Latest / The Price of Music / UK recorded music revenue hits all-time record, Neil Young and Glastonbury

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UK recorded music revenue hits all-time record, Neil Young and Glastonbury · The Price of Music

0:37
Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, the show that looks at
0:40
the money behind the music industry, with me, Steve Lemack
0:43
and Music Allies head of Insight Stuart Dredge.
0:45
How was Christmas and New Year in the Dredge household?
0:50
It was good, you know, I didn't have COVID, which is a good
0:52
start. So I got over the hat.
0:55
I cooked a big Christmas dinner and that went well and and
0:57
nothing, no one died, which again is every year is my
1:01
measure. You, you have set the bar quite
1:03
low here in terms of expectations, yeah.
1:06
Have you done that? Have you ever cooked a Turkey
1:08
and done that thing where it's like 10° below where it should
1:10
be When you stick the tomato in and you're like, how far below
1:13
is it going to be before people actually go to hospital with
1:16
terrible stomach pains? Yeah.
1:19
I'm, I'm pleased, I'm, I'm, I'm pleased you didn't send people
1:23
away with food poisoning. There were no, no admissions to
1:26
casualty. Well done.
1:27
But. I want to, I want to ask you,
1:29
but I want to ask casuals. But I also want to correct your
1:32
intro because you missed out something.
1:34
I think when you said with me, Steve Lamac, you should have
1:36
said something else after Lamac, should you not?
1:39
Oh, you're going to mention the, the, the honour?
1:43
Yeah. Well, you should, I think like,
1:45
like tell me about your, tell me about the honour.
1:48
So, um, yeah, so out. Well, obviously this time it
1:51
came completely out of the, the blue.
1:53
It's not like this. It's not something you ever
1:55
really think about. I mean, it's certainly, you
1:56
know, it's not something you ever expect to, to happen, but,
2:00
um, yes, uh, I was announced as being a recipient of an MBE in
2:05
the New Year's Honours list. Well, you get, you get a letter.
2:08
I'm not sure you're supposed to say this, but they send, they
2:13
send you a letter 5 weeks in advance, basically to see if
2:17
you'll accept the, the, the, the award, I guess.
2:22
But it says in, and it said in strict confidence.
2:24
This is to inform you that the Independent Honours Committee
2:27
have put your name forward for an MBE for services to
2:31
broadcasting and and music news. And I mean, it's obviously it's
2:35
always nice to have your work recognized in some way.
2:39
But the fact that someone nominated us and then somehow
2:43
I've made it through the committee stage is, I mean, it
2:48
is like being it's, it's like an endorsement from a grown up, I
2:52
suppose, if that makes, if that makes any sense.
2:54
I do. I mean, it has given me just a
2:57
little bit of pleasure, though, imagining the committee sat
3:00
round the table discussing whether, you know, my obstinate
3:04
championing of places like the Dublin Castle and Bedford of
3:06
Squires actually merits a royal honour.
3:10
It's yeah. No, it's, it's it's nice.
3:12
I mean, it won't change me. I mean, obviously do avoid
3:15
direct eye contact as much as you can.
3:17
Yeah. I've been told you don't do
3:19
stairs as well Well podcast. But you know, I was because I
3:22
was going to take the piss for 10 minutes.
3:24
I thought that's what you would have wanted.
3:25
But genuinely it's it's, I think it's a great thing and not just
3:28
because it's broadcasting, but also recognising the live music
3:30
thing, which I know is so important to you and to us at
3:33
the moment. So I, I was really, when I saw
3:35
it, I was delighted. So.
3:36
Congratulations. Yeah.
3:37
I mean as I tell you, it's nice. It's nice that someone outside
3:40
the the industry thinks that that warrants, you know,
3:44
something. But yeah, I mean, and I'd, I'd
3:48
said he, he, you, you're contacted by PA about 48 hours
3:53
before the news breaks to ask when they ask you.
3:57
Have you got a quote which you'd like us to circulate?
3:59
And, you know, just struck me that, you know, I'd, I'd, and I
4:04
said, I want to sort of, if I can, if I, I'd like to dedicate
4:07
this. I mean, really to the listeners
4:09
of all the radio programs who've done with us.
4:12
And obviously the artist we've we've championed have made some
4:14
good records, But also to all the venues and all the promoters
4:19
and everybody who's given us so much joy over the years.
4:23
And, you know, we do what we can in return to support them.
4:27
But anyway, enough of me. We are back ladies and gentlemen
4:32
and thank you for taking the time to have a listen.
