Beyoncé's $900 record box (records not included); Macklemore, Ed Sheeran and politics on-stage; The giant streaming platform you've never heard of; The UK 'homegrown' artist chart; and more!

0:03Hello there, welcome to the price of music brought to you by Music Ally. If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music industry, and how it all works, and here we are every week, looking at the finances of the music industry and bringing you stories, comments and analysis from the pop biz in the last seven days. He's Stuart Dredge. I am as ever Joe Sparrow. And as ever, let's start with Stu's big number Stu, what has caught your eye this week?

0:25Stu:my big number this week is 167 million and that is how many people are using uh a music service called soda music which i doubt many people listening will be recognized because it's only available in china so okay i don't think we're huge in china unfortunately yeah big in china um but it's interesting so this is so in china this is called it's spelt q i s h u i and i I believe that is Shi Shui Music. Okay, that sounds right. Otherwise, you don't know the Soda Music machine for Preston, as I say. And it's the workholds by Dance, which is TikTok's parent company. This is TikTok's parent company in its native China saying, we're going to go big on music streaming.

1:08Stu:And this is suddenly a big, well, steadily over the last couple of years become a really big service. So how is this a disruptive service? Is it any different? Because, you know, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Chinese streaming space, the big players out there are not Spotify. it's Q Music or QQ Music is it? There's a bunch of Tencent made a bunch of streaming apps out there. So how is this one, and by the way, there's like 150 million people paying for streaming on one platform alone in China, right? The numbers are big. How is this a sort of disruptive streaming service? What's different?

1:46Stu:Well, yeah. So like the story of China and music is like a couple of, 20 years ago, it was basically a piracy wasteland. If companies couldn't sell music, I just couldn't sell music, everything was pirated. And then that got stamped down on by the government, because that's what you can do when the government has very firm control of the country, you can say. Very firm control is a very nice way to put the power wielded by the Communist Party of China. Yes, there shall be no piracy, and lo, that happened. And then there was lots of free music, and that was popular. And then over the last decade, it's been about getting people to pay for music.

2:19Stu:And it's been so successful that China is now the fourth biggest country in the world. It overtook Germany last year, which has always been one of the big four. So you've got the US, Japan, UK, and now China has overtaken. So that's been the drive, is always towards paying for music. But Shishui Music is free, the basic tier. And so it's going to come in as a free service and lots of personas. But now the big players in China, so Tencent Music, like you said, it's now started launching its own free music apps to compete. So it's an interesting thing. It's kind of heading back to, oh, now we've got to do free music again because this new player has disrupted.

2:55Stu:So how does that work? Just briefly then, how does that work? Because we can access Spotify for free, in inverted commas, because we have to listen to Adverts. So is this an Ad-based model, or is it just free? I mean, in a way, it's similar to Spotify. The free tier, so there's one of Tencent services called Kugo Music, and that has now got a free tier, which you didn't have before. so it's basically the same the same thing as spotify i think in the terms of like you have this for free but we would like you to start paying and here are some ways to pay yeah um so it's one of those things where i mean you could you could have hundreds of millions of people using a free music service in china and even if only you know if only 100 million of them pay that's already enormous yeah um so yeah and it's weird because like over here in the west TikTok did start to launch its own streaming service.

3:45Stu:It was called TikTok Music. It launched in a few places, and then they unlaunched it, shut it all down, and said, actually, we see our future as sending people off to Spotify and Apple Music and places to listen in full, and we're going to carry on being TikTok, the video service. Feels like there was some gentle pressure from those, from the major labels and the streaming platforms in collaboration with them to say that kind of thing. But then, of course, you've got TikTok in China is a completely different animal to TikTok in Europe. And of course now, TikTok in the USA is a different animal as well.

