Latest / The Price of Music / Will Drake face Kendrick in the witness box?; Los Campesinos! turn down a $60,000 ad deal – but why?; Steve takes a music superfan test; ... and what connects Taylor Swift & Five Finger Death Punch?

Transcript

Will Drake face Kendrick in the witness box?; Los Campesinos! turn down a $60,000 ad deal – but why?; Steve takes a music superfan test; ... and what connects Taylor Swift & Five Finger Death Punch? · The Price of Music

• 0:07
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:10
  Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by the fun and games
• 0:13
  and finances of the music world as explained each week by me,
• 0:17
  Steve Lemack and him, Stuart Dredge, How's how's your week
• 0:20
  been? Do you know, it's good?
• 0:22
  It's been quiet, but suddenly about 17 different big news
• 0:26
  stories are about to land. I think.
• 0:27
  So. It's going all right.
• 0:28
  Yeah. How's how's yours?
• 0:29
  Yeah, I've had a very busy week. I was all over the place
• 0:31
  actually in the last week, including, well, it was the
• 0:33
  first meeting of the board members of the Live Trust, which
• 0:37
  is the new charity board which will be responsible for
• 0:41
  distributing money which has been received from the 1 LB
• 0:45
  contributions coming in from Geeks and Stadiums and Arenas
• 0:48
  which so far I think has a mass somewhere in the region of a
• 0:52
  predicted 800,000 lbs which was also boosted this week.
• 0:56
  I'd like you saw this by the announcement that the Royal
• 0:59
  Albert Hall in London is going to give 1 LB a ticket to the
• 1:03
  Live Trust from every rock or pop gig that the venue stages
• 1:07
  from October onwards. Which is a terrific piece of
• 1:10
  news because that's in theory that's around £300,000 a year,
• 1:14
  which is going into the fund to put back into live music at the
• 1:18
  grassroots level via, well, venues and promoters and artists
• 1:22
  and small festivals. So that was very positive.
• 1:24
  And then by coincidence, I was at the Royal Albert Hall on
• 1:27
  Friday night attending the first night of the Proms, sat next to
• 1:32
  Imogen Edwards Jones, author of Hotel Babylon.
• 1:36
  But that, as they say, is a story for another day or
• 1:39
  possibly actually for the locking coming up later on.
• 1:42
  For now, that we should crack on because there's there's three
• 1:45
  big stories to get through this week, including one breaking
• 1:48
  news story which we've learnt about which is going to be
• 1:52
  announced I think while we're recording or just after.
• 1:55
  But we'll try and make sense of that for you in a second.
• 1:59
  Before all that though, so we start with, as he's becoming
• 2:02
  tradition with Stuart's big number, can you give us an eye
• 2:05
  watering figure at least? Can you make a bigger?
• 2:08
  Can you try harder than last week's slightly underwhelming
• 2:11
  figure? This week's big number is.
• 2:16
  Yeah, it was 1000 last week and you poked fun at me, didn't you?
• 2:18
  So here's a number for you. 2.5 trillion.
• 2:21
  There you see, you can do it. What?
• 2:24
  What is? What's the story behind 2.5
• 2:26
  trillion in music terms? So 2.5 trillion is a number of,
• 2:31
  and this is a long sentence, right number of global on demand
• 2:35
  audio song streams in the first half of this year.
• 2:38
  So basically we collectively have played 2.5 trillion songs
• 2:42
  on audio streaming services. So not YouTube videos in the
• 2:47
  first six months and that is up 10.3% year on year.
• 2:50
  So we're streaming more music collectively.
• 2:52
  And do you want some hook? Do you want some dodgy maths,
• 2:56
  which I'm always? I'm always, I'm always up for
• 2:58
  some dodgy maths. Yeah, all our listeners are
• 3:00
  sitting there thinking, yeah, let's let's complicate this with
• 3:03
  some dodgy maths. This is what we came for so that
• 3:06
  there are 8.2 billion people in the world.
• 3:08
  So that means an average of 304 music streams each if we were
• 3:12
  all using film services. So that's a lot of streams.
• 3:18
  I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's one of those times where it's a
• 3:21
  big figure. But I'm, I'm going to ask is it
• 3:25
  a good figure though? Because I, I don't know, is it
• 3:28
  big enough for some people? Because I'm, I'm asking this
• 3:31
  really, because on occasion over the past year, you've alluded to
• 3:36
  the fact that record labels are slightly annoyed that streaming
• 3:39
  isn't growing in the way that they would like in a way that
• 3:41
  would be even more profitable for them.
• 3:44
  So is this going to reassure them or is this going to confirm
• 3:47
  their fears of potential stagnation amongst the streaming
• 3:50
  services? Well, I think the key thing is
• 3:52
  this, this is consumption. This is listening.
• 3:54
  It's not money. And I think that's the big
• 3:56
  problem at the moment. So this comes from a company
• 3:57
  called Illuminate who crunched data from music industry.
• 4:00
  I should have said that the start.
• 4:02
  So what it is, yeah, music listening is still growing, but
• 4:05
  I think we've covered these figures before.
• 4:07
  The money being made from streaming isn't growing that
• 4:09
  fast. So that's where the concerns
• 4:11
  come in. That could be.
• 4:13
  I mean, the interesting thing that there was this big report
• 4:14
  Illuminate did and one of the things they had this breakdown
• 4:16
  of the countries in the world and where the most streams come
• 4:19
  from. the US is the biggest. It's like 765 billion streams.
