| When you have monopolies, you get problems. |
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 | | If you're reading this in bed, it's too late: Drake at the Apollo Theater, New York, Jan. 21, 2023. | | (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images) | | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Ticket to Chide
Democrats and Republicans in Washington don't seem to agree on anything these days, but apparently they can get together on this: "TICKETMASTER Sucks," as a New Republic report from Capitol Hill indelicately put it Monday. The magazine asked 15 senators about Ticketmaster, PABLO MANRĂQUEZ reported, and "None had anything good to say about it or LIVE NATION ENTERTAINMENT." So that's what Live Nation president/CFO JOE BERCHTOLD will be facing when he testifies before the SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE this morning on competition—or the lack thereof—in the ticketing industry: unified, bipartisan rage at his company's disastrous handling of tickets for TAYLOR SWIFT's ERAS tour last fall, buoyed by years of frustration at Ticketmaster/Live Nation's dominant position in the live music business.
The music biz, though, isn't quite so unified, and neither are some of the smartest industry observers and analysts. Ticketing is layered and complicated, not unlike the fees everyone hates.
Ticketmaster, not surprisingly, blames scalpers and their bots for its own Taylor Swift ticketing screwup, and that's where Berchtold will point his finger this morning. He'll ask the legislators to take action against secondary ticket sellers who get inventory from bot operations and, Billboard reports, against speculative ticket sales—the insidious practice of offering tickets for resale that the reseller doesn't actually have yet. Others testifying today, including SEAT GEEK exec JACK GROETZINGER and Chicago promoter JERRY MICKELSON, are likely to point fingers right back at Ticketmaster and parent Live Nation for their stranglehold on the market, including long-term exclusive arrangements with Live Nation venues (where concerts are often promoted, too, by Live Nation subsidiaries). The idea of breaking up exclusive ticketing deals for venues and even for individual shows has plenty of support around the industry.
The senators may also hear artists blamed for the sky-high prices of some tickets—which artists and their teams, and not ticketing companies, are responsible for setting. And maybe someone will suggest, as ex-Ticketmaster CEO FRED ROSEN did in the LA Times, that fans themselves are to blame for ticket prices, because years of downloading music for free "helped create this situation where artists have to make all their money on tour." (It's unclear if he thinks streaming music companies should share in that blame, too.)
The LA Times' AUGUST BROWN has a good, sober overview on what Ticketmaster is and isn't doing—and can and can't do—to move the needle on ticket prices, fees and availability. The NY Times' JON CARAMANICA and BEN SISARIO discuss some of the most recent debacles (it wasn't just Taylor Swift) and the deeper issues behind them on the Times' POPCAST. And BILL WERDE, of Syracuse's BANDIER PROGRAM, offered a holistic view of the problem in November in his FULL RATE NO CAP newsletter. (In an update this week, Werde was skeptical of concrete action coming out of today's hearing, but suggests there are some areas where Congress might get involved, including in resale pricing and service fee transparency.)
Can the senators and the various wings of the industry see beyond the immediate Taylor Swift (or BAD BUNNY or BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN) crisis and zoom out to the structural issues that have led us here? Democratic SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR of Minnesota, who'll run today's hearing with Republican SEN. MIKE LEE of Utah, tells Rolling Stone the one thing the committee can't do today is "nothing at all" because "that hasn't worked out very well for consumers."
The hearing will be livestreamed here at 10 am ET. (I have some final questions for whoever made the decision to schedule it for the same morning as the ACADEMY AWARD nominations, but I'll table those for now, so as not to distract from the issue at hand. Which hopefully the movie news itself won't do.)
Dot Dot Dot
"It's like management du jour, everyone is going and laying off 5 to 10% of their workers"—and now it's reached the music space, with SPOTIFY planning to lay off 6% of its staff, about 600 people. The company also announced Monday that chief content officer DAWN OSTROFF, who has overseen Spotify's aggressive expansion into podcasting—a spending spree that hasn't always sat well with the music community—is stepping down. "In hindsight," CEO DANIEL EK wrote in a blog post, "I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth." Spotify reported in October that usership and revenues were growing but so were losses. It said subscription price hikes are likely in 2023... Dear New York City: If your police department is actually interested in engaging with the city's hip-hop community, maybe it isn't the best idea to station a police officer with a video camera outside a DRAKE concert in Harlem, recording every fan as they walk out. And by "maybe," I mean it's an objectively horrible idea, no matter how the police and MAYOR ERIC ADAMS spin it. If you're not convinced how awful it is, try to imagine crowds of concertgoers walking out of a NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC or BILLY JOEL show directly into a phalanx of cops, one of whom has a video camera trained on them. You can't, can you?... BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER and ELVIS lead the pack of nominees for the GUILD OF MUSIC SUPERVISORS AWARDS, to be handed out March 5 in Los Angeles. They were music-supervised, respectively, by DAVE JORDAN and ANTON MONSTED... How to be happy, according to a jazz saxophone master.
Rest In Peace
LIN BREHMER, a longtime morning DJ at Chicago rock radio station WXRT whose warm voice and deep love and knowledge of the music he played endeared him to the city. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel called him "the voice of Chicago." "He didn't have a signature bit, no clever catch phrase," Steve Albini tweeted. "What Lin conveyed was that he was a guy listening to music, sharing it with you, and any gimmick or artifice would only spoil the atmosphere of familiarity, relegating it to hokum"... Songwriter GINNY REDINGTON DAWES, whose songs were recorded by Sarah Vaughan and Eddy Arnold but who was best known for her jingles for Coke ("Coke Is It"), McDonald's, Kit Kat bars and other iconic brands... MARSHALL TUCKER, a South Carolina piano tuner whose name was appropriated by a Southern rock band he'd never met. Marshall Tucker was finally introduced to the Marshall Tucker Band—who borrowed his name after seeing it on a key to the warehouse they were renting as a rehearsal space—when a friend saw an ad for one of their shows and thought they were him. "Though he was never a member of our band, we wouldn't be here today without his historic name," the band wrote... TJ DE BLOIS, original drummer for Philadelphia metal band A Life Once Lost.
| | - Matty Karas, curator | |
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 | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Everyone hates Ticketmaster. Is everyone wrong? | | By August Brown | | Fans, politicians and even artists were complaining about Ticketmaster long before Taylor Swift filled stadiums. But experts say the anger may be misplaced. | | |
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 | | Music Ally |
| | What do we mean by 'artist-centric' music streaming models? | | By Stuart Dredge | | This month, UMG boss Sir Lucian Grainge went public with his belief that "the economic model for streaming needs to evolve." But his choice of words was a signal that UMG isn't about to throw its weight behind calls for user-centric payouts. | | |
 | | The New York Times |
| | Drake: Rap's Biggest Fan | | By Jon Caramanica | | Hip-hop can sometimes discourage rappers from openly embracing their heroes, but Drake wears his enthusiasms loudly and, this past week, literally. | | |
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 | | Lefsetz Letter |
| | David Crosby | | By Bob Lefsetz | | David Crosby was a difficult man. But he was brilliant. | | |
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| what we're into |
 | | Music of the day | | "Ticket Inspector" | | The Chats | | Australian punk rock, from "Get F***ed" (2022). | | |
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| Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" |
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