Elon Musk versus the music industry; AI slop vs human artists - who gets paid?; How can YOU make and sell vinyl records?; and all hail the London Metal Ladies

0:02Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the music industry, but also brings you stories and comment about the past week in the pop business. I'm Steve Lomack, he's Stuart Dredge. If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music industry and how it all works, then here we are. This week, well nothing in the world of music is going to compare to what's happening in the world in general this week. But this week, Elon Musk versus the music industry. Universal Boss spells out hopes for 2026. And how much does it cost to get a small run of vinyl records pressed?

0:40But to start, as is tradition, Stuart will now fry your mind with this week's big figure. What is your mind blowing number that you have for us this week, Stuart?

0:52Stu:It's a mind blowing round number this week. $1 billion. 1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0. And that is what the billion pound figure represents? Billion dollars. This is how much Beyonce is worth. This is according to Forbes magazine, who are kind of the go-to publication for being nosy about how wealthy rich people are. And it says that Beyonce has become the fifth musician to become a billionaire. And so who are the other four then? And Taylor Swift is probably one. Don't know. Jay-Z? Jay-Z, Mr. Beyonce. He's a billionaire. Right, that's three. I don't know the other two. Okay. One of them has a really popular lingerie brand and the other one very much doesn't.

1:41Stu:So Rihanna and Bruce Springsteen, can you guess which is which in that? Bruce Springsteen is a billionaire. Bruce Springsteen is a billionaire. This is based on his catalogs. Well, this is what I was going to think because essentially there are three ways of becoming a billionaire if you're a musician. Right. And you're not inheriting wealth. You either can sell your catalogue for loads of money, which is the Springsteen main thing. You can play massive stadium tours across the world, which is kind of the Taylor Swift and Beyonce route. They've been doing their tours. I think Beyonce's last tour did$400 million and the one before that did$600 million.

2:15Right.

2:16Stu:Or you can have other business ventures. so Jay-Z made his money from his staking companies of various kinds and selling them Rihanna made her money from her fancy brand so yeah, so Beyonce is the fifth and also I'm imagining I don't know how life goes on in the Beyonce-Jay-Z household but I'm sort of imagining them sitting there on a Saturday night watching a celebrity antiques show or something looking at their bank balances on their phones just saying, oh what's yours? Mine's$1 ,468 ,000 dollars what's yours so there's there's they're now both billionaires they can stop competing if they are right this week's three big stories we've sifted through the news and these are the ones which we think might be of interest to you starting with elon musk who is unhappy about having to pay for music on x yeah from one billionaire to another it's gone um this is a long story that goes back to a couple well three years ago now nearly three years ago um when a group of music publishers sued Twitter, which is what it was called then before it had been renamed as X, for copyright infringement.

3:23Stu:Essentially, they said that lots of music is posted on Twitter all the time and no one's getting paid for it. It doesn't pay any royalties. And that kind of stands out because Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok and YouTube, all these other social media companies, they do pay royalties and have licensing deals with the music industry. And even though people can argue and say they don't pay enough and it's not enough money, they do have deals. And X and Twitter have never had that. So publishers are suing them. This case dribbled on for two years. And then last year, there was this filing where both sides said, we'd like to settle.

3:54Stu:Can you give us a 90-day pause so we can settle this case? And then nothing happened. And now X is suing, I think it's 18 music publishers and also the industry body that represents them in the US, the NMBA. And essentially, what X is saying is that the publishers have been colluding, which I mean, collusion is one of the famously bad words in the music industry. You're not supposed to do it. Labels aren't supposed to act together. in that way um it's saying basically they're colluding to make it license all of them at once and what it wants to do is license them individually and make them compete with one another and one of the very weird parts of this lawsuit and actually music business worldwide has got a very good article about this this week picking holes in this lawsuit x is saying it doesn't need to license all the publishers it wants to license a few of them which is not really how it works like if you're a big social media platform anyone can post any song so you really need licenses covering everything um but yeah it's soon i'm cynic alluding it is this lawsuit has got lots of things where it's like look this publisher posted a song on on x itself so it can't be cross about not getting paid um so it's a kind of it's a it's an it's a lawsuit that i think is going to be pushed back on very hard by the publishers um the nmpa which is the industry body included in it has already come out and said it's a bad faith attempt to distract from the argument that they should pay royalties Oh, well, this is what I was going to say.

5:16Is it a distraction or is it merely a stalling technique to get around to push the problem further down the line by by counter suing?

5:26Stu:Well, I mean, it does seem to be the way in the US sometimes. If someone sues you, if you're not going to settle, you sue them back. And the other thing is there's a lot. I mean, we won't go into it in detail, but there's a lot going on with X this week. and it's Grok chatbot. It's in a lot of trouble over the AI being used to undress women, sort of left, right and center. And so this week, exactly, X is facing regulators across with it, politicians across with it, lots of calls to change that. So in a way, punting the music lawsuit down the road a bit might suit the company. But yeah, from what I've seen so far, people are poking holes in this lawsuit and saying it's not really, it doesn't really hold water.

6:06Stu:it's not how music licensing works it doesn't seem to understand what you need to do um and as i said i think the big thing here is that publishers are comparing what x does with all the other social media platforms who even if they don't pay enough they've all said yeah actually we do need to have license deals because we know people want to post music so all right story two this week and in fact some stats we alluded to last week but uh give us all some context of where the uk music industry is at the beginning of 2026. Some more details from this, the annual report from the BPI for 2025, including how much people listen to music and also how much money they spent buying and streaming music.

6:48Stu:Yeah, so this is interesting because it's two different sets of figures, one for how much we listen and stream and how much we spend money. And they're both positive on the face of it. So the first set comes from the BPI, the labels body, who says that sales and streams of music in the UK grew by 4.9 % last year. And Brits streamed 210.3 billion songs, which could have been a big number, couldn't it, I suppose? Bigger than a billion. And it's the 11th year of growth in a row, and they're very big on that. And I think we talked last week in the podcast about the BPI. A lot of their announcement was about how British artists were doing well as part of that.

7:23Stu:So I won't go over that again. And then the other set of figures comes from ERA, the Entertainment Retailers Association, which it used to represent, I guess, the record stores in high streets. Nowadays, it represents them, but also the streaming services. And according to it, spending on music. So this doesn't include advertising. So if you listen to Spotify for free and hearing ads, that's not included. It's just subscriptions and sales. Up 4.2 % to nearly two and a half billion pounds. Just over two billion of that was streaming subscriptions, which is a new record in the UK. And then physical sales grew by 11.5%.

8:00Stu:um and vinyl sales were up 18 and a half percent which by my calculations just under 240 million quid on vinyl last year really um which is weird because i remember last year there was some talk about when is the vinyl boom going to kind of tail off again um and people were worrying about was there enough capacity to keep growing because you know the printing presses were going as fast as good but yeah up 18.5 percent nearly not far off doubling cd sales which again 10 years ago if you'd said vinyl will be double cd in 10 years time people would have laughed at you um and then the other thing i thought was interesting out of this so again era they talked about a strong showing for uk artists so the three the trio that everyone's mentioning olivia dean lowly young and sky breakouts but it also talked about how um its members so it was members streaming services and record shops how they're supporting new british acts and there was some couple of good stats i like there um one was at streaming service fund 60 different programs supporting music and a third of them focus on new talent a lot of that is british but then record shops here's a stat you might like record shops held more than 4 000 in-store and out-store performances last year really that is i mean because that that's i mean noticeably there were more in stores there you know every to the point where virtually everyone you were out of step if you weren't doing an in store tour instead of it being you know at the start it was kind of a novel oh that's a it's an interesting idea but now it seems to be written into the marketing plan very early on doesn't it the in stores and the out stores to the point where i mean some bands are out there for nine days, nine or ten days promoting the new release but yeah, that is interesting I wonder how that...

