June 2, 2021 • 58 mins
Sound for Picture extraordinaire Hunter Vickers joins Joe and Colin in a battle of firsts: Olivia Rodrigo’s debut arrives on the Billboard Charts by smashing record after record. Lollapalooza presents plans to be one of the first major festivals back on the scene after the introduction of the vaccine, and Amazon’s MGM deal is causing a major upset in the streaming market. All this - Colin’s old neighbor and more on episode 36 of the Biztape.
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Sources:
Olivia Rodirgo at No.1 on Billboard 200:
Lollapalooza Happening at Full Capacity:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9574415/lollapalooza-is-returning-july-2021/
Amazon MGM deal:
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/8-45-billion-deal-buy-mgm-amazon-scripts-hollywood-plot-twist/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Olivia Rodrigo, a've number one Lollapalooza at full capacity and
Amazon buys MGM. Listening to tape, Welcome to episode thirty
(00:24):
six of the Biz Tape You're All Things Music, Business
and Media podcast. I'm your host Joey Wazleski, with my
cost Colin McKay, and our guest sound for picture Extraordinary
Hunter Vickers. Yeah, that intro, Yeah, it's pretty cool. I
thought you would like your title that I made you. Yeah,
you know, I don't think I've ever been called an
extraordinary before in anything. Well, it's the first thing for everything.
(00:50):
What you guys didn't know is that I'm the worst
sound guy in Nashville. We decided to leave that out
strategically right well, even down Hunter for many, many many years. Yeah,
Hunter started our career a little h the Biz Tape.
I guess backstory, Hunter actually helped us come up with
our original name, that Show of His Baby, because it
was a running joke. Yeah, it's so funny. Like I
(01:12):
googled the podcast to find the website today on my
Heart radio, UM, and I saw like this article that
was introducing you guys that was like formerly that show
Biz Baby podcast and I was like, oh jeez, oh
that's so. It's okay, Hunter. Your your title is in
our hearts title Hunter, its Hunter man of Sound for
(01:34):
Sound for Picture, and my right is that a grid
that's actually my that's what you are, l that's what
my man of sound. It makes it sound like you
like run a hundred thousand miles an hour or something.
That's on it on all my invoices and every time
they sent me an email, So yeah, Hunter is here, yeah,
(01:55):
telling people he's the man of sound. But I know
you do on set Rick Hoarding, you know, holding the boom,
sound mixing, sound mixing, post production. What's that like? Yeah,
so what do you mean? What kind of question? I
don't know. What's that like? I don't know. I mean,
like a lot of what I do. I guess I
should say I do a little bit of everything nowadays
(02:16):
because it's it's kind of how the Nashville like production
game is for sound dudes. But the majority of stuff
that I do is I like show up onto like
commercial sets or documentary sets or sometimes movie in short
film sets um and I record all the dialogue. So
like every time somebody says their lines on camera, that
(02:39):
has to get recorded on set by me, your boy. UM.
So if you've ever seen like like fake mockumentary stuff,
there's always like a guy holding the boom. UM. That's me.
That's what I do, except I do more than just
hold the boom. I also do everything else, like mix
it and stuff. And that's kind of how it is
in Nashville. We do like one man band kind of things.
(03:00):
Sometimes if I book something like bigger, like a feature
like a movie, a full length movie. UM, I'll usually
do it with another guy in town, Jeremie Nave, who
is like my mentor UM, and I boom up for
him like a too, and like do assistant stuff. UM.
For the rest of the year, we do a lot
of UM live recordings too, so I mostly assist on
(03:25):
those with Jeremiah and UM will show up to set
basically roll up with like road cases that is just
like a tiny studio in a box basically. UM. So lately,
because of COVID, like a bunch of labels and stuff,
have been trying to do take advantage of like their
artists being home. So they've been doing a lot, a
(03:46):
lot a lot of like live recordings UM and the
last place that they want to do live sessions is
in recording studios because because I've seen it too much. Yeah, yeah,
that in the costumes him as much higher. Yeah. So
we'll just roll up to like an apartment building or
something and then carry all our cases up the elevator,
(04:07):
set Mike's up and stuff like that. Um. And then
I do a lot of post work too, so like
ins at my home studio or at drama studio, we'll
just like work on edited footage, like work on the
sound of edited footage and stuff like that, like recording
fully and sound effects and all that stuff. Um. So yeah,
that's the extent of I thought that was a very
good description of your your very complicated job. And uh, thankfully,
(04:33):
thankfully someone knows how to do it. I don't know
how to do that side. I know to do the
music stuff, but me neither know how to hold the
camera right. I don't know what I'm doing either. I'll
tell them my clients. Please, Hey, if you want to
see us not know what we're doing, follow us on
our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at the Biz Tape, and
email the BIS Day Podcast at gmail dot com. We
(04:53):
have anything you want to talk about with us. It's
always fun to talk to fans when we go off
on tangent and they're like, what do you think of this?
That like my favorite thing? Yeah, what was the first
what was the first fan mail you guys ever? Tramps Stamps,
Tramps Stamps. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Somebody wanted to elaborate
on a point on it and it was like about
that band, which I think it was like three or
four episodes ago, and they were very nice and we
(05:14):
had a very good conversation about it and she opened
up some points I didn't think about. So it's really fun.
So you're telling me as famous as you guys are. Yeah,
you've only gotten that one letter. H we're super famous,
that super famous, super famous, living together right making this podcast.
That's it. That's how you get big ladies and gentlemen.
Also speaking big, I wanted to talk about Olivia Rodrigo,
(05:38):
who we was blowing up. But yeah, where basically my
joke as always, you just cannot escape um. She has
gone number one on the Billboard two Albums chart and
basically is winning one so far out of everyone, especially
as we kind of congratulation, she's definitely we're calling it,
(05:58):
We're calling it. Did it? That's will send you an
award address, it's gonna be a plaque that's you won. No.
I mean she her numbers and her stats are really
interesting because they're very fun to dissect and they show
kind of, I think a very important thing about how
(06:19):
the industry is turning, especially with albums in general. So
another thing that she has is UH. She launched with
the second largest streaming week ever for a non R
and B and hip hop album and the second biggest
for an album of any genre by a female artist,
which I was like, for my first thing is always
who's first? Ariana Grande, thank you next. So she was
(06:42):
only seven million streams behind UH at three hundred million
streams compared to Ariana to beat her. So she's not
like way down or arians like in the clouds. She's
so like, she's so close. Other than the album, she
had a trio of top ten hit singles on the
Hot one hundred and two were you know number one's
(07:02):
which were Driver's License and good for You, which I'm
sure if you've been anywhere on the internet you've heard
both of those songs many, many many times. Um, a
weird thing I saw which I think we can discuss
after I Get through This is UH. Her album is
the second shortest album of all time by track count
to be number one on the Billboard two hundred at
(07:25):
eleven tracks. The only shorter one was BTS with b
their album called b EB that had eight tracks, and
Billboard points out that that's extremely rare. For instance, the
last twelve months had twenty seven number ones, and out
of those, twenty of them had at least fifteen plus songs,
(07:45):
and eleven of those had twenty plus songs, which kind
of is interesting. She's like breaking the fold there. And
then my personal pick for the most impressive stat that
she is just breaking on through with is she's captured
the largest week by units for an AXE debut charting
effort since the Billboard two transition from an album sales
(08:07):
only ranking to an equivalent album unit based chart, which
basically means this is the biggest debut week for an
artist since Billboards started counting streaming in their charts. In
the album category. The only other UH she she beat
out the other competitor, which was Cardi B's debut Invasion
Invasion of Privacy and Rodrigo. Lastly, is also the first
(08:30):
woman to see her debut charting album Open at number
one since Invasion of Privacy. So that's pretty impressive. Yeah,
I mean, not not too bad. As my partner always jokes.
She started out on high School, the musical, the musical,
the Siti. It's like eighteen different adjectives. But she started
out there, and she was on like that Bizarre Vark
(08:52):
Show and Disney, so, like, you know, she was in
the pathway of a lot of famous other people, like
a Miley Cyrus before they came up to right, but
on Nickelodeon. Yeah, and so like she it's not like
she was out of the running. But to have such
a strong start in the beginning usually it's kind of
like a nice send off. You're like coming in there,
(09:13):
you're in the maybe you're in the top two, not
number one. Usually, Um, how old is she? Eighteen? That
is so young to be a and stuff like this, right,
I mean, so here's an interesting mark I wanted to
talk about before I got into my main agree or
disagree point. I think it's interesting to see that she
(09:36):
had such little amount of tracks on this album and
how Billboard proves that that's a rarity. And I think
I think we could discuss this more. How weird of
a time we're in. We're like, I feel like everyone
could admit this is that we're going away from you know,
your band's album. It's very single heavy, right now, what's
your song? What's your single? But at the same time,
(09:59):
it seems like these bands are trying to make really
big albums. They're fifteen or twenty tracks. I mean like,
if you go back in the sixties and seventies, they
had a hard limit because of the physical limitation. So
I get like, now that we're in the digital domain,
it's bigger. But it's interesting to see almost like I'll
see if y'all agree with this. It almost seems like
they're at you know, the bat, They're getting a pitch
(10:21):
and they're like, the more times we get to play,
the more times I'm just hitting that stuff out there.
Maybe we'll have a shot with one of these things.
Do you kind of agree with that? That's my opinion
about it. But I think it's interesting. Yeah, I think, uh,
if anything now, it's uh, it's more to do with
how good the actual just single song is. I think
(10:41):
I think a lot of artists, teams and labels would
prefer to have a really really strong single than a
okay ish album, you know what I mean? Um, And
a lot of times if you have an album, especially
after such a huge single, I feel like a lot
of times, if you have a bunch of like mediocre
songs that come after that, it kind of overshadows the
(11:04):
really good one and it kind of presses it. Yeah,
it suppresses it, and I think it disappoints fans sometimes.
So I think there's a combination of things happening with this.
I think this is one of her biggest debuts, right, Um,
is this her her debut or this is her debut record?
Which is so she has not released anything before. This
is an important thing. She has had music with the
(11:25):
High School the Musical, the musical series you know that show.
She's been on the soundtrack of that, so it's not
like but it's not like, but she is a main
character in the show, so she's had songs where she's
like the lead. So I guess, like if you wanted
to get you know well actually and or technically she
(11:45):
technically has had that, but I wouldn't count it as
you're probably gonna counterstography as super well, I would say
too in this case, I would say, not only is
it that thing that I mentioned before of just like
having really strong songs since angles um and chopping the
fat off of records, I think it's also a lot
of the times record labels will play it safe with
(12:08):
artists and they'll they'll come out with EPs first, see
that kind of the waters. That's the other culture that's
interesting to look at is all these bands that will
you know, I feel like I get in this all
the time. I'm with these bands. I'm like, can you
release an album? They're like, what have we released four
songs and we call it an EP. That's just kind
of become almost like the normal thing these days. You know, Well,
(12:30):
the demand is so high now too, because it's it's
you don't want to burn out your artist, so you
want to make sure that they're you know, they're coming out,
especially pop acts, sometimes you want two releases a year now.
I think it's interesting to see, and I think, speaking
to the other person I was talking about in this
area on a grande, that model, I've also seen perpetuated
where people almost seem like they're on a continuous chain
(12:52):
of singles and they don't put out albums very right away.
It's almost like they'll put out like five or six
singles and then they'll put up the album and it'll
be like seven more songs, but it's like not the
seven songs that are hit right out of the park.
And I mean I kind of like that, honestly. I
think it's because like sometimes I get kind of overwhelmed
(13:15):
if like a couple of my favorite artists or something
like that might all come out with albums at the
same time. So it's like I enjoy it when there's
like a single that I can listen to for like
a week two weeks, and then there's like another single
that comes out that I can listen into and really
get into for like another two weeks, and then maybe
like the EP comes out then, or like the full
album comes out then, um, and then the the those
(13:39):
two singles are usually on the album too, right, Like
they'll repeat and be like this is the album now.
