December 25, 2024 • 47 mins
What a year it's been... for some people. Others have had real stinkers.
For the final 2024 episode of Midnight Chats, Greg and Stu look back at the highs and lows of the year and ask how the history books will remember its music moments. Kendrick versus Drake. Morrissey verses Marr. Oasis versus themselves. Charli, Chappell and Sabrina. It's all here in this Boxing Day special!
Credits:
Editing by Stuart Stubbs
Mixing and mastering by Willem Olenski
Artwork by Kate Prior
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening. I'm Greg Cochran.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs. We are a couple of
journalists who've been working in independent music since the days
of my Space.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
One night a week, we become your guides through the
week in music, because, let's face it, the algorithms have
stop working for most of us.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So we're here to share the best new underground music
and the news that you might have missed, as well
as discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing you interviews
with some of our favorite alternative artists.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The show is called Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the final episode of Midnight Chats this year.
Oh we've made it, Greg, We've made it to the
end of twenty twenty four. We're now in that weird
time between Christmas and New Year, which I used to
hate right when I was growing up. I used to
just think, oh, what's the point of this bit, Let's
just get into the New Year.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's where it's boring. I love it now, I love it.
I love it. I know you love it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah you go to don't you? You used to use
it to go to like galleries and stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah I did. Yeah, it used to sort of uh,
and then your children ruined it all exactly exactly and
then yeah, and you've got amusem by doing different things. Now. Yeah,
I used to take that time when I lived in London.
It was everything it like emptied out and it was
you know, there were some people still there and like
tourists and things like that, but it was generally quite quiet,
and so you could go and do stuff. And also
(01:23):
it's like it's an enforced time off in it, so
you just like you're chilling. You go and do all
the things that you meant to do, You've wanted to
do for ages, but then you finally get the chance
to and generally I just quite like to collapse during
this period.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Absolutely. Well, whatever you're doing this week, we are here.
We are here really to just have one last look
at twenty twenty four and how this year will be
remembered in music, Like when we look back on this year,
what are going to be the headlines in you know,
ten years time, when all of the ten year olds
now are going to ironic nostalgia parties at university and
(02:00):
US week, what were they going to dress?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What's going to be the cultural signifiers they're obviously all
going to be wearing green, aren't They're going to wearing
brat green. But let's just have one last look and
then send twenty twenty four off into a bin. And
here's what we're really going to do here. Is this
going to be very loose. We are just going to
discuss the big people of the year, the big moments,
(02:24):
big headlines, and discuss whether they really had a great
year or they had not a great year. Who are
the winners and losers of twenty twenty four. I wanted
to start this off with someone we've never discussed on
the podcast. I'm surprised by this because she had a
huge twenty twenty four and it's Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And the reason this is something I've wanted to ask,
and I've been asking myself a lot, but I've never
verbalized how has that happened for Sabrina Carvincer. She has
had a huge hit with Short and Sweet.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, the album's done well, but the single all started
with the records.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, it all started with Please Please Espresso, which I
understand great, great, especially Espresso espress. I think it's a
great pop song. But what what baffles me is that
this is her sixth album and she's only twenty five.
You know, she made the first time when she was
like fifteen sixty, But for some reason this one has
(03:24):
like what's changed? Has she suddenly just got the best manager?
I know, like Jack? Or is this the Jack Antonov effect?
Because he this is the first time she's worked with him,
you know, wrote on the album with her, produced the album.
Is that it what's happened? I don't get it because
I get it with Charlie. XCX has had a huge
year again, her sixth album, right, but it's been building
(03:48):
slowly and you can see how Bratt has spoken to
a cultural moment of rawness and exciting and the music's
like sort of crazy, and the marketing campaign around that
was just like the whole moment of the year, wasn't it,
Chapel Roane, I fully understand it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Again.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I get that it's it's a bit different, and it's
a bit theater score, and it's camp and it's drag
and it's all these things that are that are current
and exciting and fun and the Sabrina car coming to record.
Whilst I think it's a perfectly fine record, I just
don't I don't get her.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What's her appeal? What am I missing? She's just so cheeky.
Just comes to that. She's cheeky, I think. So she's
like an incredibly likable character, isn't she. And you're right.
I think the success of this is just powered by
the strength of those songs. You know, these those huge singles.
I mean, she was breaking records with those songs. You know,
(04:41):
she's a great like character. She's obviously she's funny, she's smart,
she's kind of like, you know, I guess she's kind
of like a twenty twenty four version of Katie Perry
or something like. Yeah, she's just in a moment where
people still want great uplift sort of like slightly tongue
in cheap pop music. She was there, she just met
(05:03):
the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking it, and it's just great songs,
great singles, and the rest has looked after itself. It's
just been it's baffled me. It's just baffled me that
it's happened now and not before.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
They're all three winners, though they are those women like
and also shout out to Premium Various Sound Amazing Festival
that happens in Barcelona every year because they've booked the
three of them as their headliners the next year, and like,
I I mean, you could literally if you were booking
your festival back in October of this year twenty twenty four,
thinking like who should we get? Like, it's those three artists, right.
(05:33):
They have defined what it means to be relevant in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Four, absolutely, and I think they have been so they've
been big winners. Therefore, pop music, like mainstream pop music,
has just been huge this year. And I also think
all three of them are a mark of people who
have stuck at it and worked hard at it. Because
even though the Sabrina com of things come out of
the blue for me, she has released five records before,
(05:57):
Charlie XX has released five records before, and Chapel Roone,
even though you know she's having this success off of
her debut album, She's been through the meal to get there,
being dropped from labels and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
We all needed to start with them.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I feel I feel like it's really been their years
as are as three and they all sort of compliment
each other in the world of pop of bringing different things,
don't they Here's a really big winner.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Who comes with really big loser. Sadly, I know what
you're going to say. You say, Kendrick Lamar versus Drake. Yeah, year,
it's been brutal, hasn't it. It has been brutal, and
listeners will be obviously familiar with this, like very high
profile beef between arguably the world's foremost rappers. But I
(06:46):
must admit, like I sort of tapped out halfway through
this beef because it just went it was it was extended,
Wasn't it like recap it went?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, So I've got a little recap here that I
am that I thought i'd give to you and i'd
to others of how it played how it played up.
This beef has been going on for years, but this
is the twenty twenty four chapter of the Kendrick Lamar
and Drake beef. Stick with me on this, Okay. The
(07:16):
beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake goes back many years,
but this latest devastating round started in October twenty twenty
three when Ja Cole actually said something nice about Kendrick
on the Drake Track first person shooter, referring to himself,
Drake and Lamar as the Big Three rappers in the game.
In March of twenty twenty four, Kendrick responded on the
(07:37):
Future and metro Boom in track Like That, saying there
is no Big Three, just him. He also slacked Drake
off a little bit more. Cole came back with a
disc track and called seven Minute Drill on April the fifth,
but a week later apologized and deleted the song. It
was the best decision that anyone made all year. The
(07:57):
worst decision made all year was by Drake when he
released two distracks himself, one called Push Ups and the
other called Taylor Made Freestyle, which dis Kendrick for appearing
on Taylor Swift's Bad Bud remix about a thousand years ago.
With j Cole bowing out of the feud, it was
left to Drake and Kendrick to go at it, trading
(08:18):
shots at each other in new distracks. All that came
in very quick succession of one another. The ultimate knockout
blow came from Kendrick when he released not Like Us
in May, which called Drake a pedophile, Whilst the artwork
of the track featured a Google satellite image of Drake's
home with thirteen pins in it used to symbolize the
location of sex offenders.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
This is exhausting, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Drake did try to come back with the Hart Part six, which,
to be fair, was a very good name for a
Kendrick Lamar distrack, but it was too late and not
a good enough track. Not Like Us was too brutal
and would go on to be the biggest track of
the year, ultimately by being a song that is easier
to dance too. By November, with Kendrick confirmed for the
twenty twenty five Super Bowl halftime show and having dropped
(09:04):
the new album GNX to the joy of everyone with ears,
Drake filed two lawsuits against Lamar's label Universal. One accused
Universe sort of inflating the listening figures of Not Like Us,
and the other was for defamation, probably because Kendrick Lamar
had called him a pedophile on a track that had
been released by a major record label. The end for now,
(09:28):
So now that's where we're up to for now on it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's only when you retell the story of it that
you realize just how much there has been And no
wonder I tapped out halfway through.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Drake's been rarely humiliated in this Do you think Kendrick
went too far or do you think it's all within
the nature of this tracks and hip hop culture.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I'll be honest, I actually just thought the whole thing
was a bit childish, Yeah, And I was just I
think that's part of the reason why I didn't pay
that much attention to it at the time, because I
just thought you can both grow up, and I thought
it was I must admit I thought Kendrick in particular
might have been the bigger man and not actually have
embroiled himself in this. But the way that it went
on and the way that he was just like almost
(10:11):
like kicking Drake when he was down.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Was and he still is really, isn't he. Yeah, because
you know when he released the album and that still
had digs at him, had like the two pack sample
on it had the half part six on it, like
he it's that guy.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
He's dead. He's dead. Start stop hitting him. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
It's I wonder if, like, like right now, at this
point in time, it's it's like agreed by everybody that
there's a winner and a loser in that. But I
wonder if in years to come or a bit further
down the line, if there's more, whether they both drake
or whether they just both considered they're both slightly it's
not a good look. Doesn't happen in doesn't happen in
(10:56):
indie pop?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Does it?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Everybody seems to get on quite well.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Speaking of not good looks, you saw this story that
from April of this year of Duran Duran posting a
picture of themselves alongside a cyber truck like the Tesla,
the Tesla's cyber truck. They had pretended that they bought
a Tesla's cyber truck, only to then basically delete the
post that they put on Instagram threads. Threads. Yeah, yeah,
(11:22):
and yeah, I mean basically fans laid into them and
said that it was a bit stupid, didn't they? What's
gone on? What's gone on?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Because Aunt Jurane ran the most sort of cartoonish eighties
excess pop band ever.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
As in, like proper, we're on a yacht.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, nobody was saying, whoa guys, this yacht looks something
expensive and now that stood in front of a friend's
cyber truck appearing gone. Now it's too far, mate, that's
too far. That is a ridic I mean, it is
a ridiculous cart I was in at the beginning of
twenty twenty four. I've spoken about it a lot here.