4:35
If you are new to the show, we are, as ever, the Music Podcast
4:39
which looks at the money in the business and how the music
4:42
industry works with some tips and occasionally some insights
4:46
for anyone who's interested in what goes on behind the curtain.
4:50
Our mission once again is to demystify the music biz while
4:54
bringing you some hopefully entertaining facts and figures
4:57
along the way. We have got a few news stories
5:00
to bring you this week before we do that.
5:03
I don't really like making predictions these days, but I
5:06
think it might be worth spending just a couple of minutes on what
5:09
the big themes of 2025 might be when it comes to the music
5:13
industry. Have you got any thoughts?
5:15
What are the big stories this year going to focus on do you
5:18
think? Yeah, well, one is but one new
5:20
race actually, when we're talking about this, that the
5:22
consolidation story. So major labels buying
5:25
independent music companies, that's for my mind a lot because
5:27
I think just before Christmas we talked, didn't we, about
5:29
Universal Music Group announcing they're going to buy downtown
5:32
music, one of the big companies. And this week, Martin Mills
5:35
actually from Beggars Group wrote a column this week in a in
5:37
a newsletter called Network Notes where he was kind of
5:40
saying we don't think this is going to work.
5:42
It's never worked when majors have tried to do independent
5:44
music before. And he was kind of just
5:46
expressing this. The collective he's been of the
5:48
music, the people, well, I guess the people who don't want to
5:50
sell their companies for loads of money to major labels,
5:54
there's a lot of worry. So I think this year, I think I
5:57
think we'll see major labels doing more in this area because
6:00
it's a big growing business for them, distribution.
6:03
And I think we'll see a lot of arguments around the what the
6:07
regulators do around these big deals.
6:09
So I think you're going to see the independent community sort
6:11
of lobbying hard, saying they shouldn't be allowed to do this.
6:15
If they are, they should be forced to sell off some bits or
6:17
do stuff, you know, I'll be restricted.
6:19
So there's going to be a lot of policy stories around it.
6:22
But I think also just that wider thing about what is independent
6:26
music nowadays and how is it evolving and, and, and what does
6:28
it mean that that Universal Music Group is making it a
6:31
really big priority and Warner and Sony.
6:33
So that's one of my big things. I do, I mean, it is a worry
6:36
though, I think because there is such, it does appear to be such
6:39
an appetite amongst the major labels to acquire smaller
6:43
companies and independent companies.
6:45
And you're right, I think there'll be a lot of, there'll
6:48
be a lot more of that going on this year, which at the same
6:51
time I think there, there will be a kickback against just the
6:54
big boys buying out the the smaller companies.
6:58
I think, I think ticketing as well, because there's, there's
7:02
the government consultation, much delayed consultation on
7:06
secondary ticketing, which is going to happen anytime soon.
7:10
And I think that will expand into looking at things like
7:13
dynamic pricing. And I think that's, that will
7:16
end up creating a lot of debates around live gigs and how much it
7:22
costs to go to gigs. That could be something.
7:25
I'll tell you one, I've got one other thing which, and I'm
7:29
really surprised that more news outlets didn't make a big thing
7:32
of this, but for the first time in years, there wasn't a single
7:37
British artist in the UK's top 10 tracks of 2024.
7:41
Not a single one. I think at some point there's,
7:45
there's going to have to be a wake up call this year as as
7:49
people start to realise just how much of our grip we're losing on
7:53
the world of pop music. Because we, we have been very
7:56
smug about Britain's standing in music for as long as anyone can
7:59
remember. But our, I mean, if not
8:02
dominance, our influence appears to sort of be on the wine.
8:05
And whether that's, I don't know, due to it could be a lack
8:08
of talent development, when it could be that just, you know,
8:12
the music which the UK specialises in just isn't as
8:15
popular as it once was. Or it could be because of all
8:18
the developing markets that we've talked about over the past
8:22
year. But whatever the reason, I think
8:24
I think this is quite a a big story, don't you?
8:27
Because if British labels aren't producing big selling British
8:30
artists, what are we going to have to export?
8:33
Who? Who are going to be our future
8:34
cash cows and what's it going to do for Britain's reputation on
8:38
the on the global music stage? Yeah, I thought it was
8:41
interesting because this came out of the the figures that the
8:43
BPI release at the beginning of every year, the label's body.
8:45
And and then I thought it was interesting how they did it
8:47
because they they went with their their main line was about
8:50
how well women artists had done. I think it was like half of the
8:53
top ten. And I think maybe nearly half of
8:56
the tracks that got in top ten last year were by women, and
8:58
that was more than men because there was a few.
