Speaker 1: W m n H rip the dobles. We're back from
the brand.
Speaker 2: He has stand out in the dark.
Speaker 3: You know he was sadly and I will ever win
our spark.
Speaker 2: And res sadly and all that.
Speaker 4: Is wrong startup but it keeps saving me. But no,
I'll not got into this. No, say the things that
you wanted to see.
Speaker 2: I try to shout.
Speaker 3: Try it means I do it for yourself past me.
I am passing, but we would knowing.
Speaker 5: That there's somebody aunt.
Speaker 2: It's not tis not, it's not so much talking. I
think it through all me. I want to stop from me, So.
Speaker 5: Don't fro me. It's words you.
Speaker 6: A person so around I know it's so do the
isolation in the crowd. The blame is along on you
and all I'm saying it because now you're feeling me
was tough.
Speaker 2: Now we're both going into this. No, no, say the.
Speaker 5: Things that show miss try to shoats every time.
Speaker 2: I'll do it. That's bastly by.
Speaker 3: We must not as on the last show, stop sids nothing.
Speaker 7: Sima stopping away.
Speaker 5: I think it's true to me. I stop for.
Speaker 7: Don't bottle shows says.
Speaker 2: Don't get a sitting show. No don't miscaus you don't.
Speaker 8: Soon No, alright, that is don't fool me twice by
the band the Marches, And of course you heard that
the first time on American radio here on WM and
H on this very program. And we've got let's see
who we have here. I believe Kate Morrow is with
us via Microsoft teams. Kate, can you hear me?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 10: I can hear you.
Speaker 8: Hello, excellent, Welcome to the show. Is anyone else from
the band with you? Or are you?
Speaker 9: Is it?
Speaker 8: Are you flying solo?
Speaker 10: Unfortunately the ghettos can't come with me, so I'm playing solo.
Speaker 9: But I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 8: That is quite all right. We're very happy to have you.
Welcome to the show. I love your sound particularly and
you probably hear this all the time, but I'm particularly
taken with the vocals and the harmonies. And do all
four of you sing live?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 10: So that's something we've just started to incorporate into our
live sets. I was the last one to start singing
yes us vocals.
Speaker 8: Well, you don't see a lot of singing drummers, and
you know, I think it's obvious why. I mean, you know, drumming,
it's the most physical instrument, right, you're using all four
of your limbs, so it's probably challenging. I've always assumed anyway,
that it's it's challenging for drummers to sing because you're
already using a lot of wind. You're already you're you're
already doing so much. How has that been for you?
You said that you were the last of the four
to really start singing. I mean, how how has that
been for you? Has it been challenging or is it
kind of come naturally or what's happened?
Speaker 9: Like I bet both.
Speaker 10: You know, when I'm playing live, I usually do tend
to sing along with it a microphone, although I don't
seem very good. Then we're starting to that, we're starting
to incorporate into our set, and I'm having time to
practice with the ghettos, get used to playing west the
drums at the same time, and it's going really well.
It sounds amazing when we have all four of us,
So I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 8: Is it important to you as a band to replicate
because I would imagine this is very difficult because again,
such a it seems to me. And again, when whether
it's that song or November, it seems like it's such
a key part of your sound, those those harmonies. Is
it important to be able to replicate that live? Or
do you not worry about it as much? Maybe live
it can be a little looser and a little raw,
or I mean, how do you approach that? Do you
do you really try to replicate what's what's what you've
recorded or or is it not that big of a deal.
Speaker 10: No, I think we definitely are trying to make sure
our life sound is quite similar to the tracks.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and so we are.
Speaker 9: We haven't working on it.
Speaker 8: It is important, do you like, how do you in
terms of practicing, uh, kind of replicating that vocally? Do
you do you ever, like just sit like the four
of you and just try singing the parts and and
you know, you each find your octave or do you
just or do you just play the songs and practice,
you know, the singing obviously while you're playing.
Speaker 10: Do you know when we've tried to do it like
a capella, we usually just end up laughing. We have
to do it with all the instruments in the film. Yeah,
it was we'll just sit and laugh at each other.
Speaker 8: No, that makes sense, That makes sense. Now, how long
has the band been around. You're relatively new, right the Marches, Yeah,
we are.
Speaker 10: So the four of us came together in May twenty
twenty four, so it's been in nearly two years. Nearly
two years.
Speaker 8: Next, okay, okay, so relatively relatively new. Now I'm curious
about So I was reading this, So the BBC it
says here, and you can tell me if this is right,
but it says here the BBC kind of has introduced
you as calling you, uh, Glasgow's freshest girl band. And
when I see that, something occurs to me. Now, obviously,
so you're you're all females in the band, but I
find it odd that that someone would uh point that out.
