Beth Appleton
Produced by Chelsea Wilson.
TRANSCRIPT:
CW: Powerhouse music executive Beth Appleton has unparalleled success as a leader and global music strategist. Named in the Top 100 Billboard Most Powerful Music Executives and recipient of Music Ally’s Outstanding Achievement Award, she is a 2023 nominee for the Australian Women in Music Leadership Award.
Appleton’s previous roles include General Manager Australasia at Warner Music Australia (2018-2021), Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Warner Music Group in the UK (2014-2018); Director of Marketing Warner Music Australia (2011-2013); Director of Digital at Universal Music Group in the UK (2007-2010); and Head of Digital and Business Development at V2 Music in the UK (2003-2007). She’s worked with artists such as Kylie, Ed Sheeran, Michael Buble, Major Lazer and many more. Recently she was the CEO of Jaxta, Australia-headquartered music database company. In this conversation, Beth chats us through the Fix the Mix report, shares her tips for negotiating business deals effectively, and what she learned from her time as Director of Digital for Universal Music.
CW: Hi, Beth, welcome to The Control Podcast. So good to see you.
BA: So great to meet you, Chelsea, um, in real time, I guess, together, and thank you so much for the opportunity and to have this conversation.
CW: Firstly, a huge congratulations on your nomination for the Music Leadership Award at the Australian Women in Music Awards. How does that feel?
Well and congratulations to yourself as well, Chelsea. Thank you. I probably like you, it just makes you feel exceptionally honored, um, to be in the company of so many amazing women that are doing great things for the Australian music industry and you know, to, to the point as well that it's great that an, an event like that takes place and that there is the ability to shine the light on all this talent. So I feel very honored. And privileged to be in the company of people like yourselves and very excited for the event. But to be honest, I feel like a winner already, you know, to be nominated is, is a huge moment for me. And, you know, I thank the awards for representing me.
CW: Oh, well deserved. I'm very excited also to be at that ceremony in September in Brisbane, and there's also a conference as part of that. So I'll put that link up in the show notes. And I really wanted to chat to you, Beth, because I was reading the fix the mix coalition report, the lost in the mix report, which had some incredible data that really digged into the top. 10 most played songs on digital streaming platforms of 2022 and really broke down a whole lot of data around the technical staff behind those tracks at the time. You were the CEO of Jaxta, which of course is a huge database of recording credits. Can you tell us a little bit about how that report and study came into fruition and your role in shaping it?
BA: Oh, absolutely. It actually began with a conversation with a female producer called Emily Lazar. Emily herself has founded an organization which is called We Are Moving the Needle.
Emily's a Grammy winning mastering engineer and she herself has been in studios and recognize that actually there isn't enough opportunity for female and non binary talent in technical roles. Emily knew Juxta and knew that the database of official music credits existed. So we had a conversation and it was like, how can we dig in to this data further?
It was actually inspired by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which was a huge project that's been going on for a number of years now and that is looking into the world of studying that diversity across the entertainment industry as a whole. That project itself highlighted that only 2. 8 percent of producers and engineers were female.
Then we wanted to dig into, was there any anomalies in this or was there any detail? Like were there, we looked across a number of different genres as well in the study. So we want to see, you know, is there one genre that is maybe better and leading the way? Was there a different DSP that maybe we could uncover that there was strengths or weaknesses, you know, we wanted to look across labels and see whether there was any label or genre within a label that again was maybe doing a better job or, and we wanted to highlight things where they could be improved really. So yeah, Emily reached out to me. I was CEO at Jaxta at the time and we kind of knew that the power of the academics that Emily had already connected with the data and then.
Emily and myself and some amazing young ladies that work at We Are Moving the Needle, um, Jazzy and Gabby, set about interrogating the data and pulling it all together in this academic report, which did go in deeper and did uncover certain areas that definitely need some improvement.
CW: Was there anything that surprised you in the data that came back?
BA: Surprise is maybe, not the word because I think from you know the Annenberg inclusion study we all had that gut feel. I think the shame was that it, it just confirmed that there is a problem here. And even though there might be some albums or songs where we might see some great female or non-binary talent coming through, they tended to be in junior roles, so not in the senior roles, like leading the production or leading the engineering on those projects.
So yeah, maybe not surprising, um, but confirmation. And then with that, it's shock that kind of comes. It's like, really? Like it's 2023, why, you know, so it was more that kind of like absolute clarity that work needed to be done. So rather than shock, it was confirmation sadly, but then that's like opportunity and that's the point of studies.
It's like leading to action that's going to improve the scenario and change that picture.
CW: I was a little bit surprised to see the Americana and folk kind of country section, having a bit of a stronger female representation in the tech side of things, which was still, I don't know, let's not get too excited. It was still like 15 or 17 percent or something, but compared to jazz, which is a space I've done a lot of work in that was kind of zero and that. you know, it didn't surprise me, although, you know, the rap section, but I was like, wow, Americana, go country. Um, so something's going on there. Also the electronic music section was, you know, had more female representation there too.
BA: So it, I guess in some ways reading it, it was, it was such a good report to be able to look at the genres and I love that it did that as well, because we could kind of go well, that. USC Annenberg result around 2. 8 percent is just so bleak, but when you get that data and you go actually in some spaces, it's a little bit better.
So, yeah. And actually when you start looking at the genres and what we've got to remember is that for each genre, we looked at the top 50 songs. in that genre. So again, it wasn't every recording. It was a subsection of, and then when you look at, for example, folk and Americana, what you do find is there's some incredible female singers and songwriters who then produce or engineer their own work.
So they're very self sufficient and there's probably a whole piece in that. Is there a really strong studio community? You know, like how is the connection in that genre? Are there a lot of events and a tighter network? Potentially, you know, is it led more by live and does live influence that ability? Um, again, if you look at electronic and I'm posing questions as opposed to what the facts are here, but You know, it's the fact that you can have electronic music come out of your own bedroom.
Does that mean there's more security in the studio? Does that mean there's more opportunity? Cause your bedroom is your security. So there's probably, is it because of this sort of questions and then how do you make that opportunity cross into all genres to improve across the board? Yeah. So. We know from the data that overall, even though some genres might be a little bit better than others, overall, the participation rates of female and non binary technical practitioners is very low.
CW: What do you think's going on here? I mean, In terms of the process of making a record, who are the decision makers behind this of who is choosing who the producers and technicians are? When you're working at a major label, are those decisions coming from a label or are they coming from the artists?
BA: Look, I don't think there's any one answer, like probably everything in music and everything in art, nor there should, nor should there be one specific answer.
But what I would know is that you can change that. Like, so each of the different parties that are involved in that decision making process can have their own lens of what they want to do to improve this. So, you know, major record labels, you know, you, you've got the boss, you've got the chairman and that chairman has got a responsibility to direct and enable the teams around the world to be able to do the right thing and to have this data to make the right decisions.
You know, you have got the A& R teams who are. working with artists and hiring the producers and the engineers and working with songwriters to find the right songs to record and they will be making a decision about who they will call and who they will communicate with to find the right person or individual to master or engineer or contribute to that recording.
Of course you've got the artists themselves now they will be making decisions and it will be about budget and availability. So again that comes to that decision making, you know, you've got the manager of that talent and they're going to have a voice at the table to say Should we always go to the same person or should we open up our address book and look at different people that we could bring in to be involved in this recording?
You know, you've got studios, like who are studios renting out their space to and who are they bringing to the table? So look, there's no one channel or road in terms of that decision making, but there are responsibilities across the board. And if we get this information out and the data and everybody goes.
We can change this and we can change this for the better and it will make our music different in a good way, you know, so those decisions have to be made like anything as a team. Um, and taking on that role within that conversation to consider that there are different opportunities. I think if I was a record label now I know that I would be encouraging that conversation to be had.
And, um, you know, you've got DEI teams now that have been embraced across different. Labels and publishers and the industry as a whole. And it should be really a topic that pulls into that, you know, agenda as well. And more women than ever are studying tech at university level. So we know that there's definitely an interest in the space, but something's happening there from getting that education to actually getting employed to make records.
CW: How do you think we can create more pathways to get more women into producing roles?
BA: Again, for me, I think this is about putting the building blocks together. Like I find when decisions need to be made or things need to be evolved or changed, you need to make it as straightforward as possible. You know, here's your ABC of what you should do next, or here are the opportunities you should put in place.
So hiring the talent. You know, making it, there's opportunities available, like I think if you're coming out of university or you're coming into a studio, where do you go, like, how do you find as a young female, where do you go to kind of go, these people are saying, yes, we want you, like, come here. So it's how do we communicate that opportunity network, you then need all those people we just spoke about before to know what they're going to do to qualify their efforts in improving matters. So we need people to go, I am going to diversify our hiring practices and this is how we are going to do it. Um, probably need a toolkit, you know, where we measure it, you know, is that measuring of the females coming out of the technical universities?
Like, how do we measure? That's probably on an educational point of view, right? How can we do that with educational institutions to say, okay, of the number of people who studied, what percentage actually got a gig or a role within the first six months and within the first year? And how was that in terms of male, female, non binary split?
Probably need to celebrate the talent as they come through, like how can we really shine a light on young people that are getting opportunities. It might be that young people find it hard and that there's people who are established engineers and producers that get a lot of the work. We haven't looked at the age scenario or is it the reverse, you know.
And then measuring, like we've just got to keep measuring because if you don't see improvement or that it's... Stale, you know, that it's not improving. You don't know if any of these things are working and you can, you know, test and learn, test and learn which ones are going to improve matters and keep focused on it.
Probably needs a body.
CW: Yeah. It's such a great, such a great project and congratulations to you and all the team that worked on it and put it together. And I really do highly recommend it as. Something that everybody involved in music should read. It's really illuminating and really interesting. There were so many things I picked up in it and that got me thinking, and I was so curious.
You know, I really thought that the list of songs that were popular on the services would be kind of the same. On each one, I just kind of thought, Oh yeah, there's going to be Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Lizzo. They're all going to be 10 of all of them. But then Lizzo wasn't in the top 10 on some of the platforms.
And I thought, how come she's so popular here, but not popular here? Is it because some of these streaming services are popular in certain territories more than others. And if they haven't broken in that territory, they don't get as many streams. And so I. I then just went on this whole other research tangent around what's going on here with the streaming platform.
BA: And I guess it's also decision making of who is setting up playlists that affects which ones are the most played and, and the bias that might go around those things. So it's a really fascinating report and really useful. And I completely agree that we need that data in order to be able to make a case and make a business case for initiatives that can help to try and start bridging those, those gaps, you know, and identify where those needs are. And I think when you, you know, when you look at the services themselves, again, this report was done from a, an American viewpoint. So those top 50 songs were on Spotify, YouTube, Apple within the US. Again, that same project could be done looking at the top 50 songs here in Australia.
And certainly, you know, there's lots of conversations going on about local music. Oh my goodness, it's huge. Start, you know, uncovering that. I think there was a piece actually in the Australian Financial Review today which was looking at three editors that manage global editing playlists on Spotify and their influence. around the world in terms of building streams. So, and again, it's focusing on what do we want to improve? So that specific topic is we don't have enough Australian music that is at the top 50 in our charts in Australia. Why? And how do we change that so we're supporting local musicians and songwriters and, you know, creatives here in Australia.
And when it comes to, you know, quite clear difference across those different services within the US market. It does show, you know, who's using that platform so if you compare who's on. Spotify and leaning into the playlist there compared to maybe an Apple customer compared to maybe a YouTube viewer. Um, again, there's a lot of documentation about the differences in those audiences, which will shape those top fifties, maybe more so in the US. than here in Australia.
Chelsea: The Australian music situation is pretty brutal. And there is a lot of talk about that in the industry at the moment. I think in Australia, the top 50 ARIA end of year singles charts for 2022, there's no Australian women, uh, in the. Top 50 of last year. And I think there's one in the top 100, which was Tones and I. In the top 100 end of year 2022 ARIA album charts, there's only one female, which is an instrumentalist in the band, Spacey Jane, but no female. composers or songwriters in that top 100 albums at all. I mean, it's pretty shocking, but there's a real lack of Australian artists in general. Uh, I think in the top 50 most played songs on commercial radio in Australia in 2022, only six songs were by Australian artists with no female artists in that list. At all. So there's a lot of work to do, uh, in terms of Australian music. And then of course, you know, in terms of diversity within Australian music. And I know that, you know, this isn't a topic that is being ignored, not at all. I know that from a. Um, course, you know, ARIA and the record labels point of view.
Beth: This is a topic that is considered priority at the moment, you know, music now is now looking at who they're going to be employing to drive this topic and actually make changes. And again, data will lead it because the only way we can start measuring. The impact is to show how things are evolving in terms of Australian artists and songwriters being featured on playlists across these platforms.
Radio coming through and actually identifying the songs that are written by Australians, are produced by Australians, are sung by Australians, and actually recognizing that there needs to be a focus. And you can make hits by supporting great songs. There are amazing songs that exist and the hits come from playlisting on radio and on platforms and it's, if we all come together and recognize, okay, let's start with 10 acts that we're going to support here locally and globally.
Then we can make a difference. Whereas if we're spreading it all thin, it's very hard to bring those acts and that talent above the pulpit. But coming together and actually showing the difference we can make, will show that there's case studies then that we can continue. And we've just got to start hearing Australian music in supermarkets.
On sync, on TV, on playlists. It's like, I love Ed Sheeran. I've worked with Ed Sheeran around the world, everywhere. I'm like, let's, let's share, you know, share the time that we've got to consume music.
CW: Absolutely. I've been saying the same thing. Can we give 10 percent of Ed Sheeran time to some Australian artists and maybe they'll have a chance of selling out Rod Laver too.
BA: He would likely support that, you know, he loves Australia and it was, you know, part of the beginning of his career early on. So yeah.
CW: I think again, the data is so important. I was having a conversation with Lynn Small from PPCA and ARIA a few weeks ago around how a lot of the bricks and mortar record stores aren't reporting sales to ARIA.Um, and then of course, the ARIA charts can really influence playlisting and commercial radio decisions. So there needs to be ways that are easy and accessible for everybody to be contributing to that data. So we can try and get more Australians on those charts because the public do respond to the charts.You know, I always compare it to, you know, the, the, the, the, um, In the bookstore, when you see the bestseller sticker on a novel, or when you're in the wine store and you see the gold sticker on the wine bottle, you go, Ooh, it's won an award. People pay attention to that. Oh, they've won. Arias must be good. So there is still a value placed on Arias.
BA: So I think it's really important that we support that chart to be as transparent and reflective of what's really going on in our music sector as possible so that we can try and get Australians in there because there are Australians selling records. Something is, is not quite right there. And those, those charts lead to opportunity, you know, like if you get. let's call it in the top 10 of a streaming platform, it gets noticed overseas. So if we look at Tones and I, if we look at Mass Wolf, if we look at the hits that have got into that space, It gets recognized and provides international opportunity, which in itself is our, it's our export business. So again, it all kind of like builds and builds and builds to more opportunity and, you know, and jobs here in Australia, it's an economical piece as well that needs attention.
CW: I'd love to chat about your career and your background. You studied management at university. What made you get into music? God, that seems ages ago, Chelsea. It was ages ago. Um, I had a great time at university and I actually took two years out, um, to work for a student charity. Um, the student charity was finding work placements, actually, for students in other territories, like an international organisation.
And then I got, um, voted on to what was the national committee and when you're on like the national team, I did that for a year, you have like a board of advisors, I guess the grownups in the room that were helping us navigate and learn. And I had the opportunity, you know, from one of them, he, he liked the work I did.
And at the end of my term, you know, we went for a coffee and he was, he asked me the same question, you know, what do you want to do with your life? Um, I played music. Um, I wasn't good enough, in my opinion, to be a professional musician, or I didn't see myself that way. Maybe that was another piece. I didn't know about opportunities to be a producer or engineer.
But I knew that I love music and it made me tick and I knew that I was studying management and he introduced me to, at the time, a couple of companies, one of which was EMI and I managed to get through that and interview, um, it was a maternity leave cover at the time. And I went in there and, uh, got my first six month job with EMI records.
And then the rest is history. I guess it went from there.
CW: What was that first role like? What were you working on specifically?
BA: Or here's the details. So there was one lovely lady who, she liked me doing, it was PowerPoints at the time. So we were putting together documentations about, it was classical music, and we were looking at creating compilations.
So how we could take classical music and create compilations that people would want to listen to snippets. And the other one, which is interesting from a digitization of music, which happened later on was I was responsible for keeping the CD library up to date and in an order. by catalog number so that at any one point you could find Vivaldi's full season.
So glad I did a, a degree, you know, to be photocopying.
But that's what you do. You have to, you start and you, you're enthusiastic and you work hard and every job that you get the opportunity to do is a great one because that's how you, you learn from the people around you and you get the opportunities that, you know, it's taken me to where I am.
CW: It makes me giggle because when I first started working in radio, I was working as the music coordinator at PBS 106.7 here in Melbourne. One of my roles there was maintaining a CD library. And they had 35, 000 CDs. Kept in a chronological order as to when they received the CD, which I thought was the laziest way of cataloging music of all time. It was like new CD arrival. Just put that at the end. So I'd have broadcasters coming in.
I'm trying to find, you know, BB King or whatever they're trying to find. And it's like, well, good luck. And they had just a number on the side, one all the way to 35, 000. And there was this massive. ladder that looked like something you'd bought a small aircraft on and this old access database, and you try and punch in.
And of course, if someone put it back in the wrong place, you'd be completely stuffed, you know, so.
BA: And I guess, well, for me, at least Chelsea, this wasn't the time when you had like Excel spreadsheets or Google sheets where you could easily go. Control F to find whatever you're looking for that didn't exist.
But again, look, that's sort of like seeing catalogs at the size, you know, that you were working with there. And I was working for EMI Classics, which was 100 years old at that point when I joined the company. You just really got a foundation and love for where music had come from since the beginning of recording.
And, you know, I remember a gentleman there and he would proofread the booklets that would go with CDs. And this wasn't how we've seen CDs in supermarkets. Like these were booklets that went alongside, you know, an opera. And he was spell checking with it and you just saw the passion that went into not only the recording but the packaging and the content that was going alongside that.
And so I learned a lot about the art through that journey as well which was... You know, privilege.
BA: Your career in record labels really started at that peak of the CD buying era. I mean, around that time, the early noughties, people like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were just selling millions of CDs.
So there was, it was such an interesting time in the music industry where Napster had come out and there was talk about digital music purchasing. And there seemed to be a lot of conversations, but a lot of resistance from labels also to get on board with digital. Some maybe bit more progressively minded and were more excited about the digital space than others.
Maybe some naivety thinking that, look how well CDs are selling, we're years off this digital thing. Um, so this was when you were really working in this space and you were working as the new media director at EMI. Can you tell us about this? Cause this is like the golden era of new media and you were the director of new media.So can you tell us about that time in music and that time in your career?
BA: It actually evolved from something which sounds even more archaic, which was, I was called ETEL manager. As in retail winner. I came over to Australia for the first time and this was the time when HMV was putting its catalogue online on what was called a website.
It was when Chaos Music formed that was putting catalogue online. It was, you know, JB Hi Fi starting to move their stores online. So you had like these incredible retail outlets that had got. You know, sanity music, they got stores all over Australia. Suddenly they got this thing called the internet and they needed to put their stores online.
And then as they were working through that, they needed data from labels. They needed to know, you know, they needed extra content. They needed, there was things like a web chat or you could do, you know, and then you had ringtones coming. So this e tail manager role, which was incredible, was all about assisting.
Those retailers to going into an online world. And then as a result, when anybody else used to come into our EMI offices at the time and say, I need to speak to somebody about DRM, like digital rights management. I need to talk to somebody about piracy. I need to talk to somebody about ringtones. It was like, whatever the question was, literally people would go, I don't know what that is.
CW: So ring Beth
BA: call Beth. And I took every single meeting. Embrace that I met everybody who was coming up with new business models, seeing how they could positively use new technologies and I embraced. All of them, I learned so much from these incredible individuals, bringing new ways of thinking to the business.
And then as a result, my next role, which was with V2 in London, which was Branson's label. That's where I became new media director. And this was as iTunes or Apple music was launching iTunes, where it wasn't just about selling the CD online, it suddenly became, how are we going to have a legitimate way to consume music and move away from piracy. Um, and that, that was my role there, which was even more insane and brilliant. And so I heard you facilitated around a hundred deals at least during this period. Am I right in saying that, you know, prior to this kind of evolution with recorded music and retail sales and consumption of music, most record labels were around signing artists to create physical content.
And a lot of the contracts with artists didn't include digital because that wasn't a thing until that time. So was the company having to renegotiate all of those deals to. License things for those new platforms. I mean, what a massive undertaking. Well, actually, so from a, from a recording contract side of things, you know, that as soon as you've worked out the wording, you can then go, and of course, most artists are going to want to know, how can I be in that space?
How can I have my recordings available to those fans? Of course, within the industry, there were some parties that were. Concerned and didn't have their albums available. So for example, you know, you can read about Pink Floyd when Pink Floyd composed Outside of the Moon, that was meant to go from the first track through to the end.
It was a whole experience. It was a story. It was an event. And to suddenly consider that those were going to be individual songs for sale was not about what that recording initially. Was meant to be for them or for their fans. So there were some albums that fell into that category of deeper discussion.
That wasn't something I was part of at the time at V2, but the main deals that I was doing was more about these new platforms that were emerging. So they were looking to say, can we sell your music legitimately at this price? And these are the commercial terms. And can you deliver those master recordings?
To us, and then this is how we will report back to you. Very simply. Contract, deliver the assets, sell them, get reporting back. And none of us had the systems in place. We had the CDs in the catalogue library. And suddenly we had to go, we've got to make these into files. And we've got to put data against those files, metadata, so that we can deliver them.
On a pipe to these parties and we need a new contract in place. So learn really quickly. Um, the deals were coming in globally from all around the world. You know, it was a little bit. Maybe like AI now, you know, there's a lot of players, you know, in digital collectibles and it's like, who's going to be the one who comes like trumps.
And the same as the same for digital download services and streaming. It wasn't that you knew who was going to be the champion. You just wanted to enable everybody. To be in that space, you know, legitimately and, and support the business model to grow. It was great fun.
CW: And it keeps changing all the time.
BA: It's still a constantly evolving space. It's quite interesting that it, you know, we consider it keeps changing, but then if you look at formats. You know, one thing we say is that, the one thing about music and entertainment is that it will always keep evolving, like, embrace, embrace, embrace. You know, I read a little post over the weekend from an A& R manager in Australia, and he was saying that when he was young, he used to get his camcorder and he'd record him and his mates doing all sort of cool stuff on their skateboards, and he was like, I guess that was just TikTok, you know, so the technology just changes what you do, you know, we all used to create mixtapes on cassettes when I was young, but that is now your Spotify playlist.
But if you look at formats, you know, we had The physical album, you know, the tape, the CD, you know, the download and then streaming and really we haven't had another format for a while, so that will, that will come. Who knows, you know, what that looks like and certainly there's lots of parties that are looking how that, and the model of streaming hasn't changed.
It's like we pay our set subscription fee a month. And then we have the streams that are accumulated and it's, it's difficult for artists that aren't at the top of the pyramid to receive a lot of income. You know, so the, the business model, the commercial model hasn't evolved. And I think there's an opportunity there that can actually maybe change that dynamic and bring more parity, hopefully, or bring more opportunity, you know, to artists, to songwriters and, you know, to the music economy really because it is.
It's a product we all love. It's not a product, you know, it's, it's art and it brings joy. Music brings joy. And it's like, we always want music in our life. So we need to ensure that people who make the music are getting paid, you know, and can, and have it as a job, not as a hobby. So throughout your career, you have really become a master of negotiation because this is something in your daily life.
CW: So I have to ask, do you have any advice for how we can better navigate negotiations? particularly around contracts, because so often in the music industry, our meetings can be so relaxed and handshake orientated and can seem so mates-y. So what's your advice for people who need to negotiate contracts?
BA: Um, interesting question and a very important question. So I think the first thing is when you are about to do something, know why you are doing it, what value you are contributing to somebody who wants you to do it and feel absolutely comfortable in saying, I need this. You know, the negotiation is all about saying, I'm going to do this for you. And in return, you're going to do this for me.
And that should just be comfortable, should be candid. You know, you should never feel guilty or not when to say, how much are you going to pay me for that? You know, that can be a very reasonable, it can even be matesy. And then, of course, it's for it to be documented. Um, I think maybe often in life, and not the music industry, but in life, we might say, my understanding is I'm going to get this, and it isn't documented.
So that follow up structure in writing is really important in every negotiation. Um, and, you know, taking notes through it. And then the other thing is, contracts can be, I don't know, intimidating for some. Um, and often legalese words can come across as, you know, in depth, convoluted, and not simplistic and contracts don't have to be in depth.
So you can have a very simple contract that says, this is what I'm going to do for you. I will do it by this time and I'm going to receive this remuneration. That's okay as a contract. And I think on the other side is if you do feel. Nervous or that you're not on top of a negotiation is seek help.
There's so many people who would be willing to give advice or input, you know, and if they don't know the answer, they'll probably put you in touch with somebody who does know the answer. You know, and I include myself in that. If anybody wants any help, like just message me, but don't feel alone, you know, because if you've got an art and you're delivering creativity or you're contributing to something, Then you deserve remuneration.
CW: Great advice. So after working at V2 Music, you moved to the role of director of digital at Universal UK. And we're managing a team of 25 people to drive digital growth across social media. You managed advertising, apps. It's huge. The list of things you were doing in this role was huge. What are some of your key learnings from this time?
BA: So I went to Universal actually when Savita Records got, um, acquired, um, by Universal and I had a great opportunity where they said to me, you know, will you come in and head up the UK team? Now, Universal is the largest record label in the world. They are a group, so they're not one label. There are multiple labels within Universal.
So in the UK, you had Mercury, you had Polydor, you had Island Records, you had catalog, you had commercial, you had the sales team. So that role that I had there was very much like the cog in a wheel. And then the things that you learn from that is, you know, you might have an idea that comes from a team here.
And then how do you educate and bring that through to other people, be that as inspiration. You also then are liaising with managers who want great ideas coming through and you have to ensure that those ideas come to fruition. So let's call it project planning. Um, you also have times when, you know, you do great exceptional stuff and you've got to be brave in what you're doing.
You've got one, um, example. So it was when Spotify had launched been in the UK for around a year. It certainly wasn't big, you know, you certainly your supermarkets were still dominating CD sales, um, I wouldn't say the art of music, but they were certainly dominating CD sales and with Spotify what we did was it was a U2 album and We said why don't we put it on Spotify a week earlier?
Which, let's call that an exclusive. And at the time, it wasn't going to commercially impact because Spotify was still new. Now this hit the 6 o'clock news, which was phenomenal. I mean, talk about a campaign. And then, which was amazing, um, but you can imagine that there was a few phone calls because the supermarkets were ringing and going, Hang on.
Why is that album on a streaming service before it's on our shelves? And the whole point was, it doesn't matter. It's great advertising. It's great support for an amazing album that's about to release. And now people are going to come into your store and they're going to go, Oh, that was all the six o'clock news.
I want to buy that. So, but you had nervous people that were calling on my, that calling me on that day. And I can remember. The nervousness that went through me of have I done the right thing here in like championing this idea and then that you have to keep your cool head and know that it is the right thing that you've done and kind of like have your consistency and belief in yourself that you're doing the right thing.
So I don't know if that answers your question, Chelsea, but I learned how to manage people, negotiate with people, be creative, keep a calm head. And I also had my twins at the same time. So I learned how to go back to work, you know, and be a working mum, which was a huge, a huge journey in itself.
CW: And you've gone back and forth from Australia to the UK. After this role, you then moved back to Australia to take the helm of director of marketing at Warner, managing digital and marketing, and this was a massive time for Warner with Michael Bublé. Black Keys, Ed Sheeran. And I mean, it's such a diverse range of artists, you know, as part of Warner Music and also around this time was Kylie Minogue's K25 celebration year with. Where the Time Capsule was released and that was a massive year with Time Bomb and a whole lot of other things. Um, so you might have guessed I'm a Kylie fan and long time listeners of this podcast will know that I'm a Kylie fan. So I have to ask, given you were working at Warner at this time, did you meet Kylie?
BA: Well, the Time Capsule... And then there was also a beautiful book, I don't know if you ever saw the pop up book that we did, but those were two projects that were my baby. Um, oh I should tell you, so when we, we decided that we wanted to do something for her tour that you just spoke about, and we knew that the Aphrodite tour was incredible.
I don't know if you went to see the Aphrodite tour.
CW: Oh, twice. Just. Twice. Insane in terms of. Exquisite. You know, the, the direction, the production, the outfits, the dancers, the lights, you know, just absolutely the water, the water features, the water. Let's not forget. I mean, just incredible. And anyone who hasn't seen this needs to see it. She had this area at the front that was called the splash zone because rather than just having a straight catwalk, she kind of had two catwalks met to create a smaller stage in the middle of the theater, I guess you could say, or arena. And then there was people in the middle of those two catwalk areas called the splash zone. And when she sang on a night like this, and she goes on a night like this, all this water went out of these catwalks, like this massive water fountain.
And she just paraded through this splashing. And it was like Cirque de Soleil people coming down and up off these ropes. So then this. Pool of water appeared that they were dipping into. And it was the amount of infrastructure that they were lugging around the world. It was all of those pipes, just what?
BA: And I'd had the opportunity to see the show in the UK. And then I was here as, you know, director of marketing at water. And I was like, we've got to create something for fans. And I remember meeting with. He was like a paper artist, so he did like origami, and I was talking and I said, I'm just going to imagine, because Aphrodite the show is so amazing and visual, I'd like to create like a, and I was just talking out loud, like a pop up book, and we should create the goddess edition, and, and he went away, and you can, I'll find you a link that we can put in there.
Okay, I haven't seen it. But it literally had five pop up books that showed. Kylie on the stage. It had one that was a lotus flower that opened up with the CD in it. Wow. Worked with Kylie and got exclusive imagery from the outfits that were made for the show. And we were making this book and I had to go and meet her in Hong Kong to show her the beta of this book, and bless her, she's so gorgeous, like she can see, cause I'm like, is she gonna like this? Is she not? Cause if she doesn't like it, it's like not going anywhere. And I knocked on her caravan door, and she's like, oh, it's at the time, that was agreed. And you must be Beth, and she said, are you nervous?
You shouldn't be nervous, don't be nervous, sit down. And then we, we went through the book and we, we released the book and, uh, yeah, I think we sold 1000 copies of that. And then the time capsule similarly, which was a little box with like CD singles in it. And it had a track for each of her 25 [00:45:00] years in the business.
Um, and we actually work with. Kylie fans to compile what songs were going to be chosen to be on the A side and the B side of it, each of those little discs. But those were two projects that I hold dear to my heart. They were so good to work on. Yeah. And the fans love the, you know, the products as well. So it was amazing.
CW: Oh, absolutely. And how fun as well for you, because being in these very senior roles and directing teams, I imagine so much of your work that is that really top level in terms of strategic planning and budgets and business meetings to actually be involved in creating some special fan material and working with the artists themselves.
BA: Absolutely. And to your point about, you know, ARIA charts. You know, and like getting songs on radio or, you know, going to a live show and see that's the piece that is music and actually when you can see joy with fans or you get that number one album or when you miss that number one album slot and you're you know, you're number two by 30 units and you feel it, you know, and you're like, ah, I did it.
You feel it on behalf of the team and management and the artists, but it's that feeling and that connection, which is why the music industry is so wonderful to be part of. But you, you're absolutely correct that when you're involved in the creativity. You know, of making something that matters. That's the joy.
It's the joy that I get. It's the joy that you get when you're singing. It's the joy that fans get when they're listening or that they're part of something. It's like, that's why we do it.
CW: You went back to the UK after this time period, but you're still working for Warner. So you are doing, what did you call it before?
BA: The ping pong? The classic ping pong pong.
CW: Um, how fantastic. Um, so you're still working for Warner, but you came back and then you were the general manager. Yeah, so basically, when I came to Warner, the first time, First time, um, the gentleman that invited me to come back, I'd worked with at EMI and he said, Oh, Beth, do you want to come back and be marketing director at Warner? And I just had my twins. So they were less than a year old. And my response in the UK was, I can't do that. My mum will kill me. But then I was like, he said, just come for two to three years, like help me kind of get it all set up. And then when the kids are ready to go to school. Like, let's help you return.
So it was kind of part of the plan at that point. So I went back and at that point there was a role with Warner heading up the global team. Um, so I had this incredible opportunity to work. in working for like Atlantic Records for the UK labels and for Warner Records in the US and for Asia and like bringing those teams together and connecting all the affiliates so that we could build hits and careers and, you know, just keep communication and drive, you know, the building really of careers and hits and album sales and loved it. And then I got the opportunity to come back to be general manager at Warner Music Australia again. So I returned and now I am here and now I'm a Australian citizen and Yay! Home is home. You then joined Jaxter as a CEO, which. Is a real shift to move out of the label space into working for an organization that, for those that aren't aware, specialize in collecting data and is a massive database for recordings.
CW: Can you tell us a little bit about Jaxta and what attracted you to working in that area?
BA:Yeah, absolutely. So Jackie Lewis Schull is the founder of Jaxta and she actually approached me, I actually joined as chief marketing officer in the first instance working with Jackie and Jaxta has got all of the official music credits for all of the recordings.
So what we used to see on the back of albums, recording albums, when you went into a record shop and you could see the producer and you could see the engineer and you could see the studio that that album was recorded in. It's the storytelling and it shows all the talent that are involved in a recording and actually the irony is with most things in the digital evolution you got more information or Information overload.
Actually, when it comes to music credits, it was suddenly that there was a close on that information because we suddenly had artwork that was, you know, two centimeters tall. So those credits were kind of lost in the ether. And they certainly weren't up front and central to what they used to be on a final album.
So the whole premise behind, you know, Jackie founding the Jaxta was To enable those credits to be published, which would enable producers and engineers to find more work because their work is verified and also for that data to be used to ensure accurate payment for the commercialization of any recording.
So I really connected with a mission, you know, I was I really connected with the fact that this was about the people who make the music that we and I enjoy. Um, I've always been in tech, you know, I've always been in new media, digital. So it was music and it was tech and it was an opportunity to assist in building a company.
And then after a year I became CEO there and I had a wonderful time working, you know, and meeting great organizations around the world as well that do a lot of work in this space. Included meeting Emily Lazar. Yes. Go full circle. Yeah, full circle there.
CW: Beth, you have done so much throughout your career in the music industry. What do you still want to achieve?
BA: What do I still want to achieve? Well, I want to still, you know, I just enjoy contributing, um, and making a difference. I'm a fantastic problem solver and, and leader. You know, I love enabling people to do their best. In their job. And I think certainly, you know, at the time I am now with my career, you know, I've got a lot of things under my belt, so hopefully I can share my own learnings to enable others.
I, I want to be involved in music and I want to see the next 10 years of my career continue to do great stuff. I actually don't know what that is going to be right now, I'm kind of like considering. what that's going to be and where I land. But the joy we get is from waking up every morning and doing good stuff, you know, doing good stuff with good people.
Um, and I, like you, I think Chelsea, I just kind of, I just keep going and I never stop. But when you, you know, when you do stop and you look at what you've done and you've reflected, you know, you want to know that you're having a good time and you're helping people. Um, hopefully more of that and do you celebrate those wins?
Because often it is just one thing to the next, to the next, to the next. Yeah, I, I, you know, I don't meditate, but I go on a run every morning and my, you know, watching the sun rises, my time where I kind of, Manage what the day is going to look like. Consider what's bringing me joy. You know, I think we all need to stop sometimes and go, what makes me happy?
And have I made myself happy today? You know, what makes my family happy? And have I helped them be happy today? What makes my team happy? And have I connected with them? You know, life can be short, so we need to really take joy from the moments where we get joy and recognize them. And hopefully do more of them.
CW: Completely agree. I think having kids as well is very grounding. I have a three year old and a nine month old. Not twins, but they're close in age.
BA: Brilliant.
CW: And you have to be in the moment when it comes to playing with kids. You, you're playing Duplo, that's it, you know? And if the phone rings or anything like that, my three year old, he says, Mama, no phones, play Duplo.
You know, it's like, this is our time, focus on this, no work, Duplo. You have to be in that moment and the most important thing right now is building the perfect castle or whatever we're doing, you know, and that's a really beautiful thing.
BA: Oh, well, you, you just said a couple of things there, right? Is building things? We like doing it as kids and we like doing it as adults. We're still kids as adults. And I think the other thing is kids say things. As they see them, and that's what we should do as adults as well. So, if we want to be in a room, we should say, can I be in the room? If we want the negotiation to be fairer, we should say, this should be fairer.
If we want to, you know, consider working at a company, we should knock on the door and say, can we have a meeting? It's like, we should say things like we used to as kids, and not overthink it, and just get on with it. Keep building. Yeah. I think that's important too because people aren't mind readers and they might think that you're just very happy with where you are in your career unless you actually say it out loud.
This is my dream. I would love to do this. And then they go, Oh, I didn't realize, you know, people don't know until you actually verbalize it. And you say, would you be okay if we had a coffee and we had a chat about this? I'd love your input. And that shows proactivity. It shows that you've got, you know, energy to look at opportunities in front of you and also make opportunities as well.
Like opportunities often don't come to you. You have to make the opportunities and then that's how you. I think a friend said to me, God, Beth, you're so lucky. And I'm like, Oh, you make luck. It doesn't come to you.
CW: Make it happen to quote Mariah Carey.
BA: Make a mess, I used to say.
CW: Oh yeah, that too. Yes. Make it happen, make a mess. Beth, thank you so much for joining me on The Control Podcast. It's been so wonderful to chat with you.
BA: You too, Chelsea. Absolute pleasure. And um, yeah, I wish you all the best. I can see that you've got your hands and your mind and your efforts involved in lots of things. I'll keep watching you and I, I hopefully we'll see you in September in Brisbane.
CW: I will see you in September. We will boogie as the, uh, have a boogie and celebrate all the nominees and, uh, the Australian music industry and the wonderful talent within it. It's going to be a great night.
BA: It'll be a great night. Thank you, Chelsea, so much for the opportunity.