9:01
And so that was the lead line. I think most of the coverage
9:03
went with that lead line. And it's a really good thing
9:05
because a few years ago, I remember there being some some
9:07
end of year streaming charts when it was mainly men.
9:09
And there was this concern that in this new.
9:12
So it was really good, genuinely good news.
9:13
But then the the point about Bush charts came further down
9:16
the announcement. And I think, like you say, a lot
9:18
of outlets either mentioned it in passing or didn't pick it up.
9:21
But it's something the BPI is worried about and they're trying
9:24
to get the government to give them more support, more funding
9:28
to correct this. So yeah, I think we may, I think
9:29
we'll be talking about this a lot this year.
9:30
And like we've, we've done it before and we like one of the
9:32
things I think is some of these reasons are good.
9:35
Like you say, there's lots of Afrobeats is coming through and
9:37
K pop is coming through and reggaeton from Latin America and
9:40
as a list. And that's quite exciting.
9:42
So it's not necessarily a terrible thing that there's more
9:45
of that in the charts. And it's not all British I but,
9:48
but you're right, I think there are genuine concerns around
9:50
talent development. And I saw actually Mark David
9:53
from the Venue Trust, he was linking this to the venues thing
9:57
and saying, well, look, we've got problems at the grassroots
10:00
of live music where you learn your trade and your craft.
10:02
And now we're seeing this and he thinks there's a link there.
10:05
So that's, I think this maybe is going to all come into one
10:08
debate about how we how we nurture grassroots and how we
10:12
develop talent and it will all be linked.
10:14
So I'm interested in seeing if people would talk about that and
10:17
draw those links and then what the government thinks about
10:19
that. Because really, if you're trying
10:22
to dress different things, maybe you should all come together and
10:24
should be a music person, a music czar.
10:26
That's what you normally do, isn't your point, czar?
10:28
Maybe there should be someone in government who's looking at all
10:30
of this and saying, well, a lot of this is interconnected, So
10:33
what can we do and what do we need to do?
10:34
Yeah, there's one. Obviously there's one other
10:37
thing which you mentioned to me, which is the dreaded, the
10:41
spectre of AI. That's not good.
10:43
I mean, that's going to be everywhere at at points I would
10:46
imagine. I'm going to make you a new song
10:48
every week this year. That's my promise to you until
10:52
you like one. No, I think it's but it's going
10:54
to be really interesting because last year I think we talked
10:56
about AIA lot, didn't we? Like it was a real last year was
10:58
the big breakout year for AI and music in terms of news stories.
11:02
I think what's going to happen this year is we're going to see
11:04
how the first lawsuits go in terms of labels suing AI
11:07
companies. Like we're going to see whether
11:09
they go to court when they get settled.
11:11
I think we'll see regulations and also we're going to see
11:13
governments trying to figure out right.
11:15
I mean, this happening in the UK actually with some stories about
11:16
this in December, but the government is trying to figure
11:19
out how do we make it possible for AI companies to train their
11:23
models while also respecting copyright and getting artists
11:25
paid. So we're going to see the and I
11:27
think we'll see some licensing deals.
11:29
I think we'll see some more like music company X has licensed AI
11:32
company Y to do things properly. So I think we're going to see a
11:36
lot of positive news around figuring out how this happens
11:40
without harming artists. That's my hope.
11:43
I'm really an optimist around this.
11:44
Like, it could all go. I mean, Elon Musk could create
11:46
and now it destroys the world. Is is the other thing here.
11:49
But in a positive sense, I hope we're going to see some good
11:52
moves and on figuring this out. All right, I think that's
11:55
probably enough of the future. Back to the present.
11:58
Where should we? Where should we?
12:00
Actually we we should start with this because this is some
12:03
breaking news which was released this morning.
12:08
These stats Wednesday morning, which suggests we might not be
12:11
flogging a lot of British music over here.
12:13
But streaming services and vinyl sales have pushed UK music
12:18
consumption and recorded music revenues in 2024 to a 20 year
12:23
high and an all time record. Who's come up with these figures
12:29
and how do how do they work all this out?
12:32
Yeah, well this comes from the Entertainment Retailers
12:33
Association era. So they represent record stores
12:37
but also streaming services. So anywhere where money is being
12:39
spent on recorded music. And yeah, so it was £2.39
12:45
billion is what we spent on recorded music last year.
12:48
And that that beats the previous high from 2001, although I
12:51
suspect there's inflate didn't take inflation into account
12:54
maybe, but in terms of fewer number.
12:57
And yeah, spending on music was up by 7.4%, including a 6.2%
13:01
rise for physical sales and 7.8% for streaming subscriptions.
13:05
So that's another part of this. It's like physical sales are
13:07
still increasing, vinyls driving that.
13:10
And these figures don't include advertising.
13:12
It's just what people are spending on music.
13:13
So you can add on to this advertising on Spotify's free
13:17
tier advertising on YouTube. So it's, yeah, it's positive,
13:22
positive news. I mean, like there's always a
13:23
lot of talk in the news to you. I think about are we going to
13:25
reach a ceiling where things aren't growing anymore?
13:27
What does streaming subscriptions run out?
13:29
Does vinyl stop growing? But last year, no good, good
13:33
growth. And yeah, everyone seems very
13:35
positive about it. And and I think Ariel was saying
13:38
their point was there's a combination that's good here
13:42
because physical sales may be kind of quite a small potential
13:45
to the market nowadays. I think streaming is, you know,
13:47
I don't, I didn't get the figures.
13:49
It's, I think streaming's about 88% of what we listen to, I
13:52
don't know, but vinyl particularly, it's good money in
13:56
terms of sales. So it's it's healthy, healthy
13:58
and to have that alongside streaming growth.
14:01
You just mentioned AI and legal battles, and I promise you to
14:06
your listeners that however many AI stories are thrown at us or
14:11
we come across, we won't overwhelm you.
14:13
We will be picking and choosing the important ones.
14:17
But this is worth a mention. I think it's there.
14:19
There has been some movement in an ongoing legal battle between
14:23
a group of music publishers and the AI start up Anthropic.
14:30
Yeah, So should I explain who they are actually because
14:31
they're they're they're anthropical, one of the big AI
14:34
companies. They've raised like billions of
14:35
dollars of funding from tech world.
14:39
And its main service is a thing called Claude, which is
14:41
marvellously kind of, you know, we're going to have an AI named
14:44
after, you know, a French, marvellous French name.
14:48
Claude is like ChatGPT. So you can go and chat to it
14:50
going to do things for you. It's one of those AI models.
14:53
And this lawsuit started before we even began this podcast,
14:56
actually back in 2023. And it's a group of publishers
14:59
including Universal Music Group and Concorde, some of the big
15:02
publishers in the world. And they sued it accusing of
15:05
copyright infringement, saying that Claude had been trained on
15:08
their lyrics. So obviously publishers own the
15:10
copyright for the lyrics of songs and that you could get it
15:13
to tell you those lyrics in response.
15:14
You could ask it what the lyrics are to a songs by Katy Perry and
15:17
The Rolling Stones. And it would tell you which in
15:20
terms of infringement is copyright infringing because
15:22
it's it's kind of, you know, publishing the lyrics to you.
15:25
There's a there was one of my favourite I mean, I don't have a
15:27
chart of my favorite ever legal filings.
15:29
But if I did back in November, the publishers had this filing
15:33
in the case and they revealed that they'd managed to get
15:35
Claude to mash up Elton John and Sir Mix a lot.
15:39
And it came out with this lyric like like a candle in the wind
15:42
bouncing merrily along your butt was bigger than them all.
15:45
Goodbye yellow brick butt. And that's a legal filing.
15:48
So it's just like so this is a case all about that kind of if
15:52
you if you ask an AI tell me lyrics or mash up lyrics and it
15:56
does it then the publisher says so anyway, that's been going on
16:00
since 2023 and over Christmas the publishers reached agreement
16:04
on one point with this company a little bit.
16:06
So Anthropic is going to put some guardrails in place to stop
16:09
this copyright infringement happening.
16:12
And I think we'll be mentioning this word guardrails a lot this
16:14
year. Like in in AI generally, you
16:16
hear it a lot like anything where AI could do a terrible
16:19
thing, a bad thing or an illegal thing people say we're going to
16:23
put some guardrails in place to stop it.
16:25
You know, is an AI going to infringe on lyrics?
16:28
We'll put some guardrails to stop it.
16:29
Is an AI going to kill everyone and enslave, you know, humanity?
16:33
We'll put some guardrails in place to make sure not.
16:36
So that's what's happened here. I think it says, right, we're
16:38
going to put these things in place, we're going to stop this
16:39
happening. And if publishers spot copyright
16:42
infringement happening on Claude the AI, they can tell Anthropic
16:46
and it's promised that it will investigate and tell them and
16:49
what it's doing about it. So it's like one part.
16:52
Sorry, just before you go, here's a question.
16:55
Can AI unlearn something? So can you, if it's learnt it's
17:00
been trained on or has learnt the lyrics to some songs, are
17:06
you then able to take those lyrics away?
17:10
For me, I don't because obviously you can tell I'm not
17:14
very good with technology. No.
17:16
If they find that there's been a copyright infringement because
17:21
AI has absorbed these lyrics and can quote the lyrics back to you
17:26
or match them up with somebody else, how can you stop that then
17:31
happening in the future? Yeah, no, it's the perfect
17:34
question. Like it's the important
17:36
question, really. So the answer to that, I think
17:38
is you as anthropic say you have you, you put something in place
17:41
that says right. If someone's asking me for
17:43
lyrics, like tell me, tell me Queen lyrics, you say I can't do
17:47
that, that's not allowed. But you see that on tragedy.
17:49
You can ask tragedy some things and it will say I can't do that
17:52
for you. I won't do that.
17:54
So it's it's about the outputs about what comes out.
17:57
I mean, you can't untrain it in that sense.
18:00
And that's one of the things in this case is the the publishers
18:02
put a statement out saying we we welcome this.
18:04
It's really good that it's they're going to stop it
18:06
outputting copyright infringing lyrics.
18:08
Gotcha. The case is carrying on and
18:10
we're still cross about it having trained on our lyrics
18:14
without permission. And that's something that hasn't
18:16
been settled yet. Like if, if, if, if a chat bot
18:18
tells you lyrics that is copyright infringement and, and
18:22
everyone, everyone is accepting that in terms of if you train it
18:26
on stuff without asking the publishman paying them, that's
18:28
still to be settled. That's why there are these
18:30
lawsuits. So that's not, that's not
18:32
definitely legal. Publishers say it is, and they
18:34
say the process of training an AI involves copying the lyrics,
18:38
in which case you are infringing it.
18:40
But that's, yeah, to be said. So the publisher said, look, we
18:42
welcome this. It's a good step forward.
18:44
But the case isn't over. It doesn't mean that we've ended
18:47
the case. We're still.
18:49
So we're going to hear about this case again this year.
18:51
It was one of the big ones, alongside the ones where labels
18:55
are suing AI firms over infringement of recordings.
18:59
OK. Also in the press last week you
19:06
may have seen records Glastonbury Festival profits
19:11
which covers the year. Well the accounts are up to 2024
19:16
are like does it? Yeah, March, so before.
19:18
March 24, So it's for for the festival of 2023.
19:23
And I guess, I mean, I'm not sure how their money flows in.
19:25
I mean, I guess some money must be flowing in for the 2024 event
19:29
by March. But yeah, because you've been
19:31
down this robot before. I remember you saying about you
19:32
were trying to get to, I think, didn't you, for a previous show,
19:35
tried to get to what money they were making?
19:37
And it's because it's a complicated set up, different
19:39
companies, isn't it? They declare different numbers.
19:41
Yeah, I mean it can be hard. Yeah.
19:43
I mean, I I had AI had a quick look at the new accounts.
19:47
I mean, obviously I'm I'm not not trained accountants, but
19:51
they do they do seem to bear out what the press have been
19:54
reporting. I mean, you would need a proper
19:56
accountant to give, you know, give the the books of forensic
20:00
once over just to make certain. But what are what are the
20:02
figures? I mean, it is.
20:04
They've made a lot of well, the the turnover is huge and the
20:08
turnover is up. The profit is not as big as
20:12
maybe people might think. Yeah.
20:15
So in the year to March 2024, its revenues were up 20% to
20:19
£68.4 million and then the pre tax profits nearly doubled to
20:24
5.9 million. So, yeah, revenues of 68.4
20:27
million, pre tax points of 5.9 million and that year included
20:32
it donated £5.2 million to partner charities.
20:35
So that's like Water Aid and Greenpeace and Oxfam, which is
20:39
good. And it spent 3.7 million buying
20:41
land in June last year because that's, that's obviously part of
20:43
Glastonbury. They have to buy land every so
20:44
often, whether it's expanding. But yeah, I think that the, the,
20:48
the genuine message was business is good.
20:49
And they had, they had two dry Glastonbury's in a row, which is
20:52
obviously good. And I think they said that, that
20:55
having those two dry successful ones in a row has helped them
20:58
replenish their reserves, which of course Glastonbury, like
21:02
everyone else, had the big COVID hit, didn't they, in those two
21:04
years when you couldn't do it. So positive news really in terms
21:07
of it's, it's, it's profitable. I mean, I, I, I read the story,
21:11
I wrote about it and I thought it's interesting though, because
21:13
that, that gives you a sense of that's the profit Glastonbury
21:16
makes, which is massive. And it makes you realise why a
21:18
lot of the small festivals which offer it on much tighter margins
21:23
are still struggling. So this is like this is the
21:25
successful one, the biggest one, but it doesn't mean that the
21:28
smaller ones aren't doing so well.
21:29
Yeah, if anyone's interested, by the way, just go to company's
21:33
house, the company's house website and you'll find
21:36
Glastonbury's annual accounts there.
21:38
There are, there are, there are well a handful, as you say of
21:41
different companies listed at Worthy Farm, but I think the one
21:45
you want is Glastonbury Festival Events Limited.
21:48
But yes, good news for Glastonbury and the charities it
21:50
supports. Although if you're, if you're an
21:53
artist who's been, who's been told that there's no money to
21:56
pay you to play and you're doing it for the exposure might be a
21:59
bitter sweet headline. I imagine actually talking to
22:02
Glastonbury, and this is right on the fringe of our remit, but
22:05
did you see that, that bizarre Neil Young Glastonbury story?
22:10
One day rant, one first day rant, I'm not playing
22:14
Glastonbury. Day two I am playing
22:16
Glastonbury. Yeah, which I kind of, I, I
22:19
mean, I, I'm quite fond of a Neil Young round, like I've
22:21
covered a few of them over the years because he did had a lot
22:24
to do digital music over time, but.
22:26
Yeah. Because he because like they've
22:27
only announced. They literally only announced
22:29
Rod Stewart so far, hadn't they at the time?
22:30
That's the only person confirmed to play.
22:31
And then Neil Young said, I'm not playing.
22:33
It was like, will you announce? But yeah, so it was, it was.
22:37
So I went through, I went back through to figure out what
22:39
happened. So he wrote this post on his own
22:41
site because often he that's where he publishes his, his
22:43
views first. And he said, yeah, well, we're
22:45
not playing. And he was about the BBC.
22:47
He said the BBC wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were
22:50
not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is under
22:53
corporate control, which is kind of, I think made a lot of people
22:56
here go what the BBC is controlling Glastonbury.
22:59
And I was writing up that story the next day and I went looking
23:02
for that blog post and it had been taken down.
23:04
And then I wondered, oh, I wonder if behind the scenes.
23:07
And then lo and behold, he put a new one up saying due to an
23:09
error in the information received, I decided not to play
23:12
the Glastonbury Fest, which I've always loved.
23:14
Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we
23:17
look forward to playing. And then, and this is what this
23:20
is where which Emily Evis actually posted on Instagram as
23:23
well at the same around the same time saying delighted about
23:26
this, he's headlining the Pyramid Stage.
23:30
Neil Young is a headline. Oh, this has passed me by.
23:35
Neil Young. Neil Young and his bands, What
23:37
are they called? Chrome.
23:38
Chrome Hearts. The Chrome Hearts.
23:40
Chrome Hearts sounds right, A headline headlining the Pyramid
23:44
stage in 2025. Yeah, which I don't want a bad
23:49
mouth Neil Young, not least because he will he'll he'll have
23:51
a good. But it's it was quite surprising
23:53
to me. I was thinking could it be the
23:54
legend slot or he could be, you know, but he's a headliner,
23:58
which is going to be it's been interesting because like he's
24:00
it's one of those ones where, you know, there's some artists,
24:02
you go right, they'll do all the hits, they'll get some guests
24:04
on, they'll do a Glastonbury moment or three.
24:07
And Neil Young, if he turns up and is like, I'm going to play
24:10
the new album and solo for 40 minutes, he will.
24:14
And that's why people love him because he's he's that's his,
24:16
that's that's that's who he is. But it'd be really fascinating
24:19
to see if he does well, not pass him too.
24:21
It'll be quite interesting to watch the full up.
24:23
Who does that? I wonder when, as you say, when
24:26
you when, when you say watch. I wonder whether the the BBC,
24:30
whether the error in information, I love the way that
24:34
there was no explanation as to the error that he refers to it
24:38
or who made it, whether it was just, you know, somebody's
24:40
misinterpreted a thing. But I do wonder whether whether
24:44
the original rant was maybe based on something to do with
24:49
broadcast rights. There was something before with
24:52
it. Last time I played Glastonbury
24:53
there was something around there was negotiations and they only
24:56
showed 5 songs because he didn't want this all.
24:58
So I feel like he's off. I think he's got a.
25:01
They only showed 5 songs. That was an hour and a half.
25:06
Oh goodness. But it's weird 'cause I think, I
25:10
mean you, I mean, I don't know about BBC you, but it must be
25:13
there are some artists who do have strong views, don't they,
25:15
about not wanting their sexy broadcast live or was it The
25:18
Rolling Stones? There were some negotiations.
25:19
Well, they had, they were wanting to make sure that it was
25:22
up to, you know, their standards.
