Latest / The Price of Music / Spotify's prices go up again; Which album's songs are in the wrong order?; Napster are being sued (is it 1999 again?); How easy is it to get a #1 album?; Steve's tip for getting into a sold-out gig

Transcript

Spotify's prices go up again; Which album's songs are in the wrong order?; Napster are being sued (is it 1999 again?); How easy is it to get a #1 album?; Steve's tip for getting into a sold-out gig · The Price of Music

• 0:08
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
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  Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by the fun and games
• 0:14
  and finances of the music world, as explained each week by me,
• 0:17
  Steve Lemack and him, Stuart Dredge.
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  And we should start with an apology this week.
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  If Stuart sounds just a little distracted at all, it's because
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  he's been up most of the night searching for clues surrounding
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  a new Taylor Swift album. You can't help it.
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  Can you? I mean, I just spent every night
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  doing that. But tonight, tonight the search
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  paid off. Yeah, there was.
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  So yesterday people got excited about a countdown on Taylor
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  Swift website to 12:12 on the 12th of August.
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  And surprise, surprise, it turns out to be announced from her
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  12th studio album. So yeah.
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  But it's one of those things where it's going to literally
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  every single tiny bit of this is going to be drip fed for maximum
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  social impact. So the title was announced
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  overnight, but the cover artwork has been blurred out and the
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  release date hasn't been announced.
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  But she has announced that she's appearing on her partner's
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  podcast tomorrow, where no doubt another announcement of an
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  announcement will happen. But yeah, so like, the rate,
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  like the promo campaign started overnight.
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  And then I think every day we're going to see something new about
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  it. So yeah, good times for 50s.
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  There is quite a lot of news to get through this week.
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  We will be covering, amongst other things, price rises for
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  Spotify subscribers, headline grabbing profits for Live Nation
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  and as everyone seems to be celebrating the NE again,
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  Napster are back in the news. Plus so many other businesses
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  including badly track listed albums and crowdfunding
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  festivals. But first it is Stuart's big
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  figure. What's this week's big musical
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  number? OK, 217.5 million. 217.5 million
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  Watt. This is streams on Spotify and
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  it's the most popular song by all rock icons Pavement on
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  Spotify. But my little challenge is which
• 2:11
  song is the most popular Pavement song on Spotify?
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  Oh, with pavement you'd have to probably.
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  What would your best guess be? Cut your hair.
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  It's not cut your hair. That's not 49.4 million streams.
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  Oh, it's. Not cut yet.
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  Range Life. Not that either.
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  That's got 34.8. It's a song called Harness Your
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  Hopes, which you'd be forgiven if you weren't a Pavement
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  superfan for nothing. It was a 1999 B side, but it's
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  got 217 million streams. So I actually yesterday, besides
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  getting inside Taylor Swift, I spent yesterday adding up
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  Pavement stream counts on Spotify because I really know
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  how to live. They're five studio albums, the
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  main albums, Yeah, they've had just over 350 million streams on
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  Spotify collectively. And then this B side has more
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  than 60% of that on its own right.
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  Right. I mean, I do know the song
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  Harness You hope it is a good song.
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  I'm surprised that what? Is there any particular reason
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  for this? I mean, it's a good song, but
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  was it, I don't know, was it used in a film or ATV program or
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  in an ad or or have the fans just spoken?
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  Well, not so much. I mean, so you dig into it.
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  So sometime in the 20 tens, it started getting recommended to
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  people by Spotify's algorithm, and no one seems to quite know
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  why. But one theory is that it's kind
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  of got all the right musical attributes, you know, to be
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  played alongside other kind of popular indie rock tracks from
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  the 90s and 2000s. And, and the algorithm went
• 3:39
  right, OK, if I'm playing someone, the Breeders
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  cannonballs say this might go well after it.
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  So the algorithm kind of almost on its own decided this was a
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  pavement track that was worth putting into people's ears.
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  And then what happened, people think is that people didn't skip
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  it because it's good and it's quite short and it's quite
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  catchy. So people didn't skip it.
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  And that was a big sign to the algorithm.
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  This is good. Like, people don't skip it.
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  And so then it became Pavement's best performing track sometime
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  later. And then again, Spotify was
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  like, right, OK, this is clearly the Pavement track I should play
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  to people if I'm going to be playing the Pavement.