I'm only bringing it up because I'm curious how you
feel about when say, the BBC refers to you as
Glasgow's freshest girl band, Because to me, it's weird that.
You know, it's like, you don't call a bunch of
dudes in a rock band. You don't call them a
boy band, you know, unless you're referring to you know,
a specific genre, right, But but how do you feel
about that? Like to me, it seems almost sexist when
the BBC goes out of their way to label you
as that. You know, you're a rock band, you happen
to be for women, but why do you need this
special label? I'm curious how you feel about that, do
you know?
Speaker 9: I think you can take it in a number of ways.
And you know, we are all females.
Speaker 10: We are all female bands, so that's simpletly understandable.
Speaker 9: The presenters who said that they were females.
Speaker 10: Themselves, okay, and the Glasgow scenes there aren't many for
or aren't many all female bands. Yeah, I can understand
why they have said that. You know, it's not something
that we're deliberately, you know, not trying to mark ourselves
as obviously we are a gheto band, that is us. However,
you know, like you said, you could say a rock band,
you could say whatever. However we just took it as
we just took it as a compliment from the BBC
and all they listened to so many bands every day
that if they're calling us the freshies ghetto bands in Glasgow,
then I think we are quite happy to take that
as a compliment.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, that's good. That's a great way to look
at it. Yeah, it just struck me as strange but
as you mentioned too, it was it was women who
are saying it, so that changes the context a bit too.
So so that's good, that's good. But I mean, but
you are, you are a rock band. And and for
for anyone who you know, for anyone who was joining
us late who didn't hear the track, don't fool me twice,
I mean, you're I'm curious to know more about your
sound and your influences because I I hear some different
things in there, but like, who are some of your influences?
Speaker 10: Well, some of our influences definitely have to be fleet
with Mac. For example, the Bangles when we're starting out,
those were the Kina bands that we're saying, very much
fan our sound. Now we have changed direction, you know,
don't for me twice is the start of our more
rockier sound. Yeah, and so we are just cant finding
their feet there. And you could say, like alanis motor
Set for example, definitely an influence there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Yeah, I like the Fleewood Mac. I can definitely
hear that. I'm a big Fleetwood Mac fan, and I
know what you mean. Yeah, that's that's definitely And and
again it kind of goes to that vocal approach right,
you know, it reminds me of a very very evocative
of of Fleewood Mac.
Speaker 10: And then oh, absolutely we do call our singer Stevie
next because she does and just like her.
Speaker 8: Rethinks, Yeah, that's that's fantastic. That's fantastic. So Don't Fool
Me Twice as the newest single, and then you've got November,
which we also did play on the show. Really like that,
and then you've got You've got a couple others before that.
What's what's kind of the do you have plans to
do an EP or a full album or there's so
many different ways to release music these days, but are
you going to do more singles? Do you know kind
of what your forward trajectory is.
Speaker 9: As far as that, Yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 10: I think our next plan is to release an EP okay,
which is very exciting, going along the lines of Don't
for Me Twice and that more rockier sound. Yeah, November
and Don't Form Me Twice was released on like our
double asage release, it was put on vinyl, and November
was the end of our first chapter together kind of
like our old sound, and then Don't for Me Twice
is the beginning of our new sound, So the beginning
then of our EP and What's the Cup in twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 8: Oh, very cool Now in terms of because you talk
about that kind of your old sound and your new sound,
that that transition, is that something that you decided as
a band in other words, was it Is it intentional
or is it more just sort of organic, like that's
kind of the direction you're you're going and you're just
going with it. I'm curious about that. Is that something
you where you sat down and you said, you know,
the four of you said we need to go, we
want to change direction, or or is it just kind
of something that's happening.
Speaker 9: So it just kind of happened in the room.
Speaker 10: The four of us set and we write our songs together.
Whilst writing Don't for Me twice and a couple of
our others which are unreleased.
Speaker 9: We realized, wow, we love playing the sound.
Speaker 10: It comes so easy to us, like it's definitely the
direction we wanted to head, and so we decided to
make that kind of move and say, okay, it is
quite a big change up going down the more rockier route,
but definitely yeah.
Speaker 9: That's when we decided this is where we want to go.
Speaker 8: Okay, okay, Yeah, so it sounds like kind of a
kind of a combination of both. Right, it's you know,
you kind of naturally started doing that, but but then
once you realize it's working, you know, and don't exactly Yeah,
and it makes sense. I mean, Don't Fool Me Twice
is a great track. I definitely want to hear more
of that. So that's that's that's really good. And you've
done some festivals, right, yes, we have.
