AI is blowing up music. How should the Grammys handle it?

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Decoder with Nilay Patel
Episode: AI is blowing up music. How should the Grammys handle it?
Date: June 1, 2026
Guest: Harvey Mason Jr. – CEO of the Recording Academy

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Overview

This episode of Decoder explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming music creation, production, and the industry’s traditional structures like the Grammys. Host Nilay Patel speaks with Harvey Mason Jr., a renowned songwriter, producer, and CEO of the Recording Academy (the organization behind the Grammys). Their conversation spans new AI tools in the studio, shifting industry economics, mounting legislative issues, and what it means for recognition and authenticity in music.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Changing Structure of the Recording Academy

• Growth and Adaptation:
  • The Academy now employs over 300 people and continues to expand, adapting to changes in technology, music genres, and global trends.
  • Significant new partnership with Disney/ABC after 50+ years with CBS is driving a content-first strategy—more documentaries, scripted content, and global music outreach.
    • “We created Grammy Studios ... approaching a content-first strategy.” (05:31 – 06:17)
• Decision-Making Framework:
  • Harvey emphasizes a collaborative, team-based approach, drawing from his experience in sports and music.
  • Reiterates the importance of diverse perspectives for strategic planning.
    • “A big part of my decision making is gathering information from people that I trust ... I come from sports ... and those are team efforts.” (06:28 – 07:22)

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2. The Economics and Vibes in the Music Industry

• Live Events in Turmoil:
  • Rising ticket prices and "Blue Dot Fever" (empty seats in seating charts), with major artists cancelling tours, reflect shifting market dynamics and consumer pressure.
    • “Are the vibes ... Blue Dot Fever ... I do [think it’s real] ... trepidation ... concern, fears ... but I also see a lot of opportunity.” (09:02 – 09:30)
• Commercialization and Brand Partnerships:
  • Artists increasingly rely on brand activations, merch, syncs, and collaborations beyond recorded music to generate income, as the recorded music revenue model remains difficult.
    • “Brand activations, packaging ... Even food. You see food coming together with music ... those are great things ...” (14:37 – 15:39)

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3. AI’s Impact on Music Creation and Process

• Rapid Progress and Omnipresence:
  • Tremendous leap in quality: AI-generated music is now often indistinguishable from human-made tracks.
    • “The quality ... has improved dramatically. 18 months ago you could tell when something was AI-generated. Now ... I’m surprised and impressed by the quality.” (20:21 – 21:17)
• Studio Realities:
  • In pop, R&B, and even country, AI is used everywhere:
    • Chord progressions, drum loops, lyrics, background vocals, demo performances, and even in film score arrangement.
    • “AI is generally always there. ... to create chord progressions ... fill out drum loops … entire tracks … lyrics … background vocals … demos.” (21:50 – 24:16)
• Mixed Emotions and Issues of Artistic Merit:
  • Creators wrestle with AI’s democratizing power vs. devaluing years of training and artistic struggle.
    • “It’s a challenge ... because I am a creator, but I’m also overseeing or trying to help serve music people in the music community.” (24:11 – 24:16)
• Genre-Specific Adoption:
  • Even country music—considered more “traditional”—is incorporating AI for demos and arrangements as the industry commercializes.
    • “I’m a little surprised ... that it is permeating the country scene … But you have to figure out how you’re going to use it: tool or replacement?” (25:02 – 26:11)

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4. Public Perception, Artist Transparency, and The AI "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell"

• Audience Skepticism:
  • Most listeners claim to dislike AI-generated music and are wary of artists using AI tools, especially among Gen Z.
    • “Younger people, the more they use AI, the more they dislike it ... music industry has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy about AI music.” (26:48 – 27:35)
• Invisibility of AI in Credits:
  • Industry participants believe AI use is often unacknowledged, likened to “Ozempic for music” (everyone uses it, no one admits it).
    • “SUNO is the Ozempic of the music industry. Everybody’s on it, nobody wants to talk about it.” (27:35)

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5. AI and The Grammys: Rules, Enforcement, and the Slippery Slope

• Current Rules:
  • AI doesn’t make a song ineligible per se, but human creativity must remain “more than de minimis.”
    • If AI performs, no Grammy for performance. If AI writes and a human sings, the performer can be honored.
    • “AI doesn’t make you ineligible … as long as you can show a human was involved ... we will say it’s acceptable.” (32:01 – 33:27)
• Enforcement Challenges:
  • Reliance on honor system, community disclosure, and subjective committee screening. No robust technical method (yet) for verifying human/AI contributions.
    • “We ask ... did you use AI? ... Some people are going to tell you, some people are not ... At some point, we’ll have to decide: do we completely ban AI?” (27:35 – 32:01)
• Overwhelm & The Deluge of Submissions
  • With 24,000+ entries last year and tens of thousands of AI songs uploaded daily to platforms, the Academy is wary, but so far, managing.
    • “We had about 24,000 submissions ... If ... AI becomes an issue for us ... then we’re going to make changes.” (36:02 – 37:04)

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6. Legislation, Platform Policy, and Artist Advocacy

• Legislation Efforts:
  • Several bills proposed:
    • NO FAKES Act (voice, image, likeness protection)
    • TRAIN Act (audit/royalty rights for training data)
    • CLEAR Act (transparency on what’s in the model)
    • Bipartisan alignment in Congress, but passage is slow.
    • “There is a lot of alignment around these ... Let’s get something on the books right now and then refine it.” (47:16 – 47:39)
• Platforms Creating Private Rules:
  • YouTube and Spotify piloting frameworks (e.g., likeness detection, human-certified labels) but outcomes are fragmented and variable.
    • “It feels like a first step ... attempts to protect the artist ... but it does make it difficult for artists.” (48:44 – 49:58)
• Artist Compensation and Ownership:
  • Deep concern for the imbalance between tech platform wealth and artist compensation/power.
    • “I look at the state of ... the world economy and I think those guys shouldn’t be as rich as they are, and all of the artists should be much richer than they are.” (50:04 – 50:16)
    • “What they do for society and what we do for the world ... [musicians] should have the ability to control what they make and decide how it’s being used.” (50:26 – 51:51)

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7. Tools, Sound, and The Future of Genre

• AI as Inspiration vs. Formula:
  • Coolest use: AI platforms generate song stems, which live musicians then iterate on collaboratively—using AI as a springboard, not a replacement.
    • “People using the platform to create songs and generate stems ... then having live musicians iterate off the stems ... it’s almost like you’re having a writing partner.” (56:07 – 57:13)
• Less about "The AI Sound," More about Diffusion:
  • Unlike past technologies (drum machines, synthesizers, autotune) that created new genres, AI’s influence is too diffused for a single new “AI sound.”
    • “I don’t think it’s going to be one thing because AI is so all across the board ... you can’t define its individual use.” (58:07 – 59:14)

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8. The Grammys on Disney: The Future of Awards in the Age of Algorithms

• Why Move to Disney?
  • Greater global reach and storytelling capabilities to counter cultural fragmentation; not just about a bigger check but furthering the Academy’s mission.
    • “We wanted to ... reach more music people ... more international ... Disney was a great partner.” (60:21 – 61:38)
• Live Events as Anchor in Attention Economy:
  • Belief that live, communal events—like the Grammys—retain unique cultural power and are resilient even as the “monoculture” fragments.
    • “People want to see things that are timely that you can’t record and watch later because there’s that social element of it.” (63:51 – 65:02)
• Expanding Content:
  • Anticipate more music documentaries, artist stories, and international programming via Disney platforms.
    • “Our hope is that Grammy Studios will continue to evolve and grow ... to tell more stories about music people.” (65:11)

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9. Addressing Platform-Shifting Audiences (TikTok, YouTube)

