In this extended length episode we’re joined by Michael McCarty from Toronto. Michael is a veteran music publisher who was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2019. He was president of EMI Music Publishing Canada for 17 years, spent four years as the president of Anthem (formerly ole), and seven years as the Chief Membership Officer of SOCAN. McCarty has worked in various capacities with artists including Neil Young, Michael Jackson, Glass Tiger, Loverboy, Jim Vallance, Bry...
Nov 05, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 21
In this episode we speak with music of the future researcher Charles Holbrow. When we spoke with him, he was on the brink of earning his PhD from the Opera of the Future group within the famed MIT Media Lab. We talk to Charles about the fact that while new styles and new technologies are constantly emerging, recorded music itself has not fundamentally changed. We dig into the concept of adaptive or interactive music - music that changes itself as we listen to it, triggered by the events in the e...
Oct 29, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Nolan Gasser is a critically acclaimed composer, pianist, and musicologist – most notably, the architect of Pandora Radio’s Music Genome Project and the company’s chief musicologist from its founding in 1999. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Stanford University. His original compositions have been performed in numerous prestigious venues. Pandora was a pioneer in music streaming - arriving on the scene well before Spotify. They also popularized the concept of automated music recommendations -...
Oct 22, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 19
In today’s episode we speak with Joe D’Angelo who joins us from Annapolis Maryland. Joe is Senior Vice President of Broadcast Radio at Xperi - a company that is modernizing our FM dial in the form of HD Radio. You might be surprised at how many cars already use their tech and how HD Radio fits into the ecosystem. For years radio has been fighting off competition from satellite services but now they might be facing an even more serious threat from music streaming and podcasts. We sit down with Jo...
Oct 15, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 18
In this episode we speak to Anida Gurlit who joins us from Charlotte, NC. Anida is a Creative Director of Music Design at Mood Media. Mood Media is a leading in-store media solutions company whose goal is to create greater emotional connections between brands and consumers through the right combination of sight, sound and even scent. The company reaches 150 million consumers each and every day through more than 500,000 subscriber locations in 100+ countries around the globe, so it’s probably saf...
Oct 08, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 17
In this episode we speak to Dr. Robert Zatorre. Dr. Zatorre is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University. He helped to pioneer a new field of study that focuses on the intersection of music and the brain and is a founder and the co-director of an international laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound research. We all know that music gives us pleasure but you’ll be fascinated to find out exactly why. What is happening inside our heads when we listen to m...
Oct 01, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In this episode we get another artist perspective on the new technologies that are changing the industry, for better or worse. In this Artist Perspective episode we speak to Kellylee Evans, an award winning jazz vocalist. Kellylee has published six albums and has toured extensively around the world, opening for artists such as George Benson, Tony Bennett, Maceo Parker, Derek Trucks and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. From streaming to social media, Kellylee walks us through how her career and ...
Sep 24, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In this episode Alison Moses joins us from Los Angeles. Alison is a music supervisor at Aperture - a company that specializes in curating soundtracks for TV and movies. She oversees the music in projects including High Fidelity (Hulu), Good Girls (NBC), Fresh Off the Boat (ABC), Girls (HBO), and films including The Craft, Game Night, Neighbors, and Trainwreck. She knows how to pick amazing tunes in part because she has DJed all over Los Angeles and she’s hosted DJ shows on KChung Radio and Reson...
Sep 17, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 14
In this episode we speak to Antony Bruno. Antony is the director of communications for Royalty Exchange, an online marketplace for buying and selling music royalties. Investing in music royalties used to be something that only a small number of elite labels could take part in. That is no longer the case. Thanks to new marketplaces like royalty exchange, you can now buy the royalties from artists like Drake in just a few clicks. Buyers can brag about how they own a cool asset while making serious...
Sep 10, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In this episode we discuss the future of the Vinyl record with the CEO of Rebeat, Guenter Loibl. Guenter has been working at the intersection of music and technology throughout his career. He runs a music label, a digital distribution company and is now working on re-inventing the vinyl record. We reached Guenter in Vienna, Austria to discuss the surprising comeback of the vinyl record, and learn about new technologies enabling HD Vinyl and what benefits it could bring to record collectors. If y...
Sep 03, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 12
In today’s episode we speak with Matt Boerum who joins us from Boston, Massachusetts. Matt is a musician and recording engineer with a PhD in sound technology. He is co-founder and CEO of Audible Reality, an immersive audio technology company revolutionizing music engagement through unique and interactive AI-driven 3D audio software. When itunes launched 20 years ago, the MP3 took over from Cds. We gained convenience but lost audio quality. Now things are about to change. Spotify, Apple and othe...