Speaker 9: We did our first set of festivals this year.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I was looking at this so let's see, uh, come
back around. Oh yeah, oh, there's a bunch of them
listened here. How many of you done? It looks like
you've done quite a few, right, Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 9: We've done quite a few.
Speaker 10: Most noticeable we played Scotland's biggest outdoor festival, Beldrum up
in Inverness.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 9: We managed to do two stages there.
Speaker 10: We did a live electric set and then we also
did an acoustic set as well on a slightly smaller stage,
which was really fun. And we've done some festivals local
to where we live in the west of Scotland as well. Yeah,
that's been a nice mix of the smaller ones and
then obviously Scotland's biggest, so it'd been really fun.
Speaker 8: That's great because the thing about festivals is, you know,
and I always say, and obviously you know this because
you're experiencing it, but I always say, especially for young,
new emerging bands, festivals, not only do they get you
in front of these very large crowds, so they expose
you to you know, a potentially whole new fan base
and can help you to build a fan base very quickly,
but also the networking opportunities that come with playing festivals
it's unparalleled. You know, you meet, you meet all these
other artists that you're playing with, but also you know
all kinds of industry people at these festivals and that
helps you build so you know, so you build an audience,
but you also build a network and a reputation within
the industry that is so critical. So festivals are if
you can play. And we've got a lot of guests.
We've had a lot of guests from the UK who
who've been you know, we've done a festival or two,
but no one who's done as many as you have.
And it seems like you really, I mean, you're really
just approaching that head on, which is fantastic. I tell
everybody play every festival you can because it is so
it is so critical. I mean you can make big
leaps and bounds as playing festivals. So that's that's fantastic.
Speaker 9: Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 10: You don't know who's going to be there watching you,
so as it's just a great way to reach new people, nuisances,
different places, make connections, as you said, so your network,
so absolutely And what is.
Speaker 8: This by the way, the uh it says you sold
out the SWG three Poetry Club show. What's that?
Speaker 9: Yes, So s WG three is a venue in Glasgow.
The Poetry Club is the name of the venue.
Speaker 10: So that was where we did our headline show for
our single Feel at All and we managed to completely
sell out that show.
Speaker 8: Oh excellent, excellent, Okay, very good. Yeah, so you're off
to a great start. Now are you playing? Are you
playing consistently? Are you touring? Are you are you doing
a lot of like like what's the live situation?
Speaker 10: Now?
Speaker 8: I can tell you here in the United States, a
lot of a lot of bands kind of hype, at
least in this part of the country, A lot of
bands kind of hibernate a little bit in the winter.
They you know, they're active recording and writing, but they
don't play out as much. But what's what's the situation
where you are as far as live shows.
Speaker 10: So we did our last live show of the year
on the set December. That was our headline show for
the release of Don't Film Me twice in November so
that as well, that was in Glasgow.
Speaker 9: That was really cool.
Speaker 10: We are taking a little bit of a break over
new year, starting to write some new songs and then
in februe March time we're actually going on a tour.
Speaker 8: Oh outstanding are you now? Are you going on your
own tour or are you opening for for somebody? Or
what's what are you doing for the tour?
Speaker 10: So far it's I believe it as a headline tour.
I believe it might be a joint headline in one
of the locations. It's oh to be one hundred percent
confirmed as yet, however, yet it does look as if
will be the headline.
Speaker 9: So it's very exciting.
Speaker 8: Oh, very good. That is outstanding. Outstanding And can you
talk a little bit too about the themes of of
your songs because I saw something about you know this
is more than you know? You kind of think of it.
It's it's not just a band, but a movement, and
it's it seems like there's there's certain themes that come up,
you know, like empowerment and and uh you know and
and uh taking control and and so forth. I mean,
can can you talk a little bit about that? And
I'm curious how important that is to you as a
band to kind of like, you know, do you have
a certain message that you're trying to put forth.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I would definitely say Impowerment's a really good one.
Definitely one of the themes. Yeah, I guess like our
message is just I suppose that as empowerments really.
Speaker 9: We just write music.
Speaker 10: We love what we do, and we want to just
put out music that we love to play, we love
to listen to, and so yeah, that's that's definitely what I.
Speaker 9: Would say for that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, outstanding. Well Will in a moment, I'm gonna play
this track November, which is the I think the first
song of your band that we've played on the show.
But uh, you know, we're always happy to to kind
of be the you know, the entry point into American
radio for some of these great bands that are that
are coming out of your your area. There's so much,
so much incredible talent there. But so we're gonna play
that track in a moment and we'll let you go.
But Kate, thank you so much for joining us. And
where's the best place to go online or the best
places to go for people to keep up with everything
that The Marches is doing, because you've got a lot
going on, So we want to make sure our listeners
know how they can follow you online.
Speaker 9: Yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 10: The best place you can beaches is probably our Instagram.
We are The Marches Music on Instagram. We've got blue
Tech so you'll be able to find us and you
can get our music on Apple Music, in Spotify and
all the user of stream insights as well.
Speaker 8: Outstanding, outstanding. All right, Kate Morrow, thank you so much.
We'll let you go. We're going to hit that track.
But we will definitely do this again in the future.
Like I said, we're big fans. I love the vocals.
It's just sounds so good. And I'm glad Fleetwood Matt
came up because now that totally makes sense to me.
But yes, absolutely, absolutely so, we will do this again
in the future. Keep up the great work. We'll talk
to you soon. Thanks Kate, thank you so much for
having me. Thank you you got it. Bye bye bye.
All right, I didn't mean to start the track yet.
That is Kate Morrow from the band The Marches, and
I really this is another great song. You heard it
here first on American radio here on WM and H.
This is another great track. This is called November and
the band is the Marches.
Speaker 2: November for Saint Day. Oh change.
Speaker 3: We rode away as fors go canty.
Speaker 2: Don't like good daily run.
Speaker 3: The engines are this say, we rode away as far
as lit go.
Speaker 2: Canty go both beast and snow room. And there is
no one here to see.
Speaker 3: But well, neso, that's no, there's no stuff, no asking
beady grace.
Speaker 5: Can belly.
Speaker 2: Now let to pick up the pieces.
Speaker 11: Everybody knowing you're out of rubby chasers.
Speaker 2: February the funny be in.
Speaker 12: Stoping chasing a definite in Plascas on second morning.
Speaker 13: But I am got far know February the fly w
the the non Saint Week were both.
Speaker 3: Yt inside walks behind us now but we were not okay,
And I finds it out just thinking, now do we
go both.
Speaker 2: Best and slow root men? But there is no one
here to say.
Speaker 3: But when this so it's no, there's no stopping now
a can beady raise.
Speaker 2: Hay Now I writing to pick up the peace, says.
Speaker 5: Everybody know out of reach chase.
Speaker 2: On Fabulary, if only be him stepn'try saying the death
in Alaska.
Speaker 5: Was like no, but I am got far as.
Speaker 2: Fabulary only.
Speaker 3: Never left here to pick up the pieces. Everybody, Norman,
you're out.
Speaker 2: Of Maria Chase or it's February. It's funny it'd be.
Speaker 3: Here nights like cha say every last time.
Speaker 5: It's like the.
Speaker 2: Morning, but I ain't got no tebulary.
Speaker 5: Funny, Well you now want.
Speaker 2: Anything of the peace?
Speaker 11: Saverybody knowledge of my beach chase on February.
Speaker 2: Funny Ben November fourteenth was changed.
Speaker 8: So good that is November. The band is the Marches.
Thank you again to Kate Morrow from the Band the
Marches for joining us earlier. I really enjoyed talking with her.
And it's all about the vocals with that band. That's
so good. I'm actually gonna sneak in one more. We're
gonna play one more track from the Marches. This one
we have not played on the show before, but it's
a short one. It's only three minutes, but it's another
great song. I really again, I really really like their
sound a lot. We'll play this too. This is called
talking too much and again the band is the Marches,
the mom she's no luck, but I.
Speaker 2: Got a bunch.
Speaker 12: Well it'll be this time.
Speaker 10: You So.
Speaker 2: Why can't you see taking it down?
Speaker 14: Li Spice.
Speaker 3: Song cry, I.
Speaker 2: Need inside, Honan, say why can't you be cause you're
talking to Mary must Must.
Speaker 12: Talking yet un intuiting, because you're talking to Mars and
mors too much, talking all the accomplished.
Speaker 2: You're talking yos. How are you being?
Speaker 13: How you be when I'm gone?
Speaker 2: Oh it's nothing from me. I didn't last no, so yeah,
I need in say ho say, why can't you be?
The way? Gotcha talking too much?
Speaker 12: Too much, too much talking coming Susie, gotcho tuckings er
must too much, too much shocking as.
Speaker 6: Its doing, compting, gotcha talking too.
Speaker 5: Much to the last, too much talking here, I know
I'm in.
Speaker 2: SOUSI got socking so.
Speaker 5: Much, too much, too much stock in askins.
Speaker 2: Sewing cot talking y'all sleep.
Speaker 11: Ye goscha shocking so much to matter, too much.
Speaker 2: Stopping here, I know coming suits too much, too much,
too much.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, that is so good talking too much.