• Reaching Young Audiences:
  • The Grammys and music industry embracing TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Instagram Reels to stay relevant and capture new listeners.
    • “We want to be where music fans are ... YouTube ... platforms ... a massive explosion of consumption in other mediums on the digital side.” (66:06 – 66:53)
    • “TikTok is ... a massive influencer and it’s a huge platform for music people ... proven to bring a lot of eyeballs and ears to the table.” (66:56 – 67:31)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI in All Sessions:
  “AI is generally always there. ... you have to figure out how you’re going to use it: tool or replacement? That is going to change per industry.”
  — Harvey Mason Jr. (21:50 – 26:11)

• On Policy and the Human Line:
  “AI doesn’t exclude you from the process. We just have to make sure that the human creativity is at the forefront.”
  — Harvey Mason Jr. (32:01)

• On Enforcement Limitation:
  “We’re going to have to rely on our community to be forthcoming ... it’s not a perfect science.”
  — Harvey Mason Jr. (35:02)

• On Technological Change & Culture:
  “Drum machines were a very specific example. Whereas AI is ... all across the board. ... I don’t think it’s the same thing where you’re going to say, 'Oh, that’s that AI sound.'”
  — Harvey Mason Jr. (58:07 – 59:14)

• On Creativity & Worth:
  “Artists and creators ... are special. What they do for society … should be compensated, ... should have the ability to control what they make ... I just strongly believe that.”
  — Harvey Mason Jr. (50:26)

• On Deciding Grammy Winners:
  “It's always about the voters ... we have eight nominees and seven of them lose ... But the process comes down to the voters.”
  — Harvey Mason Jr. (67:38)

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Timestamps of Major Segments

• [03:25] Harvey Mason Jr. returns, overview of Recording Academy structure and Disney partnership
• [09:00] Blue Dot Fever, ticket prices, live music economics
• [14:39] Commercialization and brand partnerships
• [20:21] AI’s progression in music creation; Mason’s evolving view
• [21:50] Specific ways AI is being used in studios
• [26:11] Country music and unexpected adoption of AI
• [27:35] Polls, public perception, and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” AI culture
• [32:01] Grammy rules on AI, de minimis human involvement
• [36:02] Logistics: submissions, risk of being overwhelmed by AI-generated material
• [47:16] Legislative efforts, platform policy patchwork
• [50:26] Artist value vs. tech platform economics
• [56:07] The most innovative AI-enabled techniques Mason has seen
• [60:21] Grammys move to Disney and future content strategies
• [66:06] Social video, TikTok’s massive influence
• [67:38] The Grammys voting process and its enduring subjectivity

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains Nilay Patel’s thoughtful, sometimes skeptical but engaging journalistic style. Harvey Mason Jr. responds candidly, occasionally with optimism, but remains pragmatic and clear-eyed about the challenges and ambiguities.

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Takeaways for Non-Listeners

• AI is already deeply embedded in mainstream music creation, and its quality is now almost indistinguishable from traditional production.
• The Recording Academy and Grammys are in uncharted territory, working to balance human artistry with technological innovation without a foolproof enforcement system.
• Both the music business and music culture are experiencing pressures: economic pressures on touring, shifting revenue sources, and the need for global platforms and new content formats.
• There is institutional, legislative, and community ambiguity about where the “human line” sits, and enforcement relies as much on honor as on technical detection.
• The move to Disney and increased digital outreach shows a bet that music’s social power, human stories, and live events will continue to define the music business—no matter how AI floods the creative process.

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Transcript

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[Harvey Mason Jr.]

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[Harvey Mason Jr.]

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[Nilay Patel]

hello and welcome to Decoder.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

I'm Neil I. Patel, editor in chief of the Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking with Harvey Mason Jr. The CEO of the recording Academy. That's the outfit that puts on the Grammy Awards. I last talked to Harvey in 2024 when it was obvious that generative AI would upend the music industry, but not exactly clear how or how fast that would happen. Well, it's been 18 months since that conversation, and you're going to hear Harvey say that AI is now omnipresent in music production. And Harvey knows what he's talking about. He is himself a legendary music producer who's worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Beyonce. I've heard Harvey say that every session he's been in recently has had AI in it, and I really wanted to know what that meant. What kinds of tools are musicians using in what way? And what kind of music is it making for us? Is it any good? Because as it stands, there's an exponential increase in the rate of AI music creation. The streaming platform Deezer has reported that more than 50,000 AI generated songs are being uploaded every day. And all that AI generated music is getting harder to identify and filter out, while at the same time, tools like SUNO have become mainstream parts of the creative process for musicians of all kinds. So I really wanted to know what Harvey's experiences with all that looked like and how he balances all that against his role running the Grammy Awards, especially since the Recording Academy's rules say that AI music isn't eligible for the industry's highest honors. As you can tell, there's a lot going on in this one. Harvey and I also talked about the Grammys moving to Disney after years on cbs and what it means to reach new, younger audiences with award shows in the age of TikTok. If you're a Decoder listener, you know that I'm always saying whatever happens to the music industry happens to everything else five years later. And this conversation really highlights that. Okay, Harvey Mason, Jr. The CEO of the Recording Academy, on the future of AI and music.

[Nilay Patel]

Here we go. Aubrey Mason, Jr. Your songwriter, your producer, and your CEO of the recording Academy. Welcome back to Decoder.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Thank you. Good to be here, man.

[Nilay Patel]

I'm excited to talk to you. It's been about a year and a half since you're on the show. A lot has happened a lot in a year and a half. I actually just want to start with like a lightning round of the decoder questions. Ask every CEO the same questions. But I have so much on my list that I'm just going to just do a check in on whether these things have changed, changed. Your CEO of the Recording Academy, that's the organization that puts on the Grammys. You run musicares or charity. It's kind of the social support system for most of the musicians in the United States. How is the Recording Academy structured? How many people work there? And has it changed at all in the past year and a half?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

It's definitely changed. We continue to grow and progress and try and do more, reach more people. As you said, we serve music and all the people that make it in a lot of different ways through our Grammy organization, which includes the museum, The Grammy Museum, MusiCares, as you mentioned, our advocacy efforts in D.C. and state lawmaker working with state lawmakers around the country. And then of course, the Grammy show. And so we're a little over 300 people. So it's not a massive organization. But we punch above our weight and we do a lot of work and we're very active. The way that it's changed is I think we're doing a good job of keeping up with the changes that are happening and that is non stop, especially with technology, new styles of delivering music, creating music, consuming music, and then also trying to make sure that we're staying in tune or relevant with what's happening in music genres, things that are happening way things are new popularity comes up, people are consuming different styles of music, music from different parts of the world. All those are things that are ever changing. And I love that our organization is moving quickly and staying ahead of a lot of those things.

[Nilay Patel]

Are you investing more on the policy side, on the production side where you're saying you're changing? Specifically part is growing.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

One of the things that really is going to affect a big change is our partnership with Disney ABC. We were at CBS for 50 something years and so for the first time this year we will be with Disney abc and that gives us the ability to do so much more. As you said, investing in content, storytelling. We have more opportunities for using our Grammy brand and to tell music stories in different ways, documentaries, scripted, other forms of music content. Because Disney as our partner just has an appetite for more of that than we had previously. So that will be a change. We've created Grammy Studios, which is exciting. That'll be our arm to create a lot of that content. And we're really approaching content first strategy. So when we're doing events or we're doing masterclasses or we're doing Grammy houses around the world, we're going to be filming them and creating content around those.

[Nilay Patel]

The other question I ask every CEO comes on is about decision making. What's your framework for making a decision? I'm just going to tell you. 18 months ago when you're on the show, you said you like to think a lot and then make a decision really fast. Has your framework changed at all?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

No. If I didn't include the collaborative approach of decision making, I was probably thinking too fast and you might have caught me on lightning round. But a big part of my decision making is gathering information from people that I trust and people that are around me and people that are experts. Because I don't pretend to be the expert in every department of what we do. I do think I have a great group of people that give a lot of different insight and diverse perspectives and really special specialized thinking. And I come from sports. I played basketball, as you know. I'm a songwriter, as you know. And those are team efforts. You write songs together. You're not sitting in a room all by yourself. At least the way that I work, you do that with other people and the best idea wins. And the same for sports. Like you have a role on the team. If you're great at that one role, you do that. You don't try and do everything. So that has always been my style of leadership or decision making.

