August 23, 2023 • 66 mins
The Summer of Country at No.1 continues but with a truly out of nowhere act: Oliver Anthony and his song “Rich Men North of Richmond”. The guys discuss chart history, design and why this is one of the most unorthodox No.1s we have seen in chart history. While, one of the big 3 PROs is going to a for-profit model…
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
For the first time, a chart number one that's actually
out of nowhere, and b am, I going for profit.
You're listening to the biz tape. Well, IM's the biz tape.
(00:24):
You're All Thinks Music business and media podcast. I'm your
host Colin McKay with my host Coast to Coast Joseph
Wazowski with more music business news for y'all this week,
and we have a doozy for two things. First off, Joe,
how are we first with this hurricane? Since I know
you are a coast.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh yeah, Me and Hillary we're tight. We really talked
to Bill is that you We had a good What's
so funny is like every single thing was like, oh
my god, Hillary's like gonna destroy Los Angeles, and then
it kind of did, but kind of didn't. At the
same time. It was like very patchy like where damage
(01:04):
was like hitting in the city, but like for the
most part, it was just heavy rain that we were
able to deal with. It was like a tropical storm
by the time it came through, so it was chilling.
We were chilling. We have like some palm branches in
the road and we have way too many sand bags
(01:25):
that we bought for flooding purposes that never happened. But
that's a good thing at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Man.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What's really funny is when I was I was at
home depot. I'm a Low's person personally, but the closest
one was was home depot.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, And well, you're really got to start off, really.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm really I'm really going there. I will say it's
getting political here on the bis Day podcast. But I
was looking for sand and sand bags, as you do
during a crisis, and I couldn't find any sand. I
was like, I finally went out to the gardening area
(02:08):
where they kind of had the sand. They had some sand,
but it wasn't like the sand I needed, right, But
it did the job, you know, and so I grabbed
that shit. I'm going to the cash register, and this lady,
like everyone else, is like frantically trying to find sand
in sandbags and like battening down the hatches and like
(02:29):
getting stuff together. And this lady is so concerned with
what kind of soil she should put in her front yard.
Four flowers and it's the California. It was the most
California moment of like this lady was on a mission.
She was not going to let Hurricane Hillary stop her
(02:51):
from making sure that her flowers were pristine this season.
And I can I can relate, you know, I can
relate to that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Okay, Jesus.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
She was also in sweatpants, and she was like, she
didn't give a fuck she was. She was in sweatpants.
She was in like a it was kind of like
nicer sweatpants. It was like like semi workout, semi pajama vibe.
But she was on a mission.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, just to get the very water absorbent soil. I'm
I'm assuming, you know, for her plants. God dude, well
glad you're all right. Last time I stayed there, the
house was leaking. So that's why I was thinking about.
And we didn't get to talk to really before this,
so it's just making sure. Anyway, I guess let's just
jump right back into it. Uh, what's look at the
(03:40):
news today? You know, that's where I feel like some
giant title card should come in, like the e news
thing I've joked about for three years. Anyway, we're gonna
talk about the new number one on the Billboard Hot
one hundred charge that literally has come out of nowhere.
I also broke this story to Joe and he was like, really,
(04:01):
this is number one right now, and I went, really,
this is number one right now. So I thought we
would just jump into this and kind of dissect this
weird chart outwire we're seeing, which is I'm sure you've
probably seen this guy's face everywhere for some reason I
have as well. His name is Oliver Anthony and his
song Richmond North of Richmond ha Play on Words is
(04:25):
number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred chart. You
may have seen these videos around TikTok or YouTube, and
it's basically him with like a big you know, he's
playing the guitar in the forest with a microphone. He's
got red hair, redbeard, and everything very distinct looks, so
he's hard to miss. But he is number one on
the Billboard chart and it's kind of out of nowhere
(04:46):
and unexpected for him, his management, everybody around. So let's
just dissect it again. Oliver Anthony is this artist name,
which is not his real name, by the way. Apparently
that's in honor of his grandfather, which I thought was
kind of sweet. His song Richmond North of Richmond has
exploded to number one. Like I said, Prior to this week,
(05:06):
Oliver Anthony has not appeared on any Billboard chart in
any form, making him the first such artist ever to
debut on top of the Hot one hundred.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Wow, it's a pretty crazy debut.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
That's a crazy debut. Like I think people in movies,
you know, like say this all the time, where they're like,
you're number one and you just put out one song
and that does not happen. Like important to note still
this chart has been tracking. The Billboard chart started really
officially tracking in nineteen ninety one, so it's not like
through all time, you know, but the explosive goat growth
(05:44):
we're seeing here hasn't really been seen in it's thirty
two years, so unheard of that, which is the first
thing that caught my attention because I didn't know anything
about this guy, and many people did not. If you
haven't listened to the song, this track is by the
quote farm Bill. I can't believe. I just realized that
it's called that. Farmville, Virginia based singer, songwriter and former
(06:07):
factory worker born Christopher Anthony Lunsford, who again his stage
name is Oliver Anthony, honoring his grandfather who first drew
buzz online, including on TikTok, where he boasts one point
five million followers, and prior to his August eleventh posting
on the Radio WV West Virginia YouTube account, which spotlights
(06:29):
unsigned Americana and country acts in the Virginia slash West
Virginia region, this guy was just kind of had a
big TikTok.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
The Radio WV recording is basically just him and a guitar.
There's nothing more simple than that, right, Like it's not
I mean, it's very well mixed and everything, but you know, Joe,
you would agree it's pretty authentic sounding, you know what
I mean. It doesn't sound.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Edited or it's pretty bare bones.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Right, which is a you know, unorthodox in this day
and age.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Through some of that reverb in there, that.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Reverb is insane. But if you want to see this
reverb yourself. The video on the YouTube account, like I
was saying, Radio WV, which really made this video just
go everywhere and this song to get streams everywhere, has
thirty million views now thirty million, and it was posted,
you know, last week. So this guy is just literally
(07:30):
you know, if you're saying like a star is born,
this is a star is born, like this guy has
come out of nowhere. The song, I will say, has
drawn criticism for its lyrics, and sadly in country world
that we live in, it's you know, offensive to some
(07:51):
and also at the same time, it's sad to say,
seems very tame in the world of country music, especially
with the likes of what we talked too on the show,
which is Jason Aldane's Try That in the Small Town,
in Morgan Wallen's career in general. So here are the
lyrics that people were kind of going at. This song
is like a working man's song, talking about working overtime,
(08:12):
trying your best, you know, and you just can't get
anywhere and all that stuff. And the part that got
some people upset was quote your dollar tax to no
end because of rich men north of rich men as
well as the obese milking welfare. So like it's not
you know, like I was talking to Joe, I was like,
it's not really the best, but like it's kind of
(08:33):
sad to say that that's like not that controversial now
even though it is, you know what I mean, just
because of like the standard that's been set by especially
number one country songs. Either way. I need to mention
this because the song has grown to have significant amount
of detractors specifically for that music. Like there's literally YouTube
(08:54):
videos you can go watch where it's like, is this
you know, is this song like cancelable? Is this a
bad song because of these lyrics? Right? And we can
get to that in a minute. So other than that,
like whatever you think about the song, here's how it's doing.
On the Charge Richmond North of Richmond has drawn seventeen
point five million streams and sold one hundred and forty
(09:17):
seven thousand downloads in the tracking week ending August seventeenth,
according to Luminate. Not being promoted to radio, this song
also tallied five hundred and fifty three thousand radio airplay
audience impressions the bulk on country radio station, which is,
you know, pretty crazy for radio. I mean, Joe, you know,
(09:37):
you came up in radio a little bit with everything,
and like not to have any formal promotion and all
these people just play this song is very I mean, it's.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So unorthodox for sure. I'm wondering if he even has
this shit registered with like BMI or like, you know,
because like if he doesn't getting that getting his royalties
is going to be a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, this is like catchup. This guy is going
to be doing catch up the entire time, you know
what I mean. And I'm gonna get to later kind
of where he's got, you know, obviously, like you're saying,
he's got a lot to deal with, all up front,
all these offers, all this stuff. By the way, I
saw one that's pretty upsustantiated. But apparently according he was
(10:24):
given some eight million dollar offer and I was like, okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
He was claiming. He was claiming that he was getting
an eight million eight and he was flexing that he
said no to me, means he was not.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
I you know, it's unsubstantiated. It's fine. It just seemed
very out of nowhere from his comments. But another comment
that he gave specifically to Billboard about the situation and
the song is quote, the hopelessness and frustration of our
times resonate in the response to this song. The song
itself is not anything special, but the people have supported
(10:59):
it are incredible and deserved to be heard, which gives
me the like the most first sentence was a little
bit too braggy. Second sentence, let's bring it back like,
that's what that feels like when I read that sentence.
But are those two sentences while at the same time
his and these titles If you want to know, like
how really independent this guy is, Like I can tell
(11:22):
you he's independent all this kind of stuff which you'll
get to later, but if you really want to know,
it all comes down to how many titles one manager has,
which is his co manager, producer of the song, and
co owner of the organization, and it has this video
on their YouTube page. Draven Rife stated quote there was
not a whole lot of planning involved, and that they
(11:44):
had some small promotion from small outlets and Oliver's notably
large fan based on TikTok, but it was largely mouthed
to mouth promotion kind of hinting about like what Joe
and I are saying, like they did not they you know,
this wasn't like secretly.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So he already had a large following on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
This man had a large following on TikTok, which I
wanted to get into. This guy had over one point
five million followers on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Oh, yeah, then there's no no shit. It's like taking off.
I mean it was like if it was like, oh, yeah,
he uploaded this video and didn't have any other views
and it was like okay, like here we go, this
is my first video, right, and it was like thirty
million views. That would be insane, And I agree with honest,
(12:29):
it's a lot less impressive when it's like he's obviously
built up an audience.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
At the same time, like, and I'll give you that,
I do believe that as well. It's like I think
a lot of people are like, wow, this is just
some homegrown guy and I was like, yeah, it is.
But he also has, rightfully, so you know, in his
own way, established this large TikTok presence, which is powerful,
you know what I mean if you have one point
five million followers, So like it's not nothing, right, Like
(12:58):
I think a lot of this around this artist Oliver
Anthony is kind of like, oh well, he's just like
back in the woods somewhere and he nobody's ever seen him.
And it's like, no, it's got one point five million
TikTok followers, which doesn't make this not impressive by the
way that he's gone to number one after literally having
no charting at all or anything, right, But it's still
(13:21):
it's a notable task in the story.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, it's a it kind of it kind of pegs
it down a bit.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Right, and like it seems to me and from like
the what I just said about the small promotion from
small outlets and Oliver's notably large fan based on TikTok
is not a quote like I'm saying that. Like he
the Draven Wriif has said, like he did some small
promotion with some you know, insert country and then also
(13:50):
some other adjective website. Right, he did some like kind
of stuff like that where he just went to these
small little websites with newsletters. But like and then he
like slips in He's like, also, we did some TikTok
stuff and TikTok fans and it's just like yeah, but
they're one point five million followers, which I know is
not active one point five million, but like, if you know,
(14:10):
ten thousand were going crazy on this, that's still a lot.
It also shows the power of TikTok here. I think
in a lot of ways. Anthony, though I will say
kind of maybe also notably in his favor for being
in seeming diy is, Anthony is notably still independent and
unsigned which is very rare to have an unsigned artist
(14:33):
at number one on the Hot one hundred. The last
artist to have a number one on the Hot one
hundred was Lisa Lobe in nineteen ninety four. So it's
been a while, you know what I mean, which is
the stay I Missed You song, if you guys ever
know that. But even her, she's got kind of the
same thing here that he does with this TikTok thing.
(14:54):
Lisa Lobe in nineteen ninety four had that song released
on RCA Records, that was on the hit Reality Bite soundtrack,
and then Lope was signed to Geffen Records after the song,
so it was like kind of like, eh.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It's kind of in between.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, it's like in the in the words of Lisa Lowe,
you say, only hear what I want to, So I
don't know, you know. It's like she she's got like
a couple thumb you know, tacks in this story, basically
weighing her down for the diy ankle compared to Anthony here. Lastly,
Anthony is the sole writer on the song, which is
(15:31):
also very rare, and it is notable because I mean,
as Joe's I if you guys have listened to our
yearly Grammy episodes have talked about everyone and their mother
gets a songwriting credit now and it it would. It's
still very notable in terms of like number ones and
should be noted, But at the same time, like it's
(15:51):
not as big as of a streak breaking moment because
Glass Animals actually did this last year with their song
heat Wave, which is written by their frontman Dave Bailey.
