Coldplay's first single is now worth *how much*? The best new band Steve's seen in months; An AI vs human band dust up; A splendidly indignant speech from RAYE; and Steve & Stu vs ‘Baby Shark’

0:07Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by Music Ally, the show that's fascinated

0:12Steve:by all the fun and games and finances of the music world. As explained each week by me, Steve Lamaque, and him, Stuart Dredge, if you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music biz and how it all works and how the figures stack up, then here we are. This week, what a proper AI versus human band dust up some changes at Spotify another splendidly indignant speech from the singer Ray and the Grateful Dead can sing a rainbow sort of but first here's our big figure of the week well it's a it's a small figure but it's it's big for what it is my big figure this week£4 ,750 that's£4 ,750 which is Stuart I'll tell you it's what it's how much a copy of the debut EP by Coldplay will set you back the only copy of their self-financed CD EP the safety EP the one copy that's currently available on the website Discogs is on sale for £4 ,750 and I don't know how long it's been on I thought this might just be somebody taking a chance, having a punt but I was chatting to a guy I know who works part time in a second hand record shop at a gig last night which by the way, write this one down I saw a band last night called Little Grandad no idea how they came across that name but Little Grandad write it down they were very very good possibly the best new band i've seen in months i think anyway uh so before before they went on we're having this conversation about uh about second hand records and i said to him how much how much do you think a copy of coldplay's safety ep would go for and he said close to five thousand pounds so it does appear to be the the going rate yeah nearly five nearly five grand and can i just make two very quick points here before we get onto the news one five grand is about three times what it cost them to press the entire run of the cds in the first place um because i think the entire i think they pressed 500 copies this is around may time i think 1998 phil harvey who was chris's mate lent them the money to do it and i think it cost 1500 to make the cds phil obviously went on to be the manager after after lending them the money but uh but two second point we did an interview not long after the ep came out when they made their radio one debut and they did say at the time that that all the cds had pretty much sold out at that point so it's not like there's a box of them still sitting under will the drummer's bed or anything so i think it is officially rare whether it's five grand rare or not i guess we'll see uh what's the most valuable record in your collections we'll have a think about it might be something we come back to in this week's lock-in but first uh some serious stuff then stewart this week's three big news stories and the first of them actually this i think has an actual big figure in it but the ai band bleeding verse have clocked up hundreds of thousands of listeners on spotify which means they now have more listeners than the band who inspired them so the bands the actual band holding absence who are the main influence for this ai

3:39Stu:project they are well understandably not very happy not happy at all well this is a really fascinating story because um yeah bleeding verse it's an alt-rock emo project i've got like just over 927 000 listeners on spotify and that's not bad the debut album came out in july right we'll get to this later and look at me about saying their debut album when they aren't real yeah um and yeah and um holding absence they have about 852 000 listeners so yeah this ai project has 75 000 more people listening to it than the bandits by it and a guy called lucas woodland he's a front man of holding absence and he took to x uh in some dungeon saying this is shocking it's disheartening it's insulting and he kind of made this call to arms of basically oppose ai music or bands like us stop existing.

4:30I mean, is Bleeding vs. Music, is it recognisably indebted to holding absence, would you say?

4:39Stu:I mean, it's definitely in the same genre, ballpark. And I mean, it's presumably, we don't know exactly what software it's been used, but it's probably been used in something that has been trained on holding absence and a whole bunch of other bands in that kind of emo or rock territory. So it's hard to say. it's not like it's it doesn't seem like a parody no um but i mean there's been some back and forth and the person behind bleeding versus talking clearly the person behind bleeding verse likes holding absence and i think he said one of my favorite bands so there is definitely some inspiration there um i mean to describe what this is so there's some disclosure here it's not being hidden so and if you read the biography of bleeding verse it says right at the end human lyrics turn to songs with the AI.

5:27Stu:So it is a human writing the words, but the music has all been created with, I mean, I would assume it's Suno or some similar service. And the follow-on from this is that the creator of it has just announced he's got a label deal. Oh, really? Yeah. So it's a company we've talked about. It's a company called Hallwood Media. It's set up by this former Geffen Records executive, and they've been signing a succession of these Gen AI projects. So we talked about a singer called Zania Monet recently. Well, she's one of theirs. They also recently signed a British guy called I'm Oliver, who's like a Suno, someone who uses Suno.