[Nilay Patel]

Describe that structure and you say group people around you. Recording academies at 300 people. Just how's that structured? How many people work for you and then how. What roles do they play in the larger organization?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

So we have a president, we have a chief of strategy, I have a chief of staff. We have different department heads. I have about 12 people reporting to me at this time. And we've gone back and forth on that number and it changes from time to time. I've done a couple reorganizations over the six years now that I've been in the role. And each of those department heads manages, obviously a department, but they all kind of report up to me. And we ultimately have meetings to make the decisions that we think are the most important. Right now we're undergoing a strategic plan build which is, I think, incredible. And it's been an amazing process for our organization. Each of the department heads is bringing ideas and we're coming up with objectives and goals and real strategies to accomplish those goals. That's been a really. I really enjoyed the process. And then of course, budgeting against that is another thing that's going to be a fun challenge for us. So we're right in the middle of that process.

[Nilay Patel]

The reason I ask all this is I feel like if we rewound the clock five, ten years ago, I could sort of understand the music industry, you know, and my thesis on the show is if you pay attention to what happens to the music industry, you will know what will happen to every other creative industry five years from now. It's always fastest in music change. Five years ago okay, we. We've come through the shift to streaming artists understand they're going to get paid pennies on the dollar for from Spotify even if they get a billion streams. We got to find other revenue lines. We're going to do sync licenses where everyone's going to do a Keds ad. We're going to be on tour all day and all night.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

And that's a deep cut. But thank you.

[Nilay Patel]

You know it now. It's like that's all upended. Right. So I want to ask you about the vibes in the industry right now. And it's not just AI that's upending the industry. I'm reading the, you know, the music press this past week, everyone about Blue Dot Fever, right. This notion that there are blue dots and all the Ticketmaster seating charts represent empty seats and big artists are canceling tours. You got Meghan Trainor, the Pusscat Dolls, Post Malone just canceled about six dates. Are the vibes. Well, first of all, I'm just curious, do you think Blue Dot Fever is real?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I do. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but from what I'm reading, you know, I'm probably reading a lot of the same thing you are. It seems like it's a very, very serious issue, and it seems like we've been trying to deal with ticketing issues for some time now, and there's some discrepancies on the information that we're hearing. Hopefully, we can get to the bottom of some of it. Obviously, there's. There's legal cases going on, but the vibes in the industry, from what I'm seeing, are there's a lot of trepidation, there's a lot of concern, there's fears around some of the ticketing issues, but also AI and I'm sure that's the topic that is at the tip of everyone's tongue, but I also see a lot of opportunity. There's more music being created, more music being listened. Lot of live opportunities out there. I know you mentioned some that have been canceled, but there's others that are doing really, really well. I was just at Coachella last or a couple weeks ago, and I mean, what a spectacle. What an amazing event and series of events. And now you see they sold out for next year without even announcing a lineup. So there are things that are working really, really well.

[Nilay Patel]

The reason I'm pushing and I'm starting with live is I again, five, ten years ago, I think the industry figured it out.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Right?

[Nilay Patel]

Okay. There's stuff we can monetize and there's stuff we can't. And the idea that the music itself was hard to monetize, I think that was a paradigm shift in the industry.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Right.

[Nilay Patel]

You're going to make a. You're going to cut a record, and that thing is not going to make you all the money unless you're at the very top of the game. It's all the other stuff that's going to make you money. That pressure has led to rising ticket prices. Post Covid. Right. Everyone's going to be on tour forever.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

But also the demand has led to some rising ticket prices. I think there's a high demand to see a lot of artists, depending on who it is. And again, you've said some artists that didn't have as much success selling, but there have been other events where money's not even the object. People just want to go see great entertainers and create music. So I think it's a combination of both.

[Nilay Patel]

Do you think ticket prices are just going to keep going up? I kind of worry that ticket prices are just going to keep going up.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Well, considering what's happened to other commodities or other things in our world that we live in, doesn't seem like there's any end in sight. You look at gas, you look at food, you look at rent, the cost of living. I hope that ticket prices find some kind of a level, because I would hate that to be an experience that only certain people got to take advantage of. I think music and watching music and being entertained by songwriters and creators and singers, that's a part of who we are and that stuff that we need just to feel human and to feel alive and to be able to find that common ground with other people. So I would like to think we find a way to allow people to go to concerts. But again, if you look at where we're headed as a society, it just seems like the cost of things is running away from us.

[Nilay Patel]

Right next to that, there's a big lawsuit against Ticketmaster. The federal government settled. Ticketmaster agreed to some changes already with the federal government. That settlement, I think the state attorneys general did not think was strong enough. They pursued the case. They've won. Something else is going to happen. Do you see the Ticketmaster case having an impact already, and do you see a bigger impact in the future?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I definitely think it's going to have an impact. I think it is going to depend on how it plays out. There's still a couple rounds left in that. From what I can tell and what I'm hearing. Once that shakes out, then we'll be able to see what the effect will be.

[Nilay Patel]

The reason I'm starting with live is because I feel like live, it was understood how to make money in live, and that is kind of shaky right now. The idea that tours are getting canceled or we're over supplying a market with rising costs and people are going to pick gas and groceries over seeing their favorite artists, that's unsettling, I think, in

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

the industry, but I also think that's going to be such an appealing proposition. Live events more in the future than even now. I would bet that depending on ticket prices and accessibility, of course, things are to be considered. People are going to want to go see live music. They want live experiences. You're seeing more and more people on computers and phones and AI and the way they're working remotely. I. I personally believe being together like we're doing this podcast is much better than doing it on zoom. Listening to music is going to be much better for people than just doing it on headphones. They want to be somewhere where you can be among your peers, among people that love the same music and feel that, experience it again. I was at Coachella. I felt that there's nothing like going to a live concert. So I truly believe, yes, there's lots to sort out, whether that's the legal issues or the ticket pricing or the bots and the blue dots and all the different things, but people are going to want to see live music.

[Nilay Patel]

How long did it take you to plan your Coachella outfits?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Zero minutes.

[Nilay Patel]

I look at. I watch Coachella from social media, and I was like, oh, there's a whole other thing happening here.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yeah.

[Nilay Patel]

That's kind of the other dynamic, Right. Is that the music industry has gotten way more commercial. Right. Coachella, it's influencer Olympics. It has all of the brand activations. There's something there right where it's okay, the money has to come from somewhere. It's gonna come from credit card companies or travel agencies or whatever is happening.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Brand activations, packaging. Yeah, yeah.

[Nilay Patel]

Tell me about that vibe right now is we have to commercialize the industry in order to support these artists.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I don't know if it's a great thing or a horrible thing. I can't tell. But it's definitely happening. And it is a way for artists to make additional revenue. But it all stems from the music. Music is driving so much of this, and the culture around it is so important. And that's why I love the work that I do, because I get to be around. And if you can figure out how to package up all the different things you just talked about, the ancillary revenue opportunities. You have to remember back at the source, it's the music, it's the songwriting, it's the performing, it's the recording. And that's why, to me, the Academy is so important, because we're continuing to push to advocate and support those opportunities for our music people. So, yeah, I love all the different things that people have figured out, how they, you know, how they make money and how they monetize music or performances or live or merch. Even food. You see food coming together with music, see sports coming together with music. Those are great things. Those things make me excited because of my passion for music and music people.

[Nilay Patel]

Again. The reason I'm starting here is I want to ground the conversation about AI. I feel all that pressure in the music industry. I can see all those gears turning and then right next to that, AI is upending the process of songwriting, the process of producing music. And I do think it is happening faster in the music industry than other creative pursuits. You can just see it happening every single day in music.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Music people are pretty quick to jump on on new technolog. We adapt relatively quickly, I think, and you're going to see it have an impact across all creativity and different art forms, I'm quite certain. But as you said, music people are early and it's had an impact already and I'm sure we're going to dive into it.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

We need to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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[Podcast Host/Announcer]

We're back with Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. Ready to dive into how AI is changing the music industry.

