Quotes from the AMP London Conference

02 April 2019 - Press release

WHERE ARE ALL THE FEMALE BOSSES?
Telling examples of how gender inequality is hard to shift but changing perceptions, stereotypes and positive discrimination is beginning to move the needle towards equality.

“Growing up, with my dad running Glastonbury, the phone calls used to come through the house and we just had so many calls from men agents offering bands up. It was very rare that there was a call from a woman. There was one woman who would occasionally call, she was called Emma Banks and she is still an agent. Whenever she used to called there was this kind of relief, like oh you're out there! In a sea of men!; because it's so dominated by men, especially in the live industry.” Emily Eavis

“The fact that I'm his daughter makes it even worse, because it's a privileged position in a way. There was quite a lot of ‘he wouldn't have done that’ -which is fine because he probably wouldn't. But I've always felt the gender thing but also the divide between the historical "man" and the current female role that I have and the team we have at Glastonbury” Emily Eavis

“Women bring so many different attributes to the role, to roles within festival organisations, and on the infrastructure side -in historical terms it would've been run by men, men putting up stages, fences, digging holes, putting pipes in. Now we have female plumbers on site who are amazing and easily as hard if not harder than the men. And we have females in the industry side. Women bring so many different skills, but one of them is that women really look out for each other and they really build a team that is inclusive. Teamwork is something that is very female and something that women bring to the table” - Emily Eavis
 
“In our organisation there's still a bit of the old, the men who book the stages, a lot of them are older, they just don't understand why I'm pushing them all the time. I'm always like 'I'm really sorry but you've got to take some of those blokes off, you gotta put some girls in'. Come on! They're like, oh for god sake, you've lost your mind. That's just a constant thing, constant struggle. It's just a bit old guard, the old guys running things, the old bookers, they love a beer with the guys, the agents they talk a lot about golf days, football trips, there's a whole brotherhood that is so tight, it’s impenetrable. They're always like 'will you just shut up, it wasn't like this when your dad was in charge'. But if you wanna make progress you just have to do it, you have to be able and up for being a bit of an annoyance. Unfortunately we have to make a massive jump the other way in order to make the tiniest bit of progress. So that means me being really pushy with these people, we are nowhere near where we need to be, we are making slow progress but there is still a long way to go” - Emily Eavis
 
“There aren’t enough female headliners, there isn’t a big enough pool of artists at that level. We’re having to try and get people out of retirement in order to play. My dad keeps going 'what about the chaps'! There aren't that many blokes coming through either, but we need to make a conscious effort to push the women through. We love taking not obvious headliners and putting them on the Pyramid stages, but we don't have enough -we need more women to choose from.” - Emily Eavis

“There are a lot more women in the top leadership positions than there were. Certainly, there’s been a massive shift in the last five years. Our president is male but beneath him there’s myself and another lady, and we are co-MDs together. We were brought through the label and we’ve been supported and we got the jobs because we have done them well for many years.” – Olivia Nunn
 
“If we project that sense of being equal, eventually you’d hope that we get there. We need to keep pushing that discussion forward and progress has been made. It is taking a while, but we’re definitely making moves.“ - Olivia Nunn

“You have to have positive discrimination be to push the conversation forward. And men have to show up, have got to listen and speak up too.” – Olivia Nunn

“Beyond artists, producers, songwriters, engineers, at every level, I think it’s the responsibility of big corporate companies such as Universal. And we do, there is a really good partnership with ELAM, an arts and music school, we do stuff with Urban Development, we have a really good internship scheme now that is paid, and the people that recruit for those interns make sure there is a lot of diversity, and we are reaching out activity, and a lot of other companies do too. It’s great to try and encourage more young people get into those roles and know that they have access to places like Universal, Sony, Warner and are able to actually get there. It’s our responsibility to keep doing that. “ Olivia Nunn
 
  “I'm really encouraged by my team, the guys on my team. It's only about 10 people, they're a bit younger and I don't want to generalise about age but I think it's more innate with them to not think about it. I'm optimistic about the younger generation of men coming up, who perhaps won't lead in the same way or wont behave in the same way that people have found problematic in the past. Understand that people do things in different ways, and your way isn't the only way, and just be a bit more sensitive to peoples styles and approaches. It's everyone's problem to create a balance in the industry" - Charlotte Gunn
 
