Musonomics

George Wein single handedly created the model for the popular music festival. In this episode, host Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt celebrates George's legacy with the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals with a cast of Wein's friends and colleagues. Included are Newport Jazz Festival Artistic Director Christian McBride, City Winery's Michael Dorf, Newport Festivals Foundation Executive Director Jay Swe...

Jon Platt, head of the world's largest music publisher Sony Music Publishing chats with host Larry Miller in a fireside chat in front of a live virtual audience at NYU. Jon's pedigree of signing songwriters like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Kanye, and Drake has afforded him a well-deserved place as a shrewd creative executive and a powerful advocate for music creators. Jon discusses his unique career path from...

If it seems like a remarkable number of larger-than-life legacy artists have sold the rights to their catalogs lately for astonishing price tags, it's very likely the work of Merck Mercuriadis, CEO of Hipgnosis Songs Fund. Hipgnosis is disrupting the music industry by dropping big bucks on artists' songs and transforming them into an investable asset class. In this episode of Musonomics, host Larr...

The evolution of video games has been entwined with the music industry since the 1970s; dependent on related tech developments and targeting a similar consumer audience. Video games have become a significant revenue stream for music artists from e-sports, rhythm games, and titles like Grand Theft Auto. Now Fortnite, Minecraft, Twitch, and Roblox have changed the context for how music interacts wit...

Why is licensing music for a podcast like sailing in uncharted seas? In this episode of Musonomics, host Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt delves into why this format creates so much complexity for music usage even as the audience for podcasts is exploding. In conversations with music clearance expert Deborah Mannis-Gardner, music supervisor Scott Velasquez, and Premier Music founder Josh Deutsch, we...

Most artists make most of their income from touring. We want and need live music, but even as some states and venues begin to reopen, what will it take for masses of fans to return? We unpack a groundbreaking new study from Music Canada.

In this episode of Musonomics, Rob Stringer talks with Larry Miller about his journey from London to the NYC punk scene to the corner office of one of the world's largest music companies; his primary focus on enabling artists and their art, the competitive edge he got from growing up with the BBC and much more.

In this episode of Musonomics: how is it possible that more people are listening to music than ever, but musicians are earning less? Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt talks to musician, indie label owner, and festival producer Miranda Mulholland and Graham Henderson, the president and CEO of Music Canada, about the "value gap" - the growing mismatch between the value that user upload services, such a...

Stock investors looks to equity analysts for guidance on whether to buy, sell or hold stocks in individual companies. Gabelli equity research analyst John Tinker has covered music and entertainment stocks for over twenty years. In this wide ranging conversation we hunt for value in the stocks of Spotify, Sirius/Pandora, iHeart Media, Live Nation, Vivendi/Universal Music Group, Tencent Music, Liber...

BTS just played SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, marking the first-ever appearance by a Korean pop group in SNL's 44 seasons. On this episode, we examine the emergence and explosive growth of K-Pop on the American musical landscape and explore the genre's origins, current state and future with K-Pop expert Hannah Waitt.

Spotify supports music and the people who create it, and recently launched "Secret Geniuses," to recognize often-unheralded songwriters. So why did Spotify join with Amazon and others to challenge how they pay music creators after this matter was decided in federal court over a year ago? In this episode of Musonomics, Larry Miller talks with David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers As...

The most sweeping update of American music copyright in a generation is now law. In this episode of Musonomics, Larry Miller talks to three people that shaped or closely followed this bill from draft to signing: Jacqueline Charlesworth, Mitch Glazier, and Robert Levine on why the Music Modernization Act was so urgently needed, how it came to be, and what happens next.

Music is all around us, all the time -- as we shop in a store, eat in a restaurant -- or work off those calories in a spin class. In this episode of Musonomics, Prof. Larry Miller from the NYU Music Business Program explores the evolution and licensing issues of background and foreground music used in businesses, from the birth of Muzak in the wartime factory -- and then we shift into overdrive wi...

For millions of us, artificial Intelligence got real when we added smart speakers to our homes. Our AI assistants are standing by, ready to play music, turn on the news, start the oven, or see who's at the front door. But as they make life easier, they're also creating new challenges for the music and entertainment industries. And then there's the matter of security...just how smart do we want our...

Digital music services continue to drive recovery of the music industry after a long period of decline, and the AM/FM music radio business is starting to feel it. Young people born after Millennials don't use radio the same as previous generations. Can commercial AM/FM radio compete with pure play digital music services? Russ Crupnick of MusicWatch and Steve Goldstein of Amplifi Media join us to d...

Rock is headed towards a demographic crisis. Fifty percent of last year's top 100 grossing acts are over 50 years old. So what will happen to the live music industry when Mick Jagger is no longer filling stadiums charging hundreds of dollars per ticket? On this episode of Musonomics, Larry Miller talks to Neil Shah from The Wall Street Journal and Cherie Hu from Forbes about the future of the live...

In this episode of Musonomics, Larry Miller looks beyond the borders of the United States and dives deep into the music industry of the world's most populous country: China. To better understand why one of the world's largest economies still has a music market smaller than that of European countries like Austria or Sweden we talk to Ed Peto, music executive and founder of Outdustry, and Billy Koh,...

In this episode of Musonomics: how does lyrics licensing work and who benefits from it? Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt talks to Darryl Ballantyne, CEO of LyricFind, about what it was like to try and start a lyrics licensing business before the music publishers understood lyrics licensing was a thing. Songwriter Phil Galdston talks about how the changes in the music industry have affected the songw...

In the first episode of our third season of Musonomics, Larry Miller takes a look at the future of high quality music streaming services. To investigate whether or not there's enough room for a profitable niche market supporting multiple competitors in the high-resolution music market, we talk to MQA CEO Mike Jbara, 7 Digital Deputy CEO Pete Downton, and HDTracks CEO David Chesky.

In this episode of Musonomics: what does it mean to be a Music City? The term "Music City" is becoming widely used in cultural communities and has penetrated the political vernacular in many cities around the world. But just because a city has lots of live music venues, doesn't make it a Music City. There needs to be a formal strategy in place to optimize the music industry present in a city. Larr...

In this episode of Musonomics: why are more and more music industry insiders looking to Blockchain technology as a solution to the metadata problem? What really is the Blockchain? And why is it so important? These are just some of the questions host Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt, and co-host Carmen Cuesta Roca will unpack. The episode features PledgeMusic founder Benji Rogers, who is evangelizing...

In this episode of Musonomics: why are music startups struggling to thrive, or even simply survive? Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt heeds several perspectives to understand why the space for music startups is so unforgiving, and what music startups can do to be successful. Cortney Harding discusses the recent slowdown in the music startup space. Edward Ginis and his business partner Brady Brim-DeFo...

In this episode of Musonomics: what's driving the resurgence of vinyl. Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt looks up the production line to see how the format is maturing, and what's holding it back from even faster growth. Josh Friedlander, the RIAA.s data guy, talks about the continued growth of vinyl in the age of streaming. Billy Fields, the vinyl guy at Warner Music Group, chats with us about wheth...

In this episode of Musonomics, Larry Miller takes a look at how the copyright and royalty payment system is failing a new generation of songwriters. Ari Leff, a developing songwriter/producer who records as LAUV, and Nashville songwriter Brett James, who has written huge hits for Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney and Martina McBride, share the struggles of modern songwriters. We take a...

Presidential politics is in the air! Hot on the heels of Super Tuesday we delve into the world of presidential campaign music. We take a trip back in time to look at how music has been used in American presidential campaigns from Washington to Obama and beyond, with lessons from the current election cycle. With Ben Sisario of the New York Times on the impact that music can have on a presidential c...