Episode 109: Music Ally’s Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge chats in depth with Joe Sparrow about the big picture issues that music streaming platforms, its users and economy will need to face this year. We’ve just published our latest Quarterly Report which comprehensively breaks down each of the big global DSPs in a “Report Card” format – and to accompany it, Stu forecasts what might happen around various key topics: The Transition from “music” to “audio” – music streaming services are becoming a...
Jun 07, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 130
Episode 108: in this episode we’re joined by Adam Webb, from FanFair Alliance - a UK-based organisation campaigning against industrial-scale online ticket touting- or scalping if you prefer. I chatted to Adam about the state of ticketing in the UK, and what does FA see as the most pertinent issue that needs fixing/changing? He also talks about speculative ticketing is, why he thinks it’s harmful, and what should be done, and the difference in approach between artists in the UK and the US when it...
Jun 02, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 129
Episode 107: We’re joined by Pamela McCormick and Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE of London-based organisation United Development – they talk to Joe Sparrow about supporting and developing young black musicians and industry talent, the state of representation in the UK industry, and what you can do to help make gradual improvements around representation in the music business. Pamela McCormick is founder and CEO of United Development (UD), and Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, was recently appointed chair. ...
May 11, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 128
Episode 106: Joe Sparrow talks to two UK music entrepreneurs who have grown a substantial and influential business from the ground up. TK and SK, co-founders of London-based independent record label and management company Finesse Foreva, which is home to artists/producers including Russ Millions, Skengdo & AM, and JB Made It. The company has received multiple Platinum certifications, worked with Drake, and had the UK’s first number one single for a Drill (or, for international listeners, a "...
Apr 27, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Episode 105: For a man whose name is rhyming slang in the UK for something going wrong, most of what Pete Tong touches goes very right. He’s been enormously influential in the international electronic music scene for four decades: as a broadcaster, a jet-setting DJ who has released dozens of mix albums, at the influential FFRR and Three Six Zero labels, and now, as co-founder of the International Music Summit. We invited Pete onto the podcast to talk about A&R in the dance music world: how i...
Apr 21, 2023•38 min•Season 1Ep. 126
Episode 104: A Very Special Episode this week: We’ve wanted to make our daily Bulletin newsletter into a podcast for a long time, and now, we’ve created one – with the help of a text-to-voice AI . We're now sharing it here, so that you can hear the results too. The AI twist is that we have cloned the voice of our Learning Operations Manager, Sarah Seukeran, and it’s “her” that you’ll hear on the Bulletin podcast. It was soft-launched a few weeks ago – and we think the Bulletin translates really ...
Apr 13, 2023•13 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Episode 103: Laura Kidd has been a fully independent artist for a long time – and her recent "Obey Robots" project managed to hit the UK albums chart at #14 (ahead of Artic Monkeys and Lewis Capaldi and just behind ABBA and Fleetwood Mac). It’s a hugely impressive achievement for a DIY/indie artist - so how did she do it? In this podcast she explains to Joe Sparrow how she used email, YouTube videos and Facebook ads to get chart success. She also talks about her deliberate choice to ignore fame,...
Apr 06, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 124
Episode 102: we’re joined by Sarah Woods, the Deputy Chief Executive of UK charity Help Musicians, a UK charity that offers career help for musicians in the form of a number of services, including financial support. She talks to Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow about what she calls “reverse globalisation” of the music industry: a situation where UK artists become confined to touring in the UK due to it becoming increasingly hard to tour abroad.Post-Brexit, touring the rest of Europe is now a comp...
Mar 30, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Episode 101: We talk to Andy Robinson, of Boutique rights management company Interstellar Music Services. In the modern music business paradigm, managers can do everything – so we’ll discuss how you can not do everything – and avoid burnout whilst providing the best service possible to artists. He talks about making tough choices, transparent conversations with artists, and how he regularly finds hundreds of thousands of streams that artists have not been paid for. Andy has a background in artis...
Mar 23, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 122
🎉 Music Ally Focus Ep. 100 🎉 – We talk about about Neurodiversity in the electronic music business with Finlay Johnson, interim CEO of the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) and Tristan Hunt, who is an ADHD coach for musicians and people working in the music business, and is also an ex-regional manager at the AFEM. There is increasing awareness about neurodiversity, and more people are being diagnosed with conditions like ADHD at later stages in life. Last year, the AFEM surveyed people i...
