Latest / The Price of Music / Why don't venues advertise set times for gigs?; Ticket resale prices capped in the UK; Megadeth brew beer; *How many* people are already listening to "All I Want For Christmas Is You"?; & much more...

Transcript

Why don't venues advertise set times for gigs?; Ticket resale prices capped in the UK; Megadeth brew beer; *How many* people are already listening to "All I Want For Christmas Is You"?; & much more... · The Price of Music

• 0:03
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:06
  Music Ally, the show that enjoys nothing more than pondering the
• 0:09
  finances of the music industry while trying to make sense of
• 0:12
  this weird pop music landscape we live in.
• 0:15
  I'm Steve Lemack, he's Stuart Dredge.
• 0:17
  If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music biz
• 0:20
  and how it all works and how the figures stack up, then here we
• 0:23
  are. This week, more streaming
• 0:25
  service changes and innovations, Records that made #2 in the
• 0:29
  charts. The government versus ticket
• 0:31
  touts. Should venues publicise?
• 0:34
  Stage Times and Megadeth are going down the pub.
• 0:38
  But first, Stuart's big stat of the week.
• 0:40
  Give us a big number, Stu. My big stat is 10 million and
• 0:45
  that is how many YouTube views Mariah Carey's festive classic
• 0:50
  All I Want for Christmas is You got in the first week of
• 0:52
  November, I. Think that's too early?
• 0:56
  So where where does that? Where does that?
• 0:59
  Is it the biggest Christmas out of the traps?
• 1:01
  Very early, But is that already the biggest Christmas records of
• 1:05
  2025? So far it is, yeah.
• 1:07
  It was #55 in YouTube's Global Top Songs chart, and it went top
• 1:11
  20 in the US Worms Last Christmas is also there and
• 1:15
  thereabouts. But, and this is mirrored
• 1:17
  elsewhere, I was thinking, is this a weird YouTube thing?
• 1:19
  But now it's so right now, the day we're talking All I want for
• 1:23
  Christmas is you is the 11th biggest song in Spotify in the
• 1:26
  world by daily streams more than two.
• 1:30
  And the weird thing that's like I looked at that and thought
• 1:32
  maybe there is there are some countries that do go massively
• 1:35
  early on Christmas songs like the Philippines famously start
• 1:37
  playing Christmas songs in October.
• 1:39
  That's the cultural habits. But no, in the UK Spotify chart,
• 1:43
  it's 8th Mariah Carey and last Christmas is right.
• 1:46
  So people really are it's. Too silly, mind you.
• 1:50
  Having said that, we were on the drive down to mine head for the
• 1:53
  Shine on festival on Friday. Myself and my friend Tommy was
• 1:57
  driving in the pouring rain. It was a really testing journey.
• 2:00
  But the last leg of the journeys just through countryside
• 2:04
  basically we passed at least two houses that were already
• 2:08
  festooned with decorations. I mean, they're probably the
• 2:11
  ones responsible for this. They've just got it on a loop.
• 2:14
  And I suppose that's the other thing, if if everyone's made
• 2:17
  their Christmas playlists already, then of course the
• 2:20
  players are going to rack up on a probably an hourly basis.
• 2:25
  Well, that's it. And if you if you like to
• 2:26
  celebrate these things and and festoon your house like
• 2:29
  Halloween is out the way. And I mean, all we've got really
• 2:32
  in terms of, I mean, it's Black Friday coming up, isn't it?
• 2:35
  But that's a shopping thing. You don't decorate your house
• 2:37
  for it. So I think people really are
• 2:39
  starting to have Christmas. I mean, you know, I mean, I've
• 2:41
  ordered some pigs in blankets to stick in the freezer.
• 2:44
  That's as far as I've gone. But I haven't played any
• 2:45
  Christmas music. We should do a Christmas
• 2:48
  earnings chart for songs that sell every year and how much
• 2:52
  they earn for the people responsible and maybe how that
• 2:56
  has changed during the streaming era as well.
• 2:59
  Put that on your To Do List right?
• 3:02
  Our top stories for this week. Story one Spotify is shaking up
• 3:06
  its subscription tiers as a test in five countries.
• 3:10
  To start with, what does What does this say about its future
• 3:14
  plans then for elsewhere in the world?
• 3:17
  Yeah. So this is happening not in the
• 3:19
  UK, it's happening in India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South
• 3:22
  Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
• 3:24
  So kind of five countries you describe as high potential
• 3:28
  countries. They're growing fast, but
• 3:29
  they're not the big mature places.
• 3:32
  And yeah, what's happening is they're splitting their premium
• 3:34
  description into three different tiers.
• 3:36
  So you can have premium light, premium standard and premium
• 3:39
  Platinum, which makes me think of Nando's cards and things like
• 3:43
  that. And basically what will happen
• 3:46
  is what the way it work is Premium Light will just remove
• 3:49
  the ads when you play music. Premium Standard has better
• 3:52
  sound quality and you can download things to listen
• 3:54
  offline. And premium Platinum will have
• 3:57
  everything else that all the other Wizi features of Spotify
• 3:59
  has launched. Anything else new?
• 4:01
  And you'll also be to add two people in your home to it.
• 4:04
  And so I guess to explain what that means.
• 4:08
  So first it's the idea of Spotify testing, splitting out
• 4:10
  its premiums into three different tiers and saying,
• 4:13
  right, if you want all the stuff, you have to pay more.
