The Rest Is Entertainment - K-Pop & Billionnaire Weddings

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

'Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience' is coming to the BBC. It will show five boys from across the UK as they are put through the K-pop training process, the end goal being to launch a new boy band on the global stage. Why has South Korean become the cultural beacon for some many young people with K-Pop at it's heart? In Mumbai with Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant married over a months long ceremony that has seen musician, politicians and many many others in attendance. How do these private gigs come about and what are they worth? Lastly, Marina take us through the reasons why we are having such huge delays between TV seasons and what could be done to tighten production schedules to stop audiences floating away. Sign-up to The Rest Is Entertainment newsletter for more insights and recommendations - http://www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations: Marina: Andrew O'Hagan - Push Me Pull You (Read) 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this edition of The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina High. And me, Richard Osmond. How are you, Marina? How's your week been? Well, it's involved a lot of sport. One piece I won't be discussing, which occurred on Sunday evening, but I went to Lord's and I went to Wimbledon. Wow. Yes. So on that basis, it's been absolutely terrific. How about you? I went down to the set of the Thirsty Murder Club movie. That was very, very exciting. Terrific fun.

And I've shared a few pictures, but we won't bang on about that because we've got an awful lot to talk about today. We have got a lot to get through. We are going to talk about this big wedding in India. And we're going to talk particularly about the idea of musicians doing private gigs. And how much they get paid.

How much you get paid. Spoiler, it's quite a lot. Yeah, for selling your magic. Yeah. For selling your magic. Also, what else are we going to talk about? We are going to talk about a little bit about K-pop because there's a reality show that's about to come out and we're going to talk about what K-pop is, the K-pop idol industry, and I've been doing a deep statistical dive. If anything is going to make people turn off is that. I've done some original research into something I think is quite interesting at the end of that. I suspect most people will disagree with me

Should we start with TV schedules and why our favorite shows are taking so long to come back now? Oh my goodness. This is becoming an increasingly vocal complaint last week We learned that euphoria which is the HBO show Sam Levinson is the show run on that that is going to be pushed back again Now that makes it at least three years between seasons. They say there's gonna be a time jump. It's like, yeah, I should think so. They will be in their thirties by the end of this. Stranger things, there's gonna be at least three

and more years between season four and season five. Yeah, and people keep saying, oh, the pandemic and the writer's strikes. We're not talking about the pandemic anymore. And the writer's strike is not enough to account for that. What's the reason behind that? Well, the reason, obviously certain shows have always had this issue. HBO used to have this issue quite a lot with Game of Thrones because it was very high production value. It's a huge thing to produce many episodes. But now it seems like every single show at all, even things with simple one sets or effectively

one set, you know, it's a police station or whatever it is and they've got an 18 month turnaround at minimum. The reason it's particularly pissing people off is because lots of these are American shows. We come from a culture where you know it's fine to have six half hours in a sitcom and that is normal but you expect it to come back in timely fashion. You don't want two and a half years between the seasons because what's happening now is people are feeling like oh my god I mean I mean, I can't even remember it. I've got to rewatch the whole of that season. American TV used to do 35, 40 episodes of something a year. It sort of settled around 22, 26, somewhere around that mark in a season.

You would start in September and you would finish in May. But since we've gone into the world of streaming, the gaps have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And there are various reasons for that. First of all, one of the reasons, this is a sort of side reason and then I'm going to get to a full rundown on how you get one of these prestige shows from Greenlight to when you are actually able to watch it. One thing is that a lot of these showrunners will have their other pet projects that they

have been quite indulgently allowed to do and I'm not saying that's what's happened at all with Sam Levinson who is the showrunner of Euphoria but he went off to do The Idol with The Thing with The Weeknd and Lily Rose Dead. Did he? That would hold you up. Yeah that really held a lot of things up but Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, people who are in Euphoria, their careers blow up, they become movie stars so what's happening in the old days you used to have TV stars would be a TV star. Now people like to be in TV and it's prestige, but they also like to go and make their movies. So you've got scheduling conflicts.

So in the old days, famously, if you signed up to do The American Office, you were signed up for seven seasons. Hugh Laurie signs up for House and he signs up to do it. He is committed. If it continues to go, it continues to go. So if you want in your three months off to go and do a movie, that's on you, but it's got to fit in then. And that is not the case with something like Euphoria and the streamers. Those network contracts are not the same. And Millie Bobby Brown is, she's got lots of other projects that she wants to do. And you can't have Stranger Things without Eleven. So there's lots of waiting around.

