Speaker 1: M M yeah. Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties weekly podcast
Speaker 1: featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media
Speaker 1: and entertainment. This is Shirley Halpern, executive editor of Music
Speaker 1: for Variety, with a special episode that we're calling strictly
Speaker 1: Music Business with Me Today. Is the chairman of Sony
Speaker 1: Music Group, Rob Stringer, whoever sees the record labels Columbia,
Speaker 1: r c A, Epic and Arista Records, as well as
Speaker 1: Sony Music Publishing and The Orchard, and leads a staff
Speaker 1: of more than five thousand employees around the world. A
Speaker 1: music business life for if ever there was one, Rob
Speaker 1: has spent his entire professional career working his way up
Speaker 1: the ranks of the Sony system, seeing the industry evolved
Speaker 1: through physical products, to downloads, to streams and whatever may
Speaker 1: lay ahead. A native of the UK, Stringer moved to
Speaker 1: New York in two thousand and six and has spent
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years shaping Sony's recorded music business in
Speaker 1: the US. As Chief executive of Sony Music Label Group
Speaker 1: and later Columbia, he helped bring to the world a
Speaker 1: slew of successful new artists, including Adele, Calvin Harris, Harry
Speaker 1: Styles Him, J Cole, The Chain Smokers, and Tyler The Creator,
Speaker 1: and he's also looked after such iconic acts as Beyonce,
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisan, A C. D. C. Selene, Dion, Daft, Punk,
Speaker 1: Shaw Day, and David Bowie, whose final album Black Star Columbia,
Speaker 1: released in In his current role of Sony Music Group Chairman,
Speaker 1: which he assumed in ten after three years as CEO
Speaker 1: of Sony Music, Rob Stringer has met more than his
Speaker 1: share of challenges, from making the right hires to see
Speaker 1: the company's vision through to banking on talent and not
Speaker 1: just hits, to segue into a subscription driven business, to
Speaker 1: getting through a global pandemic and responding to the call
Speaker 1: for social justice. We talked about these subjects and much more,
Speaker 1: while also getting a sense of Rob's refreshingly British outlook
Speaker 1: on things that are uniquely American, all this as borders
Speaker 1: ceased to exist in this new global music economy. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: stick around for a coda to this episode, a talk
Speaker 1: with Grammy nominated mastering engineer Emily Lazar, who has worked
Speaker 1: on four thousand albums since she started her career in
Speaker 1: Emily has no fewer than ten projects and contention for
Speaker 1: Grammy Awards, including three in the Album of the Year
Speaker 1: category time Coldplay and Jacob Collier. Welcome back to Strictly Business.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Rob Stringer, chairman of Sony Music Group,
Speaker 1: for the first ever addition of Strictly Music Business. Rob,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here, So so nice to
Speaker 1: be on the first ever Strictly Music Business podcast. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about your background
Speaker 1: because you started out as a CPS records trainee and
Speaker 1: then you got to feel your way around the different
Speaker 1: departments and find the lane that best suited your skill set.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about that? Well, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: tell you about that actually in context of we've actually
Speaker 1: talked a lot about how that would work in the
Speaker 1: new company, and that we need to make sure that
Speaker 1: our employees move around the company more dramatically so they
Speaker 1: get more experience of the bigger picture. And actually, I
Speaker 1: think what mine was big picture by default. Really, I
Speaker 1: started as a marketing graduate trainee, and you're talking about
Speaker 1: this is the mid eighties when human resources was called personnel,
Speaker 1: so it was like it's a different era and I
Speaker 1: come off being a university social sectory University of London,
Speaker 1: which was a very obvious way of going into the
Speaker 1: music business in that era, and they mapped out this
Speaker 1: journey for me for three weeks and then they just said, actually,
Speaker 1: there you go. There's a three week training. Now, don't
Speaker 1: set at someone's desk and try and be useful. And
Speaker 1: I tried to be useful and tried not to be
Speaker 1: like a sort of student brat. But the fact is
Speaker 1: that I did go to like probably eight departments in
Speaker 1: in that first month, which certainly told me as much
Speaker 1: as what I didn't want to do as much as
Speaker 1: what I did want to do and what I might
Speaker 1: be suited to and what I didn't And the conclusion was,
Speaker 1: which eventually came to pass, was that I would be
Speaker 1: in marketing. But I knew straightaway I really want to
Speaker 1: do A and R. So it took me about four years.
Speaker 1: Once I had a good experience in marketing, I moved
Speaker 1: into A and R because I knew that I needed
Speaker 1: that training to do a different type of journey in
Speaker 1: the music business. So the creative was calling you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, marketing is obviously creative too, but I knew
Speaker 1: that I had to dive into a more schizophrenic sort
Speaker 1: of artistic pool to really be able to understand the
Speaker 1: psyche of what the art form is we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: You know, that job, it's quite lonely and odd because
Speaker 1: it's quite subjective. And it may not be subjective now
Speaker 1: with research and stats, which I'm sure you will talk
Speaker 1: to me about, but the fact is then it wasn't that,
Speaker 1: and it was gut reaction and you know, some information
Speaker 1: like you would stand at the back of a club
Speaker 1: and there would be a lot of people there and
Speaker 1: you go, well, this must mean something. But it was
Speaker 1: subjective in many ways. And and actually you are either
Speaker 1: sort of the hero or the class clown, you know,
Speaker 1: not that much in the middle. So that's the difficult
Speaker 1: thing to deal with because your metrics success a blatantly obvious.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like diving at the deep end. And
Speaker 1: I don't think maybe I would have had the same
Speaker 1: pathway if I hadn't made that switch. I mean, it seems,
Speaker 1: you know, now that we've had sixty years of major
Speaker 1: labels being in existence, it seems that one thing is
Speaker 1: abundantly clear, and that is that the leadership has to
Speaker 1: have very strong in our chops is this as important
Speaker 1: today as it was in the pre Internet era, because
Speaker 1: you do have a mountain of data available to you
Speaker 1: at any given moment. How do you sort of balance
Speaker 1: guts and data Today? Obviously we dig deeper and deeper
Speaker 1: the data. That process is now anything to get an edge,
Speaker 1: anything to get a little bit more information, to to
Speaker 1: look at something in a slightly more complex, unusual way,
Speaker 1: to find something that meant something. That's all good, but
Speaker 1: I'm as interested in once you get the artists or
Speaker 1: the set of songs in the building, then you better
Speaker 1: make sure you know what to do with it. There's
Speaker 1: always been hits. There's always been one off its. There's
Speaker 1: always been novelty hits. There's always been uh, there's always
Speaker 1: been record sort of started somewhere. You've seen explosion. I mean,
Speaker 1: in the centies and eighties in America, it would have
Speaker 1: been a small radio station in Kansas playing something. They
Speaker 1: played the record once and they got phones. This is
Speaker 1: an incredibly sophisticated version of that. Really, we have to
Speaker 1: maintain a balance between the data and the realities of
Speaker 1: artistic development. As yet, some social media platforms have not
Speaker 1: broken two records by an artist, for example, So therefore, okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got to make you've got a platform, it
Speaker 1: breaks the record when you go back to that platform.
