Hell’s Kitchen

One more story that slipped through the cracks here at MusicREDEF HQ while I was on the injured list: my friend BRIAN HIATT’s report for Rolling Stone on songwriters squeezed between the changing (read: worsening) economics of writing in the streaming age and artists taking bites out of their ever-shrinking royalty pie in the form of dubious songwriting credits. A-list pop songwriter OAK FELDER tells Hiatt about a colleague who skipped out of a writing session after three hours to go to a restaurant. But not because he had a reservation: “He’s like, ‘No, no, I’m going to work... I work in the kitchen.’” DUA LIPA/CHAINSMOKERS collaborator EMILY WARREN mentions a Grammy-winning songwriter friend who’s currently driving for UBER. KIMBERLY “KAYDENCE” KRYSIUK’s says her first royalty check for an ARIANA GRANDE album track a few years back was $2,004.61.

LUCIAN GRAINGE has put streaming economics at the front of the music biz agenda for 2023. He and UMG are working with TIDAL on an “updated” “artist-centric” model for streaming revenues, though they’ve been vague on what that might mean. In Australia, meanwhile, TIKTOK is experimenting with reducing the amount of licensed music users can incorporate in their own videos and hear in other users’ videos. It’s unclear what the company’s endgame is, but there’s understandable nervousness at labels that one of the most important platforms for music marketing and discovery may be looking for ways to share less of its revenues with the companies that supply the music.

Songwriters aren’t so much in the middle of all this as they are at the bottom. The very nature of their work tends to make them freelancers, but they’ve organized to protest outside SPOTIFY’s offices and, as Hiatt notes, several prominent writers signed a pact two years pledging not to work for artists who ask for credits on songs they didn’t write. They’ve had mixed results on both fronts, with the pact’s signers, who still need the work, not all adhering to it. Publishers have made some headway in streaming royalty negotiations. But it seems fair to wonder what the writers’ place will be in a new artist-centric economy, should it ever come to pass, and who will be their best advocates. Because a songwriter’s place is most definitely not in the kitchen.

Etc Etc Etc

Can concert ticket fees really be killed? LIVE NATION’s MICHAEL RAPINO says no way, though he and his company are pushing for legislation that would require those fees to be disclosed at the beginning, rather than the end, of a transaction (which I don’t believe anyone is preventing Live Nation from doing, say, now)... The Trichordist’s DAVID LOWERY explains how bills being considered in Georgia and other states to limit such fees are “Trojan horse” bills actually designed to restrict artists’ ability to sell tickets directly to fans... Should your office have a soundtrack?... (Duh. Everything. Should. Have. A. Soundtrack)... LL COOL J eats spicy wings and makes platitudes like “humility’s a superpower” sound deep... British rockers DRY CLEANING treat themselves to mani-pedis in Brooklyn... ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME ballots are in voters’ hands. May I suggest you start at the bottom of this year’s ballot, alphabetically speaking, and work your way up, my voting friends?

Rest in Peace

Italian club DJ and Ibiza regular RENATO “RENÈ” GIMANI... Artist manager BRETT RADIN, who most recently worked at Knitting Factory Management.