Today’s episode came from a comment by Warner Music Group’s CEO Robert Kyncl on why Netflix should add music to its platform. It makes sense for Warner, obviously, but what’s the case for Netflix?

After that, you’ll hear Epidemic Sound’s Jesper Staffas make a bold prediction on the growing role that legal staff will continue to serve at record labels.

Listen here or read below for more on whether Netflix should add music.

Here’s Robert Kyncl’s quote from Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast:

Netflix is missing one huge content lever in their fight with YouTube, which is music. All of the music on YouTube is not exclusive. All the music videos of everything, the entire history of music, including concerts and different versions, they’re all non-exclusive. And I think when I was at YouTube, obviously music was a massive portion of YouTube and a big contributor to its growth. And that’s one of the things that’s missing on Netflix…. I would simply license all the same music that YouTube is licensing… It would be the single largest content ingestion that anybody could go through.”

When I first saw the video, I dismissed the idea.

Netflix’s economics are very different from music streaming. Netflix generally pays to produce or license programming upfront, then sells access to that content on an ongoing basis. It isn’t handing a majority of the revenue generated back to the IP owners every time a movie or TV show gets watched.

In music streaming, the more music gets consumed, the more the platform owes rights holders. Why would Netflix want to enter a business with that type of variable cost structure?

But there are a few reasons why Kyncl’s argument is interesting.

First, Netflix’s biggest competitor is now YouTube. Netflix’s push into video podcasts reflects that. But according to Omdia, video podcasts account for just 6% of YouTube watch time. Meanwhile, music videos account for 33%! All those video podcasts are a drop in the bucket compared to music videos. It’s hard to meaningfully compete with YouTube for viewing time without also having access to one of YouTube’s biggest categories.

Music videos are also aligned with Netflix’s advertising goals. Ads can run before or after a 3-to-5-minute music video without feeling as disruptive as they often do in the middle of a movie or an episode of your favorite show.

Music could also give Netflix something it has historically had less of: repeatable content that gives people a reason to open the app every day. Your favorite TV series may keep you coming back for a few weeks. Your favorite song can bring you back hundreds of times. To be fair, the consumer behavior around watching a five-minute music video is very different from sitting down to watch a Netflix show. But repeatable content is still valuable to the platform. Netflix just renewed its license to stream Seinfeld for another five years.

Of course, the cost structure could still be a major challenge. Music licensing agreements between labels and streaming services often include large upfront advances that are recouped against future royalties. That at least gives Netflix a familiar starting point: a large guaranteed payment to secure a catalog of content. But an advance doesn’t eliminate the underlying variable economics. If usage becomes large enough to burn through that guarantee, Netflix could still owe more based on consumption.

That’s different from the type of fixed licensing economics Netflix is accustomed to. That tension is a big reason I still have questions about Netflix simply licensing the entire music catalog that YouTube has.

There’s also another issue: would Netflix really pay billions of dollars to offer access to music that most of its subscribers can already get somewhere else?

Netflix could do that. But the more “Netflix” approach would be to do that while making the music offering feel unique. Imagine if Jay-Z releases his next album on Netflix alongside a documentary, behind-the-scenes footage from his Yankee Stadium shows, music videos, and maybe even a live broadcast of one of the concerts.

Now that’s compelling. It turns an album release into an event. It gives Netflix something exclusive. And it’s much more consistent with how Netflix has approached sports, live events, and other premium programming.

There are really two separate questions here. Should Netflix become another destination where you can watch essentially the same music catalog that already exists on YouTube?

Maybe. But should Netflix become a much bigger destination for music, with music videos, concerts, documentaries, live performances, visual albums, and exclusive artist releases, and all the other music-oriented content that Netflix already creates?

That feels more likely if Netflix goes this route.

This is just part of what I discussed on the episode. You should listen for more on:

• How Netflix can package music even better than YouTube
• How music videos worked on Spotify, Prime Video, and Facebook
• My prediction for how this will all play out

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

When we started the Trapital Summit, the goal was clear: Build an event that we wish existed. Not a day full of 5-person panels and softball pitches. Not a day for shallow networking and collecting business cards.

The goal was more intentional: real conversations and real relationships. A room where the audience was just as important as the stage.

Our third annual Trapital Summit is September 15 in Los Angeles.

Joining us for one-on-one fireside chats this year will be:

Saumil Mehta, Global President, Ticketmaster.
Michelle Jubelirer, Founder, Soft Shock
Erin Teague, EVP Product Management, Disney
Steve Boom, VP, Audio, Twitch & Games, Amazon
Larry Mestel, Founder and CEO, Primary Wave Music
Kevin Shivers, Co-President of Music, THE·TEAM
Will Packer, Managing Director, BNP Paribas
KevOnStage, Comedian and Actor
Sung Cho, Founder and CEO, Chartmetric
Tatiana Cirisano, VP, Music Strategy, MIDiA Research
Taylor Mims, Senior Editor, Billboard.

We’ll get into how technology is reshaping media, IP and ownership, live music bull run's, creator-led businesses, and what the industry still gets wrong.

Again, the speakers matter but I’m equally excited about the people who will be sitting in the room. That’s why most of us attend events like this. Our summit is a room full of execs, investors, and founders from the leading firms and companies in music, media, and entertainment.

Trapital Summit 2026. September 15 in LA.

Get your ticket

We have a new episode this week. I had a great conversation with Flexpoint Ford’s Managing Director, Mike Morris. We talked about the firm’s focus on investing in the independent sector, with positions in Create Music Group, Duetti, GoldState Music Group, and Nettwerk.

Here are my main takeaways from my talk with Mike Morris:

1. The catalogs of bigger artists are not necessarily “better” investments. An artist does not need to be Billie Eilish or Justin Bieber to have a loyal and predictable fanbase. A smaller artist can have a smaller audience that consistently engages with their music.

2. Diversification matters more than picking a few iconic winners. Flexpoint is not making isolated bets on one or two big catalogs for hundreds of millions of dollars. They have diversified the portfolio of assets and service relationships to produce more predictable cash flows.

3. Investors are buying music earlier than ever. Duetti now buys catalogs as young as six months. But they’re not underwriting the risk the same as a song from 2006. Those younger assets need to be priced according to that risk.

4. Digitally native music companies may have an edge. Create Music Group, one of Flexpoint’s portfolio companies, began as a YouTube rights-management business. They’ve since expanded into distribution, labels, and invested in companies built around UGC and creator content.

5. Forever catalogs may not be “forever.” Some investors may assume that some artists are timeless, but are we sure that Gen Alpha will really care about music from the 70s nd 80s? Especially if they are purchased at 20x revenue multiples or higher.