I was in La and I saw a couple of
these cyber trucks driving around.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Don't think there are any in the UK. I don't know.
I haven't seen any like.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I don't know if they've even been shipped here. Because
they blow up and stuff. Don't they like like that?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
There isn't the whole point. They don't blow up.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
No, Tesla's are like famed for around bursting into flames
and things. Oh, I see a lot of memes about that,
But I thought that the idea was that these cars
were indestructive.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Of the truck.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Maybe, but I saw a couple in real life in America,
and they are so dumb. They are so dumb, So
I do understand why you around around fans were upset.
Can I tell you who my winner of twenty twenty
four was? Who I thought had a really, really good time.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Looked like he was having a great time. Good on
Snoop Dog. Oh yeah, Snoop Dogg at the Olympics. Well
Snoop Dog at the Olympics, so seemingly I thought Snoop
Dogg was just you know, the Olympics rolls round. They
have like the opening ceremony, which is obviously like a huge,
globally watched, culturally relevant moment that comes around every four years.
(13:07):
A lot of big people and get involved. Lady Gaga
performed this year, didn't she? In Paris as the games opened.
Snoop dog just before that is carrying the Olympic torch
and you sort of go, oh, okay, that's a funny
one off story. Anyway, Snoop Dogg hangs around for the
whole of the Olympics. Yeah, it was like Snoop Dogg.
It was as if somebody was there taking photos at
(13:29):
the Olympics and Snoop Dogg was just in every one
of those photos. What was that all about?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Was he was there officially as a correspondent for NBC, right,
and somebody was overheard or somebody tweeted. They tweeted this
actually they said sat next to an NBC exec at dinner.
He said Snoop gets paid five hundred thousand dollars a
day plus expenses to be expence promote.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
He did have a bag get from prayers as well.
That was six yours.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Ye keep your receipts, Snoop, because we will be checking them. Yeah,
So that tweet went out of somebody saying you.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Did you think it was funny? Did you think it
was enough? The fact that he was there, he was
being Snoop. It wasn't doing any music, was he It.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Made sense at the end of the Olympics because the
next Olympics is going to be in Los Angeles, and
he performed at the hands Oh that's right. But by
then the handover so many happened on Venice Beach La.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yes, with like Red Dot Chili Peppers and Lady and
Billie Eilish. So by then he had left, right, But
it was like a trailer of this is what this
is what the next Limpit is going to be like.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And the next Limics are going to be made for
the Internet. They're going to be made for socials, because
you know, Snoop at this Olympics, it was all over socials.
He was, but his access was ridiculous. He was on
the running track like sat on a horse in job
pers at dressage. He was having a great time at
the skateboarding and stuff. And to answer your question, did
(15:06):
I think it was now or did I like it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I loved it. I loved it. Snoop Dogg should be
a most sporting events from.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Now, I think, okay, yeah, but I don't know if
you should be getting paid half a million dollars just
to just be there.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
But I did like it.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I think it's it's it's what's gonna it's what's coming
down the track for the next Olympics.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Listen with Let's take some adverts and then we're going
to come back and talk about somebody who who we
think has had like neither a good or a bad year,
a mixed year, but extremes extreme. It's not like they've
had a not worth commenting on. Yeah, we're going to
be commenting on it. Let's do it. We'll be back
in a moment. Welcome back to Midnight Chats Tonight on
(15:57):
the podcast. In this absolute dead zone of period between
christ is the New Year, Stuart and I are tooking
a look back at the year in music. Twenty twenty
four had a lot to offer, so lots of big stories,
and we're talking about it in terms of people that
had a good year and a bad year. But we
all know that ultimately most of us have a bit
(16:18):
of boast, don't we Yeah, they were good things, and
one person who we think had a bit of a
mixed year was do a leaper? Right, do a leaper.
Let's let's make let's put a couple of things in
a few different columns here in what ways did do
Aleepa have a bad year? Stud Well?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
The album radequ Optimism, which had one of my favorite
album covers of the year. It was just it was
a shark's fin that's right, was this but there was
someone in the water in front of the shark's fin.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Right. I think.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Radequaptism and I think that just works. They looked great
on billboards around town.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I also loved the title of the of that great title.
The problem was the songs within the record didn't quite.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
A problem was that you didn't need to finish that sentence.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
The problem was the album wasn't great, was it? And
and I think it was a bit of a victim
of the success of Future Nostalgia, which exactly is one
of the greatest modern pop album exactly exactly of the
last twenty years. Right, Yeah, So people were expecting big
things and it clearly had so much money chucked at
it because you know, it's a du a lipa record
(17:29):
and she's now that person. So how they didn't get
that album better is quite surprising, and everyone was quite
you know, it's not been nominated for like the Grammy Award,
which everyone people aren't surprised at, but at the beginning
of the year, you would have said, well, that's going
to be one of the albums the year at the
Grammys because of the Stars years. So so the album
came out and it was that's a bad year. That
(17:49):
was that was bad and she also I don't know
if this really like landed with people, but she was
in the Argyle film, not a very big part, but
she was in that. I don't think it did much
for the accusation that she's not the most naturally charismatic person.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Should we say.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
That whole film is a stinker though, and it's got
nothing really to do to a leap, a small small
part in it. But you know, it was looking like, oh, actually,
maybe her years not going to be that great, and
then Glastonbury, which was off the scale good, and everything
suddenly flips yeah, and it clicks back into gear and
she's like one twenty twenty four. Yeah, exactly, because that
(18:30):
show was incredible. I mean, you were there at Glastonbury,
you were there watching it. I was at home watching it,
and it was it was like a pretty masterful like
execution of she's got an amazing kind of back catalog
now like she pulled it all together into a performance
that set her up as you know, the like the
(18:50):
incredible pop star that she absolutely is.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
What was it like being there? Did it feel like
an important moment? Yeah? It did?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And I think, you know, all of this stuff like
critics saying the album's rubbish or she can't act or whatever,
or she's not a good performer, it's all actually completely
irrelevant when you're in a crowd that big of just
fans of like music who are just there, especially at Glastonbury.
Everyone wants to have a great time. The atmosphere was
amazing and the songs are just so big you're just like, yeah,
(19:19):
this is great and she can really sing, can't she?
And all of that stuff just really went out the window.
So I think, you know, in that, I think if
she was to look back on this year of being
like she then hosted SNL or maybe that was just
before then, But I think if Dua Lipa looked back
on this year, I was how was that. I think
(19:39):
she'd be like, yeah, I'm happy with it because I
think the Glassy thing also meant so much to her,
So I think she would consider it a successful year.
And it's not been without It's you know, those other
artists we mentioned, like Charlie and Chapel Roone, and they've
they've sort of been the big pop star of the
(20:00):
year of a name, and Leep has been nudged down
a little bit in some sense of like relevancy, I guess.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But I don't think she should give a ship. I
think Kevin Parker from Taming Parlor has He's had a
good year, I think because he came on stage Jic
Glaston to perform with but looked completely out of place
and also just I said it at the time, he
looked like somebody who'd been invited onto stage he hadn't
been given any warning, but also just woken up.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
He's wearing like just wearing like a misshapen T shirt
shirt exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
He just like looked like he's just taking the dog
for a walk. But and he also sold like his
like the Taming Parlor back catalog rights or something like
this year.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
This year, I think he has he sold everything to Sony,
did he Yeah, speaking of which, Hey, that's a good
this is a good segue. He sold, he told his
back cattle, including future work, is now all owned by
Sony as well.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
It does actually exclude the Dua Lipa record. But the
same year a new record was set for that we've
lived for. We're going for a stage of record labels,
particularly Sony Music, who have been buying up these catalogs
of these huge, huge artists.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
That's been a big trend this year, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, it's been going on like a while, hasn't it
of people like we mentioned it on a podcast earlier
in the year, people like Sting always comes to mind.
He sold all of his music. Bob Dylan has done it.
Pink Floyd have done it. Pink Floyd got four hundred
million pounds for theirs. Bruce Springstein got half a billion,
Bob Dylan, not as popular, got to two hundred million.
(21:45):
Still still done, all right. But Queen set a new
record this year. They sold their entire back catalog to
Sony for one billion pounds. We've said this before. We
need to do us a special on this because I'm
fascinated by this how it works. What does that really
mean within that deal? For example, with Queen, as you
(22:07):
would expect, it's only getting everything that getting that image rights,
that likeness rights. If you buy a Brian Maywig branded,
Brian's not getting that anymore, even though it's yea a
lovely head of hair. But he's been paid fairly for it.
It's fine, but it's it's it's kind of crazy, isn't it,
Because at what point how long does it take to
(22:30):
make that back, that investment back?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Maybe not as long as you think when you think that,
like the the legacy of these things can just go
on and on and on decades, you know. But but
I don't think it's a particularly I don't think it's
as long a bet as maybe people think. So, you know,
the way if you look at just the size of
streaming platforms now, like Queen's music just ticks over, you know,
(22:56):
having a certain amount of streams every year, and it's
kind of see is like a bankable asset, like you know,
it's about a bit like buying property or something. It's
like the reason why this is happening is it's seen
as quite a safe investment to go out and buy
the music of Springsteen or Queen or Pink Floyd or
whoever it might be, because you will make your money
back relatively quickly. Hence why they're just going out and
(23:19):
just trying to like hoover up as many of those
as possible.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Do you think, like from an artist point of view,
you obviously they think, right, okay, this is the offer.
