Welcome back to our “Pass the Mic” Q&A series, where we give some of the best music-business journalists a place to tell their own stories. In this installment, we focus on Chris Cooke, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Complete Music Update (CMU), an expert in the industry and noted enjoyer of the word “THRILLED.”
Chris launched CMU in 1998 to help people navigate and understand the music business. Beyond its presence as a media outlet, CMU also maintains a consultancy unit and training business, as well as a future talent program.
Chris is a very busy man beyond his journalism. Through the CMU consultancy, he curated and hosted 12 editions of The Great Escape Conference, wrote the acclaimed book “Dissecting the Digital Dollar,” compiled the “Music Copyright Explained” report for the U.K.’s Intellectual Property Office, and advises music industry organizations like the U.K.’s Council of Music Makers.
He also co-founded the Pathways Into Music Foundation, a not-for-profit that connects music education and the music industry, including by running professional development weekends educating music teachers about the music industry and music careers, as well as an annual Music Industry + Music Education Conference.
He also pursues other projects via UnLimited Media, which champions and supports the music, culture, media, and communication industries through journalism, research and training, educational initiatives, and live events – including the cultural recommendations service ThisWeek Culture and its sister magazine ThreeWeeks at the Edinburgh Festival.
In addition, Chris helped to launch and develop the award-winning Taylor Bennett Foundation, which is enabling more ethnic diversity in the communications industry.
So how did Chris get to where he is today? How is he able to understand the legal nuances of the music industry so well? And why is he so obsessed with music from TV shows? Learn all of that and more in our Q&A below!
(Editor’s note: I am respecting Chris’ thoughts on The Oxford Comma below, though he is obviously wrong.)
When did you first realize that you wanted to become a journalist?
I was obsessed with all things media from an early age and produced various fanzines and DIY magazines as a teenager, which, thankfully, were made when the world wide web was still being invented, so are not sitting in some forgotten corner of the internet (but may still be sitting in a dusty box in my parents’ garage).
At university in Edinburgh, I did student journalism and student radio, produced student theatre, helped promote student union nights, and got involved in student union communications. Through all that, I got lots of experience writing and editing, and in graphic design, event production, marketing and PR.
While in Edinburgh, I also got involved in the marvelous, magical, awe-inspiring Edinburgh Fringe, and in 1996 teamed up with some fellow students to set up a magazine covering the festival called ThreeWeeks.
That involved lots of editing, design and management tasks, but also meant I got to write about shows and performers, and especially comedy. The first interview I ever did was with Stewart Lee, who, I think, remains my favourite stand-up. We still publish ThreeWeeks every summer; this August will be our 30th year!
When I moved to London in 1997, I was keen to set up something new and again teamed up with some fellow former Edinburgh students to launch CMU. That’s where all the music business journalism began.
What is it about the business of music that made you want to focus on it in particular?
When we set up CMU, the aim was to cover both music and the music business. My co-founder Alastair said he wanted to write about music – and he was 1,000% more qualified than me to do that – so I said I’d write about the music business. At that point, I knew basically nothing about the music business. So, I started asking an awful lot of questions and slowly began to understand how all the different strands of the industry work.
This was in 1998. The following year, Napster launched, and I started writing about this thing called digital music. So Napster, Grokster, Kazaa, Limewire and everything that followed in terms of online piracy, but also Peoplesound, iCrunch, Vitaminic and eMusic, and then iTunes, and then Spotify, YouTube and TikTok.
I think I’m most interested in how frontline artists, and other music-makers, go about building businesses around their music. All music-makers are also entrepreneurs – albeit sometimes reluctant entrepreneurs – running a company and seeking ways to generate income from their music-making.
They then hire the services of managers, agents, lawyers and accountants and forge partnerships with labels, publishers, promoters, merchandisers and so on to unlock and expand different revenue streams. The often-complicated music industry is much easier to navigate if you begin with a frontline artist business, and understand how that artist makes money and the partners they need to work with along the way.
What led you to co-found CMU, and what gap in music-industry coverage were you trying to fill at the time?
Our original aim with CMU was to bridge the gap between the grassroots music industry across the U.K. and the mainstream music industry, much of which was based in London.
The world wide web was still in its infancy in 1998, so we used our contacts at universities and colleges to reach out to the grassroots. So student newspapers, student radio stations, student union club nights, and – via those communities – fanzines and grassroots labels and promoters and so on. The “C” of CMU originally stood for “College.”
