Music Ally Focus

Keatly Haldeman, CEO of Dequency, discusses the long-term impact of web3, crypto, and blockchain tech on the music business. They explore the benefits of blockchain in music licensing, smart contracts, and future payments. Keatly shares their journey in the music industry and the importance of signal processing. The podcast concludes with a discussion on an agency, passion for music, and a significant album choice.

David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition, discusses venues charging commission on merch sales and supporting emerging artists with Step Up funding. They address the FAC's 100% Venues campaign against commission and how they're injecting cash and connections into artist careers. They also talk about the importance of artists understanding the business side of music and highlight campaigns related to freelancer payment and post-Brexit touring. Plus, they explore musical influences and Joy Division's dark sound.

Ep 116: Music Ally Editor Joe Sparrow is joined by A Greener Future CEO and cofounder Claire O’Neill. AGF created the world’s first event sustainability standards and now offers consultancy, training, certification and membership to the events industry. We talk to her about how live events can become greener and more sustainable – and how there’s a lot more to it that simply cutting down on carbon emissions. The events industry is a part of the music industry that can stand to make some sweeping changes to run it in a more sustainable manner. Events and festivals require moving huge amounts of people and equipment and consume a lot of resources – often in the form of non-renewable fuel. Punters, artists, and industry workers increasingly want to be taking part in events that are not damaging the planet. And yet events are complicated, and have many stakeholders. So how do you do it? Claire O’Neill and A Greener Future say that they help you find the path through to… well, a greener future. AGF: agreenerfuture.com T. Rex, Left Hand Luke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ftosocPOA4 ------ 👋 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

Ep. 115: We’re joined by Cliff Fluet – someone who has worked with, or advised, music-related AI platforms for a decade. He talks to Music Ally Editor Joe Sparrow about the bigger-picture possibilities and repercussions that AI could have on the music industry – he calls it "the most consequential tool the music industry could use" and one that "could solve a number of its biggest challenges," including real-time music detection, metadata, and personalised discovery. Cliff is a man with a lot on his plate – he’s Joint Head of Media & Entertainment at law firm Lewis Silkin, is MD at Eleven Advisory, is Chair of the Ivors Academy Trust, and is Vice Chair of Help Musicians. He’s also got deep experience working with companies in the AI music space – advising on all the various legal and business considerations that inevitably crop up when the music industry and AI come together. We took the chance to talk to someone who knows his AI onions and move the conversation along a bit from the basic legal implications. We asked him whether the music business is really prepared for the impact of AI, and we also picked his brains to discover some of the applications of AI in the music industry that you might not have yet considered. Cliff Fluet on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/clifffluet The final side of "Abbey Road": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Ujexj9YGs ------ 👋 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

Ep. 114: In this special episode we’re checking in on The Music Business Academy (MBA) for Africa –  a training program geared towards developing the next generation of music industry executives in Africa. It’s developed by Creative Industries Initiative For Africa in partnership with Music Ally and Dr. Carlos Chirinos of the Music Business Department at the New York University. Having been involved with the MBA for Africa for a few years now, we thought it would be great to speak to some of the staff – some of whom are alumni of the programme – to check in on how education is meeting the needs of the music industry in west Africa. So we speak to Kini-Abasi Edet, Head of Operations, Pokyes Jan, Head Of Administration, and Nissi Utho, Project Manager. (We’d also like to thank Okoro Frances, who’s Head of A&R, for taking part too – but unfortunately a technical gremlin meant that this recording was not usable.) Anyway - we got some great insight on the kind of skills the local music industry needs, and how the global attention on West African music is helping the local industry to develop the next generation of artists and industry professionals. MBA For Africa: https://mbaforafrica.com/ MBA for Africa on Music Ally: https://musically.com/2022/04/11/music-business-academy-for-africa-returns-for-second-year/ ------ 👋 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

Episode 113: we’re joined by Shain Shapiro, PhD  – a music and cultural policy thinker whose work focuses on the idea of music cities. Shain's upcoming new book This Must Be The Place introduces and examines music’s relationship to cities. Not the influence cities have on music, but the powerful impact music can have on how cities are developed, built, managed and governed. It’s a fascinating concept: the way that music can be used to shape culture around us and the relationship with the people and places that we live in. We ask him what music cities are, and how music intersects with a city’s cultural and political policy. https://www.shainshapiro.com/book Remain in Light: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ldZpfPljmwhO4m7Eu8HUTylyh1uHT4wyY Hammer flipping: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/593507-most-hammer-flips-in-one-minute ------ 👋 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

