Ears To The House

2 Minutes

News

Spotify should raise their prices, says Warner Records boss

Ears To The House Team 18 September 2022

It was Baz Luhrmann on his 1999 song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” who commented that you should “Accept certain inalienable truths; prices will rise, politicians will philander. You too will get old, and...

2 Minutes

News

After FN Meka is dropped, how stupid do Capitol Records look?

Ears To The House Team 24 August 2022

Two weeks ago, Capitol Records made the decision to sign an artist to their label. Label does what label does, you might say. Which is true – but what was unusual in this case...

2 Minutes

News

The majors are worried about their streaming cash cow…

Ears To The House Team 9 June 2022

On this Thursday morning at Ears To The House HQ, we all feel like Dennis Nedry. You might remember him from the 1993 film Jurassic Park. In an exchange with Lewis Dodgson, he says...

News -3 Minutes

So you wonder why I gave up making music? In a climate where 82% of all music streamed in the USA is now old music, new stuff has never found it so tough to break through…

Ears To The House Team 10 January 2022

Last summer, I published an article commenting on the fact 66% of all audio streaming in the USA consisted of so-called catalogue material. And just to be absolutely clear here, catalogue material is anything...

News -3 Minutes

Larry The Loafer is back! BPI put out report saying 2000 artists get over ten MILLION streams per year in Britain – so can boss Geoff Taylor explain some other things?

Ears To The House Team 6 January 2022

It’s something of a mystery to me exactly who the representatives of the record labels, the British Phonographic Industry, actually represent these days. In recent times, their voice has been entirely absent from debates...

News -2 Minutes

Oh to have been a fly on the wall! Sony boss Rob Stringer gets a CBE in the New Year’s Honours – but what DID Universal’s Lucian Grainge (who got one in 2010) make of it?

Ears To The House Team 3 January 2022

Over the weekend, the New Year’s Honours list came out. To those of you from outside the UK, honours are handed out by The Queen twice each year in recognition of various achievements or...

News -3 Minutes

Avicii’s father calls for artists to receive more mental health support – but in an industry where funds are set up to help them pay their winter bills, will the heartless majors take any notice?

Ears To The House Team 27 December 2021

I can still remember the moment back in 2018 when I discovered that Tim Bergling, who produced music under the name Avicii, had died. He rose to fame in the mid-2000s and was mentored...

2 Minutes

News

I wondered what Larry The Loafer was doing these days! BPI boss Geoff Taylor delivers an end of year message – but whose hand was up his back passage as he wrote it?

Ears To The House Team 19 December 2021

Everyone seems to think they’re The Queen these days. Such is this sententious and pompous urge felt by many public figures to give the world some kind of end of year message. And for...

News -2 Minutes

Who seriously cares? My own question for Music Business Worldwide as they ask whether Universal or Spotify will be worth more at 2021’s end…

Ears To The House Team 10 December 2021

Back on Monday, Music Business Worldwide asked what they thought was an important question concerning Universal Music Group and Spotify. “Which of music’s two giants will be worth more at the end of 2021?”,...

News -2 Minutes

Over two MILLION streams and just over £93 in the bank: the truth of what’s behind those glossy Spotify Wrapped graphics as NZCA Lines blows the whole thing open…

Ears To The House Team 8 December 2021 1 Comment

Why would anyone bother making music in this day and age? Whilst I’m not saying that money should be the sole driver for producers, singers and the rest, getting paid for your work is...

News -2 Minutes

PRS for Music launch fund to help musicians pay their winter bills – but in a climate where Universal’s Lucian Grainge gets paid £150million, isn’t this just a sticking plaster for a far bigger problem?

Ears To The House Team 6 December 2021

Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you can’t have possibly failed to notice that your money doesn’t go quite as far as it used to. Food costs are up, fuel costs are...

News -2 Minutes

Want to know why Amateur’s House backs the #BrennanBill? These four men are worth over £3½ BILLION between them, yet they preside over an industry where a third of musicians made nothing this year – things cannot go on like this…

Ears To The House Team 28 November 2021

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll have no doubt seen the above photo a few times. It features Daniel Ek, Rob Stringer, Stephen Cooper and Lucian Grainge. They are the CEOs of Spotify,...

News -2 Minutes

As MPs get ready to vote on Kevin Brennan’s renumerations bill next week, will they listen to the artists who want a fairer share – or major label lobbyists who don’t?

Ears To The House Team 26 November 2021

One story that’s been bubbling away in the background over the past year or so is the #BrokenRecord campaign. The mission behind this crusade sounds like a simple one – streaming doesn’t pay artists...

News -2 Minutes

Do we need yet more reasons not to tune in? The Brit Awards tinker about with gender neutral categories – yet the biggest winners of this plaster sticking exercise will be four white men!

Ears To The House Team 23 November 2021

One of the things that bugs me about the times we live in is an increasing tendency to tinker pointlessly with the edges whilst not addressing the central problem. You see this in politics...

News -1 Minute

They bring it on themselves, don’t they? Now Universal ban artists from re-recording their music for longer – whilst profiting as Taylor Swift does exactly the same thing!

Ears To The House Team 21 November 2021

There are few people more cynical in the world right now than Universal Music Group. This one is a whopper, even by their standards. In 2018, Republic Records – whom they own – signed...

News -2 Minutes

Warner Music Group reached 249 million people last month on their own platforms – Spotify reached 381 million in that time… so is it time for Warner to say adios to Daniel Ek yet?

Ears To The House Team 19 November 2021

For the last few years, I’ve predicted that some kind of seismic shift is due in the music streaming world. The streaming sites don’t make any money, the artists don’t make any money. Only...

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