The music business has never been larger or more complex — and accordingly, the issues facing the industry and its many creators are more numerous, and complicated, than ever.

As musicians face myriad challenges, from negotiating fair streaming royalties to navigating the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), the Recording Academy is among the most critical institutions fighting for their rights. With the business staring down another consequential year, the academy announced in October its new National Advocacy Committee co-chairs: DJ-producer Dani Deahl will return for a second consecutive yearlong term, with Hanson’s Taylor Hanson joining her for his first term in the role.

Deahl and Hanson have deep histories with the academy, as current national trustees and former presidents of its Chicago and Texas chapters, respectively, so they bring not just their lived experiences as musicians to the Advocacy Committee, but also their knowledge of the academy as an institution. Both cherish the work they’ve been tasked with — and have ideas for how to modernize and streamline it.

“I’ve been working in music for over 30 years,” Hanson says. “I’ve seen it evolve. But that also means I’ve seen us miss opportunities over and over to set a better example for what our industry could be.”

At times, he argues, the business’ fragmentation — between publishing, management, touring and more — has enabled the exploitation of its creators. That’s why, for him and Deahl, a holistic approach to resolving issues is critical. Plus, they note, other entertainment sectors often face similar challenges to the music industry, meaning that the effects of this advocacy work can ripple well beyond musicians.

Earlier this year, the Help Independent Tracks Succeed (HITS) Act was signed into law, making the tax code more musician-friendly and representing a major victory for advocacy groups, including the academy. Among the other federal legislation Deahl and Hanson are fighting for: the Nurture Originals, Foster Art and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act, to curb deepfakes and likeness infringement; the American Music Fairness Act, to ensure creators are paid for the use of their songs on terrestrial radio; the American Music Tourism Act, to fortify music tourism; the Protect Working Musicians Act, to help independent creators collectively negotiate with streaming platforms and AI companies; and the RAP (Restoring Artistic Protection) Act, to protect the First Amendment rights of artists whose lyrics are used in courts of law.

But they aren’t going it alone. The academy’s membership — and the broader creator community — support the advocacy efforts led by Deahl and Hanson, including the annual Music Advocacy Day, when these parties meet with state and federal legislators. During this year’s edition, in September, 2,100 creators took part in 200 meetings with policymakers across 45 states and in Washington, D.C.

“Patterns of advocacy — not just wins today, but showing when we raise our hand and when we challenge things — is critical,” Hanson says. And, Deahl adds, this work’s benefits assist far more than musicians themselves: “Advocating is not just good for creators, but the public interest. A stable, transparent and fair music ecosystem benefits musicians, but it also benefits fans. These policies reinforce a system where creators can thrive and consumers aren’t exploited.”

Taylor, you’ve been active in Recording Academy governance and advocacy efforts for years. Why did you want to take on this new role?

Taylor Hanson: I’ve been an academy member for a very long time, since I was 15, and here I am at the ripe old age of 42. I [have] really witnessed the power of the academy to develop, evolve and grow in order to represent its community, and one of the most significant places I’ve seen the academy really invest in the last decade is advocacy.

It’s a very important time now because there’s new things happening in our industry that we’ve never seen before, whether it’s technology, new habits that are changing with fans, the way they consume music. It’s up to organizations like the academy to be at the point of the spear, so to speak, of how we engage in the challenges that are ahead and continue to make sure that creators’ rights are protected and represented.

Dani, you’ve already served a yearlong term as Advocacy Committee co-chair. Why did you want to continue?

Dani Deahl: This feels like a continuation of how I’ve lived my life up until this point. Even before I was asked to be co-chair of this committee last year, I’ve lived most of my professional life in pursuit of trying to make things more equitable for everyone else in my space. I know what it’s like to face systemic barriers — I’ve been a woman in dance music for 20 years. I had to fight for recognition, for pay equity, for safety in greenrooms, and spent a lot of time and many years advocating for those same things for other women in my space. I feel like I’ve always had a fire in me to try and advocate for other people. So being able to participate in a committee of this stature at this level and to create meaningful change, how can I turn that down?