6. Expect more alternate catalog financing deals like The Weeknd. In December, The Weeknd did a $1 billion joint venture partnership with Lyric Capital. The Weeknd will retain a 75% ownership stake and received $250M immediately as part of the deal. Mike expects more of these deals by the end of 2027.

7. An unsolved problem: music marketing. The industry spends a lot of money on promotion, but it’s still difficult to attribute its performance. A company that can make music marketing both measurable and effective is an opportunity that Mike and Flexpoint are interested in.

You should listen to the full episode here!

Listen here:​​ ​​Spotify​​​​ | ​​​​Apple Podcasts​​​​ | ​​Overcast

The vibe shift

“Heavy is the head that wears the Yankee fitted” were the closing words from Justin Tinsley in our discussion about Jay Z.

The 56-year-old mogul’s 2026 has been “all offense.” But so far, the offense has been focused on music. We haven’t seen as much publicly on the business side. It wasn’t that long ago when we constantly heard about Jay Z’s new deals, partnerships, and business moves. And it wasn’t that long ago when he was public about his aspirations and status for more wealth. He bragged about it in most of his albums. In 2010, he did a Forbes interview with Warren Buffett talking about money.

His rise was celebrated at a time when there was more public admiration and less scrutiny about the rich. In our episode, Justin mentioned the culture back then around “MTV Cribs” and “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.”

By the end of the 2010s, Jay Z had been publicly named a billionaire. Ironically, that’s the same time that the vibe shift against the super-rich became harder to avoid. Wealth inequality was a growing concern.

For Jay Z, each of his moves in that stretch received more public scrutiny. The NFL partnership in 2019. The New York sportsbook license in 2021. The Bitcoin Africa project with Jack Dorsey that same year. To be clear, it’s not just him. Billionaire fatigue is real.

Nineteen years ago, Jay Z, Diddy, and 50 Cent did a Forbes-inspired billionaire remix of “I Get Money.” Twelve years ago, Dr. Dre and Tyrese prematurely celebrated Beats‘ sale to Apple, specifically calling out how rich Dre was. Today, there are artists who intentionally hide their wealth accumulation, and the glowing public profiles that come with it, to avoid the backlash. The times have changed.

Here’s my theory: for Jay Z, there’s public offense and private offense. The public offense is the music, everything he’s given so far in 2026, plus whatever else is looming. The private offense is the moves he still wants to make without being as vocal about what he’s already attained.

He’s let his frustration show. In his GQ interview this March, Jay Z called 2025 “really hard.” He admitted he was angry over the lawsuit he faced.

But again, I don’t doubt he’s still making business moves. He may just be quieter about them now. It’s private offense. His being criticized for achieving the thing he spoke about for so long has to have some effect, especially now that he’s achieved it.

Think of an athlete who dreams of nothing but winning a championship. Eventually, they win the title and now have all the accolades on paper. But soon they realize that the win didn’t close the gap they had envisioned. Now, in this hypothetical scenario, let’s add a sprinkle of complexity: Imagine if the public becomes more mixed on whether winning a championship is still cool.

Does that play a factor? Maybe we’ll learn more from the new music. Maybe we’ll learn more from what’s to come for Jay Z for the rest of 2026.

You should listen to the full episode here with Justin for more on:

• predictions for the 2027 Super Bowl halftime show

• Jay Z’s Yankee Stadium shows

• a bold prediction in our episode from Symphonic CEO Jorge Brea

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

The most valuable conversations in music, media, and entertainment rarely happen on panels. They happen in the room.

That’s what we’re building at the third annual Trapital Summit, Tuesday, September 15 at Sunset Room Hollywood in Los Angeles.

​Register now. Early bird pricing ends July 15, one week from today.

Our summit returns for a day of deep conversations and relationship building with the sharpest minds in the business. No 4 - 5 person panels, no fluff, only big ideas for the future.

You’ll hear from:

• Steve Boom, VP Audio, Twitch, Games, Amazon ​
  
  Steve launched Amazon Music and now oversees global businesses for Amazon, including Audible, Twitch, Games, Amazon Music, and Wondery. We’ll discuss everything from music to podcasts, livestreaming, and more.
  ​

• Larry Mestel, CEO, Primary Wave
  ​
  ​Larry grew Primary Wave into one of the leading companies investing in music rights, with stakes in catalogs from Whitney Houston, Prince, The Notorious B.I.G., James Brown, and more.​
  ​

• Erin Teague, EVP Product Management, Disney
  ​
  ​Erin’s team leads product across Disney+, ESPN, and other Disney Entertainment properties. She is also the subject of a Harvard Business School case study from her work leading YouTube’s NFL Sunday Ticket bid.
  ​

• Kevin “KevOnStage” Fredricks, Comedian and Actor​
  ​
  Kev built a loyal audience with his comedy. He has turned it into deals with Tubi and BET, and took his stage to the next level.
  ​

• Sung Cho, CEO, Chartmetric​
  ​
  ​Sung started Chartmetric in 2016. He and his team built it into one of music’s most important analytics platforms. It’s used across the industry to turn artist and audience into signal.
  ​

• …More to be announced very, very soon

Register Now

Our focus at the summit is depth, not breadth. We can’t wait to welcome the founders, execs, and investors who will join us in LA in two months.

Special thanks to our partners who helped make this year’s summit possible:

• Gold: Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group

• Silver: Symphonic, Dream Street

• Bronze: SoundCloud, Morgan Stanley Global Sports & Entertainment, Splice, Shot Tower Capital, Musixmatch, Milk & Honey, Reed Smith, SESAC, Banc of California, Vydia, Luminate, Sixty8 Capital, Epidemic Sound

You should be in the room with the execs, founders, investors, and operators shaping what comes next. This is the one to attend.

Early bird pricing ends July 15. Come join us!

​Register now​

See you in LA!

Today I recorded a solo episode to reflect on my interactions with Clive, the parts of his legacy that get overlooked, and what I think his real edge was. Hint: I know he was called “golden ears,” but I don’t believe that’s the true edge.

You can listen here or read below.

Clive’s run with Whitney Houston is the era he’s most known and celebrated for. They dominated the 80s and early 90s with hit after hit. But the era I’m most impressed with is his 1999 to 2007 range.

From Santana’s Supernatural album to leaving Arista, starting J Records, Alicia Keys, Luther Vandross, and Maroon 5. That’s the most impressive era. He helped legacy artists reach new heights and revived his own career.

His career arc reminds me of Pat Riley, almost to a tee.

Most people remember Riley for his 80s and 90s success with the flashy Showtime Lakers and the gritty New York Knicks teams. But I’d argue Riley’s run with the Miami Heat is the most impressive.

In 1995, Riley took over a young Miami Heat franchise as both head coach and key architect behind its success. They were contenders in the late 90s, champions in 2006, title defenders in the 2010s, and one of the few teams to make multiple NBA Finals in the parity-driven 2020s.

Davis and Riley were known for their strict systems. Clive was heavily involved in song selection, image creation, producers, and more. “Laid back” was not his approach. Riley was just as exacting. “Heat Culture” is an identity few teams have. It’s built on guys who can hustle, punch above their weight class, maintain low body fat, and keep up with the intense conditioning standards.

Both, unironically, had moments where their desire for control may have been too strong. Pat Riley’s cookies incident with LeBron James is a classic example. For Clive, his tense relationship with Kelly Clarkson is another one.

Yet that same need for control is what kept them in the mix and helped them attract top talent. Clive told me his proudest career achievement was that most of his Arista staff followed him to J Records. He continued to attract top artists into his 70s.

Riley has his own version of that loyalty story. In 2008, he handed the head coaching job to Erik Spoelstra, then a 37-year-old assistant with no prior head coaching experience. Spoelstra is now the longest-tenured head coach across all four major US pro sports leagues. That’s not a coincidence. The franchise continues to be a top destination for superstar talent, including its recent trade for two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.

If Riley has Heat Culture, then Clive had Hit Culture. The business has changed quite a bit since Clive last ran a record label, but the need for a process to create sustainable careers may be stronger than ever.

Rest in peace, Clive Davis. My thoughts are with his family and closest friends.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Today we have an exciting new episode and a guest essay from AudioShake’s CEO and co-founder, Jessica Powell. It’s one of the more nuanced and forward-looking perspectives on AI and offers insight into what the future holds.

You can watch our conversation in full here or listen to the podcast here.

When AI Writes Code and Makes Music, What’s Left for Humans?

To think about the future of music, it might help to start with coding.

And if you want to understand where coding is going, music isn’t a bad place to look either.

These might seem like very different worlds. One is art, the other engineering. But as someone who runs an AI audio company that sits at the intersection of both tech and art, I see how both are being reshaped by the same economic force. As AI dramatically reduces the cost of cognitive labor, that labor is devalued. But that doesn’t mean that all value disappears. Rather, what is valued moves to something new–something scarce.

That’s the argument I want to make about music. Not that AI will destroy it, and not that human creativity is morally irreplaceable. Those are valid discussions, but the market has never seemed to care much about morality. I want to focus instead on an economic argument: in a world of superintelligent machines and infinite cognitive abundance, the human body may become one of the most valued inputs.

The Collapse of Build and Deploy

In engineering, “build” means writing the code, “deploy” means shipping it to the world. For decades, both required specialized knowledge. Now, not as much. I see this every day at AudioShake, where we build AI audio separation tools. When we first started, our APIs could only be used by engineers; now we see them deployed by non-technical employees at labels, film studios, streaming platforms, and startups.

The same shift is happening in music. Distribution and attention were democratized a long time ago through streaming and social, but the act of creation itself still required human labor and time. But now the tools for creation are becoming radically easier, whether we’re talking about genAI-first tools like Suno and Udio, or AI integrations in more traditional tools. This is not new: The 808, the synthesizer, and the DAW each triggered versions of this same disruption. But the current wave is different in kind. We are entering a world in which cognitive labor–in this case, the technical know-how of music production–trends toward zero cost.

Recently on Lenny’s Podcast, Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code, was asked if he missed writing code by hand. His answer was essentially: not really. He cares about solving the problem. If AI gets him there faster, writing code by hand is just unnecessary friction. But some equally experienced engineers I know feel the opposite. They still use AI, but a lot of the joy has faded. Wrestling with a new language was the point, not just the byproduct.

This split runs through the music industry too. Some creators feel genAI tools supercharge their creativity. Others want to have nothing to do with them. Both are rational responses. But neither changes an economic fact: as technical know-how becomes easy to access, and making music is less difficult, what is seen as rare? What takes on more value?

The Body–Rarer Than the Brain?

When technology makes something easy, many people search for what’s harder. We have grocery stores, but people garden. We have cars, but people walk. The friction is the point. People have chosen a more difficult option because they derive meaning from the “journey.”

Music has a stronger tether to the body than coding. Coding lives primarily in the cognitive world, symbols and logic inside a machine. Music production has trended toward similar abstraction for decades; you can make a hit on a laptop without ever touching a string. But the cultural weight of music has always been embodied–from Elvis’s gyrating hips in the 1950s to Beyonce and Taylor Swift’s sold-out tours. AI may be able to generate a song in milliseconds, but robotics is still far from automating the live show or the playing of a physical instrument.

This is not a new phenomenon or specific to AI. Some people expected synths and samples to kill off instruments, but the U.S. musical instrument market is roughly an $8-billion industry.

Or look at physical sales. While CD sales peaked in the early 2000s, physical music sales didn’t disappear. It hit a floor and stayed there, even as streaming became the dominant source of industry revenue.

It’s almost as if we humans, with these funny hands and fingers of ours, actually like to use them.

This matters both for creators and audiences.

For some creators, the physical process is simply more satisfying. Like the engineer who still wants to learn new coding languages, the guitarist who spends a decade training is choosing the harder path because it offers personal meaning.

The audience side of this argument is equally strong. With streaming platforms flooded by AI content, physical creation is a rarer, more valuable offering. The live show, the physical instrument, the performer’s relationship with their audience—these are scarce in a way a generated audio file can never be. The physical body anchors the work to a specific human and shows us the effort in the creative act.

The New Calculus

This reframes the usual AI-and-creativity debate. The question isn’t whether AI will produce music that sounds good, it increasingly does, and markets have proven audiences are happy consuming algorithmically optimized output, from reality TV to lofi playlists.

The question then is what kind of value survives in a world where the push of a button can create infinite digital files.

When cheap goods flood the bottom layer of a market, people start looking for signals of “specialness” at the top, like labeling a food organic or that a garment is hand-sewn. So while streaming made music ubiquitous, vinyl had a surprising resurgence. And when Instagram made us all digital photographers, sales of physical film cameras surged.

By this logic, some parts of the music economy, like background music, may lean even further into pure utility. At the same time, we may see an increase in the value of the least-automatable components: instruments, venues, and contexts in which a creator has a uniquely human interaction with their audience.

This doesn’t mean music creation or taste becomes worthless. Taste has always mattered and will continue to matter–picking the best 1% and rejecting the 99%. Many of the most successful artists of the next decade will use AI as a creative tool, exploring directions they might never have found alone. The market will still likely reward curation and originality.

But if everyone has access to the same creative tools, then taste alone may not be enough. That’s why the context around that taste–identity, community, and embodiment–becomes even more important.

The economic principle of Baumol’s Cost Disease may have been formulated in the 1960s, but it was as true decades (or centuries!) ago as in the AI era. Anyone can generate a track instantly, but it still takes four people to perform a string quartet (or a rock band or whatever the humans may want to play for us.)

In an era in which any music can be created, we don’t just want to hear the thing, we want to see its creator wrestle with it.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Or you can watch the full video here.

The art that ages well usually has something to say. It can’t just exist as a replica of what is broadly popular.

Scarface was quite polarizing when it debuted in 1983. Some critics thought it was too gory, ridiculous, and over the top, but the film still had something to say about immigrants and the American Dream. That point of view resonated with hip-hop culture decades later.

The same point of view that makes a work unpopular can be the same thing that makes people change their minds as society and culture evolve.

1. Critiques are more about expectation than execution

A lot of the initial criticism about 808s & Heartbreak was that it was a departure from Graduation. That “Stadium Ye” sound that people wanted more of. A lot of the mixed reviews on Interstellar were people wanting it to be more like Christopher Nolan’s other movies, like Inception and The Dark Knight.

That’s a very different critique than “the writing was bad.” It’s hard for bad writing to age over time, but work that’s tied to expectations can often be reappraised over time.

2. The creator’s status grew over time.

Interstellar becomes more noteworthy after the critical and commercial success of Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Freaks & Geeks becomes more relevant after decades of popular work from Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Busy Phillips, and that crew of actors.

3. Society evolved to catch up

Some themes are simply ahead of their time. The Office was certainly popular 20 years ago, but its mockumentary style hadn’t yet become the standard for a generation of comedy.

Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope album was also popular in the late 90s, but ages even better when self-care and depression are much more common themes in society, especially for Jackson, whose career suffered a setback after the 2004 Super Bowl incident.

These are just a few themes we discussed in the episode. We also broke down:

• My personal picks for favorite bodies of work that aged better over time

• Which recent works have the best chance to become more valuable in 10 years?

• What can creators and investors do to help make this more likely to happen to their work?

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

This episode is about why everything feels the same in our culture despite how fragmented our media is. The common belief is that we used to live in a monoculture. In past decades, most of us listened and watched the same things.

But after sitting with this for a while, I’m no longer sure this is true. Instead, I now believe that the current algorithms make 2026 more of a monoculture than 2006 or 1996 ever was.

I brought on Tati Cirisano to make the case for and against the concept of monoculture across music, media, fashion, language, and more.

You can listen here or read below for five big ideas from this episode:

1. Monoculture is here, but it looks different

The perception of monoculture from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s was built around scarce channels and the power that those decision makers had. There were limited TV channels, radio stations, inventory at record stores, movie theaters, and shared broadcast moments.

But our measures of consumption weren’t as precise as they are today. Album sales were measured based on units shipped, often estimated by the weight of a pallet. There was no data to measure the consumption of media that was already purchased. The list goes on.

Meanwhile, today’s culture is influenced by platforms and the massive stages they offer. Our culture may now be more fragmented in consumption, but more uniform in how it’s presented because of the algorithms.

Algorithms are the new gatekeepers.

‍2. We confuse fragmentation with differentiation

There are more niches than ever today, but those niches often look, sound, and behave similarly. There’s more segmentation, yet less differentiation.

People may consume different artists, shows, creators, and platforms, but the aesthetics, incentives, formats, and language increasingly converge.

3. Today’s megastars prove the new dynamic

Today’s biggest stars are proof that monoculture is stronger than ever. In music, movies, and TV, we used to cycle through A-level stars every few years.

But today’s megastars have stayed on top for quite some time, especially those who were established before streaming and social media blew up in the mid-2010s.

When everyone has millions of options, the established megastars who can still concentrate attention become even more powerful.

Tati called it a “split vote” effect. Fragmentation makes the true mass-market acts stand out even more.

4. Hits may matter less, but the biggest moments still feel huge

In the episode, we discussed BPI data showing that the UK’s top 100 tracks accounted for a smaller share of total annual audio streams in 2024 than they did in 2016. That supports the fragmentation argument. But streaming adoption changed over that period, and 2024 still produced broadly felt moments like “Espresso,” “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” and brat. There are two sides to the coin.

5. Live events may be the last stronghold of both mainstream culture and true niche culture

Live events can create the biggest shared cultural moments because they are synchronous: everyone reacts at once.

But they are also among the most differentiated experiences left, especially smaller concerts, conferences, and local gatherings where people feel part of a distinct world. That makes life one of the few places where both monoculture and subculture can still feel real.

These are just a few takeaways! We also discussed:

• Why “song of the summer” may still exist

• How social media incentivizes sameness

• The difference between consuming and knowing

• The cultural collapse of regional accents, slang, and teen-oriented media

You can listen to the episode here.

This week’s episode is about a different type of tension. It’s a paradox that’s happening in K-Pop. BTS is massive, KPop Demon Hunters is huge. But the popularity of those bands has yet to translate to the genre overall. We’re joined by the economist himself, Will Page, the author of Pivot, to break down this phenomenon and what it says about the genre, South Korea, and what’s really going on.

You can listen to the episode here or read below for how K-Pop compares to other genres.

Why BTS fans aren’t K-Pop fans

In a recent report from Will Page and Jeongbeom ‘JB’ Kim, Chief Data Officer at the Korean-based KreatorsNetwork, they shared that the top 5 acts in K-pop (BLACKPINK, BTS, KPop Demon Hunters, Stray Kids, and TWICE) captured 45% of the genre’s global audio streams in 2025.

It’s a compelling stat, but music is inherently top-heavy, so I asked Will, “How does this compare to other genres?”

He and JB compiled the data to compare, which makes K-pop’s concentration stand out even more:

• Country: the top 5 acts are Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, and Chris Stapleton, which accounted for 19.9% of global audio streams in 2025.
• Rock: the top 5 are Coldplay, Linkin Park, Imagine Dragons, Mrs. Green Apple, and Arctic Monkeys, which accounted for 6.1% of global audio streams.
• Latin: the top 5 are Bad Bunny, Fuerza Regida, Karol G, Junior H, and Tito Double P, which accounted for 6% of demand.

This is Will’s take on the dynamic that he shared in our episode:

“Bernie Cho nailed it when he says, ‘You’re a fan of BTS, you’re not a fan of K-pop. You’re a fan of Stray Kids, you’re not a fan of K-pop.’ K-pop is a brand in the mainstream conversation, but the way that you associate with the bands is you’re not looking around.”

An analogy here is what Will used to say to his colleagues at Netflix in 2014:

”I remember I used to pose this question to my colleagues at Netflix. I said, ‘Do I love House of Cards that happens to be on Netflix, or do I love Netflix which happens to have House of Cards?’”

But Netflix was able to break through that. House of Cards might have drawn me in back then, but now there’s enough compelling content to keep our family paying the monthly subscription.

Can K-Pop ever get to that point? That’s the goal for every record label that has bet on the genre, but the rising tide has yet to lift all boats.

A similar dynamic happened with KPop Demon Hunters. My kids ask me to play “Golden” all the time, but their love for the award-winning movie soundtrack has yet to extend to bands like Stray Kids or Twice. Meanwhile, their love for the Frozen and Moana soundtracks has exposed them to music from Encanto.

The lack of “genre fandom” in K-pop is fascinating. It’s unlike hip-hop, where a fan of Drake may also listen to Future. The reasons are structural. K-pop’s idol-system business model is built for artist-specific loyalty, not genre discovery. South Korea’s domestic population trends add another layer. Will and I get into both in the episode.

You can listen to the episode here or read the full report here.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Today’s podcast episode is all about blue dot fever.

It’s the term for when artists cancel tours due to low ticket sales, since their unsold seats show up as blue dots on ticket seating maps. The phrase is catchy, but the problem may be overblown.

To break it down, I sat down with an industry executive with a front-row view of how deals actually get structured and where demand is softening. You can listen here or read below.

It’s hard to draw sweeping takeaways from a few cancelled arena or stadium tours. Especially when the live music industry is hitting record revenues year after year, quarter after quarter.

When demand is this strong, there will be more big bets. Olivia Dean, who blew up 16 months ago, is now headlining an arena tour. Tickets to see her two shows at the Chase Center in San Francisco are sold out on Ticketmaster. The cheapest ticket on secondary markets is currently $360.

It was just a few years ago that Olivia Rodrigo didn’t want to skip steps when she played in theater-sized venues for her Sour Tour in 2022. In today’s climate, Rodrigo would leave too much money on the table if she didn’t do multiple nights in big city arenas after her debut album.

Chris Brown is doing his second stadium tour in back-to-back years, this time with Usher. Imagine reading that sentence in 2019! We’re in different times. The most aggressive promoters are currently playing with house money. Some big swings will knock it out of the park. Others will inevitably strike out.

So when I read about major tour cancellations in 2026, I have to take a big picture view. They often reveal more about the disconnect between artist demand, timing, and expectations for those specific artists than a systemic dilemma.

A few years ago, the cautionary tales of cancelled tours included Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys. Now it’s The Pussycat Dolls, Zayn Malik, Megan Trainor, and others. I’ve seen plenty of people view these cancellations as a symptom of overpriced tickets, rising travel costs, and other structural issues with the industry. Those are valid issues, but it’s worth looking at each case individually.

The Pussycat Dolls likely overestimated demand. Nicole Scherzinger was on a hot streak with Sunset Boulevard’s success on Broadway, and plenty of 2000s acts have done well with their nostalgic reunion tours. But when the reunited Pussycat Dolls struggled to explain why only half of the group was part of the tour, that was probably a bad sign.

Post Malone can clearly sell stadium shows, but he may have gone back to market too quickly for the type of tour he was selling. And for Zayn, an arena tour in 2026 does seem aggressive. His team likely believed that nostalgia, plus the halo effect from Harry Styles‘ success, could be a rising tide that lifts all boats for the former One Direction member. It didn’t work out that way.

You should listen to our full episode. We also covered:
• How to adjust for record revenue
• Incentives for promoters and agents
• “Blue dot fever” outside of music

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

In 2016, The Offspring sold their music rights to Round Hill Music for $35 million. When Round Hill sold to Concord in 2023, those same rights were valued at around $140 million.

It’s a reminder that historically, one of the biggest moments a music catalog appreciates in value is during a format change in how music is sold to fans. In 2016, music streaming was on its way to becoming the dominant platform. The industry had just hit its nadir before growth was up and to the right, year after year. That’s the impact of a format change.

A similar dynamic happened in the early 90s with the boom of CDs. The impact was even stronger then, because multiples were based purely on physical sales, not a recurring subscription. The pre- and post-boom had equally eye-popping sales jumps, but the ceiling was higher when an $18 CD replaced a $9 cassette.

In 1988, an exhausted Berry Gordy sold Motown‘s record label for $61 million to MCA and investment firm Boston Ventures. The label was struggling, no longer had its top acts.

Five years later, Boston Ventures sold that same record label. The CD era had taken off, and Motown’s Boyz II Men was hotter than ever. PolyGram paid $301 million, nearly 5x the price from five years earlier.

But Gordy’s sale, like The Offspring‘s sale, is hard to simply call a mistake. Sellers often have numerous reasons to sell that aren’t tied to format changes, interest rates, or debt markets. Gordy was an exhausted founder who had already proved himself. He didn’t need to wait another five years. Plus, he kept Jobete, Motown’s publishing catalog, which turned out to be worth more in the long run than the label itself.

The Offspring, however, kept touring, kept recording new music, and every new fan they’ve gained since can flow into that new music as well. They kept touring, kept recording, and every new fan they’ve built since flows directly into a catalog they no longer own.

You should listen to my full conversation with Josh. We also discussed the deals he passed on, the Goo Goo Dolls and the rise of “Iris,” why Josh took Round Hill public, why it didn’t work, and why he sold to Concord in 2023.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Today’s episode is a conversation I had recently with Troy Carter. We covered Suno, streaming, catalog sales, Prince and Michael Jackson’s estate, and more.

He called Suno a game-changer for the industry. You should listen here or read below for a few takeaways.

I sat down with Troy Carter in Austin during SXSW in March. Whenever Troy and I catch up, we run through the latest in tech and platforms. Troy was an early investor in Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, and Warby Parker. He later joined Spotify as an executive. We hadn’t yet talked about generative AI music platforms, but he jumped right into it:

“I’m just gonna be honest. Suno is the most consequential piece of technology that ever came into music. The most consequential. More than radio, more than the phonograph. Because it equalized the playing field. When I first saw the technology, I’m like, this is pretty terrible. It was bad. Then probably six months ago I’m on it, and I’m like, ‘Yo, this thing has gotten really good.’”

The “I’m just gonna be honest” is a nod to the strong opinions that the AI company’s product evokes in the industry. But Troy understands that dynamic well. He worked at Spotify from 2016 to 2018 to help improve the weaker relationship between the company and the major labels at the time.

But he sees Suno’s situation a bit differently:

“The goals with Spotify and me building out a team there, it was to really build a bridge between the music industry because we had to do licensing with record labels. We had to do licensing with publishers. We had to build better relationships with artists. Honestly, [generative AI music companies] don’t have to do that at all because they’re a consumer company. The music industry can’t sue their way out of this one. When this goes to court, they’re gonna get fair use. It’s not gonna be a copyright infringement thing, it’s gonna be fair use. For AI, in America right now with this administration, they’re not gonna do anything to slow AI down.”

Currently, though, the industry is split on its standing with generative music platforms. Some major label groups are partnered with Suno, some with Udio, others with ElevenLabs, the list goes on.

You should listen to my full conversation with Troy. We covered Suno and generative music in depth, Troy’s concerns about catalog sales, and the Prince and Michael Jackson estates.

This talk was recorded in Austin during SXSW in March. It was hosted by Chaka Mahone’s company DAWA, which created a 4-day experience called Vision:8291.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

I was recently in New York and sat down with SoundCloud’s Eliah Seton. We discussed the latest on whether SoundCloud is still looking for a buyer, how it’s using AI, and what it took to achieve profitability in the past few years.

You can listen to our talk here, watch on YouTube, or read below for my thoughts on how SoundCloud is using AI.

Two things from my conversation with SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton stood out.

The first is how the company uses AI to connect artists and fans. Here’s Eliah:

“We use AI tools to understand a new artist on the platform, their new music, and the fans who might like it based on those fans’ consumption patterns… assuming that works, we find them their next fans. So you go from your first 1,000 to your 10,000 and beyond using these AI tools.”

In theory, this could be table stakes for most streaming services. But it isn’t, and the reason is structural. The algorithms on major platforms are optimized for passive listeners who want more of what they already know. That’s where the volume is, that’s where engagement is highest, and that’s where the subscriber retention and revenue follow. Building for artist discovery, unfortunately, can pull in the opposite direction.

SoundCloud’s audience skews toward what Eliah called “virtual crate diggers.” They actually want to hear what’s new. And unlike other streaming services, SoundCloud also has artists as paying customers through its creator business. That changes the incentives, which is why their AI use cases are different.

The second is Eliah’s AI boardroom. He has a human board, chaired by Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson. Wilson suggested building a parallel AI board alongside it. Here’s Eliah:

“I’ve trained a model on the writings, readings, speeches, thinking, and careers of a lot of really prominent people who make up my dream board… and that is free of charge. I can test decisions we’re gonna make around product features and positioning around the board and new markets to go into.”

Seton’s AI board includes Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, Figma CEO Dylan Field, Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, and others. He was clear that the AI board informs decisions but doesn’t make them. The actual board still takes precedence.

Still, it’s a great use case for the tools. It’s also a great reminder in an industry where AI has become quite polarizing with regard to intellectual property rights. Instead, this is a practical use by a CEO to pressure-test the company’s strategy.

Listen to my full conversation with Eliah. We also discussed:

• Is SoundCloud still looking for a buyer?
• Superfans and helping artists make a living
• Tactics that worked and didn’t work
• Financial health and profitability
• Big predictions for the future

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

I took a trip to the Beverly Hills Hotel to sit down with the one and only Clive Davis in his bungalow. Back in 2024, Trapital did a deep dive with Zack O’Malley Greenburg about Clive’s career. I later heard that Clive watched it in full and had some notes. That led to us meeting each other, which set the stage for this conversation.

You can watch our conversation on YouTube, or listen to our podcast, part 1 and part 2, which includes a follow-up call Clive and I had the following week to talk through a few more topics.

Below are some takeaways I’ve reflected on since our conversation. Hope you enjoy!

Clive Davis has many great skills, but his greatest might be his ability to turn good into great, time and time again.

With Whitney Houston, they took good songs released by other artists, “Greatest Love Of All,” “I’m Every Woman,” and “I Will Always Love You,” and turned them into iconic hits with Houston’s voice. Even “The Star Spangled Banner” was never the same after her 1991 Super Bowl performance. For several of those songs, Whitney’s version is the definitive one.

Clive also helped legacy artists reach new heights. Santana’s biggest hit, the 1999 Supernatural album, came three decades after his breakthrough at Woodstock ‘69. Dionne Warwick had a second act in the late 70s and 80s after signing to Arista, the label Clive started. And Luther Vandross won Song of the Year at the 2004 Grammys for “Dance With My Father,” twenty years after his early 80s rise, under Clive’s J Records.

He’s like a film producer who rescues an average screenplay stuck in development hell and turns it into a blockbuster best picture winner. He’s like an NBA coach that takes a meddling team with an aging superstar that can’t win a playoff series, and takes them to a title. It’s not an easy feat. Some aspects of it are harder than starting from scratch.

But the most impressive feat may be how Clive came back from his own setbacks.

When Clive got fired from Columbia in 1973, the circumstances were highly publicized. There was no certainty he would ascend or exceed the same levels. But it led him to start Arista, a business in which he had real ownership. At Arista, he signed Whitney, which was arguably the most commercially successful stretch of his career. The Bodyguard soundtrack is still the third best-selling album of all time worldwide.

In 2000, Clive was asked to leave Arista despite coming off a strong year. He told me the real reason he was pushed out was that he was making too much money for their liking. A few years later, his new label J Records had big wins with Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, and Maroon 5. After Arista struggled following Clive’s exit, he was eventually brought back to oversee both Arista and RCA in addition to J Records.

He left our conversation with this:

“There’s vindication, there’s resilience. So, a message to your audience. If that ever happens to you, reach deep down. Fight back.”

You should check out the full conversation with Clive. It was a special one. We covered:

• How he plans his annual pre-Grammy gala
• LaFace, LA Reid, Babyface, and TLC
• His thoughts on Spotify, music rights sales, and legacy

Watch the episode here or listen to part 1 and part 2 on our podcast.

It’s tough to consistently sell a weaker product for higher prices, no matter how strong the brand is. That’s the Coachella dilemma in one sentence.

On today’s episode, we broke down the 2026 music festival season with Dave Brooks, a music correspondent at Puck and host of the podcast Decibel and Docket.

This year, Coachella sold out in five days on the strength of Justin Bieber headlining. But for 2024 and 2025, the festival took much, much longer to move 250,000 tickets across both weekends. The difference is star power, and star power has gotten expensive.

General admission tickets this year were $649, a 51% increase from 2018, when attendees paid $429 to see Beyonce, The Weeknd, and Eminem headline. Those three artists no longer need Coachella. Beyonce and The Weeknd generate so much revenue from their own stadium runs that a festival guarantee doesn’t move the needle. Eminem rarely tours, but if he did, he’d be in the same position. The artists who once made Coachella’s lineup legendary have priced themselves out of the festival circuit. Now, the festivals are charging fans more to fill that gap.

