Colin and Joe talk about big choices that are being offered in the music industry. Joe and Colin talk about Taylor Swift’s choice to walk away from a one in a million deal, the choice right holder’s have to use a new promotional tool from Spotify, and the choice of where many millions of dollars will go and who industry giants and their employees support in elections. Every choice has a pro and con for business, ethics, PR, etc. Find out as Colin and Joe bounce back from every angle on the complicated choices currently affecting the music industry.
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Articles Mentioned:
Taylor Swift Free To Re-Record Masters:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/9476894/taylor-is-free-trends-swifties-celebrate/
Spotify’s New Rights Holder Controllable Data Point:
Music Execs and Their Employees Are Funding Very Different Candidates:
Youtube Just Gentered $5BN From Ads in a Single Quarter and Youtube Music Has Over 30m Subscribers: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-just-generated-5bn-from-ads-in-a-quarter-and-youtube-music-has-over-30m-subscribers/
“SaveLive” Will It Save Venues and Should It:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/arts/music/marc-geiger-savelive-venues.html
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Taylor Swift three to rerecord Masters, Spotify's new artist tools,
politics and the music industry. That show Biz Baby. Welcome
(00:24):
to episode twenty three of That Showbiz Baby podcast. You're
all Things Music, business and Media podcast. I'm your host
Joe with my co host Colin McKay, and it's the
return of the Boys only episode. This is exciting because
we've had so many guests. It's been it's been fun.
But it's not that we're taken back to the boys.
The Boys are back in town. Man. We're gonna get
(00:44):
a copyright, a trademark thanks to Joe. But Colin, where
can they find us? You can find us at Twitter
at show Bizz Baby Pod, Facebook and Instagram That show
Bizz Baby Podcasts, and email that show Bizz Baby Podcast
at gmail dot com. Questions concerns, topics of jests, or
if you just want to say hi, Yeah, we were
always going to take a high. I take a high always. Uh.
(01:06):
You know who's uh saying hi and bringing it back
in And Joe, you're very excited to talk about this,
I know you guess yeah. Well we talked about it
for like ten minutes before setting up a little bit,
so I think you're very excited. Yeah, I'm super excited.
But Taylor Swift has U is now free to rerecord
her old catalog. So this is a kind of a
duo article that UM I I kind of combined from
(01:29):
Billboard and Rolling Stone with a little bit of variety
in there as well. But Taylor Swift is now free
to rerecord her old catalog of songs. The album's one
through five. Why would Swift re record your songs that
already exist is what you might be thinking, And it's
because of historic deal between Scooter Braun and Swift's former label,
Big Machine. Soured swift relationship with Scott Bruschetta, who was
(01:52):
part of Big Machine Records UM, and they sold Swift's
catalog to Braun for a historic three hundred million dollars,
which is insane even for music business acquisitions and buy
buys and everything like that. So that that was crazy
breakdown of So there's a lot that happened. It was
very messy. The split up was was very public, very crazy,
(02:13):
honestly nightmare scenario to anybody working at the label. UM.
But here's kind of a quick breakdown of what happened
and what was reported. So Swift decided to part ways
with Big Machine in order to inc a new deal
with Republic Records and Universal Music Group, which was historic
in itself because switch Swift was the highest grossing artist
by a landslide, and was was a serious loss for
(02:36):
the company because she was definitely the highest grossing art. Yeah. So,
shortly after Swiss Swift's departure from the label, Big Machine
announced that it had struck a deal with Scoot Lebraun,
Justin Bieber's manager and formally Kanye West's manager, to own
Swift's masters for three hundred million dollars. Now, if you
were a Swift fan, you know the feud between Kanye
(02:58):
West and Taylor Swift, but you might not know there
is a feud between uh Scooter Braun and and uh
Swizzle Yeah Swizzle. After the announcement, Swift took to social
media to denounce the agreement and stated that she had
no knowledge that the label would sell Lebron and that
artists should have the right to own their own masters.
(03:19):
Swift stated, for years, I asked, pleaded for a chance
to own my own work. Instead, I was given the
opportunity to earn one album back at a time, one
for every new one I turned in. Swift began her post.
From there, she detailed how she knew Burschetta would eventually
sell the label um sell into the label, but claims
that she had no knowledge of it so uh and
(03:41):
that Braun was like knew what he was doing basically
is what she said. So after Braun bought the Masters
and it was public, a pop frenzy went on social media,
with many artists giving their opinions over support of the
Masters or of of Swift um, with Yale Bron scooter
wife putting out a statement stating that Swift passed on
(04:04):
the opportunity to own her Masters, and that Scott Swift
was a shareholder at Big Machine, Scott Swift is her father,
uh was a shareholder Epic Machine, as well as claiming
that Scooter supported Swift's career and was hoping to build
with Swift given his news steak in her back catalog.
Boschetta later put out a statement with a blog post
(04:25):
titled quote so It's time for some truth dot dot
dot so. In the post, he stated that Scott Swift
wasn't on the shareholders call, but was represented by a
lawyer from Taylor Swift's management company, thirteen Management, while thirteen
Management executive and Big Machines shareholder Frank Bell was on
the call as well. He went on to say that
(04:48):
Swift he sent Swift a courtesy text ahead of the
announcement a week prior to the announcement. Now onto the
juicy park, Collen, are you ready for this because this
is the juicy music business part. So, according to Swift,
Big Machine offered to buy back her master's one album
at a time, with every new album she would record
for the label. However, Burschetta refutes this and posted a
(05:11):
screenshot of a portion of the proposed new deal and
stated at Swift t Swift request a seven year deal
where Big Machine as signs ownership of all previous audio
and audio visual material over to her. B MLG's response
agreed to the proposal, but asked for ten years. He
then pays a text that claimed Swift send him. Uh
(05:33):
that he claimed Swift Swift send him moments before her
republic UMG deal was announced, uh, stating owning my master's
was very important to me, but I've since realized that
there are things that mean even more to me in
the bigger picture. What we've accomplished together will be lasting,
will be a lasting legacy, and the case study on
excellent partnerships and may it continue, which honestly is kind
(05:55):
of sad to read. Now. Um, so here's here's a
couple of things. So Swift's agreement with leaving Big Machine
is important in a lot of ways because a she's
been with Big Machines since the start of her career.
That was historic in itself, like that was a huge deal.
I mean, everybody, especially in Nashville, everybody was freaking out.
(06:16):
And I would argue it made Big Machine into the
label they are today. Oh absolutely, And I don't think
they would refute that either. But another interesting thing, interesting
little t there we'll t callin I'm ficking. You can
watch on YouTube hopefully, but here's a little t for that.
(06:37):
So Taylor Swift's agreement, current agreement allows her to re
record her old masters with stuff and it's starting now
basically in November. Um. But another interesting thing is there
there's two those two deals that we stated before that
might have happened because to be honest with you, we
(06:57):
don't really know the full agreement, will never know the
full agreement unless it's in the court. We don't even
know if they got written from deal points, like if
it actually got written down or if it was just
more of like here's the bullet points. Would you do
an agreement like this rather than like the full print.
And a lot of people don't know this, but there
could be something stated in one paragraph of an agreement
(07:20):
and then completely refuted in another paragraph. That's why the
lawyers are involved, exactly. So I mean, even though Burschetta
posted that screenshot, it could very well be different later
down in the agreement. Um. However, I want to point
out saying that this is very unprecedented, Like artists owning
(07:40):
their masters is very unprecedent. You have to be mega
star level if you're signed with a major label or
any label. Really, yeah, it happens, but it's exceedingly rare.
And uh, it is definitely an upper echelon. You have
a lot of heat on you artist, and you get
a deal even close to that, exactly. And like the
(08:03):
main thing for this that I want to hone in
is is that you know, Taylor Swift is at a
completely different level than I would argue the music industry,
you know, like, I mean, she's a completely she's in
the one two centers. So it's it's very different when
Taylor Swift is coming out to her audience saying artists
(08:25):
should own their masters. Yes, I I in my opinion,
I agree that artists should own their masters. I think
maybe not all masters because to a level extent, that's
the exchange that's actually happening exactly because you have to
you have to put a lot of money into making
a record, especially a highly produced record. So if you're
(08:46):
sigent to a label, a label, the label is gonna
want to own your masters. That's where their power is.
So it's not shocking to me that labels don't want
this to happen. Um. But here's here's kind of the
thing is is that Taylor Swift is coming at this
in my opinion as a way of this is for me, Uh,
(09:08):
I want to own my masters, but I'm going to
kind of say that, oh, artists in general should own
their masters. And that might be a good thing, especially
if someone at the top starts it. But I think
it comes down to you know, that might work out
if you have the clout to say that, but it
might not work out for the little guy, you know
what I mean easier And I'm not gonna say easy,
(09:33):
because it's not easy anyway. You have more bargaining power.
I think you have way more bargaining power for it. Um.
And another thing is the two agreements that were stated before.
I kind of went off track there, but um with
you know, Taylor Swift saying that she would trade like
a one to one album or album deal, that in
(09:53):
itself crazy, that's pretty it's a pretty good, exactly ten
percent margin probably of you know, the music industry to
even get close to exactly. And but to say later
when they stated at oh uh, she wants seven years
and they were like, oh, let's do ten instead, that's
(10:14):
honestly an even better deal. Well, because it takes years
sometimes for these records to get made. I I think
personally that the tenure. I think what they mean by
tenure is there's probably a proposal, there's probably an initial period,
but then there's deliverables in that ten year period that
have to be gone or the clock will stop if
if it's not delivered. At the same time, I think personally,
(10:36):
when you're talking about that seven to ten year deal,
it's like one of those things where it's like, okay,
well that will give us, you know, this, she's you know,
let's go back to the beginning. She's on an upper
echelon of deals. Like any deal that you're making with
any company, you have to have enough clout to you know,
even facilitate the deal first off, and then whatever your
baseline is changes dramatically from you know, clout to not
(11:01):
cloud and how smart you are. So like if you
went in there and you're a very hot artist, you know,
and you said, hey, you're gonna give me the baseline agreement,
because every record company is gonna hope for the best
deal and then they give it to you. You have
enough heat or clout to actually argue those points. And
Taylor Taylor does too because if she was signed, you know,
she signed a republic umg uh. And I'm sure the
(11:24):
deal was pretty good for her obviously because she had
enough you know, cloud and heat. They argued and stuff
like that same deal here. But she's like any artist
at the end of a rope in negotiations, because like
she's at the top of what that heat and cloud
can give you, which is access to your masters. That's
why they're replying back, we want ten years because they
(11:45):
want ten years to exploit those masters. In whatever percentage,
because what they're gonna do is that she's going to
own the masters, her probably her LLC or some other
corporate entity will own the Masters, and then they're going
to give the license to exploit them to the record company.
And that's how they were going to make the money.
And what they're when like in their response, which is
(12:08):
what I'm really amazed at, is that not only are
they not just going no, you can't have all that,
they go, Okay, here you go, you can have all
your audio visual related material, but ten years. That is
the crazy part about this is that that offer was
even given again in my opinion, even though Swift is
(12:30):
top of the top probably top five artists of the
last decade and probably will be for the next decade.
Like this is at the end of the rope. Pretty much,
there's like so much things like we never see this.
We always see the opposite where it's like the artists
can give away their soul, their money, you know, signed
it to the devil. At the bottom were the exact
opposite where at the top where the record labels are okay,
(12:54):
we can't give you anymore, like really, we can't give
you anymore, and to a certain extent. It's because could
labels now, even though they have found a way to
make money with streaming, they are still not to where
they were at their peaks right back in the early
two thousand's, like late nineties. I you could argue, you
(13:14):
know that those times when they were selling you know,
twenty dollar CDs, that was their height period. But you know,
now they're not making as much money. All of the
splits happen, there's you know, people still have to pay
for the record to be made. You know, I and
I usually don't side. I feel so I feel like
an old I know, we always come in here. I
(13:35):
don't mean to be like, you know, the devil behind
the cloak and be like, you know, all these artists
are just all these poor record companies. No, they're making hell,
they're still making a ship ton of money. In my
from the evidence from like not the evidence, but the
alleged things that have gone on here, from what it
stated in screenshots. If I believe to be true, I
personally think this is a one in a lifetime kind
(13:57):
of deal, Like this is a and she chose to
walk away from that, and like, you know, that's the
argument that Bron's wife made right and that a lot
of other people made in the industry as well. Did
she do any directing towards like her fans and social
media about like this deal sucks or something? Yeah, yeah,
(14:21):
once the deal was publiiced, once the deal was announced,
that the three million dollar deal was announced, this was,
like I want to say, I think it was about
a month after it was announced that Swift was leaving
the company, so it was pretty fresh because buying it um.
When that happened, Swift went on social media and basically
(14:42):
was just like I hate Braun, They're taking my masters.
This is all I have kind of thing. Should have
known how much I hate Bron, like I always say
I hate him, blah blah blah. Like all that stuff
was came out. I think most of it was on
Tumblr was when she did it, um so very direct,
did at her fans to take action in some way.
(15:03):
It was on Tumbler. It was Tumbler, Okay, all right,
keep going. I'm just it was on Tumbler, and I
think she posted on Twitters and stuff like that. But um,
it's like knowing how powerful her fan base is, you know,
like she knows how powerful I think this is a
calculated move about you stated off Mike, you thought this
(15:26):
was a good move, just like if I'm playing here's
my thing. I think in her position, she's at the Okay,
let's talk about my example. She in any deal like
this deal when she's trying to make it, she's at
the end of using her cloud. Her cloud is even
is the ability to have this deal in the first
place is to have, you know, a ten year contract
(15:49):
where you own all your audio material. Again, if that's true,
you know what I mean, that's the end of her cloud.
That's the end of the company was willing to do.
So she went, how can I get or clout? And
it's through public pressure, is what I think that she thought,
Maybe now I get it. Masters in your music. You know,
I used to be a musician. I would be very
(16:09):
distraught if I thought a person I personally maybe hated,
hated everything about them, owned my music on like an
intellectual level, like, actually, you know they now get the
money from what I worked hard for. That is insulting.
I get that, and she has a right to be outraged.
But at the same time, she was what she's doing
(16:32):
away from what she walked away from the deal, which
is fine if she wants to walk away from the deal,
but to say that her you know, posting about it
and doing all that stuff was purely just anguish. I'm
sad about this, I'm mad about this, and not I
want support from this in some way. Because again, like
we were saying earlier, she's like the thing that made
(16:53):
Big Machine in my opinion, and like she is the
thing from Big Machine. I've never fucking heard of anything
else from Big Machine, you know, until Taylor Swift, you know,
and so like that's why that power of her doing
those tweets and stuff is, you know, so monumental. Because
she's out of cloud, she can't get a better deal.
How can I introduce more leeway? The public is gonna
(17:17):
hate y'all if you do this. You're gonna have terrible stuff.
You're gonna have all my fans maybe boycotting you. Again,
this is all alleged. I don't know what she thought
about it. She might have just been a mad person,
you know, with in a person she thought is terrible
owns or masters, you know, And I get that. But
at the same time, she's smart. She's smart enough to
know her power. A lot of industry people say Taylor
(17:39):
Swift is very, very calculated, you know, you know, in
a good way in terms of business. The thing I
want to say about this is it's not dumb. It's
a smart move, like with her and trying to be like,
I have nothing left, what can I do? I have
a legion of fans that mostly will you know, support
me and what I say in my perspective, rather than
these industry people maybe they've never heard of in their life.
(18:01):
So like and you know, generally in the public sentiment,
you know, there's always the goliath labels versus the artist
that's already perpetuated. And then the stuff in here is
so complicated that you know, if you're listening to this podcast,
you're not the person we're talking about. Like people who
this involves I p law, This involves learning about you know,
(18:21):
standards of deals. This about industry knowledge that you have
to know about industry standard so you can't it's hard
to explain all of that in a tweet and somehow
get out of all the ship the big machine was
getting negatively from that. This is it's just hard. You
have to know, it's hard for someone to to that.