9:47Stu:I'm not sure it's a coincidence either, physical sales growing obviously there are other reasons but the fact that people are coming to record stores to see these gigs as well, I think the more footfall you have, the more people might buy stuff so I think it's linked in maybe I mean, is that also playing on the concept of the superfan as well? Because the superfan, what does the superfan want? Well, they'll buy the vinyl, but they've got the chance to get the vinyl signed or there is a special limited edition which is only available in one shop then that is really the domain of the superfan isn't it yeah so um so it's only good i mean the one it's not really a sort of a setting but the one um other point to make is that this growth is slowing so the spending was up 4.2 percent but it was up 7.4 percent the year before um consumption the streams and sales were up 4.9 last year but 9.7 the year before so there is a slowdown in the growth happening um we're not reaching the point where we start shrinking again just yet but that is something that you get to get talked about in the industry i think that we're where is the ceiling for this and how do we where do we find new ways of growing which those installs are part of that i'm sure that's something which is on the mind of the person at the center of story three this week which is a good one universal music groups big boss has written his annual state of the nation address otherwise known as the annual New Year's memo to staff in which this year he talks about AI, streaming and independent music.

11:15Tell us more about this.

11:17Stu:Yeah, so this is Sir Lucy and Grange does it every year. And this is partly one of those messages where it tells everyone, it jeez everyone up for the new year. So he talks about all the successes that UMG had last year. We had these artists did well. This was brilliant. We're brilliant. Hurrah, everyone. But he does tend to always put in a couple of, this is what we think is going to happen this year this is where the market is going like he puts in a couple of news lines for the likes of me um so one thing this year was interesting he talked about ai slop which is a phrase we've talked about before isn't it this idea of ai generation music clogging up streaming services and he basically said that we that umg predicted this would happen three years ago um when it was signing its net deals with streaming services and he says apparently that UMG deals with companies like Spotify.

12:02Stu:And the quote is, prevent AI slop from being counted in the same royalty pools as our artists and songwriters. So how would Spotify define slop? I mean, one man's slop is another man's gold. How... That's a gag, obviously. But how do you define it? Is it AI music? Is it... I don't know. You couldn't make a creative and objective, well, a subjective decision about, well, I don't like it. Blue Singing Grange doesn't like it and said, well, this is nonsense. Pay it. That's not a way of doing business, is it? So how would that work? I mean, I've got a few bands I would put out of the royalty pool if I could.

12:46Stu:I'm not a powerful industry mogul. I mean, yeah, I think this is where there's no detail on this. And I remember three years ago when these deals were being done, there was talk about royalty pools, but it wasn't about AI music back then. It was noise was the phrase they used. And it was things like white noise. It's a playlist of white noise to listen to to get to sleep. That was what was being chucked out back then. I don't remember anyone talking about AI slot, but this memo says, yeah, we had that in mind. And so what I think is interesting is like, you know, whenever we talk about an AI project getting loads of listeners and streams, and we particularly worry about that taking money away from human artists.

13:22Stu:what i took from this memo is that in terms for universal music they don't want that to happen they want to actually separate it off and that there is a future where that's possible in theory in a future where where every streaming service knows what say i denoted and what isn't or what's fully and they could hive it off and say right well it's not in the same royalties pool if it's making if it's doing well humans aren't living so what i'm interested in seeing how universal takes that idea and what it does next time it renews its deals and what that means for how services treat this um the other thing that came through was he talked about he wrote about how universal is doing deals with ai companies and i sort of i sort of felt like what he was writing was aimed at musicians and artists a bit and musicians and songwriters because he sort of said we can't we can't not engage we i we have to engage with this area and he also said we but we can't just let them do whatever they want we have to do deals and we have to steer this and i took that as a message to people because i think in the musician community people saying we're not sure about these deals being done between labels and ai companies i took that as him saying actually this is the best way to do it otherwise otherwise we just ignore them and we get disrupted which i mean yeah in a way is is obviously i mean obviously that is true i think what the artists and managers are thinking is why aren't we more part of these conversations as to what these deals, what form these deals take.

14:46And I think they feel a little bit, you know, voiceless in this whole thing. So, and obviously, again, this is the boss of a record company saying, leave it to us. We know best. It's all fine. We'll do, we'll get this sorted. You just carry on making your pop songs and leave this grown-up business to us.

