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 nofollow">⁠⁠<strong>Patreon Superfans</strong>⁠⁠</a><strong>, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week&#39;s bonus material:</strong> </p><ul><li><p>More pop football kits: upon discovering that Massive Attack are sponsoring Bohemian Football Club, Joe and Stu have a look at their <em>many</em> other pop sponsorships</p></li><li><p>There’s <a href="https://musically.com/2026/08/14/there-is-huge-demand-for-music-podcasts-but-not-enough-supply/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">a huge gap between demand and supply of music podcasts</a>. But do we really need more music chat, and if so, what kind of shows? Joe has invented some potential new music podcast genres, and pitches them to Stu</p></li><li><p>We&#39;re entering the end phase of the UK festival season and one thing that has caught our eye this year is the the number of festivals that have lineups consisting only of tribute bands, offering festival vibes, nostalgia, and live music at a fraction of the cost of major mainstream festivals. Our intrepid duo hypothesise why tribute bands are so popular, propose a sausage/cider festival index, and Stu tries to guess the tribute band names that sound almost – but not quite – like the real band.</p></li></ul><p>===================================</p><p><strong>As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular</strong> – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!</p><p>Email us: <a href="mailto:thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.c