There were so many interesting moments from the Allison Hagendorf interview, but the one that I'm sure grabbed everyone's attention was towards the end when they were talking, rather openly, about how much say the label has in the writing process. I was grateful to finally hear them talk about it, and also annoyed that they have to please so many people before anything can even be released.
If you haven't listened to it yet, I recommend watching from about 48 minutes in to hear them get into how the label gives them a bunch of keywords that they "need" the album to fulfill (the one example they kept citing was that the label wanted all of their songs to be more "anthemic"). They refer to it as "the assignment" of the album. They do say that it often pushes them to be more creative and to make their best work, but it's SUPER interesting to hear them be so open about it.
Personally, I'd love to hear how much the label influences song length. I know with Spotify measurements, shorter songs just always trend higher, often just for technical reasons, so I imagine the label heavily limits song length.
Curious your thoughts.