011 - Sean Glover - Music Industry Power Player
Sean Glover stands as a distinguished figure in the music industry with a career spanning recent decades. As the Director of Industry Relations at SoundExchange, Governor of the DC Chapter of the Recording Academy, and recognized as a Billboard R&B Hip Hop Power Player, Sean has become pivotal in transforming how artists navigate the digital music landscape. His career is marked by a deep commitment to advocating for the rights of artists, ensuring they are fairly compensated in an era dominated by digital streaming.
In his roles at SoundExchange and the Recording Academy, Glover has been at the forefront of addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing musicians today, including copyright issues, royalty distribution, and the impact of technology on creative industries. His efforts have not only contributed to the financial well-being of countless artists but have also fostered a greater understanding and appreciation of the value of music in our lives.
This is my Discovery Diary with music industry innovator, Sean Glover.
Transcript
014 - Sean Glover, Music Industry Power Player
[:[00:00:04] Damon: Sean Glover stands as a distinguished figure in the music industry with a career that spans recent decades. As the director of industry relations at sound exchange, the governor of the DC chapter of the recording academy and recognized as a billboard R and B hip hop power player. Sean has become a pivotal personality in transforming the way artists navigate The digital music landscape, his career is marked by a deep commitment to advocating for the rights of artists, ensuring that they are fairly compensated in an era where digital streaming dominates. In his role at sound exchange and with the recording academy, Glover has been at the forefront of addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing musicians today, including copyright issues. Royalty distribution and the impact of technology on creative industries, His efforts have not only [00:01:00] contributed to the financial wellbeing of countless artists, But have also fostered a greater understanding and appreciation of the value of music in our lives. Sean has a lifelong friendship with one of the acclaimed hip hop artists of today. Common bringing together. his professional and personal worlds, intertwined and creativity, support and collaboration that benefits the music community as a whole.
I'm Damon Davis. And this is my discovery diary with music industry innovator, Sean Glover.
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[00:01:35] Damon: I appreciate it.
[:[00:01:38] Damon: So I'm excited to have you here because one of the things that I realized in preparing for this is I don't really know how you got into the music industry.
[:[00:01:54] Sean: Sure. I always say that. Everybody is in the music industry, whether you're on the [00:02:00] professional side or the consumer side, because that's one thing that unites us all and say, the pandemic, showed us what united us. So let me go back. I say, there's three things that unite people, no matter what your religion is, race, sexual orientation, and that's food.
[:[00:02:47] Sean: Like really straightforward regimented. This is how it works. But I knew in my heart that. It was like blue suit, white shirt, black shoes, blue tie every day. I just didn't, it just didn't [00:03:00] feel right to me, but it was great money. I exceeded all my expectations. I was like, it's just, this is cool, but it wasn't fulfilling.
[:[00:03:21] Sean: Piecing your
[:[00:03:22] Sean: together on the road. Yeah, man. Yeah. Our practice was in Arizona. So I'm going to different time zones. It was just not good. So I took a job at Lombardi Cancer Center in Georgetown in their accounting finance department. And it was, that was the moment. And I'll tell you why.
[:[00:03:57] Sean: So she used to walk by my office [00:04:00] every day in her headphones on baggy the baggiest, the sweatpants. She was just. College student slum that. So one day she stopped, every cordial with everybody in the office. She's Hey, you guys didn't need any help. And everybody jumped up.
[:[00:04:29] Sean: They're almost family. But and at the same time I had a childhood friend Rashid, as also known as common, who was, he had two albums out. And I was like, the math wasn't that I thought it's cause you were on BET. You had a video, you were rich. Like most people. And I thought you had to solve on a radio and have some sort of celebrity and popularity that that equaled Fortune, but fame does not equal fortune.
[:[00:05:12] Sean: And I didn't understand how the money worked. And I was just curious beyond belief. And at that time going to date myself, but that's when I call it the music industry flipped on his head when file sharing. Became a thing. Everything went digital. So I don't know if you remember the Napster, the Grokster, LimeWire.
