Money 4 Nothing

Tik Tok and Music’s Mimetic Future with Cat Zhang

Repetition. Shouting. Culture Vulture Remixes. A 50 billion dollar company based on a vast strata of underplayed musicians. Viral dances. Tik Tok has it all! For this episode, Sam and Saxon asked Pitchfork’s Cat Zhang to bring us down the rabbit hole and into an app that is transforming how music functions, maybe forever. or…maybe it’s just another step towards the commodification of all social life? PLUS—the meme economy of bearded yellow dragons.

Read Cat Zhang's writing on TikTok and more via Pitchfork 

The Origins of the American Record Industry with Kyle Barnett

This week we take you back in time to a moment that…in a lot of ways(?) seems sort of like today. Technology was changing incredibly quickly, artists were hopping between platforms to reach their audiences, and corporate consolidation was remaking the music industry. Welcome to the 1920’s. Professor Kyle Barnett discusses his book "Record Cultures: the Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry" and takes us through the early years of the record industry. We trace the rise and fall (and rise) of the major labels as they moved through the jazz age and great depression, and ultimately lay the foundation for the systems that we know and love/hate. Also, Saxon and Sam dust off their understanding of Romanticism to try and figure out why the music industry gets so little critical attention.

A Major #Mood: Spotify, Labels, and our Dismal Streaming Future

There’s been some news on the streaming beat lately—righteous demands being levied by musicians against Spotify, and ill-timed reports that the streaming giant has been planning to roll out some suspiciously payola-like programs (gasp!). But what is Spotify, anyways? And how does it (hope to) make money? Is it actually just the major labels wearing the mask of a tech company? PLUS A M4N Exclusive Report: Are #mood playlists destroying the delicate bonds of history?

The Environmental Impact of Music with Kyle Devine

How is music made? Not how do record companies work, but how is music made? And where does it go after we're done with it? According to Kyle Devine, a professor of Musicology at the University of Oslo, we’ve all been paying far too little to this story, closing our eyes to the environmental implications of our favorite sounds. Kyle talks to Saxon and Sam about his book “Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music,” an eye-opening exploration of the material infrastructure that lies behind vinyl disks (and internet apps). The cloud, by the way? It’s a place. And it burns gas just like the rest of us.

Who is #SaveOurStages Actually Saving?

It’s mid-October, and by our calculations, musicians are STILL not getting paid. Live music has been off since March, and a major lobbying group is trying to #SaveOurStages. But does saving venues also mean a bailout for musicians? In the continued quest for artist revenue, Saxon and Sam explore some less obvious options. Could the platform OnlyFans hold the answer? Should musicians search for salvation in the high-end speaker-system/concert series Oda? Or are we all looking in the wrong places entirely?

The Music Modernization Act and the Powers That Be

This week we go deep (like really really deep) on the Music Modernization Act—a landmark, near-unanimous 2018 law that will reshape the legal landscape of American music when it kicks in early next year. Despite this, it has received little or no critical press attention since. Let’s face it though—the last time this scale of legislation passed was in the 1970’s, so it’s a good bet that we’ll be living with the MMA for a long, long time. We figure out what’s going on in the bill (easier said than done), who it helps (mostly the streaming services), and what it tells us about the power structures that define the music industry.

Ragtime and The American Clave with Wayne Marshall

Ethnomusicologist Wayne Marshall joins Saxon Baird and Sam Backer to talk about his discovery of what he’s described as the the “American Clave”—a distinctive rhythm that unites everyone from Duke Ellington to Ray Charles, Elvis to Cardi B. We explore its origins from the Black artists who invented ragtime at the turn of the 20th century and then trace its evolution over a hundred years of styles and sounds including the black roots of country music to its appearance in popular party chants.

Read Marshall's article and hear his mega-mix: https://online.ucpress.edu/jpms/article/32/2/50/110768/Ragtime-CountryRhythmically-Recovering-Country-s

 

Calling Bullsh*t on the Napster Narrative

David Turner of Penny Fractions joins the show to make a case against the popular narrative that Napster, led by the precocious teen tech-head Shawn Fanning, single-handedly took down the record industry in the early aughts. Turner explains that what caused the music industry bubble to burst was actually a much more complex series of factors including record labels a little too high on its own supply. Also, those $19.99 CDs prices sure didn't help.   

You Can't Segregate the Airwaves (but you can definitely own them)

Sam Backer talks to Brian Ward about his book ‘Just My Soul Responding’ to discuss  American R&B and the music industry in the 1950s. The two challenge some popular narratives and reveal how behind the music was a public arena where the fight for civil rights and equality was crucially fought.

Hipgnosis Hypnotizes the Music Industry

Hipgnosis Song Fund and it's founder Merck Mercuriadis are making waves in the music industry by offering top dollar to buy out the catalogs of hit song makers. The approach is similar to valuing music and hit songs now something like an expensive painting bought less for its artistry and more as valuable asset to invest in. Heavily funded and having bought over 1,000 number one hits so far from such artists as Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson, the company has gone public and shows little signs of slowing down. Hosts Sam Backer and Saxon Baird breakdown the inner workings of the Hipgnosis approach and discuss what it means for artists and the music industry alike.