Spotify Wrapped is here (and why is it a big deal?); Why aren't there any matinee gigs?; Olivia Dean takes on Ticketmaster; and Jorja Smith takes on AI clones

0:04Hello 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 the stories and comments from 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. Spotify raps the downtown music takeover part 94 could matinee gigs help small venues more on AI firm Suno and Oasis merch outlets live forever but first this week's big number Stuart what's

0:41Stu:what's the figure that caught your eye this week it's 134 million dollars and that is the amount invested in artists by nine independent labels which is it's quite a specific number of labels um but i can explain so this is a report that came out um actually this morning as we talk from orca um not a random killer whale but it's a independent music think tank that launched last year and it's trying to get more numbers out on what independent labels do and how they kind of their value so they basically went through these nine labels and it's kind of some big ones it's dominoes in there ninja tune excel recordings partisan records some quite well-known independent labels just open up their books and said look go through it analyze it crunch numbers and they found yeah 134 million invested in artists um which is kind of a and r um signings the marketing support all that stuff yeah i was going to say what is it what does it include does it include advances recording promotion it's yeah it's a bunch of things it's a bunch of things yeah everything they've spent essentially on developing as artists, helping them record.

1:45Stu:And they reckon that for every$1 invested, they made back$1.77 in revenue. So from that$134 million of investment, they made back$239. And of that profit, 77 % went to the artists. Really? Which means around a third of the revenues went to artists, but 77 % in the profit. Which is kind of the reason for this report. it's kind of saying look we spend money and we invest in artists and we support them and this is what we do and why we're good um and our value i suppose so yeah it was a it's a good news so and it's it's if you're if anyone's interested in the in how the numbers work it's a good report because it breaks down what they do um and it also goes to stuff like about um diversity within these companies so i think it said it was something like almost a third of the executive and senior roles are held by women which is like more than 15 percent higher than the rest of the industry so it's also making that case for indie labels being diverse and inclusive so yeah all right here's our top three stories of the week starting with this uh which really had to be in our top three because it it has become one of the big annual festive talking points and by the time you hear this show it may well have taken over all your social feeds possibly in quite an annoying way because once again we're recording this on tuesday but this episode should arrive on wednesday just in time for the launch of Spotify Wrapped 2025.

3:12Well, what's your take on this, Stuart? I mean, it starts a lot of conversations, that much is true, but does it have a broader significance?

3:20Stu:Yeah, it certainly does. I mean, this began a few years ago. It's kind of just like it's the end of the year, here are some stats, because obviously every streaming show has a lot of stats on your listening. And it's like, yeah, here are your favourite artists of the year, here are your favourite songs of the year, based on how much you stream them. And it's just grown and grown, It's become this massive, it's like the music marketing Superbowl in a way. Well, maybe the Superbowl is a music marketing Superbowl, but you know what I mean? It's every December when it launches, everyone is sharing.