• 4:25
  But then behind that, it's next is India and Mexico and Brazil,
• 4:29
  which is kind of the interesting thing there is that these
• 4:31
  countries which historically were, were difficult to sell
• 4:35
  music in, You know, they weren't big music sales markets, but
• 4:38
  they're huge stream markets in terms of people listening.
• 4:41
  And the big task now is to get people to subscribe there and
• 4:44
  figure out how much money they can generate for the industry.
• 4:47
  So, so that's the, I think for for labels, that's the exciting
• 4:51
  thing is that this streaming is not just the big famous mature
• 4:54
  music markets. It's these different parts of
• 4:57
  the world. So that was big.
• 4:58
  I mean, the other thing, and I was going to, I was going to do
• 5:00
  a little test, a little quiz for you, like a personality quiz.
• 5:04
  So this report also breaks down different types of music
• 5:07
  listener, like it's a part of this superfan trend that we've
• 5:09
  talked about. Yeah.
• 5:11
  And basically it says, I don't know, 20% of music listeners
• 5:14
  just literally hear music sometimes on the radio, like
• 5:16
  very the most casual, about 14% use streaming services for free.
• 5:21
  So they are, you know, more active. 30% pay for streaming or
• 5:25
  physical music. So they're active fans.
• 5:28
  But then you've got 18% of fans who do those things.
• 5:30
  But they also, and the the phrase is engage with artists on
• 5:33
  at least three of 13 different activation channels because that
• 5:37
  that's what fans think of themselves as activating on
• 5:39
  activation channels. And 18% of super fans because
• 5:42
  they engage with artists on at least five of these channels.
• 5:45
  So I know what you're thinking. What are these 13 things that
• 5:49
  you have to do at least five of to be a super fan?
• 5:51
  So I thought I'd do a little little test on you to see which
• 5:53
  how many you. I think you might answer more
• 5:55
  than 10 here. OK.
• 5:57
  OK, so first one, going to gigs. Yeah, obviously talking about
• 6:01
  artists with your friends and family.
• 6:03
  Yep. With a rat, I don't know which
• 6:05
  one. Watching live streams.
• 6:08
  Watching live streams online? No, not really.
• 6:11
  Yeah, not really. But I'm, I'm never in.
• 6:14
  I'm always at a gig. True.
• 6:16
  Buying physical music? Yeah.
• 6:19
  Buying downloads? What was this yesterday?
• 6:22
  Yeah. I mean, to be fair, I have, I
• 6:24
  have bought a couple of downloads in the last month.
• 6:26
  So I can tell you. Yeah, I can cheerfully say yes
• 6:28
  to that. Yeah, I said band camp as well.
• 6:30
  Actually buying merch. Buying merch?
• 6:32
  Yep, as the as the cupboard upstairs full of T-shirts
• 6:38
  verifies. OK, posting about artists on
• 6:41
  social media. Yeah, yes, yes, occasionally.
• 6:45
  Interacting with artist music on chat forums and networks.
• 6:48
  Things like Discord and Reddit, but basically online, you know,
• 6:52
  messaging communities. Yeah, no.
• 6:55
  So I mean, don't be friends with anyone in a bag.
• 6:57
  I think that's something I learnt very early on and it's
• 7:01
  because it's harder when you're, particularly when you're a
• 7:03
  journalist, because at some point I always, I found that now
• 7:08
  they've made a terrible record. And if you're their friends, I
• 7:11
  mean as a you've got to tell them it's a terrible record and
• 7:13
  then you find you're not their friend anymore.
• 7:15
  So no, no, I'm not interacting with a lot of artists,
• 7:18
  particularly online. OK, signing up for artist
• 7:21
  newsletters again, you probably don't need.
• 7:24
  To do you? No, but I have though.
• 7:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:26
  There's one or two, yeah. One or two favourites, yeah.
• 7:29
  OK, subscribing to fan clubs. No, not since I was 14 or 15.
• 7:37
  I. Think well, so you have done it
• 7:38
  both tipping artists in person or online.
• 7:42
  In person. Tipping them in person.
• 7:47
  You know, yeah. I did.
• 7:49
  I did bump into one quite famous rock musician backstage at that
• 7:53
  Fontaine's DC gig if I'd just put a fiver in his hand, said Go
• 7:57
  on, Dave, you know yourself. There you go.
• 8:00
  No. Buying virtual merch?
• 8:03
  I suspect maybe a no. That's a no, yeah.
• 8:05
  And then directly funding artists through crowdfunding or
• 8:08
  sending them cash. So when when they have these
• 8:10
  payment links like you can send me cash by PayPal.
• 8:14
  Strange, though not not art. Oh, actually I did.
• 8:18
  I did sign up to the Eva Lazarus help me make an EP.
• 8:23
  So yes, Yeah, I have. Yeah, but I think you're about
• 8:26
  not often. I think you're about nine of
• 8:28
  those and the ones you're not more because you're not in that
• 8:31
  technology then so and it's just interesting.
• 8:34
  It was for me thinking about this as this is the definition
• 8:36
  of a super fan, only five of those, but I think a lot of
• 8:39
  people were listening probably on, you know, 789.
• 8:42
  How did how did you score? Did you score yourself?
• 8:45
  I think I got about the same 989 Yeah, I'm not in a fan club at
• 8:51
  the moment. Oh no.
• 8:52
  Well, I mean, do you know I'm in a I'm in a fan club of one band
• 8:55
  who weren't mentioned, so yeah, maybe 9.
• 8:58
  So yeah, about the same, but it's.
• 9:00
  Nice. Because it look, tell, tell me
• 9:02
  later in the lock in what the band is.
