Latest / The Price of Music / Brit Awards artists speak out on grassroots venues, Snoop Dogg vs Spotify

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Brit Awards artists speak out on grassroots venues, Snoop Dogg vs Spotify · The Price of Music

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  These may apply. Hello and welcome to The Price
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  of Music, the show that looks at the money behind the music
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  industry. With me, Steve Lamac and Music
• 1:20
  Allies head of Insight Stuart Dredge.
• 1:22
  We are back to sift through some of the big behind the scenes
• 1:26
  stories in the music business this week.
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  But I think we should start probably with a very public
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  display of music industry largesse.
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  The annual Brit Awards happened on Saturday.
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  I can't, I can't even watch the Brits now.
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  I think I was so scarred by my experiences attending the awards
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  in the 90s and the show of music industry mammoth.
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  That's that. I can't, I just can't get
• 1:53
  involved. I can't, I can't touch it now.
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  But you were there Stuart, I believe.
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  So we should start with your take on this year's event
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  because I think unwittingly from from the stories I've read about
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  the awards, it did reflect quite a few of the themes which we've
• 2:07
  touched on over the past six months, especially, you know, in
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  some of the artists acceptance speeches.
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  But talk us through it. What did you make it?
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  The make of it, Yeah. Definitely, I mean, do you want
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  my big pop acts I liked 1st and then go into the series.
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  I always want to know which big pop acts you like.
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  Yeah. I mean, I love it because for me
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  it feels like a free hit of seeing a lot of artists who I
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  wouldn't probably wouldn't get tickets for normally because
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  they're already at set out stadium level.
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  So yeah, I really, I like lost dinner party.
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  They were good because I've only ever seen them on like small
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  stages before, I think, where they're kind of cramped and
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  can't move. But like the singer was roaming
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  around the kind of catwalk and kind of, you know, they were
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  filling the stage and that was good.
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  And I really like Jade out of Little Mix because, you know,
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  you should go big or go home. And if you've got a song about
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  angels, you need to end it flying above the stage wearing a
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  massive page of pair of age of wings.
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  So she really like, you know, you pulled out all the stops.
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  I think that's good. So I enjoyed that.
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  Yeah. But, yeah.
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  But people kept making speeches that I knew I'd have to report
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  on Monday. So I had to be have my work head
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  on all night, which kept me, you know, kept me nice and sober
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  and, you know, wits about me. Yeah.
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  I mean, it's, I mean, it's becoming this thing, isn't it?
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  Award ceremonies are becoming the almost the one platform
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  where artists can air their their grievances or complaints.
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  You know, I mean, obviously there are still the big
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  acceptance speeches which list everyone that's helped them
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  during the course of their career.
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  But it's a, it's a chance for some artists to make a point.
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  Yeah. And you know, I almost thought
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  that Mark David was maybe script writing because there's two or
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  three of them mentioned independent venues.
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  And that was the big, I think the big talking about.
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  So. So Miles Smith, who won, what
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  did he win? Best, best, sort of.
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  He won a big award. And he got up and said, yeah, I
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  want to, while I'm here, I want to talk to the government and
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  the industry. So he was, he very much had it.
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  And he said, yeah, he was talking about British music
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  being treated like an afterthought.
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  How many venues need to close? How many music premises you cut
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  before we do something? And he made a very direct call
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  to big venues to support the grassroots side of things, which
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  then Georgia from the last dinner party came out and said
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  the same. So we wouldn't be here without
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  small venues, big venues to contribute.
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  And they, you know, very, very clearly.
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  So it was, you know, it was a very sort of, it was a big
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  moment for that, for that whole campaign.
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  And then Ezra Collective, who won best group and there was a
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  big night for them. They closed the show, they won
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  an award and they famously came through the youth club music
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  programme system. It was at Tomorrow's Warriors
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  was the organization that they met through and he talked about
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  the importance of youth clubs and music education problems.
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  And he kind of said what is it the solutions and problems in
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  society that we talk about? We can't do that to solve them.
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  The solution lies with giving a young person a trumpet.
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  It was a good turn. The phrase which the other
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  important thing about youth clubs is you give a young person
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  a trumpet out of earshot of the parents until they get good.
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  But so it was this good thing that, you know, all these
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  artists talking about their experiences of how they met and
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  got their first start and how they played and saying, look,
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  we're all here in this massive venue accepting awards, but
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  don't neglect the grassroots. And that was good.
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  That was, yeah, that was, yeah. It seems interesting again for
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  the reports I've read and I read a bit about those were a
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  collective speech. But as I say, it's it's it's
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  almost and not in the case of, you know, making comments about
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  grassroots and supporting live music, which is a really
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  positive statement, I think. But there it's there have been
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  times recently, haven't there, award ceremonies where it's
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  almost been like, you know, the artist is giving evidence to the
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  work tribunal saying I am being treated unfairly.
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  This is the only chance I get to tell people how unfairly I'm
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  being treated. But I'm just reflecting on the
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  Brits, I suppose more widely on this because there's two reasons
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  why the Brits exist. In a way.
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  It's, I mean, it's an exercise in the music industry showing
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  off or at least publicizing itself to the general public
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  because it's the industry's one chance to swagger all over prime
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  time TV, because there isn't a lot of music still on TV and you
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  know as much it's much not the hugest fan of the Brits.
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  There is something to be said, isn't there, for showcasing the
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  music industry to A to a bigger audience.
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  Yeah, definitely. And I think especially at the
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  moment we've been talking about the British music industry being
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  a bit worried about not creating big stars.
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  And this is its effort to say, look, here are the big, they
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  obviously haven't met that Sabrina Carpenter every.
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  They have big American stars playing as well.
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  That was quite fun if you've seen the Sabrina Carpenter
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  performance or anything about it.
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  But no, I haven't. So it was, I would say, what's
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  the tabloid word for it? It was racy, I would say.
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  And it ended with her, her. You know, people try and you
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  know those Busby guards outside Buckingham Palace, they were the
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  kind of dancer dresses those. And you know, people often try
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  and distract a buzz one of those guards by sort of waving for
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  them. Well, the move she made in
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  distracting a guy, let's just say that the tabloids were a bit
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  a bit like outrageous. So that was one.
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  But but so British stars. So it's a kind of showcase,
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  isn't it, for saying, right, these are the stars we have now
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  who can play this side stage. There are people in America
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  watching. I think it's it used to be
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  broadcast on YouTube. I don't know if it's still the
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  case, but it does have an audience beyond the UK.
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  And so it is saying, look, these are right.
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  Like so Miles Smith, Sam Fender had a big stage set up with
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  there's lots of music on stage. It's all kind of saying, look,
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  we do have people who are good and we play big stages.
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  So it is. It's a strange musical landscape
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  though for the Brits to exist in.
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  In a way, isn't it? Because the Brits?
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  This is the second reason for the Brits.
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  It's the music industry putting on a massive party for itself as
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  well as, you know, all the publicising they're doing with
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  their artists and, and the celebration of British music.
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  I mean, it's just giving itself an excuse to have a massive
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  blowout at a time where, you know, there's been hundreds of
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  redundancies in the industry in the past year.
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  And artists, you know, having their budgets increasingly
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  scrutinised while the big label suggests throwing thousands of
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  pounds at this thing. Because I have no idea how much
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  it costs to stage the Brits. But the tickets obviously they
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  range in price. You can get a what's the
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  cheapest ticket, about £350 I think.
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  The cheapest 1 I found online was about £350 and maybe.
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  For the upper tiers. Upper tier, £350 if you're
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  downstairs. What's that about 700?
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  Something like that? Yeah.
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  And then if you want, I mean, there's all these kind of boxes
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  which kind of, you know, 26 grand.
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  So it's, yeah, it's a big, I mean, it's a big, a lot of
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  money. And yeah, like I say, there's
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  these weird moments. I mean, that one moment was was
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  in the middle of all this, they're having Jack Whitehall
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  was a host and he's cracking loads of jokes and it's all a
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  big acceleration. And then they had kind of an
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  immemorium section near the end, and that was kind of a moment of
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  let everyone be. And then, yeah, they have to
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  kind of walk this tightrope. But then you've got people there
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  saying grassroots venues are dying on stage.
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  So it is a kind of. Yeah, it's a curious paradox,
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  isn't it, of we celebrate. Myself to to to be followed, to
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  be followed by it, because in case you don't know, then
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  there's there's a myriad of after parties, aren't there?
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  As soon as the awards themselves finish, you didn't end up at one
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  of the one of the major record label parties because they've
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  got some. Sometimes it's artists, but
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  quite often labels put a fair bit of money into staging.
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  You know, another party after the big party.
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  Well that's it and this is not my first rodeo and I've done
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  that thing where you kind of, you'll get excited and go to
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  Mayfair or somewhere for a major Labour Party and then stand in
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  the cold for two hours while it's one in, one out.
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  Everyone got there before. So what I do is my mum lives
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  near the O2 and so when I go to the Brits I stay at her house
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  and I go for a cup of tea with my mum and that is the after
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  party and that is the best after party in my.
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  Opinion. I mean, I suppose, you know, I
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  don't want to sound like some, some grump, you know, the, the
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  Grinch of of parties. And if, if you are and if you
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  are the music industry and you have made record profits this
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  year, and if you want to then blow some of those profits on AI
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  mean in any other industry, if you've had a Goodyear, you would
• 9:56
  probably put on a do for your workers, wouldn't you?
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  So I get that I I I do understand that and I sort of
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  don't mind. I mean, I probably should, but I
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  sort of don't care. If you want to waste thousands
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  of pounds in an after show party for invited guests, then kind of
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  good luck to you. But don't ever come back to us
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  and tell us or tell one of your artists, your budget's really
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  tight. You can't have an extra, I don't
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  know, 5K for a video. Don't do that if you are
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  parading your wealth in such a frivolous manner.
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  Because I have to say, you come across like a bunch of entitled
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  wankers, and that's probably enough about the Brits for this
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  year. It's all been spent on the
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  actually one more thing, one more thing, not on entitled
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  wankers, but the in the venue. And I'm interested in it people
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  who watched it on TV because I don't know how it came across on
• 10:48
  TV, but in the venue there was very prominent branding for this
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  new Make It Fair campaign was there.
• 10:53
  It's about the government. Yeah, there was on the on the
• 10:55
  screens in the venue in between the broadcast bits.
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  So when the adverts are happening, it was very
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  prominent. I believe there was a kind of a,
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  a, a photo background wall somewhere where artists were
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  being photographed against. So there were, there were this,
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  that was the other thing the industry was doing.
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  It was using the Brits to kind of carry on this campaign about
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  getting the government to do the right thing.
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  Every that's, that's, that's interesting.
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  That's really interesting. In fact, we're going to come
• 11:17
  back to a story which sort of relates to that in a bit.
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  Can I just mention though, that aside from the Brits, there was
• 11:24
  a, there was another big industry event last week, which
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  I mean, by contrast would have probably gone under the public
• 11:30
  radar, but it was ILMC last week, which is the international
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  live music conference. It's the biggest live music
• 11:36
  conference, I think basically in the world.
• 11:39
  It's now in its 37th year. It brings together promoters and
• 11:45
  agents from, well, all all over the world basically to to
• 11:49
  network and to plot the future of live music.
• 11:53
  And I mean, again, many of the things we've mentions on this
• 11:58
  podcast were discussed. So growing markets around the
• 12:01
  world, there was panels about green initiatives, the changing
• 12:05
  habits of music fans that came up quite a few times.
• 12:08
  The economics of live venues in an era when young people are
• 12:12
  drinking less alcohol, that came up a lot because I guess, you
• 12:18
  know, trying to base at the point being made that in a lot
• 12:21
  of cases, you know, some live music venues are very reliant on
• 12:25
  booze sales to keep them afloat. So there was that, of course, a
• 12:28
  lot of debate around the challenges facing grassroots
• 12:31
  venues. I sat on a panel talking about
• 12:33
  that. But can I mention a couple of
• 12:35
  things which I think are worth sharing with our listeners?
• 12:38
  And both of these came up in a panel called the Tor 2.0
• 12:44
  Shortchange. And it was examining, amongst
• 12:47
  other things, why Tors are becoming shorter and shorter.
• 12:51
  This is something which we mentioned, didn't we?
• 12:52
  And they, they used the stat, which is I think the average
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  sort of grassroots headliner tour back in 19/19/93 was 22
• 13:04
  dates. The average these days has gone
• 13:07
  down to 11 dates. So that was the sort of starting
• 13:10
  point. But two things.
• 13:12
  And we have the panellist Brian message from ATC to thank for
• 13:16
  these. Brian.
• 13:18
  I mean, Brian's, I mean, he's old school.
• 13:20
  He's been because ATC, it's a live agency and a management
• 13:23
  company. And I think Brian's probably
• 13:25
  been in the game now for 30 plus years, but he manages Nick Cave,
• 13:29
  Polly Harvey, Thom York and Johnny Marr, right?
• 13:33
  So I mean a, a very, you know, very informed manager, very
• 13:39
  experienced manager. We came up two things, right?
• 13:42
  One, on the subject of artists doing shorter tours, and I
• 13:48
  hadn't thought about this, but everyone on the panel was pretty
• 13:52
  much agreeing that some artists now prefer doing shorter tours
• 13:55
  because it's less taxing on their mental health, which is
• 13:58
  interesting. But Brian mentions that on the
• 14:01
  last Nick Cave and the Bad Seas tour, they took a therapist on
• 14:07
  tour with them. A tour therapist which I think
• 14:12
  Brian said cost £40,000 to take a therapist on tour.
• 14:17
  And then he said to be fair, he wasn't really called upon much
• 14:20
  but it was nice to know he was there.
• 14:23
  But that was one that was one thing which I hadn't really
• 14:25
  thought about, but you know, as coming to, you know, new ways of
• 14:29
  trying to make sure that, you know, artists, artists mental
• 14:34
  health is considered on particularly long, you know,
• 14:37
  world tours or if you want one of those big tours across
• 14:39
  America. Talking of which, this is the
• 14:42
  other point which I thought that this is.
• 14:44
  I hadn't thought about this in America and apparently some
• 14:49
  parts of Europe, but definitely in the States.
• 14:52
  Brian was asked why are artists choosing to play, say, two
• 14:56
  nights in a 2000 capacity venue instead of just one night in a
• 15:00
  4000 capacity venue? And he said in the States, he
• 15:03
  said at the moment you can easy sell the premium tickets, right?
• 15:07
  The expensive tickets at the front of the house, they will go
• 15:11
  like a shot. But he said you can't sell the
• 15:14
  back of the room these days. You can sell the tickets at the
• 15:17
  front for $200.00, but you can't sell out the back of the room.
• 15:22
  You cannot sell $30 tickets at the back, which I mean, I was a
• 15:26
  bit flabbergasted by, I suppose, because we're sort of used to
• 15:31
  big names selling outs. But we we never had never come
• 15:34
  across this before. And again, you know, this is
• 15:37
  part, maybe this is part of the changing habit of gig goes.
• 15:39
  I mean in a way it makes sense because I mean even back in half
• 15:43
  term I was looking at taking my daughter to like a kids theatre
• 15:47
  production. Looked looked up the tickets
• 15:50
  online and there were only crap seats left so we didn't go.
• 15:53
  But I hadn't really considered that happening in music.
• 15:56
  I remember when I was trying to get tickets for the Blur gig at
• 15:59
  Wembley, I, I never got on. By the time I got on, there was
• 16:01
  only like about, you know, a handful of seats at the back of
• 16:04
  Wembley Stadium or there was Golden Circle tickets.
• 16:07
  And I'm kind of still fundamentally opposed to it
• 16:09
  being a Golden Circle. You should get there at, you
• 16:11
  know, the night before and camp if you want to be at the front,
• 16:13
  I think as a purist. But I was like, no, I'm going to
• 16:16
  have to buy Golden Circle tickets.
• 16:17
  I'm not sitting at the back of Wembley Stadium, so I'm the man
• 16:20
  I want to make this economy work, I suppose.
• 16:23
  Yeah, that's interesting. If you'd like to know more, by
• 16:26
  the way, about ILMC and the world of live music in general,
• 16:31
  there will I'm sure be a massive write up in the next issue of IQ
• 16:35
  Magazine, which is it's a real live music Bible.
• 16:39
  If you want to know anything about the live music industry,
• 16:42
  IQ Magazine if you want to look that up.
• 16:45
  So let's go back to this II then campaign.
• 16:49
  We mentioned last week that the government's consultation on AI
• 16:53
  was coming to work, that the the deadline for giving evidence was
• 16:58
  up last week. The deadline was last Tuesday
• 17:01
  night, I think. And we talked about this album
• 17:04
  which came out last week called Is This What We Want?