6:05Stu:So this company is essentially rolling up anyone who shows they've got a bit of traction with AI music. And so this is the latest example. So this has been independent until now. I think they've put music on Spotify. But now they've got this company behind them. Wow. I mean, this is off the back of something else. You've been hearing rumours that suggest that the major labels could actually be on the verge of signing their first licensing deals with AI music companies. Yeah. Well, this was more than the rumour, actually. It's the Financial Times saying they're nearly at the finishing line of agreeing deals.

6:41Stu:Right. This was last week. So, yeah, I mean, we've talked ever since this podcast began about what the music industry wants, haven't we? The music industry wants licensing deals. It doesn't want AI companies to train on this music without permission. It wants payment. It wants proper deals. And yeah, so it's universal music and warning music. So two of the three major labels. So they're close to deals. And it mentioned a bunch of companies. It mentioned, so there were three companies, 11 Labs, Stability AI, and Clay Vision. And these are AI music companies or AI companies who've actually been doing things the right way so far.

7:15Stu:They've been looking for licensing deals. So I guess you would put them in the camp from the music industry's point of view of good guys. But also Suno and Udio, who the music industry is suing, they were listed as two of the companies that might be reaching deals. It also mentioned Spotify and Google, which is kind of fascinating, but there wasn't much more on that, on what they might be doing. And what it said was that the majors are looking for a model like streaming music. So whenever an AI song is played on one of these platforms, there'll be a royalty payment to the music industry. um which is going to be fascinating because that is is quite a big technical challenge so say i go on to a platform like suno i make a song it gets played by someone else understanding every input like understanding well that was influenced by a holding absence for 0.1 and the black crows for 700 and this for that that's quite a difficult technical challenge if you haven't built that in from the start yeah which is good so that would need to be solved if there were licensing deals to mean that the payment went out.

8:16Is the feeling within the music industry, though, is there some urgency? We want to get something done because this is going to, this is the influence of AI is sprawling across the music, you know, scene at the moment. And we've got to get something done as soon as possible. And maybe we'll just have to retrospectively, you know, fit it around what we need from it.

8:40Stu:I think there is that. And I think there's also this emergency because I think if you're suing AI companies saying you're not licensing music, part of that or something that will bolster your case is if you have signed licensing deals. So you can say, look, it's possible to license music for this kind of company. Look, here are those deals we did over here. So that's part of it. They want to kind of show that they are willing to license if someone is going to give them up. I mean, the other thing I think is if this happens, I mean, the FT was pretty sure that they were in the final stages. If this happens, I think you're going to see a new round of arguments involving artists and songwriters on one side and labels on the other.

9:17Stu:And the reason for that is this whole drive to sign licensing deals with the AI industry has been about permission, payment and transparency. You've got to ask for permission, you've got to pay us fairly and you've got to be transparent about what you're training your things on. And I think what's going to happen is that the bodies representing artists and songwriters will turn around now to labels and publishers and say, right so you're doing these deals with our companies well how do we get permission and payment and transparency you know are you going to ask us if we agree to our music being used to train these things how are you going to pay us and are you going to be transparent about your deals with these companies so that we know how much is getting paid and whether we're getting a fair share yeah and i mean surely there must be a point as well where managers and artists will demand that something like that is written into their contracts as well their actual recording contracts that they sign which has a box saying i agree or disagree um when it comes to my music being utilized by ai and that's it or i should have the right to disagree agree on each deal i mean think about it like it's going to be it could be a mess because if imagine if you're like universal music group and you signed a deal with someone like suno do you now go back to all your artists like past and present and say right your music's included sorry you don't get to opt out out of this, we've done a deal, we don't have to ask for permission.

10:34Stu:That might be legally true if it's not in the contracts, but it's optically, it's pretty terrible. Or do you say you can opt out if you want? And that's what some book publishers who've signed deals have done. They've said to the authors, like, we've done this deal, it's this much per book they're going to train on, but you can opt out and say no thanks. But then think about music publishing, where like, you know, think about how many big pop hits nowadays have three, four more writers. so if one of those writers said i don't want to have my stuff used to train ai does that mean that all the recordings of that song can't be used like it could be a big mess so i think it's really good that deals are being done like deals about the no deals as no 11 will tell you uh hang on i've got it wrong is no deal better in deal or no deal because if you say no deal it's because you're everywhere um just focus on the subject yeah it's basically it's good that deals are being done but I think it is going to open up a whole new vein of industry discussions and tensions over how those deals work for the actual musicians.

