Six strings not required: “When I do music, I always want it to be as unique as possible. We decided we weren’t going to have guitars anywhere on this project. Bass and drums are the only instruments. I had been working on bass lines and guitar riffs so it was like a good collaboration with her coming up with melody lines for the lyrics she had written. Most of the lyrics were probably from one to two full pages of non-stop poetry and stories she had written. Most of the album’s songs came from that first braindump.”
ExploreNew Italian restaurant to open at Dayton Arcade
Popside sessions: “For the last decade, we’ve faithfully been Micah Carli supporters. We started recording the All Hallowed songs during the pandemic. We all mesh so well together. Whenever I’ve worked with Micah in other bands, he’s great at coaching you into being a better band. It’s never like, ‘I’m into this genre, let’s go this way.’ He just wants you to be the best version of yourself and it was the exact same with this project.”
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or e-mail at donthrasher100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
Who: All Hallowed with the 1984 Draft, Jill & Micah and Place Position
Where: Yellow Cab Tavern, 700 E. Fourth St., Dayton
The long-in-the-works full-length follow-up to his 2018 breakout project Lady Lady (he dropped his Studying Abroad EP, and its Extended Stay version, in 2020 and 2021, respectively), Masego announced that his sophomore album is on the way.
“Masego is the name I want to hear you say when you mention life, music, black romance and dance,” the multi-talent proclaims.
He sets things off with the first focus track, “Say You Want Me.” The track is produced by P2J (Beyoncé, Burna Boy, Wikzid), E.Y. (Drake, Childish Gambino), Louie Lastic, and Dan Foste, with contributing vocals from Ambré, Ari PenSmith, Mannywellz and Destin Conrad.
Masego Returns With “Say You Want Me” Single was last modified: November 4th, 2022 by Meka
Electronic musician, label head and developer John Howes’ music lives on the boundary between chaos and control.
On the one hand, his work is largely produced using systems and tools of his own design: rhythms and notes are generated using Strokes, a sequencing environment he’s developed, synth patches are meticulously constructed on his Nord Modular G2 and Elektron Machinedrum, while parameters are modulated using another self-built software tool, the global modulation matrix Dispatch. If he discovers a plugin or an instrument that sounds intriguing, unlike many of us, his inclination isn’t to buy it – it’s to build his own version, often creating something new and unexpected in the process.
Though he’s rigorous in his command of the creative process, Howes tells us, it’s when he begins to let go that the magic happens. Captivated by the limitless potential of generative music-making, he carefully integrates elements of chance and indeterminacy into these highly structured systems, exploring the musical possibilities presented by implanting ghosts in his machines – cybernetic, semi-autonomous agents that possess what he’s called “lo-fi AI”.
His latest release, a self-titled project under a new alias, derives its name from Paperclip Maximiser, a thought experiment that envisions how an AI tasked solely with manufacturing paperclips could run out of control and inadvertently kill us all in the process, were it not instilled with some form of self-correcting, machine-based ethics.
Thankfully, the AI-powered tools used to produce Howes’ latest release, Paperclip Minimiser, haven’t yet threatened us with extinction: instead, they’ve helped him record some of the best experimental music we’ve heard this year. Across eight untitled tracks, the project explores the outer reaches and inner depths of electronic esoterica, venturing through dubwise techno abstraction, Hassell-esque fourth-world sonics and corrosive machine jams of the highest order.
We caught up with John Howes to hear more about the ideas behind his new record, the music software he’s developed as Cong Burn, and his fascination with the Nord Modular.
How did you get into music-making initially?
“I started making tunes on PlayStation 1 and cracked software, FL Studio on PC. When I moved to Manchester when I was 18 I got into a bit more and started buying equipment – drum machines and effects and modular stuff, and now I’m kind of in between all of it. I’m still using all these things – not so much cracked software, though [laughs]. But still torn between the world of drum machines, synths, hardware, and software.”
