#60- Adele ‘30’ Changes Spotify, Astroworld Updates, and Q3 Music Industry Recap

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Del thirty Changes Spot, far Astro World Updates and Q
three Music Industry Recap. You're listening to the biz Tape.

(00:23):
Welcome to the episode sixty of the biz Tape You're
all Things Music, Business and Media podcast. I'm your host
Joe with my lovely co host, how the Turntables? No,
I mean well that, Yeah, it has been wild since
you've introdud Yeah, I haven't don't know that it's introdude. Yeah,

(00:44):
thank you intro dude. Anyway, let's talk about socials if
you can pause on the socials all over at the
biz Tape and email busin Tap podcast at email dot com.
Fast Fast Fast. There's a lot of ship going on. Uh.
Turns out that retail is very important. So everyone and
their mother is releasing their album right now, and it's

(01:06):
really insane because the stories they're just there's so much.
I'm sure somebody's gonna be like, going and we talk
about this. I'm gonna try my best, but we got
pretty big picture stuff and things that people were talking
to me about and was like, hey, you're gonna talk
about this. Yeah, And people don't really know like a
lot a lot of like everyday people don't know why
so many music release has happened before Christmas. But it's because,
like you know, in actuality, you're just streaming all the time.

(01:29):
You think like it doesn't matter when you drop a record,
but what it does is aligns you up for your
tour for the spring, for the spring, and it also
um allows you to get a lot of like bump
in sales because like even big artists, like you know,
they're not taking in a bunch of like iTunes like
buys or whatever, but they're still getting enough to supplements

(01:52):
the amount coin. That's that's also huge. And then obviously
we're gonna talk about the elephant in the room is
merchandise for Christmas. You know, if you're a big fan
of something, maybe your sibling or parent or friend would
buy you the merch for it. So that's a great
time love some adel merch Yeah right now. And we're
gonna talk about her in a second. But then the
other thing I was gonna say, it's specifically with the
Dell is a great example is Vinyl. Vinyl is huge

(02:13):
during a retail Christmas, retail Black Friday, all that kind
of stuff. Yeah, Vinyl seems to still keep like steadily
growing a little bit. It has been, it's been on
the track for it. So let's talk about a vinyl queen, Adele,
who has been literally hidden pressing so many records, Which
is so funny because all these indie artists have been like, hey,

(02:35):
we can't get anybody to press our vinyls because there's
like a shortage of vinyl and like, and it's a
very big deal with all this the buzz where the
supply chain issues, uh, with all that, then like they
can't do it, but Adele had literally there's videos I
saw on TikTok of like Adele's newest album where they're
the whole store is just Adell's vinyl because they have

(02:55):
that many because she pressed so many of them. But
let's get into the real meat that you probably saw. Obviously,
Adella's huge right now. She came out with her long
awaited album thirty Um, which is doing extremely well. But
the thing that I saw that a lot of people
were talking about, other than the album itself, was the
change that Spotify did, allegedly, according to Like, because of

(03:19):
Adele reaching out and saying, hey do this. So what
she did was is she requested Spotify to not have
the service by default shuffle the tracks on her album.
So I didn't know this because I've never really been
a Spotify Premium user. But apparently if you, if you're
not like me, when viewing an album on Spotify, you'd

(03:41):
see a small shuffle icon with the larger play button,
and this indicates that Spotify would begin playing the album
songs in a random order, which personally would drive me
the funk up the wall. I didn't know that was
a thing. I always hated it. I always I didn't
ever thought it made sense because like, if you're going
directly to a record, it seems like you're making the

(04:02):
effort that you're making the effort to do it. And
then if you were to just want to play one
song and go and hit shuffle, then you can just
do that when a queue's up on your on your
player instead of like hitting the shuffle button at the top.
But I think it's it's just always been there because
at the beginning of you know, Spotify is kind of
like Inception when everyone was like the album is dead

(04:23):
as not not necessarily, it's more just like the UI
of Spotify because like a lot of people are still
using the free version and the free version you just shuffle.
You don't get to like because it's a paid feature.
It's a paid feature. Yeah, so, and I think they
just never switched that over. But then it must have

(04:43):
been like, you know, we we get these people on freemium,
they get interested in Spotify because it's free, and then
it's like, well, we want them to have the same experience,
but more so it maybe it would be weird to
take away. But anyway, the point is is that Spotify
changed this feed her according to you know, sources that
say Adele reached out again. I can't find out what. Like,

(05:06):
I didn't know if it was like, hey dell, here,
I'm making millions of dollars, can you do me a
favor please. I've been waiting five years for this fucking
album to come out, and I had an intended order
and Adele edgy pot. That's what I feel like must
have happened. It's like, I can't find the way she
reached out. She didn't tweet or anything, but I really

(05:26):
like to imagine she just was like at Spotify, no,
like at Spotify, at Spotify dot com and just was
like hey there anyway, um Adele basically got this to
change as Chris uh Macrowaski, the head of music communications
at Spotify, confirmed stating that as Adele mentioned, go ahead,

(05:47):
what are you gonna says polish, I knew you were
going to say that. I'm just gonna say mccowsky, mccowsky,
my bad. I put any more on there. Yeah, anybody's
names on here. I'm it's never malicious. I'm just putting
that right now. It's just we can't read. That's a
very important skill. Uh. It's really a comment on the
education of America anyway, so Chris said. Quote. As Adele mentioned,

(06:10):
we are excited to share that we have begun rolling
out a new premium feature that has been long requested
by both users and artists who make play the default
button on all albums uh quote. For those users still
wishing to shuffle an album, they can go to the
now playing view and select the shoff of the shuffle toggle.

