Sup Reader!

Okay, real talk: my emails so far have been "SALE!!" and "I made a whoopsie" and that's about it. Not exactly Pulitzer stuff.

I want to fix that. Starting now, I'm going to be sharing thoughts, opinions, and industry info, with my marketing at the bottom (gotta get that bag.)

Mixing ideas, weird experiments, the occasional unpopular opinion about kettlebell workouts and Angine de Poitrine.

My take on TLDR's FOMO Index..but for music.

🎸 FOMO INDEX🎤

The music business, plotted on importance and vibes.

↑ IMPORTANT ↑

← CRASH & BURN

⚖︎

Universal and Sony are suing Suno a second time, now over its v6 model. Their legal poetry: "fruit of the poisoned tree." Theoretical damages: $9 billion. Source

🧊

Music stocks are stumbling and analysts are calling Spotify money a "melting ice cube." Labels are being asked what Plan B is. Awkward silence. Source

TO THE MOON →

💿

RIAA mid-year: US recorded music made $6 billion in six months. Vinyl did $544M and physical revenue jumped 26%. Selling the same album twice is so back. Source

🤝

The majors sued Suno and Udio for training on their catalogs. Then they licensed them the catalogs. Opt in, get paid, terms top secret. The lawsuit was the negotiation. Source

🎻

The musicians' union is suing the labels: the humans who actually played on the records now training AI get paid nothing. The labels asked the court to toss it. Robots got licensed. Bass players got dismissed. Source

🎤

Ye announced two sold out stadium shows in Russia. The stadium says it never signed a contract. 80,000 seats, zero signatures. Flawless booking. Source

💽

CDs are outgrowing vinyl for the first time in a decade. K-pop photocards helped. Gen Z calls it "performative audiophilia." Your old Discman is a vintage flex now. Source

💰

Sia sold half her catalog to Pophouse. "Chandelier" is now a diversified financial instrument. Catalogs are real estate. Source

↓ WHO CARES ↓

Here's what's been on my mind: why do so many mixes sound correct but feel....flat? Everything's clean. Everything's in tune. Everything's been quantized into submission. Then you A/B it against a record made by humans pushing into gear and it just... loses. Not louder. Not brighter. More alive.

Part of that is the tiny differences between hardware units and blah blah but the biggest part is the unidirectional process of making calls and sticking to them, even if that includes a few mistakes.

My whole thing is commitment: print the take, commit to the sound, stop keeping seventeen options open right into the mastering stage. I want plugins that enforce this.

So I spent the last two years building and perfecting one that does.

For now: if you haven't grabbed Chance (my free multi-FX chaos machine), it's here. It's crazy. I bet you like that, you lil weirdo.

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