Latest / The Price of Music / Which pub was Olivia Rodrigo drinking Guinness in? Can AIs run a record label? Taylor Swift trademarks her speaking voice; AND... Heavy metal dinosaurs.

Transcript

Which pub was Olivia Rodrigo drinking Guinness in? Can AIs run a record label? Taylor Swift trademarks her speaking voice; AND... Heavy metal dinosaurs. · 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 the
• 0:08
  music industry while also bringing you stories and comment
• 0:12
  from the past week in the pop business.
• 0:15
  He's Stuart Dredge. I'm Steve Lemack.
• 0:17
  Let's start with the financial facts, as we always do,
• 0:20
  something which you might be able to impress friends or
• 0:23
  colleagues with. This is something which actually
• 0:26
  came up in last week's lock in, but it's Stuart's big number for
• 0:29
  this week as well. Which is.
• 0:32
  It's a number to horrify your friends actually in the pub
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  75,000 which is a number of fully AI generated tracks that
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  are uploaded to Deezer every single day.
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  Now, this is something, as I say, which we mentioned last
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  week in the lock in, which is the extra bit of the program for
• 0:49
  super fans on Patreon. But it's, as I say, worth coming
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  back to because as a headline figure, 75,000 tracks a day
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  sounds very ominous, Although as a percentage of the total amount
• 1:01
  of music available on Deezer may be less so.
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  Slightly less, yeah. I mean, it's now of all the
• 1:07
  songs uploaded to these because it this is Deezer announced a
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  new stats, but you can kind of assume it probably applies to
• 1:12
  the bigger streaming services too.
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  It's now 44% of all the daily uploads are entirely which has
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  gone up. So I think the first time they
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  released the figure was January last year.
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  So what's that 14 months ago now?
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  And back then it was 10,000 AI tracks a day and they were 10%
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  of all the uploads. So that's now growing by
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  sevenfold number of tracks and it's 4.
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  So it's kind of creeping towards half a lot of the headlines up
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  with nearly half of these tracks.
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  But, and I always come back to this, don't I like kind of the
• 1:42
  the sky is not falling in number, which is that when it
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  comes to it's actually being played on D that what means been
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  streamed between 1 and 3% of its total streams at AI music.
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  And 85% of those streams are fraudulent, which basically
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  means it's detected as being played by bots to try and earn
• 2:00
  money legally and they're not earning any royalties because
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  it's caught them. So really 15% of up to 3% of its
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  total streams are AI music, but they're 44 percent of a female.
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  So basically, it's not stealing money from artists just yet.
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  Any kind of scale. And Deezer is keeping those
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  tracks out of its recommendations and its
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  algorithms so you people won't get played them.
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  So very few humans are listening to it.
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  But it's just this mountain of slop is building up on Deezer's
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  servers. Yeah, well, that's, but that's
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  surely the thing, isn't it? Because surely it becomes more
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  and more expensive to house all this music, much of which is
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  just how you are generated, which nobody, no, no real people
• 2:42
  are actually listening to. So it's just clogging up the
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  system. It's true.
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  And you know, every year we talk about, there's that report that
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  comes out in sort of January about how many songs got 0 plays
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  in the previous year. And if we talk about that, we
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  say, oh, isn't this sad, all these human artists not getting
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  played? But I think as as time goes on,
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  a big chunk of those at AI music and no one is actually, no human
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  artist is sitting there feeling sad at home.
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  So yeah, but I think it is. And it's, it's a cost for the
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  streaming services. It's a now environmental cost, I
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  mean, running servers. I mean, the cost of the cost of
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  having all this AI music on Deezer servers pales next to the
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  cost of everyone using ChatGPT to know what to cook for dinner,
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  for example. And so, you know, in the scheme
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  of things, it's not but, but there is a cost and it's, it's
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  an issue. But really the reason they put
• 3:25
  these steps out is to say there is a lot of music it's not being
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  listened to and we're cracking down on the fraud.
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  So don't. Don't all panic just yet.
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  Also, I mean, there's no way of knowing this Adele, but I'd be
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  interested to find out if this represents new people who are
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  jumping on board the AI bandwagon where it's people who
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  are starting to make AI music for the first time.
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  Or whether it's existing AI writers or creators who who are
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  just so good at it now that they can that they can multiply the
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  amount of music that they're making each day.
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  So instead of just posting 3 new tracks, now I can get I reckon I
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  can get about 20 new songs done today if I say here long enough.
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  They're on to their The Difficult 8000 and second album
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  Yeah. OK, here's three stories we
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  thought we'd share with you this week and when.
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  In truth, it's been a relatively quiet week this week, but we'll
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  lead with this which was announced yesterday.
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  I think Spotify and it's ongoing drive to lure new subscribers
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  and to launch more new initiatives.