It's like, you know, hundreds of millions of pounds that
each member will get, right do they do you think
they see it as one that's enough for clearly enough
of my lifetime, it's enough for my children's lifetime, my
children and time that like everybody's set, right, Yeah? Do
(23:45):
you think they're also thinking that in some sense and
no one has to deal with it because it's probably
quite a lot of work, isn't it dealing with that stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So say if you're like Prince is a state for example,
but you.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Know, yeah, yeah exactly, Or you know, if you're if
you're to see someone's coming to you Primark want to
do this collab T shirt and then you're like, I've
got to have a meeting with I mean, I'm not
saying Brian May's going to that meeting, but they're having
to employ people to be across that. The lawyers saying, oh,
we're doing a uniclode jumper, Whereas if you've sold it
(24:17):
all off, it's no longer in your hands. You're like,
I've got the money, do what you want with that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I completely understand why somebody would I do I do
at some point it's just like, you know what, So
we're saying, all of those yists are winners.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
All of those artists are absolutely huge winners. I don't know, Yeah,
I don't. Yeah, I guess every I guess is everybody
a winner there?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
The thing is with that that Queen deal as well.
Within that, they get that we will Rocky Musical, which
is such a profitable piece of like equipment, isn't it
like plays all over the year, all over the world constantly.
All of that it now just will be going to
Sony Music. I hope they spend the money they make. Well,
(25:02):
not Queen. They can do what they want by all
the cars they like. But the label, you know, I
hope the label invested in new stuff. And but it's
funny how it's one label doing most of it is
mostly Sony and we're going.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
To do the deep dive Midnight Chats investigation on this at.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Some point in I feel that's for another time. Let's
sneak Can we sneak one more in before we have
a few more adverts?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Go on? Let's do a quick one, shall we do?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm looking down my little list here, Morris. He's not
a quick one, is it?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Let's do? Shall we do?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
The fire Man on Billy McFarland now Billy McFarland. I
guess he's probably had a good year, but it's been
a bad year for the rest of it us.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I think in terms of the fact that he's here,
he exists, the.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Fact that he's out of prison, he's he's announced, he's
done two things that are bad. I think this year
right publically, this is the man who I'm sure everybody
has heard of. I'm sure you've seen the documentary on
Netflix of fire Festival that was a complete disaster. Didn't happen.
It was a fraudulent scam. He went to prison for
(26:14):
fraud and he's served his time and he's now out
and the first thing he's done since getting out of
prison is decided he's going to do Fire Festival too,
and he's announced fire Some tickets have been sold, there's
been no announcement of where exactly it is or the dates.
I don't think certainly. No artists have been confirmed. The
first bunch of tickets were five hundred dollars each and
(26:35):
they sold out instantly, very small a number. Some of
the tickets for this cost seven thousand dollars. Right for
a festival that has a track record of zero percent
of happening. I don't know what's going on with this,
but he's he's just managed to maneuver this thing.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
He's also said that the new Firefest, I'm sorry, but
if you bought tickets for this, that's like being scammed
and then going back to the scammers and saying, please,
can you scam me again?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, it is, it's it's I just don't understand what's happening.
He said that the next fire Fetsill Fire too. He
said it's definitely happening. It's going to be happening next year,
in twenty twenty five, and it's going to involve extreme
sports combat karate on the beach, and it'll have some
comedy and some fashion whatever that means. I mean, how
(27:26):
it's going to have some it's going to have some
fashion come to my firstor it's going to have some
fashion in it. What does that mean, Billy? Yeah, he
also spent some of the year recruiting rappers to perform
at Trump rallies.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Right, that was him. He was the booker. He was.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
He had some hookups with people and he got some
people to go to those rallies. Obviously, we can't definitatively
say if that had an effect on the election. I
imagine it didn't. But that's the kind of guy Billy
Farlan is. I I think he's a bigger loser than Drake,
and I also don't think this is I think we'll
be talking about Billy Farlan again next year. I think
(28:06):
next year will be the real year of whether we
decide whether he's like had a good year or a
bad year.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
This is just the teeing him up. This is the preamble. Listen,
let's get some adverts and then we'll come back and
talk about what I think is the probably the biggest
story in music at twenty twenty four. Thanks for joining
(28:32):
us tonight on Midnight Chats. We are taking a look
back over the year in Music twenty twenty four and
reflecting on those people that we think those people, artists,
moments that you know, the big winners and the big
losers from this year now this next one, roll back
to roll back in your minds to August of twenty
(28:53):
twenty four and the announcement, the big announcement, the Oasis.
We're going to reform Happy right.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It was so big We had our first special podcast
about it, didn't we we did?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
We basically all handsled. We were like a pair of
firefighters being like, get get those mics out on the phone.
The world needs to know what we think about this.
So this was you know, we don't need to go
into too much detail, but obviously the brothers Gallagher's coming
back together for the first time in fifteen years, the
(29:25):
big Oasis reunion that's been mooted for god all that time,
basically come back together. Huge string of UK shows announced
and then consequently American tours, Latin American tours, Asia tours,
Australian tools, et cetera, et cetera. Twenty twenty five Oasis
are going to be everywhere with an estimated They reckon
(29:47):
that the dates will have an estimated gross of like
four hundred million pounds. So this is going to be
a big deal, A big check come in the way
of Liam and Noel for this. I gotta be honest,
it was a It was a bigger deal than I
thought it was going to be. What was the percentage
I'm going to get this wrong, I think, but it
was something like three percent of all people in the
(30:07):
UK tried to get tickets for those shows. Wow, Okay,
the demand was insane And just anecdotally, there were people
that I know that were trying to get tickets for
those shows who I don't think have ever been to
a gig before or that just were like, oh, I
have to go to those Oasis union shows. And we've
like we talked about this in detail, like about what
we thought about the announcement and the rollout and everything
(30:31):
at the time, and do feel free to scroll back
on your podcast feeds and like have a listen to that.
But now we're kind of like four months on from
the Oasis announcement. Those gigs are now six months away
or so, now that dust settled on it, what did
he make of it all?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Well, we're in a little quiet period now, aren't we,
Because there was that initial and I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I mean it was huge.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
It was like ten o'clock news, mainstream news, everybody was
covering it. There's still a question over whether Bonehead's involved.
Do we actually know who's in the don't like it's
not been officially announced. At the time, it was like,
is it just Liam and Nole and the new back
in band. A lot of people were saying it's going
(31:14):
to be Nole's band, The High Flying Gods are going
to be the rest of Oasis, and that no original
member is going to be involved. Then there were reports
that no Bonehead is involved, but it turned out that
the evidence for that was that it had put a
heart emoji on underneath the announcement.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
That had been.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Reported as oh, he's in. So we're still not really
sure about that stuff. I think that will come that
they're obviously pacing this stuff out. The two things that
have been announced are the support who of the support acts.
I imagine each of those shows is probably going to
have it's going to be at least four supports. It
might even be five, but it's going to be four.
(31:53):
The two that have been announced are Richard Ashcroft and
Cast and I think that took the wind out the
sales a little bit of it. Yeah, I think, like
you know, Ash, I mean, I sort of understand them
as bookings cast not so much.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I'm surprised that Noel hasn't booked Kneecap.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I think, who do you who else do you think
would Who do you think could fill those two other slots.
I don't know, but I I Thinkneecap are in with
a shout, it's quite possibly. I sort of take the
point that some people on Twitter basically went to Liam
and said, why aren't you know this is a huge
opportunity could be giving like some some artists that could
(32:37):
really benefit from this, this like leg up to be
your support acts on this tour and the meaning typically
Liam response, He basically just told.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Them the yeah, and they just booked their mates and
they just been like old old Crofty, come on, like
we like hanging out with him, let's just coming join
the tour. Really it had a blipp didn't it, Like say,
Oasis of Big Winners, they've they've they've announced this tour.
Demand was off the scale. They could go on, you know,
(33:06):
they could be playing these shows, these reunion shows if
they wanted, probably for the next four or five years
in different ways, festivals, all that kind of stuff. That
being said, there was a pretty major faux par with
the whole like dynamic ticketing thing, where because the demand
was so huge, people were getting through and they thought that,
like you know, ticket prices were to their knowledge, going
(33:29):
to be a certain amount and as demand was so high,
the dectrial cost of those tickets in reality was much
much more, which was just like you know that they
the band very much like distanced themselves from that bad
news story that's sort of clouded the on sale. That
being said, I think it'd be largely forgotten by the
time those UK shows swing around in July twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I do, but I do what I think some good
will come from that because I think it was because
the whole story was so public, as was this fallout
about dynamic ticket pricing. It's shows a big light on
what dynamic ticket pricing is. It shone a light on
the fact that it is this scam that Ticketmaster put
out there, and people started to look into how it
(34:10):
works and they realized that although Oasis have said that
they had they didn't know about this. Obviously, someone in
their management had signed this off. It is the artist's
choice to opt in or opt out. And I think
artists now will have seen that backlash, big artists, and
they will run a mile think twice about it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
And I think even if they use it as a
bit of positive pr to say, hey guys, I'm not
going to be using dynamic dynamic ticket pricing, it still
has the same effect of like bringing that ticket price
down to their fans. So I think it's going to
I think it's going to end up being good for
us as music fans because I just think people are
not going to be able to get away with it
so easily because a lot of people didn't even know
it existed. They didn't even know it was a thing.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, totally totally. Now connected to that, obviously, Oasis reform,
the old rumor mill cranks into action. Who's nex he's
going to be next? Exactly? And it turns out that
there was a Smith's reunion like behind the scenes in
the offing. Now we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna talk
about Morrissey for a moment. Morris If Oasis had a
(35:16):
great year, Morrissey didn't have a.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Great I would go as far as saying Morris Morrissey
has had another bad year, go on, go on, Morris's
I mean, yeah, you're right. This this this came to
light really people had basically said, hey, if I wait,
they've taken social media cent oasis, if they've got back together,
it's your turn next, and added Johnny Marr, I think,
(35:43):
And Johnny Marr replied.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
With a picture of Nigel Farage. That's right.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
That was how this, this this little feud started. This
is a jolly of feud than the Kendrick one, I think,
because it's it's it's a lot more sort of frivolous.
