December 8, 2021 • 52 mins
The boys examine how Drake could be rattling the Grammy’s plans for a into public consciousness. Later, Red Rocks Amphitheater became the highest earning venue of the year beating out massive venues such as Madison Square Garden. Also, how does Spotify Wrapped actually work? It might not be as accurate as you may think. This and more on The Biztape!
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Sources:
Drake asks to be removed from Grammy Noms:
https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/drake-turns-down-grammy-nods-1235006324/
Olivia Rodrigo Grammy Credit Change:
Red Rock Biggest Venue Globally:
https://www.billboard.com/pro/red-rocks-amphitheatre-highest-grossing-venue-2021/
How Spotify Wrapped Works:
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/spotify-wrapped-how-does-it-work-explainer-1235005021/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Drake turns down grants, red Rocks biggest year yet? And
how does Spotify Wrapped actually work? You're listening to the
biz Tape. Welcome to episode sixty two of the biz
(00:26):
Tape You're all Things Music, Business and Media podcast. I'm
your host Joe with my co host Colin Mackay, lovely
co host. I didn't mean to lock you, by the way.
For the audio listeners, I was like bobbing my head
the entire way. I got really good at saying the
same cadence for the beginning, over and over. Yea, we
have that radio kind of thing. Now we at w
(00:49):
D b b Q. What's your supported radio listeners support?
This is listeners supported. I mean, yeah, but isn't that
such a stupid I guess so. But if you want
to support us more, be sure to download this episode
or you can follow us Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok at
the biz Taper Is it Facebook meta? Now what it's called?
(01:12):
Me dot com now that it's still it's still Facebook cool.
Or you can email us The biz Tape Podcast at
gmail dot com. So, uh yeah, crazy week, Crazy week,
you know, talking about the Grammys and stuff. We're kind
of getting ready for that. Yeah, we got our Boddles
episodes coming up that we recorded part one. Oh, so
that's fun. But apparently the Grammies just keep going with
(01:35):
stuff like I don't just it's more and more controversial. Well,
it's that it's a lot of unprecedented things to be
honest with you, um, which is like, honestly, if you're
tired of Grammy stuff, I think this might be the
year for you to be interested in it, because it
is there's just so much weird, Like they like I
always talking about the restructuring stuff, um, but there's like
(01:55):
now even we we talked about the additional nominees U
and now we're gonna talk about this, which has been
making the rounds everywhere, which is Drake has turned down
his Grammy nominations like entirely so Drake and Drake's management
have asked to have his two nominations removed, those being
for the Best Out Rap Album and for Certified lover
(02:19):
Boy and Best Rap Performance for Way Too Sexy featuring
Future and Young Thug. Side note, I don't know why
it's that song. People really like that song from that
album and it is really funny, but I'm like, man, okay, whatever. Um.
Drake basically has had a pretty big history with not
(02:39):
being cool with the Grammys. I feel like you can
say that about a lot of people, but Drake has
a lot of very memorable quotes about being dissatisfied with
the Grammys. For instance, when The Weekend wasn't nominated, which
we've talked about before last year at all in any
of his songs or anything blinding Lights related or after
hours related, he said on his Instagram story, quote, is
(03:00):
a great time for someone to start something new that
we can build up over time and pass on to
generations to come instead of the Grammys. Pretty direct if
you wanted even uh more direct stuff. We have my
favorite thing, which is that when he won Best Rap
Song for God's Plan, he said, quote, we play an
(03:20):
opinion based sport and not a factually based sport, and quote,
you already won. If you have people singing your songs
word for word, if they're singing in your hometown, you're
already winning. You don't need this right here, as he
was holding a Grammy on stage at the Grammys, he
said this and apparently right and according to the NBC
(03:41):
that cut his mic off because of that, which Yeah,
they were not having it. Um. So yeah, he has
been super vocal about like not liking the Grammys. So
for him to back out now it's kind of like presidented.
But the actual of him backing out is unprecedented. That
(04:01):
makes sense, Like it's like nobody's really done this before. Um,
and so it's really insane to think about it in
terms of like the history of Grammys. Like literally the
Grammys were like, we don't even know what to do
with us, which I'll get into in a minute. Um.
He also has complaints with be basically being boxed into
the rap category in general. Uh, you know they I
(04:23):
think I couldn't find the quote again, but he basically
said they don't know what to do with me, which
is hilarious to me. Um. Also, it's you know, weird
because people were saying, like, oh, why is he just
in the rap categories? Speaking of that, because Certified lover
Boy was such a huge mash which we talked about
on the show and literally was showing everyone how Drake
(04:45):
basically owns all Spotify numbers compared to anyone in the world.
Apparently there's a theory going on that while it's uncertain
whether he chose not to submit Certified lover Boy or
his other songs to the big categories album Song or
Record of the Year. He his absence from the categories
seemed to suggest that he didn't so he like his
(05:06):
team might have submitted it specifically to the rap category
for those two categories, and then he withdrew from it.
So I don't know if it was like maybe it
was a compromise. Maybe they were just like, come on,
just fucking put your name on it. We'll send it out.
You don't have to deal with that management, like talking
to Drake, and then he was like, fine, I just
(05:27):
don't really care. Just don't put me the big things
because I don't really want to be associated with that.
And maybe that changed over time. For instance, he has
had a history actually if also not submitting things that
people are like, why didn't this get submitted for his
album More Life and Team, which could have qualified for
the Grammys and was had a good number of like
chance of actually even winning some categories, but he just
(05:49):
didn't nominate it at all. Um So other than that,
he people have been trying to figure out why. Basically,
I mean, obviously clearly he's not a fan if he's
on stage saying this is stupid, Like why holding the
Grammy in his hand? I think he's not a fan.
So maybe that's a theory. I don't know, but people
(06:10):
are going wild with theories. One that I saw that
maybe has some weight about why he has so much
contempt for the Grammys is that he has actually not
done that well and the Grammys, especially compared to his
contemporary rapper friends. Um Drake only has four Grammys compared
to me and some of his peers, jay Z who
(06:30):
has twenty three and Kanye West that has twenty two. Yeah,
and this is someone who's been toppings for the past
like eight years. Yeah, literally it's been again he was
He's the most streamed artist out of anyone. So like
it's you may understand why he might have some justification
of being like, why am I not winning these things?
(06:51):
Maybe that's why he's so mad at it. Also, on
top of that, he's been nominated a bunch of times
and not one. Uh, he's top five nominations in a
year just twice. In sixteen he had eight nominations and
didn't and he had seven, But he only has four Grammys, So,
like I could see maybe why he's a little upset. Yeah, exactly.
(07:15):
Uh So, yeah, it's very unprecedented. We'll go on this
now as the Grammy's basically released a statement that I
will read only part of, but basically they said, usually
when you put out the gray and this is paraphrasing,
they said, usually when we put out the Grammys, uh,
you know, nominations, they have to change spelling stuff and
name stuff, or maybe they forgot a person, you know,
(07:36):
who should be associated maybe like a songwriter or a
producer or something. Uh. But they said, like basically and
kind of indicated that it's they're having to make these
changes after the fact. There's nobody else that's gonna be
added to the rap category. By the way, there's only
gonna be four albums in that category now. Um, And
they said, what, we are making these updates public to
(07:58):
ensure transparency and accessibility to the most up to date
and accurate information, which is honestly one of the first
times that they've done this. Usually it's kind of a
closed door thing, like they're just going to tell the voters, hey,
don't vote for this, we're taking this away, or they'll
put it as an option on their website. Or something,
but yeah, it's it's really strange. I also wanted to
(08:19):
throw this in because I saw this, but I felt
like it wasn't a big enough story to kind of
be on its own, but I thought you would find
it particularly interesting and we can talk about this. Also,
is that St. Vincent or St Vincent, Jack Antonov, and
Taylor Swift have all been removed from the sour credits
of that album. Uh to quote fit with Grammy guidelines,
(08:42):
as the Grammys wants to only award the Grammy to
the active songwriters on the project, as opposed to those
three that were added on after Rodrigo's song one Step Four,
Three Steps Back was found to be interpolated from Cruel Summer,
which is the Taylor Swift song that was written by
those three people, Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, they're still active
(09:06):
songwright so if they're named right, So we'll go back
to that, but I wanted to throw that in there,
So let's talk about Drake before we go to that. Drake,
first off, Joe, do you have any theories why he's
doing this? Do you think like there's a lot being
thrown around. It's kind of like the general like what
people are saying, well, yeah, what do you think, like
(09:28):
if you were Drake, Like if you try to go
in his head, like why do you think he's making
such a stand against the Grammys and all that? Well,
in your opinion, I have I don't. To be honest,
I don't really know. Um. I mean, obviously I'm not Drake.
News to me. If I am, I'll wake up tomorrow
look in the mirror and there, I mean, I can
see him trying to take a stand, being like this
(09:50):
is my moment to take a stand. Yeah, I can
see that too. But you know, I also feel like
it's almost like it's definitely a message to the Grammys. Uh,
this is one of the biggest artists, especially the hottest
artist right now in a rap category. That's saying you're
not listening to me, you're not putting my music into
the forefront and you're not listen. Yeah really, And so
(10:13):
I'm done playing ball. I'm going to take it away
that that could be something that that's happening. What also
could be happening is you know, like you said, this
stuff with the Astra world happened, which could be a
little bit of a I've seen a thing. Yeah, people
think like, because of the bad press of Astra world,
maybe Drake just wants to step back from the public
(10:34):
in general. Um, I think that's a little bit of
a stretch personally, because I I think that for the
most part, Drake has actually been pretty safe press wise
from Yeah, and and I don't I don't think that's
really a factor when it comes to this. I I do.
(10:56):
I do think it's more of like a pride thing
with Drake, where it's like, Okay, I don't care anymore.
I'm one of the biggest artists. I don't need this
award to dictate whether I'm a huge artist or not.
So I'm just gonna do it myself. And what's interesting
to me is like Drake is doing this, but what
if other people follow, especially big artists who are getting named.
(11:17):
What if we have like, uh, a mass exit, Yeah,
a mass exit of artists who who you know, they
get nominated, but then like you know, more and more
artists every year just say no, I'm good. It's like
when we were talking about them adding the nominees and
I kind of made up the idea for I said,
like if the public, clearly because of the Grammys numbers
(11:39):
were so low last year the lowest the Grammys have
ever been viewership wise. If the public is not believing it,
the only side that you have believing it is this
industry folks. So if the industry folks are gone, what
is left? Like, then the Grammies really lose their validity.
And that's the thing is, like a lot of people
in the industry don't take Grammys seriously. They take they
(12:00):
take it seriously for you know, if you've got for
a Grammy, that's amazing. You're going to get album sales
from that, right, You're gonna get placement afterwards on that.