Dani, what were some of the initiatives that you worked on during your first term that you’re proudest of?

Deahl: I was really, really proud, in my home state of Illinois, about passing HB 4875. Now, of course, on a national level, we’re talking about the NO FAKES Act. This, for my state, is a version of that. It followed in the wake of the ELVIS [Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security] Act [in Tennessee], and it updated my state’s right of publicity in order to make it so that artists could have some protections if generative AI was used to impersonate them or their work. It was so meaningful to go down to Springfield and testify in front of the [Illinois] Senate and to be able to talk to legislators face-to-face and put a story to the issue that affects so many people.

For musicians, advocacy can encompass so many things. What do you see as the most important issues facing creators today?

Hanson: The NO FAKES Act is going to continue to be an anchor of the dialogue — and all the things related to how AI is emerging in the new world. Historically, music has been the canary in the mine for change. We’re the first ones: downloading, streaming music, digital. It started with music because [we have] smaller files, we’re slightly easier to push around than the film and TV [sectors]. But what starts with music leads to everything else. The onus is on the music business to do a better job of protecting likeness and protecting intellectual property going forward. That’s something that, if we don’t highlight it, will be abused. It’s already at risk and it’s already begun to be abused.

Deahl: I’m very personally invested in NO FAKES. It’s so disheartening to watch tech companies build [billion-dollar] — or potentially now — trillion-­dollar companies that are trained on music that was made by people that can barely scrape together rent. That disconnect, to me, says everything. Creators are being asked to adapt to a world they didn’t agree to be a part of. That part’s not new; we’ve always had to historically do that [in the entertainment business]. But NO FAKES is about setting a very clear and simple boundary, and that is your identity is not public domain. Just because it exists online, it does not mean that other people can use it. And if someone wants to use your voice or your image or your likeness, they need consent. It feels like such a simple baseline, doesn’t it?

I’m so excited that the academy is being so proactive on this because if we don’t intervene now, the music industry’s next generation of creators won’t lose money — they’re going to lose authorship. They’re going to lose identity. That is incredibly scary to me because we’ve spent decades telling artists they need to build their brand, they need to own their narrative, and now we’re watching systems and companies come out that strip all of that away unless you can afford to fight it — and how many of us can?

You referenced Tennessee’s ELVIS Act and legislation in Illinois. There’s national legislation, but the states are incubators as well. How, in your role, do you liaise with folks who are on the ground regionally and marshal support for local or regional initiatives that may not receive the same media attention but are still important?

Deahl: This year, we have a very exciting change to our structure at the academy that is going to allow us to listen and activate more closely on that state level. Each of our chapters now has a standardized Advocacy Committee, which then ladders up to Taylor and I and everyone else that is on advocacy at a national level. That means that we basically have a phone tree across the country to let us know about the local issues that are affecting people, and that’s a structure that we did not formally have in place before. Because of that, we’re on the precipice of a very exciting time at the academy where we can more closely attune to localized issues that are affecting people on the ground in local chapters, and that will allow us to not only be more effective at a state level but [also] nationally.

Hanson: The RAP Act is something, specifically, that is really important, but is working its way more state by state.

Deahl: Working on state-level issues, it gives us a shorter runway to real impact. Like HB 4875, that was concept to execution in under a year. That’s crazy. It doesn’t always happen that way, but that’s a real demonstrable difference from how law passes at a federal level. You’re not dealing with the same gridlock, you can build relationships more directly. And once one state passes a law, then immediately that becomes a blueprint for other states to look at. It’s a proof of concept, and it can become much easier to scale that idea.

These issues span red states and blue states, and music has proved to be a space for bipartisanship in recent years. Can you speak a little bit about working with people across the political spectrum, across different parts of the country, who may have different values but can come together about protecting creators and the music community?