3:46Stu:It's very easy to share. It's got these things that are saying, right, here are your top 10 artists. Share this to Instagram, share this to TikTok. It's designed to get everyone boasting about their stats. And yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It does say how many minutes you listen for. It tells you kind of your top things were. but it's a weird year for it because I don't know if you remember last year's splurge when it was all over social media as usual but there was also more criticism people were saying it's the same old stats it's not as good as last year's they've got some riddance bits and there was quite a lot of pushback and actually in June Gustav Soderstrom who's one of Spotify's new bosses from January he kind of came out and admitted this and said yeah it was the biggest year in terms of numbers but the biggest in terms of negative feedback so although i haven't got the details yet i think they're going to push the boat out this year and make it we're very whizzy all kinds of numbers all kinds of stats um and the funny thing this week is um all their rivals try and get out ahead of it it's such a big thing that um this morning amazon music have done their year-end recap ds did theirs yesterday i suspect youtube will come out before they all try and get out ahead of the spotify blitz that happens when it launches yeah i mean this is the thing isn't it I mean it is as you say it's a discussion point for fans who like to challenge them each other as to you know whether they're in the top five percent of an artist listeners for the year and all that sort of thing but I mean it is when it when you when when you actually cut to the chase it's it's the biggest promotion drive for any streaming service anywhere isn't it that's what it is it's spotify's uh point in the year where everyone is talking about spotify because it's you know and everybody as you say is is sharing their stats so everyone's doing their promotional work for them so you have that on the one one hand but as you say i wonder i wonder this year not whether we'll see not just you know some pushback on you know whether it's any good or not but whether all the all the talk about it will be you know and all the say that the promotional opportunities that this provides for spotify whether that will be countered by quite a lot of noise from people who don't support spotify and this gives them a chance to once again be able to explain what is in their view wrong with spotify and what spotify could do better and i think we'll probably see a bit of that this year do you i think we will do because this year has been there's been a lot of criticism of spotify and one of the big things we talked about for example is its ceo's investment in arms company i think that's going to get another airing this week from people who are saying oh they're fed up with this rap stuff look they're investing in arms um most years before there's been a bit of pushback about the whole royalties thing like people saying spotify doesn't pay enough money out so we'll see a bit of that i mean to be fair to give them the credit it's a big moment for artists making money on spotify because for weeks leading up to it spotify goes right make sure you've got your merch updated on your spotify profile make sure your tickets your tour dates are up to date and it puts that stuff in front of people and says right so and so was your top artist here's their merch here's their tickets for the next tour so it's done more and more of that as every year's gone by and so it is a big moment in that sense for artists making money in a way that isn't but yeah i mean the other thing i mean i read a post actually it's someone we both know but i won't name because i'm always wary of naming people facebook posts it feels a bit private but someone we both know was talking about this and saying please don't put your spotify wrapped in my feed tell me what albums you love tell me the artist you discovered yourself don't don't do this marketing for this company and that has made me think a bit better like this is not a one company thing it's everyone everyone does it here's your top artists it's all about just how much you played stuff isn't it this you played whereas it's not about and i'm trying to think of stuff that's meaningful to me like what song makes me dance around the kitchen without fail or what album did i wake up in the middle of the night thinking about or what artists have I bored my friends silly down the pub with like there are all these things that if I was explaining to someone the stuff that's actually moved me this year I don't know if it would be the stuff I've played most by pure stream counts especially if I mean this year is not a good example of this but if I have a good exercise year I'm going to the gym a lot my Spotify top three is always the same it's the top three tracks in my gym playlist because I play the same thing there and so it doesn't mean anything that year about what I've discovered and loved.

8:09Stu:So I think that's another pushback we might see. We might see it sparing people to say, you know what, I have got Spotify wraps and some stats, but actually the thing I really loved this year was X. And here's a link to their band camp. And so I think that's, again, that's a positive thing. But yeah, it's going to be everywhere. Whether you like them or hate them, you're going to be having your say, sharing things. And then in a couple of days, it may die down and we can take stock. Story two, and this is an ongoing saga, this one but it's an important one uh the question remains will universal music group be allowed by regulators to buy the independent firm downtown music there has been a development this week and i know i asked you to recap this story every time every time we touch on it um but why is this a potential watershed moment for uh for the music landscape and what why are so many people so adamant that this takeover shouldn't go ahead yeah well like you say it's been running for a while now so downtown music it's not an independent label it's another kind of company it has it owns distributors like cd baby who get diy artist music up it's got a publishing division it's got a bit that collects royalties for songwriters and it's got a bit that helps independent labels manage their royalties and money so royalty processing software so it's got its finger in all these different pies of the independent music world and it's a big company and yeah universal said we're going to buy it we want to buy it and um yeah the argument there were various arguments to this.

9:36Stu:One argument is it makes Universal even more big, even more dominant. Another argument says it gives it a load of data on independent labels, royalties and businesses and streams. Another thing says it will destroy diversity. People say worry that as big major labels buy up more companies, they go with more safe music and the kind of risk taking. So there's all kinds of arguments. But yeah, so the European Commission regulators are the ones in the lead here. They're taking a look at this deal. And we've been talking about all the arguments for and against and people lobbying them. And they've sent what's called like an official statement of objections, which is like a very formal part of this process of analyzing deals.