Writers rooms can also go on a lot longer. Writer availability may also change, but let's have a look at the theoretical timeline. This is why it takes so unbelievably long. Okay. Let's imagine we pitched at the theoretical timeline. This is why it takes so unbelievably long. Okay Let's imagine we pitch the big hit show I have to I have talked to people whose job it is to get big prestige TV over the line and thank you very much For the assistance. So we've pitched a show called dogs on Mars dogs on Mars We're a dog accidentally two dogs actually get stranded on Mars and start a world and then they develop consciousness and we yeah

I love it season one drops All the episodes drop at once. In the old days, they would drop once a week and you'd be able to see by about week three, people love Dogs on Mars. They absolutely love it. And they've gone crazy for this. They're barking mad. Let's get started.

Let's put stuff in place for season two. They're barking mad. Thanks, Anne. But now they drop it all and then they wait six to eight weeks and that's when they make their pick up decision. So then we're already two months after that first season of Dogs on Mars has dropped.

So then you get a green light and they say, well, we've had a look at this, but it's going to take a month to get the writers room starting all over again. You hope that they've got deals for season two. Let's say they have got it all organized. So that's three months now after it's dropped. So you haven't even started. The whole thing in its entirety. And Dogs on Mars, the writers' room season two has not even begun.

It begins. Now. Meanwhile, the stars of Dogs on Mars have gone absolutely stellar. I mean, people, they're doing the chat shows and all sorts of things. Oh yeah, and they're being offered all sorts of other things.

They want to have a tequila brand and a makeup line. Yes, perfect. Tequila for dogs. Tequila for dogs. This is a prestige show. It goes without saying it's a prestige show. It's a one hour prestige show, Dogs on Mars. So you're getting an eight episode order, yeah, and a lot of people are not happy they think that's too little, but it's

an eight episode order, so you will want at least a 20-week writers room for that. Then you'll got to think, well Dogs on Mars is pretty VX heavy, we're on Mars, you know, might involve some location work. And they're dogs. Yeah, and they're dogs. Come on. And you know, these are show dogs Yeah, anyway, so then you've got to get them all starting to prep it all So they would have six months after season one job and then it has dropped and they're just trying to say right What are the locations what you're going to Jupiter as well this time? Okay, that's a whole nother thing We've got to rebuild so then and wait, sorry

I'm just looking in the notes from the writers room. You say there are cats now. Yeah Yeah, yeah the enemies and the cats availability is complicated to cast blah blah So the shoot will only begin nine months after the first season of dogs on Mars has done it It's 15 days per episode because this is a prestige show. Yes, so that's 120 days and in dog days That's almost 90. Yeah, I mean it's like, you know They'll be like talk about the euph year forecast being in their thirties. These guys are going to get really old during the actual shoot. And then you've got to add additional days.

The company moves from Mars to Jupiter, whatever it is. So you're looking at a seven month shoot, 16 months after Dogs on Mars, season one drop, you're now having to start post-production, all of the effects, all the, so this could take six or eight months very easily. You've then got to do this thing that they now, cause everyone does worldwide day and date release now, which you'll notice in the old days, you used to, so I used to come out in America and we'd, we'd hope that channel four bought it or something like that.

So that we'd be able to see it. And it didn't matter. Now everything has to be got ready for day and date in all the territories. So that means the dubbing, the language, language the subtitles and that takes a long time that takes you already if this process runs totally smoothly to an 18 month thing between season one season two job this is a real nightmare viewer engagement is sort of falling off because people can't remember it there's so much TV around they don't have time to rewatch it the season recaps at the start of some of

these things about 40 minutes while you try and remember everything that happened. And also, by the way, it's very much like an episode of Grand Designs in that you can say, look, with all the wood in the world, this is going to take us 18 months. But just like in Grand Designs, when the glass hasn't arrived from Holland, there will be one of the stars has hurt themselves or is in a theatre thing. And so suddenly you've got to knock it back six weeks there. And then the DOP is not doing something, another job job but you have to have that DOP and so that's another month. You're adding months and months and months just for tiny little things for absolute

key cast and crew. Locations suddenly become unavailable. There's always something that shifts you back. Which will massively shift it and all of those moving parts, the knock-on is huge, Lost, the series Lost has recently dropped on Netflix in the US. You can watch it on Disney Plus in the UK. But there's been a lot of talk about it because one of these series comes back on, everyone's like, oh, I remember that, and other people discover it. But Lost was a network show. Now, it came back year after year in the same slot,

and they made many, many, many episodes of it. Fans are annoyed and think, this is possible. You're insulting me, and they made many many many episodes of it. Fans are annoyed and think this is possible you're insulting me and they are dropping off. In terms of what can be done to change it, it's really hard to give a season two green light before season one has dropped because you just don't... You never know. You never know and if it hasn't hit it's so expensive. This stuff is, you know, Prestige, Dogs on Mars. Yeah.

It's an expensive show. But also from personal experience you do not want to be doing a second series of something where the first series hasn't worked. It is not fun for anybody. It's almost always unsavable. Unless you come up with a really, really smart reinvention of it, no one is having fun doing that. Yeah.

