Music Ally Focus

Music Ally Focus #68: This week, we happily welcome music journalist and broadcaster Greg Cochrane, co-host of the Sounds Like A Plan podcast – which is in its third season, and explores how the music industry is responding to the climate crisis. The world is apparently speedrunning through the climate crisis and we all need to do our part to make the significant changes that will help minimise the damage to planet earth. But while we dutifully recycle our paper and plastics, are the big multinational music businesses doing their part? We discuss this with Greg, and ask him what the music industry is doing, what it must do better – and how we can all make a difference, regardless of whether we're a CEO or a DIY artist. Listen to the Sounds Like A Plan podcast here: linktr.ee/Soundslikeaplanpodcast Music Ally's reporting on the climate emergency: musically.com/tag/climate-emergency Greg's music choice: Anohni's "4 Degrees" youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

We welcome Dorothy Carvello, former Atlantic A&R exec, and now author and campaigner for women in the music industry, to the podcast. Content warning: this podcast will discuss sexism, misogyny, and sexual assault. Carvello has recently launched her Face the Music Now Foundation, which aims to support women experiencing abuse in the music industry, and to force through widespread change. Carvallo is extremely blunt in her observations and opinions. Major music companies, she says, are protecting abusers within their ranks, and shutting down women who make accusations via big cheques and NDAs. She also talks of the fear of speaking out and the need for transparency: “no 20 year old woman should have to say ‘if I speak up I’m afraid my career will be over.’ – that’s morally wrong. And it’s bad business! #MeToo is bad for the bottom line – and companies need to wake up and start realising that.” She also talks about the work her foundation is doing to affect change, including via shareholder activism and trying to hold publicly-traded companies to account – because, she says, that unless change starts at the top, things are unlikely to change. Face The Music Now Foundation: facethemusicnow.com ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

It goes without saying that if you make or market music, you need to understand fans. The writer, journalist and broadcaster Jude Rogers is our latest guest, and she talks about the nature of modern fandom – and what it is that fans feel in the connection with their favourite artist. Jude has just published a new book, The Sound of Being Human, which tells the story of what it feels like to be a music fan, through a series of personal recollections and wider research framed around a bunch of classic songs. On the surface this episode may not seem to be your archetypal music industry podcast topic – but Jude's book exposes the human side of the industry that we can sometimes lose track of amongst all the discussion of marketing KPIs and so on. Jude talks to Joe Sparrow about what makes fans to do all the obsessive fan-stuff, and what they want from artists in return. Jude's new book, The Sound Of Being Human: https://www.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/titles/jude-rogers/the-sound-of-being-human/9781474622950/ Jude's music choice – Buffalo Stance: youtube.com/watch?v=JWsRz3TJDEY ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

We’ve spoken a lot about what music business web3 projects are, what artists can get out of them, what fans want in them and what the future may hold – but what about the actual underlying technology? And how do you get started with this famously complex tech? We’ve invited Tim Shank, CTO of Blockpool, and Brian Scudder, Head of Communications, to explain more. They say that now is the time to experiment with web3 tech and NFTs. We wanted to know how music businesses can partner with blockchain companies and about the actual blockchain technology itself: which projects should/shouldn’t be tokenised/blockchainified, how to pick the right form of token/partner, what other considerations there might be. This is another podcast in a series that digs into the burgeoning web3 space’s new concepts, ideas, and conventions and how they relate to the music business. Blockpool: https://blockpool.eu/ Brian Scudder: linkedin.com/in/brianscudder ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

The PPL has just announced its 2021 results and, as with most business areas affected by covid, it’s a complicated story. We’re asking Peter to talk through those results, but also what will happen next in the slightly mysterious world of neighbouring rights. In 2021 the PPL saw more money come in but slightly less, due to covid, go out – and the money was shared amongst more people. He’ll also talk about the recent European Court of Justice ruling which means that performers from the USA may for the first time be paid when their music is played on the radio in Europe. The PPL: https://www.ppluk.com ------- 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

The Orchard was the first digital music distributor, and it's now 25 years old – so we asked co-founder Richard Gottehrer what he has learned along the way, and what the future holds for digital distributors. Richard is a man with a rich history of varied activity and success in the music industry: starting as a successful songwriter, he went on to form Sire records with Seymour Stein, producing albums by Blondie, the Go-Gos and Dr Feelgood along the way. In 1997, he co-founded The Orchard with Scott Cohen (now Chief Innovation Officer at WMG), which later became a subsidiary of Sony Music.  The Orchard: theorchard.com Richard's song choice: Percy Sledge - When A Man Loves A Woman - youtube.com/watch?v=EYb84BDMbi0 ------- 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

We welcome Family In Music's chief innovation officer Kevin Bacon to talk about music metadata and blockchain tech. Kevin is no stranger to blockchain and web3 tech, having having been involved in early British blockchain startup Blockpool, which caused a stir when collaborating with Bjork in an early crypto-music experiment back in 2017. Before that, Kevin founded AWAL after a successful career as a record producer. He’s now chief innovation officer of Family In Music, a multi-faceted company for music creators, and which has just launched a platform called MgNTa – which he thinks will allow songwriters to collect money they would have otherwise missed, amongst other things. Family in Music & MgNTa: familyinmusic.com/mgnta Kevin's music choice: The Temptations – Ball of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today): youtube.com/watch?v=5HjUxggPd6E ------- 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

In this episode we’re joined by Rio Caraeff, Chief Commercial Officer of Syng, the home audio manufacturer who make a "triphonic speaker" that they claim enables a new kind of listening experience, where music follows you around, and tracks can be stripped down to create unique musical experiences. Rio is one of the people who can confidently talk about the music/tech landscape, having founded the video platform VEVO, and spent time as Chief Content Officer at the Augmented Reality company Magic Leap. We chat to him about how this fascinating technology works, and the future of music consumption when it’s a little more enveloping than streaming songs to a Bluetooth speaker. Syng: syngspace.com ------- 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Music Ally Focus #60: One of the benefits of web3 tech, its proponents argue, is that it encourages meaningful interaction between fan and artist. We’ve seen examples, for instance, of NFTs acting as fan club memberships. But what if the artists don’t exist in the first place? We’re happy to welcome Ian Simon, co-founder of Spirit Bomb, a virtual artist record label, to explain how virtual artists and web3 tech can unite to create new and desirable experiences for music fans – and how it might expand the overall pie and bring in new fans, who perhaps wouldn't have previously considered themselves "music fans". Oh, and what's it like managing an artist that doesn't exist as a person – how do they connect to fans, and what do fans want? This is another in our series that digs into the burgeoning web3 space’s new concepts, ideas, and conventions and how they relate to the music business. Strangeloop Discord https://discord.com/invite/strangeloop Virtual artist LV4: https://wiki.spiritbomb.ai/#LV4 Spiritbomb: https://spiritbomb.ai ------- 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

In this fascinating and entertaining episode, we're joined by two people who are asking complicated questions about the nature of music copyright: Damien Riehl, technologist, technology lawyer and musician, and coder and technologist Noah Rubin. You may have heard of them previously – together, Riehl and Rubin created software that composed every single possible melody – and then they released them into the public domain. We ask them about their work, and Damien gives his forthright opinions on the recent Ed Sheeran plagiarism court case, copyright trolls, whether the copyright law as it stands is fit for purpose, and what music copyright law should look like. All the Music: http://allthemusic.info Damien’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_copyrighting_all_the_melodies_to_avoid_accidental_infringement Damien’s music choice: Phoebe Bridgers  Noah's choice: Beardyman  ------- 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-standard analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb