Los Campesinos! share their streaming money data (and it's... sobering); Could a new budget policy be "the death knell for small venues"?; And what are Steve & Stu's Spotify Wrapped 'listening ages'?

0:03Hello 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, while also bringing you stories and comments about the past week in the pop business. I'm Steve Lamack, he's Stuart Dredge. If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music biz and how it all works, then here we are this week coming up. Well, there are some very important subjects, I have to say, to tackle this week. There's quite a lot about live music, including one story about the recent budget, outlining how the government's business rate policy may prove to have a devastating effect on venues.

0:39I can't stress that enough. Also, the realities of the streaming economy laid bare by the band Los Campesinos and more reasons to fear that the music industry is simply not prepared for how to properly deal with AI. But first, Stu's big number. What's the eye-catching figure that you've come across this week, Mr. Dredge?

1:02Stu:I've gone for a big round number this week, 200 million. And that is, to go back to something we talked about last week, that is how many people checked out their Spotify wrapped within the first day last week, breaking the previous record. is that that's globally is it globally that is which and i would look at so spotify's got 713 million users so it's only it's less than kind of a third of them saw on the first day so a lot of them are still going i wonder who my top artist is this year how can i find out um but it's big and i had more than 500 million shares to our discussion about this is going to be taking over social media yeah 500 million shares of people's stories which i don't know if you saw this but one of the big features this year was it gave you a listening age have you seen this floating around yeah people going hang on a minute i'm not 85 or you know it was it was calculated rage sharing of people who said i'm not as old as it thinks i am yes we should we should come back to that in the lock-in i think if you want to know what's spotify wrapped uh guests were our respective musical ages uh that's later uh they'll be very happy with this though I mean, obviously it's logical they've broken the record because they have more subscribers than they ever had.

2:14So it makes sense more people will be looking.

2:17Stu:It does. And they really push a boat out this year, like I was saying last week, because they wanted to make it a big hit. I mean, the other point that came out of it was the biggest artist of the year on Spotify was Bad Bunny. This could have been the big number. 19.8 billion streams on Spotify this year for Bad Bunny. Crikey. Which plays in, I mean, in the US, you know, he's playing the Super Bowl halftime show in February. And it's been a few from the right wing of politics, been a few like, who's Bad Bunny? Why is he playing the Super Bowl? We're not happy about this. Well, my friends, he's the biggest artist in the world by streams.

2:47Stu:And that's kind of the, that's the reason he's playing the Super Bowl. This week's three big news stories, starting with this one, which again, might come as a warning to all artists out there, as more musicians have been complaining about AI music projects that they think are, well, one, too inspired by their own work. or even, in worst case scenario, even pretending to be them. So how did this happen? Tell us, there was one particular story which we're hanging this around, Stuart. Yeah, so this is about a band called Architects, who are a British metalcore band, who are really, I think they've had 11 albums out, just finished a big arenas tour last time coming out in February, and they're kind of basically taking the weight off their feet now after doing this big tour.

3:32Stu:And then the new song drops, and fans are like, well, hey, a new song from architects except it wasn't by them it was an ai generated song that somehow came out on their profile on spotify um the good news here being that the fan base uh mobilized and got it taken down they basically you know protests were loud enough saying this is not architects this is a random ai slop and it got removed so i mean in the story i read then it implied that you know the the other architects the imposters were deliberately attempting to infiltrate the real architect's profile this was you know this they don't they'd work so well if we we put our track up here it's going to get a it might get a load of traction but could it you know just playing devil's advocate could it be coincidence because i mean i often see bands with the same name where their tracks have been mixed up um well i don't know what your take on this is yeah i mean it has happened by accident in the past so for example i used to love a band called um ira i-r-a-h who were from i think from norway and they were very sort of um what do you call it sonic cathedral of soundy kind of and then there was a british rapper who turned up with the same name and his music kept appearing on their profile yeah so this has happened in the past with the same name that's kind of died away so it does feel like it's yeah it was intentional yeah and that the style of it being similar to theirs it felt like intentional um yeah and then just today actually like this morning i've been writing about a very similar story so do you remember um i've got to get it right again king gizzard and the lizard wizard yeah is it right yeah yeah they they came off spotify earlier this year in protest about the ceo's armed investments but then this week it's emerged there was a band called king lizard wizard who had the same song titles the same lyrics but just the music was ai made so someone had basically put their lyrics into an AI music generator.

