year.
• 7:55
  So it's growth. It's more than double what
• 7:58
  Spotify paid out in 2018, although that's because the
• 8:01
  service itself has grown. Yeah.
• 8:03
  So that's, and they were very keen to what the long tail.
• 8:06
  So they said that more than 150 UK artists generated more than
• 8:09
  £1,000,000 each of payouts last year from their music.
• 8:13
  And when I talked to to Andy, Andy Sloane Vinton, who's the
• 8:15
  head of music in, in Europe and the UK, he was saying that's not
• 8:19
  all superstars. Some of that is folk artists,
• 8:21
  some of it is featured artists on dance records.
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  It's kind of a quite a widespread of people.
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  And the other two other stats, more than 3/4 of the royalties
• 8:30
  came from people listening outside the UK, because that's
• 8:32
  something Spotify's very keen to talk about, is that how British
• 8:35
  music is actually translating, you know, going around the
• 8:37
  world. And then 45% came from
• 8:40
  independent music versus major label acts.
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  And the other thing, this is where we may we can talk about
• 8:46
  ties into what we've been talking about before.
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  They said that British artists are kind of for more than 1/3 of
• 8:52
  the tracks in Spotify's daily top 50 chart last year.
• 8:54
  So the tracks are going into that chart, more than a third of
• 8:57
  them from British artists. And that was up 8 percentage
• 9:00
  points on the year before. So I guess it went from about
• 9:02
  25% to 33%, which is part of them saying, look, this is
• 9:09
  increasing because a lot of our words have been like, there's no
• 9:11
  British artists in the charts, in different various charts.
• 9:14
  So Spotify says that's actually growing again, which is one of
• 9:20
  those stats that it can mean a lot of different things.
• 9:23
  So Olivia Dean may have accounted for a lot of tracks in
• 9:27
  the charts, you know, like big artists often hog the top spots.
• 9:32
  So it's not the same as saying a lot of artists.
• 9:35
  It might be a few artists with lots of tracks each.
• 9:39
  And then the American thing. So yeah, I did this interview
• 9:41
  and I, I made a point of asking this this chap Andy, like what
• 9:44
  is happening? American artists dominating our
• 9:46
  algorithms and thinking He said the opposite.
• 9:48
  He said they've seen a slight dip in US consumption.
• 9:52
  And the quote was, we've seen a decline over the last couple of
• 9:54
  years in the consumption of American Music in the UK.
• 9:57
  And I thought that was quite interesting because it's went
• 10:00
  again, what, what when it gets what my expectation was,
• 10:04
  although I guess it could, this could be as much about growth in
• 10:07
  listening to, I don't know, Korean music or Nigerians.
• 10:10
  I think, yeah, I think this is the point, isn't it?
• 10:12
  Because with the rise of people like Bad Bunny, because it
• 10:16
  doesn't necessarily mean there's more UK music being listened to
• 10:19
  if the Americans, it's only down slightly, isn't it?
• 10:22
  Listening American listening figures, but but in other other
• 10:27
  territories, international artists, other international
• 10:31
  artists, if that's going up as as well, they're probably eating
• 10:35
  into a little bit of the American artists presence maybe
• 10:40
  I mean it's. Interesting.
• 10:41
  I was trying to get and actually I did ask this question and he
• 10:43
  was very sort of open about not knowing like that. 150 artists
• 10:47
  making more than £1,000,000, which is kind of an arbitrary
• 10:50
  cut off really, because the 151st will be making 975,000.
• 10:54
  You know, it's not a number, but I'd, I'd love to know how that
• 10:58
  compares to the heyday of CDs and earlier in streaming.
• 11:02
  Like is that number growing in the streaming area?
• 11:05
  But also how many artists would have been making that much in
• 11:08
  the in, in the 1990s? And I've got no idea.
• 11:11
  I couldn't tell you whether it's bigger, smaller, much bigger,
• 11:14
  much smaller. But that I guess is the key,
• 11:16
  like is because the the story, the the the line from Spotify is
• 11:20
  this is not just the big stars making lots of money and
• 11:23
  everyone else is struggling. They they want to talk about
• 11:26
  this long tail. Yeah.