Speaker 1: Is the structural capability there to break the second song?
Speaker 1: Not necessarily. We have young graduates and young people coming
Speaker 1: into the business who have got great statistical capabilities, are
Speaker 1: also a massive music fans, and if the balance is
Speaker 1: on the tech, you want to get them to understand
Speaker 1: the music as well. It's got to be a balance
Speaker 1: from well, I think another thing that plays to your
Speaker 1: advantage in place to my advantage as well, is being
Speaker 1: just being of a certain age. Is that we do
Speaker 1: straddle the pre internet world. We remember LPs. You have
Speaker 1: actually not only lived through every format you know, physical format,
Speaker 1: but you've worked every physical format, which I just think
Speaker 1: you know is a huge advantage to being able to
Speaker 1: run a global music company. You've seen it all, you
Speaker 1: know the scenarios, what works, what doesn't, and you can
Speaker 1: apply those things. I'm wondering, is there a through line
Speaker 1: that applies to every evolution of physical media for music?
Speaker 1: Is there something that has stayed the same from the
Speaker 1: LP days of your youth in the seventies to today
Speaker 1: with streaming and the world of music at your fingertips. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a fifty year question. I think talent remains the same.
Speaker 1: I'm running constantly to keep up with the changes. And
Speaker 1: like you said, I think there's a certain period of
Speaker 1: time where my upbringing in the business wasn't like a
Speaker 1: pioneer in the fifties and sixties, but I had an
Speaker 1: intimate knowledge of that era of music because I grew
Speaker 1: up starting in the seventies. You know, I wasn't a
Speaker 1: pioneer because there was people that boldly went where no
Speaker 1: one else had gone before, whether it was on the
Speaker 1: back of Elvis Presley or the Blues or the Beatles
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be. That I didn't have that,
Speaker 1: but I had enough to look back twenty thirty years
Speaker 1: instead now looking back seventy years to get that compendium
Speaker 1: of knowledge. So I think that it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a cliche. But what goes around comes around is still
Speaker 1: the case. There's still certainly lineage of ideas and talent.
Speaker 1: The way that talent and way that artistry interprets those
Speaker 1: ideas that is prevalent across decades and decades, and I
Speaker 1: see similarities every day with things. And sometimes I will
Speaker 1: say to an artist, this is like this. I mean,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have heard of that, and you know, quite frankly,
Speaker 1: the internet sometimes they go, sure, we know that, and
Speaker 1: and we know that artists because Spotify and Apple and
Speaker 1: Amazon and all you can eat buffets of all the
Speaker 1: music for multi generations. But there is a lineage there.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly talent, as I said, as a lineage.
Speaker 1: You know, someone being artistically gifted is a lineage someone
Speaker 1: being an amazing songwriter. There's a lineage there, and it
Speaker 1: cuts through generations. And you're right. I feel like I
Speaker 1: started to take on board and resorb that knowledge at
Speaker 1: a crossroads where I could look back, but also I
Speaker 1: could look forward to. And you know, so far I'm
Speaker 1: keeping pace with looking forward, you know, I mean, the
Speaker 1: streaming model is here, and I don't know what next
Speaker 1: model is. I've seen plenty of models, and hopefully I
Speaker 1: can navigate those chapters with an understanding of what the
Speaker 1: musical art for me is and will need to balance
Speaker 1: out the tech because of course, at the moment, this
Speaker 1: is quite a dramatic chapter of art and tech. And
Speaker 1: there have been chapters of the recorded music business which
Speaker 1: have just been about the music, where companies like mine
Speaker 1: would be okay if you had hits, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's not that simple now because it's moving so fast,
Speaker 1: and there would be a debate as whether tech drives
Speaker 1: are or art drives tech. It would be a debate,
Speaker 1: and that's a complex debate in the current chapter of
Speaker 1: the music business. Absolutely, And I see what you're saying
Speaker 1: about what goes around comes around again, because even when
Speaker 1: I think about podcasts and how popular scripted audio is
Speaker 1: at the time, I mean, Sony has made an investment
Speaker 1: into podcasts as well. It's like the old radio teleplays.
Speaker 1: What's the difference. Yeah, I mean everything's blended. I mean,
Speaker 1: even in technology, people are taking you know, there may
Speaker 1: be five components of an idea from a previous technological platform,
Speaker 1: and someone takes one and expands that idea and ships
Speaker 1: the emphasis slightly. And that's the case of music too.