(06:30):
I just think it's hilarious that he's like, this is
a feature. Check it out, check it out. It's a feature.
And apparently Adele was obviously very exciting about this. She
tweeted back at basically retweeted this little uh fact toyed
picture that was explaining that Spotify had changed this for her,
and she said quote, this was the only request I

(06:53):
ever had it. In our ever changing industry, we don't
create albums with so much in care that into our
track that we basically and make our track listings for
no reason. Our art tells the story, and our stories
should be listed, uh too, as well as intended sorry
listen to as well as intended. Man the readings on
the load today anyway, thank you Spotify for listening to

(07:13):
which Spotify tweeted in response quote anything for you, which
I'm like, but not the right and that I'll get
into that too, because again, Adele is making millions of
dollars for this company. Uh. You may have also seen
that everyone's like Adele has the biggest album and only

(07:38):
three days, which has been super misleading. So I really
wanted to clarify this, but we'll show you exactly why
I feel like in comparison to Taylor's album. Okay, it's
a very specific stat and this Billboard article that's been
put around is titled like Adele is the biggest. It's
specifically Adele's thirties top selling album in the u US

(08:00):
after three days, which makes it sound like it's like, oh,
Adam all up together and she's the top selling album. No,
it's not that big, it's not that crazy. It's still
very crazy. I'm not diminishing it. But according to the
initial reports by mrc UH, the album, which was released
November nineteen, has sold more than five thousand copies in

(08:21):
the US through November twenty one. This makes it the
top selling albums, surpassing sales of other albums over the
past eleven months combined. It beats the years previous top seller,
Taylor Swift Evermore with four and sixty two thousand copies
sold through the week ending in November eighteen, which they've

(08:42):
mentioned is Evermore has released in December, but has continued
to sell extremely well. I just think that's insane, Like
it doesn't like five thousand copies doesn't sound like a lot, right,
but like in a digital age is huge. It's it's enormous.
And then honestly, the pricing for physical has gone up,
uh in order to kind of get that same not

(09:04):
not a quit that's like what physical used to be,
but kind of balance it out a little bit. Like
when I was I used to work retail and I
used to work in a CD shop, and it was
crazy because, like you know, back in the day, it
was like twenty dollars a c D. You had to
really invest in like whatever whatever artists you were buying into.
And now it's like, I would say it dropped dramatically,

(09:26):
dropped to like eight dollars, eight to nine dollars, ten
dollars whatever, And now I feel like it's like twelve
to fifteen. It's like almost like it's appreciated. Which think
about so I and then now with vinyl being even
more expensive, like those unit those units mean a lot
for artists because it generates so much revenue, and especially

(09:48):
it means a lot for labels, especially comparatively to streaming
because there's just so many more cuts and uh, it's
a lot more straightforward with equation. I'll take five thousand
sales over like a million streams any day, Yeah, because
like you're gonna you're gonna get more money out of
it at that point. I definitely, I think, I mean,

(10:10):
Adell's just a powerhouse when it comes to especially physical merchandise. Um,
especially when it comes to vinyl. Uh, she's just got
a great I mean, she's very like Hi Fi enthusiast
in that way. I mean, I know a lot of
really big vinyl junkies and they will get Adele stuff
because it's like usually pressed very well and all this
kind of stuff. So it seems like that's, you know,

(10:31):
a very big incentive, and her team knows this and
it is really incentivizing those physical items as well, which
I think is more of a rarity now. Um. But
like in terms of you know, everyday artists, when you
get to the level again like Taylor Swift here and Adele,
it's like you kind of have this turning point where
you're like, wait, wait, wait, we have so much fame,

(10:51):
we can point them in the more profitable direction. Um.
So yeah, I mean she's she's killing it. The point
of the matter is she's completely killing it. Um. And
I wanted to talk about this idea of song order
on tracks and albums specifically. I think it is really
interesting to see people's idea of this because I personally

(11:17):
thought that, you know, I personally think that it matters,
you know, this is somebody put this out, But it
also depends in the material, you know. I mean, there's
some people that you can tell in the way the
album is marketed that The point of this is this
is more of a collection of songs and they're not
really like maybe lyrically or even like content wise linked together.

(11:42):
It's just like, oh, I came up with all these
songs in the same period, so it really kind of
doesn't matter about track listening. But then some of them,
which a great example is this album thirty by adel Is.
I mean, this album was our comeback album is about
her after a divorce and going through that and stuff.
So I can understand why that's such a bigger deal
to her or especially is trying to take you know,
users on this journey. And so I wonder does this

(12:04):
matter for consumers? The song order really matter, like experiencing
an album in the correct order. Um, I think it
really depends on each record you're listening to, in the
content of that record, because I mean, there are different
types of record right there. There's like a concept record

(12:25):
and then there's just kind of like a regular record
and like that kind of thing. If you're listening to
a concept record, I feel like it's more important to
listen to it in order because there's a story, there's
some sort of underlying meaning to it. There's like you know,
an overall theme that it's trying to get across in
a longer form rather than just this is the song.

(12:45):
I want to discuss this topic. Yeah, I definitely agree
with you. And I asked our fans about it, and
it was a little bit more. First off, we had
great engagement with this pulse, so I had a very
honestly a very large what it was this statistics where
it's subset of people to view, and so I asked,
it's an important to experience slash listen to an album

(13:06):
with its original track order, and yes, said yes and
said no, which I think is like interesting to see.
It seems like it's generally favorable, but there's definitely a
majority that's like, I don't care. Yeah, I mean, I
definitely think there there's been a lot of pressure since
the early two thousand's from the record record industry to

(13:27):
scrap the records focus on the single um and I
think that is not necessarily the case anymore. And I
actually think streaming has helped the power of the record
come back a little bit more because people are so
segmented with their um with what they like to listen to,

(13:48):
what kind of like marketing affects them what kind of
you know, general vibe that they like to go in.
But when they really dive deep into what they want
to listen to, they go deep. Right, people people are
will listen to the record all the way through if
they're a fan of you. I definitely think that's the point.
Like we we talked about Taylors with last week with

(14:09):
Red and then this are pretty comparable, is that they
both do a great job of setting up a narrative
with like this is what this album is, this is
what it is about, this is why it's important. And
I think in a digital age that's kind of a
little bit easier to you know, put together and then
you know, compared to the old analog world. Well yeah, yeah,

(14:30):
and that and like radio, right, Like with radio, it
would be uncanny to play a full record that would
be somebody's making a statement. Yeah, it would be like
sometimes they would do that, right like this hour, we're
going to just be playing this record or we're debuting
this record whatever. But like a lot of the times
that wasn't the case, especially with like Top forty and

