Exploding toilet cancels gig - but will the band and fans get their money back?; Is Spotify putting up prices again?; and yet more Baby Shark news

0:03Steve:Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally. It's the show that enjoys nothing more than pouring over the finances of the music industry while bringing you stories and comments about the past week in the pop business. I'm Steve Lamaque. He's Stuart Dredge. And this is your easy guide to what's going on in the music biz this week. A government minister talks grassroots venues, bizarre reasons for gig cancellations, a little more AI, and who is top of the John Lewis Christmas ad charts. But to start, here's a big number from the man with all the stats.

0:40Stu:Stuart, astound us. Here we go. $2.45 billion is my big number of the week. this is not something people are very happy about in the music world it's this is how much controversial ai music company suno is worth um it raised some funding last week it raised 250 million dollars of funding uh and every when you have funding around as a startup it gives you a valuation how much the investors think you're worth yeah nearly two and a half billion dollars

1:07Steve:that's a huge amount and this funding i don't suppose we know where it's all coming from but But whoever is putting money into Suno, they must be pretty convinced that this is an ongoing business. Well, given that Suno is being sued by all the major labels at the moment, do they have any inside knowledge? I wonder as to are there deals coming down the line? Because there must be a point where if you're putting money in, you must be thinking, well, this is an investment which will turn out well for us. will make something out of this and not we're just going to put some money into a company that effectively is at war with the music industry.

1:48Stu:Well, that's it, yeah. So obviously it's being sued by all the major labels still. But yeah, so Burrboard had a story actually, a follow-up story yesterday as we're talking, and they got the pitch deck, so the kind of the slideshow, that it was showing to investors to convince them to chip in. And there's all kinds of stats in there. Like apparently the company, Sino claims that by 2028 it will have a billion dollars of revenue a year. Wow. it reckons it will be a 500 billion company in a few years time um so yeah so there's i mean interestingly there wasn't really anything in this report about licensing deals funding but um in this leak pitch deck billboard had they kind of broke down what they're going to spend the funding on um so suno said it's going to spend about 30 percent of it on computing power so literally servers and the stuff to make its thing work.

2:37Stu:20 % on buying companies, mergers and acquisitions. 20 % on marketing itself. But then I had this line, 15 % of this funding is earmarked for data. And this is not something musicians will like because to Sue know data is music. Like it's all the music in the world that humans have made. It's the music that it trains, it's more than. So 15 % of$250 million is about$37.5 million. so that could be money that's earmarked for licensing deals. So there is a hint that it's kind of putting some money aside ready for those rumoured deals with labels and publishers. So yeah, we could see that.

3:14Steve:We're going to come back to AI companies making deals with major record labels in a bit but the first of our top stories of the week, Spotify. There's reports this week that it is preparing to raise its prices in America. We've talked a little bit about price rises elsewhere, changes in the different tiers, the platform tiers and what they will end up delivering for you. But the interesting thing here is because you've been crunching the numbers to figure out if there is a price rise, how might this benefit musicians and how much extra revenue may be actually going to artists?

3:56Stu:Yeah, because it's something that people don't really talk about so much. we talk about, oh, it's going up by a quid or a dollar. But what does that actually mean? So yeah, this was the Financial Times. So like quite a well-sourced report, I think they had three sources saying Spotify will raise its prices in the US in the first quarter of next year. And it's the world's biggest recorded music market. So it's going to be the biggest kind of deal there. And like music labels and publishers love this. They want streaming services to raise their prices more often. They look at like Netflix and Disney Plus in the video streaming world who raise their prices a lot regularly.

4:27Stu:So we should be more like that. you're getting the world's entire catalog of music. But this report from the FT, it had this number from, it was JP Morgan. So like the big financial company, and they have their analysts who are following Spotify. And they apparently estimated that Spotify raising its price by a dollar in the US will make it$500 million more revenue every year. So that's the payoff for Spotify in terms of extra spending, half a billion dollars. And then I remembered there's this industry body called DEMA. So it's like the industry body represents the streaming services. So like Apple Music is a member, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music.

5:01Stu:And so whenever in the US is like political arguments, DEMA is the one that is taught in the same way that live, you know, does, advocates for the live industry in the UK. And DEMA has this report. And in this report every year, it has a graphic showing how$100 spent on streaming subscriptions is divided up. So it starts with every$100 spent by people on streaming. And the short answer is labels get about$58.60 of that. publishers get$15.10. And then it works it down to how much do artists end up with than songwriters. So there's like this whole infographic. So I went back and said, okay, Spotify adds a dollar to its price in the US.