It could be career changing for sure. But I I
do think there is a general disdain for the Grammys
because they've created such a bad environment over the years
(12:21):
um that they're now trying to change supposedly and like
distinctly worse than my opinion, than a lot of other
award shows. Oh yeah, absolutely, if you look at Oscars
or an Emmy's, it seems like more of like, you know,
obviously they have their critics. They have honestly a lot
of the same criticism that the Grammys we're dealing with.
But they kind of, in my opinion, especially from television
(12:43):
and movies seem to have like, oh, this is to
honor people, like it's to bring people up, or to
bring movies up and stuff like that. But the Grammys
seem to have the exact opposite, where it's like you're
bringing people down by not including them severely, and that's
the focus that seems to be in the forefront of
every one's mind. Yeah, I agree, I think it's much more. Um.
(13:03):
I mean, if we're just looking at the broad scheme
of how the Grammys work, or really how music versus
film works, right, film is generally you're gonna have more
people with a crew of people for a film, and
it's it's based that project. You're basically going to be
working on that for like two years straight, like NonStop. Um.
But when it comes to music, I mean a lot
(13:26):
of people are working on a lot of different projects
at a time. Uh, These teams are a lot smaller, um.
But it is very much collaborative, and I would almost
argue more collaborative than the rest of the entertainment industry
because it is so dependent on raising each other up
and it's it's kind of been that way for a
(13:46):
long time. Um. And I think people are kind of
getting sick of, you know, their friends getting screwed over
at these award shows and not getting the recognition they deserve,
and tired of playing the game. And at a certain point,
if you get to be Drake level and you have
a choice of do I really need to play this
game or not? Like do I have financially the fuck it?
(14:10):
Who cares? I don't want to do it? You know. Yeah,
And so it seems to me that it's like, this
isn't that big of a you know, maybe like decades
ago this would have been a big thing to Drake,
but this is such a big thing to the Grammy.
So I'll go into this and you can give your
thoughts about it as well. As I really do think
this is a bad, bad time for the Grammies to
(14:30):
have this happen to them, especially when we've talked about before.
They've got rid of the nomination committees. They've tried to
appear more inclusive, they've tried to have more of an
open voting schedule. They've tried to show how they're trying
to include many different acts of diverse backgrounds in through
the Grammys. There's even more, you know, nominees than there's
ever been. So to have someone now vocally be like, nah,
(14:54):
I'm backing out even though you've done all of this,
you know, maybe even they don't even know you know,
Drake Mount and even know as much as the Grammys
have done. Not that I'm trying to defend them severely here,
but like the idea is, like this is a very
pivotal moment for them to try to be like we've
changed our leaf and this giant press event. I mean
I was seeing this everywhere with Drake and people being
(15:14):
like to see Grammys are finally getting taken down. People
are finally making their stand, like Drake here, and a
lot of people don't know, well, maybe the Grammys are
actually drying a super you know, new system, you know,
development of their system. So like, again, we'll have to
see how that. I'm personally interested in how it affects
who gets voted and all that kind of stuff and
(15:36):
who wins. I think that's gonna be Honestly, one of
the best telling things is if you have more of
a diversification there. But I think this is a blow
to the Grammys in a big way, especially literally where
you know, T minus at January thirty one, so like
less than a month and a half while we're recording
this to uh the Grammy start date. It's like, honestly,
(15:59):
some of them most prices I've seen about the Grammys
is Drake being like, this is stupid. You shouldn't be
a part of it. Yeah, Well, and that's that's the thing,
is like I really just coming back to like what
if people just walk away, you know, in the future,
then that takes a lot of power away from the Grammys,
and they become less relevant and less uh accurate of
(16:23):
like what popular music and what good popular music is
at that point. And so it really is an important
You're right, this is like the worst time for it
to happen. But I also think this is a pivotal
moment because it's I think the Grammys are really really
try and clause their way back to people's consciousness and
(16:45):
and um on the people's good side, and they're really
having a hard time footing basically. I also just want
to add one thing before I also am Agreemo Joe.
I have seen a lot of people talk about this
is him trying to get away from aster world, and
I sincerely do not believe that. I just don't think
(17:06):
it is either because, like to be honest, he just
he really didn't get involved with like I think any
of that. I think I have a theory that it
might have a couple he was. Yeah, he's named in lawsuits,
like we've talked about on the show. But I feel
like at a public perception, he's getting the least flak
out of the participants that were there. And I feel
(17:28):
like he didn't need to do this, if that's what
it was for. But at the end of the day,
I feel like he like it wasn't that crazy of
a crisis for him personally. I'm not talking about Travis
scottar Live Nation that are getting suit for billions of
dollars now, but specifically Drake did not need like something
to shield himself. Yeah, I mean, and to Drake wasn't
(17:49):
putting on the event, which is a huge, massive difference,
especially in the eyes of the public Drake and in
the way the booking works, like Drake's a guest on
on his on Travis's bill, on the Live Nation bill,
on the Live Nation bill. Yeah, And like to be honest,
did he even have a full set or did he
just uh, he just appeared on Travis's set. Right. Yeah,
(18:10):
So in a lot of cases this v I p artists,
they'll they'll just show up for a couple of songs
and then they'll dip. They'll take their you know, that'll
take there, they'll take their yeah, their settlement, and they'll
they'll get out like okay. So I think that's good
on Drake. But let's talk about this taywords with Jack
Anthon off St Vincent thing. Because I thought, to be honest,
like this was more for me. I was like, this
(18:31):
is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, And I don't mean
to be like, oh, you know all the copyright stuff
that's going on now where people are like you were
part of my song. You were part of my song
and people were just getting all their you know rights
for it and maybe they didn't you know, deserve it.
Um Like almost like a Marvin Gay blurred line situation
in my opinion. But I think they should be credited
(18:54):
like I am, if they are willing, if they are
legally allowed to get money from her, specifically Olivia Rodrigo
with sour that they have to get paid out to them.
There are enough songwriters, like enough of being an active
songwriter that they should be awarded for this. So how
(19:15):
would you know if a person was an active songwriter
unless it was like this specific situation. Because in a
lot of times, in a lot of cases, if you're
getting signed to some vast umbrella deal, right, you're gonna
have to have a producer's name on your on your song,
even if that producer didn't even step into the room.
(19:35):
Sometimes I feel like they've there's no reason if you
already have the songwriting credit, which they will. You know,
we joke about how there's fifty songwriters on these songs
and stuff. But at the same time, if you're not
in that god name room or you don't have some
legal claim to this, they will fight you tooth and
nail not to put you in the song. So if
there's a if you're on it, you're on it. You're
(19:56):
on it for a reason. And most of the time,
again there are lawsuits that are like, oh, what's going on,
But like, clearly there's been an embrace from Rodrigo's camp
and Taylor's camp to be like, yes, this is an interpolation,
like you're using you know, some of the melodic and
elements of this song and putting it in your one
step for a three step back song. So I feel
like it's like, yeah, that's that was an admittance that
(20:21):
just because they did the work earlier doesn't mean that
they it is an impacting now right. And but that's
my thing is like they get the money from the
publishing money, but they don't get the award, Like what
That's so strange to me. It's like legally they are now.
Legally they said you have this, You've done this song,
it's very similar to our song. You admit that will
(20:43):
come to a settlement on you think Rodrigo would would
say that on stage in terms of like this song
is interpolated or or like Taylor and Jack and you know,
they get you know, I would be interested if if
Rodrigo wins is if really for the album category and
went up there, I would I don't know. I could
(21:04):
definitely see them kind of doing a middle ground, if
that makes sense, by saying like, obviously I want to
thank you know, my mother and my father, God whatever,
and then be like, uh, I also want to thank
my influences, specifically Taylor Swift and you know, maybe the
work of Jack anton Off. Like I would I can
imagine her like doing like a subtle almost like a
(21:26):
wink at the camera, like you know, like you know,
like a little little slide in there. But like, also,
I don't know what her situation is if like we
we theorized on the show way back that maybe this
stuff with her and Taylor is like coordinated to be like,
let's not get into a giant legal battle. Let's uh,
you know, be like we came to an agreement and
(21:47):
we still like each other as people, which could be true,
but I don't know Rodrigo's real feelings about this. She
could be like, no, that wasn't close, but I had
to give it to them, and I wasn't going to
start a big fight legally in the press and be
like Taylor or something because I like her as a person,
you know, So I don't know it would be I
would literally be like screaming at my TV if if
(22:08):
she did, I would be like, good for you, Like,
oh god, that was the worst punt in the world.
I just realized that. I think we found her clip.
Moving on, what do you think is like the biggest
venue you can think of, like in scale? Yeah, in scale?
(22:31):
Like yeah, um, what's the venue? That comes to be
like a stadium. I would assume like some giant international
like stadium where they do soccer or something like that.
Something crazy, right, Like you're having tens, like hundreds of
thousands of people in there. Yeah, Well, guess what the
biggest venue was this past year. Red Rocks Amphitheater was
(22:54):
the biggest earner globally. It was. It's the biggest venue,
like global earning venue in the world. Colin, Isn't that insane?
I don't think people realize quite how insane this is.
So viewed as an underdog venue by the industry. Red
Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado has beaten out massive venues such
(23:15):
as Madison Square Garden in New York City and t
Mobile Arena in Las Vegas by selling a total of
nine hundred nineties six thousand tickets, thus making it the
most successful venue globally this year. Just to put that
into perspective, how big the deal this is. The capacity
for Red Rocks is about nine thousand people, well, while
(23:39):
Madison Square Garden is twenty thousand. Yeah, and Red Rocks
beat Madison Square Garden out by a massive seven hundred
and fifty thousand tickets. Seven hundred fifty thousand tickets. This
is what I was wondering. So you're telling me I
thought when you said, like most of successful venue, I
(24:00):
thought it was going to be like a profit margin
thing or something. They're beating them out by tickets, by tickets.
And you know how much they made this year. They
made sixty one point six million dollars. That's insane for
a venue the size. So it was very successful. But
the venue did struggle with increasing their staffing, especially in
(24:23):
the security department, which forced fans to experience longer than
normal lines and slower processes during the concerts. However, fans
were obviously not deterred and continued to support and attend
concerts at the venue. So, like, the big question is like,
how did this little I guess not little, but how
did this like medium sized venue beat out these global
(24:44):
giants of other videos. Well, the thing is, during the
reopening of venues from the pandemic, Red Rocks has something
over the rest of the world's venues. It's completely outside. Therefore,
it followed COVID protocols much easier than most other venues
around the world, and so they were able to increase
(25:05):
capacity faster than most venues around the world couve so
Red Rocks is also considered one of the most historical
venues in the u u s as it as part
of like a venue as well as a park, and
it was made in nineteen o six and since then
performers have been wanting to come in perform at Red
Rocks because of the natural acoustics, which of course most
(25:28):
concerts now use like modern p A systems. But the
notoriety of the venue is still very much present, with
a lot of tourists coming from around the globe to
see concerts there. So although Billboard didn't get into the
specifics of pricing of each ticket, I also believe that
generally Red Rocks is pricier than most other amphitheaters because
(25:50):
you're paying not only for the talent, but also to
experience the space as well. So call we discussed earlier
this year about the impact of like demand as for
live music in like the industry, But would you have
seen this coming at all, like Red Rocks specifically being
the most attended. Um, you know, it was interesting to
(26:12):
see like again at the end of the day, I
definitely think like what you're saying, COVID was the reason
that this was a possibility. I think obviously these people
had to also work their ass off. I mean, I
just looked at Madison Square Gardens capacity if it was
at full capacity, which is not going to be because
COVID it had twenty thousand people, so they would be
doubling their number if they both had sold out shows.