• 9:04
  We promised to do that. OK.
• 9:05
  All right. So yeah, this is this is the
• 9:07
  definition of words you find. I think it's good because some
• 9:09
  of these things are about buying stuff, but actually a lot of it
• 9:12
  is about talking to people, engaging with things, seeing
• 9:15
  bands live. I think it's a good set of
• 9:16
  criteria of like what makes a music fan.
• 9:18
  OK, our top three stories of the week story #1 now if if Drake's
• 9:26
  legal battle with the Universal Music Group ever gets to court,
• 9:30
  apparently it could come face to face with Kendrick Lamar in the
• 9:32
  witness box. That's going to be pay-per-view,
• 9:35
  I imagine. Tell us more about that.
• 9:37
  What remind us of the characters involved in the plot so far?
• 9:41
  Yeah, this is one of the ongoing dramas.
• 9:42
  So to recap, like Drake is suing Universal Music Group, who are
• 9:46
  his label partner as well, because of Kendrick Lamar's diss
• 9:49
  track Not Like Us, which was released by another bit of the
• 9:51
  UMG Empire. He's not suing Kendrick Lamar,
• 9:55
  who wrote the track. He's suing Universal Music for
• 9:57
  releasing and promoting it and he's suing for defamation
• 10:00
  because of the The Line certified paedophile, which he
• 10:03
  says could have led people to think he Drake was a certified
• 10:06
  paedophile. That's the gist of this case.
• 10:09
  And the latest news this month is that both sides have kind of
• 10:14
  put their legal filing in saying these are the witnesses we might
• 10:16
  call. So not definite witnesses, but
• 10:19
  these are the list people we might call to give evidence.
• 10:22
  And Drake listed 63, which is going to make this a, you know,
• 10:25
  one of those sort of 700 part Netflix dramas, various execs at
• 10:29
  Universal Music. But also he mentioned Amazon
• 10:32
  Music, Apple, Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram.
• 10:35
  So he he might call people from those companies talk about how
• 10:38
  this song was promoted and what their role in it was.
• 10:42
  But Universal and this is 7 witnesses, but Kendrick Lamar's
• 10:44
  one of them. So yeah, you could have them
• 10:46
  come face to because they haven't, as far as I'm aware,
• 10:48
  they haven't been face to face. I'm not even sure they've been
• 10:51
  at an award ceremony together since this all happened.
• 10:53
  Like, they haven't had a public confrontation other than through
• 10:57
  music. So this might be the first time.
• 10:59
  Although, you know, Drake might not be there today, Kendrick is.
• 11:02
  Who's who's going to blink first, do you think?
• 11:05
  Will someone try and settle or vote to or to save face?
• 11:09
  Do they have to go through with this court case now?
• 11:12
  I don't know, I don't think it does either them any good
• 11:14
  because if this case happens, one, there could be dirty
• 11:18
  laundry being out about how things are done.
• 11:19
  But also even just stuff that it's secret, like how universal
• 11:23
  promotes songs. It doesn't want other labels to
• 11:26
  get the full skinny on how it promotes a big track and what,
• 11:28
  what kind of deals it does because that's that's it's kind
• 11:31
  of secret sauce, like any label. I mean, it's, I was, I was
• 11:36
  looking at a previous, the previous case that kind of
• 11:38
  almost compares quite well to this is do you remember when
• 11:41
  Elon Musk was, was trying to send a submarine down to rescue
• 11:45
  some people who were trapped on the water?
• 11:46
  And he got into this public argument with a British diver on
• 11:49
  Twitter and he called him paedo guy, I think.
• 11:52
  And this went to trial for defamation.
• 11:53
  Exactly the same thing. The guy was like, you defame me
• 11:56
  by coming back, and Elon Musk was actually cleared of that.
• 12:00
  And one of the arguments his lawyers made was like, when you
• 12:02
  have an argument, you insult people, you don't mean it.
• 12:04
  No one thinks you mean it. And he was cleared in the end
• 12:08
  for various reasons, including that.
• 12:10
  So in a way that that doesn't really all go well for Drake,
• 12:13
  because it sort of suggests that if people understand that you're
• 12:16
  not saying this person is really what I'm saying they are, it's
• 12:18
  just for the purpose of the argument.
• 12:20
  So in that sense, I think there's a good emphasis on Drake
• 12:25
  to settle, too. I don't think, you know, if he
• 12:27
  went to court and he lost, that would be embarrassing and
• 12:29
  costly. But yeah, and I think we've
• 12:32
  talked about the issues here like this is this is a big this
• 12:34
  this is kind of, it's quite fun. Everyone is getting their
• 12:36
  popcorn in the in the hope he might go to court.
• 12:38
  But it's a big issue of free speech, I guess.
• 12:41
  Like, can you throw any insult you like in a rap battle and
• 12:44
  people understand you don't mean it?
• 12:46
  And if you can't, it's that like a restriction on free speech and
• 12:49
  artistic expression, these are the things that people are kind
• 12:52
  of talking about. Could be.
• 12:53
  But but again, I think it makes most sense for this to be
• 12:57
  settled and neither side to have to to go through this in court
• 13:00
  because yeah, no one's got a lot to win I think from from a
• 13:03
  verdict either way. Story #2 This week we are
• 13:06
  recording this episode on Tuesdays.
• 13:09
  It's still morning. Yeah, it's just coming up
• 13:11
  towards midday on Tuesday and at any seconds or within the next
• 13:17
  hour, we think there'll be an announcement in the House of
• 13:20
  Commons about this. It's from the Department of
• 13:24
  Culture, Media and Sports. It's it's a further push to try
• 13:28
  and make streaming renumeration fairer for artists.
• 13:32
  I think that's the gist of it. From what from what you've heard
• 13:34
  so far, from your contacts, it's a big announcement and it's
• 13:39
  about streaming. Fill us in a little bit more
• 13:42
  with what you know. Yeah, and to stress, this is
• 13:44
  very much my me and my contacts and nothing is being announced
• 13:47
  officially until the government announces it.
• 13:50
  And that seems to be a deadline. It's moving.
• 13:52
  And but yeah, so this goes back a few years when we had a big
• 13:54
  streaming inquiry in the UK from the Parliament where I think The
• 13:58
  upshot of it was labels got quite a big kicking.
• 14:00
  It wasn't just streaming services getting criticised, it
• 14:02
  was labels and talk about bad contracts with artists and how
• 14:05
  money didn't flow through. And one upshot was this working
• 14:08
  group that was created under the government's watch.
• 14:10
  So where all the music industry bodies representing the labels,
• 14:13
  the publishers, the collecting societies, but also the creators
• 14:16
  of music have basically been sat in a room for two years arguing
• 14:20
  about how to improve a lot of musicians.
• 14:23
  And it has been real arguments of some people are pushing for
• 14:26
  big reforms, big changes the way money is, and other people
• 14:29
  pushing back and say no, we don't want to change too much,
• 14:31
  it could be harmful. So as I understand it, this
• 14:35
  announcement is going to be a set of principles that have been
• 14:38
  agreed by everyone in that room to help creators.
• 14:42
  So it's a bit about legacy artists.
• 14:44
  So the kind of artists who were assigned to deals back in the CD
• 14:46
  day who haven't been doing well from streaming partly because of
• 14:49
  those deals. Maybe they have, maybe they
• 14:51
  haven't recouped the advances they were paid.
• 14:53
  Maybe they're not a terrible rate for digital.
• 14:55
  So there's some stuff on that, I think of labels.
• 14:58
  I don't think they're going to change the contracts, but
• 15:00
  they're promising to reply if the manager or artist requests
• 15:03
  it and says like I want to renegotiate my contract, it's
• 15:05
  unfair. There's some promises there.
• 15:07
  They're going to help those legacy artists to increase their
• 15:09
  number of streams and that's more about helping them do
• 15:11
  marketing. So if you are a band who was
• 15:14
  signed in the 90's, the label might say OK, we're going to
• 15:16
  help you market your catalog bettering and double your
• 15:19
  streams, you know, do well, there's some songwriter stuff.
• 15:22
  So if you're a songwriter going in to do songwriting for an
• 15:25
  artist, you'll get paid per DMS, just, you know, £75 a day for
• 15:29
  your time rather than being expected to work for free.
• 15:33
  That's been something that's been campaigned for a while and
• 15:35
  there's some, I think there's a rise in rates for session
• 15:37
  musicians as well. People are going in and working
• 15:39
  on recordings and that's, so it's kind of a little a package
• 15:42
  of measures that I'm trying to think how to put it.
• 15:46
  It's all welcome and it's all good stuff.
• 15:49
  The thing I'm interested in is seeing the reaction to it
• 15:51
  because it's not the big changes that some of the campaigners
• 15:53
  have been pushing for. So pushing for stuff like we've
• 15:56
  talked about equitable remuneration, where money from
• 15:59
  streaming is split more equally between labels and artists.
• 16:01
  That doesn't appear to be on the table here.
• 16:03
  So it's not sorry to sorry to jump in, but that that crucially
• 16:08
  is one of was one of the big bones of contention, at least
• 16:12
  particularly from the artist side.
• 16:14
  So it still feels that labels and artists are still at
• 16:17
  loggerheads over something which is quite crucial with the
• 16:20
  streaming services in the middle.
• 16:22
  I think that's it. And I, I sort of, I mean, you
• 16:24
  could describe this as kind of tinkering around the edges of
• 16:26
  stuff, but welcome things. But there's steps.
• 16:27
  But I, the other thing I've picked up, and this comes from
• 16:30
  everyone, actually, the one thing they can all agree on is
• 16:32
  that they, they all seem to have respect for the minister, who's
• 16:35
  Chris Bryant you've talked about before.
• 16:37
  He's the culture minister. It seems like he came in when
• 16:40
  the government was, he came in and kind of did a bit of light
• 16:43
  banging heads together and has pushed for there to be something
• 16:46
  they can agree on and something to put out and some changes.
• 16:48
  So I think part of the reaction will be, well, this isn't, these
• 16:52
  aren't the big changes that have been campaigned for, but I think
• 16:54
  there is a recognition that the government is at least trying to
• 16:57
  make stuff happen and is keeping a watching brief.
• 17:00
  Like I expect what the district is like, we're going to do this
• 17:02
  stuff, see how it goes. And maybe in a year we'll come
• 17:05
  back and say, has this changed things and look at anything
• 17:08
  further then. So it's kind of a it's not a
• 17:11
  thing that fixes streaming suddenly, but it it does sound
• 17:15
  like it's going to be some good welcome small steps that maybe
• 17:18
  do pave the way for this more in future.
• 17:20
  I mean, it feels like it's, it's one way of saying, look, we are
• 17:23
  getting somewhere because there were a lot of frustrations
• 17:27
  waiting around for people to say anything about streaming.
• 17:30
  As you say, it's it's years now since that streaming quote.
• 17:33
  It's 100 years since that streaming inquiry.
• 17:35
  COVID wasn't it. Yeah, nothing, nothing much has
• 17:38
  really changed for the beleaguered artists.
• 17:40
  So they need to get to a point where they have some positive
• 17:45
  news before they can then push onto what's, you know, the, the
• 17:49
  next important points. But as I say, while you have
• 17:53
  record labels somewhat down one end of the table and artists at
• 17:58
  the other believing that they, you know, they're slightly
• 18:01
  unfairly treated by by this current payment system, then
• 18:08
  it's a hard 1, isn't it, Chris? Sir Chris Bryant is very good at
• 18:12
  trying to find a middle grounds. But I mean, it will be a
• 18:14
  Herculean task to, I suppose the next thing is it's just going to
• 18:18
  have to start chipping away saying is there any gift on your
• 18:21
  side and bring about some compromise.
• 18:25
  And it's funny, it's been very funny actually as journalists in
• 18:27
  this, because normally when this sort of thing happened, when
• 18:29
  something is announced, people like to tell journalists the day
• 18:31
  before under embargo, yeah, get on the phone to you, tell you
• 18:34
  what, what it means, give you their side of the story.
• 18:36
  But with this, and this is I think to do with like the way
• 18:39
  the Parliament works and the speaker of the House gets very
• 18:41
  cross if the government announces things not in
• 18:44
  parliament first. That's kind of a long sensation.
• 18:46
  And he sort of, he puffs the doctor, his full kind of annoyed
• 18:49
  randomness and goes, how dare you do this?
• 18:51
  So there's been a lot, no one's been allowed to kind of do that
• 18:54
  sort of pre announce stuff. So it really is going to be
• 18:57
  government first, then everyone will put out their press
• 18:59
  releases and then we'll see if everyone is, if this kind of
• 19:04
  this kind of entente cordial is holding or if someone comes out
• 19:08
  and goes. I think this is a load of old
• 19:09
  bollocks and I never complain. So that'll be what happens
• 19:12
  tomorrow. OK.
• 19:13
  All right. I'll tell you what, next week,
• 19:15
  we'll come back to this next week because I think the
• 19:17
  reactions, as you say, will be really interesting because
• 19:19
  everyone involved in streaming as especially representatives of
• 19:23
  artists or artists themselves will be responding to this over
• 19:26
  the annoyingly over the next 24 hours after we've posted this.
• 19:30
  But we'll come back to it maybe next week, unless they have
• 19:35
  sorted out all the music industry's troubles and in which
• 19:40
  case we will do an emergency. We've never done an emergency
• 19:43
  podcast, so we could do an emergency podcast.
• 19:46
  I doubt it's going to come to that, but we'll come back to
• 19:48
  that story. Big story number 30 now.
• 19:52
  Yeah. Tell us about this.
• 19:53
  Because, I mean, there's not a lot of money floating as we
• 19:56
  know, talking even last week about how bands make money.
• 20:00
  It's hard for groups to make a living, but even offered.
• 20:06
  This quite a large chunk of money.
• 20:09
  The Welsh indie Wizards Los Campesinos have revealed now why
• 20:13
  they turned down a $60,000 sync deal for use of their music for
• 20:21
  an Airbnb adverts. Yeah, I like, I love Welsh indie
• 20:26
  Wizards as a descriptor as well. Obligatory yeah, this came out
• 20:31
  of the blue. So the there hadn't been a
• 20:32
  rumour about this or leak. And the band themselves
• 20:34
  announced it on X, formerly Twitter, and said, yeah, in
• 20:37
  April, we declined an offer of 60 grand to licence somewhere
• 20:39
  else to Airbnb. And the reason they gave was
• 20:43
  Airbnb has been used to rent out properties in Israeli
• 20:46
  settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, which
• 20:49
  is about as hot as hot potatoes come to discuss politically
• 20:53
  right now. But this is like an old story,
• 20:55
  like Airbnb banned listings from these settlements a few years
• 20:58
  ago, then reversed the ban. It's been in the news again
• 21:01
  recently about how should they be allowing people in these
• 21:03
  settlements to rent out their their rooms to make money.
• 21:07
  And the band said, we don't want our music to be associated with
• 21:10
  this. We don't want to fund this.
• 21:11
  And so we'd turn it down and yeah, you're right.
• 21:14
  I think it comes. I mean, it's one of the few
• 21:16
  times when a band has talked about not just the issues and
• 21:19
  principles around it, but they've talked about actually
• 21:20
  how much they were offered for this kind of usage.
• 21:23
  And, you know, sync can be a very mysterious area, I think,
• 21:26
  for a lot of music fans. But it was a hard number.
• 21:29
  This is how much this band got offered to do this kind of ad
• 21:32
  for this brand. Yeah, I mean, it's actually
• 21:35
  quite an opportunity to to dig into syncs a little bit.
• 21:39
  I mean, and also how attitudes have changed because I mean,
• 21:42
  going back in time, I mean all manner of alternative artists
• 21:45
  turned down using, having their music used in adverts in the
• 21:48
  late 80s and early 90s. I mean, I'm pretty sure both Pop
• 21:51
  Elite itself and Carter the Unstoppable sex machine were
• 21:54
  amongst those who turned down the use of their music and ads.
• 21:58
  I think 1, and I think one of them was, was something like KP
• 22:01
  Nuts, which I mean, it's quite an innocuous product, but you
• 22:05
  know, it was different, different times then 1.
• 22:06
  You could still make some money out of actually selling records.
• 22:09
  But also, I think artists were far more worried possibly about
• 22:12
  claims that they'd sold out that artistically sold out.
• 22:18
  But yeah, I mean, the process is just as an aside, but bleeping
• 22:24
  off from the story. If you've ever wondered how
• 22:27
  music gets on an ad, as far as I well as I understand it and I'm
• 22:33
  not the biggest expert, but the client, that's whatever product
• 22:37
  it is. Let's say it's a chocolate bar
• 22:39
  manufacturer. The chocolate bar manufacturer
• 22:41
  goes to an ad agency, then the ad agency comes up with an idea
• 22:47
  for the advert, and then the ad agency will choose a soundtrack
• 22:51
  to the ad. Even I, I mean years ago was
• 22:55
  approached once by an ad agency saying, have you got any ideas
• 22:58
  for music we could use in this ad?
• 23:01
  So they, they canvas a few opinions.
• 23:03
  They they're probably these days hounded imagined by labels and
• 23:07
  publishers and sync, sync companies saying we've got this
• 23:12
  music. Do you think you can use it
• 23:14
  anywhere? But anyway.
• 23:16
  And then eventually, obviously the artists will get an approach
• 23:18
  and the ad agent said, well, well, they'll, they'll make an
• 23:22
  offer for what they think that piece of music is worth for them
• 23:26
  to use in the ads. And usually they'll set a time
• 23:31
  limit on it. So say they're going to, they'll
• 23:33
  say we're going to do a six week campaign for which we'll offer
• 23:36
  you X 1000 lbs. And then if they decide to
• 23:39
  extend the campaign, if it's a successful campaign, they'll
• 23:41
  come back to you and offer you some, some more money.
• 23:45
  The money obviously will depend on how big the artist is or how
• 23:49
  desperate the company are to use your music.
• 23:52
  So money, you know, this money, this will, this will vary
• 23:56
  tremendously as no, no disrespect to Los Camposinos,
• 24:01
  but I imagine Noel Gallagher was probably offered a little bit
• 24:03
  more for use of a cover version of Half a World Away in that
• 24:07
  John Lewis ad at Christmas the other year.
• 24:10
  I, I, I'd sense he sat back contemplating how, how he was
• 24:15
  going to enjoy his Christmas from that particular royalty
• 24:18
  check. Although actually the best ones,
• 24:20
  you know, the best one, do you remember Billy Childish's
• 24:23
  version of the Dad's Army theme, which was used, I think it was
• 24:27
  Asda. It was used in a commercial for
• 24:28
  Asda and, and whatever Billy was paid by Asda.
• 24:33
  All pretty much pure profit because the original track was
• 24:36
  recorded on one of those old, you know, those four track home
• 24:40
  recording studio things that you could get, which I mean it was
• 24:44
  recorded. The track was recorded onto a
• 24:46
  cassette because I remember the man who put the song out as a
• 24:49
  single from the from the label saying, do you know what the
• 24:52
  biggest recording cost was for that track?
• 24:55
  Billy Childish's version of Who do You think You're kidding, Mr.
• 24:59
  Hitler? The biggest outlay for that song
• 25:02
  was the C60 cassette it was recorded on.
• 25:06
  Wow, that's good business. So he did.
• 25:09
  I think he probably did all right out of that.
• 25:11
  But yeah. And then obviously, you know,
• 25:14
  apart from, you know, what the agency offers you financially to
• 25:17
  say will vary dramatically, but then you have to dig into what
• 25:20
  the artist actually gets paid, which and that's, you know,
• 25:26
  subject to all kind of variables again, because it depends on the
• 25:30
  terms of your record or publishing contracts.
• 25:32
  I got in touch with someone actually just to try and test
• 25:36
  out what I knew about this someone who knows loads more
• 25:40
  than I do. And he explained it this way.
• 25:42
  This is how the payment is made. So say out of the $60,000, it
• 25:48
  could be split up like this. He says usually a sync deal will
• 25:51
  be 50% for the master and 50% for the writer.
• 25:55
  So that's 50% for the recorded music, 50% is publishing.
• 26:00
  Whether he goes on. Whether or not those monies make
• 26:02
  it to the artist or writer is based on the terms of their
• 26:05
  deals. Sync licences on the label side
• 26:08
  are usually 5050, he was saying. So 50% going to the label, 50%
• 26:14
  to the artist, that's how they split the money.
• 26:16
  But the 50% to the artist, if there's a clause in their
• 26:20
  contracts where income counts against recoupment, then that
• 26:25
  money's just going to go off. And basically if you're, I don't
• 26:29
  know, 2530 grand down the hole to your record label, then the
• 26:34
  money that comes in from that advert, if you have a certain
• 26:37
  deal, it will basically say, right, we're taking that to
• 26:40
  recoup the money that we loaned you when you signed your deal.
• 26:45
  I mean, it could. Clear.
• 26:46
  It could clear your debt I guess, couldn't it?
• 26:47
  If it was big enough then. So it could be a good thing in
• 26:49
  that sense. It could clear your debt and
• 26:50
  then you start earning from all the other things.
• 26:52
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 26:53
  I mean, although psychologically, if somebody
• 26:55
  came up and said I'm going to give you 30 grand, you go, yes,
• 26:59
  brilliant. And then somebody else came away
• 27:00
  and said came along and said I'm going to take that 30 grand.
• 27:04
  You, you, you are 30 grand better off.
• 27:06
  But it doesn't, it sort of doesn't feel like it, it's a bit
• 27:08
  better with publishing because it's more likely that money goes
• 27:12
  to writers. And my, my contact said, yeah,
• 27:16
  money goes to writers. I mean, the publisher will take
• 27:19
  their percentage, which is 20% or lower.