(18:42):
It's like moving parts to it. It's like if you know,
if somebody came up to me and was like, oh,
I work in a you know, I work as a contractor.
I build buildings, and this guy's doing buildings wrong. And
I'm being like, all I know is that you're saying this,
Can you explain it? And it was all this stuff.
I had no idea about it because I'm not a contractor.
That's like what it's like care for most of the public,
they just have this person who they view positively already,
(19:05):
who they trust, who's already viewed as, you know, a
righteous person and has kind of put her brand in there.
And I agree with a lot of things she said,
and I'm happy for and you know what she said,
especially like socially and stuff like that. But to say
that she I just think it's ignorant to say she
didn't know what she was doing, Like I like, she
(19:25):
absolutely did. So like that's the thing, and I think
most people would say if she knew what she would
do it. I get that, but I just want to
get that across that. I think it's a smart move
by her, But I think the ignorance argument is off
the table because I've seen that just being like, Oh,
she's mad because this terrible person owns it, And I
was like, she's been she's been famous for a decade now,
(19:46):
she knows what happens when she says things, you know,
on her platforms. I will say too since uh leaving,
I mean, she's had tremendous success with for folklore, her
news record, and she even apparently in some the lyrics,
has stated to the disagreement as well, but apparently that's
really her only public statements since Borshetta's blog post. I
(20:09):
think the thing for her at this point was it
kind of reminds me of her whole anti Spotify thing
back in the day, which it's really weird to remember.
It's really weird to remember that if you're old enough
to remember that, or if you just remember that when
Taylor Swift was, you know, not about Spotify, was like
we should not you know, deal with these royalty rights
and stuff her and she was doing the same thing
(20:31):
there is what we kind of talked about off Mike
is like she was just pushing the they don't have
enough cloud other you know than what their masters and
stuff are worth to Spotify, so they thought, let's get
some public pressure on it. You know, she's done this
but in the past. But like the point that I'm
trying to make is that she's smart. She's trying to
do the things that she can to get an un
(20:52):
you know, she got a crazy deal that was you know,
unheard of kind of stuff that's like behind closed doors.
Only a few are us have ever got this, and
she was trying to take it one step further and
they said no, you know, and I get that, and
that's why she's you know, that's the thing. I'll have
to pray swift on this. She's a great you know, entertainer,
and she knows how to run her business. So like
(21:15):
this is the kind of know how to write a song.
This is the kind of stuff that you know, takes
you one step further. Is if you can push a
deal one step further, then they're comfortable with that's gonna
save you, you know, millions of dollars in the end,
you know, especially at this level. Immediately obviously, when you're
a little artist, you have to plan for those million
dollars if that happens. But she has the potential, you
(21:37):
know already if she puts out anything like Folklore where
it's just gonna go to the top. You know. I
think with this too, it's so weird because it's just
so it's it's it really started hitting people at like
a personal levels. And uh, I mean with the music industry,
with the entertainment industry in general, everybody is so open
to the public, you know, at all times, since I
(22:00):
it's hard to see what's business, what's a business strategy,
and what is just right like personal, you know, and
I get it, like I don't like. I don't like
when you know, people and artists, a bunch of artists,
you know, in a record label gets screwed and so
this guy up here can make a hundred you know,
two hundred thousand more dollars a year, you know, But
(22:20):
like I hate that, and I hate that a lot.
But at the same time, this is the kind of
stuff where it's like the amount of money that's difference
in these small things with her being that big. Is
the amount to staff a department, you know what I mean,
from like royalties and stuff like that, and you pay
those guys who are making thirty dollars a year. And
like we said before, this was a hit for Big Machine.
(22:42):
Like when she left, people were talking about is the
record gonna the record label gonna make it because she
was holding so much and all we could hope for
was that, you know, they had invested in the time
they had Taylor and other artists and growing them and
stuff that now it's you know, enough that it's not
going to be the worst hit in the world for them.
(23:03):
You know. Well, I will say now, I do think
generally in terms of who's the winner out of this,
I think Swift is the winner publicly, at least, I think.
I think the thing with it was is that if
you were in the industry, because most industry people I
talked to who know about this, We're like, no, she
got a great deal and she just walked away because
she doesn't come. Person you talked to is like, if
(23:26):
you're not a music industry person or like really versed
in this kind of stuff, it's really hard. I mean,
we had to go to a music industry website and
get all this information that's not regularly readily like in
the public eye. And then a lot of this too
is is some of its old news, like it it
would happened a year ago, you know, so it's just
popping back. We'll have to see what's going to happen
with their re records, because I'd be really interested to
(23:49):
see how she's going to market those and and kind
of you know, yeah, is she gonna stir the fire
with it? Or is she going to be like, guys,
here's a you know, new version of my song that
everybody liked. Or is she going to be like, you know, right, well,
you know, or is it going to be like we
beat the corporate machine, you know what I mean, like weah,
(24:12):
that's so bad? Al right, well we gotta okay. So
moving to another big machine literally is Spotify, and they're
big machine, got some new tools for artists and labels,
so you're basically they have a new tool and it's
a new data point which I'll get into that later.
And basically that data point is being able to be
(24:35):
controlled by rights holders of the music. So if you're
like an indie artist or you're a label that's actually
you know, has the rights of the music and you
control it. So this data point will create a new
signal within Spotify's personalized algorithm that will allow the rights
holders to prior to prioritize songs. So the data point
is one of thousands that already affect quote personalized listening
(24:56):
recommendations including listening history, songs added playlist, time of day, weather,
release dates, and songs from users with similar tastes, among
other elements. Although the new data point quote will be
way differently depending on the situation and the listener, but
it is not expected to have an outsized influence on
what gets recommended, So it's not gonna like beat all
(25:18):
the other data points out uh. And there's thousands of
these data points that they use, like you know what
other artists you listen to, all that kind of stuff,
So it's not like, oh, this is number four, No,
it's thousands of data points. Uh. Spotify product marketing lead
Charles and Lamb tells Billboard that quote. One thing that's
become a particular focus for us over the last couple
(25:39):
of years is building more tools for artists to grow
their audience build their career. And a lot of those
tools that we've built so far are really focused on
promoting new music, like playlists, submission, release radar, marquis. But
our team talks too artists all the time, and what
we've heard is they want more opportunities to connect with
the music beyond just release week and it's actually with
(26:00):
their catalog music. And we think that's right after testing
period which has been given to some insider artists and labels. UH.
This new tool that controls the data point will be
available to any rights holder, artists or label UH. And
there's also no budget or direct payment needed for this tool.
But there is a catch which I know as somebody
(26:20):
was waiting for the other shoe to fall on the line,
so as Billboard elaborates, instead, the rights holder will be
paid out a lower promotional royalty rate for any specific
listens from that program through the royalty rate for the songs.
I'm sorry, though the royalty rate for the songs will
remain the same if a listen comes from any other
(26:41):
place other than audio, auto play and radio. There are
also no guarantees of placements or plays for any artists
or label. If a prior to prioritized song is performing
well with listeners, it will continue to show up. If
it's not, it will be pulled back. After the company
runs tests and auto play and radio it will test
a tool out and other personalized areas of Spotify. So
(27:03):
Lamb finishes the article stating quote, it's really important to
us that we make this kind of tool accessible for
artists and at any stage in their career and artists
of any time. Uh. Lamb basically also adds that the
result would be a positive return on investment for rights holders,
although Spotify did not say how much lower the promotional
royalty rate will be. Quote, we were looking for the
(27:25):
model to be more accessible and democratic and fair. Music
recommendation shouldn't be about whether our algorithm thinks you want
to listen to it, Lamb says, quote, we think artists
can be a bigger part of these recommendations. So this
test allows artists and labels to identify music that's a
priority to them. So yeah, yeah, and so you have
the data point that you can control and say like, hey,
(27:49):
I released you know this album last year. I had thought,
you know, this is the anniversary. It was my biggest album.
I'm gonna push you know. Hey, it's been one year
since I released this, so let's make this my priority songs,
you know what I mean. So that's kind of the
idea of it, or if you just released and stuff
like that. I think the most potent thing in here
is the way that this Charlton Lamb from Spotify product
(28:10):
marketing team talks, and I think it's very important to
what this tool has uh kind of a market for
and why it's being created. Do you notice every time
he talks about artists to grow there are audiences, like
he always talks about the creator. I think part of
this is cool. This is an upper echelon thing to
get more music on Spotify. This is like a reason
(28:32):
why you know, you would choose to put your song
on Spotify rather than somewhere else. But I also think
it's part marketing tool to say, like, look, we're we've
created tools for artists and so you don't get lost
in the sea, you know what I mean, and you
make them and you can make some more you know,
promotional stuff like that. But at the same time, you
lose part of royalty rate when you do this promote
(28:55):
and I again, we don't know what that royalty rate
is yet, but you lose assumably like a percentage or
something like that of your royalty rate if it's played
in a promotional way, like it's shoved in front of somebody.
And I think personally that this is also going into
the market of they know how much you know, all
these people pay for the tastemakers on the platform, the
(29:17):
people who make playlists and stuff like that. So they're going, well,
why don't we get it cut of that? You know
what I mean, there's a market for pushing your songs,
so instead of you paying us, which would be very
you know, look terrible marketing wise and stuff like that, well,
does take part of the royalty, right, and then we'll
get our you know, part of the market share of
(29:38):
people who are willing to pay for their music to
get promoted in that way, Okay? Or do you think
that's going to kill kind of the good thing about
Spotify though, I mean there is like that does kind
of what I was scared about. Two because I like
the analytic like the analytical nature very social media, and
a lot of people enjoy that, especially like coming up
(30:00):
they're going to start doing the Spotify. It's a little
uncomfortable as a user to think, like, oh, Spotify is
going from an algorithm that knows what I like, knows
the music I like and everything, and now it's going
to force things in my face because people say and
they get a cut of it. Well, and that's the
thing I've always sought it out against as a music listener,
(30:22):
I've never wanted like, if you're promoting it, I'm not
gonna listen to it, you know, like that kind of attitude,
and I think a lot of people, a lot of
listeners have that. Maybe not the average listener, but as
someone who wants to discover more music and wants I
think it's definitely a mood that prevails the music industry
since literally like the fifties and sixties, where you like,
(30:44):
you want to find music organically, and you want to
find it because your friend was like, hey, this is cool,
you should listen to this. Do you think it's going
to be integrated organically to where you don't even know?
Is that kind of the thing. I note any playlist,
I have not seen anything that says like this is
labeled or something like this. Again, this is a data
(31:06):
point that affects personalized listening recommendations, listening history, songs added
a playlist, time of day, weather, release dates, and songs
from users with similar taste, among other elements. So like
anything recommended seems to be on the table. So like
if you have your daily mix, if you have your
you know, new music Friday kind of stuff, I think
it's it's up to play, you know what I mean,
(31:27):
maybe if people feel uncomfortable with this, they could do
that and go, this is a sponsored playlist. Like everybody
on here was like this is and I think that
would be fun to be like, oh, this is a playlist.
You know, let's talk. We have Thomas on last time.
We have a low fi hip hop playlist. Everybody on
this playlist said this was my best song, and I'm
(31:48):
putting it up there, So that's like fun, you know,
stuff is to be like this is what the guy
said was his best song, Like that's an interesting gimmick
rather than like the corporation wants you to listen to
the song it's you buy things, um. But at the
end of the day, it can be the corporational. You know,
I don't know what the extent of Like spot and
(32:11):
this is completely alleged, is like I don't know what
the extent of you know, labels and big powers are
now in Spotify, you know, is it too? Sorry, but
the royalty rate too. That's I feel like the most
interesting part in terms of I think it's a marketing
move on top of also a money move, because like
I think if they said, you know, you have to
(32:33):
do like a Facebook or an Instagram thing where you
have to pay five dollars to get your thing promoted.
People would riot, People would be like, you guys are
so anti artist. You guys like, you know, you don't
even give us money in the first place. How are
you going to make us pay five to ten dollars
to boost a song on a playoff? And I think
what you're saying about the concern about having you know,
(32:53):
too many hands in the pot that aren't just in
you know, and a not biased algorithm would go into
play like And so that's why I think they did
the royalty rate. It's because they went, we want to
get a cut because we developed this technology, this is
our algorithm and stuff like that. And there's a big
market of people obviously from all the you know, quote
unquote kind of payola that goes on in Spotify playlists
(33:16):
and you know, music streaming playlists in general. Uh, but
we don't want the ship storm that we would get
if we were getting you know, you have to pay
money to do this directly. I think it's kind of
like what we're talking about Taylor Swift, where it's a
little harder to understand for the public directly, you know,
and saying like your promotional royalty, right, and it only
(33:38):
applies to that. I mean, I had to read a
paragraph and so we all understood what it meant. That's
way harder to convene than Spotify is gonna charge us
five dollars to do this. You know that that's the difference,
I think, And so I think I think there's a
smart move. I don't know, if you know, if the
user base will be bothered by it. I mean I
(33:58):
feel like me and you could be like, you know,
will be conspiracy theorists and the own playlist will be like,
what's this really here because of this? Or is it
because of that? Damn dad? You know what I mean?
You just put the hat on, you know, and everything. Yeah,
I mean I might be just kind of projecting a
little bit of my own kind of I feel like
I think it's a general concern and like people who
(34:19):
are very I would say hyper users of streaming and
stuff like that. It's like the organic and non But
I think because everybody with you know, I really hope
and I feel like most people would hope that if
you looked at a chart or something that it was organic,
like this is just what people wanted to listen to, like,
and this just shows like, you know, there's kind of
(34:39):
like a um higher award to that, you know, being like, oh,
people actually just want to listen to my songs rather
than like, oh a merch bundle put our or our
merch bundle put our fucking song up nine things because
people thought our shirt was cool. So you know, it's
a big tool. It's gonna be interesting if anybody grab
(35:00):
onto it. I think there would have to be major
public like we're mad about this and we're organized together
to get rid of it. Well, as long as it's
not like because Spotify has ads already, like they already
have like pushed albums, like when you open the app,
that's like, oh hey, Phoebe Bridger's album is out today,
stream it or it has like you know, the banner.
(35:21):
That's what I was gonna say is it's not entirely
like a non biased tours. I mean, I think it
would be ignorant. And then this is alleged, but I
think it would be ignorant to say like that the
big three labels don't have more power to push things
at higher rates. I mean, you can even look at
Joe Blow and CD Baby, you know, even the way
they approve who gets video stuff and the people and
(35:44):
the people who work district and you know what distribution
is becoming most of these things. It's working with these
DSPs and being like, how can we get you know,
a Camelia Cabello album to be your banner ad on
when you open the Spotify app, you know what I mean?
And I've always wondered too. I don't think they've been
very public about who, like how much money that is
to have that happen, or if they only offer it
(36:07):
to certain artists. It is kind of like a beta thing.
I think they have ultimate control, but I think at
the same time they probably again alleged that they probably
think that, oh, you know, obviously, if we think this
organic artists will add you know, more clout, and people
will come to Spotify just to listen to them, will
probably push them. But it's washing hands, you know what
(36:30):
I mean, in the sense of like you're we're going
to send you five artists, you know, every two weeks
basically from one label, and versus Joe Blow, who's just
like I just put an album out every nine months
on CD Baby or something. So yeah, interesting world of streaming.
Let's get into even weirder stuff by mixing real life
(36:52):
the music industry. Colin, what day is it today? Uh,
it's elections the world Colin, that's what? Which? But which? Quickside? Note, Well,
I want I'll say this and say you don't have to.
We're not endorsing or supporting any candidate on this podcast,
but we have to talk about political issues because at
the end of day, business, especially in the music industry,
is political and political leanings definitely affects sales and you
(37:16):
know who gets targeted and stuff like that. Which quick segment,
I hope you voted. If you didn't vote, feel shame.