[:[00:05:36] Damon: All those peer to peer platforms where we made this transition from buying records and cassettes to actually people. having the ability to put a record on your computer and you could basically just share it back and forth and nobody had to pay for anything. If one cat paid for it, everybody had access to it , with impunity.
[:[00:06:19] Sean: And there was a woman by the name of Hillary Rosen, who was the head of the RIAA at the time I had no idea what this was, but I was like, wait a minute, they're watching the DT's. I was like, who is this white lady making all this noise? I see it's a fighter. And I just started, just following, reading newspaper just looking online.
[:[00:06:57] Sean: There was I just, people think of DC as a [00:07:00] politics town, and it is, but there's so much more. So I reached out to Hillary I was like, man, I want to work there. I was completely transparent. I was like, I don't know shit. I don't know, but I will, I do know I can read. And I can learn.
[:[00:07:14] Damon: Teach me everything.
[:[00:07:41] Sean: So for example, you hear, I'll always love you by Whitney Houston. When it's played on the radio Dolly Parton, who wrote that song gets paid, but Whitney who performs, it doesn't,
[:[00:07:55] Sean: the performer does not on FM radio. And let me go back a little further. [00:08:00] Everybody who works on the radio.
[:[00:08:14] Sean: So
[:[00:08:26] Sean: So they said, hey, we messed up there. But going forward, now that this music is digital, like we just talked about, any of those streams, digital radio, are subject to royalties. It's a novel idea of paying people for their work. They said, going forward for this new type of music, we're going to pay everyone that's involved with the creation.
[:[00:08:55] Damon: I appreciate you sharing that background, and you hit on some things that are really [00:09:00] interesting and important for folks to synthesize to point out.
[:[00:09:24] Damon: This is a means by which to get you out there over the radio. And there's no, no established means by which to get you compensated for having created that record. But it was also very hard to replicate it. I couldn't sit and listen to the radio at home and then take it to a party and play it myself. And therefore give free distribution.
[:[00:10:06] Damon: And it just blew up. So where a person was. Performing a record previously, it was only heard on the radio. Now it's heard across all these digital platforms and there's no way to get compensation. So the idea that an individual could get some compensation now based on these laws is incredibly important.
[:[00:10:45] Damon: And it's free for them. You know what I mean?
[:[00:11:09] Sean: So what radio said was. Hey, I don't have to ask for, not only, I don't have to compensate the artist, I don't even have to ask for permission to play because there's no law stopping me. So what happened was, another little history bump. And around the 50s Frank Sinatra started, picked up the torch and said, hey, people are listening to, New York, because I'm singing it.
[:[00:11:45] Damon: It wasn't Arthur Anderson what the corporate consultancy, ? No, he had different backing back in the day.
[:[00:12:06] Damon: Gotcha. So tell me what then does SoundExchange do? My, my colleagues have heard me talk about the RIAA and the fact that my wife, Michelle works downstairs for me in the DC office.
[:[00:12:37] Damon: What then is SoundExchange? What do you do?
[:[00:13:01] Sean: There's tons of internet radio stations that just play music, just like the radio in your car. The difference is the radio in your car is on right now. It's playing music. But once you get in that car, they ain't playing music. And you're listening to Michael Jackson, that equals a performance for Michael.
[:[00:13:38] Sean: They said, hey, We got to pay these people. We got to do it right. You record companies and artists, you guys get together and you create something to make sure that this happened. And we were born out of that. So our board is, we were governed by 18 board members, nine artists and nine label reps.
[:[00:14:17] Sean: They send us a log of what they play. They send us what looks like it's like self invoicing if you imagine your taxes where you fill out things blah blah blah I did this I made this and then at the end it calculates a number so they send us a log then they send us a statement of account of what they did and then they send us the money that should match the log and then from that we pay out To the artists and rights owners or label in some cases.