5:28Stu:And then if you search for King Gizzard on Spotify, because who wants to type all that in, frankly? Yeah, yeah. This artist was coming up. And again, it was on there for a few weeks. It was reported on. It only had a few 10 ,000 streams, which is kind of small, but it's now been taken down as well. So, I mean, the thing here is how easy is it then? I mean, if we, if I don't want to suggest that I don't want to make plain the fact that I think the imposter architects, say the imposter architects set out to get onto the real architect stream. The worrying thing, surely, is the fact that they were able to do that.

6:11How do you wheedle your way onto another artist's stream? And what are the measures in place to stop this? what can spotify do is there a protocol which because surely there should be you think so and

6:25Stu:i think this is one of those areas where it's slightly mysterious but they don't want to let people who are trying to do this game know exactly how they detect it but yeah yeah i mean so this is the difficulty so there could be another human band called architects who could up for music and so there there should be a system there is a system there whereby you may have the same name but you're not in each other's profiles and that seems to be something we've got sorted out normally um and the other thing i think this comes from is people are starting to say okay who who is responsible for this is this how much of this is spotify or streaming service and how much of is it distributor so whoever whoever put the song on the server whoever uploaded it should they have checks and balances they say hang on a minute you're not the band architects we're going to check this yeah um i mean we've talked about numbers before about how much being like i think it's like 110 120 000 tracks every day so it is an a mountain of stuff that there's no way a human could go through it and say hang on a minute i recognize that's a metal core band in the uk are you really them so it is going to have to come down to some of those ultimate systems okay well who is this how has it got there so it is and i think it's it comes down to something i say every so often which is like this is not really ai's fault it's some humans being bad like it's some humans have gone i know i'm gonna put some fake king king gizzard luck tracks up and try and get some money yeah you know it's like humans using the technology to do bad things yeah but that's why but but that's why you have some rules that's why that's why it's a justice system you have to you have to try and prevent people or the bad guys from uh from winning so So it does come back to Spotify or whoever.

8:09Someone's got to put in place a thing that says, right, don't do this. We're going to stop you doing this.

8:14Stu:And to some extent, I think they do. And so part of it is they have to be told if they don't spot it themselves. So when, for example, fans raise a rat and say, this is not architects, the key then is, do they move quickly to take it down? And something Spotify do do is they will not pay their royalties out. if you spot it before the royalty didn't paid out they'll say no we're not paying that and that's what's happened with several of these spoofs right people said right we've we've taken it down they will not get the royalties this has not worked so in that sense maybe the fact that it gets through is not the biggest worry it's whether it gets caught and then taken down quickly and that seems to be happening but then in the us there was some stuff this week so we talked about this band this band called a virtual ai artist band called breaking rust who are country music and they're ones have been going appearing in the charts and there was some quite fun stuff so there's an artist called blanco brown who's like a popular human country artist and it's kind of this breaking west band sound a bit like him sounds like his vocals he's quite a kind of gritty raspy vocal tone and he kind of instead of just saying i don't like this it sounds like me he covered their song as a way of kind of pointing attention to the fact that you know if they're going to move my sound i'm going to cover their song um and that's an example where it's not someone spoofing music or putting on his profile but it is another thing we've talked about which is artists going hang on a minute this ai artist has got a million listeners sounds a lot like me it sounds like they've based it on me and that is i mean in this case he was kind of quite humorous in his response but that's causing artists equal i think about well not worried but like what is it i suppose you call it creeping anxiety isn't it where does all this lead and what's going to happen to us if it's not stopped and it feels like that's rising towards the end of the year and these are just examples of stories yeah we were we were talking off air last week we must do something um uh more in depth about ai i know we come back to ai a lot on this program but the the possibilities and the implications some of the things which may happen next year are really quite huge and our fear i think is that the music industry is still coming to terms with ai and at times is still playing catch up uh anyway story two this week and this went a little under the radar this story unless you were directly a part of it uh you may not have heard about this but the department of business and trade last week announced a major inquiry into well what amounts to the whole way the live

10:41Steve:music industry operates in the uk it's a huge brief they're asking for written submissions now But this, I mean, came, I mean, from my perspective, and I'm someone who's involved in live music, this came, this really came out of the blue, this. Do you want to explain more? It's a CMA thing, isn't it? It's Competition Markets Authority, I think.