Supporting grassroots music and music-makers is still one of our aims, especially via our educational work, plus the Pathways Into Music not-for-profit we founded in 2020.
As our music business coverage grew and became our primary output – especially after the CMU Daily bulletin was launched in 2002 – a key objective became explaining what’s going on, as well as reporting it, especially with more complex issues around copyright, music licensing, streaming economics and so on. In 2003, I went back to university part-time to study law so I could better report on and explain all the legal stuff.
That’s still key to our journalism, but also the training and consultancy side of CMU, where we help everyone – from grassroots artists to the corporate C-suite – navigate and understand the music business. Many experts in the music industry mainly understand the strand of the business they work in, but not necessarily the other strands. They are experts on their “cog” of the music business machine; we know how the cogs fit together.
In your opinion, what are the most interesting things happening in the music business right now?
I guess I have to mention artificial intelligence (AI). AI is obviously impacting on how music is made, marketed and monetised. Though when it comes to the commercial, rather than practical, potential of AI in music, I don’t think anyone really knows where things are heading.
It does feel like mood music and production music will be increasingly AI-generated, but to what extent AI music tools will get truly mainstream pick-up – and to what extent AI-generated music will compete with human artists for fans – I think it’s too soon to say.
Journalistically, I’m very interested in the debate around Live Nation dominating in live music and Universal dominating on the rights side. In the U.S. and U.K., it’s very hard to tour above theatre-level without involving Live Nation. And while you can release tracks and publish songs without working with Universal, or any of the majors, they still have a lot of control over the digital business models everyone has to work with.
There is a logic to many of the strategies employed by the major players in live and music rights, and lots of great people work at these companies, but ultimately, these are global publicly listed corporations that are obliged to put the interests of their investors first.
Sometimes the interests of those investors are aligned with the interests of artists and songwriters, and indie labels and publishers. But sometimes they are not. I’m not sure copyright and competition regulators around the world have really grasped when and why that’s a problem, or what to do about it.
Which current trends do you think have the best chance of standing the test of time?
It feels like the industry gets excited about direct-to-fan (D2F) and superfans every few years, and then everyone stops talking about it. But for frontline artists, I think this remains a key and often under-tapped opportunity. Ultimately, from an artist perspective, the music business is pretty simple: build a fanbase, understand your fanbase, and then sell them stuff. The tricky question is: what do you sell them, and how do you sell it?
The superfan opportunity has grown in recent years, with more fans willing to pay for artist-specific digital products and experiences. That seems unlikely to change. But the exact opportunity is different for each artist, depending on them and their fanbase, and figuring out what works for each artist is the challenge.
Some commentary puts D2F in opposition with subscription streaming and suggests the former could ultimately replace the latter. But they don’t really compete. While there remain issues with the streaming business model – and Spotify in particular gets a lot of criticism, some of it justified – I think, for the foreseeable future, the streaming services will remain key revenue generators for the music rights side of the business.
Any predictions for future trends in the music business over the next 5 years?
As I said, I think mood music and production music, especially for lower-budget online videos, will be increasingly AI-generated. Which means on the streaming services, personalised mood music feeds will replace the mood music playlists. And on user-generated content services, creators will press a button, and the app will soundtrack their videos. I don’t quite know what this means for music industry revenues.
I think the D2F opportunity will continue to grow and that more artists will capitalise on it. Will that mean the D2F strand of the industry will grow too? So, as well as the D2F platforms, you start to see more companies helping artists manage this revenue stream, and maybe investing in it as well? I’d like to think so, though this strand of the industry has taken a lot longer to develop than I originally expected.
Is there one thing people consistently misunderstand about how you decide which stories to cover?
CMU is very news-driven, so what we report on every day is very much dependent on what happened in the previous 24 hours. Our more in-depth stories are generally focused on things like litigation, campaigns, disputes and controversies, while deals and appointments will go in the News In Brief section.
We probably write about big debates and disputes more than some of our competitors, so we are more likely to cover stories of that kind. As I said, we like to explain what’s going on, not just report it, and it’s these kinds of stories where some background explanation can really help readers understand what’s happening.
Are there any recurring behaviors or assumptions in industry communications that tend to make your job more difficult?
