Money 4 Nothing

When Bandcamp announced a few weeks ago that it had been sold, it came as a deep shock to the wide audience of music fans who had come to appreciate its artist-supporting activities and (relatively) equitable financial policies. When they read that it had been sold to Epic Games, the multi-billion dollar creator of the Battle Royale mega-game Fortnite, the widespread reaction was...huh? To try to make sense of the sale, and to figure out what it might mean going forward, Saxon and Sam dig into the histories of the two companies, identifying some compelling similarities (and some equally worrisome-shared trends) that maybe are the first step towards a newly profitable musical future? But also….maybe a wasteland of shattered dreams and fan service.  

As soon as you hear it, the term "neoliberal jazz" makes sense—hip urbanites, attending concerts in revamped art-spaces sponsored by banks and financial services companies. But how did Jazz—a counter-cultural music if there ever was one—get there? And how have its evolving aesthetics enabled these developments?  To learn more, we spoke to Dale Chapman, author of "The Jazz Bubble," a mind-bending book about urban culture, market forces, and...Wynton Marsalis. Come fly with us, as we trace Jazz from urban renewal to gentrification. Order Jazz Bubble by Dale Chapman Follow us on Twitter

While the boom and busts have come and gone, NFTs haven’t disappeared. A set of crypto based technologies, and speculatively disruptive companies are still out there, working to create a new, on-chain future. We have thoughts. Especially when it comes to how music intersects (or doesn't). And to try to make sense of them, we have on David Turner of Penny Fractions. Moving from specific projects, and working theories to broad-based analysis of tech ideology we... go out there. But to create a future we want to see, you have to start by imagining what you want—and what you don't.  Subscribe to our monthly newsletter! Follow us on Twitter! Subscribe to Penny Fractions! Re-listen:  NF(t) DOOM or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blockchain

On this short bonus episode, Sam and Saxon discuss Neil Young's decision to take down his music from Spotify in protest of the Joe Rogan Podcast...except did Neil even have the rights to make this decision? And how does this impact his $200 million publishing rights sale to Hipgnosis last year? Also, why did Spotify buy Joe Rogan's podcast in the first place? And how does Eve 6 fit into all of this? Turns out this #CancelSpotify feud can tell us a lot about how the music industry works, how it's changing and leads to even more questions as to where it's going. 

Sync is pretty much what it sounds like—the act of connecting music to visual images. But it’s also a whole lot more. Thanks to the VERY specific contours of American music, it’s a complex set of negotiations and pay-outs that structures pretty much everything you hear on TV, at the movies, or in video games (and maybe, someday Tik Tok?). It's also one of the more viable revenue streams for artists. To dig into how sync works, and what it might mean for music, Sam talks with artist, taste-maker, and all-around-great-guy Sebastian Adé—but not before Saxon reveals his always delightful doomer vision of commercial culture. 

We thought that the best way to start the new year would be by…clearing up the various misconceptions, random questions, playful hassles, and outright stumpers generated by the old. Our listeners have hit us with a series of questions in recent months, and we’re going to do our best to answer them.  Radio stations and advertising? Got you. State-owned Russian streaming service rivaling Spotify? Got you. Curated histories via new tech platforms and how that impacts musical preservation? Got you. Is the Theremin real? No. ALSO: We pull out the ol’ crystal ball, consult the astrological charts, and talk through the stories we’re most excited to cover in the coming months -- web3, Doja Cat's social media excellence and whether Hipgnosis will ever make back their money on Neil Young's catalog.

Money 4 Nothing goes to the movies! With the holidays upon us, Sam and Saxon decided it would be a nice to time to kick back, pull out the popcorn, and watch one of the more intriguing music docs in a year full of them. That’s right folks—in a fit of accurate choices, we’ve decided to spend an episode talking Sparks, the legendary cult band whose lengthy, make-no-compromises career is the subject of the recent film “The Sparks Brothers.” Ostensibly the story of the best band that never made it…the movie offers a unique perspective on how the record industry changed over the last half century—from the “maybe it’ll hit in England” vibes of the early 70’s to the box-set gentrification of the teens to the Pitchfork-ization of music. But what if the band never made it [dramatic film music]…because “making it” was a changing target? Come for the sick Giorgio Moroder cameo. Stay for Saxon's true feelings about mid-career David Bowie.

In the last few years, "Spotify Wrapped" has ascended the seasonal pantheon for music lovers. Come December, our social media feeds are inundated with detailed numerical statistics from friends and relatives, breaking down their yearly listening habits. It’s inescapable. But why do we love it? And what does it tell us about where we are as listeners? Saxon and Sam dig into the jolliest form of surveillance capitalism since Santa Clause, unpacking the ideology–and the business—of this musical elf-on-a-shelf. Also—some heavy memorials, first to the brilliant music writer Greg Tate, and then the King of the Low-End, Robbie Shakespeare. May their memories be a blessing.

One of the the biggest music stories of this past year is Universal Music Group going public for...billions. If the question wasn't already answered over the past decade, the Majors are back baby. But what does Universal’s ever-inflating valuation tell us about the music business and it's future? What future does Lucian Grainge, CEO of UMG, envision and are all our listening habits and the culture of music guided by his hand? To understand how we got here, Sam and Saxon go back in time to when the label was just the glimmer in a glass of a CEO's Seagram’s whiskey (no, literally). We explore how Universal grew to industry dominance, from the frothy tech boom of the late 90s to the equally frothy tech boom of the late 2010’s, and puzzle through what its Roblox-chain-panopticon stranglehold on the industry holds in store for artists and fans and gamers and Tik-Tok and Peloton riders and...basically anywhere that anyone listens to music now.

It’s been 20 years since Apple launched the iPod and a lot has changed in the music industry…as in everything. The mp3, iTunes, Spotify, penny fractions for streams, UMG's recent IPO, music catalogs as attractive asset class, 360 deals and the list goes on. The launch of the iPod doesn’t explain everything in how we got here, but it's undeniably a major watershed moment for a deeper understanding of this history. Saxon interviews award-winning journalist Eamonn Forde about his recent piece in The Guardian on the iPod's 20th anniversary to grapple with all of this, leading to a sprawling and insightful interview examining the current state of the music business and technology. Also, Saxon and Sam discuss briefly the tragic events around Travis Scott’s Astroworld concert and challenge popular media narratives by asking about the responsibility of Live Nation in this horrifying incident.    Read Forde's piece in The Guardian