The Truth About Music Streaming, AI, and Artists' Future

Jakob

Hey guys and welcome back to the Sound Connections Podcast. Today's a guest I've actually been wanting to get on for a long time, Daniel. Welcome.

Daniel Nordgård

Thank you. Good to be here.

Jakob

Daniel, I've been very lucky to study under you for a couple of years. You are, by any means that I would say this, very true, the most knowledgeable person I know about the music industry. So it's a big honor for me to have you here. And I've had a lot of questions that no one else has been able to answer and you have been able to answer. So I hope that this is gonna be the scenario for the next hour. But Daniel, for the people who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, am Don O'Noga. I am a professor in music management, music industry and digitalization. I teach our master's program here at the University of Agder in music business management. I lead. I'm the director of our new center of excellence in creative use of music technology and music education. I sit on boards. I sit on the board of Grammacht, which is the featured art school. I'm deputy chair of the Gramo, which is the neighboring white society in Norway. In brief.

Jakob

Yeah, and you have a really interesting background as a musician and festival director and then academia. So whenever I hear you talk or I talk with you about certain topics, it also comes from a very practical standpoint. But could you just briefly walk us through like, what is it the world you came from and how did you come into academia?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, actually I had, like many people, ambitions in doing something in music. And I think I came into music really out of a passion for creating music and playing music and playing in a band and touring and recording. And so my grand passion was simply just to do music, to work with music. I didn't really have that much of a strategic goal of... working professionally with music, I just wanted to work with it, to be associated with it. And I did that for a long time and I managed to release and tour and I also worked with live music for long time. And then eventually, and I think it happened for different reasons, but it happened at the same time, the band disbanded and... festival, the festival that I worked with, went bankrupt. And there were a lot of things happening at the same time. And so I had the opportunity of pursuing an academic career. was invited in to the University of Agera to do a PhD and that really coincided with me trying to figure out what to do. And I have to say, it also, I think a lot of it for me personally had to do with trying to figure out what actually happened. in around 2007, 2008, something happened that impacted my music career quite heavily. And I was, and still is, I am extremely interested in trying to figure out how, what impacted my ambitions. in these ways and how can I try to learn and gain more insights in it. That's actually kind what I've been doing ever since.

Jakob

Yeah, and before we start recording, I also said that since I've been, I have a master's in music technology from before and then actually finishing up my master's now under you, which I'm very grateful for. And what I've realized in those two years is that academia is such a source of guidance in business. And I don't think I've neglected it before per se, but knowing things, you can't say for sure. but at least much more surely than the surface level that most of the decisions are made just helps so much in this business. Also because it can be particularly difficult to navigate. But you did stay in academia. I also know that you're very much involved in the business world from an academic side. And you've also been a person that's been quite central in the sort of European. thinking, and the global thinking about this, especially with the Cousin Sound Roundtable, which is a conference that gathers some great minds around the world and talk about the future of music industry. Could you tell me a bit about sort of how that started and what that is?

Daniel Nordgård

Sure, and it actually is very closely linked to my own entering into academia because in 2007, at the time I was leading a music festival in Kinsundsson and... And at that time, the University of Agder, there were two gentlemen, one Bendik Hofzett and another gentleman called Peter Jenner, who used to be the manager of Pink Floyd in the old days and who was very, very well connected. And he's a brilliant, brilliant guy and a networker of, you know, high ranked. And they, for some reason, they managed to put together a roundtable conference in Christensen, trying to discuss where to go due to digitalization. And I think they had some regional funding from Christensen. And in order to have that funding, they needed to have some regional alibi. They needed to have someone local present. to be part of the music industry. And at that time I was head of the Quart Festival. I was managing one of the largest music festivals in Norway and because of that I was the local alibi. So I was sitting in the back listening to all these brilliant people and I knew some of them by name, I knew some of them by face. And I was just sitting there, just soaking it in. I thinking, this is brilliant. This is something I really want to be more associated with. And so the year after, the festival went bankrupt. My band dissolved. a lot of things just fell apart. And the University of Agra asked, you want to pursue a doctorate in music business and digitalization? I said, yes, I do. And I really want to sit in to those meetings.

