Music Ally Focus

May 02 2024 14
Music Ally Focus Podcast artwork

Analysing vital music business topics in detail, as they emerge: Joe Sparrow breaks down important stories with expert guests in about 25 minutes. It'll keep you on the cutting edge, and it'll take about the same time as making and eating a good sandwich! (We recommend doing both simultaneously for maximum deliciousness.) 🌍 Music Ally provides analysis and context for the global music business: musically.com Ⓜ️ Music Ally's industry-leading subscription service: https://musically.com/subscribe 👋 Music Ally’s free weekly newsletter, The Knowledge: https://musically.lnk.to/knowledgepo

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"The music festival industry is suffering and there is something fundamentally wrong at its heart" – so what can be done to revive it?

May 02 2024 40 mins  
Episode 153: What's the health of the music festival ecosystem like? Not great, says Nick Morgan, CEO of UK festival company The Fair. Nick, who is also vice chair of the UK’s Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), and his colleague Yasmine Galleti join Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow and discuss the pressures festivals are under, in an environment where, they say, h

"We're not just creating musicians; we're shaping well-rounded individuals" – Young Voices CEO Ben Lewis and violinist Anna Phoebe on the impact of choir singing on children

Apr 25 2024 43 mins  
Episode 152: Young Voices arranges huge, arena-sized, choir performances for school children, and we were joined by Ben Lewis, CEO of Young Voices, and Anna Phoebe, violinist who performs with Young Voices (and is on the Board at The Ivors Academy.) We spoke about the importance of music at the grassroots level, and encouraging children to sing and perform together. They talked abo

"The music industry's approach to mental health was disastrous”

Apr 18 2024 43 mins  
Episode 151: We're joined by music industry psychologist and therapist Anne Löhr to get a snapshot of the state of mental health within the music industry, and her interpretation of how well the industry has supported the mental health of the people in it. SPOILER: uh-oh, it’s not been great – but it’s getting better. The music industry has, according to Anne, stuck to

How to make disabled people’s access to live events environmentally sustainable – with Suzanne Bull, founder of Attitude is Everything & Dr Teresa Moore, Director at A Greener Future

Apr 10 2024 36 mins  
Episode 150(!): Suzanne Bull, founder of Attitude is Everything – which connects disabled people with music and live event industries to improve access – and Dr Teresa Moore, Director at A Greener Future – which helps organisations, events, festivals and venues be more environmentally sustainable – join Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow. They spoke about how the twin issu

Local, independent artists want to play gigs – but it's increasingly hard to make money or find a venue. Sofar Sounds CEO Jim Lucchese, talks about the economics of live music – and what should change

Apr 05 2024 30 mins  
Ep 149: Sofar Sounds CEO Jim Lucchese joins Music Ally editor Joe Sparrow to talk about the current economics of live music and its impact on local, independent artists. Live music is a hard business at the best of times, but for smaller and emerging artists, it can be brutally tough. A good number of artists now get their start playing Sofar Sounds shows, so we ask Jim to explain

Marketing music to Gen Z: hyper-authentic, and always online – how do you connect with this elusive audience? Keturah Cummings of Forward Slash explains

Mar 27 2024 27 mins  
Ep 148: Gen Z music fans are able to immediately sense when an artist’s communications with fans feel inauthentic. But marketing has in its nature an element of inauthenticity – so how do you maintain a feeling of authenticity when marketing to this young, online-only generation? And how can artists and teams market effectively directly to these younger fans or potential fans?

The biggest questions that music streaming platforms face in 2024 – Music Ally's Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge, answers them.

Mar 25 2024 37 mins  
Ep. 147: Stuart Dredge, Music Ally’s Head of Insight, joins Editor Joe Sparrow to answer some of the biggest and most complex questions in the DSP space in 2024. This podcast is aligned with Music Ally’s new quarterly report and the Big Questions they chat about include: • Who are the winners and losers from artist-centric payment systems – and will creators and labels be

How do people search for music – and what do they really want in their results?

Mar 20 2024 29 mins  
Ep. 146: In this episode we ask: how do people search for music today and what do people really want in their results? We welcome Einar Helde, AIMS API co-founder and CCO, to the Focus podcast to answer that question, as well as to explain how technology is allowing people to search in novel and nuanced ways – and what that means for people who make music. The needs of people who

How will AI-generated music be used in virtual spaces like metaverses and video games? And do we lose a communal experience if we all hear different music? Verses' Sean Lee & Kyungtae Kim explain.

Mar 13 2024 34 mins  
Ep 145: Joe Sparrow is joined by Sean Lee, CEO/co-founder and Kyungtae Kim, co-founder and Audio & AI Specialist, of Verses, an AI music platform that powers music generation in virtual spaces. We wanted to talk about the use of dynamic AI-created music in the metaverse, and how that music then connects to virtual items. Essentially: where three of recent years’ most hypebeas

Should music streaming platforms charge to store music? Con Raso of Tuned Global explains the potential impacts on indie and major rightsholders.

Mar 06 2024 31 mins  
Ep. 144: Tuned Global's CEO Con Raso joins Joe Sparrow to talk about something that sounds a bit intangible and distant: the cost of storing all the music that gets streamed. If it’s essentially free for owners of huge catalogues of music to upload their files to someone else’s server, then they will – and smaller rightsholders like DIY artists and labels will be under in