Artists pressure Andy Burnham over oil; Grammys removes foot from mouth; More popstar football sponsors; and why aren't Berlin clubbers drinking as much?

<p><strong>Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week, Stu and Joe revel in an extremely varied week of music biz news (including some more great pop football shirts AND a brand new jingle):</strong></p><p>→ 200 musicians have written a letter to the UK&#39;s new prime minister Andy Burnham. No, it&#39;s not to tell him New Order are rubbish. It&#39;s a protest against <a href="https://www.earthpercent.org/news/musicians-letter-to-uk-prime-minister-in-opposition-to-the-rosebank-oilfield" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">a decision he might be taking soon</a>...</p><p>→ $121bn. That’s <a href="https://musically.com/2026/08/14/forecast-recorded-music-will-be-a-121-1bn-market-in-2033/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">how much recorded-music will be worth globally in 2033</a> according to the latest industry forecasts – but will it be that big, and why?</p><p>→ Listeners&#39; Letters – Sarah shares some HOT Port Vale sponsor news; and Stefan has a couple of great questions about streaming fraud and whether innocent artists suffer. Stu investigates (Spoiler: yes, artists suffer).</p><p>→ It looks like the Grammy Awards are going to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-news/recording-academy-may-revamp-new-asian-pop-category-1236673971/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">quickly reverse-ferret on their ‘Asian Pop’ category plans</a>, after a protest from BTS.</p><p>→ Spotify is giving AI-generated artists <a href="https://musically.com/2026/08/11/spotify-ai-personas-music-artists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">their own special badge on its service</a>. Is this good news for human musicians?</p><p>→ <a href="https://musically.com/2026/08/13/fairground-wants-fans-to-discover-independent-music-via-scenes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Fairground is the latest music startup</a> focusing on independent artists and labels. And it’s all about the ‘scenes’... </p><p>→ Why have people stopped <a href="https://www.clubcommission.de/neue-studie-zur-berliner-clubkultur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">drinking <em>quite</em> as much in Berlin clubs?</a> What are they doing instead? Berlin resident Joe has some family-unfriendly suggestions...</p><p><strong>And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our </strong><a href="https://www.patreon.com/12218634/join" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofoll