100 avsnitt • Längd: 65 min • Månadsvis
A podcast on music and capitalism. Dropped bi-weekly.
The podcast Money 4 Nothing is created by Money 4 Nothing. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
Music: Crumb - Ghostride
This past January, Universal Music went to war. Or at least, it tried to. Shocking both listeners AND artists, the major label announced that it was cutting ties with TikTok, the short-form giant, over payout rates and copyright infringement. Its artists (and publishing)—completely pulled from the platform. T-Swift viral dances? Tragically silenced.
The breakup lasted until May, when (in a profoundly opaque statement), the two corporations suddenly announced they had come to terms. The fight was a massive gamble for both sides—a test to see, when push came to shove, who really had the leverage in one of social media’s most important relationships. But…what actually happened? And what, if anything, was the fallout? To learn more, we talked to Kristin Robinson, a senior writer at Billboard, and the author of the excellent "Machine Learnings" newsletter. Fractured solidarity between artists and labels? The impenetrable veil of music biz secrecy? Slowed and reverbed copyright infringement? The crushing power of monopoly exerted, step by step, against indy labels? All that and more.
After an eternity of millennial performers with a chokehold on the charts, we’ve finally seen the emergence of a new cohort of gen-z icons. Chappelle Roan and Sabrina Carpenter (building on the foundation laid by Billie + Olivia) are suddenly everywhere—headlining festivals, topping the charts, defining the zeitgeist. You might call it a moment of generational turnover…except for the fact that precisely zero cultural lines are being drawn. Instead, the newest wave of big-tent pop is, quite intentionally, for everyone—teens, college kids, aging millennials, gen x-ers still watching SNL, etc.
To celebrate the return of the mainstream (and to suss out the role played by the major labels who had…started to miss it), we put on our media theory hats and start investigating. How do careers function now that new music doesn’t need to be new? Has digitally based fragmentation started to produce its opposite? Is the culture industry—with all of its coercive power—back? Come for the socio-technical implications of the Chappelle timeline. Stay for what it says about the nature of post-post-modernity.
How did streaming change music? Not like how did it change the music industry (we talk about that plenty, obviously). And not how did it change bitrate. But how did streaming change the nature of the music that you listen to? How and why and does it matter that you now pay a limited rate for an unlimited amount of music? Within capitalism, how does it matter that "streaming" functions under a fundamentally different system of copyright and finance and technology than…say buying? And how does that all service data collection, listening habits, personalized feeds and everything else? These questions are at the heart of Eric Drott’s wonderful new book “Streaming Music, Streaming Capital,” which starts to grapple with the fundamental questions of what streaming is exactly—and what it’s done to us.
NÜ metal sucks. Right? It’s what critics have screamed ever since the taste-defying mashup of funk-metal, rap, industrial, and post-hardcore stormed onto the charts in the mid ‘90s. When bands like Slipknot, Linkin Park, System of a Down, Korn, or Limp Bizkit dominated the charts, the take was muted by raw success. But the second the acts slipped…the entire movement was (more or less) decried as tasteless trash—the worst of rockism, utterly beyond the pale. Why though? Could the last truly successful (from a chart perspective) rock movement REALLY have no redeeming qualities? And if it did…why hasn’t anyone been thinking about them? Well—one hero has. It’s Holiday Kirk, the “CEO of NÜ Metal,” whose remarkable twitter-project “crazy ass moments in nu metal history” has brought welcome attention back to the style—and shone a spotlight on a new generation of artists reimagining the sound. We talk to Holiday about why he fell (back) in love with the style, the mixture of dumb and brilliant that defines its output, And why Korn were the best sellouts of all time. Then we get heady, and try to think through the political implications of the genre’s white male rage—and what it means that it was so thoroughly rejected by the tastemakers of the Obama era. Come for a validation of the musical trauma of throwing away your copy of Hybrid Theory. Stay for a discussion of the class, politics, taste, and the meaning of Rock in American history.
Music: Uniform - "Permanent Embrace"
This summer, the other shoe finally dropped on Ticketmaster/Live Nation.
After decades of complaints by everybody from Pearl Jam to Zach Bryan (and after several years of increasingly intense Post-Swifty scrutiny), the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit accusing the massive firm of being a monopoly. In it, lawyers argue that the company is built around size and market-share—allowing it to harvest vast profits, prevent the emergence of meaningful competition, and damage the interests of both artists and fans. If the DOJ wins? That monopoly might get broken up. And what happens then is anybody’s guess.
Given the importance of live performance to the music industry, all of this is…a really big deal. Which is why we were delighted to talk all things restraint-of-trade with Kevin Erickson, the director of the Future of Music Coalition. Crucially, it’s not just that any major regulatory move could shatter the long-standing, “convenience-fee”-driven status quo. Turns out, Ticketmaster/Live Nation has its fingers in a LOT of pies. Even the lawsuit itself could go a long way towards revealing the hidden influence that the powerful company has exerted on everything from touring schedules or merch practices to advertising cultures and venue sustainability. Discovery? Can’t Wait.
Come for platform monopolies slowly strangling your favorite local venue. Stay for…that too, because it's SUPER real. But also for a pragmatic perspective on our musical ecosystem—and the rare chance to change its trajectory for the better.
Music: King Tubby - "African Roots"
In recent months, AI companies like Suno and Udio have been in the news for the incredible promise of their text-to-tunes tech. Just type in a few phrases, and… an original piece of music of your very own, created in seconds. It’s a revolution! At least that’s the narrative being pushed by the world of venture capital, which has thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at the fledgling firms. To better understand what these companies are promising—and what they could do to the music industry—Saxon and Sam think through some possible futures, from the mind-bendingly good to the vast universe of echoing slop.
But even if the tech is there, the world might not follow along as smoothly as the CEOs would like. In particular, the major labels, incensed at what they believe was the wholesale theft of their copyrights, have launched a series of lawsuits aimed at kneecapping the wannabe unicorns. This past week, Suno and Udio responded in startling fashion. Yes, it turns out, they did indeed train their models on recorded music. But it wasn’t stealing, because… the recordings were already online? At stake is more than just the future of not having to learn Garageband in order to make mediocre house. Instead, the battle over audio is shaping up to be a defining moment for generative AI more generally—a conflict with billions on the line. Come for our new theme song. Stay for the techno-social dynamics of copyright within sonic capitalism.
Live music continues to evolve in our post-covid, pre-bird flu world—and nothing even approaching a new normal has yet to appear. To try and get a handle on the complexities of a constantly-moving situation, Saxon and Sam decided to go...both big and small.
By small, we're talking about the ticket sales for the Black Keys (very canceled) stadium tour—one of a raft of recent underselling events (lookin' at you Coachella) that have kicked up all manner of concern among the music press. What's happening? Well, it's some combination of the internet, the resale market, rapacious monopolies, inflation, and...mimetic vibes? That all? We discuss.
And if that's not heady enough, we try to wrap our heads (if not our eyes) around The Sphere—James Dolan's energy-draining, future-baiting, Knicks-helping monstrosity in Las Vegas. Is it the logical endpoint of digital-age concerts? Berghain for Baby Boomers? A utopian use of finance capital in a dark age? An inevitable tax write-off? And...who can actually fill it?
Come for The Sphere in the age of mechanical distraction. Stay for The Orb.
Although rap currently stands at the center of American music, for much of the genre's history, its relationship to the charts was...fraught. Radio was notoriously reluctant to play the brash new style, and major labels took over a decade to embrace its commercial potential. So how did hip hop make it? How did it grow from a regional fluke into a global phenomenon?
