- 4 weeks ago
With over 100,000 songs hitting streaming platforms every day, according to Luminate, is the music industry struggling to keep up? Milana Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Stem, sits down on Billboard On The Record to break down what this fast-growing number of daily uploads means for artists, discoverability and the future of music making itself. Lewis explores whether AI songs and white noise should be given the same royalty as human-made songs, how social media has rewritten the path to success and why artists today have more tools than ever to make music — but less clarity on how they can actually break through.
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Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
Love what you hear? Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe so you never miss an episode of Billboard On The Record.
Love what you hear? Follow Billboard On The Record on Instagram, TikTok, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube @billboard so you never miss an episode.
Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
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MusicTranscript
00:00Over 100,000 songs that are being uploaded to streaming services daily.
00:03I wanted to ask you how we got here.
00:05So let's talk about what happened in the digital space post-Snapster and also how that had an impact on
00:12the music business.
00:13Of these over 100,000 songs that are being uploaded to streaming services every day, an increasing percentage of those
00:19are AI songs.
00:20And then Deezer says it's 44% of what they receive every single day.
00:24There is a cost to serve of maintaining music on servers.
00:28Do you think that this is the best time to be an artist?
00:31No, because you can't just be an artist. You have to be a media creator.
00:33We're finding volume with all these clips, all this more volume on social media.
00:38It might be less to produce content and to make music today, but it's a lot more expensive to cut
00:42through and to market.
00:47Is there too much music?
00:49Okay, now that I've hooked you with a bit of a controversial question, let me explain what I mean.
00:54So there's over 100,000 songs that are being uploaded to streaming services every day, according to Luminate at this
01:00point.
01:00And in 2023, over 45 million songs didn't have a single stream that year.
01:06Plus, French streaming service Deezer just reported that it's found 44% of daily song uploads are now 100%
01:13AI-generated songs.
01:14And that's not even counting all of the AI-assisted work that's likely also coming onto the platform at the
01:19same time.
01:19Several of the smaller streaming services, including Deezer, have expressed that there's an unsustainable cost that's mounting when they try
01:27to store all of these songs.
01:29And then ask any artists that you know.
01:31And with all this noise, it is incredibly hard to get your songs noticed today.
01:34Okay. So yes, I am here with my guest, Milana Lewis, who's the CEO and founder of STEM to ask
01:40the hard questions.
01:41How did we get so much music? And are we getting to a place where it's all too much?
01:47Milana Lewis, welcome to On The Record. Thanks for being here.
01:49Thanks for having me.
01:50Okay, so I have a big burning question. I've had this question for a long time, which is,
01:57are we getting to a place where there might be too much music?
02:00And I don't know if it's sacrilegious to say that, because obviously I love that so many people are making
02:05music these days.
02:06But there's so much of it that's ending up on streaming services that it does have a really big effect
02:10on the market.
02:12And I think there are so many downstream effects, so I want to get into all of those today.
02:17But before we get started, I wanted to ask you how we got here.
02:21These days we have over 100,000 songs that are being uploaded to streaming services daily, according to Luminate.
02:26But so can you walk me through a little music business history as to how we ended up with this
02:31much music?
02:32Yeah, I'm going to give you the version of it from my personal experience, which really just dates back to
02:37like 2013, 2014,
02:38when I first started paying attention to the problem, and then 2015 when I first started STEM.
02:42The short answer to your question in terms of my opinion is yes.
02:45And I think we also need to clarify the difference between music and sound,
02:48because when you put those two together, there's way too much noise and sound.
02:54Yes, lots of legitimate white noise and random stuff.
02:58And by the way, like the other part of the conversation, which I hope we'll end up having, is like,
03:02how do you measure value and effort?
03:04And does that matter in this equation in terms of interpreting my language, right?
03:08Because I could also argue with you that white sound could be more valuable to a listener than a song.
03:14Yes, I definitely want to get into that later.
03:16We can get into that part of it.
03:17It's so interesting because I grew up professionally around the same time that Chris Anderson had the whole theory of
03:25the long tail.
03:26And he wrote that long article in Wired Magazine.
03:29And I think back then, the long tail just wasn't so long, right?
03:32Like we're looking back at even like 2013, 2014, when there were still less than 100,000 songs being released
03:38a year.
03:39And this is post-Napster era, right?
03:43So let's talk about like what happened in the digital space post-Napster and also how that had an impact
03:51on the music business
03:52that I think created an environment where there's a plethora, to quote my old investor, Frank Rotman, a Cambrian explosion
04:01of music.
04:02We had a perfect storm of things, right?
04:04So you had the evolution of social media and digital media, which gave anyone the ability to post and publish
04:10content.
04:11YouTube had a huge role to play in that.
04:13On top of that, you had an industry where the economics were effectively sucked out of the business because so
04:22much music was being pirated.
04:24And as a result, the major label infrastructure started shrinking.
04:28And so you had all of these, call it creative and A&R and also administrative workers who were leaving
04:35the major label system,
04:36either because of layoffs or shutdowns or consolidation and restructuring.
04:41And a lot of those people became either freelance workers or they became music managers or started their own imprints.
04:48So you just had so much more independent talent that develops artists and music available to work with a generation
04:57of creators who were emerging independently through social channels.
05:02I think that makes a lot of sense.
05:03And I think coupled with that on the creative side, you have the rise of DAWs, digital audio workstations, a
05:10.k.a. like GarageBand, Logic, etc.
05:12So people could actually make realistic, good music without having to book a studio session.
05:18And so the cost of...
05:19Yeah.
05:20And then post it on SoundCloud or YouTube.
05:22Yeah, exactly.
05:22So it's like you can get discovered on your own with no upfront, you know, expenses from the label.
05:28Yeah.
05:28You can make it on your own.
05:30You don't need the expensive studio sessions or anything like that in order to make a really great song.
05:34And so I feel like that it has so many effects, it's hard to even narrow it down.
05:39But, I mean, I think one of the immediate effects that I think about is, you know, the rise of
05:45DIY distribution, a.k.a., you know, your distro kids, TuneCore, CD Babies, that allowed these people who are making
05:52music in their bedrooms to put it out no matter who they were, just for a flat fee.
05:56And then also you have at the labels, they start signing later.
06:00They let people develop themselves.
06:03And, I mean, also that kind of left a great space for STEM to come in.
06:06And so can you explain what pocket you feel like STEM serves within this?
06:11So we're a curated distribution platform that gives you the same self-service tools that a distro kid or a
06:20TuneCore would offer you, except that you can also pick up the phone and call someone.
06:25And so you have a team around you that you could use not only as a soundboard, but as a
06:28strategic lever that helps you with everything from putting together your release to coming up with the whole rollout strategy,
06:35executing against it, looking at the data as it's coming back and being smart about what you do next.
06:39And then more recently, we've had various pools of capital that we can invest across different types of artists at
06:47different stages.
06:47At this point with the deal we did with Concord a year ago, we can now invest at any stage
06:52of any artist and to pretty much any check size, which is a huge unlock for our business.
06:56But you're right, like the platforms like DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby existed before STEM did.
