Music Ally Focus

Episode 108: in this episode we’re joined by Adam Webb, from FanFair Alliance - a UK-based organisation campaigning against industrial-scale online ticket touting- or scalping if you prefer. I chatted to Adam about the state of ticketing in the UK, and what does FA see as the most pertinent issue that needs fixing/changing? He also talks about speculative ticketing is, why he thinks it’s harmful, and what should be done, and the difference in approach between artists in the UK and the US when it comes to dynamically priced tickets. Supported by managers and teams for artists including Arctic Monkeys, Ed Sheeran, Biffy Clyro, Pixies, Iron Maiden, George Ezra, PJ Harvey, Niall Horan and many others, FanFair, it says, “has successfully helped change the regulatory and legislative landscape in the UK, leading to the widespread adoption of consumer-friendly practices for ticket resale.” FanFair Alliance: fanfairalliance.org Adam’s guest post on dynamic pricing  for Music Ally: https://musically.com/2022/03/13/is-dynamic-pricing-containing-the-battle-against-ticket-touting-or-undermining-it-guest-column/ Most shaving cream pies thrown in 30 seconds by a team of 2 Pet Sounds: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mJN3N2XYKY6P2RpKP_-Zk20HwDSewNAYY

Episode 107: We’re joined by Pamela McCormick and Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE of London-based organisation United Development – they talk to Joe Sparrow about supporting and developing young black musicians and industry talent, the state of representation in the UK industry, and what you can do to help make gradual improvements around representation in the music business. Pamela McCormick is founder and CEO of United Development (UD), and Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, was recently appointed chair. UD brings communities together around Black music and Black music culture. For 20 years, UD has acted as a bridge between burgeoning talent and the music industry, through business and employment support programmes, career guidance, access to resources and showcasing, and more. They explain the issues that the young people they work with face, the hurdles that are "baked-in” to the current industry structure, explain how to build intentional change into your business, and how to disrupt the “pipeline issue” that goes hand in hand with a lack of representation in the music industry. UD website: https://www.udmusic.org/  Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE: https://aimafidon.com/ UD Industry takeover event: https://www.complex.com/music/ud-industry-takeover-2023 UD on BBC Radio 4: https://www.udmusic.org/blog/artists/ud-x-bbc-radio-4/ Chronixx - COOL AS THE BREEZE/FRIDAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsCV2LBoAG0 Miles Davis – Kind of Blue https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nkfBmwK2t62J1xAsfhcwj9PVQG7N5UunA Popsicles: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/118197-most-ice-lollies-popsicles-eaten-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 106:  Joe Sparrow talks to two UK music entrepreneurs who have grown a substantial and influential business from the ground up. TK and SK, co-founders of London-based independent record label and management company Finesse Foreva, which is home to artists/producers including Russ Millions, Skengdo & AM, and JB Made It. The company has received multiple Platinum certifications, worked with Drake, and had the UK’s first number one single for a Drill (or, for international listeners, a "UK Drill") track.  We talked about how Drill has grown to national and international popularity, how it was demonised in the UK press, how the genre and the scene around it has grown into a big industry through the age-old combination of hard work, ambition and talent – and how they are working hard to share skills and educate a new generation of music business entrepreneurs as part of Finesse Foreva’s wider social focus. Foreva: https://www.finesseforeva.co.uk/ ------ 👋 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 105: For a man whose name is rhyming slang in the UK for something going wrong, most of what Pete Tong touches goes very right. He’s been enormously influential in the international electronic music scene for four decades: as a broadcaster, a jet-setting DJ who has released dozens of mix albums, at the influential FFRR and Three Six Zero labels, and now, as co-founder of the International Music Summit. We invited Pete onto the podcast to talk about A&R in the dance music world: how it has changed, how it works now, the role that good taste plays, the challenges of keeping up with the TikTok whirlwind, his thoughts on modern artistry and fandom, and what he thinks about the use of AI in future A&R approaches. https://www.internationalmusicsummit.com/summit-schedule ------ 👋 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 104: A Very Special Episode this week: We’ve wanted to make our daily Bulletin newsletter into a podcast for a long time, and now, we’ve created one – with the help of a text-to-voice AI. We're now sharing it here, so that you can hear the results too. The AI twist is that we have cloned the voice of our Learning Operations Manager, Sarah Seukeran, and it’s “her” that you’ll hear on the Bulletin podcast. It was soft-launched a few weeks ago – and we think the Bulletin translates really well into a sub-10 minute audio round up. In our opinion, it's an impressive confirmation of the technology's potential. So we'd love to hear what you think – does it sound good to you? Would you be interested in a daily (or weekly?) audio version of our News output? (In the future, this AI-powered podcast may become part of Music Ally's subscription offering.) Please do let us know all and any feedback: email our editor Joe Sparrow on joe@musically.com. Here's the Music Ally Bulletin podcast on Spotify, if you'd like to follow it: https://open.spotify.com/show/6tXXBfONkdUIkSIFT8TgGF?si=74e45d0ef2274438 PS: Note that the AI origins of this audio means that there may be some very occasional mispronunciations or speech glitches – this is still in a beta phase of testing! ------ 👋 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 103: Laura Kidd has been a fully independent artist for a long time – and her recent "Obey Robots" project managed to hit the UK albums chart at #14 (ahead of Artic Monkeys and Lewis Capaldi and just behind ABBA and Fleetwood Mac). It’s a hugely impressive achievement for a DIY/indie artist - so how did she do it? In this podcast she explains to Joe Sparrow how she used email, YouTube videos and Facebook ads to get chart success. She also talks about her deliberate choice to ignore fame, and how she instead looked to build a slow-burn, direct-to-fan “nano-community" that supports her work – and this is what she now considers “success.” Laura also explains why someone who is not concerned with the traditional concept of success decided to aim for chart success, how being completely DIY is a “terrifying” concept, how it can be hard to let go of the reins, and how she now considers herself a 'community artist’.It’s a fascinating conversation for anyone working in music marketing – and especially for DIY artists looking to cut through. The Obey Robots project: https://shop.penfriend.rocks/collections/obey-robots Laura's Penfriend YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/penfriendrocks Music choice: Kid A by Radiohead  Most bananas snapped in one minute: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-bananas-snapped-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 102: we’re joined by Sarah Woods, the Deputy Chief Executive of UK charity Help Musicians, a UK charity that offers career help for musicians in the form of a number of services, including financial support. She talks to Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow about what she calls “reverse globalisation” of the music industry: a situation where UK artists become confined to touring in the UK due to it becoming increasingly hard to tour abroad.Post-Brexit, touring the rest of Europe is now a complex affair, involving visas and carnets, and accompanying rising costs. As a result, some musicians have been looking to America - and are finding complications there too, with the US planning to raise touring visa fees for foreign acts by more than 250%. We spoke to Sarah about this “reverse globalisation” and she shared some data that shows where applicants to Help Musicians’ services most need help around touring, and what the impacts will mean for artists as they seek to expand their audience at home and abroad.  Help Musicians: helpmusicians.org.uk Visa advice for touring artists: helpmusicians.org.uk/get-support/develop-as-a-musician/advice/visa-advice-service The Cure – “Disintegration” Jacqueline du Pre & Daniel Barenboim - Elgar Cello Concerto Plus: Peeling and eating bananas quickly ------ 👋 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 101: We talk to Andy Robinson, of Boutique rights management company Interstellar Music Services. In the modern music business paradigm, managers can do everything – so we’ll discuss how you can not do everything – and avoid burnout whilst providing the best service possible to artists. He talks about making tough choices, transparent conversations with artists, and how he regularly finds hundreds of thousands of streams that artists have not been paid for. Andy has a background in artist management and now focuses on helping artists recover as much of the money as possible from their music via a data-centric approach. He took this specific path after he realised that it was his strength – so we wanted to ask Andy one of those slippery questions that all managers must ask themselves: with almost infinite number of ways to connect with the music industry now, how do you focus on the things that will work well for you and your artist? And perhaps more importantly, how do you choose what not to do? Andy and Interstella: https://www.interstellarmusic.com Music pick: Santana’s “Santana” Plus: Competitive pizza eating ------ 👋 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

