>> We're going to tell you some stories
about co-creation in the music industry.
No. We're going to tell you three stories specifically.
We're going to tell you about one song,
one album, and some artificial intelligence technology.
And we're going to tell you how that one song,
that album, and that technology,
actually grew to yield five number one singles,
four Grammy's, and some technology
that is actually used by over a
million musicians around the world.
And, of course, that wouldn't be possible
without us all having a very strong network.
So I truly love and
my guests here truly love the music industry because
the work that we do in
co-creating actually yields something really powerful.
For us, it yields taking
some ideas and turning them
into a really tangible art form.
Through that process, we help musicians,
and we help bands,
and artists, realized their full potential.
And, my favorite piece is we support an entire ecosystem.
You see, when we have a track or
an artist or an album that is really exploding,
that supports the whole ecosystem.
Everybody from the content creation side,
production, distribution and consumption,
so you have, songwriters,
producers, audio engineers,
musicians performers, record labels,
everybody on the artist and management
side and ultimately when the artists are successful,
that then yields social and
philanthropic implications that we can all benefit from.
So I look forward to diving in.
By way of a quick introduction,
my name is Jay LeBoeuf,
I am the executive director of
a nonprofit called the Real Industry,
and the folks in the Real Industry is to help
University students understand how the real world works.
So how we actually create products in industry,
or how the music industry
actually works and some roles that they can do there.
I'm also a lecturer at Stanford University
and I am hoping you
can give a very warm welcome to my three guests.
Please welcome Joe London,
Peter Gray, and Greg Mertz.
So Joe is going to start us
off by telling us the story of the song Star Of The Show.
>> I guess I'll start by just talking about networking.
I like to think of networking almost like a puzzle,
where you have like when you start
a project or you start something
you kind of have the four corners,
and then, you fill in the stuff that's kind of easy
and eventually you have all these like holes.
And it's you really have to
utilize what's around those to like really fill
them in and kind of get
to the point where you're trying to go
and so I thought this song is
actually a good representation of that.
I had been sent
a video of a demo of a song for the artist Thomas Rhett.
And the video was a fan film the video of him
at a show playing the song, months in advance.
It was the only recording they actually had of
the song and they had sent me the video and said,
"Hey, we really want the song produced.
This is the only recording we have.
Good luck." So I pulled up open the video and kind of
did what I thought was
the direction that I thought the song should be going.
And being from Los Angeles
and being more of a pop producer,
I've kind of taken the song sonically to
a kind of a pop, country song.
Thomas, being a country artist,
eventually they heard the initial version
of song and they loved it and
they thought it could be a single.
But we had some holes in the thing where it could
the song fit for country radio or was it a little too pop.
So, eventually bringing in a bunch of different people,
a good friend of mine, Julian Bunetta
was an incredible producer-songwriter.
Basically showing him the song be like,
"Hey, what do you think about this?
Do you have any ideas?" And he loved it
and he has a bunch of great ideas.
So Julian came in and then we brought in
an amazing steel guitar player, named Skip Edwards.
From there, added a bunch of
sliding guitars that made it really
really cool and really more in the country land.
From there, we brought it to one of
Thomas's kind of
main producer collaborators and nationalist,
a legendary producer, Dann Huff,
and just basically kept like
finding those pieces of the puzzle and getting closer
and closer to fight like finding
kind of the end goal that we want to feel the song,
and in basically,
finding all those pieces we got to the song.
Song came out, and ended up
being a successful song. So, yeah.
>> Here we look at the-
>> Yes, I think we have
the initial video of the demo that they sent to me,
which was kind of terrifying for me. [inaudible]
[MUSIC]
>> Yes, I think you can kind of see from
the initial start of just that real
basic acoustic to go through
the processes of utilizing the network,
that I had in the networks
that my co-producers had in the song.
We were able to like really take
it to the next level of production,
where it feels a little bit pop and innovative
but also feels kind of country at the same time I think.
I think we got to a cool spot.
>> Fantastic. Nice work.
That was a fantastic example of
co-creation within songwriting and production.
>> Thank you. Yeah.
>> So I'd like to,
I told you I'm going to give you one song,
an album and some technology.
So let's talk about an album. Peter, welcome.