[:[00:15:10] Damon: Is that also a spin? Tell me a little bit about that piece and how much is a spin. When I used to go to Kemp Mill records back in the day, I had to buy the entire album, for 1599. And that was, 16, 17, 18 songs. But now I'm just sitting down and you play Prince one day, one moment and Whitney the next and run DMC.
[:[00:15:40] Sean: All right. So all radio stations, internet radio stations aren't created equal. I omitted one type of service that we pay. So we collect for cable, which is, we call them those blue channels or music choice at the end of your cable, whatever you get a TV station I don't know if you have direct TV, they just [00:16:00] stream music,
[:[00:16:03] Sean: Yeah. Satellite and internet. And in some cases AM FM radio, they rebroadcast on the web. They may, they have two types of broadcast. They may have simulcast, which is the same broadcast that they're doing on AM FM. And then they may have a new broadcast, which is totally different. So you can log on to, WBLS.
[:[00:16:46] Sean: It is many different rates. We have rates for colleges. We have rates for religious institutions. So we have rates based on if you have commercials of it's not commercials and some people have a aggregate tuning [00:17:00] hours. So some people aren't streaming all day. Like I mentioned that lady in Iowa, so she may just do it from, five to six.
[:[00:17:26] Sean: It's hard to quantify what it is but the the other people where we, you can see where, who clicks in, who jumps in that could be a per person a rate. So it's hard to tell you what the rate is. Cause it, it varies Prince might that same song that Prince is playing 1999 has different rates depending on the type of service that is being played.
[:[00:18:05] Sean: Believe it or not there's many reasons why an artist is we stopped using the word can't find, or the term can't find because sometimes we know exactly where they are. But for whatever reason they are registered and they have changed banks.
[:[00:18:27] Damon: hearing is an artist has to know to engage with you. They have to register with you.
[:[00:18:39] Sean: I don't have to report to the IRS, but you don't want them getting 30 percent of your money. Most people don't, but I think that's safe to assume. And that, that's it in a nutshell, but, Artists sometimes don't know that this money even exists because, again, there's historical context where they just think they don't have a right to [00:19:00] this.
[:[00:19:08] Sean: And they're skeptical I, in the beginning, I used to get frustrated because that was my job, I had to, they called me the anti bill collector, if I call you, I got money for you I get When you call somebody and say, I got money for you.
[:[00:19:36] Sean: You should be skeptical, but Now, I don't have as much compassion because we've been around 20 years. You should know or have somebody in your team that knows what it is but it still happens because there's new artists coming on every day, like there's, with technology, there's it happens instantly and we process billions and billions of lines of data every day new songs.[00:20:00]
[:[00:20:18] Sean: Wow. So it gets a little nuanced huh.
[:[00:20:41] Sean: Yeah, now we are at pretty much all the standard Industry conventions and publications that are that's a little older than us, a hundred years old that are valid. By proximity and the work that we've done we are validated yet. And [00:21:00] still there's there's a couple of ways to look at this artists are becoming more savvy.
[:[00:21:21] Sean: So we use their peers as validators for us. And that's always the best peer to peer is always the best. Absolutely.
[:[00:21:45] Damon: And these, I think of these as the folks that when I'm up late at night watching TV and there's a commercial for, All these artists that have been, recording for four decades and they're still out on the road trying to make money. It's partially because their prior contract was so terrible [00:22:00] that they still are trying to recuperate some of the earnings they could have had if their career had been paid properly from the early days.
[:[00:22:20] Sean: man. It was like I felt like it was a it was like a duty. And an honor to be able to, I wouldn't say I write it some wrongs, but just playing a little part in helping them live a healthy life and get in there just do, because like you mentioned historically these communities and these people were disenfranchised, taking advantage of, and all the things we, the story, everybody knows the story.
[:[00:23:11] Sean: You can, you're going to find out what you need to find out. You got a skill we need. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you stalker ex girlfriends, man, this is the sound exchange is the place for you. But yeah, now with, with the internet, you can be very resourceful and find those people, but I'll tell you, there's nothing more gratifying.
[:[00:23:50] Sean: I paid my gas bill with, I didn't know this was coming. It's almost like they hit the lottery, but it would be. To us, it may not look big. And I stopped saying that because [00:24:00] it's all relative. There's a lot of people that we know and love that are, step away from driving a cab, nothing wrong with driving a cab, but you would think these people that gave us this beautiful art, this should not be there.
[:[00:24:13] Damon: that's, I love this notion of basically allowing someone to recuperate losses. From a long time ago, hard work that they did performing for some of the songs that we know today. And I'd love you to just take us home with a story of reaching out and locating the artists.
[:[00:24:58] Sean: I want to say, I see what you did that when you said people [00:25:00] adore Prince. I see. That was a good, thanks
[:[00:25:05] Sean: So we get a list of unregistered artists and Prince was public enemy number one. It was just whatever number you have in your head, just multiply it by three. I, it was my thing, man.
[:[00:25:44] Sean: Someone went to GW and here we'll get catch lunch. Terry's a regular guy, but he's also one of Prince's best friends. So they grew up together in Minnesota. I went to high school together as one of his good friends. And it didn't click to me. To ask Terry to help, maybe if he can help. So one [00:26:00] day I was talking to him and it's man, I need to, I'm trying to get to Prince blah, blah, blah.
[:[00:26:23] Sean: You called it. I told you to call the dude. So they got into a little fun. What is it for? Why don't they have my money? So Terry's call the man. I'm just telling you, call the man. So Prince calls me and here's how it went. His assistant called and a number came up on my phone. It was like 12 nines, David.
[:[00:26:44] Sean: nine,
[:[00:26:45] Sean: I was like, wait. It was like, wait. I was
[:[00:26:48] Sean: I picked it up and it was his assistant. He's P would like to talk to you, this is Bumble and P would like to talk to you. And I was like, all right, What does Master P want? You know what I mean? I'm like,
[:[00:26:59] Sean: She's Prince. [00:27:00] I was like, oh yeah. She's I got your number from her. I was like, okay, cool. So I pulled over, He gets on the phone and he is wanting to know do we get the right to collect this money? And this should go back to the beginning of our conversation. What we collect for as a statutory license, which means that the, Services don't have to, they just get a blanket license.
[:[00:27:50] Sean: to me He started asking about other artists. Like he said Angie stone a few other people. I was like that's cool. He cares about them. We got it done. I wasn't
[:[00:28:03] Damon: Let me ask about a couple of other people. That's really cool.
[:[00:28:15] Damon: this for again?
[:[00:28:22] Sean: So it it got to the point where
[:[00:28:26] Sean: Prince would call me and I, I would look at my phone and I thought of my life would never be that on the phone. He's a big practical joker, but I didn't know that at first. So I was like, I'm thinking to myself, Oh, this shit is funny. And then he would laugh. I was like, Oh yeah, I was right.
[:[00:29:06] Sean: And I think that's, I think it's well not well documented that's part of the. Reason why he passed, just trying to get to a show, coping with pain and, all those things. But I want everyone to realize when we go to a show and see someone perform, really take your time to appreciate what they're giving us and what, and think about the gifts that they're sharing with us and appreciate it.
[:[00:29:44] Damon: And high heels too. You know what I mean? You're right. Sean Glover this has been absolutely fantastic. I really appreciate your knowledge and I appreciate you sharing with us the background of what this music industry is working on. It's super important because [00:30:00] as you've said, every single one of us is part of the music industry, whether we know it or not.
[:[00:30:08] Sean: You can find me on at one black man on Instagram and Twitter. Fantastic. O-N-E-E-P-L-A-C-K-M-A-N. But thank you. You're doing a great job too, man. This is fabulous. I only did this because of relationship, and you are you're one of the best brother, so we appreciate you.
[:[00:30:25] Damon: Thank you, man. Take care. All the best to you, Sean. Appreciate you being here.
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