Andy Blair of Reverb Data, joins us to unravel the role data plays in shaping the future of the music industry. We explore the transformation of artist management in the digital age, and talk about how the gap between traditional music law and data law creates challenges—and opportunities—for those in the industry.
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Episode Transcript
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0:00:10 - Dmitri
Welcome back to Music Tectonics, where we go beneath the surface of music and tech. I'm your host, Dmitri Vietze. I'm also the founder and CEO of Rock Paper Scissors, the PR and marketing firm that specializes in music innovation. Data, data everywhere. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling buried in it, from passwords to terms and conditions, to spreadsheets, to financial statements. Anywhere you go. Today it feels like we are drowning in data and I don't think it's going to let up at all, and I'm hoping maybe today we'll get some tips on that, certainly for the music industry and from an artist's perspective.
Our guest is the founder and managing director of Reverb Data, a brand new, first-of-its-kind law firm and consultancy focused on data in the music industry. Coming out of law school during the financial crisis, he landed at a global law firm as the fields of privacy and cybersecurity law rose across industries. He worked on several of the major retailer credit card breaches of the early 2010s and defended the first ever Bitcoin-related regulatory enforcement action. Later, he spent nine years as Universal Music Group's lead data lawyer, covering data-related issues across marketing and advertising, dsps, metadata, royalties, cybersecurity and all that. Now our guest runs Reverb Data, with the goal of helping artists, music tech companies and labels navigate complex data issues. Welcome to the show, Andy Blair. Thank you, Dmitri, I'm really excited to be here. Great to have you here. It was great to have you at the Music Tectonics Conference and speaking there and being involved with that. Super cool to have you throwing your hat into the ring there. But let's jump right in. Why did you start Reverb Data?
0:01:51 - Andy
Yeah, well, as you said, data is everywhere and I think people get that generally. At the same time, people really struggle with what to do with it, what to do about it. You kind of alluded to that, and there's a legal aspect to that as well. And as I worked with artist lawyers and startup lawyers and others while at UMG, one of the things that jumped out at me is there's a gap in the market.
Music lawyers as a group aren't very good at data. They're very good at what they do, but they struggle with data, and data lawyers struggle with the music industry. So what we have is this gap in the market where you've got artists and music tech startups who are trying to navigate this space and whichever direction they go, you know they're sort of falling. One side of the thing is others, but there's gaps and there's areas that really need support. So you know, our goal, our North Star, is putting artists and others in the music industry in the best place to succeed. We see a real need for innovation and we really just want to help everyone be the best careers they can be, the best companies they can be, and really help them on the legal side, use data to do that.
0:03:11 - Dmitri
Yeah. So, as I said in the lead into this, data is everywhere. We're kind of buried in it, and that's certainly true in the music industry, as you're telling us right now too. Uh sure, for for you, for me, some of us that are like in the day-to-day of this, it makes sense to focus on this. But why artists, why music tech companies? Why, like, let's talk a little bit more about why it's so important for them?
0:03:38 - Andy
Yeah, I do want to take a half step back. Okay, when we say data, what is that Great point? One of the things that I learned at UMG was you know, you got to make sure context is there, because even sophisticated people in sophisticated roles, if you come in and just starting you know, start talking about data, you know you'll get halfway into the conversation and realize you're talking about two very different things, you know. So data for data's sake, is just noise, right? So data is a representation of something you know, a fact, a measurement, something. So when we say that data is important, what we're really saying is the thing that data represents is important.
And so, on the artist side, that might be a recording or representation of who the rights holders are in a particular piece of content.
It could be a representation of a point of consumption, a stream, a download, you know, whatever it is of a point of consumption, a stream, a download, whatever it is.
It can also be a way to communicate with a fan a phone number, an email address. It could be a record that somebody purchased a ticket and what level of ticket they bought, or merch, or whatever it is. So when we say that data is important, we're saying what data represents and the opportunities to run our business or run our artist career. That's the important thing, and I do think that's important because data is one of these terms that you say it a lot, but in many cases it's ambiguous to the point of being useless and sometimes even detrimental, right? So, yeah, so it's really important, and it's really important, I think, for companies to, you know, lean into that. From the artist perspective, I really believe that, after your copyrights, after your content itself, fan data is your most important asset, right? It is the. It is the representation of the connection to your fans. These are the people that are supporting your career, right. These are the people that are the reason you have a career, and the data that represents your connection with those people is incredibly valuable. So I really think, from the artist side, you know because it represents your relationship with your fans that it's an incredibly powerful asset. And on the music tech companies, you know it doesn't matter what you do. You know if you're in a distribution company, if you're a, you know a DSP if you're, you know.
