Michael’s Rule: Why Taylor Swift’s tour had the Australian music industry fuming
When Taylor Swift played to about 630,000 people on her seven-date stadium tour in February, Paul Kelly watched from the crowd. Missy Higgins, too. Then an old initiative was reborn.
When international performing artists tour Australia, there is no obligation for them to include a local artist as an opener.
This lack of compulsory domestic support acts is why, when Taylor Swift played to about 630,000 people on her seven-date stadium tour in February, not one note of Australian music was played from the stage, because neither artist nor promoter was compelled to consider booking a local support.
Instead, Swift brought a fellow US pop singer-songwriter, Sabrina Carpenter, as her opening act.
Paul Kelly was there in the crowd at Swift’s first Eras Tour concert, and mightily impressed. “She works really hard, and she totally delivers,” Kelly, 69, told The Australian after the show. “Why is she so popular? She’s like the girl next door, with a pistol in her purse.”
Missy Higgins was there, too, watching Swift. “I thought it was just a flawless show, really,” she said. “Everyone was just totally high off the show.”
But a new movement by the senior managers guiding the careers of many of the most popular Australian artists – including Kelly, Higgins, Midnight Oil, Powderfinger, The Teskey Brothers, Tame Impala and Kasey Chambers, among many others – are seeking to redress this situation, so that local performers aren’t just watching the likes of Swift from among the crowd; they’re there as performers sharing their music from the stage for a new audience.
This initiative is named ‘Michael’s Rule’, in recognition of the late Michael McMartin, a Canadian-born manager who guided the career of Sydney-born rock band Hoodoo Gurus for nearly 40 years, and who died on March 31, aged 79. On Facebook, Hoodoo Gurus wrote of McMartin: “More like a close family member than a friend or business associate, the history we share and the connection we have will be ever-present in our lives.”
Earlier this week, at the annual AAM Awards held by the Association of Artist Managers, the organisation and its 404 members agreed to reinstate ‘Michael’s Rule’, so that more Australian music is being played from more stages – and thereby heard by more people, who might hear their new favourite artist.
The AAM members have three requests on behalf of their clients. One: every international artist must include an Australian artist among their opening acts.
Two: the Australian artist must appear on the same stage at the international artist, using reasonable sound and lighting.
Three: the Australian artist must be announced at the same time as the tour, so that they benefit from all the associated marketing and promotion.
“We’re facing a lot of troubles at the moment within the Australian music industry,” Maggie Collins, executive director of the AAM, told The Australian on Friday. “Managers are the voice for the artists, and they only make money when the artist makes money, so they share that risk as well. We need more Australians loving more Australian music. This is one thing that we can do – so we’re doing it, and we’re calling for it.”
Despite what she sings in the chorus to her 2022 single Anti-Hero, Swift is not the problem, or at least not entirely; her recent tour line-up is merely being used as an anecdotal illustration of a wider trend that has been allowed to take root across the years, despite plenty of grumbling behind the scenes in the domestic live music sector.
The keyword in this scenario surrounding Michael’s Rule is ‘reinstate’, because the abovementioned situation regarding Swift’s 2024 visit – as well as other recent overseas artists to play arenas, including SZA and Niall Horan, both of whom booked zero local supports – would not have happened in the early 2000s.
That was the era, about 20 years ago, when senior managers including McMartin banded together to ensure that this voluntary industry code was followed by promoters booking national tours.
Back then, when CDs were the chief medium for consuming music, Australian artists were regularly battling internationals near the top of the ARIA charts.
That’s no longer the case in the streaming era, where the large reach of international artists and their record labels’ marketing means that if an Australian artist manages to crack the top spot, it’s usually only for the debut week of release before they’re knocked off – usually by someone like Swift, whose songs occupied all 10 spots of the ARIA top 10 singles chart last week following the release of her 11th album.
“Everybody knows that there are less Australian songs on the charts right now that at any time since the early 1960s,” said Collins. “Local artists and their managers are also facing other historic challenges including a slew of recent festival cancellations.”
“These challenges have been recognised by governments across Australia in recent years,” she said. “Promoters received significant public funding during the pandemic and they understandably continue to receive public support for some of their major events. We think it is only reasonable that, in return, they should ‘do their bit’ to help give Australian artists a leg-up by the simple means of including at least one local act on every international tour.”
In a statement on Friday, AAM co-chairs Alastair Burns and Jess Keely said: “In memory of Michael McMartin OAM we are therefore making this public request today to every major promoter and we eagerly await their reply. If they are unwilling to reinstate ‘Michael’s Rule’ as a voluntary code then we will be making formal representations to government to use the visa system instead.”
When touring international acts opt to include Australian artists as openers, the results can be spectacular, and can offer a major career boost.
When Swift toured Australian stadiums in 2015, her opening act was Melbourne-born singer-songwriter Vance Joy, whose career got a significant boost from that exposure, and who continues to book large venues when he continues to tour nationally as a headliner.
More recently, when pop artist Pink played 20 stadiums dates earlier this year on her Summer Carnival tour, her opener was fellow pop performer Tones and I, whose music was heard by a good chunk of the 900,000 people who bought tickets to see Pink. In turn, that visibility allowed the local artist – aka Toni Watson – to book arenas and large outdoor venues for her upcoming headline tour in August.
As well, when American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish performed a sold-out arena tour in 2022, she elected to bring along Zambia-born, Australia-based hip-hop artist Sampa The Great, who benefited greatly from being seen and heard as an opener by Eilish’s intensely loyal fanbase.
That tick of approval from artists like Pink and Eilish to our local acts is a huge help. It starts with the artist, but tour promoters have a say, too.
“We hope that they’ll get on board, essentially,” said Collins of promoters large and small. “We know that we all want the same thing; we all want to support the same industry that we all live in. We understand that there will be challenges with that, but we just want to get Michael’s Rule out there so that we can talk about it now: reinstate what used to be there, and be able to do one tangible thing that we can to help the discoverability of artists in this country.”
“We hope that those conversations are opened up – not just with promoters, but let’s get this conversation going with those international acts who want to tour Australia,” said Collins. “If they love their Australian fans, and they want to visit their fans and perform in front of those fans, let’s do something for our music community that lives here, too. If this can come from those international artists, first and foremost – and the promoters are able to help facilitate it – that is the most genuine and effective way of getting this going.”
In the streaming era, it’s easier than ever before for listeners to stay siloed within algorithmically-controlled playlists. That’s a separate discussion. But in the live arena, when people have chosen to spend a few hours together at a music venue, the opportunity for Australian acts to perform on the same stage as visiting internationals can be the difference between being heard, or not at all.
In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) welcomed the AAM call to reinstate the code of conduct.
“Tours play massive roles in discovery and provide important support slots for Aussie artists to connect with new fans,” said ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd. “Taylor Swift, The 1975, Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran all rocketed up the charts with multiple albums the weeks they were in the country recently.”
“At the local level, these tours provide huge opportunities for Australian artist via support slots, which can connect our artists with whole new fan bases,” said Herd. “Doing whatever we can to get our local artists in front of new audiences is the most important issue facing our local industry, and as such Michael’s Rule is a fantastic initiative, which we are confident can be implemented in a way that doesn’t impact the viability of international touring.”
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