Grand Theft Cliff; Are festivals being cancelled because of the climate crisis?; Gina's Pet Bangers!; SoundCloud sells WAVs and much more

0:03Hello and 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, then here we are every week looking at the finances of the music industry and bringing you stories and comments and stuff from the pop biz. He's Stuart Dredge, I'm Joe Sparrow. As ever, we're going to start with Stu's huge number, something that caught his eye this week.

0:27Stu:Hit us with it, Stu. My number this week is$76 million. Yeah, I mean, it's not as big as we've had some bigger ones recently, but that's pretty big. Go on. It's not the size, it's what you talk about it. This is how much a company called Stability AI raised in funding last week. So they're one of the AI companies out there. But the point we're interested in is that all three major labels were amongst the investors in that round. and the former nemesis of all three major labels, Sean Parker. The founder of Napster. Founder of Co-Founder. Who brought down the music industry once and is now investing in a company that's going to make music and potentially take down all the artists.

1:11Stu:Which is amazing. I would say it's an amazing Sean Parker irony loop, but this kind of happened before in that he was an investor in Spotify at the same time the labels had squid stakes in Spotify. So they have met awkwardly over a boardroom table or canapes, like, you know, financial canapes before, probably. Financial canapes. I think they did a John Peel session in 1987, didn't they? But yeah, so this is like Stability Eye. They make a thing called Stable Audio, which is AI music service. The difference with some of the other ones being that they've always only licensed music to train it. They've never scraped stuff illegally.

1:46Stu:They've always had licensing deals. and so they're kind of one of the good eggs or they seem supposedly good eggs yes one of the gooder eggs gooder eggs now we've i've seen comments from some of our listeners sort of doing the commenting equivalent of groaning every time we mention ai and i understand that because there has been a lot of ai news but this isn't really sort of ai big number is it it's it's really about how well look i mean it says something doesn't it that the guy who invented Napster and invested in Spotify and all the major labels who control a very large proportion of recorded music that we enjoy are investing in a company that has a product that makes music that people are and in general people are a bit uncomfortable with that but they are doing it in a way that they say is ethical and does things the right way you know we've we've covered AI so much If we take a step back, what does this mean about where we are in terms of what generative music AI is going to do for music now?

2:54Stu:Well, it's kind of a shift. So in the past, basically the last two years, the major labels, if you're an AI music company, they're either suing you or licensing you. Or suing you, then licensing you in some cases. Those two things. What it was was licensing to your way. You would agree to pay them some money and then pay some royalties based on what you're doing. But this is now they're taking equity, taking equity stakes. So if Stability Eye ever sells for billions, the major labels will get money from that as well. Which is what they did when they invested in Spotify as well, wasn't it? They took a stake in the company as well.

3:28So they're doing the same kind of play. Essentially, it's quite a nice macrocosm, isn't it? They sued Napster into oblivion, Sean Parker. And then they teamed up with Sean Parker to invest into Spotify and they took equity in the company. And some of the majors have since sold that money and passed it on to artists, haven't they, as well. And now they're doing the same thing again. But this time, it's with music. It's a company that makes music and there's no artists involved. It does beg a question, of course.

4:02Stu:Say Stability AI sells for loads of money or goes public for loads of money in the future. There'll be money for the labels from their stakes, like there was with Spotify. so do they share that with their artists and songwriters but if so do you have presumably you have to be one of the artist and songwriters who has opted in to have your stuff used to train AIs under their deals in which case it's kind of a this feels like it might be a prod to do that well why should you say yes we can license your songs your recordings out to AI companies they have deals with well if we make a load of money from this one being sold you'll get the share of that if you say no I won't listen to spice music for AI you might not so it's kind of I wonder how it filters into those conversations they're having where they're trying to persuade artists and it's also I guess it's about the inevitability of it the major labels who ostensibly are the most powerful people in the recorded music industry are saying well look this is inevitable and we have to be part of it like there's no escaping generative AI music now and I remember speaking to a very a powerful music industry lawyer a couple of years ago when all this was kicking off.