• 17:08
  Which is, I don't know, 10 or 12 tracks of just, it's not exact,
• 17:12
  it's not silence, but it is just recordings of the sound of empty
• 17:17
  studios and venues with the artist making the point that if
• 17:20
  you don't, that's fairly this is all you'll be left with.
• 17:25
  Slightly badly timed Then to follow that came the news that
• 17:29
  Amazon Music is under fire over its parent companies partnership
• 17:34
  with the controversial AI music company Suno.
• 17:40
  You better tell us about what? Well, about Suno and then this
• 17:44
  deal because I mean, it's ruffled a lot of feathers,
• 17:46
  including some key industry commentators.
• 17:48
  This hasn't it? It has and I'm looking forward
• 17:50
  to getting onto the, I'll commentate a bit.
• 17:51
  But yeah, so SUNO is an AI music star.
• 17:54
  It's one of the places you can go and type in I want a song
• 17:56
  about this and that and it will make you songs.
• 17:59
  It's one of the two biggest ones to get the money angle in.
• 18:02
  It raised $125 million of funding last year.
• 18:06
  So it's one of the most well funded AISO and it's also one of
• 18:09
  two being sued by major labels. And as part of that lawsuit, its
• 18:14
  CEO took a few pot shots at the industry, basically saying
• 18:16
  they're dinosaurs who don't get this.
• 18:17
  So there's, there's kind of no love lost there.
• 18:21
  And that's been very one of the most prominent laws.
• 18:23
  Everyone knows about it. No one would no one would know
• 18:24
  Suno in the music industry without knowing it's also being
• 18:27
  sued. And then last week, Amazon
• 18:29
  unveiled a new version of its Alexa Voice Assistant.
• 18:31
  I don't know if you've ever used it.
• 18:32
  You know, it's where you go. Alexa, play me some music or
• 18:35
  Alexa set me a cooking timer or do my maths homework for me,
• 18:39
  which my I've seen one of my sons try before.
• 18:42
  So it's, it's, it's flagship kind of any Amazon device comes
• 18:45
  with this with Lex built in. And there's now a new version
• 18:47
  called Lex Plus, which is going to be much smarter.
• 18:49
  And that's because it's got loads of AI technology working
• 18:52
  in and around it. And it's also exciting stuff for
• 18:55
  music there. Like you'll be able to have a
• 18:56
  conversation with these devices saying, well, I want to know
• 18:59
  about this kind of music, tell me some stuff.
• 19:01
  But you're ready to dig into kind of different genres of
• 19:03
  music and different stuff and discover things.
• 19:05
  So that's good. But yeah, one of its first
• 19:08
  partners is Suno and it was buried in, in sort of a
• 19:10
  developer blog was where I found it saying, by the way, yes, when
• 19:13
  I went by the Suno and they're working in a way that you better
• 19:16
  talk to your Alexa device and say make me a song about
• 19:19
  biscuits or whatever you want to do and it will do it.
• 19:22
  So it's a new way of interfacing this thing.
• 19:24
  And so this is not Amazon Music doing this deal.
• 19:27
  That's one thing I want to make it clear.
• 19:29
  It's Amazon the, the, the, the bigger company behind it.
• 19:33
  And they've had a partnership with this company and Amazon
• 19:36
  Music is the is now coming under fire.
• 19:38
  But we're saying, hang on a minute because last December, I
• 19:42
  think it was Amazon Music renewed its deal with Universal
• 19:45
  Music Group and said all the things we're going to do
• 19:46
  together. And one of those things was
• 19:48
  addressing unlawful AI generated content.
• 19:51
  And that is exactly what Universal thinks Suno is is
• 19:54
  doing. So it does seem like a bit.
• 19:56
  And like you say, there's been well, did you read that Music
• 19:59
  business worldwide, wasn't it? Did you read the piece that they
• 20:01
  wrote? And that was.
• 20:04
  I think they went in two I would say I love I loved him at MBWS.
• 20:07
  Isn't he? He went in absolutely 2 footed
• 20:09
  on Amazon Music with this a letter to Steve Boom, who's
• 20:13
  Amazon's head of music, didn't he?
• 20:14
  And it was very much selling it out.
• 20:17
  Why people might be cross about this?
• 20:21
  Wow what's up? I just bought and financed a car
• 20:24
  through Carvana in minutes. You, the person who agonized 4
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  weeks over whether to paint your walls eggshell or off white,
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• 20:35
  monthly. Didn't even have to do any
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  paperwork. Wow.
• 20:40
  Hey, have you checked out that spreadsheet I sent you for our
• 20:42
  dinner options? Finance your car with Garvana
• 20:45
  and experience total control financing, subject to credit
• 20:49
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• 20:54
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• 20:58
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• 21:01
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• 21:52
  Yeah. Well, it's the contradiction, I
• 21:54
  suppose, isn't it? That unfortunately for Amazon
• 21:57
  Music, if Amazon Music are doing deals with the major labels,
• 22:01
  it's unfortunate then that Amazon have done this deal with
• 22:06
  a company that all the major labels, or at least two of the
• 22:09
  major labels think are acting nefariously, shall we say.
• 22:16
  Can we go away with that? I think we can, but yes, because
• 22:20
  they, they accused Suno of not not paying for using, you know,
• 22:25
  their artist material to work to trying their AI on.
• 22:30
  So yeah, it's complicated, isn't it?
• 22:33
  And and as I say, is quite a, quite a, quite a big
• 22:36
  contradiction. On the one hand, we support
• 22:40
  artists and AI paying artists for their work.