When did you set up Cong Burn and what were you setting out to do with the label?
“Basically, all of my friends make tunes but none of them were putting any of it out. I’d had a couple records out, and I knew the good and bad sides, and the things that my friends would and wouldn’t want to do in the music industry. So as a safe way of getting their music out, I started releasing their stuff. Originally it was meant to be a radio show, where we used to rent the studio and we’d get together and record stuff. It was supposed to be a monthly radio show, but we did it once and it took three months. [laughs] So we ended up doing tapes, then started doing 12”s and parties and stuff. It all grew out of like three or four friends from the Northeast, where I’m from, then it just grew and grew, and people have come and gone along the way.”
When did you start getting into development?
“When I was at uni I made a bunch of Max for Live devices. I had one of those Eurorack converter things where you can send CV out. I didn’t have a lot of money, as a student, so I was making LFOs and sequencers in Max that would output CV into my modular, basically as a way of saving money. And then I didn’t touch it for five or six years.
Pretty much all the music that I’ve made in the past three or four years has started with Strokes in some capacity
“I worked in the music industry for five years, and I got to the stage where I was like, the next job that I get in this industry is going to be working on stuff that I don’t give a shit about. Mainstream, money-making, business techno or pop music type of thing. So it was like, I guess I’m at the end of my road here. I just left the music industry completely, didn’t put out a record or do any work on music for about a year, and studied coding. Then, the first job that I got in coding was for Behringer. So I kind of went straight back in.”
Where did the idea come from for Strokes, the new plugin you’ve developed?
“I was reading a book about Jaki Liebezeit, the drummer from Can. He’s an absolutely sick drummer, and he’s got this really repetitive style, with really complex rhythms. I wanted to make music that sounded like that, but I didn’t want to program it in MIDI clips in Live, it’d take fucking ages. So I started looking at these ways of devising rhythms, and came across Euclidean rhythms.
“When you look at the stuff Jaki was doing, he never says the word Euclidean, but it’s all there – all of it is about mathematical relationships, and the diagrams he’s drawn are Euclidean rhythms, he just didn’t call them that. So I started working on it mainly as a way of generating interesting drum patterns that constantly evolve.
“Before I started working on it, I used to be into Eurorack stuff, I had this big Eurorack system made of all Doepfer stuff. I used to build mini versions of Strokes on that. I made a hardware version, years and years ago, and had this whole system patched for a year, and was constantly generating stuff with it. Then I turned it into a Max thing, later on, and it’s been in development for nearly four years now. It started as a small thing to generate rhythms, and it’s grown into a full-on sequencing environment. Pretty much all the music that I’ve made in the past three or four years has started with it in some capacity.”
Tell us about the other plugin you’ve worked on, Dispatch.
“Ableton doesn’t have a proper patch bay, but Bitwig has a global modulation system. You can stack modulators on top of each other, so you can have an LFO and a sequencer both on the same dial. Ableton doesn’t let you do that stuff, so Dispatch basically started out as a matrix mixer, where you can hook up four live LFOs into a matrix mixer, and then mix those LFOs into four different destinations.
“That was version one, and I used that for ages. I sent it to a couple of people who were like, this is cool, but I don’t want to make four LFOs every time I use it. So I started to think then about how I would design my own LFOs, and what would I want those LFOs to look like? Serge stuff was a big influence on the modulators. The Dual Universal Slope Generator is like the rise and fall generator, basically. You can do exponential versus linear curves and stuff like that, and that’s all taken from Serge modular stuff.
“It started out as a mixer, and then I ended up adding modulators to it. From there it grew to having MIDI input and output, audio input and output, and became like a MIDI-to-CV converter. I kind of use it on everything, but only a little bit. It’s a useful tool to have. If you’re modulating a filter in Live, and you want to modulate a hardware filter, you can hook it up to Dispatch and get the exact same CV signal sent out, and patch it in. It just seemed like a big gap in Ableton that they didn’t have this thing figured out yet.”