(14:51):
how that all went about. But nowadays, like people, people
generally enjoy listening directors all the way through of artists
they like now I will. I do think there is
something to there. There is a difference of like where
people used to buy records and you you have a
financial investment in that record to be good basically at

(15:12):
that point, and you want it to be good, You're
gonna listen to the whole thing. But I think now
it's more waiting through all of the noise, but when
you find it, you will listen to it all the way. Yeah,
I completely agree. It just depends again on the album.
I think like what your mindset is and what the
narrative of this album is is very important to how

(15:33):
important the track selection is to your fans. Um. I mean,
I think it's interesting personally because I'll disagree with you
a little bit. It's I think it's interesting to watch
this kind of go back and forth with like history
in terms of like isn't important? Is it not important?
Because like if we got to like the really early
you know, record industry, obviously, oh it's a song on
the radio, awesome, And then like then you get into

(15:56):
like the sixties with the idea of like a concept
album and that becomes like very important, you know, we're
talking about like a Beatles Sergeant Pepper's Dark Pink Floyd
Dark Side of the Moon, Like it would be like
kind of like, why are you listening to super Tramp? Oh? Yeah,
super Tramp Breakfast in America. Yeah, that's another good one
where it seems like there have been an intention for

(16:17):
them to be like you're going to this song nix,
especially when they had transitions that would go into each
other and all that kind of stuff. But then like
you know, we kind of saw everyone was sick of
the kind you're like, okay, concept album. Old News kind
of done with that for a while, and you know,
radio is still very big, and that segmentation of it.
It seems like, oh, you know what, we can listen
to songs. You know, this can just be a collection

(16:39):
of songs. It doesn't have to be a whole statement,
you know what I mean of like all of them together, because,
to be honest, that's difficult to do. But now it
seems like in the digital age we're kind of back
to it because I do personally believe you can construct
these narratives a little bit more, uh like with interactivity
of your fans being like especially with Taylor Swift and

(17:00):
even Adele now where it's like, oh, man, do you
think this song is about like this part of the
relationship or is this song you know the song is
Adule's child on it or something? Is That's interesting because
you know obviously the child and the divorce, so like
there's a whole thing of like communication there that I
think almost emphasizes the ability to do this now, which
is kind of what I was talking about last week

(17:21):
with Taylor Swift and having the ten minute version. I
was like, we're kind of getting back to being able
to do that, especially if you have a narrative. But
I don't want to stress. I don't think it's like
everyone should go out and do this. Everyone should have this,
like you know two our concept album of what's going on,
you know about like every little story. I mean, then
you get into almost like play territory. You're like making

(17:43):
a play um. But like what I'm trying to say
with that is, uh, I do think it's more in
the ethos of like conversation. Now. Before it seems like
just put your songs on album, get them catchy, and
we were in that, and now our kind of feel
like going to the flip side where it's like, Okay,
you can play around with this now, and it seems
important to some. I mean, it seems in our majority

(18:05):
of our polls. Again, you can follow us on Instagram
and Twitter if you want to be in those every week,
but uh, it seems like people care about it. I
am interested to see, again, like I brought up with Taylor,
how this will affect music, because again, I mean, when
you're the top star, I mean, five hundred thousand units
in three days is huge. People are gonna to emulate

(18:26):
your success. And definitely no one's going to argue with
you that the narrative of this album and the idea,
you know, being about her divorce and her coming back
after so long and all that kind of stuff led
to it, you know, helped it be very successful. So
I'm interested to see who kind of goes with the
you know, we're gonna try to figure out our own
version of taking things we like from this and adapting

(18:48):
it and making into something new, which is what all
successful music is. I also like to point out to you,
like I think the way the way that the record
industry works and songwriting works is like, for the most part,
if you're ani you're gonna be writing a record to
put out a record like most of the time. Yes,
there there are are cases where you want to put
out a single or an EP. Yeah, but you're still

(19:11):
you're the overarching project that you're working on is the album. Yeah,
we're not that new age yet. You know, people were
talking about when we've talked throwing this idea of the
show of like you know, record labels and stuff, getting
rid of the album cycle. But we're not there yet. Yeah,
it's still a thing and it still brings in a
lot of success. Uh. And so I also think it's

(19:33):
genre specific too. I think there's a lot of factors
that play with it. But um, I definitely do like
any small artists, any big artists you talked to, what
are they gonna be talking about, Oh, I'm writing my
next record. It's almost like it's not even a question
of it's not even a question of like, oh, is
it possible? Is it not possible to have a you know,

(19:54):
track listening that people care about and stuff. It seems
like at certain times it becomes less fashionable and less
profitable in certain ways. So we have to see it's
better to cast a wide net than a small one philosophically, Oh, man, Joe,

(20:14):
this is gonna be a great transition. Take me fishing
through quarter three. Okay, so quarter three recap for talking right, Yeah,
we're gonna be talking some mad moolah, some man numbers,
and some mad companies, that's for sure. So as the
music industry rebounds from a stressful pandemic, many music companies

(20:36):
are eager to maximize profits and profits and make an
impact in the trading market. According to Billboard Quote, the
latest earnings reports depict a range of companies generally moving
in the right direction. Two areas hit hard by the pandemic,
live music and advertising, are recovering from historic low points.

(20:56):
Live Nation concert attendance rose almost thirteen times of the
previous quarter, raising investors expectations for two and pushing its
share price to an all time high. Elsewhere in the industry,
the pandemic merely slowed companies growth. Record labels and music
publishers suffered small hiccups, mainly from lost physical sales and

(21:16):
sharp drops in tour merchandise. Digital music services, satellite radio
and music streaming services fair best and continue to add subscribers. Okay,
so there's a lot of numbers, graphs, and generally what
I'd like to call boring ship that's linked to our
bio if you would like to read the specifics. But

(21:36):
Billboard has nicely laid out the current top publicly traded
music companies, and we're gonna just name a few of them.
So first up, we got to talk about them Spotify.
So the company met expectations this quarter and had an
uptick and average revenue per user due to a small
price increase in some markets, mostly in the US with
a family plan that went from and add revenue also

(22:00):
recovered from and reached three hundred and twenty three million dollars,
second best after quarter one in two one, which was
three hundred fifties six million dollars. So the company has
begun focusing more on podcasting as well, which many experts
believe retain consumer attention, but as of right now, it

(22:21):
is difficult to quantify according to Billboard. Yeah, it's a
hard market for a lot of people. Yeah, exactly. So
up next, Universal Music Group. This is umgs first earnings
release as a public company, and it went public on
September twenty one, with double digit revenue growth before it
went public, which they have to because they're al company

(22:43):
now exactly. So far the company has earned two point
fourteen billion euros, which is up sixteen percent from last year,
and recorded music earning UH one point seven billion, and
publishing earning three d and sixty three million dollars. So
that's like the split of the revenue that the vihos cool.
That's what I was thinking to So. Michael Nash, UMG's

(23:03):
executive vice president of Digital Strategy, stated that quote, video
and social represent about two thirds of total ads supported
business for Universal Music, and they're both growing really fast.
People used to think of ads supported streaming as merely
a because customer acquisition tool, a lower value substitution for subscription,

(23:24):
but with the large evolution of social and video, music
is now endemically tied to the growth of a large
global platform. So basically ads are in. Yeah, it seems
like he's countering what most people thought. It was like,
real him in with the ads, and now it's like, no,
we can just make money off the people that are

(23:45):
never gonna be you know, premium subscribed. Like the ads
are the money maker. It's not just like, oh, let's
get him the buy premium. Yeah, exactly, it's giving it
more and more value at that point. So Sony Music Entertainment.
As of now, Sony is keeping up with UMG and
has had similar results. Streaming was up forty three percent
in total revenue eighteen percent. So far, Sony has earned

(24:07):
two point forty seven billion dollars, with recorded music receiving
one point forty two billion, and publishing earning four hundred
and twenty nine point seven million dollars. Warner Music Group
WMG announced very strong gains this quarter, was streaming rising
twenty three point seven percent, earning two point nine seven

(24:28):
billion in the fiscal year and accounted for sixty five
point four percent of recorded music revenue and fifty six
point one percent for the entire company. And that's I
believe sixty percent of all music revenue. That is music revenue.
That is insane. Yeah, which I was like, I had

(24:49):
to like take a like take a double take, and
we have to understand what these numbers. I mean, it
does get a little overwhelming, but like the reason why
it's say crazy is because literally, I mean, is it's
considered Wow, that's crazy good. But to have anything above
twenty is like insane margins for you know, profit, like

(25:09):
this and the industry bouncing back is definitely bouncing back
with everybody who are especially the Big three. Um so,
I mean that that's insane. It's interesting to see. And again,
like what's funny to think about is like this literally
comes from people obviously managing what's cheap in the business,
but this literally comes down to people being like, oh, yeah,
I've picked this guy up for a company A and

(25:32):
R wise and now he's you know, a multibillion dollar
artists that generates multi bill like you know, it hits
after hits after, right. We think of it as like, okay, well,
you know, it's like with other companies like an Amazon
or something, it's like, oh, they have a product or whatever.
Their products are human beings. There's a person out there
who might literally find this giant money. Right, there's a

(25:52):
person that out there that might be worth millions of dollars.
They're all fighting to find. Yeah, exactly. So company wide
revenue group twenty two point two percent to one point
three eight billion, up eighteen point eight percent from last year,
with recorded music bringing in four point five billion and
publishing seven hundred and sixty one million dollars. Like they

(26:13):
got strong publishing they definitely do have strong publishing at Warner.
Uh and I know from personal experience. Uh. So up next,
Live Nation. According to Billboard this quarter, what the According
to Billboard, this quarter was supposed to be like getting
back to normal for the company. Yeah, but the surging

(26:34):
share price, which is up nineteen percent, shows very very
high expectations for two and so mad at myself for
still he buying that stock. Don't even get me into it.
I'm not an advisor, by the way, but just throwing
out my personal we're about to turn into mad money here. Yes,
we'll get it all still now, we're not advisors, but

(26:55):
go ahead. A backlog of tours are planned through three
and twenty four, and Live Nation believes the shows will
be spread evenly enough to where it won't outstrip customer demand.
Management says, however, that any concerns about no shows are overblown,
and what they mean by that it's just like no
shows in general. Um and then so wait, wait, wait,

(27:16):
what's back up? Do you mean like no shows? Like
there's no shows going on, like people not showing up?
So I believe what they mean in the article is
that like concerns about no shows happening at all, um,
but I could be totally wrong. They did not clarify, Okay,
so it could be it could be no like no shows,

(27:37):
like people not showing up. Yeah, it could be also
like ticket scalpers that there were I didn't see like
really anything. And that's a big deal because obviously, like
it's sadly to say this is gonna make people depressed.
Your concert is another selling event, So that's that's those
are lost customers as well. Yeah. Absolutely, But the company's

(27:58):
tell revenue in comparison to last year is two point
seven billion dollars, which is a one thousand, three hundred
and seventy percent increase. Small so yeah, yeah, just just
just a little rather increase this year. But yeah, nothing
crazy up next Tensent Music Entertainment. So Tenson's quarter was

(28:19):
a spotty one, with music subs and long form audio growing,
but with competitors currently eroding the company's social entertainment business,
it's taken a hit. So the company only grew three
percent in the quarter, and with Beijing's tighter regulations, the
company is struggling to keep up. I should I should
mention that if you don't have the Tensent is Tensent
basically is the one of the biggest like Chinese, Asian

(28:44):
like actual market music aggregate. Yeah, they also owned like
every video game in America under Tensent, so h, they're
a very huge deal. Um. But the total revenue for
Q three is one point two billion dollars, So calum,
what are we expecting for quarter four? In the beginning
of quarter one? Quarter four is a big deal for

(29:08):
many of these labels, specifically because of what we're talking
about with a Dell earlier is general retail. Um, it's
huge in terms of that this is where your three
sixty deals really come in, which you know means that
three sixty deals, if you don't know, is when basically
your record contract takes a portion of all these little
things of money that you could get from. So they're
gonna take a lot from merch like I was talking about,

(29:31):
they're gonna take a lot from physical music. Is another
huge you know sale for quarter four. I think it's
gonna be very good for them because the people are
expecting the shopping season to be really really big and
crazy this year. So I think they're in good spirits
to be honest, I I think again, I still support
the theory that there's kind of a we're going up

(29:53):
and then we're gonna kind of smooth out at some point.
I don't think we're on the smooth out point at all.
I think we're still in the going up part. So
that's kind of my expectations. I agree, I think we're
still recovering. Um. But do you think that with all
of the demand and the surge of demand and and
with like a lot of the supply chain problems, that

(30:14):
the music industry is going to be able to really
keep up with it? So yes and no, Uh, it depends.
I feel like you've got to kind of go micro
with this. It depends. Uh. So if we're going to
like Live Nation, I feel like Live Nation is gonna
be able to keep up they because here's the thing
with Live Nation, they have no matter what, there's a
limited amount of shows that can take place at any time.

(30:36):
There's a real capital stop right there that doesn't exist
without supply chains. Obviously, you get own that stop. If
you own that day, basically you're set right exactly. And
Live Nation, being the giant corporation that it is, has
you know, many venues that they just straight up own
and also just huge leeway when it comes to booking.

(30:59):
So I feel like they're going to do great, that's
my expectation. Uh. And they're going to continue being a
monopoly on the live entertainment industry space when it comes
to promoters, and they're gonna do great. Uh. The music
companies again, like I mentioned earlier with the vinyl shortage
and stuff like that, also have a lot of leeway
when it comes to printing and stuff like that. So
I feel like they're going to have some struggles, especially

(31:20):
since they're gonna be battling each other. Is the thing,
Like they're gonna be like I'm sorry to say, they're
gonna beat out, you know, Joe Schmo and his little
band who wants to do a little vinyl release or
merchandise or something like that. They're gonna beat it out.
They just have more money, They have more leeway. You know,
if I was emerging company and let's say Sony Warner
Universal came up to me, this is gonna lead to
more business probably, so I'm gonna say no to other things. So,

(31:43):
like that's my idea. It's gonna be a battle between themselves.
I think they all have. Again, the thing that's crazy
to think about is real people, Uh, the actual music
of people are powering these engines. So they all have
great artists under their belts. It's not like one person
is like Sony's got like nobody and Warner's got everybody

(32:04):
who's really famous. So I think it's gonna be an issue,
and I think they're gonna be battling each other out,
and I think you're gonna see it in small gains
like that. UM very interested in publishing, to be honest
with you, especially with films and TV shows, the sync publishing,
especially with all of that kind of coming back, you know,

(32:27):
with less COVID restrictions and people doing that. I think
that's gonna be a giant market that's going to blow
up again just because everyone's been out. And then we
got to talk about the advertisers. The advertisers are huge
amounts of money for these people, and you know, when
advertisers are scared generally a lot of time when they
feel like consumers don't have money you to spend, so
they feel like they're advertising is going to be lost

(32:50):
or you know, especially with the pandemic, you're just caught
in a wave of everything. So it's like maybe your
advertising dollars are not as effective, but I definitely you
think that's another huge thing that they brought up. A
lot of this is the advertising is kind of coming
back because it seems like there's a huge demand and
all these people they're like, I want to do something,
I want to go somewhere, and all these advertisers, yeah,

(33:11):
and all these advertisers wanted to be like here it is,
this product is what you should be doing. And the
greatest part to do that as if you associated with
good things a k a. Music. So I think especially
for Spotify, it's gonna be great too. I generally think
all of them are gonna do pretty fantastic. Um. Tencent
is probably the most outlier here, but China is a

(33:34):
very strange market. Um and uh, it's definitely been going
through a lot, a lot and a lot of huge,
very powerful regulations exactly. And it's huge in that there's
so much going on, like geo politically. I don't even
want to really get into the whole thing, but like
the point is is that that is the main reason

(33:58):
why it seems like everybody's going up in the in
the you know, Tencent's like I'm here, I'm doing okay. Um,
I definitely worried I think personally about where this bubble
will eventually plateau. Yeah, I think I think there is
a bubble, and I don't think it's necessarily here's my thing,

(34:19):
I I don't I don't think it's irresponsible to say
that I think there's a bubble. I don't think it's
you know, me trying to be negative, Nancy. It's just
at this point, people are getting more comfortable with COVID,
people are you know, going out their streaming music, all
this stuff. There's gonna be a point where we get
a little bit more normal, and then it's going to
slow down, especially live entertainment. I think it might take years,

(34:42):
but that's what you call us slow decline over time. Um,
because again, live entertainment has a hard cap when it
comes to venues. So you can't see him next year,
you or this year. You might see him next year,
if that makes sense. So that's my main concern. And
the losers on the edge of that bubble we're going
to be, you know, the ones that are just a
little bit too late, you know, like it's like, oh,

(35:06):
consumer interest is down, and like we booked this show
seven months ago and we were expecting to sell out
the whole thing, and we always sold out like seventy
percent of it. And like I'm saying, like hypothetically, in
a perfect world, if like you did your best job
as a promoter and all that kind of stuff, same scenario.
Both ways, you're just on one side of the bubble

(35:26):
or you're not, just because consumers are like, Okay, this
is my regular spending habit. I don't have as much
excitement for it. Those are the people that are gonna
get really rocked, especially when you're booking towards months out. Absolutely,
but I still do think it's it's hard not to
sell it a show. It's multi year. This is a
multi year thing. Yeah, I don't. I'm not like when

(35:47):
I say people around maybe it'll start, yeah, because I
think people associate like bubble, like a two thousand eight
bubble or like you know, the pandemic, when everything it's
not that extreme. It's just more of like a general
lack out. That's why I'm even like eight seventy and
like adding up together. You know, if you made decisions

(36:09):
financially where you think you're making more money, that's where
stuff gets a little scary because you're like, I thought
I was going to make this back or something, you know,
so well, well we'll see what's going on with that. Uh.
And they're definitely nothing to cry about. Nobody's like, oh
poor Sony. Yeah. I do still think that local venues

(36:31):
are still recovering. I think they're the ones that are
the most. They have so much to I mean, it's
just they don't have the infrastructure that these other companies do.
I mean, we still have music businesses here in Nashville,
and they are having the issue of of land ownership
and getting bought out for their land and getting like