The band is the Marches. That is so good. By
the way, during our conversation with Kate Morrow from the
band The Marches, let's see, we had a couple of
a couple of messages come in via Matt connorton dot com.
Lauren says, absolutely love, don't fool me twice and Louise said,
had the Marches on repeat over the festive period, bring
on the new year so wonderful. Yep, So the March
is getting some love. So thank you again of course
to Kate Morrow from the band The Marches for joining us.
And if you are listening live on Saturday. Coming up
in the third hour, we have the Far North. Really
looking forward to speaking with Lee Wilding from the Far North.
It's actually a solo project. It sounds like the name
of a band, but it's actually a solo project that
seems to be a trend. But his music is amazing too.
So that'll be coming up today on the third hour.
In the meantime, we do have some more music news
to share. This is very interesting to me if you
are interested in music industry news. Hopefully it's interesting to
you music business worldwide. Reporting that Billboard just made free
streams worth more on its US charts, YouTube is not
happy and is pulling its data. So Billboard, of course,
you know, they've got their various charts. I used to
love when I was a kid, because I was music
industry nerd, probably starting in high school. I would I
remember going to the school library and I would always
look for the newest Billboard magazine and I would read that.
That's how much of a music industry nerd I was
from a very young age.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 8: I obviously I played an instrument and I was into
playing music, but I was also very fascinated by the
music business. So I would read Billboard. I wouldn't necessarily
read it cover to cover. There's some things I wouldn't
necessarily pay attention to, but I always like to look
at the charts. You know, you've got the Billboard Hot
one hundred, and you've got you've got all these different
charts in Billboard. And of course now you can access
it all online if you have a subscription, which I
don't because I'm not going to spend that money. But
but the way that Billboards, so the way that Billboard
used to back in the day, back in my day.
The way that is, you know, what would go into
the into calculating the chart positions would be metrics like sales,
because back then singles would you know, you would have singles.
You would have you had Vinyl forty five records if
you go way back. But of course you also had
cut singles if you remember cus singles. I was in
a band called the Jinkston We used to joke that
we were going to release a single.
Speaker 2: We never did.
Speaker 8: And of course you had CD singles and so forth,
so you had single sales, but you also of course
had radio airplay. Radio airplay would play a big role
in how Billboard would calculate the charts, and I'm sure
it still does obviously, But and also MTV. I don't
know if but I don't think MTV. I don't think
rotation of a music video on MTV was ever a
part of the data that Billboard would use. I could
be mistaken about that, but I don't think that it was.
I don't think they ever used that data. As far
as the charts, I think it was all airplay and sales,
not not MTV or vh one or anything like that. Again,
I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. But but so
today it's all different, right, because we have the Internet.
So today things that go into Billboard charts are things like, uh,
you know, how many people are listening to a song online?
Radio airplay is still, of course a big part of it,
but but online, what's happening online? You know, it's much
more complicated now, right, It's it's because it used to be.
If you're if the only data points you're using are
you know, you can have a concrete number you can
look at, right, how many did this track sell in
terms of singles? How many did it sell in the stores?
And you know radio stations when they report their playlist data,
you know, how many spins did this get? Okay, these
are these are metrics that we can use and calculate,
and you know, they have whatever formulas they use, obviously
one ways more than the other. But but you figure
it out, right, you have hard numbers to look at,
and I guess you still have hard numbers to look at.
But now it's like, you know, and you've got many
different streaming services and it's a lot, right, So it's
all much more complicated now. One of the ways that
people access music to listen to his YouTube. It's the
easiest way, you know, you can go on YouTube finds
us about anything. You're not going to get as high
a quality file as you would if you actually purchase
a wavefile or an MP three. A wave sounds better
than an MP three, a CD sounds better than either one,
and a vinyl record sounds better than all of it.
But but you can go on YouTube and just listen
to music. And that's what a lot of people do.
That's how a lot of people discover new music is YouTube.
So here's what's happening. Just give you some context for
what we're talking about here. So getting back to the story,
so YouTube says again this is from music business worldwide
dot com. YouTube says it will soon stop providing data
to Billboard for inclusion in the US charts, and a
partnership that has lasted more than a decade. The decision,
announced on December seventeenth by Lee or Cohen, YouTube's global
head of music, comes just one day after Billboard revealed
changes to its chart methodology that will actually narrow the
waiting gap between paid and ad sponsored streams. So the
waiting gap, and I did refer to it, but so
different metrics have different weight, so you might have However,
many paid streams might have a certain weight AD supported
streams which are free. You know, like if you go
to listen to a song on YouTube, but before you
can actually hear the song, you've got an AD that
you have to click skip on, or you have two ads,
one you can't skip and then the second one you can.