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  And in those countries, people are going to be paying more for
• 4:18
  that pre platinum tier than they were paying for a normal
• 4:20
  subscription before. And they're also it's, there's
• 4:23
  no family plan. So I don't know if you've seen
• 4:25
  Spotify's family plan. It's quite a common thing as
• 4:28
  doing you pay, I think it's £22.00 a month and you can have
• 4:31
  up to five other people in your house sold on it.
• 4:35
  There's no family plan in this new structure in these
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  countries. And what that says to me is like
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  labels sometimes grumble about this and say it's quite generous
• 4:44
  because if you're paying £22.00 a month for six people, that's
• 4:47
  like £3.70 each. And I think labels must say
• 4:49
  that's a bit generous. We would rather be have their
• 4:52
  own subscriptions. So this feels a little bit like
• 4:54
  Spotify testing out whether it can rain that in you're a family
• 4:58
  of more than three people, you'd need two of these platinum
• 5:01
  subscriptions to cover you all. You want me to just have one
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  plan? To me, it feels like it's a
• 5:07
  test. It's not happening here anytime
• 5:09
  soon. But it is a move in direction of
• 5:12
  something like a Netflix really where like you have, you don't
• 5:16
  just have one premium subscription to choose and
• 5:18
  that's it. You actually have the expensive
• 5:20
  one, the medium one, the light one, and they try and move
• 5:23
  people up that as they go, OK. Story 2 And this is the reason,
• 5:28
  dear listeners, while we're why we're slightly late coming to
• 5:32
  you this week because, well, we're recording this as we
• 5:36
  always do on Tuesday lunchtime. But the next story was embargoes
• 5:40
  until 5:00 on Wednesday. And unlike the Guardian who
• 5:45
  leaked this story as early as Monday evening online, we
• 5:49
  thought we'll we'll stick to the embargo.
• 5:53
  So this story should officially now be out there.
• 5:58
  And it is news that Labour have finally announced the
• 6:01
  conclusions of their lengthy consultation into ticket resale.
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  This is the government's plans to tackle the touts by capping
• 6:09
  the amount of money you can resell tickets for, basically
• 6:14
  capping the markup. That was the discussion.
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  And I mean, we've talked about this on numerous occasions and
• 6:20
  referenced it over the last few months ourselves.
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  But because, I mean, this ticket consultation is going on for
• 6:25
  some time and it was slightly delayed, I think by a change of
• 6:29
  minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
• 6:31
  But they've finally got to there and they've gone.
• 6:34
  They've actually gone much further than even some industry
• 6:38
  insiders might have hoped for. Stuart, you've got the actual
• 6:41
  report in front of you, I think. Yeah, you haven't.
• 6:44
  It's so, I mean, there were reports about this in advance.
• 6:47
  It's been long trailed. They were saying, yeah, they're
• 6:48
  probably going to put a cap on resales of up to 30%.
• 6:51
  So I guess if you bought a ticket for £100, you could only
• 6:54
  sell it for £130 reseller. But now they've come out and
• 6:57
  said it's going to be illegal to resell tickets for not just
• 6:59
  music concerts, but sporting events, theatre, comedy for
• 7:03
  anything more than the original cost.
• 7:05
  So if you buy a ticket for £100 you could only resell it for
• 7:07
  £100 and then wherever you resell it can put fees on top of
• 7:10
  that if they want. But those are going to be capped
• 7:12
  too, so they can't just like, bump up their fees.
• 7:15
  Yeah. I mean, this is, as I say, this
• 7:16
  is it's probably a better result for the music industry certainly
• 7:21
  than maybe even some people thought.
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  Because as you say, it started with as much as a 30% markup.
• 7:28
  And obviously the industry is saying, well, well, if, if, if
• 7:31
  people can still sell, resell tickets for up to 30% more than
• 7:35
  they bought them for, that still gives the taouts a living.
• 7:38
  Whereas, you know, we, I think we will, we were all thinking,
• 7:41
  well, 10%, at least 10%, would it make the taout's life
• 7:45
  worthwhile? Would they still do it?
• 7:47
  But to actually cap resale at the original face value of the
• 7:52
  ticket, I think is bolder than we thought it was going to be.
• 7:56
  Yeah. And then there's some figures in
• 7:58
  the press release actually, they reckon that this will make like
• 8:00
  resold tickets £37 cheaper on average, and they reckon it will
• 8:04
  save fans £112 million a year. So they've obviously been doing
• 8:07
  some, some crunching to figure out what what this will mean.
• 8:11
  And the other thing is you won't be able to resell more tickets
• 8:14
  than you were allowed to buy in the original sale.
• 8:17
  So if someone puts a content sale and that you can get a
• 8:19
  maximum of four tickets per person, you can't then go and
• 8:21
  resell 10 tickets. Not that you make any any profit
• 8:25
  from that if you were doing it under this new system.
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  There are, there are one or two things which are interesting.
• 8:30
  There's a couple of which should add a couple of caveats there.
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  There may be some additional costs involved in, you know,
• 8:38
  some fees for reselling which would go on top of the original
• 8:42
  ticket price. But I think they're going to cap
• 8:45
  those, aren't they? To make sure there isn't a
• 8:47
  loophole where you say, well the fees are 100 lbs for your £100
• 8:52
  ticket. The other thing which I think is
• 8:54
  worth mentioning and was something which certainly some
• 8:57
  of the resale sites were were saying was if you drive us out
• 9:01
  of business, then all this is going to go underground on
• 9:04
  social media and people just be selling their own tickets on
• 9:08
  social media. But social media platforms are
• 9:11
  also covered by this bill. I think all the by, by by the
• 9:14
  reforms they're talking about and.