Is Bitwig your DAW of choice, then?
“No, I’m still using Ableton actually. I use it in quite a limited capacity. I don’t use any of the built-in synths, but I use a lot of the built-in effects. The more I learn about old bits of hardware and stuff – I’ve been researching old Prophet samplers, like the 2002, which I’m pretty sure Monolake had back in the day. Then when you learn about that, and then you look at Live’s Sampler, it’s like, oh man, these are exactly the same!
“The Live Sampler has all the features of this Prophet 2002 which Robert Henke had back in the day. Things like zero-crossing the sample points and loops, things like that. Ableton’s cool because it’s kind of like having Robert Henke’s old studio in software. [laughs] So I mostly use Ableton as a recorder, and a modulation matrix type of thing. I generate most of my sounds using hardware.”
Tell us about the new record. What’s behind the decision to release under a new alias?
“It’s quite different to a lot of the previous things that I’ve done, in terms of process. The reason that I put it under this new name is that, at the core of all the tracks on this new record, I’m into the idea of trying to put semi-artificial intelligence into the generative system.
I was trying to give each voice or each section of a track its own space, almost like it’s an actor in a play. Almost like Curb Your Enthusiasm ambient music
“Most of the music that I make comes from complex generative systems made using Strokes, Dispatch and other bits of equipment. But in the techniques that I use on this record, the focus was on trying to give each voice or each section of a track its own space, almost like it’s an actor in a play, or something like that. Almost like Curb Your Enthusiasm ambient music, where everything knows where it’s going, but as soon as someone actually hits play, you don’t know exactly what the results are gonna be.
“The idea is that all the instruments, all the voices and all the parts all listen to each other and respond to what each other are doing. But also they have to have their own intelligence in a way, they make their own decisions. That’s where the name comes from. It’s called Paperclip Minimizer. Paperclip Maximizer is this thought experiment about an AI that is given the job of making paperclips and destroys the universe. So this is a self-deprecating name, where it’s struggling to make ambient music. [laughs]”
“The core of it is, I try to build these systems where each voice or each actor has its own decision-making abilities. You can see this in Strokes. The Shares module in Strokes has this stuff built into it, but it’s a simple lofi version of an AI Markov chain, where the input is constantly feeding into the next step. It counts the note triggers on every single channel, then you can set a designation of how much you want on each channel, and over time, that designation will change. So if you set all the faders to 50% and hit play, that’s when you get this feeling like there’s a ghost in the machine. You’ll have loads of snares for a second, and then that will trigger the snares to stop and the hi-hats to start… once the system’s moving, that’s when I find the most interesting results.”
What is it about using generative methods you find so stimulating?
“One of the things that I find really special about it is that I don’t know the outcomes before they occur. So when I’m listening to things, and I’m recording these jams, I’m experiencing them for the first time. In my older work, I would just record these flashes of like: this is starting to sound good, so I’ll hit record. Then the album would be like a collection of these six-minute long recordings of longer jams where everything seemed to land right.
“But it’s kind of moved on from there now, where the reason that I’m using generative systems now is that I’m a control freak and I want to know everything that’s going on. I’m not a very good collaborator, so I’ve kind of built these systems where I have five collaborators in a track for different instruments, or different voices that are all connected, and I can kind of jam with the machines instead of having to jam with people. [laughs]”
As if the machines are improvising with you?
“Exactly. Give them a little bit of room where they can do their own thing, but it’s all part of a really structured system. I used to have a modular system that I performed live with for two or three years. It had three different voices going into it, was 84 HP, it was dead small. But I knew the synth so well that I could hear the sound in my head just by looking at it. It’s kind of similar with Strokes and the systems I have going on now. I can tell you 90% how it’ll sound without hitting play, but it’s that final 10%…”
You’ve described the set-up you used for this release as an ‘authentic 2006 studio.’ Were you intentionally trying to place yourself in a different era?
