The Price of Music

It's a golden episode of TPOM this week, as Stu and Joe splash around in a whole load of fascinating facts and curious quirks from the last week in the music business, including:
→ Sam Fender already has one of the hottest tours of 2027 in the UK, but the ticketing has been sparking conversation for a couple of reasons…
→ We need to talk about Public Displays of Affection Down Under. But don’t worry, this isn’t something that’ll get you kicked off the bus or arrested…
→ 150 million people now pay to subscribe to... which online service? And why is that good news for the music industry and the artists you love?
→ Lily Allen won Halloween 2026 – or at least the music industry-referencing costume subcategory of it…
→ What’s more dystopian than generating music using Suno, an AI company that’s being sued by record labels? How about generating music using Suno from within Claude, the chatbot made by an AI company that’s being sued by music publishers?!
→ The Backstreet Boys famously told a flighty partner to quit playing games with their heart. But it turns out they’re bigger fans of hiring people to play games for them, in the esports world…
→ You’re My Scumbag. No, I’m not insulting you, dear TPOM listener, I’m referring to the latest viral song in Russia…
And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week's bonus material:
• Joe has a surprising number of stories about pop stars peeing
• What do you think of "Golden Circles" at stadium gigs?
• GB Music launches – and what sort of music would we like on a British-only music radio station? (Plus: "How Pete Doherty’s Mega-Breakfast Predicted GB Music Radio")
• Speaking of UK music taste – what are the best-selling albums of all time in the UK? Joe FORCES Stu to make his best-guesses
• That Mega Beatles Discogs drop: it turns out there's actually some affordable records in there too - we take a scroll through the seller's shop
• Meanwhile, back on Discogs, in September a copy of St. Pepper's sold for $15k – EMI Australia, in 1983, inadvertently made the rarest Beatles LP to ever exist...
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As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
See you next week!
Stuart and Joe
======
TPOM online: ⁠http://tpom.uk/⁠
Support The Price of Music on Patreon:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠⁠
Follow Stuart on X - @stuartdredge
Follow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpod
For sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠⁠joe@musically.com⁠

Stuart is back, back, BACK, baby, and he returns with some giant numbers, a lot of slop, and hypothetically granny-murdering AI chatbots. In this week's episode....
→ How many millions of ‘slop and spam tracks’ Spotify has kicked out of its recommendations in 2026 alone? And what is it anyway?
→ A new campaign in the US wants venues to treat artists more fairly. But what does that mean?
→ Joe was in Manchester in the last week, chatting to the great and good of the British music industry about new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. What do they think of him?
→ Spotify also had its financial results last week, and its bosses were really keen to talk about "AI agents". So what do AI agents have to do with music?
→ Do you like Daft Punk? Do you like Lego? Well, we have some exciting news for you…
→ Liverpool attraction ‘The Beatles Story’ is getting a huge revamp for 2028, but it’s part of a bigger strategy to keep the Fab Four’s reputation high for future generations…
→ Grannies are being tied to train tracks and left to die… all because of some Justin Bieber lyrics. But don’t worry, the grannies are entirely digital…
→ Apple has bought an AI-music startup. But don’t worry, it’s not about to start kicking human artists off Apple Music in favour of AI slop…
And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week's bonus material:
Raye won the UK's Mercury Prize and it's chance for the now-annual discussion to take place: was this the worthy winner, and what sort of artist 'should' win the Mercury Prize anyway?

Joe is still walking with an exaggerated swagger whilst wearing a bucket hat – what other interesting stuff happened in Manchester?

If we had our own personal AI agents, what would we want them to do for us in a musical sense?

Sam Fender VS Michael Bublé!

===================================
As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
See you next week!
Stuart and Joe
======
TPOM online: ⁠http://tpom.uk/⁠
Support The Price of Music on Patreon:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠⁠
Follow Stuart on X - @stuartdredge
Follow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpod
For sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠⁠joe@musically.com⁠

With Stuart under the weather and taking a well-earned rest to recover his lost voice, Joe wrangles full control of the podcast for one week only, and gets stuck into a question that will resonate with most TPOM fans: what's going on with music radio?
You'd think that, with music streaming booming, and personalised algorithmic feeds promising to dominate music discovery, music radio would be fading. But it's not - the opposite, in fact. And, it's changing into something more interesting – the centre of discovery and community around genres, niches and scenes.
Joe is joined by Laura Fisher, an analyst at MIDiA Research, to speak about its recent report on radio's evolving role in the music ecosystem. Their research shows a growing shift back toward human-curated audio and community stations.
(Note: our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠ get the full, unedited, 50% longer interview!)
Joe and Laura discuss:
The rise of independent & community stations: How platforms like NTS, Balamii, Rinse FM – and even big stations like BBC 6 Music – have created thriving cultural hubs around niche genres and scenes.

Why a smaller, highly engaged radio audience can carry significantly more value for artists - and listeners – than algorithmic playlists.

Context vs. algorithms: Why avid music fans are craving the story behind the music (labels, producers, and scene context) that streaming algorithms often leave out.