(26:35):
It's that and also, like you have to think of
lockdown procedures of each tate, you have to think of
the fact that it's a it's an outdoor video as
opposed to an indoor venue, which really did open the door.
You know, COVID and COVID protocols really did open the
like possibility of them because they didn't have obviously the
numbers straight up from the capacity, but they had a
(26:57):
system down that was allowed to have been that. Other
you know, cities weren't as specifically, Medison Square Garden is
in New York City, which was one of the you know,
most strong COVID policies there is, um so I could
see that as well. I definitely think this is a
win for Red Rocks because of the publicity and it's
just going to add on. But I also wanted to,
you know, hit. This is Red Rocks is one of
(27:19):
the few venues in terms of modern venues that actually
has like an a lord to itself because it's it's
funny because me and Joe we're both trained classically but
in different things in terms of like musicianships. So when
I was coming up in the classical world, that's normal,
but it's not if you think about it, it's not
as normal in uh, modern music. So like, let's think
(27:44):
if you're a classical musician, you want to play a Carnegie,
a Kennedy Center all that, you know, those are like, wow,
you have the but you don't really have that. You're like,
which giant plastic box would you like to play? Billie Eilish?
You know, Like that's what I feel like. It's like,
would you like to play the third thousand one? Would
you like to play the dumbest arena name of all time?
Crypto dot Com? You know, like, and so that's what
(28:06):
I'm saying is it seems to me that Red Rocks
in a modern age is one of the few venues
that I know and people know and they don't even
have to like really be in the area or like
be like, oh, this is just you know, a giant spot.
I can barely name like other arenas and stuff like
that that are that historic. I mean. The only other
one I can think, which I wouldn't even I would
(28:29):
put it in a different league because it has different
parameters is like the Rheyman here is a good example,
because for country music specifically, it's such a you know yeah,
and I feel like Red Rocks is that. But instead
of being John relocked as much as the Rheman is,
it's open to all. They're like, oh wow, it's so
beautiful here. There's nothing else that looks like this in
(28:49):
the same way that like in the classical world, you're like, oh,
it's a Carnegie Hall. There's nothing that's particularly like this.
Um My favorite thing is like my sister, she lives
in Colorado and she goes at Red Rocks all the time.
I remember one time, you know, she's like, yeah, the
acoustics are so great, it's amazing. And guess which concert
(29:10):
she went to go see? God what scrillics. Yes, the
modern the the natural acoustics really carries scrilics tape. But yeah,
I just got yeah, I uh that that is really
funny to think of, like artists like that and be like,
(29:32):
you know that hi fi scenario, this is so beautiful
and it's just like Vining is just so beautiful and serene.
But do you think that Red Rocks is going to
be able to carry this into next year? I don't
know about the title. I don't think so, because currently,
unless oh Maicron stops something, yeah, that's what I'm kind
(29:55):
of thinking about, if that's the only thing I can
think of. But currently, my you know, hope is that
we're full steam ahead and like things don't have to
go and you know, giant COVID procedures anymore and more
people get the vaccine, I hope so, and that timeline,
I guess is that I don't think they would have
a way of competing. But in that scenario, if we
(30:15):
had to go back and walk down and more COVID
procedures and stuff like that, yeah, I could see it
again because if you know, you have this factor again,
the notoriety that a lot of these other venues don't,
and you're in a state that we've actually covered before
that has less COVID protocols. Remember I can't remember, it
must have been like ten or fifteen episodes ago. I
(30:36):
was talking about that festival that occurred right over the
border of Colorado and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Like I believe Colorado had a little bit laxer in
terms of especially New York. I can say that without
without because New York had some of the highest but
you have so much open space to out in Colorado. Yeah,
and the idea of it being outdoors is obviously like
(30:59):
way way easier in COVID concerns than inside unless you
want to, you know, do some giant upgrade to an
arena like that for that. But then people are going
to be like, this is just a transient event. COVID
will eventually maybe go away, So I'm not going to
spend like half a million dollars and some crazy h
VAC unit that goes all the way through. Yeah. So
(31:20):
I I think yes and no. I think if COVID
you know, came back and we were long lockdown again, Yeah,
but I don't think again, like Madison Square Garden is
doubling what they're doing at night if they're selling out,
so there's kind of come back full steam ahead. It
will probably even out. But I do think it's a
(31:40):
great feat, you know. Yeah, they they definitely took advantage,
I think, and uh, from what it seems like, you know,
people were lining up left and right to book here,
and I think they just had an insane amount of
shows a week. That's the other thing we didn't talk about, obviously,
if you're a band and you're still trying to play
and it was like more COVID Central. Red Rocks is
(32:03):
probably on the you know docket as one of the
thousand minus outdoor venues that's set up a nice yeah
in a recorded setting to people want to play Red
Rocks and record their sets at Red Rocks. Remember, Wolf
Peck did that same thing, and a bunch of other
bands have done that same thing before because they just
really like the you know, the aesthetic and the acoustic
stuff in there, which I've talked to people mixed in
(32:25):
there and they say it's very it's like a very
unique sound because you know, it reflects off the actual
rock and all that kind of stuff, so it's it's
just got its own kind of sound that people aren't
used to. So go but man, I can't believe that. Man,
this is just so serene, it's so nice out here. Branch.
(32:50):
Let's get onto the next thing. Spotify wrapped. Let's talk
about this. I love Spotify wrapped calling. Okay, I do
love it unless you're a YouTube music user like me
and you can't do you ship. I still haven't got
I made that TikTok which you may have seen, my
TikTok about me a bitching about YouTube music not having
anything like this. Still have not got the crappy YouTube
(33:11):
music feature by the way, that is supposed to be
kind of like the rap. Still don't have it, even
though they say it should have it. Anyway, it's coming
to the mail. Yeah, that's how slow it's coming anyway.
I want to talk about Spotify Rap because Spotify wrapped.
I feel like it's a huge thing for our industry
in terms of getting, you know, great notoriety for all
these different artists and all that kind of stuff, especially
(33:32):
in the lower songs. It's it's pretty insane, like when
you know, if some random little act or something is
your favorite song, you're basically giving publicity to everyone that
you know when you put it on your Facebook page
or Instagram page and being like, oh wow, this song
is so good. This was this person's number one song.
It's got to be good. I want to listen to it,
(33:53):
So like that's why I want to talk about it,
and I we'll get into like my little pole that
I did about it because I wanted to know y'all's opinions,
which I do it on Instagram and Twitter if you're
more of a Twitter user. So I was looking at
this and I was like, we have to look at
this data of how it works. And Billboard did a
pretty good article about it. So the three most anticipated
rap statistics, obviously, like I was alluding to, are the
(34:15):
top five artists, the top five songs, and the top
five albums. And this is pretty straightforward. It's based on
the number of total streams. So a stream is when
a user has listened to a song for at least
thirty seconds, so it's not just like clicks. So that
seems pretty pretty accurate, right if you were Here's another
thing I want to bring up before I get into this.
(34:36):
Spotify rap makes obviously makes the assumption when they especially publish,
there's these personal stats that you have, so like Joe's account,
like what Joe's listened to, and then they have overall
lists and they're kind of calculated different. But the way
that Spotify rap because it comes out every year, makes
it seem like it should be a pretty accurate estimation
(34:57):
of like who's big who's not, especially in the overall list.
But I wanted to show you maybe some biases if
you're kind of trying to look through this data. So overall, uh,
like the overall charts, let's say, like the big top
fives and all that kind of stuff that is calculated
from everybody is actually only calculated from January one through November,
which makes sense because they have to compile the data.
(35:17):
And then apparently the personal ones they don't even give
a date when it stops. They just say it's a
few weeks before the launch, So like, I'm assuming it's
probably around the middle of November, if not the early Novembers. Um.
Then this is where the bias kind of starts, which
is interesting to look at. So with that in mind
(35:39):
that this has some bias to it because of the
release window, uh, songs that are released earlier in the
window have an advantage for obvious reasons. They have months
and months to rack up streams. So, for instance, the
number one stream song on Spotify was Driver's License by
Olivia Rodrigo, and other than it having crazy breakout success.
It may be on here because it's honestly probably the
(36:01):
best date for it to be to chart on this chart,
specifically because it was released January eight, So the number
two one is Montero Uh call Me by Your Name,
which wasn't released until three months later. So obviously you
can go, well, one song might have a lot more
hype and breakthrough even because of that, But Olivia Rigo
(36:23):
innately is going to have more streams most of the time.
Let's say they have the same popularity because they're three
months before, so that can impact a lot of like
all this data in here, although it can also work
the other way, where you rise into prominence in the year.
A good example of this is the Levitating remix by Dualipa,
(36:43):
which features the Baby, which was released in but then
came back up into the first half to be in
the top five songs. Um yeah. So what's interesting is
maybe some of you are like screaming at your phone
right now, thinking we'll colin. Obviously, if you're not on
this year's list, you're gonna be on next year's, like,
because that's just how it works. So you don't fit
(37:03):
in there. You'll just be in the next year then
like there's no bias. Well, here's the thing. The last
six weeks of the year, they don't count at all,
so at all at all. Yeah, traditionally they don't like
count it. I mean maybe they'll change next year, who knows,
but like they just don't count it. So so we
(37:24):
could all be streaming. We could get you know, Aqua
by Barbie Girl to be the number one song on
Spotify and no one would know only and I don't
know what solace we would get from that. Anyway. Here's
a good example of albums that might get a little
bit messed up from this is Adele's thirty, which was
(37:46):
released right on the edge of the cutoff. So some
managers like, god, damn it, Well, obviously this this, you know,
this is a giant advertising event. This might be another
thing to consider you're releasing a giant album for an
artist because you get even more pressed from it because
it literally goes to everyone's phones. What's better than a
(38:07):
mailing list, you know what I mean? Literally it goes
straight to your phone off the app used all the time,
so it could negularly affect them. But I mean Billboard
and I were also going to assert that Adele has
the ability to just also just be crazy in terms
of like rotations later on in the year when they
start counting it. But this could affect severely smaller creators.