5:38Stu:It gets$500 million more revenue a year. And based on this breakdown in its report by its industry body, that could mean around another, and it came out as like just over$46 million for artists and$41 million for songwriters. And so that's the kind of numbers play. okay, they add a dollar in the US, it's more than$45 million for artists, which when you divide that up between all the artists and bear in mind Taylor Swift gets a big chunk of it and so on. But yeah, it felt like a good way of understanding what these price rises about because I think maybe we tend to think of it as, oh God, I've got to spend this much more money a month more, which is a valid excuse, a valid thing to think because it costs a living crisis.

6:19Stu:But it is a meaningful chunk more money going towards musicians via labels and publishers. So if and when it happens, that's why I think it will be welcomed in the music industry.

6:30Steve:Okay. Going back to AI, we mentioned Suno. Suno's still being sued or facing various legal threats. Meanwhile, three other AI music companies, Udio, who we've mentioned previously, Udio, Stability AI, and Clay Vision, they've all been out having a much more positive conversation with major labels because well you said this the other week didn't you I think after Udio did a deal penned a deal with Universal you said other deals would surely follow and it turns out yes here they are I manifested it

7:09Stu:I just saw who was going to win it's like when everyone said the sun used to back who was going to win the election and it was like they saw who was going to win and said yes yeah but it's true but it was true that's

7:20Steve:what you said wasn't it this sort of paves the way if udo can do a deal universal the other record labels we're queuing up to do deals um with other party with udo and uh whatever other parties are

7:34Stu:out there in these conversations yeah definitely i think we've been the music industry has been talking for such a long time now hasn't it about like we want ai music companies to license properly and pay us and ask permission and tell us what we're doing. And yeah, it just feels like a button's been pressed that a bunch of these deals are happening and that's going to carry on. Rather than going to the weeds of all three of them, I thought I'd just talk about the broad brush things of what it means. What does this mean? What kind of AI music services are we going to see next year? So Udio, we talked about recently, it was being sued.

8:03Stu:It's settled with Universal. Now it's done the same with Warner Music. So it has two out of three majors. And it's going to launch a thing next year where you'll be able to go on and make AI music. with this model and also you were to use to make remixes covers and new songs using the voices of artists and compositions of songwriters and this is to keep it who choose to participate so if you're an artist songwriter signed to Warner Music Group you'll get to say I don't want to be part of this still I know they're licensing and you'll have that you'll that be your right and they'll get paid if they do take part um Stability AI they also recently did deal with UMG and now they have Warner Music too so it was two Warner Music deals last year and they're making they discovered it professional grade tools so it's not really for everyone it's more for professional artists and songwriters they're making stuff they can use in their work um stability i've written about a bit past like they have a thing already where you you kind of create sounds and samples and beats with it you don't create full songs so it's very much like a tool for professional music and then the third one is clay vision which is kind of this mysterious startup um hasn't really said exactly what it's doing but it's got all three major labels it announced last week so it's got sony music as well as universal and warner it's the first time i think an ai company has got all three majors and it says it wants to get independence as well which is the other important part of this and there's this quote it said we're not a prompt-based meme generating engine designed to supplant human artists instead it's an entirely new subscription product that will uplift great

9:30Steve:artists and celebrate their craft um which what does that mean in english we don't know well yeah

9:37Stu:Yeah, there was like a leak beforehand on Bloomberg and they said it will have, and there's a quote, the features of a streaming service like Spotify amplified by AI technology that uses remake songs in different styles. So, you know, you can remake All I Want for Christmas is You as a, I don't know, a metalcore K-pop track. But I think what it, so the broad zooming out, I suppose, like there's three things. There's going to be services where you can make new music, new AI music yourself. go in and say, I want a song about dogs for three time, blah, blah. The other ones that are going to be tools for professional artists in some ways.