Screen fatigue: How younger demographics (Gen Z & Millennials) are turning to radio as a screen-free antidote to endless feeds.
Other stuff mentioned in the show:

MIDiA Research: midiaresearch.com

Album Recommendation: Exile on Main St. – The Rolling Stones

Companion Album Recommendation: Exile on Cold Harbour Lane – Alabama 3

===================================
As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
See you next week!
Stuart and Joe
======
TPOM online: ⁠http://tpom.uk/⁠
Support The Price of Music on Patreon:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠⁠
Follow Stuart on X - @stuartdredge
Follow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpod
For sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠⁠joe@musically.com⁠

This week on The Price Of Music, we end up talking philosophically about the, erm, price of music (as well as the actual philosophical value of it):
→ If you were considering spending up to £1.6m on some unheard Oasis recordings at auction this month, well, we have some bad news for you…
→ Chicago band The Empty Pockets have a special edition of their new album just for billionaires. It’s a snip at just $285,000, with absolutely no extras compared to the $20 edition for the rest of us…
→ 1,300. That’s how many original songs have been released by the world’s favourite precocious, pink, porky pop star…
→ When is it acceptable to start playing Christmas music? Well, people in the Philippines, Colombia and Barbados don’t care what you think: they’re cracking out the tinsel tunes already…
→ Is Elon Musk’s X a friend to the music industry? Not if you take the opinion of global labels body the IFPI, which thinks it’s a piracy haven…
→ Some of Spotify’s biggest playlists are getting smaller – in terms of how many followers they have. But this may not be a bad thing…
→ Next year’s Grammy Awards are going to be missing another huge K-Pop act. Stray Kids have joined BTS in refusing to enter – despite there being a dedicated ‘Asian Pop’ category for the first time. Or rather, they have refused to enter BECAUSE there is a dedicated ‘Asian Pop’ category…
And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week's bonus material:
Stu ’n’ Joe go deep on, erm, Christmas songs:
When DO we think it’s acceptable to start listening to Christmas music?

How do you structure your Xmas playlist: is it all pop bangers, Christmas classics, or quirky deep cuts?

And do non-Christmas-related songs that happened to be at #1 at Christmas count as “Christmas songs”?

If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know we love quirky music gadgets on Kickstarter, especially if they let us make weird, bloopy noises and squelchy basslines. You’ll also know we’re still figuring out how we feel about AI. A new crowdfunded device called Engram combines both!

Is all piracy bad - and is it all even piracy? And which pirated / bootlegged gig would you kill to listen to?

A spontaneous update on the single Wu-Tang Clan album that sold for $4m… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_Shaolin

===================================
As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
See you next week!
Stuart and Joe
======
TPOM online: ⁠http://tpom.uk/⁠
Support The Price of Music on Patreon:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠⁠
Follow Stuart on X - @stuartdredge
Follow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpod
For sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠⁠joe@musically.com⁠

This week on The Price Of Music, there's a vague but tangible 'us vs them' theme, and lot of hoo-ha about secondary ticketing:
Secondary-ticketing firm Viagogo is having its latest public argument in the UK, with anti-touting group FanFair Alliance. And it’s all about Manchester, and ticketing at smaller venues...

Meanwhile 30 miles west of Manchester, it’s the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, and the Creative Industries Minister has promised that the long-promised crackdown on ticket touts will happen “quicker than we initially intended”. But what’s really going to happen?

Sylvan Esso quit Spotify last year in protest at co-founder Daniel Ek's personal investment in military technology. Now they’re back on Spotify, even though he’s still invested in weapons. Why?

How many people who’d bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran play the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts DIDN’T get to see him? And this has nothing to do with Israel or Palestine... it's to do with climate change. (Plus, here's Brian Eno on Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, and Robert Kraft.)

We don’t get to talk much about brand new music print magazines, mainly because launching brand new music print magazines is usually a road to bankruptcy. Is Shownotes different though?

Grand Theft Auto VI isn’t just a game that licenses music: it’s a game with its own soundtrack album stuffed with brand new songs…

And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week's bonus material:
Oasis Tickets: did Stu 'n' Joe get them? Did the ticketing system stop tickets from appearing on secondary ticketing sites (no) and how much are they charging? (A lot.)

Joe develops his "Oasis are definitely releasing a new album" theory, courtesy of an archive Liam tweet...

We promised a Little Grandad update, but it’s been shelved in place of a Lammo Update...

Listener Sarah writes in offering a new intriguing possibility of the Smiths reforming with politicians playing key roles

Joe went deep on other politicians' über-cringe music claims, their true taste (featuring a lot of MOR rock), and a couple of politicians with... objectively good taste in music??

Tim Farron's music taste: https://www.libdemvoice.org/tims-top-tunes-how-many-have-you-heard-of-48737.html

===================================
As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
See you next week!
Stuart and Joe
======
TPOM online: ⁠http://tpom.uk/⁠
Support The Price of Music on Patreon:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠⁠
Follow Stuart on X - @stuartdredge
Follow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpod
For sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠⁠joe@musically.com⁠