(38:30):
Let's say if somebody was having a breakout song during
this time, I guess if you listen to Christmas music whatever,
Sorry Mariah Carrey, you're not getting on here no matter what.
Like so, um, yeah, it's you. You're not listening to
your song in July. Okay, I do listen to from anyway.
Another thing that people were talking about, which I thought
(38:52):
was really interesting is the top album's category. It seems
straight enough, like you don't think there'll be any problems
with we just count the amount of streams for the album,
But think about that a little bit deeper. It counts
the track streams, so in a way, it favors albums
(39:12):
that are longer. So if you have, you know, maybe
more of like an album that's thematic or conceptual. Some
examples that are saying like CLB and Donda, which are
up there, uh, because they have so many tracks and
they encourage people to listen through you know, like experience Donda,
(39:34):
for example, they would probably have they have a better
chance of being in the upper top albums compared to
other artists that maybe are a collection of just singles
that are like this song is pretty good, this song
is pretty good, as opposed to you know, telling your
fan base, oh no, this is a thematic thing, you
want to listen to all the songs. Um. Lastly is
(39:55):
a really obviously one is artists with longer careers, and
this actually the artist category. If you just have more
repertoire to listen to, then you're gonna just accumulate streams bigger,
you know what I mean. So for instance, that's why
you saw no Olivia Rodrico, which it's kind of you
get in this whole gray area about top five artists,
(40:17):
and if you think of raptives the year in review,
I don't know if that's that accurate, you know what
I mean at the end of the day, because it's like,
Olivia Rodrigo was such a big thing for this year,
so for her not to be in that category whatsoever,
it's kind of strange. But then you think about it,
like how she's going to compete with a Justin Bieber
(40:38):
who has been you know, literally going since thirteen years
old and now is in his twenties. Well, what are
you gonna do? You know what I mean? So that
that's kind of the whole thing with it is that
I think it really brings up with any chart, but
especially the Spotify charts, and I will also go into
Billboard charts as well and all the other various charts
you see on a rolling stone. You really have to
(40:59):
look at the data and how it's collected. Like you
don't have to be a statician, you know, and be like,
oh I look through all this comb through all this data,
but you will see crazy different statistics based on how
the data has taken. I mean that's how you literally
get biased and you know, in some cases malicious data
(41:20):
obviously for more serious things in life, but also could
be for this which is also me and you's favorite joke,
which is, you know, I won the Best Country uh
Neanderthal Award in Lower Tennessee. Like it's like I was
on the top ten Neanderthalthal country album, right. I don't
(41:40):
know why nen Thal calm in my head, but here
we are anyway. But like I did ask people, I
said a Spotify raptors Spotify as top Artists, album Songs,
et cetera, and actual and accurate depiction of success slash popularity,
which the Instagram people most of them said no. Um
I believe it was about sevent of them said no
to that, which is good, but it is of them.
(42:01):
Do think that. So there's you know, if we if
we expand that out, you could have you know, close
to a good majority of people that think, oh, this
is what everybody you know, almost a bandwagon effect, where
this is what everybody else is listening to. I should
be listening to it too, But it's not necessarily like
as much a year in review as you want it to.
(42:22):
I I do think that it does definitely and you
can probably expand about in this more. It is really helping,
you know, the rich get richer in terms of like
the way the advertising is, in the way the data
is collected. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean favoritism is is rampant
in the streaming industry in general. But um, I for sure,
(42:44):
I I do think it's just skewed to what it
thinks you're gonna you're doing, you know what I mean,
even like I feel like, even you know, I wonder
with some of the stuff that's showing you of like
the popularity stuff if it's young to you, yeah, because
like it's like, oh, well, this this user has a
(43:05):
higher percentage chance that they're actually going to click and
listen to this record as opposed to this person. I
could see that. I could also see, Hey, we know
you like this person already. Maybe if I show you
the stat of like how they're really popular among other people,
you might be like, oh, I'll listen to that again,
you know what I mean? And so I mean it
(43:26):
already does that to me, which it especially like I
feel like Olivia Rodrigo would be a good example of
this is with you know those songs, all them there.
They came out last year January. They're still being played,
but obviously they're gonna have a natural dip because time
has passed. But now because of the Spotify wrapped, I'm
sure her numbers have gone up in terms of like
(43:46):
how many people are coming daily and all that kind
of stuff, because people see it and they're like, I
want to listen to that again, and they go back
to their two one playlist and then they click on
her yes, And I just want to stress is like,
that's why I want to talk about the biases is specifically.
This is because Spotify wrapped for a lot of people,
in my opinion, feels like a year and review of
(44:09):
what's going on. But it's not as straightforward as people think,
and there's some parameters that just affect different types of
music in different ways. So mostly in the overall charts,
I will say usually your specific Spotify is a little
bit less biased because it's mostly just counting numbers. But
you know, you're you and your friends and your friends
(44:29):
friends are creating hundreds of advertisements for these artists, basically
by being like, hey, isn't this fun? I think my
mom sent me, which is really funny to say she sent.
Like Spotify has found a way to be like, oh cool,
we're collecting your data. Isn't that sweet? Everybody else is
against it, but if it's spotifying, they give us a
cool graph The give us cool graphs, and you talk
(44:53):
about that graphic design. Everyone is going in on the
graphic design, and I will be honest, everyone's going in
on the one slide. Okay, yeah, And you know what,
I remember seeing a TikTok of a graphic artist actually
like defending it because they were saying, like, you know,
graphic graphic design is supposed to be freeing, like it's
(45:17):
an art form and you don't really have to like
be like held down by the standards. But like everyone
else was like, yeah, but it's still like looks bad,
specifically talking about the genre page. Yeah, where it has
the squish text and then next to it is the
actual text, and like it's supposed to mimic like a graph,
but it doesn't look good enough, you know what I mean,
(45:39):
Like it doesn't it doesn't bode. I would have liked
the bars and then like a stylized text to the
side or something. That's all I wanted would have been cool.
Is like a photo inside of it would have been
cool or something like that, or like a design to
be like this is indie rock. And maybe it was
like a bunch of guitars or something in the thing.
I don't know, Yeah, something a little bit cooler than whatever.
(45:59):
The all that funt was also very much enjoy everyone
making fun of like you understood the assignment, you know,
I got that kind of stuff where it's like, all right,
back off, I just want to see what my stats are.
I don't need to see this the entire time. My
favorite was the Aura page. I looked at it. I
just like, I sho, you know, coll And I looked
(46:21):
at that page and I go, is something is supposed
to happen? Am I just looking at this color brick?
Oh man? I just I don't understand anyway. I mean,
it works, It clearly works. It's like, we'll still posted
those graphics, right, we can still. I will say that
I did not see the genre one is heavy, but
(46:41):
for obvious reasons, not for just the graphic design, because
people are gonna be like, well you listen to bubblegum
POPA isn't that sweet? No? Um, yeah, I I definitely
think it's It's a huge part of the industry now. Um,
YouTube music, it's a huge part of it, and I
need you to do some ship for it or honestly,
I'll defend my Apple bros. Here Apple people like I
(47:04):
don't under please please give us cool graphs. Well, Colin,
what have you been listening to this week? Oh man? Um?
First off, I'll talk about volpec As a new song
that I really like, um that they released on their
(47:25):
YouTube and volpeck fashion that's literally it's you know, it's
it's uh very funk as always, but it's like the
older stuff, which I really like. I'm not as big
a fan as like stuff that's kind of past the
Beautiful Game and like the Hill Climber and Mr Finish
Line of less of my jam than more of like
the instrumental funk stuff. I'm more of a Fugue State guy.
(47:48):
But like it is uh super yeah, it's super like,
for lack of a better term, it's super Mimi kind
of music to be honest, because it's just like literally
the video is like them on this, you know, very
funky eighties nineties kind of like it sounds like it
should be coming out of like a VCR like song.
And literally what they did for the video is it's
(48:10):
just nineties models just walking up and being like giving
the cat eyes and then they walk. It's all. That's
all it is. It's not new footage. It's not like
they shot it. It's old footage that they just found
for it. Um. The other one I really like is
a song that um my spouse showed me uh from TikTok,
but also our friend Hunter really likes his Pink Pony Club.
(48:34):
Um interesting name, yes it for funny enough is my
spouse was just like singing the song like Pink Pony Club,
and I was like, what are you saying right now?
Like we're just in the car, and they were like,
there's this song. Yeah, there was no con It wasn't
like we were talking about ponies or the color club
(48:54):
Pink pony. So their name is Chappelle Rowan is believe
how that pronounced, and they Pink Pony Club is pretty cool.
I like it. It sounds really stupid, but they like
kind of roll into the absurdity, but you really get
like what they're trying to say out of it. It's
just about having fun and like being yourself kind of
and being at a Pink Pony club is like the
(49:17):
whole thing. And they even play on like how stupid
of a term that is, which is what I like
about it. But it was it's very it's from um
and uh. I honestly was like, how have I not
heard the song before? Um? It's very vibe vibe and
it's like, you know, it starts out as this like
piano solo kind of song and then it just like
evolves into this greater, you know, giant regular pop song
(49:39):
with synths and stuff. So I dig it. Yeah, sick
it's almost like a pink pony club. That's it. That's
how I described it. Hell yeah, Well I've been listening
like a lot of people to the new Joshua Bassett
ep which if you want some Olivia Rodrigo t uh,
maybe you should check it out. You know that I
(50:00):
in on that she dragged basically, and then he came
out as By. He came out as By afterwards, and
then like, yeah, it was like it's very it's very messy.
It's all over the place. It's I will say, the
songs are great. He has an interesting voice, and he
he also has a very like interesting way of enunciating,
(50:21):
like the way he says crisis and stuff. And I
think it would turn some people off of it, but
I actually kind of like it because it's like, I
don't know, it's like it's just an interesting way for
him to sing, not as intense as you know, the
Olivia Rodrigo stuff. It's more of just like him being like,
please leave me alone. I didn't ask for this, Please
please leave me alone. Uh, cornea him. She broke up
(50:43):
with him, But you know, you could just check that
out for yourself. But listening to that, listening to the
new radicals. We love the new radicals, um and uh
oh yeah big news, the new mits Key stuff dropped finally. Yeah,
listening to that heart Lightning the only heartbreaks. Yeah, but
(51:06):
uh ye, Colin, I guess should we just head to
the Pink Pony Club and kind of debrief from a
long day of yeah Grammy battles and yeah, just keep
on dancing at the Pink Pony Club. Guys, thanks for
listening to the Busines tape. You're All Things, music, Becausiness
and media podcast. We really appreciate it if you would
(51:29):
down loud the episodes follow us on the various social media.
You're gonna guess it, it's the biz tape, Joe. You
surprise about that that we got that handled. I am
a little surprised. Actually there wasn't so many biz tapes
out there. Yeah, yeah, I thought there would be an
abundance of Yeah, right. I thought we were gonna be
like Biz Tape six eight three. It's like a gamer time, right,
(51:50):
Big biz Tape six eight three four nine. Anyways, guys,
thanks for listening. Let's see you next time.
Drake turns down grants, red Rocks biggest year yet? And
how does Spotify Wrapped actually work? You're listening to the
biz Tape. Welcome to episode sixty two of the biz
(00:26):
Tape You're all Things Music, Business and Media podcast. I'm
your host Joe with my co host Colin Mackay, lovely
co host. I didn't mean to lock you, by the way.
For the audio listeners, I was like bobbing my head
the entire way. I got really good at saying the
same cadence for the beginning, over and over. Yea, we
have that radio kind of thing. Now we at w
(00:49):
D b b Q. What's your supported radio listeners support?
This is listeners supported. I mean, yeah, but isn't that
such a stupid I guess so. But if you want
to support us more, be sure to download this episode
or you can follow us Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok at
the biz Taper Is it Facebook meta? Now what it's called?
(01:12):
Me dot com now that it's still it's still Facebook cool.
Or you can email us The biz Tape Podcast at
gmail dot com. So, uh yeah, crazy week, Crazy week,
you know, talking about the Grammys and stuff. We're kind
of getting ready for that. Yeah, we got our Boddles
episodes coming up that we recorded part one. Oh, so
that's fun. But apparently the Grammies just keep going with
(01:35):
stuff like I don't just it's more and more controversial. Well,
it's that it's a lot of unprecedented things to be
honest with you, um, which is like, honestly, if you're
tired of Grammy stuff, I think this might be the
year for you to be interested in it, because it
is there's just so much weird, Like they like I
always talking about the restructuring stuff, um, but there's like
(01:55):
now even we we talked about the additional nominees U
and now we're gonna talk about this, which has been
making the rounds everywhere, which is Drake has turned down
his Grammy nominations like entirely so Drake and Drake's management
have asked to have his two nominations removed, those being
for the Best Out Rap Album and for Certified lover
(02:19):
Boy and Best Rap Performance for Way Too Sexy featuring
Future and Young Thug. Side note, I don't know why
it's that song. People really like that song from that
album and it is really funny, but I'm like, man, okay, whatever. Um.
Drake basically has had a pretty big history with not
(02:39):
being cool with the Grammys. I feel like you can
say that about a lot of people, but Drake has
a lot of very memorable quotes about being dissatisfied with
the Grammys. For instance, when The Weekend wasn't nominated, which
we've talked about before last year at all in any
of his songs or anything blinding Lights related or after
hours related, he said on his Instagram story, quote, is
(03:00):
a great time for someone to start something new that
we can build up over time and pass on to
generations to come instead of the Grammys. Pretty direct if
you wanted even uh more direct stuff. We have my
favorite thing, which is that when he won Best Rap
Song for God's Plan, he said, quote, we play an
(03:20):
opinion based sport and not a factually based sport, and quote,
you already won. If you have people singing your songs
word for word, if they're singing in your hometown, you're
already winning. You don't need this right here, as he
was holding a Grammy on stage at the Grammys, he
said this and apparently right and according to the NBC
(03:41):
that cut his mic off because of that, which Yeah,
they were not having it. Um. So yeah, he has
been super vocal about like not liking the Grammys. So
for him to back out now it's kind of like presidented.
But the actual of him backing out is unprecedented. That
(04:01):
makes sense, Like it's like nobody's really done this before. Um,
and so it's really insane to think about it in
terms of like the history of Grammys. Like literally the
Grammys were like, we don't even know what to do
with us, which I'll get into in a minute. Um.
He also has complaints with be basically being boxed into
the rap category in general. Uh, you know they I
(04:23):
think I couldn't find the quote again, but he basically
said they don't know what to do with me, which
is hilarious to me. Um. Also, it's you know, weird
because people were saying, like, oh, why is he just
in the rap categories? Speaking of that, because Certified lover
Boy was such a huge mash which we talked about
on the show and literally was showing everyone how Drake
(04:45):
basically owns all Spotify numbers compared to anyone in the world.
Apparently there's a theory going on that while it's uncertain
whether he chose not to submit Certified lover Boy or
his other songs to the big categories album Song or
Record of the Year. He his absence from the categories
seemed to suggest that he didn't so he like his
(05:06):
team might have submitted it specifically to the rap category
for those two categories, and then he withdrew from it.
So I don't know if it was like maybe it
was a compromise. Maybe they were just like, come on,
just fucking put your name on it. We'll send it out.
You don't have to deal with that management, like talking
to Drake, and then he was like, fine, I just
(05:27):
don't really care. Just don't put me the big things
because I don't really want to be associated with that.
And maybe that changed over time. For instance, he has
had a history actually if also not submitting things that
people are like, why didn't this get submitted for his
album More Life and Team, which could have qualified for
the Grammys and was had a good number of like
chance of actually even winning some categories, but he just
(05:49):
didn't nominate it at all. Um So other than that,
he people have been trying to figure out why. Basically,
I mean, obviously clearly he's not a fan if he's
on stage saying this is stupid, Like why holding the
Grammy in his hand? I think he's not a fan.
So maybe that's a theory. I don't know, but people
(06:10):
are going wild with theories. One that I saw that
maybe has some weight about why he has so much
contempt for the Grammys is that he has actually not
done that well and the Grammys, especially compared to his
contemporary rapper friends. Um Drake only has four Grammys compared
to me and some of his peers, jay Z who
(06:30):
has twenty three and Kanye West that has twenty two. Yeah,
and this is someone who's been toppings for the past
like eight years. Yeah, literally it's been again he was
He's the most streamed artist out of anyone. So like
it's you may understand why he might have some justification
of being like, why am I not winning these things?
(06:51):
Maybe that's why he's so mad at it. Also, on
top of that, he's been nominated a bunch of times
and not one. Uh, he's top five nominations in a
year just twice. In sixteen he had eight nominations and
didn't and he had seven, But he only has four Grammys, So,
like I could see maybe why he's a little upset. Yeah, exactly.
(07:15):
Uh So, yeah, it's very unprecedented. We'll go on this
now as the Grammy's basically released a statement that I
will read only part of, but basically they said, usually
when you put out the gray and this is paraphrasing,
they said, usually when we put out the Grammys, uh,
you know, nominations, they have to change spelling stuff and
name stuff, or maybe they forgot a person, you know,
(07:36):
who should be associated maybe like a songwriter or a
producer or something. Uh. But they said, like basically and
kind of indicated that it's they're having to make these
changes after the fact. There's nobody else that's gonna be
added to the rap category. By the way, there's only
gonna be four albums in that category now. Um, And
they said, what, we are making these updates public to
(07:58):
ensure transparency and accessibility to the most up to date
and accurate information, which is honestly one of the first
times that they've done this. Usually it's kind of a
closed door thing, like they're just going to tell the voters, hey,
don't vote for this, we're taking this away, or they'll
put it as an option on their website. Or something,
but yeah, it's it's really strange. I also wanted to
(08:19):
throw this in because I saw this, but I felt
like it wasn't a big enough story to kind of
be on its own, but I thought you would find
it particularly interesting and we can talk about this. Also,
is that St. Vincent or St Vincent, Jack Antonov, and
Taylor Swift have all been removed from the sour credits
of that album. Uh to quote fit with Grammy guidelines,
(08:42):
as the Grammys wants to only award the Grammy to
the active songwriters on the project, as opposed to those
three that were added on after Rodrigo's song one Step Four,
Three Steps Back was found to be interpolated from Cruel Summer,
which is the Taylor Swift song that was written by
those three people, Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, they're still active
(09:06):
songwright so if they're named right, So we'll go back
to that, but I wanted to throw that in there,
So let's talk about Drake before we go to that. Drake,
first off, Joe, do you have any theories why he's
doing this? Do you think like there's a lot being
thrown around. It's kind of like the general like what
people are saying, well, yeah, what do you think, like
(09:28):
if you were Drake, Like if you try to go
in his head, like why do you think he's making
such a stand against the Grammys and all that? Well,
in your opinion, I have I don't. To be honest,
I don't really know. Um. I mean, obviously I'm not Drake.
News to me. If I am, I'll wake up tomorrow
look in the mirror and there, I mean, I can
see him trying to take a stand, being like this
(09:50):
is my moment to take a stand. Yeah, I can
see that too. But you know, I also feel like
it's almost like it's definitely a message to the Grammys. Uh,
this is one of the biggest artists, especially the hottest
artist right now in a rap category. That's saying you're
not listening to me, you're not putting my music into
the forefront and you're not listen. Yeah really, And so
(10:13):
I'm done playing ball. I'm going to take it away
that that could be something that that's happening. What also
could be happening is you know, like you said, this
stuff with the Astra world happened, which could be a
little bit of a I've seen a thing. Yeah, people
think like, because of the bad press of Astra world,
maybe Drake just wants to step back from the public
(10:34):
in general. Um, I think that's a little bit of
a stretch personally, because I I think that for the
most part, Drake has actually been pretty safe press wise
from Yeah, and and I don't I don't think that's
really a factor when it comes to this. I I do.
(10:56):
I do think it's more of like a pride thing
with Drake, where it's like, Okay, I don't care anymore.
I'm one of the biggest artists. I don't need this
award to dictate whether I'm a huge artist or not.
So I'm just gonna do it myself. And what's interesting
to me is like Drake is doing this, but what
if other people follow, especially big artists who are getting named.
(11:17):
What if we have like, uh, a mass exit, Yeah,
a mass exit of artists who who you know, they
get nominated, but then like you know, more and more
artists every year just say no, I'm good. It's like
when we were talking about them adding the nominees and
I kind of made up the idea for I said,
like if the public, clearly because of the Grammys numbers
(11:39):
were so low last year the lowest the Grammys have
ever been viewership wise. If the public is not believing it,
the only side that you have believing it is this
industry folks. So if the industry folks are gone, what
is left? Like, then the Grammies really lose their validity.
And that's the thing is, like a lot of people
in the industry don't take Grammys seriously. They take they
(12:00):
take it seriously for you know, if you've got for
a Grammy, that's amazing. You're going to get album sales
from that, right, You're gonna get placement afterwards on that.
It could be career changing for sure. But I I
do think there is a general disdain for the Grammys
because they've created such a bad environment over the years
(12:21):
um that they're now trying to change supposedly and like
distinctly worse than my opinion, than a lot of other
award shows. Oh yeah, absolutely, if you look at Oscars
or an Emmy's, it seems like more of like, you know,
obviously they have their critics. They have honestly a lot
of the same criticism that the Grammys we're dealing with.
