The Music Business Buddy

You can feel it happening: a quiet revolt against the feed. When music becomes something we scroll past, count, and optimise, we lose the part that actually nourishes us. So I sit down with Keith Jopling, former Spotify global head of strategy and one of the UK’s sharpest music industry thinkers, to talk about the surprisingly radical idea at the heart of his book Body Of Work.  

We start with the album and why it...

A song can be great and still miss its audience, simply because nobody knows where to place it. That problem sits at the heart of my conversation with Zotz - the strategist, music executive, and CEO of Rocketship Music, a new platform built to help artists understand exactly where their track fits before they spend money promoting it. 

We talk about the practical reality of modern music marketing for independent artists...

AI music tools are moving fast, but one issue keeps poisoning the well: models trained on copyrighted songs with little or no visibility into what went in. When creators cannot see the training data, they cannot consent, negotiate, or get paid, and we end up stuck in a bleak loop of scrape first and litigate later. I want a better outcome, and I think we already have a blueprint hiding in plain sight.

I unpack how legal samp...

You can feel it happening: people are watching less legacy television, and the internet is filling the gap with an endless stream of short-form video, livestreams, indie games, podcasts, and creator-led brands. That shift doesn’t just change how audiences consume media, it changes how music needs to be licensed. I’m looking at micro licensing, a model that could become a major force over the next five to ten years as th...

Most artists don’t fail because they lack talent. They fail because they rush, chase the wrong signals, or hand over control before they understand what they own. I’m joined by John Hart, A&R consultant and artist management specialist, for a straight-talking look at what sustainable artist development really means in today’s music industry.

We get specific about what a good manager looks for and it&rsq...

Most music producers spend years trying to be louder, faster, and more impressive in the room. Tenroc argues the opposite;l the real edge is knowing what the song needs, then doing only that. Jonny Amos sits down with the New York songwriter-producer behind work connected to artists like Jon Bellion, Rihanna, the Jonas Brothers and Julia Michaels, and pulls back the curtain on how modern sessions actually function.

We dig in...

The music industry does not just need more songs and artists. It needs more people who understand how the whole machine fits together and who can help artists build sustainable careers. That is why I brought three of my former students onto the podcast: Natalie Brown, Lotty Evans and Chris Beswick. They have just finished their degrees at BIMM University in Birmingham (UK) and they already sound like the next wave of UK music execu...

When you approach crowdfunding with a plan, it becomes one of the most powerful tools an independent artist can use to fund an album, a tour, a music video, or the next career step without handing over control.

I am joined by Ella Kuijpers and Remy Van Leeuwen, the founders of Crowdable; a crowdfunding platform built specifically for music. Remy and Ella kindly explain why their work is as much about hands on strategic suppo...

Episode 100 is a landmark for me, so I went back through the first 99 conversations and pulled out the 10 biggest lessons I want every music creator to use into 2026. If you make songs, release recordings, or collaborate with anyone at all, this is the practical checklist that helps you protect your work, get your royalties paid, and avoid the silent mistakes that cost artists money for years. 

We start with the unglamo...

Royalties don’t disappear, they get stuck. When the data can’t identify you, the system can’t pay you, even if the money has been collected. That’s why I wanted to bring on Amit Dubey from Beat Street Music and Publishing in Mumbai, India; a specialist in the unglamorous back end of the music business - rights documentation, metadata accuracy, publishing administration, royalty tracking, and recovery. <...

Confusing distribution with publishing is one of the fastest ways to lose time, miss money, and second guess every release decision you make. I’m Jonny Amos - host of The Music Business Buddy and I’m stripping it back to basics so you can clearly separate what a music distributor does from what a music publisher does, without the jargon and without the myths.

We start with the core distinction the industry actual...

China can look like the biggest opportunity in music and the easiest place to get lost. I sit down with Jonathan Heeter, who runs Middle8, an outsourced China division for Western labels and artists, to translate what actually works on the ground and what Western playbooks get wrong.

We map the Chinese music streaming landscape through Tencent’s QQ Music ecosystem and NetEase Cloud Music, then dig into why discovery al...

The fastest way to stall a music career is to build a following you can’t reach. I sit down with Jack McCarthy from IndieX to get practical about artist ownership: how attention becomes data, how data becomes relationships, and how relationships become reliable income that does not vanish between releases and tours.

We talk through a simple framework that turns the fuzzy idea of a “fan base” into something ...

You can feel the right track in your bones, but finding it inside a giant catalogue can still be painfully slow. That gap between what we mean and what search engines can understand is where sync licensing briefs stall, temp tracks take over, and great back catalogue gets left behind. I'm joined by Tiangu Zhu, founder of Songpot, to unpack a simple but ambitious goal: building AI that truly understands music as a language, not just...

The leap from making songs to building a career isn’t magic — it’s momentum you can engineer. I pull back the curtain on how to launch a brand-new artist from zero data to investable, using a practical framework that blends creative clarity with disciplined execution. No hype, no guesswork, just a repeatable path that lowers risk and raises opportunity.

I start by nailing the lane: genre, subculture, and th...

Hits don’t happen by accident. They happen when the right singer meets the right song and a focused team executes without ego. That’s the throughline of my conversation with Pete Ganbarg—a two-time Grammy-winning A&R leader whose fingerprints are on era-defining records and publishing wins—spanning artist development, writer mentorship, and the power of aligned campaigns.

We start with the essenti...

What if the power in music has already shifted—and you just need the receipts to prove it? We sit down with Nashville and LA veteran Jason Hollis to unpack a modern blueprint for building leverage, owning your audience, and turning proof into power. From MySpace-era heat maps to TikTok verse-to-chorus teasers, Jason shows how artists can create undeniable momentum that attracts partners on their terms.

We dig into the ...

The path from rehearsal room to global stages is rarely straight, and Collette Williams shows how grit, honesty, and community can bend the line in your favour. I sit down with the session drummer and multi-instrumentalist to unpack the craft behind TV appearances, the leap from drum tech to the Blossoms live setup, and the mindset that turns fear into fuel when the brief suddenly changes.

Collette opens the door on the cont...

Your song is done. The artwork is perfect. Now what? We sit down with Adriano and James, the creators of Release Assist, to unpack a smarter way to launch music without drowning in choices. Their goal-led approach replaces vague hopes with a clear plan: define what success looks like, connect your data sources, and align every touch point—timing, metadata, pitching, distributor strategy—to the audience you actually want...