10:13Stu:And what it said was, they're concerned that UMG may have the ability and incentive to gain access to commercially sensitive data that is stored and processed by downtown's curve. That's the bit that processes royalties for independent labels. And that could hamper rival labels' ability to incentive to compete with umg so the thing there this is quite nerdy is this isn't such good news for independent music because they've raised a whole bunch of objections to this deal like four or five different things and the regular is saying well it's just one thing we're worried about this royalty processing bit of downtown if it buys them it could have an advantage it's not really talked about anything else anyone's complained about with the implication being i suppose that this is the only thing if they can sort this out yeah fine go ahead buy it we're not worried about the other things that indies have been saying they're worried about um and universal for example could sell this this division called curve and that might sort out the worries um so yeah so there was like so impala who's the european independent body they put a statement out and they were kind of saying we kind of welcome this because it's but but they all said we they also seem quite unhappy and saying we want to address all the concerns we've raised we don't want to be abandoning issues of cultural diversity of the competitors so the indies are saying yeah we're not really happy with this it's too narrow a thing um but universal universal you know had his own statement saying it's a normal step in the process and we're going to work constructively with the commission so what it looks like is if they can if universal can address this concern the deal may get approved and that's going to be another uh you know good news for universal music but possibly another outbreak of anger from the Indies who don't want to see the deal happen.

11:55Story three this week. Olivia Dean, who's obviously one of the big breakout British stars of this year. Olivia Dean's getting ready for a big North American tour, but why is she so cross with someone involved in the tour, in this case, Ticketmaster?

12:16Stu:yeah she went on instagram and was really cross so this is a living like she's been one of the breakout stars this year hasn't she from from the uk she's got this big north american tour coming up and tickets went on sale and they were immediately being flogged like a huge markup on ticket master's own reselling site and she came out and she came out swinging with the story saying yeah it's a disgusting service violent completely against our wishes and you know told fans don't do this don't pay overpay and where it gets really interesting is normally you wouldn't expect the company to respond but Ticketmaster reshared her post so it kind of you know reshared her post to all its followers while saying oh we agree kind of this is terrible and what they did was so Ticketmaster they capped resale prices for liveries too at face value so you can't now sell them on Ticketmaster for anything more than you paid for them and then about a few days later it came out with another announcement saying we're also going to refund fans who overpaid the tickets on Ticketmaster again not anywhere else um with this announcement had a quote from the CEO himself Michael Rapina the boss of Live Nation and Ticketmaster saying we echo Olivia's call to do better and have taken steps to lead by example which as in terms of an artist having an impact on a big company it's one of the biggest examples but and the context of that is Live Nation is facing all kinds of issues in the US so it's being sued by the financial regulator there and the Justice Department and so it really didn't need another big artist ticket controversy like the one I don't even remember there was a Taylor Swift one a few years ago where tickets were and it got in a lot of trouble about that and that sparked a lot of these investigations so you can tell this time they'll be like right quick get on this respond and but good on her I mean like Olivia Dean is still relatively new isn't she she's kind of growing and to take on ticket master is a very very brave thing for an artist that to do yeah yeah um all right some uh other business any other business i'll tell you what we uh we should start with suno i mean i know we've spoken an awful lot about suno uh recently but last week i mean we were sat here last tuesday discussing how suno had just raised millions of dollars in new funding despite apparently being at war with the major labels.

14:30But we were speculating, weren't we, about why are investors putting their money into a company that was at the centre of so much legal action? Because up until last week, Suno was being sued for alleged infringement of copyright, essentially, with all the major labels claiming that they, as an AI company, had trained their software on music, which hadn't officially been licensed or paid for. so and we said why is why why why is there money being thrust at this company does somebody know something that we don't know uh and possibly they did because i mean literally it was less than an hour after we'd press stop on the recording that the news broke that yeah guess what suno have indeed finally signed a bunch of official licensing deals i think and i can't remember that nearly everyone well they've gone out and done a lot of deals well so this case it's just one big one so

15:26Stu:far oh is it okay yeah this is warner music group right um so their first major deal and yeah it's good it says two bits to this that are interesting so the first bit is like what's going to happen and suno said yeah we're going to launch a new ai music model next year um we're going to train it on licensed music and they're going to and and it's going to be and this is the quote it'll be introducing content from wmg artists who opt in for the use of their names images likenesses voices and compositions to be used in new AI-generated music. So if Ed Sheeran goes, okay, I'm in for this, then you could go onto this new CUNO model and say, make me something in the style of Ed Sheeran and he'll get paid.

