WEBVTT - Rob Stringer: The Sony Music Group Chairman Talks Grammys, Industry Challenges and Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:11.959 M M yeah. Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties weekly podcast 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.800 featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.799 and entertainment. This is Shirley Halpern, executive editor of Music 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.800 for Variety, with a special episode that we're calling strictly 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.040 Music Business with Me Today. Is the chairman of Sony 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.640 Music Group, Rob Stringer, whoever sees the record labels Columbia, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.879 r c A, Epic and Arista Records, as well as 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.200 Sony Music Publishing and The Orchard, and leads a staff 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.440 of more than five thousand employees around the world. A 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.680 music business life for if ever there was one, Rob 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.519 has spent his entire professional career working his way up 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.479 the ranks of the Sony system, seeing the industry evolved 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.279 through physical products, to downloads, to streams and whatever may 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.720 lay ahead. A native of the UK, Stringer moved to 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:57.840 New York in two thousand and six and has spent 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.360 the last fifteen years shaping Sony's recorded music business in 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.120 the US. As Chief executive of Sony Music Label Group 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.040 and later Columbia, he helped bring to the world a 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.880 slew of successful new artists, including Adele, Calvin Harris, Harry 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.600 Styles Him, J Cole, The Chain Smokers, and Tyler The Creator, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.360 and he's also looked after such iconic acts as Beyonce, 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.960 Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisan, A C. D. C. Selene, Dion, Daft, Punk, 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.920 Shaw Day, and David Bowie, whose final album Black Star Columbia, 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:36.800 released in In his current role of Sony Music Group Chairman, 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.319 which he assumed in ten after three years as CEO 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.399 of Sony Music, Rob Stringer has met more than his 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.400 share of challenges, from making the right hires to see 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.680 the company's vision through to banking on talent and not 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.840 just hits, to segue into a subscription driven business, to 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.080 getting through a global pandemic and responding to the call 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.560 for social justice. We talked about these subjects and much more, 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.320 while also getting a sense of Rob's refreshingly British outlook 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:09.000 on things that are uniquely American, all this as borders 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.440 ceased to exist in this new global music economy. Afterwards, 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.480 stick around for a coda to this episode, a talk 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.400 with Grammy nominated mastering engineer Emily Lazar, who has worked 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.120 on four thousand albums since she started her career in 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.400 Emily has no fewer than ten projects and contention for 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.720 Grammy Awards, including three in the Album of the Year 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:48.359 category time Coldplay and Jacob Collier. Welcome back to Strictly Business. 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.720 I'm joined by Rob Stringer, chairman of Sony Music Group, 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:58.040 for the first ever addition of Strictly Music Business. Rob, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.280 thanks so much for being here, So so nice to 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:06.359 be on the first ever Strictly Music Business podcast. So 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.080 I wanted to talk a little bit about your background 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.200 because you started out as a CPS records trainee and 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.120 then you got to feel your way around the different 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.760 departments and find the lane that best suited your skill set. 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.359 Can you tell me about that? Well, yeah, I can 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.919 tell you about that actually in context of we've actually 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.920 talked a lot about how that would work in the 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.480 new company, and that we need to make sure that 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:36.120 our employees move around the company more dramatically so they 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.560 get more experience of the bigger picture. And actually, I 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.160 think what mine was big picture by default. Really, I 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:49.040 started as a marketing graduate trainee, and you're talking about 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.520 this is the mid eighties when human resources was called personnel, 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.200 so it was like it's a different era and I 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.840 come off being a university social sectory University of London, 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.960 which was a very obvious way of going into the 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.440 music business in that era, and they mapped out this 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.840 journey for me for three weeks and then they just said, actually, 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.040 there you go. There's a three week training. Now, don't 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.360 set at someone's desk and try and be useful. And 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.560 I tried to be useful and tried not to be 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.479 like a sort of student brat. But the fact is 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:23.159 that I did go to like probably eight departments in 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.920 in that first month, which certainly told me as much 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.040 as what I didn't want to do as much as 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.159 what I did want to do and what I might 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.120 be suited to and what I didn't And the conclusion was, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.240 which eventually came to pass, was that I would be 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.240 in marketing. But I knew straightaway I really want to 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.960 do A and R. So it took me about four years. 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.200 Once I had a good experience in marketing, I moved 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.200 into A and R because I knew that I needed 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:54.000 that training to do a different type of journey in 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.880 the music business. So the creative was calling you, Yeah, 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.880 I mean, marketing is obviously creative too, but I knew 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:05.920 that I had to dive into a more schizophrenic sort 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:11.600 of artistic pool to really be able to understand the 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.760 psyche of what the art form is we're dealing with. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.679 You know, that job, it's quite lonely and odd because 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.839 it's quite subjective. And it may not be subjective now 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:23.920 with research and stats, which I'm sure you will talk 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.599 to me about, but the fact is then it wasn't that, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.760 and it was gut reaction and you know, some information 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:31.400 like you would stand at the back of a club 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.159 and there would be a lot of people there and 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.400 you go, well, this must mean something. But it was 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.239 subjective in many ways. And and actually you are either 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.240 sort of the hero or the class clown, you know, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.720 not that much in the middle. So that's the difficult 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.640 thing to deal with because your metrics success a blatantly obvious. 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:51.720 You know, it's like diving at the deep end. And 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.200 I don't think maybe I would have had the same 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.719 pathway if I hadn't made that switch. I mean, it seems, 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:03.480 you know, now that we've had sixty years of major 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.479 labels being in existence, it seems that one thing is 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.479 abundantly clear, and that is that the leadership has to 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:15.440 have very strong in our chops is this as important 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.520 today as it was in the pre Internet era, because 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.800 you do have a mountain of data available to you 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.080 at any given moment. How do you sort of balance 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:31.080 guts and data Today? Obviously we dig deeper and deeper 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.599 the data. That process is now anything to get an edge, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.279 anything to get a little bit more information, to to 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:42.279 look at something in a slightly more complex, unusual way, 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.800 to find something that meant something. That's all good, but 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.040 I'm as interested in once you get the artists or 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.880 the set of songs in the building, then you better 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:53.680 make sure you know what to do with it. There's 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:55.760 always been hits. There's always been one off its. There's 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.480 always been novelty hits. There's always been uh, there's always 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.720 been record sort of started somewhere. You've seen explosion. I mean, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.920 in the centies and eighties in America, it would have 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.240 been a small radio station in Kansas playing something. They 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.560 played the record once and they got phones. This is 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.760 an incredibly sophisticated version of that. Really, we have to 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.560 maintain a balance between the data and the realities of 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:25.040 artistic development. As yet, some social media platforms have not 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:29.000 broken two records by an artist, for example, So therefore, okay, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:30.640 so you've got to make you've got a platform, it 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.320 breaks the record when you go back to that platform. 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.760 Is the structural capability there to break the second song? 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:42.520 Not necessarily. We have young graduates and young people coming 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:47.320 into the business who have got great statistical capabilities, are 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.000 also a massive music fans, and if the balance is 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:52.880 on the tech, you want to get them to understand 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:54.680 the music as well. It's got to be a balance 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.840 from well, I think another thing that plays to your 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.840 advantage in place to my advantage as well, is being 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.560 just being of a certain age. Is that we do 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:10.680 straddle the pre internet world. We remember LPs. You have 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.440 actually not only lived through every format you know, physical format, 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.560 but you've worked every physical format, which I just think 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.520 you know is a huge advantage to being able to 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.280 run a global music company. You've seen it all, you 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.200 know the scenarios, what works, what doesn't, and you can 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.440 apply those things. I'm wondering, is there a through line 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:38.840 that applies to every evolution of physical media for music? 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.959 Is there something that has stayed the same from the 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.400 LP days of your youth in the seventies to today 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.480 with streaming and the world of music at your fingertips. Wow, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.680 that's a fifty year question. I think talent remains the same. 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.920 I'm running constantly to keep up with the changes. And 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.160 like you said, I think there's a certain period of 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.959 time where my upbringing in the business wasn't like a 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.760 pioneer in the fifties and sixties, but I had an 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.520 intimate knowledge of that era of music because I grew 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.000 up starting in the seventies. You know, I wasn't a 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.440 pioneer because there was people that boldly went where no 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.320 one else had gone before, whether it was on the 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.760 back of Elvis Presley or the Blues or the Beatles 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.400 or whatever it may be. That I didn't have that, 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.880 but I had enough to look back twenty thirty years 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.800 instead now looking back seventy years to get that compendium 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.400 of knowledge. So I think that it's a bit of 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.760 a cliche. But what goes around comes around is still 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.840 the case. There's still certainly lineage of ideas and talent. 