🎉 Music Ally Focus Ep. 100 🎉 – We talk about about Neurodiversity in the electronic music business with Finlay Johnson, interim CEO of the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) and Tristan Hunt, who is an ADHD coach for musicians and people working in the music business, and is also an ex-regional manager at the AFEM. There is increasing awareness about neurodiversity, and more people are being diagnosed with conditions like ADHD at later stages in life. Last year, the AFEM surveyed people in the electronic music industry to learn more about the neurodiversity of the people working in it. They discovered that 58% of these participants demonstrated a neurodiverse condition, although only 38% currently have a clinical diagnosis. Finlay and Tristan discuss how the same creativity that results in innovative music can also be accompanied by neurodiversity; how the electronic music industry, with its inherent late nights and party atmosphere can exacerbate existing issues; and what people working in the music industry can do to support colleagues with neurodiverse conditions. AFEM: https://associationforelectronicmusic.org AFEM Neurodiversity report: https://www.billboard.com/pro/neurodiverse-electronic-music-study-analysis/ Tristan: https://www.tristanhunt.co.uk Finlay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finlay-johnson-77b3936b ADDitude magazine: https://www.additudemag.com/ Music choices: Finlay: Four Tet – Rounds Tristan: Paul Simon – Graceland ------ 👋 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

Music Ally Focus Ep. 99: Successful songwriter Niclas Molinder co-founded the music credits ecosystem Session along with two other Swedish songwriters, Max Martin and Bjorn Ulvaeus in 2019. Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow asks him about what he’s doing to make sure that as much new music as possible has all the correct credits and metadata baked in from the start – and ask him why getting music metadata straightened out is taking so long. Session aims to attach complete metadata is attached to all recordings and songs at the point of creation. Niclas has written and produced for artists such as Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Mary J Blige and The Jonas Brothers. Niclas also talks about the challenges that companies who have spent fortunes buying catalogues of decades-old songs – often with patchy metadata – can go about uncovering and attaching the correct credits to their catalogue of music. Session: https://www.session.id Niclas' music choices: Sting – They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo) youtu.be/MS_bN5ECJTI Monica Zetterlund – Waltz For Debbie Most rice grains eaten in one minute using chopsticks ------ 👋 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