But also, you're doing it all for eight episodes, and that's just not enough for a lot of people. They're just thinking, we didn't use to have it like this, and why do we have to have it now? So some people think that what you could do is try and go 12 to 16 episodes and then you divide them in half and you do have a sort of hiatus and then you can see how the first half does and maybe you can get the writers room you can say okay we want to order the scripts we get the writers room going we may not proceed yeah that's less expensive but more... But still expensive. It's still expensive but

more episodes put over the season, obviously amortises the spending over the season and it really helps. You hear so many more complaints about this. People are not really that willing to stand for it or they just fall away as viewers of the show. Just think, I'm giving up. I'm not honestly waiting three years between seasons. Yeah. And also, by the way, something else comes up. There's constant churn. Yes. And also, I mean, if you're actually selling you know a license and things it's going to help if we have more episodes of lots of these shows but something like Lost coming on which is a big moment this month and lots of

people will discover that series for the first time and people will think why can't we have more like this why can't we have more and it appear in a timely fashion and I think that it's good that's going to become a bigger and a bigger deal but I think that there will be a tighter schedule otherwise it's such an investment that you're kind of, to watch fans fall away. And also, I mean, season four of Stranger Things, some of the episodes were so long. They're no longer an hour. They're like an hour and 40 minutes or whatever they are. This is not a shade on the Duffer Brothers at all, because people love the show.

But some creators, some showrunners have been indulged in all sorts of different things. And I think you're going to see a return to something more regimented with delivery dates that have to happen. Well, that's another reason behind it, I think, because there are now far more customers. In the olden days when you were just working for the networks, there weren't very many other places you can go. So you sort of fit in. If the networks need 22 episodes a year, you're like, you know what, that's my job.

I'm not going to do it. And the fans want 22, so year you're like you know what that's my job I'm gonna do it and you know what the fans want 22 said that's what I'll do now Netflix Amazon they need to give you something to entice you from the networks and what they gave people was freedom and what gave people was if you do this you can do another show it's gone now by the way all of that they're far more sort of going back to what the networks were doing but that was the way that they got showrunners and showrunners are creative people course, they want to spend a bit more time doing stuff. And of course, they want to indulge another passion. And so they've been allowed to let things

slide. And what used to be sort of a factory, and even the most creative people understood they worked in a factory and were happy to work in a factory. They haven't had to for the last 10 years. Become an artist studio. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to have to return to more of a factory setting. Season 3 of Dogs on Mars is set in a factory. With Dogs on Mars we would find a way, we would have episodes every year. I wouldn't allow it. I wouldn't allow 18 months. Well I was about to say, your schedule.

I write a book a year. What's everyone else doing Richard? Lots of people do. Lee Child does a book a year. That's what I like to do because firstly it's doable. Pl Lots of people do. Lee Child does a book a year and I like it. That's what I like to do because firstly, it's doable. Plenty of people do it. And secondly, an audience wants a book a year. And we aren't anything without an audience. We don't really exist without an audience.

So an audience wants a book a year, so I'll write a book a year for as long as I can. Lee Child's done, he did it like 24 years and then his brother took over. But there's so much stuff now. There are so many TV shows, there are so many books and I did one a year and people still say, can you not do more? Because it's been a year since the last one. You go, no, that I can't do. A year is about... I'm at capacity now. I am absolutely at capacity. But I do think if you work in a certain industry and you understand what the industry is, then it's important to put stuff in there's

always reasons why people can't do it but if you can do it I think it's a really great I agree in some ways this is this story of what's happened in television or what I think what I think will happen is sort of like what happens at the end of the 70s in Hollywood, where you have this decade where these creators are given huge amounts of money and sometimes they make amazing films and then sometimes they nearly collapse studios and sometimes they do collapse studios.

And then suddenly the people who win at the end of that are people like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, who deliver, who don't cause chaos and who do what they say they're going to do. And yes, of course there are some delays built into that, but nothing unreasonable. And they actually become, you know, they are bankable for that reason. And by the way, make amazing films. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that these people aren't making amazing television shows.

It's just taking too long. Taking a really long time. Yeah. And as we say, that kind of contraction in the market, it's like you're going to actually have to conform more to schedules that we want, rather than you just being able to go and do anything with all our money. Yeah, and Netflix as well, because I suspect that they are now far more in the market

for precinct shows that run and run and run and run. Those older contracts with that, again, actors would go, yeah, I'll come to Netflix because you'll pay me for a one-off series and I don't have to sign these ridiculous contracts I used to sign at the networks. I suspect they may have to start signing some of these ridiculous contracts I used to sign at the networks. I suspect they may have to start signing some of the ridiculous contracts they used to sign at the networks and it's, yeah, it means everything. The shows are going to be scheduled

week after week, there's an ad tier, as we say, you disrupted an entire market and now you are making yourself look very like that previous market. It's clever, right? Yeah. Talking of taking money from corporations, shall we go to a break? Let's segue right into that. Welcome back, everybody. What is up next, please, Richard? K-pop. K is for Korea. I don't know why they don't call it soul music, but it's called K-pop. The BBC have commissioned a reality show called Made in Korea, the K-pop experience from a very experienced team who did X-Factor and all sorts of things, Nigel Hall and lots of other great producers. So I suspect it'll be great, but it essentially follows the process of how a K-pop band is formed, which in and of itself is fascinating. The world of K-pop has absolutely transformed the world of music and culture.

