Why don't venues advertise set times for gigs?; Ticket resale prices capped in the UK; Megadeth brew beer; *How many* people are already listening to "All I Want For Christmas Is You"?; & much more...

0:02Steve:Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally, the show that enjoys nothing more than pondering the finances of the music industry while trying to make sense of this weird pop music landscape we live in. I'm Steve Lemaque, he's Stuart Dredge. If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music biz and how it all works and how the figures stack up, then here we are. this week more streaming service changes and innovations records that made number two in the chart the government versus ticket touts should venues publicize stage times and megadeth are going down the pub but first stewart's big stat of the week give us a big number stew

0:42Stu:my big stat is 10 million and that is how many youtube views mariah carey's festive classic all i want for christmas is you got in the first week of november

0:56Steve:so where does that where does that uh is it the biggest christmas out of the traps very early uh but is that already the biggest christmas record of 2025 so far it is yeah it was number

1:08Stu:55 in youtube's global top songs chart and it went top 20 in the u.s um wham's last christmas is also there and thereabouts but and this is mirrored elsewhere i was thinking is this a weird youtube thing but no it's so right now the day we're talking um all i want for christmas is you is the 11th biggest song in spotify in the world by daily streams really um more than two and the weird thing is like i looked at that and thought maybe there is there are some countries that do go massively early on christmas songs like the philippines famously start playing christmas songs in october it's cultural habits but no in the uk spotify chart it's eighth mariah carey and

1:44Steve:last christmas is right so people really are it's too early it's like mind you having said that we were on the drive down to minehead for the shine on festival on friday uh myself and my friend tom who was driving in the pouring rain it was really testing journey but the last leg of the journey is just through countryside basically we passed at least two houses that were already festooned with decorations i mean they're probably the ones responsible for this they've just got it on a loop And I suppose that's the other thing. If everyone's made their Christmas playlists already, then of course the plays are going to rack up on probably an hourly basis.

2:25Stu:Well, that's it. And if you like to celebrate these things and festoon your house, like Halloween is out of the way. And I mean, all we've got really in terms of, I mean, it's Black Friday coming up, isn't it? But that's a shopping thing. You don't decorate your house for it. So I think people really are starting to know Christmas. I mean, I've ordered some pigs in blankets to stick in the freezer. so that's as far as I've gone. But I haven't played any Christmas music.

2:46Steve:We should do a Christmas earnings chart for songs that sell every year and how much they earn for the people responsible and maybe how that has changed during the streaming era as well. Put that on your to-do list, Stuart. Right, our top stories for this week. Story one, Spotify is shaking up its subscription tiers as a test in five countries to start with. what does what does this say about its future plans then for elsewhere in the world yeah so

3:17Stu:this is happening not in the uk it's happening in india indonesia saudi arabia south africa and united arab emirates so kind of five countries you describe as high potential countries they're growing fast but they're not the big mature places and um yeah what's happening is they're splitting their premium subscription to three different tiers so you can have premium light premium standard and premium platinum which makes me think of nando's cards and things like that um and basically what it will happen is what where it work is premium light will just remove the ads when you play music premium standard has better sound quality and you can download things to listen offline and premium platinum will have everything else like all the other whizzy features that spotify has launched anything else new and you'll also be to add two people in your home to it and so i guess to explain what that means so first it's the idea of spotify testing splitting out its premium screen into three different tiers and saying right if you want all the stuff you have to pay more and in those countries people are going to be paying more for that platinum tier than they were paying for a normal subscription before and they're also it's there's no family plan so i don't know if you've seen spotify's family plan um it's quite a common thing is doing you you pay i think it's 22 pounds a month and you can have up to five other people in your house sold on it.