4:17American TikTok. It's a very patriotic TikTok. Okay, well, we'll keep an eye on that because it does essentially revalue music at the grand price of zero, doesn't it? That kind of platform. Let's move on to some other big stories this week. We've seen a few controversies. You'll notice we're wording this very carefully as we go forward here. We've seen a few controversies around artists making political statements and protests on stage in recent times. Now, one big festivals promoter has launched an, in inverted commas, artistic code, explaining its policies when this happens.

4:56Stu:Stu, what's going on here? Yeah, well, this is not just any big promoter. It's a company called Superstruct Entertainment. So it owns festivals including Mighty Hoopla and Boardmasters and Wacken and Puneer. And it's also owned by a company called KKR, which is a private equity giant. Huge private equity company. They've got fingers in many pies around the world. They have. And some of those pies are in Israel, in tech companies. And a couple of years ago, there was a wave of artists protests about this. And artists pulled out of some of Superstruck's festivals and events saying, we don't want to be involved because of your relationship with your owner, its relationship with companies.

5:35there's a whole lot of very very um what's it called specific details about what yeah and i think very specifically the artists and again this is one of those things where if we as we found out when we published a news story about this lots of lots of people get in touch with us to say actually um so with with the sort of some flexibility around accuracy in mind the uh the parent company or parent investment company KKR owns a business that owns a business or used to own a business that was a sort of eBay-ish listings company. Real estate. It's real estate. Yes, you could rent apartments through this platform.

6:17And some of the apartments that were being rented were in Israeli occupied areas in Palestine. And so artists were protesting against that and saying, well, the parent company of the parent company of the parent company also owns this festival company and all the money's connected and we don't like that, so we're pulling out.

6:39Stu:And so it faced a whole wave of pullouts. And it's also had controversies happening on stage. So for example, Merry Wallopers were at a festival and they led a free Palestine chant and then the sound was cut. So this is a company that has experience of artists boycotts, of artists speaking out on stage and all the things. So it's launched this code, which essentially says these are our policies, like we're going to explain how we treat things. And that sounds quite good. When you say treat things, what does that mean? If this happens, this is what we'll do. This is when we'll pull them off stage or not pull them off stage.

7:17Stu:And it kind of says, look, in an ideal world, we don't pull them off stage. action is taken after a set. So they don't want to cut the sound and chuck a band off a festival while mid-set. It's a very bad look, isn't it? Well, yeah. And we've all seen video of that happening. It's one of those things where they're sort of trying to say, these are our red lines. These are the things where we have to take action. But it's still necessarily, but also difficultly, vague. And it's like, okay, if something happens that puts the safety of visitors or colleagues at risk, or incites dangerous crowd behavior, or is illegal speech such as expressing support for a prescribed organization.

8:03Stu:Now that is, for example, terrorist organizations. Or organizations that local governments declare to be terrorist organizations, which may vary from country to country, of course. Quite, yes. So in some countries, that might be organizations campaigning for social rights. Yes. But this document started saying, look, this is what we're going to see, this is what's going to happen. And it is, I think, a reaction to, I think, a lot of, not just this company, but festivals were caught on the hop a couple of years ago, when artists started speaking out, particularly around Palestine and Israel. And they were saying, God, we didn't know what to do, because we didn't tell them they couldn't say this on stage.

8:44Stu:They maybe didn't have a policy about flags on stage because, for example, bringing a Palestinian flag on stage is one thing, or other flags that might be seen as supporting Hamas. So there's all this going on, and this is the first example, I think, of festival going here is our policy. But there's still quite a lot of grey areas in it. For example, what incites crowd behaviour is in the eye of the beholder? What's dangerous? What makes someone feel unsafe? And I think this week I've been covering today the story around Macklemore and the Ed Sheeran tier in the US. Macklemore talking about free Palestine on stage.

9:17Stu:And Pink gave a criticism saying, as a Jewish person, as a mother, I didn't feel safe when I heard this speech. So that was her opinion of feeling unsafe. And her presser was, and it has to say, well, okay, is she right? And this is making me unsafe, or is she not? And it's all very gray areas still. It's very good. I mean, it goes right to the heart of it, doesn't it? Which is, Okay, on one hand, it is a progressive step for anybody to set out clear, or at least begin to set out, some sort of definition around what they do or don't allow. Because then the argument moves on to, do I agree with that and do I want to partake in that environment or not?