Coming back to the Narwhals and the excellent, you know Dawn Audio Company. You know synchronizing. You know DAWs across space and time. You know data's at the core of it, and how you use data will make a big difference in your valuation. You know, I've seen a couple of times, you know, in my career where you know it didn't kill a deal but someone coming in and saying, hey, we've got all this data. You know we think our valuation is X and you get into it and it turns out the source of that data wasn't clean or you didn't get the right permissions or there's something about it. It can and will. You know impact exit scenarios, you know, and so, as a music company, being really smart and strategic about where your data is coming from, what you're using it for, all those sorts of things is really important, and so you know again, that's because, underneath, the thing that that data represents is really important.
0:06:41 - Dmitri
Right, so what I'm hearing from you and, by the way, thanks for the shout out of Dawn Audio they were the winners and for anyone who didn't catch this.
They were the winners of our Swimming with Narwhals Music Tectonic Startup Competition and that's why Really impressive product. The data like who cares about data? But it's what it represents, the things that I heard you say that it represents. Some of it has to do with attribution who wrote this song? Who performed this song? Who recorded this song?
Some of it has to do with monetization how many streams did you get? How much are you supposed to get paid for that? How much of that got reported to the right places? How did the splits get reported? All that kind of stuff. And you know, you kind of inferred a little bit about metadata. So you know the kinds of fan discovery things that can happen as a result of not only attribution but linkages, data linkages between artists and songwriters and songs and albums and albums and labels and all that kind of stuff. But then the other big category you said was fan data. And so then I'm thinking, oh, email addresses, sms, or even demographics or geographics, where people are listening and how they're listening. So are those kind of the big categories you're thinking when you say I want data to be specific?
0:07:57 - Andy
Yeah, yeah, I think there's. The way I think about it is three, three main categories, and there's there's a bit of a sub uh on one of them. Um, you've got rights data and that's going to be, you know the, the metadata that you talked about, the of this, how you figure out splits, you know who wrote what, and and that's still, I think, a thorny area because data quality is always going to be an issue in the industry. Um, the second I would I would is to me is consumption data, so it's like stream reporting, data, chart, metric kind of stuff, so that's the sort of the consumption of the content category and that really has its own ecosystem built up around it. The third being, as you said, fan data. And I do kind of split out direct marketing data, email addresses and SMS numbers, that sort of thing from the fan behavior, ticket purchases, those sorts of things, just because there are some nuances to it. But really, three big categories. It's the metadata, consumption data and fan data is how I think about it.
0:08:58 - Dmitri
Awesome, so let's get into this. What are your top data tips for artists and their teams?
0:09:04 - Andy
So I'm going to stick in the fan data area, uh, here a little bit more deeply, um, and what I would say that is, there are three things that you need in place to effectively use fan data and it's I think it is a three-legged stool. You've got to have technology, people and data. If the technology is the platform on which the data sits, it's got to be able to do something with data. You also have to have people that know we've mentioned this several times how much data is out there and how complicated it can be. If you don't have people who understand how to pull out the signal from the noise and figure out where the value is and make use of the data, it's not going to end up being valuable to you. And the third is the data itself. And those three things I think are critical to have all of them in place if you're going to make valuable use of fan data. And one of the things you hear a lot and I think is absolutely true the only constant in an artist's career is change. And looking at those three things, tech platforms change, technology evolves, people change, label deals can come and go, different things that people that are helping you can change. The data is the piece of it that's really important to keep as consistent as possible, and the only way legally for you to make sure that you are carrying through the data that represents the relationship with your fans through all of this change is to have legal control over that data. And notice that I'm using the word control and not own.
You hear people talk about owning data as a thing, but data is not property. You've got this idea of IP, copyrights, patents, trademarks. There's a statutory construct around owning those things. There is no property law around data. You do see people sort of license it in those sorts of things. You see it in contracts and stuff, but there's no statutory construct behind that that provides a framework for owning data. But what fan data is is data about people, and there is a statutory framework that is very impactful about how you use data about people and that's privacy law. So as a guy whose background is most strongly in that space, I really bring that angle to it.
