In the latest Trapital podcast, Dan Runcie talks to Will Page, the author, and economist, about "glocalization", the phenomenon which means creating products for global markets that bring local cultures together. Runcie and Page argue that "glocalization makes it harder for mega superstars to emerge, especially from established markets... The major record labels must sign and develop talent in each region to maintain market share. With increased costs (without the promise of increased revenue), glocalization will shift everything from KPIs, value props to new artists, and future expansion plans".

Chartmetric researched data about Spotify genres trying to learn more about the relative power of major and indie catalogs on the streaming platform, as well as about recommendations across the most prominent music niches and communities. What they have found out is that majors hold a vast share of the music market thanks to the evergreen catalogs and the "passive" market share that comes with it. "However, if we move away from these 'golden' genres, independent players will often carry more power than the majors. And when it comes to emerging genre spaces, such as underground hip hop and viral rap, things can get uniquely independent—one might even say self-released".

A great interview in Billboard with former The Rapture frontman, who now lives in New York, and works as a life coach, and enjoys it very much. “As a singer and songwriter you get very narcissistic, and you get up on stage, and everyone validates that through applause and large amounts of money and meeting other celebrities and fancy meals around the world. So, being a coach is actually very healing, because it is the polar opposite of that.” What are his credentials for the job? "I have a long, successful marriage. I’m a good parent. I have gotten over massive childhood dysfunction, sexual abuse, multiple suicides in my family, drug addiction in my family, my own addictions, on and on. That’s my business car."

People engaged in making music are at a higher risk for mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, according to researchers at Frankfurt’s Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. Results of the study suggest there is an overlap between inherited genetic variants associated with a tendency to make music, and those that increase the risk for mental illness. Van Magazine talked to Laura Wesseldijk, one of the authors of the study, herself a musician too.

"It started off as a little exercise during lockdown keeping me busy and bringing all these musicians on board and as it grew into an album... With every contribution someone would send me, it was always surprising because it always changed the song completely and did something that I wouldn’t have predicted. It still feels like this magical thing" - comedian and musician James Acaster says to The New Cue about his project Temps, which is about to release its debut 'Party Gator Purgatory'. There are about 40 musicians collaborating on the album - including Open Mike Eagle, Joana Gomila, NNAMDI, Shamir, Quelle Chris - with Acaster acting as a producer/director. It's a versatile album - "I think now, anyone who engages in current music appreciates that genre is a thing of the past and the best music is just completely boundless", with one connecting thread - "mostly what I was doing with this was to tailor it to my exact music tastes and having everything that I liked in music in just one thing".

"Unlike other trends and even other festivals, Coachella developed a brand that can sell itself. This festival could sell out tickets before announcing a lineup if it wanted to. Fans want the vibes. The influencers, fashion, and activations will be there regardless of who performs on stage. In the early 2010s, the festival became a who’s who for celebrity attendance. Attending was a flex, like sitting courtside at a Lakers game" - Trapital's Dan Runcie looks into Coachella in his latest podcast. He is joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. They also talk about untapped opportunities for Coachella, how the rise of concert ticket prices impacts it, and how festival lineups are becoming homogenous.

Michelle Lhooq talks to writer and scholar McKenzie Wark in her latest memo about raving culture, ravers, and what it means to different people. "If I go to the rave at four or five in the morning, it's a lot of people who do service work, and are used to being nice to people all day. There’s also sex workers, who similarly are having to use their body, their subjectivity, and their emotions in service of the job. They go to a space to get out of that. Then there are people like me—'intellectual workers'... When I’m in rave spaces, language is going on in my head, but I'm not paying attention to it. It's just there but I'm not in it". She also talks about being connected - "I don't think it's a bad thing for people to learn to be intimate with each other on the dance floor, in close proximity, to be vulnerable to each other. Sometimes, it makes very weak networks. But even those are not bad things to have. There's people around that you're gonna see in other contexts and you just know a little about each other. Yeah, it's not the revolution. It's not utopia. But it's not nothing".

Rock icon Nick Cave talked with 'UnHerd' host Freddie Sayers to discuss his book, 'Faith, Hope and Carnage,' saying that he sees human beings in a completely different way than he did early in his career, and said he is now a "more complete person." Sayers noted that the punk rocker turned "church-going person" might seem unrecognizable, but Cave said he simply gets a delight by "f-----g with people" and "living outside the expectation" of others. Today, for Cave, an avid church-goer, it means "you go to church and be a conservative". Cave also talks a lot about cancel culture and censorship.

"I liked the idea of writing music that was not amplified, that didn't require any electricity. It was just me and the scoring paper" - Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk, says in a BBC interview about his latest work, scoring music for a ballet. The project takes him back to his childhood - his mother and his aunt were both dancers, and his uncle a dance instructor, so when France's contemporary choreographer, Angelin Preljocaj, asked him to score a new ballet, he couldn't say no - "my mother passed about 20 years ago and going back to that world is linked to a certain time of my life. So it adds some nostalgia, but at the same time, it was a very new adventure." He also shares his thoughts on AI in the interview, as well as ending Daft Punk - "It was an exploration, I would say, starting with the machines and going away from them. I love technology as a tool [but] I'm somehow terrified of the nature of the relationship between the machines and ourselves. We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can. We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology. As much as I love this character, the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot."