🔵 The Great Escape's boycott problem is a symptom of wider arrogance in music

Why this issue merely signposts wider levels of growing hubris among the corporate music industry

This week I am in Brighton, and the atmosphere here as The Great Escape 2024 gets started is certainly unlike any previous years I have been here (and god knows, I’ve been here a lot - I think this might be my tenth time). The event is sponsored this year by Barclays and, due to the bank’s connections with defence companies involved in the Israeli attacks on Palestine, a wave of protests and walkouts have dominated the event and all talk around it.

So far, over a quarter of the bands originally scheduled to perform have now pulled out. Pro-Palestine protests have been taking place around the city’s North Laines, and somebody has gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure these posters are all over the place:

(I feel duty bound to point out that it is not 100% clear those posters are connected to the anti-Barclays protests, but the timing certainly feels oddly spot-on, and it isn’t something I’ve ever seen before at previous TGEs.)

As you can imagine then, things are tense. The bands that have walked out are making much of their decision, which is entirely right: they are doing something for a cause they believe in and they’ve every right to outline that sentiment.

Some bands are playing on, but attempting to explain their actions. So far, the one attempt I’ve seen on this front (from Big Special) has only invited a vicious run of responses.

Judgement then, as ever in 2024, is entirely black and white and with little accommodation for the nuance around this all.

From where I am sat, the whole affair feels sad, for one simple reason: artists are now being caught up in a matter which is actually all about the corporate sponsors, and not about the bands themselves. It makes for a baptism of fire for some new and emerging acts I am sure, as doubtless those who have elected to continue performing are now receiving all manner of hate.

Worth noting too is that this might just be the beginning; Barclays also sponsors Download, The Isle of Wight festival and Latitude. Ergo, things might just be getting started, with a good possibility of more artists walking out on slots due to the corporate sponsors involved.

As I write this, The Great Escape has yet to make any kind of statement. Whilst I can understand why - on the basis I simply don’t feel there is anything the company can say that will help matters - the reality is that fans who paid good money for tickets, only to find over a quarter of the acts no longer playing, are rightly outraged at the way they’ve been treated (this Twitter thread catches the mood perfectly). The silence feels deafening.

Ultimately though, this bears a resemblance to the Universal/TikTok spat, in that once more, artists are the ones losing out due to the actions of large corporations.

Amid this ongoing drama, it felt oddly timely to read Eamonn Forde’s latest article for The Quietus, in which he outlines why he feels the music industry is not in remotely good health in 2024, contrary to reports published by the likes of Goldman Sachs.

I have pointed out before now that Forde’s ‘1999’ book was notable for the fact that so many aspects of what happened twenty-five years ago seem oddly relatable to where we find ourselves in 2024. In his piece, Forde draws the same kind of comparisons:

“Reports like the Goldman Sachs one are giving the industry even greater licence to be even more arrogant at the exact moment they should be discouraged from being so,” he writes. “Pride come before a fall. A re-run of 1999 is brewing.”

The corporate sponsorship issues unfolding at Great Escape, to my mind anyway, are further evidence of this. Ultimately, this is about music (or indeed any art) being used to either drive engagement on Big Tech-owned platforms, or being utilised to help morally bankrupt corporations appear just a little more savvy.

The problem, as The Great Escape is now learning, is that many artists have had enough, and they are most definitely prepared to fight back.

Sitting in silence and hoping this will blow over isn’t a smart tactic on the part of The Great Escape, or Live Nation, its owners. A smarter move might be to acknowledge the issues here, and recognise that an event such as this needs to think long and hard about who it is taking money from.

Will things change in the short term? I am sceptical, based on what I’ve seen thus far, but if these protests continue through this summer’s festival season, things might be forced to change - and in turn, the arrogance that Eamonn Forde details in his article might also finally be tested.

It needs to be; nothing about this is feeling healthy at all.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “Barrio Hustle” by Hermanos Gutiérrez. My colleague Matt stumbled onto this earlier today, and we’ve not stopped playing it since. Highly recommend watching their ‘KCRW: Live from HQ” session too. The sound is chilled, twanging guitars but with an overall vibe that is a perfect tonic to any stressful day. Take a listen.

📺 watching “Jon Stewart Gives Sen. Robert Menendez a Corruption Lesson” on YouTube. I love that Stewart is no longer all that interested in the easy wins of ridiculing Trump. Here, he instead focuses on a corrupt New Jersey senator but then goes further, outlining just how corrupt both the Senate and the Supreme Court can be. It’s quite the watch; funny, but brutal in what it lays bare too.

🤖 playing with ChatGPT-4o, the supposedly friendlier, sassier version of the GPT AI. I still struggle to find genuine, meaningful utility in AI. Don’t get me wrong; some of what it can do is exciting and interesting, but like many it seems, I am finding myself wondering why it cannot yet prove indispensable across all the areas it should, on paper anyway, be applicable to.

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Stories from the Music Industry:

NMPA-Spotify rift widens with copyright infringement accusation

The earth is scorched and the bridges are burning, and both sides are digging in their (hopefully scorch-proof) heels. Music industry licensing rows have a long history of suddenly flipping into sweetness and light when a deal is struck – see TikTok and UMG most recently. But Spotify and the NMPA’s dispute feels like it has legs. And, with the Phono IV settlement applying from 2023-27, it all seems to be setting up another almighty battle when the time comes to thrash out the 2028-32 rates.