But that's a really important factor here, because if you're talking about setting the foundation of who's responsible for that data, can you give it to a third party? Can you receive it from a third party? What ways can you use that data? What ways can you combine data from different sources? By far the most impactful legal thing in that is privacy law, right. So if you want to retain data and retain access to and use of data as your career evolves, as it changes, you know. If you want to make sure you know what your data is used for, you know you have partners that, whether they be tech platforms or labels, whoever you know the only way to have the right to know what people are using data, the right to know what people are using data, are they training, ais, machine learning models, customer lifetime value models, purchase percent All these things people are pointing to as value driving the only way to have a say in how that data is used is to have legal control over that data. So how do you do that so long way to get to the actual tip here? So there's a lot to it. It's complicated. There's a reason people like me have careers.
What I would say is the basic step. One foundational thing is privacy policy. It sounds basic, but a privacy policy in the privacy law world is the declaration of who is responsible for that data. It's the closest thing you're going to have to a declaration of ownership. So if you're an artist, if the privacy policy on the site or merch store or you know a campaign site or link in bio thing, whatever it is, if the privacy policy on the page where the data is collected is not yours, it's not your data, and you know this is a it's a hard thing for industry.
Going back to sort of why Reverb data exists, this is a hard thing, cause think about if you're a startup or you're an artist who's a DIY indie artist, you know well how do I get a privacy policy. I call my lawyer and there's like, ah sure, for 1500 bucks I'll get you a privacy policy. Here's this piece of paper, good luck. You know, that's not, that's not a solution for our industry, right? So you know.
So you know, seeing this issue like well, artists to preserve value and sort of maximize their opportunity to have a solid career, I think flows through the use of data. And so you know, one of the things that Reverb Data we're really prioritizing is is trying to help solve that. You know, and one of the things that we're trying to do is go from this idea that you have to pay a lawyer an hourly rate to get a privacy policy to a subscription service that you know we're going to offer soon. That basically allows people for probably less than 15 bucks a month you get a privacy policy. You will keep it updated as laws change. You know we're trying to kind of go in and solve this and provide, you know, links, embed codes, ways for you to use it and help using it.
So we're trying to sort of dive in and say, yes, this is an issue. You know artists need to be able to have this foundational you know data control piece in place and we're going to solve it. And, because I love a good pun, we're calling it Fandation. You know you got to have a nice data Fandation. So you know and there's going to be a lot more to come there, but I won't belabor that. But you know artists, you know management teams, you know if you believe that fan data is valuable to you and is core to your career, legal control is absolutely essential.
0:14:39 - Dmitri
Well, and I love that you're sort of, you know, diving into the music tech space and offering a tech product in the same time as well.
0:14:47 - Andy
It was something. It was a bit accidental, right, I didn't, I didn't consider myself, you know, getting into the product space, but you know, you go out and you follow, you talk to people and they're just I tell you what is really inspiring at the conference and just in general, how many people there are out there seeing and innovating and working on these. I mean it's just such a great community of people who are just very open with ideas and support and advice. And I have been really encouraged and inspired by, just like you know, and I think that's what makes Music Tech Con such a cool conference is, just like you know, you put those people together and just like the vibe was so cool. So I, you know, going into and coming out of it, who I, what I thought I was doing, changed quite a bit because of those conversations. That's so cool.
0:15:33 - Dmitri
Well, this is great, getting into what you're up to and how you're thinking of shifting and your interwovenness with the music tectonics community. We have to take a quick break for a message, but when we come back I want to talk about how this applies to record labels. We'll be right back com slash podcast.
0:15:49 - intro
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0:16:26 - Dmitri
Okay, we are back. This has been super interesting to hear a little bit about not only your perspective on the importance of data for artists and music tech companies, but also just this unfolding career story of yours and how you're evolving to build new products, offer new services, etc. We were talking a bit about some of your tips for artists and their teams before the break. How does this all relate to record labels?
