Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Music Industry 360 Podcast. I'm your host, Randall Foster. I'm chief creative Officer at Symphonic, and with me today is Linda Bloss. Bound. Linda was formerly senior vice president of government relations and public policy at Sound Exchange, and now she's assistant director of the business and entertainment program at Kogod School of Business at American University. Did I completely mess up the name Kogod Co? God.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Perfect.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: I feel accomplished already.
It's so great to have you here with us today.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and where you come from and how you wound up in the music industry doing what you're doing now.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Wow. Well, thank you for having me, Randall. It's such a great program that you do. And for folks tuning in, this is going not to be a waste of time. You're going to learn a lot about what Symphonic does, and I'm very privileged to be here.
I am sitting in Washington DC. And I have been sitting in Washington DC. Since I came to school at Lizverie campus 36 years ago. I attended American University for my undergraduate communications degree and never went back. I love this town and everything that was happening here back in the 90s when I started my career in Washington DC.
Basically, I'd say the starting point that is most relevant to my work in the music industry was when I graduated from law school. I have a JD from the Catholic University of America, which is kind of right across town here. And I went to work at a place called the Energy and Commerce Committee from the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill. And there are basically two main committees on Capitol Hill in both the House and the Senate that oversee communications work. And in the 90s, for those of you that have been around since the 90s, you'll remember that things were very analog kind of leading into the 90s. But that decade saw the massive transformation to digital. And that was when things got cooking on Capitol Hill in how in the world are we going to write some laws that could help manage how the entertainment world that we knew about for decades was transformed into the digital arena? So, like I said, when I graduated from law school, I found myself on Capitol Hill sitting at one of the two committees that deals with that jurisdiction about intellectual property, about electronic commerce and how digital technologies were going to come to be. And we wrote a bill jointly with both committees in both houses of Congress called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, known as the DMCA, for those who have read ahead on this. And in the late 90s, that was a really kind of foundational piece of legislation that let digital commerce come into being. It allowed Steve Jobs to invent something called an ipod, which became an iPad, which became these things that we all carry around in our pockets. Now, and really laid out the rules of the road for how tech companies could develop the technologies they wanted to with the content that consumers wanted to consume, which was the entertainment industry, the music industry, the video game industry, certainly the film and television industry. So it's fascinating to work on. Capitol Hill wrote that bill with a lot of friends, both in other committees on both sides of the House, and that became the rules of the road. Ironically, as part of that bill, the development of Sound Exchange was implemented as part of that legislation, which was we need a collective that can kind of sit at the intersection of the distribution piece of music and how that would paid out to the rights owners. We'll get to Sound Exchange later, but it is kind of a full circle story for my career.
And so that led me to hear from everybody in the entertainment industry and everybody in the telecommunications industry and technology industries. And it was the best university I ever attended was sitting in that. Well, I loved American too, I should be careful, but I learned a ton sitting on Capitol Hill and being educated by the great brains in all of those industries. And one day I got a call from an overeager lobbyist from the entertainment industry who I thought was bugging me about a piece of legislation they were looking for. And turns out he was calling to see if I would be willing to go downtown in DC and have coffee with him, which is kind of shorthand lingo here in DC for do you want to come talk to me about getting a job? And so that was how I left Capitol Hill after all that great work and went to work for what was Universal Pictures and Universal Music at the time. It was one company back in the early two thousand s. And so we did all the motion picture portfolio and represented that industry before the lawmakers on Capitol Hill and also the music portfolio because at the time, like I said, it was one company. When NBC bought the video side of Universal and became NBC Universal, I actually stuck with that piece of the company for about a year and a half and then I tell the story to my students. So I will bore everybody here with it too. But I got a phone call from a gentleman named Edgar Brothman Jr. Who had just purchased a company called Warner Music Group. And I was on maternity leave at the time and I was praying that my brand new baby wasn't going to cry when I was on the phone with Edgar Bosman Jr. And he invited me to come up to New York and said, I understand that I need to hire you to run a DC office for me. So that was a fabulous opportunity. He had just bought Warner Music Group that had kind of been shed from its time Warner parent, and they wanted to be very active in the policy work here at Washington, DC. So I left NBC universal, went over to start Warner's office here in Washington, and ended up running that was in that position for six years, which is another fantastic opportunity really learn in the industry.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Let's pump the brakes for a second, because you've dropped some major bombs here and things that I didn't even know about you, and I don't know if our listeners even understand the gravity of the DMCA and what it was and what it stood it. When I studied music business, it was just post DMCA, and we learned that as the guiding light of how to operate digitally and to have had your hands on that is just incredible. I've known you for many years, and you've never bragged about this to me, which is kind of awesome.
But so working on the DMCA, I mean, obviously, what was it, 20 years that the DMCA was the guiding light as far as how technology companies treat intellectual property?
That's pretty heavy.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: It was it was kind of a big deal at the time. As you can imagine.
The entertainment industry was going along, doing well in the analog world, and needed a little help in understanding how they could transition into the digital world and still be successful companies and successful industries. And so nobody really runs to capitol hill first when they want to understand business or make the next moves that they want to make. But in this case, because of the size of the transformation of going from an analog world to a digital world, you really did need some help from government leaders to help make those rules of the road, like I said. And we all learned to live under them. Like you said, 20 years, that was the holy grail. Everybody lived by the rules of the DMCA until it started getting kind of outdated because technology was continuing to run and fuel commerce in a way that nobody could ever even anticipated 20 years before that. But pretty much until the music and modernization act the MMA came to be in 2018, the DMCA was pretty much what people followed as they were making their business decisions and development decisions and how the world could view and listen to all this content digitally.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Okay. And so the DMCA, though, if I'm not mistaken, was really a reaction to the napster phenomenon in music sharing, the peer to peer peer sharing networks that I'm sure none of our listeners ever, ever participated in.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Of course not. I'm sure none of the students on this campus ever did things like that either, back in the late 90s. That's exactly right. Randall so the digital technologies were coming onto the scene. People were using them. There wasn't a legal alternative in place for people to access some of this content legally without paying for it and downloading it. And obviously there was tremendous demand to be able to have access to music and videos that you didn't necessarily need to own. And so basically, based on that demand, the DMCA set the rules of the road for companies like the company I work for, like Warner Music, like all the studios, to be able to operate in a digital world and still be able to participate in a stream of commerce, that had always been the case. So, yes, I must say part of it was a reaction to the demand out there on the illegal side, the napster side, because consumers just wanted to be able to enjoy content that was delivered digitally and there wasn't a legal alternative at the time.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: That's so cool. You're such a digital trailblazer. I had no idea.
Now, before going to law school and all that, were you into the music scene? Were you like a diehard music fan? Or did you kind of accidentally find the music business and find that you loved the space?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: I always loved music, and it was kind of always central to my life. I'm sure that's true for most people out there. If you were asked to do kind of the soundtrack of your young life, it would be just a wonderful play by play. I participated in choirs and sung in a couple of bands, so had some vocal training enabled to do that. But I never considered being a full time musician. I never really embraced that caliber. And the amount of time I've spent in Nashville in my career definitely reinforced that I would not have been able to cut it at that level. But music was always a big part of my life. Sang in a lot of choirs. Like I said, last time I sang in formal choir, I was eight months and three weeks pregnant with my first child, and the director told me to please sit down because I was making everybody nervous. And so I have not really sung in choirs since then. My daughter's 23, but it has always been a big part of my life.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: That's very cool. So fast forwarding, edgar Bromphen, legend in the business. Cola, it asks you to start a Warner office in DC. And I wasn't even aware that there was ever a Warner office in DC. Surely to deal with Capitol Hill and the other things that you've been doing previous to that. So how long were you at Warner?
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Six years.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: Basically the entire time that Edgar Rothman Jr. Was there was kind of my tenure at the company. And it was so much fun, not only because I got to work on these incredible issues, such an amazing time during the Rockster case and everything going on in Capitol Hill and in, you know, to Edgar's credit, he really enjoyed the political scene and the policy scene. He loved coming down to Washington and participating. And to be honest, most CEOs like to try to avoid Washington but he was so eager and so interested in it. It was just a total life blast to work for him because he always wanted to be here. And when he came to town, it was kind of a big deal, like you said. So it was such a wonderful opportunity to have that right hand seat to help him navigate DC.
And people always were happy when he would come down here. But then he moved on, and I thought, well, my job wouldn't be quite as much fun anymore because most CEOs are not as engaged as Edgar was and Time Warner. Remember history lesson back so Time Warner had shed Warner Music Group back in 2004, and suddenly they were knocking on my door and said, would you like to come back to the video side and perhaps work for the studio? It was a fantastic portfolio companies at the time, it was HBO and Time Warner. Obviously, the Time magazine company was still part of that. All of the Turner Corporation was part of that as well. So CNN and those properties. So it was a fantastic felt like I've always say, I felt like I got my MBA for free working at Time Warner because it was such a great purview and a Fortune 50 company that was so successful.
And I loved my two years there. But while I was there, well, the big policy issue at the time, I'm not sure again back on the history books was SOPA pippa about kind of access to digital technology. It was a big Hollywood versus Silicon Valley fight.
And something struck me, mostly remembering my days at Warner Music Group while I was in the throes of that debate, that there weren't the actual creators that were involved on Capitol Hill. I mean, they had lots of private black cars pull up with big executives from both sides to tell their story, but there just wasn't a songwriter or the screenplay writer or a vocalist that was talking about what these giant policy issues meant to them. The actual creative class that was building all the products that these giant companies were talking about. And so I noticed an absence in that, and I think maybe I dismissed being around the actual creators for the one on one time with them. I had spent a ton of time in Nashville when I was at Warner Music Group, went through leadership. Music got exposed to the actual creative part of the business and just one day raised my hand and said, I really appreciate this amazing opportunity to work for this giant company, but I would like to go and do something else. They looked at me like I have six heads, because in Washington DC, that was kind know, the end of the Eliberg road in terms of where you could so I explained that I wanted to work for artists, and I wanted to make sure that their voice was part of the conversation. And I wanted to teach kind of like hit my forty s at that time. And so I wanted to kind of move on with the next stage of my career. And like I said, they were very lovely, but they understood that it was time for me to move on. So I did just that. I went up, hung out my shingle. In the meantime, had gotten a call from American University that they were starting this business and entertainment program, and they had asked me to come on and teach as an adjunct, which was perfect because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach and work with artists. So I took that opportunity. And then the first client on my doorstep, day one was Sound Exchange, knocked on the door and said, that's what we're about. We're about paying artists directly, making sure that the actual creators are respected in the whole ecosystem. What you want to do is what we do. Can you please come join the team and help us do that? And I did it as a consultant for the first year or so. And then after about a year, Sound Exchanges, the steam CEO of my company, asked me to come in and do basically the same function from in house. And that was where I landed as Senior Director of Artist and Industry Relations in 2014.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: And that's where we met.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Was you in that role? You were the sound exchange person. Somebody said, do you know anybody at Sound Exchange? I have the person. I know exactly who to talk to. Also, I have to commend you. Mighty smart of you to pass legislation that would create a company that would be your future employer.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: That was just the foresight there.
My life is becoming full circle. It's kind of got concentric circles now going on because of that. But yes, kind of full circle like, oh, I remember we created that collective. We really needed that collective. Now I'm going to go work for that collective. So it was great.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Well, let's spend a second on Sound Exchange. I realize it's a 20 year old company. I still encounter artists all the time and label owners all the time who don't fully understand Sound Exchange and who don't understand its importance. And I remember its importance because I was at a company at the time.
Basically shortly after the launch, I was at a company, and we hadn't explored Sound Exchange at all. And the then president of A Two Im had approached us and said, hey, let us help you talk to this company, Sound Exchange, because we believe there is lots of money there for you. We think that there are back royalties there. And if you'll just join A Two Im and let us help you, we're going to help you unlock this money. And A Two Im is American Association of Independent Music for our listeners and is not an inexpensive organization to belong to, but is a valuable organization to belong to, and an organization, frankly, that Symphonic supports a great deal.
And I'll never forget that. We kind of jumped into the weeds and we started getting into these spreadsheets and we unlocked $2 million in unpaid royalties to ourselves and to our artists and to everyone we were working with. And it was really monumental. And that was the moment when I was like, okay, this thing is really real.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: It's real, it's real money.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Your job was to educate people on that, to be the conduit of that information, and to find people that needed to go find their money, et cetera. That had to be a really fun bit of news to share with people.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Yes, well, to talk about dream jobs, right? Your job is to go travel the country and meet cool artists and start the conversation by saying, I think I have money for you. That's like, usually you get a good way to get people's attention. And usually I'll say, do you like money? You have money. But you're right. Many artists even today still have money waiting for them in the Sound Exchange system that they're just not aware of how that they can get into that system to get paid those royalties that they're due. But once they are educated, like when you were Randall, that is something that they ultimately don't want to leave on the table that they participate in. Every month, Sound Exchange pays monthly to its artists and to its rights outers. So the members of huim would be the independent labels, huge part of Sound Exchange's business.
And then the artists also, if the royalties come from the section 114 of Copyright Act and come through Sound Exchange under that license, 50% goes directly to the artists with a tiny little carve out for the background musicians and the background singers, and then 50% goes to the right sounder. So when Mike called me and said, what you're trying to do to get artists voices out there is exactly what we do. It was a match made in heaven, because it really does empower artists. Regardless of where they are in their career, whether they're platinum legends or whether they're just getting started out, they still get that share of the money directly if it comes through the 114 license. And primarily just to talk about exactly where this pot of money comes from. It's from non interactive radio streaming. What's that? Those are radio type products. SiriusXM is obviously the best example in the satellite realm, but much of Webcasting, that's passive listening. You can't interactively recall a song to be played at any moment in time. Non interactive listening, that's the distribution services that can use the 114 license well.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: And shameless plug to our listeners here. Sympanic can help you collect your Sound Exchange royalties. We also can help with deliveries to Sound Exchange. So if you're not aware of that or you've not looked into that. My friends, please dig deep in the knowledge base because we are here for you to make that process easier.
Fantastic. So following our timeline here, you were teaching adjunct and doing the Sound Exchange thing. And of course, you moved up within the organization at Sound Exchange and it looks like you became much more of a pundit on Capitol Hill towards the end of your time there. Which brings us kind of to where you are now and not to gloss over Capitol Hill. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about your.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: What happened really. You know, the pandemic hit. We were all stuck. I couldn't get on those airplanes anymore and go around the country and talk to artists directly.
Sound Exchange needed a person in Washington. So I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in that chair for a couple of years before leaving. And I guess the theme and I'm realizing this as I'm listening to myself drawn on is I've had a tremendous amount of good fortune in my career. I've really been so lucky and just met with the right people at the right time to be in the seat that I'm in now.
It should also go interesting to know that the program here at American University that you're getting to, the business entertainment program was started by the first President and CEO of Sound Exchange. His name is John Simpson and he started this program ten years ago when I came on as an adjunct. He was the one that invited me to come and teach with him. And this program has been his baby for the last ten years. And it's again, very good, fortunate and honored to be able to now sit by his side here at American, my alma mater. I'm very sentimental about being back here at the beginning of the semester and to help John run this amazing program that has so much promise and that's amazing.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: And as we were discussing before and for our listeners here, I'm a graduate of a music business entertainment industries program, the Frost School at the University of Miami. And I was saying to Linda that everything good that's happened to me in my career has happened as a result of that knowledge base and has happened as a result of the things I picked up and knew and the people I met and knew during my time there. So I think it's really an incredible time for music industry education. We've seen a real boom way back when at the turn of the century when I went in for my master's degree, there were only a few programs in the United States. And we're at a point now where there's a great organization, Mia that has all of the reputable programs belonging to that and working together to talk about the future of industry education.
And obviously we've got great universities like American bringing downright experts in like you.
Tell us about the program at American. Tell us about what you're doing there, what you're proud of, of the program, other than the fact that you're an Alum and what's got you really jazzed for this semester.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Sure. Oh, my gosh. Well, that's a long answer. I'll try to be brief.
We are ten years old, as I mentioned, so what's been really fascinating to watch, especially over these last few years, is kind of the trajectory of some of our early graduates from this program. When we started the program, I think we had about 20 majors that were in this track. It's part of the business school here under the management umbrella, but we have a track, and it's grown now. We have several hundred majors and minors of the business and entertainment program, and now those that graduated six or seven years ago, they're really making their way in the field. We have a tremendous number of Alum that I'm actually excited about a lot of things right now. I'm planning a trip. We do treks to all of the major entertainment centers. And so I have this roster of graduates from the program just within the past ten years to choose from that would then host us at their place of employment and be able to show today's students where they may be as few as five years down the road. They're going to be sitting hopefully in some corporate office in New York City or in Los Angeles and hosting the students five years from now. So it's been really fun, and I think what I'm looking forward to, I'm looking forward to a lot, but specifically with being here full time as opposed to being an adjunct like I've been when I was an adjunct, students would come through, they would take my class. Some of them would stay in touch, but not most of them, and that would be it. I'd have a four month relationship being their professor, and they would move on and do great things on their own. Now, in sitting in this seat as the assistant program director of BAE, I'll get to see them for all four years. I'm teaching a class of first years this semester and be able to see kind of how green they are and how little they actually know about the industry when they come in and then watch them walk across that stage at graduation and how much they'll learn. That is just very exciting to me. I'll kind of get to see them every step of the way while they're here. And we do, like I said, a really good job of staying in touch with our alum and bringing our Alum back to talk to today's students. We do career nights. We do these treks.
So it's just a gift that keeps on giving in this program that keeps on growing. We have so much support from the business school here at Covad, overwhelming support from the whole larger business school because they understand kind of how much this is allowing creative students also get a business degree and be effective in the entertainment industry.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: That's awesome. And it's interesting when you think about I was reflecting as you were talking of where you came from and where you're at now, but I imagine a great deal of the curriculum building for you all is looking into a crystal ball and trying to figure out what tools and things that these students will need to be successful five years from now. Which five years ago? I don't know that many of us were talking about AI or even thinking about it. NFTs, that was an acronym nobody had ever thought of five years ago, which is crazy.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: You think of where we are now.
What changes do you see personally coming in the industry that have you most excited about teaching?
What are the groundbreaking new classes or new focal points in your current classes that you think are going to be real tent pole agenda items in the music industry down the road?
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question, Randall. And sitting at it from the academic point of view has been really know. I just came from very recently from the content industry, and there's a lot of concern about AI, and we all should be concerned about AI. I mean, all of us, we don't want to be replaced by machines in our long term careers, but when you get to a college campus, at least the one I'm privileged enough to sit at, there's a lot of excitement about AI, too. And we're not shying away from some of the technologies and how they work. We are spending a lot of time thinking about what the effect on humans will be from that. And I think it wouldn't be fair to teach a music business curriculum and not explore what happens to the humans that are currently making their careers in the music industry should these technologies take over. But it's incredibly unknown right now. And so the students are excited about it. They're using it themselves, and we all are in our daily work, not work that gets graded and cited. We want to make sure they're doing that on their own. But everybody is kind of delving into AI, at least in academia, to see kind of how that can supplement what humans can provide. So I'm very excited to just talk about that. And we had a lot of guest speakers come in from the industry and talk about their different points of view and a lot of the legal ramifications because we are sitting here in Washington about AI and where that's going. So got a great roster of speakers coming up for the class that I've been teaching for ten years. It's called the creative class. We learn about creative economies. And so AI certainly is going to have an impact on that.
So super excited to. See how that goes. We also have a very practical, experiential type of learning that we're pushing, particularly in this track. And I think what I'm most proud of is spotlighting the need to have networking and relationship skills. Because as you know, Randall, in this industry, it's all about your relationships and who you know and who you trust and who you call when you've got a tough question or you just want know, do an amazing podcast and talk to it. It's all relationship based. And not to say that other industries are not, but particularly in the entertainment industry, it really is getting that trusted recommendation from somebody that you know. So, I mean, you may remember we were at south by Southwest last March and I had a dozen students with me and just kind know, putting them in tow to go from event to event to event to meet. People and learn how to network. Learn how to walk up to somebody in a loud bar and make sure that they remember who you are when you leave that conversation. That's not really something you teach in a classroom. So I guess I'm most excited about getting our students out there in the real world, whether it's a day trip to New York or whether it's a week trip to South By, to really teach them the skills that they use their emotional intelligence for to help them get situated in the industry.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: It really is interesting. Interpersonal communication is so valuable. I think even at the artist level, at the songwriter level, the songwriters that are most successful at Nashville are really well networked and they're fun to be around. Right. I tell writers all the time, like, you get into a room with somebody for the first time, you've only got that one opportunity. This is your chance to make or break this relationship.
Most of the folks that are winning all the awards or winning them, not they're talented, they're incredibly talented, but like talent alone, if you're a jerk and talent, you're not going to go very far.
And that's very cool that that's part of what you're imparting to the students. Because I think when I was in school, it was something that wasn't really talked about. It's something I had to learn about. But thankfully, I'm as outgoing as they come, so it worked out really well in my favor. What would you say as you're looking at the industry as a whole, and we're just going to talk about the industry, not the education of students.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: But what's the biggest challenge facing the industry on 23? Is it AI or is it something a little more focused than that? And this is just a fun question I like to ask people because the answers are always quite divergent.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah, there's several challenges. I think the umbrella that is sitting on top of all of them is the question of data. It's just data, data.
And it's unfortunate because when you have a creative class of people, they're not waking up in the morning and thinking about how am I going to organize my metadata? I mean, that's the last thing they want to think about, right? And that's why companies like Symphonic are so useful to creators because you can do all that thinking for them while they can go write and perform songs.
But data has to be accurate, it has to be correct. It's not sexy. When I worked at Sound Exchange, I always said it's like the oil in your car. Nobody wants to think about the oil in your car. That's kind of boring. But if it's bad, the car is not going to run. So getting these data conundrums really solved and making sure that everybody understands that data is important and correct and getting ultimately paid for their work, that's something. So that's a technology challenge and I'd say yes. The other big technology challenge is AI. I don't want to live in a world where every song I'm about to hear on a distribution service is computer generated. That's not the world that I grew up in and I don't think that that is where the industry is going. But we really do need to make very sure that it's not the next step for creativity. And then the lowest common denominator is just to play songs that you don't necessarily have to pay royalties for. I've spent my career making sure that artists get paid fairly for their work and it would be really a shame to have all of that go away just because some cool new technologies came along and kind of took over for the art. So it's always these technology issues that are challenges. But I do have a lot of faith and confidence that the smart people of the industry and then the future leaders of the industry are going to be able to figure out a fair and equitable solution.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I totally agree and I'm leaning in a little bit more there, even on your background prior to going to Sound Exchange.
The payment to creators I think is monumental and I think the copyright code was created specifically so that creators would keep creating and I just can't think of a vacuum where creativity is no longer rewarded and what that does to us as a society. It's very scary, I think.
Well, this has been fascinating. You, of course, are fascinating. I've always thought this about you, but I've learned things today that I never knew before. I have yet one more question for you and one more thing to learn before we sign off here. And that question is this. Please share with us what's your favorite current band that you're listening to? Who are you passionate about musically? This is the Music Industry 360 podcast, emphasis on the word music and as a distributor and as a digital music consumer, personally, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: I love that question. I just recently had to answer a question about my college listening habits. So I've been living kind of back many decades ago this week, but now I can think about today who in the current music.
I say this without even knowing kind of what label they're on or who they work with. I really like AJR. I know that they're new, but I love their sound. I love the different types of songs they come up with. I just find myself kind of dancing to them when they come on during my workout. So as a current band, I definitely would love to vote for them.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: That's a great answer. Have you seen them live yet?
[00:36:12] Speaker B: Not yet.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: My goodness.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Resolution for me.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: Swallows. It's one of the best live shows I've seen in the last five years.
They were incredible and they were incredibly entertaining. And my children made me go to the show and I reluctantly bought tickets and went incredibly pleased.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: That's wonderful. All right, well, I'm taking your children's advice and we'll make that my New Year's resolution to get out there and do that.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Absolutely. There you have it, folks. AJR for the win, as picked by Linda Blossbaum. Linda, thank you so much for joining us today, everyone. Once again, this is Randall Foster with Music Industry 360 Podcast. We appreciate you being here. For more information, check out the Symphonic Blog or Symphonic.com to learn more about sound exchange and all the other great things we do. But many, many thanks to Linda for sharing her insights and her awesome history in this business we call music.
Thank you all so much for joining us and we'll see you on the next.