Hanson: The great thing about music is it gives us an opportunity to speak about something that is a uniting force versus a dividing one. The importance of the arts, the importance of songs and artists, does bring us back to what unites us over and over, and it’s a privilege to be able to bring that subject into a room with leaders. We have seen people that are extremely red and people that are extremely blue sit around a table and say, “Oh, you love hip-hop? I love hip-hop. You love country? I love country.” That’s a great opportunity for us as a country and as a community to not only get the job done by realizing we have an issue that is uniting, but also for everyone to be reminded that we do share a lot of things — a lot more, I think, as citizens, than oftentimes we get to talk about.

Deahl: Regardless of where you live, every city, every state has local venues, has nightclubs, stadiums, recording studios, church musicians, music teachers, someone who wants to play in a touring band. We all know someone: “I used to play piano” or “My daughter wants to write songs for a living,” “My cousin’s in a band.” That’s where the momentum really comes from because music doesn’t belong to one side of the aisle. It belongs to people.

This story appears in the Dec. 6, 2025, issue of Billboard.

Fred again.. rarely does interviews, but he recently sat down for a long conversation as part of Instagram’s Ask It Anyway series.

Filmed during a break from the British producer’s current 10 weeks/10 songs/10 cities rollout tour for his USB002 project, the discussion functions as a mentoring session for the young creators in attendance, as Fred elaborated on his creative process and much more. Watch the complete interview below.

The conversation started with the artist discussing his current tour, of which he said, “I’m feeling a bit more stable that I’m getting to travel with my best mates and play shows, and I feel very blessed if I’m honest.”

In terms of finding a balance between writing music and playing it, Fred added that, “I think for me there was just a clear thing, with touring at least. If you think of writing and touring, if you stop one of them, the other one stops. Like, writing leads to touring. So I’m really clear in my mind what’s the most important thing, and it’s writing music. My happy place is being on my ones or being with my mates making tunes, that’s always square one for me. I’ve always made sure that even if we’ve done mad stuff, that there’s always time to come back and be in London and write tunes.”

The list of “mad stuff” he referred to was indeed long, with the last few years finding Fred and his team putting on pop-up shows around the world, including a 2024 show the Los Angeles Coliseum, touring the U.S. and beyond and joining the Coachella 2023 as a last minute headliner alongside Skrillex and Four Tet.

“For me, I’m trying to just protect my mental so that I can feel good to make music every day, so everything just kind of feeds into that,” Fred said of maintaining balance amid these big moments. “I definitely haven’t always been good at this, but as I get older I care more about getting good sleep or exercising, so when I wake up I can have the cleanest line between here and here.”

He continued that creating this “cleanest line” has lead to an increase in useable output over the last few years.

“I find moments sometimes where we’re lucky with me… and both my brothers who I work with, to find ways where maybe 1% of what we write starts feels like it can come out as opposed to 0.1%. Having the record like USB, where it’s just tunes that I’m making for my USB, it doesn’t need to be like, some deep album statement always,” he said. “Then I’ve always got albums, so there’s a few different avenues that I get to put tunes out in. Or like, make an ambient album with Brian [Eno] or something like that.”

The 32-year-old artist also noted that from the ages of 20 to 28, “I reckon probably 0.0001% of things I made came out, and now I reckon 1% comes out, so that’s great.”

He told the rapt audience that making music every day is key to his process. “I try and make a few ideas a day, and most of them are rubbish… The thing is for me, the joy and the journey of finding out what you like, just like closing your eyes and throwing paint and seeing what sticks,” he said. “I would definitely preach all day about, the more you can fall in love with the obsession of it and the craft and just chasing chasing, to me that’s the win. The best feeling to me is when you play back the thing you’ve made that day and you actually feel good about it. That’s the drug I’m chasing every day.”

And while modern day producers have an endless number of software and plugins with which to create, Fred’s advice was “to just commit to two synths and five plugins that you’re going to use the next four years and save yourself all of that headspace and all of that wasted time comparing whether this compressor sounds slightly better than this compressor. Like, fix the chorus. I really, really feel this.”