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  So and then TikTok has picked up on it.
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  There were lots of Tik Toks using it that drove a new wave
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  of streams. And eventually the song was
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  released as a single, I think a couple of years ago by the
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  band's label. So it's had this weird
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  afterlife. And originally it was just B
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  side. It's a good stats to start the
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  programme as always as well. We, I mean, we've spent, spent
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  quite a lot of time sifting through all the stories emerging
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  from the music industry over the past few days to try and find
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  what we hope are the most important or most interesting to
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  you or the ones we think will be relevant to yourself.
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  So here's our top three stories for this week, starting with
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  this, which, I mean, comes with a headline that sounds like it's
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  from the year 2000. Sony Music is suing Napster for
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  what? This for what?
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  What of naps? But why the ghost of net?
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  How has this happened? Well, so yeah, so I mean,
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  obviously back in the day, Napster was the most famous
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  peer-to-peer file showing service, wasn't it?
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  And it was used to download free, and it got sued out of
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  business by labels at the time around 1999 and 2000.
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  But the brand lived on. And like, over time and like
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  several owners, it's been owned by a whole range of people over
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  the intervening 25 years. It became a streaming, a legal
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  streaming service that had licensing deals.
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  And, you know, you could use it and it was legit.
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  But yeah, so last week, Sony Music is suing it for more than
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  $9.2 million of unpaid royalties.
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  And it's basically naps to stop paying royalties about a year
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  ago. Sony terminated its license in
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  June this year and said, right, you can't have our music
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  anymore. And this lawsuit claims that not
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  only has the music been unpaid, the the royalty's been unpaid,
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  but the Napster is still offering Sony's music illegally
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  now at its site. So there is still like a, a
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  throwback copyright infringement aspect to this.
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  But essentially they stopped paying us a year ago and now
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  we're suing them for it. OK.
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  So it's so it's less the because the thing about Napster in the
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  early days, it was, it was, I think they were portrayed as, I
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  think they would always be described as some sort of pirate
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  service, weren't they? But there was something, you
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  know, quite anti establishment about them.
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  But this, this appears to just be we.
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  We don't have the money to pay you.
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  Well, yeah. And the weird thing is that's a
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  Napster. And it seems in January this
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  year, there were some reports and Napster was, it was late
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  with royalty payments. And so there was kind of some
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  assumption that there's something going on there.
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  But the weird thing is, and we talked about this at the time,
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  in March, Napster was bought for $207 million by this company
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  called Infinite Reality, who are this tech company?
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  They're kind of involved in the metaverse and they own the Drone
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  Racing League, which is kind of one of my favorite stats about
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  that is they own this thing called the Drone where people go
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  and race drones and it's like a sport.
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  And that company had recently raised like $3 billion of
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  funding. So you'd think that settling
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  Napster's debts would have been a drop in the ocean really of
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  that if but but they haven't. And so there's a weird kind of
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  thing like, OK, you've been bought by this company that
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  seems flush with cash. What's happened?
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  Naps did it, put a statement out and said we remain committed to
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  rebuilding Naps's relationships with all of the major labels.
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  And I'm hoping for a swift and amicable resolution, which
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  actually my little journalist censor pinged there because I'm
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  like all of the major labels. So maybe it sounds like there's
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  some issues with the other labels too, not just Sony.
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  But we'll, we'll find out, I guess.
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  I mean, rebuilding is just building would probably be quite
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  a good start. Next week, Universal takedown
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  Myspace story 2 Now here. I mean, here's another company
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  who've had the fair share of headlines over over the years,
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  but Live Nation's latest financial results are in Live
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  Nation, who, of course are the massive global promotions firm
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  Live Nation. I mean, we looked at this, I'm
• 7:58
  told by young Stuart that the correct fiscal term for
• 8:02
  describing their profits is at absolutely stalking the company.
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  Here's the figure. The company made more than $7
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  billion in the last quarter, which is eye watering and and
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  down to what or who have they generated.
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  This has just been a particularly busy time on the
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  live circuit. Is that one of the reason?
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  It has been, yeah, I think they said that 44 million fans attend
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  their concerts. So that's up 14% year on year,
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  sold over 130 million tickets, up 6%.
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  And I think their operating profit was $487,000,000.
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  So that's just the profit. And yeah, they talked about,
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  they actually pulled out stadium shows as one of the big factors.