No one's there's no real sort of deformation going on.
But that was like a dig at the politics of Morrissey,
which have become increasingly right wing over recent years. And
(36:07):
Morrissey then got his nickers in a twist. I think
that's a term you could definitely use for Morrissey. That's
made for Morrissey. And I said, well, actually, you know
we we were offered a big deal and Johnny marher
has ignored the offer and then it transpire. Then he
(36:28):
said that Johnny Marr had also blocked a Smith's best
of coming out and then Johnny Marr acquired the copyright
of the smith the name the Smiths because it wasn't
under copyright, and it meant anyone could buy that and
start touring as the smith So he was like, I
need to buy this. And Morrissey then said, and now
(36:48):
Johnny's bought the name and he's.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Going to do this without me.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
He's going to tour without me in paranoid fashion. Johnny
Mard remained completely quiet until he really saved it all
up and just let him have it all in one go,
in a very classy move via his like lawyers, where
he said, look, I didn't ignore that request. I said no,
So I just don't want to do a Smith's. Thanks
very much. I haven't bought this thing on my own.
(37:14):
It's been brought with you. I've told your lawyers that
I've secured it. I've put your name on it. Didn't
have to do that, but I've done that because I
respect that you are half of the Smiths. Made Morrissey
look forwardish again. He said, and yes, I've blocked the best.
We don't need another best of There are like three
best of the Smiths. We don't need another one. So
let's just not do that. Morrissey then sacked his management
(37:38):
because I guess because he was like, ah, this has
not gone well because it was you know, he was
just called out on all of those but I mean,
that's not not even it. Currently, as as we stand now,
Morris's current his new album, which is called Bonfire of
the Teenagers, has still not been released. It was meant
(37:59):
to be releasing twenty twenty one. At the end of
twenty twenty three, he left his record deal with Capitol
because they said, we're not releasing this album under this title,
this controversial title. The title is about the Manchester Arena bombings,
and the label have said we're not going to release
it with this title. He had a weird thing a
(38:22):
matter of about a month ago now when he was
performing in America where he said this on stage, which
is this is a Stuart Lee sketch. Basically he said,
as you know, nobody will release my music anymore. As
you know, because I'm a chief exponent of free speech
in England at least, it's now criminalized. You cannot speak
(38:43):
freely in England. If you don't believe me, go there
express your opinion. You'll be sent to prison. It's very,
very difficult. I mean, he's had a great year there.
I mean, you know, it's like, come on, man, just Morrisey,
get back in your box. It's he's had a shocker.
He's had a shocker throughout the whole of the year,
(39:05):
and I think he might be a difficult man to
work with. I don't know, that's just a guess of that.
Why doesn't he just release his record himself? Like, why
doesn't he just like go to label services like a
label service company, or just release it himself, set up
your own record label. He's got plenty of money to like,
do it. He's got plenty of fans who would buy
his record if he really doesn't want to take a
(39:26):
song off or take a title off because he's so
bloody minded about it, do it yourself, mate, Like he
just likes moaning, doesn't he, because he knows if he
does that, he's not got something to talk about on
his blog. It's like, just grow up, Morrissey, ridiculous. I
used to love that man. By the way, I love
the Smiths, the music of the Smiths, I can feel it.
(39:47):
And one of the many Smith's fans who have been
let down by Morrisy listen.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Before we leave listeners tonight, we've obviously we recapped on
some of the major music moments, the big headlines if
you like, from this year. But before we go tonight,
I'm interested to know what was your personal music highlight
of twenty twenty four. Where was there like one moment
if you're like you're thinking, yeah, that that that there
(40:12):
was a that was my highlight of the year.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
The thing that stands out in my mind actually is
I went to see air Play Moon. I went to
see because this is so Stuart stuff. I mean, this
is really like and it wasn't cool, like you know,
the crowd was it wasn't I mean it was it
(40:37):
was it was like couple's snogging and me, it wasn't
like a buzzy thing, you know. I went to the
Charlie x X show and obviously hottest ticket in town,
really cool, really fun, like great, you know, everyone's good looking,
Like the air thing wasn't that. But to watch that
band put together a call that I really love and
(41:01):
you know, liked the kid and now obviously you know,
I've got all these nostalgia linked to it, but for me,
it was about watching them do it because there was
only three of them. There was the two air men,
there was a dram but they the amount of sound
they made And this is the sort of stuff I
normally don't give a shit about, like when people say, oh,
there's a lot of backing on this or like that
just miming a lot. I don't. It doesn't really bother
(41:23):
me that sort of thing. But I got it at
that gig because the sound of it in there and
the just the mood they created in there was impressive.
That was like the moment I was like, wow, that
I understand why people were Some people are really obsessed
with wanting analogue music to be made recreate with analog equipment,
(41:43):
you know what I mean. I mean there are other
things like you know Glaston Brien Charlie Exces show for example,
but that's the one that stands out air at the
Royal Albert Hall, A glass of wine and all my
snogg incompatarates.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I feel like the things that we brought forward is
examples for this say everything that needs to be said
about me and you. Okay, mine was going. I was
lucky enough to go to the Era's tour and see
Taylor Swift. I think it would be my most memorable
moment of the year in music because it was the
most expensive. It was incredibly expensive. Yeah, it was like
(42:20):
taking a mortgage out on a gig ticket. Era defining
kind of show obviously as an era defining artist, but
an era defining show from that artist. So it felt
like getting to see a bit of monumental music history
by just being fortunate enough to go and see it.
Incredible show three hours. Anyway, the show was brilliant because
what I really enjoyed about it was like the nature
(42:42):
of the show, the crowd, a lot of young people there, understandably,
and there's that the whole like make your did you
do that? Yeah, we made some risk bands and to
like to take them and like share them with The
whole point is that you're going to share them with strangers,
So now you made them. My wife made that. I
did anticipate in because.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I'm imagine, you know what I'm imagining when you're saying this,
I'm imagining you're there, You're at the Eras tour. There's
like a young fan next to you, and she's got
an armful of these braces and they are all different
beautiful colors and they've got like words on on Taylor
Swift lyrics or whatever, and she's really put effort in
and she turns to you and she says, would you
like to swap bands? And you've got like a shoelace
tied around joll like an old piece of string or
(43:22):
a bit of wire.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Well, I'll leave you with this story, listeners. I thought
I was sort of swept up in the love of
the ken right, and I thought and there weren't a
lot of like it was. There was a lot of
like parents and like and young people and they were like,
you know, just like just people having a good time.
There was just a lot of great feeling. And I
had these wristbands that I was like, I'm going to
(43:45):
I'm going to check how many of you got on
I don't know four five. And I support this guy right,
incredibly grumpy looking bald head tattoos, looks like a sort
of Howl's angel. And I was like, I'm going to
go and give I'm gonna go and swaprit fands with
that guy, because.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Like, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, how
do you initiate this? Like do people just walk up
to strangers and say do you want to Yeah, exactly, Okay.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
So I walked to this guy sat in his seat
Paramorea playing in the back in his seat. No, no, no,
he sat in his seat. He was just slid in
it behind him. And I had this wristband and it
said lover and I said would you like this wristband?
To this guy with stony face? And he looked at
me and he said no. And I walked up and
(44:29):
I thought that was that. I was crushed and I
sat down. And then two minutes later he tapped me
on the shoulder and went, do you like this wristband?
And gave me one of his and I gave him
one of mine, and so I think, uh, love one
out man. So that was one day and that's where
I thought we could finish tonight's pod.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I have found that unusually touching. I genuinely have just
just just get this right. So when he said Noah,
was that like, was it a joke or was it
that he didn't have it? Have one so we had
to go and get one. No, it was no, it
wasn't either. It was him. I don't know his sense
of like masculinity of like another man being like, would
(45:08):
you like this? Just band that said lover and he didn't.
He was just like, I think it looked like it was.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I deliberately picked the most macho looking person in the
stadium to be like, would you like this one? And
then because and then you'd gone back and then no,
he came back to me, found me.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
So you'd gone back to your seat? Yeah, and then
what he what do you think? He just felt like,
oh man, I should do that.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, that was a really nice thing. He just thought
about it.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, man, I wish I was there now.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
I can't believe you're so in touch, But I love that. Okay,
So we end tonight's podcast in happy tears Happy. It
wasn't all that bad, was it. It was all that
stuff going on at the Taylor Swift show. Yeah, exactly.
