Asara, the most one-in-par fun, is the kind of cologne that chooses you, like a stranger at a bar sliding you a bottle. No, it's not a drink, it's cologne, spreads. And invite the sense of vibrant cardamom, addictive toffee, and sensual bourbon vanilla infused with a trail of amber wood. This high cocktail is the fragrance for adventurous men. Asara, the most one-in-par fun. Once upon a time, Amazon Music met audiobooks, and listeners everywhere rejoiced. Because now they could listen to one audiobook title a month from an enormous library of popular audiobook titles, including "Romanticy", "Autobiographies", "True Crime", and more. Suddenly listeners didn't mind sitting in traffic or even missing their flight. Amazon Music Unlimited now includes Audible, download the Amazon Music app now to start listening. Terms apply. This is Sound Up with Mark Goodman and Alan Light, the only music podcast that matters. Welcome, welcome. I'm Mark Goodman, and I am Alan Light. On this episode of Sound Up, everybody is here. We hear from you the Sound Up Pod Squad. As we discuss the 2025 Grand Inominations and one of this year's biggest stories, concert ticket prices. We're all pissed about that, aren't we? Sure. We got a bunch of Sound Up Pod Squad members here with us in our virtual studio, and they will be giving us their thoughts on these two big music topics. You know, episodes like this are great. We love to do them because not only do we get to present issues that we know are important to the music community, but we also get a direct reaction from actual real people who listen to music, follow their favorite artists, and spend their damn hard-earned money to go to concerts, to buy tickets, to buy merch, and more. We also know that we have a lot of fans who are artists or work in the music business, and this gives them a chance to hear directly from music fans on how these topics affect them and what their thoughts are. We get a lot to get to, but before we open it up to the dozens of you joining us here in our virtual studio, some very familiar faces, some new ones, remember that the best way to be a part of future podcast tapings and stay connected to everything Sound Up related is simply to follow us on socials @SoundUpPod, subscribe to the podcast which you can do at our website, SoundUpPod.com. We're constantly updating the site with show updates, exclusive content, photos, videos submitted from you, the pod squad, and more. So let's get to it. We're going to start with this one, to be a year where aside from some of the surprises, some of the mystifying moves that the Grammy makes, what was popular on radio, on the charts, in people's hearts was pretty much what was reflected in the nominations. I think this was a relatively easy year for the Grammy team to line up the big records with the big categories. So let's run down the big four, song of the year, album of the year, record of the year, and best new artists. Just a reminder, those are the four categories, and actually there's a few more categories now, the producer categories that every Grammy member votes on. The other beyond that, every member selects for the smaller categories that they feel qualified to vote for, but these are the ones and now they've added non-classical producer and songwriter of the year. I was surprised at the songwriter thing. Yeah, that's a new, I think last year was the first they did that. But these are the, historically, these are the big four that everybody looks at to sum up what happened this year. So you want to take us on this first one? Record of the year, this award goes to the artist or artist, producers, recording engineers, or mixers, and mastering engineers, if other than the artist. The nominees are now and then from the Beatles, Texas Hold 'em, Beyonce, Espresso, Sabrina Carpenter, 360 Charlie XCX, you're killing me, Tyler, Birds of a Feather, Billy Eilish, not like us, Kendrick Lamar, Good luck, babe, Chappell Rhone, and Fortnite, T-Swift featuring Post Malone. So Alan, what's your take on the category as a whole? As a whole, I think that the obvious contenders are all here. I think that there was not much question about Beyonce, Sabrina, Charlie, Billy, Kendrick, Chappell Rhone, not that much question about Taylor was just a question of was this the year that maybe they were going to dial back the Taylor a little bit, which they did a little bit, but still, here she is in the big ones. No question, the big surprise here is the Beatles nomination. It is the Academy after all. I don't want to say that. It is the Academy after all. Now, I will say this, the technical execution of pulling off this recording is kind of the most impressive thing about it. I have no problem with it getting recognized. But is it nominated in that category? No, though that's part of what Record of the Year is. I understand. The producer, the engineer, the mixer, those are all part of what this is. Record is for the recording, not just the song. So I grant you that. Beyond that, it's kind of absurd and I don't really know what to make of it, but you know. As the resident Beatles fan, what do you think of the song? I don't love this song. I've been long on record for I don't love this song. I liked what they ended up doing with it more than I expected I was going to, because I knew I'd heard it on bootlegs for all these years and know what a crappy, you know, really difficult cassette they were working with to try to make this into a finished record. I think we talked about this on the podcast, that insane technology that allowed this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's only after the Peter Jackson, you know, tear it down and build it back up that you could even do something like this. Meantime, we're spending all this time on it and it is notable that it's there. I do not think it's going to win. If it wins, that's going to be a whole other thing. So I don't really see that happening. Yeah. The question is, and I think in really all of these categories, which of the pop girls are going to win? Okay, so boom, Kendrick Lamar out, according to Alan Light. There's a world where Kendrick has a shot at this, but I don't think that he's going to win this. As great a song as that is. As great a song as it is. Oof, stunning. I think, you know, if I'm going to put the money down on this one, I'm probably going to put it on Chappell Rhone as we go through each of the categories. I feel like it's going to tick the most boxes. It's not going to be a shock. I mean, Beyonce got the most nominations ever for one album. It's not going to be a shock if she wins anything. The Sabrina record was a huge record. The Grammys love Billie Eilish. Taylor is Taylor. I don't think Taylor's going to win for this record. I think I would, if I had to put money down, I would put it on Good Luck babe on this one. So I'll sit it there. How about you? And then we can open it up. I second that emotion 100%. I mean, the Beatles song was not for me, even an issue. I agree with you on that. I picked Espresso a song in the summer and Birds of the Feather was my personal song of the summer. And between that and Texas, hold them, Holy cow, they came out right around the same time. I was going crazy, but ultimately I figured it out and I'm going for record with Chappell Rhone. I'll weigh in while people are thinking about it because I have a different pick than you guys. First of all, going back to the Beatles thing, if this was cold recording of the year, it would make a lot more sense to be in that category based on the mastering, the mixing and the technical aspect of putting that song together. It being in this category is a little weird for me and a little silly. I really think that there was no song I think that was bigger, was played more, was just more recognizable by anybody than the Sabrina Carpenter song. It was such a big song, but it wasn't even her biggest song. Please please please please let number one and Espresso didn't. Espresso was so much better, by the way, but that's on the charts. I feel like Espresso really was in the culture a lot more and was in more places. The chart is one thing, for sure. I think more people can name that song. I think more people can identify that song. I think more people have heard that song than any other song on that list. You could be right. I love the Sabrina record. We've talked about it. I think the whole album was one of the big surprises of the year to me how good top to bottom that album was. I think people who like the chapel song feel stronger about the chapel song and will vote for the chapel song more than people who've heard the Sabrina song. I got that. Christine? I've gotten it to Chapel Rohn a lot lately just because other people have recommended her. I kind of had that on my Spotify, but some of the other ones like Sabrina, I'd actually guess that she would have the most noms, but I was not right because Beyonce came in with that. I also did listen to Beyonce album because you guys recommended it. You know, I guess you are kind of having influence. Did you like that? Yeah, I did like it. One thing I had this question about is that does it matter with the Grammys if they keep adding songs? That's one of the things you guys talk about all the time is that like you think it's dropped, but then they add more and they change it up and everything. It's a really good question. I think it's what the submission is. Taylor, it's what you submit by deadline. If they have different versions, it's what you submit by deadline. So I assume like for Taylor, it's the 31 songs, not the first 16 or whatever. But it's an interesting question and a fair question. April, you got a pick? April, I know has has Grammy thoughts. I don't know if she's holding back. I know. I've got a lot of Grammy thoughts, but I don't know if I can do it in one minute. But I do want to mention all of the women that are nominated this year. Absolutely. So we've got the Kendrick's, we've got the Benson Boons, we have the collaborations with the men, but I feel like this is the pop lane for women vocally this year, all in the every single category. I just think it's really kind of a really fun awakening that we're having. You know, it may not be for president, but it might as well be for music. And I just feel like they're the voice of today. And I feel like this is really showing that with all these nominees. And then to have Beyonce have 99 career, you know, nominations for her and the most out of this year. I think it's 11 and never in the big three. Yeah. And I feel like that just, you know, surpasses Michael Jackson, Jay Z herself with Renaissance and Lemonade even I will say that there were some albums that were overlooked for record of the year like Benson Boone, Pothier, Shibuzi. So I do feel like it's such a stacked year that there's way this like an excessive amount of great music this year. Benson Boone is one of the, the nominees for Best New Artist. And that song, probably the song you're thinking of has over a billion with a B streams. Yeah. Well, move on. I'll just say to April's point, remember that it's just a couple of years ago was the, you know, women need to step up if they want to win at the Grammys. Yeah. I was going to make a joke about that. And I was going to say like, huh, step up, must have worked, huh? But I didn't on purpose. Well, I think, I think Billie Eilish really kind of brought this wave with her, you know, the year that she won every single award. And I think since then it's just two years, three years, whatever. All right. So with that in mind, we'll move to album of the year awarded to the artists and featured artists, songwriters of new material, producers, recording engineers, mixers, mastering engineers, credited with 20% or more playing time of the album. The nominees are New Blue Sun from Andre 3000, Cowboy Carter, Beyonce, Short and Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter, Charlie XCX's Brat, Jesse volume four from Jacob Colle. Hit me hard and soft, Billie Eilish, Chapel Rowan, the rise and fall of a Midwest princess and the tortured poets department from Taylor Swift. If you want me to lead my short answer is, this is the year Beyonce will win album of the year. She has never won album of the year. This is the year that she will win album of the year. Yowza on that one, a thousand percent. If this one doesn't do it, nothing's a lock. And if they give Jacob Colle the award, you're just going to say, well, that's the Grammys, that the pop vote splits itself and a muzo, you know, all the producers, all the technical people vote for the crazy stuff that he does and it slides in and wins. I mean, seeing this happen before, that said, it is very hard for me to not see this going to Beyonce this year. When you think about this category and you think it is the album and obviously you mentioned, you know, everybody who gets the credit for it and you have to look at it as a whole piece, right? So that's why I would pick Cowboy