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  It's got teeth, I think like if they can be fined a certain
• 9:19
  percentage of their revenues if they're found to be allowing
• 9:21
  this to happen. And if you're a if you're a
• 9:23
  Facebook, if you're an Instagram, you know, that's a
• 9:26
  lot of money. So there isn't it.
• 9:27
  Yeah. So it was interesting to me
• 9:28
  watching the reaction. So again, like I say, the
• 9:30
  Guardian, I don't know if they leaked it or they just had
• 9:33
  sources telling them, but they wrote a big story about this on
• 9:35
  Monday. And then Billboard covered it in
• 9:38
  the US and they got some reaction.
• 9:39
  So I think Billboard had Live Nation, Ticketmaster's power
• 9:42
  company, saying we welcome this. It's a really good idea.
• 9:45
  We already use the policy in the UK with Ticketmaster and we
• 9:48
  support this. So they're behind it.
• 9:51
  And then it had StubHub and via Gogo sort of saying we think
• 9:53
  terrible. And like you say that they were
• 9:55
  saying this is going to drive it all underground.
• 9:57
  It's going to be really bad news.
• 10:00
  And it's a weird week. I mean, it's a bad week if
• 10:02
  you're those companies Because simultaneously as this report
• 10:05
  came out, what the government's going to do, the competition
• 10:09
  regulator here was also opening an investigation into both
• 10:11
  companies. And it's looking at the fees
• 10:14
  they charge and where they're properly included upfront, as
• 10:18
  well as having this this this crackdown on what they can
• 10:20
  resell tickets for. They're also facing a
• 10:22
  competition investigation, which I mean, I was writing StubHub
• 10:26
  recently went public. It floated publicly in Stock
• 10:28
  Exchange in the US And so it's got a share price that reacts to
• 10:32
  this. And I think it's share price
• 10:34
  took a pit yesterday from these two bits of news.
• 10:38
  So it is a really kind of tough thing.
• 10:40
  And I think what you can tell me more if I'm being right here, I
• 10:43
  feel in the music industry, there's not going to be so much
• 10:45
  sympathy for those companies. They people aren't going to be.
• 10:48
  Crying, I mean, I can't speak for the industry as a as a
• 10:51
  whole, despite my position within live music.
• 10:55
  So I have to be quite careful, but I don't yes, I don't think
• 10:58
  there'll be a lot of sympathy towards for your go go and
• 11:02
  StubHub, to be honest, no, And obviously the question now is
• 11:06
  what next for for those companies if, because the the
• 11:10
  model has been this is where people have been going to resell
• 11:13
  tickets for some sort of profit. Let's make the point as well.
• 11:17
  You can still resell a ticket. So you're if you're a fan and
• 11:21
  you genuinely can't go to a gig that you bought the ticket for,
• 11:24
  you should be fine, but you won't be able to make a profit
• 11:27
  out of it. That's where that's where we're
• 11:29
  and. There are platforms that we've
• 11:31
  we've talked about Twickets before, haven't we?
• 11:32
  That's big thing was always you can be self at face value.
• 11:35
  It's a fair thing and we don't. Actually buy shares in Twickets,
• 11:39
  sell, sell StubHub, buy Twickets.
• 11:42
  There we go. And that's the financial markets
• 11:44
  covered for this week sorted. That yeah.
• 11:46
  But I think, I think it does feel like a fan for anything.
• 11:48
  And I think the, the question I have, I think is, is there
• 11:53
  something in what that those companies are saying about it
• 11:55
  going underground? And what does that mean?
• 11:57
  So I like, I don't, I don't assume it's just them reacting
• 12:01
  and saying making any then there probably is some risk that this
• 12:04
  could go underground. And so I'll be interested to see
• 12:06
  how the government is going to approach that, how they tackle.
• 12:09
  And I guess what does it mean for kind of physical touting?
• 12:12
  Is physical touting going to make a little comeback with the
• 12:14
  guy around the corner from the venue going got tickets because
• 12:18
  now they haven't got online competition perhaps.
• 12:21
  So maybe there's a resurgence in the physical touting.
• 12:23
  Who knows? We shall see Story 3 this week.
• 12:27
  There's a new record just out and it includes a brand new
• 12:31
  track from Paul McCartney, although you won't hear him
• 12:35
  singing on the record or indeed playing any instruments on it
• 12:39
  either. Tell us about this.
• 12:42
  It's musicians once again making the points making their making
• 12:46
  their point felt when it comes to the influence of AI in the
• 12:51
  music industry. Yeah.
• 12:53
  Well, do you remember earlier this year we talked about this
• 12:55
  album? It was called.
• 12:56
  What's it called? Is this what you want or is this
• 12:59
  what we want? And it was this.
• 13:01
  Is this the one which had the silent Kate Bush track on it, Or
• 13:04
  somebody miked up a studio where Kate Bush had been recording but
• 13:08
  wasn't there at the time and it's just ambient sound of Kate
• 13:11
  Bush's recording studio? Or have I just, was that a fever
• 13:14
  dream? I've just said no.