To learn more, we spoke to Amy Coddington, the author of "How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race." Her work recovers rap's tortuous path through the financialized complexity of the '80s music industry—navigating around established Black radio stations that refused to play it, as a key part of multi-racial dance music coalitions, and through eye-catching MTV videos that reimagined the white-coded mainstream. The results push past the "authentic-or-not" dichotomy that defines hip hop history, revealing how rap was shaped—and driven forward—as much by pop trifles as hardcore truth tellers. After all...you STILL can't touch this.
Music: Jon McKiel - "Still Life"
Drake vs. Kendrick was about more than personal insults or verbal one-upmanship—it was a referendum on the most dominant figure of the last decade of rap (Drake), as narrated by the only classicist with the critical clout and popular cred to issue the judgement. But while the conflict was ultra-current, the chosen forum dates back to the very beginning of rap, a symbolically charged space tied deep to its genetic code. What does a rap battle mean? How has it evolved? And why does it carry so much importance? To explore the question, Saxon and Sam go through the history of rap beef, tracing changing conventions and their relationship to both the music industry and the aesthetic structures of feeling that surround it. Then, they try to figure out what made this battle so intense—moving from Drake as 21st century Bowie to the "contentification" of music in the social media era. The Bridge to Gucci to the Grahams….with a few detours.
This past March, Shigeichi Negishi passed away at 100. While you might not know his name, you’ve certainly enjoyed the musical world he helped create. Negishi has long been credited as the inventor of Karaoke—pulling together consumer electronics, post-work drinking culture, and a love of pop tunes into an era-defining mix. A deeper dive, however, makes the story more complex (and honestly more interesting). Negishi was actually just one of a handful of simultaneous inventors. Far from a distinct commercial product, Karaoke might be better understood as the necessary, albeit somewhat-off-key, shadow of the modern music business.
To celebrate this legacy, Saxon and Sam dig into one of the most fascinating elements of our contemporary musical…practice? Industry? Culture? Karaoke has a way of blurring all those the lines. And so, in addition to the history, we explore the big questions: What does it mean to imagine yourself a star? Why do we want to perform Katy Perry songs in front of friends and strangers? How has Karaoke’s meaning in American culture changed over time? Where does all this fit into the history of folk music—and what does it mean for our social-media future? A first pass, and definitely not a final say. Just hoolllddd onttooo that feeeellinnnnn....
Dear Listener, Have you found yourself coming down with more consistent cases of nostalgia lately? Do you consider yourself a millennial? Well, if so, you might be soon buying a pricey concert ticket to one of the hottest trends in live music: The 20 year Anniversary Album Tour. Yes, your favorite album of 2004 (or perhaps 2014) can soon be heard live, in its entirety, front to back at a concert venue near you. But why is this becoming such a trend? Is it the pre-packaged social media ready presentation? Or that Millennials got deeper pockets now and will shell out big bucks on tickets (and a babysitter) to hear their favorite album played live? Or is it just Hollywood risk-aversion bleeding into the touring industry? As a jumping-off point, Saxon and Sam discuss an excellent recent article on Passion of the Weiss wondering on this very subject and then suss out whether Earl Sweatshirt really is touring ...too...much?
Read: We Outside: Congrats, Your Favorite Album is Old Enough to Go on Tour by Pravash Trewn
This week, we take a roundabout tour of the platform power that drives our musical landscape. First up is Neil Young, whose one-man stand against Spotify for its support of Joe Rogan just ended in….well…total defeat. We explore why Ol' Neil was unable to escape the musical monopsony that defines our streaming age (with a few detours into the terrors of lo-fidelity audio and the dream that was Pono). Then, we look at what Universal Music has been up to, more specifically, by examining a set of recently announced partnerships with Spotify (they have videos now?) and K-Pop powerhouse Hybe (everyone, quick, into the WeVerse!) If platforms were already inescapable, what does it mean when the major labels start doubling down on them? Come for the secret, dollar-drenched sound of Scooter Braun and Taylor Swift burying the hatchet. Stay for how we LOST THE UNIVERSE.
Music: Chromatics - Fade to Black
Much of the time, it feels like almost nothing could shake up the streaming status-quo. This isn’t one of those times. Over the past week, Congressperson Rashida Tlaib (with support from the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers) released the Living Wage for Musicians Act—a fascinating piece of legislation that (if passed) would completely transform the contemporary music industry. Like…really REALLY change things, in ways both obvious and subtle.
While it’s hard to see an immediate path towards it being signed into law, the act demonstrates a genuine hunger for large-scale structural change—and helps to lay out an imaginative framework for what that could look like. We dig into the details, but also explore what this newfound sense of possibilities might mean for the future—a question that also connects to current, racially-coded attempts to ban music-biz-hotbed Tik Tok. Connecting such seemingly disparate events, we wonder what this emergent energy means, and where it could go next. Come for the 12-Million Stream Cap—stay for the beautiful dream of major label transparency.
Music: La Sécurité - "K9 Freaks Mix (Freak Heat Waves Remix)"
Is rock dead? Not according to Imagine Dragons. You know the band with 10 different billion-streamed songs? The one that’s sold 46 million records? You’ve definitely heard of them, but....have you ever really HEARD them? Probably not. And that’s because despite being the most successful band of the past 25 years, Imagine Dragons has received next to no critical attention. Not even a proper 0.6 take-down, let alone a serious examination.
And that’s honestly a mistake. Because the group has a tremendous amount to tell us—about our changing musical tastes, about the psychic landscape of modern America, and about the trajectory of rock in a post-genre future. Come for Sam listening to the entirety of the ID catalog for the sake of science. Stay for a new perspective on the merits—and singular focus—of an act that’s defined an era of angst.
This past week, negotiations broke down between Universal Music—the biggest and most powerful of the three major labels—and Tik Tok, the world’s most viral social media platform. The result: Universal’s music has been pulled—almost entirely—from the mimetic app. It’s a show of raw muscle the likes of which we haven’t seen for years, and the implications are fascinating. But how did it come to this? Why are two of the biggest forces in the music business in a battle that neither should have wanted?
To better understand the story, we dig into the payout structures that define the conflict, the inter-sectoral strategies that shaped it, and the negotiations that led to everything falling apart. Once again, it’s a fight about the future of sound—and which type of business is going to own it. Come for everyone talking about AI without anyone talking about AI. Stay for a KILLER data-science research project.
Like the rest of the increasingly small world of music criticism, we were shaken by the news that Pitchfork had not only been more-or-less gutted by publisher Conde Nast, but pulled into GQ. Gentleman’s Quarterly. Of all possible things. G-freaking-Q...?
We’re not gonna lie—this one feels grim. But, what kind of grim? Events split the team, with Saxon spinning out a narrative of corporate confusion and brand-based failure, while Sam tried to pull some (desperate) fragments of sense from the seemingly nonsensical plan. Is music criticism lifestyle reporting? Is there an economic base for the record review? Will a thousand newsletter flowers bloom? This week we have questions, not answers. And definitely no good vibes. Insert your own "Wintour is the cruelest season" joke here.