There's another time that's gonna come up, so be ready
and vote. If you didn't, it's too late for us
to go go vote. But if you didn't, feel shame.
I like how you said, feel shame, feel shame. I
think that might be a good march item Colin. Um.
(37:36):
But yeah, So there's an interesting article on Billboard. Uh,
and it's about music execs and employees aren't donating to
the same political candidates. So who could have guessed? Yeah,
I mean it's crazy, right, Um, So Billboard has reported
a sharp difference in political support and donations of music
executives and their employees and our quote further apart politically
(37:59):
than they have ever been in the past. And they
have so examples that Billboard gives out. Um, let's let's
just kind of go through them. So Madison Square Garden.
So Madison Square Garden is owned by James Dolan, and
he donated seven dty five thousand dollars seven thousand of
it in two and to campaign committees. He is able
(38:22):
to do this apparently due to a Supreme Court ruling
mckatcheon versus FC f ec Um, which removed caps on
how much wealthy individuals could give direct joint fund two
joint fundraising committee, so direct like the committee. Now, if
you if you try to donate to a candidate to
(38:45):
their website or something, there's actually so many laws put
into place in terms of like how much you can
donate as like a single person. Um, so that you know,
some person doesn't just come and like wipe the floor
like a Bill Gates comes and just like yeah, you
know gets it. But a lot of people get around
by using super PACs and in committees like this to
do that so just for warning there, so the employees
(39:08):
of Madison Square Garden overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates totally twenty
seven thousand dollars to Democrats for an average donation of
twenty seven dollars each. So they were obviously making smaller donations.
Um So Liberty Media, who owned serious x M, Pandora
and a thirty five percent stake in Live Nation. So
(39:29):
company employees in gave two hundred ninety thousand dollars to
Democrats and ninety two thousand two Republicans, a two to
one margin. That is a huge margin. Uh. So company
employees in two thousand sixteen. Uh just so that we compare,
Democrats only received a hundred and thirty four thousand dollars
(39:49):
while three d eighty five thousand was spent on Republican candidates.
So there was a Yeah, there was a huge shift
there in the past four years. So candidates who were
even the most money. Uh. The candidate who received the
most money in was John hick Looper, former Democratic governor
of Colorado, who received ninety four thousand, eight hundred fourteen
(40:12):
dollars and Greg Mafi, the chief executive of Liberty Media,
supported hicken Looper. Uh. In a different race and donated
a hundred thousand two Shared Purpose, which is a superpack
that supported his failed bid for Democratic nomination for presidential campaign. However,
(40:33):
he also spent a total of seventy three thousand trying
to keep the Senate in Republican control, which kind of
counter dicks a little bit of his spending. As we've
seen so employees who donated exclusively to Hick and Looper's
campaign to unseat Republican Senator Corey Gardner, who received eleven thousand,
two hundred from Mafi. As so the employees only gave
(40:57):
money to Hick and Looper's campaign is basically most most
of them went to Hick and Lufer. And what's I
mean what's interesting is uh Mafi like apparently has been
donating both sides all over them. I got a theory
about that, but keep going, yeah, okay, so this isn't
this isn't the only He's not the only person doing this,
(41:17):
apparently doing it. So Billboard went on to say that
in addition to supporting different candidates, Liberty employees and their
bosses also use different methods of giving Mafi and Malone
pump hundreds of thousands into Republican uh cofers thank you
UH through loosely regulated political committees and super PACs, while
(41:39):
nearly all employee donations are made directly to the campaigns
of Democrats, usually in the form of small donations. Methods
of giving to each candidate also differ differs within the
company MAFI and alone pump hundreds of thousands. I feel
like I've already said that, so I guess get the YEA.
Let's so. Direct donations are also much more heavily regulated
(42:01):
and capped at five thousand, six hundred per candidate, half
being in the primary, another half in the general election.
So very difference in opinions. Apparently within the company so
a G, owned and operated by Phil Antwitz, who didn't
support Trump but spent one point three million dollars supporting
the re election of Senate Senate Republicans J Marciano. UH Marcanio,
(42:27):
who is the company's chairman and chief executive, gave more
than twenty seven thousand to Democratic causes, including the Biden campaign,
So he's he lower on the totem poll in in
comparison to Phil so employees of A G made over
one thousand, seven hundred donations totaling over k two Democrats,
(42:48):
which was a six percent increase from the Lacks election
election cycle. SO a high ranking a G executive stated,
I don't love that Phil supports all these right wing causes,
but his political beliefs are so are detached from the
work we do in our company values. He also noted
that despite being very conservative and it's support supported LGBT
(43:09):
causes and has given millions to groups some describes as
being left of center. So another person who was kind
of donating to both sides, it seems so. Other political
contributions made by the music industry billionaires don't neatly fit
into any one category, and include donations given in January
to support Trump's inauguration. According to Billboard, SO records from
(43:32):
Open Secrets show that Warner Music Group owner Lynn Bullock
TV sorry gave Trump's inauguration committee one million dollars through
his company Access Industries, as did Madison Square Garden, Los
ang Angeles Rams owner Stan Krichney, who built the five
(43:55):
billion dollars so FI Stadium next to the Forum in Inglewood, California,
also gave the committee one million dollars. Both Malone and
Mafi from Liberty Media gave the committee two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars each, and Sheldon Edelson of Las Vegas
Sands Corporation, which owns the Vietnan Hotel and Las Vegas
(44:16):
Review Journal, gave the inaugural committee the largest individual donation
of five million dollars'na have just sorry, it's Venetian. Just
thank you for for I didn't want to there was
a name. My mom is gonna hate me. So there's
there's a couple of things we need to discuss here first.
(44:39):
So a lot of the first thing is that there's
definitely a huge difference in terms of who the employees
are supporting and who the owners are supporting UM and
a lot of that can impact who would want to
work for some of these companies, how these companies are operated,
what are they Why are they giving this money out?
One of the many reason is how much support they
(45:01):
could get tax wise from having Republican candidates. And I
would also argue the lacks of daisical nature towards the
tax brackets. Yes, whereas the employees probably will not get
much leeway there in terms of bill. So it's it's
interesting to see how much of a disconnect there is there.
(45:24):
And I also wonder too, how much of this is
socially based. I was going to sell how much of
it is is a business base because to be honest,
a lot of these people are probably in organizations. They
mingle with a lot of other similar people of their stature, um,
and a lot of them support the same candidates because
to fit into the boys club, you got support. Was
(45:46):
also going to say that I feel like, you know,
other if we think there's two ways of looking at this,
there's the business side of it, which is like, directly
my business, you know, how has it affected how does
this affect my daily life in terms of income? And
then there's the other side, which is, you know, the
social aspect to it. I feel like, you know, there's
a chance that, you know, some of these people are
like I, you know, I believe in, you know, maybe
(46:10):
some more controversial opinions about social standards and stuff like that.
So that's why I'm donating to it. I just personally
believe it. Guarantee you there's got to be at least
one or two in here that that's the reason why,
you know what I mean. So that's fine, But like,
at the same time, it's just like economically, I feel
like if you were, you know, in one of these
higher positions that it would be advantageous for you if
(46:33):
you really did not give about care about the social
aspects of it, or we're in favor also with it
to probably go towards the Republican side just because of
the tax bracket breaks, the you know, small you know,
the business loans and stuff like that that are usually
more into you know, beneficiary to the actual businesses rather
than the people working in them, and more of the
(46:56):
reliance and the Republican Party on a trickle down economic model,
and so I feel like we can which we can argue,
but like that's I think that's the economic reason why
some of these very you know, wealthy people are voting
for it, other than if they you know, super believe
in one social side of the Republican ticket. Um. Then
(47:16):
on the you know, if we go to the employees,
it's kind of the opposite where it's like this, you
know generally, I feel like the Democrats you know, have
a thing where if you're an employee and you're not
making you know, close to what these guys are making
all the way at the top, then you probably want
to vote Democrat because you're you're gonna have more of
a you know, progressive tax system, and you're gonna have
(47:36):
you know, less taxes towards you generically, and then you're
also again split that in half. They could have their
own social things that they view, you know, when it
comes to that, on the social side of the Democratic ticket,
but on the monetary side, it also benefits the employees
to vote more of that way. Now, if if you
want my personal experience, it's the more you get to
(47:58):
the business side, and this kind of shows the more
you get more to the right side in terms of
like higher training, and you know, there are more rarities
to be towards the left, and it's very much about
the economic side again outliers with the social side. But yeah,
I mean, I I'm not surprised. I definitely think that
(48:19):
you know, we're we're not immune. I know this is
kind of you know, this is awkward stuff. I mean,
we talked little ship on this podcast, but like this
is very awkward stuff to talk about. But this is
important because this is the kind of stuff that like
companies can get rallied over, you know what I mean,
people go, we're not gonna buy any products from these
people because you know, this guy donated this money to
(48:41):
this person or you know, stuff like that. So that's
why it's important on the business side to other than
the taxes and stuff like that. Yeah, and uh, I'd
like to reiterate like that we said before. You know,
although it's the music business, sometimes people have this you know,
you see the billboards, you see the showcases of it.
Sometimes you don't know that although it may have a
(49:03):
very blue front, it sometimes says red backing in terms
of you know, I would argue if you if you
you know, the thing is is that at the same time,
I feel like it's a generality and it's kind of
true to a level. It's not a complete truth that
if the higher you get up in like bigger business
and stuff like that, you'll see more of that right
leaning kind of stuff because of the economic principles of it. Now,
(49:26):
the music industry, you know, cool as the you know,
the hipper people in it that you know people were
on the top of it, you know audience. You feel
like it would just automatically be like, you know, if
you didn't know that much about you know, how much
business structure is really in the music industry would be like, oh,
they're all probably towards the left, you know, because you know,
(49:47):
we all, you know, everybody in there is like usually
like cool people are really progressive, and that's it's not
the case. I I would argue, yeah, it's not the case.
I mean being as a person that's and me and
Joe have done that. Being people have worked primarily in
the southern music market, it's definitely not the case. Being
people who've worked with country music, definitely not the case.
(50:10):
Uh So, like that's kind of the thing. Uh And
so you know, you're gonna have to make your personal
decisions at home if this bothers you enough that you know,
if you wanted to support this company or you didn't
want to support this company. But at the same time,
if you're you know, thinking about it doesn't matter to me,
you also have to think this could matter to somebody,
and it takes sometimes enough people together to rally against
(50:34):
the company that that could really hurt pr wise and
straight up monetarily. You know, we're in the you know
age of social media where we can get all together
and stuff, and it's so easy to go this guy,
I did this thing, donate all this money to this candidate.
I don't like we should all boycott him, we should
boycott the whole company, you know what I mean. And
so like that's a thing that can happen, and so
(50:57):
like even if it doesn't bother you, I think it's
important as a listen or to think that in your
mind is like, this is a real deal that could happen.
At the same time, though, like I'm not ignorant about it.
You know, most of the you know, higher people up
there are Republican, Like if you're you know, it depends
on your brand that they represent, like you know, if
if you're like to uh at another case, a lot
(51:19):
of these owners and stuff are very hands off in
terms of the business. So but even then they're like
argument there and but they're still reaping the benefits, right
and so like even that, like again you have to
talk about branding too. It's like, you know, let's talk
about the country model. I mean, like, if you know,
we're in a mostly country label and it was like, oh,
the top guy donated more to write candidates or something.
(51:41):
Their fan base is mostly country listeners, and a lot
of country listeners, not all of them, So hold out
if you're gonna get mad at me. Are towards the
right side compared to a lot of the music industry.
So that's not a fan base that knows them enough
that would get super mad and and everything about it,
you know what I mean. So yeah, it's it's important
to know, but you know, you've got to think it's
(52:03):
definitely a thing that's seen in most business, and the
music industry is not immune, you know. Absolutely. We'll calling
what's YouTube doing right now? Okay, YouTube's doing some crazy
ship because it seemed kind of bleak at one point
when the coronavirus first started. So YouTube generated this quarter
five billion dollars and AD revenue in a single quarter,
(52:25):
and YouTube Music has now has over thirty million subscribers. Uh,
so let's talk about YouTube Music first. YouTube Music has
been a platform for five years and has only been
a standalone service for two YouTube Music was also only
at fifteen million subscribers, including the free ones in May
of twenty nineteen. So Alphabet, Google's parent company of You
(52:48):
Don't Know, announced on October twenty nine that YouTube Music
had passed thirty million paid subscribers and another five million
on free trials, which again together they were only a
fifteen minute or fifty million a year you know from then.
So uh, basically there's two models for YouTube Music if
you guys don't know, just for clarity, There's a subscriber
(53:10):
to the app itself, which is just a standard per
month in the United States, and then there's also eleven
nine per month subscription to YouTube Premium, which bundles an
access to paid for YouTube music. Uh. For sake of
just being transparent, I use YouTube Music, and I've I
have to argue that the eleven per model one is
(53:31):
very enticing for that because you get no ads on
YouTube and you get that non endorsement. But a very
smart business move on YouTube's part um. Again to recap,
YouTube Music had amassed only only only million subscribers and
nine months between January and September, what amount um to
(53:53):
compare to Spotify because Spotify is the big dog and
you know, sets the standard for everything. Spotify is added
in twenty million subscribers for a total of hundred forty
four million in the same time period, so they still
got ways to go to even be in the top three.
So switching over to YouTube itself, so like, actually, you know,
the videos on YouTube YouTube made five billion dollars in
(54:15):
AD revenue in quarter three, which I said, and this
was a huge increase from three point eight billion made
in quarter to AD revenues. And this was kind of
based on you know, was everyone was kind of scared
because the pandemic was thought to hurt YouTube AD revenue,
as that three point eight billion in quarter two was
only up two hundred million from quarter to of so
(54:37):
people were really worried. And clearly because everyone's inside, we're
seeing some more ads. Uh So, if quarter four makes
five billion dollars an add revenue, YouTube will make eighteen
billion dollars in AD revenue, for which is insane for
the music industry. The real question is is what cut
(54:58):
of this AD revenue of the music industry received. So
analytics firm PEX recently released a report suggesting that music
became quote more valuable on YouTube in y eighteen. Pex's
data shows that despite making up just five percent of
the content on the platform, music videos accounted for two
(55:20):
percent of all YouTube views last year, a two percent
increase on twenty eighteen. In addition, PEX noted that music
videos were responsible for eighty three of eight percent of
the videos, exceeding one billion views on YouTube last year. Yeah,
I mean, especially with K pop groups, And I mean
how many times have we got on here and been like,
(55:42):
you know, BTS has broken a record at YouTube, you
know what I mean? Like there's a that's the real
question here is kind of like, well, this add revenue
trickle into the music industry in an amount that seems
fair because clearly we're pulling some weight. I'd like to say,
I hope so. But to be honest, even at the
(56:03):
highest level, a lot of times music gets shafted in
a lot of ways, especially with receiving money. Um so
we'll see I would not be surprised if it's less
money and more of Hey, big three, you want some
more promotional ads for a discounted fights, you know what
(56:23):
I mean? Because here's the thing we always talk about Spotify,
Apple Music, you know, Amazon Music and stuff like that,
and those are big deals in the paid service, But
the number one place to watch music and if all
viewers is YouTube. And that's kind of why is not
the place anymore? It's used to YouTube and you YouTube
(56:44):
has been it. And the problem with YouTube for a
lot of people in the music industries. It's free. You
can listen to any song on there for free, you
know what I mean. And so like, even when we
had the CD crisis of the early two thousands and
stuff like that, where people didn't want to buy CDs
because you know, you could at it on Napster. We
all thought, oh, we'll just go to streaming and then
(57:04):
you can pay ten dollars a month. Then there's YouTube,
which is free, and you know what I mean, And like,
the thing with it is, it's not the thing with
YouTube is it's not restricted other than ads. So like
on Spotify, if you don't have you know, premium, it's
hard to pick individual songs for instance, and a lot
(57:25):
of those you know things, they try to make it
even one step further than YouTube, and so you want
to pay for the service. But YouTube has always been
the thorn and a lot of rights holder sides when
it comes to that, because it's like a double edged sword.
It's like you get so much promotion because everybody can
watch it free, but you're not going to get paid
like in a regular amount, you know what I mean.
(57:46):
And that's on every level of creator on YouTube right essentially,
and so like that's kind of the thing with it.
It's just like, oh, it's on every level of like creator,
but like specifically the music industry, we're used to these
payout models where at least we have a what's kind
of known as a I gotta remember the term, it's
a subscriber minimum fee basically, so like and not getting
(58:09):
into completely streaming calculations, but basically there's a baseline based
on the number of paying subscribers. These uh companies have
to pay record labels usually that's written in their agreements.
And YouTube no, there's no there's no premium other than
the premium side, which I just talked about earlier, which
is making really big strides, and I really think it's
because of that. I like, I don't see people buying
(58:32):
individual YouTube I see people buying premium and then having
YouTube music as an additional desk, which it's a great model.
And you you you being a user, I've actually got
to see, like the way it's laid out, it's looks
exactly like Spotify, but they're doing everything that the industry
leaders doing. It's Spotify, you know what I mean. So
like it's smart, but like the difference between this and Spotify, uh, well,
(58:55):
not the difference because Spotify kind of has that Hulu
deal is it's a very attractive price for not having
ads on YouTube and also having a subscription service. That's
the reason I don't have another subscription service. Is the
YouTube music Does it also integrate video? Yes, to an extent.
(59:16):
I think it's annoying, but that's just me. It's like
you can actually do in the app, and I turned
it off, but if you're really into it, you can
do songs by video and so like there's literally a
widget at the top that's a song or video and
you can click to one side or the other and
in the box, you know, usually you have your little
play wheel and your volume thing in that box that
(59:37):
shows the album work, it plays the music video. So like,
I guess if you were on a Binge spreen you
want to watch video music videos like all to row,
you could do that. You could do that, you know,
but like, I don't know how incentivizing for me personally.
It's nothing like I'll go And the other thing is
I'd rather watch it on the site. It's just like
I just why better? You know you're right exactly. So
(01:00:00):
another question, um, so where are the files on? Are
they on YouTube? And then YouTube music is just from YouTube,
like we talked about before his well Alphabet, Google's parent company,
was like, we're getting rid of the Google Play, which
is the bin of my existence because I love Google Play.
But I think you're the only person I know who's
(01:00:20):
no I know people who are on Google Play. It's
a very attractive Android option, but I'm probably one of
the few people that uses it on an iPhone. But
like the thing with it is like they had all
those rights there and they basically migrated, they forced that's well,
that's where they're from. I think they're probably on like
some different proposition. I was wondering if it was going
(01:00:41):
to be like MP three diar. It's not like when
you and that's a branding problem with YouTube, like when
you look up a song, it will give you the
actual master file as opposed to like that shitty music
video lyric screen. You can get to that in there,
but there's no blue screen. I guess that is a
(01:01:01):
bonus of YouTube music is that if they don't have it,
it looks in YouTube afterwards. So like let's say they
don't have the rights to a particular song, that's fine,
but if they didn't upload it to you know YouTube music,
it's on YouTube, and so you can look through YouTube
and listen to the YouTube file like on your app. Also,
(01:01:23):
the other thing I want to add about it is
that um oh man, I just had it. Like basically,
YouTube music does very well at integrating actual YouTube videos
with it that you may want to watch, because there
is some content and songs that only exist on YouTube
that don't exist on regular streaming things. So if you
(01:01:45):
had a song like and we're talking about mainly like
live versions is a great example. But like, okay, let's
talk about I talked about wolf Peck the other day
or like two episodes ago. Is like wolf Peck has
a lot of like only stuff that's on YouTube because
they such a YouTube presence. So if I want to
listen to that in a playlist and not have to go, okay,
pause Spotify, let's go to the YouTube app. I want
(01:02:07):
to listen to this song, I can integrate those YouTube
only things into a playlist, which is like a cool
feature of it. Again, it's kind of limited because we've
grown past the part where it's like this is only
a YouTube song because everybody will now because of the
ease of use of putting it on another streaming stuff.
It's like, okay, here we go. It's on Spotify, it's
on this so yeah, but so YouTube music, I'm not
(01:02:29):
a laughing Apparently there's twenty nine point, you know, other
thousand people paying for it. So I'm not alone. So
you are not. I'm alone calling to Michael Jackson starts soon.
So moving on will save life, save the stages. So
this is an article from the New York New York
(01:02:50):
Times and poll Star. Many independent vinues across the United
States are hurting while the coronavirus pandemic has cut profits
down to almost nothing, and planning for in person events
seems unobtainable, even with the prospect of drive ins or
social distance events. You know, it's very light stuff we're
talking about here. However, many organizations have popped up in
(01:03:11):
order to rectify the situation and have sought out political
and monetary support in order to sustain independent venues around
the country. So calling back to political support, I mean,
it's another thing that's very important, especially in situations like now.
So the one that you have probably heard of the
most is in i v A, the National Independent Venue Association,
(01:03:34):
which has put on virtual performances to raise money, as
well as calling on political representatives to funnel funding too
independence around the country. Another organization is coming to town, however,
and the man heading it is Lollapalooza creator and former
w m E giant Mark Geiger, who announced his newest endeavor,
save Live. According to The New York Times, Save Life
(01:03:56):
has already received seventy five million dollars and that the
company's plan is to invest in dozens of clubs around
the country and buy at least percent of the equity
in the businesses to help them expand once concerts return
at full steam, which is not expected to happen until
two or later. However, not everyone is on board with
(01:04:19):
this method, and, according to Frank Riley of High Road Touring,
might not be the independent enough. Riley stated, Geiger's solution
on some level scares me. He's going to buy distressed
properties for money on the dollar and end up owning
owning of their business. Is that independent? I don't know.
But it does save the platforms on which things grow
(01:04:42):
and where artists are sustained. Geiger and John Fogelman, a
co find co founders, say that the venue deals will
be partnerships and that despite the controlling majority shares, they
would not seek to flip assets. The Times went on
to state that quote, even with clubs now dark, Save
Life projects that it will be profitable within four years.
(01:05:05):
To a degree, indie venues vulnerability is rooted in their
very independence. Most operate on thin margins and have limited
financial resources. As Save Life partners, Geiger said they would
gain economics of scale as well as access to favorable
deals for ticketing or sponsorship, suggesting that Save Live would
(01:05:25):
to some degree resemble a mom and pop version of
Live Nation or a e g. The giant companies that
now dominate the touring business. Geiger, like many industry experts,
are very adamant that the touring industry will be very
lucrative once it comes back, and that artists will want
to tour more than ever in order to get more
cash inflow. So there's a lot of things to unpack there.
(01:05:51):
First off, this man has figured out how to be
a savior model literally in PR and basically just have
a way of buying out venues. That's that's what this is.
I am agreeing. He has figured out so the best
PR I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, Like, but
in the article too. I mean, it even kind of
(01:06:13):
implies that he's kind of he's very much higher level executive,
that's like very wealthy. He's he's made tons of money
from big companies, So how is he going to know
what true India is? You know in that regard. And also,
you know, you're buying of the company's steak. It's a
(01:06:33):
majority it's a majority steak. And he even said, oh, well,
it doesn't really matter. Yeah it does. It's gonna matter
the day where he doesn't really matter. Okay, take forty nine.
Then you know, like he I want to I don't
want to say. He didn't say it doesn't matter. He
just stated, like, oh, it's more of a partnership. Well,
everything is a partnership, right, It's not a partnership. You're
(01:06:56):
the business. You're gonna own it. Yeah, you have controlling
assets of the business. Okay. So here's my opinion about it.
I think this man has wonderful figured out how to
do some great pr for basically trying to buy out things.
And at a level of it, I agree that it's
a nice thing to do because there's not anybody else
who's trying to buy these necessarily, you know, some of
(01:07:17):
these venues might not have buyers, if that makes sense.
I mean, maybe the larger ones. But like in the
independent scheme, you know, like not every venue is going
to survive this and have a buyer that will continue
on its legacy. And that can be important in individual communities,
especially when you don't have a lot of venues in
some place, you know what I mean. So like having
(01:07:37):
it exists is nice, and not having a go down
is better. But at the same time, this man is
buying fifty one of the company. He owns the company.
He can do controlling assets in the company. That's what
he's doing. He is, and I can't look I I
can't say what it is, but it would be very
easy for him because he has of the company. If
(01:08:00):
let's buy these venues where they're down and out, like
that guy said, let's buy them for a cheaper price
than they were valued. Eventually music will come back and
then we can sell them for a way higher price.
And that's what it is, you know, And so like
I just I just think the thing is that he's
made wonderful pr and to an extent, it is a
nice gesture, you know, if he's buying things that you know,
(01:08:22):
maybe would just die in a community, would lose an
important part of it's you know culture, you know, cultural
centers and stuff, because it would just be abandoned, you know,
or something like that. But at the same time, it's
like he he has so much conflict of interest from
this idea of him being like a saint or this
organization being a saint, not specifically guy well, and I
(01:08:44):
think it creates unnecessary competition with U in I v A.
You know, you do lose so much power because they're
not independent anymore. They're owned by all the same guy.
And if he so, if he bought a bunch of
businesses in the got he was like, Nope, we're not
doing this ship he can do that. I don't know.
This is for profit. It's not a nonprofit. It's it
(01:09:07):
guys is under a nonprofit. But it's it's definitely a
for profit model. And uh, it just seems it to me.
It just seem a little a little little weird. Yeah,
I I just think I just think my thing with
it is like there's no um I mean, do I
(01:09:29):
think that business wise, is this a good business move? Probably? Yeah,
if you're a business, Like if I was you know,
like what's sorking about from both sides. If I was,
you know, someplace out there in the middle. Let's say
like we're in random, Like we're in a random we're
in Wisconsin somewhere, and we're an independent venue and medium
sized acts come through and it's not looking good. We're
(01:09:49):
running out of money, you know, all this stuff like that.
You know, it might be nice to one continue the venue,
have your employees paid for, and not have that stress
on your life anymore because you have of it. But
like that, you know, you're still you're still making money
and you're allowed to keep going. That's nice. And again
I talked about the cultural thing. That's a really nice
(01:10:11):
thing to have that have that weight taken off of you.
I just think that it's definitely in a level predatory
to be like, oh, I'm just here trying to help,
that's it, instead of being like I'm gonna your business.
I'm gonna we're gonna be business partners. You know, he
does say partnership, but like, I don't like you know
(01:10:33):
the thing. I don't like the branding. I don't like
that it's save Live. That's the part of it that
gives me a bad thing if it was you know,
the Geiger Company, and he was like, hey, you know
I want you know, I believe in this venue. I
want to buy one of it. Here's some money I
raised from a bunch of investors. That's fine, but since
it literally has the word saving it, it really puts
(01:10:54):
a bad taste. It literally like when I first read it,
I was like, this is a nonprofit, you know, but
it doesn't sound like a non profit. And then I
had to go back and be like, wait, no, there's
no way it's it can be because he's talking about
being partners with these venues for later down the road.
So like, I don't know, it's it's very It's just
(01:11:15):
like I get it if I'm in the position of
the venue owner and like, this is the difference between
you know, twenty people having a job at the end
of the day, me being able to pay my bills,
and a cultural center of the community going down. I
might have to take this. I'm not going to be
very happy, but well, and then you could always start
another venue elsewhere to that might be depending on if
(01:11:38):
you have a noncompete. The branding just bothers me. That's
the thing that bothers me. The most about this is
the way it's branded and stuff like that, and like
look this, like there's that whole thing. What's his name,
Warren Buffett bought all those paper companies, like for no reason.
I don't know if you know this. He bought a
(01:11:59):
bunch of news I didn't know. You're going to drop
a Warren Buffett reference right now, But it's kind of
what it's like, he this guy has raised enough money
and he's a venture capitalist in a way, and he's
going into these venues and going will you give? Like
and like there''s essentially the one buying people out of right.
And obviously he's probably some part you know, maybe the
head of the Save Live organization, and that could change,
(01:12:21):
you know, leadership. But what I'm saying about it is
kind of akin to that is unlike you know, Warren
Buffett being like, I want to buy out all these
news things because I feel like it's a good investment
for me or I can do something for it in
the future. It would be like Warren Buffett being like,
I'm trying to save print. I'm trying to save the
print medium from going out. That's why you should buy
(01:12:43):
with me because I'm really a savior in this. That's
what I don't like about this at all. It's a
little look like, I get it. It's a little weird.
It's like I said, it would be a nice change
if I'm a person that wants to, you know, still
get my share of the profits, have all my employees
go and not lose a pillar of a community somewhere.
(01:13:03):
But at the same time, it's very like, oh man,
it would It's like the bad part of a movie
where like the guy has to sell his like house
or something, you know, the same like it's like where
the what's the stereotypical one where it's like the farm
has to be bought out by corporate America. You know.
That's like what it's like for me to read that.
Um so yeah, alright, well gla in my brain. That's
(01:13:27):
how it's like. Joe, let's talk about some music we
listened to. All right, My favorite part saga might a
little tirade real quick. I've been by the way, uh like,
so I've been listening to this girl her name is.
It's a CD. Joe gave it to me when he
used to work at w MTS radio in Murphysboro and
(01:13:48):
he brought home when we lived together as roommates, he
brought home a basket of CDs and I looked through
them because I'm that kind of person, and uh, there's
this girl and her name was a girl named Tu
and I can't find anything else this girl has made
past this album that I found, and it's called it's
called Wait by the Rabbit Hole, and I still have
the CD of it in that closet and basically it's
(01:14:11):
so I really like it. It's very like vibing sixties
and kind of like I don't know, like Sassy too.
I think it's one of those artists. And she does
an album before that I was too that I really
like too, but like it seems like she either got
out of the industry or something or did something like that.
I can't find any other information other than a band
(01:14:32):
camp page, which this is her latest album from eight
nine no eight years ago. So like, I wish I
hope she would keep doing music, because I felt like
when I was listening to it, I was like, God,
this girl is like one album away from having that
record that just goes and I feel like she was
a little before her time and it was like before
american I really became Americana and actually had the branding
(01:14:53):
to support it. She could have just gone in that
realm and been completely fine. It's called a girl named
t Rap Down the rabbit Hole, I think is what
it's called. To listen to that, because wait by the
rabbit Holes, by the room cool. I've been listening to
that new Guerrillas, which I never thought i'd say ever.
I love Gorillas, but I I just think it's crazy
(01:15:15):
that they're back, you know. Uh. That project is is
just something wonderful, especially the Beck song on there. I
think that's the best song so far, The Valley of
the Pagans. That's a good, good song man. Another artist
is actually I guess he was local. He's not local anymore.
He went back to Texas. But Nico crow Um with
(01:15:37):
his song Kill Great. I think it's his best song. Yeah,
I think it's his best song. I can't wait to
hear more stuff from him. Uh, and I think he's
gonna blow up to be honest with you, um and
what else have we been listening to? Another artist similar
vibes named Choker uh and also Busta Rhymes is new
(01:15:59):
single look Over Your shoulder with Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. Yeah,
so I've just been digging it. I'm surprised you're saying that,
but yeah, I don't know. I've just been digging that song. Man.
Uh and Freddy Gibbs, Freddy, you will not let that go.