0:16:51 - Andy
Well, look, labels are really important to just the way the business runs. They always have, they will. They bring an expertise and resources and just a scale of things that just isn't possible without them. And I have a real soft spot for all of the people at Universal who took time to educate me and help me understand how things worked and how it went. You know, all around the world, so I have an enormous amount of respect. There are a lot of really dedicated and really talented people in the label ecosystem. So you know, I hope you know that we, you know, I think it's going to, it's not going to. They're always going to have a role in a place and it's going to be great.
But I do think that they're in a tough spot, right, because we're seeing, at least on fan data, we're seeing a real movement of artists and managers sort of recognize the value of fan data. They're seeing the value of sort of centering it on themselves. At the same time, you know, labels have largely and historically been sort of running a lot of the marketing for artists, right, and it's not crazy at all to sort of lean on labels to sort of lead into this new era and a lot of what you see at labels of all sizes is this idea that, hey, you know we're going to add value by, you know, looking across all of the artists that we work with, creating better fan profiles of what our fans are into, you know, across all of our artists and use that to create better marketing outcomes. And that's absolutely true. You know you can, you can create value through that approach. There's a but there, and that but is coming back to privacy law, because in order to combine fan data across artists, you have to have legal control of that data. And so you have this sort of tension there between a couple of models sort of a label-centric model where you're going to lean into the value of, you know, cross-artist marketing benefits, versus more of an artist-centric model where you're trying to center everything on the artist and maximize that artist's, you know, benefit from the data over the life of their career. You know, as they change labels, as they change tech changes, all those different things, right. So you know, I think it's going to be tough with kind of the direction you're seeing and this is labels of all sizes, by the way, so it's not just majors Leaning into sort of a more label-centric model is going to be tough because you're going to have to convince artists that it's in their benefit. In an era that artists have more and more leverage, they're coming to the table with millions of fans and tens of millions of streams on things. They have a lot of influence and control over deals. You have to convince them to receive control and control is like the closest thing we have to ownership. When you're looking at it legally, See that to the label for the life of that label relationship.
And there's some other just structural issues when you get into the privacy law weeds and a big one example I like to use is ticketing data. There are a lot of laws in Europe. California is a good example of this where there's a really big focus on the reasonable expectation of the individual. So US labels are not really deeply involved in touring, at least the mechanics of touring. So if I go to Ticketmaster and I buy a ticket to a show as a fan, who do I reasonably expect to get that data? I mean, I think Ticketmaster, the tour promoter and the artists are all comfortably within that window. Do I reasonably expect a major label conglomerate or any label that I probably don't even know is the label that my artist is signed to right, people don't really care. Do I expect that they're going to get that data and combine it with other data they'd have about me from other artists on their roster and use that to create a profile with me?
I think that's a really hard legal argument to make. So I think that there is an access barrier as well, right? So if you're looking at the landscape of the music industry and you're trying to say, hey, we want to maximize value of data by maximizing the connectedness of data, where does that connection make sense? You know, and I think you know, it's going to be tough for labels to be that hub because they're not in every piece of the music industry.
And to me, you know, I think an artist-centric model wins out eventually because, just you know, structurally that's the place that it makes the most sense and, as you know, I think we'll create the most value for that data to be. But you know, look, it doesn't matter where this goes, labels are going to be really key to making it all go and supporting it and scaling it. You know, no one else can take an artist and promote them around the world the way that, you know, labels can, nobody can bring and, you know, pour gas on the fire the way that labels do. So I think they're going to have a really important role through all of this. But I also think there's some challenges in sort of the sort of default way that labels have approached the fan data question. So really interesting stuff yeah definitely.
0:21:48 - Dmitri
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Yeah, I mean record labels from the beginning. I mean the whole concept of a label. You see the label on the recording and then you know it's a curator of some sort, it's a team that does distribution and marketing too, but they're also picking. You know, they're also the A&R team and they're also co-producing in some cases, and so forth. It'll be interesting to see how that concept of this curation role continues to play out in this increasingly fragmented listening world, you know.
0:22:17 - Andy
It's a really good point and in talking to managers and talking to you know, just people over the past few months, one of the things that really comes up is that there's whether it's true or not, or whether the labels would agree with it or not there is a perception that labels are no longer in the business of artist development. Right, they're in the. I think somebody said once they're in the business of pouring gas on the fire and really amplifying and accelerating moments. And there are managers that are really frustrated, that sort of they're being asked to create viral moments that will then be amplified by their label partners. But more and more is being put on the manager.