9:53So that's kind of progressive. But you're right, that sort of wooliness is, the devil is in the details, of course. And what is safety? is, you know, it's clear there are already laws that exist around crowds' physical safety, right? So are we talking physical safety? Is Macklemore leading, you know, in the case of Macklemore leading a chance of free Palestine, does that impinge on safety? You're right that there is a lot of sort of, you know, and someone backstage is having to decide in the moment, does this

10:32Stu:happen. Because being a stage manager was an easy job, and now they've got another task. But I think this is important. I mean, this is important to have these policies, and it's a start. And I think they actually said, Superstruck said, look, we want to put this out there, and we want to kind of contribute to this debate and share what we've learned. And I think I take that face value as actually this, that that is a good idea. You can start this process, and people can say, well, I think that's too woolly, or they can say, I think that's unfair. But it's going to be, I mean, we're kind of done with festival season in the UK now for this year.

11:06Stu:But I think next year, a lot of these things happening in the world are not going to be resolved by then. Here's the thing, right? It gets really to the heart of what artistry is. And in the modern era where, let's rewind 25 years. The worst thing you could do as an artist 25 years ago as a pop artist in terms of cool, in terms of credibility is partner with a brand or a major organization, right? It was the death of your artistry. It was seen as being, you're out of the club, you're on the other side of the fence now. That's 25 years ago, right? And for various reasons in recent years, artists are actually much happier.

11:50In fact, it's aspirational to collaborate with brands and to do brand partnerships and to do all this stuff. So artists, or some artists, have become necessarily more aligned with... They've gone away from artistry and become big brands. And when you become a big brand, that's when these kind of political decisions suddenly get magnified, because there's big money at play, there's contracts, there's all this stuff. Artists, we're sort of having to ask yourself what do we want artists to be do we want artists to toe the line and to fall in line and to provide entertainment and that's it that's the beginning and end of their remit or do we want them to challenge the world around us and make us think and make us react and ask difficult questions that some people like some people don't like and some people are in the middle.

12:48Obviously, that's not every artist, is it? We don't expect BTS to be challenging our notions around socialism, right? But we do expect that. They could bring down capitalism if they did, the size of their argument. But that's a serious point, isn't it? Artists have this massive cultural leverage, and artists historically have said, and I want to pull those levers, because reason X, Y, Z. So if you book Macklemore, to use today's example as we're recording, if you book Macklemore to be your support act on your show and you're Ed Sheeran, you know that he is going to, based on past experience, talk about certain things, use certain imagery, and do those things.

13:33So there's a sort of implicit endorsement of that from Ed Sheeran. And now he's been kicked off that tour because the people who are funding the tour don't want Ackermore performing in their stadiums. I guess they're right, I guess.

13:44Stu:Well, the stadium owner said we will not let the show go on if he stays on the bill. And so then Ed Sheeran's promoter is putting a position of right. Do we have to cancel the tour? It's very complicated. And I think that's the thing. I mean, so to answer your question, I think as human beings, we're kind of often a bit hypocritical in that we think we love it when artists speak out about something we agree with, and we think they should not. They stick to music if we don't agree with them. So, for example, Donald Trump loves it when Kid Rock talks about making Mary Graham from stage. Who doesn't?

14:14Stu:He doesn't love it when someone speaks out against ice and him. But I think those of us on the left can be similar. We can be like, it should be absolute free speech for one we agree with. Oh, for sure. For one we don't agree with should be stopped from saying it. I don't mean hate speech. I don't mean like... No, no, of course. I think we can obviously have a clear line that hate speech is bad. But the problem is, like you said, with any rules or any judgment, is Macklemore leading a chant of free Palestine hate speech or not and and realistically um people will have different um rulings around that of what they think it is and what it isn't and that might not be based frankly on you know I would say you know good behavior it's based on trying to score a point or trying to you know there's a lot of bigger picture stuff coming in there, and suddenly you've got artists where they should be, right?