“Not consciously, but it is true that a lot of the music that I was listening to during that period was from the early 2000s. Süd Electronic, Mille Plateaux, Raster-Norton and Source Records, these sorts of labels. It’s more of a funny coincidence than it is anything deliberate. I use all sorts of different equipment, although the core of the record was made on a Nord Modular, Machinedrum and Monomachine, I do have some other bits around that sometimes filter into it. And still use the occasional plugin, very occasionally. So yeah – it’s not by design, not intentional, but it’s there.”
You’ve mentioned that you mostly used the Nord Modular G2, what is it about this synth that you found inspiring?
“Oh, man. The Nord lets you design your own drum machines, synthesizers, effects and sequencers. It’s almost like VCV Rack, but the modules haven’t been updated for 15 years. With the Nord, I get the sense that they threw everything they had into it. All the best engineers were working on it, and they basically went bust trying to make it. The amount of engineering expertise that went into this machine made it one of the best machines out there. All of the oscillators, all the tools, everything sounds great.
A new synth will come out, but rather than having to spend any money and buy it, I can try to build a close approximation on the Nord
“There’s just enough in there that you could spend your entire life digging into these things. Now that I’ve got it, I kind of don’t want to buy any more equipment ever again – every synth that I want, I can just try and make it on the Nord. So I’ve got a Lyra-8 that I made in there, and I’m gonna make a Bastl softPop tomorrow. A lot of the time a new synth’ll come out, but rather than having to spend any money and buy it, I can try to build a close approximation on the Nord and usually end up somewhere else that I didn’t expect.
“It’s not an easy machine to use. It’s hard to describe, but it feels like you go to work every time you use it. When I bought it, I knew this machine was gonna take over, so I basically booked like two months off, and Monday to Friday, nine to five, I was working on the Nord. The reason that I got it in the first place is that all the patches are shared online, so I was going to dig through some online stuff and use it as a prototyping machine. Dig through the history of the Nord and all the things people built with it and see if there’s any stuff in there that I can take inspiration from for the next Strokes, or the next Dispatch.
“So I bought it as a prototyping environment, and that’s the reason why I spent two months learning it. And I still know 10% of what that machine is capable of. It’s insane. I wouldn’t recommend that everybody pick one up because they’re really expensive and really temperamental, but yeah – holy shit, man, this machine. It’s the end game at the minute.”
(Image credit: Press/John Howes)
You also mentioned both the Machinedrum and Monomachine. Are you a big Elektron fan?
“The Monomachine and the Machinedrum, I didn’t use a ton. I didn’t use any of the internal sequencers on either of them. A lot of what I was doing was building sequences on the Nord and sending that out to the Machinedrum and Monomachine. The Machinedrum, I’ve had a couple of them over the years, and they’re amazing.
“It’s one of those things where I get one and I’ll use it for a year, get sick of the sound of it, and sell it or put it on the shelf. I’m not as interested in the new stuff, but the Monomachine, and the Machinedrum especially – it’s basically a modular synth, you can do a ton of internal routing stuff. Tracks that control other tracks, tracks that are follower tracks to other tracks that’ll take trigger information.
“There’s infinite things you can do. It’s similar to the Nord in that it’s an open box and you can do what you want with it. Simple tools that you can patch together in really crazy ways. I’m not as deep into the Monomachine, I’m not as keen on the synth engines. I don’t use either that much anymore, to be honest, since I’ve got the Nord. I’ve got close approximations of all the Machinedrum and Monomachine voices that I’ve built myself inside the Nord. Other things are slowly getting pushed out. Maybe in ten years, it’ll just be 10 Nord Modulars. [laughs]”
We’ve covered hardware, but which software tools do you find the most inspiring?
“I generally keep things really simple. I don’t get too lost in the world of plugins. I have a couple of presets for a couple of effects that I’ve used. On this new record there’s an Eventide plugin that I used that I had one preset for, and it’s on half the tracks on here. But yeah, largely, I don’t use other people’s stuff. I try to use my own things, or I try to use Ableton stock stuff. If there’s a thing out there that I want, a Max thing that I think is cool, I’ll just build it myself, and make my own version of it.