• 11:28
  The other thing that's funny thing it's.
• 11:30
  Very dangerous for Spotify though, isn't it?
• 11:32
  Because we we we know that further further down you get to
• 11:36
  to the newer artists, they really aren't getting hardly a
• 11:39
  bean. And in fact, Spotify don't even
• 11:41
  pay out when you get past a certain level of not not having
• 11:44
  a lot of public plays. So I understand what they're
• 11:47
  trying to trying to do by saying, Oh yeah, it's not just,
• 11:51
  you know, it's not just Coldplay.
• 11:52
  It's, you know, more. There are loads of other
• 11:55
  artists. But that's true.
• 11:57
  But you've got to be at a certain level, you've got to
• 12:00
  have a certain presence, haven't you?
• 12:02
  You've got to be almost surely, you've got to be almost arena
• 12:05
  size. Well, that's it.
• 12:07
  I mean, streaming is a, it's a real winners and losers economy,
• 12:10
  isn't it? Like there are artists in that
• 12:12
  150 who are making £1,000,000 who'd be delighted with how
• 12:14
  streaming's done for them. And then there are artists
• 12:17
  outside that who are really struggling.
• 12:18
  So yeah, it's AI mean the, the on a more fun note, we were
• 12:21
  talking about the exports thing. So 11 serious point was that
• 12:24
  apparently the the the top five Spotify countries for listening
• 12:28
  to British music, Brazil and Mexico are now in that now.
• 12:31
  And so for all we often talk about how artists from Latin
• 12:34
  America are becoming more popular over here, it seems to
• 12:36
  be working the other way as well, like they're pushing me to
• 12:38
  do right there. And the other thing is.
• 12:40
  Again, sorry just to stop, but but again, this, this is
• 12:44
  slightly it's skewed. I understand what they're trying
• 12:46
  to say, but I think at the same time I, I, I wonder whether the
• 12:50
  artists, the British artists that are being listened to in
• 12:53
  those countries are Oasis. And it's, it's a lot of heritage
• 12:58
  acts, whereas we, we're picking up on a lot of new artists from
• 13:02
  different territories. While the export is actually
• 13:05
  bands who were popular here 1020, even 30 years ago and.
• 13:10
  This is something we're going to get into, I think, because
• 13:12
  there's a path, there's a quite a positive path forward where if
• 13:17
  you're a young Brazilian kid, listen to Oasis, what at some
• 13:21
  point maybe you get played new bands that you might like from
• 13:25
  the UK. That would be a kind of a nice
• 13:26
  world where that catalyst thing does lead to that.
• 13:30
  Yeah. The other thing, the other thing
• 13:31
  he pointed me towards, I really like this one.
• 13:33
  I don't know if you've heard, have you seen heard about
• 13:34
  Indonesian Britpop clubs? I have not tell us it's.
• 13:39
  A viral video. In Britpop clubs.
• 13:42
  It's a viral video doing the rounds of this.
• 13:43
  I think it's a it's a particular set of promoters in Indonesia
• 13:46
  who've been who've launched this series of Britpop nights.
• 13:49
  And the videos they're posting are basically all these
• 13:51
  Indonesian teenagers launching pints in the air to the Stone
• 13:55
  Roses and singing along to Wonder Woman and, and again, so
• 13:59
  that plays into your point about is this heritage music?
• 14:02
  Not new. Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:03
  But it's it's really, it was a little touch.
• 14:05
  I was like, wow, there. There is some really interesting
• 14:07
  things going on around the world with British music.
• 14:09
  It's just something that if you're a new band, you maybe
• 14:11
  don't feel you're. You're part of this, yeah.
• 14:14
  I think this brings us onto, well, this is something actually
• 14:17
  which we've been thinking about a lot recently and we've had
• 14:20
  quite a few chats off air about this prompted by a conversation
• 14:24
  which I had with Annabella Coltrick, who's the CEO of the
• 14:29
  Music Managers Forum, who's a previous guest on this program.
• 14:32
  You may have heard Annabella on the show a while back.
• 14:36
  But yes, we should start any other business with this, I
• 14:38
  think, which is it's all about passive listening on streaming
• 14:43
  services and the effect that it's having on music and the
• 14:47
  music industry. And it does feel, I think it's
• 14:51
  really quite timely to talk about this after, well, after
• 14:54
  that Spotify report, after the BPIS annual report and after the
• 14:58
  Brit Awards on Saturday, all celebrating what's good about
• 15:01
  British music. But particularly with the Brits.
• 15:04
  I don't know whether all all that pomp and the celebration
• 15:06
  does that hide the fact that British music, but certainly new
• 15:09
  British music might not be doing as well as people would have us
• 15:14
  believe. And how has streaming affected
• 15:17
  the popularity of UK music, not just abroad as you mentioned,
• 15:22
  but here? The worrying thing, I think it's
• 15:24
  more about what it's doing to the to our music habits within
• 15:29
  our own country. Annabella, by the way, has
• 15:31
  written a piece about this which we'll post a link to.
• 15:33
  But where should we start? Well, I guess we shall we
• 15:36
  explain what we mean by passive listening.
• 15:38
  For a start, even that's not crystal clear.
• 15:41
  There's no, there's not. There's not a perfect
• 15:43
  definition, but passive listening for me is you put on a
• 15:47
  playlist or you play a song and then the algorithm suggests
• 15:51
  another song and another song and you leave it and you're
• 15:54
  quite happy listening to whatever music you're given.
• 15:57
  Essentially you're leaning and it's sometimes it's called lean
• 16:00
  back listening. You're leaning back and you're
• 16:01
  being played stuff, which is something you could apply to
• 16:04
  radio. Traditional radio is worth
• 16:06
  streaming. But yeah, essentially you're not
• 16:08
  choosing what to play. And it's happening often in the
• 16:12
  background of what you're doing, whether you're cooking,
• 16:14
  exercising, whatever. And it's it's, it's just being
• 16:19
  talked about a lot, I think. I mean, in fact, I remember 10
• 16:21
  years ago people were worrying about this saying, yeah, is
• 16:23
  this, are we going to turn into a whole nation of passive
• 16:24
  listeners where we don't really sit forward and listen, figure
• 16:28
  out who's playing even, let alone kind of go and investigate
• 16:31
  them? Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of
• 16:34
  our listeners, we say, well, I always choose what to listen to.
• 16:38
  You know, I'm always looking for things proactively listening to
• 16:41
  music. But it seems I think the
• 16:43
  majority, unfortunately, the majority of streamers are, are a
• 16:47
  fair play to them. Just just happy to listen to
• 16:50
  whatever chosen music is pumped out in playlist form for them
• 16:56
  because the the figures are astonishing.
• 17:00
  From Annabella's piece. There's there's a quote of a
• 17:05
  report from last year which suggests that 75% of music
• 17:11
  streamers usually listen in a passive way.
• 17:15
  That's 3/4 of people using streaming services are just
• 17:20
  listening to whatever's put in front of them.
• 17:23
  Yeah, usually which is in is isn't.
• 17:25
  So I was thinking about my own listening and thinking how often
• 17:27
  do I listen passively? Because a lot of the time I
• 17:30
  spend with music is when I'm working or when I'm.
• 17:33
  So I guess I'm part of those people as well, even though I
• 17:36
  consider myself an active music fan.
• 17:38
  So it is a bit nuanced. But yeah, I mean, I was looking
• 17:41
  up some stats because look, this is something that no one, no
• 17:44
  streaming service really puts out these stats because I think
• 17:46
  they know it's quite a hot potato.
• 17:48
  They don't want to be seen as somewhere but a few years ago,
• 17:51
  2022. So caveat, it's a few years old.
• 17:55
  The the UK's competition watchdog did the report and it
• 17:57
  actually went and asked all the services how much where's your
• 18:00
  listening come from. I think it found that the
• 18:03
  biggest chunk was from people's own playlist that they've made.
• 18:07
  And that was about 42% of listening from people's own
• 18:09
  playlists. Now that's still you might turn
• 18:11
  on your playlist of the favorite songs this year and then let it
• 18:13
  wash over you. So you've actively created the
• 18:16
  playlist, but you may be passively listening to it.
• 18:19
  But around 20% came from playlists created by the
• 18:22
  streaming services. We just bring play around 11%
• 18:25
  came from those autoplay or radio style features where it
• 18:28
  literally is hit a button, start the stream of music.