Good PR is about being reactive as well as proactive. When we’re writing more in-depth articles, sometimes we need background information to help us explain what’s happening. That’s when our PR contacts are really important. And we need responses fast because we are very news-driven, meaning we don’t often know in advance what we’ll be writing about, and once we’re writing about it, we have a tight deadline to meet.
With my music business consultant hat on, I wish music companies would put as much effort into communicating with artists, songwriters and their managers as they do in communicating with media. Every time you issue a press release about a major deal or restructure, you should be sending an update and FAQ to every music-maker you have a relationship with, including those with music deep in your catalogue.
Think hard about what information they need to understand what’s going on and do everything you can to provide it. Be ready and willing to answer any tricky questions that come back – talk “with” rather than “to” music-makers. Your legal team almost certainly won’t like that. They’ll have reasons why key information shouldn’t be shared. But fuck them. Effective communications often begins with telling a lawyer to fuck off.
What do you think is the best thing you’ve ever written?
I’m probably most proud of the various guides we have produced through our consultancy unit. That includes the “Music Copyright Explained” guide we created for the U.K.’s Intellectual Property Office. And the various guides we’ve published with the Music Managers Forum, not least the “Digital Dollar” reports that became the “Dissecting The Digital Dollar” book. I’m working on the next edition of that right now, and if I admit that here, maybe that’ll force me to get it finished for publication later this year!
Within CMU itself, I think our coverage of the big streaming debates is up there. Because the streaming business is complex, and we understand it really well, and I think we’re pretty good at explaining those complexities in an accessible way. We also understand how things differ around the world. Things differ in the U.S. from the U.K. from the rest of Europe, and we always point out those differences when they matter.
Sometimes CMU can be quite sarcastic. We used to do that a lot more, but it does still come through on occasion, and some of my favourite CMU articles in the archives are the funny ones. I still find capitalising “THRILLED” in quotes funny, even if everyone else got tired of that joke many years ago!
When you’re at conferences or other events, do you prefer to talk about music itself, the music industry, or something else entirely?
When I’m on stage, I mainly talk about the music industry, because that’s what I know about. I’m not qualified to talk about making music, and I’m not sure my opinions about music itself are worth hearing.
That said, I love hearing artists talk about their music-making process. My favourite artist is Chilly Gonzales, and he used to do YouTube videos for a German radio station breaking down pop songs in the way academics would usually talk about classical music, and I love that.
However, those are the conversations I love to listen to – and could possibly moderate – but they’re not topics I could talk about myself.
What’s your music “hot take”?
Some of my favourite pieces of music are TV theme songs. I think TV themes should get more respect. And video streaming services should stop cutting off end credits when those themes are playing out.
What’s a song/album you’ve loved recently? What makes it stand out for you?
The song I am most obsessed about at the moment was released in 2018, but I only discovered it recently because it played over the end credits of the final episode of “Heated Rivalry” – it’s Cailin Russo’s “Bad Things.” I just love that intro and how the lyrics kick in. I’ve repeat played it an awful lot in recent weeks.
I shouldn’t really admit this – the music supervisors on that show will probably use comments like this to justify discounts when negotiating sync licences for series two. I apologise to sync licensing people everywhere.
What is a song/album you love that people might not expect you to like? What drew you to it?
It’s not a song or album, but I spend a lot of time on YouTube – reaction videos are my guilty pleasure – and I love the musicians who make Omegle videos. So they go on a website like Omegle, surprise and delight people hanging out on those platforms with their musical skills, and then post the footage on YouTube.
The creators I follow most closely include Marcus Veltri, Rob Landes and Frank Tedesco. I will always be amazed at musicians who can listen to a track for 30 seconds and then play it perfectly on their instrument of choice, and I love watching other people being similarly amazed.
Lightning Round: Give me one word that sums up your thoughts on the below topics.
Sorry, I’ve broken the rules here and given you three-word answers instead. The “rule of three” is the one bit of marketing industry bullshit I sort of buy into.
- Embargoes – annoying but understandable
- AI – brilliant but scary
- Social media – brilliant but annoying
- Taskmaster – prefer Horne Section
- Press releases – don’t send PDFs
- Meeting for coffee – large cappuccino please
- The BRITs – decent marketing platform
- The Grammys – another marketing platform
- Deadline days – every fucking weekday
- The Oxford Comma – hardly ever justified
- Follow-up emails – a good idea
- The Olympics – not really interested
- Cold phone calls – never answer these