“We're putting on all female shows and live gigs, it feels tokenistic and some people say that’s not representative but there's such a big step to go to get it equal. I think giving women a platform they haven't had before in a fairly extreme way, by only putting women on the bill right now, will give them some exposure, so when it comes to booking festival line-ups there's more awareness and visibility for all the amazing female talent that's out there.” – Charlotte Gunn
 
“I remember interviewing Wolf Alice and I remember her saying ‘I don't want to have to speak in the language of men. I don't want to have to shout, maybe I want to whisper, and I still want to get my voice heard, I think that should be OK.’ I think that's a really interesting conversation the idea of women feeling pressured to rise up to levels of testosterone to get your point heard. Wouldn’t it be nice if we can all sit round and have a cup of tea and make massive decisions” - Annie Mac


 
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS: HOW BLACK BRITISH ARTISTS ARE STORMING THE CHARTS
The fact that Black British Artists have had a breakthrough moment in recent years was highlighted, focusing, in particular, on the rise of grime, drill and British rap music.
 
“AJ’s album is the biggest selling independent album in the UK this year so far. What I see is a greater level of respect for black music and black culture coming from the industry, nowadays. The industry isn’t trying to clean it up or polish it for mass consumption, it’s respected as it and that's why I believe it's connecting on a wide scale. AJ is an expert of self-promotion – he knows how to use technology to connect with people. Artists in the past traditionally didn't know how to market themselves, and nowadays artists are growing up and learning naturally how to do that on social media. Everyone is self-promoting to an extent on their social media platforms.” – Andy Musgrove
 
“I've noticed the Grime scene is much more community spirited. Whereas in pop everyone's guarded and a bit jealous of each other.” – Claire Scivier
 
“Growing up I always wanted English music to be the biggest thing in England. I always saw French music being the biggest thing in France, and American music being the biggest thing in America. I always wanted this kind of moment. I feel like we’ve been part of the journey of the music, along with the other platforms and the artists as well. It's a responsibility that the platforms and the artists have shared along the years. We've grown great artists, legendary artists that young people have watched over the years and have tried to emulate. And now we have a great amount of sick artists everywhere.” – Posty
 
The infamous Form 696, supposedly scrapped several years ago by the police, was cited as a major obstacle to promoting shows featuring black British artists and black British rappers in particular
 
“AJ just did a fourteen date UK tour and we had to move the Norwich date because there’d been some trouble at the Fredo show a couple weeks prior.” – Andy Musgrove
 
“696 is supposed to not to exist anymore, but essentially all they've done is reform it in a different way. We've had to reschedule many dates on many tours, simply because there’s trouble on another show, or because the artist has certain people around them seen as a risk. All they’ve done is reform 696 not eradicate it.” – Paris OH
 
It was agreed there needs to be more racial diversity in the industry, among people working with the artists.
 
“In labels there is still massive disparity. There are still not enough women, not enough black people, not enough Asians. I think there are still barriers.” - Alex Boateng
 
It was agreed that labels and management needed to take more responsibility when it comes to their artists’ mental health, especially within the BAME community.
 
“I'm starting to notice that very vulnerable people are being exploited because they’re controversial or they’re difficult, and quite often they’re very easy to market. We’ve seen it happen in America with Tentacion or 6ix9ine. You only have to look at some of the interviews to see they have PTSD, they have mental health conditions. What you don’t want is someone who’s unwell with unusual belief systems going out and telling young people their view of life while they’re unwell. We as a collective have to look at what is this message and question whether we’re just using this to be controversial and have an easy job with marketing.” – Claire Scivier
 
"Mental health in the black community has always been a skirted around subject, whether you’re in entertainment or not. As more and more of these patterns occur, the conversation has pushed itself to the forefront - we can't ignore it anymore. We do have to address the things that bring detriment to artist's mental health, like being given a large sum of money that they don’t know what to do with. There is a responsibility on us to educate and protect artist at all times." – Paris OH
 
