Stuart is back, back, BACK, baby, and he returns with some giant numbers, a lot of slop, and hypothetically granny-murdering AI chatbots. In this week's episode....
→ How many millions of ‘slop and spam tracks’ Spotify has kicked out of its recommendations in 2026 alone? And what is it anyway?
→ A new campaign in the US wants venues to treat artists more fairly. But what does that mean?
→ Joe was in Manchester in the last week, chatting to the great and good of the British music industry about new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. What do they think of him?
→ Spotify also had its financial results last week, and its bosses were really keen to talk about "AI agents". So what do AI agents have to do with music?
→ Do you like Daft Punk? Do you like Lego? Well, we have some exciting news for you…
→ Liverpool attraction ‘The Beatles Story’ is getting a huge revamp for 2028, but it’s part of a bigger strategy to keep the Fab Four’s reputation high for future generations…
→ Grannies are being tied to train tracks and left to die… all because of some Justin Bieber lyrics. But don’t worry, the grannies are entirely digital…
→ Apple has bought an AI-music startup. But don’t worry, it’s not about to start kicking human artists off Apple Music in favour of AI slop…
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:
Raye won the UK's Mercury Prize and it's chance for the now-annual discussion to take place: was this the worthy winner, and what sort of artist 'should' win the Mercury Prize anyway?
Joe is still walking with an exaggerated swagger whilst wearing a bucket hat – what other interesting stuff happened in Manchester?
If we had our own personal AI agents, what would we want them to do for us in a musical sense?
Sam Fender VS Michael Bublé!
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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: thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com
See you next week!
Stuart and Joe
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