“I don’t generally look for new equipment anymore. If something new and interesting comes along, I’ll just try and do it myself. With the plugin stuff, I’m kind of fairly comfortable with building other people’s stuff, whatever it is. DSP is something I’ve not got massively into yet, but that’s probably going to be the next thing.”
Which other artists would you say have been the most influential on your work?
“When I’m actually working on music, I generally don’t listen to anything else. One of the differences on this new record is that I basically shut myself off from all music culture – no Boomkat, no Discogs, no social media – I was trying to stay disconnected as much as possible. So when it actually comes to working on music, I’ll shut everything out.
When it actually comes to working on music, I’ll shut everything out
“I don’t mean for a couple of hours, I mean for two weeks I’ll listen to no music other than my own, and sit and work on my own stuff, and then reinstall Instagram after that’s done and get back to normal life, or whatever. But I’m trying to cut off any kind of external influence that might occur. I still listen to music during those periods, but it’s wildly different music. I’ll listen to All Trades on NTS or something that’s totally unrelated – just so that nothing can filter in.
“In terms of musical artists that have had an influence on me, it’s difficult to say. There’s been so many over the years, like O Yuki Conjugate, and the club night meandyou., which is run by Lyster, Herron and Juniper. I’d say right now, my Cong Burn mates and the extended universe of people that send us music is pretty much all I’m really interested in musically.
“About two years ago, we subconsciously started only playing new music on the Cong Burn show, or like 90% new music. And that kind of led to people sending us more music, and one thing led to another, and now we’re getting sent loads of really, really sick music every month, from people like Rastegah and oh!t. It’s like nothing else that’s out there at the minute, and that’s super inspiring. But likewise, I don’t try to make music for that radio show, or anything like that. I’m trying to put off influence as much as I am taking it in.”
Paperclip Minimiser is out now on Peak Oil.
Strokes and Dispatch are available to purchase from Cong Burn’s website.
The White Lake Chamber Music Society’s planned Nov. 15 lecture on classical composers Bach, Mozart and Beethoven has been postponed after scheduled speaker Robert Swan tested positive for COVID-19.
The reschedule date has not been determined yet.
Swan, a retired violist from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is from Norwalk, Conn. and graduated from Indiana University’s music school before a long and successful career. He is currently a White Lake Chamber Music Society board member.
“I thought that nothing could ever stop me from talking about this trio that has so enriched my life, but then COVID came along and struck me,” Swan said in a statement. “There is no way that I can prepare for this talk feeling the way I do so forgive me for having to postpone it. We will reschedule with promises of great inspired music to come.”
Tyler Ryan catches up with Clay Walker to chat country music and Tik Tok
COLUMBIA SC (WOLO) – Since 1993, Clay Walker has been a star in Country Music, with six number one songs, lots of albums, awards, and millions of fans. Saturday night, he returns to Columbia for a show at the Township Auditorium, with fellow country star Tracy Lawrence.
You can get ticket info HERE.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tyler Ryan is an award winning television and radio personality, writer, investigative journalist, and professional emcee. He appears daily on ABC Columbia’s Good Morning Columbia, as well as hosting the syndicated radio programCarolina Cares on the South Carolina Radio Network, and the iHeart Radio Network. Tyler also regularly appears as a criminal expert and journalist on regional and national crime based programs like Snapped and Killer Couples. You can contact him directly viaEMAIL Or on the socials:Tyler’s Instagram //Tyler’s Facebook
Bucks Music Group has appointed music publishing executive Howard Price as its new head of media.
Reporting directly to Bucks MD Simon Platz, Price will be responsible for maintaining and developing the company’s relationships with composers, broadcasters and production companies, as well as managing publishing interests in music composed for film, TV and media.