(36:52):
out because it's more expensive. It's better for real estate
to do that way better for real estate. And then
they just want somebody else to come in. And so
these are a lot of issues that add up. And
you don't have a safety net that's a giant multinational corporation,
than you're kind of screw. Yeah. All right, I'm talking
about Astro World. I want to talk about it last week,
and then I waited just because there was so much

(37:14):
and there was more information that came out. Again, warning,
I'm gonna talking about Astro World. So if you're triggered
by any of that, you know, death crowd search, that
kind of stuff. Just warning and uh, it's you know,
it's not gotten better. I'm telling you that right now.
So here's the thing with Astro World. There's a couple
of big updates. First is that the death toll has

(37:34):
sadly risen to ten um, with the latest victim being
Ezra Blunt, who is aged nine. He was in a
medically induced coma after severe injuries to his heart, lungs,
and brain in at the fest. I God, I just
like that. That's why I want to keep that in there,

(37:56):
because like the severity of this cannot be overstated, because
I think people are like, oh, you know, all these
people got crushed or whatever. I mean, literally, these people
are dying out there. He was separated from his grandfather
in the middle of the show. He went to his
grand with his grandfather uvon. It's separated because of that.
So he's sadly the latest victim in it UM. In

(38:18):
terms of the criminal investigation, Uh, there's not really have
many updates. The best seems to not have happened. Uh.
Court County Judge Lynda Lynna Lena Hildago, the top elected
official in Harris County, which is where Houston is, has
proposed a third party probe of the planning and execution

(38:39):
of the festival founded and Heavilighted, headlined by the rap
star Travis Scott uh and they planned to work with
other city and county entities to review security, fire and
other safety plans at the county owned n r G
Park where the festival was held. Which when we talked
about this a couple of weeks ago, well, you weren't
here for this moment. I was talking to my spouse
about it. A lot of people wanted the independent investigation,

(39:03):
and it seems that this is the middle ground there
involved the the actual city of Houston is still involved
with this investigation. Again, if you want to the firefighters
and the police are heavily involved with us. So people
were like, hey, we want the independent investigation, and it
seems like this is their compromise. We're still involved with it,
but all these other entities will hope we be there

(39:25):
to check and balance. So kind of take that at
your leisure, you know, like, what that what you think
if that's good enough for not uh legally with all
the civil lawsuits there's been so much going on. Let's see,
we have two eight Astro World Festival festival concert goers
have filed a lawsuit through the Thomas J. Henry law firm,

(39:48):
and they are suing the usual suspects, so Live Nation,
Drake and Travis, and oddly Apple Music, which I can't
figure out why because they recorded the event. That's why. Okay,
there we go. That's what I wanted to. That's gonna
be bad for deposition stuff. Only did they record it,
they streamed it, I believe, like I just hadn't seen

(40:09):
them named as much. And they're suing these entities for
two billion dollars in extreme pain and suffering, loss of earnings,
emotional distress, and medical expenses, which with a lot of
that stuff they always round up. So this is why
you get to two billion dollars, especially when there's two

(40:30):
hundred eighty people involved. Um. There's also another lawsuit of
five who are seeking more than seven fifty million dollars.
So I think we're around three billion dollars in lawsuits
so far adding up the other ones. That's insane. Uh.
Many legal experts have also shown and said that the

(40:51):
parties are gonna basically they're gonna have a rough time.
They're suing as many people as you know, we're involved,
as possible because again, the investigations go on, they're trying
to figure out liability, so it's still up in the air.
So it's better to you know, leave the door opens
to all these people and then if they have less
liability than those get knocked down. If that makes sense. Um,

(41:12):
But they're going to have to prove that the parties
they name in their lawsuit not only have done were
this is, have caused significant damage in the crowd surs,
but also did not take steps to prevent it. So,
which is a different kind of question, is like this happened,
and did you do anything about it? It's like the

(41:36):
second question of it where it's video evidence showing not
much was done, and well, that's the thing is, it's
like I was talking to Rangel about this, it's cumulative.
There's multiple things that had to go wrong for this
to happen. Multiple steps had to fail or lack of steps.
Edwin McPherson, who represents Travis, stated, quote, he's up there

(41:58):
trying to perform. He does not have the ability to
know what's going on down below. McPherson said, Travis didn't
really understand the full effect of everything until the next morning. Truly,
he did not know what was going on. And that's
pretty much like other than the very publicly mocked Travis
Scott video which you've probably seen meme to death. Uh,
that's pretty much his state. The black and white yes exactly.

(42:23):
You've probably seen this of him looking at the camera.
But that's kind of the official statement right now, is
that he's saying he did not know, which either way,
this is the thing he's gonna do either way, Like,
if he knew, he's probably gonna say he didn't know.
If he didn't know, it's his name on the fucking festival.
Though he's a he's just as much of a producer

(42:43):
in this festival as any other. I definitely think so
as he's saying, I think the levels of blame are
going to be important just to see how the money
shakes out, if that makes sense. I definitely again think
that the promoter is going to be the main thing
they need to go after, which is a libation and
score more. I also just have a hard time believing

(43:04):
that he didn't hear in his in your monitors that hey,
ship's happening. They're telling us to shut down. Now here's
the There's been conflicting reports about this, and I can't
figure we cannot figure it out for sure. There's I've
seen a video supposedly, and I you know, obviously these
videos I don't know for sure and all this kind
of stuff. I've seen a video supposedly where some people

(43:26):
come up on stage and talk to him. I've seen
reports supposedly that he was told that in his in years.
I don't know what I was actually thinking the other day,
is I wonder if there's a I'm obviously like you're saying,
Apple recorded it. I've bet you they were doing some
multi tracks in there. And if you've ever mixed audio, uh,

(43:47):
Mike's pick up other things in sometimes including the audience,
including the audience. And so the thing that I'm wondering
is is maybe you know, if these two people supposedly
came on stage and he's holding the microphone in his
chest and it's getting multi tracked, is it somewhere of
them telling him. You know what I mean, it's muffled.