"One good thing about music back in the day, people could develop and hone their craft...Now you can make one drill tune in your bedroom, put it online and be exposed to millions of people straight away, get tons of money, get driven in cars, you're on tv, but you’re still in the hood... Some people have PTSD, are in prison, don’t know how to put a sentence together that’s not on a record, and everyone’s expecting to you to be a role model. There’s so much protection needed that isn't there. Things move so quick now, I don’t think we’ve got the balance right. " – Alex Boateng
 
“There are other labels who will say ‘he raps, he does drill, he’s in prison, great’. But if I can’t meet an artist, and chat, I can’t take responsibility. You need to think about the human side of it – there are deals that I turn down if I don’t think it’s healthy.” -- Alex Boateng
 
“There's Asperger’s and Autism, which an awful lot of producers in the EDM world have - they're great people, but they need special support. Also people with bipolar, who are particularly good a lyrics. Once we start to understand the environments that they work best in, we can then protect them better to help them create all the amazing things they can do.”  – Claire Scivier
 
“It's about looking at mental health as another thing you have to do. The same way you get your car MOTd, you’ve got to get your head checked. it's all part of being a better artist" – Annie Mac


 
CANCELLING ARTISTS – SHOULD THE INDUSTRY PLAY JUDGE & JURY?
The culture of silence that is fostered within the music industry (within the context of recent controversies around artists like R Kelly, Michael Jackson and Ryan Adams) was discussed.
 
“I made [the documentary on R Kelly] in the middle of Jim DeRogatis article in 2017 saying that he ran a sex cult, when there started to be an avalanche of people willing to talk, but it was still a bit more of a dialogue, there were still people defending him a bit more that they are now. I spoke to so many people who knew him back in the day, background singers, tour managers, his brother. Everyone was like ‘Yeah, I suspected something was wrong, but I didn’t see it myself’.” – Ben Zand
 
“We asked numerous artists for their responses to R Kelly and none of them responded whatsoever. The question is why does it take you so long to speak out, if apparently you knew these things so early on?” – Ben Zand
 
“Lady Gaga did a song with R Kelly after he went through a trial for sleeping with a 14 year old. You can say what you want about that. But now that it has become more public knowledge she has dissociated herself with him and removed her song from Spotify. The question is why not earlier?” – Ben Zand
 
“I was trying to get comments for the R Kelly documentary from RCA and Sony for about 2 years and didn't get any response.” – Ben Zand
 
“What the record industry needs to stop doing is using NDAs to silence women who come forward with allegations of sexual abuse. Loads of women can't talk because they've been paid out, their silence has been bought. There's a huge wider political conversation going on about these NDAs, and the fact the record industry doesn't want to face up to this problem, they just want to make it go away with money and that is not the solution.” - Laura Snapes
 
“It needs to be at the stage where they’re not making people sign NDAs that they therefore cannot have a critical process that could potentially get someone in jail for a heinous crime... Don't allow artists to mute people who are claiming that there's a criminal scenario that has taken place.” – Ben Zand
 
“It'll be really hard to take down the biggest figures in music, because they are so protected. They use NDAs to pay people off. In R Kelly’s case, he put parents of some of these girls on the payroll. There are parents who have got drum credits on some of his records who have never picked up an instrument, it just means they get royalty points forever... The more pursuable stories are in that more mid level, indie-ish tier where you can actually access the artist and access the people they might have allegedly abused... After the Ryan Adams piece came out, we have a big news meeting every morning at The Guardian and people were saying, ‘why haven’t there been more of these stories?’. And on one hand, there’s the culture of male genius that upholds music. On the other, there aren’t these figures like Harvey Weinstein, where tons of power is concentrated in a single person... Music doesn’t have the same celebrity aspect as film, it doesn’t have the same name recognition in the households.” – Laura Snapes
 
 

PLAYING THE PLAYLIST GAME: HOW DO YOU BREAK ARTISTS IN 2019
The fact that streaming services have democratised the process of breaking new music and new music discovery was highlighted
 
“Unsigned artists have an app and a website that allows them to upload their music into Spotify’s backend. You can then pitch to Spotify’s curators globally, that’s how everyone from Polydor right the way down to someone unsigned comes into our system. Our aim to listen to all of those submissions and that’s how you get playlisted whether you have a label or not.” - Austin Daboh
 