5:14And this lawyer said, look, they're all already thinking about and negotiating signing deals because they've got no other card to play because the genie is out of the bottle, was their words. And so that's kind of what's played out in a way, hasn't it? They're suing or doing deals. Generative AI and making music is here. And they're going along with it, even though probably they'd prefer it if it wasn't there.

5:40Stu:I mean, to Stability AI's credit, it's been positioned, it's a stable audio thing, it's positioned more as a tool for musicians than it is as like anyone can go there and pop out a song. It's not quite the kind of the Suno play of like anyone can use this. It's always been like we want to be a tool for musicians where you can come in and create sounds and beats and stuff to work with. So in that sense, it's kind of labels investing in music creation infrastructure for their musicians, if that makes sense. which is always where we've sort of assumed a lot of this stuff is going to go you know dr dre said last week the only people who are scared of um generative ai are people who aren't good at making music in the first place which which i thought was quite a sort of one one angle on it isn't it which is like look if if you're not good enough to make music better than ai then like what do you like you're not threatened by it because you're not good enough in the first place So it's sort of interesting to see how those tools are happening.

6:36And it's being pushed that way as tools. Although, of course, you know, the other element is that we are now being swamped with sort of what I'm thinking of now is the equivalent of the micro drama equivalent of music. And if you watch anything on YouTube now, there's just, I mean, almost, I would say at least 50 % of adverts are AI generated video. and they are all taking that kind of micro drama angle of highly emotive highly provocative scenarios to get your attention which is what an advert is supposed to do and that's why we hate them um but that like that's what when generative music is happening it seems to be for that kind of purpose which is to grab attention to hold your attention for a few seconds whether it's an advert or on your short video feed.

7:29It's not really becoming the kind of music that is moving society's needle very much. Of course, that remains to be seen. Anyway, let's leave AI alone for a while. Stu, we're all going on a summer holiday. Although, aesthetically, we've both just come back from ours. But it's a summer holiday that involves cocaine, strip clubs, and a lot of shooting people in the face. Which is exactly what our summer holiday is. Exactly. Nearly exactly. That's why Stu and I are now broadcasting from a remote South American bunker. Anyway, what are we talking about? Yes, it's the unexpected Cliff Richard slash Grand Theft Auto VI crossover.

8:08Stu, what on earth is going on here?

8:11Stu:Well, I mean, so this was last week. So Rockstar Games is making Grand Theft Auto VI, which is nearly here, coming out middle of November, I think. It's been nearly here for about 13 years, hasn't it? It's been delayed a few times, but it's actually nearly here coming. And they did this extended look trailer, which normally would be the sort of thing that goes out on YouTube, but it went on Netflix and then on YouTube. So you had to pay to access the advert. And obviously, it was like 27 minutes long, and it showed off the gameplay, the proper gameplay, not Wizzy videos, it was actual gameplay.

8:46Stu:But also, honestly, we were eye-watching going, what songs are going to make? Because this has always been the big one, what songs are on the thing. and they had like they had Sexy Red they had Kodak Black they had a bunch of new stuff they had a bunch of the traditional soft rock type business they had Depeche Mode they had Phil Collins they had Captain and Tennille and they had 84 year old devout Christian pop icon so Cliff Richard's Devil Woman from 1906 soundtracking a key part of it which I'm not sure I don't know how famous is Cliff Richard outside the UK? I don't think he's no I don't think he's very well known at all I don't know if Americans would have seen that and gone Cliff Richard in Grand Theft Auto, whereas Brits were like, hang on a minute.

9:25Yeah, I think he's one of those people who hasn't, he's a bit like Robbie Williams, but even more localized. You know, he's not known in North America, not in Europe particularly, but probably for Devil Woman, which is a banger and still remains a banger. It's Pete Cliff. It's Pete Cliff. But also, I mean, there's something very strange there, isn't there, about devout Christian Cliff Richard. His probably biggest and best song being Devil Woman.