(44:09):
But guess what actually interesting audio pathway? If you guys
are interested in audio engineering, forensic audio is the actual
name of this and it's where they yes, yes, but
like that's that's what that is is. Uh, that's what
a forensic audio expert will do. And if they were

(44:31):
recording it multi track like that, I'd be interested if
a forensic audiologist basically can figure out like and find
things through there. Um and these people like you think
music producers got good years not even close anyway, Travis,
this was weird. I've wanted your opinion about this. Travis
and this team have even released a statement expressing, strangely

(44:53):
quote that those who wish to reach out to Scott
and his team for either condolences or age to contact
them at this ale, and Scott and his team go
on to state that they will be ready to assist individuals,
which I obviously I've Okay, here's completely I don't know
this for sure. I've seen and this is alleged that

(45:15):
people are theorizing that this is to suade away other lawsuits.
I think it is, but I can't say that entirely
because I don't know. But that's what i've seen. I've
only seen this. I haven't seen a report where it's like, oh,
you've tried to do this to sign away this, but
in general, cases like like this one. Again not for sure,

(45:37):
there have been cases where people sign away their legal
right to sue in terms of minor compensation. That's way
cheaper than a lawsuit, yes, which I do think that
would be and so and and last time I've mentioned
also just so I'd be transparent, as Travis has also
helped offered help through the service Better Help, and also
to give funeral costs to the people who sadly have

(46:01):
lost their lives at this festival. Yeah. I unfortunately, um,
Better Help does not have the best uh the best
um shall we say, track record track record? Yes, And
I definitely think me and Ray check about this, but
I'd love to get your opinion. I think it's a
very string Well, first off, I don't think a lot

(46:24):
of people are used to the idea of having therapy
as a corporation, you know, for profit, so that's already weird.
But then this whole thing of them being a part
of it is even almost like a brand deal, right.
And I've seen some reports where people were saying like
we're Better Help with saying like, oh no, it's not
like to get you in. It's just one month free.
You don't have to sign up, you don't have to

(46:45):
put your credit card and all this kind of stuff,
but it's still weird, bad taste in everyone's mouth. Yeah,
I'm just I'm gonna be honest. It's a little it's
a little a little strange because at the end of
the day, it is advertising for better help, right, and
so I I don't, I don't know. It's like one
of those things where and only a month better help,
those people are going to need years of therapy, right exactly.

(47:08):
I don't. I don't know, but you know, you get
a month free, but then you know the rest of
your life you're gonna have to pay. So it's it's
pretty much ending up kind of what we thought. A
nice UH fan emailed us and kind of was talking
to me and had I don't want to disclose your
name in because you just don't want to know. But
just for the record, I he emailed us and he

(47:30):
was a victim and it wasn't a victim, but he
was at the UH well I don't know for sure,
but like he said, he was at the Vegas shooting
that happened years ago, and he was asking, like the
festival in Las Venga festival that um was it open
fired on Yes exactly, but which is a little different,

(47:52):
I have to admit, But he's he kind of brought
up a good point which I said I was gonna
bring up on the show, which was a great idea.
Is the comparing contrast of that is Honestly, he was
saying like this is one of the last that was
probably the last big event tragedy like that that's kind
of coming to public scape, especially in Las Vegas, is

(48:13):
what that was called. Um So, yeah, I uh, I
definitely think it has a lot of parables to this.
It's a little different because obviously you have a shooter
versus a crowd surge, which are different types of disasters,
and then the liability kind of breaks a little bit
differently from that. It seems like what they're trying in

(48:36):
this case is to prove that the crowd surge was
caused by the negligence of the parties they name now
and the other one in the in the Las Vegas
kind of uh thing. Obviously there was the shooter outside
or in a hotel who shot at the crowd, and
even then there were there were still people shooting or

(48:58):
like there were still people suing for negligence to the
festivals because the lack of exits because of the lack
of exits I believe was one, and then also the
lack of like planning in that case with that um,
I remember that event in the Ariana Grande bombing in Manchester. Yes,
in Manchester were like two of the biggest things like

(49:20):
talked about things in live entertainment because it was mostly
talking about, Okay, how can we improve security at these
events because like obviously like terrorists, terrorism are going terrorists
are going to target like high events like this. Yeah,
And it's interesting that you bring that because I think
there is an important distinction because that kind of security

(49:40):
was more of like this is a bad actor quote unquote,
like there's a person that's causing this situation. We can
like literally call it out and say this. But this
is like cumulive, this is just a crowd mentality that
naturally occurs sometimes in high energy crowds like this. So
at that point, it's almost like the in that environment
meant in In my opinion, it's more on the promoter's

(50:07):
like you guys, there's a lot of things that to
go wrong for this to go wrong. Right exactly. So
that's that's something to I definitely think it's interesting in that. So,
like you'll you'll see, it's kind of like the lawsuits
are different because you don't really have a singular party
to blame. You have like a multitude of people that

(50:28):
you're trying to blame, you know what I mean. In
that case, you kind of and you're trying to figure
out what's the neglig is here if there was in
every party, you know what I mean. So that that's
one way it's different. Again, the thing they're going to
share in common is that there's going to be multi
year lawsuits that are gonna take so long. And obviously
another thing you have in common are the ease huge

(50:51):
class action lawsuits together, so two eight people like together
with that, it's very similar to you know, if they
were trying to go after let's say the shooter in
the Las Vegas shooting. But the difference here is that
the capitals there, this is a multimillion dollar corporation in
Live Nation's case, or Travis Scott is a millionaire um

(51:13):
and you know all this there's money there than regular
than you know, a bad actor, regular person that decided
to commit a tragedy, so the desire to sue is
way higher. So that's also why you're gonna have more lawsuits. Um,
it's it's definitely, it's definitely, you know, one of these

(51:34):
things that I'm you know, glad that it seems that
people are trying to examine and understand why this occurred
and how. Crowd search is a documented problem that needs
to be addressed, especially in a high energy crowd such
as the Travis Scott concert. Um. But at the end
of the day, I mean, you know, ten people lost
their lives, hundreds of hurt, and the questions are still there.