I mean, it's huge. BTS and all these groups are absolutely massive. We should say that in this show, they're going to take five UK boys and transplant them to Seoul. And transplant them to Seoul. To go through the process. Yeah, the idol process, which is, we think we understand how to put a boy band together.

And, you know, you take that together from whenever in the stage. And, you know, they do a couple of dancing auditions and they can all band together and you know you take that together from never in the stage and you know they do a couple of dancing auditions and they can all sing together and off you go. The K-pop thing is that is that on just it is almost impossible to overestimate how many steroids that process would be on to get the K-pop process. They get hundreds of thousands of applicants. They're big, we should say they're big management companies who you audition for them. And it's almost like if you get in,

then you're going to military school. It really is almost like military school. And there's all the SM entertainment, which are the one that the BBC are doing this show, the JYP as well. You come and live with these people. You are put through rigorous training, singing training, dancing training,

but sometimes for two years, three years, they can spend millions and millions turning you into what they want you to be. You sign a contract and if you leave during the contract, you have to pay back any money that's been spent on not just your board and lodging while you're in the process, but also whatever they deem the value of your training to be. And those contracts, by the way, can be 10 years. You sign away an awful lot. They are in charge of your diets, they're in charge of your look, of your image,

they're in charge of your social media output. These are all things that are very, very carefully controlled. That said, some of these kids end up in massive multi-million pound bands and make a fortune. What's wrong with indentured poppitude? What is wrong with it? What is wrong with indentured poppitude? You're quite right. But it's an extraordinary system. So this reality show will be a very, very interesting thing to watch, I think, because it goes slightly beyond what we imagine. It's like the army, but for pop music.

Yes, I mean, Nigel Hall, who's one of the producers, was very instrumental behind the scenes with One Direction, you know, via the X factor. It's build as they're going to go there and experience the culture. I wonder how much of it you'll be able to see because it is totally brutal. Some people, as they say, they never, these ones will because they're going to be chosen and very carefully, but they call it your debut. You don't debut. So if you don't, you could never be launched onto the K-pop scene at all, having gone through all of this.

You have to graduate essentially. Yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting. They said, which is SM entertainment, one of the big agencies, which is the one doing this particular one said, this collaboration signifies our first footprint in Europe, our expansion blueprint will continue to expand, you know, expand across North America.

But you can see why they want to do it because they want to bring people along who haven't necessarily been brought along in these processes. They need to give you the behind the music. Because otherwise it can seem like obviously not for lots of young people and not for children who feel like instinctively part of this world and understand it. But in order to get other people along who are going to buy the singles or you know download you millions and millions and millions of times, you've got to have the story behind it all. It's like the next generation of those type of programmes, you know, that go back to the Pop Idol and the X Factor and all those things miles away.

Yeah, it's like Drive to Survive, but for Pop Idol. And as you say, yeah, it's not an elimination show, it's five people, so it's sort of like an OBDOC, an observational documentary about this process. Obviously, they're going to have to leave a lot of things out, I think, because it is a brutal process. The personal freedoms that you have to give up, I think is not something that's going to, um... It remains a BBC show, so it's going to... Yeah.

It'll be interesting to see how that works on a compliance front anyway. But it's a fascinating world, it's a fascinating culture. And quite apart from this thing of the, the almost military regime and the drills is the way that they connect with fans. in culture and quite apart from this thing of the almost military regime and the drills is the way that they connect with fans and that's a very particular thing in K-pop is you have to be available to your fans, it's a sort of parasocial relationship between the bands and the fans. There's an awful lot of philanthropy in the world of K-pop, there are an awful lot of mental health programs and charities that are set up. There's a huge amount of social media output.

So it's a whole world. I mean, it all comes from the fact that career itself is not big enough to make billions and billions in as a country. And so it's this expansion across the world and social media knows no barriers and there's no boundaries. So they're incredibly targeted and incredibly forensic about the way they use social media. All of the bands have quite a lot of members and here's the fun thing, if you take that and you lose a couple of members, that's tricky. If you're BTS, you lose a member. Seventeen. You've got seven other of them. BTS, by the way, who are the hugest, hugest of the K-pop

bands and you know, filled Wembley, a huge in America, four number one albums in America. They are all apart from one of them has just finished, they're all on compulsory national service at the moment, national military service. So they've had to give up for a couple of years. So they'll be back in the middle of 2025. Because in Korea you have to do military service. And that sort of gives you a clue, I suppose, to how this system continues. Because if you're going to be doing that for a couple of years anyway, you might as well be doing it in the service of dancing and singing and making yourself a millionaire. I sort of get it. But, you know, given that, I think famously in the UK, we don't have national service.

So close. It's been mentioned, you know what's so close. If only you guys had believed, and we have Rishi in, we'd have national service now. And imagine what it had done to our music industry in five years' time. So I think it's gonna be a fascinating look behind the scenes. I think people are in the situation, especially if you've got kids, where you understand what K-pop is.

And the music is great, by the way. If you like a bit of hip hop, a bit of dance, you know, it's good stuff, but it will show you quite what this system is. I think it's interesting if you have kids, like so many of them look over to soul as a huge primary inference and just don't see America in the same way that you or I did when we were growing up, which was without any question the centre of the cultural universe. And I'm really hoping to go to Seoul, I so want

to go, because at the same time what we know about it and much of the culture that's come out of it is really dystopian and you look at things like I don't know parasite or squid game, it tells stories about the you know a very turbo capitalist society and yet it feels for many young people like a place of possibility which I think is quite interesting it's a real contradiction they had a fantastic exhibition at the V&A I think a couple of years ago called Hallyu which means the Korean Wave and something I hadn't realized at that time was just how many of their K dramas come from what are called webtoons.

People make these really basic kind of lo-fi stories you can just look at on your phone. And so much of it is allied to the technology in which they are sort of world leaders. And then what you want is your webtoon to get bought up and then to get made into a K-drama itself. But it just feels like a younger place where more can happen for a young person than in some ways, you know, when you look at, I don't know, central London, where no one young can afford to live anymore, where young people and creative minds are pushed out to deep outskirts of the city. It doesn't feel like that.

Yes, at the same time, clearly it's a contradiction because it is nonetheless still a very patriarchal society and there are all these kind of old-fashioned things. There was an amazing photo that I saw in that exhibition where kind of gleaming tower box are just starting to be put up, but in the foreground of the picture is a guy ploughing the earth with an oxen with a wooden yoke across its back and then in the background these things are being put up and it's... That white heat of modernization really accelerates a culture, doesn't it?

And it really accelerates pride in a country. And it makes you want to show the world what you've got. I do think that's fascinating, that idea. And I've seen that over and over again recently, that younger people are not interested in America and in American culture or in going to America. It's impossible to overestimate what America was to us in our sort of teen years.

It was like an impossible dream. And now it is absolutely, we've been, I often think there's not a huge amount of differences between the generations. I think that is a huge one. I agree. And the young generations have turned away from love of America and towards love of South Korea and Japan. Culturally seems to be a huge thing. Can I go on a sidebar? Yes, please. Very, very briefly on this? Because when I was thinking about these bands and the success of BTS and Stray

Kids and Blackpink and these huge bands, I was talking to my niece who went to see Stray Kids at the weekend in Hyde Park which apparently was absolute bedlam and I'm old enough I keep calling them the Stray Cats because I remember the Stray Cats, the rockabilly band from the 80s who you only now see on Top of the Pops 2 on BBC4. So anyway, went to see Stray Kids and I said, talk me through the appeal of K-pop. We had a long chat about all the things we talked about, about this social media thing and how good, you know, how, you know, they're very good at individualising the people within a collective and how you

know... Did they have the light sticks? I always find those amazing. All the, yeah, like everything you could have. That you connect with the people on stage, but you feel the connection in a physical sense with these light sticks. An amazing light shows, amazing videos, the whole thing, a real piece of work. But one of the things she said was,

oh, I like it because there aren't any bands anywhere else. And I was like, do you know what? Yeah, of course there aren't any bands anymore. So I've done a little deep dive. There's a thing in the papers last week about there's no British acts have had a number one this year. And that's a slight red herring because they had the previous years and Beyonce and Sabrina Carpenter have really dominated but

What has happened that is utterly extraordinary in the charts is the complete disappearance of bands and so soloists and duos and you know Collaborations of soloists, you know Dave and Central Sea all this sort thing, are so dominant. I'll tell you how dominant they are. We've had half a decade of Beckham, roughly so far, the first half of the 2020s. So I looked at the first half of the 1980s and in the first half of the 1980s, there were 146 weeks when bands were number one. Okay. 146 weeks, you had Dexys, you've got UB 40, KC and the Sunshine band, Juran Juran, Culture Club, Pretenders, Spandau Baddy, Adam and the Outs, loads and loads and loads, 146.

The first half of the 90s, there were 141 weeks when bands were number one, Nukes on the Block, Wet, Erasure, Take That, loads and loads. So we've got 146, 141. In the first five years of this decade, there's a number one by bands, so it's not solo artists, it's not collaborations with solo artists, it's not duos, I've left duos out as well, so it's just bands as we would recognise them. Three weeks. No.

We've had three number one weeks. One of which was the Radio 1 live lounge All Stars, most of whom were soloists anyway. One of which was The Beatles, when they had the lovely comeback single, and one of which was The Beatles when they had the lovely comeback single and one of which was Little Mix and that's the only kind of official band who've had a single week at number one in this entire decade. Isn't that crazy? Is it sort of a sort of hyper individualization of things nowadays and you see it in comedy as well we talked before about why you don't really see very many sketch shows and stand up is such a sort of a

magnetic thing sort of the individual gladiator as it were. I think 100% that. I think also you know there are various cultural things in that you know if you if you come from the London Grime scene then it's very individualized on it so people will collaborate an awful lot but you wouldn't collaborate necessarily in a band so there's lots of little reasons but essentially if you look at all of those names and the bands who are around and you know everyone was in a band, no one is in a band anymore apart from all these Korean bands. Even this week's top 40, there is not a single band formed in this century in the top 40 of the singles charts or the album charts this week,

not a single one. I think Coldplay are in there after their Glastonbury performance, they're like number 19 and the Lightning Seeds are in there because of, you know, but there's not a single band formed this century in the top 40 singles or album charts. I mean, that's crazy, right? That's extraordinary. In the top 40 biggest selling albums of the year, two bands formed this century, one, the Arctic Monkeys, formed in 2002, they're in there. So there is one of the best selling 40 albums this year that is done by an actual new band, a new British band, and that's the band The Last Dinner Party. Yeah, I was about to say The Last Dinner Party.

And you know, they've had so much airplay. Part of the reason is that it's fun to get a band on the sofa when they're all talking and you've got dynamics rather than one person just telling you their chat show anecdote. I mean bands are great is the truth and weirdly that you know the last great era of the bands was that X Factor era you know Little Mix, JLS, One Direction that was the last time but you know indie bands have completely disappeared from the charts, rock bands have disappeared from the singles charts definitely it's all gone. That is absolutely mind-blowing. Crazy right? That's an absolute pleasure. And by the way, I did that all myself

So if I there's there may be the odds don't look at every single one of the numbers It might not be 146 weeks. It might be 100. Yeah I kept just going through again and again and again just going this cannot be right. There's no way this is right Well, thank you for doing that. It is an absolute pleasure. So I know that's not about Korea really. No. So yeah that's... No but it's it's it relates to what you said. Yes exactly that but yeah that's that show Made in Korea the K-pop experience which is coming out on the BBC later this year. I think it'll be a good one. I'll definitely be watching it. Yeah. Right to Mumbai Richard, to Mumbai. To the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant who are signs of two

extremely rich families and they had their wedding in Mumbai at the weekend over several days they had already had pre wedding celebrations you know your pre wedding party Reana did it she said I'm here tonight in honor of Anant and Radhika bracket she's also there for nine million dollars, but we'll come to that later. She's just a friend of the family. Yeah, they had obviously like, you know, Katy Perry, Andrea Bocelli, all those, that's the pre-wedding party, Justin Bieber. Then this weekend they've had big nuptials in Mumbai, how about some of the guests? Blair was there, by which I mean Tony, not Lionel. Johnson was there,

by which I mean Boris, not Dwayne the Rock. Yeah. The Kardashians. The Kardashians, yeah, there's only, well, there's a hundred of them, but there's only one set of Kardashians, so we can't continue the joke. And basically, we don't know who provided the musical entertainment, but because of those earlier gigs, people had said, it's going to be Adele and it's going to be Drake. Now, you will not see pictures of that occurring if it occurred, but private gigs have become huge business. It used to be, no one really did private gigs. Now, young people in particular just don't even have any qualms about doing this. There are NDAs that cover their appearances, but almost anyone now will do it.

I spoke to an agent about this. He said, it's just honestly quicker to say who won't do it. And obviously Taylor Swift won't do it. For some reason, ACDC won't do it. Really? Oh, that's nice. I slightly laugh. Bruce Springsteen won't do it. There's some dispute as to whether you two will or will not do it.

But pretty much the entire roster of won't do it. There's some dispute as to whether you two will or will not do it. But pretty much the entire roster of artists will do it. You can get into trouble with these private gigs. Right, okay. Tell us more. I was hoping you could. Yeah, in 2009, Sting played for the daughter of a sort of Uzbek tyrant and took a load of heat for it because people discovered it.