07:04And the reason I started STEM is because in my previous role at UTA, which was one of the first
07:09agents in the digital department over there, I realized there's a huge gap because not only were your friends who
07:15were making music off their laptop in their bedrooms, releasing music through TuneCore and DistroKid.
07:20And I actually had more established talent, whether they were actors that were transitioning into music or YouTube stars like
07:28the Troye Savants of the world and Shawn Mendes' who decided to move off of YouTube and use music as
07:32their primary form of media that they were creating, to established artists that were leaving the major label system looking
07:39to do things independently, all trying to figure out how you get music out there.
07:42And yet they're not the kind of people that, like, just want to put something out.
07:47They want to talk to someone.
07:48They want to get to know their partners.
07:50They want a sounding board to help them navigate the complexities or the challenges in releasing music globally by yourself
07:56without real infrastructure.
07:58And that's why we created STEM is to be that home for those types of people.
08:02That's fascinating.
08:03OK, so we moved from iTunes into streaming.
08:06Now streaming is like a totally different paradigm for the music industry.
08:10Yeah.
08:10But it did help us recover from piracy.
08:11I feel like streaming was another inflection point where it encouraged even more people to start releasing their music because
08:17now there's no pay barrier.
08:18Like on iTunes, you still had to pay if you wanted to listen to the whole song.
08:22So if you're an independent artist, it's going to be hard to get people to pay.
08:25But now people can get discovered with no pay barrier.
08:28Yeah.
08:28I feel like that makes the discovery process a lot easier for these small independent artists who are trying to
08:33do it on their own.
08:35Do you see streaming as an inflection point where things, the volume got even larger?
08:40No, I think social.
08:40Oh, I think YouTube was really the inflection point or platforms like SoundCloud.
08:45And I think it came from the necessity to be able to register your music on platforms like YouTube and
08:50Facebook.
08:51That became the catalyst for more digital distribution because I think there was a separation still.
08:55I think up and coming artists didn't aspire to make their music on Spotify immediately.
08:58I think they were using platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud to do that.
09:02And the advent of technologies like Content ID to register your copyright so that you could keep it claimed as
09:08yours and register it and collect money on it, even if other people were using it in their videos, was
09:13the genesis of at least a number of the YouTube clients that I was working with wanting to pursue digital
09:18distribution.
09:18It wasn't so much about selling the music on iTunes or making it available on Spotify.
09:22It was more like, hey, I know this is going to make money online.
09:24I want to collect it.
09:25And so you had to pursue the path of finding a digital distributor in order to do that.
09:29And then you might as well have released it everywhere else, too.
09:33Yeah.
09:33That's my anecdotal perspective on it.
09:36I could be wrong.
09:36I've never studied it.
09:38I do think social media shouldn't be discounted in this conversation as such a big factor in encouraging people to
09:46start sharing their work online.
09:48But I think an interesting thing that's happening much more recently within only the last few years is that of
09:54these over 100,000 songs that are being uploaded to streaming services every day, an increasing percentage of those are
10:00AI songs.
10:01So we recently had Oliver Schusser from Apple Music on the podcast.
10:05He said that they're seeing a third of monthly uploads that are 100% AI-generated songs.
10:11Wow.
10:12And then Deezer says it's even higher for them.
10:15They say that it's 44% of what they receive every single day.
10:19That equals out to, I believe it was 75,000 AI-generated songs.
10:24And that's 100% AI for both of those companies, not partially AI.
10:28Sorry, the whole concept of 100% AI is hilarious because you're still a human in the loop to some
10:33degree.
10:33It's like there's a human prompting it.
10:35Correct.
10:36So it's not 100% AI.
10:37There's still someone that has a vision that understands what the cultural messaging needs to be in order for it
10:42to resonate to get it out there.
10:44Yeah.
10:44Well, okay.
10:45Yeah, that is a very good point.
10:46I think when I say and when I hear them say 100% AI-generated, what they're thinking of is
10:53the output is 100% generated by AI.
10:57But the input side, they are putting in some work.
11:00Sure.
11:00They might be inserting their lyrics, which on the output side, you can't really tell that they did that or
11:05they didn't.
11:05They're prompting it.
11:06And also, interestingly, with the U.S. Copyright Office, their current guidance says that prompting alone is not enough sufficient
11:14human input to make it a copyright.
11:16Which I think is a good place to start.
11:19I think it's a good place to start.
11:20I think it's definitely going to evolve a lot.
11:22It has to.
11:22It has to.
11:23We're at the very beginnings of this.
11:25Yeah.
11:25And whenever I talk to streaming services about AI songs growing on their platforms, that's kind of what they always
11:31tell me.
11:31They're like, we're implementing XYZ new policy, but we are still just scratching the surface at what's going to happen
11:39down the road.
11:40They still don't really know what's going to happen.
11:43None of us really do.
11:44But what is true right now is there's a lot of AI-generated material that is ending up on streaming
11:49services.
11:50And I'm wondering, from your vantage point, what do you think that does for artist discovery?
11:55I want to answer this directly, but I feel like I have to leave the foundation for my thoughts first
11:58and my feelings.
11:59Do it.
11:59Because I can't just point the problem at AI.
12:02Yes.
12:03Generating music, right?
12:04Like AI-assisted music, AI artists are still a vehicle for storytelling.
12:10And I think the majority of the function of music in our society has always been to tell a story,
12:16to connect people through a common shared narrative.
12:19Either that's through lyrics or melody.
12:21Right?
12:22And it serves a functional purpose, whether it's bringing out a sense of emotion in a listener, or carrying an
12:30idea that they can't figure out how to articulate themselves, or passing along history, right?
12:35Or creating music that captures a moment in time that people can reflect on, right?
12:40And AI can still do that for us.
12:44Where part of the thing comes into question is around the issue of effort.
12:52Because the effort to make music, you can argue, is a lot less in a world with AI tools than
13:00with instruments.
13:01Totally.
13:01Yeah.
13:02But then through that lens, it's like, is dance music any less valuable?
13:05Because it's a lot easier to make.
13:07I have thought about this so much.
13:09And in terms of both AI songs, and also, which we'll get to later, like the idea of white noise
13:16or nature sounds maybe being uploaded as a form of audio content.
13:20Yep.
13:21On these platforms.
13:22I had a friend who I was talking, she works with songwriters, and she cares about them so much.
13:27And so when I told her about how much white noise, AI music and stuff is ending up on these
13:32streaming services.
13:33And how much generating.
13:34Yeah.
13:34Yeah, yeah.
13:35She was appalled by it, which rightly so.
13:37But she was telling me, she was like, well, that just shouldn't earn a royalty.
13:42Or it shouldn't earn a royalty as much as what my artists are doing or what my songwriters are doing.
13:47Or it should have a separate home and a separate monetization strategy for it.
13:50I don't think the solution here, it lies within us determining what's valuable or how much effort should be valued.
13:58I actually think that that is up to the consumer and the way that they make that decision is with
14:03their purchasing power or their consumption.
14:05Yeah.
14:06And their attention, right?
14:07Yeah.
14:07Where I think we need to spend time on solving is like, what are the consequences to people who are
14:15putting content out there that no one cares about?
14:18Because there is a cost to serve of maintaining music on servers.
14:23And it wasn't possible in a retail world because space is limited, physical space.
14:29And so there were consequences if you tried to put content out there and it didn't sell.
14:34You had restocking fees.
14:35You had overage fees.
14:37You had warehouse fees that you had to pay as a business.
14:39So you were more intentional with what you're choosing to invest to put out into physical product.
14:45And that still exists largely online, right?
14:47Obviously, with fast fashion, you can have turnaround times much sooner.
14:50And so you can produce a lot more shit out there than what is necessary for people to actually consume.
14:55But there's still a cost to carrying extra and excess.
14:58So I think we need to think about what that looks like in a digital world.
15:01And there's rumors I've heard of various DSPs who are toying around with fees where they're going to charge distributors
15:09for content that's below a certain threshold and maintaining it.
15:12There should be a shelf life of music.
15:14So if your music's out there and it's not being consumed for a period of time, it should be taken
15:20down.
15:21The shelf space should be cleared for someone else.
15:23And if you as an artist are still active and you want to pursue that, then you just have to
15:29re-upload, repackage, and reposition.
15:31Yeah.
15:31Or pay some sort of a fee to keep it up for a certain period of time.
15:36But I think you need to think about repositioning.
15:37I think you have to be more intentional because if it's out there exactly as it was and no one's
15:41consuming it, you have to think of a way to reach audiences differently.
15:45So I think you should be forced to repackage it in a way.
15:49Yeah.
15:49I mean, it's interesting.
15:50I have had multiple streaming services, some on, some off record, express to me that they are very concerned about
15:57the amount of storage space they require at this point to hold 100,000 plus songs being uploaded every day.
16:05And not even just songs, you know, white noise content, AI songs, whatever.
16:08Just sound.
16:09Sound.
16:10Sound.
16:10Media files.
16:11And I've asked Spotify multiple times.
16:13They say they don't have a problem with it.
16:15I do imagine that maybe...
16:15Well, because they have their own data centers.
16:16Well, yeah, I imagine because they are the biggest fish in the pond, it might be less of an issue
16:21for them than it would be for, like, Cobuzz or Deezer or these smaller streaming services that are not able
16:27to devote the exact same resources that a Spotify can.
16:31It's a problem for another one of the big ones.
16:34And I've had conversations with people who've worked there.
16:36And it's not so much about just storing it.
16:39It's about the cost of merchandising and curating it as well.
16:43Okay.
16:44So, like, algorithms, editorial staff.
16:46Yep.
16:47Okay.
16:47Interesting.
16:48Listening to it for fraud, detecting it, like, having to run various, not tests on it, but just, like, being
16:55able to drive various metadata tags and, like, sort of, like, ability to know how to place it in the
17:02digital sphere, which goes back to curation, I guess, because that's sort of the purpose for it.
17:06But you're scanning all the music.
17:07Yeah.
17:08You're still having to run stuff against it.
17:10And you're still having to maintain it because it is copyrighted information.
17:13So there is a cost.
17:15Now, could it be nominal?
17:16Sure.
17:17But at high volumes that we're dealing with today, it's costly.
17:20And I think the worst part of it, from my lens, is that it is making it harder for artists
17:27who are career artists.
17:28And I can't define that other than they have decided to dedicate most of their time to trying to turn
17:35music into a business.
17:36Yeah.
17:37To stand out because there is a lot of stuff out there.
17:40And I think part of the promise of digital streaming and call it, like, the democratization of social media was
17:49that every niche would find its audience.
17:51And I would argue that we're actually being pushed to more of a monoculture than ever before.
17:55Oh, that's interesting.
17:56Okay.
17:57You think it's being pushed more to a monoculture?
18:00Yes.
18:00Why do you think that is?
18:02I think it's all, not all, so, like, one of my issues with Meta and, like, Instagram is that it's
18:09so highly connected to my social graph.
18:11So if I find something and I like it, it's going to be surfaced to people who follow me that
18:15have somewhat similar tastes simply because they're connected to my social graph.
18:18Okay.
18:19Yeah.
18:20I've gone as far as to recently create, like, different accounts where I'm not connected to my phone.
18:26I'm not connected to my social graph, so they can't necessarily derive who I spend time with other than the
18:32proximity that I spend with them because that's a dimension that they look at.
18:35Like, they know that you and I are together in the same room right now.
18:37They do.
18:38They're watching always.
18:40I do that in an effort so that when I'm discovering new music or new artists, like, there's not as
18:45much of a signal out there and it's not being served to other people that I know in the industry.
18:48Well, that would be so funny if it's getting served to other people who are doing essentially, like, talent scouting
18:53A&R work and then it's like, okay, so we're all competing over the same thing all of a sudden.
18:57We're seeing that now, aren't we?
18:58Like, everything's a bidding war.
19:00Everything is a bidding war.
19:01Everything.
19:02It feels like no one can actually really get too early on anything because we're all using, not we, I
19:09don't do this, but all my friends who are in A&R are all using basically the same hacks and
19:15the same metrics and everyone has access to the same metrics.
19:17In some ways, that's great, but also it leads to a bunch of bidding wars.
19:23But yeah, it's interesting.
19:25You said something earlier that I really liked.
19:27You were talking about how, like, kind of the listeners decide what they want to listen to and it really
19:32shows when people just don't really want to listen to whatever the content is.
19:36For example, I know that for AI music, 100% AI music, whatever.
19:41I think it was Oliver who said that AI songs are only 0.5% of listening on Apple Music.
19:45And so the market is showing that there really is not much of an interest in AI-generated songs quite
19:51yet.
19:52I do wonder if that will evolve and change over time.
19:55It does feel like people are very negative on AI music right now, which is understandable.
20:01But another interesting layer to this is, I'm just throwing out all my facts here, but, like, Deezer has done
20:08so many studies and so much research on this space.
20:11And they released a figure that I thought was really shocking.
20:14They said that 97% of people that they surveyed could not tell a difference between AI music and non
20:20-AI music.
20:21Gotten that good?
20:22Yeah.
20:22So I'm kind of like, I wonder if that share...
20:25It's a hell of a bit because it's gotten so good at the music that's commercially available, which just isn't
20:28as good.
20:29Like, which way is it?
20:30I mean, everyone uses, like, the term of, like, oh, that's AI as saying, as, like, a shorthand for saying
20:36that music sucks now.
20:38But it's funny because, yeah, most people cannot tell the difference.
20:41A very vast majority of people can't tell the difference.
20:44So, I mean, I just think it's really hard to surface artists.
20:47Another layer to this is that there's been a big decline in gatekeepers.
20:52Getting on a top Spotify playlist used to totally make your career overnight.
20:56That is no longer the case.
20:58And you can't get on it just because your song is being pitched.
21:01You have to create a spark elsewhere.
21:03Yeah.
21:03That was, I think, our last big gatekeeper era, if there is one, Spotify playlisting.
21:10But on top of that, I mean, you know...
21:12It's funny you're not saying Apple playlisting because Apple's editorial thing that they try to sort of tout more so
21:18is that it's more human.
21:20Yeah.
21:20Well, yeah.
21:21I mean, what they do, to me, feels like a radio service.
21:25I do think that it's clear, based on speaking to people in the industry, that particularly a Spotify playlist can
21:32make or break things.
21:34Like, anecdotally, I had a friend who was managing an artist who got number four on Lorem when that was
21:40super, super hot.
21:41And they just got calls from everyone the next day.
21:44It was as easy as that.
21:46And she did end up signing.
21:47That no longer, for the last few years, has been making a huge difference in an artist's music's trajectory.
21:55And, you know, we've also seen the decline of other gatekeepers, you know, your late night shows, press, radio, all
22:02that stuff is kind of like you have to make the spark yourself and then maybe we'll notice it.
22:07Yeah.
22:07And for some artists, it does help because there are some artists who you don't really know much about that
22:15seeing them being a little bit more casual and funny on a Jimmy Kimmel show matters, right?
22:20It does matter.
22:21I don't want to say it doesn't matter.
22:22Like building, it's part of building the narrative, but it's not a launching pad anymore.
22:26Yeah.
22:27Well, it's not going to make or break your career overnight, but it is, I think all of those elements
22:32are still important, especially, I think a lot of people are talking about clipping right now, which has been a
22:36thing for a while.
22:37But clipping up a late night show is more valuable than being on the actual broadcast of the late night
22:43show.
22:43It has more reach.
22:44Yeah.
22:45And I think clipping is powerful when a song needs to be heard in a bunch of different contexts before
22:52it fully resonates with someone.
22:54Because that used to be the case.
22:55Like radio used to do that for us.
22:57You used to be out shopping, listening to a song.
22:59You were stuck in traffic, listening to the same song on the radio.
23:01You were at home getting ready or cooking dinner or passing by a store you were shopping at, right?
23:07Like you heard the same song in so many different contexts.
23:10And maybe the first five times you heard it, it like went over your head and you weren't conscious of
23:15it.
23:15But then maybe there was a context at a restaurant when you were on a date and like you heard
23:19a song and it like suddenly like resonated because it imprinted in your brain as a memory of that connection.
23:24And then later you hear it and it has a totally different emotional response for you.
23:28And I think we're probably going to get into sort of some of that music and the questions later.
23:32We don't have that as a society anymore in the same way.
23:36And so I think what clipping is doing is it's creating and testing a bunch of different contexts, both visual
23:42and lyrical or melody, I guess.
23:46And lining up all three of those elements into one piece of content and testing the shit out of it
23:52to see if they can get it to resonate with a certain audience.
23:56Okay. One thing that people always like to say, these kind of music industry pundit types will say is that,
24:03you know, it's never been better to be an artist than today.
24:05You have all these tools at your disposal. You can release your music by yourself. Everything is so cheap.
24:11I do think that that point is up for debate, though. What do you think?
24:14Do you think that this is the best time to be an artist or not?
24:18No, because you can't just be an artist. You have to be a media creator and you have to be
24:21a marketer and you have to have a point of view on who you are and how you position yourself.
24:27And you have to think about that in the context of various ways that you appear.
24:33Because before I used to think about how you appear in press versus how you appear in a live show
24:37versus how you appear when you're recorded.
24:40Now you have to think about that so many different ways, because even when you look at social, it's so
24:45different.
24:45The way that you would talk on a TikTok versus the way that you would post content on Instagram versus
24:50a YouTube or Reels or keep naming it, right?
24:53Like there's so many different places that you're expected to appear. And sometimes you don't want to appear yourself and
24:58you don't want to do it at all.
25:00And then you have to rely on other people and your fans to create that content for you, because if
25:03you're not on there, you're not relevant is the unfortunate reality.
25:06And we have these conversations with our clients all the time. There are some clients we work with who are
25:11not active on social media.
25:13Then it's a matter of like, do you have a rabid and a fan base that's going to be amplifying
25:18everything that you do without any effort on your end?
25:20And if you don't, then we have to rethink about that. Then we have to rethink that and get creative
25:25and how we do that.
25:26And that's where things like clipping agencies become helpful or managing fan accounts.
25:32Like it guts me so much. I was reflecting on a call that I had last week with an artist
25:37who we just signed and they're going to be touring internationally,
25:40but they don't have fan accounts in those territories where there's other, they're not native English speaking territories they're going
25:50into.
25:51And part of me hated the fact that my recommendation was that we need to create those accounts and manage
25:59them and amplify the content because it needs to be translated.
26:02And this is an artist who's not active on social media. This is an artist who doesn't want to be
26:07posting a bunch,
26:09but they're also so curated in what's out there about them.
26:13And it's really challenging to come up with strategies for the various types of artists that exist today.
26:19And you end up having to either, yes, it might be less to produce content and to make music today,
26:26but it's a lot more expensive to cut through and to market.
26:28Yeah, that's a very good point. On a recent episode of this podcast, I had on the founders of Chaotic
26:34Good.
26:34I don't know if you've met them yet, but yeah, that went more viral than I expected.
26:39And it sparked a very big conversation about digital marketing.
26:42And I think a lot of people felt like they had been duped, that record labels are doing all this
26:48nefarious stuff to manipulate algorithms that no one had any idea that they were doing.
26:52I think the rebuttal to that, though, is for certain artists, like you're describing, they might be a very curated
26:58person.
26:59They're not necessarily great at making a TikTok video every single day or multiple TikTok videos a day.
27:03And this is one of the only ways it feels like the industry is found to combat or to help
27:10an artist like that.
27:11Because we're in an age, not just a volume on streaming services, but also volume on social media.
27:17So much slop.
27:19Yeah, it's like fighting volume with volume, basically.
27:22Which is only possible in a world where posting and distribution is free.
27:25Yeah.
27:26But I do wonder, though, we're fighting volume with all these clips, all this more volume on social media.
27:32Where does this end?
27:33Like, because we're contributing to the volume.
27:36Oh, yeah.
27:36And then it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
27:39And so the cost to participate in artist marketing is now getting more and more and more.
27:44I don't know.
27:45Where do you think it ends?
27:46I don't know.
27:46And that's one of the reasons why I'm really frustrated right now.
27:49Like, it's really hard to set and be intentional and incredibly authentic in an environment like this.
27:55And I also wonder how AI is going to increasingly play a role to help everyone keep up with the
28:02volume that keeps mounting and mounting and mounting in digital marketing.
28:04Well, it's making it worse because you can clip a thousand different videos now in a matter of minutes using
28:10AI.
28:10Mm-hmm.
28:11Yeah.
28:12Before you needed a human editor that was carefully clipping it out, which, I mean, obviously, there still is a
28:19benefit to having a human being carefully clip those out.
28:22But there are some people who just don't care.
28:24They're just as many clips as we can make of this one performance.
28:27Let's just put it out there.
28:28And I've heard TikTok is coming down on this.
28:31Like, they're a lot more conscious of, call it, like, these clipping accounts or the ones that post mostly clipped
28:36content.
28:37And I think if there's not real authenticity behind it, like, they'll shut it down.
28:41But I can't, like, get over the fact that I, like, I've started paying a lot of attention on who
28:47follows me and my social media accounts.
28:49And I click through.
28:50So I don't block my account because I don't want to.
28:54But I do review every person that follows me.
