Conversely

In the age of the Intarnetz, radio is an easy target. I mean, it’s kind of low tech, in the grand scheme of things. Electromagnetic waves flying through the air? Analog? Really.

Yeah, really.

Today we take on radio, or more specifically we take on radio on the internet. It only seemed appropriate, what with the launch of Beats 1. And we have some very special guests: Zack Sparrow, our illustrious intern, and Joshua Rawlings, one of Brian’s offspring. It’s an awesome episode.

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Show Notes:

Are you enjoying your 3 month free trial of Apple Music? Or have you just been listening to music for free your entire life? Yeah. About that. This episode is.

Also T Swifty. Because we can’t seem to get through a single episode without here (we owe it all to you, Taylor).

Enjoy.

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This episode and all future episodes will also be on Apple Music! We’ll post a link when it’s live.

Show Notes:

(Sorry about the audio issues in this episode. We’re trying to improve this.)

Bands and brands have always played nice nice, but sometimes it gets a little close for comfort. On today’s episode we welcome our intern Zack Sparrow (yes, that’s actually his name) and get a millennial voice on the question of whether brands are the new arbiters of cool.

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Show Notes:

And here we leave you with this clip from the Colbert Report featuring The Black Keys facing off against Vampire Weekend to see which one is the bigger sell out. Hashtag ironic.

The Colbert Report

We’re probably gonna get in trouble for this one.

We begin today’s episode with the thesis that lasting change is coming to the music industry. We know this because, well, everyone knows this. Even while other industries see similar change, perhaps none of them has had as much public attention in its upheaval as this sad little business we call music.

Let’s be clear about this, though: the music industry is not dead, nor is it going extinct. It is simply changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Which brings us to our second thesis, and the most important for this episode: change will come in the form of coffins. Pardon the morbidity, but it would seem that most, if not all, of the industry’s so-called problems are actually just aggressive resistance rather than actual strife. We saw it in the early days of iTunes, and we’re seeing it again with streaming. Hell, we saw it when sheet music turned to recordings, when vinyl made way for cassettes and CDs. We see it in concert ticketing – because lord knows we need another overpriced ticket to a crappy show, right? Publishers resist new formats, PROs resist transparency, and writers…. well…..

And so, in order for lasting change to occur, we need the stalwarts to die. Literally.

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Show Notes:

Episode photo by David

In which we answer the age old question: is anything in the music industry actually broken?

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We all know money doesn’t grow on trees. But what if it did?

In this episode we explore the strange world of music tech capital: where does it come from? who controls it? and how does one get some of that?

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Lots of linkage:

An artist-owned streaming service sure sounds like a good idea. A streaming service that pays higher royalties sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately TIDAL is neither of those things. And on today’s episode we talk about why TIDAL is (maybe) great news for Jay Z, and more of the same for artists and labels and fans.

Show Notes:

Today we welcome all four teams from Project Music that BPG has been graciously asked to advise. Project Music is the first ever accelerator devoted specifically to music technology, and BPG is pleased to be mentors and advisors for this program.

Our guests today:

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Welcome back, my friends, to the show that seemed to have ended. We’re back with a brand new Conversely, and we do hope that you enjoy the new format. We’re trying some new things, hopefully having some new guests, and as always we’d love to know what you think. If you didn’t take our survey yet, please clickety click on this here link.

Today’s episode goes deep into the realm of mythology, as we explore Joseph Campbell‘s monomyth and The Hero’s Journey, a theory about our unending, timeless human desire to understand the world through the stories of heroes and their paths toward enlightenment.

More specifically we talk about rock stars and CEOs. But, well, that’s just how we do it on Conversely.

As we mention in the episode, this was all kicked off by an idea Mike had while driving, that went a little something like this:

We’ll let you read up on the rest. Here are the show notes:

We promise not to screw it up.  Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.  We will operate Tumblr independently.  David Karp will remain CEO.  The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.  Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster. – Marissa Mayer on the Yahoo Tumblr acquisition

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Hello and welcome to this not-really-an-episode of Conversely. As you may have noticed, we haven’t been recording Conversely episodes lately.

Don’t worry, we’re coming back. Soon.

In the meantime, we’re looking for your feedback so we can make Conversely awesome. Like, really freaking amazing awesome. We’re not messing around here, we want Conversely to be the best entertainment technology podcast in the world.

And so we need your help.

We’ve put together a little survey – it’s only a few questions, shouldn’t take more than a minute or two – and your responses will help shape the future of Conversely.

Thank you all so very much for listening.