The Happy Mondays want to sell you a giant pill; World Cup songs: reviewed; Lionel Richie's phrases trademarked; YouTube's AI clause; Tupac is back (again); plus much more...

Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works. This week, Stu and Joe go football crazy and stick a reducer early doors on this week's music biz news:

→ 270. That’s how many ‘unofficial anthems’ called ‘World Cup 2026’ have been uploaded to Deezer… and 70% of them are AI slop.

→ YouTube reckons that its terms of service allow it to use independent musicians’ uploads to train AI models. Is that really true?

→ Tupac Shakur has been dead for 30 years – or HAS he, etc etc – but if you think that will stop him returning to his acting career for a new console game, you’re wrong…

→ Say You, Say Me… just don’t Say It In My Voice Without Permission. Why has Lionel Richie been filing trademarks for some of his most famous sung phrases?

→ UK indie streaming service Cantilever has raised £250,000 of funding from a group of independent labels. Can it carve out a niche for itself against giants like Spotify though?

→ Ariana Grande is one of the ‘good eggs’ of the pop world, and this week brought more evidence of that: her new charitable foundation, and beef with the White House…

→ The Happy Mondays want to sell you a giant pill. But wait, it’s not what it seems! This is the latest, very literal meeting of physical music and merchandise…

And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our ⁠⁠Patreon Superfans⁠⁠, Stu and Joe prop themselves up at the bar – in this week's bonus material:

• Stu has used AI to make a stereotypical England-oriented World Cup song. But is it any good? (No.) We listen anyway.

• Joe and Stu dig into the weird and wonderful Official FIFA World Cup Album

• What other overly-literal packaging could be made? (Stu has ideas for 'Revolver' and Portishead's 'Dummy')

• Last week, Stu saw Rufus Wainwright and Joe saw Mike D – but which had the sparkliest shoes? And which one brought out a Pussycat Doll to do a duet?

• Joe explains why he only buys his gravy and chips on The Strand

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  See you next week!

  Stuart and Joe

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