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:45.000 The way that talent and way that artistry interprets those 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.960 ideas that is prevalent across decades and decades, and I 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.400 see similarities every day with things. And sometimes I will 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.319 say to an artist, this is like this. I mean, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.320 you wouldn't have heard of that, and you know, quite frankly, 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.319 the internet sometimes they go, sure, we know that, and 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.560 and we know that artists because Spotify and Apple and 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.200 Amazon and all you can eat buffets of all the 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.559 music for multi generations. But there is a lineage there. 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:14.600 I mean, certainly talent, as I said, as a lineage. 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.160 You know, someone being artistically gifted is a lineage someone 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.040 being an amazing songwriter. There's a lineage there, and it 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.760 cuts through generations. And you're right. I feel like I 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.440 started to take on board and resorb that knowledge at 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.040 a crossroads where I could look back, but also I 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.160 could look forward to. And you know, so far I'm 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.200 keeping pace with looking forward, you know, I mean, the 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.839 streaming model is here, and I don't know what next 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.600 model is. I've seen plenty of models, and hopefully I 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:48.800 can navigate those chapters with an understanding of what the 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.880 musical art for me is and will need to balance 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:53.959 out the tech because of course, at the moment, this 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.600 is quite a dramatic chapter of art and tech. And 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.240 there have been chapters of the recorded music business which 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.960 have just been about the music, where companies like mine 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:04.920 would be okay if you had hits, you know, And 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.320 it's not that simple now because it's moving so fast, 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.280 and there would be a debate as whether tech drives 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.480 are or art drives tech. It would be a debate, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:16.920 and that's a complex debate in the current chapter of 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.040 the music business. Absolutely, And I see what you're saying 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.079 about what goes around comes around again, because even when 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:28.360 I think about podcasts and how popular scripted audio is 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.600 at the time, I mean, Sony has made an investment 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:35.280 into podcasts as well. It's like the old radio teleplays. 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.920 What's the difference. Yeah, I mean everything's blended. I mean, 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.040 even in technology, people are taking you know, there may 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.560 be five components of an idea from a previous technological platform, 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.440 and someone takes one and expands that idea and ships 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.920 the emphasis slightly. And that's the case of music too. 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.720 There's a debate constantly, debate, particularly in America about rock 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.400 music and is rock music dead? And where the next 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.400 rock band and all that kind of stuff. But and 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.240 I don't look at it like that because I look 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.400 at it and go, okay, well, actually, in a strand 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.280 of emo hip hop, there is a blend of rock 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.200 music and now, and there is a huge component of 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.800 that music that is that is the angst and reflectiveness 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.040 of rock music. But it's a blend, and it's a fusion, 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.240 and it's new because it's a fusion, you know, and 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.880 I don't get nostalgic. Was saying, well, the way it 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.600 should be is that I need to go and stand 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:33.199 in a club and see a bass singer, drummer and guitarists, 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.480 and that's how it is. Because that isn't going to 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.880 be how it is. It's going to be a component, sure, 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.720 but it's not going to be the central because things 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.920 move on. You know. When I was a kid growing up, 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.120 I knew a lot about music being in the past 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.240 because you had a radio in your front room and 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.640 your parents taught to you about it. But the fact is, 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.600 when I liked the Talking Heads in nine and seventy seven, 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.640 I didn't want to listen to Glenn Miller from I 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.880 knew a Glenmer was, but on listen to that music. 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.320 And I think people can't understand how that this is 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.360 a very mature art form music. And so therefore people 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.120 in two thousand and twenty don't automatically know a rock 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.240 band from it doesn't work. It's forty years. If you 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.640 think about forty years and the medium of film or 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.319 in the medium of television or other art forms, it's 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.400 light years difference. And the fact is wise music not 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.720 thought of as being different to that. These gaps are 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.040 big and people have got to get used to to 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.240 understanding that. You know, you didn't like the music from 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.199 thirty years ago, so don't expect your kids to like 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.240 music from forty fifty years ago. But there will always 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.960 be a component and a trace of other forms of 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.360 music in that blend, because, as I said, this is 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.560 a mature art form now, and I see it all 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.440 the time. I mean, you know, it's like we have 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:53.760 young eighteen year old rappers whose musical