Carter as well. Not only did it hang together and was it multi genre and exploratory and yet so fucking cool at the same time and brat also an incredible, as a whole, an incredible package. I thought. It's a really good records here. Eilish to Chappell Rohn, tortured poets, all of those, yes, really, really good. Andre 3000, I can't rave about. I listened to it once and that was that. I understand either Andre 3000 or Jacob Colle in this category, right? I do not understand both because those are both kind of filling the same slot for, you know, we want something that's not a pop record and it's somebody that's doing more, you know, muzo, experimental, you know, real musicianship stuff. Like, why are they, why both of them? Yeah. Because people voted for them. Sanita won't say it, I believe. I love all these Grammy Noms because women run the music industry right now and I don't think there's any way that Cowboy Carter does not walk away with this because it's really, you know, just as for lemonade that this Cowboy Carter will win. But I agree with you in the sense that the optics are horrible if she doesn't win. And but then also in the event that this album does not win and who is going to be the person sitting in their seat where they're like, and the Grammy goes to, like, who of those people that are totally deserving of these awesome albums and who's going to run up on stage? Yeah, like who's going to be that person who's going to pull the Kanye or who's going to be the Adele saying, just give it to be awesome. They're going to be like, we, how do we take this? Even though every single album I will say is totally fantastic in the category. Yeah. Great category. That's what I find really difficult about this category this year because if you're one of the other nominees, not Beyonce, you almost don't want to win. Mm-hmm. It's not going to be a good luck. Yeah. It's not a good look. But if you're Beyonce as well, this album is very deserving of album of the year as was several others she's been nominated for. But I got to feel that even if she wins, does she feel like it's vindicated partly vindicated but also consolation because if you don't give it to her, what are you saying? You know, so it's kind of a weird, weird category this year. A hundred percent. They've backed themselves into a weird place. But I think for all those reasons, I think voters just say that you give it to her and we move forward. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Also, I think if you just go back and listen to that record start to finish, it is, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. It really is. Deservately. I don't think by any means is this not a phenomenal album. You know, it's like an academic exercise in what American music is. But extremely personal and her own stamp on it, it's, it's, yeah. Asara, the most one apart from is the kind of cologne that chooses you, like a stranger at a bar sliding you a bottle. No, it's not a drink, it's cologne, spritz. 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What's the difference between the iPhone 16 Pro and AT&T next to any time? Alright, let's jump to the next category. Song of the Year, this is a songwriter's award. A song is eligible if it was first released or if it was first achieved prominence during the eligibility year. Artist names appear in parentheses, of course. On some of these, there's like 19 songwriters. So we're just going to go with the title and artist if that's okay with everybody. Up first, a bar song. Everybody in Club Gen Tippsy. Yes, Shaboozy. Birds of a Feather from Billie Eilish, Billie O'Connell, and Phineas O'Connell, songwriters. I can do it here. Birds of a Feather. Die with a smile from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. Fortnite, Taylor Swift, featuring Post Malone. Good luck, babe. Chappell Rhone. Not like us, Kendrick Lamar. Please, please, please bring a carpenter and Texas Holdum with 97 names and Beyonce. Just noting that the only one that is one single songwriter is Kendrick Lamar. Is one person, yeah. But I'll come on. We'll give it to Billie and Billie and his brothers. Just know it because people are like, everybody needs, you know. Especially complain about hip hop songs like. Right. So I'm continuing with the, you know, with the sweep. I'm all in on Texas Holdum. Really? Okay. I absolutely am. I mean, I do. I think maybe, hopefully, that this will be the year that they feel guilty. And that's a hell of a reason for music as great as this to get the award. But fuck it, what, any port in the storm, you know? So here's a, here's a total wild card call. And I don't even, I can't even explain why I'm going to say it. Which is Gaga and Bruno win this award. I do not like that song at all. I'm shocked. I don't particularly like that song either. But. Of all of these on here, that if you were going to go rogue, that wouldn't be the one that I would think. Cause songwriters award, I see those as two house favorites. Mm hmm. And just on the sheer firepower and the kind of a song that wins that kind of award. You, over the years that I have known you out on light, you have been damn consistent on these kinds of picks. And when you go rogue, you're usually right. I'm just, I'm not saying it's my vote. I'm not saying it's my pick. But something in me says, right, I can see that winning this award. We're doing, uh, will win and should win. We can start to do that. And I know that Kieran in the chat is going for the first response was, oh my God, not die with a smile. You can tell me I'm wrong. You can tell me I'm wrong on this. This is purely a hunch. Oh, I think you're wrong. But I can talk myself into this one better than I can talk myself into any of the others that are here. I agree with you. It does feel like those years where you were like, oh, Silksonic's nominated. You kind of know they're going to get it for some reason. The Grammys love them. They love, they really love Bruno Mars. And they haven't had the chance to honor to honor Bruno and Gaga for a while. Yes. Mm hmm. They're not going to give it to Billy again. They've given her three of these in a row or whatever it is. I just don't see that happening. I still know. So it wasn't one of my votes for the, you know, to get to this point, but I'm just following some weird inner feeling here. Okay, I'm making a note here. We're going to see. We're going to see how things go. Sunita says I underestimate Billy ordinarily I would go with Billy on this except that she's just been running this category at three of the last four years or whatever it is. And if they're going to go with a pop song, I just don't think they're going to go back to her one more time. Kendrick would be the interesting one here. I don't see it happening, but that would be a wild thing. Agreed. This is a tough one because every song up here, you're not going to argue really if one wins over the other, but I have a hard time not seeing Texas hold them on this. April, what do you think? I just wrote in the chat that if Sabrina were to win for please, please, please, that maybe it would give Jack Antonoff some love since he wasn't nominated for a producer of the year. I don't think they give a shit about giving him love, but apparently not because they snubbed him. But I mean, the fact that she's, she's ruling the charts right now. I think she has something like four or five singles from the one album on the Billboard charts right now. I mean, that's pretty bold. Yeah, pretty interesting that she had different songs nominated for record and for song of the year, by the way. That's always, again, worth noting in terms of just overall impact. We move on finally to best new artists. And let me read the thing because this is relevant. This category recognizes an artist whose eligibility year release achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and notably impacted the musical landscape. So operative word is breakthrough since some of these artists, they've been around for a while. So wait, so does that mean, is that good then? They've been around for a while and now they're breaking through? Well, it's why they can get recognized for best new artists. Why didn't they? It's why some of these can happen on their sixth album. So the nominees are... Not the first time. The nominees are Benson Boone, Sabrina Carpenter. You got the right pronunciation on Doki? I'm going with Doki. Doki? I've never known. I only see him written there. Krung Bin, that I know how to say, Ray, big house favorite for us, Chapel Round, Shaboozy, and Teddy Swims. So I will say that Krung Bin and Sabrina Carpenter, I believe, are both on their sixth album. Now, I love this Sabrina Carpenter album, but I do think in that case it's going to... Look, I think Chapel Round wins this. I just think, especially the momentum where people's minds were. There's a little bit of recency bias where people are voting over the last few six weeks as Chapel has been exploding as a story. Yeah. I just think that's the... It was a big jump for Sabrina, but she existed in the consciousness before. Yeah. I think that's the breakaway winner here. That's what I think. Can anybody... I have to say, I had heard the name Benson Boone, but I mean, I listened to Hits One on Sirius, and I listened to regular radio, and I never saw... I see the guy has literally a billion streams with a B on that one song. Yep. And millions on others, and yet I don't hear the guy on the radio that much, and that must be me. I think it's Sunita and the child saying he is fantastic. No, I think he has a great voice. I like his songs. Go ahead, April. He was on, "Was it American Idol or The Voice?" It just semi-disqualifies him in my mind, but that's another description. Together. You go with whatever works. Here's the thing. You know, we're talking about the idea that these best new artists, many of them have been around for years. And as much as I want to go with either Chapel Rhone or Ray, because I have both of those amazing Shibuza even, I've been just crusading for Teddy Swims for years, for years. The guy has an incredible voice. He's been featured all over the place. The stuff that he does on his own is beautiful. I feel like he's gotten better and better, made better song choices, and on and on. I'm hoping that Teddy Swims wins Best New Artist. I'm hoping. I'll go with that. Nothing wrong with that, Pick. And I know who Roger is hoping for. I know Roger's Ray fandom runs way too deep for you to cheer for anything else. Well, I didn't want to put that on you, Roger. I didn't want to say. I thought so too. But I think she's got this locked up. I think she's the exact kind of artist that Grammys love to vote for, love to put forward. She's been around, but not been around as long as Sabrina Carpenter, where that looks a little weird to give for the award. Even if you put that disclaimer out there, she just released a new song last week. She's just crushing it and making all the right choices. So I think she's going to walk away with this. She had that great performance on SNL too. Unbelievable performance on SNL. There's nothing gave her the moment. That breakthrough thing. That took her over the threshold. And I love her. And you're right that there's in that tradition of Winehouse and Adele and what those British soul singing, Blue Eyed Soul girls can do. I just don't think the mass built big enough, even if she fits the profile. But it's not a crazy thought. But I think Chappell, just from all sides, is there's too much lined up for her here. If Ray loses to Chappell, I'm fine with that. I'm kind of the only one that I am kind of fine with. Those of us who saw Chappell perform at a festival this summer. And I know that Sunita saw her at Lollapalooza. I saw her at Bonnaroo. You know that Chappell has it in the bag. The biggest crowds I've ever been in. I've ever seen that. Yeah, those photos of the Lollapalooza crowds are insane. Yeah, it's definitely Chappell's year. I think you're probably right. So we've gone through the big four. We've gotten some of your opinions. We've given you hours. And now I set this document aside until February the 1st, when the show airs and on podcast immediately following that, discussing who picked what. When we come back, we'll talk about something that I think all of us have feelings on. Tickets and ticket prices. We'll talk that next on Sound Up. 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We invite you, the audience, to join us and be a part of the conversation. We've got a great group assembled with us here in our virtual studio. We're going to shift gears here and discuss a topic that's probably the most important and most discussed topic right now in the music landscape, and that is tickets. The prices, dynamic ticketing, secondary market, all of these come into play now when you're going to a show, sometimes no matter how big or small that show is. Now, of course, the bigger the artist, the bigger the tour, the more these factors come into play. But the Taylor Swift tour and the Bruce Springsteen tour are just wrapping up. Those are the ones that really set off a lot of this debate all over again, including congressional hearings on the relationship between Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Just recently, the OASIS reunion tour got things cranked up all over again, as we can talk about over and over again. Yes, and as journalists, hosts, producers, certainly we have our thoughts on this issue, but this topic is one that we want to hear from you on. Let's start with dynamic pricing. Yay, nay. Well, it's hard to break out the different components of this, right? Yeah. You're going to talk about dynamic pricing and not talk about the secondary market. You can't. It's a complicated stew of how these things all sit together. So for people, you know, the crazy situation that this has forced is, I'm sure everybody here knows at least one person who traveled probably to Europe to see Taylor Swift. And it was cheaper than buying a ticket in the US. I know five different people who took their families. It's wrong that there's something wrong, you know, that it's cheaper to fly to Europe to see a band. And we have talked about this idea that I think that most people aren't aware that the bands have a say in this. They're complicit. I'm going to say it. And that's what bothers me about this situation. It is an accusatory term, and that still comes down to accuse price gouging or I know Alan the capitalist, whatever the market will allow, I understand, but not that I am the capitalist. I am simply defaulting to this is what capitalism is, particularly this is what late stage capitalism looks like. This is what capitalism looks like. All right. So Rachel, I know once I want to go, I want to get people's thoughts and experiences on this. Everybody understands. We all know from our own lives what the complexities are here, what, you know, we're in a situation clearly the Oasis tickets went up. People were on a digital line behind thousands and thousands of people, yeah, way more people trying to get tickets than there were seats available. That is the fact that you start with. So what do we do with that? What do you do with that reality? So Rachel, you can kick us off. Yeah. You know, I think that's the hardest part is estimating how many are going to be actual fans buying the tickets versus other people trying to resell the tickets. I think that the reselling of tickets is really what jacks the prices up and we saw that just recently going to the rock call, you know, we were like, oh, you know, we might get a cheaper ticket later, but then we're seeing the ticket prices going up significantly. And so part of you when you're getting ready to buy a ticket, you're saying, maybe I just want to secure my ticket now. So I don't have to worry about it later because I can do that now and I can forward it. And I feel bad for people that, you know, you know, sometimes you buy the ticket at the at the premium price and then you're like, oh, somebody got in for $50, you know, that really sucks. So it really does throw things off. And so I think it's great when bands do say, Hey, we want to go ahead and set limits on how because the other thing is that they will release tickets later. So it's like, are they releasing some now or they're releasing some later? And so they're throwing in the dynamic pricing. So it's kind of like a chess game that you're playing. You know, you're playing a game of, you know, find the how long do I hold off to get the best price, but not get a shitty seat. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And David mentioned this. This was the other thing in setting this up. Give the credit to Robert Smith because the cure did demonstrate there are ways to control this, but they are ways that a lot of ticket buyers don't like, which is that you are locked to that ticket, that there is not a resale option that it's, you know, you can do all these things that can say that the, you know, what the price on the ticket is. That's going to be what the price is that you pay. Obviously, it doesn't speak to what the demand is, but it speaks to what the resale is. But I'm going to say in general as a rule, let me just be a dick and say this to say, do away with reselling tickets. I would never go to a, to a, to a sports event again. I went to go see my beloved Montreal Canadiens play the New Jersey Devils last week because I could buy a ticket for 20 bucks because on the resale market, people are dumping them and two days before I could go and buy that ticket and go, I can't go to the garden because to see them go play the Rangers is hundreds of dollars. I can go when my kid and I say, hey, what, let's see, there's a Mets game tomorrow. There's tickets for 12 bucks. Let's go. If you say there's no resale, you're saying there's none of that either. So I don't want to do that. I don't want to take it away and say there's no such thing. Well, what if, if that ultimately wound up lowering the cost of a ticket? But it wouldn't. I mean, it wouldn't necessarily. Well, I think it could, it could help. I don't know. I think it's in secondary market that jacks up the price and the idea that the bands are allowed to get a block of, you know, a thousand tickets and put them on the secondary market and just are blind, you know, let us spend the money. Well, if there's the demand, then the price goes up. If there's not the demand, then the price goes down. Secondary market doesn't mean price goes up. But okay. But the other side of that argument as far as I'm concerned is, yeah, if the demand goes up, then the people with the most money will be going to the show. People with the most money get to buy the most expensive cars. Why is this different? Well, what? That's, I think it's a completely different thing. We're talking art as opposed to commerce. David wants it. I'm going to agree with the fair market economy and it actually goes to the artist benefit. And I think that a lot of the discussion, it's the 80/20 rule. We're discussing about the top 20% and the other 80% of the bands need that secondary market to fill seats, to put people in shares in arenas so that promoters can continue what they do to, because they're not going to have all these top 20% of those shows. I think a lot of the discussion is the focus on the top 20% and not the bottom 80%. Well, the bottom 80 probably is not selling as much as many tickets anyway. No, but it's very easy to just get lost in the handful of artists for whom this is a mega issue. There isn't the demand, the special demand when it's Taylor or Bruce or an Oasis reunion. And how much do you extrapolate from that? I think what David is saying is how much do you take those really exceptional cases and try to make generalizations out of that that then affect people who are not in that same situation. Right. I think we should go back to you have to go to the venue and buy the tickets on the day they go on sale. Trent Reznor did that. I know. A couple of years back. Genius. I mean, it was genius. Yeah, except for people who were pissed who don't, you know, people on maximal convenience and maximal cheapness and maximal options. And you don't. You got to give up one. Cheap fast and good. You could do two out of those three. You don't get three out of those three. I said, you got to give up one. Yeah. Kieran wants in. I think the resale piece needs to exist just because I think we're too used to buying something, feeling like we own it and therefore it's our property to then do with what we may. It's dynamic pricing that people get in trouble with. Taylor would have had a terrible PR nightmare with dynamic pricing because you would have had $20,000 tickets while you were in the queue if she had allowed dynamic pricing. And for most other bands, you would have had a bunch of bots buy up some tickets and then not lower the prices until like a day or two before the show. So dynamic pricing, most benefits, ticket master, because they have the algorithm and there is a pretty opaque market about what's actually going on. But resale, I hate to say it just, it's just American. I don't see how you cannot allow resale and it's just dynamic pricing got springsteen in trouble. Taylor was very smart to avoid it. Oasis got in trouble for it. And then Oasis said, we're not doing it. So the top artists now know they'll get in trouble and the mid tier artists know that it mostly benefits ticket master. And the dynamic pricing thing is complicated because in theory, there's a certain sense to it. I mean, we can complain about it in the same way that you complain about prices on buying tickets on an airplane go up and down and you might be sitting, you know, racial said, you sitting at the rock hall next to somebody who spent, you know, $100 less than you to have that ticket. When you're sitting on an airplane, you don't know what the guy next to you paid for that ticket. If you bought it a month before, if you bought it the day before, could be more, could be less. 100% surge pricing on, on Ubers and lifts. That's when there's more demand, we're going to charge more. There's a logic. There's a market logic to that. As Karen says, the problem is once you start throwing, you know, the bots into that, once you start throwing all the stuff that sort of jacks the demand artificially out of whack, then that stuff just spirals out of control. Right. But that's part of the equation. I think that was the lesson after the Bruce, I think you're in your right, Bruce got sort of burned to the ground on that. And since then, it's, nobody's figured out how to make that work without either looking bad or actually turning bad. Do people feel that it's, do you get mad at the band? Christine, I know I saw you, you wanted to say something. I basically played chicken chicken a lot now where I kind of wait till the last minute. I kind of picked that up from Janet because she goes to a lot of shows as a single person. And so that way, you know, you can just pick up one wherever it is. That's how I went and saw air supply last minute because it was just one ticket. I only have one set of tickets for all of 2025 so far. And that's actually going to see weird out with Janet and because I'm going to Detroit. But otherwise, you know, it's kind of like, at least if you paid a little bit extra on an airplane ticket, you can get if it goes down in price, you can actually get the credit for the value back. But I mean, it drives me crazy when I go to an event and they have say like it's sold out and then I get there and it seems like there's whole like rose with nobody in them. And I'm like, you know, they said so then they like are they just trying to say that to get the prices to go up or are there really that many people not showing up for these events? And it's so for me, it's like I don't like to plan six to 10 months out for things. And I actually ended up going to see Depeche Mode in Berlin last year because it was cheaper than even seeing him in Boston nearby, you know, even when you add in like the hotel stay in that because in Europe, the Euro, it's only a few euros per ticket for any kind of fees. And it's almost like, you know, the fees are almost more at this point. In some cases, it feels like then the tickets themselves. Well, the fees is something else altogether, absolutely insane. From the cure experience where Robert Smith pushed back was they were adding fees that were more more than the tickets that he was charging. And the venues were like, that's the lowest fees we ever charge to cover our costs. Yeah, I mean, they ended up, you know, conceding to him and bringing them down. But the fees, everybody's got to make their cut on this. Like, if the artists say, we're going to hold ticket prices way down and you can't, and we can't, you know, bake in the rest of this stuff, you also can't ask the venues to take a loss on bringing these, you know, these shows in. So there's different agenda. What about if the artists agreed? What if, and I'm not saying that they had to do it uniformly? What if, you know, the Rolling Stones began saying, okay, we're going to set, we're going to honest idiom tour, all of the tickets are going to be $600 each. How would that be? Forget the secondary market. No secondary market. Face is $600 each. What do you think? I think people would go. I do too. And that's the weird thing about this whole thing is that bands can, especially the bigger bands can charge whatever they want. Like, honestly, yes, Alan, the venues got to make their cut. But if it cost $500,000 to rent the garden for one show, as long as you cover that, you can charge $50 a ticket if you want. You can charge, Pearl Jam was charging $75 a ticket no matter where they played for years. And it didn't matter on the venue. The one thing I will say that I do kind of like about the secondary market is that it used to be when a concert sold out, that was it. You didn't have a shot of going unless you're out front, out front. Unless you went out front and tried to scalp, which wasn't legal. Now up until about an hour before the show, you are still in the game to go at any price point. There's still hope, which is kind of interesting. I find this whole thing interesting because I'm teaching a grad class this semester for my MBA program in quantitative analysis. And so every week we talk about statistics and how they affect business. And this will be really fascinating just to find out how these algorithms are figured out to figure out exactly how much they can get away with charging, whether it comes to fees or even with fees, it's like someone to look at it, it's like per ticket charge for this charge. And I'm like, how hard is it to have that computer tick a second to process this? And then half the time you end up watching something spin and you don't get in right away anyway, and then you lose out on the tickets. So it's like, where are they investing this money? I'll give the credit to our friend Bob Lefsatz because he's the one who always screams about this in his newsletter. The fees and the role the ticket master plays in this is they take the hit. They wear the black hat. They're the bad guys. The artists get to be the good guys. There's no reason. The fees are part of the ticket price. They are. It's just that this gives the artist cover to say, well, we're not. That's they're doing that bad ticket master. They're the ones who are charging you all this extra and ticket master's job. Is we're the bad guys get mad at us, love the artists, but it's the artists who set all this stuff. The artists who set the pricing. It is nobody else who sets the pricing. Why don't more people know that because they do a really good job of, you know, of playing that shell game nine out of 10 times. If you go to the venue, buy the tickets there. You don't pay the fees. I've done that. Yes. Now I have a question about platinum. Like now they say something's platinum. I always used to think it was like you got some extra or some swag or something. And now it seems even just the two on the end of the Rosa platinum, you know, if you're in a certain section and it's like, is it just another way of saying, you know, another way to get, you know, more money? Yeah. I mean, it's like having to buy premium airplane tickets to be able to carry a bag, right? I mean, that's where there's a place to tack on more fees. They're going to tack on more fees if they can get that. What about some of these artists that are canceling these massive bought tickets that are going to be sold on the secondary market? They're canceling them. Oasis did it. Chappell Rhone did it. So do you feel that that's, I mean, kind of showing that they're there for the fans and that they really want the fans to be there because it's sort of changing the game a little bit. Well, it's showing that it's demonstrating that artists do have control over this sort of stuff. Those had said, you can buy tickets in the secondary market if it's through the sanctioned secondary seller and it can't be for more than face value, right, that you can't take prices up and then they went in and invalidated a lot of tickets that were sold through other brokers and that markup. You can do that, you know, you can make people line up and buy tickets outside the venue. You can make people have to show ID that ties their ticket to themselves. So you're the only one who can carry that ticket, but people say, well, but I bought the ticket six months before and I didn't know and now I can't go to the show and I would give it to my sister, but now I can't give it to my sister because she won't be able to get in. Okay. Well, that was, that's the price you pay. That's the convenience price. People say, well, I want to be able to buy three tickets and then I'll sell one of them and mark that up and make some of my money back for the other two. Well, okay, if you can't do that, then don't complain about that. Buyer beware. There's lots of levers that you can activate here, but they don't all make everybody happy as much as they think they do. I just feel like we should be able to cap the resale, the amount of resale. You know, like it's every other country and the world does, but we can't in America or don't in America, which I'm all for economy, but you know, Danielle wants him. I was, I was also dining along with the went going to the venue. If you can, to buy the tickets and say it's the fee prices. I've, I've done that locally and in my area. But I also like kind of miss the days where you paid a lot more to sit closer to the stage than you did up in the nose leads. And sometimes that doesn't happen with dynamic pricing because you can be sitting next to someone and they paid half of what you paid or twice as much. My issue is taking messages. I don't think they're very good at what they do. They don't have a lot of competition. So they aren't investing in their technology and we've sit in these terrible cues that barely work. Meanwhile, in one minute on the stock market, more stocks are sold than ticket master sells in an 80,000 seat arena. It's not that hard. It's just they haven't had competition and haven't had to invest in their own technology. So it's both frustrating and costly and only one of those two things should be true. It's a fair point. But when others have taken a shot or have gotten their shot, when seat geek has handled some big tours, like those have been a mess. You say that it's easy. I don't know that it's easy. That's not a reason that it shouldn't that they shouldn't be pushing themselves to get better. But nobody has demonstrated that they're able to handle the volume that ticket master can handle effectively, at least not yet. I know our man Ed is, I believe is Ed concert when we hear from him digitally. So he's got to have thoughts on this. Correct. Yeah. Well, you know, we are on part of the problem. We're part of the problem because as you said about capitalism, they keep selling them. I keep buying them. I spent a silly amount of money on pink tickets this year that I don't even tell my wife about how much money I spent. And the businesses become, I've seen it at my own job years ago. The honor was like, wow, we just have to be fair, charge a fair price at the business I work at now. Now it's all about greed. Hey, let's make as much money as we can. And the stub hubs and eBay showed the artists that they were leaving money on the table. And the promoters, the managers, they're all saying, Hey, you guys are being stupid. Nobody else is making all this money. You need to make it. You need to keep it for yourself. You're the artist. So they put the prices up and away we go. The Foo Fighters at Hershey this summer, yeah, I couldn't transfer the tickets to my friends. We all had to go in together. That's a big pain in the ass. And because they, you know, like, why not allowed to transfer them, not allowed to sell them. So do we take the inconvenience? Do we take the cost? I don't know. You know, I don't, I can't find the answer. The technology exists. Show your ID. You get in. But none of us want that. Can't make it. Got the work. Yeah. I don't know what the answer is except stop buying tickets and that's not happening. Tyler, I know, is in Vegas, right? Which is its own perspective on the, you're dealing with a whole different kind of a market when you're, when you're looking at that. Yeah. You know, Vegas is an interesting place to be because you have like all the residencies down on the strip. And then you have a lot of people, I think when they think about Vegas, they think just the shows on the strip and downtown, they don't think about the smaller venues around town because I go to a place called Counts Vamped for a lot of my shows and it's a small little club. A lot of my shows are there and also at the House of Blues. So I, and I love the House of Blues and they're very reasonably priced when you go see shows there. I just recently saw Ace Frilly down at the Samstown, which is over on my side of Vegas at a, at one of the station casinos. And that was, I felt like that was a little pricing for Ace and he didn't completely fill the room, but you know, I think for the most part here, unless you're going to see a residency, I think ticket prices here have been pretty fair. They haven't been overly priced and I, I'm one that I will wait till like the week of the show and then I'll wait until the day or the day before the show and then the day of the show to get my tickets to see if prices come down and sometimes it does work and I'm able to find better seats for cheaper. I did that with the Ace Frilly concert and I got a few rows up for cheaper, which was nice. A bunch of people in the chat have been saying it's really now it's about that waiting game and how long can you hold out before you pull the trigger and see, you know, if it's gonna, if it's gonna drop, I know Sunita, I know as a master of, as a master of this that, you know, but a lot of shows, something shakes loose late in the game where I take full advantage of that again is buying, you know, baseball tickets or hockey tickets or whatever it is that you know a lot of stuff late in the game people just aren't going to be able to make it or they have season tickets or whatever where you can scoop up stuff, you know, a lot cheaper than face. Most shows are like that here. I would say don't ever buy unless it's like Taylor Swift level kind of thing. I would say just wait, wait all the way until day of. I would say if you can, even with the Taylor Swift level of things, that's what you do. If you, if you don't get in on that first initial wave, your best shot is gonna be either people or bots or whoever it is who are left holding a straight ticket here or there and have to dump the day of that's actually your best shot. If you're willing to miss one song, imagine how cheap you can get it then. Just if funny exchange in the chat, Rachel wrote, as I get older, I don't want to stand in GA. So I will pay a premium for a seat. I am the problem. Aaron's response, everybody over 25 is the problem. And wait until the last minute did not work for the Stones as some of the opening act was on stage and I was on stub hub and everywhere and I still paid full price or more than full price. Does that mean face? It was a little bit more. It was a little bit one face on stub hub, but then I bought a ticket a quarter of eight. It wouldn't deliver. So I had to go get another one standing at the back. It was 200 bucks or something like that, you know, but that was the opening. The layo was on stage already 200 sounds so reasonable today. Well, to most of my friends, it's not it ain't to me either. I always love these shows. We all do. We really can't thank each and every one of you for showing up. It means the world to us. It's so fascinating to me with even a topic like this. It continues to have each time we talk about it, it still continues to evolve. Don't forget to check us out on socials and YouTube for exclusive content. Simple video episodes and more. It's all at Sound Up Pod. And always send in your comments, your reviews, your thoughts as text or audio messages to connect@sounduppod.com and become part of the podcast weekend and week out. Give us a five star review, please. Those things add up and matter, subscribe to our YouTube page, subscribe to the podcast, like our Facebook page and email us, stay in touch. Yes, like us, like us, please. Like us. They really like us. Thanks for listening and supporting us here on Sound Up with Mark Goodman and Alan Light. See you next week. Sound Up is a roger that media production and distributed by Revolver Podcasts. Be music by smile from Tokyo. For more information, go to sounduppod.com. Asara, the most wanted parfum, is the kind of cologne that chooses you. Like a stranger at a bar sliding you a bottle, no, it's not a drink, it's cologne, spreads. And invite the sense of vibrant cardamom, addictive toffee and sensual bourbon vanilla infused with a trail of amber wood. This high cocktail is the fragrance for adventurous men, Asara, the most wanted parfum. This is an incredible iPhone 16 Pro on AT&T NextUp Anytime. It's the most important part of this topic. The most important thing is the iPhone 16 Pro on camera control and AT&T. The most important thing is the AT&T NextUp Anytime. This is the most important part of this video. It's the most important part of this topic. 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On episode #68 of Sound Up!, Mark Goodman and Alan Light host a live panel of Sound Up Pod Squad members to discuss two significant topics: the 2025 Grammy nominations and one of the year's biggest issues, dynamic ticket pricing. Hosts and guests dive deep into the Big Four Grammy categories, sharing their picks for Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Then, they take a closer look at ticket prices and access, exploring the advantages and challenges of dynamic ticket pricing.