So you know, you're right, it is really interesting and I think you know all of the restructuring at the labels has has has put a stress on the, on the, the resources, right, how is a frontline label team with, you know, 20% fewer people going to support the same size roster? And increasingly, you know more and more and more demands as things get complicated. So it's a fascinating area, but you know what? The talent level and the resources available to labels are still incredibly impactful. To sort of dismiss the world of labels, I think is foolish. They are where they are for a reason, but it's a really fascinating the way it's all developing.
0:23:33 - Dmitri
Let's bring it back to some music tech company focus a little bit here, just because a lot of our audience, our listening audiences, in that world, where do you see the biggest data opportunities for startups in this world?
0:23:44 - Andy
Yeah, and you know the ones that I see the opportunities that I see that really make the most sense at least for you know sort of sure you know very high probability success rates are where people are improving existing processes, and going back to Dawn Audio, I think it's a really good example of that. I mean, they're not creating an entirely new, you know, way of doing things. They're saying we're going to make it much easier and possible for you to do what you are already doing in a much more efficient and great way. And so you know companies that are using data to improve or to solve existing pain points. I think there's a lot of opportunity there and there's no shortage of that opportunity, whether you're talking about rights or royalties or, you know, production and distribution or fan data, wherever it is. There are pain points everywhere in the industry and I think there's a lot of opportunity and you're seeing a lot of success from music tech companies who are identifying those pain points and really jumping in to solve those. I think there's opportunity too for companies who are really thoughtful about and strategic about how they're approaching things.
We have seen over the past I don't know so, five to seven years a couple of companies that struggled a bit, for example, because you know they would go and get a ton of momentum going straight to artists, getting buy-in from bigger artists, especially major label artists, and you know they'd kind of run out of their free runway and they'd say, okay, we actually have to start charging for this product. And they go to the artists on their platform and say, okay, here's how much it's going to cost, and they say, okay, go talk to my label. And you know the business development of label side wasn't as strong as it was on the artist side. And so you know, using data and connections to build the understanding of how it all works, and understanding that you know your strategy may lead to a place where you need to have X and Y players on board, and it could be a little bit illusory if you're kind of making a lot of progress in one area. And then, okay, the actual people who are going to support my product or someone else, you know.
So there's, there's again, I think there's a ton of opportunity the, the, the companies that I I see right now that are really doing a lot of really interesting things. The most interesting things are along that sort of solving pain points. But you know, it's such a big space right now and there's so much really interesting work going on. I think the opportunity is really. You know, there's opportunity everywhere.
0:26:17 - Dmitri
Cool. Well, I want to continue widening out, because we kind of started with you. Now we've learned a little bit about what you do and also, you know, applied some of this data thinking to artists, labels, music, tech companies. But when you widen out to society as a whole, we're all faced with so much incoming data. So, like there's this larger context I want to talk about. I'm curious, given that you're in this day to day and you have been working at Universal first and now with the work you're doing now, what's your philosophy for how we as a society will be able to keep ingesting so many data points, how we'll manage it and how we'll make the best decisions and take action based on all this? And I ask that because if you are focused on artists I mean artists are just like the rest of us you know and and and and all of our roles with whether in the industry, outside of the industry. We're all faced with this and I just want to get a little bit of a better sense of like, where do we go?
0:27:05 - Andy
with all this? Yeah, it's a great question and I think the answer is it's too much and there isn't a good way to sort through it all. And social media is a really good place to sort of highlight that. We're in an era where there's too many voices, there's too much information bombarding us and the result of that is it's impossible to know what information to trust and we've seen the erosion of sort of trusted news sources and people have different views on whether that's a good or bad thing, but it has led to a real increase in just like easily factually disprovable disinformation. But it spreads and it's all the way out there, you know, all over the place. So you know people are going to have to Our societies are going to have to develop a little bit of an immunity to it, figure out how to reset and focus on the information that they do trust, narrow their areas of focus and, instead of trying to take all that information in, instead of trying to attempt to drink from that fire hose, find the sources of information, the data points that really are meaningful and that you trust, and work off those.