New year, same old music business. To get things kicked off right, we circle back to check in on two of our favorite industry players, and things….well, we hate to tell you, but things aren’t GREAT, you know? Regarding Hipgnosis, the once high-flying music fund is very much in hot water—conflicts of interest flying, shareholders revolting, and board-members unceremoniously shown the door. Who could have possibly seen this coming? Certainly not us…
And then Spotify, where the times—or at least the streaming payout structure—are a-changin’. On the surface, new rules regarding monetization (under 1000 plays? No cash for you!) might seem relatively minor, but they reflect a more fundamental set of shifts within the power-structures of the industry. Everyone is gearing up for a fight about the next 25 years of music—moves like this are the first steps towards a new world order. And if recent events are any indication, Spotify doesn’t seem like it’ll be the one calling the shots…
Music: Black Lips - "Bone Marrow"
Re-Listen: "Consent Decrees" Episode
Over the summer, New York’s premier EDM festival Electric Zoo descended deep into the Fyre Fest zone—that magical place combining blatant rip-off and profoundly unsafe conditions. Purchased by by owners of Brooklyn mega-club Avant Gardner the previous year, the latest edition of the three-day rave took the Bold and Forward Thinking step of mixing abrupt cancellations and incredibly poor crowd control with rampant overselling, producing a potentially deadly crowd-crush and an NYPD investigation. Fascinated and horrified, we decided to dig a bit deeper to figure out…who ARE these guys? And what in the name of Frankie Knuckles is their deal? As we dug into the often insane specifics (Superfund Halloween Rave, Best Friends With Mayoral Staffers, Etc.), we realized that the question shed light on a deeper issue: as dance music and nightlife become big business, how do are events and venues balancing the desire for profits and the demand for safety? And could the finance money pouring into the space change things for the worse?
Read: Clubbing is Becoming Big Business. What Does This Mean for Dance Music? - Resident Advisor
Hi folks! As part of our collaboration with Penny Fractions, we are bringing you the first episode of a new format—David, Saxon, and Sam, thinking through our moment in an off-the-cuff convo about current events. We hope you like it!
The music industry was recently shaken by news around beloved marketplace/web-magazine Bandcamp, where half of the staff was recently let go (or, as press release from definitely-not-shady new owners Songtradr put it "After a comprehensive evaluation...50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr”). It’s…not great. Unfortunately, it’s also not entirely unexpected. To try to get our heads around what’s happening, we talk union-busting, the decline of music criticism, the death of tech optimism, the rise of the influencer economy, the zombie-like survival of grifting, and what the future might hold for a synch-happy tech-bro Bandcamp. Somedays, it feels like it's their world, and we just live in it. Today might be one of those days.
Music - Panic Girl - "Washed Ashore"
Machine Learning. It’s in the news, and increasingly, it's in our tunes. Somehow. Maybe? Given the ravenous hype cycles of tech, it can be extremely difficult to separate the real, the potentially real, the squint-and-maybe-you-can-see it, and “the SEC wants to speak to you now” of it all. To try and get a better sense of how AI is factoring into the present-day music industry as it actually, you know, exists, we talked with Cherie Hu of Water and Music. We discuss production tools, major label plots, social media possibilities, and push-button production, and tried to figure out the ways these technologies could be revolutionary—or more of the same. To put it another way? Come for the change—stay for the continuity.
On Nov 5th, 2021, the first night of Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival collapsed into horror—a terrible crowd crush at the Houston event killed 10, and reportedly injured thousands. In the wake of the catastrophe, fingers were pointed at Scott, at Live Nation, at the Police, at Rap music, at “the kids.” And then? Silence. We didn’t really know what happened, and no details emerged for a long, long time.
Until now. Coinciding (suspiciously, perhaps) with the release of Scott’s new album “Utopia,” a grand jury decided that no one was criminally liable for the deaths—and the Houston PD released their entire investigative report. How did this happen? Who was at fault? And what would stop it from happening again? To try and answer these questions, Sam and Saxon dug deep into the documentation, trying to understand the fatal breakdown. And the answers…well...they aren’t reassuring. Far from a riot or a panic, Astroworld seems like it mostly went according to plan. The problem was that the plan was fundamentally flawed—dependent on inexperienced workers, unfamiliar collaborators, and shaped by a fear of the crowd it was supposed to protect. Ultimately, Astroworld seems increasingly like a microcosm of the rotten, financialized state of American life. And while a slight sliver of hope might exist in antitrust activity, it doesn’t seem like things are going to get better anytime soon. The opposite of Utopia.
"Ambient Music" has seen a renewed interest for reasons that we can only speculate. 2016 election? Increased atomization of individuals? The multi-headed hell-scape of pandemic + climate change + economic woes? Sure. Whatever the reason, the past decade as seen a revival of soundscapes and synths that is both helping us escape from the toils of our everyday and also, more darkly, making us more functional subjects in the service of Capital. Starting from the conceptual ideas of John Cage and Eno's late modernist visions illustrated by 'Music for Airports,' Sam and Saxon attempt to trace a history of contemporary Ambient with a look towards alternative possibilities and potentials that go beyond chill-out rooms and curated mood playlists. Also discussed: the merits of 17th century Harp Music, homemade iPhone field recordings, and the liberating benefits of being inefficient.
Music: Emily Sprague - "Water Memory"
It used to be so simple. There were the major labels (all 6 of them, or whatever) and there were the independents or "the indies." Over the 80’s and 90s, a position initially adopted out of economic necessity grew into a distinctive cultural mode, with a host of aesthetic and political dimensions. Now things have changed and being "indie" no longer means the same.
To understand this shift, we take a look at the Merlin Network, powerful grouping of independent labels that banded together to grab a seat (or at least, a half-a seat) at the streaming table. Now responsible for roughly 15 percent of the modern music economy, Merlin has been a tremendous success, allowing independent labels like XL, Domino, Beggers Group and others spanning the globe to continue to thrive in an increasingly hyper-concentrated, almost entirely digital industry. But at what cost? We think through what independence can even mean within platform capitalism—and how the lessons of the past can be repurposed (if at all) to our multi-media future.
Five years ago, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams finally lost the (musical) lawsuit of the century. Their song, “Blurred Lines,” had been an inescapable summertime hit, a wedding-DJ-standby, and the center of a very Obama-Era debate over whether it was creepy to have a song called “Blurred Lines” in the first place (it was.) Now, it was also found to have violated IP owned by Marvin Gaye’s estate, specifically the classic song “Got To Give It Up”—a brilliant track that VIBED a lot like “Blurred Lines” without sharing much, if any, direct musical DNA. It was a bombshell.
In the years since, the music industry has changed. Songwriters became more cautious, backroom deals were struck, catalogs got bought, and everyone accused Ed Sheeran of stealing their songs. But why was the lawsuit actually decided in favor of Gaye? And what does that tell us about the legal structures that shape modern music? To get a better sense, Saxon and Sam dig into the details of the case, unpacking the epically unmoored nature of modern copyright, the invisible impact of sampling, the music biz negotiations that followed the ruling, and the AI possibilities hurtling at us all. Come to hear us try and remember what 2013 sounded like. Stay for some beautiful—and we mean beautiful—depositions.
In the digital economy, recommendation algorithms get…a LOT of attention. To some, they’re the special sauce behind everything from Spotify’s personalized playlists to Tik Tok’s “For You” page. For others, they represent a dark, vibe-generating demiurge slowly sapping music’s social power. But for all the discussion of how these programs are transforming our world(s), there’s surprisingly little analysis of what—exactly—they are, or how they’re meant to work.