I love Freddy Gibs. Hey, don't dis Freddy good. It's
not bad. It's just every day of our live now,
(01:16:22):
it's good. It's good. I oh man. But yeah, that
Show Bizz Baby. Thank you for listening to that Show
Bizz Baby podcast. You're all things music, business and media
podcast and the return of the Boys only episodes. Don't
worry though, We've got many guests schedule in the future,
so if you're missing for that looking for that, it's
gonna happen. If you want to hear about announcements of that,
(01:16:44):
we've got Twitter at show Bizz Baby Pod, Facebook and
Instagram that Show Bizz Baby podcast, and email about Show
Bizz Baby podcasts at gmail dot com with topping suggestions
and anything you want to say. Again, just say hi, Yeah,
we're working real hard on that. You should be able
to get a deep dive this month. It's some more
guests episodes of being to look out for that, and
we really appreciate everything you do. If you want to
give us a review, if you can give us a like,
(01:17:05):
give us a share, we appreciate it. Thank you so much,
Taylor Swift three to rerecord Masters, Spotify's new artist tools,
politics and the music industry. That show Biz Baby. Welcome
(00:24):
to episode twenty three of That Showbiz Baby podcast. You're
all Things Music, business and Media podcast. I'm your host
Joe with my co host Colin McKay, and it's the
return of the Boys only episode. This is exciting because
we've had so many guests. It's been it's been fun.
But it's not that we're taken back to the boys.
The Boys are back in town. Man. We're gonna get
(00:44):
a copyright, a trademark thanks to Joe. But Colin, where
can they find us? You can find us at Twitter
at show Bizz Baby Pod, Facebook and Instagram That show
Bizz Baby Podcasts, and email that show Bizz Baby Podcast
at gmail dot com. Questions concerns, topics of jests, or
if you just want to say hi, Yeah, we were
always going to take a high. I take a high always. Uh.
(01:06):
You know who's uh saying hi and bringing it back
in And Joe, you're very excited to talk about this,
I know you guess yeah. Well we talked about it
for like ten minutes before setting up a little bit,
so I think you're very excited. Yeah, I'm super excited.
But Taylor Swift has U is now free to rerecord
her old catalog. So this is a kind of a
duo article that UM I I kind of combined from
(01:29):
Billboard and Rolling Stone with a little bit of variety
in there as well. But Taylor Swift is now free
to rerecord her old catalog of songs. The album's one
through five. Why would Swift re record your songs that
already exist is what you might be thinking, And it's
because of historic deal between Scooter Braun and Swift's former label,
Big Machine. Soured swift relationship with Scott Bruschetta, who was
(01:52):
part of Big Machine Records UM, and they sold Swift's
catalog to Braun for a historic three hundred million dollars,
which is insane even for music business acquisitions and buy
buys and everything like that. So that that was crazy
breakdown of So there's a lot that happened. It was
very messy. The split up was was very public, very crazy,
(02:13):
honestly nightmare scenario to anybody working at the label. UM.
But here's kind of a quick breakdown of what happened
and what was reported. So Swift decided to part ways
with Big Machine in order to inc a new deal
with Republic Records and Universal Music Group, which was historic
in itself because switch Swift was the highest grossing artist
by a landslide, and was was a serious loss for
(02:36):
the company because she was definitely the highest grossing art. Yeah. So,
shortly after Swiss Swift's departure from the label, Big Machine
announced that it had struck a deal with Scoot Lebraun,
Justin Bieber's manager and formally Kanye West's manager, to own
Swift's masters for three hundred million dollars. Now, if you
were a Swift fan, you know the feud between Kanye
(02:58):
West and Taylor Swift, but you might not know there
is a feud between uh Scooter Braun and and uh
Swizzle Yeah Swizzle. After the announcement, Swift took to social
media to denounce the agreement and stated that she had
no knowledge that the label would sell Lebron and that
artists should have the right to own their own masters.
(03:19):
Swift stated, for years, I asked, pleaded for a chance
to own my own work. Instead, I was given the
opportunity to earn one album back at a time, one
for every new one I turned in. Swift began her post.
From there, she detailed how she knew Burschetta would eventually
sell the label um sell into the label, but claims
that she had no knowledge of it so uh and
(03:41):
that Braun was like knew what he was doing basically
is what she said. So after Braun bought the Masters
and it was public, a pop frenzy went on social media,
with many artists giving their opinions over support of the
Masters or of of Swift um, with Yale Bron scooter
wife putting out a statement stating that Swift passed on
(04:04):
the opportunity to own her Masters, and that Scott Swift
was a shareholder at Big Machine, Scott Swift is her father,
uh was a shareholder Epic Machine, as well as claiming
that Scooter supported Swift's career and was hoping to build
with Swift given his news steak in her back catalog.
Boschetta later put out a statement with a blog post
(04:25):
titled quote so It's time for some truth dot dot
dot so. In the post, he stated that Scott Swift
wasn't on the shareholders call, but was represented by a
lawyer from Taylor Swift's management company, thirteen Management, while thirteen
Management executive and Big Machines shareholder Frank Bell was on
the call as well. He went on to say that
(04:48):
Swift he sent Swift a courtesy text ahead of the
announcement a week prior to the announcement. Now onto the
juicy park, Collen, are you ready for this because this
is the juicy music business part. So, according to Swift,
Big Machine offered to buy back her master's one album
at a time, with every new album she would record
for the label. However, Burschetta refutes this and posted a
(05:11):
screenshot of a portion of the proposed new deal and
stated at Swift t Swift request a seven year deal
where Big Machine as signs ownership of all previous audio
and audio visual material over to her. B MLG's response
agreed to the proposal, but asked for ten years. He
then pays a text that claimed Swift send him. Uh
(05:33):
that he claimed Swift Swift send him moments before her
republic UMG deal was announced, uh, stating owning my master's
was very important to me, but I've since realized that
there are things that mean even more to me in
the bigger picture. What we've accomplished together will be lasting,
will be a lasting legacy, and the case study on
excellent partnerships and may it continue, which honestly is kind
(05:55):
of sad to read. Now. Um, so here's here's a
couple of things. So Swift's agreement with leaving Big Machine
is important in a lot of ways because a she's
been with Big Machines since the start of her career.
That was historic in itself, like that was a huge deal.
I mean, everybody, especially in Nashville, everybody was freaking out.
(06:16):
And I would argue it made Big Machine into the
label they are today. Oh absolutely, And I don't think
they would refute that either. But another interesting thing, interesting
little t there we'll t callin I'm ficking. You can
watch on YouTube hopefully, but here's a little t for that.
(06:37):
So Taylor Swift's agreement, current agreement allows her to re
record her old masters with stuff and it's starting now
basically in November. Um. But another interesting thing is there
there's two those two deals that we stated before that
might have happened because to be honest with you, we
(06:57):
don't really know the full agreement, will never know the
full agreement unless it's in the court. We don't even
know if they got written from deal points, like if
it actually got written down or if it was just
more of like here's the bullet points. Would you do
an agreement like this rather than like the full print.
And a lot of people don't know this, but there
could be something stated in one paragraph of an agreement
(07:20):
and then completely refuted in another paragraph. That's why the
lawyers are involved, exactly. So I mean, even though Burschetta
posted that screenshot, it could very well be different later
down in the agreement. Um. However, I want to point
out saying that this is very unprecedented, Like artists owning
(07:40):
their masters is very unprecedent. You have to be mega
star level if you're signed with a major label or
any label. Really, yeah, it happens, but it's exceedingly rare.
And uh, it is definitely an upper echelon. You have
a lot of heat on you artist, and you get
a deal even close to that, exactly. And like the
(08:03):
main thing for this that I want to hone in
is is that you know, Taylor Swift is at a
completely different level than I would argue the music industry,
you know, like, I mean, she's a completely she's in
the one two centers. So it's it's very different when
Taylor Swift is coming out to her audience saying artists
(08:25):
should own their masters. Yes, I I in my opinion,
I agree that artists should own their masters. I think
maybe not all masters because to a level extent, that's
the exchange that's actually happening exactly because you have to
you have to put a lot of money into making
a record, especially a highly produced record. So if you're
(08:46):
sigent to a label, a label, the label is gonna
want to own your masters. That's where their power is.
So it's not shocking to me that labels don't want
this to happen. Um. But here's here's kind of the
thing is is that Taylor Swift is coming at this
in my opinion as a way of this is for me, Uh,
(09:08):
I want to own my masters, but I'm going to
kind of say that, oh, artists in general should own
their masters. And that might be a good thing, especially
if someone at the top starts it. But I think
it comes down to you know, that might work out
if you have the clout to say that, but it
might not work out for the little guy, you know
what I mean easier And I'm not gonna say easy,
(09:33):
because it's not easy anyway. You have more bargaining power.
I think you have way more bargaining power for it. Um.
And another thing is the two agreements that were stated before.
I kind of went off track there, but um with
you know, Taylor Swift saying that she would trade like
a one to one album or album deal, that in
(09:53):
itself crazy, that's pretty it's a pretty good, exactly ten
percent margin probably of you know, the music industry to
even get close to exactly. And but to say later
when they stated at oh uh, she wants seven years
and they were like, oh, let's do ten instead, that's
(10:14):
honestly an even better deal. Well, because it takes years
sometimes for these records to get made. I I think
personally that the tenure. I think what they mean by
tenure is there's probably a proposal, there's probably an initial period,
but then there's deliverables in that ten year period that
have to be gone or the clock will stop if
if it's not delivered. At the same time, I think personally,
(10:36):
when you're talking about that seven to ten year deal,
it's like one of those things where it's like, okay,
well that will give us, you know, this, she's you know,
let's go back to the beginning. She's on an upper
echelon of deals. Like any deal that you're making with
any company, you have to have enough clout to you know,
even facilitate the deal first off, and then whatever your
baseline is changes dramatically from you know, clout to not
(11:01):
cloud and how smart you are. So like if you
went in there and you're a very hot artist, you know,
and you said, hey, you're gonna give me the baseline agreement,
because every record company is gonna hope for the best
deal and then they give it to you. You have
enough heat or clout to actually argue those points. And
Taylor Taylor does too because if she was signed, you know,
she signed a republic umg uh. And I'm sure the
(11:24):
deal was pretty good for her obviously because she had
enough you know, cloud and heat. They argued and stuff
like that same deal here. But she's like any artist
at the end of a rope in negotiations, because like
she's at the top of what that heat and cloud
can give you, which is access to your masters. That's
why they're replying back, we want ten years because they
(11:45):
want ten years to exploit those masters. In whatever percentage,
because what they're gonna do is that she's going to
own the masters, her probably her LLC or some other
corporate entity will own the Masters, and then they're going
to give the license to exploit them to the record company.
And that's how they were going to make the money.
And what they're when like in their response, which is
(12:08):
what I'm really amazed at, is that not only are
they not just going no, you can't have all that,
they go, Okay, here you go, you can have all
your audio visual related material, but ten years. That is
the crazy part about this is that that offer was
even given again in my opinion, even though Swift is
(12:30):
top of the top probably top five artists of the
last decade and probably will be for the next decade.
Like this is at the end of the rope. Pretty much,
there's like so much things like we never see this.
We always see the opposite where it's like the artists
can give away their soul, their money, you know, signed
it to the devil. At the bottom were the exact
opposite where at the top where the record labels are okay,
(12:54):
we can't give you anymore, like really, we can't give
you anymore, and to a certain extent. It's because could
labels now, even though they have found a way to
make money with streaming, they are still not to where
they were at their peaks right back in the early
two thousand's, like late nineties. I you could argue, you
(13:14):
know that those times when they were selling you know,
twenty dollar CDs, that was their height period. But you know,
now they're not making as much money. All of the
splits happen, there's you know, people still have to pay
for the record to be made. You know, I and
I usually don't side. I feel so I feel like
an old I know, we always come in here. I
(13:35):
don't mean to be like, you know, the devil behind
the cloak and be like, you know, all these artists
are just all these poor record companies. No, they're making hell,
they're still making a ship ton of money. In my
from the evidence from like not the evidence, but the
alleged things that have gone on here, from what it
stated in screenshots. If I believe to be true, I
personally think this is a one in a lifetime kind
(13:57):
of deal, Like this is a and she chose to
walk away from that, and like, you know, that's the
argument that Bron's wife made right and that a lot
of other people made in the industry as well. Did
she do any directing towards like her fans and social
media about like this deal sucks or something? Yeah, yeah,
(14:21):
once the deal was publiiced, once the deal was announced,
that the three million dollar deal was announced, this was,
like I want to say, I think it was about
a month after it was announced that Swift was leaving
the company, so it was pretty fresh because buying it um.
When that happened, Swift went on social media and basically
(14:42):
was just like I hate Braun, They're taking my masters.
This is all I have kind of thing. Should have
known how much I hate Bron, like I always say
I hate him, blah blah blah. Like all that stuff
was came out. I think most of it was on
Tumblr was when she did it, um so very direct,
did at her fans to take action in some way.
(15:03):
It was on Tumbler. It was Tumbler, Okay, all right,
keep going. I'm just it was on Tumbler, and I
think she posted on Twitters and stuff like that. But um,
it's like knowing how powerful her fan base is, you know,
like she knows how powerful I think this is a
calculated move about you stated off Mike, you thought this
(15:26):
was a good move, just like if I'm playing here's
my thing. I think in her position, she's at the Okay,
let's talk about my example. She in any deal like
this deal when she's trying to make it, she's at
the end of using her cloud. Her cloud is even
is the ability to have this deal in the first
place is to have, you know, a ten year contract
(15:49):
where you own all your audio material. Again, if that's true,
you know what I mean, that's the end of her cloud.
That's the end of the company was willing to do.
So she went, how can I get or clout? And
it's through public pressure, is what I think that she thought,
Maybe now I get it. Masters in your music. You know,
I used to be a musician. I would be very
(16:09):
distraught if I thought a person I personally maybe hated,
hated everything about them, owned my music on like an
intellectual level, like, actually, you know they now get the
money from what I worked hard for. That is insulting.
I get that, and she has a right to be outraged.
But at the same time, she was what she's doing
(16:32):
away from what she walked away from the deal, which
is fine if she wants to walk away from the deal,
but to say that her you know, posting about it
and doing all that stuff was purely just anguish. I'm
sad about this, I'm mad about this, and not I
want support from this in some way. Because again, like
we were saying earlier, she's like the thing that made
(16:53):
Big Machine in my opinion, and like she is the
thing from Big Machine. I've never fucking heard of anything
else from Big Machine, you know, until Taylor Swift, you know,
and so like that's why that power of her doing
those tweets and stuff is, you know, so monumental. Because
she's out of cloud, she can't get a better deal.
How can I introduce more leeway? The public is gonna
(17:17):
hate y'all if you do this. You're gonna have terrible stuff.
You're gonna have all my fans maybe boycotting you. Again,
this is all alleged. I don't know what she thought
about it. She might have just been a mad person,
you know, with in a person she thought is terrible
owns or masters, you know, And I get that. But
at the same time, she's smart. She's smart enough to
know her power. A lot of industry people say Taylor
(17:39):
Swift is very, very calculated, you know, you know, in
a good way in terms of business. The thing I
want to say about this is it's not dumb. It's
a smart move, like with her and trying to be like,
I have nothing left, what can I do? I have
a legion of fans that mostly will you know, support
me and what I say in my perspective, rather than
these industry people maybe they've never heard of in their life.
(18:01):
So like and you know, generally in the public sentiment,
you know, there's always the goliath labels versus the artist
that's already perpetuated. And then the stuff in here is
so complicated that you know, if you're listening to this podcast,
you're not the person we're talking about. Like people who
this involves I p law, This involves learning about you know,
(18:21):
standards of deals. This about industry knowledge that you have
to know about industry standard so you can't it's hard
to explain all of that in a tweet and somehow
get out of all the ship the big machine was
getting negatively from that. This is it's just hard. You
have to know, it's hard for someone to to that.
(18:42):
It's like moving parts to it. It's like if you know,
if somebody came up to me and was like, oh,
I work in a you know, I work as a contractor.
I build buildings, and this guy's doing buildings wrong. And
I'm being like, all I know is that you're saying this,
Can you explain it? And it was all this stuff.
I had no idea about it because I'm not a contractor.
That's like what it's like care for most of the public,
they just have this person who they view positively already,
(19:05):
who they trust, who's already viewed as, you know, a
righteous person and has kind of put her brand in there.