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  It's apparently stadium attendance tripled in the second
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  quarter of this year compared to last year for Live Nation, which
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  suggests that there are there are all these big tours under
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  way around the world. They've got their kind of finger
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  in how many? More than 40% of those stadium
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  shows sold 95% of their tickets in the first week.
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  Really. Again, it's a lot of stadium
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  shows selling out quickly. That's that is really
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  interesting actually, because you know, because the fear for a
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  promoter at whatever level of gig is that you put these big
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  shows on sale and some of them obviously will stiff, but it
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  seems like they've they're on a very good run.
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  Did you say as well that the profit is up, but actually the
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  number of tickets they've sold is marginally down or did I make
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  that up? No tickets is up 6%, but the
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  revenues are up 16% because. I.
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  Think that a lot of the money came from the promotion and the
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  but the other thing I thought was interesting.
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  They had their earnings cool because they're a public company
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  and they talk quite a bit on that about other parts like
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  parts of the world like Latin America, Japan, India.
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  They sort of alluded to Africa and Singapore and Thailand.
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  And they talked about the demand in these countries for big shows
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  by big artists. Travis Scott was the one they
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  talked about quite a lot, saying here's the kind of artist now
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  who can fill stadiums for multiple nights in India, which
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  a few years ago wasn't really on the touring circuit for that
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  kind of artist. So I think in a way we've
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  talked, you know, we talked about how the big labels are
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  starting to put a lot of focus, investment in other parts of the
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  world because they've become big streaming that seems to be
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  happening in Live and Live Nation saying, yeah, we're
• 10:22
  looking at these countries and saying, right, what venues are
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  there we can book our big stars into?
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  But also do we need to build venues there or we fit venues
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  there? So that seems to be like, so now
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  you might say it's all about Coldplay and the big stars, but
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  they seem to be putting a lot of effort and thought into these
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  new parts of the world for the Western touring business as
• 10:44
  well. Right.
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  I'm interested in that ticket sales up by 6000, sorry 6% and
• 10:51
  but profits up by 16%, which well there's two things from
• 10:55
  this story actually. But that particular figure does,
• 10:58
  I mean, does that back up the trend of what what I'm calling
• 11:02
  at the top end at stadium level, a kind of ticket price inflation
• 11:07
  where, you know, it appears people are happy enough to pay
• 11:11
  more for a big event these days or it's not happy at least a
• 11:15
  driven to shell out more money on the promise of being at a gig
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  that they simply don't want to miss.
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  This seems to be what's This seems to be a trend.
• 11:26
  Well, true. And I'd like to say that 6%
• 11:27
  growth in the number of tickets sold, not the revenue from them.
• 11:30
  So clearly, yeah, it's, and I think I guess as, as your, your
• 11:34
  mix, if you're a Live Nation, you obviously have a mix of of
• 11:37
  shows from from clubs up to stadiums.
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  And if, if more of your shows are in stadiums that quarter,
• 11:43
  then I guess then your your revenues are going to have the
• 11:45
  impact. Which I mean, it does, you know,
• 11:48
  wherever, wherever the gigs are happening though .2 is, as with
• 11:53
  all promoters, I mean, your, your profits though, are at the
• 11:56
  mercy of whoever's touring. You know, it's the, the touring
• 12:00
  schedules, it will dictate how much money you make.
• 12:03
  So so question what happens when there is no Beyoncé tour?
• 12:08
  Or the Coldplay tour that never ends finally ends?
• 12:13
  The next Coldplay tour starts. But then you see if they
• 12:17
  haven't, if they don't have shows out there, if they're not
• 12:20
  putting on shows, then then they can't make any money.
• 12:24
  True. Is there a natural rhythm to
• 12:25
  this? Do you think?
• 12:26
  Like I would imagine if you are, I don't know if you are Beyoncé,
• 12:29
  do you sort of plan your next tour to try to avoid some of the
• 12:33
  big ones to make sure you have your like, do they does it?
• 12:35
  Is there a natural spacing out of the biggest, biggest tours or
• 12:38
  do they all just go when they want to go and that's it?
• 12:41
  I would, I mean, I would think people are aware of who's going
• 12:44
  to be on tour at a certain time. Certainly Live Nation because
• 12:50
  they promote so many big acts. We'll probably having be having
• 12:52
  conversations say with management companies saying,
• 12:56
  well, if you, the Foo Fighters want to do this massive tour,
• 12:59
  that's fine. Just to let you know somebody
• 13:01
  else is out there. In some cases, though, it will
• 13:03
  come down less to the actual dates.