• 18:31
  So about a third, I think in, in those days was the but the, what
• 18:34
  we don't know is how that's changed.
• 18:36
  But I think in the last two to three years, quite a few of the
• 18:40
  new features launched by streaming services have been
• 18:41
  about making it easier to listen passively in a way.
• 18:45
  Like the new AI playlist where you type in a text prompt
• 18:47
  saying, I'm, I'm going to a gym and once I'm up tempo, join bass
• 18:50
  music and it makes your playlist and you play it.
• 18:53
  So my instinct would be that maybe it's increased and that
• 18:56
  passive thing, but then no one actually puts out those figures.
• 19:00
  This is the, The thing is the, with the increase though in
• 19:04
  passive listening and if it is getting to the levels that some
• 19:07
  people are reporting, there's, there's at least 2 problems with
• 19:10
  this potentially. I think one, obviously this puts
• 19:13
  tremendous power in the hands of the algorithms that help dictate
• 19:18
  what people get to hear. And two, then it's the way the
• 19:22
  algorithms work and which artists they lean towards
• 19:27
  because that's, that's what. But that's, that's the worry, I
• 19:32
  think, because within, within the within the UK speaking pop
• 19:38
  music territories, everyone apart from America seems to be
• 19:43
  doing less well in terms of promoting their own music
• 19:47
  because it's the big artist from America who come around time and
• 19:51
  time, time and time again. Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter,
• 19:54
  all, all these people will be coming around constantly on a
• 20:00
  passive streaming circuit. So that's sure.
• 20:05
  That's the worry though, isn't it?
• 20:06
  Because then if we are, and I know, you know, they're saying.
• 20:11
  OK, this is Spotify saying, for instance, there is a slight rise
• 20:15
  in UK news, but it's not, it's nowhere close.
• 20:18
  Our representation of the music in the UK is nowhere close to
• 20:22
  what it is in other countries, right?
• 20:24
  In Italy, you know, 80% of the music which is being pumped out
• 20:28
  is Italian. But unfortunately we're up
• 20:31
  against the States. That's a problem.
• 20:33
  Well, that's it. Let's think.
• 20:34
  I mean, and you're seeing a lot of positivity in Italy, in
• 20:36
  France and Germany because there they've got thriving local
• 20:39
  scenes doing very well. I mean, it's so had a few things
• 20:42
  to say about this. I mean, one of them is that,
• 20:44
  that, that these streaming algorithms, they are completely
• 20:46
  mysterious. We don't know how they work.
• 20:48
  You know, even their companies, I'm not sure how they know how
• 20:50
  they work. I had a funny thing once I
• 20:53
  would, I won't name it, a big newspaper site changed its web
• 20:56
  website sort of address and had a meeting with Google to say,
• 21:00
  what does this mean that we're going to suddenly just peer off
• 21:02
  your search engine? And essentially the Google guys
• 21:04
  were like, well, that would be, we're really interested to find
• 21:06
  out too. We have no idea what our
• 21:08
  algorithm will do in response to this.
• 21:10
  And to some extent streaming is the same.
• 21:11
  This is this mysterious piece. But if you listen to loads of
• 21:15
  new British music, you'll get recommended more of it.
• 21:18
  If you listen, if you hammer Taylor Swift, you'll get
• 21:20
  recommended more US mega star music.
• 21:23
  So to some extent it's it's, it's going to be different for
• 21:25
  every individual and it's very hard to measure, but there's no
• 21:28
  way of measuring what's being recommended to who, if that
• 21:31
  makes sense. And that's one of the that's one
• 21:33
  of the reasons it's such a difficult subject, because there
• 21:36
  aren't hard and fast figures saying, yes, Apple Music
• 21:38
  recommends 75% of its recommendations are American
• 21:42
  bands because it's individual. So that's one thing that's
• 21:45
  difficult. And the other thing I think is
• 21:51
  the different kinds of passive listening.