And I agree with a lot of things she said,
and I'm happy for and you know what she said,
especially like socially and stuff like that. But to say
that she I just think it's ignorant to say she
didn't know what she was doing, Like I like, she
(19:25):
absolutely did. So like that's the thing, and I think
most people would say if she knew what she would
do it. I get that, but I just want to
get that across that. I think it's a smart move
by her, But I think the ignorance argument is off
the table because I've seen that just being like, Oh,
she's mad because this terrible person owns it, And I
was like, she's been she's been famous for a decade now,
(19:46):
she knows what happens when she says things, you know,
on her platforms. I will say too since uh leaving,
I mean, she's had tremendous success with for folklore, her
news record, and she even apparently in some the lyrics,
has stated to the disagreement as well, but apparently that's
really her only public statements since Borshetta's blog post. I
(20:09):
think the thing for her at this point was it
kind of reminds me of her whole anti Spotify thing
back in the day, which it's really weird to remember.
It's really weird to remember that if you're old enough
to remember that, or if you just remember that when
Taylor Swift was, you know, not about Spotify, was like
we should not you know, deal with these royalty rights
and stuff her and she was doing the same thing
(20:31):
there is what we kind of talked about off Mike
is like she was just pushing the they don't have
enough cloud other you know than what their masters and
stuff are worth to Spotify, so they thought, let's get
some public pressure on it. You know, she's done this
but in the past. But like the point that I'm
trying to make is that she's smart. She's trying to
do the things that she can to get an un
(20:52):
you know, she got a crazy deal that was you know,
unheard of kind of stuff that's like behind closed doors.
Only a few are us have ever got this, and
she was trying to take it one step further and
they said no, you know, and I get that, and
that's why she's you know, that's the thing. I'll have
to pray swift on this. She's a great you know, entertainer,
and she knows how to run her business. So like
(21:15):
this is the kind of know how to write a song.
This is the kind of stuff that you know, takes
you one step further. Is if you can push a
deal one step further, then they're comfortable with that's gonna
save you, you know, millions of dollars in the end,
you know, especially at this level. Immediately obviously, when you're
a little artist, you have to plan for those million
dollars if that happens. But she has the potential, you
(21:37):
know already if she puts out anything like Folklore where
it's just gonna go to the top. You know. I
think with this too, it's so weird because it's just
so it's it's it really started hitting people at like
a personal levels. And uh, I mean with the music industry,
with the entertainment industry in general, everybody is so open
to the public, you know, at all times, since I
(22:00):
it's hard to see what's business, what's a business strategy,
and what is just right like personal, you know, and
I get it, like I don't like. I don't like
when you know, people and artists, a bunch of artists,
you know, in a record label gets screwed and so
this guy up here can make a hundred you know,
two hundred thousand more dollars a year, you know, But
(22:20):
like I hate that, and I hate that a lot.
But at the same time, this is the kind of
stuff where it's like the amount of money that's difference
in these small things with her being that big. Is
the amount to staff a department, you know what I mean,
from like royalties and stuff like that, and you pay
those guys who are making thirty dollars a year. And
like we said before, this was a hit for Big Machine.
(22:42):
Like when she left, people were talking about is the
record gonna the record label gonna make it because she
was holding so much and all we could hope for
was that, you know, they had invested in the time
they had Taylor and other artists and growing them and
stuff that now it's you know, enough that it's not
going to be the worst hit in the world for them.
(23:03):
You know. Well, I will say now, I do think
generally in terms of who's the winner out of this,
I think Swift is the winner publicly, at least, I think.
I think the thing with it was is that if
you were in the industry, because most industry people I
talked to who know about this, We're like, no, she
got a great deal and she just walked away because
she doesn't come. Person you talked to is like, if
(23:26):
you're not a music industry person or like really versed
in this kind of stuff, it's really hard. I mean,
we had to go to a music industry website and
get all this information that's not regularly readily like in
the public eye. And then a lot of this too
is is some of its old news, like it it
would happened a year ago, you know, so it's just
popping back. We'll have to see what's going to happen
with their re records, because I'd be really interested to
(23:49):
see how she's going to market those and and kind
of you know, yeah, is she gonna stir the fire
with it? Or is she going to be like, guys,
here's a you know, new version of my song that
everybody liked. Or is she going to be like, you know, right, well,
you know, or is it going to be like we
beat the corporate machine, you know what I mean, like weah,
(24:12):
that's so bad? Al right, well we gotta okay. So
moving to another big machine literally is Spotify, and they're
big machine, got some new tools for artists and labels,
so you're basically they have a new tool and it's
a new data point which I'll get into that later.
And basically that data point is being able to be
(24:35):
controlled by rights holders of the music. So if you're
like an indie artist or you're a label that's actually
you know, has the rights of the music and you
control it. So this data point will create a new
signal within Spotify's personalized algorithm that will allow the rights
holders to prior to prioritize songs. So the data point
is one of thousands that already affect quote personalized listening
(24:56):
recommendations including listening history, songs added playlist, time of day, weather,
release dates, and songs from users with similar tastes, among
other elements. Although the new data point quote will be
way differently depending on the situation and the listener, but
it is not expected to have an outsized influence on
what gets recommended, So it's not gonna like beat all
(25:18):
the other data points out uh. And there's thousands of
these data points that they use, like you know what
other artists you listen to, all that kind of stuff,
So it's not like, oh, this is number four, No,
it's thousands of data points. Uh. Spotify product marketing lead
Charles and Lamb tells Billboard that quote. One thing that's
become a particular focus for us over the last couple
(25:39):
of years is building more tools for artists to grow
their audience build their career. And a lot of those
tools that we've built so far are really focused on
promoting new music, like playlists, submission, release radar, marquis. But
our team talks too artists all the time, and what
we've heard is they want more opportunities to connect with
the music beyond just release week and it's actually with
(26:00):
their catalog music. And we think that's right after testing
period which has been given to some insider artists and labels. UH.
This new tool that controls the data point will be
available to any rights holder, artists or label UH. And
there's also no budget or direct payment needed for this tool.
But there is a catch which I know as somebody
(26:20):
was waiting for the other shoe to fall on the line,
so as Billboard elaborates, instead, the rights holder will be
paid out a lower promotional royalty rate for any specific
listens from that program through the royalty rate for the songs.
I'm sorry, though the royalty rate for the songs will
remain the same if a listen comes from any other
(26:41):
place other than audio, auto play and radio. There are
also no guarantees of placements or plays for any artists
or label. If a prior to prioritized song is performing
well with listeners, it will continue to show up. If
it's not, it will be pulled back. After the company
runs tests and auto play and radio it will test
a tool out and other personalized areas of Spotify. So
(27:03):
Lamb finishes the article stating quote, it's really important to
us that we make this kind of tool accessible for
artists and at any stage in their career and artists
of any time. Uh. Lamb basically also adds that the
result would be a positive return on investment for rights holders,
although Spotify did not say how much lower the promotional
royalty rate will be. Quote, we were looking for the
(27:25):
model to be more accessible and democratic and fair. Music
recommendation shouldn't be about whether our algorithm thinks you want
to listen to it, Lamb says, quote, we think artists
can be a bigger part of these recommendations. So this
test allows artists and labels to identify music that's a
priority to them. So yeah, yeah, and so you have
the data point that you can control and say like, hey,
(27:49):
I released you know this album last year. I had thought,
you know, this is the anniversary. It was my biggest album.
I'm gonna push you know. Hey, it's been one year
since I released this, so let's make this my priority songs,
you know what I mean. So that's kind of the
idea of it, or if you just released and stuff
like that. I think the most potent thing in here
is the way that this Charlton Lamb from Spotify product
(28:10):
marketing team talks, and I think it's very important to
what this tool has uh kind of a market for
and why it's being created. Do you notice every time
he talks about artists to grow there are audiences, like
he always talks about the creator. I think part of
this is cool. This is an upper echelon thing to
get more music on Spotify. This is like a reason
(28:32):
why you know, you would choose to put your song
on Spotify rather than somewhere else. But I also think
it's part marketing tool to say, like, look, we're we've
created tools for artists and so you don't get lost
in the sea, you know what I mean, and you
make them and you can make some more you know,
promotional stuff like that. But at the same time, you
lose part of royalty rate when you do this promote
(28:55):
and I again, we don't know what that royalty rate
is yet, but you lose assumably like a percentage or
something like that of your royalty rate if it's played
in a promotional way, like it's shoved in front of somebody.
And I think personally that this is also going into
the market of they know how much you know, all
these people pay for the tastemakers on the platform, the
(29:17):
people who make playlists and stuff like that. So they're going, well,
why don't we get it cut of that? You know
what I mean, there's a market for pushing your songs,
so instead of you paying us, which would be very
you know, look terrible marketing wise and stuff like that, well,
does take part of the royalty, right, and then we'll
get our you know, part of the market share of
(29:38):
people who are willing to pay for their music to
get promoted in that way, Okay? Or do you think
that's going to kill kind of the good thing about
Spotify though, I mean there is like that does kind
of what I was scared about. Two because I like
the analytic like the analytical nature very social media, and
a lot of people enjoy that, especially like coming up
(30:00):
they're going to start doing the Spotify. It's a little
uncomfortable as a user to think, like, oh, Spotify is
going from an algorithm that knows what I like, knows
the music I like and everything, and now it's going
to force things in my face because people say and
they get a cut of it. Well, and that's the
thing I've always sought it out against as a music listener,
(30:22):
I've never wanted like, if you're promoting it, I'm not
gonna listen to it, you know, like that kind of attitude,
and I think a lot of people, a lot of
listeners have that. Maybe not the average listener, but as
someone who wants to discover more music and wants I
think it's definitely a mood that prevails the music industry
since literally like the fifties and sixties, where you like,
(30:44):
you want to find music organically, and you want to
find it because your friend was like, hey, this is cool,
you should listen to this. Do you think it's going
to be integrated organically to where you don't even know?
Is that kind of the thing. I note any playlist,
I have not seen anything that says like this is
labeled or something like this. Again, this is a data
(31:06):
point that affects personalized listening recommendations, listening history, songs added
a playlist, time of day, weather, release dates, and songs
from users with similar taste, among other elements. So like
anything recommended seems to be on the table. So like
if you have your daily mix, if you have your
you know, new music Friday kind of stuff, I think
it's it's up to play, you know what I mean,
(31:27):
maybe if people feel uncomfortable with this, they could do
that and go, this is a sponsored playlist. Like everybody
on here was like this is and I think that
would be fun to be like, oh, this is a playlist.
You know, let's talk. We have Thomas on last time.
We have a low fi hip hop playlist. Everybody on
this playlist said this was my best song, and I'm
(31:48):
putting it up there, So that's like fun, you know,
stuff is to be like this is what the guy
said was his best song, Like that's an interesting gimmick
rather than like the corporation wants you to listen to
the song it's you buy things, um. But at the
end of the day, it can be the corporational. You know,
I don't know what the extent of Like spot and
(32:11):
this is completely alleged, is like I don't know what
the extent of you know, labels and big powers are
now in Spotify, you know, is it too? Sorry, but
the royalty rate too. That's I feel like the most
interesting part in terms of I think it's a marketing
move on top of also a money move, because like
I think if they said, you know, you have to
(32:33):
do like a Facebook or an Instagram thing where you
have to pay five dollars to get your thing promoted.
People would riot, People would be like, you guys are
so anti artist. You guys like, you know, you don't
even give us money in the first place. How are
you going to make us pay five to ten dollars
to boost a song on a playoff? And I think
what you're saying about the concern about having you know,
(32:53):
too many hands in the pot that aren't just in
you know, and a not biased algorithm would go into
play like And so that's why I think they did
the royalty rate. It's because they went, we want to
get a cut because we developed this technology, this is
our algorithm and stuff like that. And there's a big
market of people obviously from all the you know, quote
unquote kind of payola that goes on in Spotify playlists
(33:16):
and you know, music streaming playlists in general. Uh, but
we don't want the ship storm that we would get
if we were getting you know, you have to pay
money to do this directly. I think it's kind of
like what we're talking about Taylor Swift, where it's a
little harder to understand for the public directly, you know,
and saying like your promotional royalty, right, and it only
(33:38):
applies to that. I mean, I had to read a
paragraph and so we all understood what it meant. That's
way harder to convene than Spotify is gonna charge us
five dollars to do this. You know that that's the difference,
I think, And so I think I think there's a
smart move. I don't know, if you know, if the
user base will be bothered by it. I mean I
(33:58):
feel like me and you could be like, you know,
will be conspiracy theorists and the own playlist will be like,
what's this really here because of this? Or is it
because of that? Damn dad? You know what I mean?
You just put the hat on, you know, and everything. Yeah,
I mean I might be just kind of projecting a
little bit of my own kind of I feel like
I think it's a general concern and like people who
(34:19):
are very I would say hyper users of streaming and
stuff like that. It's like the organic and non But
I think because everybody with you know, I really hope
and I feel like most people would hope that if
you looked at a chart or something that it was organic,
like this is just what people wanted to listen to, like,
and this just shows like, you know, there's kind of
(34:39):
like a um higher award to that, you know, being like, oh,
people actually just want to listen to my songs rather
than like, oh a merch bundle put our or our
merch bundle put our fucking song up nine things because
people thought our shirt was cool. So you know, it's
a big tool. It's gonna be interesting if anybody grab
(35:00):
onto it. I think there would have to be major
public like we're mad about this and we're organized together
to get rid of it. Well, as long as it's
not like because Spotify has ads already, like they already
have like pushed albums, like when you open the app,
that's like, oh hey, Phoebe Bridger's album is out today,
stream it or it has like you know, the banner.
(35:21):
That's what I was gonna say is it's not entirely
like a non biased tours. I mean, I think it
would be ignorant. And then this is alleged, but I
think it would be ignorant to say like that the
big three labels don't have more power to push things
at higher rates. I mean, you can even look at
Joe Blow and CD Baby, you know, even the way
they approve who gets video stuff and the people and
(35:44):
the people who work district and you know what distribution
is becoming most of these things. It's working with these
DSPs and being like, how can we get you know,
a Camelia Cabello album to be your banner ad on
when you open the Spotify app, you know what I mean?
And I've always wondered too. I don't think they've been
very public about who, like how much money that is
to have that happen, or if they only offer it
(36:07):
to certain artists. It is kind of like a beta thing.
I think they have ultimate control, but I think at
the same time they probably again alleged that they probably
think that, oh, you know, obviously, if we think this
organic artists will add you know, more clout, and people
will come to Spotify just to listen to them, will
probably push them. But it's washing hands, you know what
(36:30):
I mean, in the sense of like you're we're going
to send you five artists, you know, every two weeks
basically from one label, and versus Joe Blow, who's just
like I just put an album out every nine months
on CD Baby or something. So yeah, interesting world of streaming.
Let's get into even weirder stuff by mixing real life
(36:52):
the music industry. Colin, what day is it today? Uh,
it's elections the world Colin, that's what? Which? But which? Quickside? Note, Well,
I want I'll say this and say you don't have to.
We're not endorsing or supporting any candidate on this podcast,
but we have to talk about political issues because at
the end of day, business, especially in the music industry,
is political and political leanings definitely affects sales and you
(37:16):
know who gets targeted and stuff like that. Which quick segment,
I hope you voted. If you didn't vote, feel shame.
There's another time that's gonna come up, so be ready
and vote. If you didn't, it's too late for us
to go go vote. But if you didn't, feel shame.
I like how you said, feel shame, feel shame. I
think that might be a good march item Colin. Um.
(37:36):
But yeah, So there's an interesting article on Billboard. Uh,
and it's about music execs and employees aren't donating to
the same political candidates. So who could have guessed? Yeah,
I mean it's crazy, right, Um, So Billboard has reported
a sharp difference in political support and donations of music
executives and their employees and our quote further apart politically
(37:59):
than they have ever been in the past. And they
have so examples that Billboard gives out. Um, let's let's
just kind of go through them. So Madison Square Garden.