9:50Stu:Well, quite. And now it's in Cliff. Which is, I mean, honestly, I think the story of the Sinks for Grand Theft Auto series is an amazing one because they just really dig deep to find stuff that suits... When they have all those radio stations in the game that you play, but also for things like trailers, they really do put a lot of thought into what to use. And they pick really good songs as well. I remember for Grand Theft Auto V, which is a very long time ago now, I think they picked a great... Who was it? It was a song by... It was from Ogden's Gone Nut Flake. It was that amazing Small Faces song, wasn't it?

10:25And then for this one, it was that great Tom Petty song, sort of later Tom Petty era song. So they're really good at finding deep cut, like great hits to drive interest. But then of course, as you've said, music in Grand Theft Auto is so intertwined. There's nothing really more enjoyable than just hijacking your car and popping the radio on and driving around, really, isn't there? Well, that's how I play it.

10:49Stu:I've been off all the missions. But I mean, there's two other things I was going to say. One is that, I mean, I don't know if you remember, it was about nearly two years ago now, the guy from Heaven 17, which again, maybe not so big outside the UK, Martin Ware, he put a public thing out telling Rockstar Games to go fuck themselves. I think after, he said they offered him seven and a half thousand dollars to use one of his tracks with no other royalties. And he was like, this is, this may get its money. Why am I being paid this? So that was something that happened. So that, I think we're going to see that discussion come up again.

11:19Stu:for the new game. But the other thing is, this trailer, and actually there were a couple of previews that came out where a couple of journalists were allowed to interview the developers and do a bigger piece. Music is going to be quite an important part of the game itself as well this year. This new game. So there's going to be an in-game music studio where some of the storyline is set. An actual recording studio is part of the narrative structure. And they've even got this fictional hip-hop duo called Real Dimes. Real Dimes is a Z. who you're going to sort of follow their eyes through these, like, the game's going to have internal social media feeds.

11:55Stu:Yes. Which is kind of, again, I think it's something I brought. And there's going to be this virtual artist within the game. And so I don't know, they could end up putting music out. So what you're saying is we could actually see virtual artists from the game, if their music is good enough, it could break through into the real world. And we've suddenly got non-AI generated, but fake music maybe even being charting. And this has been done before, but I think Riot Games, who do League of Legends, did a whole bunch of virtual bands and kind of brought music out. But actually, it weirdly goes back to the original days of Grand Theft Auto.

12:36Stu:So in the early years, they couldn't afford to license people. The first Grand Theft Auto games were top-down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they made up their own bands. There's like one called, actually, Da Shooters, again with a Z, but this song called Grand Theft Auto that kind of became the theme for the series in the early years. I'm more of a fan of Da Shooters' earlier stuff, but yeah. Yeah, exactly. So in a way, they're coming back to that idea now, you know, with this virtual band. So yeah, music is going to be, obviously, all over the soundtrack. You'll have the radio stations to listen to, but it's going to be quite a big part of the actual narrative.

13:12we'll talk more about Grand Theft Auto and music in the lock-in section later on uh folks including um so if you do want to join us by the way you can go to patreon.com the price of music and become uh slash the price music and you can become a super fan and join us for an extra 20 minutes every week uh but yeah I mean there's something very interesting there isn't there about the the the sort of um you know where is the value in in having your music in this game which is so driven by its cultural knowingness. I mean, all the things you just mentioned could be just the worst thing in the world and really bad, but because of the way that they make these games, they are really, really funny, and it's social commentary, isn't it?

13:53And that's why the games are so good. But of course, you go back to the Martin Ware thing, Heaven 17, they wanted to license their biggest and best song for the game. And it was, I mean, I think the details that he gave when you sort of stretch it out, It worked out to sort of 7 ,000 per person after all the cuts and things go out. It doesn't feel like a lot, but then it could be massively magnified and you get lots from streaming when people really like it. Or not, we just don't know.

14:18Stu:It's a weird thing, isn't it? Because, yeah, it's a buyout, which is controversial in some places. Some people think, if actually you should get money. It's that question, really, of every time someone plays your song in Grand Theft Auto, should that be treated as a stream and then royalties every time? Well, you know, when you get into a car, So when you smash the window and drag a helpless person out of the car and drive off, one of the first things people generally do is sort of flick through the radio stations and find the one they want because they know that they prefer this station. And each of those stations has hundreds of tracks, right?

14:50There's a lot of music in the game. But there's a bit of a... There is a selection process there, and there's an argument to say that maybe it's not like a per-stream royalty, but maybe it is a... Well, it's radio.

15:02Stu:It's radio. I mean, I think we're putting together a collecting society on to say, how should this work? Is this online radio if you're playing? Because obviously Grand Theft Auto, all we know about at the moment, it's a solo game. So you play it yourself. You play it on your own. But Grand Theft Auto V had this huge online mode. And I wonder if the licensing would be different for that. But yeah, so it's a... But then if you think about how many tracks they're licensing, even at just seven and a half grand per track that's still hundreds of tracks I mean there could be a thousand tracks so it's a really it's probably one of the biggest single licensed source of music but as Martin Ware said at the individual level some artists go hang on surely I should be getting more than this I mean also the counter argument of course is that if you're licensing thousands of tracks and offering people are sort of choosing between having that in the game and hopefully getting streamed more elsewhere or seven and getting seven grand.

15:59They might say, well, you give me seven grand, but there's so many thousands of songs. Why will mine be listened to? And why would it drive streaming elsewhere? But we'll see how all that pans out. There's probably, you know, they've probably built in a fake collecting society into the game as well. Imagine. Called PR-OBE or something like that.

16:15Stu:I don't want to have to work while I'm playing Grand Theft Auto 6. I don't want to have to suddenly be talking about neighboring rights. Yeah, that's right. I mean, can you imagine if there's a whole neighboring rights sub-game within the game, and you get to finally act out your fantasy of working at a collecting society. And you go and negotiate contracts with a machine gun. Just to extend that further. Now, it's going to festivals. The popular US Bonnaroo Festival is taking a year off next year, it said, because its venue has been battered by storms two years in a row. What is this? I mean, this is something we're hearing.

16:52you know it goes without saying um the world is being we were experiencing extreme weather phenomena which is clearly attributable um to um climate change and um global warming and or whatever you want to call it but when we one thing that hasn't really happened so far is it sort of hasn't it's for a lot of people hasn't really touched their lives in a real way we look at videos on online of terrible things happening go oh dear what a shame but then all of a sudden our favourite music festival gets cancelled. What does it say about climate emergency and how it's going to affect festivals and things like that?

17:29Stu:Yeah, so this is like a forced fallow year. In the UK we know the idea of a fallow year because Glastonbury does it every few years and it's planned. They take a year off to let the farm recover, give the cows time to grow. But this is not the same. This is like them going, we wanted to come back next year but we're going to have to take a year off. And so a few things about that. So this comes, yeah, you mentioned two years. I think in 2025, the whole festival got cancelled after one night with severe flooding. And this year, I think the final day, a lot of sets got wiped out by storms. So it's like two years in a row.

18:03Stu:And they spent, and the organisers of Bonnaroo said they spent loads of money, I mean reportedly millions of dollars, on like paved roadways and better drainage and new grass. And even with all that money spent, they just can't do it next year. So it's a real kind of moment of like, actually, this is a problem. Like, if you're unlucky, if you're lucky, you get two dry years in a row and it's a wonderful time, make loads of money. Get two bad years in a row and it's stormy season. We've spoken before with people on this podcast about how hard it is. The profit margin for running a festival is absolutely minuscule.

18:41It's a couple of percentage points, maybe. And I remember reading an interview with, I think it was Rob DeBank, who's a UK DJ and used to run the Bestival Festival on the Isle of Wight and now runs Camp Bestival, a slightly smaller version. And he said that basically one of the reasons they stopped doing it was because if you had a rainy year, you would have to then urgently order, you'd have on standby, but you'd have to commit to then to an order of wood chips to put down on the ground so that people could keep walking around the festival and it could continue. And that one order of wood chips would just wipe out the profit for an entire year.