Price has over 25 years of music publishing experience, starting his career in the EMI Music Publishing copyright team, before specialising in media relationship management. Price remained with EMI Music Publishing after it became part of Sony Music Publishing, ultimately progressing to SVP, visual & media rights at the company.
During his career, Price has secured and led business relationships with some of the broadcast world’s biggest companies, including ITV, Discovery, Mattel, Endemol Shine, Entertainment One, Hartswood Films and Bauer Media. He also played an instrumental role in both EMI’s and Sony’s production music businesses.
Price lectures at the Royal College of Music on their Composition For Screen course.
Bucks Music Group Director A&R Sarah Liversedge Platz said: “We are super excited that Howard will be joining the Bucks team to head up the Media department. We have known Howard for a long time as our competitor – it will be amazing to have him on our side of the fence at last. His commercial drive and judgement is exceptional and he’s vastly experienced in the media field.”
Price said: “I feel extremely welcomed by Simon, Sarah and the team. I’m greatly looking forward to this opportunity, developing Bucks Music’s media interests and working in the independent sector.”
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Happy Friday. Here is another great list of new releases for you. This time around we have just over 40 for you and I hope there is something you will enjoy. Me, I am going to skip this week and I hope to have something I want to hear soon as I’m not feeling any of this right now. That doesn’t mean you won’t have something you want to hear so let me know what floats your boat this week or what we may have missed. Thanks again, as always, for stopping by and spending a few moments with us each week.
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 4 November 2022
Former Spotify economist Will Page has said that “music copyright has never had it so good”, with – by his calculations – the value of the wider music rights business now almost $40 billion worldwide.
The total value of music copyright in 2021, says a new report from Page, was up 18% to $39.6 billion, and would have been higher had the pandemic not impacted on certain music right revenue streams, such as live and public performance royalties.
However, he notes, without the pandemic, streaming might not have accelerated at quite the same level. So, swings and roundabouts.
Page has been estimating the value of the wider music copyright sector for a number of years now by aggregating and comparing industry data from various sources. That includes data on the recorded music market compiled by the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, and data about all the money collected by song right collecting societies around the world compiled by global collecting society grouping CISAC.
However, the annual stat packs published by IFPI and CISAC don’t cover all the revenue streams. For example, revenues generated by music publishers through sync deals and their direct deals with the streaming services are not included. Therefore Page also consults other sources such as Music & Copyright’s analysis of music publishing and, for the first time this year, estimates made by music business consultancy MIDIA regarding the revenues generated by those production music firms that operate outside of the collective licensing system, like Epidemic Sound.
Having crunched all of that data, Page’s report finds that the majority of music right revenues – 66% – is being generated on the recordings side of the business, so by the record industry, meaning that the songs side of the sector, which is to say music publishing, accounts for 34%. That’s a slight shift in favour of the record industry compared to 2020, when Page calculated 64.9% was generated by recordings and 35.1% by songs. And that’s an ongoing shift that’s been underway for a few years now – when Page first did this study in 2014 it was 55% recordings and 45% songs.
There’s a difference because of how income is split between recordings and songs is different depending on the specific revenue stream. With some revenue streams recordings and songs earn more or less the same. With some revenue streams – such as live music – only the songs earn. And with some revenue streams the majority of the money goes to the recordings.
Using Page’s terminology, ‘consumer spend’ revenue streams tend to favour recordings, while ‘business licensing’ is good for songs. And in recent years consumer spending on streaming has been the big growth revenue stream, while the licensing of live music and businesses that play recorded music in public was most heavily hit by the pandemic.
Discussing the trend in which recordings increasingly dominate over songs, Page says that’s because of “the recovery in consumer spend on music, which traditionally favours labels over publishing. This has been accentuated by the pandemic’s adverse impact on business licensing, which traditionally favours publishers over labels”.
