Boards of Canada beef with, erm, The White House; Turning text message drama into songs; Universal says "no" to $55bn; Stream League lets you play Fantasy A&R; Last•fm goes indie; and more!

Boards of Canada beef with, erm, The White House; Turning text message drama into songs; Universal says "no" to $55bn; Stream League lets you play Fantasy A&R; Last•fm goes indie; and more!

From The Price of Music by Music Ally

June 3, 2026 · 34 min

About this episode

This episode covers various topics in the music industry, including Boards of Canada's conflict with the White House and Universal Music Group's rejected acquisition offer.

Your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section! ⁠ This week: → Enigmatic duo Boards of Canada have beef with the White House . What on earth is going on? → €55bn: the amount that hedge fund Pershing Square WON’T be paying to buy Universal Music Group, because it has rejected the offer . → Last·fm was once so buzzy, a big US media corporation bought it for $280m. 19 years after that acquisition, it’s going independent again . → Warner Music Group is on the verge of settling its lawsuit with US cookies chain Crumbl . But why are so many brands and retailers getting sued by major labels for their social posts? → Another day, another 17 baffling trends on TikTok made up by young people to confuse older people. But the ‘text to song’ trend IS both amusing and interesting … → Talking of charts and rankings, a new site called Stream League wants to turn music releases into a fantasy-sports-style game … → Do you use Google’s Waze navigation app when driving? Have you always wished that its voice could be a bit more, well, a bit more Jamaican-music-royalty…

People in this episode

Hosts: Stu, Joe

Topics covered

  • music industry news
  • trends in music
  • music technology
  • music and culture
  • legal issues in music

Keywords

  • Boards of Canada
  • Universal Music Group
  • Last·fm
  • Stream League
  • music trends
  • Waze
  • Crumbl lawsuit

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Boards of Canada, The White House, Universal Music Group, Last·fm, Warner Music Group, Crumbl, Stream League, Google

Products: Waze

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