J.Lo played for the leader of Turkmenistan in 2013 and then that blew up of course because people found out about it. It's like sorry how much money is enough. Had there been knowledge of human rights issues of any kind Jennifer would not have attended. I'd love this if they said had there been knowledge of any human rights issues of any kind they would not have booked JLo. Yeah, but it's also like, hi JLo's agent, do you have the internet? Because we just need to go to the, honestly the top paragraph of the Wikipedia entry, don't even need to get down into the controversy section. I love a controversy section.

Yeah, I'll say it, it's my favourite bit. Lionel Richie, he, a lot of people did the Gaddafi, a lot of people played for the Gaddafi, Lionel Richie played for the Gaddafi, Nelly Furtado, 50 Cent, Mariah. Beyonce did it, Usher. Really? Mariah Carey said it. I would always have an Usher at a wedding. Yeah. You have to. You have to. Team them. I was naive and unaware of who I was booked to perform for, said Mariah Carey of Colonel Gaddafi. I feel horrible embarrassed to have participated in this mess. That's amazing. I mean that really is. You don't even need to Google. Well she's famous even from a gilded cage isn't she? She's a butterfly in a gilded cage.

She's an expensive one. Yeah she is an expensive one. Nicki Minaj, Angola, I mean some of these countries. It's like what? I had no idea. It's interesting because the amount of people who have the sort of money to be able to throw at these by and large, it's quite hard to make that amount of money without turning a blind eye to something or other, isn't it? Yes, and I- So it should be, can you afford me,

then I'm not gonna do it. But the thing is, as we know now, revenues have really dried up in this training era. And you can get such a lot of money for these. People are doing $3 million a birthday party, and they're doing birthday parties, but it's just to be really clear, they're doing really small events. One guy I

was reading he said I went onto a boat and there were just three guys and I did you know trying to get the crowd going. The owner of Fulham had a private party on his yacht and there's footage of Noel Gallagher really phoning it in on there and no doubt getting a quarter of a million pounds or something. And that I mean in America. And by the way that's not a that's no shade on either of them because it's a good thing to have your party and it's a nice amount of money to have so I think both both sides did the right thing there yes I don't think he got that much in some ways which tells you because Celine

Dion used to get she used to get six million Beyonce did one she opened a hotel and she got the Atlantis in Dubai, she got 24 million dollars for that. That's amazing. Now, you see, it becomes a huge thing. So if you would say you're getting 3 million and you do 10 birthday parties a year, that is 30 million to your revenue streams. And now all celebrities, all these musical artists really have to be diversified in a

way they didn't used to before since streaming. So this is why they all have their gin brands and their makeup lines or whatever it is because if you're not in various businesses you're not in enough business to sort of support what you're in. CAA we've talked about them before the kind of big huge talent agency and LA they've got a whole division that does private events. They brought in I can't remember what they brought a couple of years ago they were bringing in more than 200 million. So it's a big part of the business for anyone. I was talking to someone in a very big band, not my brother, but talking about doing these private things and he was saying you're at these events and actually no one is watching the band. These are weddings where huge

things are going on so you're literally paying to say that the band have played at your wedding. So you know if J. Lo's playing at your wedding, you know you'd probably be out there because there's free food and booze in the other tent. So actually this is not like a huge gig where everyone's going crazy. Firstly you can say that they have played and secondly I know this and Barney wedding is slightly different but a lot of what you're paying for is if you sign up to these gigs you also sign up to selfies, you sign up to meet and greets, you sign up to sort of glad hand everybody. Mentioning the birthday boy by name on the stage, all this sort of stuff. All of that stuff and just so on

everyone's Instagram for the next week is a picture of that star or that band with the people who are at the wedding. That's really what you're getting for your two, three million pound, not kind of 10 minutes of hits because there's very few bands. I was thinking, who would I like to play at my wedding? If you were getting married tomorrow and you could book any act in the world to play at your wedding, so it would go off,

who would you choose? Taylor. Oh, I suppose so. Obviously, just for the fact of saying, yeah, Taylor's coming along later. This is no shade to you, but would you not feel slightly that she might steal some of the limelight? I'd live with it.

Do you think? Kieran would have some folk tent going over at the side. By the way, no one's going in there. You know no one's going in there. You know no one's watching that Nick Drake tribute act, don't you? Shall I tell you who I would have? And you can book him for three million according to what I've seen.