So it's not like he's breaking like a thirty year
long record which he keeps doing over and over. But
it's still it's still very impressive. So let's get into it, Joe,
I guess first, let's talk about TikTok. I mean, you
(16:15):
clearly think TikTok had a substantial you know, presence to
his come up, and if you will in this, do
you think that like that makes him quote unquote less
like DIY and like kind of goes against his grain?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
No? No, I don't think it makes some less DIY.
I mean, like, if anything, TikTok is the most DIY.
It's sure you can get with it because it's even
making it's making artists at the top sircumb to trends
and like making their own videos and like.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Making Drake do TikTok dances. Yeah, and if that's not power,
then what is exactly?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know? But I think like the uh yeah, I
mean there's no denying that folk music right now, country
and folk music is very popular. It's having a moment.
(17:16):
I mean. The another example right of someone who's blowing
up is no Con who's like massive in the alternative
folk space Americana space, And like I think that that's like,
I don't know, It's like country music does really well
on TikTok and I think it's because like a lot
of the younger country fans are on TikTok, but like
(17:38):
older people tend to also still support country radio and
buying physical CD.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I have to mention the downloads in here are yeah,
monumental in the amount, like extreme is huge obviously.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And that's the reason why he's number one. It's not
because of the amount of streams. It's because of the
amount of buy well.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I think the stream is astronomical. But like as we've
talked about on the show, if you haven't heard us
talk about, it's like Billboard basically does a track equivalent,
you know, kind of I think it's like every ten
or I gotta remember what the ratio is. Basically x
amount of streams equals one like sale, which means that
(18:22):
puts you higher up the chart. But a download is
just a sale, so that like you know, it's something
like one hundred fold or tenfold or something, so it's
not I think it might be one thousandfold.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So like it's yeah, it's something insane.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
It's like every thousand wouldn't listen to one sale.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, you wouldn't listen to a bot CD that many times, right,
But it's like they expect because it's valued less, which
like we could even get into the topic of like
that needs to change in general.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, I mean we've talked about it on the show.
I think the problem that I have with and you know,
I thankfully I live in Nashville so I can call
it out all the time. And I'm sorry if you're
sick of this rant. But like people all the time, go,
I'm number one, we're number one, and I go on
the country chart all the time. You know, like you're
put you're missing important things. And why I think that's important.
(19:17):
It's not because I'm a Debbie Downer. It's because it's misleading.
So it's important to look at these charts and understand
the way that these aggregates of data are collected, right,
And so if you know that, I mean, this is
the whole reason that they had to take merch bundles
(19:38):
out of the Billboard charts. It's because the Billboard Charts
is supposed to demonstrate consumer listening habits, and then they
found out that the people who like to buy merch
more were buying merch more to either get their artists
to the top, or people were purposely making packages and
so they would get you know, sales of CDs mostly
(20:00):
through these merch packages. So the point is is that
it wasn't very accurate to consumer trends. It was accurate
to which artists are willing to make merch bundles to
try to go to the top. In the same way,
I do think that the way the downloads are and
the fan base of country music and the slowerness to
(20:23):
technology that country music has, it has to be noted
that these downloads are significantly higher in these country music
spheres compared to more modern music in terms of like
pop music or rap or all these other kind of genres.
It's just not as prevalent to have like some of
(20:44):
these downloads, unless you have like an outlier like a
BTS who purposely try to support them as much as
they can to get them on the charts. So like it.
It's very it's really interesting to see this, and I
think you know that we've seen all these data from
Billboard that's country music is twenty percent up, which I
(21:05):
do believe. But I think the other thing about it
is that it has a chart currently that I think
favors the spending and consumer habits of the country music
fan base. Is that a mic drop Joe. I was
(21:26):
about to say seamless, sorry, but I didn't mean to
put Joe in the speech anyway, Like I'm sure somebody thought, oh,
there's already an ad in the show. Anyway, Let's talk
about this though, Like even with country music, this song
is distinctively sonically different than a lot of the other
(21:48):
country music that we've seen in the number one as
of late, like especially a Morgan Wallen or most recently
a Jason al Dem would try that in a small town.
It is just you know, guy guitar singing the most
reverb I've ever heard, and that's pretty much. It so
(22:09):
like it is an oddity in that way, and I
think there is you know, definitely a vocal majority that
have not had this kind of sound in a good
package that's been very marketable and viral, and so I
think it's really connecting with a lot of people. Would
you agree with that, Joe, especially like this kind of
(22:31):
sound that Oliver Anthony has is maybe just under represented.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Well. I think, like with anything, popular genres tend to
gravitate towards alternative genres eventually kind of like picking and
choosing like the things that they want to incorporate and
later kind of fads and like trends and stuff like that.
And like right now, I mean, like the biggest alternative
folk star would be like Tyler Childers, right, and like
(23:03):
this guy is screaming Tyler Childers, like to the extreme, yeah,
but just like way more conservative. Honestly, it's like the
opposite end of the spectrum. But it's like people really
gravitate towards it because like they like the sounds, and
now it's like, oh, it's bleeding into like the pop
(23:25):
country space.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I will also so like I feel like he is
kind of the opposite spectrum of that but at the
same time, like like kind of saying with the you know,
controversial nature of these other country songs that have been
the top, that have almost been so controversial, and that's
like the point of them, you know, is to be controversial.
I feel like this is very you know if you
(23:47):
agree with it or not a middle of the road
of like you know, political spectrum in a lot of ways,
like the most crazy thing.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's just it's just like in it there's a lot
of there's a lot of subliminal I wouldn't say subliminal,
but like there's.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
A lot of just like flashing in the video.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
There's a lot of conservative talking points that he is promoting.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh yeah, I mean he's talking about lowers, he's talking
about you know, the anti welfare like you know, or
just the prevalence of welfare in you know, people that
are obese and stuff like that. I think that it is,
like you're saying, it's very coded, is what I would say,
is probably yes.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Which is like we it's not a secret, we all
know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Well. I mean, at the same time, though, I feel
like it's way, you know, way more towards the middle
and may connect with more people on the whole than
like a Jason Aldan try that in the small town.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You know, I don't even think it's that middle grounded though,
because like I think.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
It's just because of you going crazy that like those
other songs are in comparison that it seems to be
the middle you see what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I guess so, But I it's it's like I mean, yeah,
it's like it's doing what it's It's it's pushing the
narrative of like people talking about it, right and like
so ultimately it's doing its job on that on that
end where I feel like, you know, it's just like
(25:22):
it's hitting people at like the right time of like
there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of
pressure that people are feeling, and a lot of financial
struggle that's going on right now. Content content, and there
is a lot of uh not hate, but I would say,
(25:44):
like I would say there's a lot of like disgruntled
energy kind of aiming at the federal government. And I
think that that is like where this is kind of
like bleeding into or just like where it's.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Like tapping at the time, you know what I mean,
Like it's.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Just yeah, but I mean it's like very much aimed
at the federal government welfare taxes.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh, it's aimed at that, but like I mean that's.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
A Richmond north of Richmond.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Right, Yeah. And honestly, the songs, the songs, the song
title is probably the most damning part of it. If
it was like called anything else, it would probably be
like way less, but he did name it that. So
it's just like, whatever you feel about the situation, it
just seems like we've just been conditioned with country music
that it's like, oh, well, you know, this isn't as bad,
(26:38):
you know what I mean, like in terms of controversialness
if you think it's controversial. So yeah, I again, I
do agree with you. I mean, it is controversial, Like
I you know, whatever way you feel about it, it
is controversial. Like the way it's talked about it and
like literally go online in the discourse, I cannot tell you,
like there are people that are like, ah, what is
(27:01):
the song? Why is he saying this? All this kind
of stuff, So it's not really a question there. But
at the same time, I think because it hits more
towards the middle compared to a lot of stuff, and
it's going to some other you know, groups that maybe
do not feel represented as much by I tried that
in a small town Jason Aldan or a Morganwall and
(27:21):
party boy like kind of country music that I think
it's hitting a vein there. I also think like it's
it's indicative of, to be honest, the spectrum of country,
which I do like to see more. You know, it
felt very we had Morganwah, and we had Jason Alden,
and then like we kind of had in the different
(27:43):
side was maybe like Luke Combs like completely like just
felt like not in the same way. But he's just
doing a cover, you know, and that has been the
summer of country music this summer basically, and so it's
nice to see, like, like I was saying, a one
rider just playing a guitar kind of song, because that
that that is country music at the end of the day.
(28:05):
I mean that that's what it is. I do think
it's funny because it's just like I'm sure there's people
that I could talk to that I know that would
be like that are country music fans that would go,
this is not country music, this is Americana, And I'm like, hmmm,
you know, like pig your difference, but it's definitely indicative
of the spectrum of country and I do think there
(28:26):
is a considerable market that feels not engaged by a
lot of these other country hits, if that makes sense.
And I think this is a sign of it, because
literally this guy had no charting, no anything, and people
just latched onto this song, you know what I mean.
You can say what you want about how controversial Morgan
(28:49):
Wallen is and how controversial like Jason Alden is, but
it like they were at least names. This guy doesn't
even have a name, you know what I mean. So
this guy was well latched on it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Like it. It is the same type of situation, right
of like funneling into that conservative like kind of political
pipeline of like, oh, we're gonna support this person because
it's promoting this message that I do agree.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I think it's hard not to not to say that point.
I mean, like it's just the you know, it does
have a political but backing and vibe, so or there
are people that are going to support it because of
the political message, you know what I mean, no matter what,
and uh, it's more about making that political message literally
heard in this case. But I mean, like I hate.
(29:39):
I hate to say it, but literally I'm like, I'm
just thankful that it's not you know, eight hundred percent
of the lyrics or that you know what I mean,
like it's like one hundred percent or just because we've
been conditioned by country music.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I mean, there is a there is a there is
something to it of like people like are very are struggling,
like throughout everywhere, and so there there's that is a
topic that is very much I think important to everyday people.
And I also too think like folk music and country
(30:17):
music in general tends to pull down people's guards because
it's so like, I don't know, it just seems more
genuine of a genre than like perhaps like ultrapop or
something like that, you know, like where it's like something
so produced out and like very heavy production. But then
(30:37):
this is just a dude in a guitar, and like
that's country music in general.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
This is the most part I.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Know, unless you're in unless you're in country radio, in
which you got everything, you got every auto tune on
well and I Reached has auto tune, but guitar has
auto tune.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
If you want the opposite of it, I go. This
is their broad Way but like, let me explain, so,
like in the same way that I feel like a
Broadway musician, you know, like talk about like Wicked where
I want to be popular all that kind of stuff,
where it's just the piano and just her and it
just moves you. I was like, this is the exact opposite,
(31:17):
but also the same where it's like it just grabs
you because of how raw it is, and depending on
who you are as a person, it grabs you more
or less. And that's why I'm like, this is their.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Broad well, but I also think too, like TikTok has
is kind of shifting people's tastes of music, because what
do you do on TikTok? A lot of the times
it's not a fully produced out situation. There's only so
many people that can fit into that frame. Yeah right.
How many bands have you seen Colin that are just
(31:49):
killing it on TikTok?
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah right, yeah, no exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
You know why. It's because people can't fit in the
fucking frame. Nobody can see anything, and so it's like
having these like solo artists being able to have it
like multiple stripped down acoustic performances that they can post
to TikTok is really important, not only from like a
(32:18):
business standpoint, but also from a tastemaker standpoint, because if
people are if the main thing that people are consuming
is TikTok, it's gonna shift the way that people view
music in the things that they want to hear. Right,
I mean, how many times, golin have you like walked
into a restaurant and it's like a TikTok song that's
(32:41):
like blowing up, that's being blasted, but it's like eighty
years old, and it's you know, and it's like, why
is this song being played in this coffee shop right now?