11:03Stu:Well, it's a business and trade committee of Parliament. So one of these party committees. And yeah, it's like they announced it on the 4th of December and they want written evidence by the 18th of December. So anyone in the live music industry who's like, right, December's time for lunches and Baileys and Christmas shopping. You'll be glad to know that the live music trade body pushed back on this. I think the deadline, fingers crossed, is being extended to January the 9th or something. So you may be able to kick this one past Christmas live industry and then send in your answers after you're back from the festive period.

11:39But yes, it was a ridiculously short deadline. But anyway, sorry I interrupted.

11:46Stu:Yeah, so it's a business and trade committee. So this is a committee of parliamentarians who look at all kinds of aspects of business and competition and consumer rights and all that stuff. And they did have a couple of hearings earlier this year that I sort of remember that they touched on ticketing as part of them. They had Ticketmaster speak at a couple of their kind of evidence sessions. But yeah, so this inquiry, it's basically asking about trends in the UK live music industry that may, and the quote is, adversely impact market competition or market functioning. so like competition obviously is it a fair market if you want to compete in it and i guess market functioning is how well it works not just for the companies in it but also for ticket buyers concert guys um and yeah i mean it was it was interesting it's one of those ones where they sort of say okay call for evidence and here is a bunch of questions we'd like to answer and i think as is often the case that the questions they're asking kind of give you a good hint about what they're investigating and who's in the crosshairs isn't it yeah absolutely that That was what I was going to ask.

12:44What do you think their objective is and can you tell from the way they've worded the questions?

12:51Stu:Yeah, so some of the questions were things like, okay, what barriers affect new or smaller promoters, venues or ticketing firms from competing on equal terms? That's the first question. And obviously on equal terms with who is your immediate question with that. Are there exclusive deals or other similar practices that limit fair access to artisan venues? And are any major firms or vertically integrated groups using their market power to limit competition which and i'm a bit hazing but vertically integrated means you are you're in several areas you know from ticketing to promotion for example to venues so it all to my mind seemed to be pointing at live nation and ticket master because we've been having this whole year in the us especially of people looking at them and saying are they too big is them being together causing issues is how they do business problem and this feels like the uk politicians getting an essay well if they can do that in the states we're gonna do it here and it does feel a bit like i mean i maybe i'm being oversimplifying it you can tell me if i'm wrong it does feel like all the questions saying a live nation ticket master rotters tell us how they're rotters and then we'll do something about it maybe yeah i mean you could i mean i don't know i mean yes we could be breathing too much into this i mean they could just genuinely want to know more about how the how the industry works i mean we know government has shown loads more interest in the live music scene over the past year, partly because they've identified live music as one of the areas that could provide growth, but also, I think, because a bunch of MPs didn't get Oasis tickets and they wanted to find out why they didn't get Oasis tickets and obviously there was all the stuff about dynamic pricing and everything.

14:28So I think there are questions to be asked. Maybe they want to know more to help inform future decisions when it comes to live music policy. But at the same time, and obviously I have to be quite careful here with my position as chair of Live, but it does feel like they are here possibly reacting to criticisms that they've heard of Live Nation. And now they want to know more about that. I mean, I don't know. It may even be something partly to do with the fallout from the budget, which is something, another story which we'll get to in a second. But we shall see. but it's very comprehensive. You can find it on the government website.

15:11And if you want to fill in, if you want to send them your own written submissions about what you believe is right and wrong about live music, answer their questions, let them know. Get your answers in as soon as possible.