• 13:05
  But when the tickets go on sale, so that you can stagger the
• 13:08
  release of the tickets so that you know you put one big tour on
• 13:11
  sale one month and then when the paycheck comes in, you put out
• 13:14
  another set of tickets for other gigs.
• 13:18
  I think the other thing here as well is like that idea of going
• 13:20
  to these these new parts of the world for the Western industry,
• 13:23
  there could be artists coming from there as well.
• 13:25
  So I was thinking actually about the K Pop acts.
• 13:27
  So now Blackpink are playing stadiums, BTS are playing
• 13:29
  stadiums. So I guess you maybe have a
• 13:31
  wider variety of artists who can do stadiums because you're, you
• 13:34
  know, there'll be someone from India who maybe can play
• 13:36
  stadiums in the US soon. I was thinking about, you know,
• 13:39
  we've talked about that that Netflix show K Pop Demon Hunters
• 13:42
  recently and and that that's now topping the charts in the UK and
• 13:46
  the US and someone people must be thinking down now going
• 13:50
  quick, what is the live show for this like?
• 13:53
  Because there could be a guerrillas style animated
• 13:56
  characters like because I'm sure if you did AK pop demon hunters
• 13:59
  tour, you could probably go to a straight to arenas, maybe even
• 14:03
  stadiums now. So I guess if you're Live
• 14:05
  Nation, you're thinking right, OK, beyond those, the the number
• 14:09
  of Western acts who can fill stadiums, right?
• 14:10
  Who are the new stadium for this coming from?
• 14:12
  Make sure we work with them. Yeah, I think we'll see like
• 14:15
  Latin America, bad bunnies playing stadiums now.
• 14:17
  I think there's more where he came from.
• 14:18
  So I think that maybe that's the answer, that when Coldplay and
• 14:21
  Beyoncé aren't to someone from Puerto Rico or South Korea or
• 14:25
  India might be, and that's how they feel it.
• 14:27
  Coldplay, by the way, I didn't realise with obviously all the
• 14:30
  noise around Oasis and their gigs, but I hadn't noticed
• 14:33
  Coldplayer playing 10 Wembley stadiums.
• 14:36
  I mean 10 nights at Wembley Stadium.
• 14:38
  They're not doing 10 individual Wembley stadiums, 10 nights at
• 14:42
  Wembley, which I mean whatever you think of Coldplay, it's
• 14:44
  going to be very hard for people to match in the future.
• 14:47
  I think where wherever they come from, Story 3, which it's not
• 14:53
  sort of, it won't impact us just yet, at least not financially,
• 14:57
  although it might do in the future.
• 14:58
  But this is a story, though, which appears to have made both
• 15:02
  the music industry and the good folk on Wall Street very happy.
• 15:07
  Spotify is raising its subscription rates in various
• 15:10
  countries around the world. Tell us about this.
• 15:13
  It's not here yet, is it? But the but is it parts of
• 15:16
  Europe and Asia? It is, yeah.
• 15:18
  Yeah. So I think UK had a price rise a
• 15:20
  little while ago. So we're not, I think, yeah, I
• 15:22
  like the, I like the good folk of Wall Street.
• 15:25
  The greed is good folk of Wall Street.
• 15:27
  Maybe can you see how far my tongue was in my cheek as I was
• 15:31
  trying to trying to say that sentence?
• 15:34
  Yeah, but yeah, so this came last week.
• 15:35
  So it was funny actually, because we talked about
• 15:36
  Spotify's earnings call. Didn't we last show?
• 15:38
  And then they were saying there people were saying when are you
• 15:40
  going to put prices up? And they were like, we put
• 15:42
  prices up when the time are right and only then.
• 15:44
  And it seemed that the next day the time was right.
• 15:49
  But it's in Europe and a few other places, other parts of the
• 15:51
  world. It's buy a euro in Europe, so
• 15:53
  the equivalent of buy a dollar, buy a quid.
• 15:56
  So kind of a small price rise. And yeah, this is what the music
• 16:00
  industry has been badgering Spotify and its rivals to do for
• 16:03
  a while now. You know, they look at what
• 16:05
  happens with Netflix, who Jack up their prices every couple of
• 16:07
  years and say, why can't you do that?