• 21:53
  So if you are listening to just the autoplay feature and you're
• 21:57
  getting loads of Sabrina Cup into a Taylor Swift, that's one
• 22:00
  thing. If you have a, if you're
• 22:02
  following a playlist that's like some human within Spotify, Apple
• 22:06
  Music, picking the latest great British bands, you're going to
• 22:10
  hear all of those in your passive listening cycle.
• 22:13
  So to some extent, it depends where you're listening and how
• 22:15
  you're listening. And and so it's it's very, very
• 22:18
  complicated, if that makes sense, which which to come back
• 22:20
  to this blog post by Annabelle, it's hard to know what to do
• 22:23
  about it because one thing people was just as there should
• 22:26
  be quotas on this sort of thing, the government should place
• 22:28
  quotas and say, Spotify, you have to play this much British
• 22:31
  music to your listeners. And that is unlike radio where
• 22:35
  you can measure what Radio 1 plays in a week or TV where you
• 22:39
  can say how much percentage of shows on the BBC are from
• 22:42
  British people. I don't know how you're ever
• 22:44
  going to be able to measure this in streaming.
• 22:47
  So it's very hard to know how from the outside you change
• 22:51
  this, if that makes sense. Yeah, I did.
• 22:53
  Yeah. What can be done?
• 22:54
  I mean, that's the next thing, isn't it?
• 22:56
  Any thoughts on this? By the way, drop us a line.
• 22:58
  The e-mail address is coming up later.
• 23:00
  I just And we, I think the first start is we have that needs to
• 23:04
  be a conversation about it. I think that more people need to
• 23:07
  be aware and because if we have got to the stage where of the
• 23:10
  Top 40 singles for 2025, within within the Top 40, there's only
• 23:17
  10 tracks featuring UK acts and it might not be our time, you
• 23:20
  know, we might. Is it too arrogant to believe
• 23:23
  that the Britain should still rule pop music globally?
• 23:28
  But and and may but, but you would hope that we, we were
• 23:32
  producing enough UK acts to at least have more than 10 in the
• 23:35
  Top 40. And there's only if you extend
• 23:38
  that out. According to Annabella's piece,
• 23:40
  the UK top 100 only on around 20% of the tracks were performed
• 23:45
  by British artists. So what can there must be
• 23:48
  something we can do before it starts getting worse and we end
• 23:54
  up like where Australia are, where it's estimated that for
• 23:59
  every $10 spent on music or put into the streaming pot, $9 goes
• 24:07
  straight out, straight away. Is goes leaves the country
• 24:10
  immediately and that's not a position we want to we want to
• 24:14
  be in. And yeah, how do we promote, as
• 24:18
  you say, it's difficult when we don't with with the mysterious
• 24:22
  algorithms. But how do we promote more
• 24:24
  British music into in a way that, you know, I mean, I don't
• 24:30
  want to bias, I don't want to dictate what people necessarily
• 24:34
  listen to, but are but what the question I think we're all
• 24:38
  asking is, does it work properly?
• 24:41
  Are we being unfairly locked out?
• 24:43
  Is there something we can do about it?
• 24:45
  Well, also, and you mentioned this idea about we need to have
• 24:47
  a discussion. This is something that's
• 24:50
  happened in Australia where when people started talking about it
• 24:53
  and almost also politicians started kind of rumbling about
• 24:56
  maybe we need to have quotas do something.
• 24:58
  Spotify as one of the the biggest thing, it pushed back
• 25:01
  quite hard. And I said, look, we do a lot
• 25:02
  from Australian accent. Look, we're launching a new
• 25:04
  thing now called Turn Up Oz, which is the campaign to kind of
• 25:08
  push Australian music. You know, and I think the other
• 25:11
  day, I can't find the stat, but they talked about how it
• 25:14
  created, I think it was 200, two, 123 million more streams of
• 25:18
  local music. But they only launched this
• 25:21
  campaign because they were under pressure from this discussion.
• 25:24
  So I think that is maybe a positive thing is that the more
• 25:27
  people would talk about this and say, what can we do?
• 25:29
  It does encourage the streaming services say, well, actually
• 25:32
  here's something we could do and we can, we can actually do more
• 25:37
  and then it can work. So I think that's, that's part
• 25:40
  of it. I think it's the, the positive
• 25:42
  way forward is actually, yeah, talking about it, raising it,
• 25:46
  asking hard questions. And then the streaming services,
• 25:48
  I think they understand that they, they don't want to have
• 25:50
  governments telling them what to play and how much to play.