Speaker 1: There's a debate constantly, debate, particularly in America about rock
Speaker 1: music and is rock music dead? And where the next
Speaker 1: rock band and all that kind of stuff. But and
Speaker 1: I don't look at it like that because I look
Speaker 1: at it and go, okay, well, actually, in a strand
Speaker 1: of emo hip hop, there is a blend of rock
Speaker 1: music and now, and there is a huge component of
Speaker 1: that music that is that is the angst and reflectiveness
Speaker 1: of rock music. But it's a blend, and it's a fusion,
Speaker 1: and it's new because it's a fusion, you know, and
Speaker 1: I don't get nostalgic. Was saying, well, the way it
Speaker 1: should be is that I need to go and stand
Speaker 1: in a club and see a bass singer, drummer and guitarists,
Speaker 1: and that's how it is. Because that isn't going to
Speaker 1: be how it is. It's going to be a component, sure,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be the central because things
Speaker 1: move on. You know. When I was a kid growing up,
Speaker 1: I knew a lot about music being in the past
Speaker 1: because you had a radio in your front room and
Speaker 1: your parents taught to you about it. But the fact is,
Speaker 1: when I liked the Talking Heads in nine and seventy seven,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to listen to Glenn Miller from I
Speaker 1: knew a Glenmer was, but on listen to that music.
Speaker 1: And I think people can't understand how that this is
Speaker 1: a very mature art form music. And so therefore people
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twenty don't automatically know a rock
Speaker 1: band from it doesn't work. It's forty years. If you
Speaker 1: think about forty years and the medium of film or
Speaker 1: in the medium of television or other art forms, it's
Speaker 1: light years difference. And the fact is wise music not
Speaker 1: thought of as being different to that. These gaps are
Speaker 1: big and people have got to get used to to
Speaker 1: understanding that. You know, you didn't like the music from
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, so don't expect your kids to like
Speaker 1: music from forty fifty years ago. But there will always
Speaker 1: be a component and a trace of other forms of
Speaker 1: music in that blend, because, as I said, this is
Speaker 1: a mature art form now, and I see it all
Speaker 1: the time. I mean, you know, it's like we have
Speaker 1: young eighteen year old rappers whose musical influences are crazy
Speaker 1: and they go back seven or eight decades, but the
Speaker 1: fact is they've turned it into something new. I find
Speaker 1: that incredible, exciting and I and honestly it sounds, you know,
Speaker 1: without trying to sound like pizza pan. I don't look
Speaker 1: back that often and be over nostalgic about what was,
Speaker 1: because I'm fortunate enough to see what is and what
Speaker 1: will be with that blend. We need to take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but we'll be back with more from Rob Stringer,
Speaker 1: And we're back with Rob Stringer, So robbed this might
Speaker 1: not be the most popular opinion, but I'm doing some
Speaker 1: of the math in my head. And the streaming services
Speaker 1: which are currently driving record revenues ten point one billion
Speaker 1: dollars in the US and alone, you know, many of
Speaker 1: them benefited from an early investment by the major labels.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that record companies maybe haven't gotten enough
Speaker 1: credit for helping seed those emerging technologies. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: also would say that I'm not sure that I'm ever
Speaker 1: going to come for a place publicly, surely or an
Speaker 1: interview saying that we deserve to take credit. You know,
Speaker 1: it's probably justifiably in many ways, we take a lot
Speaker 1: of grief and stick for the way we behaved in
Speaker 1: previous chapters, and I'm sure some of that is accurate.
Speaker 1: But I think it would be safe to say that
Speaker 1: we're certainly not tech phobic, and that we are willing
Speaker 1: to be braver and we're willing to be smarter about
Speaker 1: how open minded we are. And I understand where because
Speaker 1: as we just talked about, things didn't change for a
Speaker 1: long time. Hits for the definition, and you know, and
Speaker 1: that caused all sorts of idiosyncrasies in our business. And
Speaker 1: the fact is that people only have to think about
Speaker 1: the hits. And we've made plastic and factories and the
Speaker 1: plastic was viral or the plastic was a CD, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, tech changed the landscape and
Speaker 1: we got caught behind. I think we've earned a lot
Speaker 1: since then. I'm used to people saying we're clueless. That's okay.
Speaker 1: I mean we were clueless when downloads came along. But
Speaker 1: what we did do as a business is we constituted ourselves.
Speaker 1: We changed the head count, we ditch manufacturing, ditch distribution
Speaker 1: that way, and we pushed towards a more creative, innovative,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial style. And I think we're much better place to
Speaker 1: day than we would have been twenty years of it.
Speaker 1: You know, is it perfect? No, it's not perfect. We're
Speaker 1: not a brand new company. We're not We're not a
Speaker 1: two year old startup. We've been at this company in
Speaker 1: some derivation has been around a thirty years. But I
Speaker 1: think we're much more open minded about how to change
Speaker 1: and how to be flexible now, much more. And my
Speaker 1: challenges every day are based on that as well. As
Speaker 1: just finding hits. I've heard you say before that you
Speaker 1: had a headcount of about fifteen thousand at the turn
Speaker 1: of the millennium and you got it down to five thousand,
Speaker 1: And I wonder does that make major labels more nimble today?
Speaker 1: Are you able to respond faster than in the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it's also about the training of those people.
Speaker 1: Whether you've got five thousand or fifteen thousand's what people
Speaker 1: are doing. And by the way, this wasn't a choice.
Speaker 1: I think we at the era probably did it kicking
Speaker 1: and screaming. We gave up manufacturing, we gave up distribution.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like we want to give up manufacturing distribution.
