How Does the Music Business Compare To Film and TV?

Best-selling author Zack O’Malley Greenburg and I took a break from our #GirlDadfor duties to talk about the latest headlines in the music industry — namely Irv Gotti selling a 50-percent ownership stake in Murder Inc.’s past music recordings. Irv got $100 million from Iconoclast for the deal, plus another $200 -million credit line to fund future media endeavors Irv has planned.

After the sale, Irv did an interview with Billboard and quipped that monetary-wise, the music industry is the “lowest form” in entertainment compared to film and television. Zack and I debated that during our episode comparing top-line revenues for each entertainment vertical, plus how Irv’s deal compares to other splashy catalog sales in the past two years.

We also dived into a guest post on Zack’s Substack about how “moods” has become the new classification for music, not genres anymore. Discovery algorithms deployed by streaming services have pushed listeners toward moods — and away from regionalism (e.g. Houston-style “chopped and screwed”) and loyalty to particular record labels. It’s also another tell-tale sign that Gen Z is more fluid, less rigid than prior generations with their labels.

Below are all the music-industry topics Zack and I covered throughout the episode, plus a special segment on becoming Dad’s in the past two months:

0:50 Baby Duties For Zack & Dan
1:29 Irv Gotti Calls Music Industry “Lowest Form” In Entertainment
5:14 Zack Still Gets Royalties for “Lorenzo’s Oil”
8:04 Top-Line Revenues: Music vs. Movie Industry
9:02 New Artist Perspective Skewing Perception Of Music Business
10:33 Did Irv Gotti’s Deal Get Made Before Market Correction?
12:05 Irv’s Deal Was For Masters, Not Publishing
13:50 Murder Inc’s Catalog Includes Jay Z, DMX, Jennifer Lopez
18:07 Why Mood Is The New Musical Genre
21:16 Gen Z Uses Labels Less Than Prior Generations
26:22 Post Malone: The Genre-Agnostic Artist
27:47 Did Streaming End Regionalism In Music?
30:50 Fan Attachment To Record Labels Has Disappeared
32:55 Stories From Two New #GirlDads
41:00 First Music Show For The New Babies?

Tiffany Ng’s article on music being categorized by moods, not genre: https://zogblog.substack.com/p/why-mood-is-the-new-musical-genre

Irv Gotti’s interview with Billboard:
https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/irv-gotti-interview-vision-catalaogue-sale-1235114375/

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