Answering these seemingly simple questions is the goal of Nick Seaver’s new book “Computing Taste,” which explores the identities, goals, and practices of the programmers behind these technologies. Far from Machiavellian manipulators, the coders he describes are surprisingly idealistic music-lovers, desperately trying to analyze an almost infinitely complex cultural practice. Their failures to do so—and the ideologies they adopted as a result—would have enormous implications for the development of digital music, remaking genres, redefining listening, and shaping the platforms at the heart of the modern industry. Put it this way—we’ll definitely never look at a "Discover Weekly" playlist the same way again.
Music: DJ Screw - "My Mind Went Blank"
Screwed Up RecordsThe success of YouTube has been inextricably linked to the music business. Initially a remarkably effective streaming pirate, recent years have seen the site pivot to industry ally, paying out millions in royalties for the copyrighted material played on its platform. But who gets the money? And how? And…who is making sure it goes to the right people?
These are the questions opened up by Billboard journalist Kristin Robinson in her fascinating discussion of a remarkable YouTube scam that saw a handful of little-known Phoenix producers claim millions of dollars in royalties from many of Latin music’s biggest names. The mere possibility of the scam reflects the opaque complexity of a mega-system that turns user eyeballs (and the ad dollars that follow them) into artist revenue—a machine that’s designed to keep the platforms wealthy, with little regard for anyone else. Come for the Lamborghini—stay for an exploration of how tech giants have managed to remake the world (of copyright, but ovbi not JUST of copyright) to fit their needs.
It was revealed just this past week that basically all of Reggaeton is being sued. No, really. As you may or may not know, the massively popular genre from Latin-American and the Caribbean is actually based mostly on a few Jamaican riddims (the instrumental background or “rhythm” in contemporary Jamaican music). Now the production duo of Steely & Clevie, who wrote the riddim behind the massively popular early '90s hit "Dem Bow" by Shabba Ranks, want their bag for the riddim's use in Reggaeton over the last…oh…three-plus decades. The lawsuit includes Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” (currently sitting as the most watched video on YouTube with a cool 8 billion plays), forty Daddy Yankee tracks, and a whole slew of other major Reggaeton hits including...Justin Bieber? So, Sam and Saxon thought they’d dive into all the reasons why this is a huge deal, and dig beyond just the big names being indicted, but consider things like when a very localized music and culture hits international markets and thus, a whole new set of laws around copyright. Also, the complexities of riddim culture in Jamaica, the role of streaming has played in Reggaeton's popularity, and why Dancehall never really reached the promised land of crossover success.
The music industry is becoming increasingly disenchanted with Tik-Tok, finding it difficult to bend the wildly popular app for its own profitability...let alone find the next mega-star. Does that mean we might see the big three start to put the squeeze on Tik-Tok for dipping into its massive catalog without much of a payout? It worked well with Spotify for Lucian Grainge and co. But can the same sort of profit be siphoned? Also, Sam and Saxon dive into the the coming A.I. apocalypse. Well, okay, maybe its not doomsday but AI-generated music (and artists) are already here and will continue to be ever present. But what will it look like? Will it be perfectly crafted generated playlist to suit every mood? Or will AI beats be relegated to Big Room saturday nights at DER KLUB near you? If that's not enough we got a masked, AI-generated artist named MELON and a conspiracy involving The Cramps. We'll explain.
Music: Ronnie Cook - "Goo Goo Muck"
Taylor Swift made headlines recently by grabbing all top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — a first in its 64 year history — with the release of her latest record Midnights. Cool. Good for Taylor and her Swifties. But….what does that actually mean? You might think it's a simple answer, but actually the Billboard charts are a complex beast with a long and winding history that didn’t even start in music. On this episode, we ask how the charts help us narrativize music in a consumerist society, revealing that the reality it supposedly reflects has often been constructed by arbitrary calculations, new technologies and the manipulating fingers of the major labels. Along the way we think on what it can also tell us about the ruthless capitalist practices of the big box store, and how the charts have mirrored changing attitudes towards race in America.
Music: Chaz Jankel - Pretty Thing
The modern music industry is defined, in large part, by major labels and centralized digital services. To try and imagine a world without (or at least around them), we’ve been looking backwards to the 1980s, when a thriving underground economy enabled a remarkable flood of American rock. If one label could be said to define that moment, it would be LA’s SST Records. Founded in Hermosa Beach by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn, SST would spend the decade releasing an unbeatable string of albums from acts like Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen, Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, St. Vitus, and Meat Puppets. To try and understand how SST did it— and why it more or less vanished by the turn of the 90s, we talk to Jim Ruland author of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records. Come for discussion of Spot, the best punk producer of all time. Stay for a takes on semi-thriving undefground economies , megalomania, and “weeding out.”
Our good friend David Turner celebrated five years of Penny Fractions earlier this month with a live show at Nowadays. On stage, David was joined by our very own Sam Backer along side heavy-hitters Liz Pelly and Cherie Hu. Enjoy this live recording from the show as the crew run through everything you'd expect from a M4N discussion on the current state of the music industry: criticisms, hot takes, laughs, shade, shout-outs...oh and lollipops.
It’s a tale as old as Nirvana. A band (ideally punk or punk influenced) forms and gets some buzz. Major labels swarm. The kids sign on the dotted line…and are promptly thrown to the wolves. Fade to black. And while that often-repeated story isn’t exactly false, it doesn’t do much to capture the shifting dynamics that shaped the economies of rock over the 90’s and 2000’s—an era when the relationship between independent artists and the major label mainstream was central to American musical culture. Luckily for us, we have Dan Ozzi, whose excellent book “Sell Out: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy that Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore, 1994-2007” is a vital guide to a complex and frequently oversimplified moment. We talk Green Day and At The Drive In, Thursday and Jimmy Eat World as we try to figure out why major labels threw so much money at emotionally-literate post-hardcore bands when there was still a bumper crop of Nu Metal—and how those practices shifted as the internet began to remake the industry. Talk about understanding in a car crash, amirite?
Music: Jets to Brazil - "Chinatown"
In the past few months, the insane flood of money that has been flowing into the purchase of music rights (and really, into financial and tech related firms of pretty much all stripes) has begun to slow down. Crazy what rising interest rates will do, huh? These changes have prompted a wave of takes about the potential collapse of a host of music rights firms that overpromised, overpaid, and now seem poised to underdeliver—Hipgnosis, the industry leader, first among them. But…is all lost for these companies? We dig into the ways in which, profitable business model be damned, the sheer weight of capital in this sector may have already begun to bend the industry in its direction—and explore the mechanics that ensure the money probably won’t dry up anytime soon. PLUS: Future sold his catalog? What does THAT mean? Can it tell us something about the…uhhh…future...of songwriters, major artists and the alternatives it could create for a music career?
Music: 2003 Toyota Corolla - "2008 Toyota Corolla"
Music: Geoffrey Landers - "Camilla"
Read "The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned a million pounds" by John Higgs
At this point, you’ve probably seen headlines about the insane (like $5K+ insane) prices for some tickets to see The Boss on his latest tour. It’s the type of music-biz story that breaks out into the wider world—legendary poet of blue-collar post-industrial collapse, selling out to the I-95 yuppies with the help of the hated Ticketmaster. To try to better understand why Bruce (and his fans) did what they did and felt what they felt, we put the story into the broader context of a live industry build around elite profits—and try to suss out the longer history and future potential of the anti-commercial anger at the heart of the backlash. But first! We dig into some interesting news out of Meta (AKA Facebook), which is now apparently planning on…paying artists? For their content? Or…wait…no…getting a correction…paying the labels. Paying the labels for the music they license. Makes more sense. All is right in the world. Insert: This-Is-Fine-Dog.jpg.
