To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, the Government don't really care about music, do they? Or do they?!
For years, The Tories endlessly pushed STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and seemed to move the arts to the bottom of the pile, scorning a group of workers who tend to be some of the most left wing when they head to the polls.
It feels less bleak now. It's easier to name politicians who have clearly stated their support for the UK's verdant cultural landscape, and that support crosses party lines.
In recent months, we've spoken to Jeremy Corbyn about the work he does with his Music For The Many campaign. We've heard Dame Caroline Dineage speak at the launch of the Music Venue Trust's Annual Report and also seen her chair a hearing with HRH Kate Nash at Westminster.
And now, we've got a guitarist turned mayor turned DJ turned Prime Minister with a deeper connection in particular to music than almost any of his predecessors. (I for one was particularly delighted to read a John Harris column in The Guardian where he recounted telling Andy Burnham about a concert he had reviewed and got into for free, to which Burnham said: 'Wow. I wish I could do things like that.')
One of the biggest proponents of arts and culture, however, comes from a different part of Westminster. Lord Kevin Brennan, Baron Brennan of Canton, was MP for Cardiff West between 2001 and 2024 and then was nominated for a life Labour Party peerage by Keir Starmer. He chaired the Fan-Led Review of Live and Electronic Music (the new PM was also loosely involved too) that we've spoken extensively about, and which earned a record-breaking response to a government committee survey, and also kicked off the previous inquiry into the economics of music streaming.
Lord Brennan has now appeared on the Drowned In Sound podcast and shared some insights into how the Fan-Led review happened and breaks down some of what it covers, including the seven-point Fans Charter and the issues it tackles from ticketing to transport. ("You can't call yourself a music city if [gig goers] can't get a bus home at the end of the gig," he comments.)
Sean and Lord Brennan also looked to the future and what it could mean to have a sitting PM who wasn't just involved in the Fan-Led Review, but also bought a stake in Music Venue Properties.
"If there ever was gonna be a Prime Minister who would be committed to this agenda then Andy Burnham is the guy," Lord Brennan says.
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Each week, we create a companion playlist for our podcast. This week, we took a trip to the city of the new Prime Minister to get our head around "Manchesterism" with tunes by acts from the city and the surrounding areas. Listen here.
And in other news...
- A new study has found that 41 per cent of adults haven't listened to an album in full in the past year and 8 per cent say they've never listened to a single album in full at all. Perhaps it's unsurprising when the entire music ecosystem is centered around marketing singles over albums, but it's depressing to think how many people haven't tapped into the joy of an album's journey. As part of the study, conducted by National Rail as part of its Track Reset campaign to encourage music discovery on trains, Pete Tong MBE said this habit was like “watching just the best scenes from a movie”, adding: “The way we interact with music has fundamentally shifted, and it’s easy to let an algorithm do all the thinking for you." He speaks the truth.
- Pubs, social clubs and live music venues will have their businesses rates cut by 20 per cent from April 2027. New PM Andy Burnham was hoping to afford them some "breathing space" in a difficult economic climate, and the NTIA and Music Venue Trust have broadly been supportive. Cheers for that, Burnham!
- Staff at the V&A are voting on whether to strike over pay and - here's the interesting bit - heatwave conditions. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) have raised concerns about heat exposure and staff's access to water while working in heatwaves, and they also wish to see heat mitigation measures for back of house workers and closures to some parts of all four V&A sites when temperatures surpass 30 degrees. Between this and calls for a heatstrike, which I wrote about during June's particularly dire heatwave, this may well represent a new frontier for workers' rights and could set a precedent for waves of industrial action across the board.
- Hackers have discovered a source code in Suno AI that potentially exposes a huge level of data scraping across decades of copyrighted music from YouTube, Deezer, Genius and more. It's potential proof in the June 2024 joint lawsuit filed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and the Recording Industry Association of America which alleged Suno and competitor Udio were committing large-scale copyright infringement by ripping from YouTube. Yikes all round.
- In other AI news, Suno have lost a major copyright case in the EU and campaigner Ed Newton Rex had a shocking response from the UK government about whether they check for copyright abuse when handing out money for the Sovereign AI fund (tw: this link goes to Twitter).
- Jared Leto has been the subject of a BBC documentary, Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret, in which ten women have made allegations of s*xual misconduct dating back to between 2002 and 2016. Four of these women made accusations relating to criminal sexual misconduct, including sexual assault, which all four claim to have occurred when they were between 16 and 18 years old. Leto said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: “I have never s*xully assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
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