We need. What we need is just more. We just
we need a free ticket for everyone to go to
a Taylor Swift show and everybody would just feel a
(45:58):
little bit better. But yeah, well, listen, thanks so much
for being with us tonight. As we looked back and
reflected on twenty twenty four, the year in music, some
people have had a great year, others have not had
a great year. I'd say so I would say we've
had a great year on Midnight Chats. We have. It's
been a lot of fun hanging out with all of
(46:18):
you listening and all the artists that have come on
to the show and Stu. I have absolutely tolerated seeing
you every week. Thank you. Do you want this risk
bad oh? As belln Midnight Chats is a joint production
(46:40):
between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's
hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochran, mixed and mastered
by Flow Lines, and edited by Stuart Stubbs. Find us
on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from our recordings
and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
Good evening. I'm Greg Cochran.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs. We are a couple of
journalists who've been working in independent music since the days
of my Space.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
One night a week, we become your guides through the
week in music, because, let's face it, the algorithms have
stop working for most of us.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So we're here to share the best new underground music
and the news that you might have missed, as well
as discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing you interviews
with some of our favorite alternative artists.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The show is called Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the final episode of Midnight Chats this year.
Oh we've made it, Greg, We've made it to the
end of twenty twenty four. We're now in that weird
time between Christmas and New Year, which I used to
hate right when I was growing up. I used to
just think, oh, what's the point of this bit, Let's
just get into the New Year.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's where it's boring. I love it now, I love it.
I love it. I know you love it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah you go to don't you? You used to use
it to go to like galleries and stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah I did. Yeah, it used to sort of uh,
and then your children ruined it all exactly exactly and
then yeah, and you've got amusem by doing different things. Now. Yeah,
I used to take that time when I lived in London.
It was everything it like emptied out and it was
you know, there were some people still there and like
tourists and things like that, but it was generally quite quiet,
and so you could go and do stuff. And also
(01:23):
it's like it's an enforced time off in it, so
you just like you're chilling. You go and do all
the things that you meant to do, You've wanted to
do for ages, but then you finally get the chance
to and generally I just quite like to collapse during
this period.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Absolutely. Well, whatever you're doing this week, we are here.
We are here really to just have one last look
at twenty twenty four and how this year will be
remembered in music, Like when we look back on this year,
what are going to be the headlines in you know,
ten years time, when all of the ten year olds
now are going to ironic nostalgia parties at university and
(02:00):
US week, what were they going to dress?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What's going to be the cultural signifiers they're obviously all
going to be wearing green, aren't They're going to wearing
brat green. But let's just have one last look and
then send twenty twenty four off into a bin. And
here's what we're really going to do here. Is this
going to be very loose. We are just going to
discuss the big people of the year, the big moments,
(02:24):
big headlines, and discuss whether they really had a great
year or they had not a great year. Who are
the winners and losers of twenty twenty four. I wanted
to start this off with someone we've never discussed on
the podcast. I'm surprised by this because she had a
huge twenty twenty four and it's Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And the reason this is something I've wanted to ask,
and I've been asking myself a lot, but I've never
verbalized how has that happened for Sabrina Carvincer. She has
had a huge hit with Short and Sweet.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, the album's done well, but the single all started
with the records.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, it all started with Please Please Espresso, which I
understand great, great, especially Espresso espress. I think it's a
great pop song. But what what baffles me is that
this is her sixth album and she's only twenty five.
You know, she made the first time when she was
like fifteen sixty, But for some reason this one has
(03:24):
like what's changed? Has she suddenly just got the best manager?
I know, like Jack? Or is this the Jack Antonov effect?
Because he this is the first time she's worked with him,
you know, wrote on the album with her, produced the album.
Is that it what's happened? I don't get it because
I get it with Charlie. XCX has had a huge
year again, her sixth album, right, but it's been building
(03:48):
slowly and you can see how Bratt has spoken to
a cultural moment of rawness and exciting and the music's
like sort of crazy, and the marketing campaign around that
was just like the whole moment of the year, wasn't it,
Chapel Roane, I fully understand it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Again.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I get that it's it's a bit different, and it's
a bit theater score, and it's camp and it's drag
and it's all these things that are that are current
and exciting and fun and the Sabrina car coming to record.
Whilst I think it's a perfectly fine record, I just
don't I don't get her.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What's her appeal? What am I missing? She's just so cheeky.
Just comes to that. She's cheeky, I think. So she's
like an incredibly likable character, isn't she. And you're right.
I think the success of this is just powered by
the strength of those songs. You know, these those huge singles.
I mean, she was breaking records with those songs. You know,
(04:41):
she's a great like character. She's obviously she's funny, she's smart,
she's kind of like, you know, I guess she's kind
of like a twenty twenty four version of Katie Perry
or something like. Yeah, she's just in a moment where
people still want great uplift sort of like slightly tongue
in cheap pop music. She was there, she just met
(05:03):
the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking it, and it's just great songs,
great singles, and the rest has looked after itself. It's
just been it's baffled me. It's just baffled me that
it's happened now and not before.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
They're all three winners, though they are those women like
and also shout out to Premium Various Sound Amazing Festival
that happens in Barcelona every year because they've booked the
three of them as their headliners the next year, and like,
I I mean, you could literally if you were booking
your festival back in October of this year twenty twenty four,
thinking like who should we get? Like, it's those three artists, right.
(05:33):
They have defined what it means to be relevant in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Four, absolutely, and I think they have been so they've
been big winners. Therefore, pop music, like mainstream pop music,
has just been huge this year. And I also think
all three of them are a mark of people who
have stuck at it and worked hard at it. Because
even though the Sabrina com of things come out of
the blue for me, she has released five records before,
(05:57):
Charlie XX has released five records before, and Chapel Roone,
even though you know she's having this success off of
her debut album, She's been through the meal to get there,
being dropped from labels and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
We all needed to start with them.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I feel I feel like it's really been their years
as are as three and they all sort of compliment
each other in the world of pop of bringing different things,
don't they Here's a really big winner.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Who comes with really big loser. Sadly, I know what
you're going to say. You say, Kendrick Lamar versus Drake. Yeah, year,
it's been brutal, hasn't it. It has been brutal, and
listeners will be obviously familiar with this, like very high
profile beef between arguably the world's foremost rappers. But I
(06:46):
must admit, like I sort of tapped out halfway through
this beef because it just went it was it was extended,
Wasn't it like recap it went?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, So I've got a little recap here that I
am that I thought i'd give to you and i'd
to others of how it played how it played up.
This beef has been going on for years, but this
is the twenty twenty four chapter of the Kendrick Lamar
and Drake beef. Stick with me on this, Okay. The
(07:16):
beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake goes back many years,
but this latest devastating round started in October twenty twenty
three when Ja Cole actually said something nice about Kendrick
on the Drake Track first person shooter, referring to himself,
Drake and Lamar as the Big Three rappers in the game.
In March of twenty twenty four, Kendrick responded on the
(07:37):
Future and metro Boom in track Like That, saying there
is no Big Three, just him. He also slacked Drake
off a little bit more. Cole came back with a
disc track and called seven Minute Drill on April the fifth,
but a week later apologized and deleted the song. It
was the best decision that anyone made all year. The
(07:57):
worst decision made all year was by Drake when he
released two distracks himself, one called Push Ups and the
other called Taylor Made Freestyle, which dis Kendrick for appearing
on Taylor Swift's Bad Bud remix about a thousand years ago.
With j Cole bowing out of the feud, it was
left to Drake and Kendrick to go at it, trading
(08:18):
shots at each other in new distracks. All that came
in very quick succession of one another. The ultimate knockout
blow came from Kendrick when he released not Like Us
in May, which called Drake a pedophile, Whilst the artwork
of the track featured a Google satellite image of Drake's
home with thirteen pins in it used to symbolize the
location of sex offenders.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
This is exhausting, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Drake did try to come back with the Hart Part six, which,
to be fair, was a very good name for a
Kendrick Lamar distrack, but it was too late and not
a good enough track. Not Like Us was too brutal
and would go on to be the biggest track of
the year, ultimately by being a song that is easier
to dance too. By November, with Kendrick confirmed for the
twenty twenty five Super Bowl halftime show and having dropped
(09:04):
the new album GNX to the joy of everyone with ears,
Drake filed two lawsuits against Lamar's label Universal. One accused
Universe sort of inflating the listening figures of Not Like Us,
and the other was for defamation, probably because Kendrick Lamar
had called him a pedophile on a track that had
been released by a major record label. The end for now,
(09:28):
So now that's where we're up to for now on it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's only when you retell the story of it that
you realize just how much there has been And no
wonder I tapped out halfway through.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Drake's been rarely humiliated in this Do you think Kendrick
went too far or do you think it's all within
the nature of this tracks and hip hop culture.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I'll be honest, I actually just thought the whole thing
was a bit childish, Yeah, And I was just I
think that's part of the reason why I didn't pay
that much attention to it at the time, because I
just thought you can both grow up, and I thought
it was I must admit I thought Kendrick in particular
might have been the bigger man and not actually have
embroiled himself in this. But the way that it went
on and the way that he was just like almost
(10:11):
like kicking Drake when he was down.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Was and he still is really, isn't he. Yeah, because
you know when he released the album and that still
had digs at him, had like the two pack sample
on it had the half part six on it, like
he it's that guy.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
He's dead. He's dead. Start stop hitting him. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
It's I wonder if, like, like right now, at this
point in time, it's it's like agreed by everybody that
there's a winner and a loser in that. But I
wonder if in years to come or a bit further
down the line, if there's more, whether they both drake
or whether they just both considered they're both slightly it's
not a good look. Doesn't happen in doesn't happen in
(10:56):
indie pop?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Does it?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Everybody seems to get on quite well.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Speaking of not good looks, you saw this story that
from April of this year of Duran Duran posting a
picture of themselves alongside a cyber truck like the Tesla,
the Tesla's cyber truck. They had pretended that they bought
a Tesla's cyber truck, only to then basically delete the
post that they put on Instagram threads. Threads. Yeah, yeah,
(11:22):
and yeah, I mean basically fans laid into them and
said that it was a bit stupid, didn't they? What's
gone on? What's gone on?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Because Aunt Jurane ran the most sort of cartoonish eighties
excess pop band ever.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
As in, like proper, we're on a yacht.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, nobody was saying, whoa guys, this yacht looks something
expensive and now that stood in front of a friend's
cyber truck appearing gone. Now it's too far, mate, that's
too far. That is a ridic I mean, it is
a ridiculous cart I was in at the beginning of
twenty twenty four. I've spoken about it a lot here.