(51:58):
I again want to stress I still think there should
be an independent investigation on the criminal side. I just
they are two involved, and if you want to know
more about that, you can listen to my Astro World
episode with my spouse Rachel about it. But the police
and fired fires firefighters were so involved with this that

(52:20):
it's hard I think for them not to separate themselves. Well,
Colin lightening lightening things up a little bit. As we
end here, as we closed down the shop, as we
hang up, close down the shop, hang up the rack,
as we say here in the music, and hang up

(52:42):
the rack. Yeah, hang up that I've heard send it. Yeah,
we're gonna send it. Yeah, you're gonna send it. UM.
But Colin, what you what you've been listening to UM for?
I listen. Uh. There's a lot of music coming out,
obviously because it's a retail season, like albums that came out.
So I listened to UM. I listened to Oasis actually

(53:06):
because they came out with a live album from nineteen
six or n six called Nevin worth Is then playing it.
It's really weird because the Oasis again a bunch of assholets,
but I do like their music. But it's so funny
because like they're the only band I've ever seen that
can literally they're on stage, there's like, you know, thousands
of people in front of them. The only band that

(53:28):
I can know that has like very little banter, and
all they do is they go this is don't look
back in anger. Yeah, and then they just go into
the song and then because to talk to this hello
all right, and then that there's nothing else. Then there's
like some side jokes. Other than that, I listened to

(53:49):
Adele's thirty. I think it's my favorite one. Yes, it
addressed the two things that I don't. I didn't particularly
like jam with Adell a lot of the times, which
is um one. I think Adele sometimes uh can be
a little one note when it comes to like it's

(54:12):
it seemed very similar genre wise, and you know, kind
of like piano ballad stuff. And this album has a
lot of diversity. It's got R and B influences. I
can tell there's some you know, trap hip hop influences.
I can tell you know if you're if you're there
for the regular Adell stuff, there's at least three songs
that are regular adelfair. But I love the variety. I
love the conceptualism of it. Um. I think my favorite

(54:35):
one is the one with her kid on it uh,
the my Little love song. It's like my favorite one.
I just like the whole vibe. Can I get it? Um?
But yeah, I definitely think it's it was. It was
really good. Um. I also think the second thing that
I don't like that didn't really vibe with me as much. Again,
I still love a lot of Adele's music, but I

(54:56):
felt like a lot of her music sometimes was a
little bit more like closed off. It was like you
can tell that she's drawing from a place, but it
seemed like it was kind of like a little bit
hazy because it was like hidden behind some metaphors or
like kind of this narrative She's trying to make a
hit song with, which is what any songs? But this
is yeah. Well, I mean I'm sure the emotions are truthful,

(55:18):
which makes Adele great artist, but I just felt like
it was like, Okay, you're kind of just drawing from someplace,
but I just want you to open the door a
little more. I just want to know what you're talking, Like,
I know this metaphor is cool and whatever, and this
one is like, oh, I know what you're talking about immediately,
like you can fell. It's all about her vor, it's
all about her kid, my little love. It's specifically about
like talking to her child and all that kind of stuff.

(55:39):
So I think she did everything that I personally was
like kind of holding me back from being you know,
every Adele all the time. So I really liked it.
Definitely understand why it's selling five hundred thousand dollars or
five hundred thousand records in three days. Well, I think
this song has had to hold on me since I
was a child. Honestly, like got a whole. No, it's

(56:01):
really got ahold, but um Iris by the Google Dolls,
Oh my god, I don't know why it makes me mad.
Fun fact, I don't think anymore. But had the and
we talked about this way back. I can't remember who
broke the record. I think it was it was The
Weekend that broke it with Blinding Whites. But they had

(56:22):
the longest charting radio song and it was Iris out
of anyone for literally like two decades. Every time I
got on the bus that song played. I'm pretty sure
were you like playing it? Wait? Go back? Was your
bus driver? Just? Yes, she was. She would play like
top forty and I, I swear to god calling it
was the same ten songs for three years. Must have

(56:46):
had like it was like a c I a torture device.
It was so fucking the other songs I I don't remember,
like if I heard him, I can I could tell you,
like that's one of the songs, but it was. It
was just the early two thousands hits man and it
was rough. I'm not gonna lie was somehow anyway, go ahead? Um.

(57:09):
I've also been listening to a local artist, Bree Kennedy
cut out record. She's an amazing songwriter. Um, I actually
met her a pretty good a while back. Um, but
she's she's amazing. Uh, And you guys should just go
check her out because I think you'll love all of
her music, to be honest with you, and and go on,

(57:32):
I know you hate him, but I don't record. I've
been listening to that so soic record. They got nominated
for Grammy stuff. Um, I saw a couple of times,
of course they did. And I'm thinking about doing some
Grammy stuff talking about that. So if you're interested in that,
hit us up, because I want to see if anybody
else is interested in that. I will literally listen to
all of it, which did the year before. I should

(57:54):
do like a live stream or something. Yeah, maybe I'll
go through and I'll give you everything. I will listen
to everything, and I will give you every pick that
I think. I'll give you the pick what I want
to win and then what I think will win, because
those are very different things. Yeah, but I mean an
evening with Sulk Sonic amazing record. I think definitely the

(58:16):
I definitely think the singles are the ones on this record.
The whole thing I've just been it's so seventies like
you can tell. It's just like it's got it's got
that analog console. Yeah, but it's like it's just great
to hear, Like Bruno Mars is like vocal runs and
then like Anderson just has like a great fucking like presence.

(58:37):
I think Bruno Mars is kind of at that point
that like, h what is it a food fighters fighters anyway? Uh?
What the food fighters have been where they don't give
a shit anymore about like what music. So they're like,
we're gonna do a BGS cover album. I think like
Bruno Mars is like, fuck it, I like seventy music. Yeah, absolutely,

(58:58):
I don't, but I do think he still he still
got the funking. I mean he's great. He's still a
good fucking singer. If you're lying to yourself, if you're
like I mean Bruno Mars, I get it was overplayed,
but he's great. Like I take a grenade for you guys.
Thanks for listening to Biz Tape Draw, Thanks Music Business
and Media Podcast Joe. That was all right, you know, yeah,

(59:23):
that's fine. Well, if you if you like all writing us,
please download our podcast and it helps us out emensely immensely.
And also you can follow the socials at the BIS tape,
pretty much everywhere. Um, obviously thanks for listening to the show.
First off, I don't know why we can't speak. Joe
is just utter silence. Oh am I supposed to talk.

(59:45):
Oh my god,

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