Who really shapes the music industry?

Art is constantly changing since its very beginning, it is normal therefore, that these days, with globalization and the ability to listen to every kind of music on the internet, our tastes blend and evolve even faster.

The music industry has seen some big changes lately, the charts mean less and less, major labels are losing their artists, and streaming services are growing faster than ever. Nowadays, the music industry seems to get increasingly more chaotic, there’s a good reason for it. Every year we hear about new music stars with a unique style, rallying crowds of fans under their banner. Most of those artists, just as their fans, are young people who want to have a firm grasp on their future. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of a contract, they want to be independent, and the easiest way to gain popularity when being a DIY artist is through streaming platforms.

Centralized music services have one big fault however: profitability. Chained by label licensing deals, they struggle to make money, in turn paying artists very little. That and unstoppable demand for brand new songs push creators towards shorter songs. Listening to two shorter songs instead of one longer is, after all, more profitable.

In pursuit of profit, big shots in the streaming industry are changing tactics, namely letting artists upload the music directly to the platform, which is becoming a popular move. But there is more, some platforms decided to help artists promote their music on different platforms by making deals or taking stakes in distribution companies and some decided to sign a contract with music creators directly. Either way, it is obvious that in order to make themselves more profitable, companies behind those platforms are additionally trying to become record labels and distributors.

Doing something like this is going to be hard, remodeling the whole business model that worked for a few years might bring an end to the popularity of certain platforms as well as success to others. If it does work, artists’ revenue will sharply rise in comparison to the revenue they get now (more on artist revenue in my previous article). It has to be said that it will still be a centralized system with big companies controlling the price, so to be sure, we will have to wait and see.

And here comes the surprise: after a few years of sales decline, analog recordings and live concerts are getting back on track. Currently, when nearly everyone has access to the internet and every song can be played online, people are looking for something unique, like a memory of a great concert or vinyl record of your favorite creator. Artists and music companies are more than happy to meet their demand. After all, the ones that truly shape the music world are fans.

-Aleksander Witocha