[Nilay Patel]

So the last time you were on the show, I'll just read you some of the quotes. I don't think you can tell me that AI can create songs in the key of Life, Nevermind or O Matic. And then you said it's all going to be a mess until we get it sorted out. Because yes, it's difficult. It's been 18 months. Has your thinking evolved dramatically on how AI can deliver quality? On how should use it?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

It has, honestly, and it's crazy. I never thought it would change, but actually that's not true. I knew it was going to change because it's all been changing so fast, but the quality of what it's able to create has. Has improved dramatically. I remember 18 months ago you could tell when something was AI generated and now it's to the point where people are playing me things and telling me that AI made it and I'm surprised and I'm impressed at the quality of it. And all that scares me because I do represent our roughly 30,000 music people and then millions of music people around the world that have grown up their whole lives trying to figure out how to express themselves by using a guitar or a keyboard and writing their heartfelt lyrics. And now you can prompt some of that stuff, and it's darn good, which I don't know if I love or don't love, but it's evolved over the last 18 months.

[Nilay Patel]

You're a producer and a songwriter. You're still a working producer and a songwriter now. You're still in sessions. You gave a quote in January. He said, I've seen AI in every studio, in every session. I'm not remembering a song I've been around or room I've been in that was not using some form of AI I have been mulling that quote since January, when you said it on stage. I've been dying to have you in this chair to ask you about that quote. How is it being used? How is it changing the process of songwriting from your vantage point as a producer and a songwriter, and then obviously as somebody who represents the interest of all the songwriters.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

So the quote. Let me address that, first of all, because I work in pop music, generally pop, R and B, and in those genres of music, I think it's pretty omnipresent. There's other genres that are not that way. So I don't want to mischaracterize it because what I do and what I see may not be everyone else's experience. But when I'm in a room, AI is generally always there. It's being used to create chord progressions. It's being used to fill out drum loops. Some people are just creating entire tracks using AI. Others are using AI to come up with lyrics. Maybe they've written a few lines in the first verse. They want the second verse to have the same rhyme scheme and rhythm. And they'll just send and enter the first one and say, make a new one for the second one. Some people are putting in a title and it's giving out ideas. And some of them are just using it as a rhyming dictionary. But AI is across so many different aspects of songwriting right now. Definitely. People are using it to create background vocals, to make stacks, to create demos of singers that they may be writing a song for. It's pretty wild. The power of AI and how I feel about it is I have mixed emotions. I am definitely disturbed by the fact that I worked my whole Entire life. And all the people that I work with have been grinding for years in studios and in bedrooms, on laptops and with instruments to try and figure out how to make great art. And now there's a possibility of people doing that that have not. Not put in the work or don't have that same passion, and they can just type in a prompt and create a song. I talk a lot about my niece. She does a lot of AI creating, and she sends songs to my wife and says, look at the song I wrote. You know, she's, you know, sixth grade. And. And so it's definitely. It's a. It's a challenge for me. But I also have to understand both in my role as a producer and my role as a CEO, there's got to be a balance, because AI is here. People are going to use it that there's going to. There's competition out there. Songwriters, artists, producers, they're all competing for a certain amount of ears. And a lot of them, they don't care how they get to those ears. They just want to get to them. So I am struggling with making sure we're preserving human creativity while also allowing technology to evolve the craft and the art form of creating and writing songs. So it's not an easy struggle for me because I am a creator, but I'm also overseeing or trying to help serve music people in the music community.

[Nilay Patel]

My role as CEO, you mentioned genres.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

A story.

[Nilay Patel]

A while ago, our great friend Charlie Harding wrote about AI in the country music industry. And the country music industry is an industry. It's more structured than other kinds of music. Very different songwriters. There are session musicians, there are track players. It's a machine. And he was like, AI is showing up in structured ways here.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Right.

[Nilay Patel]

And the idea that people are going to make a demo track for an artist, that's going away because the songwriters can just say, make me a song that sounds like whatever country artist, and I'll pitch it to them directly with their voice. And none of the artists would cop to it. But we heard it from all these songwriters.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Nilay Patel]

We're just using the artist voices.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Sure.

[Nilay Patel]

There's a real dynamic there. Right. That is spreading to other parts of music industry. Pop music, as you mentioned, it's starting to use it, but it's not. It's structured. It's not as controlled. How do you see that diffusion happening across genre?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Well, I'm a little surprised, to be honest, that it is. Is permeating the country scene. I would think that would be one of the last to Accept, you know, AI or any input from it.

[Nilay Patel]

Oh, I have a very different view of country music and how. How commercial.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yeah.

[Nilay Patel]

Well, I think there's an image, and

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

then I think there's an industry, a reality. Yeah. Well, I've definitely witnessed some people in that space using AI. You have to figure out how you're going to use it. Is it going to be a tool or is it going to be a replacement? And that is going to change per industry. I've seen people who are doing film scores now using it in a way that I never imagined. You know, they're playing individual instrument lines into, you know, the generative pro platform, and then that will in turn create a full arrangement. So maybe you're playing a line on a piano and then it turns it into strings and violins and violas and cellos and basses, and it splits it out on a score, and then they'll just hire the orchestras to play it, but they will not have to do any of the arranging or the composing or even making charts. It's doing all that for you. So you're going to see it used different ways in different forms of music making, which, you know, you're already seeing, as you said in country versus Pop versus Composer.

[Nilay Patel]

I'm gonna read you some stats that I think are just fascinating. The Hollywood Reporter just did a big AI and music poll. This is from last fall, but it tracks with the polling that we've seen more recently. Most people, 52%, do not want to listen to music made with the help of AI. 66% of people said they've never listened to music knowing it was made by AI. I don't know if you can do that anymore, but that's what they said. And then there's a lot of data that just Sundays people dislike AI generally,

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

but you have to look at the who they're asking and who are the people that are filling out those surveys and who are the people that subscribe to their magazine or will look at their website. As you get into younger people, I would imagine those numbers might change.

[Nilay Patel]

So younger people, this is polling that we have cited a lot on this show and across the verge. Younger people, the more they use AI, the more they dislike it. So Gen Z has this ferocious dislike for AI. I bring this up not to litigate the poll numbers with you. I'm just curious about the. The sort of widespread use of AI and the knowledge that most artists have that their fans don't want them to say they're using AI. So Michelle Lewis told Rolling Stone that music industry has a quote, don't ask, don't tell policy about AI music. SUNO CEO it's one of the big generative AI platforms, maybe the dominant one. Mikey SCHULMAN SUNO is the ozempic of the music industry. Everybody's on it, Nobody wants to talk about it. That's the gap, right? Everyone's using the tools, everyone sees the power of the tools. But we, we cannot tell our fans straight out that we're using AI to make the music. Do you see that gap closing or do you see it widening?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I don't know. I don't know if it's going to close or widen for us at the Academy. We are in a challenging position because we have to award excellence in music. And we are now every year deciding what is going to be the threshold of acceptability for AI. And so that's going to probably have an effect on how the gap widens or closes because we ask, when you submit, did you use AI? But acknowledging it's like ozempic, some people are going to tell you they're on it, some people are not. So it's a little bit of taking people's word for it. Until we can find the technology or deploy the technology, which I know is supposedly out there, that can determine when AI is being used, how much it's being used. We are a little bit at the mercy of people telling us and disclosing when they're using it. So. So we'll see what the perception is. And as people become more comfortable, you know, in the history of humanity, I think we've had a pattern of becoming much more comfortable with new technology as we've used it, and it's been a part of our society and it doesn't usually take us very long. I remember people that I was with saying, I'm never putting my credit card on the Internet. That's ridiculous. Or I've even met people in the music space who said they'd never use Pro Tools or Autotune or Melodyne or some of the other things that have developed and allowed us to be more creative and more efficient with our creativity. So we'll see what happens again in 18 months. We should talk again and we'll see how people are feeling.

[Nilay Patel]

Do you see the recent sort of social media discourse about whether death of Autotune had held up is an idea from Jay Z? It's like now it's everywhere. It didn't actually die. It took over everything.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

It took over everything. Yeah, I haven't seen that but it's a funny subject to think about.

[Nilay Patel]

I got big artists saying basically, adapt or die. Diplo. I can get the best voice from AI. I don't need anybody to sing the song anymore. Literally. He said, adapt or become an uber driver. Timbaland is doing straight AI artists. He's got an entire record label for his AI artists. 50 Cent just loves posting memes of, like, soul covers of 50 Cent songs. Grimes exists. Taran Southern is out there. What's your take on? It's the bigger artists who are going to adopt AI faster because they have the name recognition. They can put out AI music and people will listen to it because it is 50 Cent or Grimes or whoever. And the younger artists are struggling for attention because they're swamped on social channels full of slot.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Some big artists will adopt, others are going to reject. Yeah, and I think it's very similar to the other tiers of music creators. Some young, new artists are going to see it as an advantage and they're going to want to use AI because they can create faster, they can create more things. And some are going to, you know, rebuff the whole idea of using technology like that to create. And I don't think you're going to find any one size fits all, and that's what's going to be cool or I think, somewhat acceptable about. I am always going to advocate for humans, and I think that's still going to be an important part of the art form, is how do we express ourselves as. As a society, as humans, as interacting with each other and talking about that human experience. That's how we. That's how we communicate, that's how we feel each other. That's how we come together. So I think that's always going to be important. The other thing that's going to be important is humans are going to create the coolest, newest stuff. I don't. AI, I don't think 18 months we can talk again. I don't think AI is going to go out ahead of us and beat us at coming up with a new sound, a new genre, something that's fresh and exciting and that lands and that resonates with listeners. They will at some point, maybe figure out how to do that. But what they're going to do now is they're going to listen to all the cool stuff that we make, and then they're going to iterate on that and they're going to probably add a little twist here and they're going to mash some stuff together and come out with a new song or a new voice or a new singing. But as humans and as creators who are living life and experiencing things, we are going to be the ones that push the art form forward. I truly believe. Believe that this month, we'll see. So you'll. You'll have both. You'll have people using AI and just creating a whole bunch of music, and you have other people say, I. I want to do it my way. I want to create through my experience and through my pain and through my. My interactions, and that'll be cool.

[Nilay Patel]

So you were talking earlier about how to win a Grammy. You gotta certify that you made it with human. You only want to give the award to the human part of the music. That's obviously getting fuzzier. You're describing it getting fuzzier. If Diplo submits a track and he's like, like, all the backing vocals are AI, it's okay. That's okay.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

AI doesn't make you ineligible. It doesn't exclude you from the process. We just have to make sure that the human creativity is at the forefront, and there is human creativity. So if somebody submits songs with AI background vocals, they're not going to get a Grammy, or they won't even be eligible for a Grammy for performance because AI is doing the performing. But you can still submit for songwriting or some of the other categories. And conversely, if AI has written the song but you have a human sense singing it and they sang the heck out of it, that person can be submitted for a performance award. And we acknowledge. And this is why it's a fine line. We're walking the tightrope right now. We want to make sure we're honoring human creativity. We want to honor excellence. We have to acknowledge that AI is being used. And at some point, we'll have to decide, do we want to completely ban AI from the process and say, if you used AI at all, you are excluded from the Grammy process? Or we're going to say, say AI is the next version of a tool for music making, and people are using it in different ways. Some of them really interesting and creative. Some of them seem egregious and too much. And we're gonna have to find that sweet spot. And that's what we're doing every single year. We review this policy, we look at it, and make sure that we're doing the thing that our board of trustees and our members and our creative community want, because we listen to our creative community. So that's what I see. The future is navigating that and I think it's going to evolve over time.

[Nilay Patel]

Time, where's the line right now?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Right now we call it more than de minimis amount of human creativity involved in the process. So as long as you can show that a human was involved and it wasn't just a tiny amount, then we will say it's acceptable. But as soon as it gets beyond that point of no or not enough human inter interaction then we have to pull back. And it's not a perfect system. I mean it is a very, very tough system to create because again, we don't know exactly the percentage of human creativity or human interaction. We don't have the ability to determine that today. I hope that we do in the future. We acknowledge that it is not the most perfect system. And music, by the way, is subjective, as you know. So we're evaluating and trying to award something that means something different to everybody. So we just want to try and get it right. We want to try and celebrate music and music people and all the different forms of it. And we at this point are acknowledgin acknowledging that AI is a tool that is, that is being used. We also at some point we should talk about the legislation because we need guardrails. We need people telling us and us enforcing the rules around how AI can be used.

[Nilay Patel]

I know you've, you've been advocating for specific litigation. I do want to come to that. I just want to stay on this aspect of it for one second. You're saying to win a Grammy award you need to show us somehow that there's more than a de minimis amount of human involvement. I can't just prompt Suno to make a hit right record. Make a song like Harvey would make for Janet Jackson, which actually sounds like a great psyno prompt. I'm gonna do that when I get out of here. Okay, that's not enough. How do you prove it? What do you have to submit paperwork? Do you have to submit screenshots? Like what's the proof?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Well, we have screening committees that that re review and evaluate people's claims. And at some point it does come down to people's opinions and people doing the analysis and asking questions, asking for proof, asking for documentation. We're not always going to get that. We're going to try. And as I said, it's not a perfect science. We don't have a black and white determining, you know, box that you can check that exactly proves that you've done what you've said you've done. But I know that our Community is an honorable community. People who make music are, you know, creators are, are different people. I, I don't think anybody wants to cheat and win a Grammy on, on grounds that they, that they, they can't prove. And I would hate to think that somebody would want to do that. Maybe it happens and hopefully we'll find, we'll catch them before it does. But it's just not the perfect system. It's going to be challenging to exactly who did what. And until we can get the technology that breaks it down for us, we're going to have to rely on our community to be forthcoming.

[Nilay Patel]

I feel like we're having this, like, deep conversation about the artistic process and creativity and vibes. And I'm just hitting you with stat after stat. Deezer says 50,000 AI generated songs being uploaded to their platform every day. You're describing a process where a bunch of people get together and they look at all the submissions for the Grammys and whatever evidence and, and they do some process. Are you going to get overwhelmed with the amount of AI material that's coming your way?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

We'll see. So far we haven't. We had about 24,000 submissions last year. Now it's up a little bit from the year before. And we'll see what happens this year. And if that starts to happen, then we'll have to make changes. The cool thing about our organization, at least over the last five or six years, is we've really been quick to change. We're watching what's happening, we're listening, we're hearing from our music people and we're saying, how can we make sure we're doing this the right way? So if we start to get overwhelmed and AI becomes, becomes an issue for us and we can't determine what's happening and we're getting inundated or the whole thing is getting diluted by AI, then we're going to make some changes. But right now I think we're in a pretty good spot.

[Nilay Patel]

There are other parts of the industry that are attempting to do the same things. Spotify, for example, wants to change its royalty structures to account for AI music. They have a label now, like a human certified label. Does that align with your thinking? Is there a more holistic approach across the industry that will help with this?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

That would be great. And I know a lot of us are talking amongst ourselves about how can we align and how can we build some of those, those processes and lanes for separation. And I also think that's going to evolve over time. And as we start Talking it is a deep conversation, philosophical thought. At some point is it as important to determine what is synthetic or AI generated and what is 50% generated, what is 0% generated? And at some point do consumers start to wear down and tire a little bit of that and just say I just want to hear great mood music. I'm not sure that I care about the tools so much right now. And then it leaves it to us on the back end to make sure we're protecting human creativity. I'm not sure. 18 months from now maybe we will, we'll be more concerned about it, but maybe we'll be less and it'll be like drum machines and you'll say some AI was used in this recording. But do I care? And I care as the CEO of the Grammys, and I care representing human music people. And again, we're going to have to in the background continue to fight and push and advocate for human creativity. But consumers, performers aren't worried right now if a vocal has auto tune on it. They're not thinking about if the strings are real strings in the ballad that they just listened to and that they loved. So I'm not sure I have the answer. But we're going to see how it changes over time and how consumers appetite for different forms of creativity and different tools being used in that process play out.

[Nilay Patel]

There was a time when people really cared about autotune. Right? Right. Like shares. Producers lied about using autotune on belief. Right. Like that used to be a thing that they would literally lie about because they didn't want anyone to know how they'd done it or. Or it hopped to it. And you're saying that's going to fade away with AI the same way it's faded away with.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I'm not certain it's going to. I'm going to say that's an option that it could. People become normalized to it and they just want to hear great music. They're not concerned about the tools as much. But in saying that, I have to again reiterate that my belief is that humans and human creativity is always going to be important, is always going to be the most desirable and always be the thing that pushes form forward.

[Nilay Patel]

I like your optimism. I my pushback here is drum machines for the most part were not made by defense contractors. Like maybe Yamaha had some sort of defense contractor. But like for the most part, the instrument companies, the sampler companies, Pioneer was not making military Targeting Systems Anthropic OpenAI, Google, all the big model companies are defense contractors. Like they're caught up in like government, like top of the government controversies every single day. They're asking everyone for billions if not trillions of dollars. We're going to put the data centers in space. And at least from my perspective, it seems like the interests of artists and creatives authors are. They know it's bad, but they're like, hold on, we got to do we have war. We're going to do war with the AI models, We're going to argue about cyber security. Maybe we're going to crash the whole world. Have they been responsive to you? The last time you were on the show, I asked if you met with Sam Altman. You're like, I'm hoping to have you met with him, since I haven't met

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

with him directly, but I have met with his team and people from Open and from Claude and we're doing a lot of talking and definitely the other platforms, Suno and Udo and others. So the dialogues are ongoing and from my perspective, or at least maybe I'm overly optimistic. I know I probably am. You already told me I am today. I appreciate it, but I think think everybody wants to do this the right way and maybe they're tricking me, but from what I can tell, they realize the importance of music and creativity and nobody wants to append that completely. At least the music people that I talk to that are running those companies, they're fans and they love music and they love creativity and they want to add to that ecosystem. So we'll see where it goes. I am optimistic, but I think my optimism comes more from the fact that I know our community and I know music people. I know how we think. I also know how competitive and talented that our music people are. And I'm just always sure that we'll persevere and we'll use the tools, we'll figure out cool new ways to do great new things with them and we'll iterate on what we've done before and we'll come up with a new way of making music and expressing ourselves. So that's really where my optimism comes. Less so from thinking that all the platforms are going to get in line and do exactly what we want because we know that's not going to happen, or less so that we're going to have the perfect legislation that's going to be drafted and passed and approved this year, because I know that's probably not going to happen. But I believe in our people.

[Nilay Patel]

As you talk to all these companies, which of them seem the most artist friendly, which of them seem the most distant.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

How's the dynamic when I'm in the room? They're all artist friendly, they're all very nice and they all love creators.

[Nilay Patel]

I'm just thinking about OpenAI doing Sora and just like launching it in the world and like, we stole everything. Or I just keep picking on OpenAI doing Studio Ghibli, right? Or saying this voice from our voice synthesizer sounds suspicious, like Scarlett Johansson until there's a lawsuit. Like, some of them seem much more poised to be aggressive and some of them seem a little calmer.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Some of them are, are more. They're just not as concerned about it and they're not focused on a little more frivolous with how they're treating the artist community. But I don't. Maybe I'm misinterpreting it. It doesn't seem like they're doing it to be spiteful, to be harmful. They're all trying to figure this all out at the same time. And I have heard some people say they just want to move fast and break things. You know, you've heard that probably more than I have. And they're going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. And those are things that are scary, scary from a creative community perspective. People that have written songs and hold copyrights and intellectual property, we never want to hear that. You know, we'll ask for forgiveness later. We're going to use what you've created and what you own and what you legally have possession of, and we're going to use that for our own benefit. That's a. That's a dangerous precedent and one that I don't think any one of us on the creative side would support. But you are. You are seeing some of that. So that needs to be worked worked out.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

We need to take another short break. We'll be back in a minute.

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[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Back with Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. Talking about the collision of AI in the music industry.

[Nilay Patel]

There's an interesting split here. There's legislation that you've brought up, the no Fakes act, which protects voice, image and likeness. There's the Train act, which would give creators access to the records of what was trained on so you could demand royalties. There's a clear act which is just a transparency act. Just tell us what's in the model. I Would love all those to exist. Like you said, I don't know if this year is the year for a Congress to act with alacrity on AI.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I just got back from DC and it doesn't seem like this is the year they're having so much infighting, but there is a lot of alignment around these, which surprised me. It's bipartisan, bicameral support for especially the no fakes. Everybody knows that's the right thing to do. And how can we get it done? Let's get the language right, let's not try and make it perfect. Let's get something on the books right now and then we can refine it. That's at least my thought.

[Nilay Patel]

You would think Donald Trump of all people would understand that the use of his voice is a powerful thing that he should, but it doesn't seem like it. It matters, right? Like there's, I have a, like my most nihilistic version of this is copyright law exists as a framework for big corporations to make deals. And for everyone else it's just a free for all. We're just going to take stuff and remix it. And Mark Cuban and Taylor Swift are doing crypto ads and that's just the end of the, you know, like there's, there's no holding back and maybe there will be some laws on whatever timeline there are laws. And in the meantime, you're going to get the platforms deciding that because copyright law is the structure by which they make deals, they got to do something. So YouTube has likeness detection. Now, that is just a private legal framework. They just made up some rules about likeness and you can sign up for it. And just the way that Content ID works on YouTube, they're like, we saw your face, you're selling shoes. Do you want us to take it down? And they'll take it down. That's a lot of platforms inventing a bunch of frameworks. Do you think that's going to be effective? Do you think there's something to learn there as you push Congress or other governments to do stuff? Or does that feel like just another kind of chaos for artists to deal with?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

It feels like a first step and it feels like something that is headed in the right direction because those are things that are attempting to protect the artists and the ownership that they have. And I appreciate people trying to do that, but it does make it difficult for the artists. Having some federal framework, some federal legislation, or even an industry wide framework that we could all abide by would be even better. But everybody's just trying to figure this stuff out. People are trying to run their businesses, artists are trying to run their businesses, streamers are trying to run their businesses. And there's a lot. It's a dynamic that is very difficult. And I don't know that we faced a time like this before. Everybody likes to say we've seen this before, We've seen this before. And to some degree, that's true. We've seen sampling, we've seen streaming, we've seen, as I said, drum machines and disruptive technologies in the creative process. But this one, for some reason feels different. And maybe I'm showing my age when I say that, because everybody says that about the issues that are in their generation. But the. The change to the human creative process and the ownership of that is in question or at least being discussed right now. And I don't think it's been as acute as it.

[Nilay Patel]

It.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

As it is now or has the potential to be now in the history of. Of where we are in creativity and music.

[Nilay Patel]

I don't sit in. In your shoes. I don't have to. I don't have to play the roles you have to play. I can just be direct. I look at the state of, I don't know, the world economy, and I think those guys shouldn't be as rich as they are, and all of the artists should be much richer than they are.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I totally agree. Let's.

[Nilay Patel]

Are you allowed to be that frustrated and express that as clearly as I think your fans, as your constituencies in the music community want you to see say it?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yeah, I like to think so. I agree with artists and creators and people who make music are special, they just are. And what they do for society and what we do for the world, what we do for individuals, for communities, for countries. And I'm a music person, so I just see it through that lens. But I think that the people who do that should be taken care of and should be compensated, and they should have the ability to control what they make and they should have the ability to decide how it's being used and how. How they're compensated and how they're credited. I just strongly believe that. And in my career, I've worked with so many special people, you know, and I remember I've sadly worked on the last record of a lot of very talented people. I worked on Whitney Houston's last record, Michael Jackson's last record, Luther Van. And I remember distinctly when they've passed and thinking to myself, we've lost something so important and so meaningful. And people have their challenges, they have struggles Issues. Everybody has something they can get upset at an artist about. But at the end of the day, when an artist makes a record and you feel that record and you're driving your car or you're dancing at a wedding or you're at a concert, there's nothing in the world like that. Yeah. And those people and the people that allow that to happen, we have to watch out for them, regardless of some of their shortcomings or some of their faults because of what they put into the world. And I just think that's powerful.