• 22:44
  On the other hand, we're getting into beds with a company that
• 22:47
  some people, I believe, don't play by the rules.
• 22:50
  And that's it. And this, this whole piece was
• 22:52
  like, whose side do you want to be on, Steve?
• 22:54
  Adjusting the guy from, you know, it's saying, do you want
• 22:56
  to be on the side of the AI company sucking the bones of the
• 22:58
  greatest music ever written? Or do you want to be on the side
• 23:00
  of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Kate Bush, the Clash, Hans
• 23:03
  Zimmerman, ABBA. And then he went into like,
• 23:05
  profiteering tech Bros sloshing buckets of genius into their
• 23:08
  machines without even asking. It's a wonderful piece.
• 23:10
  But yeah, and this is the thing. This is that Amazon Music maybe
• 23:13
  has this problem more than others because it's parent
• 23:16
  company Amazon not only has done this deal with Suno, it's also
• 23:19
  invested $8 billion in another company called Anthropic, which
• 23:23
  is one of the big ChatGPT style companies.
• 23:26
  And Anthropic is being sued by music publishers who say it
• 23:28
  copied their lyrics and put them out with that music.
• 23:31
  So if you're Amazon Music, I mean, I've known inside
• 23:34
  knowledge, but I'd imagine you'd be sitting there with your head
• 23:35
  in your hands going two of the companies being sued by my
• 23:39
  partners and now partners of my parent company.
• 23:43
  So it's, but it's just going to be the same for the people who
• 23:46
  work at Apple Music or the Apple has been quite cautious in terms
• 23:48
  of doing anything for this deal. If you work at Google, YouTube,
• 23:52
  you know, there are always music teams in these companies who may
• 23:55
  have one opinion on what is a good thing to do or not.
• 23:58
  But their parent companies may take a different view or may
• 24:00
  have different partnerships going on.
• 24:01
  So, yeah, it's it was a big controversial moment.
• 24:04
  And as I say, it was, it wasn't high in the press release
• 24:07
  announcing Alexa Plus. You had to go in looking for it.
• 24:10
  And once people found it, they were yeah, it was a lot of, lot
• 24:13
  of discussion. And that's going to carry on, I
• 24:14
  think. Next.
• 24:16
  Well, I hate to say we told you so, but in our predictions for
• 24:20
  the year ahead, we did say that the practice of major labels
• 24:23
  buying out indie companies would become more widespread and at
• 24:27
  the same time more contentious, and that there would be more
• 24:29
  pushback from the Indies about this.
• 24:32
  Well, the independent music body Impala wants regulators to block
• 24:37
  a $775,000,000 acquisition that Universal Music Group is
• 24:43
  planning. We sort of touched on this
• 24:45
  before just before Christmas, but remind us of this story and
• 24:47
  what developments have happened this week.
• 24:49
  Yeah, sure. And I want to make a not very
• 24:51
  Tame Impala joke as well. That's.
• 24:52
  OK. If we wait for that, all right,
• 24:54
  I've done it now. I'll go.
• 24:56
  I'll go and get the comedy symbol in readiness.
• 24:58
  Yeah. Well, so which we, so yeah, the
• 25:02
  original deal like you say. So Universal Music's subsidiary
• 25:05
  Virgin Music, which is its bit that deals with independent
• 25:08
  music. So it's its distribution.
• 25:10
  Its distribution. Rather, they want to buy
• 25:12
  Downtown Music for $775,000,000. And Downtown does a lot of
• 25:16
  things. It owns CD Baby, which is a very
• 25:19
  popular distributor, isn't it owns Spiegel and a distributor.
• 25:21
  It also owns companies that collect royalties for
• 25:24
  songwriters. It has a publishing division.
• 25:26
  It's got a lot of different things.
• 25:27
  So this is Universal Music will be Universal buying another big
• 25:30
  slice of the independent sector. And if anyone doesn't know
• 25:35
  Impala, Impala is a European organization representing
• 25:38
  independent labels. And they know their way around
• 25:41
  Brussels. They do a lot of work lobbying
• 25:43
  politicians there. And historically, Impala's been
• 25:46
  a big fighter against major label consolidation, whether
• 25:50
  they're buying each other or buying independent firms.
• 25:53
  So it's had a in the past when regulators have taken action,
• 25:56
  Impala's had quite a key role to play in telling them.
• 25:59
  So yeah, it's, it's giving up for a real fight.
• 26:01
  I mean, it's it wants regulators around the world to block the
• 26:04
  deal. It said that UMG currently has a
• 26:06
  juggernaut strategy of rapid acquisitions around the world,
• 26:09
  crushing everything in its path. Sounded like some kind of movie
• 26:12
  robot villain. And I guess so.
• 26:15
  There's a bunch of arguments here on on Impala's side 1 is
• 26:18
  that you need lots of competition and you need healthy
• 26:21
  routes to market for labels and artists who are independent.
• 26:25
  The, the, the more these companies get bought up by
• 26:27
  majors, the less options you have.
• 26:28
  And that's bad. And they also think that major
• 26:30
  labels have more power to dictate how licensing deals work
• 26:34
  with digital services. So when they go in to negotiate
• 26:36
  with Spotify, Apple, they'll have a bigger share of the
• 26:39
  market. And they can say, right, this is
• 26:41
  what we want to get paid. And then the worry is less will
• 26:44
  be left for the independent firms who still are outside
• 26:46
  that. And there's also a data angle
• 26:49
  here, which Impala talked about, which is that I mentioned, like
• 26:51
  downtown, it collects role Tees for all kinds of songwriters
• 26:54
  publishing. It has a lot of information on
• 26:58
  streams and sales of music for artists and labels that don't
• 27:01
  sit within Universal Music Group.