Daniel Nordgård

I wouldn't take part in those conversations and I want to make that a centerpiece of my research. And I was allowed and Bendikov, Seth and Peter Jenner have been extremely including in that process. So eventually I became part of that and we record all the sessions and all the sessions have been part of my research and I now, together with Bendik, very much part of running those conferences and maintaining them and making sure that we still progress and focus discussions, people, et cetera, et cetera.

Jakob

And that is culminated in a few different works on the field and this is sort of where the core subject of today's talk is going to be and that is digitalization of music and it's we're going to talk a bit about the past, the present, and the future. I don't know how to go about it the best possible way because it can be a very long story talking about the past but maybe we can start with concerns about the future rather than what academia says but concerns about the future because I have the luxury in this podcast talking with a lot of different voices in the music industry and there's very various Angles this some are very optimistic some are very pessimistic some are very confused and Well, I think that represents, you know, the whole spectrum, sure. But for me, I'm more like on the neutral to negative side about music. But I don't necessarily have something to base it in. So I know we're starting with a bit of a conclusion, which is not that very academic. if I could start for something with you, if you have an outlook of music, where would that be in the spectrum from optimistic to pessimistic about the future of music?

Daniel Nordgård

I'm very optimistic. I think there are lots of difficult things that need to be solved and there are lots of really, really important discussions to be had. And I think there are huge, difficult political issues and legal issues that need to be, but I'm, you know, in general, I'm hugely optimistic. And I'm optimistic for two main reasons or three main reasons. One is that... there is significant money involved in music again, which was part of the main concern, at least with the recording music, only a decade and a half ago. The main problem there was that there was consumption, there was use of music, and there were music fans, but they didn't pay, or the economic models were just flawed, completely flawed. And so there's money back into the system. However, how that is being redistributed and how that is being spent in creating new content and new careers and new talent is disputed and should be discussed and should be scrutinized and challenged. But there's one idea there. Secondly, people are using music, people are experiencing music and people are accessing music, which is at... and unprecedented level. So there's more people now than ever before that are experiencing music and accessing music and there are markets that are experiencing.

Jakob

Thank

Daniel Nordgård

recorded music business that weren't really part of it before. The Asian markets, the African markets, the Latin American markets, which is an incredible opportunity to expand, but also to have new voices, new sounds, new etc. And thirdly, I think Music as a sector must probably be one of the most resilient sectors used to change, to adapt to change, to absorb change and to play with change, to make new stuff, cool stuff out of opportunities that arise from it. those three things I think makes for huge potentials. But there are, as I said, very difficult things that need to be sorted out. But I'm quite sure we're going to be able to sort them out. It's just going take a little bit of time and it's going to take many different processes that involves politicians, legislators, and the industry overall.

Jakob

There's one concept that I've really been interested in lately and I haven't really been able to find much clarity So I'm gonna use the opportunity to ask you about that and that is from the pessimistic sides is The concept of value of music you might argue that you know, the current value of a Subscription service is also determined by many factors. One of them might being public perception of value due to historical reasons With the interest of mass-generated music, which now is at such a quality that it's incredibly mind-blowing, what is that going to do to the value of music when it comes to the growth of the market as well?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, think there are different ways of considering the value of music. And I think if you ask myself and probably yourself and most of our friends and colleagues, our economic payment of recording music has dropped significantly since I was buying CDs and vinyl and cassette tapes or you have not. But I think for the majority of people, there are... their economic value, what they actually pay to access record music has increased quite dramatically. So I think, you know, whether or not they actually consider it as a, know, as a, is what I pay for music, as opposed to, you know, I just log on and there's Spotify or Deezer or whatever, there is a conceptual of, I have to, you know, enter my credit card and I have to do this in order to have access to record music.

Jakob

in

Jakob

Mm.