28:57And I'll block individual accounts that do not seem human to me.
29:01Really?
29:01Yes.
29:01Wait, what's the benefit of doing that?
29:03I just don't want that.
29:06I'm also a little bit cautious of the security issues around being public on social media.
29:12And I've been hacked in the last year.
29:14And I've had shit stolen.
29:15So I'm super sensitive to that.
29:17Wait, not physically stolen.
29:18No, I have my car stolen in front of my house.
29:19Wait, are you serious?
29:20In January, yeah.
29:21It's a bizarre story.
29:22I've had my, I've had a lot of money stolen also.
29:27What?
29:27I've been hacked, yeah.
29:28Okay.
29:29This is good for me to know as I continue to post on social media every day.
29:33Yes.
29:33Like, don't reveal where you are.
29:34Don't reveal personal images about yourself.
29:36I mean, there's, I have a whole, like, lesson I've learned.
29:39I do feel like I learned, actually, a lot from Kim Kardashian's incident in Paris, where
29:45she was robbed.
29:47And it was because she had just posted, I believe, I believe this is the story.
29:51Sorry if I'm wrong.
29:52But I believe the issue is that she had posted that she was in Paris.
29:56And so people tracked down what hotel she was staying at and caught her there.
29:59Yep.
29:59But I now implement a policy of I'm only posting a story after I've left the place that I was
30:05at.
30:05Yeah.
30:06But yeah, you just never know.
30:08People are really, really talented at doing bad things.
30:13Which I guess brings me to another point with this whole discussion about how much music
30:18there is out today.
30:19There are also people out there who are not putting out music with good intentions.
30:24So they will put out maybe like a spam equivalence worth of content, just tons of music in the
30:34hopes of running a bot farm on it, artificially streaming it, which ultimately does steal money
30:40from a royalty pool, which is divided up among real artists.
30:44So I'm wondering, when did you notice that streaming fraud or artificial streaming was
30:51starting to pick up on streaming services and become a real problem for artists like
30:55the ones you work with?
30:56It's interesting because we haven't felt that pain as much as a lot of other distributors
31:02because, again, we're curated.
31:03And so we choose to work with our artists.
31:05We're not that hands off.
31:07We're pretty hands on the marketing strategy.
31:08So we typically have an idea of who they're using as vendors and what they're doing.
31:13There are definitely cases where the artists and their management team are ignorant to who
31:18they hire and who those people are hiring to execute some other work.
31:21And I think that's where we've been the most able to witness that, I would say.
31:26So true.
31:27Don't hire someone on Fiverr to put you on playlists.
31:30Or like a lot of these marketing companies that just do marketing services also inflate their
31:34ROI by hiring, you know, various strategies and firms.
31:39And like, I've heard as much as like that some of our competitors or one of our competitors
31:48has bought like over a million iPhones and handed them out.
31:52A million?
31:53Yes.
31:53Huge investment to make.
31:55Wait, a distributor has hired or has bought?
32:00A company.
32:00A company has bought a million iPhones.
32:03And handed them out.
32:04But like as a distributor, it's not really like on you how many streams.
32:07Well, I guess.
32:08No, it is.
32:09Because you're also marketing.
32:10Distributors have to be marketing agencies now.
32:12Yeah.
32:12Well, it's OK.
32:13Let's break this down.
32:13Especially like the higher tier ones like STEM where it's like you're doing playlist
32:16pitching for people and like these other.
32:18And marketing services.
32:19I think let's clarify, right?
32:21There's delivery services.
32:22I would put companies like Districate, CD Baby and TuneCore under the brand TuneCore as
32:29delivery services to get your music up there.
32:31Some of them, like TuneCore, I would say, have a new tier of service.
32:35I think DistroKids experiments with this as well, where they have more hands on artist
32:38services, right?
32:39Oh, yeah.
32:39So they have like distribution, call it.
32:42And then there's distributors, whether it's companies like us or the major label-owned
32:48distribution companies like The Virgins and The Orchards and whatever ADA used to be and
32:52whatever it is now of the world.
32:54Delivery services wouldn't care because they're getting paid up front for whatever music.
32:58So they just care about volume.
32:59But distributors care because, again, your job is to find not only deliver, but to distribute.
33:04And distribute means drive attention and awareness and positioning in the marketplace of
33:08the music and they're economically aligned because they're participating in the part of
33:13the revenue as well.
33:15Oh, yeah.
33:16So true.
33:17Yeah.
33:17The economic model is different.
33:19It's not just a flat fee.
33:20It's you're taking a percentage.
33:22And interesting.
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34:20I also wanted to ask you about how this increase of volume has led the major music companies to
34:28increasingly get interested in distribution.
34:31Can you tell me a little bit about that evolution and how they've continually invested in these
34:36distribution services?
34:37I think it's because they just want to be in earlier.
34:39You just don't know what's going to stick, right?
34:41And you want to be on top of the trend and you want to be early.
34:44And so what a better way to be early, in their opinion, than to open up the funnel?
34:50We did the opposite.
34:51We closed our funnel.
34:52We were super early.
34:54And we, I don't know if you remember this.
34:55So STEM has never been a long tail distribution service.
34:59We've always been invite only.
35:01There was a moment in time where on STEM, because we always paid out multiple parties for a song.
35:06So you would get an invite into STEM if you were my collaborator getting paid on a song.
35:10And there was like a four month period where you then also had access to upload your own music.
35:15And so by nature of that network effect, we grew exponentially because our collaborators were then uploading new music.
35:22And so we had a lot of volume.
35:24And it was a range of artists that were well known for us to be working with that are now
35:30huge mega superstars to your friends from high school's cousin making music in their bedroom.
35:36And that just didn't serve the problem we were looking to solve, right?
35:40It made things a lot more difficult for us because I don't want to be in the volume business, right?
35:45We're here to serve a very specific segment of the market, which are career artists who want to be autonomous.
35:51I can't even say independent because they might be independent for one project or two, but they might choose to
35:56work with a major for something else and have them feel like they can be successful doing it on their
36:01own terms.
36:02So for us, being in the volume business just doesn't work.
36:06And we thought that it was a big distraction.
36:07It was also very costly.
36:08We looked at our unit economics and our cost to serve, and we said that that's just not how we
36:12want to structure our business.
36:14Because we didn't want to charge a flat fee because, again, we want to be aligned in incentives with our
36:18clients to help them make more money and help them reach more audiences.
36:21We shut down the ability for people to upload content, and we went as far as to even help them
36:27migrate their music over to another distributor and moved it off our platform.
36:31And we consistently revisit our client base, and we have honest conversations with them, whether or not with the right
36:36partner going forward.
36:38It's an ongoing conversation that we have because we want to manage our volume.
36:42So when did you make this move?
36:43So the first change, the big announcement around ending the call-it virality and the top-of-funnel access was
36:52back in 2019, I want to say.
36:55Okay.
36:56Yeah.
36:57And it was really controversial at the time.
36:59Yeah.
37:00And then it turned out it wasn't so controversial because Spotify shut down their long-tail initiative, too, when it
37:04came to direct distribution.
37:06Can you explain that a little bit more for this?