• 13:15
  That was it. And do you remember actually the
• 13:17
  thing you said at the time was there was one.
• 13:19
  There was this album. It's basically, yeah.
• 13:20
  Like I said, it's recording to empty recording studios and
• 13:23
  empty concert venues. And the idea is if the
• 13:26
  government relaxes copyright rules for AI companies, this is
• 13:30
  what you end up with. No musicians recording in
• 13:32
  studios and playing gigs. And I think you had a theory.
• 13:35
  You were like, there was one track on this album where you
• 13:37
  could hear someone sit down and do a little sigh.
• 13:39
  And you're like, I wonder if that's Kate Bush.
• 13:42
  And I had an e-mail from someone who would know who said that
• 13:45
  wasn't Kate Bush. Not the one with the side, but
• 13:47
  she is on one of the other tracks.
• 13:50
  So, so this so now it's coming out on vinyl, so £28.00.
• 13:54
  But you get this bonus track from Paul McCartney, which I
• 13:57
  mean, I hope he's there. I hope it's not just like his
• 13:59
  studio with no one in it. I hope he was like sitting in
• 14:01
  the corner. I know maybe just humming under
• 14:03
  his breath, you know, going humming the frog chorus sort of
• 14:05
  gently. But he's been he's been actually
• 14:09
  one of the biggest stars to be advocating for this issue,
• 14:12
  hasn't he? Him and I'd say him and Bjorn
• 14:14
  ovaries from Abra have been the real at the head of artists
• 14:17
  saying please don't let AI companies just scrape all our
• 14:20
  stuff without paying us all asking permission.
• 14:24
  And the backdrop to this is that so the government was sort of
• 14:27
  mulling the possibility of, yeah, we might relax this and
• 14:29
  you know, we need to help AI companies because AI is a future
• 14:32
  blah, blah, blah. And then it then U turned and
• 14:35
  said, we're not going to do that thing that you're worried about.
• 14:38
  But it hasn't said what it is going to do.
• 14:40
  It hasn't said how it's going to approach this whole area.
• 14:42
  So I think This is why the album is still is coming out.
• 14:45
  This is why the campaign is still going because it hasn't
• 14:48
  gone away as a threat. And my favorite thing was there
• 14:52
  was a press release for this this final album.
• 14:55
  And it's a guy called Paul Saunders from the state 51
• 14:57
  Conspiracy. They're releasing the album.
• 15:00
  And he gave this quote. And the quote ended with
• 15:01
  explaining that what happens to the sales?
• 15:04
  Well, all profits go to help musicians, he said, which is
• 15:08
  what our politicians should be doing instead of sucking up to
• 15:10
  tech Bros. So there's some good, good
• 15:13
  singers have got. But yeah.
• 15:14
  So. Yeah.
• 15:16
  Very concise. Any other business?
• 15:19
  I know you wanted to mention a new Squeeze album, which is a
• 15:22
  new Squeeze album, but it's all old songs, really old songs, I
• 15:26
  believe. Yeah, I just like this because,
• 15:29
  you know, I mean, you must have seen so many press solutions
• 15:31
  with new albums and you sort of, they can wash over you a bit.
• 15:33
  But this one, So the album's called Trixies, and it's
• 15:36
  Squeeze's first album of, like, new music in eight years.
• 15:39
  But the songs were all written by the two main members, Chris
• 15:43
  Different and Glenn Tilbrook, when there were 16.
• 15:45
  So when there were 16, before Squeeze had taken off, they
• 15:48
  wrote this concept album set in a fictional nightclub, which for
• 15:51
  16 year olds, you've got to say it's pretty ambitious.
• 15:54
  And what they said was, and there's a quote saying these
• 15:57
  were songs we just didn't have enough musical experience to
• 15:59
  record properly. So they've written them, but
• 16:01
  they couldn't do justice. And now they can.
• 16:04
  And they're going back to it, which it reminded me that you,
• 16:07
  you all know this more than I do, I think.
• 16:08
  But the new Pulp album that came out, I'm fairly sure at least
• 16:12
  one of the tracks was written like 2728 years ago.
• 16:16
  Yeah, I mean. They came back to it.
• 16:18
  It's quiet when you'll find this happens quite often.
• 16:21
  It's that bands. Radiohead will talk about this,
• 16:23
  won't they? They'll leave an idea behind and
• 16:25
  revisit it. A lot of bands find songs which
• 16:29
  they write and they just cannot finish because they can't quite,
• 16:34
  they don't know what it is. They can't finally fit it into,
• 16:37
  put it into shape to make a song out of it.
• 16:40
  And so, yeah. And so a lot of songs just get
• 16:43
  sort of left behind because either they don't fit or they
• 16:46
  were just too awkward a piece to to be able to complete properly.
• 16:51
  So I'm sure there's like, there's probably other, I mean,
• 16:54
  I'm not sure other artists have got entire concept albums lying
• 16:57
  around under their beds, you know, folders for the most
• 17:01
  lyrics. Most 16 year olds concept albums
• 17:04
  would be definitely not worth hearing.
• 17:08
  I've got AI had a thought about this and I'm worried that it
• 17:10
  will be very offensive to musicians and I want you to stop
• 17:12
  me if it is before I get cancelled.
• 17:14
  OK. All right.
• 17:15
  But I feel like the stereotypical journey of
• 17:18
  musician is you think as they get older, their freshest,
• 17:22
  hungriest songwriting happens when they're young, at the start
• 17:25
  of their career. And for a lot of musicians, it
• 17:27
  kind of gradually gets their writing the same stuff they
• 17:30
  always have. Or, you know, that's the
• 17:32
  perspective it's like they get their songwriting gets less
• 17:35
  original as they get older, but their musical proficiency
• 17:38
  increases. You get better at playing music,
• 17:40
  but your songs, maybe, you know, you're writing about being on a
• 17:42
  tour bus in a hotel and no one cares.
• 17:45
  And like a lot of bands even that I love, as they got older
• 17:48
  their their songs became less interesting and.
• 17:52
  I mean, Michael McGregor can like can be true, but then
• 17:55
  there's certainly you will write raw, energetic, interesting,
• 18:00
  economical songs when you start because you don't have the
• 18:02
  ability possibly to do anything else.
• 18:06
  But I think it it depends. It's all about the ideas, isn't
• 18:09
  it? Sometimes a bit more experience
• 18:11
  and a bit more proficiency with your instruments leads to more
• 18:14
  interesting music down the down the line, though.
• 18:17
  I think it's all to do with whether you're, you know,
• 18:20
  reinventing yourselves or it's yeah.
• 18:22
  It's just, I mean, it's a band is or an artist is, you know,
• 18:25
  really hungry at the start, not necessarily at their best at the
• 18:28
  start, though. I don't think some people, some
• 18:32
  people's debut albums are the best thing they're ever going to
• 18:35
  do and they should stop. Other people's aren't.
• 18:37
  So that's it. And I was thinking, obviously
• 18:39
  the great songwriters are the ones that buck that rule
• 18:41
  completely. They they they evolve and they
• 18:43
  get better and better and deeper and richer.
• 18:45
  But it did make me think there is something here if if you're,
• 18:47
  if you're a musician, I'm not saying this is about Squeeze
• 18:49
  either, because I think they're examples of some writers who've
• 18:51
  constantly evolved. But if you are in that point
• 18:55
  where you're thinking, I'm not sure about my new songs or I'm
• 18:58
  having a write it blank, but then going back to that stuff
• 19:01
  you wrote when you were young and saying, well, I might
• 19:03
  revisit this. Actually, we, we, we haven't
• 19:05
  heard the album yet. Squeeze.
• 19:07
  Can we come back to live music just for a second?
• 19:09
  Because this is an interesting debate which was sparked
• 19:12
  originally by an article on the Drowned in Sounds website.
• 19:15
  It was written by Emma Wilkes. It was basically saying why
• 19:19
  don't more venues publicize stage times?
• 19:22
  And do you find it annoying or at least unhelpful when they
• 19:27
  don't? Because according to a Music
• 19:30
  Fans Voice survey earlier this year, 44% of people who
• 19:34
  responded to it said they would go to more gigs if they had
• 19:38
  better advance information of stage times.
• 19:41
  More, sometimes more importantly, When's it going to
• 19:44
  end? When's the gig going to end?
• 19:46
  Just tell us. And it goes on sort of, and it
• 19:49
  lays out reasons why some venues don't advertise the stage times
• 19:53
  and that that sort of boils down to, you know, fans only arriving
• 19:57
  for the headliner, so not seeing the support bands.
• 20:01
  So the support band loses out. And there's there's anecdotal
• 20:04
  evidence to suggest that might be true.
• 20:07
  But and obviously, and I think it's, you know, in some cases
• 20:11
  it's just part of a gang of mates going out.
• 20:14
  They go to the pub first, then they they'll wait and if they
• 20:17
  find out. The headline is on at 9:15, will
• 20:19
  turn up at 9:00 or 5:00 to 9:00, go to the bar, watch the band.
• 20:25
  So there is there is that to consider, which obviously if
• 20:28
  people turn up later, this is what concerns venues and
• 20:31
  promoters. If people are turning up later,
• 20:33
  they're also not spending money at the bar of the venue, which
• 20:37
  puts some cash in the till of the venue and that's something
• 20:40
  we'll come back to in a second. But to balance this out, the
• 20:44
  piece quotes the band Los Campesinos, Thinks Gareth from
• 20:47
  Los Campesinos, who is saying that they always publicize their
• 20:52
  stage time for themselves because they've been in the
• 20:55
  position of, you know, being a fan and not knowing when a band
• 20:58
  was on. And it's just so much harder to
• 21:00
  play and unite. And in some cases, you know,
• 21:03
  there's a lot of risk involved, isn't there, thinking, well,
• 21:06
  I'll go to that gig, but I don't know when it ends.
• 21:08
  And if it ends late, I'll have to leave early or because I
• 21:12
  won't be able to get the last bus or I'll just have to miss,
• 21:15
  miss the last bus and walk home. But if I have to leave early,
• 21:19
  that's sort of a waste of money. So I won't bother going at all.
• 21:23
  And in which case that's a ticket sale lost.
• 21:27
  But yeah, Gareth from Lost Camp said, you know, he was saying
• 21:30
  people, he thinks as well, people will buy more tickets in
• 21:35
  advance if they've got the information in advance.