15:24Stu:After your Christmas party. After your Christmas party. Go home, get on the computer. That never ends badly, does it? Story three, there's a new report from the charity Youth Music, which has exposed some of the dangers that young people face in the music industry. But it does also have a positive trend involving Ray. Yeah, it does. So youth music is a really interesting. We've talked about it before. They do a lot of really good work around the country with youth groups, music education, just getting young people into music and also into the industry. And yeah, this poll is kind of it's a lot of sort of sad, worrying things.

15:59Stu:So I think 72 percent of people they interviewed, so they have felt unsafe in a music industry work environment. 90 % said they would have been paid unfairly for their work. And 75 % have considered giving up their aspirations in the industry on music because of these unsafe or unfair conditions. And it's all these quotes. One person says, I was basically doing full-time hours and being paid for seven hours a week. There was someone else who said, it's quite normal to be grouped by men in the workplace. So it's kind of setting out just stuff that young people in music have to deal with, which would be a really bleak report.

16:36Stu:But yeah, they mentioned Ray. So you know how Ray has talked about all kinds of things, hasn't she? She's talked about songwriters' royalties. She wrote a really powerful song about her experience of abuse within the industry. And it turns out that people feel inspired by that and they feel encouraged to speak out. and they feel like okay if Ray can speak out about this stuff I can push back if I encounter unsafe things or unfair so it's kind of you know that this is the problem but this is kind of the pathway out of this is these inspiring artists who talk about it will encourage them to not part with this rubbish that's what we're looking for though isn't it it's a new set of role models I think that's what we you know if you look back to when when I was a lad you know you were always looking for a for a role model who somehow spoke up for what you believed in and that's what ray is doing for obviously a lot of these people and it talks about some of the changes in law that there's this some new workplace rights coming in law coming in the uk it says that will be a good thing that will help some people but that's not enough and i think that was a message report saying by setting out the problems we need to kind of as an industry also change the culture i guess That was one of the quotes from youth music.

17:52Stu:It was like, laws alone cannot reshape culture. The music industry has to read this and then act on it. Any other business? Shall we start with the streaming economics? Because last week, and some of you may have seen this already, but the band Los Camposinos revealed just how much they made from streaming income. And it made for a really interesting insight, I think, to what artists make from streaming. but also within that, the differences in payment that they get from different streaming services. You've been through all the stats. It basically shows you a whole year's worth of income and how it drops off when the new album comes out and it lands well, but then, of course, it drops off.

18:41But it gives you everything they made from Spotify.

18:44Stu:Yeah, well, everything, every streaming service. So yeah, this is for one album, All Hell, which came out in 2024. And the key part of that is it's their first album, I think. They released it through their own label. So they have all the rights. They get all the royalties from the distributor. So they pay a subscription every year to the music company. So they get 100 % of their revenue. So it's a really good best case scenario for an artist. And so this album came out in 2024. It was streamed 9.3 million times in its first year. And that made the band nearly 32 ,000 quid in royalties from streaming.

19:17um bear in mind they're a seven piece band which is where you start to go hang on a minute 32 000 go far when you're splitting between seven people yeah um but yeah so it's an average of like naught

19:27Stu:point about a third of a penny per stream uh or as they put it it's a quid for every 20 full listens to the album that's across everything but like you say the interesting part is when they break down each streaming service how many streams they had and what payment they got and what the effective per stream payment is, which I suppose it's good to say again, that's not how streaming services pay out. They didn't pay you this much per stream. They pay you your share of all their royalties, and then you can calculate what that is per stream. Anyway, so I think Spotify was nearly three quarters of the streams and just ended like two thirds of their royalties, so just over£20 ,000.