10:13Stu:So kind of another thing to use in the studio. And then there's this coming thing about remixing and mashing up existing songs by human artists and making songs with the voice of an artist. But the key is, this is every one of these deals stress that it's licensed and the human musicians will get a chance to decide whether they want to be part of it or not. and that seems to be the model so if you're an artist signed to these late majors you won't just have your stuff suddenly given to every AI startup that signs a deal you'll get a choice right good

10:44Steve:all right any other business um I don't could you um you you had an audience with a government minister last week didn't you which was um well kind of around labor's ticketing reforms that we discussed last week I think um but he also talks a bit about grassroots venues yeah yeah

11:04Stu:Yeah, and they set this interview up and it's Ian Murray MP. So he's now the Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts. So pretty much everything we talk about, I think, will be under his, he'll be involved in when he's from a government point of view. And yeah, they sort of said ahead, he wants to talk about grassroots venues. So I was like, okay, fair enough, let's do that. And he had some stats, which I've only got him saying this. I haven't actually checked it out yet with the live industry, but he said, so you know in the UK, well, you know, you obviously know this, but listeners look we've got this idea of a voluntary levy so on stadium and arena tickets

11:38Steve:i think it's a quid isn't it yeah it's a it's a pound yeah voluntary contribution we call it um for yeah for gigs above 5 000 capacity um we're we're hoping that um everyone uh will join us in you know um getting behind this idea of you can put a pound uh from you know each ticket uh into a fund which is uh the live trust and the live trust will then distribute the money to various players at grassroots level be it um venues or artists or promoters even festivals

12:15Stu:so that's the theory yeah yeah and like i think a year ago it was announced and there was the press release from the government was like right we want this to be voluntary sort it out yourselves yeah and then if you're not doing good enough job with that we'll make you we'll do we'll do laws to do it yeah so that was the kind of thing and that's why i asked him how's it going like you know where are we at and he said okay he said they're touching apparently 40 of tickets this year have had the sponsor delivery and 32 of next year's tickets already um they're aiming for 50 next year and he reckons we'll definitely get to that but he was interesting because he was like he wants to get it to 100 he wants to get it as close as possible to every single ticket for a big

12:52Steve:gig yeah i mean that would be terrific i mean i think that's everyone well that certainly that's that's our hope at live that it will become the norm that um this is this just what you do there's a pound from this we'll go into this fund and i think it will be it'll be easier convincing people that this is a good thing once we see where the money's going and what it's actually doing what it's achieving because if you take some of the you know the some of the pounds uh and you give them to people who can make a difference at grassroots level they can come back and say well we helped this venue stay open or we helped this venue get a new PA or the artists will be able to say well I wouldn't have been able to go on a long tour of you know 30 days if it had it not been for this money so once once there is actual evidence of what this can do but that's where I think everyone's hoping well this will be even more convincing arguments and yeah then the percentage of tours going on sale.

13:50Steve:I mean, you know, we have to, you can break it down by promoter. I'm not sure if Ian mentioned that. And, you know, some promoters are bar more active in this than others, I would say.

14:05Stu:I did ask what the barrier is to getting to that 100%. And he said that he used the word producers, which I think he means promoters. Yeah. He said some producers, some big producers, they're sort of, and he said one of the arguments are saying is that their artists already do donations and philanthropy and stuff on the tickets and this is on top of that and they're not too sure. And he kind of basically said, I don't really buy that argument. It was good because I don't interview that many politicians really in my job. It's more tech people and music people. But he came across, well he was plain speaking.

14:34Stu:At one point he goes, I'm not going to bamboozle you with government speak. And then sort of didn't which was nice. But he was quite like on that he was like, I don't buy that argument. And even in ticketing he was talking about the arguments of StubHub and Villagoga and he said I don't think that's true because so he was quite he seemed to be quite on top of the brief and he's

14:51Steve:been very well briefed yeah yeah so good news promising uh while we're talking about life and the grassroots um I know well here's a question for everyone what's the most bizarre reason that a gig that you've been going to uh has been cancelled at the last moment uh because here's one I've certainly not come across before um and I know this might sound like an early silly season story. But there are, I guess there are financial ramifications for this as we learn that the band Fickle Friends were forced to cancel their gig at Glasgow King Tut's last week due to an exploding toilet.

15:32Stu:I'm fairly sure Exploding Toilet played King Tut's a few years ago, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So we have the band say so about this. They post about on social media saying 30 minutes before the gig, it's been canceled, exploding toilet. And there's a brilliant social post from the Support Act, who's Alexia, who said, flew 25 hours from Australia to Glasgow to play a sold out show. But the toilet blew up and there was shit flooding the venue. So it got cancelled. And now I'm trying a deep fried Mars bar. Of all the things you want to eat after seeing a venue covered in a deep fried Mars bar would not be my choice.