That's usually how it seems to go, right, So that's
an AD supported stream, So that's free. So in theory,
paid streams would weigh more if you're calculating where on
the chart this track is gonna go this single, you're
gonna you know, because people who are actually paying for
the stream or for the track, I should say people
are like if they're paying to download it, for example,
then you know they might care about it a little
bit more than people who are just going on YouTube
and listening to it for free, so you weigh that.
So so there they've narrowed the gap between in terms
of what each of those metrics weighs paid versus free. Essentially, okay,
under Billboard's current formula for the Billboard two hundred one
album unit equals one two hundred and fifty paid subscription
streams or three thousand, seven hundred and fifty AD supported streams,
a one to three ratio. Billboard's new methodology announced yesterday.
Well this is this was this went up a few
days ago. Announced on December sixteenth, Titans that ratio to
one to two point five, with one album unit now
equaling one thousand paid streams or twenty five hundred AD
supported streams. The same ratio is being applied to the
Hot one hundred chart. In other words, paid streams. This
is the important part. Paid streams will still be weighted
more favorably than ad supported plays, but by a smaller
margin than before. That's interesting. Yet, in a statement today,
Lee or Cohen said the changes do not go far
enough YouTube. This is why YouTube is not happy. YouTube
wants all streams to be counted equally on Billboard's charts,
regardless of whether they come from paid subscriptions or ad
supported services. Before we go any further what Cohen said,
let me just say this, I would think that that
would be a hell of a lot easier for Billboard,
right because if they did it that way, if they
took his his suggestion, just stop giving anything more weight
than anything else. You just count it. You just count
it all. Just the numbers are. What the numbers are,
You count it all, you add it up, there's your numbers.
Because it just seems like it would be a lot easier.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 8: Maybe maybe I say that because as someone who's not
good at math, I want math and numbers to be easy.
That's my natural I have a natural impulse. I have
a bias there, right, I want I always want math
and numbers to be easy because I'm not good at math.
But you know, it does seem like it would be simpler, right,
It'd be a lot more efficient. I mean, they still
I can't imagine how many data analysts Billboard has working
for them. I'm sure it's a lot. But here's what
Cohen said in his statement. Though he said quote Billboard
uses an outdated formula that weights subscription supported streams higher
than add supported. This doesn't reflect how fans engage with
music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who
don't have a subscription. We believe every fan matters and
every play should count equally. Therefore, after January sixteen, YouTube
data will no longer be delivered or factored into the
US Billboard Charts unquote. Now, in thinking about that, how
does that affect how does that affect artists and labels
and everybody who has music streaming on YouTube? Well, if
you're getting a lot of streams on YouTube or at
well here's here's something. What if you're an artist who
does not put your music on Spotify because you're mad
about how little Spotify pays out, which is a whole
other subject. I'm not trying to take that side street,
but I'm just it works for just this example. Say
you're an artist, and there's a lot of them. There's
both established artists who pulled their music from Spotify because
they're mad, and there's there's independent artists. There's small artists
who just don't want to put their music on Spotify,
which I personally think is a mistake. I think you
should still put your music on Spotify, even if you're
not happy that they don't pay you anything. Because discoverability
is a term that I like to use and that
we use in the industry, that you have to make
your music discoverable in order for people to discover it.
So you want to be in as many places as possible.
That's my philosophy. Some people disagree. We've had guests on
the show who disagree. That's fine. But what if you're
not on Spotify for whatever reasons, whatever your reasons are,
and so YouTube is your fallback. YouTube is where people
are going to find you and you want to be charting. Now,
if you're an unsigned or small independent artist, you know
you might maybe it doesn't matter to you because you
know that you're not going to chart, you know, unless
you get like, unless you blow up, you know, unless
you get really big, you're not going to even have
a shot at charting in Billboard anyway. So maybe it
doesn't matter to you, But if that's the long term goal,
it should matter to you. So if you are not
on Spotify, or if you are on Spotify, but that's
not where you're catching fire. You're catching fire on YouTube.
That's where you're getting the spins, the plays. Spins more
of a radio term, but the plays, you're the streams
on YouTube. You want those numbers to count, do you not?
So this is this is going to upset some people.
So let me actually let me read this from from
Cohen's quote again because I just want to make sure
this is the most important thing that he says here,
streaming is the primary way people experience music, making up
eighty four percent of US recorded music revenue. We're simply
asking that every stream has counted fairly and equally, whether
it is subscription based or ad supported, because every fan
matters and every play should count. Unquote, YouTube was first
included in the Billboard Hot one hundred in February of
twenty thirteen. I didn't know that it was that recent.
