🔵 The MMF/BPI disagreement only highlights the growing artist/label problem in music
🔵 The MMF/BPI disagreement only highlights the growing artist/label problem in music
Why this UK-centric spat is a symptom of a wider problem we're seeing now
The MMF made a slightly unusual move of directly attacking the BPI in an op-ed piece for Music Ally, which you can read here.
In it, the MMF’s Chief Exec Annabella Coldrick accused the BPI of attempting to gaslight artists with regards to a recent UK Government panel into streaming remuneration, and the fairness thereof.
In short, she suggests the BPI are publicly stating various ‘facts’ that would appear to be incorrect, such as the claim that “any” Equitable Remuneration model would undermine the success of British music. In reality, Coldrick claims, the panel made no such assertion. Therefore, she feels the BPI are attempting to deliberately mislead artists by spreading disinformation.
Certainly the facts as stated seem to hold up (albeit with one slight error, see next paragraph), and therefore it appears the MMF are justified in having a grievance here. Really though, I feel this is perhaps a symptom of a wider issue, namely the ideological gulf that’s widening between artists and record labels (or rights holders of any sort, such is the complex landscape of music now).
(Side note: I feel obliged to point out that one of the assertions the MMF make, namely that indie label trade body AIM had 3 people on this panel, is incorrect on the basis one of those reps has now clarified that his presence related not to AIM but to his work with Power Up, the initiative supporting Black music creators and industry professionals. Personally I feel the error was probably a genuine one rather than the MMF's own attempt to spin the facts, but you make your own judgement. Full info on that here.)
From where I sit, the self-centredness around all stakeholders in the music industry - which is not necessarily intentional at points - desperately needs to be addressed. Put simply, if as an industry we cannot operate with any kind of shared values, then we are doomed, on the basis the in-fighting will continue unabated, and in turn will allow more unified players in world business and culture - Big Tech being a case in point - to continue devaluing music and generally dismantling the landscape we know and love.
This goes back to my comments about the indie ecosystem (though, truthfully, just the ecosystem around all music). Small venues are closing, music press is all but dead, radio is increasingly marginalised, and even social media’s core influence is waning. At all points when these things happen, it feels like those doing well - e.g. rights holders currently benefitting nicely from streaming income - do not want to acknowledge that in fact, we are all part of a wider ecosystem. Perhaps it is time for a different perspective here, wherein labels and rights holders start investing back into other areas of the ecosystem: live venues, radio stations, surviving music websites and so on.
I suspect this is where idealism meets realism. Idealism says that Taylor Swift should show solidarity with her fellow musicians in the TikTok dispute. Realism is that she has no fealty to anyone but herself, and can therefore do what she likes.
Perhaps then, it is the same around the music ecosystem. However shrugging an accepting this all as a fait accompli is a huge error in my view.
But back to the matter at hand. It is crucial that music trade bodies find what unites them. Perhaps in doing so it might allow better discourse around the issues that they differ on. Many issues go beyond any single trade body, and whilst we now have groups of trade bodies such as the Council of Music Makers and UK Music, it seems even then there isn’t enough accord to ensure only one exists. At that point, things almost feel a little farcical.
The MMF/BPI spat might make for a great “popcorn” moment of drama, but really it lays bare the worrying state of relations between two factions within the same industry. This should not be ignored; everyone should be concerned about the implications of seemingly irrevocable differences like these occurring.
Have a great evening,
D.
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🎶 listening to “Kinetic (Orbital Remix)” by Golden Girls. My colleague Clare reminded me of this absolute classic from back in the day. Catchy as hell and pure “sun’s out, summer vibes” kind of sound. Dive in.
🔊 watching (last Sat anyway) The Hives at Hammersmith Apollo. If you want a best-in-class less on in stagecraft, look no further than this lot, and particularly Pelle, the band’s frontman. One of the best gigs I’ve gone to in a good while - catch them live if you can.
📺 watching “Alan Braxe + DJ Falcon FULL Interview/Chat & Step By Step ft Panda Bear Track Breakdown 6/9/2022” on YouTube. I am a sworn Braxe & Falcon stan, and this video of them walking through their incredible track Step By Step is like manna from heaven to a music maker like me. Wonderful stuff.
Stories from the Music Industry:
Is the music industry gaslighting artists?
Yet the BPI continues to repeatedly claim that the CMA have found no problems in the streaming market. To the point where it feels there is a premeditated strategy to derail discussions around streaming reform by insisting that music-makers should simply accept the status quo, and focus instead on “growing the pie”, rather than the fairness of how it is divided up. In truth, it feels like gaslighting.
👆🏻Hot take: for me this only highlights the growing gulf between artists/creators and labels. It’s not good, and frankly it feels like this in-fighting only helps Big Tech further devalue art when the opposition is not on the same page. Sad to see.
Can’t cross the moat? Walk around it
After all, who is going to listen to all this consumer creation? The friends and family of those who make it. If each consumer creator has, say, ten people who will listen to what they create, and they make a track a month, that results in 120 streams minimum per year (assuming each person only listens once). Turn that one consumer creator into 100 million people (15% of Spotify’s current user base) and you end up with 12 billion streams. Now imagine that 25% of those 100 million consumer creators make two tracks a month, have more than 30 friends that listen, and that their music is good enough for those friends to each listen twice, then the total annual streams becomes 45 billion. Now imagine if those consumer creators make music every single day….
👆🏻Hot take: this is more grist to the mill of my concern around parallel music industries coming to exist. I do feel it is inevitable for all the reasons stated in this article, but the unwillingness for the extant music industry to even acknowledge it is troubling.
TikTok strikes global ticketing partnership with AXS
Fans can now discover and buy tickets for events through AXS directly within the TikTok platform. Plus, any Certified Artist on TikTok can use the in-app ticketing feature to promote their AXS live dates in the app by adding their AXS event links to their videos before publishing. The feature is live in the US, UK, Sweden and Australia.
👆🏻Hot take: a logical move, though with all TikTok has going on, potentially an insignificant one.
HYBE-owned Supertone’s new AI ‘voice changer’ lets artists change their vocals… in real-time
HYBE and Supertone claim that Supertone Shift “represents a new frontier of real-time voice conversion technology (RTVC) with latency down to 47 milliseconds and hyper-realistic voice quality, making it an optimal choice for live content and performances”. Today’s Supertone announcement says: “Whether VTubers, live streamers, and podcasters provide elevated audio experiences for listeners, or gamers and costume players immerse their followers in interactive voice chats, creators can seamlessly shift to their alter ‘identity’ online.”
👆🏻Hot take: this feels like a niche use case at best. Classic AI hype nonsense in most respects.
Warner Music Group job ad reveals initial details of its ‘superfan app’
“If every distribution platform creates products for superfans, it’s very hard for artists to adopt it, because then they have to optimize for that one platform,” Kyncl said at the Morgan Stanley Media & Telecom Conference in March. “That’s not what they want to do. They want to be across everything. And so I think, organically and structurally, we’re in a better position to do something like this than any… large distribution platform today.”
👆🏻Hot take: I will keep saying it until I shuffle off this mortal coil: artist data belongs with artists, not with record labels. Anything creating a dependency on a label (especially a major) is most definitely not in any artist’s interests.
Notable stories from the world of tech:
Report: ByteDance still has access to US users’ TikTok data despite Project Texas
Evan Turner, who worked at TikTok as a data scientist between April and September of 2022, described a “stealth chain of command” in which he was reassigned — on paper — to a manager in Seattle but continued reporting to executives in China. Every two weeks or so, Turner would email spreadsheets with data on hundreds of thousands of US users to ByteDance workers in Beijing, he told Fortune. The spreadsheets included users’ names, email addresses, IP addresses, and geographic and demographic information and was used to determine how to develop TikTok’s algorithm to encourage users to be more active on the app, he said.
👆🏻Hot take: at this point I feel TikTok’s US ban is more of an inevitability, which in turn raises many a question over the new apps it is also trying to launch (see below)
From boom to burst, the AI bubble is only heading in one direction
Stage five – panic – lies ahead. At some stage a bubble gets punctured and a rapid downward curve begins as people frantically try to get out while they can. It’s not clear what will trigger this process in the AI case. It could be that governments eventually tire of having uncontrollable corporate behemoths running loose with investors’ money. Or that shareholders come to the same conclusion. Or that it finally dawns on us that AI technology is an environmental disaster in the making; the planet cannot be paved with datacentres. But it will burst: nothing grows exponentially for ever.
👆🏻Hot take: I do feel this trend is bearing out, but equally it feels like most AI chatter is turning from excited hype to general disappointment. Curious to see what changes when the new models launch.
TikTok Notes starts rolling out as a new rival to Instagram
TikTok has started rolling out its Instagram rival, TikTok Notes, to select Android and iOS users “for download and limited testing in Australia and Canada.” A tweet announcing the launch, as well as the App Store and Google Play listings, showed off some official images of the app that offer insights about how it works for those of us who don’t have access yet.
👆🏻Hot take: I feel traction on this will be light, purely for the same reason that most other social tech companies have not seen huge gains when implementing TikTok-like features in *their* platforms. People have Instagram, they don’t need TikTok’s Instagram-a-like.
Looking for something else to read? Here you go:
Total Fucking Amnesia: Silverfish Interviewed
At the start of the 90s the astounding noise rock band Silverfish were everywhere – their shows nearly as ubiquitous as their Hips Tits Lips Power T-shirts – but since then they seem to have fallen irrevocably (and unfairly) down the memory hole. Keith Kahn-Harris catches up with band members today and asks: What happened?
👆🏻Hot take: Silverfish were my band back in the day. Rowdy, noisy, uncompromising AF, and, in the shape of Lesley Rankine, sporting one of the most powerful, zero-fucks-given frontwomen of the time. Hence, I’m absurdly happy to see this profile piece pop up on The Quietus.
What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain?
Living standards have fallen. The country is exhausted by constant drama. But the U.K. can’t move on from the Tories without facing up to the damage that has occurred.
👆🏻Hot take: I appreciate this might seem a depressing read, but it is a great walk through how the UK got to the sorry state it is in now, with plenty of decent thoughts and insight. Worth making time for.
Flowdan: From This Point Onwards
Flowdan is a giant in the U.K. underground. As part of Roll Deep, he steered the influential grime crew to murkier places. Alongside The Bug, he pushed dub and dancehall to its limits with his uncompromising flows. In February, he became the first ever British MC to win a Grammy for Rumble – the Skrillex-featuring hit that shook dancefloors as much as it did TikTok. Where does the east Londoner go from here?
👆🏻Hot take: I’ve been a huge fan of Flowdan largely thanks to his work with The Bug rather than Roll Deep, so it’s great to see the man finally getting a terrific profile piece.