Episode 112: In this episode we’re joined by two people from Splice, the music-making platform and sample library: CEO Kakul Srivistava and Mark Thomas, Splice's VP of sounds. Sampling has been used by musicians for decades as a way to create music, and finding the right sounds and snippets of music is a complex and time consuming task. We talk about music creation in the 2023 environment when everyone is making music, how important samples are to the creative process, what the impact is for musicians if platforms make finding samples a one-click affair, and how AI is being used to help producers find samples better. Splice, like a lot of music businesses, has also been embracing AI, and has just launched the public beta version of an AI-powered tool that assembles bunches of samples that fit together. Both guests have a rich history in creative technology businesses:  Kakul was previously Vice President of Creative Cloud Experience and Engagement at Adobe and the Vice President of Product & Marketing at GitHub, and Mark is a musician who became CTO at AWAL, and founder of platform BuzzDeck, before spending a decade at Apple Services. I spoke to Kakul and Mark about the needs of musicians today and the impact of technology in helping them create the music we love.  https://splice.com https://splice.com/blog/coso-breakthrough-ai-tech/ Mark: Kenny Wheeler –  Music for Small and Large Ensembles Kakul: Stevie Wonder – Innervisions ------ 👋 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

Episode 111: in this episode we’re joined by Rebecca Berman, SVP of International at Concord, a large independent company that operates in music publishing, a label, and in acquisition – and which has artists and repertoires licensed all over the world. We talk to Rebecca about how she and Concord views the potential in exploding markets like Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Her job involves building a local teams to support Concord Label Group’s repertoire around the globe, so she has an interesting view on the fast-growing, high-potential markets – like sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. We spoke to her about what the wider consequences of these rapidly-growing markets might be on the wider music business, and how the established music industry might change in terms of structure, strategy, and revenue. ⁠Concord⁠: concord.com Boygenius: xboygeniusx.com ------ 👋 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

Episode 110: We speak to Ines Dunn, a young songwriter from London, who has writing credits in songs like Maisie Peters’ “Not Another Rockstar”, and is one of the first songwriters to be featured by Spotify’s RADAR programme. One of the biggest fillips an artist’s career can receive is by being part of one of the major streaming platforms’ artist programmes – which at its most flashy, can result in your face being plastered across a billboard in Leicester Square in London. That’s what happened to Ines Dunn, and so we spoke to her about her nascent career, how she ended up on Spotify’s RADAR programme, and what the tangible benefits are of getting high-profile support like this, and what she sees as the benefits for DSPs in offering these kind of programmes. Written by Ines Dunn playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1EFLbEbClSreiP Most éclairs filled with cream in one minute ------ 👋 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

Episode 109: Music Ally’s Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge chats in depth with Joe Sparrow about the big picture issues that music streaming platforms, its users and economy will need to face  this year. We’ve just published our latest Quarterly Report which comprehensively breaks down each of the big global DSPs in a “Report Card” format – and to accompany it, Stu forecasts what might happen around various key topics:  The Transition from “music” to “audio” – music streaming services are becoming audio streaming services. Music is competing with other kinds of audio, be that podcasts or white noise, so what does that mean in terms of royalties and ear-share? Price rises – for users and for artists – there’s pressure from the music industry to raise the prices of streaming subscriptions: will adding a dollar or two does lead to a mass of cancellations or not? Can – or should –  the pie be grown? And what about changing the whole system of payment from pro-rata to something else? Direct artist support – DSPs are providing other ways to support artists: buying merch, buying tickets, and subscriptions are appearing more widely on streaming apps. And how do artists feel about introducing tipping to DSPs?  User interfaces and AI –  DSPs are introducing many new ways to interact with, and discover music, from TikTok-like feeds to AI DJs. So is the next leap for music discovery going to be conversations with AIs? The mid tier DSPs (and remember web3?) –  Deezer, SoundCloud, Tidal and Napster have all positioned themselves as disruptors in different ways. They're nimbler than the big DSPs and can experiment with novel ideas like web3 music – but what are the long-term prospects for these services? Music Ally’s Quarterly Report: https://musically.com/category/reports/ 34 dozen oysters in 8 minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Bertoletti#2012 ------ 👋 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