Live music is booming, but the boom is not evenly distributed. Artists, their promoters, and their agents have captured most of the upside. Festivals are in a different boat.

So what do festivals do about it?

The most viable path is to lean into moments that can’t be replicated on their own tours. Bieber headlining Coachella works because it’s a comeback. The 32-year-old has been off the road, and this is the return. The festival setting frames his return as an event, which adds value.

Jay Z headlining The Roots Picnic in Philadelphia is another example. From a pure economics standpoint, Jay Z doesn’t need to be there. He sold out three nights at Yankee Stadium. He could probably sell out Lincoln Financial Field in Philly on the strength of “What We Do” featuring Freeway and Beanie Sigel. But The Roots Picnic puts him in front of an audience that isn’t his core base, which is the point.

Hov wants to be remembered like Bob Marley. The way he builds that legacy is by extending beyond his core base. The festival becomes the vehicle, not the destination.

For Coachella, being a “vehicle” may not be ideal, but is there a world where the AEG-owned Goldenvoice, Coachella’s promoter, can structure deals that still attract the A+ list headliners?

If the current standard guarantee is around $5 million per weekend, getting to $10 million, which is what a superstar’s solo stadium show can guarantee, is probably unrealistic as a flat fee. But is there a variable arrangement, like a cut of sponsorship revenue tied to the headliner’s draw, or variable upside baked into the agency deal, or branded partnerships that flow back to the artist?

The reason it may not have happened yet is that Goldenvoice and AEG have historically had the leverage. But that leverage is shifting for all major festivals.

I covered the 2026 music festival landscape in depth with Dave Brooks. On the show, we also covered:

• Why Stagecoach keeps growing

• Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, and BottleRock

• What Chris Brown and Ye‘s stadium shows signal

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

In our podcast episode, The New York Times’ Ben Sisario explained one reason why the private equity firms that invest in agencies are attracted to the businesses:

“At Wasserman, my understanding is that their marketing divisions are higher margin businesses than the commission-based talent representation.”

This is true at all the agencies. CAA‘s partnership with Coca-Cola in 1991 may be the highest-profile example. When Michael Ovitz ran CAA, he secured a landmark consulting deal to revamp Coke’s global marketing. That’s where the memorable polar bears and “Always Coca-Cola” campaign come from. The agency revenue from a deal like that is much, much stronger than relying on booking an A-list actor in a movie.

Top agencies still push these deals today. CAA led an ad campaign for Wilson, which became the official basketball of the NBA for the 2021-22 season. WME has also built partnerships between McDonald’s and John Cena. The Team / Wasserman has helped La Croix with its college campus ambassador program.

This business model, leveraging the lower margin talent business to make real money with corporate deals, is the entertainment playbook. Live Nation‘s event promotion has a much lower margin than processing tickets on Ticketmaster. Sphere Entertainment‘s concert residencies have a lower margin than its film experiences. Spotify‘s music streaming carries a higher marginal cost than non-music audio. The pattern holds across the industry.

For music talent at agencies, the dynamic may be even more pronounced. The biggest artists in the world, like Taylor Swift, have brought sponsorship deals, marketing, and brand partnerships in-house. Other megastars near Swift’s level have been rumored to have sweetheart deals with the talent agencies where they don’t need to give the full 10% commission to their booking agent. Like Ben Sisario said on our show, if an artist’s tour is guaranteed to gross half a billion dollars, do they really need to give up $50 million?

You should also listen to the rest of my episode with Ben. We also covered:

• The fallout for Casey Wasserman. What’s next for him

• Who might buy The Team? Which type of buyer makes the most sense?

• Why music is still an afterthought at the biggest talent agencies

Also, if you’re interested in CAA’s influence in Hollywood, you should check out Who Is Michael Ovitz? and Powerhouse. Read them in that order!

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Can AI Music Be A Real Growth Market?

The conversations around the usage of AI in music can get quite nebulous without proper framing. On one hand, Suno‘s current role, according to CEO Mikey Shulman, is that it’s the Ozempic of the music industry: everyone is on it, but no one is telling you. With 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue, the sizable base is there. The question now is what the ceiling looks like.

The belief that “most of the music on Suno is bad, why would anyone listen to this?” is also accurate. But most songs on Spotify are not good. Most published books are poorly written. Most YouTube videos are unwatchable. Most social media posts are not worth consuming. In all formats, it’s the cream of the crop that rises to the top. But for AI music creation, is there enough “cream” to monetize for the founders, investors, and partners relying on these companies to grow into their valuations?

That depends on how big each of the audience personas will be. After speaking with several people in the space, here’s how I see the segments of the total addressable market for AI music creation:

1. The musician creation stack. These are musicians who use AI music tools as part of their creation process. Need a drum snare to hit just right for the bridge? Use one of these products to produce the sound, then layer it as a stem in the final product. This is what the “Ozempic” line was gesturing at. Timbaland is one of the few artists who’s been open and public about how he uses the product.

This segment is a highly sticky, professional use case with a high willingness to pay. But it’s not as large as the consumer-level market that many hope AI music creation will become.

2. Novelty music. I fall in this bucket. I once made a song about my daughter and her friends searching for ducks in Golden Gate Park. It’s fun, it’s special, it’s ours. Many users have their own versions of these, often made without a paid subscription. This is a real consumer-level audience, but the willingness to pay is the open question.

3. Production music. This is the business Epidemic Sound, Artlist, Endel, and others are already in. They power the background music for YouTube videos, short-form clips, meditation content, hold music, and more. ElevenLabs is now positioned squarely here. They launched their Music Marketplace on March 19, letting users publish original tracks and earn when others license them for ads, games, videos, and other commercial work.

But how much of this segment will create new revenue versus displaced revenue from the existing players mentioned above? Is this a growth segment or zero-sum reshuffling? It may be a mix of both.

4. Direct upload to streaming services. This use case gets the most press. The Velvet Sundown is the clearest example. The generative AI band released its debut album in June 2025, and within two weeks, it landed on Spotify playlists with hundreds of thousands of saves.

This segment is dependent on how the streaming services will promote AI music in their algorithm (if they can detect it at all!)

The upside is high if this use case scales. Currently, it still mirrors the novelty group more than it might appear. The Velvet Sundown’s monthly listeners on Spotify are now at 141,423, down from 1.4 million in July 2025. The band’s consumption patterns tracked more like a trending newsworthy topic than an artist with a real fanbase. A lot of us checked it out, then moved on.