• 25:53
  So they will find other things they can do.
• 25:54
  And that hopefully will benefit local artists everywhere.
• 25:58
  We did promise we would answer at least one of our listener
• 26:01
  questions this week, so I think we can just about fit this in.
• 26:05
  A question from listener Liam from Bolton who writes.
• 26:08
  Hi Stu and Steve, really enjoying the show.
• 26:09
  Bless you. Thank you very much for
• 26:11
  listening. I have a question Steve, about
• 26:14
  plugging. It's a phrase I hear often but
• 26:17
  it all seems a bit mysterious. I understand it's someone
• 26:19
  pitching an artist to a DJ or producer, but how does it work?
• 26:24
  Why do artists need plugging and how is this process different to
• 26:28
  say you Steve, discovering an artist or a song via other
• 26:32
  channels or an artist contacting you directly directly?
• 26:35
  Thank you very much, Liam. I did shy away from this
• 26:38
  question for a little while because anyone who knows me will
• 26:41
  know I have quite a lot to say on the subject of radio plugging
• 26:44
  and what makes a good radio plugger.
• 26:46
  But I think maybe we'll that will keep for for another day
• 26:50
  before before we enter that particular minefield.
• 26:52
  But it's a good question. So I'll look, I'll try to
• 26:54
  explain as simply as I can because there are different
• 26:57
  forms of radio plugging. So a radio plugger, sometimes
• 27:01
  known as a radio promotions person, it is basic essentially.
• 27:04
  Actually they are the representative of a band or or
• 27:09
  an artist when it comes to all things radio.
• 27:11
  So this could be at one end of the scale, fielding calls from
• 27:15
  radio shows and, you know, emails, incessant emails asking
• 27:20
  one of your artists to do something to come in.
• 27:23
  I mean, it might be that, you know, it's it might be your job
• 27:30
  just to be the person who says no.
• 27:32
  If you're dealing with a very famous act and then, you know,
• 27:34
  then it's organising interviews or sessions or obviously the
• 27:38
  further, the further down the scale we get when once you get
• 27:42
  to new acts, basically, if you're working a brand new band,
• 27:46
  you're just trying to generate some interest really for your
• 27:50
  ACT with, you know, amongst DJs or radio show producers.
• 27:55
  But say top end of the scale, let's take, if you take the Foo
• 27:58
  Fighters, just return with a new single or someone like the
• 28:02
  Arctic Monkeys or Fontaines DC once everyone sorry 6 So there's
• 28:08
  a new record coming. So once the release date of the
• 28:10
  new record is set, then the radio plugger will sit down and
• 28:13
  discuss a plan with the band or probably the manager, and
• 28:17
  together you. Then they will work out the best
• 28:20
  way to maximize coverage of that record on the radio.
• 28:25
  And that will be obviously across numerous radio stations.
• 28:29
  So you're trying to balance out your coverage across various
• 28:33
  radio networks. So they'll probably offer the
• 28:36
  first play of a single to 1 station.
• 28:38
  Another station might get a session.
• 28:40
  Then they'll work out where who's going to get all the who's
• 28:43
  going to get the interviews and when they'll run on air to, as I
• 28:46
  say, have maximum impact and provide a good spread of
• 28:50
  coverage. While at the same time, as I
• 28:52
  say, because Dave Goal can't be everywhere all the all the time.
• 28:57
  You will, as the radio person, probably be the one who's gently
• 29:01
  declining offers from stations who aren't deemed to be a
• 29:05
  priority at that point. That's the top end.
• 29:08
  At the other end of the scale, a lot of pluggers work is involved
• 29:11
  in attempting to help launch new artists or help emerging artists
• 29:17
  and obviously that's much harder.
• 29:18
  Isn't it just radio stations like booking big hitters?
• 29:22
  They're less interested in a group who'll sell 50 tickets on
• 29:25
  a Tuesday night in Hull because they're not a big draw for their
• 29:28
  listeners. So I won't, I won't name it, I
• 29:33
  won't cite a specific example, but say for instance,
• 29:36
  hypothetically you have a band that had an E payout.