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  Now Spotify wants to help you get fit.
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  What is what is going on here? Close to both of our hearts.
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  Yeah, well, fitness, yeah. So spot, I've just added more
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  than more than 1000 100 workout classes and stuff like ready for
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  like yoga and meditation to weight training and cardio
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  exercising. And so this is when you
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  basically watch a video of an instructor telling you what to
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  do and you do it at home in your living room.
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  And it's actually. Were you aware of Peloton during
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  the COVID lockdowns? Did you ever kind of catch on to
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  that trend? I mean, I'm sure you can guess
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  the answer. Well, did you did you see it
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  happening? I mean, I was, I was aware it
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  was happening, I think. For those who don't know, like
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  Peloton was a company that would sell you an exercise bike, but
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  then would also sell you the subscription to do workouts on
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  it. And a lot of people got a
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  Peloton bike during lockdown and were doing these classes.
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  So this is what this is who's doing with Spotify's partner
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  who's Peloton. So these workout class have been
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  created for that. You can only get them on Spotify
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  if you're a paid subscriber. So it's another kind of
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  incentive for people to upgrade and we'll get this stuff.
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  Although they're going to have, and this is something that I'm
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  sure you're going to love. There's going to be for the free
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  tier, there'll be lots of fitness playlists and other
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  videos from fitness influencers, so kind of Tik Tokers and
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  Instagrammers who do fitness stuff.
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  So that's part of this too, for people who don't pay for
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  Spotify. Right.
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  I think I, I, I think that's all we need to say on that.
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  Moving on, the UK's voluntary 1 LB contribution on ticket sales
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  at concerts over 5000 capacity is starting to pay off for the
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  grassroots live scene. The Music Venue Trust and the
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  Featured Artist Coalition both had some news on that last week.
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  I mean, I know a lot of you know this already, but in case you
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  are one of our newer followers, I have to declare an interest
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  here being chair of Live, which is the live music industry trade
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  body, which goes back to the 1 LB contribution.
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  And I'm also a trustee of the Live Trust, which is the
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  organization which distributes money from the fund to
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  organisations like MBT and FAC. But but as such, obviously I'm
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  very proud of what everyone's achieved so far in, you know, in
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  the course of, you know, 18 months, two years launching the,
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  launching the Live Trust, getting the industry to look at
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  very seriously what the 1 LB contribution could provide in
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  the way of support to the grassroots scene.
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  And then yes, off the back of that, the bringing together the
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  trustees, launching the Live Trust and the first round of
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  funding from this pot of money which has been raised by
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  contributions of a quid from a load of big geeks.
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  First round of funding was agreed earlier this year. 7
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  organisations received money for a number of projects across the
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  UK. Amongst them, as mentioned,
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  Music Value Trust and UCAT which is the UK Artist Touring Fund
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  which is run by the FAC, the MMF Music Managers Forum and the
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  Musicians Union. And so both of these
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  organisations reported in last week, didn't they?
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  Both. Both have and you know,
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  reassuringly, both have been very quick to put this money to
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  use. I think that's the thing and I
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  don't want to sort of make this weird, but me telling you what
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  you've just done, but like, yeah, it was the Emerson both
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  was like, yeah, we've got this money and, and here's what we're
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  using it on. And I think the Music Benitras
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  put this really interesting report out, didn't they, which
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  was saying we, we got, I think they got £200,000 from the UK
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  Life Trust. And what this report said was
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  right at the beginning, we are no longer just reactive.
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  And we've spent a long time fighting closures and
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  challenging unfair policies and, you know, firefighting.
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  And now we've got this money, we're going to spend it and it's
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  going to be spent on something like upgrading the sound and
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  lighting and the production systems.
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  They're helping venues reduce energy costs, they're improving
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  artists accommodation, which was actually a surprise.
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  I didn't realise that artists accommodation was a venue thing.
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  I assumed it was in the Premier Inn, but do they mean changing
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  rooms and backstage stuff? Or no, no actual accommodation.
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  And I think one of the first venues to benefit from this is
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  Voodoo Daddy's in Norwich, I think.
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  But the idea is, yeah, but with with touring being so expensive,
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  can you reduce some of the cost by not having to pay for the
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  Premier Inn? Other low budget hotels are
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  available for for bands on tour. But if you take that away and
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  you know, there are some of the buildings which house a venue do
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  have spaces in them which you could could turn into
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  accommodation. So but only, but obviously that
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  venues, they don't have a profit margin to take a load of money
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  and do it probably for themselves without some
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  financial support. But it makes sense, you know,
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  for everyone, particularly venues in places which are off
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  putting to bands and their agents, it's a long way to, it's
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  a long way to go. And then we'll have to put
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  because we won't be able to drive from there.
