Music Ally Focus

Here's a taste of our other podcast, The Price Of Music, presented by Steve Lamacq and Stuart Dredge – it's your easy weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works,
Like what you hear? Subscribe to TPOM now! https://MusicAlly.lnk.to/TPOM
This week, there's a change to our normal schedule – with a whistlestop tour around the news and then a very special interview with Ashli Todd, owner of the legendary ⁠Spillers Records⁠, the world's oldest record shop (founded in 1894, fact fans!)
Ashli takes time out from filing vinyl to chat to us about ⁠Record Store Day 2026⁠, which is taking place on Saturday 18th April. She also talks about the logistical hurdles of running a record store today. She also gives an authoritative answer on whether PJ Harvey should be filed under 'P' or 'H'!
Become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Superfan of the podcast for free – and enjoy the exclusive weekly Lock-in bonus section!⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠
In this episode...
The Ye/Wireless fallout: what are the financial and contractual "cleaning up exercises" facing Festival Republic after headliner Ye (AKA Kanye West) was denied UK entry – resulting in the entire festival's cancellation?

Radiohead’s Coachella Bunker: the band's new "audiovisual installation" is located in a literal bunker beneath the Coachella festival (and if you visit, they put stickers over your phone cameras)

A billion-dollar milestone: Latin American music has topped $1 billion in US label revenue for the first time - but which artists have driven this?

Then, Ashli Todd, owner of Spillers Records, joins the show to chat about Record Store Day! (Our extra-special ⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠⁠⁠ get the full, unedited interview... including some hearty debate about Simply Red!)
RSD reality check: Ashli reveal what it's like to run a record shop during Record Store Day – including the high-stakes gamble of ordering for the big day.

Ashli explains how shops cannot return any unsold Record Store Day stock: so if a shop is left with too many unsold titles, it can negate the entire profit margin for the event.

CDs are... back: Ashli sees teenagers gravitating toward them as a "retro" and affordable alternative to increasingly expensive vinyl.

How sales of popular albums can "fall off a cliff" simply because it’s impossible to reorder from the warehouse, due to labels' unwillingness to sit on large quantities of stock.

The Jools Holland Effect vs. the TikTok Effect: While the Jools Holland effect on sales has waned, TikTok now has a tangible impact on what (especially younger) customers ask for.

We finally settle the argument: does PJ Harvey belong under 'P' or 'H'?

A bonus filing complication: Record Store Day filing rules follow the official list order, which is alphabetical by first name. (We're still not 100% clear how this effects PJ Harvey, though.)

(If you'd like to know more about the history of Spillers, this interview with Ashli is well worth a read: ⁠https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/story-uks-oldest-record-shop-15805068)⁠

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As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
See you next week!
Steve and Stuart
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Ep. 180: Music consumption today is borderless, but the systems that manage it have historically been national. Now, collective management organisations are undergoing their most significant transformation in decades.
On one hand, they are becoming global infrastructure players, scaling systems, data and partnerships to match worldwide music consumption. On the other, they are redefining their relationship with creators whose ways of making, monetising and collaborating are changing just as rapidly.
We're joined by Caroline Champarnaud, Sacem's Director of International, and Julien Dumon, Director of Digital. They talk about how CMOs are evolving into interconnected, global infrastructure players. We explore the challenges of global metadata, why international partnerships with organisations like ASCAP and GEMA are more vital than ever, and how Sacem is scaling its systems to match the explosive growth of music streaming in emerging markets.
SACEM: Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music
This is the third in a special series of Music Ally Focus made in collaboration with Sacem, exploring the evolution of collective management in the modern music industry – looking at technology, policy, copyright and more.
In the next episode, we’ll discuss the evolution of CMOs further, and how the global infrastructure only works if it ultimately serves creators, whose needs are evolving just as fast as the systems built to support them.
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In the first episode in the series, ⁠David El Sayegh, Deputy CEO of Sacem⁠, discussed how the organisation is defining the future of copyright.
In the second episode, we were joined by Julien Lefebvre, the Head of Innovation and Sacem Lab, to talk about its startup partnerships, and the strategic decision to open up certain proprietary technologies to all creators.
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This is a Music Ally Co-Labs podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠musically.com/music-ally-co-labs⁠⁠⁠.
Co-Labs content is created by publishing partners in liaison with the Music Ally Editorial Team. We work closely with partners to ensure that it adheres to Music Ally's high expectations of quality, thoughtfulness, and usefulness.