Right and like twenty twenty three? Oh yeah, it's because
nothing nothing makes sense anymore, that's why.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, I mean, I agree, I think there's just a
spectrum that's you know, going on TikTok. But it seems
to me that it's been a lot for a bastion
of these very stripped down, very solo like performances that
like kind of didn't have a place for like ten years,
(33:18):
you know what I mean. Like if you went to
like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, you'd be like, ugh, a
guy with a guitar. It was all about like, you know,
fucking like a pit Bull remix. Basically was like the
gold standard. That's what everybody wanted to see. It was
like it was just this huge electronic revolution. And I
feel like now we're in this kind of vice versa
where people are like, let's strip it down now because
(33:41):
TikTok's like a video world into like the real world,
and it's like a very heavily produced solo guy a
real world. But you know, it is what it is.
I think this is a very notable chart upset. I
will say, I mean it it's definitely literally out of nowhere.
(34:01):
Like everybody likes to say this song was out of nowhere. No,
this is out of nowhere right, Like there is nothing
more out of nowhere than this, in my opinion that's
been on the charts, like it was just a random
guy of a random YouTube video, right. I mean the
TikTok following, Yeah, it's big, but it's like you're not
(34:22):
number one on the chart big, you know what I mean.
Like we've had big TikTok songs on here where it's
like they have five million followers, they're not number one
on Billboard two hundred, right, So I think it's I
think it's indicative of just the kind of country explosion
that we're dealing with with streaming and charts. And then
(34:43):
also I just think that the consumer base of country
music has the right qualities to manipulate the chart in
a way that is unseen in many genres. Like literally
the only one I can give a parable too is
probably Beats. Yes, like where bts All the fans will
be like, we want to buy all these songs on iTunes,
(35:06):
and so they're number one. So I don't know, man,
it's interesting. I'm glad in some ways to see an
upset of the same like three names we've seen for
six months, But at the same time, it's like, you know,
it's a different code of paint to a lot of
the same messages. So it is it is, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I mean it's crazy even even on that route, right,
like thinking of like who's gonna be the next famous person,
because we're due for like kind of another resurgence of
like new talent that's gonna flood into top forty, And
(35:51):
it's something to keep your like keep in mind of,
like who are some people that are like kind of
like bubbling to the surface right now that will and
will be breakthrough and be the next Billie Eilish, be
the next Jason isbill be the next next whoever?
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, that's probably the craziest part about this story. If
you take away even just the country, it's like one
one person that one million followers on TikTok, which it's
probably like hundreds of those now you know, just came
through and just was number one and not seen on
the charts existence ever. Which, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
I do wonder. I do wonder because like there's kind
of there's a catch twenty two with TikTok, which is
like you're gonna have something really explode on TikTok, but
then it falls into the this could be a one
hit wonder territory yep, And that's where it's very difficult
to break out of that and actually make like something
(36:51):
into a career out of it. I think, like, to
be honest, with this song, he's kind of managed to
make more like I feel like this would actually be
more of a career move for sure, just because the
song is actually like it's not a TikTok song, you
know what I mean, Like it's like it's a song
(37:12):
that's like this.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
The song, the full song on YouTube has done so well. Right, Like,
it's not that's what all the people TikTok, right, It's
that people actually went, you know where people are like,
you should go check out my song right now, and
you're like you're gonna check it out, and in your
brain you're like, yeah, I'm gonna click that link, and
you don't do it. Everybody did it with this song,
Like everybody went to the YouTube video and watched this
(37:37):
song that was like semi interested in the song. So
there there is actually sorry.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Go ahead, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but this
sparked thought in my head. But I actually saw is
a very helpful video. It was like about this guy
who's like in charge of this other account's videos where
it was like it was this man and you've probably
seen him on TikTok. He's like very big. He like
has this like archive of very expensive old books, right okay,
(38:08):
and he like restores books. That's like his business. But
he doesn't tell people what his business is. He just
posts to TikTok and explains each book that he likes
and why it's important. And they explode on the on
the format and the reason that they were arguing it
(38:30):
explodes is because you're giving people, You're you're giving something
away to people. You're like, you're doing a service to people.
You're either educating, you're either entertaining. You're doing something so
that that person can take it right, take it in
and digest it and consume it. Whereas a lot of artists,
(38:54):
and I would say, like I would say, the majority
of artists, I'm just going to say it on TikTok
really struggle with that notion because all of the things
that they are posting are promos to get people to
click on something else to somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Can we go on that tangent right now? What the
hell has happened to the algorithm in the last like
three months? Why am I getting so many like hey,
you should buy this thing lately?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah? Well, I think like I think TikTok's figuring out
a way to do ad sense, right Like, I think
like that's that's very much happening right now. I'd actually
say like TikTok has really been from for my personal experience.
I'm very close to deleting it because I hate it
so much right now and I just kind of need
(39:45):
a reset. I feel like, but I would say that
for the majority of people. I think a lot of
people right now are kind of not into TikTok because
like you're seeing the same five people on your feed. Yeah,
there's no like before there was like discovery. Yeah, there
was like discovery and like new people and like new
(40:06):
things happening, and like now it's all about, Oh, we're
all doing the same thing, the same trend, the same whatever.
We're gonna hear the Planet of the Bass video eighty
thousand times your eyes out, and like the Jonas Brothers
will then take them on tour and then weird. But
(40:28):
I mean, I thought it was an amazing move, but
I'm also like it's kind of it's kind of old now,
right He's still do we still care?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I mean, to be honest, if I was Kyle Gordon,
the guy made that song, I would be milking he
is a genius.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I would be milk literally a genius. And that's kind
of the funny thing about that whole thing is like
they would also milk that to the grave, like people
who made that music, like that style of house music was.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Like going to an Andy Kaufman level for this song.
Talking about the end, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I mean it's so good. It's so good. But you
know that's the thing though, like right, like everybody knows
about that song. Everybody's seen it like a million times,
and people are sick of it. And like, I think
that that's where TikTok is really struggling. And I think
that if more artists actually, because there are so many
(41:22):
great artists that are just not getting discovered on TikTok
and just period in general, there's gonna be so there's
so much music that all of us will miss out
on for people who should be way more famous than
they are and they will never be famous. And it's
kind of a sad thought.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, it's what it is, I mean, and you really
figure out, I think a lot of artists figure out
if they love to make music or if they love
the idea of being famous, and those are two very
different things.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, but there's a balancing act there because you kind
of need to be somewhat you need to be business
savvy to really prolong your your life in the entertainment.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Oh, I agree, but I think there's definitely people that
have a love to be loved, if that makes sense,
and then have a love to create music and so
it's you know, it's a balancing act. But I think
it's like, uh, you find the ones that lean towards
one way or the other, and some of them are
more useful in different situations than some of them are not.
(42:29):
So like, that's just kind of sadly, like you said,
it's the tightrope they all walk where. You know, if
you just love to make music, it's like, god damn it,
I got them. And then some people are like, I
just I love making the social media stuff. You know,
I like music, but I like the performance. I like
to be seen, you know, like that, and it's the
(42:51):
you know, battle between a musician and performer at the
end of the day.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Well, big changes in the music industry, and another big
change is that the pro performance rights organization BMI has
been engaging with outside parties over the possibility of a sale,
according to Billboard, and what that means is that BMI,
(43:19):
which is which is historically a nonprofit organization, will now
be turning into a for profit organization which has a
lot of people, artists, writers, everybody freaking out essentially, right,
So some of the biggest names on BMI, which I
(43:40):
think people would be surprised to hear this because I
don't know some of these artists you'd think would just
like jump to askap or something because it's like more
I don't know, like.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Bougie, I mean, it's all about my pr O friends
are all like, it's all about the relationships.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, one hundred percent, and like and to be honest,
BMI excels at the relationships yep, most of the time,
because they're the first pr that people deal with when
getting into the industry because it's free to sign up
and you have a BMI representative and you're able to
like talk to people and they can track you and
like see where you are in your career. But some
(44:19):
of the songwriters they have are Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift,
and Rihanna, among some one million others. And they reported
that its revenue reached one point five to seven three
billion dollars and that it distributed one point four seven
one billion dollars to songwriters, which is like pretty great
(44:42):
for like a nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
I mean yeah, right there, it is one hundred you know,
their budgets like one hundred million dollars, so that may yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Mean, they're they're getting so much money. They also have
it down to like pros have this shit down to
a science, like when it comes to collecting royalties and
and getting people paid. And I think that a lot
of the industry, the other industry is envious of that.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Dude. There's some to go like, well, it's just there's
these big three. There's VMI, there's ASCAP, and there's sexy
Sex the one that actually is for profit but like
right now, and uh, basically they have this trifold of it.
But they're very like I was talking to actually someone
just the other day, they're very competitive with each other
(45:31):
and they have like a lot of like you know
people that try to that have this.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
People.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, and it's a whole thing. And like literally I've
heard stories where people have to be like under the
table until like the last day of their like current
contract then move and like stuff. I like, it's it's insane.
It's this trifl shark kind of but they are the three,
like there they are the three, like yeah, and it's
(45:58):
just like they fight to the over this kind of stuff.
So with the big change like this leaving basically as
CAP as the only you know, not for profit entity,
it's going to be really interesting to see how that
changes BMI, because if you're a corporation and you make
one point five to seven three billion dollars and then
(46:20):
you lose one point four to seven one billion dollars
to pay out the songwriters, that's not a very good
business model in terms of for profit, you know what
I mean. But for nonprofit that's exactly what it's supposed
to do.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, exactly. And that's why a lot of songwriters are
very very concerned with these changes, because for profit equals
less profit for them, if that makes sense. So in
a letter from the Black Music Action Coalition, Music Artists Coalition,
Songwriters of North America, sag AFTRA, and Artist Rights Alliance
(46:58):
had they basically sent it to Mike O'Neill, who is
like the head of BMI, and they laid out why
pros are so important, especially to songwriters' livelihoods, and they
basically explain right that they are very concerned with the
changes they have. They have about twenty five to thirty
(47:24):
so intense questions. Oh god, directly to Mike.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Oh god, I'm looking at the questions. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
It is a very long list of questions, to which
Mike responded with not answering this question.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
This is like a like they all the questions, like
most of them are just run on sentences. They're like
you know when you were doing a test in high
school and it would be like, oh, thank god, I'm
on question five, and then you go to five B
and you're like fuck, Like yeah, that's what it's like.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, it's pretty intense. It gave me anxiety when I
read it, But I'll read the first couple of paragraphs
because I feel like it kind of summarizes the Can I.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Read number five? Get it? If we're gonna go down?
Five is the funniest thing I've seen.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, absolutely so, Dear Mike. As you know, there is
no BMI without songwriters. Songwriters have a vested interest in
changes at BMI and in any proposed transaction, which is
wholly dependent on songs they have written. BMI has been
very active. BMI announced a shift for a for profit
(48:34):
model and engaged Goldman Sachs to explore a transaction where
a private equity company would purchase BMI. BMI does not
own copyrights or other assets. It is a licensing entity
for copyrights owned by songwriters and by extension publishers. Songwriters
have a right to understand these decisions and how it
(48:57):
impacts us. As advocacy or organizations representing songwriters, we have
questions about the impact of a proposed transaction on our
songwriter members. In the spirit of transparency, we hope that
you will answer the following questions, Like Colin, what's the
question you want to.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
I just okay, so like that it goes down this
number one, we heard that BMI was reported one hundred
and thirty five million dollars in profits. It shifted to
a for profit model. Is that accurate? And it's kind
of going down this But my favorite one and here
is five and which sounds like I like you're getting
cross examined in a courtroom. We all know that the
(49:34):
way to become more profitable involves increasing revenue or decreasing expenses.
If revenue increases, shouldn't that money go to songwriters? Well,
B and I need to reduce its distributions in order
to drive further profits, I asked.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
The court, you know what I mean, Like, it's pretty intense. Yeah,
it's a very intense sletter. But O'Neill came back with
another counter letter. By the way, both of these letters
are like submitted to publications. They like this is very
much publicly in the public eye. Yeah, it's like, what's
going on? He goes. Dear Coalition and Association members, thank
(50:16):
you for your letter this afternoon. You raise some important
questions about BMI in our successful move last October to
a for profit business model. As you stated, there is
no BMI without songwriters, and no one knows this better
than us. Our mission has been and always will be
to support our songwriters, composers, and publishers and grow the
(50:37):
value of their music. It is what we have done
since launching our company with an open door policy in
nineteen thirty nine. As we shared with many of you
in October, our move to for profit was so we
could invest in our company to ensure our continued success
and growth for the future, while also increasing our distribution.
(51:00):
And the first three distributions under our new model all
exceed previous years, with two being the largest in our
company's history. Our reasonability is to continue that trajectory on
behalf of our affiliates. As you know, the music industry
has undergone dramatic change and continues to evolve rapidly. We
need to continue to invest in our business and explore
(51:22):
new avenues for revenue generation so we can continue to
expand our distribution sources. We share a common goal with
you in that we believe music creators should be appropriately
compensated for the crucial contributions that they make to this industry.
We've proven this time and time again.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
And uh, you know, like sorry, can I yeah, he
kind of reading this a bunch. Like if I was
revising this, like he like put this in for like
review as like a draft paper, I'd be like, okay,
we can cut about like eighty percent of these lines.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. It's it's obviously pr
to the extreme like this letter, which like you know,
it's like what you gotta do when you're like the
head of a company and people are mad at you, right,
But there is a level of like there's just like
no answering, like he's he doesn't get specific with the
(52:19):
questions of like answering each specific question and like laying
out what the changes will be, because I think to
some extent they don't even know what the changes are
yet until they finalize the sale.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
And I'm reading like what he says under here, like
here's the things we've done since we've moved to profit,
like to try to be a for profit business, and
it's like really jokey, like it's just like super joke.
Like number one, we've announced a partnership with Music Nation
to establish a music licensing and royalty infrastructure based in
the UAE. Okay, cool, that's you know, the UAE is
(52:54):
an important country. I'm glad that you have a basis
because if you guys don't know this pros and you
know different countries do they have the form a relationship
with them, and then it's kind of like you get
p r o' and then you get pr ight again
and then it goes to the songwriter. Right, yeah, you
ae great, we love that. Definitely not the biggest country
for this, you know what I mean. Like if they're
(53:14):
like we've done all of Russia and India and China,
you know what I mean, it'd be like all right,
there we go. But like u AE is not the
biggest country in the world, which means songwriters it's like
your p r O paymounts are crazy.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
We have an.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Extensive customer service initiative to enhance the service we provide,
which is like what every country. Yeah, like it's just
like nobody's ever like we're really just not walking with
customer service anymore. And then number three is it's like we've.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Planned great apperiencing very high call volumes. Yeah right, And
then that's my favorite thing because it's always a high
call volume.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
It literally it says quote around the high number of
royalty and administrative questions that we receive. Okay, just let's
just say to why would you say that? Like it's
like more of like we know you are important. We
just need you to answer these questions. Don't like throw
in a boast, being like because a lot of people
want to ask us stuff. Ye. Then the third one
is plan an upgrade of our online service portal, including
(54:14):
new dashboards. Okay, thanks Facebook, what I'm getting an iOS update?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Like what?
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Like it's just those are the three things. By the way,
that's those are the giant three things. It's almost been
a year and they're like, this is what the for
profit model has done, you know what I mean? And
so it's dude, it's such a joke. Like it I
think they could make some argument about for profit in
(54:40):
some way if they really wanted to. That is one
of the worst arguments I've seen just being.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Like, yeah, we want to make money, we want to
make more money.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Well it's really we want the splits not to you know,
we don't want to have a fiduciary, you know, actual
responsibility to pay out most of this money like a
five one C three does. Because like if you guys
have not been involved with five O one C three,
most goals of five to one C three is to
spend the money on good things to help the charity,
(55:11):
you know what I mean. So it's like a lot
of those five on one C three's try to keep
you know, enough to be liquid just in case an
emergency happens. But literally they're just trying to be like,
let's help our community that we're designed to help us.
A five to one C three, which is what BMI
like they're saying in here, they did pretty well. Like
they they only have what one hundred million in operating
(55:32):
costs and they made like, you know, over one point
four one point five billion. Okay, I feel like that's
a pretty compo. They're a multi huge national company. All right,
that's fine, but like when you go to for profit,
I mean, I've got to hit on this point again.
It's like the coalitions here have a point. They go
(55:53):
the way to become more profitable is that you increase
revenue or you decrease expenses. It sounds like you're not
increasing revenue that much. You don't have that much to
expand on, BMI. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Yeah, you didn't give me.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
You said we got UAE, which is in the scope
of a world a very small country, you know, compared
to like some other deals or upping how other deals
work right in this ten or this like twelve month
trial period you've been in, So I think the answer
is right. I think the answer is literally, they're gonna
decrease it. They're gonna decrease like expenses, which could mean payouts,
(56:27):
and that's that's gonna be rough or worse. You're gonna
other than decreasing payouts on top of that, you're gonna
cut staff down, which already you know these staff people
I talk to you with pros they work so hard, dude.
So it's like, I don't know what you could do here, BMI.
It's like there's not much. It's very similar to our
(56:50):
conversation we had about streaming the other day, where pros
are even in a like or in an interesting space
where it's like where are we going? Where else can
we get? Where are we at market capitalization? Here? The
only way they could get better is that if they
re negotiate a lot of these deals worldwide, or they
(57:11):
really really really step up trying to get these venues
to pay to you know, license the music that's being
played at their place, you know, the eight hundred dollars
fee or whatever a year, right, which would probably most
people don't even know that, right, Like regular people don't
even know that.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
You have to pay for public restrunts that they don't.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Even know that. So it's like there is a market there.
But I feel like you would have to have a
multi million dollar ad campaign going hey, you're stealing music,
We're going to send you the jail like Napster.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
Yeah, is it the ad where it's like the.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Don't pirate? Like literally, pirating music is bad.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
It's like pounding and it's just like mam, pirating music
sounds sick.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
You're just sitting there like we're even counting it, like cooler,
we're even counting the cooking staff in the back that
has the phone up on the metal. Can you know?
So God, dude, those ads were so funny back in
the day. And then like yeah, there there's so and
(58:24):
here's another great question, Uh if me and my cells
will writers or composers received part of the sale proceeds?
And then the more important question, in my opinion I
be myselfs will the broadcasters and BMI's board received sale proceeds?
M hmm yeah, So, like these questions are very good,
and I get it. I get it. Like a lot
(58:45):
of these are probably being actively negotiated. You know, they
can't say it or whatever, but it's like, yeah, yeah,
like your your argument for the for profit model is
really working out so far is probably really is really bad,
you know what I mean. If it was like, you know,
we've renegotiated Europe in Asia and also we've got like
(59:07):
forty percent more venues, like we're paying money, like it
would be like okay, that's fine, but like you're not.
So it seems like somebody's trying to get a golden
parachute here. If you get my draft, All right, Colin,
we've come to the end.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
It is time.
Speaker 1 (59:29):
Don't pirate. Sorry, keep going. He's a vandom but no, no, no, no,
that's not like that.
Speaker 2 (59:35):
All right, Colin, what have you been listening to?
Speaker 1 (59:37):
Yo? Danny Phantom? He was just fourteen. Let's see what
have I been listening today?
Speaker 2 (59:43):
Actually started with yo.
Speaker 1 (59:44):
Yeah, yo, Danny Phantom, he's just fourteen.
Speaker 2 (59:47):
Fuck yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
His parents built this strange machine and then my favorite part,
his molecules got rearranged. Anyway, I've been listening to but
I haven't watched it yet. But I tried to get
my girlfriend to watch it and she was like no,
and I was like, come on. I was trying to
watch the Wham documentary, thought ye on Netflix. I really
(01:00:10):
I've always liked Wham. Well I got my you know,
I have that red key tar here that plays the
Last Christmas as the song, like as the demo song
for it. But uh, if you want to know if
I'm a true Wham fan, but like I was just
like looking like one of my favorite pastimes. And if
you've never done this, I would really like challenge you
(01:00:31):
to do it. Is that if you really like some song,
just start looking up live versions on YouTube and how
they're different, cause it's kind of like you really, especially
in the like when recording used to be so expensive
and they just had to get it done. You know it.
It's so different live sometimes because like a lot of
(01:00:51):
people are like, ah shit, I should have done that,
but it's like we couldn't afford it, so we'll do
it now live. But one of the ones that I
found is Everything She Wants from Gee. I think it's
in GTA Vice City, but that's where a lot of
people randomly know that song. But I like a lot
of Wham songs, and this is one of the ones
that I also knew from Vice City. But Everything She
(01:01:13):
Wants is, like I was reading up about it. George
Michael a lot was kind of done with Wham towards
the later part of the eighties and was like I'm
gonna be myself. I'm gonna just you know, be George
Michael and everything. And he didn't want to play a
lot of Wham songs like at all, like at all,
(01:01:33):
any of them. And the one Wham song and he
even says it in this live recording, I'm gonna, you know,
kind of plug here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Is that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
He said. He goes, you know, this is the Wham
song I'm gonna play basically, and the reason he plays
it is is because it's he basically did the whole
song himself. It's actually the B side to Last Christmas,
but like Last Christmas was done in the same way
where like George did like a lot of the stuff himself.
It's got this limb drum pattern in the front that's
(01:02:05):
like the same the entire song, and he just built
on top of that and he was like at first,
he was like I don't know about this, and then
people just kind of encouraged him to do it and
to like listen and be like, no, you should put
this out and everything, and so it kind of it
was like the first song I was reading about that,
Like he finally was like, oh, I can do this
kind of stuff by myself. I don't need like the
(01:02:25):
whole shebang of like Team and even Wham itself. It
can just be George Michael. So anyway, he puts this
song out on Last Christmas and he starts playing it solo,
and the one I kind of gravitated towards, which I
would say this is the spiritual like grandfather to Tiny
Desk is MTV unplugged right, because it's basically the same concept.
(01:02:49):
It's like, you guys are trapped here, you guys gotta
do it. You guys are trapped here now. I don't
know why I said it, like that, you're not leaving
until you play everything she wants acoustically, George, but no,
like seriously, he plays this song acoustically, and it's really
interesting to hear acoustically because it's such an eighty synth
heavy song, so it's like interesting to hear it like
(01:03:10):
with all of these guitars and all of these like
background vocals, and like he does the chorus different, like
it's not like the original song. And I was like,
that's really weird. So that's like a really good example
of it if you want to hear like somebody who
was like, oh, I thought about this song. We're not
gonna do it like that anymore. Also, you can see
if you look up the MTV Unplugged version of this song,
(01:03:33):
you can see probably the worst haircut that George Michael
has ever had. I'm not even joking. This man is
known for having good hair, and I was like, this
is atrocious. God, it's so bad. You should if you,
if anything, you should look it up just for that haircut. Joe,
what are you listening to?
Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I've been listening to a artist called Chris Ulrich has
an EP called Big in the USA, and then I
also listen to like discover this artist called two Blinks
I Love You and there's a song called It's I
Love You on the EP. It's like the first release
(01:04:15):
for this project, and it's already getting like a good
amount of streams on it. But like it's kind of
it's it's a beautiful record. If you like like early
two thousand's grungy, kind of like songwriter singer songwriter vibes,
then you will definitely love this project. And all the
(01:04:38):
creative behind it too is like very like it's I
don't know, it's like very indie, but also like I
don't know, it's just it has it's like so authentically
early two thousands situation that I think like we all
like some artists are really trying to emulate but can't write,
(01:04:58):
you know, And I feel like the this artist has
and the songs are just beautiful. They're just really beautiful songs.
Definitely recommend you check it out. Yeah, this haircut's horrible.
I was waiting for you to see his haircut. This
is a bad haircut.
Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
I know, and he's known for having the best hair. Dude,
every time.
Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
I look at it. Horrible haircut.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I literally am like I can't even watch the video,
Like I like, he's orange. Well it might be also
just VH one like film grade and then on top
of that, like a YouTube VHS upload of this video.
But like I guess, dude, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
I mean he looks like he has a spray tan.
For sure.
Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
I mean, for sure he's gotta be Absolutely it's George Michael.
He's gonna have a spray dan.
Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
And it's he He looks horrible. I'm sorry, he looks good.
Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
It's just the hair is bad. Like that hair is
so bad.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
No, the facial air is bad. The hair is bad.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
All right, well the spray Tanna is bad. Following me
for my next podcast, George Michael the Fan Call Up Edition. Guys,
thanks for listening to the VIZ tape. You're all thanks
to Music Business and Media podcast. We sure do appreciate
you out there. You want to do one more favor
for us to share the show wherever you want to
follow the show, Tell friend, we are here and we
are here for you, and as always, guys, keep it
(01:06:15):
short this time. Thank you so much and thank you
for listening
For the first time, a chart number one that's actually
out of nowhere, and b am, I going for profit.