• 21:38
  So when the tickets go on sale and you know, the first band's
• 21:41
  on at 8 and the headliners are on at 9:00 is there, I don't
• 21:45
  know if this is if this is true, but he's making the case that,
• 21:49
  you know, people will then go, well, I'm definitely going to
• 21:52
  that gig. So I would definitely buy a
• 21:53
  ticket, which you know, as because as we know, the real
• 21:57
  killer for venues. And one of the things that that
• 21:59
  is a problem for venues if is if people don't buy tickets in
• 22:03
  advance, then it becomes a real gamble for the promoter because
• 22:07
  if you haven't sold enough tickets in advance, you know, to
• 22:10
  pay your overheads, Do you, do you a, you know, just hope that
• 22:14
  people turn up on the night or B, you, you pull the gig.
• 22:19
  So anything to help people's confidence in buying tickets in
• 22:21
  advance. I don't know.
• 22:22
  I mean, that's the basis of the, the, the article.
• 22:26
  It's a very good article, actually.
• 22:27
  I don't know if you've got any thoughts on this.
• 22:29
  Yeah, well, I was going to say, you say if they were wheels.
• 22:31
  Anyway, it was a balanced article.
• 22:33
  It wasn't like coming out on one side or, you know, trying to be
• 22:35
  make clickbaity stuff. It was like, here are the
• 22:37
  reasons and here's what he says. I mean, I yeah, you know, one,
• 22:41
  one thing I made me think was me and you are probably the worst
• 22:43
  people to kind of make make big assumptions here because I think
• 22:47
  we both love music. We both, we want to go and see
• 22:50
  the support bands. Yeah, we're not normal.
• 22:52
  We're not normal. We'd like to think that everyone
• 22:54
  is the same and I think one of the things that came out this is
• 22:56
  everyone is not the same. People don't because I, it made
• 22:59
  me think if I go to a bigger gig, like I'd say theatre arena
• 23:03
  theatre and above, like, you know, I actively will try and
• 23:08
  have a drink in the pub beforehand rather than in the
• 23:10
  bar because the prices can be so eye watering.
• 23:12
  But if I went to a gig in a small venue, I do have that
• 23:17
  sense of I want to go and drink in the bar because of what we've
• 23:19
  talked about. I understand the economics.
• 23:20
  It's really important if I buy a couple of pints there for them
• 23:23
  to. So that's one thing.
• 23:24
  It's like separating different. Like, if I go to a beer gig, I
• 23:28
  still want to get and see the support band, but I don't want
• 23:31
  to be at the bar for any longer than I have to in the venue
• 23:33
  because it's so expensive. Yeah, but for a smaller gig,
• 23:36
  it's different. I would go there and I would sit
• 23:38
  in the bar and I would want to be there from the start.
• 23:40
  Yeah, I mean, and can I can I just put on record I'm all for
• 23:44
  venues letting us know the stage times because but partly if if I
• 23:48
  want to go to well, I'm going to a gig tonight.
• 23:50
  I'll, you know, it'd be nice to, you know, yesterday I've been
• 23:54
  able to tell my wife I'm going out tomorrow evening.
• 23:57
  This is when I'll be leaving the house and this is what time I
• 24:02
  think I'll be home. And the only thing I'd say to
• 24:05
  the venues is, you know, whatever you think you'll lose
• 24:08
  will at least balance out with the money that you will gain.
• 24:11
  I think because, you know, there might be occasions when you
• 24:14
  know, I'll leave home a little later because I know the time of
• 24:17
  the band that I want to see. So that would be a loss to you.
• 24:21
  I'm afraid of venues. But also there are times when,
• 24:24
  you know, I'm just, I won't bother going at all because I
• 24:26
  don't know when the band is on and I don't want to miss them.
• 24:29
  But you know, if I'm doing bedtime till 8:00, say, because
• 24:33
  you haven't told me that the band's on at 9:15, which means I
• 24:36
  could have got there, then I then I won't go because I'm not,
• 24:41
  I'm not, I don't want to miss. I don't want to miss the band.
• 24:44
  So I mean, it's it's a it's a really difficult one, I think.
• 24:48
  But as as a as a yeah, as you say, as a sort of fans, we are,
• 24:53
  you know, I think knowing the times is a is a real help.
• 24:58
  I. Thought they interviewed the
• 25:00
  anchorist as well, didn't they? I think she was talking about
• 25:02
  she's a parent and so she's having earlier curfew times
• 25:05
  because she wants to get home. But she also understands that
• 25:10
  some of her fans are also parents and they've got may have
• 25:12
  babysitters then. And that is that is the thing.
• 25:15
  And that's why she's been working on this and saying,
• 25:17
  right, OK, want to be clear about this and want to have
• 25:19
  earlier, want to finish earlier and also communicate that.
• 25:22
  So there are all these. I think it was interesting that
• 25:24
  her and also Gareth, like they were talking about it as music
• 25:28
  fans as well who go to gigs. And they were saying, I think
• 25:30
  the thing that was on him is Gareth from Campagina saying he
• 25:33
  feels quite anxious if he doesn't know the times he's
• 25:36
  going to kick himself. And I, I have that sense like I
• 25:39
  just, and maybe it's an older thing, but I do want to know
• 25:42
  when, when I'm going to be getting home.
• 25:43
  And I'm particularly now I live out in the sticks.
• 25:45
  There are train implications because I have one train an hour
• 25:48
  after 10:00 at night. Yeah, I think it is.
• 25:51
  But I think when we're going to talk in lock in more about this,
• 25:53
  there are there are also understandable reasons from
• 25:55
  venues sides why they prefer sometimes not.