👆🏻Hot take: the gloves are certainly off here in terms of the rhetoric from both parties. Ultimately it will be interesting to see how this plays out, though for now it doesn’t feel like a settlement will come easily.

How the Music Industry is in a New Age of Arrogance

It was quite the experiment to spend a couple of years “living” in 1999, all the while knowing what the ending was. The warning signs of an impending disaster were all there if you were self-critical enough to spot them. And now, in 2024, with the same sense of arrogance and entitlement gripping the industry, I cannot help but feel like Cassandra.

👆🏻Hot take: see editorial above. This is a must-read article in my view.

Utopia Music rebrands as Proper Group as interim CEO steps down

There’s also another change at the top, although current CEO Michael Stebler was only appointed in January on an interim basis, as a steady pair of hands from Utopia’s majority shareholders. He’s now stepping down as planned. (Original) Proper’s MD Drew Hill will be the new CEO of the distribution and payment-related services parts of the business, with another C-level executive to be announced soon to lead the other segments.

👆🏻Hot take: given Utopia/Proper’s focus is largely all back to the distribution side now, it makes complete sense that Drew Hill would take the CEO role. A smart move, and one I really hope might see the distribution business blossom.

The train has left the station: AI music platform Udio is already spitting out 10 songs a SECOND

We’re sure you can do the math there, but just in case you don’t have a calculator handy: That’s the equivalent of 864,000 tracks a DAY, or just over six million tracks a week. While the service remains in beta, Udio users are permitted to make up to 1,200 free songs each month. Songs made on the platform can be up to 15 minutes in length.

👆🏻Hot take: personally I don’t feel bothered by a platform churning out millions of shitty tracks. I just wonder more how long everyone will even care about this kind of thing. Something created instantly will fairly certainly have little to no value. This is all disposable crap, or at least the vast majority of it is anyway.

Children of Steve Marriott oppose use of his AI-generated vocals

Now, Variety reports, his third wife, Toni Marriot, is attempting to recreate his voice using AI for “new recordings”. His children strongly oppose this, and have released a statement co-signed by a slew of notable artists including Robert Plant, David Gilmour and Paul Weller. “It would absolutely break his heart if he were alive to know this. This is only for money, not art nor appreciation,” they say.

👆🏻Hot take: one more for the “how not to do AI” pile. Just silly, and so obviously led by financial greed that I’d imagine this will get no interest if it ever does become a reality.

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Notable stories from the world of tech:

Max, Disney+, Hulu ad-free bundle coming amid high streaming cancellation rates

According to subscription analyst company Antenna, about 25 percent (or 29 million) of US video streaming subscribers have canceled three or more of their subscription video-on-demand services in the last two years. Such subscribers reportedly represented about 40 percent of new subscriptions and cancellations in 2023, the company told The New York Times last month.

👆🏻Hot take: I do wonder whether (TV) streaming will eventually just die off. Some of the losses being made border on the biblical, and I simply cannot see that continuing for too much longer.

Social media users are blocking celebrities and influencers to support Palestine

The targets vary, but Kim Kardashian, Tom Brady, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Selena Gomez are frequently listed, along with many others. (Kalil, unsurprisingly, has also been mentioned.) It’s a diffuse movement with no established leadership or stated goals, but it’s clearly resonated: tens of thousands of posts have been made on TikTok and Instagram using related hashtags, and comment sections are filled with “#blockout” and pro-Palestine messages.

👆🏻Hot take: whilst big celebs make some kind of revenue from ads etc, I really don’t think it amounts to much, and as such I’m sceptical as to what this is really achieving.

Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem

Uber Shuttle will let riders reserve a seat for themselves or up to five people in a shuttle that goes to and from an airport, a concert or a game for “a fraction of the price” of an UberX, a spokesperson from the company told TechCrunch. Uber promises shuttle prices won’t be impacted by surge pricing, the dynamic pricing structure that causes ride-hail fares to skyrocket when demand is high.

👆🏻Hot take: in fairness this seems like a smart idea, though part of me wonders why it is on corporations like Uber to solve this problem rather than any city’s own infrastructure and planning.

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Looking for something else to read? Here you go:

The Greatest Diss Tracks of All Time, Ranked

As the dust settles on the Kendrick and Drake beef, we couldn’t help but ask: What’s the best diss record in rap history? “Hit ’Em Up”? “The Bridge Is Over”? “Not Like Us”?!?! We’re counting them down, from Rick Ross to LL Cool J to 50 Cent and more.

👆🏻Hot take: this feels like the last word in hip hop dis track coverage. I’d forgotten there were THIS many, to be honest. Quite fun to revisit though, even if some have *really* not aged well.

Shelby Hewitt of Boston: The 32-year-old high school student

Why did a state social worker pose as a teen in three Boston schools and a treatment center? And how could nobody notice for so long?

👆🏻Hot take: this is one of those weirdly fascinating articles that are like catnip to me.

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