37:07So there was a moment in time where Spotify wanted to enable anyone to release their own music on Spotify,
37:12and they were a little bit more curated with it, and they ran the experiment, and then they realized that
37:17it was not a great experiment, so they shut it down.
37:19Yeah.
37:20I think there were others that tried that, too, and said it wasn't right for them.
37:25And what we realized is that we can still drive the right type of referrals and business without having to
37:30catch everything just by being intentional with their relationships and having great tastemakers in the business, in their building.
37:35So we have our artist relations team whose job it is to get to know all the managers and all
37:41of the sort of pockets of all the creator groups that are happening largely domestically because that's where we focus.
37:48We're not really in an international company yet.
37:51And being smart about what we bring in and what we double down on, what we bet on.
37:55Well, I think another thing to discuss in this conversation all about volume, ending up on streaming services, is that
38:02now with streaming, because there is no pay wall behind or preventing someone from listening to any given song, not
38:11only are new artists competing against other new artists, they're also competing against every artist from the past.
38:17Correct.
38:18And so I wonder for you, how do you think that's impacted the frontline music industry?
38:23I mean, the first place my head goes to, which is not answering your question, unfortunately, is just how much
38:28music's being reimagined, right?
38:32How many samples from the past are reemerging in new music?
38:37Yeah.
38:38Interpretations, there's more remixes, there's more sampling.
38:41Yeah, and I think what's interesting is a lot of people who are not in the music industry wouldn't know
38:45that some of that is completely intentional.
38:47So coupled with everything that we're talking about here, the catalog market is really hot right now.
38:52Yeah.
38:52And so there are a lot of catalog buyers who are looking to up the value of the asset they
38:57just bought.
38:58And so there are things called flip camps that are starting to take place where people will say, hey, I
39:03just bought this catalog from Def Leppard or whatever.
39:06Come here and remix it or interpolate it, meaning like taking the melody of it and make it into a
39:12new song.
39:12And that actually has done really well.
39:15A lot of those songs have ended up on the Hot 100 because I guess it just proves that people
39:20love nostalgia.
39:21And we actually don't want something that's too new.
39:24Sometimes it's interesting just how much the catalog game has coincided with this, you know, emergence of more and more
39:33frontline acts.
39:34It feels like with Streaming's Infinite Shelf, another thing that I've seen start to happen is that there are artists
39:41like Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift, Drake.
39:44There's so many others I could name.
39:45I'm not trying to single them out.
39:47But there are a lot of artists like that that are starting to release extra long albums.
39:52So like 30 plus songs on a given album.
39:56That was not a thing, really, back in the days of physical.
40:00If it was, then you would need to do a double vinyl.
40:03And that's so expensive that why would you do that unless you're a big star?
40:07Which they're all big enough where that would be justified.
40:09True, true.
40:10Morgan Wallen is doing well.
40:12And so is Taylor.
40:13So is Drake.
40:14So but I do wonder, do you think that these albums are getting so long almost as a way to
40:21combat how much volume there is out there?
40:23Does this just give artists more shots at getting a hit?
40:26I think it just makes it easier to qualify for RAA milestones as an album versus singles.
40:31You have more at-bats.
40:33Yeah.
40:34So like every time the streams are counted, if you count 30 songs, 30 streams.
40:39Yeah.
40:41I think that makes sense.
40:42I think I don't know if that's like the only thing driving it.
40:45It's definitely a benefit of that strategy.
40:47It could also be that they just made, I mean, the amount of music that's being made even in these
40:52sessions.
40:53Before they put together the album probably makes it harder for people to decide like what actually makes the cut.
40:59Yeah.
40:59Well, I mean, and also there's just the simple fact that you can put it all out.
41:05Yeah.
41:05Why not?
41:05Why not?
41:06If you, I'm sure it has been historically very challenging for artists to narrow down their favorite 10 songs from
41:12their list of 50 that they've made.
41:15Yep.
41:15And so now you kind of just don't need to.
41:18Maybe, right?
41:19More shots.
41:20I think another, you know, interesting thing that kind of goes along with all of this is that we're seeing
41:25viral moments happen, both from songs that are brand new and also from songs that are a few years old.
41:30Dominic Fyke right now has a hit with Babydoll, which was released in 2018.
41:35Why did that not go viral in 2018?
41:36I don't know.
41:37But virality is definitely a big thing that is putting small artists on the map right now.
41:44Sorry, Dominic Fyke is not a small artist.
41:45But in 2018 he was.
41:47In 2018 he was.
41:48He was emerging then.
41:50But I'm wondering for you, how do you advise artists when they experience these viral moments, how do you help
41:56them make that from a viral moment into a lasting impact and a lasting uplift in their career?
42:02You have to understand what is the source of the virality, right?
42:05What registered, what hit, what got traction, why?
42:08With what community and where do they live?
42:10What else are they listening to?
42:11What does that tell you about your fans and how do you double down on that investment?
42:14And what is the peripheral fan base next to that and how do we invest in having that leak over?
42:20Which, by the way, is impossible to do if it's manufactured using clipping agencies or farms or anything like that,
42:27right?
42:27Like that's when you see the big hit and then it just drops off.
42:30Because you can't do anything about it because it's not natural.
42:33There's no narrative.
42:34There's no purpose.
42:35There's no intention.
42:37So how do you know when a viral moment is actually real?
42:41You look at the source of stream.
42:42Okay.
42:43You look for themes.
42:44You look for repetition.
42:45You look for patterns.
42:47And I imagine that's what a lot of these algorithms at Spotify and Amazon and Apple is all using for
42:54detection of fraud and streaming fraud.
42:56Is that there are no clear human patterns or natural human patterns, I would say.
43:02Interesting.
43:03I mean, we've talked a lot about AI music in this discussion.
43:07And we've talked about how many songs are being uploaded daily.
43:10Do you think that the solution for all of this music is essentially algorithms getting better or, you know, essentially
43:20more AI in a way to sort through all of the mess that we have?
43:24To detect the AI?
43:25But also to recommend songs that actually do deserve to be pushed through the gigantic volume?
43:32No, I think it should be.
43:33I think a filter needs to come through.
43:36And I think the barrier to entry needs to be brought down so that there's that content with real intention
43:42comes through and everything else gets stopped or slowed down.
43:45So how would you envision that actually looking in practice?
43:48I think the cost to publish should not be free.
43:51I think there should be a cost to maybe not pushing content out initially and publishing it, but maintaining it
43:59if it's under a certain consumption threshold where it's not generating enough income to pay for itself.
44:04Do you have any idea what that threshold should be?
44:06No, but there's people much smarter than me that have a lot more knowledge of what the cost to serve
44:10is.
44:10Yeah.
44:11To come up with that threshold.
44:12Fair enough.
44:12I mean, that reminds me of Streaming 2.0, which was this big push that happened a couple of years
44:19ago.
44:20I believe the years would probably be 2022, 2023.
44:25Lucien Grange, the CEO and chairman of Universal Music Group, was talking about this a lot.
44:29And this is a big initiative for him.
44:31And basically, I think, you know, he surveyed what the landscape had ended up being like 10 years into streaming
44:38and saw that there were some things that might need to be changed.
44:41And so part of his push involved this thing called like adding a threshold.