15:08In the middle of the spotlight saying, yes, I agree with this, no, I don't agree with this, and pushing people around them to make decisions. Ultimately, it might result in, well, it's going to result in consequences, isn't it? Things will change. Yeah.

15:22Stu:And it's interesting, though, because I think in this case, I think Makamor gave quite a long speech, and it's worth going and reading exactly what he said to understand that, once of all. Pink wrote a long Instagram post explaining her view, and that is worth reading in full. Because one part of it said, I'm not calling for anyone to lose their jobs or get kicked off. I'm just expressing my view that I felt unsafe. So that's that. We wouldn't get that concept if we read that. There's a long statement from one of the stadium owners who was involved in kicking McElroy off. But I would say probably about, what, 3 % of people who are commenting on all this online won't have read any of those things.

15:57Stu:that this has seen what happened, a headline, and jumped to whatever it is. And it's hard because I think this stuff is super. I mean, even with the Macklemore story, there was an event a long time ago when he wore a Jewish character costume on stage. And the Jewish people remember that and go, yeah, he did that. And we kind of let him say sorry for that. But then that's why we're not giving him much leeway now. There's all this context in the background and it's difficult. and then this is where we come back to someone who is running the stage at a festival and an artist starts speaking they need the backup to know this is when I have to take action or not and that's why every festival is going to have to have some kind of policy like this and then you pick and choose which festival you want dependent on their political standpoint and that seems like a very healthy environment to live in where we bring politics to everybody and everybody votes with their wallet around their politics that sounds actually like a progressive way to do things, doesn't it?

16:56Talking of controversial stuff, Suno has released a new version of its AI music model, which is version six. And it's trained differently based on different stuff, which you will tell us about, Stu, including a wild version. Wild. Which gives you less predictable results. First of all, tell us very briefly about the new model that it's releasing and what's different about it before we get onto the wild and wacky stuff?

17:27Stu:Yeah, so this is V6 version 6, a sixth generation version of Suno. There's three of them. So there's V6, which is the premium one that you get only if you pay for Suno. There's a V6 Mini, which is a free one that if you use Suno 3, you get that. And then V6 Wild, which we'll get onto. One thing about this is it's been trained from scratch on entirely new data. So the whole argument with Suno about it, the music industry accusing it of having trained its models on all the music in the world without permission. That was the previous models. This new one has been trained on a new data set. Now, this data set includes some music licensed in from Warner Music Group, which has dealt with it, also from BMG.

18:04Stu:It will include Believe and TuneCore, what they've just done a deal with, but not quite in time for this launch. And also on user data, which is one of those things that is not entirely clear. That could mean it's trained on all the music people made using those previous models. Which is not a synthetic data, isn't it? which is like all the music that's been made from the previous model, which was trained allegedly on unlicensed music, is then fed back in to retrain a new model, which is like money laundering of music, essentially. This is kind of a clean break in a sense of it's a new model, new data.

18:36Stu:Other things about it is with this, this is the start of Suno paying royalties to the music industry. So those companies, Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe, TuneCore, will receive royalties of some kind. It hasn't been broken down how much, how it's calculated. Good, nice and clear. From day one of this humor. So people paying for subscription to make music. And there's a lot of people paying, isn't there? Apparently, there's a... It was two million a while ago. I think it's probably more now. Interesting. And then, yeah, there's other stuff like natural language editing. So you can now basically, instead of having to...

19:09Stu:Because Suno has always been like, there's a prompt box to make songs. And there's also a studio, which is where you go in and pull sliders and churn back and do more complicated stuff you would do with a normal sort of door. Now you can start talking to that and say, yeah, isolate the guitar and build an 80s synthwave beat around it. So you can actually go in and do the classic studio thing of saying, can you turn the snare up a bit? Yeah, and I interviewed the product guy, and he said it's like an artist sitting in a studio with a producer, and that's how they are thinking about this when you're prompting it.