4:35Stu:There's no family plan in this new structure in these countries. And what that says to me is like labels sometimes grumble about this and say it's quite generous. Because if you're paying£22 a month for six people, that's like£3.70 each. And I think labels someone say that's a bit generous. We would rather have their own subscriptions. So this feels a little bit like Spotify testing out whether it can reign that in. If you're a family of more than three people, you'd need two of these platinum subscriptions

5:02Steve:to cover you all you wouldn't be able to have one plan so to me it feels like it's a test it's not happening here anytime soon but it is a moving direction of something like a netflix really

5:14Stu:where like you have you don't just have one premium subscription to choose and that's it you actually have the expensive one the medium one the light one and they try and move people

5:23Steve:up that as they go right okay uh story two and this is the reason dear listeners while we're why we're slightly late coming to you this week because, well, we're recording this as we always do on Tuesday lunchtime, but the next story was embargoed until five o 'clock on Wednesday. And unlike The Guardian, who leaked this story as early as Monday evening online, we thought we'll stick to the embargo. So this story should officially now be out there. And it is news that Labour have finally announced the conclusions of their lengthy consultation into ticket resale. This is the government's plans to tackle the touts by capping the amount of money you can resell tickets for, basically capping the markup.

6:16Steve:That was the discussion. And I mean, we've talked about this on numerous occasions and referenced it over the last few months ourselves. But I mean, this ticket consultation has been going on for some time. And it was slightly delayed, I think, by a change of minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, but they've finally got to there. And they've actually gone much further than even some industry insiders might have hoped for. Stuart, you've got the actual report in front of you, I think.

6:43Stu:Yeah, you have. So, I mean, there were reports about this in advance. It's been long-trailed. They were saying, yeah, they're probably going to put a cap on resales of up to 30%. So I guess if you bought a ticket for 100 quid, you could only sell it for 130 quid reseller. but no they've come out and said it's going to be illegal to resell tickets for not just music concerts but sporting events theater comedy for anything more than the original cost so if you buy a ticket for 100 quid you could only resell it for 100 quid and then wherever you resell it can put fees on top of that if they want but those are going to be capped too so they can't just like

7:13Steve:bump up their fees yeah i mean this is as i say this is it's probably a better result for the music industry certainly than maybe even some people thought because as you say it started with as much as a 30 % markup. And obviously the industry is saying, well, if people can still sell, resell tickets for up to 30 % more than they bought them for, that still gives the touts a living. Whereas, you know, I think we were all thinking, well, 10%, at least 10%, would it make the touts life worthwhile? Would they still do it? But to actually cap resale at the original face value of the tickets, I think is bolder than we thought it was going to be.

7:56Stu:Yeah, and there's some figures in the press release actually. They reckon that this will make resold tickets £37 cheaper on average and they reckon it will save fans£112 million a year. So they've obviously been doing some crunching to figure out what this will mean. And the other thing is you won't be able to resell more tickets than you were allowed to buy in the original sale. So if someone puts a concert on sale and you can get a maximum of four tickets per person, You can't then go and resell 10 tickets. Not that you make any profit from that if you were doing it under this new system.

8:27Steve:There are one or two things which are interesting. There's a couple of, we should add a couple of caveats. There may be some additional costs involved in, you know, some fees for reselling, which would go on top of the original ticket price. But I think they're going to cap those, aren't they, to make sure there isn't a loophole where you say, well, the fees are£100 for your£100 ticket. The other thing which I think is worth mentioning and was something which certainly some of the resale sites were saying was if you drive us out of business, then all this is going to go underground on social media and people will just be selling their own tickets on social media.

9:08Steve:But social media platforms are also covered by this bill, I think, or by the reforms they're talking about.

9:16Stu:And it's got teeth, I think. I think they can be fined a certain percentage of their revenues if they're found to be allowing this to happen. And if you're a Facebook, if you're an Instagram, that's a lot of money. So there's an... Yeah, so it was interesting to me watching the reaction. So again, like I say, The Guardian, I don't know if they leaked it or they just had sources telling them, but they wrote a big story about this on Monday. And then Billboard covered it in the US, and they got some reactions. So I think Billboard had Live Nation, Ticketmaster's peri company, saying, we welcome this, it's a really good idea.

