Ep. 227: Ryan Tedder pt.4 | The Modern Music Economy, A.I. and The Future, and How to Win
And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan
And The Writer Is
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2025
⏱️ 119 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's guest is a familiar face... A friend to the podcast and one of the most successful and influential creators in music history.
He isn’t just a hitmaker. He's perhaps one of the few people in the history of music to have hits as a songwriter, artist, and producer... completely aside from one another across genres.
And The Writer Is... Ryan Tedder!
In this episode, he breaks down:
🎯 Why the middle class of music is disappearing
🎯 How splits, streaming, and AI are reshaping the game
🎯 The mindset you need to survive as an artist today
🎯 What real creative value looks like in 2025 and beyond
This one isn’t just inspiring — It’s essential listening for anyone who wants to last in music..
A special thank you to our sponsors... O
ur lead sponsor, NMPA, the National Music Publisher's Association.
Your support means the world to us!
And Splice -- the best sample library on the market.
Hosted by Ross Golan Produced by Joe London and Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was just this close to being completely checked out of music altogether. If you aren't passionate about this, if you don't daydream about it, get out. I learned years ago that the only way that I could survive in this industry, I had to divorce myself from my songs. That was it. But this one's such a smash. It's such a hit record. It's not even going to see the light of day. You have to divorce yourself. The two things are the most important right now within the music industry for artists, success of hits, songs, you name it. Unique world building around the artist and super fandom. When you get it right, you're unstoppable. Let's get our hands dirty. What are the stats, man? You are making the equivalent of 60 grand, and that's a smash in 2005 money, |
| 0:41.5 | whereas the average writer of the same equivalent hit in 2005 is making 2025 money, 255,000. |
| 0:48.8 | Are you afraid of AI? |
| 0:50.8 | My underlying fear with AI is... What's the worst point of your music career? |
| 0:57.0 | I was just like, I can't take the heartbreak anymore of the music industry. |
| 1:03.0 | I had no gas in the tank for my own band after our most successful album. |
| 1:06.0 | My studio in LA, I was going to turn it into a real estate office. |
| 1:09.0 | How did you get out of it? |
| 1:14.6 | My magic trick that has me here today was... This season is presented by NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association, champions of songwriters |
| 1:25.9 | and publishers everywhere. You and I talk a lot about |
| 1:29.4 | how do we create boost a middle class of songwriting. Let's start on a dark note. What are the |
| 1:36.5 | stats, man? Okay, so this has been a hot button topic for the songwriting community at large |
| 1:43.1 | around the world. The analogy |
| 1:45.9 | I gave was like you throw one fry out |
| 1:48.0 | and there's a bunch of seagulls sitting, you throw out one |
| 1:49.9 | fry, all of them jump, all the seagulls come |
| 1:52.1 | Santa Monica Pier, they dive on the fry, |
| 1:54.6 | the fry is the song, |
| 1:55.9 | we're the seagulls, right? |
| 1:58.6 | That is an appropriate analogy. |
| 2:00.5 | So zoom out for a minute. |
| 2:02.4 | How did this happen? |
... |
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