Music: Discovery Zone - "Remote Control"
Over the last few years, K-Pop has taken the world by storm. Groups like BTS and BLACKPINK have reached pinnacles of music-biz success both traditional (selling out stadiums worldwide) and distinctly modern (see: serving as the center for a vast and dedicated online community of fans across the globe). But while such groups have received mountains of breathless hype from the western media, this coverage has consistently failed to explain what K-Pop really is—or how it works.
To help us learn more, we spoke to Kara of The Idolcast, one of the best English-language resources for understanding this complex music industry. Tracing the story of K-pop from its beginnings in post-dictatorship South Korea to its present-day prominence, we talk geo-political dynamics of government-funded culture, the amount of dance training it takes to learn those synchronized moves, why it’s necessary to have a “goofy” one, “Johnny & Associates,” whether idol fandom challenges the basic categories of the American music industry and the glory that is “Bistro SMAP.” We couldn't get to everything, obviously, but... get ready to go a WHOLE lot deeper than “BTS is the New Beatles.”
Listen to The Idolcast!
If you’ve been anywhere near…really, any music playing device lately, you’ve probably noticed that Kate Bush (Misty-Moored British Chanteuse and Big Boi’s favorite artist) has a full-blown new-old hit in a way that we really haven’t seen before? Her song “Running up that Hill (A Deal With God)” was featured heavily in the latest season of the hit Netflix show Stranger Things and it’s sort of taken on a life of its own. As Ms. Bush busts through chart-record after chart-record, we take a step back and try to think through the phenomenon. Is this different than other songs in other movies? How does it reflect the unique dynamics of our streaming moment? And what might the track’s popularity have to do with our continuing reconstruction of 80’s aesthetics?
Life’s been a bit crazy over at M4N HQ lately, so this is a BONUS episode, and it’s a bit shorter than normal. We’ll be back in a week or two with another full-lengthier (and hopefully, some extra post-degree free-time from both Saxon and Sam)
The music industry isn’t a monolith and few scenes have a more distinctive structure than electronic music. As it developed from house and techno to today’s endless array of genres, the music traded the artist-heavy focus of rap or rock for constellations of high-profile DJs, faceless producers, and—most importantly for today’s episode—a host of iconic independent labels. In a hyper-consolidated, major label world, these indies have not only survived but (sometimes) thrived, defining the aesthetic development of scene after scene both before AND after the internet-driven shifts of the 2000’s. But...how did that work? And how do independents fit into the economy of electronic music more generally? To learn more, we were delighted to talk to music journalist Chal Ravens who hosts the podcast “Relevant Parties” profiling legendary labels from DFA and Ninja Tune to Exit and Ed Banger. Our freewheeling conversation touched on everything from the idea of “curation” in the age of Spotify and how Myspace allowed producers to outflank major labels to the informational economy of the club…and whole lot more.
Music: CZ Wang and Neo Image - "Just Off Wave"
If you haven’t noticed, things have gotten...hairy in the economy. Inflation is up, the stock market is down, and the fed’s money machine? It stopped going “brrr.” All of this suggests that we might be leaving the VERY long, frothy period where companies (looking at you Uber!) didn’t need to muddy their hands with things like “earning profits” in order to reshape our lives, cities, communities, and consciousness. But if that’s REALLY happening…what does it mean for the music industry? Saxon and Sam try to connect macro-economic upheaval to entertainment activity, puzzling through how a return of market-based reality could remake streaming, the financialization of song-rights, the major labels, and maybe—just maybe—open up some space for the kind of limited, tend-your-garden community that has been difficult to conceptualize over the past 14 years of “go big or go home” tech. Are we probably wrong? Definitely. But sometimes the only way to get ready for a change is to make some predictions.
Music: Hermeto Pascoal - "Dança do Pajé"
We all know that the musical landscape has changed in recent years. Tik Tok, Youtube, playlist culture, social media, and on and on and on—they’ve all remade how we listen, and what we listen to. But when folks (including us?) discuss those changes, they all too frequently focus on the big picture at the expense of the details. Streaming is over a decade old now. How…has it changed? That’s why we were so excited to talk to Andrew Unterberger, a journalist at Billboard who recently wrote a fascinating piece exploring why new music is taking longer to reach the top of the charts—and spending so much time there once it does. Where breaking on radio (or Tik Tok!) used to be enough, today’s hits take complex routes across any number of platforms on their way to the Billboard Top 40. Talking our way through them reveals the multi-polar, chance-driven, promotion-filled universe that’s driving our current listening. Turns out, it’s a world that’s far more chaotic (and a lot less planned) than either labels—or their critics— would like to admit.
Mike Park has been running Asian Man Records out of his mom’s garage for over two decades with a refreshing approach that might seem unusual by today’s standards: there’s no advances and every release is a handshake agreement. “I do this for the love of music,” writes Park on the label’s About page. “Not for capitalist gain or status recognition. I try my best to do the right things ethically and to believe in helping others instead of striving for profit over people.” Somehow its worked, with Asian Man amassing a small, but powerful catalog/community of underground music comprised of seminal third-wave ska, early Alkaline Trio records, Jeff Rosenstock, Joyce Manor, AJJ and many others. On this episode, Saxon decided to hide the crystal ball, puts away systematic analysis, and erase the galaxy brain chalk board to talk with Park about the very real highs and lows of being an indie label head on the fringes of the music industry. Along the way, the two discuss format changes, early 2K sellout culture, the role of a small label in today’s ecosystem, and lament briefly about the disappearance of Myspace.
It’s a debate that’s all the rage. New data suggests that catalog recordings (anything released over 18 months ago) had begun to outstrip new music in the streaming economy. Is this the end of pop as we know it? Is it because the kids just don’t like culture? Is it because….the INTERNET? Well, maybe. But first we need to look at how we get those stats and dig into some quick boomer-listening habit history. From the vagaries of Tik Tok virality to millennials leaving the pop zone, a lot is going into this moment, and we’re here to speculate wildly about all of it.
Part 2 of our conversation with Mat Dryhurst on Crypto’s evolving place in the music industry, both major and independent. Dryhurst has long been one of the most active and articulate proponents of these technologies (and the social formations developing around them) and has a deep well of experience and knowledge in this fast-moving space. While we don’t agree on everything, it was very much the kind of conversation that’s needed to push forward our understanding of the billionaire-backed, contractually-decentralized, AI-drenched future that’s beginning to emerge in certain corners of the internet.
Over the past year, we’ve devoted more than a few episodes to discussions about Crypto, NFTs, and Web3—projects that we’ve been, it feels safe to say…fairly skeptical about. Given that skepticism, we were delighted to have the chance speak to Mat Dryhurst, who hosts the Interdependence podcast with Holly Herndon, for a discussion about Crypto’s evolving place in the music industry, both major and independent. Dryhurst has long been one of the most active and articulate proponents of these technologies (and the social formations developing around them) and has a deep well of experience and knowledge in this fast-moving space. While we don’t agree on everything, it was very much the kind of conversation that’s needed to push forward our understanding of the billionaire-backed, contractually-decentralized, AI-drenched future that’s beginning to emerge in certain corners of the internet. (Part 1 of 2)
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
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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.