11:36Leads us quite nicely into story two, which finds the singer Ray once again standing up for songwriters rights. I mean, she's got form for doing this, but she's been waving the flag for songwriters again, I think, in the last week or so.

11:51Stu:Yeah. Well, the thing is that I think I wrote this in a piece. If you give Ray an award in a microphone, she is going to stand up for songwriters rights. She's done it at the Brits. She did it at the Ivers Awards. And then, yeah, last week, there's an Ivers Academy Honors event, which is kind of a new event they're doing to kind of celebrate songwriters for their work, but also for their advocacy. And, yeah, she basically got to say, I know I might be being annoying, but I'm going to say it again. And she made a speech that was about publishing splits, so how the royalties were publishing and divided between songwriters, how it divided between.

12:24Stu:And she basically said the industry has become exceptional of dividing us and pitting us against each other. And I think we need to get together and we need to go back to labels and say, no, actually, we're standing up for what we think is right. And she was very, yeah, she was very kind. She sort of talked about some of the tactics she's identified where, for example, songwriters get pressured. They say, right, you have to agree to this split, this royalties deal today, or we're not putting the song out, or if you don't approve this, we're never going to use you again. She was sort of talking about the pressure that songwriters feel to agree to things that maybe aren't fair.

12:56And so, yeah, I think it's, well, I mean, every time you do this, it gets reported.

13:00Stu:It's shining a light on some of these practices. I mean, there was another thing recently. I don't know if you've seen this debate online. People muttering about how there are people who have songwriting credits who maybe didn't have any part in writing the song. Whether that's the artist who's recorded the song, who said, oh, I need to have a share of the songwriting. Or even industry executives. There have been a couple of stories in magazines like Private Eye about, well, there are some songs where one of the credited songwriters is actually just the A &R who wanted a slice of it. So there's a lot of this activism starting about actually how a songwriter is getting a bad deal or possibly being ripped off.

13:38Stu:And someone like Ray, I think she's at the peak of her ability. Well, maybe not the peak. I mean, she's still on the up. But she is one of the most high-profile voices to speak out and say, I don't think this is right. And here's what I think we should do about it. Story three, and this is something that has been rumbling on for months now, isn't it? Certainly since the back end of last year, I think we first covered this. But more than 100 independent music companies and organisations have launched a Block the Deal website with the deal in question. It's that Universal Music Group acquisition of downtown music.

14:14Refresh everyone's memories of what this story is all about.

14:19Stu:Yeah, so Virgin Music Group, which is part of Universal Music, wants to buy Downtown Music Group for hundreds of millions of dollars. And Downtown Music is a very important company in the independent music world. It has like a distribution arm, CD Baby. It has a publishing arm. It has a bit that collects royalties for independent artists and songwriters. So it's got all these fingers in different pies for how independent music companies and artists make the money. And so there's been this process. the independent voice is saying actually we don't think this this should be allowed this acquisition it will give universal too much power and what's happened now one the one of the the arguments in recent months from the universal side has been well the people opposing this deal don't represent all the indies you know a lot of indies are happy with this and this is kind of a post to that it's this website called block the deal and it is a high the centerpiece like 100 voices so it's opinions from 100 people in independent music um from people like martin mills of beggars group alice and Wenham of Chrysalis Records, so real industry veterans, through to chiefs of the industry bodies, but also smaller labels, smaller artists from across Europe.

15:25Stu:And it's a very, so I'll pick my words carefully here because obviously this is a very testy subject. It's a really good way of getting a sense of the different reasons why these independent music companies are crossed about this deal, worried. And it's stuff from what will happen to the data of our independent artists, will Universal be able to use that data against us somehow, through to concerns about cultural diversity. When you give too much power to a major label, does that mean that some of the independent voices and the new niche music won't get its chance to shine? So if you read all 100, which actually I have been doing this week, because I want to write a piece about it, it's a very, very good overview of this is why people are cross about.

16:06Stu:If anyone's sitting there going, why are people cross about this deal? What are the exact complaints? It's a very good primer on that and one thing i'm going to do this week i'm going to i'm going to try and write a piece that kind of summarizes that i think it's about five different arguments but also there are several arguments that have been made in favor of the deal by universal and people within it so i'm going to try and write a piece just presenting all these so that people can understand because i've realized it's been a big headline you know indies don't like this deal but a lot of people still don't really understand the exact ins and outs of why and what is the defense and so i think that's what we're seeing now is both sides trying to put their views as clearly as possible while the regulators in europe are deciding whether they should block the deal or let it go through that this is may come soon one of the things here is uh not just that um obviously if if downtown passes into the hands of virgin slash universal then you know that's that's a lot of independent routes to market sort of gone because it's controlled by a major label surely one of the other things is all these independents to get in downtown at the center of it um is part of an independent scene that needs some of its own power when it comes to arguing deals with some of the major corporations and if you take a big player like downtown out of the equation then the indies have less less to bring to the table less power in you know an argument over royalty rates or something with a big company.