19:41Stu:You have a thing and you're saying, yeah, can you do this? Can you tweak that? Does that mean then that Suno, the platform, now has a DFA knob for artists to turn, which is the does-fuck-all knob, but it gives them a feeling of control? It should do. But I think that the thing I really wanted to talk about is the wild model. Yes, so this idea of a wild model, so it's less predictable, it creates weirder stuff that you don't expect. And this is because, and this is what the guy explained to me, as your platform gets more popular, as more people are using Suno or any AM service, everything they do on it, whether they mark a track as thumbed up and liked, or they work on it, or they save it, that's a positive signal saying, I like this, this was good.

20:23Stu:And if you don't do that, if you delete it, if you ask it to do a thing again, that's a negative signal saying, I don't like this. And all that stuff helps train the model. And so the more people, and the more people with mainstream tastes are using something, the model gradually goes, well, on average, I'm going to skew a little bit more towards the middle of the road mainstream stuff. Yes, we nudges towards the middle. Yeah. And he was saying, but we want to be used by professional artists and producers too. And they don't want middle of the road. They want weird and avant-garde stuff. And so they've launched a new model just for that, which I was trying it out.

20:55Stu:And it does go quite weird at times. So if you're thinking out there, do we have examples of this? Do we? Let's see. Well, Stu has generated four songs from the wild version of Suno. I'll read the titles out here. Did you write these titles, Stuart, or was this generated as well? They kind of came from the lyrics, but yeah. Dance All Night. That's my go-to song title. Right, right. Flip the Frequency, Fly Home to Me, sounds very Ed Sheeran-y, and Static on the Tongue, which is very sort of math rock, I was going to say. Well, to say, I thought, like, I was going to... So I've been testing this out.

21:37Stu:I'm not sort of sitting here going, it's brilliant, sign up for it, pay for it. But I wanted to understand this wild model, so I spent a bit of time with it last night. I'm going to play static on the tongue. Is that a good starting point? Yes, I think so.

22:17It's something, you know? I mean, I'll play another one. Before we dig into that, I'm going to play Dance All Night. Can you give us a bit of context for Dance All Night?

22:25Stu:Well, that's like just trying to make a sort of disco pop track. Disco pop track. I'll start it a little bit of the way.

22:41the rhythm runs deep forget tomorrow leave your cares outside we're catching waves on the midnight tide so you're sort of in the you're solidly in the dua leaper zone there i would say um with that song um how do you think how do you think they came out do you think they're weird enough do you think they're interesting enough are they are they doing what they're supposed to do here

23:08Stu:it's it's definitely an improvement in quality i mean you know compared to where i am it was a year ago and that's what i'm trying to understand i'm not trying to say these are brilliant songs no understand how it's growing um it's interesting that it can do stuff it can try attempt stuff like math rock it can attempt stuff like drum bass it can attempt some of these things that are more complicated um what i found was it went from quite generic so that is quite a generic disco pop song still yeah and then i mean particularly with i did a big beat song called flip the frequency by the end of that it's basically having a nervous breakdown with the um with every every sound available to it um and if that's weird i still aren't sure how that's useful for people but i mean my feeling was that they sound sort of more competent there's still there's still a massive i mean we spoke up with this with uh steve lamac formerly of this parish about a year ago and his observation we we sort of made you made some sort of guitar-y sort of songs and said you know if this landed in your inbox how would you approach it I'm less nervous about playing to you than I was to Steve I will have yes of course but his note his observation was well you know like they sound like passable but the lyrics are terrible and the delivery of the vocals are terrible and it's not that is where the believability ends and I think like that is still sort of the general case well this is my thought actually So yeah, because these are prompt-based songs.