William Shatner's metal album; The Jimi Hendrix High Court Experience; Recycled vinyl; The UK's ban on touting/scalping is on pause; Big Spotify numbers; and more...

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... Steve and Producer Joe grapple with some big numbers, mergers, and warnings about signing your rights away:

• The UK government promised to ban ticket touting (scalping). But now the ban may be delayed for a year or so: and the industry (and Steve) is not happy....

• The estates of Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix's Experience bandmates, have lost a court case in which they were seeking more money from the band's albums – but why did they lose?

• The resurgence of vinyl isn’t all good: LPs aren’t the most climate-friendly product. But that could be changing, and a group of independent labels wants to show how…

• 761 million people are now using Spotify every month, according to its latest financial results.

• Talking of Spotify, you may have seen a new ‘green tick’ badge on artist profiles to verify that they are human. What’s that all about?

• The music industry’s latest mega-merger will see BMG and Concord coming together - but who are these two businesses and why is this one so big - and meaningful for indie artists?

• Have Taylor Swift or Rihanna tried to get you to sign up to an online service you’ve never heard of on TikTok? Here's why...

• William Shatner has a full-length heavy metal album featuring 35 hand-picked collaborators from across the genre, including Dave Lombardo of Slayer, and Rob Halford of Judas Priest(!)

And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Steve and Stu prop themselves at the bar – and Steve's getting the first round in – as they discuss this week's bonus material:

• More thoughts from Steve on the UK government's pause on the touting ban

• Apparently Angine de Poitrine are ‘2026’s first breakout band’ according to the streaming stats. But what does Steve think about them? And what does Steve think of Dadaist Math Rock, anyway?

• Plus: Grebo! Fraggle! Baggy! Which genre deserves (perhaps) a revival?

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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!

Steve and Stuart

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