The old adage, ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’, has been bandied about the music business since it came into existence.

Like any seemingly glamourous industry, the perception from outside has always been one of an exclusive club to which access may only be granted via a direct line to one of its elite members, usually a stereotypical, cigar-smoking fatcat exec.

Maybe, in decades gone by, this hackneyed image had a faint whiff of truth about it. ...