But they kind of, in my opinion, especially from television
(12:43):
and movies seem to have like, oh, this is to
honor people, like it's to bring people up, or to
bring movies up and stuff like that. But the Grammys
seem to have the exact opposite, where it's like you're
bringing people down by not including them severely, and that's
the focus that seems to be in the forefront of
every one's mind. Yeah, I agree, I think it's much more. Um.
(13:03):
I mean, if we're just looking at the broad scheme
of how the Grammys work, or really how music versus
film works, right, film is generally you're gonna have more
people with a crew of people for a film, and
it's it's based that project. You're basically going to be
working on that for like two years straight, like NonStop. Um.
But when it comes to music, I mean a lot
(13:26):
of people are working on a lot of different projects
at a time. Uh, These teams are a lot smaller, um.
But it is very much collaborative, and I would almost
argue more collaborative than the rest of the entertainment industry
because it is so dependent on raising each other up
and it's it's kind of been that way for a
(13:46):
long time. Um. And I think people are kind of
getting sick of, you know, their friends getting screwed over
at these award shows and not getting the recognition they deserve,
and tired of playing the game. And at a certain point,
if you get to be Drake level and you have
a choice of do I really need to play this
game or not? Like do I have financially the fuck it?
(14:10):
Who cares? I don't want to do it? You know. Yeah,
And so it seems to me that it's like, this
isn't that big of a you know, maybe like decades
ago this would have been a big thing to Drake,
but this is such a big thing to the Grammy.
So I'll go into this and you can give your
thoughts about it as well. As I really do think
this is a bad, bad time for the Grammies to
(14:30):
have this happen to them, especially when we've talked about before.
They've got rid of the nomination committees. They've tried to
appear more inclusive, they've tried to have more of an
open voting schedule. They've tried to show how they're trying
to include many different acts of diverse backgrounds in through
the Grammys. There's even more, you know, nominees than there's
ever been. So to have someone now vocally be like, nah,
(14:54):
I'm backing out even though you've done all of this,
you know, maybe even they don't even know you know,
Drake Mount and even know as much as the Grammys
have done. Not that I'm trying to defend them severely here,
but like the idea is, like this is a very
pivotal moment for them to try to be like we've
changed our leaf and this giant press event. I mean
I was seeing this everywhere with Drake and people being
(15:14):
like to see Grammys are finally getting taken down. People
are finally making their stand, like Drake here, and a
lot of people don't know, well, maybe the Grammys are
actually drying a super you know, new system, you know,
development of their system. So like, again, we'll have to
see how that. I'm personally interested in how it affects
who gets voted and all that kind of stuff and
(15:36):
who wins. I think that's gonna be Honestly, one of
the best telling things is if you have more of
a diversification there. But I think this is a blow
to the Grammys in a big way, especially literally where
you know, T minus at January thirty one, so like
less than a month and a half while we're recording
this to uh the Grammy start date. It's like, honestly,
(15:59):
some of them most prices I've seen about the Grammys
is Drake being like, this is stupid. You shouldn't be
a part of it. Yeah, Well, and that's that's the thing,
is like I really just coming back to like what
if people just walk away, you know, in the future,
then that takes a lot of power away from the Grammys,
and they become less relevant and less uh accurate of
(16:23):
like what popular music and what good popular music is
at that point. And so it really is an important
You're right, this is like the worst time for it
to happen. But I also think this is a pivotal
moment because it's I think the Grammys are really really
try and clause their way back to people's consciousness and
(16:45):
and um on the people's good side, and they're really
having a hard time footing basically. I also just want
to add one thing before I also am Agreemo Joe.
I have seen a lot of people talk about this
is him trying to get away from aster world, and
I sincerely do not believe that. I just don't think
(17:06):
it is either because, like to be honest, he just
he really didn't get involved with like I think any
of that. I think I have a theory that it
might have a couple he was. Yeah, he's named in lawsuits,
like we've talked about on the show. But I feel
like at a public perception, he's getting the least flak
out of the participants that were there. And I feel
(17:28):
like he didn't need to do this, if that's what
it was for. But at the end of the day,
I feel like he like it wasn't that crazy of
a crisis for him personally. I'm not talking about Travis
scottar Live Nation that are getting suit for billions of
dollars now, but specifically Drake did not need like something
to shield himself. Yeah, I mean, and to Drake wasn't
(17:49):
putting on the event, which is a huge, massive difference,
especially in the eyes of the public Drake and in
the way the booking works, like Drake's a guest on
on his on Travis's bill, on the Live Nation bill,
on the Live Nation bill. Yeah, And like to be honest,
did he even have a full set or did he
just uh, he just appeared on Travis's set. Right. Yeah,
(18:10):
So in a lot of cases this v I p artists,
they'll they'll just show up for a couple of songs
and then they'll dip. They'll take their you know, that'll
take there, they'll take their yeah, their settlement, and they'll
they'll get out like okay. So I think that's good
on Drake. But let's talk about this taywords with Jack
Anthon off St Vincent thing. Because I thought, to be honest,
like this was more for me. I was like, this
(18:31):
is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, And I don't mean
to be like, oh, you know all the copyright stuff
that's going on now where people are like you were
part of my song. You were part of my song
and people were just getting all their you know rights
for it and maybe they didn't you know, deserve it.
Um Like almost like a Marvin Gay blurred line situation
in my opinion. But I think they should be credited
(18:54):
like I am, if they are willing, if they are
legally allowed to get money from her, specifically Olivia Rodrigo
with sour that they have to get paid out to them.
There are enough songwriters, like enough of being an active
songwriter that they should be awarded for this. So how
(19:15):
would you know if a person was an active songwriter
unless it was like this specific situation. Because in a
lot of times, in a lot of cases, if you're
getting signed to some vast umbrella deal, right, you're gonna
have to have a producer's name on your on your song,
even if that producer didn't even step into the room.
(19:35):
Sometimes I feel like they've there's no reason if you
already have the songwriting credit, which they will. You know,
we joke about how there's fifty songwriters on these songs
and stuff. But at the same time, if you're not
in that god name room or you don't have some
legal claim to this, they will fight you tooth and
nail not to put you in the song. So if
there's a if you're on it, you're on it. You're
(19:56):
on it for a reason. And most of the time,
again there are lawsuits that are like, oh, what's going on,
But like, clearly there's been an embrace from Rodrigo's camp
and Taylor's camp to be like, yes, this is an interpolation,
like you're using you know, some of the melodic and
elements of this song and putting it in your one
step for a three step back song. So I feel
like it's like, yeah, that's that was an admittance that
(20:21):
just because they did the work earlier doesn't mean that
they it is an impacting now right. And but that's
my thing is like they get the money from the
publishing money, but they don't get the award, Like what
That's so strange to me. It's like legally they are now.
Legally they said you have this, You've done this song,
it's very similar to our song. You admit that will
(20:43):
come to a settlement on you think Rodrigo would would
say that on stage in terms of like this song
is interpolated or or like Taylor and Jack and you know,
they get you know, I would be interested if if
Rodrigo wins is if really for the album category and
went up there, I would I don't know. I could
(21:04):
definitely see them kind of doing a middle ground, if
that makes sense, by saying like, obviously I want to
thank you know, my mother and my father, God whatever,
and then be like, uh, I also want to thank
my influences, specifically Taylor Swift and you know, maybe the
work of Jack anton Off. Like I would I can
imagine her like doing like a subtle almost like a
(21:26):
wink at the camera, like you know, like you know,
like a little little slide in there. But like, also,
I don't know what her situation is if like we
we theorized on the show way back that maybe this
stuff with her and Taylor is like coordinated to be like,
let's not get into a giant legal battle. Let's uh,
you know, be like we came to an agreement and
(21:47):
we still like each other as people, which could be true,
but I don't know Rodrigo's real feelings about this. She
could be like, no, that wasn't close, but I had
to give it to them, and I wasn't going to
start a big fight legally in the press and be
like Taylor or something because I like her as a person,
you know, So I don't know it would be I
would literally be like screaming at my TV if if
(22:08):
she did, I would be like, good for you, Like,
oh god, that was the worst punt in the world.
I just realized that. I think we found her clip.
Moving on, what do you think is like the biggest
venue you can think of, like in scale? Yeah, in scale?
(22:31):
Like yeah, um, what's the venue? That comes to be
like a stadium. I would assume like some giant international
like stadium where they do soccer or something like that.
Something crazy, right, Like you're having tens, like hundreds of
thousands of people in there. Yeah, Well, guess what the
biggest venue was this past year. Red Rocks Amphitheater was
(22:54):
the biggest earner globally. It was. It's the biggest venue,
like global earning venue in the world. Colin, Isn't that insane?
I don't think people realize quite how insane this is.
So viewed as an underdog venue by the industry. Red
Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado has beaten out massive venues such
(23:15):
as Madison Square Garden in New York City and t
Mobile Arena in Las Vegas by selling a total of
nine hundred nineties six thousand tickets, thus making it the
most successful venue globally this year. Just to put that
into perspective, how big the deal this is. The capacity
for Red Rocks is about nine thousand people, well, while
(23:39):
Madison Square Garden is twenty thousand. Yeah, and Red Rocks
beat Madison Square Garden out by a massive seven hundred
and fifty thousand tickets. Seven hundred fifty thousand tickets. This
is what I was wondering. So you're telling me I
thought when you said, like most of successful venue, I
(24:00):
thought it was going to be like a profit margin
thing or something. They're beating them out by tickets, by tickets.
And you know how much they made this year. They
made sixty one point six million dollars. That's insane for
a venue the size. So it was very successful. But
the venue did struggle with increasing their staffing, especially in
(24:23):
the security department, which forced fans to experience longer than
normal lines and slower processes during the concerts. However, fans
were obviously not deterred and continued to support and attend
concerts at the venue. So, like, the big question is like,
how did this little I guess not little, but how
did this like medium sized venue beat out these global
(24:44):
giants of other videos. Well, the thing is, during the
reopening of venues from the pandemic, Red Rocks has something
over the rest of the world's venues. It's completely outside. Therefore,
it followed COVID protocols much easier than most other venues
around the world, and so they were able to increase
(25:05):
capacity faster than most venues around the world couve so
Red Rocks is also considered one of the most historical
venues in the u u s as it as part
of like a venue as well as a park, and
it was made in nineteen o six and since then
performers have been wanting to come in perform at Red
Rocks because of the natural acoustics, which of course most
(25:28):
concerts now use like modern p A systems. But the
notoriety of the venue is still very much present, with
a lot of tourists coming from around the globe to
see concerts there. So although Billboard didn't get into the
specifics of pricing of each ticket, I also believe that
generally Red Rocks is pricier than most other amphitheaters because
(25:50):
you're paying not only for the talent, but also to
experience the space as well. So call we discussed earlier
this year about the impact of like demand as for
live music in like the industry, But would you have
seen this coming at all, like Red Rocks specifically being
the most attended. Um, you know, it was interesting to
(26:12):
see like again at the end of the day, I
definitely think like what you're saying, COVID was the reason
that this was a possibility. I think obviously these people
had to also work their ass off. I mean, I
just looked at Madison Square Gardens capacity if it was
at full capacity, which is not going to be because
COVID it had twenty thousand people, so they would be
doubling their number if they both had sold out shows.