16:06Stu:So that's one thing. And then the other thing is there's going to be some restrictions too. So as part of it, signing licensing deals from CUNO. If you are a CUNO user but you're not paying for it, you won't be able to download the songs you make. We will just share them, which means that you can't go on there, make 100 tracks for free download them all and stick them up on spotify as a made-up artist yeah um if you want to do that you'll have to pay which means there'll be money that can then be shared with the music industry so that's what it's about really is people who want to do stuff with their identity music will have to pay and that money can be paid shared out in royalties with warning music but then anyone else and i think it's pretty obvious they're gonna have they're gonna they'll be doing deals with the other majors and hopefully independents too because it's no use having just one.

16:50Stu:You want more. We're going to come back to, there's another AI story, which has actually had quite a lot of publicity this week. The Georgia Smith story we'll get to in a second, but here's something from our inbox, the Price of Music podcast inbox, which we said we'd come back to this this week. By the way, thank you very much for all your feedback recently and your questions and observations. This is from Stuart Ferguson who says, hi gents i've just been listening to your discussion on the podcast about bands and venues publicizing stage and finish times it got me thinking and i want to ask why don't more bands and venues do afternoon gigs i get it during the week but why not do it more on a weekend i must admit that i think twice about going to a gig on a sunday night as i've then got a week of work to prep for i'd be much more likely to go to a gig on a sunday afternoon the theater world does this all the time and wouldn't it give bands the opportunity to do more gigs and make more money similarly with venues putting on two or even three gigs in a day might bring economies of scale or allow them to keep a crowd maybe for for an evening indie disco um Stuart thank you very much for raising this I mean it is something that's been talked about quite a bit at grassroots level and there are venues who are already proactively doing more to make the use of their buildings during the daytimes and on the face of it I mean if you could put two events on in a day then wouldn't that bring you double the income that you'd get from just one gig in the evening well the problem here and it won't surprise you Stuart is there's an awful lot of factors that

18:28Steve:you have to take into account so Mr Dredge if it's okay with you can I just walk you through some thoughts which I screw up some notes yeah I screw up so the first thing Tuller Stuart correspondence to you the first thing what i guess if look at it through the eyes of the promoter uh the person who's putting on gigs and runs the venue uh the first question is will you pull an audience because i mean you and i and possibly quite a few other listeners we might fancy the odd saturday or sunday lunchtime or matinee gig but and you might be surprised by this but i've had conversations with a lot of people on this subject and not not everyone is such a fan of the idea because they'd just much rather go out at night because in some cases it's their big night out of the week um or as i've been told we've got other things to do of a saturday afternoon or a sunday afternoon uh and i know there are there's there are sections of the audience who would who would definitely be bang up for this which and i suspect it's it's it's that age it's usually in the sort of mid-30s to 50s age bracket, I think.

19:37Those are the sort of people you could probably attract.

19:41Steve:But do you have enough of them who you can trust to turn up? That's the first question. I mean, you could add a matinee show for younger fans who might not be able to attend an evening event for whatever reason. But then, of course, you've got to be very careful when it comes to who you're booking because you probably need a specific genre of music to appeal to a younger crowd. So that you'd have to consider. And of course, depending on the age brackets and the venue's licensing regulations, do you then have to think about, do we make it an alcohol-free event? Or what can we do to get around the licensing regs?