25:23
So sometimes you do it. So I yeah, I don't know it was,
25:25
but yeah, he will be playing and headline.
25:27
I wonder what night it'll be. Do you think he's a Sunday night
25:30
headliner? Or Friday?
25:31
Or? What did he do in?
25:32
When was he last on? 2009 was it?
25:35
Yeah, it was. Why was it when he was doing
25:37
stuff with Pearl Jam or was that different?
25:38
I. Can't remember?
25:40
Well, I say I can't remember. I think I pushed all those bits
25:43
of information out of my head. He did play 2009.
25:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the last time 2 hour
25:49
headline set that year. Apparently so.
25:51
Maybe 5 songs? 5 songs, one hour.
25:55
Better 5 songs. Anyway, well done Neil
25:58
Fulfilling of what has obviously been a very quiet Newsday.
26:02
Or two newsdays in fact. Well done next.
26:06
Oh, this. We should mention that.
26:07
We should mention this just in case it's passed you by.
26:10
This is another court story, but a 22 year old from Luton who
26:15
stole unreleased music from the likes of Coldplay and Shawn
26:18
Mendes has been given a suspended 20 month, 21 month
26:22
jail sentence. Now.
26:24
I mean, I'm it's, is this a case of hacking some accounts then?
26:29
I mean, this is, this is not. I broke into Coldplay's
26:32
rehearsal room and walked off with the master tapes.
26:35
This is they're in the corner all the time recording it.
26:37
No one saw. Them.
26:38
Yes, Yeah. And pokes, pokes a phone in
26:42
through the through the window of the rehearsal room.
26:46
Yes. Tell us more about this.
26:47
Yeah. So this is a case.
26:49
It's, it's a 21 year old, 22 year old woman from Luton.
26:53
And yeah, what's what happened was they're accused of breaking
26:55
into cloud storage accounts. So basically, well, I'm just
26:58
recording and they've got the stuff they have to keep it
27:00
somewhere and increasing. That's online now.
27:02
It's not, it's not sitting on tapes in a box somewhere.
27:04
It's, you know, in the equivalent of Dropbox or Google
27:07
Drive, but probably more secure. So you'd think.
27:10
And yeah, I mean it, it sounds like a really interesting
27:13
investigation because I think it was Sony Music who realised that
27:15
a cloud account involved when it had been hacked.
27:19
And then they, they tipped off the IFPI was involved music
27:22
body, the RIA in the US. And then the police got involved
27:27
and they found an account on an online forum that was selling
27:29
unreleased music. And I think when, when this
27:31
president's house got raided, they, the police found 290,000
27:35
tracks on their hard drives and they reckon they made an
27:40
estimated £42,000 between I think it was like 2021 until the
27:44
beginning of 2023. That's when the raid happened.
27:46
So it's a little while ago and yeah, so they've been given a 21
27:50
month suspended jail sentence and a hundred 180 hours of
27:53
unpaid work, which I guess is what you call community service
27:55
nowadays. So they've not gone to prison,
27:57
but it's A and yeah. And it was, it was just, it's
28:01
interesting, not least because like a lot of the coverage, the
28:03
headlines were dark web dealer. So the implication is that this
28:06
is where the music was being sold on the dark web, which I
28:10
mean, there's, there's always been talk about like where stuff
28:13
is being sold. I know we've I've written about
28:16
there's a messaging app called Telegram where that regularly
28:18
gets accused of people using that to distribute music that
28:21
some released. So yeah.
28:23
And then these, these, I think there's a lot of investigations
28:25
going on around this, but this is one of the few public
28:27
prosecutions we've seen where it's gone to court and
28:29
sentenced. So, yeah, so.
28:31
I wonder what unreleased Coldplay music sounds like the
28:36
the music that they haven't deemed fit for release.
28:39
I wonder what a Shawn Mendes compilation of unreleased the
28:43
Shawn Mendes demos. How much 4242 grand I.
28:48
Wondered it because it is it like is it noodling in the
28:50
studio? Is it alternate?
28:51
Is it like recordings of tracks that came out that weren't, you
28:54
know what the final one like I don't think there's that many
28:58
recorded but unreleased Coldplay songs, is there?
29:00
You wouldn't think. I mean, they've, they'll have
29:02
some demos. So yeah, I mean, it's it's off.
29:05
Cut. That's fine.
29:06
Yeah, actually that that might be what it is, isn't it could be
29:08
working. It could be work in progress.
29:10
It could be just like the drums, drum solo, warming up the drums.
29:13
That's one track. Yeah.
29:14
I mean £50. I'm a dark way I'll.