• 25:58
  Well, yeah, I mean, because the underlying problem, which leads
• 26:02
  us to another conversation in a way.
• 26:03
  But if a venue can't cover its costs through door money, which
• 26:07
  of course venues can't cover their costs on the door anymore
• 26:10
  just through tickets, then obviously they want as many
• 26:13
  people to turn up as early as possible because, you know, they
• 26:17
  hope fans will arrive just in case the band is on early.
• 26:20
  And thus they will buy more drinks or food or whatever it
• 26:24
  is, you know, that will keep the venue going.
• 26:27
  So it could be, as I say, it could be about, you know, it's
• 26:31
  it's the habit, isn't it getting into a habit or being being
• 26:34
  attractive enough as a proposition, the gig to get
• 26:37
  people to go a bit earlier. The by the way, the economics of
• 26:41
  all this are covered in a separate sub stack piece by Mark
• 26:46
  David from the music venue Trust, which is also very good,
• 26:49
  which deals with, you know, the the financial implications of
• 26:54
  people arriving just for the headliner.
• 26:58
  Look that up. That's that's pretty good as
• 26:59
  well. But as Stu says, there'll be
• 27:01
  more about this in this week's lock in for our Patreon
• 27:04
  subscribers. In the meantime, we'd love to
• 27:06
  know your thoughts though on this.
• 27:08
  If you want to get in touch, You can respond to any of the
• 27:10
  stories, of course, at the price of music, podcast@gmail.com.
• 27:15
  That's the price of music, podcast@gmail.com.
• 27:18
  Do get in touch with any feedback on any of the stories
• 27:22
  we're covering this week. We just got a couple of more
• 27:25
  bits, I think. Oh, the title title, which was
• 27:28
  the streaming service, which was owned by Jay-Z and a bunch of
• 27:33
  other music stars at one point. That's that's come up with
• 27:36
  something new. Yeah, so I don't know if you
• 27:39
  ever saw that, that when they had the big launch, when it had
• 27:41
  all the pop stars on stage and Jay-Z and a Coldplay, Madonna
• 27:44
  and people who were the owners, that was back in the day.
• 27:48
  Since then, it's been a fairly standard streaming service, like
• 27:51
  a Spotify, Apple Music, in that labels and shippers put music on
• 27:54
  there and then they get paid royalties to share with artists.
• 27:58
  But now it's doing a thing in the US starters where basically
• 28:00
  any artist can now upload music directly to Tidal, have it on
• 28:04
  there and other people can listen to it even if they're not
• 28:07
  a subscriber. So essentially it's Tidal
• 28:09
  becoming more like SoundCloud somewhere, whereas an artist,
• 28:11
  you can put your music directly, the downside being you don't
• 28:14
  earn any royalties, so it's purely promotional.
• 28:17
  You put your music on there to get it heard like you would in
• 28:20
  sat on SoundCloud back in the day.
• 28:23
  So it's kind of interesting because Tidal has been quite
• 28:25
  quiet since those days of its glitzy superstar artist owners.
• 28:30
  It's been quite quiet. It's owned by a tech company.
• 28:32
  It doesn't seem that interested in it.
• 28:35
  So it's been quite bad. This is this is quite a big
• 28:36
  move. And it's it's it's quite
• 28:39
  interesting. But what you can't do, sadly,
• 28:41
  when necessarily happily, I can't go there now and upload
• 28:44
  all of Beyoncé's catalog and pretend it's me.
• 28:46
  And you know, they're going to have stuff in place to make sure
• 28:49
  that you're not uploading copyrighted music doesn't belong
• 28:52
  to you. But it is titled trying to
• 28:54
  become a SoundCloud where new artists will try and get
• 28:57
  themselves heard. So we'll have to see our case.
• 28:59
  And here's another thing that you sent us in the week that you
• 29:03
  wanted to mention. Tell us about this.
• 29:06
  There's a DJ in the Lake District who spent 24 hours the
• 29:11
  other week just playing songs that peaked at #2 in the chart.
• 29:17
  Why was, why was this exciting? I mean, I shouldn't, I shouldn't
• 29:21
  bother asking really, should I? Why did you pick this out?
• 29:26
  Just because number 2 is a fun clue as to what's going on here
• 29:30
  now, you know, do you know, it's a serious story couched in in in
• 29:33
  childish amusement. So.
• 29:35
  So yeah, his lead, Durant, he had a 24 hour live broadcast.
• 29:39
  I mean, have you ever done 24 hours on the radio?
• 29:42
  No, I haven't. The only person who's done it at
• 29:44
  radio, in radio while I've been on the same station, Simon Mayo
• 29:48
  did it because poor old Simon had to deck for me on part of on
• 29:53
  one of the evening sessions. So I I wasn't on air that night
• 29:56
  'cause obviously he's going to do the 24 hours on air.
• 29:59
  So all the other DJs had to step down.
• 30:01
  But we'd already arranged the session by a screaming indie
• 30:05
  rock band called Kay, so as probably it's 24 hours on air,
• 30:10
  he had to interview Kay and I imagine poor Simon enduring the
• 30:15
  three tracks that they played in session for him.
• 30:18
  But no, no, I've never done it 24 hours anyway.
• 30:21
  Didn't he use the 24 hours just to play runners up?