• 16:10
  Like, why can't it go up by a quid every couple of years?
• 16:14
  And what do you think is interesting?
• 16:15
  And like you said, so Wall Street loved us as a as a public
• 16:18
  company. We see the impact on Spotify's
• 16:20
  share price when it announces something.
• 16:22
  And I think it went up by 5% that day, which is a couple of
• 16:26
  billion, a few billion dollars of, of extra valuation for
• 16:29
  Spotify. So they liked it.
• 16:31
  And this is, this comes back to when I write about Spotify
• 16:34
  normally, there's often a tension between what investors
• 16:37
  like and what the music industry likes.
• 16:39
  So if Spotify finds a way to pay the music industry less money,
• 16:43
  Wall Street goes, hurrah, that's great, more profit.
• 16:46
  And if it finds, if it, if it has to pay more money to music,
• 16:49
  Wall Street goes, oh, hang on a minute, that's your margins.
• 16:51
  We're not keen on that. So this is a rare example of
• 16:54
  both sides going we like this, the price has gone up, adds more
• 16:57
  value to the company, pays more royalties to rights holders.
• 17:01
  It's hard to get a grip on it because Spotify share price, I
• 17:04
  mean it's been quite erratic over the past few years, hasn't
• 17:08
  it? I mean, it's been up and down
• 17:10
  like Bitcoin you just so it's quite unpredictable really.
• 17:17
  And that's it. And a 5% rise is kind of in a
• 17:19
  scheme of things, not, you know, it might go down 5% tomorrow.
• 17:22
  It went down actually after the recent financials when they
• 17:24
  said, oh, advertising isn't doing as well as we thought.
• 17:27
  So yeah, it does go up and down. I think the main thing here is I
• 17:30
  think we talked about investors and music industry.
• 17:32
  I guess the third group of people who might have care about
• 17:35
  this is people who Spotify subscribers.
• 17:38
  And that's the big unknown. Is that how, how often and how
• 17:41
  far can you put the prices up before people start saying, hang
• 17:43
  on a minute, I'm struggling for money and this is too much?
• 17:46
  And so far, and Spotify has talked about this so far, there
• 17:50
  hasn't really been any big surge in cancellations for past price
• 17:53
  rises. People are going, OK, it's net.
• 17:55
  It was 1099 a month. Now it's 1199.
• 17:57
  But that's still a good deal, which I guess to us too, it is
• 18:01
  a, it's a magnificent deal, isn't it?
• 18:02
  The entire history of recorded music for 1199 a month isn't.
• 18:06
  But I think they'll really be watching closely every time they
• 18:10
  put the price up by a small amount to just check, Is there
• 18:14
  suddenly a way of people cancelling subscriptions going
• 18:16
  back to free music? So we'll, we'll see, I think.
• 18:19
  But the other thing I think we'll see is when Spotify does
• 18:20
  something, it's the biggest company, it kind of opens the
• 18:23
  way for its rivals to do the same.
• 18:25
  Like one big one goes. And if someone else is thinking,
• 18:28
  well, I don't want to put my price up first, but now I can
• 18:31
  because Spotify has. So we might see and then a
• 18:33
  little wave of price rises across the board.
• 18:35
  OK, That's your news for this week.
• 18:37
  Any other business, actually, can I start with any other
• 18:40
  business? This this is from this came out
• 18:43
  of a conversation which we had in last week's Lock In, which is
• 18:47
  the the extra bit of the show for Patreon super fans.
• 18:51
  And it follows that news we covered last week about Hayley
• 18:53
  Williams, who released instead of releasing a new album,
• 18:58
  released 17 individual tracks. So released 17 tracks,
• 19:03
  effectively all as singles, which meant that you could then
• 19:05
  assemble them into an album if you wanted with your own track
• 19:10
  listing. And that's what and that ended
• 19:12
  up in a conversation about what is the most, what's the worst
• 19:15
  track listed album of all time? Badly track listed albums.
• 19:19
  Well, or LP's where bands have, I mean clearly got the track
• 19:23
  listing wrong and I I looked this up online that people have
• 19:27
  posted about this badly sequenced albums, including
• 19:32
  claims that amongst the badly tracked listed albums out there
• 19:35
  in the history of rock, Let It be by The Beatles, Revolver by
• 19:40
  The Beatles badly tracked listed.