44:46And so it's different for every platform.
44:50But basically, you do not earn royalties until you hit that threshold.
44:55Sure.
44:56Because the long tail had gotten so incredibly long that there are so many people that weren't meeting the threshold,
45:01but they got half a penny.
45:02Yeah.
45:03And so those half a pennies were leaking everywhere.
45:05They're just going all over the place.
45:08By the way, I do agree with that as one of the strategies that should exist.
45:11Yeah.
45:12Yeah.
45:12I don't think it's the only one, but I think it's one of many.
45:15It was something that really upset certain people.
45:18Yeah.
45:18Until they fully understood it.
45:20Yeah.
45:20I think.
45:21Yeah.
45:21I think mostly I do understand the criticism.
45:24One of the criticisms that I heard that I thought was pretty fair is just that, like, you know, the
45:30world's largest music company is pushing these new policies, which ultimately.
45:34Well, I didn't finish explaining the threshold, but the idea is all of those, all of those pennies that would
45:40have kind of leaked out to the long tail will be redistributed to people who've been above the threshold.
45:46So the idea was, you know, you know, UMG is pushing something that will benefit them, which benefits me, too.
45:54Yeah.
45:55No, that's my rebuttal to it is like, I mean, anyone who's running a distributor that's not a DIY delivery
46:01service could benefit from this.
46:04Yeah.
46:05And I do think the redistribution will benefit the middle class the most.
46:10And I think a lot of those people who are making music that are below that threshold, unfortunately, I'll label
46:17them as hobbyists.
46:19And if something is a hobby, you're typically spending money on doing it.
46:24You're not making money.
46:25You could be.
46:26That's amazing.
46:26But that's when it becomes something that may transition from being a side hobby to something that's more of a
46:31sustainable.
46:33Call it like not necessarily a career, but a side business or a side ancillary revenue stream for yourself, which
46:42I'm all for in this economy, right?
46:44Like, I do think people should have the opportunity to create wealth for themselves that's scalable, that doesn't correlate with
46:51the time they're putting into something.
46:54Another thing that was part of Streaming 2.0 was targeting what Lucien called functional music.
47:01I think I've also heard terms like non-music.
47:03Yeah.
47:03This goes back to noise as well.
47:05So basically sounds or audio content that is not music.
47:12It's not a traditional song.
47:13So it could be anything from a bird sound to white noise.
47:16Yeah.
47:17And basically the big push during Streaming 2.0 is that, you know, those things should not be valued the
47:24same as a regular old song.
47:26And so they ultimately are, on many services today, being paid a lesser royalty.
47:31To be fair, there were, I know, I personally know people in the music business that had a side hustle
47:37putting out white noise and then using their connections at streaming services to try to, like, boost up this random
47:42white noise album that they put out.
47:45So I get it.
47:47But I'm curious what your thoughts are on it.
47:49Do you think that that was the right approach to deal with this influx of non-music?
47:52I don't think you can have that approach unless you're willing to define what value means.
47:56Like what music is valuable and what music isn't.
47:59I know artists who are sitting on hundreds and hundreds of songs that feel like fast fashion to them because
48:06they're able to make that music so quickly and so easily without that much effort.
48:13And if they put it all out there, it might have a lot less value to a listener than a
48:18scientifically backtrack that someone researched to come up with the right sound to put someone in a meditative state or
48:25to put them into a flow for work.
48:29Right.
48:29Like, and I think until you define the value and the effort and you're willing to create parameters around that,
48:36it's a pointless conversation.
48:37I wrote a story about ambient music and kind of this very experimental side of ambient music where I don't
48:44even know if it's music at that point, but it's something that someone poured their heart and soul into.
48:48And I kind of use that story as exploring the edge cases of some of the stuff might be automatically
48:56flagged by whatever detectors these streaming services have as non-music, but also it might have been someone's artistic intent
49:05to make it that way.
49:06So you have, unfortunately, this category where there are people who are trying to game the system to earn extra
49:11money on the side.
49:12That's probably the majority of those people.
49:15By the way, there's people doing that with human artists.
49:17Yes, for sure.
49:19And then when you get into the AI stuff, it allows you to make a supply of content much larger,
49:25much faster.
49:26So then you can spread it out and be even more sneaky about the weird manipulation you're doing.
49:31I thought that story was really interesting to do because it allowed me to talk to some ambient artists who
49:38are like, I made a nature sounds record and I'm extremely proud of it.
49:43And I traveled all over the world to collect bird sounds and this is my artistic intent.
49:48And now it's worth, I forget what it is, maybe an eighth of a regular stream or something like that.
49:53Okay.
49:53So we've talked so much about volume here and how it makes it increasingly hard for a young artist to
49:59break through with their music.
50:00I'm wondering, though, what advice you would give to a young artist who is exasperated by this issue.
50:06They really want to find a way to break through.
50:08Do you have any tips or advice for them based on what you've seen?
50:12I think the biggest thing is figure out who you're making music for.
50:18What is their, call it, customer journey, like fan journey?
50:22How are they behaving in the world?
50:24What else are they doing?
50:25Like how do you reach them where they already are and tell them something that they need to hear?
50:30Because that's what I think the purpose of music is, is that the fans who relate to something, it's because
50:36they needed to hear it in that moment, in that context.
50:38So I think you just have to focus on like the intention behind what you're saying and who you think
50:42needs to hear it and focus on how you can get it to them in the most efficient way possible.
50:48Well, that's great.
50:49Okay.
50:49So everything else just amplifies it.
50:51Everything else is like if you can get the core going, then you can start thinking about like how do
50:55you double down on what's already working and then how do you spread that to like adjacent fan communities or
51:02adjacent audiences?
51:04Yeah, I think that's great advice.
51:06Nice. So as we wrap up this episode, we always play a couple games.
51:11So are you game for a game?
51:12Always.
51:12Okay. So my beautiful DIY wheel. This is a segment that we call Spin the Record and I have a
51:17bunch of fun questions on here relating to our conversation and relating to your work at STEM.
51:22So if you could just...
51:23Oh, you already wrote that many questions?
51:24Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
51:26Okay.
51:27We come prepared here.
51:28Great.
51:28So just spin the wheel and let's see what it lands on. I'll read it out.
51:32It's actually a pretty good spin.
51:34Well, it's kind of in between two.
51:37What are your tips for picking the right distributor?
51:41Figure out what you need help with.
51:43Some distributors are really good at digital marketing.
51:45Some distributors are really good at content creation.
51:48Some distributors are really good at international.
51:50Some distributors are really good at, I wouldn't call it ANRing a project, but getting more involved in the earlier
51:56point of creation, having a real thought partner in the process.
51:59And because you need the money, right?
52:02And some are just really good at giving you money and getting out of your way.
52:06Decide what it is you're looking for and map to that.
52:08And I think the other point that's really important is don't sign with the company, sign with the person.
52:14Because every distributor at this point has a point person, a point team will be working with.
52:19And just making sure that they're the ones that you'll be working with through the duration of your release and
52:24that they're actually going to be there still because there's some that have a lot of turnover.
52:27You read my mind.
52:28I was about to say, what if your person leaves, though?