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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
How is music made? Not how do record companies work, but how is music made? And where does it go after we're done with it? According to Kyle Devine, a professor of Musicology at the University of Oslo, we’ve all been paying far too little to this story, closing our eyes to the environmental implications of our favorite sounds. Kyle talks to Saxon and Sam about his book “Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music,” an eye-opening exploration of the material infrastructure that lies behind vinyl disks (and internet apps). The cloud, by the way? It’s a place. And it burns gas just like the rest of us. [Originally Aired 10.27.21]
What happens if you or your band is good, like—really good? You get SIGNED. A record contract! You've made it!....or did you? The fact that major label contracts aren’t particularly fair is well known, but what if they’re doing more than just ripping off artists and an empty promise? In his recent book, “Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians, and Power in Society,” Scholar David Arditi argues that label contracts are actually a key element in an ideological system that structures popular music, one that stretches from the Grammys or The Voice to your local Battle of the Bands and the basic assumptions of friends and family. Taking a long hard look at one of the central building blocks of the modern music industry, Arditi helps Sam and Saxon think through why labels retain their power despite changing technology—and how that landscape could shift in the future.
The streaming economy—and much of the discourse around it—is based on a simple promise: all of the music. Not some of the music, not most of the music, but ALL of the music being available to stream on-demand. But as we all know, the cloud is far from complete. Artists from De La Soul to Aaliyah have long been absent, while entire eras of music blogs, mid-aughts mixtape culture and MySpace emo bands are simply unavailable, perhaps forever (RIP to the glory days of G-Unit, Dipset and your high school's best Dashboard Confessional impersonator). And while there are a few outlets still holding it down (insert prayer emoji for DatPiff), there is a sense that they are consistently under threat of soon disappearing as well. So on this episode, Sam and Saxon decide to take a look at music streaming from its margins, trying to think through what musical erasure can tell us about the future of listening, fandom, history and more.
When Lee "Scratch" Perry left this world on August 29th, we lost a towering figure of 20th century culture as a producer, singer, and trailblazer who spent decades at the forefront of Jamaican music. And while there has been a wave of articles celebrating the legacy of "The Upsetter," Saxon and Sam thought there had been far too little examination of the economic, political, social, religious and cultural background that structured his career, shaped his genius and cultivated his eccentric persona. Just how did Perry go from being born in a poverty-stricken rural part of Jamaica and raised on lasting Yoruba traditions in a post-slavery, heavily-colonized island to becoming a major player in the rise of reggae, Bob Marley, dub and the Jamaican music industry? Along the way they also discuss Jamaican political violence caught in a cold-war struggle, the neocolonial character of a predatory western music industry, Rastafarian politics, the cottage music scene of Kingston, the anti-colonial resonances of Perry’s lyrical style and how the man was to eventually capitalized on the heavily-commodified global reggae market we know today. Come for the legend of Black Ark--stay for Mr. Brown and his coffin.
Further Reading:
"People Funny Boy" by David Katz
Further listening:
MTV had a remarkably unheralded 40th anniversary this month. While Music Television (still the channel’s official name) has been out of music videos for decades, it was a truly transformative force for a long struggling record industry back in the early 80s. Diving into those early years, Sam and Saxon go long on this episode and try to figure out how a scrappy little corporation (fully backed by America Express and Warner Media, natch) managed to get a nation of teenagers watching everything from Duran Duran and Michael Jackson to U2—and then pick through what happened next, as a flurry of backroom deals and monopolistic plans quickly strangled the channel’s brief moment of (alleged?) cultural invention. Along the way, we’ll talk about the pleasures of yelling at cable companies, the difficulties of media history, and try to figure out just what it means—both then and now—to mix images and sound.
What would happen if a government took a serious look at the music industry and decided everything wasn’t alright? To our surprise, the UK Parliament has done just that, issuing a blistering report on label consolidation, monopolistic abuses, and streaming payouts—and issuing some interesting suggestions about how things could change. To help us dig in, we're lucky to have David Turner of the must-read of the Penny Fractions newsletter back on the show. We talk about the potential benefits of payola, the systemic oppression of advances, the awe-inspiring power of government-backed research, and why it’s so important to start music biz histories before the year 2000. As imperfect as they are, reports like this suggest a change might be coming. Figuring out what parts make sense—and what parts simply don’t—is vital prep work for the future.
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The Grateful Dead are one of America’s weirdest musical stories, an avalanche of tie-dyed hippies, 30-minute drum solos, acid, and endless, endless touring. But over their 30+ year career, the band also proved themselves to be incredibly prescient, helping to create everything from noise cancelling headphones and concert live-streaming to the “experience economy.” In fact, the idea of distributing free music to enable live shows that they invented has become the basic model of the industry overall. To learn more about how the Dead’s unique approach helped lay the groundwork for the 21st century, we talked to Jesse Jarnow, Author of Heads: A Biography of Psychadelic America, and the co-host of the Dead-Cast. He filled us in on the philosophy of “FREE,” dead-head-tech, and...how much Jerry just didn’t want to be a cop.
It can feel hard to believe, but it seems like live music in the US might be coming back (finally). Which also means that bands and fans are getting ready to line up and spend a LOT of time and money with the concert behemoth that is Live Nation / Ticketmaster, a massive public corporation with a lock on the American concert industry. But how did these companies achieve their position? What exactly does a promoter do anyway? And what was the deal with that whole Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster thing? Sam and Saxon celebrate the return of the road with a deep dive into the touring industry—from the secondary-market-formerly-known-as-scalping to the unexpected heroism of Garth Brooks. Turn the page, baby. Turn the page.
Time Stamps
0:20 - Live music is back and the economy of music gets rolling.
2:10 - Sill work to be done: Small indie venues haven’t re-opened, Save Our Stages still hasn’t paid their government bail out money and the behind the scenes jobs are yet to be filled.
4:30 - Rewriting the Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster narrative.
8:30 - The most popular rock band in America tries to go on tour without Ticketmaster.
11:00 - How event ticketing originally work and why it was a mess.
12:30 - Ticketmaster changes the game on the back of new technologies and becomes central to the music industry.
14:30 - The rise of the “service fee.”
15:15 - Breakdown of where the money goes in the price of ticket.
19:40 - How Pearl Jam wanted to lower ticket prices without putting a dent in their cut.
21:00 - Was Pearl Jam full of sh*t??
24:00 - The tension of what live music is worth, who should get paid and the difficulty in assessing what is appropriate price of a ticket.
28:30 - Are Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster on the same side of the coin?
30:50 -There are endless shades of grey in the big complicated machine that is the music industry.
32:00 - Beavis and Butthead interlude.
33:25 - How today’s ticketing industry became the monster it is.
37:30 - How Live Nation changed the game and started throwing its weight around.
43:00 - An elite class of venues and bands develops.
44:30 - As the biggest artists begin to squeeze Live Nation, the company looks elsewhere for profit in ticketing.
46:30 - How the industry that Live Nation built out is deleterious to music and monopolistic.
49:00 - Is the current state of the music industry unsustainable, even for Live Nation?
50:30 - The rise of festivals.
52:00 - How the price of the ticket can reflect on an artist’s brand and its relationship with fans.
55:10 - The development of the secondary ticket market and Live Nation’s move into this market to supplement a lack of profit.
59:30 - The inefficiencies of an industry focused on extracting profit in new ways might be its dead end.
01:01:00- How big artists have reacted to keeping tickets at a fair price.
01:04:00 - The stakes at play and is there a more fair and livable alternative?
01:05:15 - Understanding the complexities of this live music industry and its inequalities.
Award-winning poet Morgan Parker talks with Saxon Baird about Fugazi, having a DIY ethos and how to navigate being an artist in the tangled web of an exploitative, capitalist system.