• 19:42
  ACDC's Dirty DS done, Dirt cheap, badly tracked, listed.
• 19:48
  And how well those albums could have done if they didn't
• 19:50
  properly track. Yeah.
• 19:51
  I mean really that held The Beatles career back nowhere.
• 19:54
  And can I can I add 1 because I was been thinking about this and
• 19:58
  sorry Stuart. And in fact, I mean, obviously I
• 19:59
  love this band, but The Great Escape by Blur, all over the
• 20:03
  place, that album. Don't tell me then what's.
• 20:06
  Well, don't start with stereotypes.
• 20:08
  Don't, don't let the universal language in no man's land.
• 20:13
  You know, somewhere further down the album, which doesn't make
• 20:15
  any sense. I was thinking about this like
• 20:18
  not to argue against you because I, I think it's do you think
• 20:22
  it's because like, because it's stereotypes and country house,
• 20:25
  isn't it the first two, do you think they're the most similar
• 20:28
  to the last stuff? And it was a way of bringing
• 20:30
  those people in and then taking them through to the newer, more
• 20:34
  ambitious things or. I don't.
• 20:35
  I just don't know if they knew what they were doing at the
• 20:39
  time. I mean, it was just, it was an
• 20:41
  era of confusion born out in the track listing of that record, I
• 20:45
  think, you know. Country House is all my fault,
• 20:47
  do you know that? Well, come on then, how is, how
• 20:51
  is, how is this problem? I mean, be very careful because
• 20:54
  this could be the point where you get cancelled.
• 20:55
  I'm was the one. Well, not me and me and me and a
• 20:59
  hollow stadium full of fans. Not.
• 21:01
  Just me. Yeah, well, the Mile End gig.
• 21:04
  They played it at Mile End and we all went bananas and they
• 21:06
  didn't. I think they were planning
• 21:07
  something else to be the leading single one because we all went
• 21:09
  so bananas for it. They were like no country house.
• 21:11
  Do you know the other thing I thought they like at Blur last
• 21:14
  year at Wembley Country House was a big old sing along and
• 21:17
  roll with it at Oasis too, which those those two singles,
• 21:20
  everyone talks back and says those were rubbish, weren't
• 21:22
  they? Weren't they rubbish?
• 21:24
  But when everyone was there several beers down, they were
• 21:29
  two of the biggest sing alongs of those two gigs.
• 21:31
  So you may maybe there's a little a little kind of
• 21:34
  reassessment going on or maybe everyone was just three points
• 21:36
  down. We'll take more comments on this
• 21:39
  by the way, if you'd like to get in touch.
• 21:41
  Track listing errors, any albums that you feel could have
• 21:45
  benefited from the tracks being in a different order, The price
• 21:48
  of music, podcast@gmail.com. And if if you if you want some
• 21:52
  advice, just just type in how to perfectly track list an album
• 21:57
  and AI will tell you. Amongst other things.
• 22:00
  Start strong, open with a track that grabs attention.
• 22:03
  Something bold, catchy or emotionally resonant and then
• 22:07
  create a narrative arc, vary the energy and make sure you have
• 22:12
  anchor points. There you go.
• 22:14
  That's how to track list the perfect album.
• 22:17
  Also, actually staying on the subject of album Sorry to Hulk,
• 22:20
  Sorry to Hulk this podcast. Did you see that the band the
• 22:23
  case, that's the band from Merseyside.
• 22:25
  The case went to number one in the album chart a couple of
• 22:29
  weeks ago. I mean, comparatively unknown
• 22:32
  and I know this happens more often these days, but the case
• 22:36
  they're a guitar band from Liverpool.
• 22:38
  They are one of those bands that worked incredibly hard, gigs a
• 22:42
  lot, built a fan base with, you know, very little help from the
• 22:45
  media really. And that's how I don't.
• 22:48
  But I know they've got fans out. I don't know how many fans
• 22:50
  they've got, but they obviously all came out in that first week,
• 22:53
  the week of release, to support them because they sold 25,000
• 22:57
  copies of their album Pretty on the Internet with I looked at
• 23:02
  the stats, what was the best selling format?