16:09Steve:I mean, you see, here's the thing. I mean, obviously, there's the inconvenience. I mean, she's got to be playing more than one gig, right? You'd hope so. There's no way. I've just flown in from Australia to do one date in Glasgow, so hopefully there were other dates which went ahead. I don't know. I didn't check, but fingers crossed. But here's the case. So it's inconvenience for everyone, isn't it? But in terms of the money, well, I get – I mean, you would imagine that Tuts or whoever was promoting the gig would have some sort of insurance, would they? I mean, not specifically. There's not a line in the insurance for exploding toilets.

16:47Steve:Can I take you out? This will cost you an extra£2 a month premium for the specific exploding toilets insurance. But, you know, insurance for a gig being cancelled. Otherwise, well, it's not just the convenience. Of course, everyone's out of pocket because you'd have to refund the ticket price to fans unless the gig's being rearranged. It's being rearranged, you know, maybe not coming back from Australia to do the gig next month. Pickle Friends, though, which I don't know where they come from, but you think they're from the south coast somewhere.

17:24Stu:I think south coast. That's a long, long van drive, isn't it?

17:27Steve:They might be on tour, of course. But, you know, everyone's out of pocket here. So refunds, the ticket price. I don't know about the band. the band probably don't really get any money back i guess i don't know yeah and it's weird because i

17:47Stu:sort of it's intrinsically funny and exploding toilet but it's this is quite guilty a bit because this is for everyone it's it's a real it's a worry isn't it you know if you lose a night's

17:55Steve:a night's revenue as a venue and like the band yeah i mean yeah and even the venue of course because you know they've booked the staff um you know they've opened up they've turned the lights and the heating on. So, you know... Buster chains. That's where it went wrong. Anyway, anyone at the legendary King Tut's listening, if you are, do get in touch. We're not taking the mickey out of you because it is one of those things that, as you say, sounds like a gag until you suddenly realise, crikey, that this is how fragile, you know, a venue's livelihood is. It all comes down to, well, hoping that everything works and this is why again coming back to the live trust if you can put more money back into the grassroots then you know you can you can spend more money on the facilities at the venue to avoid things hopefully like exploding toilets definitely um oh yeah this was something which uh you mentioned earlier on in the week do you want to talk us through this there's um i'd not come across this before but there's a website an app which is called who sampled and it allows you to basically trace where the samples have come from in your favorite tracks so you've so you've got the song i wonder what that sample's from that's where you go to who sampled but who's sample's been bought out by one of one of the biggest companies in music

19:19Stu:yeah and so like a circular thing we go back to spotify because it's spotify who's bought it yeah yeah who samples one of those it's one of those if you know you know websites and obviously it's most random people who listen to music that's got a lot of samples in so it's big with hip-hop fans it's big with dance fans um i think it's got like more than 1.2 million songs and you can look them up and find out where their samples came from and it's a bit like wikipedia and it's got this i think it's about 40 000 people have contributed to this database of samples so it's it's not just a bunch of experts in the room it's like everyone who's part of the community so it's pretty it's been going for a long time and it's one of those things that people love um but most people don't know about but people love you and yeah last week spotify was announcing some new features on its service and just casually slipped in by the way we bought who sampled um which was quite a surprise to people um and what what was the what did they say how much they paid for it no i mean it was it was in terms of people it's a small operation i was looking at i was looking for its accounts and i think it's about maybe two people so it's like a proper sort of um uh what do you call it cottage industry yeah but a really good like if i met the founder a guy called Nadev, who was a really nice man.

20:33Stu:Like one of those people you meet him and you end up talking about music straight away. He didn't sort of pitch you a startup. You end up talking about something you love. So a good egg. But yeah, so we know what Spotify is doing with it a bit because it's got this new feature, which is what was being announced called Song DNA, which is a bit like rock family trees, but for songs rather than people. If you've ever seen that. So if you're a subscriber, you'll be like browse this big map of connections between like songs and collaborators and samples and covers and just kind of go down these rabbit holes of how a song has been sort of, you know, covered and sampled and so on.

21:07Steve:Yeah.

21:08Stu:And it's being used, whose sample is being used for that, although it's carrying on as its own app and website too. So, yeah. That's good.

21:16Steve:Tyler, the creator, who's had quite a big year, has now got a big award. I mean, a physically big award from, I think it was Apple Music, was it?