I was in La and I saw a couple of
these cyber trucks driving around.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Don't think there are any in the UK. I don't know.
I haven't seen any like.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I don't know if they've even been shipped here. Because
they blow up and stuff. Don't they like like that?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
There isn't the whole point. They don't blow up.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
No, Tesla's are like famed for around bursting into flames
and things. Oh, I see a lot of memes about that,
But I thought that the idea was that these cars
were indestructive.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Of the truck.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Maybe, but I saw a couple in real life in America,
and they are so dumb. They are so dumb, So
I do understand why you around around fans were upset.
Can I tell you who my winner of twenty twenty
four was? Who I thought had a really, really good time.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Looked like he was having a great time. Good on
Snoop Dog. Oh yeah, Snoop Dogg at the Olympics. Well
Snoop Dog at the Olympics, so seemingly I thought Snoop
Dogg was just you know, the Olympics rolls round. They
have like the opening ceremony, which is obviously like a huge,
globally watched, culturally relevant moment that comes around every four years.
(13:07):
A lot of big people and get involved. Lady Gaga
performed this year, didn't she? In Paris as the games opened.
Snoop dog just before that is carrying the Olympic torch
and you sort of go, oh, okay, that's a funny
one off story. Anyway, Snoop Dogg hangs around for the
whole of the Olympics. Yeah, it was like Snoop Dogg.
It was as if somebody was there taking photos at
(13:29):
the Olympics and Snoop Dogg was just in every one
of those photos. What was that all about?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Was he was there officially as a correspondent for NBC, right,
and somebody was overheard or somebody tweeted. They tweeted this
actually they said sat next to an NBC exec at dinner.
He said Snoop gets paid five hundred thousand dollars a
day plus expenses to be expence promote.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
He did have a bag get from prayers as well.
That was six yours.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Ye keep your receipts, Snoop, because we will be checking them. Yeah,
So that tweet went out of somebody saying you.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Did you think it was funny? Did you think it
was enough? The fact that he was there, he was
being Snoop. It wasn't doing any music, was he It.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Made sense at the end of the Olympics because the
next Olympics is going to be in Los Angeles, and
he performed at the hands Oh that's right. But by
then the handover so many happened on Venice Beach La.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yes, with like Red Dot Chili Peppers and Lady and
Billie Eilish. So by then he had left, right, But
it was like a trailer of this is what this
is what the next Limpit is going to be like.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And the next Limics are going to be made for
the Internet. They're going to be made for socials, because
you know, Snoop at this Olympics, it was all over socials.
He was, but his access was ridiculous. He was on
the running track like sat on a horse in job
pers at dressage. He was having a great time at
the skateboarding and stuff. And to answer your question, did
(15:06):
I think it was now or did I like it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I loved it. I loved it. Snoop Dogg should be
a most sporting events from.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Now, I think, okay, yeah, but I don't know if
you should be getting paid half a million dollars just
to just be there.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
But I did like it.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I think it's it's it's what's gonna it's what's coming
down the track for the next Olympics.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Listen with Let's take some adverts and then we're going
to come back and talk about somebody who who we
think has had like neither a good or a bad year,
a mixed year, but extremes extreme. It's not like they've
had a not worth commenting on. Yeah, we're going to
be commenting on it. Let's do it. We'll be back
in a moment. Welcome back to Midnight Chats Tonight on
(15:57):
the podcast. In this absolute dead zone of period between
christ is the New Year, Stuart and I are tooking
a look back at the year in music. Twenty twenty
four had a lot to offer, so lots of big stories,
and we're talking about it in terms of people that
had a good year and a bad year. But we
all know that ultimately most of us have a bit
(16:18):
of boast, don't we Yeah, they were good things, and
one person who we think had a bit of a
mixed year was do a leaper? Right, do a leaper.
Let's let's make let's put a couple of things in
a few different columns here in what ways did do
Aleepa have a bad year? Stud Well?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
The album radequ Optimism, which had one of my favorite
album covers of the year. It was just it was
a shark's fin that's right, was this but there was
someone in the water in front of the shark's fin.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Right. I think.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Radequaptism and I think that just works. They looked great
on billboards around town.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I also loved the title of the of that great title.
The problem was the songs within the record didn't quite.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
A problem was that you didn't need to finish that sentence.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
The problem was the album wasn't great, was it? And
and I think it was a bit of a victim
of the success of Future Nostalgia, which exactly is one
of the greatest modern pop album exactly exactly of the
last twenty years. Right, Yeah, So people were expecting big
things and it clearly had so much money chucked at
it because you know, it's a du a lipa record
(17:29):
and she's now that person. So how they didn't get
that album better is quite surprising, and everyone was quite
you know, it's not been nominated for like the Grammy Award,
which everyone people aren't surprised at, but at the beginning
of the year, you would have said, well, that's going
to be one of the albums the year at the
Grammys because of the Stars years. So so the album
came out and it was that's a bad year. That
(17:49):
was that was bad and she also I don't know
if this really like landed with people, but she was
in the Argyle film, not a very big part, but
she was in that. I don't think it did much
for the accusation that she's not the most naturally charismatic person.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Should we say.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
That whole film is a stinker though, and it's got
nothing really to do to a leap, a small small
part in it. But you know, it was looking like, oh, actually,
maybe her years not going to be that great, and
then Glastonbury, which was off the scale good, and everything
suddenly flips yeah, and it clicks back into gear and
she's like one twenty twenty four. Yeah, exactly, because that
(18:30):
show was incredible. I mean, you were there at Glastonbury,
you were there watching it. I was at home watching it,
and it was it was like a pretty masterful like
execution of she's got an amazing kind of back catalog
now like she pulled it all together into a performance
that set her up as you know, the like the
(18:50):
incredible pop star that she absolutely is.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
What was it like being there? Did it feel like
an important moment? Yeah? It did?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And I think, you know, all of this stuff like
critics saying the album's rubbish or she can't act or whatever,
or she's not a good performer, it's all actually completely
irrelevant when you're in a crowd that big of just
fans of like music who are just there, especially at Glastonbury.
Everyone wants to have a great time. The atmosphere was
amazing and the songs are just so big you're just like, yeah,
(19:19):
this is great and she can really sing, can't she?
And all of that stuff just really went out the window.
So I think, you know, in that, I think if
she was to look back on this year of being
like she then hosted SNL or maybe that was just
before then, But I think if Dua Lipa looked back
on this year, I was how was that. I think
(19:39):
she'd be like, yeah, I'm happy with it because I
think the Glassy thing also meant so much to her,
So I think she would consider it a successful year.
And it's not been without It's you know, those other
artists we mentioned, like Charlie and Chapel Roone, and they've
they've sort of been the big pop star of the
(20:00):
year of a name, and Leep has been nudged down
a little bit in some sense of like relevancy, I guess.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But I don't think she should give a ship. I
think Kevin Parker from Taming Parlor has He's had a
good year, I think because he came on stage Jic
Glaston to perform with but looked completely out of place
and also just I said it at the time, he
looked like somebody who'd been invited onto stage he hadn't
been given any warning, but also just woken up.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
He's wearing like just wearing like a misshapen T shirt
shirt exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
He just like looked like he's just taking the dog
for a walk. But and he also sold like his
like the Taming Parlor back catalog rights or something like
this year.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
This year, I think he has he sold everything to Sony,
did he Yeah, speaking of which, Hey, that's a good
this is a good segue. He sold, he told his
back cattle, including future work, is now all owned by
Sony as well.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
It does actually exclude the Dua Lipa record. But the
same year a new record was set for that we've
lived for. We're going for a stage of record labels,
particularly Sony Music, who have been buying up these catalogs
of these huge, huge artists.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
That's been a big trend this year, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, it's been going on like a while, hasn't it
of people like we mentioned it on a podcast earlier
in the year, people like Sting always comes to mind.
He sold all of his music. Bob Dylan has done it.
Pink Floyd have done it. Pink Floyd got four hundred
million pounds for theirs. Bruce Springstein got half a billion,
Bob Dylan, not as popular, got to two hundred million.
(21:45):
Still still done, all right. But Queen set a new
record this year. They sold their entire back catalog to
Sony for one billion pounds. We've said this before. We
need to do us a special on this because I'm
fascinated by this how it works. What does that really
mean within that deal? For example, with Queen, as you
(22:07):
would expect, it's only getting everything that getting that image rights,
that likeness rights. If you buy a Brian Maywig branded,
Brian's not getting that anymore, even though it's yea a
lovely head of hair. But he's been paid fairly for it.
It's fine, but it's it's it's kind of crazy, isn't it,
Because at what point how long does it take to
(22:30):
make that back, that investment back?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Maybe not as long as you think when you think that,
like the the legacy of these things can just go
on and on and on decades, you know. But but
I don't think it's a particularly I don't think it's
as long a bet as maybe people think. So, you know,
the way if you look at just the size of
streaming platforms now, like Queen's music just ticks over, you know,
(22:56):
having a certain amount of streams every year, and it's
kind of see is like a bankable asset, like you know,
it's about a bit like buying property or something. It's
like the reason why this is happening is it's seen
as quite a safe investment to go out and buy
the music of Springsteen or Queen or Pink Floyd or
whoever it might be, because you will make your money
back relatively quickly. Hence why they're just going out and
(23:19):
just trying to like hoover up as many of those
as possible.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Do you think, like from an artist point of view,
you obviously they think, right, okay, this is the offer.
It's like, you know, hundreds of millions of pounds that
each member will get, right do they do you think
they see it as one that's enough for clearly enough
of my lifetime, it's enough for my children's lifetime, my
children and time that like everybody's set, right, Yeah? Do
(23:45):
you think they're also thinking that in some sense and
no one has to deal with it because it's probably
quite a lot of work, isn't it dealing with that stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So say if you're like Prince is a state for example,
but you.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Know, yeah, yeah exactly, Or you know, if you're if
you're to see someone's coming to you Primark want to
do this collab T shirt and then you're like, I've
got to have a meeting with I mean, I'm not
saying Brian May's going to that meeting, but they're having
to employ people to be across that. The lawyers saying, oh,
we're doing a uniclode jumper, Whereas if you've sold it
(24:17):
all off, it's no longer in your hands. You're like,
I've got the money, do what you want with that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I completely understand why somebody would I do I do
at some point it's just like, you know what, So
we're saying, all of those yists are winners.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
All of those artists are absolutely huge winners. I don't know, Yeah,
I don't. Yeah, I guess every I guess is everybody
a winner there?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
The thing is with that that Queen deal as well.
Within that, they get that we will Rocky Musical, which
is such a profitable piece of like equipment, isn't it
like plays all over the year, all over the world constantly.
All of that it now just will be going to
Sony Music. I hope they spend the money they make. Well,
(25:02):
not Queen. They can do what they want by all
the cars they like. But the label, you know, I
hope the label invested in new stuff. And but it's
funny how it's one label doing most of it is
mostly Sony and we're going.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
To do the deep dive Midnight Chats investigation on this at.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Some point in I feel that's for another time. Let's
sneak Can we sneak one more in before we have
a few more adverts?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Go on? Let's do a quick one, shall we do?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm looking down my little list here, Morris. He's not
a quick one, is it?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Let's do? Shall we do?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
The fire Man on Billy McFarland now Billy McFarland. I
guess he's probably had a good year, but it's been
a bad year for the rest of it us.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I think in terms of the fact that he's here,
he exists, the.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Fact that he's out of prison, he's he's announced, he's
done two things that are bad. I think this year
right publically, this is the man who I'm sure everybody
has heard of. I'm sure you've seen the documentary on
Netflix of fire Festival that was a complete disaster. Didn't happen.
It was a fraudulent scam. He went to prison for
(26:14):
fraud and he's served his time and he's now out
and the first thing he's done since getting out of
prison is decided he's going to do Fire Festival too,
and he's announced fire Some tickets have been sold, there's
been no announcement of where exactly it is or the dates.
I don't think certainly. No artists have been confirmed. The
first bunch of tickets were five hundred dollars each and
(26:35):
they sold out instantly, very small a number. Some of
the tickets for this cost seven thousand dollars. Right for
a festival that has a track record of zero percent
of happening. I don't know what's going on with this,
but he's he's just managed to maneuver this thing.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
He's also said that the new Firefest, I'm sorry, but
if you bought tickets for this, that's like being scammed
and then going back to the scammers and saying, please,
can you scam me again?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, it is, it's it's I just don't understand what's happening.
He said that the next fire Fetsill Fire too. He
said it's definitely happening. It's going to be happening next year,
in twenty twenty five, and it's going to involve extreme
sports combat karate on the beach, and it'll have some
comedy and some fashion whatever that means. I mean, how
(27:26):
it's going to have some it's going to have some
fashion come to my firstor it's going to have some
fashion in it. What does that mean, Billy? Yeah, he
also spent some of the year recruiting rappers to perform
at Trump rallies.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Right, that was him. He was the booker. He was.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
He had some hookups with people and he got some
people to go to those rallies. Obviously, we can't definitatively
say if that had an effect on the election. I
imagine it didn't. But that's the kind of guy Billy
Farlan is. I I think he's a bigger loser than Drake,
and I also don't think this is I think we'll
be talking about Billy Farlan again next year. I think
(28:06):
next year will be the real year of whether we
decide whether he's like had a good year or a
bad year.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
This is just the teeing him up. This is the preamble. Listen,
let's get some adverts and then we'll come back and
talk about what I think is the probably the biggest
story in music at twenty twenty four. Thanks for joining
(28:32):
us tonight on Midnight Chats. We are taking a look
back over the year in Music twenty twenty four and
reflecting on those people that we think those people, artists,
moments that you know, the big winners and the big
losers from this year now this next one, roll back
to roll back in your minds to August of twenty
(28:53):
twenty four and the announcement, the big announcement, the Oasis.
We're going to reform Happy right.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It was so big We had our first special podcast
about it, didn't we we did?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
We basically all handsled. We were like a pair of
firefighters being like, get get those mics out on the phone.
The world needs to know what we think about this.
So this was you know, we don't need to go
into too much detail, but obviously the brothers Gallagher's coming
back together for the first time in fifteen years, the
(29:25):
big Oasis reunion that's been mooted for god all that time,
basically come back together. Huge string of UK shows announced
and then consequently American tours, Latin American tours, Asia tours,
Australian tools, et cetera, et cetera. Twenty twenty five Oasis
are going to be everywhere with an estimated They reckon
(29:47):
that the dates will have an estimated gross of like
four hundred million pounds. So this is going to be
a big deal, A big check come in the way
of Liam and Noel for this. I gotta be honest,
it was a It was a bigger deal than I
thought it was going to be. What was the percentage
I'm going to get this wrong, I think, but it
was something like three percent of all people in the
(30:07):
UK tried to get tickets for those shows. Wow, Okay,
the demand was insane And just anecdotally, there were people
that I know that were trying to get tickets for
those shows who I don't think have ever been to
a gig before or that just were like, oh, I
have to go to those Oasis union shows. And we've
like we talked about this in detail, like about what
we thought about the announcement and the rollout and everything
(30:31):
at the time, and do feel free to scroll back
on your podcast feeds and like have a listen to that.
But now we're kind of like four months on from
the Oasis announcement. Those gigs are now six months away
or so, now that dust settled on it, what did
he make of it all?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Well, we're in a little quiet period now, aren't we,
Because there was that initial and I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I mean it was huge.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
It was like ten o'clock news, mainstream news, everybody was
covering it. There's still a question over whether Bonehead's involved.
Do we actually know who's in the don't like it's
not been officially announced. At the time, it was like,
is it just Liam and Nole and the new back
in band. A lot of people were saying it's going
(31:14):
to be Nole's band, The High Flying Gods are going
to be the rest of Oasis, and that no original
member is going to be involved. Then there were reports
that no Bonehead is involved, but it turned out that
the evidence for that was that it had put a
heart emoji on underneath the announcement.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
That had been.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Reported as oh, he's in. So we're still not really
sure about that stuff. I think that will come that
they're obviously pacing this stuff out. The two things that
have been announced are the support who of the support acts.
I imagine each of those shows is probably going to
have it's going to be at least four supports. It
might even be five, but it's going to be four.
(31:53):
The two that have been announced are Richard Ashcroft and
Cast and I think that took the wind out the
sales a little bit of it. Yeah, I think, like
you know, Ash, I mean, I sort of understand them
as bookings cast not so much.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I'm surprised that Noel hasn't booked Kneecap.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I think, who do you who else do you think
would Who do you think could fill those two other slots.
I don't know, but I I Thinkneecap are in with
a shout, it's quite possibly. I sort of take the
point that some people on Twitter basically went to Liam
and said, why aren't you know this is a huge
opportunity could be giving like some some artists that could
(32:37):
really benefit from this, this like leg up to be
your support acts on this tour and the meaning typically
Liam response, He basically just told.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Them the yeah, and they just booked their mates and
they just been like old old Crofty, come on, like
we like hanging out with him, let's just coming join
the tour. Really it had a blipp didn't it, Like say,
Oasis of Big Winners, they've they've they've announced this tour.
Demand was off the scale. They could go on, you know,
(33:06):
they could be playing these shows, these reunion shows if
they wanted, probably for the next four or five years
in different ways, festivals, all that kind of stuff. That
being said, there was a pretty major faux par with
the whole like dynamic ticketing thing, where because the demand
was so huge, people were getting through and they thought that,
like you know, ticket prices were to their knowledge, going
(33:29):
to be a certain amount and as demand was so high,
the dectrial cost of those tickets in reality was much
much more, which was just like you know that they
the band very much like distanced themselves from that bad
news story that's sort of clouded the on sale. That
being said, I think it'd be largely forgotten by the
time those UK shows swing around in July twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I do, but I do what I think some good
will come from that because I think it was because
the whole story was so public, as was this fallout
about dynamic ticket pricing. It's shows a big light on
what dynamic ticket pricing is. It shone a light on
the fact that it is this scam that Ticketmaster put
out there, and people started to look into how it
(34:10):
works and they realized that although Oasis have said that
they had they didn't know about this. Obviously, someone in
their management had signed this off. It is the artist's
choice to opt in or opt out. And I think
artists now will have seen that backlash, big artists, and
they will run a mile think twice about it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
And I think even if they use it as a
bit of positive pr to say, hey guys, I'm not
going to be using dynamic dynamic ticket pricing, it still
has the same effect of like bringing that ticket price
down to their fans. So I think it's going to
I think it's going to end up being good for
us as music fans because I just think people are
not going to be able to get away with it
so easily because a lot of people didn't even know
it existed. They didn't even know it was a thing.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, totally totally. Now connected to that, obviously, Oasis reform,
the old rumor mill cranks into action. Who's nex he's
going to be next? Exactly? And it turns out that
there was a Smith's reunion like behind the scenes in
the offing. Now we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna talk
about Morrissey for a moment. Morris If Oasis had a
(35:16):
great year, Morrissey didn't have a.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Great I would go as far as saying Morris Morrissey
has had another bad year, go on, go on, Morris's
I mean, yeah, you're right. This this this came to
light really people had basically said, hey, if I wait,
they've taken social media cent oasis, if they've got back together,
it's your turn next, and added Johnny Marr, I think,
(35:43):
And Johnny Marr replied.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
With a picture of Nigel Farage. That's right.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
That was how this, this this little feud started. This
is a jolly of feud than the Kendrick one, I think,
because it's it's it's a lot more sort of frivolous.