You're listening to the biz tape. Well, IM's the biz tape.
(00:24):
You're All Thinks Music business and media podcast. I'm your
host Colin McKay with my host Coast to Coast Joseph
Wazowski with more music business news for y'all this week,
and we have a doozy for two things. First off, Joe,
how are we first with this hurricane? Since I know
you are a coast.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh yeah, Me and Hillary we're tight. We really talked
to Bill is that you We had a good What's
so funny is like every single thing was like, oh
my god, Hillary's like gonna destroy Los Angeles, and then
it kind of did, but kind of didn't. At the
same time. It was like very patchy like where damage
(01:04):
was like hitting in the city, but like for the
most part, it was just heavy rain that we were
able to deal with. It was like a tropical storm
by the time it came through, so it was chilling.
We were chilling. We have like some palm branches in
the road and we have way too many sand bags
(01:25):
that we bought for flooding purposes that never happened. But
that's a good thing at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Man.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What's really funny is when I was I was at
home depot. I'm a Low's person personally, but the closest
one was was home depot.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, And well, you're really got to start off, really.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm really I'm really going there. I will say it's
getting political here on the bis Day podcast. But I
was looking for sand and sand bags, as you do
during a crisis, and I couldn't find any sand. I
was like, I finally went out to the gardening area
(02:08):
where they kind of had the sand. They had some sand,
but it wasn't like the sand I needed, right, But
it did the job, you know, and so I grabbed
that shit. I'm going to the cash register, and this lady,
like everyone else, is like frantically trying to find sand
in sandbags and like battening down the hatches and like
(02:29):
getting stuff together. And this lady is so concerned with
what kind of soil she should put in her front yard.
Four flowers and it's the California. It was the most
California moment of like this lady was on a mission.
She was not going to let Hurricane Hillary stop her
(02:51):
from making sure that her flowers were pristine this season.
And I can I can relate, you know, I can
relate to that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Okay, Jesus.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
She was also in sweatpants, and she was like, she
didn't give a fuck she was. She was in sweatpants.
She was in like a it was kind of like
nicer sweatpants. It was like like semi workout, semi pajama vibe.
But she was on a mission.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, just to get the very water absorbent soil. I'm
I'm assuming, you know, for her plants. God dude, well
glad you're all right. Last time I stayed there, the
house was leaking. So that's why I was thinking about.
And we didn't get to talk to really before this,
so it's just making sure. Anyway, I guess let's just
jump right back into it. Uh, what's look at the
(03:40):
news today? You know, that's where I feel like some
giant title card should come in, like the e news
thing I've joked about for three years. Anyway, we're gonna
talk about the new number one on the Billboard Hot
one hundred charge that literally has come out of nowhere.
I also broke this story to Joe and he was like, really,
(04:01):
this is number one right now, and I went, really,
this is number one right now. So I thought we
would just jump into this and kind of dissect this
weird chart outwire we're seeing, which is I'm sure you've
probably seen this guy's face everywhere for some reason I
have as well. His name is Oliver Anthony and his
song Richmond North of Richmond ha Play on Words is
(04:25):
number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred chart. You
may have seen these videos around TikTok or YouTube, and
it's basically him with like a big you know, he's
playing the guitar in the forest with a microphone. He's
got red hair, redbeard, and everything very distinct looks, so
he's hard to miss. But he is number one on
the Billboard chart and it's kind of out of nowhere
(04:46):
and unexpected for him, his management, everybody around. So let's
just dissect it again. Oliver Anthony is this artist name,
which is not his real name, by the way. Apparently
that's in honor of his grandfather, which I thought was
kind of sweet. His song Richmond North of Richmond has
exploded to number one. Like I said, Prior to this week,
(05:06):
Oliver Anthony has not appeared on any Billboard chart in
any form, making him the first such artist ever to
debut on top of the Hot one hundred.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Wow, it's a pretty crazy debut.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
That's a crazy debut. Like I think people in movies,
you know, like say this all the time, where they're like,
you're number one and you just put out one song
and that does not happen. Like important to note still
this chart has been tracking. The Billboard chart started really
officially tracking in nineteen ninety one, so it's not like
through all time, you know, but the explosive goat growth
(05:44):
we're seeing here hasn't really been seen in it's thirty
two years, so unheard of that, which is the first
thing that caught my attention because I didn't know anything
about this guy, and many people did not. If you
haven't listened to the song, this track is by the
quote farm Bill. I can't believe. I just realized that
it's called that. Farmville, Virginia based singer, songwriter and former
(06:07):
factory worker born Christopher Anthony Lunsford, who again his stage
name is Oliver Anthony, honoring his grandfather who first drew
buzz online, including on TikTok, where he boasts one point
five million followers, and prior to his August eleventh posting
on the Radio WV West Virginia YouTube account, which spotlights
(06:29):
unsigned Americana and country acts in the Virginia slash West
Virginia region, this guy was just kind of had a
big TikTok.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
The Radio WV recording is basically just him and a guitar.
There's nothing more simple than that, right, Like it's not
I mean, it's very well mixed and everything, but you know, Joe,
you would agree it's pretty authentic sounding, you know what
I mean. It doesn't sound.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Edited or it's pretty bare bones.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Right, which is a you know, unorthodox in this day
and age.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Through some of that reverb in there, that.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Reverb is insane. But if you want to see this
reverb yourself. The video on the YouTube account, like I
was saying, Radio WV, which really made this video just
go everywhere and this song to get streams everywhere, has
thirty million views now thirty million, and it was posted,
you know, last week. So this guy is just literally
(07:30):
you know, if you're saying like a star is born,
this is a star is born, like this guy has
come out of nowhere. The song, I will say, has
drawn criticism for its lyrics, and sadly in country world
that we live in, it's you know, offensive to some
(07:51):
and also at the same time, it's sad to say,
seems very tame in the world of country music, especially
with the likes of what we talked too on the show,
which is Jason Aldane's Try That in the Small Town,
in Morgan Wallen's career in general. So here are the
lyrics that people were kind of going at. This song
is like a working man's song, talking about working overtime,
(08:12):
trying your best, you know, and you just can't get
anywhere and all that stuff. And the part that got
some people upset was quote your dollar tax to no
end because of rich men north of rich men as
well as the obese milking welfare. So like it's not
you know, like I was talking to Joe, I was like,
it's not really the best, but like it's kind of
(08:33):
sad to say that that's like not that controversial now
even though it is, you know what I mean, just
because of like the standard that's been set by especially
number one country songs. Either way. I need to mention
this because the song has grown to have significant amount
of detractors specifically for that music. Like there's literally YouTube
(08:54):
videos you can go watch where it's like, is this
you know, is this song like cancelable? Is this a
bad song because of these lyrics? Right? And we can
get to that in a minute. So other than that,
like whatever you think about the song, here's how it's doing.
On the Charge Richmond North of Richmond has drawn seventeen
point five million streams and sold one hundred and forty
(09:17):
seven thousand downloads in the tracking week ending August seventeenth,
according to Luminate. Not being promoted to radio, this song
also tallied five hundred and fifty three thousand radio airplay
audience impressions the bulk on country radio station, which is,
you know, pretty crazy for radio. I mean, Joe, you know,
(09:37):
you came up in radio a little bit with everything,
and like not to have any formal promotion and all
these people just play this song is very I mean, it's.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So unorthodox for sure. I'm wondering if he even has
this shit registered with like BMI or like, you know,
because like if he doesn't getting that getting his royalties
is going to be a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, this is like catchup. This guy is going
to be doing catch up the entire time, you know
what I mean. And I'm gonna get to later kind
of where he's got, you know, obviously, like you're saying,
he's got a lot to deal with, all up front,
all these offers, all this stuff. By the way, I
saw one that's pretty upsustantiated. But apparently according he was
(10:24):
given some eight million dollar offer and I was like, okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
He was claiming. He was claiming that he was getting
an eight million eight and he was flexing that he
said no to me, means he was not.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
I you know, it's unsubstantiated. It's fine. It just seemed
very out of nowhere from his comments. But another comment
that he gave specifically to Billboard about the situation and
the song is quote, the hopelessness and frustration of our
times resonate in the response to this song. The song
itself is not anything special, but the people have supported
(10:59):
it are incredible and deserved to be heard, which gives
me the like the most first sentence was a little
bit too braggy. Second sentence, let's bring it back like,
that's what that feels like when I read that sentence.
But are those two sentences while at the same time
his and these titles If you want to know, like
how really independent this guy is, Like I can tell
(11:22):
you he's independent all this kind of stuff which you'll
get to later, but if you really want to know,
it all comes down to how many titles one manager has,
which is his co manager, producer of the song, and
co owner of the organization, and it has this video
on their YouTube page. Draven Rife stated quote there was
not a whole lot of planning involved, and that they
(11:44):
had some small promotion from small outlets and Oliver's notably
large fan based on TikTok, but it was largely mouthed
to mouth promotion kind of hinting about like what Joe
and I are saying, like they did not they you know,
this wasn't like secretly.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So he already had a large following on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
This man had a large following on TikTok, which I
wanted to get into. This guy had over one point
five million followers on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Oh, yeah, then there's no no shit. It's like taking off.
I mean it was like if it was like, oh, yeah,
he uploaded this video and didn't have any other views
and it was like okay, like here we go, this
is my first video, right, and it was like thirty
million views. That would be insane, And I agree with honest,
(12:29):
it's a lot less impressive when it's like he's obviously
built up an audience.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
At the same time, like, and I'll give you that,
I do believe that as well. It's like I think
a lot of people are like, wow, this is just
some homegrown guy and I was like, yeah, it is.
But he also has, rightfully, so you know, in his
own way, established this large TikTok presence, which is powerful,
you know what I mean if you have one point
five million followers, So like it's not nothing, right, Like
(12:58):
I think a lot of this around this artist Oliver
Anthony is kind of like, oh well, he's just like
back in the woods somewhere and he nobody's ever seen him.
And it's like, no, it's got one point five million
TikTok followers, which doesn't make this not impressive by the
way that he's gone to number one after literally having
no charting at all or anything, right, But it's still
(13:21):
it's a notable task in the story.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, it's a it kind of it kind of pegs
it down a bit.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Right, and like it seems to me and from like
the what I just said about the small promotion from
small outlets and Oliver's notably large fan based on TikTok
is not a quote like I'm saying that. Like he
the Draven Wriif has said, like he did some small
promotion with some you know, insert country and then also
(13:50):
some other adjective website. Right, he did some like kind
of stuff like that where he just went to these
small little websites with newsletters. But like and then he
like slips in He's like, also, we did some TikTok
stuff and TikTok fans and it's just like yeah, but
they're one point five million followers, which I know is
not active one point five million, but like, if you know,
(14:10):
ten thousand were going crazy on this, that's still a lot.
It also shows the power of TikTok here. I think
in a lot of ways. Anthony, though I will say
kind of maybe also notably in his favor for being
in seeming diy is, Anthony is notably still independent and
unsigned which is very rare to have an unsigned artist
(14:33):
at number one on the Hot one hundred. The last
artist to have a number one on the Hot one
hundred was Lisa Lobe in nineteen ninety four. So it's
been a while, you know what I mean, which is
the stay I Missed You song, if you guys ever
know that. But even her, she's got kind of the
same thing here that he does with this TikTok thing.
(14:54):
Lisa Lobe in nineteen ninety four had that song released
on RCA Records, that was on the hit Reality Bite soundtrack,
and then Lope was signed to Geffen Records after the song,
so it was like kind of like, eh.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It's kind of in between.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, it's like in the in the words of Lisa Lowe,
you say, only hear what I want to, So I
don't know, you know. It's like she she's got like
a couple thumb you know, tacks in this story, basically
weighing her down for the diy ankle compared to Anthony here. Lastly,
Anthony is the sole writer on the song, which is
(15:31):
also very rare, and it is notable because I mean,
as Joe's I if you guys have listened to our
yearly Grammy episodes have talked about everyone and their mother
gets a songwriting credit now and it it would. It's
still very notable in terms of like number ones and
should be noted, But at the same time, like it's
(15:51):
not as big as of a streak breaking moment because
Glass Animals actually did this last year with their song
heat Wave, which is written by their frontman Dave Bailey.