[Nilay Patel]

Are you allowed to bring this fire to your meeting with the AI companies? That's, that's really. When asking here, I, for my audience, I sense frustration.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yeah.

[Nilay Patel]

This is going to go out on YouTube and I invite you to take a scroll through the inevitable YouTube comments we're going to get, which basically come down to why isn't Harvey arresting Sam Woman? Right. Like, that's the vibe I get on this show all the time.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yeah.

[Nilay Patel]

These guys are, they've stolen everything. And the people who should be getting the value, the people who make us feel joy are getting nothing. That's how people felt about Spotify. That's increasingly how people feel about YouTube. Are you allowed to bring the fire to your meetings and in your advocacy or are you playing a more media, subtle game?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I try and bring fire with me no matter where I go, but also it is a relationship and it's a long term play. This is not going to happen instantly and how you're interacting with people is going to affect the outcome. And I, and I do believe, as I said, they're trying to run a business just like I'm trying to run a business or protect a business. And finding a solution is not going to be me just bulldozing them. It's going to be how do we come together to find something that works for both of us? And I have to say, much like streaming, when streaming came out, people were up in arms about it. Streaming is horrible. We're not getting paid. But on the other side of that, you see how many more people are listening to music. You see how many more people are finding new artists that they never knew before. How many people are being encouraged to go to concerts because they discovered the song that they love on a streaming platform. So there are trade offs. So if somebody goes and just blows up streaming right off the bat, we lose a lot of other opportunities that are unintended or you might not have thought of. So approaching the AI people is kind of the same approach thing. Yes. We have some issues, but yes, you're also bringing something that could potentially benefit all of us, music creators society at large. And so how do you manage that is, I guess, the challenge.

[Nilay Patel]

There are some bulldozers in the music industry. When streaming came out, Taylor Swift bulldozed her way into a rate structure that eventually most of the industry adopted. She put a big article, I think it was a Wall Street Journal about being on, not being on Spotify at that time. Universal Music exactly exists. That is maybe the biggest bulldozer of all. Sir Lucian, Sir Lucian Grange, one of the biggest bulldozers of all. He's, you know, he's suing and settling with Sunos and Udos in very tactical ways. Right. The fight is whether the songs in Suno can be exported as MP3 files to be shared freely or whether you have to listen to them on a platform which provides at least some gatekeeping. I don't know if that's effective. I don't know if that's an effective restriction. I can think of 50 Ways to Get a around that as an old college music.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

At least 50.

[Nilay Patel]

But like this is the level that the bulldozers are saying, okay, we are going to restrict your platform. Do you think that that kind of power in the music industry can lead the charge on pushing back?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yes, it can. Will it be effective? We'll see at some point. I'm sure they all realize this much more than I do because they're incredibly smart and powerful and thoughtful. But consumers are want what consumers want. And friction between consumers and music or consumers and how they access their music, those are things that you can push against as much as you would like to. And it's probably not going to work because people want to listen to their music. So yes, I think strong leadership and lawsuits and trying to be protective is important and it is hopefully going to make advancements in the right direction. But at the end of the day, as a. I said people want their music, they want to listen to it. And that's probably going to change based on a lot of things. The lawsuits, the bulldozers, but also fans of music.

[Nilay Patel]

I want to ask one more question here and then I want to talk about the Grammys and Disney for one second to wrap it up. You've been in the studios, you've seen artists use these tools in all kinds of ways. I'm assuming you've used the tools in all kinds of ways. What's the most innovative sound?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I've never used the tools.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

You've never used the tools?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

No.

[Nilay Patel]

Just kidding. I was going to say that's the breaking news.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

No, no, no, I have. Sorry.

[Nilay Patel]

What's the most inn sound? What's the most innovative technique that you've seen the tools enable? Because that's the thing that to me would. Would maybe make the sale. Not I'm going to make soul covers of 50 Cent. Right. Like there's something about that that's just like kind of cheap. Right. But we're going to enable a new sound, a new method of songwriting that enables a new kind of story to be told. Where have you seen the bleeding edge?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

What I've seen interesting is people using the platform to create songs and generate stems. And stems are the multi track split outs. So you have all the drums on one track bass.

[Nilay Patel]

You say the platform. You mean like Suno?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yeah, and creating stems and then having live musicians iterate off of the stems. So they'll say, okay, here's a really cool groove of a song that we love. But now let's do a live drum, live bass, live keyboard player. Not using the stems from the platform, but having those inspire live musicians to build on top of that. So I think that's kind of cool because it's almost like you're having a writing partner in the room that has infinite ideas and you can say, well, let me try it like this. And you hear something that inspires something in you as a musician or as a producer. To me those are interesting uses. I like less people who just prompt and get a sound and just stick that in their song, say, oh, I got something from the platform, I'm going to use it. I like more when they get that and they hear it and it triggers something and you go to the next level from what you've just best hurt. And I think that's. I think that's a cool use of it.

[Nilay Patel]

Let me put that in a sort of broader arc of music. We've talked about drum machines a lot. I'm a Depeche Mode fan.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Me too.

[Nilay Patel]

They became a drum machine band because the drums are too loud in their apartment. So the drum machine enabled Depeche Mode and then synthesizers enabled all of like post punk first wave. That's my music. Like new order exists because of a huge technological set of achievements that then they use to make a style of music. Turntables and mixers. We got first wave hip hop. Then we got samplers. We got another wave of hip hop autotune. We got Akon like whatever that is. Right.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Like I can t pain.

[Nilay Patel]

Yeah, yeah. One of the Most underrated and correctly rated artists of all time. Like, at the same time, T Pain. All right, like, I can point to. Here's a technological innovation that led to a sound, that led to a genre, that led to a movement. What do you think that looks like with AI? Is it going to be the same kind of thing or is it slop? Because the danger is slop.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

The danger is definitely slop. I don't think it's going to be one thing because AI is so all across the board and it's being used in so many different ways. The drum machine was a very specific example. Whereas AI is. Is. You can't define its individual use. Everybody uses it differently. Every genre uses it. Now I'm finding out from you that even countries using it. So I don't think it's the same thing where you're going to say, oh, that's that AI sound. I don't. I don't see that happening.

[Nilay Patel]

I think that to me, you know, I look at all this data, all these feelings people have have, and the whole industry can't point to the thing that they're delivering. We're going to ask for all the GPUs and all the power and water rights, and you can't buy a stick of RAM for a PC anymore. And you can't point to the one thing that you made that's worth it. You can point to everything. We're going to change everything. And that everything is almost too diffuse. And I'm sort of wondering, like, when, sure, Timbaland's going to do an AI artist, but I already know what that artist is going to sound like, and I already know how the audience is going to react to that. There's not a sound, right? There's not a K pop of AI that's going to reorient the listener or the audience that.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Do you.

[Nilay Patel]

Do you see anybody trying that? Pushing on it?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I don't know. I don't even know what that would look like. I don't know what that the result of that is. I think that you're going to see new, different uses of the technology and people are going to continue to push the boundaries. When you talk about Timberland or Diplo or how they're using it, it that's. I mean, we're in 1.0 version of this, and people are just getting used to seeing it in their toolbox. And once people have access to it for a little while, much like you saw the evolution of sampling and it used to just be, take the song and just sing over the whole thing. Now it's take a piece and chop it and then flip it and reverse it and then speed it up and pitch it down. So you're going to see new uses of this tool and that's when you'll start to understand, understand what its real power is.