• 23:06
  Oh God, was vinyl. No, no, exactly what I would
• 23:10
  have thought, what I would have said best selling format out of
• 23:13
  the 25,000 copies, 12,000 or 12 1/2 thousand possibly were on
• 23:19
  CDI mean. Having said that, there were
• 23:22
  quite a few different CDs, different versions of the CD,
• 23:27
  but you know, the CD is now, it's the budget format compared
• 23:31
  to vinyl. I was going to say yeah, but
• 23:33
  it's twice half the cost, isn't it?
• 23:35
  Yeah. But anyway, it reminded me.
• 23:37
  Go on. Well, it reminded me of of, you
• 23:40
  know, we talked about Shed 7 had two number one albums last year,
• 23:43
  and that's obviously a heritage comeback, but it's the same
• 23:46
  thing. I think if you've got a fan base
• 23:48
  and you can activate them and get them to buy physical
• 23:50
  versions, doesn't take that much physical sales to to rocket up
• 23:54
  the chart. And even I think I was doing
• 23:57
  some, I was looking at the case because these things up with a
• 23:59
  band getting to #1 and I haven't heard of them before.
• 24:01
  Like I'm catching up with all this, but they've got 334,000
• 24:07
  monthly listens on Spotify, which is, you know, kind of
• 24:10
  growing but small. Madonna has 38.7 million, but
• 24:15
  her new album came at #23 that week, which is not quite fair
• 24:19
  because it's a remix album and that's her global total of
• 24:21
  streamers. But I think it shows if you've
• 24:23
  got a committed fan base, you can you can properly do the
• 24:28
  chart. Yeah, I think it probably also
• 24:29
  shows how many Madonna fans are interested in new songs by
• 24:32
  Madonna. I think it's remixes of old
• 24:34
  songs, so. True prep on, do you know what I
• 24:37
  mean? Even Even so, there's a there's
• 24:40
  a what? A new Madonna album?
• 24:42
  I mean, that's, I mean, that's the equivalent of going on stage
• 24:44
  at Wembley Stadium, saying hello and then saying we're going to
• 24:48
  start. This is a new one.
• 24:50
  It's an only one. It's amazing for the case
• 24:52
  though, like, do you like, because even whatever you think
• 24:54
  of the charts, the fact that the case now can tell their
• 24:56
  grandchildren I had a number one album and that is still
• 24:59
  exciting, Yeah. However, however they've however
• 25:02
  they've they've done it forever now.
• 25:04
  The history book of rock will forever show that they had a
• 25:07
  number one album. Fair play they'd.
• 25:08
  Be Oasis, didn't they Oasis number two and three that week?
• 25:11
  I think so that again, we'd be Oasis number one, you know,
• 25:14
  asterisk required. But I would be, I'd be telling
• 25:16
  that to everyone I ever met if it was me.
• 25:19
  There was a festival story which she which she mentioned, which
• 25:22
  we should touch on because obviously we're sort of racing
• 25:24
  through another summer festival season, Green Man this weekend,
• 25:27
  which is always popular with a lot of people I know.
• 25:30
  But but there there has talking of musical trends over the last
• 25:35
  decade or so, more and more people who I know have started
• 25:38
  going to festivals abroad. You know, the the advent of
• 25:42
  festival tourism has has grown into quite a big thing over the
• 25:47
  past few years, including going to this festival, which I didn't
• 25:51
  didn't realise was in a bit of trouble, but apparently it is.
• 25:54
  Serbia's exit Festival is crowdfunding to keep itself
• 25:58
  alive after finding itself on the wrong side of the country's
• 26:02
  governments. What's happened here?
• 26:05
  Yeah, so this isn't a story about a festival running into
• 26:07
  trouble because it's not popular.
• 26:08
  We're not selling tickets, but I mean, take a lot to explain, but
• 26:12
  since November last year there've been big protests in
• 26:14
  Serbia about corruption with students at the fore of them.
• 26:17
  And I think the exit festival backed those students said we,
• 26:20
  we backed the protests and then now it says the government is
• 26:23
  starting to withdraw. I think it's 1.1 and a half
• 26:25
  million EUR of public funding and sponsorships, which for any
• 26:28
  festival is a big, would be a big loss of money.
• 26:32
  So it's not his crowdfunding campaign.
• 26:33
  You know, you can donate, you can pay for future tickets and
• 26:36
  perks. And it says digital assets,
• 26:38
  which I think are the new NFTS, But so you can basically show
• 26:42
  your support and say, I I want this happened.