• 27:03
  So if Universal and owns downtown, the worry is it has
• 27:06
  access to all that data. And it has, you know, I think
• 27:08
  they just go, it's unparalleled access to its competitors data.
• 27:11
  So that's also a thing here. So they're basically saying
• 27:15
  regulators, yeah, block this. And I think as with anything,
• 27:18
  there's like three things that could happen.
• 27:21
  Most immediately, regulators. So in the European Commission in
• 27:25
  Europe, might be they could choose to investigate the
• 27:27
  acquisition, they could choose to kind of grill Universal Music
• 27:30
  Group and downtown about what's going to happen, how's it going
• 27:32
  to work, what's the effect on competition.
• 27:35
  And they can also invite the wider industry to submit their
• 27:37
  opinions too. And ultimately, they could
• 27:40
  either block the deal completely.
• 27:42
  So you can't do it. They could wave it through
• 27:44
  completely and say, no, it's all fine.
• 27:46
  Or they could say, well, you can buy it, but you've got to sell
• 27:48
  these bits off. And that's what's happened in
• 27:50
  the past when, for example, Universal bought EMI Music.
• 27:53
  They're to sell a bunch of it to, I think Warner Music bought
• 27:56
  a bunch of it, Polyphone. And then Warner Music has then
• 27:59
  sell some of the catalogues off to independent firms, all
• 28:02
  because regulators said this will be harmful if you don't.
• 28:05
  So that's what Impala is, is angling for a complete block of
• 28:08
  this deal. But we'll have to see where
• 28:09
  regulators kind of what they think of it.
• 28:11
  But yeah, it's interesting. What should we do off?
• 28:15
  But I'm going to let you do this one because Stuart loves
• 28:19
  start-ups. So, I mean, after this, you're
• 28:24
  going to be rationed to one start up story a fortnight.
• 28:27
  OK, OK. And I mean, unless you can tell
• 28:29
  us exactly how much money they have raised and how it's going
• 28:32
  to affect the average music fan in the street.
• 28:35
  But I'll give you this one. A British start up called Wait
• 28:39
  for it. Flossy AI has raised funding for
• 28:42
  a service that will help fans create their own artist
• 28:46
  merchandise using AI. Is this a good thing?
• 28:50
  I think so, yeah. And I'm going to, I'm going to
• 28:52
  stick to the money angle with this because there is, there is
• 28:55
  some good money. So yeah.
• 28:55
  So we've talked a lot about AI in relation to recorded music,
• 28:58
  haven't we? But this is different.
• 29:00
  This is so this is a British start up and I first heard about
• 29:03
  them a couple of years ago when they were part of this, this
• 29:05
  this programme for black startup founders in the UK that Sony
• 29:09
  Music was backing. So they've been around for a
• 29:11
  little while and yeah, it let's essentially if you're an artist
• 29:14
  or label, you can work with glossy AI to give them your
• 29:17
  visual assets. So your artwork, your images,
• 29:19
  your photographs, whatever it is you have.
• 29:20
  And then they've got, they've been brilliant AI tool that fans
• 29:23
  can use and that the phrase is remix the merch.
• 29:26
  So essentially create your own merch using AI to kind of change
• 29:30
  the pictures or put mission together.
• 29:32
  It's still very new. I haven't seen how it works yet.
• 29:34
  I'm really intrigued. But the, the idea here is like
• 29:37
  fans get to make something unique for themselves, like a
• 29:40
  piece of merch that only I own and I had a hand in creating it,
• 29:43
  but the artists are still getting paid and they've got a
• 29:46
  certain amount of creative control in that they're deciding
• 29:48
  which visual assets to put into it.
• 29:50
  So, and this is something I've been right about for a while.
• 29:53
  I'm really interested in like, and this is, there's a cliche
• 29:55
  that you'll hear, you don't know if you might hear it at IMC,
• 29:58
  this idea of young fans being like creators, not consumers.
• 30:02
  Like they don't just want to listen and buy.
• 30:04
  They want to make stuff and they want to create and they want to
• 30:06
  have their own. And this is like they make
• 30:08
  TikTok videos by speeding up the music tracks and they're,
• 30:11
  they're making their own memes to share on socials.
• 30:13
  And if they're on somewhere like Roblox, they're making games
• 30:15
  based on their like, like kids. They want to make stuff and they
• 30:18
  want to create and they want to kind of not just kind of buy.
• 30:22
  And that a lot of that happens without the artists involvement.
• 30:26
  So this is a start up saying, well, hang on a minute.
• 30:28
  How can we make this happen? How can we help fans create
• 30:31
  things? But how can we bring the artists
• 30:33
  into it so they get paid in an ethical way?
• 30:36
  So I think it's a good thing. It's like a this could be
• 30:40
  happening anyway. Fans would make their own merch,
• 30:43
  but let's figure out a way where they can do that, where artists
• 30:45
  still get money. So I mean, I'm excited to see
• 30:47
  that. And they go and they work in one
• 30:48
  artist already. And they've obviously got
• 30:51
  connections with the industry from this initiative they were
• 30:53
  part of where Sony Music was involved.
• 30:54
  So yeah, one to watch, I think. I mean, the, the, the idea, I
• 30:59
  mean, there always has been a certain amount of DIY culture,
• 31:03
  isn't there? There was a, there was a period,
• 31:05
  I think back in the 90s particularly where if you went
• 31:07
  to a festival, you'd see loads of homemade T-shirts.
• 31:10
  And this is obviously a slightly, this is a different
• 31:12
  thing because you, you, as you say, you're taking the assets
• 31:15
  that you're given and making AT shirt out of that.