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  We won't be able to get home after doing that gig or we won't
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  be able to drive from that gig to, you know, the next venue.
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  So we're going to have to stay over.
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  So that increases the price. Well, actually, no, you can stay
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  upstairs. Yeah, and not just sleeping back
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  on the floor. Well, that's good.
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  Hey then, so this whole report was about this is and it was
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  about this change of emphasis saying we're still fighting all
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  those fights, we are still fighting Rangers, we always
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  leave that. But this is about future
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  proofing these venues and helping them develop, which I
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  thought was great. And then the Featured Artist
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  Coalition was the other side. So this was the UK Artist
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  Touring Fund, isn't it? So this is where the money goes
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  to actually artists who are touring who would lose money on
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  the tour and need help. And I think and you can tell me
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  if I'm wrong here, it's 125,000 I think they had in the 1st
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  tranch of their fund. Yeah, that's yeah, Yeah, I think
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  that's yeah, which comes in a couple of payments, I think.
• 10:15
  But again, they've been very quick to respond because they
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  had to build a whole system where people could apply and get
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  all the applications in. And I'm sure they were
• 10:26
  overwhelmed with artists saying, you know, can you give us some
• 10:29
  money? Yeah.
• 10:30
  Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know what the
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  figures were in terms of the amount of people who applied,
• 10:36
  but as a. So more than 250 applied and 26
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  artists were successful. And I'm saying, yeah, I'm not,
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  I'm not like there's no criticism implied here, the FAC
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  or anything. It's just that shows how
• 10:48
  oversubscribed it was. They can only do 26 this time
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  round, but that means I think it's 211 shows.
• 10:53
  So they're going to get up to 7000 LB each artist to kind of
• 10:57
  cover. And it's like, it's like it's
• 10:58
  it's I was looking down a list like it's the Duke special, one
• 11:01
  of them, Holly Cook, William Gold, Like it's it's it's
• 11:07
  artists who are on the radio, have got momentum, got careers,
• 11:10
  but would be losing money from their tours.
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  And this is going to help them do those shows.
• 11:14
  Yeah, in a lot of cases, because I mean, it's it's about not just
• 11:18
  funding the arty. I mean, there is there's quite a
• 11:20
  spread, isn't there? There's some newish, quite new
• 11:22
  acts. There's some names on there
• 11:24
  which if I didn't recognise right up to, as you say, bands
• 11:28
  who are on the the radar of, you know, the alternative music
• 11:32
  scene, I think Man, Woman, Chainsaw might have got some
• 11:34
  money. This is this is not just about
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  but we to emphasize not just about paying the artists.
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  This is so those bands can perform to the best of their
• 11:45
  ability for some and that works all the way up the chain.
• 11:49
  So if you're a man, woman, chainsaw who now people are
• 11:51
  turning up to sea and you expect a certain level, don't you?
• 11:54
  When your records have been on BBC Radio and you've played a
• 11:57
  few gigs and people know who you are, you don't expect them to be
• 12:01
  humping all their gear in themselves and asking, you know,
• 12:04
  a mate of theirs for no money to come and do their sound.
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  What they need is to be able to, you know, maybe take a member of
• 12:10
  crew on or they need to pay the tour manager rather than the
• 12:13
  guitarist having to do all the driving.
• 12:15
  If they're to, you know, perform to the best of their ability and
• 12:18
  put on the best gig that they can for the audience who have
• 12:21
  turned up to see them who who like them.
• 12:23
  So it's it's it's plugging a lot of a lot of gaps in the
• 12:27
  financing of a tour really from, you know, everything from the
• 12:32
  practical side of petrol place to stay.
• 12:36
  Can we get a guitar tech? It would really help.
• 12:38
  Or a, you know, a live a sound engineer.
• 12:42
  So there'll be different money in, you know, going in being
• 12:45
  used in different ways by different bands depending where
• 12:47
  they are, I think. Yeah, and it's good.
• 12:49
  I mean, well, This is why, you know, awkward for you because
• 12:53
  I'm going to be very nice about it.
• 12:55
  But like, I feel like whenever, when, when people are trying to
• 12:58
  convince, for example, promoters to say, support this levy on
• 13:01
  tickets, when you've been interested in trying to get to
• 13:03
  an institute to donate to its campaigns, there's always a
• 13:06
  thing like, OK, what will this money be used for?
• 13:08
  Will it be used wisely? Like, you know, if I'm going to
• 13:10
  put money into something and I think it's just really good that
• 13:13
  the people are saying this is exactly what we're doing, is
• 13:15
  who's getting the money into what we're going to do with it.
• 13:17
  It's very clear. And like you say, very quick.
• 13:19
  It's there's no kind of hanging around for a year with the money
• 13:22
  in the bank somewhere not doing any good.
• 13:24
  They're getting it out the door quickly to people who need it.