And that's kind of how they're doing like album releases, right.
They're releasing like singles and singles and singles and singles
and singles until you've got half the album out, and
then they just released the other half of the album
at the same time and it's like if you go
back to back in the day, then they probably argue
it's like, well, you have all this physical material, have
(14:00):
to pay for it. If you're doing singles and then
your d value, they would say, you're devaluing your album
because people are gonna go, why am I going to
buy your album then for these other songs when you
physically have to buy it. But since in the devaluation
of music it's fifteen ten dollars a month. And also
and also if you can if you draw up like
(14:21):
the hype of an album, it doesn't last like as
long as you would draw up the hype for a
single and then you drop a hype for another single
a few weeks later, and the like, if you release
like six singles, you can stretch that like album hype
hype train over like six or eight weeks, right, which
is huge for like if you're trying to sell tickets
for tours, because it seems like where they're making all
(14:43):
their money, yeah, which it seems like we're that's more
valuable to keep that train going, and it's easier to
not have like Joe saying, a bunch of different songs
almost yourself competing against yourself in the eyes of the consumer,
and you're right, it is daunting, especially if you of
artists that do like those twenty album oh Man twenty songs.
(15:06):
I was like, everybody's got like a commute today, you know,
going back and forth for most people, especially as we
open up. So that's what all the way back to
radio roots competitive that time is super competitive. Um yeah,
it's competitive because now people have the freedom to listen
to whatever they want, So how are you going to
(15:26):
lead them to your material? And by doing that is
is by doing the single route, I think, because it
does generate high for you as an artist and also
as you're the thing you're eventually wanting to sell, which
is going to be the record. So I have actually
going into that and trying to have that hype train.
I want to see if you'll agree or disagree. This
(15:47):
is my personal opinion. I think that Olivia Rodrigo is
the first really true mega star that will become the
poster child of relating directly what the power of tick
talk is, because I haven't seen anyone from TikTok blow
up in the amount she has and had the direct success,
(16:07):
and I think it would be ridiculous to say that
that app had, if not a majority value to her career,
you know it was. She's more famous now after TikTok
than she even was after being on on High School Musical,
The Musical Musical, which shows how much network television, how
(16:29):
much down. But I think like specifically, you know, we've
seen songs where it's like people were you know, the Castaways,
back Yard and song or like a Space Girl, you know,
all that kind of stuff, and a lot of these
people have had, like, you know, a song pop off
it gets a lot of views, but I've never seen
anyone turning launch a huge career like this. We've seen
(16:51):
people go, oh, now we're like middle tier, you know that.
We are almost like artists that you would go see
and be like, hey, hunter, do you want to see
this person? Why? Why would we want to see him?
They had that one song, you know, that one from
TikTok all the time, and it's like kind of like
a maybe, and she's way past that. She's like, you know,
at least three or four songs Driver's License, good for uh,
(17:12):
good for you? And then I can't remember the other
Yeah that well, that's the album I'm trying to remember
what the third single is My partner is gonna be
mad at me for forgetting because they listened to this
album all the time, which means I listened to this
album all the time. Um. But yeah, I mean I
think personally, if down in the history books, if we
want an example for the entertainment industry other than just
(17:34):
straight influencers I'm talking about music careers, then this would
be the one to point. Oh, this is Olivia Rodrigo.
Is the proof that TikTok is the way the future
for now until eventually, you know, some other app comes
up and that's just how the cycle goes. Yeah, I mean,
I would say TikTok now is what radio used to be,
which people are listening to the same songs again and
(17:58):
and it's you know, we have acts us to every song,
but people are getting funneled. It's it's almost like it's
directly picking and choosing the best ones for you, you
know what I mean, It's curating it for you because
it is for it's for you. Page At the end
of the day, social media is just curation, except you
have an interactive part of that curation exactly. Um, and
(18:19):
so I going on your thing. It's like you can
go step by I think you could go step by step,
like you could be like TikTok to Instagram to Facebook
to my Space, like you could go back into like
what so specifically on social media, and then you go
to like you know, digital radio, like analog radio, and
you could literally follow a chain back and see that.
(18:41):
And since we're on the TikTok phase right now, until
you know, I'm saying some future app, I have no
idea what that would but if we knew, we would
probably be right now right check out Hunter's talk Tick
coming out. New app data install available now now. Yeah,
(19:02):
you can't shear videos on there. It's just cute cute
dog photos. That's pretty good. Yeah, talk Talkers exclusively about
um clocks and the clock working community. It is not
to be confused with transitioned from the the subreddit, the
(19:23):
clockmakers subreddit talk tic and we just turned it into
its whole Joe, get us out of this rabbit hole.
We went down well. Speaking of clocks, Lollapalooza is happening
at the full capacity, full capacity, full capacity, so with
(19:43):
only two months to great promotion together. Nice one of
America's biggest festivals is set to take place in the
heart of Chicago at full capacity. To be right by
requiring fans to produce proof of their vaccination status for
negative COVID test that was obtained within twenty four hours
of the festival, we're getting some fake tests. I'm waiting
for that. Well, probably I seem so. But so far
(20:05):
the festival has had the blessing of Chicago's Public Health Commissioner,
Allison are Waddi, who stated, we made the tremendous progress
in containing the spread of COVID nineteen with all of
our leading metrics stable on the decline, but warned that
people still need to be safe by washing their hands,
wearing masks, and getting vaccinated. And so far, Lallapalusa seems
(20:27):
to be enacting some leverage in order to incentivize people
to get vaccinated and stay safe. In comparison to Bonaru,
whose current safety and security page states quote, we have
taken enhanced health and safety measures for you are artists
and employees. You must follow all posted instructions while attaining
body of Music and Arts festival, and inherent risk of
(20:47):
exposure to COVID nineteen exists in any public space where
people are present COVID nineteen is extremely contagious disease and
can lead to severe illness and death, and according to
the CDC, senior citizens guests with underlying medical conditions are
especially vulnerable. But you can come without getting the test
or you know, getting your vaccine and seeing that sign
(21:09):
is totally going to make me be like, I'm shaking
my boots over I got more. Yeah, but um, what
do you guys think about I guess in terms of
timing of this thing, and do you think Lola plus
is really gonna be able to pull? The duality is
interesting here? Uh, in between both of these festivals. I mean,
(21:29):
it's amazing to me to see, Well, here's one thing
time I think is very important because in terms of bonnaries,
don't get me wrong, it is September, correct, is that? Okay?
So two months this is earlier than most right, so
two months before that would be July? Right, No, So
(21:50):
why am I messing up here? Yeah? July, so two
months before that. So I feel like, obviously this is
sort of an apples to Orange comparison, but still comparing
the same two things, because I feel like a festival
two months before it comes out versus you know, the
four months that Bonarroo has are in different ways of
(22:12):
media and marketing and like what's going on with it. So,
like we talked about I think it was like episode
twenty nine when Bonaro originally was talking about we're going
to do it. It was very strange and as you're
seeing how they kind of were not very upfront with
what they were saying with COVID. They were like to
take through pages double checks today to see if maybe
(22:34):
I want to know. And this is where my argument
is is if we get to two months before Bonaro
is there, would say like, somehow we froze the COVID situation.
It's like the same worstness than it is now. If
we went two months to before Bonaro, would they have
the same level of pr in terms of saying like, oh,
(22:56):
we're doing you know, we're we're actually going to start
doing vaccinations stuff and there's like more information on the website.
Would they kind of like change their tune because it's closer.
I don't think so, to be honest with you, people
are already in uh on lockdown mode right now. Like
people are going out, people are traveling, people are going
(23:16):
to music festival, to the opposite of lockdown mode. Yeah, yeah,
so unlocked right. So I guess my thing with that
is is that it is interesting to see the duality
of it. I feel like they are in two very
separate places of the country that have very different democrats,
and Wallapaluza is much smaller and there's a less space.
(23:39):
I was also going to say too, though, Lollapaluza is
it's been around a heck of a lot longer than
war has. Right, I'm not wrong in that state. Um.
So it's almost like more of like a professionalism thing, right, Like,
so this like Lollapaluza is like a would be like
a super professional way to do a music festival, right,
(24:02):
and then Bonnaroo is kind of just like throwing whatever
they can together and bending bending the COVID rules wherever
they're allowed to um in order to get their festival
back because they didn't even do it last year. So
they're like, we have to make up. We're doing it regardless.
Start and bonnar is in two thousand two, so it's
(24:25):
ten about ten years their senior UM, so it's okay.
So taking away the time argument here, I do feel
that it really does depend on personally in my opinion,
because it's in Chicago and they have the Public Health
Commissioners blessing on this. I don't think that this would
(24:47):
have Like if we took the policies of Bonaro and
threw it onto lawa Palooza, I don't think it would
work because I feel like the Public Health commission would
go now but in Manchester, Tennessee, which have been no
Bonaro is in Manchester, Tennessee. It's kind of how Woodstock
was in terms of like it's in the middle of nowhere,
(25:07):
it's in a field, they don't care as much of it.
So Bonnaroo doesn't innately you have to come out and
say everywhere, this is our COVID policy, this is everything,
because I feel like in the same way that Chicago
and law Palouza have to schmooze each other and kind
of make friends, Bonnaroo doesn't have to really with Manchester
because Bondrooges has to be like, we bring so much
(25:29):
money to your community. And especially not to get into politics,
but the different political situations of you know, Chicago versus
where Manchester is is very Manchester is about an hour
two hours south of Nashville. For those that don't know.
But if you've ever been to Bonnaro, you know it's
the middle of nowhere, except for it's not like Walla
(25:51):
Paluza where you're in Chicago. You know you're in the
middle of Chicago. So I think that's another factor with this.
And then the other thing is, um, I'm not gonna
say superiority, but just market share bon Aroo. I would
say bon Aroo and Coachella, you guys could fight with
me even one in fans email us if you think
(26:12):
this is wrong. Uh, I feel like Bonnaroo and Coachella
are the one and two when they fight for that
spot in the United States, and so I feel like
they have a lot more sway when it comes to
consumers to almost I don't want to say get away,
but just be like, well, you guys want this to
happen because everyone has this expectation that this is one
(26:32):
of America's best festivals one or two. You're either thinking
this is the best or the second best most people.
So if we just say it's happening, people are just
happy that it's happening because it's so high up in
people's minds. I think not to knock on a lot
of Palosa because a Lot of Palosa is also a
huge festival, and I would also put maybe the top five,
(26:53):
if not top ten. It's just more of that kind
of weight that bon Aroo has. It's other than you know,
the government. Like I was saying, it seems like if
you just Bonnards, existence is enough for most people to go. Yeah. Yeah,
I didn't know that it was that big. I didn't
think it was like one of the top festivals because
like it says four hundred thousand people annually. Yeah, and
(27:17):
how does that compare? How does that it's actually bigger
than which I'm seeing bigger than bonrou twice? So was
Lalla Paluza has four thousand, four hundred? Got it? Yeah,
So I mean it's I would say that the difference
is kind of well, one look at the look at
(27:40):
the ticket pricing is one huge difference. I mean, isn't
a whole weekend at Yeah, and Coachella is two d
and fifty thousand it looks like, but is actually smaller
than general admission at Lot of Poses three fifty dollars correct,
compared to Bonaru, which I believe is six hundred. So
(28:00):
that that's the difference, is that That's what I'm talking
about is they're not necessarily and they're not necessarily it's
not when you get to these festivals. What I mean
by market share a lot of the time isn't necessarily
coming down to the number of people. It's coming down
to the buying power of the festival correct and much
(28:21):
they bring in for their artists and versus their costity
and versus. And I feel like the brand name of
Bonnaroo is so strong in that market. I mean literally,
the two festivals with me and Joe have talked about
on the podcast, Coachell and bonaru are the two festivals
that really fight for each other for you know, you
gotta play this one. You can hear if you're playing. Yeah,
(28:43):
if you're playing one of them, it's in your contract
you cannot play. I did not know that. Yeah, so,
but most of its two years, that's fair. Yeah, I
just I don't I don't think I guess to get
with Let's get to your second and do you do.
I think this is smart of Laala to announce this late.
(29:04):
I I am a little concern for their bottom line.
I do like the responsibility of this. I like the
proof of the vaccination says the more people get vaccinated
completely that if you're if you for some reason, the
breaking point for you is I get to go to Lallapalooza,
then I feel sorry for you, But second, good get
(29:27):
your vaccine. I'm glad if that works for some people.
But the negative COVID tests in twenty four hours also
pretty That seems pretty tricky unless they're going to like
fund uh something like if you get into town on Friday,
we'll wrap a test you at the door, right, that
kind of seems like something that like, it seems like
(29:49):
a logistical nightmare. I'm worried about all those people getting
tests the same day basically, but maybe it's because it's
incentivizing people to get the vaccine. But also it's like
one of those things where if, in my honest opinion,
is the smart it's it's definitely a gamble. But it
kind of goes into this theory that I've perpetuated on
the podcast about if you were the first show to
(30:13):
come out when people think it's safe, it will be bonkers.
People will be going everywhere. This is the first really
really big festival that I've seen to come that's saying
we're doing this and like this is an option that
is available to the general public and has pop and
also general of UH demographics excited for. I'm not talking
(30:36):
about like someone in Florida like they did, but that
was like a country music festival. I'm talking about this
one that has widespread appeal to a lot of different
music goings. So it's definitely a gamble. I cannot really
say I We're gonna just have to see how this is.
I don't know. It's very interesting because I almost put
in an article in here about the UK and they're
(30:59):
having a bunch of problem moms with all these festivals
don't want to do it because the government doesn't ensure
them right now, so they're afraid because if you don't, like,
for instance, in this example UH two months to scrap
for promote, like to scrap promotion together. There's probably thirty
of the festival is cost already laid down, So if
(31:20):
they got canceled right now, that could be just rock
loss of thirty of their costs. And that was the
problem with the UK, so a lot of festivals were
really anxious about it, which is also another thing that
that goes into this, what if they got canceled and
we already had all this money and we paid all
these deposits. Are you kidding me? There's all these artists
managers right now that are going, well, you're our guarantee
(31:42):
is nonrefundable. I don't care about COVID. You're paying us.
And that's what all these sound you know guys are doing.
That's what all the whiting guys are that's what they're doing.
So it's your festival all over again. And so it's scary,
I mean, But at the same time, it seems that
will pollutes are feels like writing the risk to in
my opinion, reap the reward of all these people who
(32:04):
are hype for a festival that's mainstream and you know,
huge demographics. And I think it's definitely gonna happen, and
I think people are going to go. I don't, and
maybe it'll sell out. But like you said, logistical nightmare
for some of these people. And I actually just want
to clarify too. I thought you had said that they
needed to show proof of their vaccine cart and a
(32:27):
COVID negatives, But it's either or, which is less of
a logistical nightmare than I thought, right, Because can you
imagine all four every single people having like clogging up
vaccine testing sites for a day and a half. I
think in Chicago, I think it's gonna be very interesting
to see the logistics of this how well it does,
(32:48):
and especially with the vaccine status were like proof, I
would love to see the stats of that, to see
how many of their And here's the thing, I don't
know what the wh if they would ever release information,
but I would love I think, especially like the Events
Safety Commission that does a lot for live sound and stuff,
would love to know, like what's the percentage of the
(33:09):
people that are going there that are actually vaccinated or like,
you know, is it like of them or is it
fifteen and the rest of these people are riding on
COVID tests. That's that's going to be very interesting and
I feel like that would help a lot with planning
for these festivals. All right, first time ever special news
(33:32):
correspondent on I brought in my own story today. They're
our first guest to bring their own story. Yeah, you know,
I thought, I thought, Um, I'm not a music person,
so let me bring in a story to really wow
the audience with some non music related content. Nay As,
I texted you and media is part of our title.
(33:55):
So if anyone got mad and be like, well, here
we are, but it is, I would argue you, except
he's not bringing in some random thing. This is exceptionally groundbreaking.
Is that will impact all entertainment, including music, very heavily. Yeah,
it's a it's a pretty big deal. Um. So you
guys are familiar with Amazon. Correct Amazon, I'm sorry, you
(34:18):
mean the small online bookstore Amazon. Um? No, that the giant,
multimillion dollar company Amazons, the richest man in the world.
Um and his company, I should say more. His company
probably was very limited in the decision, but they have
(34:38):
bought MGM for eight point four or five billion dollars.
That is nuts. Now, if you're unfamiliar with what MGM is, Um,
if you've ever been to Las Vegas, Las Vegas, everything
in Las Vegas is sponsored by MGM, I guess I
should say yeah. I mean, there's huge. The one of
(35:00):
the biggest casinos is the MGM run One. But it's
more commonly. You've seen the lion roar at the beginning
of every movie ever, any movie that you've seen, it
opens up the big line roaring. That's an MGM. That's
their their opening credit scenes. So that's one of their movies. UM. Anyway, Uh,
(35:23):
this story comes from a couple of different places. I
have an article from the Los Angeles Times that kind
of breaks down um like catalog stuff that you guys
can look at later. Um. And they also talked about
it on the geek Wire podcast. UM. They gave like
a pretty good analysis on there. So you should definitely
check them out if you want to learn more about
(35:44):
this specific story. But what kind of a kind of
breeze through it? A little bit based on what they said. UM.
So they had a guest on the geek Wire podcast
named Sam Blake who is a dot l a reporter UM,
and he put the news in perspective. UM. That nineties
six years after Metro Pictures, Goldwin Pictures, and Louis B.
(36:07):
Meyer Pictures merged to fom MGM. So those are the M,
the G and the M. The Hollywood name stay, best
known for its roaring lion mascot, is set to join
a trillion dollar business empire best known for selling household
items over the internet. That is a pretty accurate description
of ridiculous is um MGM would provide Amazon with more
(36:30):
than four thousand films and seventeen thousand TV shows that
have collectively won more than a hundred and eighty Academy
Awards and a hundred Emmys. The film library includes like
really big names like the James Bond franchise and the
Rocky franchise UM, as well as like television shows such
as The Handmaid's Tale and Fargo, which Fargo I believe
(36:54):
is like a TV show that they've made based on
another mg franchise that was a movie a long time
ago US and a big big one right now on
like Facebook streaming. If you guys didn't know that Shark Tank.
So MGM has rights to the American shark tank UM
or I guess shark tank as a whole because they
(37:15):
do it in other countries too, And I think MGM
has the rights to all of the name shark Tank
um and then they license it elsewhere. UM. But that
shows blowing up huge on like Facebook clips right now,
where like people will come in and do their spill.
You'll just see like one business doing their thing and
all that stuff, and people love it on Facebook. UM.
(37:36):
Amazon's MGM acquisition would be the second largest deal that
amazons uh in Amazon's history, behind its thirteen point seven
billion dollar purchase of Whole Foods, which was huge. Uh yeah,
I guess the main thing to point out to from
that podcast is that it hasn't been regulatorily approved, but
(38:00):
they have signed definitive deals, so like if it gets
approved by the government, yeah, um, then they have to
do it. Um. And basically in the l A Times article,
like I said, they go more into it and we
can talk um you can. You can read the article
if you want to know more, But basically they just
break down a lot of stuff like, uh, like how
(38:21):
MGM has done this before, um with companies, Like they
sold the rights to their whole thing too Sony before,
and they have a ton of licensing deals to in
like a million different places right, Like they've they've got
like movies on HBO and like the Double O seven
movies are streaming on Netflix, and like the and Disney,
(38:43):
Hulu and Fox all have their own piece of MGM.
So they really go into like how much of a
spider web it's gonna be for Amazon to like be
able to pick up like shows and movies that they
want and like renegotiate contracts so that they can get
them on their own streaming service and stuff like that, um,
as well as like getting rights to things like uh
(39:06):
like James Bond. Um is a good example where MGM
only owns half of the rights to James Bond and
the other half belongs to the heirs of the writer,
the Broccoli family, um, which is a great, great by
the way to have. So they have a fifty split financially.
So not only would Amazon have to pick it pick
(39:27):
and shoot pick apart like the contracts that they have
with Netflix to get those movies back, they also have
to renegotiate how much the air the family heirs are
gonna get versus their rights, and they have to like
clarify stuff like that. UM. So I don't know. I
mean their main like goal for this, I guess is
to is to really amp up their streaming service, Amazon
(39:50):
Prime Video, which right now is really just and an
add on to Prime, right like everybody has Amazon Prime
just about like the reason to get a standalone or
it seems like, oh, this is a reason, this is
an additional reason to have pride. Currently I think that's
(40:11):
the case, but maybe with like I would pick to
get a standalone Amazon Prime membership over like a paramount
plus membership, right because they're with this new thing plus
all their originals are offering so much more. Um So,
I don't know. I have a couple I can get
you guys as thoughts. I have a couple of questions specifically,
I want to get an I think one just the
(40:32):
scale of us is insane. That's there with like Microsoft
in the nineties, insane, right, And I want to I
want to clarify again because I said earlier it's four
thousand movies and seventeen thousand TV shows that they now
have the rights to, you know what I mean, So
that I mean that that I literally they that should
(40:53):
just be the ad we added four thousand and seven
thousand TV shows the Amazon Prime and most of them
you know like and so that will just be a
crazy in the streaming space just to like break on through.
And so I it's amazing to me because Joe and
I've talked about it before, and just the entire entertainment
(41:13):
industry has talked about it before. Especially with streaming. People
are getting annoyed about how there's fifteen thousand different streaming
apps now and so this could be this could be
a reason where it's like well, now I need Prime
for sure, and Prime has an advantage over other ones,
So goodbye this other streaming service. So I don't have
to pay a hundred dollars a month, and you know
how how it would almost be pretty annoying. I feel
(41:37):
like if MGM came out with their own streaming service,
and I think maybe this is like a better way
for them to go, but it's already an infrastructure for them.
At the same time, though, do you think that it's
interesting that Amazon bought the entire thing as opposed to
licensing them from MGM and a deal. Yes, So I
(41:58):
just I wanna put my take on that. Maybe, Um,
and I didn't mention it. They mentioned it more in
the article. But I'll give like a a kind of
like a like a basic thing here. Um, the head
of MGM right now is his name is Kirk Kakoian,
which is the hardest name and it's probably one of
(42:19):
the most like movie villain names I've ever heard a
real person. Half, I don't know anything about the guy.
You could be great, but I doubt it. Um, he's
done this before, like I said, with the Sony thing.
Um where I don't know if he necessarily is inclined
to sell hit pieces of the catalog, right, So, like
(42:43):
I think the vibe is like, if you want a
piece of the catalog, you have to buy the whole thing,
and then you can keep whatever you want and then
sell it back to him basically, And that's exactly what
like Ted Turner did with his studio. UM, he bought
the rights to the It's kind of like what Amazon
is doing. I'm not sure what the figures were, um,
(43:04):
but he brought the rights to the MGM catalog UM
and then almost immediately sold it back to him, except
he kept um all the MGM titles um that were
made before Night six, so like the old MGM stuff
that they have like Gone with the Wind and Wizard
of Oz and stuff like that. So that almost seems
like kind of his vibe, right, And he might be
(43:25):
selling it off expecting Amazon to not do so well,
like Sony went bankrupt when they did that, Like their
media company filed to bankruptcy when they did the same thing,
because they bought the catalog and then they just because
it's so big, you can't like make your money back
that quick get you know, obviously four thousand films seventeen
thousand TV shows, it's hard to be like, yeah, that's
(43:47):
a big number. That doesn't really put in perspective. And
then even if I like started like you were saying,
going like Rocky James, Bond, everything you've seen the Lion's
Head on, people are just like, that's too much. I
can't put that on perspective. Think that Amazon is in
a better position though, I agree, because like they can
eat that cost. I agree, But also you have to
(44:08):
think too, they're not going to see profit from this first,
because if they unless they like waste a ton of
money to like buy out these contracts from places so
that they can start making revenue off of it. I
don't think they're going to see any money until the
contracts were out and they start making like spinoff series
is and stuff like that. Yeah, I agree, And I
(44:30):
I also think too, if we're if we're looking at
Amazon and how it operates and how it just basically
it's it's a money machine. It's a money machine and
dancing on the edge of a monopoly at this point.
But you know they're they're trying to get their toes
and their fingers and everything, every kind of thing that
someone would want to pay money for they are they are,
(44:51):
They're trying to get a market share of it, and
it doesn't have to be the whole market share. It
can just be part of the market share if you want.
And I think they are a very very competitive streaming service,
especially after this deal, and especially if we're thinking of
the things are going to make because of him and
their rights related to it, because and I think that's
(45:13):
more valuable than the past titles. I think it's what
they're going to make from is the ability to make
new series. Sorry, I just literally am looking at this
and be like, in the super Villain House, Kurt and
Jeff Bezos plot their new thing against Superman. This is
a double seven villain story has been off series, Jeff
Bezos and Cordian's life story and then anyway. So yeah,
(45:38):
it's just it's an insane level of scope. And I
think Joe also just hit a very good point about
the licensing of that, is the future licensing of that.
I mean we're talking about, you know, all the Rocky stuff,
and then we've had the Creed. This is just my example.
We have the Creed movies now and then people I thought,
oh okay, we've been done with Rocky because we made
(45:59):
like six of those movies and to Creed movies and
they're still making stuff, and I'm like, that's the value.
It's it's absolutely insane in that way. I think it's
gonna be interesting because at the end of the day,
this takes away more wee way from studios in terms
(46:20):
of competition with each other, especially when you have giant
things like Amazon in there. Wait wait, if we talked about,
for instance, and music licensing and stuff, it would be
very tempting to go, well, you could go with this
other studio and have your you know, licensing deal, a
sync deal, But maybe you want to form a relationship
with MGM because they're already on Amazon. And Amazon has
(46:43):
this huge catalog of things and all this i P
that they now own, So that just makes an imbalance
there of like maybe creatives are gonna want to go
to that platform more because it's like I'm investing in
my future here, just distribution, right, because it seems like
these i p s are all present here at this company.
Amazon is willing to just throw infinite amount of money
(47:04):
that I'll never see ever in my life, and so
it just seems like one of those things where you
might get in the situation where people are kind of
turning their head towards Amazon, especially creatively, and going like, well,
you know, maybe this deal is kind of bad, but
maybe I get to, you know, make a James Bond
movie one day, or maybe I get to have six
deals instead of just one because it goes to a
(47:27):
bigger audience and it blows up. Yeah. I'm just thinking
about the MGM line though, and just having the ugly
as Amazon. There's a cool there's a funny like photoshop
photo in the article if you guys want to check
it out. It's just like that. The it's like the
like jpeg of the frame that the line war comes in,
except instead of the line is just Jeff Bezos with
(47:49):
his like mouth super wide open as roaring too. It's
pretty funny, and I think that that's what they should
switch to ultimately. So I think that would scare people away,
honest Like, I think we answer to see your questions.
I think we did. I think it's very good for Amazon.
I think that it's definitely more in the streaming space
(48:09):
that's getting more and more competitive and as people drop
off and can't you know, get to the hypothetical end
of their streaming budget for the month. Right, you're gonna
get into these things where you're gonna have to cut
out services and if you're on it. Part of like
one of the questions I was gonna ask too that
we kind of hit on a little bit about like
the standalone service. Do you think that, like, if the
(48:30):
service gets a lot more traffic because of these movies,
that they would transition it into a standalone streaming service
where it's not it's no longer included with Prime or
you have to pay extra, even more extra for it.
I would say I think they would switch to an
extra model. I think they would keep the Amazon streaming
branding because it's already such a big uh it's it's
(48:53):
already it has its name out there. Are The idea
with most of Amazon has always been that they just
spend so much capital in the front to get it
to everyone and everything, and so you get addicted to
it and then you eventually just pay for that by itself.
And so that's how that company started, was that they
(49:15):
they used to just lose millions upon millions of dollars
by basically cutting themselves out of the shipping and their
whole thing was to get market share and so every
and so when they actually started being like Amazon Prime,
now you can buy this, people were like, oh, we're
already on it. Yeah, I would buy it. I want
the freight because we're already addicted to it. And so
(49:35):
in that same way, is that if Amazon streaming just
gets huge and people are watching it all all my
shows are on there and everything, and you get addicted
to it, and then they go, well, and now it's
going to be fifteen dollars a month, that's not part
of Prime anymore, then people will go or the other
(49:55):
thing I could totally see, because Prime is kind of
like the golden ticket for Amazon is they might be
because of this Prime is now a hundred and sixty dollars. Yeah, yeah,
that's what I think. It's probably going to transition. I
think that will be it for a while. I maybe
I I think it would go into a tiered system.
I don't think it would just be like everyone has
(50:17):
to pay this amount, because although yes, Amazon has increased
the price of Prime, I think when you're starting to
get up to those upper numbers, a lot of people
are not gonna go with it. It is way easier
to get people to buy a bunch of little things
than to buy one big thing because the number is
so high. So I mean, and we saw that when
(50:39):
we were talking about the the last third episode thirty
five about HD streaming, they had kind of the same mindset.
They had the same episode. When you write all the
stuff out, then you remember. But now, I mean, so
like we talked about in there when they talked about
HD streaming, and they for being ridiculous in my opinion,
(51:02):
and said, oh, if we can get people to pay
twelve dollars a month for HD streaming, and then that
will become the norm, everyone from regular streaming services will
pay four more dollars a month. Ago there, it's kind
of it. That's also the thing that's scary about this
is if they make that jump way too fast, then
it will backfire so hard, just like how they just
(51:23):
had to do now with the HD streaming and they went, well,
every competitor is equal to us now because they all
did it. So now we're just gonna cut that market
out and so we can be marketable in the first place.
Oh man, well, Hunter, we're gonna do what we always
do on the show, which is surprise you with a
little segment we like to call Yeah, I was prepared.
(51:46):
I was because I'm an active listener of your podcast.
Do you download? Do you download our podcast? No? Do
you want me to? Yeah? Do it right? In fact,
all of you listening should download. Look, the benefits is
high quality streaming. If you download, It's true you could
you could have a bad connection. Now, if you guys
(52:07):
want to know, and this goes for any podcast, I
don't care. Is if you want to support podcast the
most and other than you know, just giving them direct money. Uh,
The downloads are the easiest way, because that's actually how
metrics of podcasts are measured by advertisers. Yes, they do
not care about how many things, they literally have told
(52:30):
I've talked to podcasts people and they literally say they
do not care about how many people listen to the podcast.
They care about how many people download the podcast. I
care how many people listen podcasts not not in our
terrible downloaded. Don't listen to them, don't listen to him
out there, don't listen to them. If you don't want
to have all that junk on your phone. I think
I gave you enough leeway to find something. Okay, So
(52:53):
I I've been listening to this. It's gonna sound super indie,
and it's like one of those band names, you know,
I talked to. The band name is called Active Bird Community,
Oh God, which is a sick I gotta um. And yeah,
I've been listening to their whole pick Up, Pick Me
(53:14):
Apart album and it's like so good. It's good, but
I literally always think it's just coming to eight point
six college radio Active Bird. Oh God, I'm sure it's good.
Is it just like indie kind of? Yeah, it's like
it's like a little bit harder than like like indie's
soft coffee shop rock, you know what I mean. It's
(53:35):
kind of got some well, it's got some distortion to it.
It's got some caffey. It's a little caffineated. I always
wanted to shake up. I've been listening to a guy
named Blake Mills his song Hey Lover, which is really good.
And then I am also absolutely blown away by this
(53:59):
girl named Madison Cunningham, who's an amazing song writer. I've
heard of this. She's amazing and I think everyone should
check her out because it blows me away. Every single
song of hers is amazing. So yeah, so I have
a little story with mine, as I always do. Um.
I actually listened to a newer artist shocker. I know
(54:21):
you're not listening to more Billy Joel this week exactly.
Um No. So I was listening to this is so funny.
I was on Instagram and somebody messaged me on Instagram
and it was my old neighbor from the past who
was my sister's high school teacher. And she said, hey,
blasphrom the pastor something, and she was like, if you could,
(54:44):
I really appreciate it if you looked. And when I
was young, they had like two little boys, like really young.
They must be like six or seven years younger than myself.
And I knew them when I was like twelve or thirteen.
So she said, my youngest son, Mitch is in this
band and he plays bass. And I was like, well,
(55:04):
they've always been nice to me. But also, as you
guys probably listen to the podcast and no me, in
real life, I am incredibly cynical, so if something sounds bad,
I will tell people. So I I was like, I'll
go look at you know, And so I looked at
it and I was kind of amazed. To be honest
with you, so I went in there and it's this
group and I've got to get their name right there
(55:26):
called the Vents, and there said it reminded, it took
me back to a different time when I used to
be in a band, when I was about their seventeen
eighteen year olds, and uh, the songs are really good,
like they're it's indie rock, and the lyrics are very
well done. They just had a new UH EP called
Colorado Avenue. It's it takes you back to a time.
(55:48):
I will say this right now, going back to the
single side that's not mixed incredibly you know new. It's
very indie in that way and very you know, you
can tell these UH guys and girls made this in
their basement, but the songs and the songwriting and the
performances carry it, which is kind of going gets back
to my screw you Amazon HD streight how showing how
(56:12):
it doesn't matter because the music is good. Screaming streaming
you can literally hear a HD streaming will get you
HD screaming. So yeah, I just I was listening to it.
It's very good. It's very indie sounding, and uh, I
thought it was. I hope they keep they were telling
me if i've somehow Mitch is listening to this, I
(56:35):
like to playing. Mitch plays bass like I used to
all the time. Imagine you didn't have to break their
poor mom's heart after you listen to the album and
telling her that it was bad, like you that you threatened, right,
I told her that from the beginning. I will tell
you it's bad this long lost like you know, like
(56:55):
you're very very close family friends. They're like, can you
please like listen to myself this music because trash and
you should go. I mean, I'm just telling you. I
will tell people their music is bad. And it's the
events Colorado Avenue. I thought it was very good. I
hope it's like one of those things where I listened
to it and I'm like, if you guys stay together
as a band and like you get a good mixing
(57:16):
engineer and like you're going to album or two albums
you would, you're gonna hit something and it's gonna be big,
like and that's the fun part. Hey, Colan McKay is
saying something's gonna be big, then you should definitely a liar.
I just need well here they were telling me that,
you know, they're seventeen eighteen, there may be going to
different colleges, so I don't know if this is like
the band breaking out, So I hope it's not. I
(57:37):
really like their tunes. But if not, you know, I
feel like they have a very bright future ahead of it.
So yeah, you're welcome. This is Jake Wish. Well, this
is Jake Wish if I said that correctly, and uh
I guys, thanks for listening to the Bizines Tape. You
can follow us Instagram, Facebook, Twitter at the biz Tape,
(57:58):
and email the bizin Tape podcast to dreams dot com.
I love talking to you guys about whatever is going
on now, I mean music business stuff, but it's all
it's fun. Be sure. We also did a deep cut
last week about n f t S. If you're confused
about that, we'll worry about that space. That was really
fun to research and just out of this world, how
strange that entire community is. But it's really fun. Anyway.
(58:21):
We appreciate you listening. We hope you subscribe, we hope
you rate, we hope you do whatever you want download
share us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. We'll
see you next time.
Olivia Rodrigo, a've number one Lollapalooza at full capacity and
Amazon buys MGM. Listening to tape, Welcome to episode thirty
(00:24):
six of the Biz Tape You're All Things Music, Business
and Media podcast. I'm your host Joey Wazleski, with my
cost Colin McKay, and our guest sound for picture Extraordinary
Hunter Vickers. Yeah, that intro, Yeah, it's pretty cool. I
thought you would like your title that I made you. Yeah,
you know, I don't think I've ever been called an
extraordinary before in anything. Well, it's the first thing for everything.
(00:50):
What you guys didn't know is that I'm the worst
sound guy in Nashville. We decided to leave that out
strategically right well, even down Hunter for many, many many years. Yeah,
Hunter started our career a little h the Biz Tape.
I guess backstory, Hunter actually helped us come up with
our original name, that Show of His Baby, because it
was a running joke. Yeah, it's so funny. Like I
(01:12):
googled the podcast to find the website today on my
Heart radio, UM, and I saw like this article that
was introducing you guys that was like formerly that show
Biz Baby podcast and I was like, oh jeez, oh
that's so. It's okay, Hunter. Your your title is in
our hearts title Hunter, its Hunter man of Sound for
(01:34):
Sound for Picture, and my right is that a grid
that's actually my that's what you are, l that's what
my man of sound. It makes it sound like you
like run a hundred thousand miles an hour or something.
That's on it on all my invoices and every time
they sent me an email, So yeah, Hunter is here, yeah,
(01:55):
telling people he's the man of sound. But I know
you do on set Rick Hoarding, you know, holding the boom,
sound mixing, sound mixing, post production. What's that like? Yeah,
so what do you mean? What kind of question? I
don't know. What's that like? I don't know. I mean,
like a lot of what I do. I guess I
should say I do a little bit of everything nowadays
(02:16):
because it's it's kind of how the Nashville like production
game is for sound dudes. But the majority of stuff
that I do is I like show up onto like
commercial sets or documentary sets or sometimes movie in short
film sets um and I record all the dialogue. So
like every time somebody says their lines on camera, that
(02:39):
has to get recorded on set by me, your boy. UM.
So if you've ever seen like like fake mockumentary stuff,
there's always like a guy holding the boom. UM. That's me.
That's what I do, except I do more than just
hold the boom. I also do everything else, like mix
it and stuff. And that's kind of how it is
in Nashville. We do like one man band kind of things.
(03:00):
Sometimes if I book something like bigger, like a feature
like a movie, a full length movie. UM, I'll usually
do it with another guy in town, Jeremie Nave, who
is like my mentor UM, and I boom up for
him like a too, and like do assistant stuff. UM.
For the rest of the year, we do a lot
of UM live recordings too, so I mostly assist on
(03:25):
those with Jeremiah and UM will show up to set
basically roll up with like road cases that is just
like a tiny studio in a box basically. UM. So lately,
because of COVID, like a bunch of labels and stuff,
have been trying to do take advantage of like their
artists being home. So they've been doing a lot, a
(03:46):
lot a lot of like live recordings UM and the
last place that they want to do live sessions is
in recording studios because because I've seen it too much. Yeah, yeah,
that in the costumes him as much higher. Yeah. So
we'll just roll up to like an apartment building or
something and then carry all our cases up the elevator,
(04:07):
set Mike's up and stuff like that. Um. And then
I do a lot of post work too, so like
ins at my home studio or at drama studio, we'll
just like work on edited footage, like work on the
sound of edited footage and stuff like that, like recording
fully and sound effects and all that stuff. Um. So yeah,
that's the extent of I thought that was a very
good description of your your very complicated job. And uh, thankfully,
(04:33):
thankfully someone knows how to do it. I don't know
how to do that side. I know to do the
music stuff, but me neither know how to hold the
camera right. I don't know what I'm doing either. I'll
tell them my clients. Please, Hey, if you want to
see us not know what we're doing, follow us on
our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at the Biz Tape, and
email the BIS Day Podcast at gmail dot com. We
(04:53):
have anything you want to talk about with us. It's
always fun to talk to fans when we go off
on tangent and they're like, what do you think of this?
That like my favorite thing? Yeah, what was the first
what was the first fan mail you guys ever? Tramps Stamps,
Tramps Stamps. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Somebody wanted to elaborate
on a point on it and it was like about
that band, which I think it was like three or
four episodes ago, and they were very nice and we
(05:14):
had a very good conversation about it and she opened
up some points I didn't think about. So it's really fun.
So you're telling me as famous as you guys are. Yeah,
you've only gotten that one letter. H we're super famous,
that super famous, super famous, living together right making this podcast.
That's it. That's how you get big ladies and gentlemen.
Also speaking big, I wanted to talk about Olivia Rodrigo,
(05:38):
who we was blowing up. But yeah, where basically my
joke as always, you just cannot escape um. She has
gone number one on the Billboard two Albums chart and
basically is winning one so far out of everyone, especially
as we kind of congratulation, she's definitely we're calling it,
(05:58):
We're calling it. Did it? That's will send you an
award address, it's gonna be a plaque that's you won. No.
I mean she her numbers and her stats are really
interesting because they're very fun to dissect and they show
kind of, I think a very important thing about how
(06:19):
the industry is turning, especially with albums in general. So
another thing that she has is UH. She launched with
the second largest streaming week ever for a non R
and B and hip hop album and the second biggest
for an album of any genre by a female artist,
which I was like, for my first thing is always
who's first? Ariana Grande, thank you next. So she was
(06:42):
only seven million streams behind UH at three hundred million
streams compared to Ariana to beat her. So she's not
like way down or arians like in the clouds. She's
so like, she's so close. Other than the album, she
had a trio of top ten hit singles on the
Hot one hundred and two were you know number one's
(07:02):
which were Driver's License and good for You, which I'm
sure if you've been anywhere on the internet you've heard
both of those songs many, many many times. Um, a
weird thing I saw which I think we can discuss
after I Get through This is UH. Her album is
the second shortest album of all time by track count
to be number one on the Billboard two hundred at
(07:25):
eleven tracks. The only shorter one was BTS with b
their album called b EB that had eight tracks, and
Billboard points out that that's extremely rare. For instance, the
last twelve months had twenty seven number ones, and out
of those, twenty of them had at least fifteen plus songs,
(07:45):
and eleven of those had twenty plus songs, which kind
of is interesting. She's like breaking the fold there. And
then my personal pick for the most impressive stat that
she is just breaking on through with is she's captured
the largest week by units for an AXE debut charting
effort since the Billboard two transition from an album sales
(08:07):
only ranking to an equivalent album unit based chart, which
basically means this is the biggest debut week for an
artist since Billboards started counting streaming in their charts. In
the album category. The only other UH she she beat
out the other competitor, which was Cardi B's debut Invasion
Invasion of Privacy and Rodrigo. Lastly, is also the first
(08:30):
woman to see her debut charting album Open at number
one since Invasion of Privacy. So that's pretty impressive. Yeah,
I mean, not not too bad. As my partner always jokes.
She started out on high School, the musical, the musical,
the Siti. It's like eighteen different adjectives. But she started
out there, and she was on like that Bizarre Vark
(08:52):
Show and Disney, so, like, you know, she was in
the pathway of a lot of famous other people, like
a Miley Cyrus before they came up to right, but
on Nickelodeon. Yeah, and so like she it's not like
she was out of the running. But to have such
a strong start in the beginning usually it's kind of
like a nice send off. You're like coming in there,
(09:13):
you're in the maybe you're in the top two, not
number one. Usually, Um, how old is she? Eighteen? That
is so young to be a and stuff like this, right,
I mean, so here's an interesting mark I wanted to
talk about before I got into my main agree or
disagree point. I think it's interesting to see that she
(09:36):
had such little amount of tracks on this album and
how Billboard proves that that's a rarity. And I think
I think we could discuss this more. How weird of
a time we're in. We're like, I feel like everyone
could admit this is that we're going away from you know,
your band's album. It's very single heavy, right now, what's
your song? What's your single? But at the same time,
(09:59):
it seems like these bands are trying to make really
big albums. They're fifteen or twenty tracks. I mean like,
if you go back in the sixties and seventies, they
had a hard limit because of the physical limitation. So
I get like, now that we're in the digital domain,
it's bigger. But it's interesting to see almost like I'll
see if y'all agree with this. It almost seems like
they're at you know, the bat, They're getting a pitch
(10:21):
and they're like, the more times we get to play,
the more times I'm just hitting that stuff out there.
Maybe we'll have a shot with one of these things.
Do you kind of agree with that? That's my opinion
about it. But I think it's interesting. Yeah, I think, uh,
if anything now, it's uh, it's more to do with
how good the actual just single song is. I think
(10:41):
I think a lot of artists, teams and labels would
prefer to have a really really strong single than a
okay ish album, you know what I mean? Um, And
a lot of times if you have an album, especially
after such a huge single, I feel like a lot
of times, if you have a bunch of like mediocre
songs that come after that, it kind of overshadows the
(11:04):
really good one and it kind of presses it. Yeah,
it suppresses it, and I think it disappoints fans sometimes.
So I think there's a combination of things happening with this.
I think this is one of her biggest debuts, right, Um,
is this her her debut or this is her debut record?
Which is so she has not released anything before. This
is an important thing. She has had music with the
(11:25):
High School the Musical, the musical series you know that show.
She's been on the soundtrack of that, so it's not
like but it's not like, but she is a main
character in the show, so she's had songs where she's
like the lead. So I guess, like if you wanted
to get you know well actually and or technically she
(11:45):
technically has had that, but I wouldn't count it as
you're probably gonna counterstography as super well, I would say
too in this case, I would say, not only is
it that thing that I mentioned before of just like
having really strong songs since angles um and chopping the
fat off of records, I think it's also a lot
of the times record labels will play it safe with
(12:08):
artists and they'll they'll come out with EPs first, see
that kind of the waters. That's the other culture that's
interesting to look at is all these bands that will
you know, I feel like I get in this all
the time. I'm with these bands. I'm like, can you
release an album? They're like, what have we released four
songs and we call it an EP. That's just kind
of become almost like the normal thing these days. You know, Well,
(12:30):
the demand is so high now too, because it's it's
you don't want to burn out your artist, so you
want to make sure that they're you know, they're coming out,
especially pop acts, sometimes you want two releases a year now.
I think it's interesting to see, and I think, speaking
to the other person I was talking about in this
area on a grande, that model, I've also seen perpetuated
where people almost seem like they're on a continuous chain
(12:52):
of singles and they don't put out albums very right away.
It's almost like they'll put out like five or six
singles and then they'll put up the album and it'll
be like seven more songs, but it's like not the
seven songs that are hit right out of the park.
And I mean I kind of like that, honestly. I
think it's because like sometimes I get kind of overwhelmed
(13:15):
if like a couple of my favorite artists or something
like that might all come out with albums at the
same time. So it's like I enjoy it when there's
like a single that I can listen to for like
a week two weeks, and then there's like another single
that comes out that I can listen into and really
get into for like another two weeks, and then maybe
like the EP comes out then, or like the full
album comes out then, um, and then the the those
(13:39):
two singles are usually on the album too, right, Like
they'll repeat and be like this is the album now.
And that's kind of how they're doing like album releases, right.
They're releasing like singles and singles and singles and singles
and singles until you've got half the album out, and
then they just released the other half of the album
at the same time and it's like if you go
back to back in the day, then they probably argue
it's like, well, you have all this physical material, have
(14:00):
to pay for it. If you're doing singles and then
your d value, they would say, you're devaluing your album
because people are gonna go, why am I going to
buy your album then for these other songs when you
physically have to buy it. But since in the devaluation
of music it's fifteen ten dollars a month. And also
and also if you can if you draw up like
(14:21):
the hype of an album, it doesn't last like as
long as you would draw up the hype for a
single and then you drop a hype for another single
a few weeks later, and the like, if you release
like six singles, you can stretch that like album hype
hype train over like six or eight weeks, right, which
is huge for like if you're trying to sell tickets
for tours, because it seems like where they're making all
(14:43):
their money, yeah, which it seems like we're that's more
valuable to keep that train going, and it's easier to
not have like Joe saying, a bunch of different songs
almost yourself competing against yourself in the eyes of the consumer,
and you're right, it is daunting, especially if you of
artists that do like those twenty album oh Man twenty songs.
(15:06):
I was like, everybody's got like a commute today, you know,
going back and forth for most people, especially as we
open up. So that's what all the way back to
radio roots competitive that time is super competitive. Um yeah,
it's competitive because now people have the freedom to listen
to whatever they want, So how are you going to
(15:26):
lead them to your material? And by doing that is
is by doing the single route, I think, because it
does generate high for you as an artist and also
as you're the thing you're eventually wanting to sell, which
is going to be the record. So I have actually
going into that and trying to have that hype train.
I want to see if you'll agree or disagree. This
(15:47):
is my personal opinion. I think that Olivia Rodrigo is
the first really true mega star that will become the
poster child of relating directly what the power of tick
talk is, because I haven't seen anyone from TikTok blow
up in the amount she has and had the direct success,
(16:07):
and I think it would be ridiculous to say that
that app had, if not a majority value to her career,
you know it was. She's more famous now after TikTok
than she even was after being on on High School Musical,
The Musical Musical, which shows how much network television, how
(16:29):
much down. But I think like specifically, you know, we've
seen songs where it's like people were you know, the Castaways,
back Yard and song or like a Space Girl, you know,
all that kind of stuff, and a lot of these
people have had, like, you know, a song pop off
it gets a lot of views, but I've never seen
anyone turning launch a huge career like this. We've seen
(16:51):
people go, oh, now we're like middle tier, you know that.
We are almost like artists that you would go see
and be like, hey, hunter, do you want to see
this person? Why? Why would we want to see him?
They had that one song, you know, that one from
TikTok all the time, and it's like kind of like
a maybe, and she's way past that. She's like, you know,
at least three or four songs Driver's License, good for uh,
(17:12):
good for you? And then I can't remember the other
Yeah that well, that's the album I'm trying to remember
what the third single is My partner is gonna be
mad at me for forgetting because they listened to this
album all the time, which means I listened to this
album all the time. Um. But yeah, I mean I
think personally, if down in the history books, if we
want an example for the entertainment industry other than just
(17:34):
straight influencers I'm talking about music careers, then this would
be the one to point. Oh, this is Olivia Rodrigo.
Is the proof that TikTok is the way the future
for now until eventually, you know, some other app comes
up and that's just how the cycle goes. Yeah, I mean,
I would say TikTok now is what radio used to be,
which people are listening to the same songs again and
(17:58):
and it's you know, we have acts us to every song,
but people are getting funneled. It's it's almost like it's
directly picking and choosing the best ones for you, you
know what I mean, It's curating it for you because
it is for it's for you. Page At the end
of the day, social media is just curation, except you
have an interactive part of that curation exactly. Um, and
(18:19):
so I going on your thing. It's like you can
go step by I think you could go step by step,
like you could be like TikTok to Instagram to Facebook
to my Space, like you could go back into like
what so specifically on social media, and then you go
to like you know, digital radio, like analog radio, and
you could literally follow a chain back and see that.
(18:41):
And since we're on the TikTok phase right now, until
you know, I'm saying some future app, I have no
idea what that would but if we knew, we would
probably be right now right check out Hunter's talk Tick
coming out. New app data install available now now. Yeah,
(19:02):
you can't shear videos on there. It's just cute cute
dog photos. That's pretty good. Yeah, talk Talkers exclusively about
um clocks and the clock working community. It is not
to be confused with transitioned from the the subreddit, the
(19:23):
clockmakers subreddit talk tic and we just turned it into
its whole Joe, get us out of this rabbit hole.
We went down well. Speaking of clocks, Lollapalooza is happening
at the full capacity, full capacity, full capacity, so with
(19:43):
only two months to great promotion together. Nice one of
America's biggest festivals is set to take place in the
heart of Chicago at full capacity. To be right by
requiring fans to produce proof of their vaccination status for
negative COVID test that was obtained within twenty four hours
of the festival, we're getting some fake tests. I'm waiting
for that. Well, probably I seem so. But so far
(20:05):
the festival has had the blessing of Chicago's Public Health Commissioner,
Allison are Waddi, who stated, we made the tremendous progress
in containing the spread of COVID nineteen with all of
our leading metrics stable on the decline, but warned that
people still need to be safe by washing their hands,
wearing masks, and getting vaccinated. And so far, Lallapalusa seems
(20:27):
to be enacting some leverage in order to incentivize people
to get vaccinated and stay safe. In comparison to Bonaru,
whose current safety and security page states quote, we have
taken enhanced health and safety measures for you are artists
and employees. You must follow all posted instructions while attaining
body of Music and Arts festival, and inherent risk of
(20:47):
exposure to COVID nineteen exists in any public space where
people are present COVID nineteen is extremely contagious disease and
can lead to severe illness and death, and according to
the CDC, senior citizens guests with underlying medical conditions are
especially vulnerable. But you can come without getting the test
or you know, getting your vaccine and seeing that sign
(21:09):
is totally going to make me be like, I'm shaking
my boots over I got more. Yeah, but um, what
do you guys think about I guess in terms of
timing of this thing, and do you think Lola plus
is really gonna be able to pull? The duality is
interesting here? Uh, in between both of these festivals. I mean,
(21:29):
it's amazing to me to see, Well, here's one thing
time I think is very important because in terms of bonnaries,
don't get me wrong, it is September, correct, is that? Okay?
So two months this is earlier than most right, so
two months before that would be July? Right, No, So
(21:50):
why am I messing up here? Yeah? July, so two
months before that. So I feel like, obviously this is
sort of an apples to Orange comparison, but still comparing
the same two things, because I feel like a festival
two months before it comes out versus you know, the
four months that Bonarroo has are in different ways of
(22:12):
media and marketing and like what's going on with it. So,
like we talked about I think it was like episode
twenty nine when Bonaro originally was talking about we're going
to do it. It was very strange and as you're
seeing how they kind of were not very upfront with
what they were saying with COVID. They were like to
take through pages double checks today to see if maybe
(22:34):
I want to know. And this is where my argument
is is if we get to two months before Bonaro
is there, would say like, somehow we froze the COVID situation.
It's like the same worstness than it is now. If
we went two months to before Bonaro, would they have
the same level of pr in terms of saying like, oh,
(22:56):
we're doing you know, we're we're actually going to start
doing vaccinations stuff and there's like more information on the website.
Would they kind of like change their tune because it's closer.
I don't think so, to be honest with you, people
are already in uh on lockdown mode right now. Like
people are going out, people are traveling, people are going
(23:16):
to music festival, to the opposite of lockdown mode. Yeah, yeah,
so unlocked right. So I guess my thing with that
is is that it is interesting to see the duality
of it. I feel like they are in two very
separate places of the country that have very different democrats,
and Wallapaluza is much smaller and there's a less space.
(23:39):
I was also going to say too, though, Lollapaluza is
it's been around a heck of a lot longer than
war has. Right, I'm not wrong in that state. Um.
So it's almost like more of like a professionalism thing, right, Like,
so this like Lollapaluza is like a would be like
a super professional way to do a music festival, right,
(24:02):
and then Bonnaroo is kind of just like throwing whatever
they can together and bending bending the COVID rules wherever
they're allowed to um in order to get their festival
back because they didn't even do it last year. So
they're like, we have to make up. We're doing it regardless.
Start and bonnar is in two thousand two, so it's
(24:25):
ten about ten years their senior UM, so it's okay.
So taking away the time argument here, I do feel
that it really does depend on personally in my opinion,
because it's in Chicago and they have the Public Health
Commissioners blessing on this. I don't think that this would
(24:47):
have Like if we took the policies of Bonaro and
threw it onto lawa Palooza, I don't think it would
work because I feel like the Public Health commission would
go now but in Manchester, Tennessee, which have been no
Bonaro is in Manchester, Tennessee. It's kind of how Woodstock
was in terms of like it's in the middle of nowhere,
(25:07):
it's in a field, they don't care as much of it.
So Bonnaroo doesn't innately you have to come out and
say everywhere, this is our COVID policy, this is everything,
because I feel like in the same way that Chicago
and law Palouza have to schmooze each other and kind
of make friends, Bonnaroo doesn't have to really with Manchester
because Bondrooges has to be like, we bring so much
(25:29):
money to your community. And especially not to get into politics,
but the different political situations of you know, Chicago versus
where Manchester is is very Manchester is about an hour
two hours south of Nashville. For those that don't know.
But if you've ever been to Bonnaro, you know it's
the middle of nowhere, except for it's not like Walla
(25:51):
Paluza where you're in Chicago. You know you're in the
middle of Chicago. So I think that's another factor with this.
And then the other thing is, um, I'm not gonna
say superiority, but just market share bon Aroo. I would
say bon Aroo and Coachella, you guys could fight with
me even one in fans email us if you think
(26:12):
this is wrong. Uh, I feel like Bonnaroo and Coachella
are the one and two when they fight for that
spot in the United States, and so I feel like
they have a lot more sway when it comes to
consumers to almost I don't want to say get away,
but just be like, well, you guys want this to
happen because everyone has this expectation that this is one
(26:32):
of America's best festivals one or two. You're either thinking
this is the best or the second best most people.
So if we just say it's happening, people are just
happy that it's happening because it's so high up in
people's minds. I think not to knock on a lot
of Palosa because a Lot of Palosa is also a
huge festival, and I would also put maybe the top five,
(26:53):
if not top ten. It's just more of that kind
of weight that bon Aroo has. It's other than you know,
the government. Like I was saying, it seems like if
you just Bonnards, existence is enough for most people to go. Yeah. Yeah,
I didn't know that it was that big. I didn't
think it was like one of the top festivals because
like it says four hundred thousand people annually. Yeah, and
(27:17):
how does that compare? How does that it's actually bigger
than which I'm seeing bigger than bonrou twice? So was
Lalla Paluza has four thousand, four hundred? Got it? Yeah,
So I mean it's I would say that the difference
is kind of well, one look at the look at
(27:40):
the ticket pricing is one huge difference. I mean, isn't
a whole weekend at Yeah, and Coachella is two d
and fifty thousand it looks like, but is actually smaller
than general admission at Lot of Poses three fifty dollars correct,
compared to Bonaru, which I believe is six hundred. So
(28:00):
that that's the difference, is that That's what I'm talking
about is they're not necessarily and they're not necessarily it's
not when you get to these festivals. What I mean
by market share a lot of the time isn't necessarily
coming down to the number of people. It's coming down
to the buying power of the festival correct and much
(28:21):
they bring in for their artists and versus their costity
and versus. And I feel like the brand name of
Bonnaroo is so strong in that market. I mean literally,
the two festivals with me and Joe have talked about
on the podcast, Coachell and bonaru are the two festivals
that really fight for each other for you know, you
gotta play this one. You can hear if you're playing. Yeah,
(28:43):
if you're playing one of them, it's in your contract
you cannot play. I did not know that. Yeah, so,
but most of its two years, that's fair. Yeah, I
just I don't I don't think I guess to get
with Let's get to your second and do you do.
I think this is smart of Laala to announce this late.
(29:04):
I I am a little concern for their bottom line.
I do like the responsibility of this. I like the
proof of the vaccination says the more people get vaccinated
completely that if you're if you for some reason, the
breaking point for you is I get to go to Lallapalooza,
then I feel sorry for you, But second, good get
(29:27):
your vaccine. I'm glad if that works for some people.
But the negative COVID tests in twenty four hours also
pretty That seems pretty tricky unless they're going to like
fund uh something like if you get into town on Friday,
we'll wrap a test you at the door, right, that
kind of seems like something that like, it seems like
(29:49):
a logistical nightmare. I'm worried about all those people getting
tests the same day basically, but maybe it's because it's
incentivizing people to get the vaccine. But also it's like
one of those things where if, in my honest opinion,
is the smart it's it's definitely a gamble. But it
kind of goes into this theory that I've perpetuated on
the podcast about if you were the first show to
(30:13):
come out when people think it's safe, it will be bonkers.
People will be going everywhere. This is the first really
really big festival that I've seen to come that's saying
we're doing this and like this is an option that
is available to the general public and has pop and
also general of UH demographics excited for. I'm not talking
(30:36):
about like someone in Florida like they did, but that
was like a country music festival. I'm talking about this
one that has widespread appeal to a lot of different
music goings. So it's definitely a gamble. I cannot really
say I We're gonna just have to see how this is.
I don't know. It's very interesting because I almost put
in an article in here about the UK and they're
(30:59):
having a bunch of problem moms with all these festivals
don't want to do it because the government doesn't ensure
them right now, so they're afraid because if you don't, like,
for instance, in this example UH two months to scrap
for promote, like to scrap promotion together. There's probably thirty
of the festival is cost already laid down, So if
(31:20):
they got canceled right now, that could be just rock
loss of thirty of their costs. And that was the
problem with the UK, so a lot of festivals were
really anxious about it, which is also another thing that
that goes into this, what if they got canceled and
we already had all this money and we paid all
these deposits. Are you kidding me? There's all these artists
managers right now that are going, well, you're our guarantee
(31:42):
is nonrefundable. I don't care about COVID. You're paying us.
And that's what all these sound you know guys are doing.
That's what all the whiting guys are that's what they're doing.
So it's your festival all over again. And so it's scary,
I mean, But at the same time, it seems that
will pollutes are feels like writing the risk to in
my opinion, reap the reward of all these people who
(32:04):
are hype for a festival that's mainstream and you know,
huge demographics. And I think it's definitely gonna happen, and
I think people are going to go. I don't, and
maybe it'll sell out. But like you said, logistical nightmare
for some of these people. And I actually just want
to clarify too. I thought you had said that they
needed to show proof of their vaccine cart and a
(32:27):
COVID negatives, But it's either or, which is less of
a logistical nightmare than I thought, right, Because can you
imagine all four every single people having like clogging up
vaccine testing sites for a day and a half. I
think in Chicago, I think it's gonna be very interesting
to see the logistics of this how well it does,
(32:48):
and especially with the vaccine status were like proof, I
would love to see the stats of that, to see
how many of their And here's the thing, I don't
know what the wh if they would ever release information,
but I would love I think, especially like the Events
Safety Commission that does a lot for live sound and stuff,
would love to know, like what's the percentage of the
(33:09):
people that are going there that are actually vaccinated or like,
you know, is it like of them or is it
fifteen and the rest of these people are riding on
COVID tests. That's that's going to be very interesting and
I feel like that would help a lot with planning
for these festivals. All right, first time ever special news
(33:32):
correspondent on I brought in my own story today. They're
our first guest to bring their own story. Yeah, you know,
I thought, I thought, Um, I'm not a music person,
so let me bring in a story to really wow
the audience with some non music related content. Nay As,
I texted you and media is part of our title.
(33:55):
So if anyone got mad and be like, well, here
we are, but it is, I would argue you, except
he's not bringing in some random thing. This is exceptionally groundbreaking.
Is that will impact all entertainment, including music, very heavily. Yeah,
it's a it's a pretty big deal. Um. So you
guys are familiar with Amazon. Correct Amazon, I'm sorry, you
(34:18):
mean the small online bookstore Amazon. Um? No, that the giant,
multimillion dollar company Amazons, the richest man in the world.
Um and his company, I should say more. His company
probably was very limited in the decision, but they have
(34:38):
bought MGM for eight point four or five billion dollars.
That is nuts. Now, if you're unfamiliar with what MGM is, Um,
if you've ever been to Las Vegas, Las Vegas, everything
in Las Vegas is sponsored by MGM, I guess I
should say yeah. I mean, there's huge. The one of
(35:00):
the biggest casinos is the MGM run One. But it's
more commonly. You've seen the lion roar at the beginning
of every movie ever, any movie that you've seen, it
opens up the big line roaring. That's an MGM. That's
their their opening credit scenes. So that's one of their movies. UM. Anyway, Uh,
(35:23):
this story comes from a couple of different places. I
have an article from the Los Angeles Times that kind
of breaks down um like catalog stuff that you guys
can look at later. Um. And they also talked about
it on the geek Wire podcast. UM. They gave like
a pretty good analysis on there. So you should definitely
check them out if you want to learn more about
(35:44):
this specific story. But what kind of a kind of
breeze through it? A little bit based on what they said. UM.
So they had a guest on the geek Wire podcast
named Sam Blake who is a dot l a reporter UM,
and he put the news in perspective. UM. That nineties
six years after Metro Pictures, Goldwin Pictures, and Louis B.
(36:07):
Meyer Pictures merged to fom MGM. So those are the M,
the G and the M. The Hollywood name stay, best
known for its roaring lion mascot, is set to join
a trillion dollar business empire best known for selling household
items over the internet. That is a pretty accurate description
of ridiculous is um MGM would provide Amazon with more
(36:30):
than four thousand films and seventeen thousand TV shows that
have collectively won more than a hundred and eighty Academy
Awards and a hundred Emmys. The film library includes like
really big names like the James Bond franchise and the
Rocky franchise UM, as well as like television shows such
as The Handmaid's Tale and Fargo, which Fargo I believe
(36:54):
is like a TV show that they've made based on
another mg franchise that was a movie a long time
ago US and a big big one right now on
like Facebook streaming. If you guys didn't know that Shark Tank.
So MGM has rights to the American shark tank UM
or I guess shark tank as a whole because they
(37:15):
do it in other countries too, And I think MGM
has the rights to all of the name shark Tank
um and then they license it elsewhere. UM. But that
shows blowing up huge on like Facebook clips right now,
where like people will come in and do their spill.
You'll just see like one business doing their thing and
all that stuff, and people love it on Facebook. UM.
(37:36):
Amazon's MGM acquisition would be the second largest deal that
amazons uh in Amazon's history, behind its thirteen point seven
billion dollar purchase of Whole Foods, which was huge. Uh yeah,
I guess the main thing to point out to from
that podcast is that it hasn't been regulatorily approved, but
(38:00):
they have signed definitive deals, so like if it gets
approved by the government, yeah, um, then they have to
do it. Um. And basically in the l A Times article,
like I said, they go more into it and we
can talk um you can. You can read the article
if you want to know more, But basically they just
break down a lot of stuff like, uh, like how
(38:21):
MGM has done this before, um with companies, Like they
sold the rights to their whole thing too Sony before,
and they have a ton of licensing deals to in
like a million different places right, Like they've they've got
like movies on HBO and like the Double O seven
movies are streaming on Netflix, and like the and Disney,
(38:43):
Hulu and Fox all have their own piece of MGM.
So they really go into like how much of a
spider web it's gonna be for Amazon to like be
able to pick up like shows and movies that they
want and like renegotiate contracts so that they can get
them on their own streaming service and stuff like that, um,
as well as like getting rights to things like uh
(39:06):
like James Bond. Um is a good example where MGM
only owns half of the rights to James Bond and
the other half belongs to the heirs of the writer,
the Broccoli family, um, which is a great, great by
the way to have. So they have a fifty split financially.
So not only would Amazon have to pick it pick
(39:27):
and shoot pick apart like the contracts that they have
with Netflix to get those movies back, they also have
to renegotiate how much the air the family heirs are
gonna get versus their rights, and they have to like
clarify stuff like that. UM. So I don't know. I
mean their main like goal for this, I guess is
to is to really amp up their streaming service, Amazon
(39:50):
Prime Video, which right now is really just and an
add on to Prime, right like everybody has Amazon Prime
just about like the reason to get a standalone or
it seems like, oh, this is a reason, this is
an additional reason to have pride. Currently I think that's
(40:11):
the case, but maybe with like I would pick to
get a standalone Amazon Prime membership over like a paramount
plus membership, right because they're with this new thing plus
all their originals are offering so much more. Um So,
I don't know. I have a couple I can get
you guys as thoughts. I have a couple of questions specifically,
I want to get an I think one just the
(40:32):
scale of us is insane. That's there with like Microsoft
in the nineties, insane, right, And I want to I
want to clarify again because I said earlier it's four
thousand movies and seventeen thousand TV shows that they now
have the rights to, you know what I mean, So
that I mean that that I literally they that should
(40:53):
just be the ad we added four thousand and seven
thousand TV shows the Amazon Prime and most of them
you know like and so that will just be a
crazy in the streaming space just to like break on through.
And so I it's amazing to me because Joe and
I've talked about it before, and just the entire entertainment
(41:13):
industry has talked about it before. Especially with streaming. People
are getting annoyed about how there's fifteen thousand different streaming
apps now and so this could be this could be
a reason where it's like well, now I need Prime
for sure, and Prime has an advantage over other ones,
So goodbye this other streaming service. So I don't have
to pay a hundred dollars a month, and you know
how how it would almost be pretty annoying. I feel
(41:37):
like if MGM came out with their own streaming service,
and I think maybe this is like a better way
for them to go, but it's already an infrastructure for them.
At the same time, though, do you think that it's
interesting that Amazon bought the entire thing as opposed to
licensing them from MGM and a deal. Yes, So I
(41:58):
just I wanna put my take on that. Maybe, Um,
and I didn't mention it. They mentioned it more in
the article. But I'll give like a a kind of
like a like a basic thing here. Um, the head
of MGM right now is his name is Kirk Kakoian,
which is the hardest name and it's probably one of
(42:19):
the most like movie villain names I've ever heard a
real person. Half, I don't know anything about the guy.
You could be great, but I doubt it. Um, he's
done this before, like I said, with the Sony thing.
Um where I don't know if he necessarily is inclined
to sell hit pieces of the catalog, right, So, like
(42:43):
I think the vibe is like, if you want a
piece of the catalog, you have to buy the whole thing,
and then you can keep whatever you want and then
sell it back to him basically, And that's exactly what
like Ted Turner did with his studio. UM, he bought
the rights to the It's kind of like what Amazon
is doing. I'm not sure what the figures were, um,
(43:04):
but he brought the rights to the MGM catalog UM
and then almost immediately sold it back to him, except
he kept um all the MGM titles um that were
made before Night six, so like the old MGM stuff
that they have like Gone with the Wind and Wizard
of Oz and stuff like that. So that almost seems
like kind of his vibe, right, And he might be
(43:25):
selling it off expecting Amazon to not do so well,
like Sony went bankrupt when they did that, Like their
media company filed to bankruptcy when they did the same thing,
because they bought the catalog and then they just because
it's so big, you can't like make your money back
that quick get you know, obviously four thousand films seventeen
thousand TV shows, it's hard to be like, yeah, that's
(43:47):
a big number. That doesn't really put in perspective. And
then even if I like started like you were saying,
going like Rocky James, Bond, everything you've seen the Lion's
Head on, people are just like, that's too much. I
can't put that on perspective. Think that Amazon is in
a better position though, I agree, because like they can
eat that cost. I agree, But also you have to
(44:08):
think too, they're not going to see profit from this first,
because if they unless they like waste a ton of
money to like buy out these contracts from places so
that they can start making revenue off of it. I
don't think they're going to see any money until the
contracts were out and they start making like spinoff series
is and stuff like that. Yeah, I agree, And I
(44:30):
I also think too, if we're if we're looking at
Amazon and how it operates and how it just basically
it's it's a money machine. It's a money machine and
dancing on the edge of a monopoly at this point.