[Nilay Patel]

Let's end by talking about the Grammys a little bit. That's obviously the, the thing that the Recording Academy does, it is the thing that funds everything else. We started by talking about your decision making process. You made a big decision. You're going to leave cbs, you're bringing it to Disney. It's going to stream across platforms. You talked about the content explosion that we're, we're in for. Just walk me through that decision. Why make the change?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

We'd been at CBS for over 50 years. They've been great partners. They were going through some ownership changes. As you know, they were trying to out figure, figure out what their focus was going to be. And we also knew as a Grammy organization we had expansive ideas and thoughts where we thought we could go as a brand. We wanted to be more international, more global. We wanted to reach more music people you're seeing in music genres or borders and languages are breaking down. There's music from all different parts of the world. K pop, Afrobeats, music from the Middle East, India, other areas, Latin. Of course. We knew we needed to continue to grow our organization and our reach and we felt Disney and ABC would be a great partner for that. It also really aligns with what they're doing as they're expanding into new areas and new territories. And they're a company that, I mean, I don't know about you, I've admired that company and the leadership over the last dozen years or more. How they've changed and how they've evolved, how they've kept up with technology, how they've always at the heart of that though, been true to the artists, been true to storytellers and they've been really passionate about making great things. So there was a lot of alignment for me personally and then also for our organization with Disney that just made logical sense.

[Nilay Patel]

Was this a bidding war? Were they the biggest trek or were they the best track and the best vibes?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

There were multiple people involved in wanting to be in the media rights business with us, which I'm very appreciative and thankful for. And I think that is a testament to the work that our organization has done. Our board, our members, our staff and leadership over the last six years to get the organization to where we are, which was making sure we were relevant, making sure we were respected, making sure we were honoring music as accurately as we could. And so because of those things and our international opportunity and the availability of music in other parts of the world and our agency, that we have to celebrate it, we were a desired property. And again, I'm fortunate for that. It was not about the biggest check for us, though. It was about making sure that we could further our mission, perpetuate the right narrative out into the music community that we are here to serve. Music people, uplift music because of what we talked about earlier, the importance of it, and what I think music means to the world and to society. So Disney was a great partner because of that alignment. Yes, there was a financial component because as you touched on everything we do, our advocacy, our education, our music preservation, our legislation, all of our work around music cares, all that stuff is paid for by our media rights deal. So we have to get the right deal. And we are a not for profit. A lot of people don't know that we're not doing this for profit. We get the money that comes in the door and we push it back out into our music community to help music people. If you think about the LA wildfires, we did $30 million of relief to music music people who lost their houses or their instruments or needed medical care. So those are the things that drive our decision. My decision when it comes to doing a new media rights deal, one of

[Nilay Patel]

the things I think about with award shows in particular is they were very powerful in what you might call the monoculture era. Everyone has seen all the movies, everyone has listened to the radio, everyone has heard most of the songs. That is dwindling. Right? Everyone's in a little filter bubble on whatever algorithmic platform, listening to whatever TikTok hit the labels have paid to make big today. That's making the award show a more diffuse product. Right? You can. I can watch the Grammys and I haven't heard of half the artists. How do you solve that problem? Because the value of the award show needs to stay high to fund all the other stuff.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Well, as we touched on earlier, I still believe in live programming and live events, and that is going to be a premium offering. People want to see things that are timely that you can't record and watch later because there's that social element of it. Did you see what happened on this stage or did you see who won this? So that's, to me, an advantage that we have that's similar to sports. When you watch a sporting event, you want to watch it in real time because you want to see who won and who played well or what were the stories. So I hope, and I believe truly that that is an advantage for an awards show if done right as far as the diffusion and the different genres. If we can make the show compelling and we can continue to tell human stories, which I think we've done over the last few years and our production partner Fulwell and Ben Winson have been instrumental in this. You bring audiences to the show because they're compelled to watch the stories and the human interest elements. And we're looking to expand that with our partnership with Disney. I think that's an important component of it because it's not just about what song you love, it's about the process. It's about who are the people that are making those songs and then to see it displayed in a way that nobody else can do. And I think we do that at the Grammys.

[Nilay Patel]

We should expect more. I know you produced the Michael Jackson documentary. We should expect more music biopics with Disney, more short form artists. Human interest stories with Disney.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

I'd like to think so. I'd like to think that we are partnered with, I think, the best storytellers around and using that platform and their expertise and knowledge and research and appetite for more music content is something that we are excited about and we want to tell more stories about music people because to me they're timely and they're compelling and it's what we need more of right now. So our hope is that Grammys studios will continue to evolve and grow, produce more content around things that we're doing. Shows in other parts of the world, tell stories, tell stories about music people in other parts of the world. And of course our show is going to be the highlight and it's, you know, music's biggest night. And so that's this year, February coming up. It's going to be exciting. Our first show on Disney, abc.

[Nilay Patel]

A lot of the young audience lives on what you would call social video platforms. They're on TikTok, they're on Instagram reels. Are you going to try to address them there more? Are you going to let the industry handle that?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

No, absolutely. We want to be where music fans are and where people who are excited to watch music want to consume it. That's one of the exciting parts about our partnership with Disney and abc. They are very open to making sure we're using all the different avenues and outlets to make sure we're Sharing our content, sharing our story, sharing music with people. And we've seen some of the. A little bit of a decline around linear from our show. We've gone and gone up and down. We creeped our way back up to a pretty good number. But what we've also seen and experienced is a massive explosion of consumption in other mediums on the digital side, on our website, on YouTube, on the platforms. So obviously, consumers are changing and how people are watching are changing. And our hope is that we can keep up with that, especially now in our new partnership.

[Nilay Patel]

Is TikTok still the place where all new music gets broken?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

A lot of it, definitely. I won't say all, but it's a massive influencer and it's a huge platform for music people. And I see a lot of people spending a lot of time and energy trying to figure out that strategy. How do we use it, how do we leverage that platform them to get attention and eyeballs. And you touched on it earlier. It's. It's an attention economy. There's so many things coming out. I hear 75,000. You said 50,000 AI songs a day, and then another 100,000 songs on Spotify that are coming out. So there's so much competition for attention. And TikTok is something that is proven to. To bring a lot of eyeballs and ears to the table.

[Nilay Patel]

All right, last question. It's the toughest one of all, and we'll let you get out of here. Why didn't Sabrina Carpenter win any Grammys this year?

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Because our voters didn't vote for this year. That's. It's a tough one. You know, I. I love Sabrina. She had a great record. But the answer to your question is very simple. It's always about the voters. And there's quite often music that is incredible, that is amazing and so exciting that doesn't win. And we have eight nominees and seven of them lose. Seven, sadly. It's subjective. It's challenging. But the good thing that I'm proud to say is it comes down to the voters and who they vote for. Our process has evolved over the time that I've been here. We've removed some steps. There was committees that used to be involved. There was other things that would help determine the nominees and the winners. Now it's a straight vote. How they vote is how you see the results coming out on television. So as much as Sabrina deserved to win and many other artists deserve. Deserve to win, the voters dictate who. Who gets that trophy.

[Nilay Patel]

All right, Harvey. Well, I hope you keep that process as human as possible for as long as possible. It seems important.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Very important. Thank you man.

[Nilay Patel]

Thank you so much for being on Decoder. This is always a pleasure, man.

[Harvey Mason Jr.]

Yep.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

I'd like to thank Harvey Mason Jr. For taking the time to speak with me and thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to let us know what you thought about this episode or really anything else at all, drop us a line. You can email us atdecoder the verge.com we really do read all the emails we're or you can hit me up directly on Threads or bluesky. We're also on YouTube. You can watch full episodes at Decoder Pod. It's the same handle on TikTok and Instagram. They're a lot of fun. If you like Decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe over to your podcast.

[Nilay Patel]

If you really like the show, hit

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

us with that five star review. Decoder is a production of the Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Stadt. It's edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. The Decoder Music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. We'll see you next time.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Harvey Mason Jr.]

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[Nilay Patel]

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