Speaker 1: It was taken away from us. But the fact is
Speaker 1: now we're able to gear people much more to what
Speaker 1: we need to do. We have way more creative people
Speaker 1: and way more entrepreneurial people in our company than we
Speaker 1: did a year ago, never mind five years ago or
Speaker 1: ten years ago. So there's definitely been a deliberate emphasis
Speaker 1: on that basis. And as I said, of that fifteen thousand,
Speaker 1: many of those jobs are just redundant now and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be applicable. And no disrespect to any of those
Speaker 1: people who were did their jobs probably very well. They're
Speaker 1: not needed. So we've had to change. And I think
Speaker 1: that we were able to make that adaptation when we
Speaker 1: were written off and I was okay because bear in
Speaker 1: are we misread the turn and millennium and you know,
Speaker 1: we were going to be non existent and by ten
Speaker 1: years time and we went below ground and we built
Speaker 1: systems back up more sensibly. We bought companies, and we
Speaker 1: bought stakes and companies. We bought Burttle Spend in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine for what looks like an incredible bargain now
Speaker 1: because it's probably the value is fifteen twenty times that amount,
Speaker 1: and Universal bought E M. I and we bought in
Speaker 1: My Music publishing. And so maybe we wouldn't have done
Speaker 1: that in the boom of CDs, but we had to
Speaker 1: because we had to go back to the drawing board.
Speaker 1: And that period between probably two thousand and three four
Speaker 1: and then the early two thousand and tens, the general
Speaker 1: perception was we were left behind. So we had to
Speaker 1: go and get ourselves to be a bit more smart
Speaker 1: about the way we did things. And I do think
Speaker 1: we did that. I think that chapter of the Live
Speaker 1: Business taking over and other areas of the business being
Speaker 1: more prominent gave us the chance to re evaluate ourselves
Speaker 1: and reconsider what on earth we were doing to be relevant.
Speaker 1: You know, I came here during that chapter. I came
Speaker 1: here and came to American two thousand and six, which
Speaker 1: was in the middle of that time period, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was a bit like starting again, suremy, to
Speaker 1: be honest, but with fortunately amazing catalog. Obviously, the pandemic
Speaker 1: has been incredibly difficult from many businesses, but recorded music
Speaker 1: is actually thriving to the tune of double digit growth. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, you know, tech takes a lot
Speaker 1: of credit for that, because the tech platforms have put
Speaker 1: music in people's homes and in their cars and in
Speaker 1: their phones so directly that we were able to benefit
Speaker 1: from that, and suddenly a lot of people are a
Speaker 1: lot more time to listen to music. After the initial
Speaker 1: shock of COVID for the first couple of months, then
Speaker 1: people settled into a different routine in their lives and
Speaker 1: music became a very important part of that routine. So
Speaker 1: what has been a bit more strategic is understanding the
Speaker 1: share volume of music that would be going into those
Speaker 1: platforms and understanding that we would need a bigger share
Speaker 1: of that that quantity, and so we do have nets
Speaker 1: that trall much wider for music than any point in history.
Speaker 1: We are now looking at constant ways of finding more
Speaker 1: music to put through our system and understand where it sits.
Speaker 1: And certainly at the beginning of COVID, that timing worked
Speaker 1: very well because we were able to put more music out.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact you naturally think with what COVID happening
Speaker 1: that it would be less music, it actually wasn't. We
Speaker 1: didn't suffer from the fact that everyone stopped. Now I'm
Speaker 1: not saying there won't be a value gap, because I
Speaker 1: think there will be. There will be creative synergies that
Speaker 1: haven't happened because COVID. There may have been a meeting
Speaker 1: in a studio, or two people might have met in
Speaker 1: a school, or there may have been a show that
Speaker 1: changed the parameters of something. Those connections are very important
Speaker 1: to what we do and how we build artists careers,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure not as many connections happened on
Speaker 1: certain levels. Obviously, people were communicating in a different way,
Speaker 1: and there was positivity of that communication. Even my own company.
Speaker 1: I feel like in the last year I've communicated with
Speaker 1: my staff in some ways in a better way because
Speaker 1: I visibly see them more often than I may have
Speaker 1: done if we just presumed we were going to bump
Speaker 1: into each other three times a year. It's different now.
Speaker 1: And you know, I imagine the Long Tale of COVID
Speaker 1: will probably be playing itself out for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I mean, live music, even though it's coming back in
Speaker 1: dribs and drabs, it's not going to be what it
Speaker 1: was anytime soon, right, you know, the live chapter is
Speaker 1: part of the experience that defines the whole music process,
Speaker 1: and so therefore to have that missing it may not
Speaker 1: make a difference for some genres of music, but for
Speaker 1: some others it's vital. I know from those moments, because
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate enough to be in those moments when
Speaker 1: something is transformed, the moment maybe you know, at the
Speaker 1: festival or just the club with seven people in it,
Speaker 1: and we haven't had that experience, and I think we
Speaker 1: missed that experience, you know, I certainly do you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that again, There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff online and artists have done amazing things from
Speaker 1: their bedrooms and from and readaptation of certain staging and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, But the life thing is
Speaker 1: more important than that. What was the last show you
Speaker 1: saw before COVID? Oh? God, um, I think it was
Speaker 1: a Tile of the Creator show. My senting year old
Speaker 1: daughter badges me to go to as many shows as possible,
Speaker 1: and so I think that was the last one. I know.
Speaker 1: It was my wife's birthday. We went to see Harry
Speaker 1: Styles play a radio show at the Barry Bare Room,
Speaker 1: and then we went on to the Brooklyn Center to
Speaker 1: see Celine Dion. How schizophrenic is that? And honestly, that
Speaker 1: isn't just made up for showing. I think that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting you look back at the year and it
Speaker 1: becomes blurred about COVID and then into how we really
Speaker 1: had to up our game on social responsibility. Look, we're
Speaker 1: a genuinely global company. There are a lot of companies
Speaker 1: that are huge corporations that don't have offices in eighty countries.
Speaker 1: We do. So that was very easy to see the
Speaker 1: effects and the different measurements of those effects in the
Speaker 1: communities around the world. And so that was to me
Speaker 1: that was just obvious. You know, the globality of what
Speaker 1: we do was something that we need to act quickly on.
Speaker 1: And I do work for a corporation, and there are
Speaker 1: big brand name corporation, but honestly, in Japan, they are
Speaker 1: very philosophically sound. And so therefore, when we realized we
Speaker 1: needed to do something, it couldn't just be a token gesture,
Speaker 1: and it couldn't just be something that was like we'll
Speaker 1: do a one off donation and hopefully everyone want us
Speaker 1: leave us alone. That that wouldn't work. Because we worked
Speaker 1: with music, which is so living and breathing and so
Speaker 1: violent people's lives, that we decided that we need to
Speaker 1: do something dramatic and it needed to be continuous. And
Speaker 1: then the terrible events of the beginning of June with
Speaker 1: George Floyd, if that wasn't a wake up call to everybody,
Speaker 1: never mind whether it was a music company or a
Speaker 1: corporation or a government or a country, we needed to
Speaker 1: act on that too. Than one of the things we
Speaker 1: talked about when we put together Social Justice Fund, which
Speaker 1: which we went to Tokyo to get approval, was that
Speaker 1: this wasn't a knee jerk reaction and it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that that was going to last a month. And then
Speaker 1: because the issues that we face in the business because
Speaker 1: black music is the heart of what we do as
Speaker 1: a company right now, that those issues not something we
Speaker 1: just turned around and face in a minute and then
Speaker 1: walk away. We have to make it completely part of
Speaker 1: the fabric of the company. So since then, what we've done,
Speaker 1: we've now supported I think over three nine organizations since
Speaker 1: June globally everywhere. Some of them are tiny and some
Speaker 1: of them are very big organizations. And so now part
Speaker 1: of my legacy is to make that part of everything
Speaker 1: we do, and hopefully, quite frankly, it makes us a
Speaker 1: better company and makes us a better destination for art really,
Speaker 1: which is would be great. That was the case. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we talked a little bit about Spotify turning fifteen
Speaker 1: this year, and it was actually Sweden that first return
Speaker 1: to growth after many years of decline, which we had
Speaker 1: talked about at the turn of the century. Is there
Speaker 1: something to be said for looking at a smaller country
Speaker 1: like Sweden or like the UK, where you came up
Speaker 1: as a microcosm of how the music business confunction on
Speaker 1: a global scale. Did you look towards that and model
Speaker 1: that when you came to the US. I think, certainly
Speaker 1: on the art side, yes, because you look at the
Speaker 1: size of the UK and what it's produced artistically, it's
Speaker 1: out of parameters a number of people. Whether that goes
Speaker 1: back to the Beatles or whatever. I credit the BBC,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the time for that, because
Speaker 1: I think the BBC was mandated to play every type
Speaker 1: of art form when all of us were growing up,
Speaker 1: and I think that made pop culture front and center.
Speaker 1: If someone headlines Glusterbury, first of all, they're on the
Speaker 1: front cover of the Times newspaper. I'm not sure there's
Speaker 1: many countries around the world where popular culture would be
Speaker 1: so fun instead of so. What we exported out the
Speaker 1: UK certainly gave me the confidence because I was aware
Speaker 1: that that that we could export something that's art, that's
Speaker 1: not steel or or ball bearings or even tech. That's
Speaker 1: something very dramatic. And I think that what's happened with
Speaker 1: the tech revolution is that it can be anywhere. And
Speaker 1: I think Spotify, and I mean this is the most
Speaker 1: complimentary sense, is uniquely Swedish and if you go to
Speaker 1: their Stockholm office, you understand the roots of that company.
Speaker 1: And maybe it couldn't have been found in anywhere else,
Speaker 1: but you know, TikTok's from China. China is a huge
Speaker 1: country with potentially incredible industrial prowess for the next chapter
Speaker 1: of history, and TikTok is changing the nature of our
Speaker 1: day to day business as well. But I think anywhere
Speaker 1: anything can happen. In anywhere, anything can happen. And I'm
Speaker 1: seeing trends in popular music now globally. I read streaming
Speaker 1: charts from all around the world at least twice a week.
Speaker 1: And we have a young artist in Argentina. I think
Speaker 1: she's going to be fantastic. We're nurturing, we're taking it
Speaker 1: very gently because she's young, but she's pretty special and
Speaker 1: she's in the global charts right now. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that would have happened so dramatically with all the
Speaker 1: passport controls that physical distribution and broadcast isssubution had twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. The truth is that the world has become
Speaker 1: a smaller place. I just saw some statistics a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago for Russia, and that market is booming
Speaker 1: with local language music. And I look at markets where
Speaker 1: we're expanding and where we're building offices. There's a young
Speaker 1: Accle Gideon signed to Epic Records. He is in the
Speaker 1: US streaming charts in the top twenty. But he's also
Speaker 1: number one randomly in Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia right now,
Speaker 1: number one in those two cherrs not boarders. Where it
Speaker 1: went to Europe first the UK and then through passport
Speaker 1: control that didn't pass the boundaries that would have been
Speaker 1: there twenty years ago. It must be so nice to
Speaker 1: not have that immediate barrier of entry. Like you have
Speaker 1: BTS they sing in Korean, you have rosaliea she sings
Speaker 1: in Spanish like the local language thing is no longer
Speaker 1: such an inhibitor of success. That must be so freeing
Speaker 1: as someone who works on music, and that is what
Speaker 1: hopefully keeps me young same excited. I mean, the other
Speaker 1: week we had Rosalier and Bad Bunny on Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 1: and we worked for both artists. And the fact is
Speaker 1: that who would have said that on S and L
Speaker 1: twenty years ago there would be a Latin language song
Speaker 1: times two on that program. It would have been mind boggling,
Speaker 1: But you know what, it worked and it was magical
Speaker 1: and those I believe those two artists are two of
Speaker 1: the best new artists in the world over the last
Speaker 1: few years, and the fact is that people have got
Speaker 1: open ears. I know most of the charts around the world. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure my predecessors had to because there was checkpoints.
Speaker 1: I don't think of UK any more or less important
Speaker 1: than Mexico. Doesn't all have to be in English, no,
Speaker 1: And and by the way, there's some artists that we
Speaker 1: have on our ross st who, despite the fact they
Speaker 1: have had huge English language pop records, when they're singing
Speaker 1: their local language, it's way more transcendental. What moves you,
Speaker 1: what inspires you? How do you find yourself motivated every day?
Speaker 1: So I have to create a lot of change in
Speaker 1: this company, and so my remit is very broad and
Speaker 1: different to running a label as I did for twenty years.
Speaker 1: And so it's more broad based and it's not as
Speaker 1: detailed and maybe on on the individual artists. But the
Speaker 1: thing that still moves me is the purest art form.
Speaker 1: Uh Scissor released the track on Christmas Day, and she
Speaker 1: was quick and her and a company put the record
Speaker 1: out quickly. And I listened to this record, I'm going,
Speaker 1: how does anybody come up with that hybrid and that
Speaker 1: fusion of music, which, by the way, sounded like nobody else,
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that she's had hit records before and
Speaker 1: makes this record that you look at the contributor to
Speaker 1: that piece of music, that it's completely unique, and then
Speaker 1: it come out of nowhere and the audience understand it
Speaker 1: quickly and it became a huge hit very quickly. Not
Speaker 1: because of the measurements of hits, it's because it touched
Speaker 1: people so quickly, that record, and it was out on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day. You know, it wasn't put out with a
Speaker 1: huge campaign, but the music absolutely completely got under everyone's skin.
Speaker 1: Oh man, you're talking about good day spaces that right.
Speaker 1: You can listen to that record four months later and
Speaker 1: it's still magical. So those moments moving and now much
Speaker 1: more kind of things we're talking about. I just want,
Speaker 1: you know, our artists to be happy with what we
Speaker 1: do for them, and I want our staff to be
Speaker 1: happy with what happens in our company. And that's not
Speaker 1: easy either. This is a combustible business and it is
Speaker 1: emotional and it can be dramatic. As I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I do really want to achieve that Before
Speaker 1: I am sit with a and rugs somewhere with a
Speaker 1: flask of soup and listen to music with without some
Speaker 1: of the scale of what I have to do at
Speaker 1: the moment. Looking at the Grammys, talk about a diverse
Speaker 1: portfolio between Beyonce, Harry Styles, Travis Scott, dojaquat Her. You know,
Speaker 1: you've really got it covered. How are you feeling coming
Speaker 1: into the Grammys this year, Well, it's weird. Every year
Speaker 1: when the Grammars comes up, it feels like a lot
Speaker 1: of work and a very busy week. And actually when
Speaker 1: you don't have you got us a will shame the Grammars.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's got to be diverse if we
Speaker 1: the company of our scale, and it would be no
Speaker 1: different for our competitors. You know, if you haven't got
Speaker 1: diversity of the Grammys, then you're not doing something right. Now.
Speaker 1: There's always this thing where they only go for the hits,
Speaker 1: and they only go for the things that are happening
Speaker 1: today and they're not interested in tomorrow. Well that's actually
Speaker 1: not true. From the diversification of music we have. We
Speaker 1: have a ton of stuff. We have stuff in our
Speaker 1: and being folk and we have all the categories covered
Speaker 1: within our organization. You know, I think that it's very
Speaker 1: hard to judge. I know, Drake stood up and did that,
Speaker 1: said it exactly as it is. It's hard to make
Speaker 1: a competition of music a competition, but the one thing
Speaker 1: is that we do need to be represented in a
Speaker 1: well rounded way because we are a big company and
Speaker 1: we want that diversification of music. So I feel good
Speaker 1: about it this year. I mean, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be in those moments. I was lucky
Speaker 1: when Adele came through and one those sets of Grammys
Speaker 1: and Best New Artists, and then twenty one and then
Speaker 1: twenty five, and I was involved in the campaign for
Speaker 1: random Acxis Memories and that was kind of weird because
Speaker 1: two French guys dressed as robots beat the Grammy system
Speaker 1: and one that night, and that was definitely one of
Speaker 1: the best nights of my career because they are wonderful creators.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they are the purest form of creators,
Speaker 1: you know, as is Adele and as is Beyonce and
Speaker 1: those artists when they were in. It's a great source
Speaker 1: of pride. And I've had great nights and the Grammy
Speaker 1: is sureley really you know, I mean, I've been very fortunate.
Speaker 1: Some of those nights will be you know, those moments
Speaker 1: I remember when I'm not doing this anymore. And they
Speaker 1: were truly fantastic, you know, and so I like more
Speaker 1: of those. But but but I have plenty of memories.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, David Bowie, Black Star five Grammys,
Speaker 1: he didn't get voted Grammedy Album the Year Out of
Speaker 1: the Hamley won five Grammars, didn't get many nominations. See,
Speaker 1: I still remember that five years later. Rob, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for talking to us. Best of luck at
Speaker 1: the Grammys, and we're very much looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: what you do well. You'll be kept posting. You'll have
Speaker 1: an opinion under at Lee Shirley's. So we'll just keep
Speaker 1: on trying to surprise you. And we'll keep this stuff
Speaker 1: going because it is a transformative time for business, and
Speaker 1: so we're going to we're gonna keep changing with it.
Speaker 1: And now a word with mastering engineer Emily Lazar, whose
Speaker 1: work is often the last step the music making process
Speaker 1: and the one whose magic can make the difference between
Speaker 1: a song sounding good or great. For the Grammys, Emily
Speaker 1: has ten projects in contention, including three in the Album
Speaker 1: of the Year category. Cole Plays Everyday Life Times, Women
Speaker 1: in Music Part Three and Jacob Collier's j C. Volume three.
Speaker 1: Her resume also includes seminal releases by Vampire Weekend, Beck
Speaker 1: and Sia. Lazar's mixing and mastering mothership is New York's
Speaker 1: The Lodge, which she founded in where she's worked on
Speaker 1: some four thousand records. Lazar recently launched a charity initiative
Speaker 1: called Move the Needle, which aims to close the gender
Speaker 1: gap in music making Emily welcome. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thanks Charlie, it is great to be here.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask you a question that I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've never been asked, or maybe you've been asked at
Speaker 1: a good jillion times. How does it feel to be
Speaker 1: a woman in music? My most favorite least favorite question.
