The Price of Music

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week, Stu and Joe get ready for their summer holidays and punt a beachball at this week's music biz news: How much has controversial secondary-ticketing firm StubHub has just been fined in the UK for illegal ‘drip pricing’ ? (Also, what is that?) The news seems bit AI- heavy this week, but it's actually all about artists : → 31...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week, Stu and Joe focus on one very interesting and rapidly-developing story in the music biz... Did you know that music fans and industry insiders have quietly built a massive half-billion-dollar market trading purely on pop culture gossip and chart data? Stuart and Joe take a deeper look at how prediction platforms saw a staggering $4...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week, Stu and Joe go football crazy and stick a reducer early doors on this week's music biz news: → 270. That’s how many ‘unofficial anthems’ called ‘World Cup 2026’ have been uploaded to Deezer … and 70% of them are AI slop. → YouTube reckons that its terms of service allow it to use independent musicians’ uploads to train AI mode...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week: two very special guests talk about how to actually make important change happen in the UK’s live industry at grassroots level, and improve the live music fan's experience: we welcome back Lord Kevin Brennan of Canton , Labour member of the House of Lords and a recording musician himself. We also speak to Shain Shapiro , w...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ This week: → Enigmatic duo Boards of Canada have beef with the White House . What on earth is going on? → €55bn: the amount that hedge fund Pershing Square WON’T be paying to buy Universal Music Group, because it has reje...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! This week, Producer Joe steps into some big shoes to chat with Stuart about: How many streams did Drake’s THREE new albums get since their release on 15 May. But is this a hit comeback or a flop? Ozzy Osbourne is back! Wait,...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! This week... Steve is back from the Great Escape music showcase festival and joins Stuart to discuss: How many songs have Steve and Stu listened to on Spotify since 2008, according to its latest nostalgia-baiting feature ? BA...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This week... Stu's back from his travels and joins Steve to discuss beer, AI music, and Los Campesinos!: → $5bn is how much controversial AI-music firm Suno  could be valued at  –  and it might raising $250... so w...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This week... Steve and Producer Joe grapple with some big numbers, mergers, and warnings about signing your rights away: The UK government promised to ban ticket touting (scalping). But now the ban may be delayed for a...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ This week... Stu and Steve grapple with: → Brace yourself - how many AI-generated tracks are being uploaded every single day now? → Steve uses his knowledge of London pubs to try and figure out which one Olivia Rodrigo sh...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ This week... → Geese have been one of the big breakthrough rock bands of the last year. But now some of the marketing tactics that helped them cut through are under the spotlight … → Live Nation has lost a major lawsuit in...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ This week, there's a change to our normal schedule – with a whistlestop tour around the news and then a very special interview with Ashli Todd , owner of the legendary Spillers Records , the world's oldest record sh...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠⁠ This week... $63.5bn is a very big number – but is it worth paying this much for Universal Music Group? A report suggests that 2025 and 2026 saw a ‘pop slump’ in the streaming charts –  but what does ‘pop slump’ even mean? If...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ ⁠ This week... → Stu's Big Figure is... £50,000 – and it's been donated by that good egg Sam Fender... but to whom? → Music’s latest bitter lawsuit is  Twigs versus Twigs . (That’s FKA Twigs versus indie band The Twigs, B...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ This week... Steve's back from Austin, Texas and has plenty of stories to tell about SXSW. Plus Radiohead, BTS, and, erm, Salt 'n' Pepa – all in this week's TPOM: → Radiohead's Ed O’Brien has revealed the band w...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy a weekly Superfan Lock-in section! ⁠ This week Katherine and Ella from ace UK indie band Picture Parlour talk about the stark economic realities of being a touring artist in the modern music industry. They're joined by David Martin from the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC)...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy a weekly Superfan Lock-in section! This week... Steve's about to head off to SXSW in Austin, Texas, so we interrupted him as he was packing his suitcases, and grapple with non-league football, buying pieces of your favourite artist, why Tr*mp deliberately annoys artists by...

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy a weekly Superfan Lock-in section! This week... Steve and Stu get Phonky with the biggest overlooked genre in the world: so what is Phonk anyway? Also on TPOM this week: How much music streaming is “passive” – where the platform chooses what you listen to? What impact does that...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy a weekly Superfan Lock-in section! This week... Steve and Stu dig into the charts – and take a look at a load of data that’s been released about singles, albums and streams: Do you know Japanese rock band Mrs Green Apple? They were the 13th biggest artist in the world last year. (Bigg...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works: don't forget - you can become a ⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and access an extra 20 mins of show each week! ⁠ This week, it's time for another interview with one of the people who make it all happen. Steve speaks to Niamh Byrne , who managed Blur, Elastica, and Turin Brakes , before founding Eleven management, which works wi...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works: don't forget - you can become a ⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and access an extra 20 mins of show each week! ⁠ This week, Steve and Stu get stuck into: Stu's big number is $60 billion... and it's how much money YouTube made in 2025. But how much of this goes to music makers? Taylor Swift’s new music video was deliberately...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week Steve and Stu grapple with Harry Styles, Bonnie Tyler and Bruno Mars... Don't forget - you can become a Superfan of the podcast for free – and access an extra 20 mins of show each week! Stu's big number is $11bn - and that’s ⁠how much Spotify paid out to the music industry in 2025⁠ . But will that be enough to get its...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week they speak to Ricky Bates, head of booking and promotion at the Joiners in Southampton - one of the UK’s great grassroots venues. But first they chat about: Half a million pounds is being distributed in the UK to grassroots venues artists and events - and it’s money gathered from the levy on ticket sales in the UK. Steve and S...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week, Stu’s Big Number is also the Big Story – and here are some mind-boggling facts to bewilder your friends with:  There are now 253 million tracks available on streaming sites … and 55.3 million songs were not played even once in 2025 (And, over 100 million songs have been played less than 100 times) Over 50 million songs - 20%...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week, it’s a Billionaire Special! Stu’s big figure has three commas: Beyonce is now worth a billion dollars – the fifth musician to do so, according to Forbes. (Experience being ultra-wealthy by listening to TPOM's extra content for FREE here: https://www.patreon.com/12218634/join ) Elon Musk versus the music industry: the worl...