
Music Ally Focus
Analysing vital music business topics in detail, as they emerge: Joe Sparrow breaks down important stories with expert guests in about 25 minutes. It'll keep you on the cutting edge, and it'll take about the same time as making and eating a good sandwich! (We recommend doing both simultaneously for maximum deliciousness.)
🌍 Music Ally provides analysis and context for the global music business: musically.com
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Latest episodes

Jan 11, 2024 • 49min
Gender representation in the music industry, and how to undertake a "total restructure" – with Marie Fol, of the Keychange initiative
Marie Fol, Lead of the Keychange initiative, discusses gender representation in the music industry and their goal of achieving full gender equality. They explore challenges, counter-arguments, and solutions such as mentoring and festival quotas. They also discuss implementing gender equality, expanding their program, and expressing gratitude towards a specific artist.

Jan 5, 2024 • 40min
AI and music marketing – how will artificial intelligence help marketers reach new fans and grow audiences? Music tech expert Virginie Berger makes some predictions...
Music tech expert Virginie Berger discusses AI's role in music marketing and fan engagement. AI-driven platforms like Endel, TheWaveVR, and Landmrk are already transforming the fan experience. Chatbots from Arsenal London and Character.AI provide personalized interactions. AI tools such as Cortex and Pattern89 analyze data to predict content success. The podcast also explores the future of AI in music marketing and the beauty of Radiohead's music.

Dec 14, 2023 • 30min
YouTube's Artist & Label Development team for Europe, Middle East & Africa: what does it do, and how do they choose which artists to support? YouTube's Nur Ozdamar explains all.
Nur Ozdamar from YouTube's Artist & Label Development team joins the podcast to explain how they support emerging artists and label partners in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Topics discussed include choosing artists to partner with, evolving music consumption on YouTube, integrating music into other media, collaborations between creators and artists on YouTube, ambitions for the team in the future, and Nur's love for Jeff Buckley's music.

Dec 7, 2023 • 37min
Lior Tibon, co-founder of Duetti, and former COO of TIDAL, talks artist-centric payment systems and Duetti's music financing platform
Ep. 134: Lior Tibon is former COO of TIDAL, and now co-founder of music financing platform Duetti, which aims to let smaller and mid-range artists sell part or all of their catalogue. He’s got experience in both the investment and streaming sides of the industry and so we talk about two things that are distantly, yet directly, connected: the recently mooted artist-centric payment systems that divide up money to artists from streaming platforms in new ways – and the service that Duetti provides, giving artists another route to the money that their songs will make.
Lior talks about who would benefit the most if an artist-centric system was widely rolled out – and whether it would please artist who have been calling for a fairer remuneration model. He also talks about Duetti’s work, who they target, and how artists may use services like this to unlock value from songs alongside streaming income.
Duetti – https://duetti.co
Paul Oakenfold – https://www.youtube.com/@PaulOakenfoldVEVO
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👉 FREE Amazon Music for Artists courses & certification: https://learn.musically.com/courses/amazon-music-for-artists/
👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo
🎉 You may be eligible for a FREE Music Ally subscription, worth £399/year, via our corporate and sponsored subscriptions. If you work for a DSP, a major label, an indie label, or if you’re an artist manager, an employee of a CMO or a publisher, check here to see if you’re eligible: musically.com/subscription-options
Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-leading analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe
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Nov 30, 2023 • 36min
Licensed music: what YouTubers and TikTokers really need, according to Lickd's Paul Sampson (Plus: will generative AI music take a slice out of his business?)
Ep. 133: we’re joined by Paul Sampson, CEO and founder of Lickd, the licensing startup that supplies music to creators on YouTube and other platforms. We seem to be shifting into an era where a new and widespread use of music is emerging – where music is a component of a wider experience: for instance in the background of short/long videos, live streams of gaming, or as part of users building interactive experiences - almost “music as Lego”. We chat to Paul about the future of music usage and whether the current system of licensing is up to the task of recovering the correct money for music creators.
Creators of online content are eager to use recognisable hit songs in what they make. And Paul Samson has an interesting perspective on these creators needs – whether they are zillion-streaming superstars like MrBeast, or more modestly-successful creators. So we ask him about what they actually want from music, and also how they view music in terms of its use and its value, when they are perhaps only using it as a component of something bigger that they’re piecing together. Plus we ask Paul about generative AI music – and whether this could take a slice out of his business model.
Lickd: https://lickd.co
Tearing T-shirts: Most T-shirts worn and torn in one minute
Nirvana – Nevermind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg&list=OLAK5uy_kEQJGO2SZ0k-vJ8b-F2AJLfKnw0cFydNg
Andrea Bocelli - Con Te Partirò - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVUHHW1tJYA
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👉 FREE Amazon Music for Artists courses & certification: https://learn.musically.com/courses/amazon-music-for-artists/
👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo
🎉 You may be eligible for a FREE Music Ally subscription, worth £399/year, via our corporate and sponsored subscriptions. If you work for a DSP, a major label, an indie label, or if you’re an artist manager, an employee of a CMO or a publisher, check here to see if you’re eligible: musically.com/subscription-options
Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-leading analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe
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Nov 23, 2023 • 34min
Making vinyl records with 85% lower energy consumption – we get hands on with Sonopress's new EcoRecord
Sven Deutschmann, Managing Director of Sonopress, discusses the launch of EcoRecord, a new vinyl record manufacturing process using plastic from plastic water bottles to reduce energy consumption and waste. They explore the manufacturing process, the use of a more sustainable plastic called PT, the sound quality of EcoRecords, and the environmental benefits of injection molding. They also discuss the need for industry-wide improvements in reducing energy consumption and artists' demand for environmentally friendly vinyl production methods.