Daniel Nordgård

which is, I think if you look at the market in overall, think there's an, I don't think, we have the numbers for it. So there is an increase, a huge increase in the economic value. What I think is when it comes to how we make music and how the fact that everyone can make whatever they want to make, I think, and this is I think it's gonna get really exciting. think... At one point, there's probably going to be a separation between professional music or music that has an audience or that has a following or music creators that have an artist career, a narrative, a story, a persona, something that has been created, invested in, harnessed, built, as opposed to... someone else, know, some just playing around, goofing around, making something that sounds okay and sounds good maybe. And I think eventually we'll probably see, you know, maybe different platforms and different spheres for, know, so you'll have a professional sphere where you can tap into listening to those personas, those narratives, those artists. And then you have something entirely else, which is where my siblings or where my friends could put up whatever they make from AI or from whatever digital tool they have, which is not creative for anything else but them just showing up, look what I did, which doesn't have any artistic or professional ambition at all.

Jakob

Mm.

Jakob

Hmm. Are there any comparisons to what's happening off with what happened in the past? Do you see parallels or this is a completely new thing?

Daniel Nordgård

I don't think, first of all, I don't think there's much new, like in general. There are more or more extreme versions of things. I think the, I think, you know, there were, it was a revolution when people had home pianos or where you had... record tapes or where you had samplers that could allow you to create stuff on your own. there's always been parts that has allowed people who have not been part of the professional educated music to create stuff on their own. What I think with this, what... What is different with this part is volume and scale or outreach. So I think due to the internet, due to online and connectedness, I think it allows for more people than ever before with very little resources to take part in it. But I think the technical, the fact that you have breaks where... all of sudden someone who didn't have access before all of a sudden had access to some of the production tools. That has happened before in various ways. But I think it's the volume and the scale of this which is significantly different.

Jakob

And what is that gonna do to the economy for like, who do you see being affected negatively and who do you see being affected positively by this change?

Daniel Nordgård

I my main, I wouldn't say concern, but my main expectation from especially then AI-generated music or AI-assisted music is that it will create a flood of creative content. So I think the single most significant or expected outcome of AI-generated or AI-assisted music is a tsunami of content and that represents a challenge or a problem which is not necessarily a bad thing but it does represent a problem. And the problem is that all of that content has some cost sides associated with it. There's a cost side actually to infrastructure, to the fact that if you do create thousands and thousands of tracks if you want to have it on YouTube or Spotify or wherever it does require a fraction of infrastructure but still infrastructure to know what's the name of the song, is it, know, just some basic data. That has a cost side to it. The other one is that there's still a potential legal challenge to everything that is uploaded. using AI or assisted by AI. And so the legal potential that lies in every single piece of content, creative content that is being uploaded, also is quite significant. And then thirdly, you also have a cost side from the audience perspective or the subscriber or the user, the fan perspective, and simply having to sort out what to like, what to listen to. this becoming increasingly difficult with more content being available. And so that's a challenge. What I do think, and I think that is, I think it will lead to a separation of spheres. I think that the tsunami and the wave of creative content will lead to a separation of spheres. So that finally at some point, some of the platforms or the infrastructure will say, we cannot cater for this.

Daniel Nordgård

We can't take the legal risks and we cannot sustain the infrastructure on so much credit content with so little economic value or fan value or artistic value. So we'll create a separate thing which is catering for artists, careers and fan engagement and we'll keep this other thing for something else. So my future prediction is that

Jakob

Okay.

Daniel Nordgård

the negative things will lead to something positive. And I think that change is necessary. should have, you know, and so that's why I'm positive. I'm optimistic about it.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jakob

I think this is a great point and I've heard you talk about this before and I've asked a few questions and obviously what a lot of people have been talking about the last two to three years is the fan economy and also what people agree on that you can't just copy the Asian model into here. Like it doesn't work that way. But you have done a lot of researching on this specific subject when it comes to I think specifically its platforms and fan engagement if you correct me if I'm wrong. Could you tell me about your findings within that?