(26:35):
It's that and also, like you have to think of
lockdown procedures of each tate, you have to think of
the fact that it's a it's an outdoor video as
opposed to an indoor venue, which really did open the door.
You know, COVID and COVID protocols really did open the
like possibility of them because they didn't have obviously the
numbers straight up from the capacity, but they had a
(26:57):
system down that was allowed to have been that. Other
you know, cities weren't as specifically, Medison Square Garden is
in New York City, which was one of the you know,
most strong COVID policies there is, um so I could
see that as well. I definitely think this is a
win for Red Rocks because of the publicity and it's
just going to add on. But I also wanted to,
you know, hit. This is Red Rocks is one of
(27:19):
the few venues in terms of modern venues that actually
has like an a lord to itself because it's it's
funny because me and Joe we're both trained classically but
in different things in terms of like musicianships. So when
I was coming up in the classical world, that's normal,
but it's not if you think about it, it's not
as normal in uh, modern music. So like, let's think
(27:44):
if you're a classical musician, you want to play a Carnegie,
a Kennedy Center all that, you know, those are like, wow,
you have the but you don't really have that. You're like,
which giant plastic box would you like to play? Billie Eilish?
You know, Like that's what I feel like. It's like,
would you like to play the third thousand one? Would
you like to play the dumbest arena name of all time?
Crypto dot Com? You know, like, and so that's what
(28:06):
I'm saying is it seems to me that Red Rocks
in a modern age is one of the few venues
that I know and people know and they don't even
have to like really be in the area or like
be like, oh, this is just you know, a giant spot.
I can barely name like other arenas and stuff like
that that are that historic. I mean. The only other
one I can think, which I wouldn't even I would
(28:29):
put it in a different league because it has different
parameters is like the Rheyman here is a good example,
because for country music specifically, it's such a you know yeah,
and I feel like Red Rocks is that. But instead
of being John relocked as much as the Rheman is,
it's open to all. They're like, oh wow, it's so
beautiful here. There's nothing else that looks like this in
(28:49):
the same way that like in the classical world, you're like, oh,
it's a Carnegie Hall. There's nothing that's particularly like this.
Um My favorite thing is like my sister, she lives
in Colorado and she goes at Red Rocks all the time.
I remember one time, you know, she's like, yeah, the
acoustics are so great, it's amazing. And guess which concert
(29:10):
she went to go see? God what scrillics. Yes, the
modern the the natural acoustics really carries scrilics tape. But yeah,
I just got yeah, I uh that that is really
funny to think of, like artists like that and be like,
(29:32):
you know that hi fi scenario, this is so beautiful
and it's just like Vining is just so beautiful and serene.
But do you think that Red Rocks is going to
be able to carry this into next year? I don't
know about the title. I don't think so, because currently,
unless oh Maicron stops something, yeah, that's what I'm kind
(29:55):
of thinking about, if that's the only thing I can
think of. But currently, my you know, hope is that
we're full steam ahead and like things don't have to
go and you know, giant COVID procedures anymore and more
people get the vaccine, I hope so, and that timeline,
I guess is that I don't think they would have
a way of competing. But in that scenario, if we
(30:15):
had to go back and walk down and more COVID
procedures and stuff like that, yeah, I could see it
again because if you know, you have this factor again,
the notoriety that a lot of these other venues don't,
and you're in a state that we've actually covered before
that has less COVID protocols. Remember I can't remember, it
must have been like ten or fifteen episodes ago. I
(30:36):
was talking about that festival that occurred right over the
border of Colorado and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Like I believe Colorado had a little bit laxer in
terms of especially New York. I can say that without
without because New York had some of the highest but
you have so much open space to out in Colorado. Yeah,
and the idea of it being outdoors is obviously like
(30:59):
way way easier in COVID concerns than inside unless you
want to, you know, do some giant upgrade to an
arena like that for that. But then people are going
to be like, this is just a transient event. COVID
will eventually maybe go away, So I'm not going to
spend like half a million dollars and some crazy h
VAC unit that goes all the way through. Yeah. So
(31:20):
I I think yes and no. I think if COVID
you know, came back and we were long lockdown again, Yeah,
but I don't think again, like Madison Square Garden is
doubling what they're doing at night if they're selling out,
so there's kind of come back full steam ahead. It
will probably even out. But I do think it's a
(31:40):
great feat, you know. Yeah, they they definitely took advantage,
I think, and uh, from what it seems like, you know,
people were lining up left and right to book here,
and I think they just had an insane amount of
shows a week. That's the other thing we didn't talk about, obviously,
if you're a band and you're still trying to play
and it was like more COVID Central. Red Rocks is
(32:03):
probably on the you know docket as one of the
thousand minus outdoor venues that's set up a nice yeah
in a recorded setting to people want to play Red
Rocks and record their sets at Red Rocks. Remember, Wolf
Peck did that same thing, and a bunch of other
bands have done that same thing before because they just
really like the you know, the aesthetic and the acoustic
stuff in there, which I've talked to people mixed in
(32:25):
there and they say it's very it's like a very
unique sound because you know, it reflects off the actual
rock and all that kind of stuff, so it's it's
just got its own kind of sound that people aren't
used to. So go but man, I can't believe that. Man,
this is just so serene, it's so nice out here. Branch.
(32:50):
Let's get onto the next thing. Spotify wrapped. Let's talk
about this. I love Spotify wrapped calling. Okay, I do
love it unless you're a YouTube music user like me
and you can't do you ship. I still haven't got
I made that TikTok which you may have seen, my
TikTok about me a bitching about YouTube music not having
anything like this. Still have not got the crappy YouTube
(33:11):
music feature by the way, that is supposed to be
kind of like the rap. Still don't have it, even
though they say it should have it. Anyway, it's coming
to the mail. Yeah, that's how slow it's coming anyway.
I want to talk about Spotify Rap because Spotify wrapped.
I feel like it's a huge thing for our industry
in terms of getting, you know, great notoriety for all
these different artists and all that kind of stuff, especially
(33:32):
in the lower songs. It's it's pretty insane, like when
you know, if some random little act or something is
your favorite song, you're basically giving publicity to everyone that
you know when you put it on your Facebook page
or Instagram page and being like, oh wow, this song
is so good. This was this person's number one song.
It's got to be good. I want to listen to it,
(33:53):
So like that's why I want to talk about it,
and I we'll get into like my little pole that
I did about it because I wanted to know y'all's opinions,
which I do it on Instagram and Twitter if you're
more of a Twitter user. So I was looking at
this and I was like, we have to look at
this data of how it works. And Billboard did a
pretty good article about it. So the three most anticipated
rap statistics, obviously, like I was alluding to, are the
(34:15):
top five artists, the top five songs, and the top
five albums. And this is pretty straightforward. It's based on
the number of total streams. So a stream is when
a user has listened to a song for at least
thirty seconds, so it's not just like clicks. So that
seems pretty pretty accurate, right if you were Here's another
thing I want to bring up before I get into this.
(34:36):
Spotify rap makes obviously makes the assumption when they especially publish,
there's these personal stats that you have, so like Joe's account,
like what Joe's listened to, and then they have overall
lists and they're kind of calculated different. But the way
that Spotify rap because it comes out every year, makes
it seem like it should be a pretty accurate estimation
(34:57):
of like who's big who's not, especially in the overall list.
But I wanted to show you maybe some biases if
you're kind of trying to look through this data. So overall, uh,
like the overall charts, let's say, like the big top
fives and all that kind of stuff that is calculated
from everybody is actually only calculated from January one through November,
which makes sense because they have to compile the data.
(35:17):
And then apparently the personal ones they don't even give
a date when it stops. They just say it's a
few weeks before the launch, So like, I'm assuming it's
probably around the middle of November, if not the early Novembers. Um.
Then this is where the bias kind of starts, which
is interesting to look at. So with that in mind
(35:39):
that this has some bias to it because of the
release window, uh, songs that are released earlier in the
window have an advantage for obvious reasons. They have months
and months to rack up streams. So, for instance, the
number one stream song on Spotify was Driver's License by
Olivia Rodrigo, and other than it having crazy breakout success.
It may be on here because it's honestly probably the
(36:01):
best date for it to be to chart on this chart,
specifically because it was released January eight, So the number
two one is Montero Uh call Me by Your Name,
which wasn't released until three months later. So obviously you
can go, well, one song might have a lot more
hype and breakthrough even because of that, But Olivia Rigo
(36:23):
innately is going to have more streams most of the time.
Let's say they have the same popularity because they're three
months before, so that can impact a lot of like
all this data in here, although it can also work
the other way, where you rise into prominence in the year.
A good example of this is the Levitating remix by Dualipa,
(36:43):
which features the Baby, which was released in but then
came back up into the first half to be in
the top five songs. Um yeah. So what's interesting is
maybe some of you are like screaming at your phone
right now, thinking we'll colin. Obviously, if you're not on
this year's list, you're gonna be on next year's, like,
because that's just how it works. So you don't fit
(37:03):
in there. You'll just be in the next year then
like there's no bias. Well, here's the thing. The last
six weeks of the year, they don't count at all,
so at all at all. Yeah, traditionally they don't like
count it. I mean maybe they'll change next year, who knows,
but like they just don't count it. So so we
(37:24):
could all be streaming. We could get you know, Aqua
by Barbie Girl to be the number one song on
Spotify and no one would know only and I don't
know what solace we would get from that. Anyway. Here's
a good example of albums that might get a little
bit messed up from this is Adele's thirty, which was
(37:46):
released right on the edge of the cutoff. So some
managers like, god, damn it, Well, obviously this this, you know,
this is a giant advertising event. This might be another
thing to consider you're releasing a giant album for an
artist because you get even more pressed from it because
it literally goes to everyone's phones. What's better than a
(38:07):
mailing list, you know what I mean? Literally it goes
straight to your phone off the app used all the time,
so it could negularly affect them. But I mean Billboard
and I were also going to assert that Adele has
the ability to just also just be crazy in terms
of like rotations later on in the year when they
start counting it. But this could affect severely smaller creators.
(38:30):
Let's say if somebody was having a breakout song during
this time, I guess if you listen to Christmas music whatever,
Sorry Mariah Carrey, you're not getting on here no matter what.
Like so, um, yeah, it's you. You're not listening to
your song in July. Okay, I do listen to from anyway.