Speaker 1: I hate that question. I behore that question. That question
Speaker 1: takes you to places that really don't belong in the conversation.
Speaker 1: The conversation should be about the art you're making, what
Speaker 1: brought you into the field, what inspires you, what makes
Speaker 1: you feel great, what makes you feel bad? Like? Those
Speaker 1: are the important things that the human side of of
Speaker 1: what we all do, not what gender you are. I've
Speaker 1: never really been able to even understand the question right
Speaker 1: people say, what does it feel like to be a
Speaker 1: female mastering engineer. My answers was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't identify as a female mastering engineer. I think
Speaker 1: people are well meaning when they ask it, but to me,
Speaker 1: it's actually condescending and degrading because it actually makes everything
Speaker 1: that you've done I feel like it's not being judged
Speaker 1: equally in the rest of the world. For example, you're
Speaker 1: the first female master introdeer to do X. I get
Speaker 1: that stealing breaking moments are really important, but there's this
Speaker 1: twinge of yeah, but somebody else did it before you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter for me. It was really just
Speaker 1: more important to me to get to do the things
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, and so those were things that
Speaker 1: I was able to navigate. Now the younger generation has
Speaker 1: taken none of it. I'm thrilled for them, like they
Speaker 1: like the Me too movement when the Me Too movement
Speaker 1: happened such a long time overdue. Still hasn't really come
Speaker 1: fully to fruition as far as I'm concerned. But like
Speaker 1: we and more kept our head down, did our work,
Speaker 1: tried to stay out of the fray of elevating this
Speaker 1: conversation to the fervor that it got to deservedly because
Speaker 1: for fear that we wouldn't get to work right, that
Speaker 1: we would be not taken seriously, that we would be
Speaker 1: pariah's and not be able to do the things that
Speaker 1: we loved, whether it be a journalist or making records,
Speaker 1: and and that would have been the shame, because we
Speaker 1: would have been removed from the conversation by virtue of
Speaker 1: the fact that we were kind of in an abusive
Speaker 1: environment by calling out that abuse. But now that this
Speaker 1: has changed, the paradigm is totally flipped, and I really
Speaker 1: love it. I applaud it. I think it's really fabulous progress.
Speaker 1: I think we need even more. I think we're in
Speaker 1: a in a time now where hopefully the tides are
Speaker 1: changing and we're starting to see some equity. Two point
Speaker 1: six percent of music producers and engineers being female. That
Speaker 1: is not equitable, and we're just not there. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do, and um, I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to try to help take on that challenge and
Speaker 1: change that statistic, not just with myself but in helping others.
Speaker 1: But I do hate that question. I think of mastering
Speaker 1: as a last step in the ETI process, and maybe
Speaker 1: the first step in the manufacturing and the distribution process.
Speaker 1: I just so curious, how do you step in as
Speaker 1: that last person in the process and understand the musicality
Speaker 1: and what that person or the artist is trying to do?
Speaker 1: How do you even wrap your head around it? That's
Speaker 1: actually a hugely important part of my process. I make
Speaker 1: a huge effort to have a dialogue and understand big
Speaker 1: picture like what are we trying to do here? What
Speaker 1: is this about? What was going on in your life? Like?
Speaker 1: How is this different from your last album? What was
Speaker 1: there something inspiring you to go in this direction? Is
Speaker 1: this song or this chorus doing what it's supposed to do?
Speaker 1: As you start to hone in on all the different things,
Speaker 1: is this sequence doing the right thing? Is it telling
Speaker 1: the right story? I'm listening to all your songs and
Speaker 1: I'm hearing this common thread. Do you think maybe there
Speaker 1: are some intertextuality here that you didn't see that we
Speaker 1: should follow and take us down this road that you
Speaker 1: maybe even subconsciously wrote. It's similar to like artists writing
Speaker 1: songs and having a meaning and then a listener making
Speaker 1: their own meaning and it being incredibly meaningful for the listener,
Speaker 1: but actually not but the writer was in ending but
Speaker 1: still kind of hitting the right buttons. It's that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and my goal is to always serve the song,
Speaker 1: tell the story, make that artist feel that we've done
Speaker 1: every possible thing we can. We're like that last chance
Speaker 1: Texico to gas up, like making sure that we have
Speaker 1: done everything we possibly can to help them give birth
Speaker 1: to that baby and put it out in the world.
Speaker 1: And I really do think of songs and albums as
Speaker 1: giving birth. It's very similar, having done that as well
Speaker 1: with my own son. It is a it's a you know,
Speaker 1: labor of love and getting them out, putting them out
Speaker 1: and having people potentially judge them and comment on them
Speaker 1: very nerve wracking experience. I think can be exhilarating and
Speaker 1: can be devastating um and feel very misunderstood. So helping
Speaker 1: an artist give birth to that baby and then getting
Speaker 1: them through that moment where they're like, is my baby ugly?
Speaker 1: Do you like my baby? Is anybody else gonna like
Speaker 1: my baby? You know? I enjoy that part of it
Speaker 1: as well. And working with bands like are you dealing
Speaker 1: with one person? Do you talk to the band as
Speaker 1: a unit. It's different every single time. It really depends
Speaker 1: on them their schedule, where they are, if they're touring
Speaker 1: or not, minus things like pandemics, whether the album is
Speaker 1: being put together in a single driven way, or i e.
