Fox Tales - a music industry podcast by Stereofox

The gender wage gap, in general, refers to the difference in earnings between women and men, and for some reason, on average women in virtually every country are paid less than men. This is quite a complex issue linked to politics, economics, and even sociology… and there is a range of variables in play that make it tough to answer - why are women paid less than men?

Following our articles on Challenges Female Producers Face and How These 5 Factors Contribute to the Gender Pay Gap In The Music Industry, we’re excited to expand the research with an audio discussion and a guest who can help us better understand the issue.

For this episode we invited Vick Bain who is a campaigner for women in music through researching, training, presenting & consulting on all aspects of diversity in creative industries. She has exten­sive experience in the music industry as she was the CEO for the BASCA (British Academy for Songwriters, Composers, and Authors), she sat on the UK music board, the UK rights committee, and the UK Music Diversity Taskforce - and the ones I mentioned are only a few of the boards she’s been on. Now she works as a freelance music industry consultant, a curator of the F-List, a director of an organization called Pipa, and she’s a director of an exciting music-tech start up called Delic. I can’t neglect to mention that she was enrolled into BBC Radio 4’s Women's Hour Powerlist in 2018.

Show notes

[11:12] On her experience as CEO at BASCA (British Academy for Songwriters, Composers, and Authors)

[14:30] On her report “Counting the Music Industry” and the hardest part about the report

[26:44] Why companies don’t promote women in the upper echelons of the organization

[29:50] On how women leaders are treated compared to men

[40:35] On the motherhood penalty

Links

» Vick Bain (@vickbain1)

» Stereofox (@wearestereofox)

» host (@skai_lounge)

» Join our Discord Server

When it comes to releasing music in 2021, the 1-million-dollar question is always: “Should I release it myself or via a label?”

Of course, self-releasing gives you complete freedom & control but also requires more time and know-how on distribution, marketing, PR, etc.

In our new episode, we had a chat about the pros & cons of both sides with Chris Hill from Average Negative Records - a Berlin-based cross-platform label, run by himself and Jian Liew, also known as Kyson.

He’s also a professional drummer and has his own recording & tracking studio called The Tracking Farm. He’s worked with artists like Alice Phoebe Lou, running his solo experimental project holymachines and many, many other things.

Links

» Average Negative (@averagenegative)

» holymachines (@holymachines)

» Stereofox (@wearestereofox)

» host (@atanas.kutsev)

» Join our Discord Server

Time for our first Artist Stories segment and we're starting with someone very loved and respected by our team - US electronic artist Com Truise. We dive into an array of topics like Galactic Melt's 10 years anniversary all the way through working with a label and manager and slightly touch upon the future of web 3, design and NFTs.

Show notes

[6:50] On finding inspiration when it comes to creating music

[8:40] On how he perceives Galactic Melt nowadays

[11:00] On working with Ghostly

[15:54] On the music industry and consumption nowadays

[17:30] Adding value to music and the future of the Synthetic Astronaut

[20:45] On Synthwave, Drive, Stranger Things, and Com Truse's genre

[25:15] On re-writing movie scores

[28:03] On why 80s aesthetics is so appreciated nowadays

[32:53] On making it in music nowadays and being noticed

[36:21] On the evolution of synthwave / retro wave

[43:30] On remixing 

Links

» Com Truise (@comtruise)

» Ghostly (@ghostly)

» Stereofox (@wearestereofox)

» host (@himynameisivo)

» Join our Discord Server 

How can artists submit and end up on Deezer editorial and how do their team curate their playlists. 

I must note - Deezer is the only platform that puts the face and the name of the curator on each playlist, which gives transparency and opens up possibilities for discussions with them.

Playlist curator as a job didn’t exist around the time Adam had studies Economics and Finance, but from the world of banking, he managed to get an internship position at a student radio as Head of Music. There he learned to curate for an audience, and after that after a quick stint at a local label, he started at MTV UK where he worked as an Editor. Eventually, Adam landed his dream position in Deezer as a UK & Ireland Music Editor, and later on as Global Indie & Alternative Editor. He is one of the people responsible for Deezer’s InVersion playlists and curates playlists like ANTI, Bedroom Pop, Silk, and Chill Alternative.

For more info read the article on Stereofox.

Stay in touch by following us on Instagram, or joining our Discord server.

In his first Fox Tales podcast as a host, our Stereofox teammate Lu is exploring music blogs' importance in 2021 with Dylan Heneck from Indie Shuffle and SubmitHub.

The 2 discuss what happened to music blogs, hypemachine, the highs and lows of writing about music in the past decade, the role of social media, SoundCloud, and Spotify on their diminishment and why should artists still care about them in 2021. Not only because of the fact that music blogs can still help them find die-hard fans and share their story, but their role in landing an editorial playlist on major streaming platforms like Spotify (Fresh Finds)teammate, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer, and TIDAL.

For more, read our article on Stereofox.

Stay in touch by following us on Instagram, or joining our Discord server.

In a nutshell, Bandcamp is a digital community that facilitates the process of fans directly supporting artists in the first place, and also  (nowadays) serves as a gathering spot of like-minded people who want to discover new music and build relationships with the artist.

In our new episode, we have the honor to speak with Aly Gillani (Label Representative & Manager at Bandcamp) about the different features like Live Streams, Bandcamp Fridays, Messaging, and Building an Audience. We also cover some best practices when it comes to getting the best out of the platform and achieving success as an artist or label on the platform.

Podcast notes / more info and links on our website.

A quote from Aly from the end of the interview which I really love and can relate to when it comes to what we do with Sterefoox.

Our aim was just to create an online record store. An online record store has personality, it has idiosyncrasies, and I think we all understand now that yes, there is AI and algorithms and they can predict your every move, but sometimes people do things that are unexpected and weird and sometimes who only ever bought hip hop suddenly buys a folk record and that’s great. We try to encourage that kind of discovery where you find things you wouldn’t otherwise find but you really love.

Welcome to The Fox Tales - a brand new music industry podcast created by the team behind Stereofox. 

Want to end up on a Spotify Editorial? Tough, but not impossible and we hope this talk helps you! In 40 minutes we talk about making sure you get noticed by editors and bringing your best game into the world of releasing music digitally.

In this episode, we share our knowledge gathered as a label for the past 2 years when it comes to writing a Spotify Pitch. We also discuss best practices and important steps an artist or label should do before pitching. Lastly, we also explain why pitching to Spotify is important and why you should be doing it for every release.

For more information and (sort-of) podcast notes check ouт our article on Stereofox. 

Welcome to The Fox Tales - a brand new music industry podcast created by the team behind Stereofox. In our first episode, we discuss the history and evolution of the Spotify playlist ecosystem - both editorial and algorithmic.

Discover what editorial playlists are and what they bring to the table. How they changed since their inception on the platform in 2013, and what's their role in the streaming economy of Spotify beyond keeping users engaged. We discuss the types of editorial and algorithmic and why it's important for artists to understand the field before pitching their music and hopefully landing on an Editorial playlist.

For more information and sort-of podcast notes - drop by the article we published on Stereofox.