• 13:27
  And I think it's just a really, if it's like a really positive
• 13:30
  moment. Like, it's not that the problems
• 13:31
  have gone away, but these two announcers made me think this is
• 13:34
  just so good that all this talk about what could be done is now
• 13:38
  turning into action. Yeah.
• 13:41
  Can I just add briefly A slight addendum to that?
• 13:46
  There is if you happen to be in London this bank holiday
• 13:50
  weekend, this coming Sunday. That's the third I think of May,
• 13:53
  isn't it? The Music Venue Trust are
• 13:55
  holding an event at the V and I in London celebrating grassroots
• 14:01
  music culture. There'll be some talks and short
• 14:04
  films and there'll be some guests, including some of the
• 14:06
  MPT patrons will be there. As far as I know, it's free as
• 14:10
  well. Starts at 10.
• 14:12
  O clock runs till 5:00 PM this coming Sunday.
• 14:16
  Celebrating grassroots music culture, right?
• 14:19
  Third talking point of the week. Now, nobody would mistake me for
• 14:24
  the actual Taylor Swift. But with AI deep fights getting
• 14:28
  ever more convincing, Taylor has taken some action with some
• 14:33
  trademark filings so that I can't say, hey, it's Taylor
• 14:37
  Swift here. This this is me.
• 14:39
  I'm Taylor Swift. Yeah.
• 14:41
  So what? What can you, what can you do in
• 14:44
  this fight against deep fakery? What is?
• 14:48
  What is Taylor Swift done? Yeah, we've got a limited window
• 14:51
  to be to say, hey, it's Taylor Swift and not get sued.
• 14:53
  No. So this brick and so this is
• 14:56
  about a company called TAS Rights Management, which is of
• 14:59
  course Taylor Alice and Swift initials.
• 15:02
  And she's filed for three trademarks and 1 is a likeness
• 15:05
  trademark. It's for a visual image and it's
• 15:07
  a picture of her in one of her outfits from the era's tour.
• 15:10
  Just kind of to describe it's like pink sparkly boots, pink
• 15:12
  guitar and a silver bodysuit. Like one of the signature looks
• 15:15
  like people might be able to picture it in their heads
• 15:17
  because it was such a kind of key look in the tour and then
• 15:20
  tour for her voice. So it's her saying, hey, it's
• 15:22
  Taylor Swift and hey, it's Taylor, which is kind of a new
• 15:25
  that's more unusual. Like artists do have trademarks
• 15:27
  on things, but these are called sound marks, which they're
• 15:31
  usually used for stuff like like, you know, Netflix has it's
• 15:34
  to Dom noise. That would be a sound mark or
• 15:37
  any kind of brand that, you know, like from the windows
• 15:39
  start up tone. And what it is.
• 15:41
  It's an extra layer of legal protection if her lawyers need
• 15:44
  to take action against deep flakes because you can say, OK,
• 15:47
  I have a trademark on this voice saying this.
• 15:49
  And this is confusingly similar. She's actually the second
• 15:52
  celebrity to do it, as far as we know, because Matthew
• 15:54
  McConaughey, the actor, did it in January, the same thing.
• 15:57
  He took trade. He did some parks and trademarks
• 15:59
  on him staring, smiling and talking.
• 16:02
  And what he said was, like, my team and I want to know what my
• 16:05
  voice or, like, this is ever used.
• 16:06
  It's because I approved and signed off on it.
• 16:08
  And registering A trademark gives you kind of that legal
• 16:11
  right to kind of police it. So, yeah.
• 16:15
  And Taylor Swift is probably one of the most deep faked
• 16:17
  celebrities there is. Like we I've written about 3 or
• 16:21
  4 stories where I think there was one where there are a bunch
• 16:23
  of sort of explicit images of her on doing rounds on X and her
• 16:27
  fans had to mobilize to kind of get them taken down. the US
• 16:32
  president posted a deep fake image of her giving, giving him
• 16:35
  her vote around the last election or he shared a meme of
• 16:38
  it. So she's kind of one of the
• 16:41
  obviously the biggest pop star in the world.
• 16:43
  She's at the sharp end of this and so now we're sort of seeing
• 16:46
  what her lawyers are thinking is the right strategy.
• 16:48
  So I suspect we'll see a bunch of other artists following suit
• 16:53
  and then we might see some cases at some point where we'll see
• 16:55
  how this gets applied. If someone deepfakes you, can
• 16:58
  you go after them for trademark infringement, which I think it's
• 17:01
  just a case of getting things taken down quicker.
• 17:03
  It might be quicker if you have a trademark that you can say
• 17:05
  rather than otherwise you're saying it's my personality
• 17:08
  rights. And it depends on where you're
• 17:11
  doing it and what the law is there on kind of people's
• 17:13
  likenesses, voices, so. OK, any other business.