9:44Stu:we already use a policy in the uk with ticketmaster and we support this so they're behind it um and they had stub hub and viagogo sort of saying we think terrible and like you say that they were saying this is going to drive it all underground it's going to be really bad news um and it's a weird week i mean it's a bad week if you're those companies because simultaneously as this report came out about what the government's going to do um the competition regulator here is also opening an investigation into both companies. And it's looking at the fees they charge and whether they're properly included up front.

10:17Stu:So as well as having this crackdown on what they can resell tickets for, they're also facing a competition investigation, which, I mean, I was writing, StubHub recently went public. It floated publicly on Stock Exchange in the US. And so it's got a share price that reacts to this. And I think its share price took a pit yesterday from these two bits of news. So it is a really kind of tough thing. And I think, well, you can tell me more if I'm being right here. I feel in the music industry, there's not going to be so much sympathy for those companies. People aren't going to be crying.

10:48Steve:I mean, I can't speak for the industry as a whole, despite my position within live music. So I have to be quite careful. But I don't, yes, I don't think there'll be a lot of sympathy towards Viagogo and StubHub, to be honest. No. And obviously the question now is what next for those companies? if because the the model has but this is where people have been going to resell tickets for some sort of profit let's make the point as well you can still resell a ticket so you're if you're a fan and you genuinely can't go to a gig that you bought the ticket for you should be fine but you won't be able to make a profit out of it that's where yeah that's where we are and there are

11:30Stu:problems like we've talked about twickets before haven't we that's big thing was always you can

11:34Steve:resale for face value it's a fair thing um we buy shares in twickets sell sell stub hub buy twickets there we go and that's the financial markets covered for this week sorted that yeah

11:46Stu:but i think um i think it does feel like a fan for anything and i think the the question i have i think is is there something in what those companies are saying about it going underground and what's happening so i i like i don't i don't assume it's just them reacting and saying making any then there probably is some risk that this could go underground. And so I'll be interested to see how the government is going to approach that, how they tackle. And I guess, what does it mean for kind of physical touting? Is physical touting going to make a little comeback with the guy around the corner from the venue going, got tickets?

12:17Because now they haven't got online competition, perhaps.

12:21Stu:So maybe there's a resurgence in the physical touting. Who knows?

12:24Steve:We shall see. Story three this week, there's a new record just out, and includes a brand new track from Paul McCartney, although you won't hear him singing on the record or indeed playing any instruments on it either. Tell us about this. It's musicians, once again, making the points, making their point felt when it comes to the influence of AI in the music industry. Yeah.

12:53Stu:What do you remember earlier this year? We talked about this album. It was called Is This What You Want? or is this what we want?

13:00Steve:Is this the one which had the silent Kate Bush track on it or somebody mic'd up a studio where Kate Bush had been recording but wasn't there at the time and it's just ambient sound of Kate Bush's recording studio? Or was that a fever dream I've just had?

13:15Stu:No, that was it. And do you remember, actually, the thing you said at the time was there was this album, it's basically, yeah, like you said, it's recordings of empty recording studios and empty concert venues. And the idea is if the government relaxes copyright rules for AI companies this is what you end up with no musicians recording in studios and playing gigs um and yeah I think you had a theory you were like there was one track on this album where you could hear someone sit down and do a little sigh and you're like I wonder if that's Kate Bush and I had an email from someone who would know who said that wasn't Kate Bush not the one with the side but she is on one of the other tracks so um so this so now it's coming out on vinyl so 28 quid but you get this bonus track from Paul McCartney, which I mean, I hope he's there.

13:58Stu:I hope it's not just like his studio with no one in it. I hope he was like sitting in the corner. I don't know. Maybe just humming under his breath, you know, going humming the frog chorus sort of gently. Um, but he's been, he's been actually one of the biggest, um, stars to be advocating for this issue. Hasn't he? Him. And I'd say him and Bjorn or various from ABBA have been the real, at the head of artists saying, please don't let AI companies just scrape all our stuff without paying us or asking permission. Um, And the backdrop to this is that the government was sort of mulling the possibility of, yeah, we might relax this and we need to help AI companies because AI is the future, blah, blah, blah.