So Madison Square Garden is owned by James Dolan, and
he donated seven dty five thousand dollars seven thousand of
it in two and to campaign committees. He is able
(38:22):
to do this apparently due to a Supreme Court ruling
mckatcheon versus FC f ec Um, which removed caps on
how much wealthy individuals could give direct joint fund two
joint fundraising committee, so direct like the committee. Now, if
you if you try to donate to a candidate to
(38:45):
their website or something, there's actually so many laws put
into place in terms of like how much you can
donate as like a single person. Um, so that you know,
some person doesn't just come and like wipe the floor
like a Bill Gates comes and just like yeah, you
know gets it. But a lot of people get around
by using super PACs and in committees like this to
do that so just for warning there, so the employees
(39:08):
of Madison Square Garden overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates totally twenty
seven thousand dollars to Democrats for an average donation of
twenty seven dollars each. So they were obviously making smaller donations.
Um So Liberty Media, who owned serious x M, Pandora
and a thirty five percent stake in Live Nation. So
(39:29):
company employees in gave two hundred ninety thousand dollars to
Democrats and ninety two thousand two Republicans, a two to
one margin. That is a huge margin. Uh. So company
employees in two thousand sixteen. Uh just so that we compare,
Democrats only received a hundred and thirty four thousand dollars
(39:49):
while three d eighty five thousand was spent on Republican candidates.
So there was a Yeah, there was a huge shift
there in the past four years. So candidates who were
even the most money. Uh. The candidate who received the
most money in was John hick Looper, former Democratic governor
of Colorado, who received ninety four thousand, eight hundred fourteen
(40:12):
dollars and Greg Mafi, the chief executive of Liberty Media,
supported hicken Looper. Uh. In a different race and donated
a hundred thousand two Shared Purpose, which is a superpack
that supported his failed bid for Democratic nomination for presidential campaign. However,
(40:33):
he also spent a total of seventy three thousand trying
to keep the Senate in Republican control, which kind of
counter dicks a little bit of his spending. As we've
seen so employees who donated exclusively to Hick and Looper's
campaign to unseat Republican Senator Corey Gardner, who received eleven thousand,
two hundred from Mafi. As so the employees only gave
(40:57):
money to Hick and Looper's campaign is basically most most
of them went to Hick and Lufer. And what's I
mean what's interesting is uh Mafi like apparently has been
donating both sides all over them. I got a theory
about that, but keep going, yeah, okay, so this isn't
this isn't the only He's not the only person doing this,
(41:17):
apparently doing it. So Billboard went on to say that
in addition to supporting different candidates, Liberty employees and their
bosses also use different methods of giving Mafi and Malone
pump hundreds of thousands into Republican uh cofers thank you
UH through loosely regulated political committees and super PACs, while
(41:39):
nearly all employee donations are made directly to the campaigns
of Democrats, usually in the form of small donations. Methods
of giving to each candidate also differ differs within the
company MAFI and alone pump hundreds of thousands. I feel
like I've already said that, so I guess get the YEA.
Let's so. Direct donations are also much more heavily regulated
(42:01):
and capped at five thousand, six hundred per candidate, half
being in the primary, another half in the general election.
So very difference in opinions. Apparently within the company so
a G, owned and operated by Phil Antwitz, who didn't
support Trump but spent one point three million dollars supporting
the re election of Senate Senate Republicans J Marciano. UH Marcanio,
(42:27):
who is the company's chairman and chief executive, gave more
than twenty seven thousand to Democratic causes, including the Biden campaign,
So he's he lower on the totem poll in in
comparison to Phil so employees of A G made over
one thousand, seven hundred donations totaling over k two Democrats,
(42:48):
which was a six percent increase from the Lacks election
election cycle. SO a high ranking a G executive stated,
I don't love that Phil supports all these right wing causes,
but his political beliefs are so are detached from the
work we do in our company values. He also noted
that despite being very conservative and it's support supported LGBT
(43:09):
causes and has given millions to groups some describes as
being left of center. So another person who was kind
of donating to both sides, it seems so. Other political
contributions made by the music industry billionaires don't neatly fit
into any one category, and include donations given in January
to support Trump's inauguration. According to Billboard, SO records from
(43:32):
Open Secrets show that Warner Music Group owner Lynn Bullock
TV sorry gave Trump's inauguration committee one million dollars through
his company Access Industries, as did Madison Square Garden, Los
ang Angeles Rams owner Stan Krichney, who built the five
(43:55):
billion dollars so FI Stadium next to the Forum in Inglewood, California,
also gave the committee one million dollars. Both Malone and
Mafi from Liberty Media gave the committee two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars each, and Sheldon Edelson of Las Vegas
Sands Corporation, which owns the Vietnan Hotel and Las Vegas
(44:16):
Review Journal, gave the inaugural committee the largest individual donation
of five million dollars'na have just sorry, it's Venetian. Just
thank you for for I didn't want to there was
a name. My mom is gonna hate me. So there's
there's a couple of things we need to discuss here first.
(44:39):
So a lot of the first thing is that there's
definitely a huge difference in terms of who the employees
are supporting and who the owners are supporting UM and
a lot of that can impact who would want to
work for some of these companies, how these companies are operated,
what are they Why are they giving this money out?
One of the many reason is how much support they
(45:01):
could get tax wise from having Republican candidates. And I
would also argue the lacks of daisical nature towards the
tax brackets. Yes, whereas the employees probably will not get
much leeway there in terms of bill. So it's it's
interesting to see how much of a disconnect there is there.
(45:24):
And I also wonder too, how much of this is
socially based. I was going to sell how much of
it is is a business base because to be honest,
a lot of these people are probably in organizations. They
mingle with a lot of other similar people of their stature, um,
and a lot of them support the same candidates because
to fit into the boys club, you got support. Was
(45:46):
also going to say that I feel like, you know,
other if we think there's two ways of looking at this,
there's the business side of it, which is like, directly
my business, you know, how has it affected how does
this affect my daily life in terms of income? And
then there's the other side, which is, you know, the
social aspect to it. I feel like, you know, there's
a chance that, you know, some of these people are
like I, you know, I believe in, you know, maybe
(46:10):
some more controversial opinions about social standards and stuff like that.
So that's why I'm donating to it. I just personally
believe it. Guarantee you there's got to be at least
one or two in here that that's the reason why,
you know what I mean. So that's fine, But like,
at the same time, it's just like economically, I feel
like if you were, you know, in one of these
higher positions that it would be advantageous for you if
(46:33):
you really did not give about care about the social
aspects of it, or we're in favor also with it
to probably go towards the Republican side just because of
the tax bracket breaks, the you know, small you know,
the business loans and stuff like that that are usually
more into you know, beneficiary to the actual businesses rather
than the people working in them, and more of the
(46:56):
reliance and the Republican Party on a trickle down economic model,
and so I feel like we can which we can argue,
but like that's I think that's the economic reason why
some of these very you know, wealthy people are voting
for it, other than if they you know, super believe
in one social side of the Republican ticket. Um. Then
(47:16):
on the you know, if we go to the employees,
it's kind of the opposite where it's like this, you
know generally, I feel like the Democrats you know, have
a thing where if you're an employee and you're not
making you know, close to what these guys are making
all the way at the top, then you probably want
to vote Democrat because you're you're gonna have more of
a you know, progressive tax system, and you're gonna have
(47:36):
you know, less taxes towards you generically, and then you're
also again split that in half. They could have their
own social things that they view, you know, when it
comes to that, on the social side of the Democratic ticket,
but on the monetary side, it also benefits the employees
to vote more of that way. Now, if if you
want my personal experience, it's the more you get to
(47:58):
the business side, and this kind of shows the more
you get more to the right side in terms of
like higher training, and you know, there are more rarities
to be towards the left, and it's very much about
the economic side again outliers with the social side. But yeah,
I mean, I I'm not surprised. I definitely think that
(48:19):
you know, we're we're not immune. I know this is
kind of you know, this is awkward stuff. I mean,
we talked little ship on this podcast, but like this
is very awkward stuff to talk about. But this is
important because this is the kind of stuff that like
companies can get rallied over, you know what I mean,
people go, we're not gonna buy any products from these
people because you know, this guy donated this money to
(48:41):
this person or you know, stuff like that. So that's
why it's important on the business side to other than
the taxes and stuff like that. Yeah, and uh, I'd
like to reiterate like that we said before. You know,
although it's the music business, sometimes people have this you know,
you see the billboards, you see the showcases of it.
Sometimes you don't know that although it may have a
(49:03):
very blue front, it sometimes says red backing in terms
of you know, I would argue if you if you
you know, the thing is is that at the same time,
I feel like it's a generality and it's kind of
true to a level. It's not a complete truth that
if the higher you get up in like bigger business
and stuff like that, you'll see more of that right
leaning kind of stuff because of the economic principles of it. Now,
(49:26):
the music industry, you know, cool as the you know,
the hipper people in it that you know people were
on the top of it, you know audience. You feel
like it would just automatically be like, you know, if
you didn't know that much about you know, how much
business structure is really in the music industry would be like, oh,
they're all probably towards the left, you know, because you know,
(49:47):
we all, you know, everybody in there is like usually
like cool people are really progressive, and that's it's not
the case. I I would argue, yeah, it's not the case.
I mean being as a person that's and me and
Joe have done that. Being people have worked primarily in
the southern music market, it's definitely not the case. Being
people who've worked with country music, definitely not the case.
(50:10):
Uh So, like that's kind of the thing. Uh And
so you know, you're gonna have to make your personal
decisions at home if this bothers you enough that you know,
if you wanted to support this company or you didn't
want to support this company. But at the same time,
if you're you know, thinking about it doesn't matter to me,
you also have to think this could matter to somebody,
and it takes sometimes enough people together to rally against
(50:34):
the company that that could really hurt pr wise and
straight up monetarily. You know, we're in the you know
age of social media where we can get all together
and stuff, and it's so easy to go this guy,
I did this thing, donate all this money to this candidate.
I don't like we should all boycott him, we should
boycott the whole company, you know what I mean. And
so like that's a thing that can happen, and so
(50:57):
like even if it doesn't bother you, I think it's
important as a listen or to think that in your
mind is like, this is a real deal that could happen.
At the same time, though, like I'm not ignorant about it.
You know, most of the you know, higher people up
there are Republican, Like if you're you know, it depends
on your brand that they represent, like you know, if
if you're like to uh at another case, a lot
(51:19):
of these owners and stuff are very hands off in
terms of the business. So but even then they're like
argument there and but they're still reaping the benefits, right
and so like even that, like again you have to
talk about branding too. It's like, you know, let's talk
about the country model. I mean, like, if you know,
we're in a mostly country label and it was like, oh,
the top guy donated more to write candidates or something.
(51:41):
Their fan base is mostly country listeners, and a lot
of country listeners, not all of them, So hold out
if you're gonna get mad at me. Are towards the
right side compared to a lot of the music industry.
So that's not a fan base that knows them enough
that would get super mad and and everything about it,
you know what I mean. So yeah, it's it's important
to know, but you know, you've got to think it's
(52:03):
definitely a thing that's seen in most business, and the
music industry is not immune, you know. Absolutely. We'll calling
what's YouTube doing right now? Okay, YouTube's doing some crazy
ship because it seemed kind of bleak at one point
when the coronavirus first started. So YouTube generated this quarter
five billion dollars and AD revenue in a single quarter,
(52:25):
and YouTube Music has now has over thirty million subscribers. Uh,
so let's talk about YouTube Music first. YouTube Music has
been a platform for five years and has only been
a standalone service for two YouTube Music was also only
at fifteen million subscribers, including the free ones in May
of twenty nineteen. So Alphabet, Google's parent company of You
(52:48):
Don't Know, announced on October twenty nine that YouTube Music
had passed thirty million paid subscribers and another five million
on free trials, which again together they were only a
fifteen minute or fifty million a year you know from then.
So uh, basically there's two models for YouTube Music if
you guys don't know, just for clarity, There's a subscriber
(53:10):
to the app itself, which is just a standard per
month in the United States, and then there's also eleven
nine per month subscription to YouTube Premium, which bundles an
access to paid for YouTube music. Uh. For sake of
just being transparent, I use YouTube Music, and I've I
have to argue that the eleven per model one is
(53:31):
very enticing for that because you get no ads on
YouTube and you get that non endorsement. But a very
smart business move on YouTube's part um. Again to recap,
YouTube Music had amassed only only only million subscribers and
nine months between January and September, what amount um to
(53:53):
compare to Spotify because Spotify is the big dog and
you know, sets the standard for everything. Spotify is added
in twenty million subscribers for a total of hundred forty
four million in the same time period, so they still
got ways to go to even be in the top three.
So switching over to YouTube itself, so like, actually, you know,
the videos on YouTube YouTube made five billion dollars in
(54:15):
AD revenue in quarter three, which I said, and this
was a huge increase from three point eight billion made
in quarter to AD revenues. And this was kind of
based on you know, was everyone was kind of scared
because the pandemic was thought to hurt YouTube AD revenue,
as that three point eight billion in quarter two was
only up two hundred million from quarter to of so
(54:37):
people were really worried. And clearly because everyone's inside, we're
seeing some more ads. Uh So, if quarter four makes
five billion dollars an add revenue, YouTube will make eighteen
billion dollars in AD revenue, for which is insane for
the music industry. The real question is is what cut
(54:58):
of this AD revenue of the music industry received. So
analytics firm PEX recently released a report suggesting that music
became quote more valuable on YouTube in y eighteen. Pex's
data shows that despite making up just five percent of
the content on the platform, music videos accounted for two
(55:20):
percent of all YouTube views last year, a two percent
increase on twenty eighteen. In addition, PEX noted that music
videos were responsible for eighty three of eight percent of
the videos, exceeding one billion views on YouTube last year. Yeah,
I mean, especially with K pop groups, And I mean
how many times have we got on here and been like,
(55:42):
you know, BTS has broken a record at YouTube, you
know what I mean? Like there's a that's the real
question here is kind of like, well, this add revenue
trickle into the music industry in an amount that seems
fair because clearly we're pulling some weight. I'd like to say,
I hope so. But to be honest, even at the
(56:03):
highest level, a lot of times music gets shafted in
a lot of ways, especially with receiving money. Um so
we'll see I would not be surprised if it's less
money and more of Hey, big three, you want some
more promotional ads for a discounted fights, you know what
(56:23):
I mean? Because here's the thing we always talk about Spotify,
Apple Music, you know, Amazon Music and stuff like that,
and those are big deals in the paid service, But
the number one place to watch music and if all
viewers is YouTube. And that's kind of why is not
the place anymore? It's used to YouTube and you YouTube
(56:44):
has been it. And the problem with YouTube for a
lot of people in the music industries. It's free. You
can listen to any song on there for free, you
know what I mean. And so like, even when we
had the CD crisis of the early two thousands and
stuff like that, where people didn't want to buy CDs
because you know, you could at it on Napster. We
all thought, oh, we'll just go to streaming and then
(57:04):
you can pay ten dollars a month. Then there's YouTube,
which is free, and you know what I mean, And like,
the thing with it is, it's not the thing with
YouTube is it's not restricted other than ads. So like
on Spotify, if you don't have you know, premium, it's
hard to pick individual songs for instance, and a lot
(57:25):
of those you know things, they try to make it
even one step further than YouTube, and so you want
to pay for the service. But YouTube has always been
the thorn and a lot of rights holder sides when
it comes to that, because it's like a double edged sword.
It's like you get so much promotion because everybody can
watch it free, but you're not going to get paid
like in a regular amount, you know what I mean.
(57:46):
And that's on every level of creator on YouTube right essentially,
and so like that's kind of the thing with it.