Speaker 1: I'm getting one track every couple of weeks or whatever
Speaker 1: months and we put it together and they're releasing it
Speaker 1: one a time because there's a new kind of trend
Speaker 1: to you know. I've done tons of zoom calls with
Speaker 1: some people, you know, like have a lot of options
Speaker 1: and pick. Sometimes I'll get people three options for something
Speaker 1: and then they'll pick and might say, Wow, I see
Speaker 1: what you're doing on one, and then then I see
Speaker 1: what you're doing on number number two, version two. So
Speaker 1: I would love the choruses in number two, but I
Speaker 1: love the verses in number one. Can we edit together
Speaker 1: the choruses from due the Chriss Wonica? Yes? Sure, great,
Speaker 1: awesome idea. So there's things that happened that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: even imagine, weird, cool edits, and things that make things
Speaker 1: flow and feel dynamic and tell the story that are
Speaker 1: done on purpose, that are specific. It's not just a
Speaker 1: five second decision and here you go. It's not like
Speaker 1: that at all, not for me anyway. I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about just one example from your incredibly long discography,
Speaker 1: which is insane. You've worked on four thousand albums throughout
Speaker 1: your career. Crazy. This is a Grammy nominated song, seas Chandelier.
Speaker 1: That song is so interesting sonically because there's a part
Speaker 1: the course where it really sounds like her voice is cracking,
Speaker 1: which of course gives it that grit and makes the
Speaker 1: song so unique. Can you tell me about like a
Speaker 1: decision like that to leave the sort of the rawness,
Speaker 1: the imperfection of like a guttural vocal. Well, so that
Speaker 1: was definitely a production and a see a decision, but
Speaker 1: I specifically can recall that. Look, I listened to music
Speaker 1: all day long, and not everything affects me as deeply
Speaker 1: as another thing, but I try really hard to try
Speaker 1: to connect to what's happening, and I do have visceral
Speaker 1: reactions to these things. And that song made me cry
Speaker 1: and laugh, and I remember being like wow, and I
Speaker 1: was like laughing because I was like, I'm crying. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm crying. This song is unbelievable. I remember
Speaker 1: just listening to it a few times and being like
Speaker 1: I was speechless, and I was just having an emotional
Speaker 1: response to it and I remember everything about mastering that song,
Speaker 1: and I remember doing it a lot of times two
Speaker 1: get it to the point where I thought it was perfect,
Speaker 1: and I leaned into that edginess, and I leaned into
Speaker 1: the wailing of what her vocal which is insane, what
Speaker 1: she can do with her voice. I kind of leaned
Speaker 1: into that. And I had done her earlier albums as well,
Speaker 1: her indie albums, and so I was familiar with her,
Speaker 1: and that just literally blew my doors off. I'm just
Speaker 1: grateful and lucky that I got to hear that song
Speaker 1: before it was even out. Well, so let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the three album of the Year contenders
Speaker 1: that you worked on. Albums by Coldplay, Him and Jacob Collier.
Speaker 1: Those seem on the surface to be very different sort
Speaker 1: of artists sonically. How did you approach them? Sonically speaking?
Speaker 1: They are really all different but equally beautiful and deep albums.
Speaker 1: They all have one thing in common. They're telling stories,
Speaker 1: like real, big stories, and they all communicate in an
Speaker 1: intimate way, even in their biggest moments and in their
Speaker 1: biggest songs on the album. There's an intimacy there in
Speaker 1: the delivery on all three of those albums, and so
Speaker 1: I think that's a through line. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's a overall sonic tonal mastering through line, but for me,
Speaker 1: it's a through line because that's a big part of
Speaker 1: mastering for me. I wanted to ask you. You mentioned
Speaker 1: part of your job is providing the sort of uniform
Speaker 1: listening experience across platforms devices. However you hear your music
Speaker 1: UM title, I feel like, has you know really sort
Speaker 1: of found its niche with audio files people who appreciate
Speaker 1: the high quality of sound. UM, does this change what
Speaker 1: you deliver the fact that there's that there's more sort
Speaker 1: of like high fi minded um outlets. No, Yes, And
Speaker 1: I've been demanding this and I feel like I'm like
Speaker 1: screaming from the rafters, like that this needs to change.
Speaker 1: This needed to change a long time ago. And Spotify
Speaker 1: love them, great platform, super easy, everyone has it, everyone
Speaker 1: uses it. Sounded awful. Really sound does not sound as
Speaker 1: good as it should. It's a disservice to the artists,
Speaker 1: it's a disservice to the people who are making records
Speaker 1: and crafting this stuff. And it's a huge disservice to
Speaker 1: the consumer because I get to hear it at full
Speaker 1: res resolution. In my studio, I get to hear it
Speaker 1: on great speakers. I'm not hearing its streaming. I'm hearing
Speaker 1: the real deal. My concern is that we're just not
Speaker 1: giving people the quality that they need, or the quality
Speaker 1: that the art deserves. And I can boil this down
Speaker 1: to an example that I've made before, and I'll use
Speaker 1: it again just because I think it makes it clear.
Speaker 1: If I were to go to a museum and pay
Speaker 1: the museum entrance fee and wander down the halls and
Speaker 1: end up standing in front of the Mona Lisa, if
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa were hanging on the wall and it
Speaker 1: was a photo copy of a photo copy of a
Speaker 1: shrunken photocopy of a stamp sized version of a black
Speaker 1: and white photocopy of the Mona Lisa, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: that it would give me the same visceral reaction that
Speaker 1: it would if I actually saw the Mona Lisa smile.
Speaker 1: And this is to me a very similar experience with
Speaker 1: what's happening with music. The representation that the consumer is
Speaker 1: getting is the equivalent of a photocopy of a reduced
Speaker 1: size photo a copy. That's a problem. And I appreciate
Speaker 1: title for standing their ground and offering higher res and
Speaker 1: actually also addressing the credits issues. Um, and I'm very
Speaker 1: very grateful that Spotify has made this announcement and that
Speaker 1: they're gonna work as hard as they can to offer
Speaker 1: what I think would be a really great start. Streaming
Speaker 1: things are convenient, but they don't sound good period. Tune
Speaker 1: in next week for another episode of Strictly Business.