14:34Stu:And then you turned and said, we're not going to do that thing that you're worried about. But it hasn't said what it is going to do. It hasn't said how it's going to approach this whole area. So I think this is why the album is still coming out. This is why the campaign is still going, because it hasn't gone away as a threat. and my favorite thing was there was a press release for this this final album and it's a guy called paul sanders from the state 51 conspiracy they're releasing the album and he gave this quote and the quote ended up explaining that what happens to the sales of sound well all profits go to help musicians he said which is what our politicians should be doing instead of sucking up to tech bros so there's some good good singers but yeah so yeah very concise um any other

15:18Steve:business i know you wanted to mention a new squeeze album which is a new squeeze album but it's all old songs really old songs i believe yeah i just like this because i you know i mean

15:30Stu:you must see so many press releases with new albums and you sort of they can wash over you a bit but this one so the album's called trick season it squeezes first album of like new music in eight years but the songs were written by the two main members chris differed and glenn tilbrook when they were 16 so when they were 16 before squeeze had taken off they wrote this concept album set in a fictional nightclub which for 16 year olds you've got to say it's pretty ambitious and what they said was and there's a quote saying these were songs we just didn't have enough musical experience to record properly so they've written them but they couldn't do them justice and now they can and they're going back to it which i don't know it reminded me that you you will know this more than i do i think but the new pulp album that came out i'm fairly sure at least one of the tracks was written like 27 28 years ago yeah i mean they came back to it it's quiet

16:19Steve:when you'll find this happens quite often it's that bands radiohead will talk about this when they'll leave an idea behind and revisit it a lot of bands find songs which they write and they just cannot finish because they can't quite they don't know what it is they can't finally fit it into shape to make a song out of it. And so, yeah, and so a lot of songs just get sort of left behind because either they don't fit or they were just too awkward a piece to be able to complete properly. So I'm sure there's probably other, I mean, I'm not sure other artists have got entire concept albums lying around under their beds, you know, folders for the most lyrics.

17:02Stu:Most 16-year-olds' concept albums would be definitely not worth hearing. I've got a, I had a thought about this and I'm worried that it will be very offensive to musicians. And I want you to stop me if it is before I get canceled. Okay. All right. But I feel like the stereotypical journey of musician is you think as they get older, their freshest, hungriest songwriting happens when they're young at the start of their career. And for a lot of musicians, it kind of gradually gets their writing the same stuff they always have. or you know that's the perspective is that they get their songwriting gets less original as they get older but their musical proficiency increases you get better at playing music but your songs maybe you know you're writing about being on a tour bus in a hotel and no one cares and like a lot of bands even that i love as they got older their songs became less interesting um i mean

17:52Steve:mark of a great can that can be true but then there's certainly you will write raw energetic interesting economical songs when you start because you don't have the ability possibly to do anything else um but i think it depends it's all about the ideas isn't it sometimes a bit more experience and a bit more proficiency with your instruments leads to more interesting music down the down the line though i think it's all to do with whether you're you know reinventing yourselves or it's yeah as you say i mean it's a band is or an artist is you really hungry at the start, not necessarily at their best at the start, though, I don't think.

18:32Steve:Some people's debut albums are the best thing they're ever going to do and they should stop. Other people's aren't. Well, that's it. I was thinking, obviously, the great songwriters are the ones

18:40Stu:that buck that rule completely. They evolve and they get better and better and deeper and richer. But it did make me think there is something here. If you're a musician, I'm not saying this is about Squeeze either because I think they're examples of songwriters who've constantly evolved. but if you are in that point where you're thinking i'm not sure about my new songs or i'm having a write-it blank but then going back to that stuff you wrote when you were young and saying well i