He also recommended having a close group of friends to run ideas by, revealing that he has “a WhatsApp group with four of us and I’ll send everything to that group. All of them aren’t musicians, and that’s almost why I value their thoughts… You can take the feedback that resonates. That’s the most important thing. Don’t listen to any criticism, listen to the criticism that resonates.”

He also schooled the audience on not getting worn down by rejection, revealing that before he went on to become a frequent collaborator with Four Tet, he once sent the fellow producer an email that Four Tet never responded to.

“Four Tet is a producer who I’ve worked with a lot, an artist, and he loves to show people the email I sent to him years before we actually met of me being like ‘Hey mate!” Fred recalled. “I managed to get his email, that was like a huge win, and then I sent him this email like ‘Please, can we do anything? Not even music, can we just have a cup or whatever?’ And then a few years after that we actually met, and he just loves getting that email out.”

In the end, he said, “It comes back to this trying to nurture your resilience so you can shoot a million shots and not take it personally. Because it’s not personal when they don’t land, it’s nothing to do with you.”

Check out Fred’s chat below.

Country Thunder Wisconsin has assembled a stacked lineup for its 2026 run at Shadow Hill Ranch in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin on July 16-19. Newly-minted CMA vocal group of the year The Red Clay Strays, as well as Gavin Adcock, Riley Green and Keith Urban will headline next year’s fest.

Meanwhile, the full lineup is also brimming with talent, including Gretchen Wilson, Ian Munsick, Nate Smith, Shaboozey, George Birge, Mark Chesnutt, Dasha, Corey Kent, Gabriella Rose, The Wilder Blue, Zach John King, Annie Bosko, Hannah McFarland, The Jack Wharff Band and more.

The full daily lineup for each day of the fest will be announced in coming months. Last year, the fest was headlined by Dierks Bentley, Cole Swindell, HARDY and Jelly Roll.

Adcock, who rises from an opener on last year’s fest to a headliner this year, has seen a career surge over the past year, earning RIAA Gold and Platinum hits thanks to songs such as “A Cigarette” and “Run Your Mouth.”

Riley Green picked up several CMA Awards last month, picking up wins for single of the year, song of the year and music video of the year, each for his Ella Langley collaboration “You Look Like You Love Me.” Next year, Green will be supporting the military through playing a trio of military shows for sailors, service members and their families. He’ll play Kanagawa, Japan at US Navy Base Fleet Yokosuka on March 9, Naval Air Facility Atsugi on March 10, and Hickman, Hawaii at Joint Base Pearl Harbor on March 22.

Check out the lineup poster below.

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Lily Allen has unveiled a new line of flash drives containing the songs from her West End Girl album — but let’s just say that they may not be stocked on the shelves of your local Target without a parental warning.

Announcing the products on Instagram on Wednesday (Dec. 3), Allen shared a photo of herself looking glam while holding up one of the blue, polka-dotted USBs, which just so happen to be shaped like a certain kind of sex toy. “limited merch drop, live now,” she wrote inconspicuously in her caption.

On her website, the flash drives are listed for $33.99. “Note: This product is a novelty USB device intended for data storage only,” reads a description.

Allen’s new merch line comes about six weeks after she dropped West End Girl, her first album in seven years. Though the musician has emphasized that the songs on the LP are a mix of fantasy and real life, the general consensus among listeners has been that her divorce from actor David Harbour inspired the bulk of the subject matter.

On one particularly revealing track, “Pussy Palace,” Allen sings about finding her partner’s hidden “Duane Reade bag with the handles tied/ Sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside/ Hundreds of Trojans, you’re so f–king broken/ How’d I get caught up in your double life?”

Elsewhere on the project, Allen describes a partner pressuring her into an open relationship before breaking their agreed-upon boundaries, leading to a painful breakup. The singer and Stranger Things actor were married for four years before separating in February.

“I wasn’t even really thinking about it as, like, a commercial endeavor,” Allen told CBS Mornings of making West End Girl in November. “It was an act of desperation, actually… Since I’ve put it out, it’s felt completely and utterly liberating.”

Harbor has not commented on the album.