It's just like, oh, it's on every level of like creator,
but like specifically the music industry, we're used to these
payout models where at least we have a what's kind
of known as a I gotta remember the term, it's
a subscriber minimum fee basically, so like and not getting
(58:09):
into completely streaming calculations, but basically there's a baseline based
on the number of paying subscribers. These uh companies have
to pay record labels usually that's written in their agreements.
And YouTube no, there's no there's no premium other than
the premium side, which I just talked about earlier, which
is making really big strides, and I really think it's
because of that. I like, I don't see people buying
(58:32):
individual YouTube I see people buying premium and then having
YouTube music as an additional desk, which it's a great model.
And you you you being a user, I've actually got
to see, like the way it's laid out, it's looks
exactly like Spotify, but they're doing everything that the industry
leaders doing. It's Spotify, you know what I mean. So
like it's smart, but like the difference between this and Spotify, uh, well,
(58:55):
not the difference because Spotify kind of has that Hulu
deal is it's a very attractive price for not having
ads on YouTube and also having a subscription service. That's
the reason I don't have another subscription service. Is the
YouTube music Does it also integrate video? Yes, to an extent.
(59:16):
I think it's annoying, but that's just me. It's like
you can actually do in the app, and I turned
it off, but if you're really into it, you can
do songs by video and so like there's literally a
widget at the top that's a song or video and
you can click to one side or the other and
in the box, you know, usually you have your little
play wheel and your volume thing in that box that
(59:37):
shows the album work, it plays the music video. So like,
I guess if you were on a Binge spreen you
want to watch video music videos like all to row,
you could do that. You could do that, you know,
but like, I don't know how incentivizing for me personally.
It's nothing like I'll go And the other thing is
I'd rather watch it on the site. It's just like
I just why better? You know you're right exactly. So
(01:00:00):
another question, um, so where are the files on? Are
they on YouTube? And then YouTube music is just from YouTube,
like we talked about before his well Alphabet, Google's parent company,
was like, we're getting rid of the Google Play, which
is the bin of my existence because I love Google Play.
But I think you're the only person I know who's
(01:00:20):
no I know people who are on Google Play. It's
a very attractive Android option, but I'm probably one of
the few people that uses it on an iPhone. But
like the thing with it is like they had all
those rights there and they basically migrated, they forced that's well,
that's where they're from. I think they're probably on like
some different proposition. I was wondering if it was going
(01:00:41):
to be like MP three diar. It's not like when
you and that's a branding problem with YouTube, like when
you look up a song, it will give you the
actual master file as opposed to like that shitty music
video lyric screen. You can get to that in there,
but there's no blue screen. I guess that is a
(01:01:01):
bonus of YouTube music is that if they don't have it,
it looks in YouTube afterwards. So like let's say they
don't have the rights to a particular song, that's fine,
but if they didn't upload it to you know YouTube music,
it's on YouTube, and so you can look through YouTube
and listen to the YouTube file like on your app. Also,
(01:01:23):
the other thing I want to add about it is
that um oh man, I just had it. Like basically,
YouTube music does very well at integrating actual YouTube videos
with it that you may want to watch, because there
is some content and songs that only exist on YouTube
that don't exist on regular streaming things. So if you
(01:01:45):
had a song like and we're talking about mainly like
live versions is a great example. But like, okay, let's
talk about I talked about wolf Peck the other day
or like two episodes ago. Is like wolf Peck has
a lot of like only stuff that's on YouTube because
they such a YouTube presence. So if I want to
listen to that in a playlist and not have to go, okay,
pause Spotify, let's go to the YouTube app. I want
(01:02:07):
to listen to this song, I can integrate those YouTube
only things into a playlist, which is like a cool
feature of it. Again, it's kind of limited because we've
grown past the part where it's like this is only
a YouTube song because everybody will now because of the
ease of use of putting it on another streaming stuff.
It's like, okay, here we go. It's on Spotify, it's
on this so yeah, but so YouTube music, I'm not
(01:02:29):
a laughing Apparently there's twenty nine point, you know, other
thousand people paying for it. So I'm not alone. So
you are not. I'm alone calling to Michael Jackson starts soon.
So moving on will save life, save the stages. So
this is an article from the New York New York
(01:02:50):
Times and poll Star. Many independent vinues across the United
States are hurting while the coronavirus pandemic has cut profits
down to almost nothing, and planning for in person events
seems unobtainable, even with the prospect of drive ins or
social distance events. You know, it's very light stuff we're
talking about here. However, many organizations have popped up in
(01:03:11):
order to rectify the situation and have sought out political
and monetary support in order to sustain independent venues around
the country. So calling back to political support, I mean,
it's another thing that's very important, especially in situations like now.
So the one that you have probably heard of the
most is in i v A, the National Independent Venue Association,
(01:03:34):
which has put on virtual performances to raise money, as
well as calling on political representatives to funnel funding too
independence around the country. Another organization is coming to town, however,
and the man heading it is Lollapalooza creator and former
w m E giant Mark Geiger, who announced his newest endeavor,
save Live. According to The New York Times, Save Life
(01:03:56):
has already received seventy five million dollars and that the
company's plan is to invest in dozens of clubs around
the country and buy at least percent of the equity
in the businesses to help them expand once concerts return
at full steam, which is not expected to happen until
two or later. However, not everyone is on board with
(01:04:19):
this method, and, according to Frank Riley of High Road Touring,
might not be the independent enough. Riley stated, Geiger's solution
on some level scares me. He's going to buy distressed
properties for money on the dollar and end up owning
owning of their business. Is that independent? I don't know.
But it does save the platforms on which things grow
(01:04:42):
and where artists are sustained. Geiger and John Fogelman, a
co find co founders, say that the venue deals will
be partnerships and that despite the controlling majority shares, they
would not seek to flip assets. The Times went on
to state that quote, even with clubs now dark, Save
Life projects that it will be profitable within four years.
(01:05:05):
To a degree, indie venues vulnerability is rooted in their
very independence. Most operate on thin margins and have limited
financial resources. As Save Life partners, Geiger said they would
gain economics of scale as well as access to favorable
deals for ticketing or sponsorship, suggesting that Save Live would
(01:05:25):
to some degree resemble a mom and pop version of
Live Nation or a e g. The giant companies that
now dominate the touring business. Geiger, like many industry experts,
are very adamant that the touring industry will be very
lucrative once it comes back, and that artists will want
to tour more than ever in order to get more
cash inflow. So there's a lot of things to unpack there.
(01:05:51):
First off, this man has figured out how to be
a savior model literally in PR and basically just have
a way of buying out venues. That's that's what this is.
I am agreeing. He has figured out so the best
PR I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, Like, but
in the article too. I mean, it even kind of
(01:06:13):
implies that he's kind of he's very much higher level executive,
that's like very wealthy. He's he's made tons of money
from big companies, So how is he going to know
what true India is? You know in that regard. And also,
you know, you're buying of the company's steak. It's a
(01:06:33):
majority it's a majority steak. And he even said, oh, well,
it doesn't really matter. Yeah it does. It's gonna matter
the day where he doesn't really matter. Okay, take forty nine.
Then you know, like he I want to I don't
want to say. He didn't say it doesn't matter. He
just stated, like, oh, it's more of a partnership. Well,
everything is a partnership, right, It's not a partnership. You're
(01:06:56):
the business. You're gonna own it. Yeah, you have controlling
assets of the business. Okay. So here's my opinion about it.
I think this man has wonderful figured out how to
do some great pr for basically trying to buy out things.
And at a level of it, I agree that it's
a nice thing to do because there's not anybody else
who's trying to buy these necessarily, you know, some of
(01:07:17):
these venues might not have buyers, if that makes sense.
I mean, maybe the larger ones. But like in the
independent scheme, you know, like not every venue is going
to survive this and have a buyer that will continue
on its legacy. And that can be important in individual communities,
especially when you don't have a lot of venues in
some place, you know what I mean. So like having
(01:07:37):
it exists is nice, and not having a go down
is better. But at the same time, this man is
buying fifty one of the company. He owns the company.
He can do controlling assets in the company. That's what
he's doing. He is, and I can't look I I
can't say what it is, but it would be very
easy for him because he has of the company. If
(01:08:00):
let's buy these venues where they're down and out, like
that guy said, let's buy them for a cheaper price
than they were valued. Eventually music will come back and
then we can sell them for a way higher price.
And that's what it is, you know, And so like
I just I just think the thing is that he's
made wonderful pr and to an extent, it is a
nice gesture, you know, if he's buying things that you know,
(01:08:22):
maybe would just die in a community, would lose an
important part of it's you know culture, you know, cultural
centers and stuff, because it would just be abandoned, you know,
or something like that. But at the same time, it's
like he he has so much conflict of interest from
this idea of him being like a saint or this
organization being a saint, not specifically guy well, and I
(01:08:44):
think it creates unnecessary competition with U in I v A.
You know, you do lose so much power because they're
not independent anymore. They're owned by all the same guy.
And if he so, if he bought a bunch of
businesses in the got he was like, Nope, we're not
doing this ship he can do that. I don't know.
This is for profit. It's not a nonprofit. It's it
(01:09:07):
guys is under a nonprofit. But it's it's definitely a
for profit model. And uh, it just seems it to me.
It just seem a little a little little weird. Yeah,
I I just think I just think my thing with
it is like there's no um I mean, do I
(01:09:29):
think that business wise, is this a good business move? Probably? Yeah,
if you're a business, Like if I was you know,
like what's sorking about from both sides. If I was,
you know, someplace out there in the middle. Let's say
like we're in random, Like we're in a random we're
in Wisconsin somewhere, and we're an independent venue and medium
sized acts come through and it's not looking good. We're
(01:09:49):
running out of money, you know, all this stuff like that.
You know, it might be nice to one continue the venue,
have your employees paid for, and not have that stress
on your life anymore because you have of it. But
like that, you know, you're still you're still making money
and you're allowed to keep going. That's nice. And again
I talked about the cultural thing. That's a really nice
(01:10:11):
thing to have that have that weight taken off of you.
I just think that it's definitely in a level predatory
to be like, oh, I'm just here trying to help,
that's it, instead of being like I'm gonna your business.
I'm gonna we're gonna be business partners. You know, he
does say partnership, but like, I don't like you know
(01:10:33):
the thing. I don't like the branding. I don't like
that it's save Live. That's the part of it that
gives me a bad thing if it was you know,
the Geiger Company, and he was like, hey, you know
I want you know, I believe in this venue. I
want to buy one of it. Here's some money I
raised from a bunch of investors. That's fine, but since
it literally has the word saving it, it really puts
(01:10:54):
a bad taste. It literally like when I first read it,
I was like, this is a nonprofit, you know, but
it doesn't sound like a non profit. And then I
had to go back and be like, wait, no, there's
no way it's it can be because he's talking about
being partners with these venues for later down the road.
So like, I don't know, it's it's very It's just
(01:11:15):
like I get it if I'm in the position of
the venue owner and like, this is the difference between
you know, twenty people having a job at the end
of the day, me being able to pay my bills,
and a cultural center of the community going down. I
might have to take this. I'm not going to be
very happy, but well, and then you could always start
another venue elsewhere to that might be depending on if
(01:11:38):
you have a noncompete. The branding just bothers me. That's
the thing that bothers me. The most about this is
the way it's branded and stuff like that, and like
look this, like there's that whole thing. What's his name,
Warren Buffett bought all those paper companies, like for no reason.
I don't know if you know this. He bought a
(01:11:59):
bunch of news I didn't know. You're going to drop
a Warren Buffett reference right now, But it's kind of
what it's like, he this guy has raised enough money
and he's a venture capitalist in a way, and he's
going into these venues and going will you give? Like
and like there''s essentially the one buying people out of right.
And obviously he's probably some part you know, maybe the
head of the Save Live organization, and that could change,
(01:12:21):
you know, leadership. But what I'm saying about it is
kind of akin to that is unlike you know, Warren
Buffett being like, I want to buy out all these
news things because I feel like it's a good investment
for me or I can do something for it in
the future. It would be like Warren Buffett being like,
I'm trying to save print. I'm trying to save the
print medium from going out. That's why you should buy
(01:12:43):
with me because I'm really a savior in this. That's
what I don't like about this at all. It's a
little look like, I get it. It's a little weird.
It's like I said, it would be a nice change
if I'm a person that wants to, you know, still
get my share of the profits, have all my employees
go and not lose a pillar of a community somewhere.
(01:13:03):
But at the same time, it's very like, oh man,
it would It's like the bad part of a movie
where like the guy has to sell his like house
or something, you know, the same like it's like where
the what's the stereotypical one where it's like the farm
has to be bought out by corporate America. You know.
That's like what it's like for me to read that.
Um so yeah, alright, well gla in my brain. That's
(01:13:27):
how it's like. Joe, let's talk about some music we
listened to. All right, My favorite part saga might a
little tirade real quick. I've been by the way, uh like,
so I've been listening to this girl her name is.
It's a CD. Joe gave it to me when he
used to work at w MTS radio in Murphysboro and
(01:13:48):
he brought home when we lived together as roommates, he
brought home a basket of CDs and I looked through
them because I'm that kind of person, and uh, there's
this girl and her name was a girl named Tu
and I can't find anything else this girl has made
past this album that I found, and it's called it's
called Wait by the Rabbit Hole, and I still have
the CD of it in that closet and basically it's
(01:14:11):
so I really like it. It's very like vibing sixties
and kind of like I don't know, like Sassy too.
I think it's one of those artists. And she does
an album before that I was too that I really
like too, but like it seems like she either got
out of the industry or something or did something like that.
I can't find any other information other than a band
(01:14:32):
camp page, which this is her latest album from eight
nine no eight years ago. So like, I wish I
hope she would keep doing music, because I felt like
when I was listening to it, I was like, God,
this girl is like one album away from having that
record that just goes and I feel like she was
a little before her time and it was like before
american I really became Americana and actually had the branding
(01:14:53):
to support it. She could have just gone in that
realm and been completely fine. It's called a girl named
t Rap Down the rabbit Hole, I think is what
it's called. To listen to that, because wait by the
rabbit Holes, by the room cool. I've been listening to
that new Guerrillas, which I never thought i'd say ever.
I love Gorillas, but I I just think it's crazy
(01:15:15):
that they're back, you know. Uh. That project is is
just something wonderful, especially the Beck song on there. I
think that's the best song so far, The Valley of
the Pagans. That's a good, good song man. Another artist
is actually I guess he was local. He's not local anymore.
He went back to Texas. But Nico crow Um with
(01:15:37):
his song Kill Great. I think it's his best song. Yeah,
I think it's his best song. I can't wait to
hear more stuff from him. Uh, and I think he's
gonna blow up to be honest with you, um and
what else have we been listening to? Another artist similar
vibes named Choker uh and also Busta Rhymes is new
(01:15:59):
single look Over Your shoulder with Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. Yeah,
so I've just been digging it. I'm surprised you're saying that,
but yeah, I don't know. I've just been digging that song. Man.
Uh and Freddy Gibbs, Freddy, you will not let that go.
I love Freddy Gibs. Hey, don't dis Freddy good. It's
not bad. It's just every day of our live now,
(01:16:22):
it's good. It's good. I oh man. But yeah, that
Show Bizz Baby. Thank you for listening to that Show
Bizz Baby podcast. You're all things music, business and media
podcast and the return of the Boys only episodes. Don't
worry though, We've got many guests schedule in the future,
so if you're missing for that looking for that, it's
gonna happen. If you want to hear about announcements of that,
(01:16:44):
we've got Twitter at show Bizz Baby Pod, Facebook and
Instagram that Show Bizz Baby podcast, and email about Show
Bizz Baby podcasts at gmail dot com with topping suggestions
and anything you want to say. Again, just say hi, Yeah,
we're working real hard on that. You should be able
to get a deep dive this month. It's some more
guests episodes of being to look out for that, and
we really appreciate everything you do. If you want to
give us a review, if you can give us a like,
(01:17:05):
give us a share, we appreciate it. Thank you so much,
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