• 30:25
  Yes, and the whole thing. So this is, this is about what's
• 30:28
  happening in the Lake District, the environmental storage, where
• 30:30
  it gets serious because it's about sewage being spilled
• 30:32
  illegally into rivers and lakes. So #2 is floating past as you go
• 30:37
  for your swim. Essentially.
• 30:39
  So that was a theme as a great quote as well.
• 30:43
  A quote from press release here. It says what's more shocking
• 30:45
  fairy tale of New York never making it to Christmas number
• 30:48
  one or United Utilities dumping sewage into Windermere and
• 30:51
  paying themselves huge dividends is what he said.
• 30:54
  So it's a protest about what's happening with water companies.
• 30:57
  But it's a good, I mean, even if there wasn't this environmental
• 31:00
  time, it's a good theme because I mean, there are some proper,
• 31:03
  there's a famously lots of good songs.
• 31:05
  And I was, I was looking the Official Charts Company.
• 31:07
  I've got this list of every song that only peaked at #2 like a
• 31:11
  pager to Scroll down for hours. And it's like it goes from Hound
• 31:15
  Dog by Elvis Presley. God and he knows Beach Boys, God
• 31:18
  save the Queen, Oliver's army amp music take on me and then
• 31:23
  through my era supergrass. All right, Pope, Miss Shapes
• 31:26
  Wonderwall famously. Didn't, didn't, didn't Radio 2
• 31:30
  do a poll not so long ago in conjunction I think, with the
• 31:34
  Official Charts Company to find the nation's favorite runner up?
• 31:39
  You know, the best record that only went to #2 what was that?
• 31:43
  Was that Vienna? Oh God, what's it?
• 31:45
  By Ultravox did that. I think it might have been
• 31:48
  Vienna by Ultravox. Let's say it is.
• 31:49
  For now, let's just start that route, Start this legend here.
• 31:54
  Even if it's false, don't let the facts get in the way.
• 31:57
  But yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Vienna by Ultravox, and the
• 32:01
  Official Charts Company said we will make it an honoree #1
• 32:07
  because it's the most popular record that's ended up at #2 in
• 32:12
  the history of pop. So something kept up, number
• 32:15
  one. That's kind of like that was
• 32:16
  number one over Vienna. I'm looking it up now, aren't I?
• 32:18
  Yeah. Because I just, I just thought
• 32:21
  that was your thinking face. It was my well, that's my
• 32:24
  Googling face. Oh no, it was it.
• 32:26
  Shut Up Your Face by Joe Dolce kept it off #1 so a novelty song
• 32:30
  kept. It right okay, well well done
• 32:33
  Lee in the lake districts anyway for making a very salient point
• 32:37
  through pop music and finally for this week metal legends
• 32:42
  mega. I had to take a deep breath to
• 32:44
  get through this. Metal legends Megadeth are
• 32:46
  releasing their final album in January, but they have just
• 32:50
  released something else, their own beer, and it's on sale in
• 32:55
  that most metal of retailers. Tesco.
• 32:59
  Have you, have you? Have you got any more on on this
• 33:02
  particular story? I haven't got any more because
• 33:05
  I've drunk at all. Oh, you've got a, you've got a
• 33:08
  canned. They actually sent you.
• 33:09
  They sent you a can of. No, now I went to Tesco's and
• 33:12
  bought cans. Strict topics here.
• 33:14
  That's right. And what what is it called?
• 33:17
  Has it got a name? Yeah, so they've got a few kind
• 33:20
  of three bits. They've got Rattlehead IPA
• 33:21
  rattlehead pills now, and they've got an IPA zero to an
• 33:24
  alcoholic one. Megadeth have done a non
• 33:27
  alcoholic beer. Well done keeping up with the
• 33:30
  times. Megadeth being inclusive I'm all
• 33:33
  for. And this is like just become a
• 33:35
  thing in metal and Hard Rock circles.
• 33:37
  So Iron Maiden most famously have got a range of beers.
• 33:40
  There are companies who who do who work with bands like this to
• 33:43
  create beers. And it is.
• 33:44
  It's one of the one of the spin offs that actually makes sense
• 33:47
  because, you know, bands love beer.
• 33:50
  They have all kinds of thoughts about what beer is good.
• 33:52
  I'll give my review of it in the lock in, aren't we?
• 33:54
  Oh, the tice, you guys give us a tice test.
• 33:57
  We'll give you a more excellent. All right then, Well, that's
• 34:01
  quite a good plug for the fact that yes, straight after this
• 34:04
  for our for our super fans via Patreon.
• 34:10
  If you sign up, you get, I don't know, 1520 minutes more of us
• 34:14
  meeting him, chatting about music and money.
• 34:17
  That's for super fans who have signed up at patreon.com.
• 34:23
  The price of music, patreon.com, the price of music.
• 34:27
  Thank you very much for listening.
• 34:29
  And of course, if you are enjoying what we're trying to
• 34:30
  do, please do spread the word, tell your friends, leave us a
• 34:33
  review online. That's always good.
• 34:35
  If you'd like to ask us any questions, just drop us a line.
• 34:39
  It's the same e-mail address I mentioned earlier on in the
• 34:41
  programme. But anything, anything you don't
• 34:43
  understand about how the industry works, any any advice
• 34:47
  or guidance you'd like from us, the professionals?
• 34:50
  It's thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com.
• 34:53
  thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com. We'll be back next Wednesday.
• 34:57
  Till then, Tara.