Another thing that people were talking about, which I thought
(38:52):
was really interesting is the top album's category. It seems
straight enough, like you don't think there'll be any problems
with we just count the amount of streams for the album,
But think about that a little bit deeper. It counts
the track streams, so in a way, it favors albums
(39:12):
that are longer. So if you have, you know, maybe
more of like an album that's thematic or conceptual. Some
examples that are saying like CLB and Donda, which are
up there, uh, because they have so many tracks and
they encourage people to listen through you know, like experience Donda,
(39:34):
for example, they would probably have they have a better
chance of being in the upper top albums compared to
other artists that maybe are a collection of just singles
that are like this song is pretty good, this song
is pretty good, as opposed to you know, telling your
fan base, oh no, this is a thematic thing, you
want to listen to all the songs. Um. Lastly is
(39:55):
a really obviously one is artists with longer careers, and
this actually the artist category. If you just have more
repertoire to listen to, then you're gonna just accumulate streams bigger,
you know what I mean. So for instance, that's why
you saw no Olivia Rodrico, which it's kind of you
get in this whole gray area about top five artists,
(40:17):
and if you think of raptives the year in review,
I don't know if that's that accurate, you know what
I mean at the end of the day, because it's like,
Olivia Rodrigo was such a big thing for this year,
so for her not to be in that category whatsoever,
it's kind of strange. But then you think about it,
like how she's going to compete with a Justin Bieber
(40:38):
who has been you know, literally going since thirteen years
old and now is in his twenties. Well, what are
you gonna do? You know what I mean? So that
that's kind of the whole thing with it is that
I think it really brings up with any chart, but
especially the Spotify charts, and I will also go into
Billboard charts as well and all the other various charts
you see on a rolling stone. You really have to
(40:59):
look at the data and how it's collected. Like you
don't have to be a statician, you know, and be like,
oh I look through all this comb through all this data,
but you will see crazy different statistics based on how
the data has taken. I mean that's how you literally
get biased and you know, in some cases malicious data
(41:20):
obviously for more serious things in life, but also could
be for this which is also me and you's favorite joke,
which is, you know, I won the Best Country uh
Neanderthal Award in Lower Tennessee. Like it's like I was
on the top ten Neanderthalthal country album, right. I don't
(41:40):
know why nen Thal calm in my head, but here
we are anyway. But like I did ask people, I
said a Spotify raptors Spotify as top Artists, album Songs,
et cetera, and actual and accurate depiction of success slash popularity,
which the Instagram people most of them said no. Um
I believe it was about sevent of them said no
to that, which is good, but it is of them.
(42:01):
Do think that. So there's you know, if we if
we expand that out, you could have you know, close
to a good majority of people that think, oh, this
is what everybody you know, almost a bandwagon effect, where
this is what everybody else is listening to. I should
be listening to it too, But it's not necessarily like
as much a year in review as you want it to.
(42:22):
I I do think that it does definitely and you
can probably expand about in this more. It is really helping,
you know, the rich get richer in terms of like
the way the advertising is, in the way the data
is collected. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean favoritism is is rampant
in the streaming industry in general. But um, I for sure,
(42:44):
I I do think it's just skewed to what it
thinks you're gonna you're doing, you know what I mean,
even like I feel like, even you know, I wonder
with some of the stuff that's showing you of like
the popularity stuff if it's young to you, yeah, because
like it's like, oh, well, this this user has a
(43:05):
higher percentage chance that they're actually going to click and
listen to this record as opposed to this person. I
could see that. I could also see, Hey, we know
you like this person already. Maybe if I show you
the stat of like how they're really popular among other people,
you might be like, oh, I'll listen to that again,
you know what I mean? And so I mean it
(43:26):
already does that to me, which it especially like I
feel like Olivia Rodrigo would be a good example of
this is with you know those songs, all them there.
They came out last year January. They're still being played,
but obviously they're gonna have a natural dip because time
has passed. But now because of the Spotify wrapped, I'm
sure her numbers have gone up in terms of like
(43:46):
how many people are coming daily and all that kind
of stuff, because people see it and they're like, I
want to listen to that again, and they go back
to their two one playlist and then they click on
her yes, And I just want to stress is like,
that's why I want to talk about the biases is specifically.
This is because Spotify wrapped for a lot of people,
in my opinion, feels like a year and review of
(44:09):
what's going on. But it's not as straightforward as people think,
and there's some parameters that just affect different types of
music in different ways. So mostly in the overall charts,
I will say usually your specific Spotify is a little
bit less biased because it's mostly just counting numbers. But
you know, you're you and your friends and your friends
(44:29):
friends are creating hundreds of advertisements for these artists, basically
by being like, hey, isn't this fun? I think my
mom sent me, which is really funny to say she sent.
Like Spotify has found a way to be like, oh cool,
we're collecting your data. Isn't that sweet? Everybody else is
against it, but if it's spotifying, they give us a
cool graph The give us cool graphs, and you talk
(44:53):
about that graphic design. Everyone is going in on the
graphic design, and I will be honest, everyone's going in
on the one slide. Okay, yeah, And you know what,
I remember seeing a TikTok of a graphic artist actually
like defending it because they were saying, like, you know,
graphic graphic design is supposed to be freeing, like it's
(45:17):
an art form and you don't really have to like
be like held down by the standards. But like everyone
else was like, yeah, but it's still like looks bad,
specifically talking about the genre page. Yeah, where it has
the squish text and then next to it is the
actual text, and like it's supposed to mimic like a graph,
but it doesn't look good enough, you know what I mean,
(45:39):
Like it doesn't it doesn't bode. I would have liked
the bars and then like a stylized text to the
side or something. That's all I wanted would have been cool.
Is like a photo inside of it would have been
cool or something like that, or like a design to
be like this is indie rock. And maybe it was
like a bunch of guitars or something in the thing.
I don't know, Yeah, something a little bit cooler than whatever.
(45:59):
The all that funt was also very much enjoy everyone
making fun of like you understood the assignment, you know,
I got that kind of stuff where it's like, all right,
back off, I just want to see what my stats are.
I don't need to see this the entire time. My
favorite was the Aura page. I looked at it. I
just like, I sho, you know, coll And I looked
(46:21):
at that page and I go, is something is supposed
to happen? Am I just looking at this color brick?
Oh man? I just I don't understand anyway. I mean,
it works, It clearly works. It's like, we'll still posted
those graphics, right, we can still. I will say that
I did not see the genre one is heavy, but
(46:41):
for obvious reasons, not for just the graphic design, because
people are gonna be like, well you listen to bubblegum
POPA isn't that sweet? No? Um, yeah, I I definitely
think it's It's a huge part of the industry now. Um,
YouTube music, it's a huge part of it, and I
need you to do some ship for it or honestly,
I'll defend my Apple bros. Here Apple people like I
(47:04):
don't under please please give us cool graphs. Well, Colin,
what have you been listening to this week? Oh man? Um?
First off, I'll talk about volpec As a new song
that I really like, um that they released on their
(47:25):
YouTube and volpeck fashion that's literally it's you know, it's
it's uh very funk as always, but it's like the
older stuff, which I really like. I'm not as big
a fan as like stuff that's kind of past the
Beautiful Game and like the Hill Climber and Mr Finish
Line of less of my jam than more of like
the instrumental funk stuff. I'm more of a Fugue State guy.
(47:48):
But like it is uh super yeah, it's super like,
for lack of a better term, it's super Mimi kind
of music to be honest, because it's just like literally
the video is like them on this, you know, very
funky eighties nineties kind of like it sounds like it
should be coming out of like a VCR like song.
And literally what they did for the video is it's
(48:10):
just nineties models just walking up and being like giving
the cat eyes and then they walk. It's all. That's
all it is. It's not new footage. It's not like
they shot it. It's old footage that they just found
for it. Um. The other one I really like is
a song that um my spouse showed me uh from TikTok,
but also our friend Hunter really likes his Pink Pony Club.
(48:34):
Um interesting name, yes it for funny enough is my
spouse was just like singing the song like Pink Pony Club,
and I was like, what are you saying right now?
Like we're just in the car, and they were like,
there's this song. Yeah, there was no con It wasn't
like we were talking about ponies or the color club
(48:54):
Pink pony. So their name is Chappelle Rowan is believe
how that pronounced, and they Pink Pony Club is pretty cool.
I like it. It sounds really stupid, but they like
kind of roll into the absurdity, but you really get
like what they're trying to say out of it. It's
just about having fun and like being yourself kind of
and being at a Pink Pony club is like the
(49:17):
whole thing. And they even play on like how stupid
of a term that is, which is what I like
about it. But it was it's very it's from um
and uh. I honestly was like, how have I not
heard the song before? Um? It's very vibe vibe and
it's like, you know, it starts out as this like
piano solo kind of song and then it just like
evolves into this greater, you know, giant regular pop song
(49:39):
with synths and stuff. So I dig it. Yeah, sick
it's almost like a pink pony club. That's it. That's
how I described it. Hell yeah, Well I've been listening
like a lot of people to the new Joshua Bassett
ep which if you want some Olivia Rodrigo t uh,
maybe you should check it out. You know that I
(50:00):
in on that she dragged basically, and then he came
out as By. He came out as By afterwards, and
then like, yeah, it was like it's very it's very messy.
It's all over the place. It's I will say, the
songs are great. He has an interesting voice, and he
he also has a very like interesting way of enunciating,
(50:21):
like the way he says crisis and stuff. And I
think it would turn some people off of it, but
I actually kind of like it because it's like, I
don't know, it's like it's just an interesting way for
him to sing, not as intense as you know, the
Olivia Rodrigo stuff. It's more of just like him being like,
please leave me alone. I didn't ask for this, Please
please leave me alone. Uh, cornea him. She broke up
(50:43):
with him, But you know, you could just check that
out for yourself. But listening to that, listening to the
new radicals. We love the new radicals, um and uh
oh yeah big news, the new mits Key stuff dropped finally. Yeah,
listening to that heart Lightning the only heartbreaks. Yeah, but
(51:06):
uh ye, Colin, I guess should we just head to
the Pink Pony Club and kind of debrief from a
long day of yeah Grammy battles and yeah, just keep
on dancing at the Pink Pony Club. Guys, thanks for
listening to the Busines tape. You're All Things, music, Becausiness
and media podcast. We really appreciate it if you would
(51:29):
down loud the episodes follow us on the various social media.
You're gonna guess it, it's the biz tape, Joe. You
surprise about that that we got that handled. I am
a little surprised. Actually there wasn't so many biz tapes
out there. Yeah, yeah, I thought there would be an
abundance of Yeah, right. I thought we were gonna be
like Biz Tape six eight three. It's like a gamer time, right,
(51:50):
Big biz Tape six eight three four nine. Anyways, guys,
thanks for listening. Let's see you next time.
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