Bruno Mars, there's a guy who could rock a wedding, right? Yeah, there is a guy who can rock a wedding, and I bet he sings for his supper. And he's got lovely, he's got love songs during your supper as well. So that's the interesting thing. This might be a slightly different issue, but the world of corporates and of corporate events

for comedians and presenters and stuff like that I don't I don't really do them but a lot of people do and it's exactly that thing that you're saying which is if you're a band or you're a comedian you can go you know people get 30 40 grand to go and do someone's conference or to give out awards or something like that no footage of it appears on TV so you can use whatever material you want they all kind of write stuff meet and gre and greet, you know, sing for your supper, you have dinner with people, but that industry is absolutely enormous. Maybe Boris Johnson, who famously did do a lot of corporates, was actually at this

wedding on a corporate. He was just being placed in one corner and you invited to behold the former UK Prime Minister. He could, we don't know, the thing is we don't know. Imagine like is we don't know. Imagine like in a little cage with him and Blair. And it's, yeah, you can go and have your picture taken with the Prime Minister. You sit in the middle and pretend to be this truss. You have a little wig that you can put on.

Or the little hole that you can put your face through and it's the Liz Truss. Yes, that's absolutely perfect. But you can listen, if the money's there, and no one's ever gonna know about it. It's really interesting, young artists apparently, they're like, yeah, no, of course I'd do this. They don't have one second of saying,

yeah, I don't know, is it a bit of a sellout? And then you have to wait for your agency, no, everybody does it, all these big bands do it. Young artists are just like, yeah, no, I'll do that. Well, the trouble is, because young artists buy nice because of the economics of the business they're in, the music business, they have not been able to rely on Record sales so they've had to rely on brand partnerships. They've had to rely on you know advertising and things like that

So to them it's absolutely well This is what I've always done and what I always will do and in some ways It's sort of as old as the arts itself the idea of this kind of patronage where someone very rich will paint. You know, this is half the pictures in Renaissance Italy of like, oh, and this is the member of the family somehow meeting the deities. I don't know, Mozart was doing this really, I suppose. Lots of people were doing it. Yeah. Mozart played Tilda the Hun's daughter's wedding. Yeah. You're constantly having to play. He said, I had no idea about it. He was from Spain at that point. I was thinking, what's an Austrian accent? And should I tell you something? It wasn't that.

But there's that amazing crossover somewhere in society, see it in London all the time of billionaires and celebrities, and they both have something that the other wants. And so they are absolutely symbiotic and it's hilarious if you ever have to see it's sort of an awful dance yeah a terrible transactional dance but and the other thing I suppose we should say is that there are many many more billionaires and they wish to flaunt it in this particular way Paul McCartney when he last got married that's a tough gig to be the band right you know who he booked for his wedding? I thought he did it in his own back garden.

And some people complained. Unbelievable. There were some people who looked out the window in St John's Wood and were like, sorry, it's getting quite late now. Yeah. Okay, Paul McCartney's playing in his back garden. I can't speak about you. I have nothing to say.

You're dead in your soul. He booked Mark Ronson. Oh, did he? playing in his back garden. I can't speak about you. I have nothing to say. You're dead in your soul. He booked Mark Ronson. That was his music act. And do you know what Mark Ronson charged? What? Zero. Of course, because it's Macca. Yeah. Isn't it? So yeah, he did it for nothing, as you would if Paul McCartney asked you to play his wedding. Yeah. You would be turned up. You're not trying to haggle over it. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, the interesting thing is, it is almost impossible to think of any band, however cool they might be, however counter-cultural they might be, whatever their public pronouncements on things might be, who do not at some point take some of this corporate money. And this was never the case. This is a complete sea change. This was never the case. It used to be very, very, very uncool. But it's tough to make money in a band.

Yeah. Now, any recommendations this week? I'm actually recommending an article, it's in the London Review of Books, but it is about the Beckhams and about that Beckham biography by Tom Bauer and Andrea Hagan has done a really funny and detailed review. The reviews in the London Review of Books are so good, it's like okay I don't have to read the book now and I'm not sure you would particularly want to read the Beckham book the review is such fun and I strongly recommend you can read it online one thing I can't recommend is Beverly Hills Cockfawks we were going to talk about it this week and neither of us have watched it I know well there's

events events have overtaken us yes exactly but we okay we will have watched it by next year we said that last week so can people believe I will have watched it because I'm gonna now collapse after an electoral and sporting frenzy you know what cut to us in like every podcast takes seven months in a couple years time they go you said a podcast used to two a week didn't you we go yeah I know but it's difficult the writers room didn't start till kind of May the next episode will be 15 hours but you know we know we don't there's nothing we can cut there's nothing there's nothing we can cut. There's nothing.

It's so good. There's nothing we can cut. Yeah. I'm afraid we've got Marina's notes in and Richard's notes. And I think we have to, if we do all of them, it's going to be 47 hours. But and this is Peter Jackson, by the way, who at that point is directing the whole thing. Questions and answers on Thursday? Absolutely.

Certainly questions. And is there an email address people could write to? Oh yeah, sorry, obviously I'm already starting the Thursday episode, meltdown. The email address is therestisentertainmentatgmail.com Please contact us on that and see you Thursday. See you Thursday. I'm a man of my own I'm a man of my own