5. Consumption on the platform. One of Suno’s lead investors mentioned that a lot of her listening has shifted from Spotify to Suno. It’s one anecdote, and not one that helps Suno’s fair use claims, but the bull case is noteworthy.

Let’s look at ChatGPT as a best-case scenario. Much like Victor Wembanyama, the 2023 version of OpenAI’s large language model can’t be compared to the vastly improved 2026 version. If the same generative AI trajectory is applied to music, the early impressions of these AI music products don’t reflect where they are today or where they’re going.

The bear case for consumption, though, is the lack of a shared knowledge base on these platforms. Every consumer media tech product that reached true escape velocity had it. Spotify had the songs you already knew. Netflix licensed the shows and movies you already knew. TikTok and Instagram attracted the public figures who were already popular. An AI music creation platform without that existing knowledge base is playing the game on hard mode.

My take is that the production music and the artist creation stack are the strongest markets in the near term. They’re smaller than the sought-after consumer buckets, but they’re far more durable at the moment. Can those steadier buckets drive these businesses far enough to have enough runway to get enough consumers on board? And retain those users once they’re acquired? That’s the real question.

If you haven’t yet, listen to the full episode for more on how this fits into major label strategy and predictions on specific companies.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Today’s episode and memo is about the settlement between Live Nation and the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ). I was joined by NYU professor Larry Miller to break it down on our latest show. We covered it all, the remedies agreed to by Live Nation, how it will impact the ticketing business, and all that led to this.

You can listen to the episode here or read below for more on why the DOJ likely agreed to this.

Behind the deal

It’s easy to look at the Live Nation-DOJ settlement in a vacuum, but that would be a mistake. Each stakeholder has a position bigger than the case.

Consumers say they want more ticketing options besides Ticketmaster. What they really want are lower prices for live events. That desire, frankly, has more to do with growing demand for superstar artist concerts and less to do with the desire to purchase Bruno Mars tickets on AXS, SeatGeek, Tixr, and Ticketmaster.

Some may wish that’s the case, but concerts are a closed loop that feeds into the same inventory. Concerts aren’t rideshares where you check both Uber and Lyft apps to see which is cheaper. So, the real question isn’t whether more platforms should have access to ticketing. It’s whether the backend remedy that lets other platforms connect to a venue’s ticketing system actually solves the problem consumers care about. It may lead to more competition, but will that lower prices or reduce friction for consumers?

Live Nation wanted to keep its company, venues, and operations intact, but knew that an ongoing trial, even if successful, could cause more harm than the concessions agreed to in the remedies.

The DOJ likely wanted “justice” as it does in any particular case. But the bigger position is speed. This DOJ sits under a presidential administration that likely wants a “win” in advance of the 2026 midterms. A trial, even if successful, puts that in jeopardy.

If this lawsuit went to trial, it could have dragged on for years, spanning another administration with its own objectives. And there’s a real cost to that uncertainty: the legal fees would mount for all parties, money that inevitably gets passed down to the taxpayers this lawsuit was supposedly meant to protect. If the DOJ lost, which it very well could have, the big picture cost becomes even harder to justify.

The DOJ’s deal with Live Nation feels unsurprisingly similar to the U.S. government’s deal to shift TikTok‘s US operations to U.S. companies. The remedy includes a mix of stakeholders and factors. Sure, more opportunities are “created” for U.S. businesses, but how much will truly change as a result? It’s too early to say.

You should listen to the full episode with NYU professor Larry Miller. We discussed:

• Which remedies will have the greatest impact on actual consumer prices?

• How Ticketmaster’s new tech will deliver tickets to fans across platforms and whether it meaningfully changes the user experience.

• The impact of Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater‘s leaving the DOJ’s Antitrust Division before the settlement was finalized.

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast

Today’s episode digs into something that’s been simmering for years but is more visible now than ever: private investors are chasing music assets. There’s more demand than there is supply for music rights. Meanwhile, the publicly traded companies that own the most valuable music rights are trading for much lower amounts than they would like. How did the gap get this large? How will this play out?

You can listen to the full breakdown here or keep reading to understand why these economics don’t add up.

Investing in music has often been a paradox. The value of the underlying assets is often higher than the value of the companies that own the assets. These publicly traded music companies are arguably better than anyone at managing and exploiting these assets. The sum should be greater than its parts, but Wall Street doesn’t see it that way.

“Iconic catalogs” are in high demand, but Universal Music Group, which owns more iconic catalogs than anyone, is trading near its all-time low since going public in 2021. Warner Music Group’s stock is trading below Universal’s on its earnings ratio. And Reservoir Media is in the middle of a takeover attempt to take the company off the public markets and move it to private to realize its full value.

Sure, there are explainable nuances for each example. If UMG were on a US stock exchange, would its share price be higher? If WMG weren’t majority owned and controlled by Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, would Wall Street price it equally to Universal? If Reservoir were a larger-cap company with dedicated analysts covering it, would there be a smaller gap between its perceived value and current market cap?

The answer to each of these is likely yes, but even so, a discount would still exist.

Some of this is inherent, given the nature of companies that own assets with standalone value. In 2024, real estate investment trusts in the U.S. were traded at a 12.8% discount to their underlying real estate. But most public equities in music would dream to be traded at a 12.8% discount to the value of their music!

Look at all the music rights that Universal Music Group owns. If Queen’s music alone was bought for $1.27 billion in 2024, the value of all of UMG’s music is worth a lot more than its current $33 billion market cap.

How do these music companies close that gap? The smaller-cap sub-$3 billion market-cap companies will often be at a disadvantage in public markets due to their smaller size. Reservoir, Believe, and Hipgnosis all navigated to some extent. Their size isn’t specific to music. But what about Universal and Warner?

There’s a case to be made that the investment firms that partnered with Universal and Warner to buy music rights, Chord Music, and Bain Capital, have the best of both worlds. They can invest directly in new music catalogs and benefit from all of the major labels’ abilities, without owning the discounted underlying stock. Yes, these firms still pay a management fee and carry interest like any private equity structure would, but they would rather take that haircut on fees and interest than the haircut that the public markets place on these companies.

But those partnerships are few and far between. GIC and Sony Music also have one in place. How will this play out for the rest of the industry that wants to close that gap?

You should listen to the full episode! I covered more on:

• Other examples of music investments that segment the opportunities
​• Are there times when a music company is more valuable than its assets
​• Why Believe and Hipgnosis also went public, then back to private
​• Stripe, Figma, Klarna, IPOs, and relevant private market trends

Listen here:​​ ​Spotify​​​ | ​​​Apple Podcasts​​​ | ​Overcast