• 27:23
  But again, if, if, if the terms of your deal say we're going to
• 27:26
  have that back because we loaned you some money, then off it will
• 27:29
  go again. So I think it's two morals to,
• 27:32
  to this tale. Isn't there one?
• 27:33
  This is another example of never.
• 27:35
  But when you see a figure, any figure, any financial figure,
• 27:40
  any money being given to a band for anything, not all that money
• 27:44
  is going to go to that artist. When we talk about how much
• 27:47
  you've made from streaming, not all that money is going to the
• 27:49
  artist. When you hear somebody's been
• 27:51
  offered this for the use of their music in a film, not all
• 27:54
  the money is going to the artist.
• 27:56
  The other moral of this tale is do check the small print when
• 28:01
  you're signing your record or publishing contract.
• 28:04
  But it's it's interesting because I think we only ever
• 28:06
  hear about the amounts In Sync when someone is complaining.
• 28:09
  Generally the artists don't tend to boast about how much money
• 28:12
  they made. But I think the one, the other
• 28:14
  one I remember other than this was, do you remember Heaven 17's
• 28:17
  Martin Ware? He got an offer from Grand Theft
• 28:20
  Auto developers to attempt to and I think it was like 7 and a
• 28:24
  half, $1000. And he was like, this is
• 28:25
  ridiculous. Look how much money Grand Theft
• 28:27
  Auto makes. And that sparked a big debate
• 28:29
  because people were saying, well, look how many tracks they
• 28:31
  license. You know, that's a lot of money.
• 28:33
  But that, that was the last time I remember Sync being in the
• 28:36
  spotlight in this sense where an artist saying I got offered this
• 28:39
  and I'm not happy. Although in that case it was the
• 28:41
  amount rather than principles around it.
• 28:44
  All right. Any other business?
• 28:46
  What were you saying? You.
• 28:48
  What was that story about 5 Finger Death punch you Because
• 28:52
  you wouldn't tell me what it was.
• 28:54
  No. OK, what's the connection
• 28:56
  between Taylor Swift and Five Finger Death Punch?
• 28:59
  I'm. Not good at these questions.
• 29:02
  Do they both demand? I don't know the jewelled hair
• 29:06
  dryers on their rider. Are they both banned in bands
• 29:10
  somewhere? Are they both banned in China?
• 29:12
  That's not what it is. I don't know, I concede what's
• 29:15
  what is. What's the connection between
• 29:17
  Taylor Swift and Five Finger Death Punch?
• 29:21
  OK, I can't disprove either of those guesses so it may be true,
• 29:24
  but yeah. Well it's re recording your
• 29:26
  hits. So Taylor Swift famously re
• 29:29
  recorded a bunch of her albums when her catalog was sold
• 29:32
  without her permission. And now Five Finger Tips were
• 29:34
  very successful rock band. I think they're like 7 albums in
• 29:37
  or they had seven albums. As part of this.
• 29:39
  They used to be signed to a label called Prospect Park,
• 29:41
  which sold the rights that he owned in the albums to a company
• 29:44
  called Spirit Music Group. So one of those catalog deals
• 29:47
  and the band weren't happy and what they say, and so far we've
• 29:50
  only heard one sided. They say they didn't get the
• 29:52
  chance to buy those recordings themselves and they might have
• 29:54
  bought them back and owned them. And they've also been in
• 29:58
  litigation with this label for a while.
• 29:59
  So there's kind of no love lost on both sides.
• 30:02
  But what they've done is they've re recorded a bunch of their
• 30:04
  hits for this, this new compilation called Best of
• 30:06
  Volume 1, which is one of those things that kind of suggests
• 30:10
  that there'll be a volume to coming along if it works.
• 30:13
  And they said Taylor Swift was direct inspiration.
• 30:15
  They saw what she did and thought, well, we could do that.
• 30:17
  This, this might be a solution. And the thing it made me think
• 30:21
  is like Taylor Swift started doing hurry recordings a few
• 30:23
  years ago now. And some people said, oh, this
• 30:26
  might become a trend that loads of other writers might look at
• 30:29
  what she's doing and say, yeah, we could do that.
• 30:30
  We could have the rights and things.
• 30:32
  And it didn't really happen. Like, there haven't really been
• 30:34
  that many examples, which maybe is a testament to the fact that
• 30:38
  when that dispute has emerged, people have preferred to
• 30:40
  negotiate and sign settlement with a label rather than go
• 30:43
  nuclear. But this is probably one of the
• 30:45
  first, the highest prominent examples of this happening.
• 30:49
  That's not Taylor Swift. And like Taylor, it means that
• 30:54
  these new recordings will be sitting on streaming services
• 30:56
  alongside the originals. Just kind of it's a dilemma for
• 30:59
  fans, Like which ones do you stream?
• 31:01
  Do you do you kind of switch to the new ones in support of the
• 31:03
  band, assuming they're as good? But also streaming services, If
• 31:09
  you're a playlist at Spotify, Apple Music and you're putting
• 31:11
  A5 finger death punch song on a playlist, do you choose the re
• 31:14
  recording or the original? Like, yeah, it's a little
• 31:16
  political moment for you. And then that's before we get to
• 31:19
  the algorithms, like when, when someone, when Spotify's
• 31:23
  algorithm goes, oh, I think you'd like 5 finger death punch.
• 31:26
  You know, there's a lot of that happening of like of of sort of
• 31:29
  bands you've been going for a long time having catalog stuff
• 31:31
  resurfaced in recommendations. Which one will it choose?