So it's not like he's breaking like a thirty year
long record which he keeps doing over and over. But
it's still it's still very impressive. So let's get into it, Joe,
I guess first, let's talk about TikTok. I mean, you
(16:15):
clearly think TikTok had a substantial you know, presence to
his come up, and if you will in this, do
you think that like that makes him quote unquote less
like DIY and like kind of goes against his grain?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
No? No, I don't think it makes some less DIY.
I mean, like, if anything, TikTok is the most DIY.
It's sure you can get with it because it's even
making it's making artists at the top sircumb to trends
and like making their own videos and like.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Making Drake do TikTok dances. Yeah, and if that's not power,
then what is exactly?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know? But I think like the uh yeah, I
mean there's no denying that folk music right now, country
and folk music is very popular. It's having a moment.
(17:16):
I mean. The another example right of someone who's blowing
up is no Con who's like massive in the alternative
folk space Americana space, And like I think that that's like,
I don't know, It's like country music does really well
on TikTok and I think it's because like a lot
of the younger country fans are on TikTok, but like
(17:38):
older people tend to also still support country radio and
buying physical CD.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I have to mention the downloads in here are yeah,
monumental in the amount, like extreme is huge obviously.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And that's the reason why he's number one. It's not
because of the amount of streams. It's because of the
amount of buy well.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I think the stream is astronomical. But like as we've
talked about on the show, if you haven't heard us
talk about, it's like Billboard basically does a track equivalent,
you know, kind of I think it's like every ten
or I gotta remember what the ratio is. Basically x
amount of streams equals one like sale, which means that
(18:22):
puts you higher up the chart. But a download is
just a sale, so that like you know, it's something
like one hundred fold or tenfold or something, so it's
not I think it might be one thousandfold.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So like it's yeah, it's something insane.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
It's like every thousand wouldn't listen to one sale.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, you wouldn't listen to a bot CD that many times, right,
But it's like they expect because it's valued less, which
like we could even get into the topic of like
that needs to change in general.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, I mean we've talked about it on the show.
I think the problem that I have with and you know,
I thankfully I live in Nashville so I can call
it out all the time. And I'm sorry if you're
sick of this rant. But like people all the time, go,
I'm number one, we're number one, and I go on
the country chart all the time. You know, like you're
put you're missing important things. And why I think that's important.
(19:17):
It's not because I'm a Debbie Downer. It's because it's misleading.
So it's important to look at these charts and understand
the way that these aggregates of data are collected, right,
And so if you know that, I mean, this is
the whole reason that they had to take merch bundles
(19:38):
out of the Billboard charts. It's because the Billboard Charts
is supposed to demonstrate consumer listening habits, and then they
found out that the people who like to buy merch
more were buying merch more to either get their artists
to the top, or people were purposely making packages and
so they would get you know, sales of CDs mostly
(20:00):
through these merch packages. So the point is is that
it wasn't very accurate to consumer trends. It was accurate
to which artists are willing to make merch bundles to
try to go to the top. In the same way,
I do think that the way the downloads are and
the fan base of country music and the slowerness to
(20:23):
technology that country music has, it has to be noted
that these downloads are significantly higher in these country music
spheres compared to more modern music in terms of like
pop music or rap or all these other kind of genres.
It's just not as prevalent to have like some of
(20:44):
these downloads, unless you have like an outlier like a
BTS who purposely try to support them as much as
they can to get them on the charts. So like it.
It's very it's really interesting to see this, and I
think you know that we've seen all these data from
Billboard that's country music is twenty percent up, which I
(21:05):
do believe. But I think the other thing about it
is that it has a chart currently that I think
favors the spending and consumer habits of the country music
fan base. Is that a mic drop Joe. I was
(21:26):
about to say seamless, sorry, but I didn't mean to
put Joe in the speech anyway, Like I'm sure somebody thought, oh,
there's already an ad in the show. Anyway, Let's talk
about this though, Like even with country music, this song
is distinctively sonically different than a lot of the other
(21:48):
country music that we've seen in the number one as
of late, like especially a Morgan Wallen or most recently
a Jason al Dem would try that in a small town.
It is just you know, guy guitar singing the most
reverb I've ever heard, and that's pretty much. It so
(22:09):
like it is an oddity in that way, and I
think there is you know, definitely a vocal majority that
have not had this kind of sound in a good
package that's been very marketable and viral, and so I
think it's really connecting with a lot of people. Would
you agree with that, Joe, especially like this kind of
(22:31):
sound that Oliver Anthony has is maybe just under represented.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Well. I think, like with anything, popular genres tend to
gravitate towards alternative genres eventually kind of like picking and
choosing like the things that they want to incorporate and
later kind of fads and like trends and stuff like that.
And like right now, I mean, like the biggest alternative
folk star would be like Tyler Childers, right, and like
(23:03):
this guy is screaming Tyler Childers, like to the extreme, yeah,
but just like way more conservative. Honestly, it's like the
opposite end of the spectrum. But it's like people really
gravitate towards it because like they like the sounds, and
now it's like, oh, it's bleeding into like the pop
(23:25):
country space.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I will also so like I feel like he is
kind of the opposite spectrum of that but at the
same time, like like kind of saying with the you know,
controversial nature of these other country songs that have been
the top, that have almost been so controversial, and that's
like the point of them, you know, is to be controversial.
I feel like this is very you know if you
(23:47):
agree with it or not a middle of the road
of like you know, political spectrum in a lot of ways,
like the most crazy thing.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's just it's just like in it there's a lot
of there's a lot of subliminal I wouldn't say subliminal,
but like there's.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
A lot of just like flashing in the video.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
There's a lot of conservative talking points that he is promoting.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh yeah, I mean he's talking about lowers, he's talking
about you know, the anti welfare like you know, or
just the prevalence of welfare in you know, people that
are obese and stuff like that. I think that it is,
like you're saying, it's very coded, is what I would say,
is probably yes.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Which is like we it's not a secret, we all
know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Well. I mean, at the same time, though, I feel
like it's way, you know, way more towards the middle
and may connect with more people on the whole than
like a Jason Aldan try that in the small town.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You know, I don't even think it's that middle grounded though,
because like I think.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
It's just because of you going crazy that like those
other songs are in comparison that it seems to be
the middle you see what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I guess so, But I it's it's like I mean, yeah,
it's like it's doing what it's It's it's pushing the
narrative of like people talking about it, right and like
so ultimately it's doing its job on that on that
end where I feel like, you know, it's just like
(25:22):
it's hitting people at like the right time of like
there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of
pressure that people are feeling, and a lot of financial
struggle that's going on right now. Content content, and there
is a lot of uh not hate, but I would say,
(25:44):
like I would say there's a lot of like disgruntled
energy kind of aiming at the federal government. And I
think that that is like where this is kind of
like bleeding into or just like where it's.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Like tapping at the time, you know what I mean,
Like it's.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Just yeah, but I mean it's like very much aimed
at the federal government welfare taxes.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh, it's aimed at that, but like I mean that's.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
A Richmond north of Richmond.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Right, Yeah. And honestly, the songs, the songs, the song
title is probably the most damning part of it. If
it was like called anything else, it would probably be
like way less, but he did name it that. So
it's just like, whatever you feel about the situation, it
just seems like we've just been conditioned with country music
that it's like, oh, well, you know, this isn't as bad,
(26:38):
you know what I mean, like in terms of controversialness
if you think it's controversial. So yeah, I again, I
do agree with you. I mean, it is controversial, Like
I you know, whatever way you feel about it, it
is controversial. Like the way it's talked about it and
like literally go online in the discourse, I cannot tell you,
like there are people that are like, ah, what is
(27:01):
the song? Why is he saying this? All this kind
of stuff, So it's not really a question there. But
at the same time, I think because it hits more
towards the middle compared to a lot of stuff, and
it's going to some other you know, groups that maybe
do not feel represented as much by I tried that
in a small town Jason Aldan or a Morganwall and
(27:21):
party boy like kind of country music that I think
it's hitting a vein there. I also think like it's
it's indicative of, to be honest, the spectrum of country,
which I do like to see more. You know, it
felt very we had Morganwah, and we had Jason Alden,
and then like we kind of had in the different
(27:43):
side was maybe like Luke Combs like completely like just
felt like not in the same way. But he's just
doing a cover, you know, and that has been the
summer of country music this summer basically, and so it's
nice to see, like, like I was saying, a one
rider just playing a guitar kind of song, because that
that that is country music at the end of the day.
(28:05):
I mean that that's what it is. I do think
it's funny because it's just like I'm sure there's people
that I could talk to that I know that would
be like that are country music fans that would go,
this is not country music, this is Americana, And I'm like, hmmm,
you know, like pig your difference, but it's definitely indicative
of the spectrum of country and I do think there
(28:26):
is a considerable market that feels not engaged by a
lot of these other country hits, if that makes sense.
And I think this is a sign of it, because
literally this guy had no charting, no anything, and people
just latched onto this song, you know what I mean.
You can say what you want about how controversial Morgan
(28:49):
Wallen is and how controversial like Jason Alden is, but
it like they were at least names. This guy doesn't
even have a name, you know what I mean. So
this guy was well latched on it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Like it. It is the same type of situation, right
of like funneling into that conservative like kind of political
pipeline of like, oh, we're gonna support this person because
it's promoting this message that I do agree.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I think it's hard not to not to say that point.
I mean, like it's just the you know, it does
have a political but backing and vibe, so or there
are people that are going to support it because of
the political message, you know what I mean, no matter what,
and uh, it's more about making that political message literally
heard in this case. But I mean, like I hate.
(29:39):
I hate to say it, but literally I'm like, I'm
just thankful that it's not you know, eight hundred percent
of the lyrics or that you know what I mean,
like it's like one hundred percent or just because we've
been conditioned by country music.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I mean, there is a there is a there is
something to it of like people like are very are struggling,
like throughout everywhere, and so there there's that is a
topic that is very much I think important to everyday people.
And I also too think like folk music and country
(30:17):
music in general tends to pull down people's guards because
it's so like, I don't know, it just seems more
genuine of a genre than like perhaps like ultrapop or
something like that, you know, like where it's like something
so produced out and like very heavy production. But then
(30:37):
this is just a dude in a guitar, and like
that's country music in general.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
This is the most part I.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Know, unless you're in unless you're in country radio, in
which you got everything, you got every auto tune on
well and I Reached has auto tune, but guitar has
auto tune.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
If you want the opposite of it, I go. This
is their broad Way but like, let me explain, so,
like in the same way that I feel like a
Broadway musician, you know, like talk about like Wicked where
I want to be popular all that kind of stuff,
where it's just the piano and just her and it
just moves you. I was like, this is the exact opposite,
(31:17):
but also the same where it's like it just grabs
you because of how raw it is, and depending on
who you are as a person, it grabs you more
or less. And that's why I'm like, this is their.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Broad well, but I also think too, like TikTok has
is kind of shifting people's tastes of music, because what
do you do on TikTok? A lot of the times
it's not a fully produced out situation. There's only so
many people that can fit into that frame. Yeah right.
How many bands have you seen Colin that are just
(31:49):
killing it on TikTok?
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah right, yeah, no exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
You know why. It's because people can't fit in the
fucking frame. Nobody can see anything, and so it's like
having these like solo artists being able to have it
like multiple stripped down acoustic performances that they can post
to TikTok is really important, not only from like a
(32:18):
business standpoint, but also from a tastemaker standpoint, because if
people are if the main thing that people are consuming
is TikTok, it's gonna shift the way that people view
music in the things that they want to hear. Right,
I mean, how many times, golin have you like walked
into a restaurant and it's like a TikTok song that's
(32:41):
like blowing up, that's being blasted, but it's like eighty
years old, and it's you know, and it's like, why
is this song being played in this coffee shop right now?