20:04Stu:But that meant it had the lowest per stream figure. So they got around 0.29 pence for every Spotify stream, whereas on Tidal, they got 0.75. pence so it's a big difference yeah well yeah and their point was if everyone had used title we would have received an extra 31 new 32 000 pounds so doubling their royalties but this is the weird thing and this is actually i think it's a really good moment this is why i'm really it's a really good blog post to put this out there and really you know really appreciate them doing it because you think okay if you're a fan going well why don't you just take your music off spotify you know tell everyone to go to title you'll make loads more money but actually if you if you take music of spotify you're instantly saying goodbye to two-thirds of your streaming royalties because while it's per stream rate is much lower it's got so many more people that i mean for example for los campesinos it was what was it two-thirds of their revenue from streaming was from spotify so that's what you're saying goodbye to if you say well i'll go over here where the per stream rate is higher follow me fans and what you'll find is a lot of you know not many fans do that changing streaming services quite hard unless you're really cross about something yeah um so yeah so it's it's that thing i think per stream rates do tell a certain story of of what you get per stream but they they the important thing is well how much money you're getting what's your biggest score something um and the other thing i think spotify's argument always been that it's per stream rate is lower because its users listen to lots of music they're more engaged um so the royalties there are split between many more streams so you get more money but you get less per stream.

21:39One of the other things which is really good about this piece was that as you say this is best case scenario where they own all the rights so all monies come to them and it felt like they were they're self-managed as well so they weren't giving up x amount of money to a manager and this is something which I know you're always very quick to point this out when we mentioned top-line streaming income you know most artists however are assigned to a label and do have a manager and of course they will all take a cut and i mean i think it might surprise some people just how much the label takes and what's left for the artist so they went through that as well didn't they saying well we get 32 000 pounds uh obviously as you say split between seven of us but we get 32 000 pounds had they been signed to a label they would have got i think

22:31Stu:what do they say 20 percent of that i think it is yeah so a high and a high-end royalty rate would be 20 so they would have got six thousand four hundred quid just under of the 32 000 and then and and then if they if you have a manager then from that money from the money you've received then you then you give 20 of that to a manager which must bring you down to about five thousand pounds that's it so and this is bear in mind one album um so you know they have they have more albums um but yeah it makes you realize how for a lot of bands especially at this level i think the kind of established acts but not the biggest streaming players that their money really does come from everything not just streaming touring merchandise every way they can make money this kind of band you have to you have to basically i'm trying to think of the right word for it you have to hustle which when you're also trying to be creative is is is you know a challenge but yeah so it's a really it's a really good post for anyone who wants to know about what what these numbers actually mean for a working band and also just how much and we we're quite often reporting on record labels and their record profits.

23:45But that wedge of money, the proportion of money that goes to the label from this is incredible, isn't it? And that's something else which we've mentioned how this may change in the future with artists going, no, no, I'm going to keep more of my own rights. You can absolutely see why when if you're signed to a label, you've made 32 grand and you end up with five grand, people are thinking, hang on a second,

24:11Steve:And should we try and do some more of this ourselves? Because, you know, we're walking away with just a small proportion of what our money's actually earned.

24:20Stu:Well, so yeah, and it makes you, I think artists are getting more, not choosy is the wrong word, they're getting more aware of like, okay, for example, a manager. So a manager takes 20 % of your income typically, that's in the post. So a good manager should be making you more money, should be helping you make more money to cover that cut and more. and if your manager isn't helping you make more money then it's a drain isn't it and so i think that's that's one of the things people artists will be looking at saying okay well who am i giving money to are they doing a job that's helping us sustain ourselves and if not we're happy whether it's a label whether it's a manager i think it does it focuses the mind doesn't it on hang on i'm giving this cut to them what are they doing for us and i think the other thing we've covered i mean there are loads of great people at labels we covered last week didn't we that report about indie labels and how much they give to artists how they make their money yeah um a growing number of labels when you talk to people who work there they're like yeah we're we're completely we're feeling stressed we're so busy we've got so many marketing campaigns to work on so much going on some people within the label world talk about how they feel like they can't give the artists enough attention as they'd like to and that comes into this too if you're on a bigger label and you feel like they're not really marketing you that much because they've got other biologies again your decision over who to sign with next time when your contract ends will maybe be covered so i think these this is why this is where like i don't know a lot of musicians maybe don't like to think about money if they can avoid it or don't don't want to think of themselves as business people but i think in the modern world you kind of have to be a right this is the money coming in this is who it's going out to are they are they giving me the return on investment i want and that's a very financial phrase in it return on investment but i think this post maybe think this is the sort of thing that artists should be talking to each other about it's a really it's a really good piece very measured very pragmatic but at the same time obviously clearly makes the point it's it's not a lucrative business at their level if there is a lost campesinos christmas party it is not going to be at the riffs this year but um hats off to them but for just being so transparent that's the thing and that's what we'd like more of in the music industry isn't it um so thank you very much for sharing sharing the stats you know talking of transparency or lack of it here's here's a story which i mean has had very little uptake i think at the point of recording this we're recording tuesday lunchtime and it's something well it's something i did briefly allude to in passing last week when we were answering the question about matinee gigs but i didn't go into it any further then because it would have complicated matters but i think it is worth stopping for a second to take in the implications of the recent budget when it comes to music and especially live music but there was nothing really for the music industry in the budget the other week virtually nothing but but worse than that there were some changes announced which um haven't this hasn't blown up as a story yet but there were changes in within the budget concerning business rates which and i don't want to i don't want to sound like i'm a scaremonger but it could be the final death knell for loads of venues.