20:24Steve:Which is actually something I'll come back to in a moment, the subject of alcohol. But anyway, for sake of argument, let's say there's an acceptable level of demand for tickets so then it is a case of who are you going to book you could probably you're probably fine getting the local band in because they're probably newish and they haven't got far to travel so they'd leap at the chance to play at any time in a venue and they would probably bring a few of their friends in so you could do that if they're big enough to pack the venue or you book a touring band of course when it comes to touring bands you just have to you've got to constantly be aware of the logistics because if you're if you're on tour say in glasgow one night uh but you're off to i mean even manchester the following day that's quite an early start probably if you've crashed out at a travel lodge in scotland at two o 'clock in the morning you're going to have to be on the road reasonably early to sound check at midday the next day and i'm not an eager hungry young artist will probably be up for this others might need some more persuading but and also there's there's the demands on the bands you know for instance and this is occasionally a problem particularly singers and singers who lose their voice if they over perform too many times you know if the singer's voice is going to feel the strain especially if the matinee is then followed by a proper gig in the evening um will that be a problem because some artists are just less tour resilient than others i think but Again, you know, still, let's go with this is still doable, unless, and here's one other thing, which I haven't anecdotally checked this, but I do suspect quite a few grassroots venues, particularly those with near neighbours, probably have agreements with their local council that they'll minimise noise and disruption to the people living nearby.

22:13Steve:so that's probably in the agreement you are allowed to make a certain amount of noise and we agree to put on gigs between these times but a band turning up and loading in at 11 o 'clock in the morning front followed by a crowd of you know the audience turfing up at noon um again probably fine with a lot of venues but i think you'd have to check to see um if others would be pushing their luck with the local residents by doing a matinee gig but anyway again right let's say we think we can attract a bit of an audience we have an artist who's big enough to sell tickets who's happy to play at two o 'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday quickly going back Stuart to your point about matinees where you say the theatre world does this all the time and wouldn't it give bands the opportunity to do more gigs and make more money the difference here I think is that theatres can pretty much charge the ticket price that they want to cover their costs so i think even without selling out the venue sometimes the theater will it won't lose a lot of money it'll probably cover costs might even you know make money uh and you know it's on plus on top of that you've got your expensive wine chocolates programs you know everything else that you can sell to up the income so chances are that every time the theatre opens its doors they'll be breaking even or in profit or maybe the shows that aren't in profit will be paid for by the ones that are that do do well but the theatre run is there for a long time and as I say you can charge you can charge pretty much what you want to cover your costs whereas unfortunately for venues there is an upper limit as to what people will pay to go to your grassroots venue for the artists that you're putting on.

24:09Steve:And it is, unfortunately, this is sadly the case for small venues because of all the reasons we've spoken about before. Nearly, I mean, it's somewhere around half of grassroots venues are just not in a position to make money at the moment for a list of reasons. You know, all the things we've touched on, heating, lighting, staff costs, paying the band, increased rents. And on top of all of that, given the budget last week, effectively an increase in business rates as well. So all this means, I'm afraid, whatever time of day it is, you can't make money. And there is unfortunately no economy of scale to this.

24:47Steve:Because I spoke to someone who is well versed in the grassroots scene and put your point to them about matinees. And the answer that came back essentially was the uncomfortable truth that, and I quote, venues lose money putting on live music. And unfortunately, that applies equally to the matinee, where even on a day with a second show later on, you will still need to pay the crew, artists, staff. Then there's the cost of power, water, etc. And you're unlikely to be able to sell enough drinks to raise the cash to pay for them. this because this is the point we are sadly living in an era where ticket prices aren't enough to break even with and people are spending less on drinks and food in a venue and so every time the venue opens its doors it's struggling to to stay afloat and this is why the model needs to change or something needs to be done i mean obviously though you know there are things which would really help if if you are if you are at a break-even level or just you know you're at level where you're losing a bit of money how do we reset that for small venues well a real reduction in business rates a reduction from government on the 20 that they take in vat from ticket sales obviously there are things that the industry can be doing like this like the one pound grassroots ticket levy which was which was launched because of concerns about you know everything we're talking about, about the fact that it's so hard for a venue to make money, even if you fill the place.

26:22So it's a hard one. It's a great idea. I do think there are some venues for which a matinee will work. If you're a venue with a good reputation and a good fan base and artists love playing there and you can be sure of people turning up and drinking a couple of pints then then you'll be all right um but i think at the end of the you know the thing that's most upsetting about this suggestion stuart it's it's if there was more it's just about if there was more money in the in the grassroots or in local music communities you know the thing is

27:00Steve:venues could be doing more of this as i say there are places that are doing matinees and i think it's a really nice idea and you know venues could if they had the money they could take the risk and try things like this out you know they could do some of the great things that these promoters at grassroots level are capable of you know and not have to worry about the money and that would give fans more of a choice and that would give bands more opportunities and it would be okay because would help fund new music in this country properly. Alas, at the moment, sadly, that isn't the case. But thank you very much for getting in touch.

27:43Steve:If you've got any thoughts on this or, as I say, stories from your local area where gigs like this have or haven't happened, drop us a line. I'll give you the email address very shortly. A couple more items before we go. You may have read about this one already. as mentioned georgia smith is at the center of a row about ai technology and sound alikes give us a give us the bare bones of this shirt yeah sure so this starts with a track called i

28:13Stu:run which came out from producer called haven and it started picking up buzz online partly because it's a good good song but also people were thinking is that georgia smith because it really sounds like her yeah and to be fair in some of the social media posts by haven had the hashtag Georgia Smith, which doesn't exactly scotch that speculation. But it's not Georgia Smith. It was a male singer who then processed their vocals using Suno again, recurring theme, to give them a female turn. Essentially a man singing into microphone and using an AI to turn it into a woman's voice. And that woman did sound a lot like Georgia Smith.

28:47Right. There's so much which is wrong with this already, but go on.

28:52Stu:Yeah. And so this has already been a big old hoo-ha once because a couple of weeks ago Spotify and other streaming services took the track down saying it was impersonation and the official charts company barred it from the chart which is unusual you know um and then Haven released a new version with an actual human woman singing it uh and that that went up and then that that you might think that might settle the controversy but no this week um so Georgia's label fam um they've reignited the controversy so they basically they posted on Instagram this seems to be the place this week to kind of criticize in the instagram posts yeah um and they've they said right we're going to seek a share in the rights to this song because we still think it's been it's been trained on george's music and george's voice uh we want to share in the rights and we're going to share any royalties with all of our songwriters for all of our music because their work has been used too um and they also had a go at haven and his team for that social media promotion saying they didn't they could have been much faster to take but it's not george smith and almost the suggestion from her label is that they're leaving that kind of ambiguous help promote the track because people thought it might be her um and then there's a guy called andrew benz who runs a label that released this song i run he's in the comments of this instagram post being really spiky saying everyone uses hashtags in this way and that that caused a pile on and saying that the track only went viral when georgia smith herself posted about it on tiktok and so that's now an almighty argument um but what it boils down to when thinking about this is this is going to be i mean i think a lot of us will look at what her label is saying and feel great sympathy with this like they're feeling really hard done by um it's quite hard to prove this in court i think like proving to what extent george's voice and music went into these specific vocals on this track because suno isn't designed for that there's a word for this is attribution it's a big word in the music industry right now like okay this song maybe now these vocals maybe it's one percent that artist two percent that song these systems aren't built for that and so it's very hard to reverse engineer it and understand it and say right well um and you can't just go and type in i want georgia smith vocals because it blocks that yeah yeah but you can you can keep going until you find something that you essentially which does the job that you want it to do though So, I mean, typing in George Smith and getting a George Smith sound would be a shortcut, but you can still do it.

31:14Here's one thing here, which sooner or later, aren't we going to get a legal test case? Because say this did end up in court and say we have the problem of –

31:28Steve:because it will be about – it falls to the label and the artist to prove, does it, I guess, that they've been impersonated, which is, as you say, is hard. But imagine if they lost this case, doesn't that open the door to loads of people just chanting it? I mean, it could be really sooner or later we're going to have a test case which either will go well for the artist and put people off doing this or will go badly for the artist and mean that other people will probably think, well, they got away with it.