Right and like twenty twenty three? Oh yeah, it's because
nothing nothing makes sense anymore, that's why.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, I mean, I agree, I think there's just a
spectrum that's you know, going on TikTok. But it seems
to me that it's been a lot for a bastion
of these very stripped down, very solo like performances that
like kind of didn't have a place for like ten years,
(33:18):
you know what I mean. Like if you went to
like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, you'd be like, ugh, a
guy with a guitar. It was all about like, you know,
fucking like a pit Bull remix. Basically was like the
gold standard. That's what everybody wanted to see. It was
like it was just this huge electronic revolution. And I
feel like now we're in this kind of vice versa
where people are like, let's strip it down now because
(33:41):
TikTok's like a video world into like the real world,
and it's like a very heavily produced solo guy a
real world. But you know, it is what it is.
I think this is a very notable chart upset. I
will say, I mean it it's definitely literally out of nowhere.
(34:01):
Like everybody likes to say this song was out of nowhere. No,
this is out of nowhere right, Like there is nothing
more out of nowhere than this, in my opinion that's
been on the charts, like it was just a random
guy of a random YouTube video, right. I mean the
TikTok following, Yeah, it's big, but it's like you're not
(34:22):
number one on the chart big, you know what I mean.
Like we've had big TikTok songs on here where it's
like they have five million followers, they're not number one
on Billboard two hundred, right, So I think it's I
think it's indicative of just the kind of country explosion
that we're dealing with with streaming and charts. And then
(34:43):
also I just think that the consumer base of country
music has the right qualities to manipulate the chart in
a way that is unseen in many genres. Like literally
the only one I can give a parable too is
probably Beats. Yes, like where bts All the fans will
be like, we want to buy all these songs on iTunes,
(35:06):
and so they're number one. So I don't know, man,
it's interesting. I'm glad in some ways to see an
upset of the same like three names we've seen for
six months, But at the same time, it's like, you know,
it's a different code of paint to a lot of
the same messages. So it is it is, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I mean it's crazy even even on that route, right,
like thinking of like who's gonna be the next famous person,
because we're due for like kind of another resurgence of
like new talent that's gonna flood into top forty, And
(35:51):
it's something to keep your like keep in mind of,
like who are some people that are like kind of
like bubbling to the surface right now that will and
will be breakthrough and be the next Billie Eilish, be
the next Jason isbill be the next next whoever?
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, that's probably the craziest part about this story. If
you take away even just the country, it's like one
one person that one million followers on TikTok, which it's
probably like hundreds of those now you know, just came
through and just was number one and not seen on
the charts existence ever. Which, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
I do wonder. I do wonder because like there's kind
of there's a catch twenty two with TikTok, which is
like you're gonna have something really explode on TikTok, but
then it falls into the this could be a one
hit wonder territory yep, And that's where it's very difficult
to break out of that and actually make like something
(36:51):
into a career out of it. I think, like, to
be honest, with this song, he's kind of managed to
make more like I feel like this would actually be
more of a career move for sure, just because the
song is actually like it's not a TikTok song, you
know what I mean, Like it's like it's a song
(37:12):
that's like this.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
The song, the full song on YouTube has done so well. Right, Like,
it's not that's what all the people TikTok, right, It's
that people actually went, you know where people are like,
you should go check out my song right now, and
you're like you're gonna check it out, and in your
brain you're like, yeah, I'm gonna click that link, and
you don't do it. Everybody did it with this song,
Like everybody went to the YouTube video and watched this
(37:37):
song that was like semi interested in the song. So
there there is actually sorry.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Go ahead, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but this
sparked thought in my head. But I actually saw is
a very helpful video. It was like about this guy
who's like in charge of this other account's videos where
it was like it was this man and you've probably
seen him on TikTok. He's like very big. He like
has this like archive of very expensive old books, right okay,
(38:08):
and he like restores books. That's like his business. But
he doesn't tell people what his business is. He just
posts to TikTok and explains each book that he likes
and why it's important. And they explode on the on
the format and the reason that they were arguing it
(38:30):
explodes is because you're giving people, You're you're giving something
away to people. You're like, you're doing a service to people.
You're either educating, you're either entertaining. You're doing something so
that that person can take it right, take it in
and digest it and consume it. Whereas a lot of artists,
(38:54):
and I would say, like I would say, the majority
of artists, I'm just going to say it on TikTok
really struggle with that notion because all of the things
that they are posting are promos to get people to
click on something else to somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Can we go on that tangent right now? What the
hell has happened to the algorithm in the last like
three months? Why am I getting so many like hey,
you should buy this thing lately?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah? Well, I think like I think TikTok's figuring out
a way to do ad sense, right Like, I think
like that's that's very much happening right now. I'd actually
say like TikTok has really been from for my personal experience.
I'm very close to deleting it because I hate it
so much right now and I just kind of need
(39:45):
a reset. I feel like, but I would say that
for the majority of people. I think a lot of
people right now are kind of not into TikTok because
like you're seeing the same five people on your feed. Yeah,
there's no like before there was like discovery. Yeah, there
was like discovery and like new people and like new
(40:06):
things happening, and like now it's all about, Oh, we're
all doing the same thing, the same trend, the same whatever.
We're gonna hear the Planet of the Bass video eighty
thousand times your eyes out, and like the Jonas Brothers
will then take them on tour and then weird. But
(40:28):
I mean, I thought it was an amazing move, but
I'm also like it's kind of it's kind of old now,
right He's still do we still care?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I mean, to be honest, if I was Kyle Gordon,
the guy made that song, I would be milking he
is a genius.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I would be milk literally a genius. And that's kind
of the funny thing about that whole thing is like
they would also milk that to the grave, like people
who made that music, like that style of house music was.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Like going to an Andy Kaufman level for this song.
Talking about the end, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I mean it's so good. It's so good. But you
know that's the thing though, like right, like everybody knows
about that song. Everybody's seen it like a million times,
and people are sick of it. And like, I think
that that's where TikTok is really struggling. And I think
that if more artists actually, because there are so many
(41:22):
great artists that are just not getting discovered on TikTok
and just period in general, there's gonna be so there's
so much music that all of us will miss out
on for people who should be way more famous than
they are and they will never be famous. And it's
kind of a sad thought.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, it's what it is, I mean, and you really
figure out, I think a lot of artists figure out
if they love to make music or if they love
the idea of being famous, and those are two very
different things.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, but there's a balancing act there because you kind
of need to be somewhat you need to be business
savvy to really prolong your your life in the entertainment.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Oh, I agree, but I think there's definitely people that
have a love to be loved, if that makes sense,
and then have a love to create music and so
it's you know, it's a balancing act. But I think
it's like, uh, you find the ones that lean towards
one way or the other, and some of them are
more useful in different situations than some of them are not.
(42:29):
So like, that's just kind of sadly, like you said,
it's the tightrope they all walk where. You know, if
you just love to make music, it's like, god damn it,
I got them. And then some people are like, I
just I love making the social media stuff. You know,
I like music, but I like the performance. I like
to be seen, you know, like that, and it's the
(42:51):
you know, battle between a musician and performer at the
end of the day.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Well, big changes in the music industry, and another big
change is that the pro performance rights organization BMI has
been engaging with outside parties over the possibility of a sale,
according to Billboard, and what that means is that BMI,
(43:19):
which is which is historically a nonprofit organization, will now
be turning into a for profit organization which has a
lot of people, artists, writers, everybody freaking out essentially, right,
So some of the biggest names on BMI, which I
(43:40):
think people would be surprised to hear this because I
don't know some of these artists you'd think would just
like jump to askap or something because it's like more
I don't know, like.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Bougie, I mean, it's all about my pr O friends
are all like, it's all about the relationships.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, one hundred percent, and like and to be honest,
BMI excels at the relationships yep, most of the time,
because they're the first pr that people deal with when
getting into the industry because it's free to sign up
and you have a BMI representative and you're able to
like talk to people and they can track you and
like see where you are in your career. But some
(44:19):
of the songwriters they have are Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift,
and Rihanna, among some one million others. And they reported
that its revenue reached one point five to seven three
billion dollars and that it distributed one point four seven
one billion dollars to songwriters, which is like pretty great
(44:42):
for like a nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
I mean yeah, right there, it is one hundred you know,
their budgets like one hundred million dollars, so that may yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Mean, they're they're getting so much money. They also have
it down to like pros have this shit down to
a science, like when it comes to collecting royalties and
and getting people paid. And I think that a lot
of the industry, the other industry is envious of that.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Dude. There's some to go like, well, it's just there's
these big three. There's VMI, there's ASCAP, and there's sexy
Sex the one that actually is for profit but like
right now, and uh, basically they have this trifold of it.
But they're very like I was talking to actually someone
just the other day, they're very competitive with each other
(45:31):
and they have like a lot of like you know
people that try to that have this.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
People.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, and it's a whole thing. And like literally I've
heard stories where people have to be like under the
table until like the last day of their like current
contract then move and like stuff. I like, it's it's insane.
It's this trifl shark kind of but they are the three,
like there they are the three, like yeah, and it's
(45:58):
just like they fight to the over this kind of stuff.
So with the big change like this leaving basically as
CAP as the only you know, not for profit entity,
it's going to be really interesting to see how that
changes BMI, because if you're a corporation and you make
one point five to seven three billion dollars and then
(46:20):
you lose one point four to seven one billion dollars
to pay out the songwriters, that's not a very good
business model in terms of for profit, you know what
I mean. But for nonprofit that's exactly what it's supposed
to do.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, exactly. And that's why a lot of songwriters are
very very concerned with these changes, because for profit equals
less profit for them, if that makes sense. So in
a letter from the Black Music Action Coalition, Music Artists Coalition,
Songwriters of North America, sag AFTRA, and Artist Rights Alliance
(46:58):
had they basically sent it to Mike O'Neill, who is
like the head of BMI, and they laid out why
pros are so important, especially to songwriters' livelihoods, and they
basically explain right that they are very concerned with the
changes they have. They have about twenty five to thirty
(47:24):
so intense questions. Oh god, directly to Mike.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Oh god, I'm looking at the questions. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
It is a very long list of questions, to which
Mike responded with not answering this question.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
This is like a like they all the questions, like
most of them are just run on sentences. They're like
you know when you were doing a test in high
school and it would be like, oh, thank god, I'm
on question five, and then you go to five B
and you're like fuck, Like yeah, that's what it's like.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, it's pretty intense. It gave me anxiety when I
read it, But I'll read the first couple of paragraphs
because I feel like it kind of summarizes the Can I.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Read number five? Get it? If we're gonna go down?
Five is the funniest thing I've seen.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, absolutely so, Dear Mike. As you know, there is
no BMI without songwriters. Songwriters have a vested interest in
changes at BMI and in any proposed transaction, which is
wholly dependent on songs they have written. BMI has been
very active. BMI announced a shift for a for profit
(48:34):
model and engaged Goldman Sachs to explore a transaction where
a private equity company would purchase BMI. BMI does not
own copyrights or other assets. It is a licensing entity
for copyrights owned by songwriters and by extension publishers. Songwriters
have a right to understand these decisions and how it
(48:57):
impacts us. As advocacy or organizations representing songwriters, we have
questions about the impact of a proposed transaction on our
songwriter members. In the spirit of transparency, we hope that
you will answer the following questions, Like Colin, what's the
question you want to.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
I just okay, so like that it goes down this
number one, we heard that BMI was reported one hundred
and thirty five million dollars in profits. It shifted to
a for profit model. Is that accurate? And it's kind
of going down this But my favorite one and here
is five and which sounds like I like you're getting
cross examined in a courtroom. We all know that the
(49:34):
way to become more profitable involves increasing revenue or decreasing expenses.
If revenue increases, shouldn't that money go to songwriters? Well,
B and I need to reduce its distributions in order
to drive further profits, I asked.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
The court, you know what I mean, Like, it's pretty intense. Yeah,
it's a very intense sletter. But O'Neill came back with
another counter letter. By the way, both of these letters
are like submitted to publications. They like this is very
much publicly in the public eye. Yeah, it's like, what's
going on? He goes. Dear Coalition and Association members, thank
(50:16):
you for your letter this afternoon. You raise some important
questions about BMI in our successful move last October to
a for profit business model. As you stated, there is
no BMI without songwriters, and no one knows this better
than us. Our mission has been and always will be
to support our songwriters, composers, and publishers and grow the
(50:37):
value of their music. It is what we have done
since launching our company with an open door policy in
nineteen thirty nine. As we shared with many of you
in October, our move to for profit was so we
could invest in our company to ensure our continued success
and growth for the future, while also increasing our distribution.