Daniel Nordgård

Yeah. Well, part of the research I've been involved with has been linked to, especially with to music streaming and music streaming economics, but lately also music streaming. How do you say? How fans discover things, discover ability and play listing and these things. And I've been working together with a colleague and an associate of mine and we're hoping to publish in some not too long time. Rasmus Rex Pedersen from Roskilde University of Music. And we've been looking at how geo boundaries and how different tags make it very difficult to exploit the benefits of being online. So, you know, to enter new markets, for instance. So the fact that you have geo tags to specific genres makes it very difficult to expand. by connectedness, like fans also like this, or if you like this, you'll also be recommended this. So I think part of what we've been looking at and researching is how internal structures make it difficult to break out. And I think that's a significant and very important part of, or an important challenge with the recent digital online music ecosystem.

Jakob

Yeah.

Daniel Nordgård

very contrary to what we thought online and digital music consumption would be like. It would be the opposite. It would be being exposed to music coming from somewhere else, whether it's Nigeria or China or India or Bangladesh or whatever. Those geotags and those geo boundaries are very effectively making it difficult for us to be exposed to those types of music.

Jakob

So where is the potential? What's the counteraction to that?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, I think a couple of things need to happen. I think people like me and yourself, we need to do more research. We need to expose and challenge and discuss those internal structures. And hopefully that will lead to a political process where we have less NDAs, non-disclosure agreements and more transparency on how things work. So that people, whether that's... politically elected people or its music business professionals have better insights in the motors, the dynamics, the things that determine who gets to listen or who gets exposed to your music and what type of music do they get exposed to. And I think... I think the latest, there's been some really good journalistic work in Norway and Sweden by Dagens Nyheter in Sweden and Dagens Näringsliv in Norway. Both looking into what can be seen as dubious in how to build businesses on... on non-listening music consumption. But also Dagens and Aynesliev making links and suggesting that part of this is flat out scams and very closely linked to organized crime, which I think, if true, I think needs to be exposed and needs to be challenged. And I think that can best be done by more transparency.

Jakob

you

Jakob

really interesting talk with Conrasso and Andrew Beaty from BeatDap, Conrasso from Trinkglobal, and Andrew from BeatDap, claim that minimum 10 % of all streaming globally is a part of some sort of scam, like criminal activity or... And for me, was so shocking to hear because when you read the headlines, they were crazy in itself, like $10 million and stuff. But he said, no, it's much bigger than that. Does your research also point towards that direction?

Daniel Nordgård

We haven't looked at that. But Doggins and Anenslave, the two journalists, report the same number. I don't know if they are referring to their research, but I think they did do quite a lot of really good digging and research into it, and they are suggesting the same 10%.

Jakob

Yeah, as far as I understand from Andrew, this is actually from going through billions and billions of streams themselves. it's very interesting that is the case because that sounds like a big issue. if, let's say you were an artist now and you sort of growing up to a new generation of digitalization of music, one of the consensus I hear out there pretty much across the field. It's pretty basic is that the human to human connection will increase in value or like the way that you engage with people as an assist or a creator will significantly be more important than maybe before. Do you have any academic pointers that also points toward that? Like is there a prediction to how you need to act as a creator in the future?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, I mean, there are lots of different types of writings on the future of creative work or the future of music work. I think, but to be honest, and that goes back to what I was saying earlier, I think that in general, think the music sector is incredibly adaptable and so forth. So I think that music people more than other sectors are going to find ways to deal with it. I think, because I think adaptability or flexibility is a key part of working with music. And it's a key feature and I think that is gonna be more than ever key to building careers. But also, and I think, this bridges a little bit to what we were just talking about on with the music platforms, I think for music professionals or for music artists, I think that they need to be, or they will be, or they are much more critical to which types of channels they use to reach their audiences. And I think that if a channel is considered to... counteract with what you want to do, then they might pursue something else. And I think that is partly why TikTok has had such a significant effect, because their algorithms, their systems work differently than, say, Spotify. And so you can reach audiences and fans in a different way and to some extent more effective way. So, yeah.