Further Listening: Can Fugazi help us imagine a better future for music?
Follow Morgan Parker @morganapple
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When talking about West Coast gangster rap, the focus is usually on the era-defining stars who reigned during 1990s—Dr. Dre, Tupac, and Snoop Dog foremost among them. In her new book, “To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangster Rap Changed America,” Professor Felicia Angeja Viator argues that starting with the success of Dr. Dre's The Chronic or even N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton leaves out half the story. The aesthetic and cultural innovations of gangster rap were deeply rooted in the political economy of Black L.A., a space defined by entrepreneurial DJs, omnipresent police brutality, deindustrialization, a thriving gang culture, and the tantalizing access to the power and prestige of Hollywood. This history is essential for understanding how West Coast rappers were able to snatch New York’s spotlight, transforming Hip Hop into a national musical form, and laying the groundwork for...pretty much all of the pop culture produced since. Come for a revaluation of Eazy-E. Stay to find out which Parliament track is best suited for stopping a teenage brawl.
Time Stamps:
02:40 - How Los Angeles plays a special roll in hip-hop and is instrumental in the genre crossing over
06:00 - LA Mobile DJ crews from the early '80s lay the groundwork through massive parties and DIY networking with local radio stations and gangs
11:20 - Egyptian Lover and what early LA “hip-hop ”sounded like
15:20 - What early '80s LA mobile dance parties played and how a Parliament song was used to keep the peace
19:35 - The relationship of early LA hip-hop to gang culture and the underground economies of South Central
21:00 - How cash from the drug trade can support underground music and that gets racialized
25:20 - Eazy-E saw music as a way out of the drug trade and a more sustainable income
26:30 - While punk wanted to stay on the margins, hip-hop was on margins and wanted to be part of the mainstream for inclusion and monetary reward
29:00 - The malevolent presence of the militarized LAPD in black communities, and its negative impact historically on black arts in LA
32:00 - The use of “the batteram,” a military vehicle bought by the LAPD to bulldoze crack houses in an effort to catch drug dealers in the act
34:30 - Toddy Tee’s song “Batteram” and the fear of the vehicle in south central LA
38:00 - The use of popular hip-hop beats and parody by Toddy Tee and Ice Cube to localize hip-hop in LA
40:40 - The use of explicit blue material and its legacy in music and hip-hop
41:30 - How Run-DMC’s sound influences up and coming Los Angeles hip-hop artists to create something uniquely local
43:20 - The beginnings of Eric “Eazy-E” Wright and how he carves out a space in the local LA hip-hop scene
47:45 - Ruthless Records and NWA attempt to walk the line between embracing the fears of growing gang culture in LA while expressing their grievances in an effort to gain notoriety and publicity
48:46 - The complicated politics of the “Straight Outta Compton” music video
51:00 - Ice Cube goes on a press tour that is both political and publicity — calling out MTV for banning their video while criticizing the LAPD
54:00 - Was the PR savviness of NWA related to being in a major American media center ?
56:40 - The success of Dennis Hopper’s LA-based cop film “Colors” and its effect on America’s perception of the gang culture in South Central Los Angeles
1:00:00 - The Rodney King uprising, Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” wrestles the spotlight on rap, and hip-hop crosses over
1:02:00 - LA opens the door and offers a model for regional rap in places like LA and elsewhere.
1:06:00 - Gangsta rap goes commercial without losing its commitment to being deliberately rooted in local black experiences, and how that opens the door for other hip-hop artists to go in other directions
1:08:00 - Hip-hop can uniquely stay committed to a local scene while still having an eye on the national mainstream
Ever since they appeared in the late 80’s, the legendary D.C. rock band Fugazi has stood as the absolute pinnacle of stick-to-your-guns DIY success. Holding prices to $5 shows and $10 albums, refusing to make merch or sign to a major label, the group still managed to sell hundreds of thousands of records and created diehard fans across the world. Since they went on “indefinite hiatus” in the early 2000’s, the group’s reputation has only grown. But what—if anything—can their way of running a band teach us in the utterly transformed and technologically-driven musical landscape of the 2020’s? More than you might think. Saxon and Sam dig into what Fugazi did and how it worked, in an effort to try to tease out some lessons and possibilities for the present-day underground.
This episode has been brought to you by #lessbummer2021, a no-profit organization dedicated to bringing uplifting, invigorating stories of non-dystopia to the Money 4 Nothing podcast. Did we succeed? Drop us a line at [email protected] or subscribe to our newsletter at money4nothing.substack.com.
You know what Top 40 radio is. But…think about it for a second. Top 40 what? Songs? Albums? Bands? And top for who? Once you get started, the supposedly homogenous “mainstream” at the center of American listening is actually pretty complicated. To help us explore the past of pop, we talk with Eric Weisbard, music critic and professor of American Studies, whose book “Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music” examines how radio formats and the artists that populated them helped make modern music. We go from the bizarre pan-ethnic brass band sounds of Herb Albert to the Cleveland station that invented classic rock—with a stop along the way for some Dolly.
Buy Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music by Eric Weisbard
Metallica recently got trolled by Twitch when the gaming platform dubbed over a live performance. The Internet LOL'd considering the metal band's history with suing its own fans and taking down Napster. But there's so much more behind this move that is more important and could shape the future of music copyright.
Plenty has been written about the music and legacy an artist leaves behind when they pass prematurely. But there hasn’t been much of a discussion on how the obligatory posthumous album is handled and marketed. Sam and Saxon discuss the different ways the music an artist leaves behind is handled by taking a critical look at Nirvana, Elliott Smith, the red-tape legal battles (and exploitation) of Jimi Hendrix and Tupac and the head-scratching collaborations of a deceased Michael Jackson. Also, a passionate defense of Sublime’s self-titled and the good work the majors can (sometimes) do if they choose to put on the white gloves.
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When people talk about music piracy, it almost always carries a 21st century slant— Napster, Pirates Bay, iPods and so on. As it turns, battles over who has a right to make and sell music has a FAR longer history, one that stretches from the jazz loving Hot Record Society in the 1940s to acid-fried hippies trying to take Dylan to the people, and the battles around sampling that reshaped hip hop in the 90s. To learn more, we talked to Dr. Alex Sayf Cummings, whose book “Democracy of Sound” dives into the long and messy story of how folks on the outside of the industry (and often, the law) remade the systems of copyright and ownership that define our favorite sonic commodity. Come for the Basement Tapes and Biz Markie. Stay for the story of Modular Records, owned and operated by FBI undercover agents.
In the last month, the music world has gone positively gaga for NFT’s, the blockchain-based goods that (some say) promise to transform basic dynamics of the industry, bypassing major labels, reversing decades of artistic austerity, and basically doing everything short of reuniting the Beatles. We…aren’t so sure. Saxon and Sam dig into the phenomenon, trying to separate pump-and-dump tech-bro scams from the genuine potentials of technology. Are NFTs digital beanie babies? Almost certainly yes. Could the blockchain remake music forever? Also… yes. More importantly, some version of this future is coming. And if we don’t figure it out, Elon Musk wins.
On this **Bonus** episode, music journalist Stephen Thomas Erlewine talks with Saxon Baird about the death of the greatest hits album, the encyclopedic glory of Allmusic, The White Stripes and more.
Christian music and especially Christian rock is a world of its own, a self-contained universe that mirrors the trends and styles of the mainstream. But how does it work? And what can it tell us about the interactions between audiences and industries that structure popular music? We talk to Andrew Mall, the author of “God Rock Inc.: The Business of Niche Music” to explore everything from the Jesus People to Christian Metalcore, while discussing how the complex relationship between sacred and secular pop can help us understand the ethics, aesthetics, and boundaries that define musical genre.