27:31And this is the way. Let me give you the background for starters, because you might remember there was some talk, wasn't there, ages ago about the government bringing in a digital tax as one of the ways that they could make people like, I don't know, your major retailers, certainly one of them beginning with A, who sell just about everything, getting them to pay more tax in this country. And then I don't know why, but that seemed to go away. And instead, there was a lot of talk about this idea of what was essentially a warehouse tax, the thinking being, well, if we can't get tax out of them any other way, we'll take it through taxing their warehouses.

28:09Steve:And we'll do that through adjusting the levels of business rates that they play. so so everyone so somebody goes off works out a new formula for business rates with which has and it's quite complicated but there's there'll be okay different tiers of business rates and various multipliers and all this will mean we can take some money from the top and help the people at the bottom so we can take the money from the big online retail warehouses and give some of it back to the high street unfortunately and i mean i think this is partly down to the way government is laid out with various different departments and random independent agencies all doing their own thing and i don't think they properly communicate along the way so what this budget actually managed to do though was firstly not pull off the warehouse tax on major online retailers properly but it's also now dragged in all our larger music venues to this new top tier of business rates to the point where one of our best known arena venues which i shan't known for now but you can probably guess it's in london their business rates under the new rates under the new regs their business rate could go up by around 80 percent that's 80 percent an 80 percent increase in business rate for a major live arena venue, which, I mean, in turn could and quite possibly very well might lead to your ticket prices having to go up by two or three pounds a ticket.

29:48Steve:That's what people are saying. Two or three pounds per ticket to help cover the increase in the business rate. And I mean, I know everyone thinks, you know, big arenas are raking it in and the promoters are having a field day with all these big top-end gigs. But there are still shows at that level which are kind of on a financial knife edge. And I don't think, you know, there's already talk that some of these geeks, they just won't happen now because the costs are too high. Because if you think the business rate has gone up, if you're an outside promoter coming in, then the arena is going to have to charge you more to cover their costs.

30:23Steve:So the promoter will take on more, you know, more debt, if you like. they will have to help how they're going to get it how they're going to get this money back because the hire of the venue is much more expensive well it's going to be passed on isn't it it's going to be passed on to to the audience and i mean i sympathize obviously with these with the big venues but it's just it's insane right we're going to tax i should just say we're going to tax Amazon, we've accidentally taxed the big venues, the big arena venues. But the thing is, though, I mean, I will say, you know, venues like this at the top end, they're flexible enough to be able to, you know, probably swallow the increase.

31:09Steve:I mean, they won't want to. Who wants an increase of 80 % in your tax bill? But they will probably survive, even if it's us who helps, you know, helps pay to keep them afloat. But the other end of the scale, and this is where it becomes an absolute disaster, because, I mean, we can't entirely put all the blame at government door for this, because alongside the new tiers of business rates, there was a restructuring of business rates, which was done by the Valuation Office Agency, who I'd never come across till last week. The BOA, they're independent of government, but they have come up with a complete re-evaluation of business rates for properties across the country.

31:57And this has thrown everything up in the air because rather than doing what we hoped government would do or this policy would do, which would be to reduce business rates for small businesses, including grassroots venues.