• 31:18
  Whereas I once saw I was at tea in the park in Glasgow and the
• 31:22
  best T-shirt actually stood and laughed out loud as a kid walked
• 31:27
  past in a T-shirt. That said, if you tolerate this,
• 31:32
  then your children will be Neds. But that's it.
• 31:38
  Like there's always been that creativity, hasn't there?
• 31:40
  And it was, you know, I mean, the other thing is the tools to
• 31:43
  do it here now, like it's very like in the in the past.
• 31:45
  Imagine if you wanted to make your own T-shirt, you had to
• 31:48
  either learn how to do T-shirt printing or you had to know
• 31:51
  someone. Whereas now you can create
• 31:52
  images very easily on a computer.
• 31:54
  You can. There are services that let you
• 31:55
  put any image on AT shirt and order it.
• 31:58
  So yeah, like you say, it's always been there and now that
• 32:01
  we're figuring out ways to do it and crucially, get the artists
• 32:04
  involved. So yeah.
• 32:05
  Two more stories. I think we can fit a couple of
• 32:07
  quick stories in, starting with this one.
• 32:09
  Snoop Dogg has sparked a disagreement with Spotify over
• 32:13
  his music royalties, but I think he's partly brought this on
• 32:16
  himself, hasn't he? He has yet so he did this deal
• 32:19
  with this company called tune FM and they're like one of these
• 32:22
  Web 3 crypto NFT type startups who who there's a whole budget
• 32:26
  and he's he's he's always like any web 3 startup.
• 32:28
  Snoop Dogg is interested in it. He's very kind of switched on to
• 32:31
  that and there's this quote he told Billboard.
• 32:33
  I said I don't fuck with Spotify anymore.
• 32:35
  I'm only on tune FM and point of fact, literally all of his
• 32:39
  albums are still on Spotify today.
• 32:40
  I've just I tested this morning. So he hasn't taken him off yet.
• 32:43
  He just said he was going to. But then this was in the news.
• 32:47
  And in this old quote, appears from 2023, he started doing the
• 32:50
  rounds where he told some podcaster that he'd been paid
• 32:52
  less than $45,000 for a billion streams on Spotify by his
• 32:57
  publisher. And this is an old quote, but it
• 32:59
  started circulating again last week after he did this deal.
• 33:02
  And it's one of those weird things where you can actually,
• 33:05
  there's literally a streaming royalty calculator online you
• 33:07
  can go to and plug in. What would a billion Spotify
• 33:10
  streams pay? And it'd be about just under
• 33:12
  $5,000,000 overall, but only about 400,000 of mechanical
• 33:15
  royalties for publishing. And that's what took my ear.
• 33:17
  So he should have got 400,000 of you know, so and so Spotify
• 33:23
  actually took the unusual step of hitting back and they they
• 33:25
  gave a quote to TMZ, the celebrity, weirdly, the
• 33:27
  celebrity news site, which I don't normally go to for my
• 33:29
  music industry news, but and Spotify said 45 K for a billion
• 33:34
  streams. It's well documented there.
• 33:36
  Billion streams on Spotify generates millions of dollars to
• 33:38
  rights holders. It's unfortunate to hear that
• 33:40
  Spotify's payments didn't make it through to Stoop.
• 33:43
  Hopefully, now he owns Death Row Records, he's seeing more of
• 33:46
  that money. And that kind of gets to the
• 33:48
  crux of it, which is that Death Row Records was his label and
• 33:51
  possibly his publisher. I'm not sure how it's dealt
• 33:52
  with. And so Spotify is saying we paid
• 33:55
  the money out. If it didn't get to you, you
• 33:58
  need to be looking at, you know, somewhere else.
• 34:00
  And I mean, I'm not without picking word carefully.
• 34:04
  I'd be very interested to know more about Death Row Records,
• 34:06
  historical accounting policies. So I don't know where the where
• 34:13
  the money went, how it made it the way for you.
• 34:14
  But yeah, so it was, it was interesting because it was, it
• 34:16
  was interesting because spot, if I was coming up publicly and
• 34:18
  saying we're not going to, we don't want this rumour to carry
• 34:21
  on going round, we pay the money out, Yeah.
• 34:24
  All right, finally, talking of paying money out, PRS Foundation
• 34:27
  has announced the 29 UK artists who will receive support through
• 34:32
  the International Showcase Fund to help them attend South by
• 34:36
  Southwest in Texas next week. So 29 this this PRS fund because
• 34:44
  it is incredibly expensive now to go to play live in America.
• 34:50
  So, but this fund is specifically I think to help
• 34:54
  bands go out and showcase at South by Southwest, as I
• 34:57
  understand it. Is that right?
• 34:59
  It is, yes. Yeah.
• 35:00
  And so 29, I mean, 28 artists who are playing and then one
• 35:03
  artist who's going to the songwriting camp.
• 35:06
  And yeah. And so, I mean, I don't without
• 35:09
  us listing them all, which would be very boring podcasts, You
• 35:11
  can, if you Google PRS Foundation SXSW 2025, you can
• 35:16
  find the full list. And yeah, it's kind of a, what
• 35:18
  do you know what I like about this kind of announcement?
• 35:20
  Obviously it's good they're getting money to go, but I like
• 35:22
  it as a fan because it's like a little list of these are
• 35:25
  promising artists who we've deemed someone has said these
• 35:28
  are worth sending out to Austin and it's a really good way of
• 35:31
  discovering some new music. So even if you're not into the
• 35:33
  industry side of this, you know, it's a good little snapshot of
• 35:36
  up and coming British acts. Did you know?
• 35:38
  I'm assuming you know more of them than I do.