And you know, going back to the social media space, I'm actually encouraged to some extent by, for example, the emergence of the Blue Sky platform, which I'm a big fan of. They have a lot of self-moderation tools like Fancy Thought. You can actually control yourself whether you see hateful stuff and different things. You know they're doing some really interesting things and we've seen a real increase in people sort of moving over there and it's just a different vibe when you're on that platform. So you know you're seeing some encouraging things, but it's really answer.
I mean, it has a lot of potential, but the solutions we're seeing out there are a bit gimmicky to me in this sort of filtering data context.
And I think when you lift up the covers, the cynical me is saying it's built by the same people with the same incentives that gave us the social media platforms we have, and so why would we trust these people to create AI solutions that are any better? So you know. But you know what life is cycles. You know zoom out big picture. You know over the course of years and decades, you know our existence in our society is cycles and I'm really optimistic and hopeful that you know my daughter's generation, in having to deal with this stuff from a young age, will, you know, develop that immunity. They'll develop ways and strategies to to kind of filter the noise from the signal and figure that out, because I don't. There's no obvious solutions for me other than just either refocusing and and and zooming in a little bit to what those few things that that you really are are important to what you're doing on a day-to-day basis, and try to have ignoring as much of the rest as you can.
0:29:58 - Dmitri
Yeah yeah. It's funny to spend years trying to take society's blinders off so that you can kind of see your full potential. Don't get told by others which direction you're going and then you're like, wait, actually I think I'm going to put some blinders back on. This is helpful to go wide as well, to put it in context, and I want to go into the future as well. But we've got to take one more break for an announcement. When we come back, let's talk about what's coming next. We'll be right back.
0:30:23 - intro
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0:31:09 - Dmitri
Okay, we're back, andy. I'm curious what do you think will change in music as it relates to this data lens that you've sort of presented to us in, say, the, whether it be distribution or music?
0:31:19 - Andy
production or the fan data side of things. The energy and the optimism that I see in the innovation community around music is incredible. You know, you see economies more widely in our country more widely. You know, not a whole lot of optimism, I think in a lot of corners A lot of people, just like you know, feel a little bit worn down. You know is what's working. You know, economic stress, inflation, stress, all these things.
When you get a room of music tech people together, there is so much optimism and so many people coming with interesting ideas and real issues that they're trying to solve, and I think that a lot of it will be, you know, giving artists and independent labels and, you know, other companies in the space, tools that can really lead to innovative business models, innovative ways to create alternatives to streaming, and so this decentralized idea, you know, and this sort of artist-centric model I think will absolutely take root. You know there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of froth and a lot of sort of artist-centric model I think will absolutely take root. There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of froth and a lot of sort of lack of clarity. I think right now and if you're a manager or somebody trying to navigate. It's hard to know which way to go, but we're going to coalesce, I think. Right now it feels like there's a lot of first movers, there's a lot of early adopters and it feels like you have to build your car and then drive the car. But we'll develop norms, we will see some consolidation around business processes and ways of doing things and I think three years from now we'll have our roads and you're not going to have to build your car, You're just going to have to know how to drive the car and there'll be help with that.
So I really think we're going to be a place three years from now that you're going to see opportunities not just to make music but to run a career for artists that are sustainable, for artists at a level that allows them to make livings off their career in ways that we just haven't seen, and so I am very bullish and very optimistic that AI is not going to replace music.
You're going to see a wave of creation and ways that people are accessing music that are just really interesting, and it kind of comes back to the debate at the end of the conference the lean in versus lean back thing. I think we will see both of those and if you look at the areas, people compare it to gaming and others. There are people who love to jump in and play Fortnite and there are people that like to watch Fortnite, and sometimes those people like to do those two different things at two different times or two different social environments or whatever it is, and so I think we're going to see all this stuff evolve, but we're going to come out of that three years from now with a really interesting music industry and a really wide array of opportunities for artists to make livings and create really interesting and really creative music, and I'm really excited about it. I couldn't be more optimistic about where the industry is going.
0:34:22 - Dmitri
Andy, you're making me feel hopeful, and it's just what.
I needed today. So I do appreciate that. I mean, I think you're right, like we've been focused at music tectonics and at rock paper scissors, we've been very focused on kind of this convergence of the creation and the listening side to bring back the Mark Mulligan, Tatiana Sarasano debate that you mentioned of sort of like these two things are converging and I'm so curious how record labels are going to respond. I had a conversation with a record label not too long ago where I was talking about this and I said people are making music the way bloggers were blogging or tweeters were tweeting, that they weren't trying to monetize anything, they were just trying to create a thing. And they were like, why? And I was like, wait, what do you mean? Why? Because that's what people do. And it made me wonder well, what are record labels going to think or do, or whatever?
