How Songs Make Money is a podcast series about music rights and the income streams associated with songwriting and composition, hosted by Dr Ellis Jones, Lecturer in Music and Management at the University of Leeds.
This week's episode offers an interview with Lily Blakeney-Edwards. Lily is Client Manager at Sentric Music, a music publisher which represents over 400,000 artists across the world. In this role Lily has worked with a range of emerging talent and established artists, and within the past year alone she has worked with Sound City, Jazz North and The Great Escape, and given talks at The University of Leeds, and Leeds Beckett University. In our interview we discussed what makes Sentric distinctive, Sentric’s approach to artist development, and the day to day rewards and challenges of Lily’s client-facing role.
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Glossary
Sync brief/sync pitch – A sync brief is call-out from a media production company (i.e. TV, film, games media) requesting submissions to might a specific, identified media usage; a sync pitch is an artist’s submission to be considered for a specific sync opportunity.
Bookers – Booking agents, who liaise between artists (or artist management) and concert promoters to secure live music engagements, and who may also have a strategic role in planning an artist’s longer-term live performance plans.
Industry conference/event – Events primarily created for and attended by music industry professionals, which might combine talks and workshops with live music ‘showcase’ performances and networking opportunities. Examples include Manchester’s The Unconference and Brighton’s Great Escape, which both take place annually.
Music supervisor – In film and television, the music supervisor is responsible for identifying and selecting appropriate music for the media in question (often in collaboration with the producer and other team members).
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References and further reading
Hesmondhalgh, D., Campos Valverde, R., Kaye, D. B. V., & Li, Z. (2023). Digital platforms and infrastructure in the realm of culture. Media and Communication, 11(2), 296-306.
Morris, J. W. (2020). Music platforms and the optimization of culture. Social Media + Society, 6(3),.
Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2021). Platforms and cultural production. John Wiley & Sons.
Prey, R. (2020). Locating power in platformization: Music streaming playlists and curatorial power. Social media + society, 6(2).
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All views expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers, and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Leeds, the School of Music, or any other organisation. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as business or legal advice.
How Songs Make Money is created and assembled by Ellis Jones, with contributions from students on the University of Leeds, Music Management MA course. This series is edited by Nikolai Klimanski. Our theme music is also written and produced by Nik Klimanski, and is included with permission. This series of How Songs Make Money is supported by ‘Research Boost’ funding from the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute, and enabled by Digital Education Service’s Podcasting Pilot. Special thanks to Sam Wyman for their support, as well as to Angela Hulme, Mia Windsor, Liev Cherry, and Michelle Schneider.