• 35:40
  Yeah, give us, give us a few names.
• 35:41
  I don't know who specifically. I mean, I've seen a long list of
• 35:46
  British artists that are going well.
• 35:49
  I actually I saw a very long list a while back, a few months
• 35:53
  back, and then a shorter list as it became apparent that some
• 35:57
  artists on the original list hadn't got the funding from
• 36:01
  wherever they were looking for it.
• 36:03
  So the list is smaller than it was, but who?
• 36:05
  Who made the cut? Yeah, so I think Big Special are
• 36:08
  probably the one that I've heard most prominent on the list that
• 36:12
  I've heard of before. I liked this is quite nice
• 36:15
  turning the tables where I'm telling you about bands with
• 36:16
  strange names. You need to start thinking about
• 36:19
  start-ups now. But I like Freak Slug, Milkweed,
• 36:22
  Winnie, Emma, Ruby Duff, like some really people I'd never
• 36:24
  heard of before. But I listen to them from this
• 36:26
  list and they're like, oh, and there's also a band called Black
• 36:29
  Gold. Have you heard of them?
• 36:31
  Black gold. They're like black girl rule one
• 36:34
  word. And they're they're like,
• 36:35
  they're a new metal band, a new, a new new metal band.
• 36:38
  And they've made a Cypress Hill mix tape where they're covering
• 36:40
  insane in the brain. And I ain't going out like that
• 36:42
  in the Slipknot style, really. Which which was bracing this
• 36:46
  morning. Yeah.
• 36:48
  So it's kind of. Yeah.
• 36:49
  So it's good, but it's good. It's because, like you say, like
• 36:52
  it's expensive, isn't it? So it's also, it's, well, is it
• 36:56
  still a good showcase? I mean, that's the thing.
• 36:57
  I always wonder, is it, you know, do you get your money back
• 36:59
  from going there? I mean.
• 37:01
  Well, this will be interesting because we will, we will delve
• 37:05
  more deeply into the economics of South by Southwest and what
• 37:08
  it costs to go and play there. In a couple of weeks time I'll
• 37:11
  be able to I'll be able to tell you because I'm off to South by
• 37:14
  once again next week to see what it's like.
• 37:19
  I've I've had AI mean I have a I've had a shifty at the
• 37:24
  showcase bills. I mean, I spent spent about four
• 37:28
  hours the other day just going through and doing what you've
• 37:30
  done with that PRS list, which is just going through and
• 37:32
  listening to particularly some of the American artists who I
• 37:35
  don't know who are playing there.
• 37:37
  And I haven't found anything which it's not like the year
• 37:40
  where I heard We Are Scientists before going before going.
• 37:45
  And they were the first band I saw when I got there and I
• 37:48
  didn't need to see anything else because I just fell in love with
• 37:50
  We Are Scientists on the opening night.
• 37:53
  But I haven't found my, you know, the bands, the one that
• 37:56
  I'm really excited by yet. And there's, and again, I think
• 38:00
  we'll talk about this when we when I get back.
• 38:02
  But just looking at the list of artists who are playing, I would
• 38:06
  I, I would hazard a guess that there's probably in the region
• 38:11
  of 40% solo artists or 50% solo artists.
• 38:16
  And it's interesting just coming full circle to where we started
• 38:19
  at the Brits, that Artist of the Year has 10 nominees and Band of
• 38:24
  the Year has four, No 5, sorry, 5 bands, 10 artists, 5 bands.
• 38:31
  And I don't know whether this is part this suggestive of where
• 38:34
  pop music is and where it's going, and particularly post
• 38:38
  COVID and in the economic climate that we find ourselves
• 38:41
  in, that it's just easier and cheaper doing it on your own.
• 38:45
  And it's the economics which are leading the creatives or the
• 38:50
  creative path. Do you see what I mean?
• 38:51
  Putting a band together, you're instantly timesing everything by
• 38:54
  4, aren't you? In some ways.
• 38:55
  Yes, yeah. So do you know?
• 38:57
  Was it like 6-7 years ago I embarked on a project, a very
• 39:02
  ill considered project when you have like I'm going to make a
• 39:05
  play out of every band playing South by Southwest and listen to
• 39:07
  them. And I think I I got halfway
• 39:09
  through the Bees. It wasn't the showcase bands, it
• 39:11
  was every band I got halfway through the bees.
• 39:12
  Like, no, I'm never going to get to.
• 39:14
  I'm never going to do this, am I?
• 39:17
  There's some good ones in that, yeah.
• 39:18
  For you, we'll tell you as I say more about South By and what it
• 39:22
  entails and because and what the industry are talking about at
• 39:27
  the moment over there when I get back in a fortnight's time,
• 39:31
  which means you'll be holding the thought on your own next
• 39:34
  week. I will be, yes.
• 39:36
  We're kind of hopefully sorting an interview out, which I can't
• 39:39
  quite confirm yet, but if it if it comes off it'll be an
• 39:41
  interesting one. All right, in the meantime,
• 39:43
  thank you very much as always for listening.
• 39:46
  And if you have enjoyed the show, please do subscribe in
• 39:49
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• 39:52
  the chance, because it does really help with the algorithms
• 39:54
  and boosting the shows profile. You can also, if you do like
• 39:58
  what we're doing here and you find it helpful, you can throw
• 40:01
  us a couple of Bob by becoming a pricing music fan or super fan
• 40:05
  head to. Patreon.com/the Price of Music
• 40:08
  for more details and if you have a question which you think we
• 40:12
  might be able to answer or find someone who can answer us any
• 40:17
  questions, just e-mail us at the Price of Music
• 40:20
  podcast@gmail.com. Thanks again everyone, Tara.