Bi-Weekly-ish Newsletter #78 w/ ASN's Good Dayπ΅β‘, AI's Authenticity Crisis π€π, Digital Diplomacy Masters π―π€, Oasis's Human Hype π€π₯ and Hardcore Football Drums π₯β½
Hi reader,
Thanks for slow consuming a new edition of the bi-weekly-ish newsletter by yours truly, Marcel Alexander Wiebenga.
Welcome to another edition of this bi-weekly-ish newsletter on music, tech, culture, and more music. This installment takes you through the beautiful chaos of sync licensing (featuring our own Ringo war story), the unsettling rise of AI bands with real fans, machines that negotiate better than FBI hostage experts, 80,000 humans losing their minds at Oasis, and my nervous return to the stage after 14 years.
A solid mix of professional insights, existential questions and personal confessions exactly what you (havenβt) signed up for.
Enjoy.
1. When "Good Day" Meets Good Chaos
A Sync Alert From The Trenches
π‘π²π π¦ππ»π° ππΉπ²πΏπ! Starting with a project that we handled as Ringo. ASN Bank's "Zin In Morgen" (Already Looking Forward to Tomorrow) campaign found the perfect sonic match in Nappy Roots' "Good Day", a track that embodies optimism and forward momentum, perfectly aligning with the bank's message about building toward a brighter future.
While our Ringo pricing algorithm was right from the start and made for a quick "let's do this" decision, the rest of the project turned into one of our most complex recent endeavors: 7 writers (including one semi-off-grid), 3 publishers, 2 competing masters, unions and some last-minute creative changes with short deadlines to boot. Just picture trying to get approval from a writer who only checks email twice a week while the campaign launches in two days.
The irony wasn't lost on us that a song promising a "Good Day" had other plans. Yet this is exactly what Ringo is built for: our algorithmic pricing gave alfred the confidence to move forward, and our team handled the complexity that followed, ASN Bank got their perfect soundtrack and we got another proof point that the future of sync licensing is about combining smart technology with experienced hands.
Check out the campaign below.
This is an ad⦠sorta
While ASN Bank is celebrating good days and we're navigating sync chaos, at Ringo we're building the future of music licensing, one algorithmic price at a time.
The "Good Day" project perfectly shows what we're about: instant pricing accuracy that gives you the confidence to move forward, combined with the expertise to handle whatever complexity the music industry throws at you. No more endless email chains with publishers. No more budget surprises. No more wondering if that perfect track is actually achievable.
We're turning the wild west of sync licensing into something predictable, transparent, and (dare we say it) stress-free for you. Whether you're dealing with 7 writers or 1, whether they're in Nashville or off-grid in a cabin, Ringo gives you the tools and support to make it happen.
π Try Ringo Beta 003 for free at www.thisisringo.com
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Upload your playlist
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Set your terms
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Get instant pricing
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Move forward with confidence
2. The Velvet Sundown Paradox
When AI Bands Get "Real: Fans
Meanwhile, on the other end of the music spectrum: Meet The Velvet Sundown, the AI band that's crossed a line we didn't know existed. They've hit over 1 million monthly Spotify listeners and accumulated tons of press, with people trying to make sense of what's going on and above all... is suspiciously listenable. Sure, a big part of those 1 million monthly Spotify listeners has to do with its novelty and the fact that people have been talking about them online for weeks, but in all honesty, that first track does sound good and the opening lyrics "Dust in the wind, boots on the ground" is a great hook.
The big twist? They're entirely AI-generated. No humans, no instruments, no studio, just algorithms, a backstory (also AI-generated), AI-generated videos and images that have people wondering what's uniquely human about creativity.
Content creator Sinead Bovell nailed it in a recent post:
It reminds me of a party I wanted to throw for Sizzer in Cannes, obsessed with booking a Daft Punk tribute act but secretly having the actual Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel behind those masks. I'd seen Daft Punk myself, July 4th, 2007, but to this day, there's no conclusive proof they were actually in those suits. Case in point, when they won a Grammy years later, two white robot versions sat in the audience while the real guys sat right behind them in regular suits.
What is real? What is authentic? What is meaningful? If music (or art in general) moves you, does it matter if there's a human behind it? It's like the tree falling in the woods, the philosophical paradox with supposedly no real answer, but there actually is. Sound is just air waves until there's a receptor to turn it into meaning. Maybe that's the liberating and terrifying thing about now: meaning shifts from the maker to the receiver. It's less about who made it and more about if and what it makes you feel. And that opens everything.
And undermines everything.
3. When AI Learns to Negotiate Better Than Humans
The Chris Voss Problem
Every has launched AI Diplomacy, a multiplayer version of the classic strategy game where cutting-edge AI models compete to dominate Europe through negotiation, alliance-building, and betrayal. Over 15 rounds, OpenAI's o3 emerged as the master manipulator, systematically deceiving opponents, while Claude 4 Opus played the naive peacemaker and DeepSeek R1 brought theatrical aggression to the table.
What's fascinating is that negotiation was supposed to be uniquely human, all about reading emotions, building trust and understanding psychology. FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss built his entire career on this premise in "Never Split the Difference," turning emotional intelligence into tactical advantage (and apparently using those same skills to negotiate his way into a relationship with someone waaaaaayyyyyy too young). Yet here we have AI models not just negotiating, but excelling at the most human parts: deception, manipulation, strategic betrayal.
The unsettling realization? Voss's book and countless negotiation guides are probably sitting in every AI training dataset. These models literally learned from the FBI's top hostage negotiator and got better at it than we expected. When o3 systematically deceives its way to victory, it's using techniques designed for life-or-death human situations. This raises questions for everything from sync licensing negotiations to whether we're accidentally training digital sociopaths to be our best dealmakers.
Watch the AI models battle it out in real-time below it's both fascinating and slightly terrifying to see machines master the art of human manipulation.
4. Oasis: Real Humans, Real Hype
When Crowdsourced Cinema Meets Britpop Revival
Well, at least we know Oasis is real and that hype train just keeps going full speed. Case in point: Lidl coming up with this amazing Oasis-inspired jacket as a PR stunt. With the first reunion shows now in the books, something impossible to miss for anyone with an internet connection, all social media feeds were swarmed with what turned out to be one amazing hell of a first show.
Years ago, The Beastie Boys had this brilliant idea to hand out 50 Hi-8 cameras to fans at their Madison Square Garden concert. The resulting footage was edited together to create "Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!" - a unique, multi-angle view of the performance that felt more authentic than any official concert film. Some smart pants actually recreated this concept with all the Oasis footage flooding online, and the result is, as expected, looking fooking biblical man.
It's rough around the edges, but amazing to watch, especially with all the incredible crowd reactions. In an era where we're questioning what's real there's something deeply satisfying about thousands of phones capturing the same moment of pure, unfiltered human joy. No algorithms, no AI, just Liam's voice, Noel's guitar as a reminder what it looks like when 80,000 humans care.
Watch the beautiful chaos below.
5. Kuipvrees: When Hardcore Meets Football
A Personal Return to the Stage
To say these past weeks were interesting and intense for music is an understatement. The aforementioned Oasis reunion shows were nothing to sneeze at and in the same weekend, the who's who of louder-than-loud came together for Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne's final horn up hurray at the "Back to the Beginning" send off in Birmingham, England, a fitting finale for the heavy metal band that changed everything. Add to that summer festivals going wild like Down the Rabbit Hole here in the Netherlands, and you'd think you'd covered it all. Wrong!
Another βbigβ thing that happened is that the band Kuipvrees played for the very first time in public in front of 100 people. Kuipvrees is a Dutch band featuring ex-members of such iconic hardcore bands as Backfire, Seeinβ Red, Face Tomorrow, LΓ€rm and DeadStoolPigeon and features yours truly on drums with songs about our combined passion: football team Feyenoord Rotterdam. We play simple, dare I say dumb, straightforward hardcore that's easy to sing along to and would be very suitable on the center circle at the Kuip right before a Champions League game (π€). Ironically, we played in Amsterdam.
It's the first time performing for me in 14 years... Needless to say, I was nervous, and when I say nervous, I was considering a heart attack just to get out of it. That felt extreme, so we went ahead and the rest was pretty, pretty, prettyyyy good. We played 9 songs, clocking in at around 17 minutes and we'll start playing some more shows in the near future. So, if you're into the niche of a niche, both hardcore punk and Feyenoord Rotterdam, if you can see the humor in changing the lyrics to Project X's "Cross Me" into a 9-second burst about getting out of pressing by playing a cross pass, this band might be something for you.
Online now on Instagram, with merch and shows coming up.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this newsletter, share it with someone who might appreciate these musings.
See you in the next one.
Marcel
Ik ga de Kuipvrees merch even checken