Jakob

was at Bülal one and a half years ago, which is a Norwegian industry conference, and Sam Park, who's a great executive in marketing from the Southeast Asian music economy, he talked about how they approach assistant-fam relationships, which I found incredibly interesting. And that is, they on purpose, like a business would, just find just a small niche and just double down on that. like a small part of the fans and then just make sure that is as strong a percentage as possible. And they don't necessarily have like, let's go global number one strategy. Do you see that strategy would be impactful moving forward also in the West? Is that sort of where potential is coming?

Daniel Nordgård

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's also where the future of platforms or outlets or infrastructure needs to go. I think there's a challenge between the... How do say it? The ongoing model for streaming or platforms is to go broad, to go as broad as possible, biggest, beautiful, the more the merrier, et cetera, et cetera. From the artist's perspective, or even from the label's perspective very often, or a scene, is to go deep and to go narrow. And I think in a artist to fan relationship, broad is not necessarily... the ideal to go deep and narrow is much, much more interesting, you know, because you have your fan of something, you're a fan of a sound, you're a fan of an artist, and you want to just go deeper in it. And I think for long time, digital platforms haven't been built around allowing for those types of relationship at all. Instead, they do links to whatever side it is, but... broadly instead of going deeply, allowing for me as a super fan to just dig up whatever it is that I can find on that particular artist, that particular album, that particular sound, etc. So I think there's going to be a counter movement and whoever comes up with a really great type of platform that can allow for going deep instead of going broad will have

Jakob

Mm-mm.

Jakob

Mm.

Daniel Nordgård

People like me and yourself and most of our friends subscribe to and pay for. And the interesting thing is, if you look at people like myself, and we talked about this before, but my monthly spending used to be 10, 15 times what it is today. So my monthly spending on recording music used to be stupidly high. Now it's capped on, actually,

Jakob

Mm.

Daniel Nordgård

$20 because I have two subscriptions to two different streaming platforms just to. But it's still capped to that particular price. My willingness and ableness to pay much more is there, but the product is not there, and the discoverability or the, you know, it's not there. So there's an untapped economic potential in people like myself and yourself, which has not been taken.

Jakob

Yeah.

Jakob

And

Jakob

An interesting thing about this that I've also been thinking about is sort of twofold. You know, I've been following on LinkedIn with my platform friends and artist friends and whatever, talking about sort of some of these new but very old models of digital pre-releases, people buying albums before it's out, and basically earning back 10 to 15 acts of what they could do in streaming. So basically that potential with fans other. My question is though whether or not the mentality has just significantly changed over the last 15, 20 years. An analogy is that I like music. I've spent most of my life in music. My dad-in-law, he also likes music. He's been a big Mutt The Hoople fan. He's even got that far that he's written most of that biography. He even has an unreleased David Bowie track that's never been heard before that he's in his basement from them. So it's like, he's super, super fan. Like he's that guy. And for me, like... Weirdly enough, I have the same relationship with podcasting. Like I love music, but podcast is where I find my fandom. But I've never in my life bought anything from it. Maybe 15 years ago, I bought like a forum subscription to one of my favorite podcast hosts, but that's about it. So my question is, has the mentality changed so much over the next many years that even if those product offerings were out there, that they wouldn't be effective at scale? What's your thoughts about that?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, think consumer mentality and payment mentality or subscriber mentality is changing significantly. I think, you know, if we just look at the last eight to 10 years, the audience general acceptance of having to pay for digital content has changed, you know, critically. So I think we're in the midst of a significant change when it comes to what audiences accept and expect of digital online content and the business models associated with it. So I think that right now we're in a time where it's perfectly possible to test, to challenge. I think, and I've said this before, think if Neil Young had presented his, what is it, Pono, Pogo, today, would probably, chances for it being successful would probably be much, much bigger today than when he released it. Because at that time, He was too early in releasing it. Think now is, I think audiences are much more ripe to accept different models. There's not just one model, know, and especially for music, because there's just one model for music, which is everything for a certain price and with a very standardized type of navigating and discoverability. So...

Jakob

Mm.