15:08Stu:Well, yeah, and to be fair, there's a lot in it about him saying everything we do is about protecting our artists and songwriters work so that's a strong message being put out but yeah i think the fact that it wasn't really mentioned about that some of the tensions with those musicians and their bodies suggests because those are the talks that are going on right now and so i don't think i'm not sure there is anything to say um but yeah and then the other things he mentioned just in passing were uh they're working on streaming superfan subscriptions with people like with streaming services so we can expect that this year to have those higher priced super fan things that we talked about.

15:42Stu:And he also said about how important independent music is for Universal and said, we expect our downtown acquisition to go through, which we've talked about a lot. And we want to invest in that community. So, I mean, there was no news line there. And some of the people who've been protesting would have read that and gone, it would have put the hackles up. But it's clear that Universal sees independent music as very, very central to its business. If it can get approval for its deal, it's doing and if it can carry on. okay um any other business this week i would say this was a good one which um you sent us earlier on in the week sun records remember the record label sun records which uh helped launch um johnny cash of course was on sun records for ages um classic albums on sun johnny cash roy orberson uh whole back has a lot which they've got a they've got a slightly new spin on what a new year's sale should be because is this right they're they're going to take the vinyl prices back to 1952, is it?

16:41Stu:Yeah, well, they have. And at last, it only lasted for, I saw it was this morning was like, I should go on and see what they've got. And it finished yesterday. Oh, really? That's annoying. I was going to get onto that later on. Nevermind. So what was a 1952 price and what sorts of records could we have got? Here's what you could have won. Yeah. Well, this is all about Sam Phillips, who's the guy who founded some records. And I think he was quite a key figure in Elvis Presley's early days as well, wasn't he? I think he was involved. So he died in 2003, but he would have been 103 this month, which is a slightly strange number to celebrate rather than 100.

17:18Stu:And so, yeah, so the label's still going. And they put the prices back to 1952, which is when some records was found. Ran for a week. And it was Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison. And I didn't catch what the prices were. But I'm thinking it definitely wasn't what a vinyl record costs nowadays. No, no. But this is something that's happening a lot more. Like anniversaries are really big for marketing back catalogs, bigger than ever. Like you used to maybe have like a 40th anniversary box set type thing. But nowadays with social media and with streaming, everything is fair game. Like the anniversary of a label, the anniversary of a record.

17:56Stu:I got a press release yesterday. I think it was Olivia Rodrigo celebrating five years since her first breakout single. and she got David Byrne from Talking Heads to kind of cover it for the celebration. So everything is a, I think if you're a music, a label and a marketer, you're looking at this calendar and saying, right, what anniversary, what came out three years ago? What can we do with that? Even year album anniversaries are a thing now, where an album might get a new version with some extra tracks because it came out a year ago. Well, it's probably popping up in your social media feeds, isn't it?

18:25Saying one year ago or five years ago. So your marketing's been done almost already. But I mean, this is wholly part as well of the fact that so much music is sort of still in our minds and is still available. But just what's the way of making us spend more on it or listen to it more? Because it's out there. It's just you need to just put it in front of people again. But you're right. I mean, I've talked to people at Record Label. They're always looking for something to, ways of repackaging music to, you know, make the most out of the catalogue which they've got.

19:02Stu:And the pricing is quite clever. I mean, anyone could do that. You know, a label that released stuff in the 70s or 80s could do that. And it would still be a good deal with prices of what they were. And so I suspect, again, we'll see more of this where it's just a way of doing a cut price sale really to drive thingy. But you can peg it to something and say, look, same price it was when the album first came out. That sort of, I mean, not exactly, but it sort of leads us quite nicely into, because we haven't answered any of your questions so far this year, and we will do loads more of these across 2026.

19:31And as I always say, do get in touch. If there's anything you'd like us to examine, a part of the music industry that you'd like to know more about, do drop us a line. We got this from listener Martin Bull, who says, hi, Stephen Stewart. I've been a regular listener since the podcast was launched, and it's fascinating to see where the money goes. I run a podcast too called the Uncharted Sounds Podcast, and that's the thrust of my mail, an ultimate question for you both. In January 2025, we had an episode of the podcast that featured one of our favourite 90s bands, Crashland. I think, Steve, you're also familiar with them.