I mean, we're coming up on twenty twenty six, so
thirteen years ago, I guess. But still I for some
reason I thought it had been even sooner than that,
but it wasn't so, and that was probably a big
decision on Billboard's part when they when they decided to
do that. So YouTube was first included in the Billboard
Hot one hundred in February of twenty thirteen, and was
later added to the Billboard two hundred album chart in
January of twenty twenty. Cohen said, quote, after a decade
long partnership and extensive discussions, Billboard are unwilling to make
meaningful changes. We are committed to achieving equitable representation across
the charts and hopefully can work with Billboard to return
to theirs unquote the question this is interesting. So the
question of how to wait differences different types of streams
has been contested since Billboard first introduced tiered streaming values
in twenty eighteen. Prior to that change, all streams, whether
from paid services like Apple Music or at supported platforms
like YouTube, were counted equally. So there was a time
when when Billboard was just counting them all equally and
not waiting one source of stream versus the other. In
a twenty seventeen interview with Music Business Worldwide, Apple's Jimmy
Iovine argued that having YouTube streams count equally alongside paid
for music on Billboard's Hot one hundred disadvantaged artists.
Speaker 10: Yes.
Speaker 8: I Havin was unequivocal about how his view about his
view that paid streams should carry more weight on industry charts.
He said, quote, I'll put it this way, people who
pay for subscriptions should be advantaged. The labels owe it
to their customers. The most important thing for labels is
to make the paid services compelling and entertaining, and don't
make free services as good as the paid services. Is
that not obvious? Unquote. I don't necessarily disagree with his logic.
I understand the argument that he's making. I think we
all can. I just but again, it just makes it
I mean, doesn't it make it more complicated? The more
complicated you make it too, aren't there more chances for
there to be errors? Calculating errors, math errors? Again I'm
thinking of I know, I'm approaching it with a bias
of someone who the bias of someone who doesn't like math.
But I'm just saying, I mean, I think it's I
think when you try to weight different sources, it just
makes it complicated, because then how do you figure out
how much you should I mean, you know, obviously Billboard
is trying to figure that out now, they're changing how
much they weigh certain sources of streams. When the twenty
eighteen changes were implemented, paid subscription streams were weighted more
heavily than AD supported streams on both charts. On the
Hot one hundred, paid streams were given full point value
AD supported streams two thirds and programmed streams half on
the Billboard two hundred, it took three times as many
AD supported streams as paid streams to equal one album unit.
Recent data shows that the US recorded music industries overall
streaming revenue performance in twenty twenty four was dragged down
by payout from on demand AD supported music services, including
YouTube and Spotify's Freemium tier. Combined, these platforms saw their
revenue contribution to the recorded music industry decline in the
last year, down one point eight percent year over year
to one point eight three billion. Meanwhile, on demand paid
subscription platforms contributed eleven point six eighty five billion dollars
to recorded music right soldiers, up four point six percent
year over year. The disparity and revenue per stream between
paid and free tiers is at the heart of the debate.
As Iving said in twenty seventeen, quote, the fact is
that free quote unquote in music streaming is so technically
good and ubiquitous that it's stunning the growth of PA
that it's stunting the growth of paid streaming. Two things
have to happen. Free has to become more difficult or restricted,
and the paid services have to get better unquote. While
free is never going to become more difficult or restricted.
I mean, that's not going to happen. Ever, Cohen's announcement
represents a reversal from twenty nineteen, when He welcomed YouTube's
inclusion in the Billboard two hundred, calling it a quote
very important moment and making the chart a more accurate
representation of what people are listening to unquote. At that time,
Cohen said, quote genres like Latin hip hop and electronic,
which consistently dominate the YouTube charts, will now be properly
recognized for their popularity. This is another great step in
bringing YouTube and the industry together unquote. YouTube reported in
October that it paid more than eight billion to the
music industry during the twelve months from July twenty four
to June twenty five, covering revenue from both advertising and
subscriptions on the Google owned platform. In his statement December seventeenth,
Cohen directed fans to YouTube Zone charts as an alternative
to Billboard's lists. He said, quote, if you're curious about
what we music is making waves on YouTube, you can
visit our charts. Unquote. Well that's a good point, I guess.
So there you have it. The other thing happening very
very quickly with YouTube, and this is from Digitalmusicnews dot com.
YouTube is reportedly terminating channels behind fake AI film trailers.
