Hey, everyone. A-thony I-tano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well.

It's time, I think, for a very significant exclusive conversation that came as a result of a pretty big video that we did on this channel recently where I ranked and tiered out all of the major music streaming platforms available to you today.

We did this on the channel because, as we have done more coverage of crapping on how awful Spotify is, the most popular music streaming platform out there, we've been getting more and more questions asking, "Anthony, what service should I be using instead? What other services are out there? And what other aspects of music streaming should I be considering when choosing a different service?"

Now, this ranking actually got more of a response than I thought it would from inside and outside of the industry, because I actually have gotten some companies reaching out, asking to have a conversation or do some follow-up, which is weird because it has me feeling like my opinions might actually matter for once.

But anyway, one of the companies that reached out in the midst of all of this actually has been Deezer. I was curious to have a conversation with because they are one of the few streaming platforms out there currently that have actually taken a position on AI music. They are currently trying to tag and label many songs on the platform that happen to be AI-generated, so users know what they are listening to.

So yeah, I was curious as to how and why they've gone about doing that, and was also curious about the company's general ethos when it comes to paying artists since stream payouts are also a really huge topic in the music industry. And interestingly enough, I didn't get handed some random PR person to talk to. Who I talked with for this conversation was actually the company's CEO, Alexis Lanternier, who basically answered all my questions about not only artist payouts on the platform today, but AI music and its proliferation in the streaming age.

Watch the full interview here.