While streaming does favour recordings over songs, the ongoing streaming boom is nevertheless benefiting the entire music copyright sector. And streaming now accounts for the majority of wider music copyright revenues – by Page’s calculations 55% of revenues in 2021 – up from 52% in 2020 and just 30% back in 2017.
So, while the debate over how streaming monies are split between recordings and songs continues, the entire sector is still benefiting from the streaming boom.
“The great news is the value of copyright keeps on growing”, Page writes. “Nostalgia has long been the biggest enemy of the music industry – a misplaced belief that we need to get back to the ‘good old days’ when record labels used to sell CDs to stores by the weight-of-pallet. Nostalgia can mislead and misinform – music copyright has never had it so good”.
The streaming boom has also ensured that wider music copyright revenues have continued to grow despite the impact of the pandemic on things like live and public performance licensing.
Page also considers the extent to which the COVID effect on those latter revenue streams constrained the impact of the streaming boom on total revenues. Although, he adds, the COVID lockdowns and resulting spike in demand for home entertainment possibly boosted growth at the streaming services.
“If we look at revenues across a two year time span, from (pre-pandemic) 2019 to the present, we see how performing rights have suffered, by $0.5 billion”, he writes.
“On one hand, had the world not entered lockdown, and performing rights income had continued growing at a 6% a year, then arguably they would be $1 billion higher today ($9.4 billion, not $8.4 billion), bringing the grand total past $40 billion. Yet on the other hand, had the pandemic not happened, streaming may never have accelerated the way it did”.
As noted, for the first time this year Page also includes stats relating to those production music firms that operate outside of the collective licensing system, of which Epidemic Sound is the market leader.
Production music is music specifically created for use in audio-visual productions. Companies like Epidemic Sound set up a new model for selling production music geared towards online content creators, which has been controversial in parts of the music community, but undeniably successful. MIDIA estimates that that strand of production music was worth $250 million in 2021.
Although the Epidemic Sound approach to production music was originally targeted at online creators making videos, Page also notes that podcasters are now a key customer of that service too. And podcasts are something he thinks the music industry should be giving more consideration to, given they are both a competitor for consumer attention, and an under-tapped customer of music.
Citing James Cridland from Podnews, Page writes: “Average weekly podcast listening [is] hovering around seven hours; the equivalent for music streaming is only a couple of hours more”.
The music industry can try to persuade consumers to listen to more music over podcasts, but should also be trying to get more music into podcasts. It’s currently really hard for podcasters to license commercially released music for use in their programmes, meaning most of the biggest podcasts are speech based, and when they do use music, they are getting it from the likes of Epidemic Sound.
Page says: “If commercial music wants to win back attention that’s been lost to long-form podcasts, it needs to give up on bringing a horse to water (expecting podcasters to adapt to current licensing complexity) and develop solutions that bring water to the horse (or ‘fight complexity with simplicity’, to quote Epidemic Sound). That way, music can compete for scarce attention that might otherwise go elsewhere”.
Elsewhere in this year’s study, Page also talks about “the strengthening US dollar and its impact on this global calculation”. He explains: “Given the IFPI ‘Global Music Report’ is presented in US dollars and in constant currency over time, the impact of the dollar’s dominance is two-fold: devaluing the absolute value of the ‘rest of’ the global music industry, and increasing the US’s relative share”.
He then considers “the mathematical impact this fluid exchange rate may have on next year’s ‘Global Music Report’ for 2022”, he goes on. “For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that the US dollar has appreciated against the Yen from ¥110 to ¥130, an increase of 18%. Further, let’s assume the Japanese music industry continues to grow at 9% this year”.
“The 18% collapse in the Yen’s exchange rate, combined with the 9% growth in domestic revenues, results in Japan’s USD-denominated contribution to the ‘GMR’ falling 8% from what it reported in the 2021 yearbook”, he adds. “Of course, constant currency smooths out the dollar-trend (year on year change remains 9%), but there is an absolute drop in the dollar value of the Japanese recorded music industry. This matters, when adding up a global industry and determining its trend”.