Ep. 179: It's a Very Special Episode of Music Ally’s Focus podcast in which Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow can roll up their sleeves and look at the impact that AI is having on streaming in 2026 – and there’s a whole lot of nuance, what-if’s, and context to rummage around in.
It's all connected to Music Ally's latest Insight Report (available to Music Ally Subscribers here: https://musically.com/category/reports) – and that report focuses on 5 “C”’s of AI and streaming. Stu and Joe picked two of the biggest: Crunch Time, and Creativity:
Crunch Time: AI and the music industry are finally at a true inflection point where decisions need to be made and lines need to be drawn. So where’s that line: how much of a song can be AI-generated before it’s classed as “AI music” – or is there a dawning reality that this is not even a distinction that can be made any more?

Creativity: If it’s not realistic to divide songs into “AI” and “not AI” piles, should we instead not be asking “is AI truly creative?”, but “how will people be truly creative when using AI?” And is the pie being grown when a poet adds their words to an AI-generated song, or a teenage producer samples AI-music they generate?

It’s a spirited, feisty and opinionated conversation (i.e. Stu and Joe agreeably disagreed a little bit) – and it’ll help you to get up to speed with two of the key issues that we’ll all deal with in some way or another this year.

Ep. 178: Collective management is no longer just about collecting royalties; it's about innovating infrastructure and offering direct services. So we're joined by Julien Lefebvre, the Head of Innovation and Sacem Lab, to talk about the Lab project, its startup partnerships, and the strategic decision to open up certain proprietary technologies (including blockchain applications) to all creators, redefining the role of a CMO as a global tech enabler.
He discusses: balancing Sacem's priorities with the current volatile music ecosystem; the Musicstart service, where anyone –Sacem members or not – can use their tool to secure permanent "proof of creation" of their music; how the organisation is collaborating with fellow CMOs like GEMA and ASCAP; and how the music-tech startup landscape is moving away from "hype" tech.
Read more here:  SACEM, Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (https://presse.sacem.fr/?lang=en)
This is the second in a special series of Music Ally Focus made in collaboration with Sacem, exploring the evolution of collective management in the modern music industry – looking at technology, policy, copyright and more.

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In the first episode in the series, David El Sayegh, Deputy CEO of Sacem, discussed how the organisation is defining the future of copyright.
Over the next two episodes, we will continue to dive into how collective management is having to move with the times: exploring how one of the world’s leading CMOs is navigating a landscape redefined by artificial intelligence, global scaling, and the changing needs of modern creators.
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This is a Music Ally Co-Labs podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠musically.com/music-ally-co-labs⁠⁠.
Co-Labs content is created by publishing partners in liaison with the Music Ally Editorial Team. We work closely with partners to ensure that it adheres to Music Ally's high expectations of quality, thoughtfulness, and usefulness.

Ep. 177: Generative AI, copyright, and collection. Welcome to a special Music Ally Focus podcast series made in collaboration with Sacem, exploring the evolution of collective management in the modern music industry – looking at technology, policy, copyright and more.
In the first episode: Generative AI is no longer a future concept – it is a fundamental tool in today's creative process. But as the amount of AI-generated content increases, so do the complexities of music rights – and the number of questions that songwriters, artists and rightsholders have.
So we spoke to David El Sayegh, Deputy CEO of collecting society Sacem, to discuss how the organisation is defining the future of copyright. We explored Sacem’s strategic approach to the AI revolution, from building a shared understanding of policy to the practical technologies being tested in the Sacem Lab, to protect human creativity and ensure fair revenue exists in this new landscape.
And, we ask El Sayegh: if we are in the middle of a huge shift in AI-driven music creation and consumption, what are the revenue opportunities – and financial risks – for creators and CMOs stemming from this?
It's a broad and deep discussion from the top: he also discussed Sacem's official stance on AI training models, how they are protecting the notion of human creativity – and the new technologies being developed to ensure creators are fairly compensated in an AI-driven world. 
Explore more: https://flyer.sacemenligne.fr/IA/EN/index.html
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Over the next three episodes, we continue to dive into how collective management is having to move with the times: exploring how one of the world’s leading CMOs is navigating a landscape redefined by artificial intelligence, global scaling, and the changing needs of modern creators.
=======
This is a Music Ally Co-Labs podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠musically.com/music-ally-co-labs⁠.
Co-Labs content is created by publishing partners in liaison with the Music Ally Editorial Team. We work closely with partners to ensure that it adheres to Music Ally's high expectations of quality, thoughtfulness, and usefulness.