20:07I am, indeed. They were a good band. Do you remember Crashland at all, Stuart?

20:12Stu:I remember the name, but not really. That's their front man, the singer, songwriter, Alex. Excellent, great lyricist. Anyway, Martin continues. It was an episode that reignited some interest in the band online. In fact, on the episode, we featured a clip of a demo track that had never been heard before. And after the episode, their previous record company, Sugar Shack, contacted us as they wanted to remaster and release these demos along with the band's final EP as a vinyl offering under the Bristol Archive record label. This is a label which specialises in low-volume vinyl releases, and that is the crux of my question for you.

20:55How do bands that have a loyal but not large following get vinyl records produced, and what's the cost associated to it, and is there a number to sell where the band breaks even, or does it vary band to band? Martin has the positive end to this story is that Crashland have a new release out at the end of January on coloured vinyl, the first release for 25 years, all prompted by an appearance on our podcast. Thank you very much, Martin. As I say, if you've never heard them, Crashland is on the streaming services now, glued, they only put one album out, but the singles from that glued album, really good.

21:33Anyway, to the crux of the matter. So, well, for starters, Martin, can I direct you back to an early episode of this podcast where we did a vinyl special breaking down the costs of producing and distributing and selling vinyl, which was, well, it looked up, it was way back in, it was March 2024. But you'll still find that episode on Spotify if you want to have a listen to that. but it is one of those also this is one of those questions which has no definitive answer because there are there's so many variables involved but you know ask yourself what what are we doing first of all i guess you have to work out how many people you think will buy the record so that you don't end up with boxes of unsold stock under the bed so how many people and what sort of record are you going to make which is this is where all the variables start to kick in because are you going for are you going for the big premium release with heavyweight colored vinyl and a gatefold sleeve that looks really desirable but obviously costs more or are you going to go for a basic album single sleeve white inner sleeve because that'll be cheaper to produce and sell so what what's the what's the audience and what will they be prepared to pay for will affect how many you sell and how quickly you can break even and then and then i'd say it's really worth shopping around looking at different pressing plants because you mentioned Stuart pressing plant there was a point where there weren't enough pressing plants and a lot of records being pressed in the UK were all being pressed in Eastern Europe all the pressing plants here are shut down but the reverse now is you know it's been a reverse action where more and more pressing plants have started up over the last few years and I think there is some competition between them for prices because they do vary.

23:27Just a quick look around last night. Prices do vary quite a bit in some cases. So shop around. And then also, I mean, I'd recommend emailing. Just find someone else who's done something like this before, whether it's a record label or someone who's put out a record you like, and just ask them who they would recommend to press your record. I mean, both so you know how they fare in terms of cost, but also reliability, because if they say they're going to get you the records in eight weeks, you want to make sure they are the sort of company that will get you the record in eight weeks. And then it's really down to working out the sums of what your costs are going to be and whether you want to make a profit or maybe just break even.

24:12So, I mean, from the figures we used last time, and obviously these will be two years out of date, but they'll give you a rough outline. We spoke to a contact from a long-running independent label who talked us through some of the costings. And as I say, without doubt, probably these prices have gone up since last time. But as I say, do shop around. But sticking with the numbers that we had before. So let's say you're an artist then with a small fan base. You want to press 300 copies. Now, obviously, a vinyl pressing is all about economy of scale, which I think is what you may be hinting at here, Martin.

24:46but at that point if you press 4 000 albums the unit cost the cost per album quoted by the pressing plant that this label were using was two pounds fifty a copy that's without that but two pounds fifty a copy for however a shorter run of 300 copies the copy the price per copy shoots up to seven pounds or at least it was at the time with this particular pressing plant and obviously that's because a lot of the costs uh involved they're all the one-off things you have to do at the start with the expensive stuff like you've got to cut the record create the lacquers that we use to press the albums uh and obviously the more you use this stuff the more the price comes down if you see what i mean but anyway seven pounds should we say seven pounds per copy unit cost times 300 i make that what's that 2 100 pounds but remember that's that's for your manufacturing costs if you are putting a record out for someone else so if you're effectively acting as the record label don't forget you'll also have to pay mechanical royalties as well to the band um so add that to your total mechanical royalties are currently it's eight and a half percent i think it's eight and a half percent of dealer price um i'll check that but the obviously the dealer price is the price that you sell your record to a record shop for and we'll back to that in a minute but bear in mind other royalty costs and uh other things which will crop up but for the basis of this example let's just say you're you're just the band so you can ignore paying yourself royalties if you want to so you have a cost of 2 100 pounds in 2024 how you recoup that money by selling the album will then depend on how where you intend to sell the record and how much you think you can sell it for so if you've got some gigs and you sell you sell the records at your gigs for 15 pounds say presuming the venue isn't charging you any commission then you could sell 150 copies and you've made your money back um but if however you want to put you want to put your albums into shops then it becomes more expensive you will find more costs involved because one you'll need a distributor to physically deliver the records to the shops i mean that's if the shop wants to stop your record they might not think it's gonna sell in which case they won't want it clogging up their racks.

27:12But they say, yeah, okay, we'll take one or two. The distributor will then take 20 % of the dealer price for doing their job. Now, in the example we used before, the dealer price, and this was a reasonably well-known band who's had top 40 records in the past, but the dealer price was£16 so that's what you sell the record to the shop for the shop buys it off you for£16 the shop will then add to cover their own cost there will be a mark-up let's say£9 for Ease of Maths and that will give you a retail price of£25 so your album costs a fan in the shop£25 pounds as i say nine of that goes to the shop that leaves you with 16 pounds the distributor takes their 20 of dealer price which is three pounds 20 that leaves you with 12 pound 80 a copy um although at this point i will say we haven't added in costs of getting the record to the distributor's warehouse because obviously they can't distribute the record until you've sent it to them and there's all sorts of various sundries and breakages and things so let's say let's say we reduce the money you're getting to£11 a copy.

28:33But that would still give you, I said, a£4 profit. And again, you're even after about 190 albums if you're not paying royalties. But this, of course, is, again, it all depends on whether it sells and what the demand is and whether the shops stock it. But yeah, just on costs, you can probably recoup after a couple of hundred albums as long as there's no disasters along the way. And if you're not playing mechanical royalties, which I guess will be between£300 and£400. So to come back to your point, Martin, a band with a small but loyal fan base, if you think you have 300 fans who will definitely buy the record, the most economical thing to do is sell it at gigs or indeed sell it online, which is where websites like Bandcamp become incredibly important because, again, you could sell your record for£15, charge the fans postage, and, again, you're out of debt reasonably quickly.

29:31And I'm not saying don't put your records in record shops because record shops are really important. And it is. They are also really good gatekeepers. They're arbiters of taste, aren't they? Most people who run record shops will always be giving people recommendations. So who knows? That's another way of actually almost publicising the band if the guy or the girl at the record shop thinks. oh yeah this is great i'm actually gonna i'm gonna push this um so yeah that's that's reasonably how it works you could of course and again if you think the demand is there you can push the price up make a few bob and put it back into maybe putting out something else but just remember obviously if you are acting as the label um you obviously have to get the agreement of the band or the rights holders uh before you put the music out you might have to and you might have to pay of the people who own the records a licensing fee for it um but that's you know that's i guess guess that's all we need to impart i would say you know because there is no easy answer to it if you are doing this for the first time i will carry on saying i recommend talking to someone who's done it already because they'll tell you the pitfalls and the unexpected costs and they will be able to lay it out a lot better than i can i think but i hope that gives you a rough idea If, by the way, if anyone listening has any further advice or up-to-date information or would like to add any detail to this or if we've got anything slightly wrong, do let us know and we'll pass it on in a future episode.

31:06But thank you very much, Martin, for getting in touch. We'll give you the email address for your correspondence in just a second. One last piece of any other business very quickly. Spotify have got a new feature. I'm not sure anyone actually wants this. Tell us about it.