Mar 16, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Music Ally Focus Ep. 99 : Successful songwriter Niclas Molinder co-founded the music credits ecosystem Session along with two other Swedish songwriters, Max Martin and Bjorn Ulvaeus in 2019. Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow asks him about what he’s doing to make sure that as much new music as possible has all the correct credits and metadata baked in from the start – and ask him why getting music metadata straightened out is taking so long. Session aims to attach complete metadata is attached to ...
Mar 09, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Music Ally Focus Ep. 98 : This episode is for anyone interested in building a long, sustainable career as a musician. We're joined by Keith Jopling, of the Art of Longevity podcast, in which he talks to notable musicians - like, for instance Suzanne Vega, Nile Rodgers, Gary Numan and Norah Jones – about their careers in music and how they kept them going for so long. We ask him what he’s learned, what patterns there are in long-term success, and how you can use this information. Keith Jopling ha...
Mar 02, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 119
Music Ally Focus Ep. 97: “It was sampling that revitalised – and continues the life of – a lot of music that we would never have otherwise heard… it deserves a lot more credit than it gets” Sampling has been the backbone of a number of modern music styles, from house to hip hop. Deborah Mannis-Gardner of DMG Clearances has just helped pull off something that many thought may never happen: getting the many samples on De La Soul’s groundbreaking albums cleared so that they can finally appear on st...
Feb 23, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 118
Music Ally Focus Ep. 96: Artists have been increasingly vocal about the pressures of the music industry and the impact on their mental health. And it’s not just artists: everyone can experience unique stresses in the industry. In this episode, Joe Sparrow talks to Adam Ficek and Jeordie Shenton of UK charity Tonic Rider about what they are doing to provide music industry-specific support. Music industry pressures are unique: job security can be shaky, and there can be endless late nights – not t...
Feb 16, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Music Ally Focus Ep. 95: Time is flying and we’re now one month into 2023, so we asked Music Ally's Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge, to flex his insight muscles and speculate on what might happen in the rest of the year. We analyse some of the biggest issues in the music business: The recent comments made by UMG’s Lucian Grainge about how income from streaming should be shared Job cuts in music tech, including Spotify’s recent layoffs; Is streaming an affordable luxury that people will not cancel...
Feb 10, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 116
Music Ally Focus Ep. 94: Dr. Jennifer Otter Bickerdike is a rock ’n’ roll cultural historian and author, who recently wrote the critically acclaimed and best-selling books You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico and Being Britney: Pieces of a Modern Icon . We spoke to her about the pressures placed on music stars, including burnout, overwork, and (social-) media stress – with Britney as a central example, but also leaning on knowledge from Jen’s past work in the music industry...
Feb 02, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Music Ally Focus Ep. 93: What does a music publication need to be in 2023? We talk a lot on the podcast about marketing from the artist-side: getting projects to launch and connecting to as many people as possible. But what about the point after that - when music fans debate and discuss music – and explore and discover music they don’t know that they don’t know? Sean Adams, of Drowned in Sound, explains how he’s going to build a modern music publication. Drowned in Sound was one of the UK’s earl...
Jan 26, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Music Ally Focus Ep. 92: We’re joined by Annabella Coldrick, Chief Executive of the Music Managers Forum to talk about the new realities of touring in the post-covid world. The Music Managers Forum recently held a round-table event with its members and it revealed a lot of concerns and issues around touring. Artists are now facing a completely different touring environment: where a transformed economy means that touring is no longer the sturdy income source it was once considered, and artists ar...
Jan 19, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Music Ally Focus Ep. 91: WTF is "web3 music"? In this episode we’re joined by Dan Fowler, Director of Open Source Projects at web3 music incubator HIFI Labs, and a man with deep experience working at where crypto, web3 and music meet. Joe Sparrow asks Dan the stupid questions so that we can all find out what web3 music is, and what it will mean for the music industry. Most of us now have a surface understanding of NFTs and web3 stuff , but what is it exactly that classes a song as “web3 Music”, ...
Jan 12, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Music Ally Focus Ep. 90: This episode, just like the Wu-Tang Clan, is for the children. Or rather, the parents of those children: we’re joined by the founders of Parenthood In Music , which aims to improve working conditions for parents in the music industry. Parenthood, they believe, remains one of the main drivers of inequality in the workplace. We find out why, and what changes they’re hoping to make. Parenthood In Music is an initiative founded by Steffi von Kannemann (founder of the agency ...