But you know they're they're trying to get their toes
and their fingers and everything, every kind of thing that
someone would want to pay money for they are they are,
(44:51):
They're trying to get a market share of it, and
it doesn't have to be the whole market share. It
can just be part of the market share if you want.
And I think they are a very very competitive streaming service,
especially after this deal, and especially if we're thinking of
the things are going to make because of him and
their rights related to it, because and I think that's
(45:13):
more valuable than the past titles. I think it's what
they're going to make from is the ability to make
new series. Sorry, I just literally am looking at this
and be like, in the super Villain House, Kurt and
Jeff Bezos plot their new thing against Superman. This is
a double seven villain story has been off series, Jeff
Bezos and Cordian's life story and then anyway. So yeah,
(45:38):
it's just it's an insane level of scope. And I
think Joe also just hit a very good point about
the licensing of that, is the future licensing of that.
I mean we're talking about, you know, all the Rocky stuff,
and then we've had the Creed. This is just my example.
We have the Creed movies now and then people I thought,
oh okay, we've been done with Rocky because we made
(45:59):
like six of those movies and to Creed movies and
they're still making stuff, and I'm like, that's the value.
It's it's absolutely insane in that way. I think it's
gonna be interesting because at the end of the day,
this takes away more wee way from studios in terms
(46:20):
of competition with each other, especially when you have giant
things like Amazon in there. Wait wait, if we talked about,
for instance, and music licensing and stuff, it would be
very tempting to go, well, you could go with this
other studio and have your you know, licensing deal, a
sync deal, But maybe you want to form a relationship
with MGM because they're already on Amazon. And Amazon has
(46:43):
this huge catalog of things and all this i P
that they now own, So that just makes an imbalance
there of like maybe creatives are gonna want to go
to that platform more because it's like I'm investing in
my future here, just distribution, right, because it seems like
these i p s are all present here at this company.
Amazon is willing to just throw infinite amount of money
(47:04):
that I'll never see ever in my life, and so
it just seems like one of those things where you
might get in the situation where people are kind of
turning their head towards Amazon, especially creatively, and going like, well,
you know, maybe this deal is kind of bad, but
maybe I get to, you know, make a James Bond
movie one day, or maybe I get to have six
deals instead of just one because it goes to a
(47:27):
bigger audience and it blows up. Yeah. I'm just thinking
about the MGM line though, and just having the ugly
as Amazon. There's a cool there's a funny like photoshop
photo in the article if you guys want to check
it out. It's just like that. The it's like the
like jpeg of the frame that the line war comes in,
except instead of the line is just Jeff Bezos with
(47:49):
his like mouth super wide open as roaring too. It's
pretty funny, and I think that that's what they should
switch to ultimately. So I think that would scare people away,
honest Like, I think we answer to see your questions.
I think we did. I think it's very good for Amazon.
I think that it's definitely more in the streaming space
(48:09):
that's getting more and more competitive and as people drop
off and can't you know, get to the hypothetical end
of their streaming budget for the month. Right, you're gonna
get into these things where you're gonna have to cut
out services and if you're on it. Part of like
one of the questions I was gonna ask too that
we kind of hit on a little bit about like
the standalone service. Do you think that, like, if the
(48:30):
service gets a lot more traffic because of these movies,
that they would transition it into a standalone streaming service
where it's not it's no longer included with Prime or
you have to pay extra, even more extra for it.
I would say I think they would switch to an
extra model. I think they would keep the Amazon streaming
branding because it's already such a big uh it's it's
(48:53):
already it has its name out there. Are The idea
with most of Amazon has always been that they just
spend so much capital in the front to get it
to everyone and everything, and so you get addicted to
it and then you eventually just pay for that by itself.
And so that's how that company started, was that they
(49:15):
they used to just lose millions upon millions of dollars
by basically cutting themselves out of the shipping and their
whole thing was to get market share and so every
and so when they actually started being like Amazon Prime,
now you can buy this, people were like, oh, we're
already on it. Yeah, I would buy it. I want
the freight because we're already addicted to it. And so
(49:35):
in that same way, is that if Amazon streaming just
gets huge and people are watching it all all my
shows are on there and everything, and you get addicted
to it, and then they go, well, and now it's
going to be fifteen dollars a month, that's not part
of Prime anymore, then people will go or the other
(49:55):
thing I could totally see, because Prime is kind of
like the golden ticket for Amazon is they might be
because of this Prime is now a hundred and sixty dollars. Yeah, yeah,
that's what I think. It's probably going to transition. I
think that will be it for a while. I maybe
I I think it would go into a tiered system.
I don't think it would just be like everyone has
(50:17):
to pay this amount, because although yes, Amazon has increased
the price of Prime, I think when you're starting to
get up to those upper numbers, a lot of people
are not gonna go with it. It is way easier
to get people to buy a bunch of little things
than to buy one big thing because the number is
so high. So I mean, and we saw that when
(50:39):
we were talking about the the last third episode thirty
five about HD streaming, they had kind of the same mindset.
They had the same episode. When you write all the
stuff out, then you remember. But now, I mean, so
like we talked about in there when they talked about
HD streaming, and they for being ridiculous in my opinion,
(51:02):
and said, oh, if we can get people to pay
twelve dollars a month for HD streaming, and then that
will become the norm, everyone from regular streaming services will
pay four more dollars a month. Ago there, it's kind
of it. That's also the thing that's scary about this
is if they make that jump way too fast, then
it will backfire so hard, just like how they just
(51:23):
had to do now with the HD streaming and they went, well,
every competitor is equal to us now because they all
did it. So now we're just gonna cut that market
out and so we can be marketable in the first place.
Oh man, well, Hunter, we're gonna do what we always
do on the show, which is surprise you with a
little segment we like to call Yeah, I was prepared.
(51:46):
I was because I'm an active listener of your podcast.
Do you download? Do you download our podcast? No? Do
you want me to? Yeah? Do it right? In fact,
all of you listening should download. Look, the benefits is
high quality streaming. If you download, It's true you could
you could have a bad connection. Now, if you guys
(52:07):
want to know, and this goes for any podcast, I
don't care. Is if you want to support podcast the
most and other than you know, just giving them direct money. Uh,
The downloads are the easiest way, because that's actually how
metrics of podcasts are measured by advertisers. Yes, they do
not care about how many things, they literally have told
(52:30):
I've talked to podcasts people and they literally say they
do not care about how many people listen to the podcast.
They care about how many people download the podcast. I
care how many people listen podcasts not not in our
terrible downloaded. Don't listen to them, don't listen to him
out there, don't listen to them. If you don't want
to have all that junk on your phone. I think
I gave you enough leeway to find something. Okay, So
(52:53):
I I've been listening to this. It's gonna sound super indie,
and it's like one of those band names, you know,
I talked to. The band name is called Active Bird Community,
Oh God, which is a sick I gotta um. And yeah,
I've been listening to their whole pick Up, Pick Me
(53:14):
Apart album and it's like so good. It's good, but
I literally always think it's just coming to eight point
six college radio Active Bird. Oh God, I'm sure it's good.
Is it just like indie kind of? Yeah, it's like
it's like a little bit harder than like like indie's
soft coffee shop rock, you know what I mean. It's
(53:35):
kind of got some well, it's got some distortion to it.
It's got some caffey. It's a little caffineated. I always
wanted to shake up. I've been listening to a guy
named Blake Mills his song Hey Lover, which is really good.
And then I am also absolutely blown away by this
(53:59):
girl named Madison Cunningham, who's an amazing song writer. I've
heard of this. She's amazing and I think everyone should
check her out because it blows me away. Every single
song of hers is amazing. So yeah, so I have
a little story with mine, as I always do. Um.
I actually listened to a newer artist shocker. I know
(54:21):
you're not listening to more Billy Joel this week exactly.
Um No. So I was listening to this is so funny.
I was on Instagram and somebody messaged me on Instagram
and it was my old neighbor from the past who
was my sister's high school teacher. And she said, hey,
blasphrom the pastor something, and she was like, if you could,
(54:44):
I really appreciate it if you looked. And when I
was young, they had like two little boys, like really young.
They must be like six or seven years younger than myself.
And I knew them when I was like twelve or thirteen.
So she said, my youngest son, Mitch is in this
band and he plays bass. And I was like, well,
(55:04):
they've always been nice to me. But also, as you
guys probably listen to the podcast and no me, in
real life, I am incredibly cynical, so if something sounds bad,
I will tell people. So I I was like, I'll
go look at you know, And so I looked at
it and I was kind of amazed. To be honest
with you, so I went in there and it's this
group and I've got to get their name right there
(55:26):
called the Vents, and there said it reminded, it took
me back to a different time when I used to
be in a band, when I was about their seventeen
eighteen year olds, and uh, the songs are really good,
like they're it's indie rock, and the lyrics are very
well done. They just had a new UH EP called
Colorado Avenue. It's it takes you back to a time.
(55:48):
I will say this right now, going back to the
single side that's not mixed incredibly you know new. It's
very indie in that way and very you know, you
can tell these UH guys and girls made this in
their basement, but the songs and the songwriting and the
performances carry it, which is kind of going gets back
to my screw you Amazon HD streight how showing how
(56:12):
it doesn't matter because the music is good. Screaming streaming
you can literally hear a HD streaming will get you
HD screaming. So yeah, I just I was listening to it.
It's very good. It's very indie sounding, and uh, I
thought it was. I hope they keep they were telling
me if i've somehow Mitch is listening to this, I
(56:35):
like to playing. Mitch plays bass like I used to
all the time. Imagine you didn't have to break their
poor mom's heart after you listen to the album and
telling her that it was bad, like you that you threatened, right,
I told her that from the beginning. I will tell
you it's bad this long lost like you know, like
(56:55):
you're very very close family friends. They're like, can you
please like listen to myself this music because trash and
you should go. I mean, I'm just telling you. I
will tell people their music is bad. And it's the
events Colorado Avenue. I thought it was very good. I
hope it's like one of those things where I listened
to it and I'm like, if you guys stay together
as a band and like you get a good mixing
(57:16):
engineer and like you're going to album or two albums
you would, you're gonna hit something and it's gonna be big,
like and that's the fun part. Hey, Colan McKay is
saying something's gonna be big, then you should definitely a liar.
I just need well here they were telling me that,
you know, they're seventeen eighteen, there may be going to
different colleges, so I don't know if this is like
the band breaking out, So I hope it's not. I
(57:37):
really like their tunes. But if not, you know, I
feel like they have a very bright future ahead of it.
So yeah, you're welcome. This is Jake Wish. Well, this
is Jake Wish if I said that correctly, and uh
I guys, thanks for listening to the Bizines Tape. You
can follow us Instagram, Facebook, Twitter at the biz Tape,
(57:58):
and email the bizin Tape podcast to dreams dot com.
I love talking to you guys about whatever is going
on now, I mean music business stuff, but it's all
it's fun. Be sure. We also did a deep cut
last week about n f t S. If you're confused
about that, we'll worry about that space. That was really
fun to research and just out of this world, how
strange that entire community is. But it's really fun. Anyway.
(58:21):
We appreciate you listening. We hope you subscribe, we hope
you rate, we hope you do whatever you want download
share us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. We'll
see you next time.
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