influences are crazy 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.520 and they go back seven or eight decades, but the 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.040 fact is they've turned it into something new. I find 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.480 that incredible, exciting and I and honestly it sounds, you know, 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.480 without trying to sound like pizza pan. I don't look 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:12.200 back that often and be over nostalgic about what was, 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.600 because I'm fortunate enough to see what is and what 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:22.280 will be with that blend. We need to take a 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.400 quick break, but we'll be back with more from Rob Stringer, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.600 And we're back with Rob Stringer, So robbed this might 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.520 not be the most popular opinion, but I'm doing some 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.960 of the math in my head. And the streaming services 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.960 which are currently driving record revenues ten point one billion 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.920 dollars in the US and alone, you know, many of 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.640 them benefited from an early investment by the major labels. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.800 Do you feel that record companies maybe haven't gotten enough 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:00.320 credit for helping seed those emerging technologies. Yeah, but I 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.080 also would say that I'm not sure that I'm ever 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.480 going to come for a place publicly, surely or an 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.920 interview saying that we deserve to take credit. You know, 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.840 it's probably justifiably in many ways, we take a lot 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.760 of grief and stick for the way we behaved in 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.120 previous chapters, and I'm sure some of that is accurate. 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.400 But I think it would be safe to say that 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.760 we're certainly not tech phobic, and that we are willing 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.120 to be braver and we're willing to be smarter about 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.960 how open minded we are. And I understand where because 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.400 as we just talked about, things didn't change for a 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.080 long time. Hits for the definition, and you know, and 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.800 that caused all sorts of idiosyncrasies in our business. And 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.640 the fact is that people only have to think about 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.720 the hits. And we've made plastic and factories and the 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.200 plastic was viral or the plastic was a CD, and 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:52.800 then all of a sudden, tech changed the landscape and 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.800 we got caught behind. I think we've earned a lot 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.480 since then. I'm used to people saying we're clueless. That's okay. 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.400 I mean we were clueless when downloads came along. But 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.040 what we did do as a business is we constituted ourselves. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.720 We changed the head count, we ditch manufacturing, ditch distribution 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.720 that way, and we pushed towards a more creative, innovative, 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.360 entrepreneurial style. And I think we're much better place to 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.040 day than we would have been twenty years of it. 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.920 You know, is it perfect? No, it's not perfect. We're 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.040 not a brand new company. We're not We're not a 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.960 two year old startup. We've been at this company in 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:34.440 some derivation has been around a thirty years. But I 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.560 think we're much more open minded about how to change 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.160 and how to be flexible now, much more. And my 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.960 challenges every day are based on that as well. As 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:48.280 just finding hits. I've heard you say before that you 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.960 had a headcount of about fifteen thousand at the turn 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.360 of the millennium and you got it down to five thousand, 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:59.480 And I wonder does that make major labels more nimble today? 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:04.880 Are you able to respond faster than in the past. Yeah, 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.600 And I think it's also about the training of those people. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.000 Whether you've got five thousand or fifteen thousand's what people 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.480 are doing. And by the way, this wasn't a choice. 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.520 I think we at the era probably did it kicking 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.280 and screaming. We gave up manufacturing, we gave up distribution. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.200 It wasn't like we want to give up manufacturing distribution. 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:23.480 It was taken away from us. But the fact is 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.600 now we're able to gear people much more to what 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.359 we need to do. We have way more creative people 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:34.080 and way more entrepreneurial people in our company than we 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.040 did a year ago, never mind five years ago or 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.760 ten years ago. So there's definitely been a deliberate emphasis 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.960 on that basis. And as I said, of that fifteen thousand, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.239 many of those jobs are just redundant now and they 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.040 wouldn't be applicable. And no disrespect to any of those 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.240 people who were did their jobs probably very well. They're 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.160 not needed. So we've had to change. And I think 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.239 that we were able to make that adaptation when we 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.760 were written off and I was okay because bear in 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:04.040 are we misread the turn and millennium and you know, 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.640 we were going to be non existent and by ten 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.240 years time and we went below ground and we built 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.560 systems back up more sensibly. We bought companies, and we 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:22.160 bought stakes and companies. We bought Burttle Spend in two 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.360 thousand nine for what looks like an incredible bargain now 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:30.040 because it's probably the value is fifteen twenty times that amount, 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.159 and Universal bought E M. I and we bought in 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.200 My Music publishing. And so maybe we wouldn't have done 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:41.480 that in the boom of CDs, but we had to 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.800 because we had to go back to the drawing board. 