19:14And in the end, they had like three wet years in a row and they just couldn't feasibly continue it anymore. That's the Grand Theft Auto moment, picking up the phone with the wood chip company. And they're like,

19:23Stu:all right, sounds like you're having a rainy year. Well, let me tell you the cost of wood chips. Nice festival you've got there. Shame if wood chips didn't happen to it. This follows this, we talked recently about this open letter, didn't we? Signed by a bunch of artists who were warning to about the climate emergency. Yeah. I think it was in the UK, wasn't it? They were asking for us not to read the world. It was via Earth % and it was signed by, you know, Brian Eno and Massive Attack. And they were saying, there was a very good sort of way of saying, I think it was our livelihoods depend on safe weather conditions.

19:52Stu:If festivals get cancelled, we don't earn money. So Bonnaroo is just like, it falls into that thing of like, actually, we're at a point now where, yeah, in some parts of the world, sometimes what's happening with the weather is cancelling these huge events. Yeah. And we did say at the time, there was a very smart angle for that letter to take because it's about how the climate emergency affects us in day-to-day life. And of course, while Bonnaroo have cancelled because they've had such dramatic effects on them, it doesn't, to go back to the festival example, it doesn't take dramatic examples to have a massive knock-on effect.

20:28If it's more likely, statistically, that a festival will be rained on every year, then after a few years, that festival might go under because they just can't sustain themselves financially. Or the insurance company. Or the insurance company jacks up the prices. it becomes too expensive, the festival is cancelled. That means there's fewer opportunities for artists to play. It means there's fewer opportunities for artists to make money. There's fewer places for the audiences to spend their money. It's just, it's a very, very gentle cascading problem. And it's a classic example of a massive infrastructure failing, which is, you know, you go bankrupt very, very slowly and then very, very suddenly, don't you?

21:08Stu:So it's, you know, this is obviously their ploy to go away. And, you know, a year off might be cheaper than a year on and risking it happening again. But, yeah, it just feels like this is maybe going to focus people's minds even more, perhaps, on. But it's like you say, what do you do? I mean, do you go, do you say to Bonnaroo and say, we're going to go and do it somewhere with concrete floors or we're going to go inside somewhere? Do you abandon the idea of having festivals outside? Which, obviously, there are festivals that take place across multiple venues in cities. That's the thing. I mean, you want every festival to be the same.

21:42The reality of that answer, I guess, is that assuming that people are happy to... Let's take the extreme examples out of this and just say a festival's being battered by storms and then being cancelled because of extreme weather. Let's just say that for most people, the climate issue will cause most festivals to be a bit more rainy or a bit more super hot. Are people willing to put up with that to have a good time at a festival? Well, you know, you and I are living proof that we'll wallow around in mud for a week at Glastonbury to have our fun there, right?

22:18Stu:I've wallowed in mud with Glastonbury. It was the worst thing. Like, I've been to good years, dry years, wonderful. I've been to muddy years and just the worst place and you're stuck there and you can't get away. Yes. No disrespect to the people who organize it, but it's a terrible thing. But it makes it tougher, right? So let's say the increased likelihood of having rain at festivals has a slow chilling effect on the willingness of people to go to those festivals. That is problem number one, right? But let's say that there's still a bulk of people who will go along to those festivals, but the festivals can't keep going if they keep losing money every year because they have to buy wood chips and infrastructure to combat the rain or the extreme heat.

22:57So the only answer is either the festivals close and people lose out on festivals, or ticket prices go up. And the only solution is for us as a society, because we can't stop the climate change in the short term, is to sort of, well, we have to pay for it. We have to pay more for a ticket to get to those festivals in the first place to allow that festival to make a profit so that they can keep going. And that is the, you know, I hate to board it down to something as mundane as that, but that's the cost of climate change. It hits your wallet. And that's the reality of it, isn't it? And also, it's a change.