(51:00):
And the first three distributions under our new model all
exceed previous years, with two being the largest in our
company's history. Our reasonability is to continue that trajectory on
behalf of our affiliates. As you know, the music industry
has undergone dramatic change and continues to evolve rapidly. We
need to continue to invest in our business and explore
(51:22):
new avenues for revenue generation so we can continue to
expand our distribution sources. We share a common goal with
you in that we believe music creators should be appropriately
compensated for the crucial contributions that they make to this industry.
We've proven this time and time again.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
And uh, you know, like sorry, can I yeah, he
kind of reading this a bunch. Like if I was
revising this, like he like put this in for like
review as like a draft paper, I'd be like, okay,
we can cut about like eighty percent of these lines.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. It's it's obviously pr
to the extreme like this letter, which like you know,
it's like what you gotta do when you're like the
head of a company and people are mad at you, right,
But there is a level of like there's just like
no answering, like he's he doesn't get specific with the
(52:19):
questions of like answering each specific question and like laying
out what the changes will be, because I think to
some extent they don't even know what the changes are
yet until they finalize the sale.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
And I'm reading like what he says under here, like
here's the things we've done since we've moved to profit,
like to try to be a for profit business, and
it's like really jokey, like it's just like super joke.
Like number one, we've announced a partnership with Music Nation
to establish a music licensing and royalty infrastructure based in
the UAE. Okay, cool, that's you know, the UAE is
(52:54):
an important country. I'm glad that you have a basis
because if you guys don't know this pros and you
know different countries do they have the form a relationship
with them, and then it's kind of like you get
p r o' and then you get pr ight again
and then it goes to the songwriter. Right, yeah, you
ae great, we love that. Definitely not the biggest country
for this, you know what I mean. Like if they're
(53:14):
like we've done all of Russia and India and China,
you know what I mean, it'd be like all right,
there we go. But like u AE is not the
biggest country in the world, which means songwriters it's like
your p r O paymounts are crazy.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
We have an.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Extensive customer service initiative to enhance the service we provide,
which is like what every country. Yeah, like it's just
like nobody's ever like we're really just not walking with
customer service anymore. And then number three is it's like we've.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Planned great apperiencing very high call volumes. Yeah right, And
then that's my favorite thing because it's always a high
call volume.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
It literally it says quote around the high number of
royalty and administrative questions that we receive. Okay, just let's
just say to why would you say that? Like it's
like more of like we know you are important. We
just need you to answer these questions. Don't like throw
in a boast, being like because a lot of people
want to ask us stuff. Ye. Then the third one
is plan an upgrade of our online service portal, including
(54:14):
new dashboards. Okay, thanks Facebook, what I'm getting an iOS update?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Like what?
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Like it's just those are the three things. By the way,
that's those are the giant three things. It's almost been
a year and they're like, this is what the for
profit model has done, you know what I mean? And
so it's dude, it's such a joke. Like it I
think they could make some argument about for profit in
(54:40):
some way if they really wanted to. That is one
of the worst arguments I've seen just being.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Like, yeah, we want to make money, we want to
make more money.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Well it's really we want the splits not to you know,
we don't want to have a fiduciary, you know, actual
responsibility to pay out most of this money like a
five one C three does. Because like if you guys
have not been involved with five O one C three,
most goals of five to one C three is to
spend the money on good things to help the charity,
(55:11):
you know what I mean. So it's like a lot
of those five on one C three's try to keep
you know, enough to be liquid just in case an
emergency happens. But literally they're just trying to be like,
let's help our community that we're designed to help us.
A five to one C three, which is what BMI
like they're saying in here, they did pretty well. Like
they they only have what one hundred million in operating
(55:32):
costs and they made like, you know, over one point
four one point five billion. Okay, I feel like that's
a pretty compo. They're a multi huge national company. All right,
that's fine, but like when you go to for profit,
I mean, I've got to hit on this point again.
It's like the coalitions here have a point. They go
(55:53):
the way to become more profitable is that you increase
revenue or you decrease expenses. It sounds like you're not
increasing revenue that much. You don't have that much to
expand on, BMI. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Yeah, you didn't give me.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
You said we got UAE, which is in the scope
of a world a very small country, you know, compared
to like some other deals or upping how other deals
work right in this ten or this like twelve month
trial period you've been in, So I think the answer
is right. I think the answer is literally, they're gonna
decrease it. They're gonna decrease like expenses, which could mean payouts,
(56:27):
and that's that's gonna be rough or worse. You're gonna
other than decreasing payouts on top of that, you're gonna
cut staff down, which already you know these staff people
I talk to you with pros they work so hard, dude.
So it's like, I don't know what you could do here, BMI.
It's like there's not much. It's very similar to our
(56:50):
conversation we had about streaming the other day, where pros
are even in a like or in an interesting space
where it's like where are we going? Where else can
we get? Where are we at market capitalization? Here? The
only way they could get better is that if they
re negotiate a lot of these deals worldwide, or they
(57:11):
really really really step up trying to get these venues
to pay to you know, license the music that's being
played at their place, you know, the eight hundred dollars
fee or whatever a year, right, which would probably most
people don't even know that, right, Like regular people don't
even know that.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
You have to pay for public restrunts that they don't.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Even know that. So it's like there is a market there.
But I feel like you would have to have a
multi million dollar ad campaign going hey, you're stealing music,
We're going to send you the jail like Napster.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
Yeah, is it the ad where it's like the.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Don't pirate? Like literally, pirating music is bad.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
It's like pounding and it's just like mam, pirating music
sounds sick.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
You're just sitting there like we're even counting it, like cooler,
we're even counting the cooking staff in the back that
has the phone up on the metal. Can you know?
So God, dude, those ads were so funny back in
the day. And then like yeah, there there's so and
(58:24):
here's another great question, Uh if me and my cells
will writers or composers received part of the sale proceeds?
And then the more important question, in my opinion I
be myselfs will the broadcasters and BMI's board received sale proceeds?
M hmm yeah, So, like these questions are very good,
and I get it. I get it. Like a lot
(58:45):
of these are probably being actively negotiated. You know, they
can't say it or whatever, but it's like, yeah, yeah,
like your your argument for the for profit model is
really working out so far is probably really is really bad,
you know what I mean. If it was like, you know,
we've renegotiated Europe in Asia and also we've got like
(59:07):
forty percent more venues, like we're paying money, like it
would be like okay, that's fine, but like you're not.
So it seems like somebody's trying to get a golden
parachute here. If you get my draft, All right, Colin,
we've come to the end.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
It is time.
Speaker 1 (59:29):
Don't pirate. Sorry, keep going. He's a vandom but no, no, no, no,
that's not like that.
Speaker 2 (59:35):
All right, Colin, what have you been listening to?
Speaker 1 (59:37):
Yo? Danny Phantom? He was just fourteen. Let's see what
have I been listening today?
Speaker 2 (59:43):
Actually started with yo.
Speaker 1 (59:44):
Yeah, yo, Danny Phantom, he's just fourteen.
Speaker 2 (59:47):
Fuck yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
His parents built this strange machine and then my favorite part,
his molecules got rearranged. Anyway, I've been listening to but
I haven't watched it yet. But I tried to get
my girlfriend to watch it and she was like no,
and I was like, come on. I was trying to
watch the Wham documentary, thought ye on Netflix. I really
(01:00:10):
I've always liked Wham. Well I got my you know,
I have that red key tar here that plays the
Last Christmas as the song, like as the demo song
for it. But uh, if you want to know if
I'm a true Wham fan, but like I was just
like looking like one of my favorite pastimes. And if
you've never done this, I would really like challenge you
(01:00:31):
to do it. Is that if you really like some song,
just start looking up live versions on YouTube and how
they're different, cause it's kind of like you really, especially
in the like when recording used to be so expensive
and they just had to get it done. You know it.
It's so different live sometimes because like a lot of
(01:00:51):
people are like, ah shit, I should have done that,
but it's like we couldn't afford it, so we'll do
it now live. But one of the ones that I
found is Everything She Wants from Gee. I think it's
in GTA Vice City, but that's where a lot of
people randomly know that song. But I like a lot
of Wham songs, and this is one of the ones
that I also knew from Vice City. But Everything She
(01:01:13):
Wants is, like I was reading up about it. George
Michael a lot was kind of done with Wham towards
the later part of the eighties and was like I'm
gonna be myself. I'm gonna just you know, be George
Michael and everything. And he didn't want to play a
lot of Wham songs like at all, like at all,
(01:01:33):
any of them. And the one Wham song and he
even says it in this live recording, I'm gonna, you know,
kind of plug here.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Is that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
He said. He goes, you know, this is the Wham
song I'm gonna play basically, and the reason he plays
it is is because it's he basically did the whole
song himself. It's actually the B side to Last Christmas,
but like Last Christmas was done in the same way
where like George did like a lot of the stuff himself.
It's got this limb drum pattern in the front that's
(01:02:05):
like the same the entire song, and he just built
on top of that and he was like at first,
he was like I don't know about this, and then
people just kind of encouraged him to do it and
to like listen and be like, no, you should put
this out and everything, and so it kind of it
was like the first song I was reading about that,
Like he finally was like, oh, I can do this
kind of stuff by myself. I don't need like the
(01:02:25):
whole shebang of like Team and even Wham itself. It
can just be George Michael. So anyway, he puts this
song out on Last Christmas and he starts playing it solo,
and the one I kind of gravitated towards, which I
would say this is the spiritual like grandfather to Tiny
Desk is MTV unplugged right, because it's basically the same concept.
(01:02:49):
It's like, you guys are trapped here, you guys gotta
do it. You guys are trapped here now. I don't
know why I said it, like that, you're not leaving
until you play everything she wants acoustically, George, but no,
like seriously, he plays this song acoustically, and it's really
interesting to hear acoustically because it's such an eighty synth
heavy song, so it's like interesting to hear it like
(01:03:10):
with all of these guitars and all of these like
background vocals, and like he does the chorus different, like
it's not like the original song. And I was like,
that's really weird. So that's like a really good example
of it if you want to hear like somebody who
was like, oh, I thought about this song. We're not
gonna do it like that anymore. Also, you can see
if you look up the MTV Unplugged version of this song,
(01:03:33):
you can see probably the worst haircut that George Michael
has ever had. I'm not even joking. This man is
known for having good hair, and I was like, this
is atrocious. God, it's so bad. You should if you,
if anything, you should look it up just for that haircut. Joe,
what are you listening to?
Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I've been listening to a artist called Chris Ulrich has
an EP called Big in the USA, and then I
also listen to like discover this artist called two Blinks
I Love You and there's a song called It's I
Love You on the EP. It's like the first release
(01:04:15):
for this project, and it's already getting like a good
amount of streams on it. But like it's kind of
it's it's a beautiful record. If you like like early
two thousand's grungy, kind of like songwriter singer songwriter vibes,
then you will definitely love this project. And all the
(01:04:38):
creative behind it too is like very like it's I
don't know, it's like very indie, but also like I
don't know, it's just it has it's like so authentically
early two thousands situation that I think like we all
like some artists are really trying to emulate but can't write,
(01:04:58):
you know, And I feel like the this artist has
and the songs are just beautiful. They're just really beautiful songs.
Definitely recommend you check it out. Yeah, this haircut's horrible.
I was waiting for you to see his haircut. This
is a bad haircut.
Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
I know, and he's known for having the best hair. Dude,
every time.
Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
I look at it. Horrible haircut.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I literally am like I can't even watch the video,
Like I like, he's orange. Well it might be also
just VH one like film grade and then on top
of that, like a YouTube VHS upload of this video.
But like I guess, dude, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
I mean he looks like he has a spray tan.
For sure.
Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
I mean, for sure he's gotta be Absolutely it's George Michael.
He's gonna have a spray dan.
Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
And it's he He looks horrible. I'm sorry, he looks good.
Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
It's just the hair is bad. Like that hair is
so bad.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
No, the facial air is bad. The hair is bad.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
All right, well the spray Tanna is bad. Following me
for my next podcast, George Michael the Fan Call Up Edition. Guys,
thanks for listening to the VIZ tape. You're all thanks
to Music Business and Media podcast. We sure do appreciate
you out there. You want to do one more favor
for us to share the show wherever you want to
follow the show, Tell friend, we are here and we
are here for you, and as always, guys, keep it
(01:06:15):
short this time. Thank you so much and thank you
for listening
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