• 29:39
  Now they're releasing a new single.
• 29:41
  It is then the pluggers job to what they call service the
• 29:45
  record to anyone in radio that they think might be interested
• 29:50
  and and then attempt to build up support for the group by making
• 29:56
  a case as to why the DJ should play the record.
• 30:00
  Or possibly, you know, you then get to the point of trying to
• 30:03
  persuade, you know, the music team, the playlist committee at
• 30:07
  whatever radio station it is that they've reached the stage
• 30:10
  where and made a record which deserves to go on the playlists.
• 30:14
  So it's. Yeah, it's it's basically
• 30:17
  putting the artist in front of radio and then trying to explain
• 30:21
  what's good about them. That's it.
• 30:25
  That's that's radio plug in. Why do you.
• 30:27
  Sorry, Lee, I mean, answer to a couple of other bits of your
• 30:30
  question. Why do bands need pluggers?
• 30:32
  Well, if, as I say, you're a reasonably successful bands,
• 30:36
  then you'll need someone to act as a bridge between you, the
• 30:39
  bands and all the people at radio who want you to do stuff.
• 30:44
  But also, you know, you need them sometimes just for their
• 30:47
  expertise in, you know, guarding your profile at radio.
• 30:51
  So that's top. And if you're a new, newer
• 30:54
  bands, you know, pluggers can be helpful in bringing artists to
• 30:57
  radio's attention. And the reason why people
• 31:01
  sometimes turn to pluggers is in the hope that the radio plugger,
• 31:05
  because to you, the artist, don't know anyone in radio.
• 31:08
  In theory, the radio plugger has built relationships with
• 31:11
  producers or deejays to the point where they can just e-mail
• 31:15
  them and say, look, I found this group, I think they're good.
• 31:18
  Give them a listen. That's that's the idea.
• 31:21
  I mean, radio is, I mean, it's inundated with music now, as I'm
• 31:26
  sure you can imagine. So it's how do you get in front
• 31:30
  of a producer or DJ? Well, it's employing someone who
• 31:35
  has the right contacts and can put a word in for you.
• 31:39
  That's that's the theory. But of course it does.
• 31:41
  It does cost you money and there is no guarantee of success
• 31:48
  really at the at the bottom end of the scale, you don't.
• 31:51
  If you've made a really good record, then you've got a chance
• 31:55
  of getting on the radio. If you've made an interesting
• 31:58
  record, you might have a chance of getting on the the radio if
• 32:03
  if you're in the right place at the right time.
• 32:05
  And that's what I guess pluggers are trying to trying to point
• 32:10
  out to people in the radio industry.
• 32:12
  But there's there's, there's never, there's never really any
• 32:14
  guarantee guarantee. I don't think that if if you're
• 32:18
  a brand new act that someone's going to play your record, even
• 32:21
  if it has been plugged to radio by someone you've employed to do
• 32:26
  it. But final question, how is this
• 32:30
  process different to Steve discovering an artist or song
• 32:34
  via other channels or an artist contacting him directly?
• 32:37
  The answer is it's not really that different.
• 32:40
  I mean, I'm only talking purely from my own point of view.
• 32:43
  I can't speak for other DJs or producers and how they work.
• 32:47
  But obviously we get, as I say, an awful lot of music sent to us
• 32:50
  each week, even by radio pluggers.
• 32:53
  And when I say an awful lot last week, that was over 150 singles
• 32:59
  of which I'll listen to the ones that have been sent to me by
• 33:03
  people I trust. First they get the first series
• 33:07
  right. We'll do those.
• 33:08
  And then obviously I do, I do a lot of my own research online or
• 33:12
  often, you know, you bump into people at gigs who recommend
• 33:15
  artists to you or friends who I know in the industry, you know,
• 33:18
  managers or promoters who also, you know, give you tips of
• 33:23
  things that they think are good or maybe going going somewhere.
• 33:29
  And then there's the artists themselves who send in stuff.
• 33:31
  And I still get quite a lot of, I get emails obviously from
• 33:35
  artists at the BBC sending us music, but also still get quite
• 33:41
  a lot of physical, you know, records, CDs even.
• 33:44
  And I mean, I love nothing more than a nice letter from a band,
• 33:49
  if I'm honest. There's a nice letter from a
• 33:51
  band, handwritten if possible, describing who they are and what
• 33:57
  they do just makes their music so much more human than your bog
• 34:01
  standard press release. I think so anyway.
• 34:05
  Music comes from and it comes from all over the place.
• 34:07
  I mean, in fact, you know, if I don't know if this helps, but if
• 34:12
  you look back over the past 10 years, I was thinking about this
• 34:15
  this this morning because we've just passed the 10th anniversary
• 34:18
  of me seeing idols for the first time.
• 34:22
  But you go back over the past decade, idols, Fontaine's, DCI
• 34:26
  mean more recently, Little Granddad.
• 34:28
  None of these groups had radio pluggers when I first started
• 34:31
  playing them, so it's not essential for our show across
• 34:36
  the broader radio network. You, you might find that it's a
• 34:40
  bit different and you may well need a radio plugger to open the
• 34:43
  right doors for you. As I say, that's a conversation
• 34:46
  for another day. I think I've got quite a lot I
• 34:49
  could say about pros and cons of radio plugging, but I think
• 34:52
  it'll keep for now. We're nearly out of time.
• 34:54
  So finally, for this week, if you've come to the conclusion,
• 34:58
  possibly from what you've heard in this show, that you know
• 35:01
  Spotify is helping or sometimes killing music, well, at least
• 35:06
  it's now giving us somewhere to store the ashes.
• 35:09
  But there is a price, Stewart. There certainly is.
• 35:13
  This is the Eternal Playlist Urn, which is an an actual urn
• 35:18
  that has a has a Bluetooth speaker built into the lid.
• 35:21
  And this is a marketing partnership with Liquid Death,
• 35:24
  who I want to describe them as fizzy water and I'd probably get
• 35:26
  in trouble for that. There's probably some other high
• 35:28
  polluting words to use about it, but it's kind of fizzy water in
• 35:30
  a can isn't it? Liquid Death.
• 35:32
  OK. And they got in there.
• 35:34
  So only 150 of these urns have been released, and they cost
• 35:37
  $495 each. OK.
• 35:41
  Which I'm thinking here thinking, OK, how many of those
• 35:44
  they've sold out I think already, how many of what are
• 35:47
  people who actually said, yes, when I die, I want to store my
• 35:50
  ashes in a branded Bluetooth speaker.
• 35:53
  And how many of these people are going, this might go for, go on
• 35:55
  for 300, you know, for $1000 on eBay next week.
• 35:58
  So I'll buy 1 to speculate. But yeah, if if you want to
• 36:02
  store your ashes in an urn with Spotify on it, you're too late.
• 36:04
  But you might be able to get one on eBay next week.
• 36:07
  And that's where we'll leave it. Thank you very much for
• 36:09
  listening. If you are enjoying the show,
• 36:12
  please do spread the word. You can also support us via
• 36:14
  Patreon. In fact, if you sign up to be a
• 36:17
  super fan, you can get to join us for our weekly lock in where
• 36:20
  where some of you get to stay behind after hours for an extra
• 36:24
  1520 minutes of bonus material, which will include this week.
• 36:28
  Actually, based on that, we should do songs that we're going
• 36:32
  to have played at our funeral. Also some reflections I imagine
• 36:37
  on the Brits and one or two more observations about radio
• 36:42
  plugging possibly that's coming up.
• 36:44
  If you'd like to gain access to the Lock in, you can by becoming
• 36:49
  a super fan of the show at patreon.com/the Price of Music.
• 36:54
  Alternatively, as with Liam, do get in touch with us if you've
• 36:58
  got any questions or anything which we might be able to
• 37:01
  explain from behind the scenes in the music industry.
• 37:04
  If there's anything that you've always thought, how does that
• 37:06
  work or what does that cost, we might be the people to give you
• 37:11
  the answer. We will do our best.
• 37:13
  Drop us a line with any thoughts or questions.
• 37:16
  thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. That's the price of music.
• 37:20
  podcast@gmail.com. Till next week, take care
• 37:25
  Cheerio. Goodbye.