29:16
Give I'll give you £50 to listen to Will noodling around on his
29:20
on on his drums, trying to do, I don't know, trying to do an
29:24
impersonation of Cosy Powell or someone.
29:26
Yeah. I mean this stuff.
29:27
Imagine a cold Coldplay in the studio will goes heavy metal.
29:32
Well, they might be doing that, you know, to warm up and that's
29:34
maybe, but this stuff is this stuff is.
29:36
So there's two things, I suppose. 1 stuff is like the
29:38
unreleased stuff coming out before you release it can harm
29:42
sales and do. But also this stuff is valuable.
29:44
Like when you get to the end of your career, like they could say
29:45
Coldplay or Chris Martin wants to retire, isn't he after like
29:49
one more album or two more albums?
29:51
But that's when you say right where what are the rarities?
29:53
What can we package up and sell? So this stuff has a value and
29:57
that's I think why the Police got interested in it.
29:59
But yeah, it's, it's all been, it's been resolved.
30:02
And finally, for this week, we we should have, we should have,
30:06
as it's our first show back. We should probably have at least
30:09
one Spotify story. So here it is, Spotify.
30:13
Then this comes back to a story we covered just before
30:16
Christmas. Spotify has officially fired
30:18
back at Drake over his claim that the streaming figures for
30:22
other artists were artificially inflated.
30:24
Remind us of this and what's happened next.
30:27
Yeah, so it kicked off in November with it was a legal
30:29
filing from Drake's company. And the main targets were
30:32
Universal Music, his own label, but also the label of Kendrick
30:35
Lamar, who had a big beef, beef war with and Spotify.
30:38
And yeah, it was some really spicy, spicy claims.
30:41
I think Drake said that they promoted Kendrick Lamar's diss
30:43
track about him, the UMG Paper Bots, to inflate that song
30:47
strings. Basically, he was saying that
30:48
this this this song about me saying terrible things about me.
30:52
You colluded to make this a massive hit and just before
30:56
Christmas. And it's really funny actually.
30:58
So sometimes like you get, someone will send you a, a news
31:01
story. And I got this on Spotify and I
31:03
said, do you think this will be worth writing and sending
31:05
tomorrow or can I leave it to the new year?
31:07
And my, my contact there was kind of like, I think, you know,
31:09
it's, it's not a huge, huge deal.
31:11
And then when it came in, it was Spotify saying Drake's telling
31:13
lies, which is one of the biggest stories.
31:16
Sorry, it's Spotify. Pushing back against Drake's
31:18
allegations would be the better way of saying that.
31:22
So yeah. And basically the what it says
31:23
is like Spotify says it had no deal where Universal Music got
31:26
lower royalties in return for promoting the Kendrick Lamar
31:29
track, which is one of the claims.
31:31
Spotify said it found no evidence that bots were used to
31:34
inflate streams of that song. I think it's basically some kind
31:36
of podcast said, yeah, I heard Universal paid somewhat some
31:39
bot, someone to do bots. And literally that seems to be
31:42
the only evidence for this happening is someone on a
31:44
podcast, Matthew, which makes you think someone mouthing off
31:47
on a podcast can start huge legal cases.
31:50
So that's why I watch my words. It also points out that Drake
31:55
was the second biggest artist on Spotify last year in the US.
31:58
So it says like there's no evidence that Drake's music
32:01
became less popular as a result of any kind of shenanigans.
32:05
And as we said at the time, and this is quite important part of
32:07
this, Drake hasn't filed a lawsuit.
32:09
This was called a petition to compel pre action disclosure.
32:13
So it's like a legal filing saying, I want information.
32:15
I want to get information out of you so that I can file a lawsuit
32:18
maybe in the future. And So what Spotify is doing
32:20
here is pushing back and saying there's no evidence for any of
32:23
this. You're just fishing for stuff.
32:24
And we don't want to give you. We're not going to have to give
32:26
you this. So it's them pushing back on
32:28
him, wanting them to give it information about any secret
32:32
shenanigans, and they're saying they were none.
32:35
OK, yeah, that will rear its head, I'm sure, again, at some
32:40
point across the coming year. That's it for this week, though.
32:46
Thank you as always for listening.
32:48
And if you have enjoyed the show, please do subscribe in
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Thank you by the way, to everyone who joined us for our
33:23
first ever Price of Music pop quiz just before Christmas,
33:27
which was very enjoyable. We'll undoubtedly do something
33:30
similar at some point in the future, but for more details
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out more. We'll be back in a week's time,
33:43
I'm guessing. For now though, thank you very
33:45
much, take care of yourselves.