17:38I think that's part of the problem, is it?

17:40Stu:That's definitely, yeah. And there is a counter argument to that, which is come from the investor side, saying there's still a lot of choice out there, a lot of other options. And that is one of the strands of argument that's happening. You know, if Downtown becomes part of Virgin Music Group, part of UMG, what is left independent to use? They say there's still plenty of options, and if you don't want to be part of UMG, you can leave. So this is all being argued in public. So they didn't put it quite that. If you don't like it, you can leave. Close the door on it. But I suppose one of the things, one of the arguments is like, you have the right to leave if you don't want to.

18:11Stu:And that is the thing. I mean, this is, again, this has become a very personalized argument about Universal Music Group. But I think when you read this deal site, you understand that these concerns are about just other deals before that. So there have been a whole raft of deals where major labels have bought independent distribution companies, for example. So Sony bought The Orchard is a good example. And so it's not just about Universal Music. It's about the wider trend of these things keep getting snapped up. And if you're an artist now, the choices you have, a lot of them are in the major labels.

18:44Stu:And that is okay. I mean, that's the other thing. The other reason this has caused such bitterness so far is there are really good people working in the major labels in these bits that handle independent artists. There are great people working at Virgin Music Group who love independent music. Same at The Orchard within Sony. Like, there are a lot of independent labels and artists who are very happy, who don't mind working through those companies because they feel they're getting awards. But I think the wider concerns are if this keeps happening, it will become a choice where you can't really go outside because the biggest independent distributors are all within majors now.

19:17Stu:So I get both sides of that. It's not about the people who work for Universal and Independent Music. It's about the wider, I guess, direction. Like you say, how many options are open to you if you're independent. Yeah. Any other business this week? I mean, we should – I mean, this is a kind of proper industry story, really, but we should mention the fact that Daniel Eck is, well, stepping down as Spotify's CEO. Well, he's sort of stepping down. I was trying to read into what this story really means, but I probably need your help here. I mean, for a start, has this announcement got anything to do with, obviously recently artists quitting Spotify because of X outside links with defense drone technology and the like do you think it's this is a very measured announcement to try and ameliorate some of the flack that he's been getting and the company by the end of his involvement has been getting well I mean the major reason this happened was because I'd had a good day of finishing deadlines and thought I had a quiet afternoon ahead so of course Daniel Ek resigned just to kind of...

20:31Stu:No, so, I mean, it's being presented very differently. So it's being presented as this is a long plan transition. He's stepping up to executive chairman and these two guys, Gustav Soderstrom and Alex Nordstrom, who are both fellow Swedes, they're long, long time Spotify executive working there since the very early days. In fact, there was an interview where they said that Daniel X set up their computers for them. That's how early they were at Spotify in the days when he was running around doing the IT support. And they're going to be co-CEOs, which is like a little trend in tech and media, right?

20:59Stu:co-CEOs. I always look at that and go, what happens when they disagree? But they'll still be reporting to Danielek. And they've all said, this is going to be, they described it as like a European model where the executive chairman is still quite hands-on. So he's not left, he's not resigned and left Spotify. And they're still going to be reporting to him. So in that sense, it's more of a shuffle of job titles.

21:24Steve:I mean, surely he'll still be the public face of the company as well though, won't he? So it doesn't feel like as big a change as they're making out or whether he does just want to move back, step back into the shadows a little bit. But will that happen?

21:40Stu:I think it is that part. So part of it was like they're going to be handling the data operations and that, and then he's going to be thinking more about long-term strategy and what to do, but also his other stuff. And that's where this arms question comes back in because, I mean, this kind of thing, I don't think it happens suddenly by surprise. So I do actually think it's a fair argument that they've been planning this for a while. He has been doing other stuff outside Spotify. He's got a health company, a health tech company, he's been investing a lot of time and money in. So he's been doing other stuff.

