The Price of Music

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week, Stu and Joe focus on one very interesting and rapidly-developing story in the music biz...Did you know that music fans and industry insiders have quietly built a massive half-billion-dollar market trading purely on pop culture gossip and chart data? Stuart and Joe take a deeper look at how prediction platforms saw a staggering $400 million staked on "music outcomes" on a single app alone in the first half of 2026. That includes a mind-boggling $110 million wagered by people just to guess what the opening song of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show would be. From fans turning passive streaming into high-stakes gamification to the legally murky waters of music industry insider trading, they talk about how (lots of) real cash is changing the way we forecast what's going to happen in the music business, including...What are Prediction Markets anyway?: Online platforms where users buy and sell financial contracts based on the likelihood of real-world future outcomes. Is it gambling or what?: Technically, no, but... The market has exploded into a multi-million-dollar sector in 2026, led by platforms like Kalshi and the crypto-powered Polymarket. What could the music industry do with it?: platform, fan and release data could be used for future forecasting, such as assessing fan interest or adjusting album release dates. Insider trading and addiction: The space introduces risks of insider trading from industry professionals who know when things are going to happen before the wider public – and presents addiction risks similar to traditional gambling.And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week's bonus material: A long-awaited, much-requested Little Grandad Update: what are our indie heroes up to? Successful festival bookings, and a London residency await... The Music-Prediction Prediction Quiz: Joe tests Stu on various active Kalshi markets, covering Spotify listener stats, album sales, and future album genres, including...Which artist will have the highest monthly Spotify listener count by the end of June? What will Olivia Rodrigo's first-week chart sales data for her new album be? When will Selena Gomez debut a new song on Spotify? What will the musical style and genre of Beyoncé’s next studio project be?===================================As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!Email us: ⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠See you next week!Stuart and Joe======TPOM online: http://tpom.uk/Support The Price of Music on Patreon:⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠Follow Stuart on X - @stuartdredgeFollow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpodFor sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠joe@musically.com

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week Steve and Stu grapple with Harry Styles, Bonnie Tyler and Bruno Mars...Don't forget - you can become a Superfan of the podcast for free – and access an extra 20 mins of show each week!Stu's big number is $11bn - and that’s ⁠how much Spotify paid out to the music industry in 2025⁠. But will that be enough to get its critics off its back?Apple Music ⁠identified up to 2 billion fraudulent streams on its service in 2025 alone⁠. But did it pay any money out for them?Music is now ⁠a third of all the time people spend watching YouTube⁠. But is that good news?UK venues complained bitterly about proposed changes to business rates tax which would increase ticket prices and force small venues to close: now the government has announced some changes…Remember when we talked about Bonnie Tyler’s Spotify royalties in a show last year? ⁠Both Bonnie and Spotify have chipped in with a follow-up to that story⁠…Harry Styles’ "world tour" is ⁠only playing in seven cities⁠. Is this a new model for superstar touring?Bruno Mars’ latest concert ⁠attracted 12.8 million people⁠! But what's the twist?⁠No one wanted a global chart for AI-generated music⁠ - but here it is anyway!And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠⁠, Steve and Stu prop themselves at the bar to chat about:Steve and Stu reflect on last week's excellent interview with Ricky from Southampton Joiners - and the pressures on venues; and the changes in touring routes.... and also the dubious reality for young gig-goers: who's putting gigs on for them – and do they even want gigs?Football’s January transfer window has just closed in most of the big countries, which made us think: what if there was an equivalent for bands...If you’ve been wondering what Liza Minnelli, Art Garfunkel and the Pope think about AI music… it’s your lucky week!===================================As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!Email us: ⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠See you next week!Steve and Stuart======TPOM online: http://tpom.uk/Support The Price of Music on Patreon:⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠Follow Steve on X - @steve_lamacqFollow Stuart on X - @stuartdredgeFollow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpodFor sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠joe@musically.com

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week, Stu’s Big Number is also the Big Story – and here are some mind-boggling facts to bewilder your friends with: There are now 253 million tracks available on streaming sites… and 55.3 million songs were not played even once in 2025(And, over 100 million songs have been played less than 100 times)Over 50 million songs - 20% of all the music available on streaming – were uploaded in 2025106,000 songs were uploaded each day - that’s 7,000 hours of music or 10,000 albums per dayNaturally, this gave Steve and Stu a lot to talk about, including:On many platforms, artists don’t get paid until their song gets over 1000 streams – is this fair?Nearly half of those daily song uploads might, data suggests, be AI-generated – and this means more noise for real artists to fight through to be heard.How much does it cost a company like Spotify to host all this music? (And what about the carbon footprint?)Should the platforms pay money out when AI-generated songs are played?If there were 50m+ new tracks last year, doesn’t that mean there will be even more this year - and who wants this AI slop?Also this week: the UK’s Music Venue Trust released it’s annual report which revealed, amongst the data, that the profit margins for its member venues are razor thin – under 3%. The state of play for grassroots venues is still precarious – Steve digs deep into the data. Plus – music platform Bandcamp has banned all AI-generated music from its platform.And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Steve and Stu prop themselves at the bar to chat about:A question for you, dear listener: have you ever missed the last bus or train home after a gig? Did you end up sleeping in a bus shelter? Let us know! thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com(Steve remembers spending a lot of time trying to nap at Liverpool Street station having missed the last train home… and which superstar band was “so bad” that Stu got accidentally drunk and fell asleep on the train on the way home?)Steve’s Shameless Plug – after months of praise, he finally got Little Grandad into the famous BBC Maida Vale studios for a live session [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ps7b]Which big towns and cities are starting to be left off touring schedules in the UK? (people in Coventry, Stoke and Milton Keynes may wish to avert your ears)And what happens to artists and music fans if quality emerging artists are not able to go and perform in cities (very slightly) off the beaten track?Some of the biggest songs on YouTube are… nursery rhymes. One Wheels on the Bus video got over 2 BILLION streams in 2025, and Bah Bah Black Sheep is the 15th biggest video of ALL TIME.And finally… a company called Alan’s Factory Outlet has a fascinating/hyperbolic piece of indie band data.As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!Email us: ⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠See you next week!Steve and Stuart======TPOM online: http://tpom.uk/Support The Price of Music on Patreon:⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠Follow Steve on X - @steve_lamacqFollow Stuart on X - @stuartdredgeFollow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpodFor sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠joe@musically.com

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. And it’s a bumper episode as Steve and Stu take a look ahead into 2026: what will the big stories be in the coming year? Here are their predictions:It’s a year of change for the UK record industry, and where the UK stands in terms of influence in a global context – including acts like Sleep Token who have broken through in the USA.And there’s been a lot of layoffs at UK major labels – why might that be good for indie artists? (BTW - get a free trial of our extra content, The Lock In, right here! ⁠https://www.patreon.com/12218634/join⁠)AI inevitably will be playing a major role (again) – but what are the potentially erosive impacts now that it’s an established technology, what difficult decisions might the streaming platforms need to make, and how might it be used by indie music-makers?Live music will reach a pivotal point this year: the mega stadium shows will continue – but will people keep paying mega ticket prices? And what about the smaller venues who are under more pressure than ever?And will Oasis play Knebworth in 2026 – or 2027? The rumour mill is aggregated by Steve.Those reunion tours will keep coming – but can the bands keep doing it; and what happens when they find they can’t sell any more tickets?And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠Patreon Superfans⁠, Steve and Stu prop themselves at the bar to chat about:Are bigger gigs becoming like Premier League Football - where tickets (and everything else at the show) are expensive, gigs are once-yearly events, and people with less cash are being priced out?And what do people want from smaller, cheaper gigs these days anyway? Steve has been jostling shoulders with The Kids to find out.In TPOM fandom news: Steve has already seen Little Grandad in 2026! Stu squeezes in the first Black Crowes mention of the year!Stu tries to create an AI version of a Dry Cleaning song – how did he do it and what did it sound like? And what if a human band took his song, developed it, and performed it live?As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠See you next week!Steve and Stuart======Support The Price of Music on Patreon:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ThePriceofMusic⁠⁠⁠Follow Steve on X - @steve_lamacqFollow Stuart on X - @stuartdredgeFollow The Price of Music on X - @PriceofMusicpodFor sponsorship opportunities, please email - ⁠⁠⁠joe@musically.com