“I think we’ve democratised it. There used to be a lot of layers and complications and gatekeepers. I think the difference with Spotify is you can build your own story on the exact same platform where the choosing of songs exsit. The difference between radio and streaming is there’s more bandwidth at Spotify. I used to work at 1xtra and we only had 40 spots on the list each week. In any given week you had 40 records you could back at any one time whereas at Spotify we have thousands of playlists, they’re all global and each one could have one hundred, two hundred songs. So the sheer scale of the amount of artists we can put inform of users has grown. We allow artists to tread water while they’re growing, historically you used to go to traditional media and you’d get one shot in a particular time period. If that particular gatekeeper didn’t like that record, that was it, that was your chance gone for however long. At Spotify you can create your own story.” - Austin Daboh
 
“You can’t ignore the impact of data. The amount of data we get back as marketers gives us a huge amount of power that we’ve never had before. Historically you’re operating on hunch and experience but when you went to market it would take a long time to get feedback back. Now you’re getting instant feedback, as soon as it gets played on radio you’re getting Shazam data, you can see the impact on streaming services. It’s also important not to be totally led by data. We’re working in a creative industry with music so that has to come first and you can use data to aid to that.” – Paul Trueman
 
“You have computer data which is the numbers and you have cultural data which is anecdotal. If you look at something like Cardi B ‘Bodak Yellow’, when we first tried that on our UK playlists, the reaction, if you looked at just the numbers wasn’t good. It was one of the worst testing records but culturally we knew it was one of the biggest records in clubland. Culturally we were stepping outside the building and could see how it was doing. Data has always been around, a DJ playing a record and seeing half the crowd go to the bar, that’s data. We just have a level and quality of data we haven’t had before. That means we can make better informed decisions but in terms of Spotify we’re very much led by cultural data first and backed up by numerical data after that.” - Austin Daboh
 
The fact that Britain is the no. 1 territory in the world to break new music was celebrated.
 
“We have a culture - our country accepts music from the leftfield. The BBC is a huge part of that, we’re very lucky to have that, other countries don’t have that. We’re used to breaking left of centre artists, The UK produces artists that no-one else is the world does or can do. The melting pot of the UK throws up unique artists. We have smaller tastemakers, if you’re a quirky US artist it’s easier to cut through here. We embrace the slightly off-kilter. Billie Eilish did her first ever show here in Shoreditch. Our music ecosystem loves new music and gives it new music a shot. It resonates around the world so what we do means something, we have a cache that other places in Europe might not. You can come here for two days and make an impact, whereas in America you’re there for a long time.” – Tom March
 
“The most influential markets in the world are the UK and the US, the problem with the US is that it’s so big so you have to commit so much time to break that market that it’s expensive and prohibitive. Their playlists and radio in America are so formulated as well. You have to fit into a box or genre to even start on radio. Whereas here, we have gatekeepers who are more open to new music, things that are left of centre and taking risks.” – Paul Trueman
 
The potential impact of Voice UI & AI on the music industry was discussed
“This the great unknown. Working for universal, we get every up to date piece of information as quickly as possible for things like this. There’s all sorts of data that tells us in the near future a third of all music requests will come through voice activation. We know the key is to educate your audience off platform to go and ask it something. Like Michael Buble owns Christmas for voice activation. If you look at his campaign he did at the end of the year, his audience know to ask for Michael Buble at Christmas. He has Christmas covered. It is a great unknown though, we don’t know how to advertise on voice activation properly yet. We don’t know how it differentiates between who’s asking it for what, we don’t know who decides what it plays when you ask it to play rock music.” – Tom March
 
“Google are starting to market their own device and I think the more manufacturers and service providers you have the better it is for business. At its best it’s making music easier to discover, it depends on how good the algorithms are and what goes into it. AI works best when you get high quality data put into it. If you look at voice recognition there are some interesting case studies that could mean more music is served up. There are still issues with it, like accents for example. Having gone from having to travel miles to hear music a hundred years ago to being able to buy it in shops to having it in your home. Ultimately this is a win for consumers and creators.” - Austin Daboh
 
“We see ‘play Radio 1 or 1Xtra’ on the rise. We know that about 19% of households have a smart speaker now and that’s on the up. Music is the biggest winner so far, above sport or anything else.” – Mike Strippel