No one's there's no real sort of deformation going on.
But that was like a dig at the politics of Morrissey,
which have become increasingly right wing over recent years. And
(36:07):
Morrissey then got his nickers in a twist. I think
that's a term you could definitely use for Morrissey. That's
made for Morrissey. And I said, well, actually, you know
we we were offered a big deal and Johnny marher
has ignored the offer and then it transpire. Then he
(36:28):
said that Johnny Marr had also blocked a Smith's best
of coming out and then Johnny Marr acquired the copyright
of the smith the name the Smiths because it wasn't
under copyright, and it meant anyone could buy that and
start touring as the smith So he was like, I
need to buy this. And Morrissey then said, and now
(36:48):
Johnny's bought the name and he's.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Going to do this without me.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
He's going to tour without me in paranoid fashion. Johnny
Mard remained completely quiet until he really saved it all
up and just let him have it all in one go,
in a very classy move via his like lawyers, where
he said, look, I didn't ignore that request. I said no,
So I just don't want to do a Smith's. Thanks
very much. I haven't bought this thing on my own.
(37:14):
It's been brought with you. I've told your lawyers that
I've secured it. I've put your name on it. Didn't
have to do that, but I've done that because I
respect that you are half of the Smiths. Made Morrissey
look forwardish again. He said, and yes, I've blocked the best.
We don't need another best of There are like three
best of the Smiths. We don't need another one. So
let's just not do that. Morrissey then sacked his management
(37:38):
because I guess because he was like, ah, this has
not gone well because it was you know, he was
just called out on all of those but I mean,
that's not not even it. Currently, as as we stand now,
Morris's current his new album, which is called Bonfire of
the Teenagers, has still not been released. It was meant
(37:59):
to be releasing twenty twenty one. At the end of
twenty twenty three, he left his record deal with Capitol
because they said, we're not releasing this album under this title,
this controversial title. The title is about the Manchester Arena bombings,
and the label have said we're not going to release
it with this title. He had a weird thing a
(38:22):
matter of about a month ago now when he was
performing in America where he said this on stage, which
is this is a Stuart Lee sketch. Basically he said,
as you know, nobody will release my music anymore. As
you know, because I'm a chief exponent of free speech
in England at least, it's now criminalized. You cannot speak
(38:43):
freely in England. If you don't believe me, go there
express your opinion. You'll be sent to prison. It's very,
very difficult. I mean, he's had a great year there.
I mean, you know, it's like, come on, man, just Morrisey,
get back in your box. It's he's had a shocker.
He's had a shocker throughout the whole of the year,
(39:05):
and I think he might be a difficult man to
work with. I don't know, that's just a guess of that.
Why doesn't he just release his record himself? Like, why
doesn't he just like go to label services like a
label service company, or just release it himself, set up
your own record label. He's got plenty of money to like,
do it. He's got plenty of fans who would buy
his record if he really doesn't want to take a
(39:26):
song off or take a title off because he's so
bloody minded about it, do it yourself, mate, Like he
just likes moaning, doesn't he, because he knows if he
does that, he's not got something to talk about on
his blog. It's like, just grow up, Morrissey, ridiculous. I
used to love that man. By the way, I love
the Smiths, the music of the Smiths, I can feel it.
(39:47):
And one of the many Smith's fans who have been
let down by Morrisy listen.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Before we leave listeners tonight, we've obviously we recapped on
some of the major music moments, the big headlines if
you like, from this year. But before we go tonight,
I'm interested to know what was your personal music highlight
of twenty twenty four. Where was there like one moment
if you're like you're thinking, yeah, that that that there
(40:12):
was a that was my highlight of the year.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
The thing that stands out in my mind actually is
I went to see air Play Moon. I went to
see because this is so Stuart stuff. I mean, this
is really like and it wasn't cool, like you know,
the crowd was it wasn't I mean it was it
(40:37):
was it was like couple's snogging and me, it wasn't
like a buzzy thing, you know. I went to the
Charlie x X show and obviously hottest ticket in town,
really cool, really fun, like great, you know, everyone's good looking,
Like the air thing wasn't that. But to watch that
band put together a call that I really love and
(41:01):
you know, liked the kid and now obviously you know,
I've got all these nostalgia linked to it, but for me,
it was about watching them do it because there was
only three of them. There was the two air men,
there was a dram but they the amount of sound
they made And this is the sort of stuff I
normally don't give a shit about, like when people say, oh,
there's a lot of backing on this or like that
just miming a lot. I don't. It doesn't really bother
(41:23):
me that sort of thing. But I got it at
that gig because the sound of it in there and
the just the mood they created in there was impressive.
That was like the moment I was like, wow, that
I understand why people were Some people are really obsessed
with wanting analogue music to be made recreate with analog equipment,
(41:43):
you know what I mean. I mean there are other
things like you know Glaston Brien Charlie Exces show for example,
but that's the one that stands out air at the
Royal Albert Hall, A glass of wine and all my
snogg incompatarates.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I feel like the things that we brought forward is
examples for this say everything that needs to be said
about me and you. Okay, mine was going. I was
lucky enough to go to the Era's tour and see
Taylor Swift. I think it would be my most memorable
moment of the year in music because it was the
most expensive. It was incredibly expensive. Yeah, it was like
(42:20):
taking a mortgage out on a gig ticket. Era defining
kind of show obviously as an era defining artist, but
an era defining show from that artist. So it felt
like getting to see a bit of monumental music history
by just being fortunate enough to go and see it.
Incredible show three hours. Anyway, the show was brilliant because
what I really enjoyed about it was like the nature
(42:42):
of the show, the crowd, a lot of young people there, understandably,
and there's that the whole like make your did you
do that? Yeah, we made some risk bands and to
like to take them and like share them with The
whole point is that you're going to share them with strangers,
So now you made them. My wife made that. I
did anticipate in because.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I'm imagine, you know what I'm imagining when you're saying this,
I'm imagining you're there, You're at the Eras tour. There's
like a young fan next to you, and she's got
an armful of these braces and they are all different
beautiful colors and they've got like words on on Taylor
Swift lyrics or whatever, and she's really put effort in
and she turns to you and she says, would you
like to swap bands? And you've got like a shoelace
tied around joll like an old piece of string or
(43:22):
a bit of wire.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Well, I'll leave you with this story, listeners. I thought
I was sort of swept up in the love of
the ken right, and I thought and there weren't a
lot of like it was. There was a lot of
like parents and like and young people and they were like,
you know, just like just people having a good time.
There was just a lot of great feeling. And I
had these wristbands that I was like, I'm going to
(43:45):
I'm going to check how many of you got on
I don't know four five. And I support this guy right,
incredibly grumpy looking bald head tattoos, looks like a sort
of Howl's angel. And I was like, I'm going to
go and give I'm gonna go and swaprit fands with
that guy, because.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Like, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, how
do you initiate this? Like do people just walk up
to strangers and say do you want to Yeah, exactly, Okay.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
So I walked to this guy sat in his seat
Paramorea playing in the back in his seat. No, no, no,
he sat in his seat. He was just slid in
it behind him. And I had this wristband and it
said lover and I said would you like this wristband?
To this guy with stony face? And he looked at
me and he said no. And I walked up and
(44:29):
I thought that was that. I was crushed and I
sat down. And then two minutes later he tapped me
on the shoulder and went, do you like this wristband?
And gave me one of his and I gave him
one of mine, and so I think, uh, love one
out man. So that was one day and that's where
I thought we could finish tonight's pod.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I have found that unusually touching. I genuinely have just
just just get this right. So when he said Noah,
was that like, was it a joke or was it
that he didn't have it? Have one so we had
to go and get one. No, it was no, it
wasn't either. It was him. I don't know his sense
of like masculinity of like another man being like, would
(45:08):
you like this? Just band that said lover and he didn't.
He was just like, I think it looked like it was.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I deliberately picked the most macho looking person in the
stadium to be like, would you like this one? And
then because and then you'd gone back and then no,
he came back to me, found me.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
So you'd gone back to your seat? Yeah, and then
what he what do you think? He just felt like,
oh man, I should do that.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, that was a really nice thing. He just thought
about it.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, man, I wish I was there now.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
I can't believe you're so in touch, But I love that. Okay,
So we end tonight's podcast in happy tears Happy. It
wasn't all that bad, was it. It was all that
stuff going on at the Taylor Swift show. Yeah, exactly.
We need. What we need is just more. We just
we need a free ticket for everyone to go to
a Taylor Swift show and everybody would just feel a
(45:58):
little bit better. But yeah, well, listen, thanks so much
for being with us tonight. As we looked back and
reflected on twenty twenty four, the year in music, some
people have had a great year, others have not had
a great year. I'd say so I would say we've
had a great year on Midnight Chats. We have. It's
been a lot of fun hanging out with all of
(46:18):
you listening and all the artists that have come on
to the show and Stu. I have absolutely tolerated seeing
you every week. Thank you. Do you want this risk
bad oh? As belln Midnight Chats is a joint production
(46:40):
between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's
hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochran, mixed and mastered
by Flow Lines, and edited by Stuart Stubbs. Find us
on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from our recordings
and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
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