Aug 20, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In this episode Steve Caldwell joins us from Louisville, Kentucky. Steve is a lifelong musician, hip-hop junkie, and one of the founders of Mandolin. When COVID struck and the live music industry was turned upside-down, Steve and his partners saw the opportunity to revolutionize live-streaming. Steve tells the story of Mandolin and how they responded to the situation in a matter of weeks and how they produce their live-streamed shows. We talk about the lasting changes that this type of technolog...
Aug 06, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In this episode we discuss the future of concerts and festivals with Mark Monahan. Mark is the CEO of Bluesfest, one of Canada’s largest festivals drawing over 300,000 concertgoers each year. When COVID struck, Mark’s organization needed to make the hard decision to cancel their summer event. They moved quickly to pivot their events to online. We chat with Mark about how the online experiment went down, their results and whether online concerts are a temporary workaround or permanent part of our...
Jul 23, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 9
What do artists think about new technologies that are changing the industry, for better or worse? In this Artist Perspective episode we speak to Dan Kurtz and Jamie Shields. Longtime members of the Toronto music scene, Jamie and Dan (along with Darren Shearer) formed the New Deal in 1998 fusing electronic music with live improvisation. Dan also formed the electro-pop band Dragonette with singer/songwriter Martina Sorbara. In past Beatseeker episodes we’ve covered how new technologies like stream...
Jul 09, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 8
What can you do with an insane amount of data about an artist? Can you use that data to predict hitmakers? In this episode we speak to Jason Joven, Manager for Content and Insights at Chartmetric. A former US Navy cryptologic intelligence officer, Jason helps create actionable insights for Chartmetric via special client projects, deep-dive articles, podcast episodes and product development. Chartmetric is a music analytics company that is measuring unbelievable amounts of data about digital musi...
Jun 25, 2021•43 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Does anyone still listen to albums? Is the album format dead? In this episode we discuss the rise and fall of the album format with Jeff Breithaupt. Jeff is the lyricist half of the award-winning Breithaupt Brothers songwriting team; the co-author of two books on pop music in the 1970s; and Vice President for Media and Communications at Manhattan School of Music. With streaming now accounting for well over 80% of music consumption, most consumers are not buying physical albums anymore. Beyond th...
Jun 11, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 6
WTF is an NFT and WTF does it have to do with music? What are social tokens? In this episode we speak to George Howard, Professor of Music Business Management at Berklee College of Music, and the founder of GHS, a strategic consulting firm. George is a columnist for Forbes, and has authored a book called “Everything In Its Right Place: How Blockchain Technology Will Lead To A More Transparent Music Industry.” George is a passionate champion of the independent artist. He is critical of the negati...
May 28, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 5
How can musicians make a living in the age of streaming when they earn fractions of a penny per Spotify play? In this episode we talk about the changing economics of making music with musician, poet and writer Damon Krukowski. Streaming platforms have been a great innovation for consumers but this invention is not universally loved by musicians. We speak to Damon about what it was like to make a living in the pre-digital era and how challenging it is to live off royalties in the age of streaming...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Learn how companies like Musiio are making tools that automatically tag tracks with descriptive data, like: mood, genre, tempo, key, instrument and energy. A human might painstakingly tag a few tracks or even a few albums, but what about hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of tracks? Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI) to do what it does best: automating the tagging process. We speak with Hazel Savage, music tech lifer and the Co-founder and CEO of Musiio . We trace Hazel’s storied car...
Apr 30, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 3
How do music charts work? How does a song get on Billboard’s Hot100 ? How have the charts had to adapt over the years to stay relevant as new ways of listening to and purchasing music have come into play? We speak with chart analyst Chris Molanphy, who explains the charts, how they are always evolving and why they are so important to the industry. We discuss a variety of charts, focusing mostly on Billboard and their Hot100. Chris carries deep insights into the fascinating history and evolution ...
Apr 30, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 2
How does Discover Weekly work? We speak with Music Hacker Hall of Fame inductee Paul Lamere , part of the team that created Spotify’s Discover Weekly service. Discovery Weekly automatically creates a playlist of 30 new songs for you to discover each week. We learn about its early roots in the Echo Nest platform, how it works today and some tips for listeners to optimize their own weekly discoveries. We talk through the upsides and the downsides of computer-generated playlists. While it’s almost ...
Apr 30, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 1
We’ve come a long way from the days when we browsed the shelves of HMV and Sam Goody or asked the record store dude what albums to buy. Radio play and late night talk shows still connect artists to new fans, but these are quickly becoming the old way to find new stuff. Beatseeker explores the changing world of music discovery. While there are plenty of podcasts about new music, Beatseeker digs into the ways people find new artists and their songs - and the ways they find us. From record store gu...
Apr 19, 2021•2 min