Nov 16, 2023 • 32min
IP Lawyer Eliane Ellbogen answers our questions on how copyright laws will apply to AI-generated music – and the human artists whose music it sounds like.
Ep 131: We have been puzzling over the impact of AI-generated music and how it will align with the laws that have made the music business, well, the music business. Eliane Ellbogen is an intellectual property lawyer at Fasken law firm in Montreal, and has spoken at a number of conferences about the legal implications that accompany AI Music. She joined Music Ally's Editor Joe Sparrow, who lobbed some (depending on your point of view) tricky and/or stupid legal questions at Eliane – who answered them with patience and clarity.
For instance: can an AI author music? Can humans claim ownership of AI-generated music? What happens if an AI-created piece of music sounds very similar to your own human music? What laws might be used to regulate it all? Eliane gamely got to grips with them all.
Eliane and Fasken: https://www.fasken.com/en/eliane-ellbogen
Eliane at MUTEK: https://forum.mutek.org/en/shows/2023/workshop-art-ai-and-the-law---ip-for-digital-artists
Bach’s Goldberg Variations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4yAB37wG5s
Oneohtrix Point Never - Again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCWAqoiSXI
Smashing watermelons: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-watermelons-smashed-with-a-punch-in-one-minute
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👉 FREE Amazon Music for Artists courses & certification: https://learn.musically.com/courses/amazon-music-for-artists/
👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo
🎉 You may be eligible for a FREE Music Ally subscription, worth £399/year, via our corporate and sponsored subscriptions. If you work for a DSP, a major label, an indie label, or if you’re an artist manager, an employee of a CMO or a publisher, check here to see if you’re eligible: musically.com/subscription-options
Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-leading analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe
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Nov 8, 2023 • 30min
“It’s common to see fraud between 20-60% of all streams on multiple distributors” – Beatdapp's Andrew Batey and Morgan Hayduk talk streaming fraud
Andrew Batey and Morgan Hayduk, co-CEOs of Beatdapp, discuss alarming statistics on streaming fraud, revealing that 40%-60% of streams from well-known distributors are fraudulent. They explore the rise of bot attacks and credential stuffing, the vulnerability of streaming platforms to fraud, and the recent changes to payment thresholds.

Nov 2, 2023 • 44min
Dan Stein (AKA DJ Fresh) and Declan McGlynn of AI-powered platform Voice Swap on why producers and artists want to change their vocals to sound like another singer’s voice
Ep. 129: Dan Stein, AKA DJ Fresh, and Declan McGlynn are co-founders of Voice-Swap, the AI-powered service that, as the name suggests, allows you to swap your singing voice for that of one of their chart-topping singers’ voices. They chat to Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow about why they think producers, artists and writers will want to use AI to transform their own voice to sound like one of their featured artists.
One of the difficulties that songwriters and songwriting producers face is using their own voice to sing lyrics on a track that is designed for someone else: perhaps their own voice is not very good, or perhaps it’s too hard to picture another artist performing the demo. This was a problem that Dan Stein, as DJ Fresh, faced – and he and his founders are addressing this issue with the help of AI. Voice Swap allows people to sing something into their platform, and the resulting output will sound like one of the singers whose voices the AI has been trained on. Dan and Declan talk about their technology, and who will be interested in using it, and they also dig into some of the more complex concepts: like whether particular AI voices might become ubiquitous across pop music, and whether this will diminish or boost human creativity.
Voice Swap https://www.voice-swap.ai
Prince – Sign O’ The Times https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nysBR93vc_I48usiCFTnMe6nKTB6YETjo&si=PCmbJ5wVyd2zvjSv
DJ Fresh – Gold Dust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNuUgbUzM8U
Sliced grapes: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/575085-most-grapes-sliced-in-the-air-with-a-sword-whilst-standing-on-a-swiss-ball-in-one
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👉 FREE Amazon Music for Artists courses & certification: https://learn.musically.com/courses/amazon-music-for-artists/
👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo
🎉 You may be eligible for a FREE Music Ally subscription, worth £399/year, via our corporate and sponsored subscriptions. If you work for a DSP, a major label, an indie label, or if you’re an artist manager, an employee of a CMO or a publisher, check here to see if you’re eligible: musically.com/subscription-options
Ⓜ️ Subscribe to Music Ally's industry-leading analysis, reporting and news: musically.com/subscribe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicallybiz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/musically
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musicallyfb

Oct 30, 2023 • 38min
The MLC's CEO Kris Ahrend on mechanical licensing in 2023, why artists are so eager for data transparency , and the future of royalties for songwriters
Kris Ahrend, CEO of the Mechanical Licensing Collective, discusses the state of mechanical licensing in 2023, data transparency, and the future of streaming royalties. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the business side of the music industry, data transparency, and the need for all rights holders to actively connect data gaps for proper payment entitlement.
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