Review: Musonomics podcast offers deep dive on industry issues

We’re always looking for new podcasts to add to our listening queue, and so today we took a listen to a new program called Musonomics. It’s a twice-monthly podcast about the music and culture industries that just debuted its first episode last week. Larry Miller is the host, and the program has backing from the NYU Steinhardt Music Business Program, where he is a professor. In the introduction, Miller promises to examine the intersection of music and business with data and interviews.

The first episode includes an in-depth discussion about the resurgence of vinyl that went from playing a scene from the classic music geek movie ‘High Fidelity’ to an interview with Jim Donio of the Music Business Association. It also veered into a conversation about Record Store Day with co-founder Michael Kurtz, and with store owners and musicians to give a full picture of what the event means to the music industry.

Miller’s interview subjects are top notch and informative, and it’s likely that he’ll continue to draw on his industry contacts to bring in more fascinating perspectives on the music business. We didn’t hear too much of the impressive analytics that an NYU prof would likely have access to. A Musonomics blog post that published after the episode aired did offer some interesting numbers about Record Store Day sales, but perhaps data will be more of a focus in the show’s future programming. The interviews alone would make this worth a listen for industry professionals looking for a deep dive on what is and will be happening in the field.