>> Thank you.
>> And before we watch that beautiful video again.
Actually, I was hoping you tell us
a little bit about The Heist kind of set,
set the scene for
why this is the album that we're talking about.
>> We'll do and following on what Joe said,
"It's important to know that this is
the creative epicenter how it really starts."
Right? And it is.
It's a team sport as much as you want it
to just be an artist
or the people who are really around
the nucleus once it leaves your hands, right?
And the team of producers and
the people that you put around it,
then it requires an army of people around the world to
really be able to deliver an artist and
their music to the top of the charts globally.
In that case, the reason we're talking about Macklemore,
which is a great source of pride for me being
a part of a big major label Warner Brothers Records.
There was this artist Macklemore,
Ben Haggerty, who had been
on the scene for a number of years,
he had been very successful as
an independent artist selling out
tours here in the United States and around the world.
And it gotten to a point in his career
where he recognized that something
was missing about being able to
get kind of paint the world so to speak,
and really finish his breakthrough
and it was getting a song on the radio.
And getting a song on the radio
was traditionally something that
major labels have a bit of a media stranglehold on.
Others can try to do it occasionally,
they sneak through and it's exciting when they do,
but certainly, much more of an exception to the rule.
And wanting to maintain
his independence and not appear to be
saddled up with the man and working with
a record company which we certainly understood.
We took a very discrete approach to saying,
"Hey, why don't you let us help?"
You don't need our help putting your music on Spotify,
or on Apple Music or iTunes.
You have your own independent publicist,
you don't need any help making
videos you do a great job of that,
you don't need us to take pictures for you but,
you do need a song on the radio
we know how to do it and we can help.
So we made a very quiet,
very low key deal and we maintained
our discretion and we always promised to
stay in the shadows which we have.
And the result of that kind of
co-creation and collaboration that we have,
went on to a number of
big hit singles and as Jay mentioned,
seven Grammy nominations and four wins,
and now an album that's sold north of
five million copies with tens of millions of singles,
and hundreds of millions
if not billions of streams at this point,
and really put Ben and Ryan on the map
as a massive breakthrough artist.
It was his vision of knowing what he wanted.
Our understanding of recognizing
an ability to do it in a fairly different way,
typically labels would make
a lot of noise about a big breakthrough.
We wanted the world to know
that they had accomplished it.
And in the case of this,
we simply kept her mouth shut.
And as a result, now we're going into
his third album that will be out in a couple of weeks,
and we've had a great and collaborative experience
with a world class artist.
That makes sense?
>> I think, it's a really fantastic example
of how the capital and the goodwill,
and the networks that Warner Brothers Records has built.
It is something that an artist can come
in and use it to amplify their work.
Take it to millions and millions people.
>> Yeah, and someone
mentioned I think in the last piece too,
I know is a gentleman who's headed to Detroit.
It's one thing to want to protect your networks,
it's one thing to want to protect
in on their relationships.
It's so much better when you
let them rest. You know what I mean?
And you really share it with people,
if you're fearful about someone
having a better relationship
with your partner than you are,
then you probably have some work to do.
If you can maintain a fearlessness about it,
the opportunities for
explosive growth particularly in music,
how great would it be if instead of saying,
"Well, I don't want to talk to Max Martin."
You called Max Martin and said,
"Hey, we're going to do this together."
And the next thing, you were making
more records with him or each other and there's
just a big explosive opportunity
that people tend to not want to participate in.
>> Fantastic. Well thank you Peter. It's really good.
>> My pleasure. Thank you.
>> So, I'll call
it like it is the music industry is not always
known for being in the forefront of technology.
In fact, we often resist it.
But our next story,
we're going to talk about Greg,
and how you have actually led the charge to
discover new technologies and
embrace them within the industry.
>> Yes, absolutely. Hi everyone.
Thank you Jay for inviting me into the Microsoft team,
and this is quite a special subject matter,
really as I look at it,
to connect Burning Man to the powerhouse of
Shenzhen back to us.
Macklemore is quite an interesting sort of series of
unrelated topics that come together
in the context of networking,
and it's near and dear to me
although I'm sort of learning more about
how I've adapted in this universe,
in a way that is relevant for the subject matter.
Network, the kind of things I've
been hearing about today are so central to my life.
I'm very active in a lot of
civic contexts politically and use
very powerful networks to drive opportunity there when
it comes to political activity and activism.
I do it in the international global conservation movement,
where I'm very active in networks that drive
conservation in Africa and elsewhere.
I bring it heavily into my field of career,
vocational field which is
the music industry where I built a deep,
strong, and tight network.
That cohesive network that we talk about through
many years of productive work on behalf of artists,
through the creative cycle into
release and global impact.
But then, being a part of an industry
that was being disrupted so heavily,
and working with artists along that period of disruption,
is feeling like we would
benefit by reaching outside
of our cohesive networks which by the way,
we're working beautifully for many years so we
didn't have to adapt in the same way.
But I started to see
an opportunity to bring some leadership to this area,
working in conjunction with
a very enlightened leader within the Warner Music Group,
Cameron Strang, who was focused as
well on how we can expand innovation and our networks.
That led me to actually have the privilege and
opportunity to go build out new networks for example,
starting with Stanford University,
where I built a program with Warner and we did
a massive online open course, where we brought many,
many famous artists to the table
reached thousands of people globally
and performed creative tasks that the outcome of that.
And then, I took that network within Stanford,
and as we were pursuing more on the technology front,
how could we get in front of technology,
where could we participate earlier in the value chain.
I sought out Jay in his adjunct role at Stanford,
and he was teaching a course
on music information retrieval.
Which I thought was
important category for development of the music industry.
Through that, was able
to reach networks that
brought us to this company called Landor,
at a time when it had three employees.
And this was changing the face to machine learning of
the music production cycle through mastering.
What I did was,
I was able to sell that concept to the Warner leadership.
We invested in that company and then serving
as a bridge myself through my consultancy.
I was able to work deeply with Landor,
to drive business development strategies globally.
And I have watched that company go from
three employees to 90 employees.
It has millions of dollars in revenue.
It is present in
190 countries and it is translated across 15 languages.
There is a very robust and strong community
of a million and a half users.
And, it's really shaking up in
very exciting ways disrupting frankly.
So, we're in on the disruption early in the value chain,
we're not waiting for it to happen to us.
It's creating tremendous economies of scale and
it's freaking cool, right?
That you can do this with your mobile phone.
I mean the ecosystem is mind-blowing.
So I love being part of a music industry that is jumping
into that as opposed to waiting for
it to hit us. You know what I mean?
And by the way, it's not always an easy transition.
We have professionals who are afraid of this,
but then they start to see that it can co-exist.
And frankly, they can adapt their skill sets
to manage in this changing environment,
bring a little of that Shenzhen mindset
to what we're doing.
So, that's the Landor's story which I'm,
one of several I'm participating in,
where I found early tech,
brought some investment,
brought some strategic leadership,
and now we're seeing dramatic expansion globally.
Landor is one powerful example that unites Jay and I,
and it's been a privilege working with these guys and
I continue to work deeply with them.
We've brought them across the music business.
It's not that Warner is controlling
that network and maintaining it as a closed environment.
We invest but we've driven
adoption through Universal Music Group,
Disney, ASCAP across the music landscape.
So I think it's quite a compelling story of
that type of broadening
of networks and how that can be powerful.
>> Fantastic. Thank you Greg, that was great. So, I
hope I delivered as promised.
Again, to really bring it all together.
We all depend on
the cohesive networks that we have. They are very tight.
We make very intimate artful, personal,
emotional decisions together and we count on each other,
but we all have to keep opening it up.
So whether it's Joe,
if you want to write
for a new genre you haven't written before,
you need to reach out to a new network.
Build, trust, credibility, demonstrate some goodwill,
and then be welcomed in.
Whether it's Macklemore saying,
I need extra distribution, I need extra help,
opening up reaching out
and then Peter being so generous with
your contacts and creation's connections that helps out.
And Greg same thing you've kind
of masterfully reached out,
opened up huge parts of
the music industry worlds to
mean fellow tech industry folks but,
then now the tech industry is able to
benefit from all the great music connections.
So, I want to thank you all
for giving so much and being here today,
and also again, a huge thanks to Microsoft
for supporting us and creating this great event.
>> Thanks for having us.