Daniel Nordgård

So all the different platforms provide almost the exact same thing. So this is an environment where there should be plenty of possibilities to innovate and to test. And I think if Neil Young had tested it now, maybe now is the time to do these types of things.

Jakob

Like, does any numbers point towards who's gonna adopt that and when? And again, I'm just gonna, you know, do the same analogy in a different way. Like, I'm 32, I have three kids, I just bought my first TV subscription. Like, I've been piggy-bagging my family's on both sides subscription. I've had Spotify since I was 18, I paid for myself, but like, it took me 14 years to get Disney Plus, with ads, by the way. So, and it... who's gonna do this? Again, my situation might not be true, but I'm trying to use it as sort of a picture.

Daniel Nordgård

Yeah, but maybe this is spot on. I think maybe some people have been a little bit too lazy and a little bit too, you know, this is what we provide. And in all fairness, I think maybe also some of the companies that we're dependent on when it comes to, let's say, music streaming are not necessarily completely bested in music or that is not necessarily their main, it just happens, they do music. But I think if you had businesses that were based on invested in music, music fandom, music relations, You should segment and figure out what is it that Jakob in his 20s, what is it that he needs? What is it that Jakob in his 30s, what is it that he needs? What is it that Jakob is going to need when he's in his 50s? So how can we cater for that? How can we, and I think that is audience or subscriber or market segmentation would be extremely... necessary and extremely valuable like myself. I think I represent a quite big part of music fan market who I'm in a period where I make more money than I've ever done. You know, I have more, I can pay more than I could when I was 20. And so I'm willing and I'm more able than ever before to pay for record music. However, the current models don't invite me to or don't provide. And I think here there's extreme... And if you add into the huge new markets that are all of a sudden part of this, then, you know...

Daniel Nordgård

There's so much more you can sell, you can build.

Jakob

And I believe that and that's also sort of what I'm seeing. A few issues I'm seeing as well is sort of the ableness of adapting and there's many angles from this. One thing is obviously from music tech financing, you know, that's not the greatest space to sort of having a music centric product and getting capital at scale. All numbers, academia, music and water, like whatever you it's not particularly good, which also means these offerings that normally require capital and a lot of focus and a lot of people to make, to do that work, it's just not accessible at scale. And any entrepreneur would know that, you know, it takes hundreds of businesses to make one good one, like at scale. So that's one issue. But then there's also the capacity from the creators or the access side, because journey speaking, maybe we can assign it to economy. It is incredibly hard to make enough money to build a team that oftentimes an artist is either alone or with someone who needs to have five to seven on the assets in order to sustain a living as a manager or so. So even if these products were out there, having the capacity and afford yourself the mentality change to do it is just hard. Is that also what you see or like what's your commentary on that specific point?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, let me see if I understood correctly. I think that building relationships will still be extremely important. And I think that the upholding and making lasting relationship between the creator and the fan is extremely important. And I think... I think, you know, not all music and artist careers or music businesses are meant to sustain or to, you know, to... So it's not a God-given right to make a living out of your passion. Unfortunately, if so, I wouldn't be an academic. I would have still been touring and releasing music. But so I think that there are ways to find ways of how to build a small ecosystem for you and your fans, together with, surrounded by a business model that is sustainable economically. And I think here there are so much more... innovation potential in how to garden and harness those relationships and make them economically viable, which we haven't really tested before. I remember when I was playing in a band and we were touring, one of the things that we did successfully was that we were very focused on finding ways to connect to people who liked our music, to our fans. And we did so in very unusual ways. One of things that we did, we collaborated with a local bakery to create new...