32:03Stu:well that's it and it's like a lot of legal cases a lot to lose on both sides which is where settlements come in and you know i suppose in my head the the ideal outcome for this might be some kind of deal where that some rights are shared and the maximum transparency about what it is and how it was done and i think we're working our way towards that although i mean there was there was within this post from the label they were like yeah they asked her to jump on the remix of the track once it started getting big and we said no naff off um but it is weird i mean it is it's strange and fam is saying i want to spark a debate about this you know he wants to say this isn't cool what do we do about this in industry which is kind of the story of this year in a nutshell isn't it what do we do about this um but to your point i was kind of i was i was looking at this and thinking yeah it is how do you get an ai to try and make you something that's and it is it's a case of breaking down a human artist into tags which is a really sort of weird frightening process to think about so obviously i went and tried to get chat gpt to do it for me i said what tags would you use of Georgia Smith?

33:04Stu:And it came back with 30 tags that are like neo-soul, jazz influence, introspective, UK soul, confessional songwriting, warm tone, youthful perspective, late night guy. Can I just stop you there? Because otherwise someone is going to take all your hashtags and make another Georgia Smith and then we'll be complicit in having help someone else impersonate Georgia Smith. I won't do it anymore. But that's what really, really hit home with me from this post by her label, which is they're saying this feels uncool and wrong. But we don't know. And I think legally it's difficult. You've got to use a smoking gun of they were trying to impersonate her.

33:43Stu:And then there's a separate issue if you're marketing it misleadingly and suggesting it's her. But yeah, I think it is sparking a debate. And the fact is that this has been already BBC News did a big story on this. This is crossing over from our music industry circles to general music fans being aware of this. And I think that's what's fascinating for me because we're seeing what people think of this who aren't enmeshed in the weeds of AI tech and policy. And finally for this week, the Oasis tour may be finished, but the opportunities to sell fans their merchandise, certainly that isn't over. Oh no, the band have reopened their pop-up merch stores in London and Dublin.

34:21Do you think this is just, this is all the stuff that they didn't sell on the tour? And now, right, we're going to have to get rid of this somehow. So we'll just open the shops again. Or is there ongoing demand?

34:34Stu:Well, I think Noddy Holder would know why this is happening. It's Christmas. So this is like, this is it. And as soon as the last concert happened, the pop-ups are back. But in time for Christmas, they're opening on around, I think, the 4th and 5th of December and staying open until the 22nd, I think it is, 21st. Right. this is very much christmas shopping for the fan in your life who loved the oasis gigs this year and it's another chance to buy all this stuff that was limited edition because a lot of it was branded around this tour yeah yeah um and so i think it's pretty smart really because what they did was what i thought was interesting at the time is what they did was they took the merch out of the venues or that was there as well and they had their own space they could be completely creative with and also they didn't have to you know they they they rented a space and they took all the money.

35:21Stu:And now you can do it again. And this stuff is all still online as well. And it is very much. This maybe is going to be something where it comes in for the biggest tours. It's like you can do your pop-up merch around the concerts, but why stop there? Why not have a pop-up at Christmas? Like all those Christmas poppers on Oxford Street that kind of spring up in December and then spring down again. Music merch is now, yeah.

35:43Steve:Well, we are out of time for this week. Thank you very much for listening and making it this far. But if you are enjoying what we're trying to do, please do help us with, well, by spreading the word. If you can tell your friends, your colleagues, leave us a review online, repost the show from around the socials. You know, the sort of thing. Alternatively, of course, you can support us via Patreon. In fact, if you sign up to be a super fan, you do get an extra chunk of the show, which is me and him chatting about music and money. this week that will include acrimonious band breakups, Stuart versus Australia, and a fake Johnny Cash is causing all kinds of problems for Coca-Cola.

36:24Plus she gets occasional other benefits including a part in our up-and-coming Price of Music Christmas pop quiz. You can become a super fan of the show at patreon.com slash the price of music. We welcome on board John Pugh. Thank you very much john uh who's our newest super fan uh as i say if you'd like to join the gang patreon.com slash the price of music uh alternatively if you'd just like to get in touch with us drop us an email anything you don't understand about how the industry works or points about the industry that you'd like to share with us or any as i always say any guidance or advice from the professionals uh the address is the price of music podcast at gmail.com that's the price of

37:09Steve:music podcast at gmail.com thanks uh again everybody for listening we'll be back next wednesday ta-ra

37:33Thank you.