This means that a US recorded music market that is already the biggest in the world, and which has significantly grown in strength with the streaming boom, has yet another boost.
Writes Page: “Add the impact of exchange rates and it’s possible that the US could make up half of all global recorded music revenues within the next couple of years. It’s both reassuring and alarming that one country dominates this global success story of music copyright, bringing to mind the old economic adage ‘when America coughs, the rest of the world catches a cold’”.
A change is good as a rest, we are informed. Several years ago, Dublin-based Shell Dooley, guitarist with Irish indie-pop band Montauk Hotel, took sanctioned periods of leave of absence from that band and started to collaborate with Reykjavik-based pianist and music teacher Luke Duffy on, as they say, something completely different.
Dispensing with jangly 1980s guitar pop that made Montauk Hotel such a good place to visit, for Variant Sea Dooley fashions textured, multi-layered guitars that knit with Duffy’s musical preferences, which veer towards Icelandic neo-classical composers Olafur Arnalds and Johann Johannson, and that island’s somewhat more vigorous ambient soundscape group, Sigur Ros. The blend of each musician’s skills is equally potent and poised, the kind of post-rock that doesn’t so much scare the horses as leads them to the hitching post and tethers them to it with a tender tugging of the knots.
The pair’s debut album (which follows their 2021 single, Wayfare, chosen for various “not exactly classical” streaming platform playlists) makes its presence felt but without the usual competing struggles for sonic one-upmanship. The luxurious pace is set by the likes of Submerged, Threads, Cradle, Undone and Awaken, each of which could give any ambient/neo-classical creator a graceful run for their money. Indeed, the title of the final track could well be the one-word review, if ever such a ridiculous notion arose: Bliss.
Thunderstorms, fireworks, bright lights and loud noises, can be very scary for animals. Thankfully, research suggests that classical music can help.
Did you know, dogs are capable of hearing sounds up to four times as far away as humans can hear them? It’s no wonder, then, that fireworks, thunderstorms, and other loud noises can cause dogs, cats, and other pets so much stress.
Thankfully, there are things you can do to help your pet handle the hustle and bustle of Bonfire Night – backed up by scientific research.
Ahead of Classic FM’s Pet Classics, our presenter Charlotte Hawkins spoke to RSPCA Chief Inspector Clare Dew about the best ways to keep pets calm during firework displays, from playing them classical music to setting up their own cosy corner at home.
Read more: How to keep your pets safe this firework season, according to the RSPCA
Does classical music really help to calm cats and dogs?
Picture:
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One of Clare’s recommendations is to desensitise pets ahead of time by playing them music – specifically, classical music without words.
“It drowns out the noise of the fireworks and gives the animals something else to concentrate on”, she told Classic FM. “Music, particularly classical music without words, is one of the best things to keep anything calm.”
Clare’s advice is backed up by several studies. A study by Colorado scientists in 2012 looked at the effect of playing different genres of music to dogs in kennels, while their owners were away. Those who listened to classical music spent more time sleeping, and less time barking, howling and crying, than dogs that were played other genres.
In more recent years, research by the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also backed up the claim that classical music lowers stress levels, and, in 2022, researchers at Queen’s University Belfast also discovered that dogs settled down sooner when listening to classical music, compared to audiobooks.
Read more: Dogs find classical music more calming than audiobooks, research reveals
Speaking to Charlotte for Classic FM, Clare Dew shared some extra tips for keeping your pet as calm as possible, adding: “My own rescue dog Frank struggles at this time of year, and he finds it reassuring to know we are there at home with him.”
Charlotte’s own dog also loves to chill out with Pet Classics, as she says: “I’ve seen first-hand from my dog just how difficult a time it can be for pets during the fireworks, but it’s amazing the difference relaxing music can have in helping to calm and soothe animals”.
But don’t just take our word for it. Take a look at how chilled out this pup was last year…