But what makes me hopeful about what you're saying is, yes, there's all this creativity happening, there's the band labs of the world and the audio max, where people are uploading their content directly, and so forth, but the rails are kind of missing. You know, I think those companies are starting to build rails to the rest of the traditional monetization industry, if we want to call it that, because it's almost like you don't talk about the recording industry anymore because they're recording as they go. There's not like a separate process. You're writing and recording at the same exact time, just like you make a video on TikTok and music is getting. The tools are coming into play where anybody can be that creative and have that kind of real-time creation in recorded music.
But I love this vision that the rails are getting built in such a way that artists won't have to work. I mean, they're going to have to work hard, obviously, but they don't have to like get somebody's permission. In a way, they don't have to like jump through as many sort of human gatekeeper component to actually say I'm going to build my fan base, regardless of what size it is, I'm going to keep there, I'm going to get access to data, regardless of what size the artist is. I'm going to promote, I'm going to build communities in unexpected places, et cetera. So so you're making me hopeful.
0:36:21 - Andy
You know, and that's exactly it. You know because when you look across it, there's no one answer for all the artists, right there's. There's no one way of doing things and looking at, you know how fan bases operate and you compare, like the K-pop, you know type of audiences to. You know indie folk audiences.
They're just different and it's not right or wrong, it's just different. And so what we're seeing now is a generation of tools that let those artists find the way that works for them. And it's going to be their own way and they're going to have to put that work into figuring it out. You know they're going to have to figure out how to. How do I do this, what's my pace of content, what kind of content, what types of things are my fan bases interested in, what are they willing to pay for, or whatever it is? But the tools have never existed to really support that as as a sort of career sustaining business model. And they're coming. You know, many of them are here in their early stages and I think it's just the opportunities to find the model that works for you as an artist is coming, and so, yeah, I really think that it's a powerful thing and that we're all figuring it out. But that's what's beautiful and messy and crazy about it.
0:37:28 - Dmitri
Yeah, cool, cool. All right, we're getting close to the end here, but there's a couple of things we sometimes do here to help you, help us, expand our network, and so I have a question who's one thought leader you follow and want to share with our audience? Yeah, yeah.
0:37:45 - Andy
So I saw in LA just before the Music Tectonics Conference, at the Music Managers Forum, tony Alexander, who's the president of Made in Memphis. So they have a studio at a publishing house and recording house. They have created a program called Adaptive Music. So there's this idea that artists need to treat their career like a startup or like a business or whatever, which is great and I agree with it. But how in the world do we expect 18 to 21 year olds, who are creat, you know, creatives to have the skills and the ability to run a competent business? I mean, this isn't the beginning of their amazing people, amazing talents, but we're putting a lot on them when we say, hey, go treat this as a startup, go run. So what adaptive music is is it's a framework to help people develop the skills to do that Right. So they're saying, yeah, we believe that and we're going to do something about it, you know.
So they've created this amazing program that they. It's very structured. There's a vetting process. You know, if you're not in it to put the work there, they don't, they don't want you in it, and but they're going to do a readiness audit. They're going to help you build out an operational plan.
You know it's a really, really cool model and I hope it. I think we're going to start seeing some real success stories out of it, you know, sooner than later, and I hope the model takes off because they're just doing a really interesting thing, and here to Tony and to hear Tony talk about it was really cool, yeah. So if you have a chance to you know, hear or go read about what they're doing at Adaptive Music, I could not support it more, what they're doing. And music I could not support it more, what they're doing. And I hope it comes out because we, you know we're putting a lot on artists, right, we're putting a ton on them. We got to give them the tools that can put them in the position to be successful, you know, with those expectations, and that's what they're doing.
0:39:26 - Dmitri
So super, super cool. That's cool and happy to have that shout out to the Music Managers Forum, who we partnered with this year. A hundred of our attendees were able to attend that as part of their badge to Tectonics and that was a super cool event. Nice, a different flavor, but a chance for some of the music tech related innovators to go in there and have a chance to meet with managers and other folks in that part of the business and do it at the Spotify offices in LA. That's a great recommendation. Nobody's mentioned him on the show before. Okay, one last question for you Are there a few music tech companies that you're excited about? I don't know how many do you want to shout out here?
0:40:02 - Andy
Well, you know I'm going to cheat a little bit and give you three, but I'm going to give you three things that I'm excited about and mention some companies that I think are doing that.
0:40:11 - intro
So you know.
0:40:11 - Andy
The first goes back to, you know, addressing process issues, you know, at pain points, and I think Don Audio is one of those, but there are a couple of others that are in the fan data space. Looking at you know they're not just giving you a tool, they're helping the use of that tool, really leaning into playbooks and automating processes and making it easier to use the data not just here's access to the data, and Symphony OS is one of those. There's also another really early stage one called Naviro that's really leaning into that idea on the sort of online advertising audience side of it. So I think there are two examples. I think there are others, lots of others that are around that, but really leaning into the idea of making it easier for overworked managers who aren't deeply experienced marketing professionals to use marketing tools. So that's a really good concept. The second one is Sherry, who's mentioned something on our panel that I think is a really apt point, which is decentralization, and fragmentation is one of the things we point to as one of the challenges. There's data everywhere, it's not connected, and so there's a little bit of irony in saying, hey, I want to solve the fragmentation problem by adding another platform to the landscape right. So for companies that are doing that, one of the challenges that headwinds are going to have is how do you get people to add your separate platform to their diet right? And so being able to integrate and connect to all the other tools out there, I think, is a really important thing. And I swear Dimitri is not paying me to do this.
But another shout out to a Swimming with the Narwhals finalist I think UnHerd is doing some really interesting things around that. Seeing their demo and seeing what they're doing. They have a lot of integrations to other platforms and other things that kind of recognize hey, we're not going to be your entire world. We're going to make it as easy as possible for you to use the other tools you're already using in connection with our platform. So that's a really cool feature that I want to shout out as being something that's that's impressive.
And the final one, I think, is a little bit different take I actually don't even know if I've categorized them as music tech, but I'm going to anyway which is Firebird Music, and they're a company that was founded by a KKR partner. Left KKR and a former president of Ticketmaster got together, so they're investing in management companies. They looked at the landscape and said, hey, where are the nexus points for all of the data that's out there? They saw the gap and the value of having data be decentralized in all these different places and saw the value in connecting that, and so they're investing in management companies and building infrastructure on the back end of it. So to go back to the triad that I mentioned earlier data tech people they brought together a really talented group led by Adam Hussain, who was on my panel at Music Tech, to lead the development of data tools and provide some expertise in the people side of things to put the management companies and the artists they support in a position to make better use of data, to bring it across.
It's a different model. I mean, people haven't really looked at the management company as the you know, um, as the nexus for this to really put the tech and put the people behind them and really invest in that. And so it's. It's a new thing, it's a really interesting thing and done well. I think it could be really really disruptive, but it'll just be really fascinating to see where that goes, because it's just a really different take on how to approach the industry and a recognition that no management company is going to be able to deal with all this themselves, even the big ones, and so providing that investment and providing that support on the tech side of it, and enabling them to generate value off of all of this data is really interesting and, I think, astute.
0:44:00 - Dmitri
Wow, andy. I feel almost like this episode could have been a whole year of programming for the Music Tectonics podcast. You clearly have done your homework. Your background in all of this on the label side, on the data side and now showing your broad knowledge of the music tech side of things is super impressive and makes you for a great guest on the show. This has been a blast. Andy Blair, reverb Data, thanks so much for joining me. The pleasure is entirely mine, Dimitri.
0:44:28 - Andy
Thank you very much.
0:44:30 - Dmitri
Thanks for listening to Music Tectonics. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app. We have new episodes for you every week. Did you know? We do free monthly online events that you, our lovely podcast listeners, can join? Find out more at musictectonics.com and, while you're there, look for the latest about our annual conference and sign up for our newsletter to get updates. Annual conference and sign up for our newsletter to get updates. Everything we do explores the seismic shifts that shake up music and technology the way the earth's tectonic plates cause quakes and make mountains. Connect with music tectonics on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. That's my favorite platform. Connect with me. Dimitri Vietze, If you can spell it, we'll be back again next week, If not sooner
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The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.
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