Season 2 · Episode 1
Roman Tagoe is the Director Streaming UK, Blue Raincoat Music & Chrysalis Records. Roman is a streaming expert with over 20 years of experience across BBC Radio 1, Deezer, Napster, BBC 6 Music and Sony Music. He began his career in student radio, gave The Killers their first ever UK interview (recorded on a MiniDisc and posted to London), and has spent his career working at the intersection of music, technology and audience strategy.
Roman Tagoe grew up recording songs off the radio onto a Fisher-Price cassette recorder and making his own radio shows with a double cassette deck his mother bought him so he could do edits. He spent hours under his duvet listening to Mary Anne Hobbs on the Breezeblock and John Peel, who shaped his belief that passionate human curation is the best discovery mechanism in music. At university doing English and student radio, he gave The Killers their first ever UK interview - Brandon Flowers, very nervous, 15 minutes, recorded on a MiniDisc and physically posted to London so it could be used on the Sunday chart show.
He then worked his way through BBC 6 Music, Napster, Deezer, BBC Radio 1 and Sony Music, watching streaming go from an industry threat to the entire infrastructure of the industry. He now works in music strategy and has one of the most considered perspectives on what the streaming era has actually meant - what it cost and what it made possible - of anyone working in the industry today.
Duration: 63 minutes 28 Seconds
Season: 2 · Episode 1
Also available: Audio only on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Acast
Fisher-Price cassettes and learning from passionate curators
Roman Tagoe's earliest music memory is of recording songs off the radio onto a Fisher-Price cassette recorder as a child, then graduating - when his mother bought a radio with a double cassette deck — to making his own edits. Hours under his duvet listening to Mary Anne Hobbs' Breezeblock and John Peel. The thing that shaped his entire relationship with music and his entire understanding of what made radio special was those DJs' genuine passion - their excitement for discovering music and sharing it with other people. Two moments completely rewired his musical taste: hearing PJ Harvey's "Perfect Day Elise" on The Evening Session and listening to Portishead Live at Roseland Ballroom on a Sunday night Radio 1 concert. Both experiences came from passionate people sharing something they genuinely loved.
The Killers, a MiniDisc and the first UK interview
The story of Roman giving The Killers their first UK interview is one of the great accidental moments of the early streaming era. He was at university doing student radio. Mr Brightside crept into the chart at number 39 or 40. The Killers were playing The Cockpit in Leeds. He got a call: can you go and interview them? He went. Brandon Flowers was very nervous. Fifteen minutes. Recorded on a MiniDisc recorder. Roman then physically posted the disc to London so it could be broadcast on the Sunday chart show. Mark notes - for any younger listeners - that when Roman says he posted it, he means Royal Mail, stamps, a letterbox. That is how music journalism worked in 2003.
Twenty years watching streaming change everything
Roman's career runs through almost every significant moment of the streaming era: Napster's disruption, BBC 6 Music's survival (the station nearly closed - there were petitions to save it), Deezer's European expansion, BBC Radio 1's navigation of the digital transition, Sony's streaming strategy. He has watched the music industry go from treating streaming as a threat to treating it as the entire infrastructure. The programme he worked on at 6 Music - The Music Week, a Sunday afternoon news magazine - taught him the fundamental lesson he has applied ever since: always think about the audience. Who are they? What do they need? How do you present something in the most engaging way?
What passionate human curation still does that algorithms cannot
Roman began his music life listening to DJs with genuine passion for what they played - people who shared their excitement for discovering music. That model, he argues, is not dead. It is undervalued. Algorithms can surface music efficiently. They cannot make you feel what Mary Anne Hobbs felt when she played something. The human act of saying "I love this and I think you will too" has a power that recommendation engines have not yet replicated. Roman's career has been, in various forms, a twenty-year argument for that conviction.
"I gave The Killers their first UK interview. I recorded it on a MiniDisc and posted it to London. Brandon Flowers was very nervous."
- Roman Tagoe - on the accidental beginning of The Killers in the UK
"Algorithms can surface music efficiently. They cannot make you feel what Mary Anne Hobbs felt when she played something. That's still the gap."
- Roman Tagoe - on why passionate human curation still matters
"I grew up recording songs off the radio onto Fisher-Price tapes. Twenty years later I was helping shape how music is heard at scale. The love of music was always the same thing."
- Roman Tagoe - on a career built on genuine passion for music discovery
The Blinding Talent Music Industry Podcast is hosted by Mark Adams - founder of Blinding Talent and former Director of Music Programming at Channel 4, where he launched the Official YouTube Chart (2015) and Spotify's first ever Streaming Chart (2016). Each episode is an in-depth conversation with a senior music industry figure - equal parts campfire stories and practical insight.
If this episode resonated, Blinding Talent works with independent artists across the UK and internationally - helping them do exactly what Roman describes - why passionate, human curation still matters more than any algorithm, and what that means for how artists should think about discovery.
From artist management with Mark Adams to digital marketing campaigns across Spotify, Meta and YouTube, everything we do is built around getting artists closer to the music industry.
Roman Tagoe is the Director Streaming UK, Blue Raincoat Music & Chrysalis Records. Roman is a streaming expert with over 20 years of experience across BBC Radio 1, Deezer, Napster, BBC 6 Music and Sony Music. He began his career in student radio, gave The Killers their first ever UK interview (recorded on a MiniDisc and posted to London), and has spent his career working at the intersection of music, technology and audience strategy.
Roman Tagoe conducted what is believed to be The Killers' first ever UK interview while at university doing student radio. Mr Brightside had just entered the chart at around number 39. He interviewed a very nervous Brandon Flowers at The Cockpit in Leeds for about fifteen minutes, recorded it on a MiniDisc recorder and physically posted the disc to London to be broadcast on a Sunday chart show.
Roman Tagoe has watched streaming go from an industry threat to the industry's entire infrastructure over 20 years across Napster, Deezer, BBC Radio 1 and Sony. The technology has dramatically increased access to music and given independent artists distribution that previously required a major label. But algorithmic curation has also displaced passionate human discovery - and Roman argues that gap between what algorithms do and what great human curators do is still real and still significant.
The Blinding Talent Music Industry Podcast is hosted by Mark Adams - founder of Blinding Talent and former Director of Music Programming at Channel 4. Guests include Roman Tagoe, Colin Barlow, Sol Parker, Judd Lander and many others.