52:31Unfortunately, that is the music business right now.
52:33Speaking of what you were saying earlier at the very top of the conversation about how there was this time
52:38period around piracy when so many people at major labels got laid off and it led to this growth of
52:42the independent sector.
52:45The amount of people that I know who have been laid off in the last two years is insane.
52:51I'm hoping that it leads to this beautiful resurgence of independent music companies and stuff.
52:56But there's been a lot of consolidation.
52:58There's going to be a lot of fragmentation as a result of it, as always.
53:02Yeah.
53:03I don't know what form it takes.
53:05I don't either.
53:06I don't either.
53:06But it's funny.
53:07I like I pitched the idea of a story about like, you know, could all these layoffs lead to this
53:12beautiful resurgence of the independent sector?
53:14And one of my co-workers was like, I think I've written about that before.
53:18She's been a billboard for like 20 years.
53:20And I was digging through the archives to see if I could find it.
53:23And I found she wrote the exact same story in 1998.
53:27In 1998.
53:29That was Napster days.
53:29Yeah.
53:30It was like right before Napster.
53:31This was where UMG became what it is now.
53:35Essentially, there was a bunch of consolidation.
53:38And a lot of people lost their jobs.
53:40And she posited the exact same thing back then.
53:43So the more things change, the more they stay the same.
53:46But let's give the wheel one more spin.
53:49What is the biggest lesson you've learned on the job at STEM?
53:52This is one that I say all the time.
53:54And it really is the simple for me.
53:58Do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it.
54:02And if you can't, get ahead of it and tell people why.
54:05That was great advice.
54:06It is just like, it's that easy in this business.
54:09And it is not to be taken for granted because it's so freaking rare.
54:12It drives me up the wall.
54:14Yeah.
54:15I need to take that advice, unfortunately.
54:18That is like the lesson.
54:19Everything comes back to that.
54:20And actually, the other thing is, if it's a maybe, it's a no.
54:24Every mistake I've made in decisions, and that decision could be everything from partnering
54:32to hiring to hiring to putting something out in the product to something I've said in the
54:38press.
54:39If it's a maybe, it's a no.
54:43Like, follow your gut.
54:44Your gut has been oriented with you for as long as you've been alive.
54:48And it has the ability to make decisions or guide you when you're entirely subconscious.
54:53Like, I think your brain is not the only thing that guides you.
54:57That's great advice.
54:58Okay.
54:59So we're moving on to what would you cue, which I ask every time I do a podcast here.
55:03Okay.
55:03So what would you cue to take you back to your childhood?
55:09What's one song?
55:10Thing that comes to mind are my first few CDs that I ordered off BMG, right?
55:15Which were TLC, Boys to Men, and All for One.
55:18Oof.
55:19And then shortly after Spice Girls.
55:21And the amount of time that I spent in my childhood making up dances, trying to recreate
55:29the costumes off the music videos that I saw on MTV, that is my childhood, right?
55:34That is what I spent all of my free time doing.
55:36So any of those songs on any of those albums will cue that for me at those memories.
55:41That's great.
55:42Okay.
55:42What would you cue to represent your favorite era of music?
55:45Like my late teens into my early 20s, which was the resurgence of dance music.
55:49So I grew up in Detroit.
55:51I was really close to Windsor.
55:53There were really fun raves that were being thrown by Richie Hahn and Derek May.
55:57And that's really when I fell in love with music.
55:59Was just sneaking into Windsor and like going to those parties.
56:03And then after I moved to LA, it was very much like the pop emo scene here, which was
56:09fine and fun.
56:10And like, I love Paramore.
56:11I love a lot of the bands that came out of that era.
56:14But I still loved dance music.
56:16And I think in the, call it early 2010s, in the 2010s, is that what we call it?
56:23I guess so.
56:24How do you describe the 2012, 13, 14, 15 of the world?
56:27Yeah.
56:282010s, 20-teens, whatever.
56:31Yeah, which was dominated by like the Dutch DJs.
56:33Mm-hmm.
56:34I thought that was a really fun era.
56:36Yeah.
56:36Is there one artist in particular that we should check out from that era?
56:40Everything that was Avicii and Afrojack, right?
56:43Because it was like dominating the festivals.
56:45It was the beginning of like the Calvin Harris, not the beginning, but like that's when Calvin
56:48Harris and Steve Aoki and Dylan Francis and all these guys were emerging.
56:52It's funny, the DJ who I loved back then, who's now like becoming the cool guy, is Solomon.
56:57Oh, nice.
56:58Early on, Solomon.
56:59Yes.
56:59There we go.
57:00I love that.
57:01Okay.
57:01What would you cue to remember your favorite concert?
57:04I'm going to give a shout out to my husband's artist in this one.
57:09And because it's top of mind, right?
57:11Carol G.
57:11Off Coachella.
57:12One of my favorite shows I've ever been to was her show in Colombia in Medellin, in her
57:18hometown.
57:19The energy, the venue, the music, the dancing was just so much fun.
57:26I also loved seeing War on Drugs.
57:28I don't listen to their music that much, but I like loved their show that I went to that
57:34was either, and I can't remember now if it was at the Greek or the Hollywood Bowl, but
57:37it was in one of those like outdoor theaters.
57:38I love that.
57:39So fun.
57:40You can't be Greek or Hollywood Bowl to me.
57:43No, the ambience is just incredible.
57:44So much better than anything else.
57:46But it doesn't work for every artist.
57:47No, no, no, no.
57:48You have to be a certain type of artist.
57:50Otherwise, it feels a little bit too like I'm sitting in my seat.
57:54I'm removed from the experience.
57:56Some people are standing room only type people, but.
57:58I will say one other show that I thought was super fun that I went to this year, which was
58:02entirely unexpected.
58:03I saw one of our up-and-coming artist masterpiece in Brooklyn at a small venue with like 100
58:08people, and I've never seen kids jumping so high for so long.
58:11They were just like so into him, and I loved watching every minute of it.
58:15I feel like that's what this is all about, you know, is actually seeing the legitimate
58:19impact that the artists that you work with have in real life.
58:22And also seeing their fans react.
58:23When I go to those shows, I'm watching the show, but I'm more watching the fans because
58:26I'm so curious as to like who's showing up.
58:29What is the demographic?
58:31Why are they here?
58:31What are they wearing?
58:32Who are they with?
58:33How are they moving?
58:34Like all of those elements I think are really important to absorbing when you're deciding
58:37on how to help position an artist.
58:39Yeah.
58:40Well, Milana, thank you so much for coming to On The Record.
58:42Thank you for having me.
58:43Such a great conversation as always.
58:44All right.
58:45Thank you so much to Milana Lewis for joining me to talk about the crazy amount of songs
58:49that are being released every day and how that has impacted the music industry.
58:53And thank you for listening to this week's episode of On The Record.
58:55If you like today's show, give us a follow on Instagram or on our brand new TikTok page
59:00at Billboard On The Record, where you can find new clips of the show every single week.
59:04We'd also appreciate it if you rated us on your favorite podcast platform.
59:08All of these things help On The Record grow bigger and better than ever.
59:12Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peek behind the
59:16curtain of the music business.
59:18I'll see you then.
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