22:10Stu:And so him stepping aside isn't a surprise in that sense. It feels like a right time. But it is also true that I think, as we've been talking recently, the fact that one of his external things is investing in an arms company and being its chairman, it started to have an effect on Spotify in that you had Deerhoof leave, then you had King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard leave, then Massive Attack. And that was like a gradual step up in the profile of artists. So I don't know if it heads that off. Like, I'm not sure Massive Attack will come back because Daniel Lecker's got a different job title. I'm not sure Taylor Swift was ever going to leave because of the arms thing.

22:45So I'm not sure this changes that, but it does maybe take him out of the kind of,

22:52Stu:he won't be the he won't be the public face of the company as much it will be these two other guys and maybe from spotify's point of view that will be a little change that maybe it will hope dampens down this issue um but i don't know if it changes much talking of uh spotify now this is interesting there's good news this week if you're somebody like uh ourselves who when you get to spotify rap to get to the end of the year uh or during the year when you get constant musical recommendations which are based on the music that your kids have been listening to so if your recommendations in spotify are full of i don't know mr tumble and paw patrol and stewart's favorite baby shark good news good news for you very good news do you know i've only just got youtube to stop recommending me Minecraft videos.

23:44Stu:And my kids are 16 and 18 now. Like it's taken 10 years for it to go, oh, maybe you're not interested in that because it was your kids a decade ago. So I think once your kids start playing stuff on your profile of any digital service, the algorithm is like, aha, you must want more Paw Patrol all the time. So yeah, so Spotify, it's a very small thing, but I think again, for our listeners who are parents, it's big. You can now exclude any track from your taste profile. And your taste profile is what Spotify understands about you. So you can say, right, I don't want to have Paw Patrol in my taste profile.

24:16Stu:That was my kids. And this is part of a bigger trend. Seeing it on social media apps too, it's a way of saying, you think you know this about me, but it's wrong. Stop. You've been able to do it on Amazon for a while now saying this was a present purchase. I don't actually like Il Devo. That was my nan's birthday present every year. But this is coming to Spotify. It's happening on social media. This as clever as we sometimes think they are. They just see us doing something and think, right, okay, more of that then. And I know from friends who've... Because no one gets their toddler Spotify profile of their own until it's too late.

24:54Stu:And so I have many friends who are like, oh God, I mean, this album is now in my... It'll be in your Discover Weekly. It'll be in your release radar. Oh, that's a new track from the Paw Patrol crew. So I think it's a nice welcome thing, but it's like a bigger story, I think, about how once you become a parent, your algorithms are not necessarily your algorithms anymore they're they're the real boss of the houses um oh there's one other thing just uh to finish with this week i'd just like to say thanks to well thanks to everybody who got in touch uh following last week's uh podcast where we we talked a little about the decline in paid music journalism well music journalism in general but certainly paid music journalism uh jim was one of them thank you thank you jim uh we probably don't

25:40Steve:have time to get through all your points but there's a couple of interesting ones jim says this is in such actually it's remarkable and rarely acknowledged that for about 20 years the uk was served by no fewer than four weekly music papers enemy melody maker record mirror sounds for once of another word that's a huge amount of content every seven days but one wonders why the weekly music press was peculiar to the uk it's strange for example that there was no equivalent in America and to what extent its existence here helped foster new music because says Jim I imagine had a huge impact it goes on Steve talked about readers buying the weeklies for the gig guide in the news whether reflected in the readership surveys or not another big pre-internet reason for buying them for me certainly says Jim was to discover what new bands sounded like a journalist reviewing a single from an unheard of act and comparing them to say big star or talking heads would often be enough for me to take a chance and go and order the record you'd learn which journalists had similar tastes to you and which ones you trusted to steer you towards new stuff in this regard the emergence of streaming and with it the ability to listen to any song instantly and for free is probably another major reason why the weeklies died off thank you very much jim i mean obviously i agree with that that point definitely don't you i mean it's it's the availability of music which certainly undermined quite a lot of what the music papers were attempting to do

27:12Stu:i mean i mean and that that that is exactly dynamic i remember i remember even now when i was about 17 bernard butler talked about nick drake in an interview with the enemy and i was like nick drake who's that you know i went i bought his album then i went out got got a a bit drunk at night, came home and was reaching that kind of slightly morose come down part of having been out and then listened to Nick Drake for the first time. And, you know, it was like, woof for 17 year old me. Wow. So that was how are you? So, but I mean, do you remember when there was a time, wasn't there, when American bands would come over here to break because we had those weekly news, but like, I think that's Kings of Leon, wasn't it?