Music Ally Focus

Music Ally Focus Ep. #78: In the second of two episodes where we speak to artists about pressures they have felt from that industry, and the effect it has had on them as people, we speak to the artist Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, or Orlando Higginbottom as he’s known to his family and friends. He talks about his experiences of working with record labels – and discussing the need for them in 2022, based on a decade of experiences that have not been, let’s say, wholly positive. He has just released his new album “When The Lights Go” as an independent artist, and Orlando has been highly vocal about his position on the current state of the music industry – including saying that “nobody should be signing a bad record deal, and perhaps nobody should be signing record deals at all”. We’re going to be talking about the need for record labels in the current environment, and his experiences in the recorded music industry, in which he has released two studio albums a decade apart, and felt he was let down by an industry that took advantage of him as a young artist. TEED on your streaming platform: https://lnkfi.re/TEEDinosaurs TEED: https://www.totallyenormousextinctdinosaurs.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

Music Ally Focus Ep. #77: In this episode, we discuss Music Ally SI:X – our new annual global showcase, contest and mentorship support program for early-stage music startups. We chat to representatives of two of the sponsors, Emma Cordell, Senior Communications manager of FUGA, and Gregor Pryor, Partner at Reed Smith – along with Music Ally’s CEO Paul Brindley – about what they consider to be the most exciting and innovative areas in music tech, why big, game-changing ideas are still out there (and how to spot them),  and offer some advice for SI:X applicants to help them stand out from the competition. Remember, there’s still time left to apply for Music Ally SI:X – but not a lot: the deadline for applications is Monday 19th September.  Find more information and apply to SI:X here: https://musically.com/music-ally-six ------ 👋 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. #76: Recently we’ve reported a lot about artists being increasingly outspoken about the pressure on them to create content for social media. If big-name artists like Halsey are voicing their concerns and experiencing pressure, what about indie artists, who don’t have a team around them? This is the first of two episodes where we speak to artists about pressures they have felt from the music industry, and the effect it has had on them as people. We chat to independent artist Lauren Walker (who performs as Eurielle) about social media burnout: Lauren talks about her experiences of pressure from the social media platforms and DSPs. She voices her concerns around the “race to the bottom” of creating a buzz on social media in order to get onto playlists, and the crushing personal impact as a result of the expectation to be on all the social media platforms, all the time. Eurielle: eurielle.com Eurielle on (yes) social media: instagram.com/eurielle_music ------ 👋 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. #75: In this episode we’re joined by two up-and-coming managers who are part of the UK’s MMF Accelerator programme. We want to know what opportunities talented young managers are seeing, and how they are going to use them to take their nascent stars onto success. Cecile Dreyer and Pascal Balletti talk to us about the fresh approaches they are using - specifically with regards to Direct to fan, NFT and web3 tech, and TikTok: all areas of interest that any managers, labels, artist team members listening can take advantage of. The MMF’s accelerator programme is a grants and training initiative which runs each year and aims to boost the careers of young mangers in the UK, though expert professional development, of which MusicAlly is a partner.  MMF's Accellerator 2022: https://themmf.net/accelerator-2022 ------ 👋 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. #74: "We confidently say that at least 10% of all streaming activity is fraud," – that's the opinion of Andrew Batey and Morgan Hayduk of Beatdapp, the streaming analysis platform that aims to uncover streaming fraud. We find out what the fraud looks like, how big it is, who’s doing it and why, how it works … and how much it would cost if we wanted to be the fraudsters. The answers will probably surprise you, and – if you’re an artist – you may be shocked to find that your streaming numbers have been inflated by scammers too. Streaming fraud is complex: it’s clear that there is an incentive for people to game the system - siphoning money away from real artists. You might think that it’s simply a case of artists juicing their numbers to look more impressive. But there’s also a bigger, more complex picture and Andrew and Morgan explain how they find patterns of use that are indications of streaming fraud.  Beatdapp's blog post on the "whac-a-mole" nature of stopping streaming fraud: blog.beatdapp.com/2022/05/whac-a-mole-part-2-return-of-the-whac Beatdapp: beatdapp.com Superman 3’s fraction-of-a-penny scheme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7JBXGkBoFc ------ 👋 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. #73: Geoff Taylor, CEO of the BPI – the British recorded music industry's trade association – joins us for his first interview since announcing he will step down from his role in 2023.  Geoff has led the BPI for 15 years, a period which has seen significant technological, economic and structural change. We speak to him about the changes he has seen, the work he and the BPI has done in the music tech sector, and where it’s all going next in the UK’s recorded music industry. We also dig into two of the biggest issues he’s faced: the recent UK parliamentary inquiry into the economics of music streaming, and the decision by the UK’s CMA - the Competition and Markets Authority - not to conduct a full market investigation into music streaming and the UK’s music industry. This episode is the first in a new ongoing series, celebrating Music Ally’s upcoming 20th anniversary, which will feature interviews with people who have had a signifiant impact on the music industry during the last two decades. ------ 👋 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. #72: We’re looking at Country music, and how, as a genre, there are a number of communities that are underrepresented in it. We talk to people who are trying to change this. CMT and the Nashville-based management services company mtheory announced its Equal Access Development Program, designed to provide access and training for underrepresented demographics in the country music industry. We invited the two of the originators of the programme, Cameo Carlson, President of mtheory and Tiffany Provenzano, Director, Equal Access at mtheory to talk about how the programme works and why it is needed. And we are also happy to welcome two of the participants in the programme – the Country artist Miko Marks, and artist manager Kadeem Phillips – who talk about the inequality and discrimination they have experienced in Country music, and how they felt the Equal Access programme was making a difference. Here's Miko's new song, One More Night: youtube.com/watch?v=FsAwial3Hyw The Equal Access programme: https://mtheory.com/equal-access/ ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ 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. #71: Buying show tickets is still an imperfect and sometimes frustrating – not to mention expensive – experience. You’ll have certainly felt the pang of annoyance as tickets you want are snapped up by bots, and then sold on the secondary market for inflated prices. So what does a better ticketing system look like? We welcome Chief Strategy Officer of “post primary” ticketing platform Lyte, Lawrence Peryer, to discuss dynamic ticket pricing, the concept of fairness in ticketing, and the price point at which tickets are sold. We ask him about selling "real tickets at fair prices", what this means, and what the future of ticketing could be. Lyte: lyte.com/about Lawrence's music choice: Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of The Moon: youtube.com/watch?v=dj4_-kh-Kpg ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ 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. #70: We speak to Lewis Jamieson, co-founder and Director of Communications at the environmental pressure group Music Declares Emergency. MDE recently partnered with the University of Glasgow, the BPI, and others to research the expectations of music fans. He’s here to talk about what environmental changes music fans expect from their favourite artists, festivals, gig venues and labels – and what fans can do to make a difference. Lewis puts forward the case that making positive environmental changes is not just right, it’s sound business sense – and he talks about the power that fans have to demand these changes. He also explains how fans and the artists they love can form communities that can make positive change happen, and also create a collective support group that helps them feel that they are making a real difference. Lewis also explains how people working on artist's teams, at labels, and at other music businesses can get to grips with a problem that often feels overwhelming – and how to start to effect real change. Music Declares Emergency: musicdeclares.net Music Industry Climate Pack: musicdeclares.net/assets/documents/pdfs/MDE-MUSIC-INDUSTRY-CLIMATE-PACK.pdf Lewis' music choice: Sex Pistols – Bodies: youtu.be/S5PYZesJnyE ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ 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. #69: “If we had a pound from each of these people, our entire lives would change.” UK metalcore band While She Sleeps has been running its "Sleeps Society" for two years, and it has revolutionised the group's fortunes. We speak to two people from both ends of the equation – Mat Welsh from the band, and Oliver Smith, who is a top-tier Sleeps Society member. They explain how the relationship benefits band and fan alike. Society members can access a range of perks to enhance their connection with the band, including helping select the setlist at special shows, accessing bonus content, and even supplying backing vocals. Oliver explains how it brings fans closer, and brings him closer to the band in a nuanced, enjoyable way. He also explains what he gets out of his enhanced connection with the band, and what happened when you close the traditional gap between artist and fan. Meanwhile, Mat explains how their subscription system has revolutionised the band’s business model and allowed them to invest back into the band – and how the subscriber fans are a special “trustee”-style group who “own their portion of the band” who help advise the band on important decisions. Sleeps Society: patreon.com/whileshesleeps While She Sleeps: whileshesleeps.com Mat's music choice: Alexisonfire - Sans Soleil – youtube.com/watch?v=J_FfwNPhZmg Oliver's music choice: While She Sleeps - The Long Way Home – youtube.com/watch?v=tOTvwiShufI ------ 👋 The Knowledge, Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter: musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo Ⓜ️ 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