Jan 05, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 111
Music Ally Focus Ep. 89: Music Ally has just released its Campaign of the Year report ( Get it for free here !) and so we finish the year with our annual podcast that highlights some of the best campaigns from 2022, chosen by the experts at Music Ally. The 2022 issue of our utterly essential Campaigns of the Year report has 60 highly-detailed case studies packed with data, KPIs, ideas and learnings – straight from the teams who did the best work of 2022. It’s a huge, vital resource for anyone wo...
Dec 21, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Music Ally Focus Ep. 88: We’re thrilled to be joined by Dan Runcie, founder of Trapital, which offers music business insight with a strong focus on the business of hip-hop – the world’s pre-eminent genre of pop music. Trapital has recently published its first big report on the business and culture of hip hop – and Dan, a true thought leader in this space, has a lot of interesting things to say: he talks about how the narrow genre boundaries of hip hop are hiding its actual size and success on an...
Dec 14, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 109
Music Ally Focus Ep. 87: In this episode we’re joined by Kyran de Keijzer, co-founder of Muso.AI, the music credits platform that brings together data on the people that make songs, and allows music professionals to edit and manage their legacy metadata. Kyran says he looked at the most popular tracks ever made, and then looked at the metadata that reaches streaming platforms and found lots of gaps: only 60% have songwriting credits, 46% producer credits, and only 29% have engineering credits. W...
Dec 08, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Music Ally Focus Ep. 86: We’re joined in this episode by Janelle Mitchell and Estée Blu - two recipients of the Richard Antwi Scholarship, which aims to support Black and minority ethnic students living in the UK and awards a full scholarship for University of Westminster’s Music Business Management MA course. We wanted to know how these two ambitious young pros see the music industry from their perspectives, and the hurdles that they see in front of them. They told us their frank opinions about...
Dec 02, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 107
Music Ally Focus Ep. 85: Artist Love Ssega explains how he combines his music career with climate justice, and whether artists have a responsibility to not be silent on this issue. The climate emergency is the most meaningful challenge of our time, and one that the music industry can make a number of changes in relation to – whether that’s in terms of reducing music businesses carbon footprints, or artists using their influence to encourage fans to make a difference. London based artist Love Sse...
Nov 28, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Music Ally Focus Ep. 84: We’re joined by Gary Helsinger, SVP, Licensing & Creative at Melodie, who chats to us about the state of library music, but also tells all of the best rock n roll stories we have heard on the Focus podcast thus far. Gary has had a rich and varied background to say the least: for instance, he was Director, A&R at Chrysalis Music Group whilst also a member of platinum-selling rock band Green Jellÿ – plus, he was also a manager, and has deep experience in licensing ...
Nov 17, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Music Ally Focus Ep. 83: We’re joined in this show by Michael Horan, VP of Product at Last.fm , which is just about to hit a remarkable milestone: 20 years as a music tech company. In that time Last.fm has gathered an enormous amount of data on how people listen to music – and we wanted to talk to Michael about what Last.fm has learned from a music business that has changed dramatically in two decades. Last.fm has grown from a company that tracked what you were listening to in your mp3 and CD co...
Nov 10, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Music Ally Focus Ep. 82: We’re joined by multi-award winning UK beatbox champion, and live looping pioneer, Beardyman (AKA Darren Foreman) – who, like a number of artists, has created a significant extra income stream via a subscription model on Patreon. We talk to him about how he has made a model where fans do not merely support him – they collaborate with him: subscribers can present their track ideas and collaborate directly with Beardyman, and if successful, get royalties on the track. Darr...
Nov 03, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Music Ally Focus Ep. 81: In this episode we’re discussing the past, present and future of Latin music on a global scale with Jesús Triviño Alarcón, senior director for Latin Global for streaming platform Tidal. Jesús has a deep connection with Latin music and culture: he is a Webby-nominated content creator who has covered music, TV, film and more for over 17 years as a reporter, editor, producer and curator. Latin music has firmly solidified its status as a global superpower, and we spoke to Je...
Oct 27, 2022•24 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Music Ally Focus Ep. #80: In this episode, we’re going to talk about Equitable Remuneration (ER) and how it works out in practice, IRL, with two people who truly understand the economics and legality of it. What is ER? In the UK and some other countries, it’s the practice of dividing certain radio play royalties 50-50 between artist and label - and in the UK’s long-running parliamentary inquiry into music streaming economics, ER became a widely-requested solution to many artists’ claims that the...
Oct 05, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 101