• 26:43
  And they've went alongside it came some quotes and saying,
• 26:46
  yeah, we're standing up for freedom of speech.
• 26:50
  I mean, it's, it's I, I wasn't really aware of it that much
• 26:53
  before. I'd sort of heard of it, heard
• 26:54
  the name. But have you seen?
• 26:56
  It's a fascinating mix of artists.
• 26:57
  When you look at who's who played it this year, it's like
• 27:00
  you look at it, it's like Tiësto and the Prodigy and Eric Prison
• 27:03
  DJ Snakes. Do you think, oh, it's a dance
• 27:04
  festival? But then they had The Boomtown
• 27:06
  Rats and the Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter as well,
• 27:10
  who may be doing their dance sets.
• 27:11
  I don't know. But it's like a very it's a well
• 27:13
  established festival. It's been, I think it's 25 years
• 27:15
  or something. Yeah, it's Royal.
• 27:17
  And there's more and more of them.
• 27:18
  As I say, I know people who just, you know, put the, put
• 27:21
  some kit in a bag and off they go for, you know, a week and
• 27:25
  then take in a couple of festivals with each weekend.
• 27:29
  You know, one at the first weekends, have a little bit of a
• 27:32
  wander around, do some travelling and then go to
• 27:33
  another festival at the, at the end of the week in a different
• 27:36
  country. And it's, it's very tempting for
• 27:40
  artists, particularly artists from the UK.
• 27:42
  I mean, the Arctic Monkeys did all of those festivals, all all
• 27:46
  around Europe. So you can do it.
• 27:48
  And it is part of this little mini trend, isn't it, of, I
• 27:50
  mean, I don't know. I don't know what I think about
• 27:52
  governments having any, any say in festivals, like when Kier
• 27:55
  Stanwood was deciding who should play Glastonbury and who
• 27:58
  shouldn't this year in a discussion about kneecap.
• 28:01
  And in Serbia, this is very, you know, this this festival was
• 28:03
  serious trouble after taking a political stance.
• 28:06
  Yeah. So yeah, people can go to the
• 28:08
  Exit Festival website and they can see details there of what's
• 28:10
  been happening. All right, we'll finish.
• 28:12
  We'll finish with another festival related story.
• 28:16
  And finally, this week, if you wanted a ticket to the sold out
• 28:20
  Way Out West festival in Sweden this month, the price was
• 28:24
  Stewart. One of your kidneys.
• 28:27
  Just the one kidney. OK in buy or sell that.
• 28:32
  This doesn't sound right. What do you mean what?
• 28:35
  Well, basically you, you, you go to the front gate.
• 28:37
  There was a Swedish doctor with a warm bathtub and a scalpel.
• 28:41
  You go. So this is like, so we're out
• 28:43
  West again, another well, estate festival.
• 28:45
  I think this year they had like Charlie XCX and Chaparro and the
• 28:48
  Pet Shop Boys and Fontaine's DC and it, it's sold out in a flash
• 28:51
  really quickly. So I did a partnership with the
• 28:54
  National Organ donation Registry.
• 28:56
  So thankfully you're not giving your kidney before the festival,
• 28:58
  you're signing up to the organ donors registry in Sweden and
• 29:02
  you got entry to a contest to win a three day pass.
• 29:04
  So it was just a very clever, you know, they sort of said that
• 29:08
  a lot of people would say things like I'd give my kidney for a
• 29:10
  ticket and this was a nice way to RIP off that whilst adding a
• 29:13
  bunch of people to the national organ donation register.
• 29:16
  So I really like that idea. No bathtubs involved.
• 29:21
  Just think, just thinking, if you were going to donate kidneys
• 29:24
  or liver, surely, surely should, should do that before going to
• 29:27
  the festival because, well, yeah, question of them after
• 29:30
  four days at the festival. No one wants your liver after
• 29:32
  four days, Then no. We're out of time for this week.
• 29:35
  Thank you very much for listening.
• 29:37
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• 29:40
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• 29:43
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• 29:46
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• 29:49
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• 29:51
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• 29:55
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• 29:59
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• 30:11
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• 30:20
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• 30:22
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• 30:26
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• 30:29
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• 30:36
  Until next time, take care of yourselves.
• 30:38
  Bye for now.