When we first covered the vast amounts of cash that companies like Hipgnosis were throwing into the music publishing market, we thought things had hit some sort of insane peak. Well were we VERY wrong. In the months since, the press has been filled with one enormous deal after another, peaking (at least for now) in the reported sale of Dylan’s entire catalog for 300+ million dollars. But does…any of this make business sense? Or is it just rank speculation? And how will it shape the future of music? To sort things out, we got together a dream team—Cherie Hu of Water & Music and David Turner of Penny Fractions—to talk through what’s happening and what might come next.
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We talk to writer and critic Liz Pelly who has long been one of the most astute critics of the modern musical economy. But while we all know that streaming is broken—what comes next? Liz has recently been exploring a set of new platforms that are seeking to create alternatives to existing industry structures. We dig into everything from public library-based programs that support local music to swing-for-the-fences proposals for government intervention in the streaming markets. Tomorrow’s ethical consumption—today!
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Further Reading:
Protest Platforms: Music Streaming Cooperative Restores Agency to Artists - ShadowproofWhat’s a consent decree and why did one over 80 years old recently make headlines? Sam and Saxon explore the Department of Justice's latest decision to NOT remake the music industry, before diving into the history of ASCAP, BMI, and Tin Pan Alley to figure out some of the shady battles at the heart of payouts and this whole performing rights thing. BUT FIRST—we talk King Gizzard commodities, re-contextualized profit-centers, and Tom Lehrer’s copyright end-run. Something for the whole family, as long as your family are exclusively music lawyers.
For decades, greatest hits albums were inescapable. They summed up artists’ careers, provided intros to unknown sounds, and served as a dependable cash-grab for labels that were able to resell music they had already paid for. But now? Seems like they’re more or less done for, killed by the infinite "playlistification" of all things (unless you're trying to make a retro statement...hello White Stripes!) We spend some thinking through what the greatest hits was, what it did, and what that might tell us about the art-form shaping format known as the album. ALSO—we talk through some of the most influential greatest hits albums of all time, from the Eagles to Bob Marley.
Further reading / listening:
A Major #Mood: Spotify, Labels, and our Dismal Streaming Future - Money 4 Nothing
Why the Death of the Greatest Hits Albums and reissues is Worth Mourning - Stephen Thomas Erlewine (Pitchfork)
The Great War Against Singles - Hit Parade (Slate)
Well, THAT was awful. As 2020 death crawls to a close, we sort through the rise of live music streaming and how it exploded in popularity as artists looked for ways to replace touring during the pandemic lockdown. Also, we talk live venues getting a last minute lifeline from the U.S. Gov thanks to the massive #SaveOurStages movement and how music and musicians responded to the Black Lives Matter protests. Saxon is out this week, but we have Official Streaming Correspondent Jessi Olsen to help Sam think through it all.
Repetition. Shouting. Culture Vulture Remixes. A 50 billion dollar company based on a vast strata of underplayed musicians. Viral dances. Tik Tok has it all! For this episode, Sam and Saxon asked Pitchfork’s Cat Zhang to bring us down the rabbit hole and into an app that is transforming how music functions, maybe forever. or…maybe it’s just another step towards the commodification of all social life? PLUS—the meme economy of bearded yellow dragons.
Read Cat Zhang's writing on TikTok and more via Pitchfork
This week we take you back in time to a moment that…in a lot of ways(?) seems sort of like today. Technology was changing incredibly quickly, artists were hopping between platforms to reach their audiences, and corporate consolidation was remaking the music industry. Welcome to the 1920’s. Professor Kyle Barnett discusses his book "Record Cultures: the Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry" and takes us through the early years of the record industry. We trace the rise and fall (and rise) of the major labels as they moved through the jazz age and great depression, and ultimately lay the foundation for the systems that we know and love/hate. Also, Saxon and Sam dust off their understanding of Romanticism to try and figure out why the music industry gets so little critical attention.
There’s been some news on the streaming beat lately—righteous demands being levied by musicians against Spotify, and ill-timed reports that the streaming giant has been planning to roll out some suspiciously payola-like programs (gasp!). But what is Spotify, anyways? And how does it (hope to) make money? Is it actually just the major labels wearing the mask of a tech company? PLUS A M4N Exclusive Report: Are #mood playlists destroying the delicate bonds of history?
How is music made? Not how do record companies work, but how is music made? And where does it go after we're done with it? According to Kyle Devine, a professor of Musicology at the University of Oslo, we’ve all been paying far too little to this story, closing our eyes to the environmental implications of our favorite sounds. Kyle talks to Saxon and Sam about his book “Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music,” an eye-opening exploration of the material infrastructure that lies behind vinyl disks (and internet apps). The cloud, by the way? It’s a place. And it burns gas just like the rest of us.
It’s mid-October, and by our calculations, musicians are STILL not getting paid. Live music has been off since March, and a major lobbying group is trying to #SaveOurStages. But does saving venues also mean a bailout for musicians? In the continued quest for artist revenue, Saxon and Sam explore some less obvious options. Could the platform OnlyFans hold the answer? Should musicians search for salvation in the high-end speaker-system/concert series Oda? Or are we all looking in the wrong places entirely?
This week we go deep (like really really deep) on the Music Modernization Act—a landmark, near-unanimous 2018 law that will reshape the legal landscape of American music when it kicks in early next year. Despite this, it has received little or no critical press attention since. Let’s face it though—the last time this scale of legislation passed was in the 1970’s, so it’s a good bet that we’ll be living with the MMA for a long, long time. We figure out what’s going on in the bill (easier said than done), who it helps (mostly the streaming services), and what it tells us about the power structures that define the music industry.
Ethnomusicologist Wayne Marshall joins Saxon Baird and Sam Backer to talk about his discovery of what he’s described as the the “American Clave”—a distinctive rhythm that unites everyone from Duke Ellington to Ray Charles, Elvis to Cardi B. We explore its origins from the Black artists who invented ragtime at the turn of the 20th century and then trace its evolution over a hundred years of styles and sounds including the black roots of country music to its appearance in popular party chants.
Read Marshall's article and hear his mega-mix: https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/50/110768/Ragtime-CountryRhythmically-Recovering-Country-s
David Turner of Penny Fractions joins the show to make a case against the popular narrative that Napster, led by the precocious teen tech-head Shawn Fanning, single-handedly took down the record industry in the early aughts. Turner explains that what caused the music industry bubble to burst was actually a much more complex series of factors including record labels a little too high on its own supply. Also, those $19.99 CDs prices sure didn't help.
Sam Backer talks to Brian Ward about his book ‘Just My Soul Responding’ to discuss American R&B and the music industry in the 1950s. The two challenge some popular narratives and reveal how behind the music was a public arena where the fight for civil rights and equality was crucially fought.
Hipgnosis Song Fund and it's founder Merck Mercuriadis are making waves in the music industry by offering top dollar to buy out the catalogs of hit song makers. The approach is similar to valuing music and hit songs now something like an expensive painting bought less for its artistry and more as valuable asset to invest in. Heavily funded and having bought over 1,000 number one hits so far from such artists as Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson, the company has gone public and shows little signs of slowing down. Hosts Sam Backer and Saxon Baird breakdown the inner workings of the Hipgnosis approach and discuss what it means for artists and the music industry alike.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.