• 17:18
  What is this? I don't really understand this
• 17:21
  because I have going back to Spotify.
• 17:23
  Spotify have an exclusive on the new Olivia Rodrigo music video,
• 17:29
  but then doesn't Apple Music have the have an exclusive?
• 17:34
  I don't I can't work this work this out.
• 17:37
  Apart from it's another spat between two big companies trying
• 17:41
  to trying to claim the limelight with a with a round a big new
• 17:45
  release. Well, it's like the music video
• 17:47
  equivalent of like Oprah Winfrey going you have an exclusive and
• 17:49
  you have an exclusive and you have 1.
• 17:51
  So there's a song out, Drop Dead, which is the livery.
• 17:54
  It's not a comeback single. She hasn't gone away, but it's
• 17:56
  like her, the lead single of her new album.
• 17:59
  It's on YouTube, 23 million people have watched it so far.
• 18:02
  But there's one on Spotify called Drop Dead Brackets taken
• 18:05
  that Eurostar to France, which is a reference to a line in the
• 18:08
  lyrics of the song. But I don't know, I sent you, I
• 18:11
  don't know if you saw the screenshot I sent you in
• 18:12
  preparation for this of that. But the video starts with having
• 18:16
  a pint of Guinness in a London pub with a bunch of enemy covers
• 18:20
  on the wall. And I was like, if anyone knows
• 18:21
  what that pub is, it must be. Steve, the only pub which I've
• 18:25
  been to recently which has framed enemy covers on the wall.
• 18:29
  I mean basically when you send us a photo saying can you name
• 18:33
  the London pub? There's a lot of pubs in London.
• 18:37
  From one picture, 1 inside picture, one picture taken
• 18:42
  inside a pub. Can you name the pub?
• 18:43
  The only place I've been to which has enemy covers on the
• 18:46
  wall is The Elephant's Head in Camden.
• 18:50
  OK, well maybe Oliver Rudigo was in there down in guinnesses seen
• 18:53
  recently but but so that's the Spotify one.
• 18:56
  But Apple Music has got another version called Drop Dead Stalk 2
• 18:58
  on the Internet, which is not a Lyric Less puppy.
• 19:01
  Let's let's pop in that one. And it's essentially what's
• 19:04
  happened is two different videos have been shot and given out to
• 19:07
  these two big streaming services, very festive.
• 19:09
  So each of them has got an exclusive Olivia Rodrigo music
• 19:12
  video for the same song, which is I think it's quite clever.
• 19:17
  Obviously she's got an Olivia Rodrigo sized marketing budget
• 19:19
  to do this. Like it's not something that
• 19:21
  every band can do. Or maybe you can like like I
• 19:23
  feel like when we talk to when I talk to smaller artists, they're
• 19:27
  getting quite good at saying, well, we've filmed something and
• 19:29
  use it in 27 different ways on social media and different
• 19:31
  platforms. So it's kind of that writ large.
• 19:34
  But I wonder if we see it's more often because I think there was
• 19:37
  a time, I'm trying to think when it was, it was when Apple Music
• 19:40
  launched. So probably about sort of 5010
• 19:42
  years ago now there, there was competition for exclusive on
• 19:46
  actual music and Apple Music might say, we've got this album
• 19:49
  and no one else has got it. And that died out because people
• 19:52
  didn't like it. I think the music industry
• 19:54
  didn't really like it and the rival stream users went with
• 19:57
  you're going to give them an exclusive, I'm not going to
• 19:59
  promote your album when it comes out.
• 20:01
  So that died to death. But now they still like to have
• 20:03
  stuff that is exclusive to them. And this is a way of doing that
• 20:06
  without annoying fans and without annoying the rivals.
• 20:09
  But I don't know what, I don't know whether Amazon Music is
• 20:12
  sick and they're going bloody. Olivia Rodrigo, she didn't give
• 20:14
  us a music video. So maybe you have to keep going
• 20:17
  with that, that strategy. Greater Music Group.
• 20:21
  Now this is something that, I mean, I don't know whether I
• 20:23
  should bristle about this or whether this is just an
• 20:26
  inevitable evolution of the record industry given the
• 20:31
  current landscape and the new tech.
• 20:33
  But Greater Music Group, Wait for this is a brand new record
• 20:37
  label run by an army of AIS. So is is this the is this the
• 20:44
  future? That's the question.
• 20:46
  So I mean, it's it's so it's a record label and it's what it's
• 20:52
  inadverted commas staffed by IIS.
• 20:55
  It's for. How is it run by By IIS.
• 20:58
  Yeah, so it's it's set up by actually a famous person, so
• 21:01
  Randy Jackson, who's a music producer, but he was an American
• 21:04
  Idol judge, so very famous in the US and Paula Moore, he's a
• 21:07
  music industry veteran. So they've sent those humans
• 21:09
  setting it up, but they've built.
• 21:10
  And the quote is a fully built AI native system designed to
• 21:13
  operate a music company and, and including an AI army of scouts,
• 21:18
  marketers and operators. So basically it's a bunch of AI
• 21:21
  agents that do they look for promising artists, they sort of
• 21:24
  scan data online, they plan marketing campaigns, they handle
• 21:28
  analytics, they handle finances and they manage music catalogues
• 21:31
  to try and squeeze money and make sure everything is working
• 21:33
  right on YouTube and Spotify and so on.
• 21:37
  The thing I found fascinating was the scouting.
• 21:38
  So basically these, these AI agents, these AI scouts, they're
• 21:44
  kind of hoovering up all the data from streaming and social
• 21:46
  media. But they also say they're
• 21:47
  pulling in cultural trends and local scenes like understanding,
• 21:52
  I don't know for an example, if there's AI don't know a new emo
• 21:58
  movement kicking off in Clacton. It's a terrible example.
• 22:02
  They might be able to take that that in and understand that from
• 22:05
  the web. And then they can be like,
• 22:06
  right, OK, So what? What new emo bands are there in
• 22:08
  Clacton? We'll follow them.
• 22:09
  And that one's got momentum. So maybe we should sign them.
• 22:12
  And the best thing is these scouts have all got names and
• 22:14
  they're called things like Prism, Nexus, Cypher, Halo,
• 22:19
  storm, Frost. And it's like gladiators storm
• 22:22
  and blade. I'm I think there might be a
• 22:24
  blaze gladiator might there, But it is.
• 22:27
  I mean, it's this is like someone putting together all
• 22:29
  these little pieces of how AI can be used by a label into a
• 22:33
  big hole. And it's almost like a proof of
• 22:34
  concept. Look, they could do everything.
• 22:37
  I don't know if that means they do everything better than
• 22:38
  humans. I mean, this is a strange thing,
• 22:42
  isn't it? Because as I say, is, was this
• 22:44
  always going to be the natural conclusion?
• 22:46
  Because I mean, I've, I mean, is it that much different to how
• 22:49
  some labels go about trading at the moment, except with real
• 22:55
  people doing the same jobs that the, the AIS are going to take
• 22:58
  over? Because if you talk to, I mean,
• 23:00
  if you talk to, I don't know if you talk to any artist, Well,
• 23:03
  not any artist, but I've talked to a lot of artists over
• 23:08
  particularly in the last decade and particularly, I guess again,
• 23:12
  in the last five years. But they often say too much ANR,
• 23:17
  particularly with within the big three companies, just comes down
• 23:20
  to how many plays you've had on streaming services, You know,
• 23:24
  rather than you being a talent, A lot of ANR comes down to well,
• 23:28
  how many followers have they got on Instagram and how many hits
• 23:32
  have they had on TikTok? So some of that, some of the
• 23:35
  practices of this new label are already being employed, aren't
• 23:40
  they? And obviously, I'm not saying
• 23:41
  I'm not saying there aren't ANR departments who are looking for
• 23:43
  talent based simply on an artist's potential and, and the
• 23:47
  songs that they write and the skills that they have and the
• 23:49
  charisma they express on stage. But this but you know ANR has
• 23:54
  become quite stats driven in in a lot of labels.
• 23:58
  I think that's it. And this is almost like someone
• 23:59
  pushing it to the fairest extent you can and getting us to do
• 24:02
  everything. Whereas like you say, I think a
• 24:03
  lot of labels now as a as a as an if you've got an ARANR
• 24:07
  person, a human, do you want them spending their day in front
• 24:11
  of spreadsheets looking at SoundCloud stats?
• 24:13
  Or do you want them out and about listening to stuff and
• 24:15
  meeting bands? And I say one argument in the
• 24:17
  mainstream issues, like actually, if AI can help with
• 24:20
  the stat crunching, the human can get on with the human stuff.
• 24:25
  People often say that argument right before the human gets
• 24:27
  sacked, which is the other thing, you know, so, but the
• 24:32
  other thing is I think A&R is really fascinating because I
• 24:34
  think, yeah, if your A&R strategy is I want to be signing
• 24:37
  the thing that's blowing up online based on metrics and an
• 24:39
  AI can do that for you. It's kind of, but I think this
• 24:44
  really think some people who know a lot about AI have said
• 24:46
  this to me that what AI struggles with is taste.
• 24:52
  And AI can't know if something is good.
• 24:55
  It can compare it to lots of things that other people have
• 24:57
  said are good and say, well, it might be good, but it can't say
• 25:00
  this is good. That's the human role.
• 25:03
  And it's really difficult for AI to do.
• 25:05
  There's a really funny quote from a guy, It's a guy called
• 25:06
  Mark Anderson. He's one of the bigwig Silicon
• 25:09
  Valley executives and he's one of the biggest boosters of AI.
• 25:11
  And he often says things that are quite make me go.
• 25:15
  But once he said, but my job, venture capital investor, I
• 25:18
  can't be replaced by AI because I have taste.
• 25:21
  You know, his thing was like humans have that critical
• 25:23
  thinking. And I think that's a difficult
• 25:25
  thing with signing artists is you can say this, this thing
• 25:29
  should be big because of all the metrics, but all the human part
• 25:33
  of it. But I think it's, it's a really
• 25:35
  interesting case study, I think of someone saying, well, all the
• 25:37
  different ways, because I think the other thing is in labels,
• 25:40
  handling finances, optimising catalogues, this is stuff that
• 25:45
  humans have done but the AIS can do.
• 25:49
  And so that's from a label point of view, that's quite a good
• 25:52
  thing. And the point of view of the
• 25:54
  people who work in labels doing that, it's obviously a worrying
• 25:56
  thing because your job might be going.
• 25:59
  And what see, I I don't know whether this leads us to does
• 26:05
  does this bog us down though, rather than helping us progress
• 26:09
  musically? Because a lot of surely a lot of
• 26:12
  what the AIS are doing are based on things which have happened.
• 26:16
  I mean, I guess in this case you're saying, you know, there
• 26:18
  are developing trends and they will then follow those
• 26:21
  developing trends. But it's whether the AI can
• 26:24
  predict what's going to happen within those trends and what
• 26:28
  will happen with that artist. It might be doing well now, but
• 26:32
  the whole skill, part of the skill, INR is, I mean, I suppose
• 26:38
  to say short term and long term ANR isn't it?
• 26:41
  And short term and AI can probably pick a hit in the same
• 26:45
  way that an ANR person can say, well, that thing's gone viral.
• 26:48
  I'm going to sign it and then we'll sign it for one album and
• 26:51
  then it'll probably be all over. But there's the long term ANR
• 26:55
  where you're looking for potential to grow and develop as
• 26:59
  an artist. Can AI do that?
• 27:02
  I'll tell you one thing AI can't do.
• 27:05
  Can't take a band out to lunch? But that's it.
• 27:09
  That's exactly the and that sounds, that sounds like a joke,
• 27:12
  but it's not because how much of this industry is he?
• 27:14
  In fact, wasn't it Neve Byrne was saying that, but how much of
• 27:17
  the Manchester is human? Yeah.
• 27:20
  So I think it's, but it is really interesting that I'm
• 27:22
  fascinated to see a technology at work because it's a sort of
• 27:26
  thing where you could sign a whole bunch of rights and have
• 27:28
  one big hit and everyone goes, aha, look, AI labels are the
• 27:30
  future because they had a big hit, but it's about numbers.
• 27:33
  But I think the other thing is like you say that when you're
• 27:36
  looking for the next thing, well, you know, whenever we talk
• 27:39
  about independent music and that thing that all the all the new
• 27:43
  musical trends, often they've really spawned from the
• 27:45
  independent side of things because those labels take risks.
• 27:49
  And I think those are the labels that aren't going to turn over
• 27:51
  the ANR to a bunch of AIS. So I think it is still going to
• 27:55
  be humans making those signings and finding those new things.
• 27:58
  But then the A is might jump on it really quickly and and you
• 28:01
  know, then we have a, you know, I mean, I don't know, I'm trying
• 28:04
  to think of how I say it without offending everyone in the music
• 28:07
  industry. But I think it in a way when we
• 28:12
  get humans to act in ways that A is can copy.
• 28:15
  So if we get humans to just sign things based on the metrics,
• 28:19
  then a IS can come along and do it.
• 28:22
  So in a way, it's a it's that problem of humans getting
• 28:24
  displaced is something we create for ourselves by getting the
• 28:26
  humans to do, to work, to act in a less creative way.
• 28:29
  Does that make sense? Yeah.
• 28:30
  So I worry about that. I worry that's the kind of whole
• 28:32
  we're digging is that we've gone down a direction that a IS can
• 28:36
  sweep in and do this job. And then then you get the
• 28:38
  decision about whether to use them or not.
• 28:40
  One other piece of other business, if you will.
• 28:43
  This is, well actually it's an observation from one of our
• 28:46
  super fans. Which brings us back to a piece
• 28:49
  that we spoke about the the other week about gigs being
• 28:52
  cancelled due to poor advanced ticket sales and how audiences
• 28:56
  appear to be buying tickets later and later for some shows
• 28:59
  which is causing problems for promoters.
• 29:02
  David Ely has been in touch saying one reason for not buying
• 29:06
  in advance is the additional fees charged which are not
• 29:10
  refunded if the gig gets moved to another date.
• 29:13
  The Roundhouse in London for instance, charges 15% on top of
• 29:16
  the price and that's non refundable even if the gig gets
• 29:21
  moved to another date. So I'm leaving a lot of
• 29:24
  Roundhouse bookings to nearer the time of the gig, says David.
• 29:28
  Which is, I mean it's an interesting point isn't it?
• 29:30
  I mean, I don't know how many shows at the Roundhouse have
• 29:32
  been rebooked, but let's, you know, moving out, making making
• 29:36
  this a bit broader, you know, are additional fees one of the
• 29:40
  things that he's putting fans off committing to buying tickets
• 29:44
  in advance. And obviously this is theatre
• 29:47
  level upwards really we're talking about that feels.
• 29:49
  Like a solvable problem, doesn't it though?
• 29:51
  Do you think like, I mean, if that is going to if that, how
• 29:54
  can you reach re reject that so that they're not feeling lost
• 29:57
  out? Yeah.
• 29:59
  I know a good point. Thank you very much.
• 30:00
  David. If you've got any comments to
• 30:02
  make on any of the stories we cover, of course, we would love
• 30:05
  to hear from you. The e-mail address is coming up
• 30:07
  very shortly. Just time for and finally this
• 30:10
  week. And finally, the Finnish band
• 30:14
  Heavysaurus, who make high quality heavy metal music for
• 30:18
  children while dressing up, we should add, as Dinosaurs have
• 30:22
  now released their first English language song.
• 30:25
  Over the last two months, three months, probably more than that,
• 30:28
  we've been talking about how music not sung in sung in
• 30:33
  English is becoming more and more palatable and more and more
• 30:37
  acceptable. So big pop audiences now we've
• 30:39
  got someone going no, no, no, let's do a song in in English,
• 30:43
  which I see is which is which is the dinosaurs first language
• 30:48
  English. Is it?
• 30:49
  Of course, yes, yes. Makes sense.
• 30:51
  Well, yeah, with this. But I find, like, the heavy
• 30:54
  source, they're founded in 2009, so they're veterans now.
• 30:56
  Began for like, what, 16 years now in Finland.
• 31:00
  And you probably won't need this, but just in case it's Mr.
• 31:03
  Heavy. Saw us on vocals, Muffy Puffy on
• 31:05
  bass, Milli Pilli on keyboards, Monpy Monpy on drums and Riffy
• 31:09
  Raffy on guitar. So you can see where they've
• 31:11
  gone there with the names. So they've always sang and
• 31:13
  finished. But then last year they appeared
• 31:15
  on Britain's Got Talent, which is random being finished and
• 31:20
  they covered like Bon Jovi and Queen and they got 4 Yeses and
• 31:23
  the Judas and Simon Cowell nearly showed emotion.
• 31:27
  But and now they've got this first things and they're playing
• 31:30
  the Bloodstock Festival in August as well.
• 31:32
  So like that you can go, if you go into that, you'll get to see
• 31:34
  Saxon and Sepultura and Judas Priest and also Heavy hours,
• 31:38
  which I'm thinking about the metal demographic there'll be
• 31:41
  there are a lot of people with kids who'll be going and now
• 31:45
  there's something for them that is a bunch of dinosaurs play and
• 31:47
  there's proper metal like that that I've been, I've been
• 31:51
  digging into this. As you can tell the Britain's
• 31:53
  Got Talent was almost them going.
• 31:54
  We'll play something really mainstream, some mainstream rock
• 31:56
  songs, but they're like, well, Iron Maiden style metal, like
• 32:00
  proper, proper metal. But just don't let they
• 32:04
  obviously, they obviously have a real love for the music and
• 32:06
  they're doing for kids. So yeah, we have, you saw us.
• 32:09
  The first thing we saw is called heavy metal horns, which is
• 32:13
  obviously a concept whose roots are perfectly good for kids to
• 32:17
  be to be doing. And they're, they'll be playing
• 32:21
  at a metal festival near you this this this year.
• 32:24
  That's it for this week, thank you very much for listening.
• 32:27
  If you are enjoying the show, as always say do help us spread the
• 32:31
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• 32:35
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• 32:38
  You can also support us via Patreon.
• 32:41
  In fact, if you sign up to be a super fan, you also, as
• 32:44
  mentioned right at the start of the program, you get to join us
• 32:46
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• 32:55
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• 32:58
  at patreon.com/the Price of Music.
• 33:00
  Alternatively, if if you would like to get in touch like David
• 33:04
  did, it would be lovely to hear from you.
• 33:07
  Send us an e-mail. Anything you don't understand
• 33:09
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• 33:14
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• 33:18
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• 33:22
  Thanks again for listening. See you next week.