Our AI music page takedowns. Next, this is short, but
let's do this quickly before we go to break. YouTube
has reportedly started terminating some of the channels be behind
unauthorized artificial intelligence film trailers. Is a crackdown on AI
music accounts coming, though it'll be up to the new
year to deliver an answer, we can be sure of
two related points at present. First, the video sharing giant
has booted screen Culture and KH Studio, a pair of
prominent fake trailer specialists, according to Deadline from the platform
all together, so both those channels have been booted per
the same outlet. The terminations followed considerable pushback against the channels,
and while it probably doesn't need sane said pushback was
set in motion by the involved uploads reach and adjacent
ability to confuse fans or at a minimum, distract from
proper trailers. So, in other words, these channels were making
their own custom trailers for movies. Screen Culture allegedly pumped
out twenty three fake trailers for the Fantastic four First Steps,
with a few outranking the actual trailer itself, boasting around
seventeen million views in search results. Long story short, YouTube
had reportedly slapped screen Culture and KH studio with a
monetization time out, which ended when they started adding disclaimers
like fan trailer and parody to their upload titles. But
the channels, having reportedly generated a combined one billion or
so of views, are said to have reverted to their
old ways, an alleged move that then drove the takedowns. Second,
we can also state with confidence that there's a massive
amount of AI audio inundating DSPs and in the process
stealing fans, playlist spots and royalties from real artists, and
we talk about that on the show all the time.
The impact that AI is having, as most are aware,
allegedly infringing machine made tracks as well as tracks that
make too big a commercial splash, typically face takedowns and
or threats of legal action. In general. However, it's a
different story for the avalanche of AI songs with comparatively
modest stream and view counts. As demonstrated by hard data
and cursory DSB searches alike. These creations, while not yet
outshining genuine music, are subtily expanding their presence on platforms
such as YouTube and Spotify. Well, the thing is as
long as you as long as your channel doesn't get
that huge. You stay under the wire. If you under
the radar would be a better way of putting it right. So,
if your channel gets too big, you might get, for example,
you might get copyright claims or I'm sorry, copyright strikes.
Copyright claims are one thing, copyright strikes or another. You
don't want copyright strikes. You can get copyright claims. I
get copyright claims all the time. I put you know,
this radio show streams on YouTube and obviously we're playing
copyrighted music. I can never monetize this, that's fine. I
can never monetize the show on YouTube, that's fine. Couldn't
do that anyway. It contains advertising. I don't care about that.
I'm just streaming it to YouTube as it just gives
people another way to enjoy the show. They don't block
my videos, they just won't ever let me monetize them.
And again I'm fine with that. But if if I
got big enough where you know, a label, I mean,
I'm a small time, but if I were like this huge,
I mean, if I were big enough, I wouldn't I
would just not stream the show on YouTube any more
because I would know, because I would see what was
coming right. If I were big enough that I got
the attention of the labels, they you know, somebody might
issue an actual copyright strike, and a copyright strike would
put my channel in danger. So I wouldn't do that.
You know, I'm at a level where I you know,
I do it. It's fine, I get copyright claims, but
that just means you can never monetize this video. Fine,
I can't monetize any of them. It's fine. But but
if you get big enough, YouTube notices or someone notices
who will then complain to YouTube effectively, and then YouTube
will begin to penalize you. You know, the first step
might be just demonetizing you. If you have a big channel.
That's if you're monetized and you're making money, you know
you don't want to lose. That's that's the first thing
YouTube might do to you is demonetize your channel. Instead
of just demonetizing specific videos, they might demonetize your entire channel,
and then you've just lost a source of income. And
then the next step might be they're going to take
you down. There's a lot more to this. The article
itself is short, but we're we're getting to that point
where we got to hit a commercial break. Then when
we come back in the third hour, for those of
you listening live on Saturday, we're going to talk to
Lee Wilding from the Far North, another great project, and
we've we've played some of their music on the show,
some of his music on the show, but just really
really good stuff. So there is a lot more to come. Again,
if you are just joining us, we are live, and yes,
we are live, even though it's that that weird dead zone,
that that time distortion that takes place every year between
Christmas Day and New Year's Day, is that you know,
that that weird time where it's hard to even remember
what day of the week it is because time is
just strange. But yes, so we are live. It is Saturday,
December twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. This is Matt Connorton Unleashed,
broadcasting live from the studios of WMNH ninety five point
three FM. By the way, we were live last night
too for Retrospectrum Radio. If you missed it, Santa came
and gave us his post mortem of the holidays. It
was very entertaining. You can check that out Retrospectrum Radio
with poly c every Friday night from eight to ten
pm Eastern here on WMNH ninety five point three FM.
Check social listings. As Paul likes to say, but let's
take a break. We'll show some love to our amazing sponsors,
and then when we come back in the third hour,
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