Daniel Nordgård

Bakery products and together with them and our fans we would and we made quite a lot of money on that and it was just a stunt but it was a way of finding you know how to pay for studio recording and everything else so I think there are ways if you have hands to you know to build those relationships

Jakob

No, I believe that as well and it might just be that there's a generation of creators that hasn't been forced to think about music as a business. Was interviewed by Stavanger Affenblad last year because there was multiple articles in there talking about artists really struggling with the social media game. Really struggling with, you know, I just want to make music and tell stories and they asked me about my opinion and my opinion was right or wrong that the, that the engagement with fans and letting them into who you are and what you do might just become stronger in the future. It might not take the form of traditional social media as much. I think a lot of things are changing there, but I don't believe that generally speaking an effective strategy as an artist is Secluding yourself and then once in a while popping out. I think I think that needs to change Dan Fowler that it came out last week now when this is out We talked about streaming a lot We talked about sort of how that whole culture has grown where some of the most successful streamers out there in the world like basically streams everything Matches training whatever and it's not to say that's going to transfer one to one to music, but I think there is a movement there that's really interesting to think about like What is your thoughts about that? How does that change for artists at scale?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, I think, and I've interviewed quite a lot of artists as part of my research on some of those topics. And I think that there are a lot of artists who are not motivated at all by working with social media and by exposing oneself and selling oneself out to, you know, and there is increasing research that shows how some of this... affects mental health and so forth. So I think that there's a dark side into the DIY culture, the fact that you can do everything yourself, you can build a sustainable career yourself, blah, which has not really been addressed up until quite recently, that taking on most of these tasks, specialized tasks, also has a potential downside. You know, stress, insecurity, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's a, we talked about this before, but there's a book that came out some years ago by Sally Ann Gross and George Musgrave called Can Music Make You Sick in the UK that dives into musicians' mental health and ties that into economic insecurity and a growing array of tasks that need to be had. We're doing the same research chair in Norway now and we just released some early finance we're gonna do release some more reports on the same issues. Now in many of the interviews I've done some of those tasks that are being pointed to as being linked to health, to mental health, it's also linked to social media, into having to continually expose yourself.

Jakob

Mm.

Daniel Nordgård

So there are good reasons why some wouldn't and probably shouldn't work too closely with it. But that leads into something I think perhaps is equally important and which fell out in the entire digital transition discussion and debate academically and publicly. The role of the intermediaries. Why do we have professional intermediaries? Why do we have, what is it that a manager does? What is it that an agent does? What is it that a promoter does? Why do you need a record label to help you with certain things? Not everything, but certain things. And I think, again, when we see money coming back into the system, I think to find a more sustainable balance in where do professional intermediaries... do this so that the artists, if they want to, can do this. So I think probably what we'll see is that we'll have a re-establishment of professional intermediaries who can and hopefully will invest in creating new talents and helping careers grow and become sustainable.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jakob

Yeah, I think that's completely clear for me also that's what's missing at scale. I wasn't an analyst as serious as you was, but I did have a few years where I really did my best and I'm a pretty capable person and I understand concepts pretty well. But running my own music business as an analyst, it was just impossible. And also whenever you get, I know this as an entrepreneur, I work a lot with pitch decks and communication. Creating other people's pitch decks is so much easier than doing my own. Like you're too close. And I think with a nonsense that's so invested in their art, making business and understanding the strategic decisions that might be, feel like a compromise in the moment. Like it's just so hard to navigate. And then some of the few people I've interviewed here that sort of been managers as well. That's also the thing. Like how do you even do it? Like in a local market like Norway and Denmark, I don't know how many professional managers are. Let's just say there's. Less than 50 in each country, that's probably less, like they can actually support a family. That's not a lot of people. And how the future economy and business can support that is very hard for me to understand.

Daniel Nordgård

But I think this is, and it ties back to what I was saying earlier, I think this is what will happen, which is that through dialogue, debate, discussion, conflict perhaps, think hopefully what we'll see is where money comes in, sorry, where money comes into the, there we are, where money comes into the music ecosystem, those who reap the economic benefits have to also invest it into new careers, new talent, new content, new creative art, new music. And I think for long time, we've been a little bit in limbo because the effects of the digital transition from the turn of the millennium up until 2015, 2012, 2015. The revenues in recording music just plummeted. And so the intermediaries, the labels, the other, but especially the labels, invested less or they took less risk and less investments because of this into, but now money's coming back in. And I think hopefully what we'll see is, a change in some of the business models where money is being invested back into creating sustainable long lasting careers and experiences. And that may mean that you need to reallocate money from other intermediaries, whether that's the online subscription services, whether it's the broadband services, whether it's the platforms, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Jakob