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.520 And that period between probably two thousand and three four 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.240 and then the early two thousand and tens, the general 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.159 perception was we were left behind. So we had to 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.600 go and get ourselves to be a bit more smart 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:00.560 about the way we did things. And I do think 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.800 we did that. I think that chapter of the Live 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.400 Business taking over and other areas of the business being 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:11.400 more prominent gave us the chance to re evaluate ourselves 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.080 and reconsider what on earth we were doing to be relevant. 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:17.040 You know, I came here during that chapter. I came 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.200 here and came to American two thousand and six, which 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:22.520 was in the middle of that time period, you know, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.320 and it was a bit like starting again, suremy, to 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:30.719 be honest, but with fortunately amazing catalog. Obviously, the pandemic 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.040 has been incredibly difficult from many businesses, but recorded music 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.720 is actually thriving to the tune of double digit growth. Well, 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.880 I mean, I think, you know, tech takes a lot 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.760 of credit for that, because the tech platforms have put 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.439 music in people's homes and in their cars and in 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.120 their phones so directly that we were able to benefit 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:53.600 from that, and suddenly a lot of people are a 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.800 lot more time to listen to music. After the initial 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.560 shock of COVID for the first couple of months, then 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.760 people settled into a different routine in their lives and 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.640 music became a very important part of that routine. So 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.679 what has been a bit more strategic is understanding the 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.960 share volume of music that would be going into those 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.920 platforms and understanding that we would need a bigger share 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.320 of that that quantity, and so we do have nets 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.879 that trall much wider for music than any point in history. 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.000 We are now looking at constant ways of finding more 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.959 music to put through our system and understand where it sits. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:38.199 And certainly at the beginning of COVID, that timing worked 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.880 very well because we were able to put more music out. 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.119 Despite the fact you naturally think with what COVID happening 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.879 that it would be less music, it actually wasn't. We 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.680 didn't suffer from the fact that everyone stopped. Now I'm 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:53.840 not saying there won't be a value gap, because I 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:58.640 think there will be. There will be creative synergies that 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.840 haven't happened because COVID. There may have been a meeting 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.480 in a studio, or two people might have met in 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.359 a school, or there may have been a show that 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:12.200 changed the parameters of something. Those connections are very important 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.440 to what we do and how we build artists careers, 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:19.520 and I'm pretty sure not as many connections happened on 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:23.400 certain levels. Obviously, people were communicating in a different way, 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.960 and there was positivity of that communication. Even my own company. 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.960 I feel like in the last year I've communicated with 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.280 my staff in some ways in a better way because 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.919 I visibly see them more often than I may have 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.560 done if we just presumed we were going to bump 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.800 into each other three times a year. It's different now. 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.000 And you know, I imagine the Long Tale of COVID 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.480 will probably be playing itself out for a couple of years. 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.320 I mean, live music, even though it's coming back in 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.959 dribs and drabs, it's not going to be what it 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.560 was anytime soon, right, you know, the live chapter is 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:00.680 part of the experience that defines the whole music process, 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.040 and so therefore to have that missing it may not 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.320 make a difference for some genres of music, but for 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.760 some others it's vital. I know from those moments, because 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.400 I've been fortunate enough to be in those moments when 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:17.040 something is transformed, the moment maybe you know, at the 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.919 festival or just the club with seven people in it, 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:22.879 and we haven't had that experience, and I think we 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:25.359 missed that experience, you know, I certainly do you know, 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.359 I mean, I know that again, There's been a lot 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:30.000 of stuff online and artists have done amazing things from 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:34.359 their bedrooms and from and readaptation of certain staging and 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:36.320 all that kind of stuff, But the life thing is 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:39.240 more important than that. What was the last show you 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:46.320 saw before COVID? Oh? God, um, I think it was 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.560 a Tile of the Creator show. My senting year old 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:52.640 daughter badges me to go to as many shows as possible, 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:55.040 and so I think that was the last one. I know. 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.160 It was my wife's birthday. We went to see Harry 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:02.320 Styles play a radio show at the Barry Bare Room, 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.080