• 31:35
  And and that is something I doubt even Spotify would be able
• 31:37
  to tell you that because it will be depending on how many people
• 31:40
  are streaming the new stuff, you know who likes what, likes
• 31:43
  things similar to them. But it does it does mean this is
• 31:46
  what happens in these situations like the you can't delete the
• 31:49
  old versions that you're protesting about.
• 31:51
  So you have to compete with them.
• 31:52
  So. Yeah, I've got 1 little bit of
• 31:58
  any other business which I think is worth a mention because we do
• 32:01
  always like to bring musicians attentions to available grants
• 32:05
  and funds that might be open to them.
• 32:07
  Although in this case, this is this is one for you if, if you
• 32:10
  happen to put on gigs any, any promoters out there,
• 32:13
  particularly running shows at grassroots level.
• 32:16
  This is another thing I ended up at last week.
• 32:18
  I went to the PRS Foundation summer drinks event last week,
• 32:22
  which was held to mark the first year and a bit of their early
• 32:26
  career promoter fund, which launched last May.
• 32:29
  And it's, it's aimed at giving new promoters a bit of a bit of
• 32:33
  a bit of help take some of the take some of the worry off their
• 32:37
  shoulders. I think it's sort of about
• 32:38
  getting their business off the ground more like is helping
• 32:41
  emerging promoters to get to the next level so they give them
• 32:45
  some money to be a bit more ambitious or to give them the
• 32:48
  confidence to promote shows with a sort of financial safety net.
• 32:53
  But it's doing all right. Apparently since the fund began,
• 32:56
  it's already dispensed more than 170 grants in just over a year
• 33:02
  to early stage promoters grants or if you can get up to three
• 33:06
  and a half 1000 lbs apparently. And they reckon that the money
• 33:10
  that they've put into the live system so far has helped spawn
• 33:14
  an additional 500 gigs since they got going with this, which
• 33:18
  is very heartening because, I mean, anything at the moment to
• 33:20
  encourage new promoters would be good because, I mean, it can be
• 33:23
  a very precarious business to be in financially.
• 33:26
  But there was a lot of positivity in the room, though I
• 33:29
  have to say there was a lot of very enthusiastic emerging
• 33:33
  promoters there. So if you happen to be one of
• 33:36
  them or you'd like some more information, just go to see it's
• 33:41
  on the PRS Foundation website. You just if you go to the PRS
• 33:44
  Foundation website, click on funding and then click on
• 33:47
  funding for music professionals. You'll find the details there.
• 33:51
  And finally, for this week, interesting things you can buy
• 33:56
  on eBay. Yeah, I really sorry.
• 34:00
  You know, some people go to the pub, have a few pints, go home
• 34:03
  and then buy something unsuitable on eBay.
• 34:06
  Someone may have done this. So yeah, someone has paid
• 34:09
  $245,000 for the rights to the fire festival.
• 34:13
  On eBay, I mean, that's a, that's a tiny figure, is it?
• 34:17
  Mind you, I mean, you know, it's fraught with danger, but that
• 34:22
  what was what was the recommended, but you don't have
• 34:24
  a recommended bid really, do you?
• 34:26
  Well, the garbage small that's look, that's a small figure.
• 34:29
  That's not a big figure in this case is.
• 34:32
  It that's why it's at this end of the show, you see.
• 34:33
  But yes, I mean, just to recap, the most disastrous festival in
• 34:36
  recent memory, I suspect, certainly the most disappointing
• 34:39
  cheese sandwiches at the festival, so bad.
• 34:42
  It's so, so, so problematic. Its founder went to prison as a
• 34:45
  result of it. So but then he got out and
• 34:47
  decided, you know what, the world needs fire festival too.
• 34:50
  And he was trying to put that on this year.
• 34:52
  And then that didn't quite happen.
• 34:53
  It was postponed. And so he said, I'm going to
• 34:55
  sell the rights, make me offers for the rights, the branding
• 34:58
  rights. And then it went on eBay, which
• 35:02
  made me suggest that no one did make an offer and sold for
• 35:05
  $245,000. But this guy Billy would follow
• 35:08
  his name. He was live streaming the
• 35:10
  closing stages of the auction online.
• 35:13
  And apparently his verdict on the price was, damn, this sucks
• 35:17
  it's so low. So I don't think he was very
• 35:20
  happy, which, which I think anyone who's done on eBay has
• 35:22
  knows that feeling, don't you, when you're there waiting for
• 35:24
  the last 5 minutes and then it doesn't explode in bids.
• 35:27
  So, you know, we've, we've all been there, but not, not quite
• 35:29
  to this, this extent. All right, that's where we'll
• 35:32
  leave it for this week, unless you are one of our kindly
• 35:34
  Patreon subscribers. If you are, stay listening.
• 35:37
  We'll have another lock in for you nice people, an extra
• 35:40
  section of the show. If you'd like to join us for
• 35:43
  that or support what we're doing, you can sign up to become
• 35:45
  a fan or super fan of the program at patreon.com/the Price
• 35:49
  of Music. Otherwise, it's still be lovely
• 35:52
  to hear from any and all of you any correspondence, including
• 35:56
  questions about the industry you'd like us to try and answer.
• 35:59
  Drop us a line The Price of Music Pod, podcast@gmail.com.
• 36:03
  We will definitely be covering some of your questions on the
• 36:07
  next edition of The Price of Music.
• 36:10
  So it's The Price of Music podcast@gmail.com.
• 36:13
  If there's anything you'd like us to help out with, Thank you
• 36:17
  very much for listening and take care.
• 36:19
  Bye for now.