Basically what you're saying is the music industry at large has a responsibility to also make sure that if we want to better the economy to come, that needs to be invested back into the industry. What do you think about most of the major companies going public and needing to deliver good numbers? I had a recent discussion with a major company, Anthronautics, that were very explicit about that. We're not really investing in new artists, we're focusing on whatever works and then the catalog. How do you see that macro environment changing or does that support what you're saying that needs to happen?

Daniel Nordgård

Well, think having the major record companies being public companies and having to work with some very, very specific frameworks, having to deliver numbers to their owners, stakeholders, etc. shareholders, etc. That means that they can work within this particular ream. And I think that they can cater for a certain type of needs in the music industry. If you're... a Billie Eilish or an artist that needs this particular service, fantastic. Then that is part of what they can provide. And it is needed, I think. So I think that the major record companies do provide an important and necessary asset into the music ecosystem. But there's a swath of other types of music careers, personas, that don't necessarily have that astronomic revenues. But still a significant revenue and significant economic potential that can and should be catered for. And here I think there are so many others that needs to take that part, and you already do. There are so many really brilliant people working in music and who do this very well. But I think this is where the potential lies. And I don't think that there's a dichotomy between the major labels and everyone else. Think the major labels, they do this and the other ones do this and it's part of the ecosystem.

Jakob

Yeah, to sort of take some conclusions from the talk today and tie that to your optimism. Who are the certain stakeholders that needs to do what to make an optimistic future? We've covered a lot of points today, but could you try to boil it down? Who has what responsibility and what do they need to do to make this a good place?

Daniel Nordgård

I think a huge part of responsibility lies with policymakers and legislators. I think that there will be some battles or some critical conjunctions in the road ahead of us that will need legislation to kick in. So I think that policymakers have a huge... responsibility in securing the future sustainability. Think managers, music managers, will continue to hold a really, really important position. And I think that in a time where we talk about the artist-centered economy, we talk about the DIY, or we talk about how the artist is at the center, I think the position of the manager is... key to doing this. So maybe a dialogue between the managers, the artists, and the policymakers and the legislators. Think if the art creators is at the center, think this is where the dialogue needs to happen.

Jakob

Mm.

Jakob

So that's really interesting. So enabling managers and empowering them and creating ways for them to make money together with the artists will be essential. Which makes sense, like which makes a whole lot of sense. Interesting. Daniel, I keep on following your work and I think this has been really interesting talk. I do love that you have an optimistic.

Daniel Nordgård

Absolutely.

Jakob

Again, I try to take a very neutral position and try not to be biased or whenever I read something I take it with a grain of salt. But I do feel like my perception goes to the negative mostly because of, I wouldn't call it nostalgia, but I've studied music. I have a master's music production and for me that is, I'm not gonna say gone. But it's completely different from my kids. So for me, having what I understand of basically the core of music, which is making something first, is very much different, feeds over into my understanding of the business potential. What you're basically saying here is, least what I take from it is that it doesn't necessarily need to affect the potential of music at large or on an individual level, even though the music industry... has been and needs to be very adaptive to the change.

Daniel Nordgård

Absolutely, and I think there are... huge music fans being bored every day and who is, know, and I, you know, I watch my 15 year old and he is super fan of music and he's discovering music that I used to listen to when I was in my 18, 19, you know, having full control and of, you know, great sub music that were just, you had to work really hard to find when I was growing up and they listened to it, they find it and they love it just like I did. I think that they are equally obsessed with music as I was when I was in my teens. It's just a little bit different, but I think you find the same love for music that I had. So there are some differences, but the basis is still there.

Jakob

Yeah. Amazing. Well, Daniel, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure having you the podcast.

Daniel Nordgård

Good seeing you, Jakob. You're doing a great job. Thanks.

Jakob

Let's talk shit. Thanks.