🔵 Finding optimism among the next generation

Further proof that there's light at the end of the tunnel

Last week I had the pleasure of spending some time at the University of Westminster, where I was invited to hear the business pitches from graduating students, in which they outlined their ideas. A Dragon’s Den moment of sorts, though without the means to invest money. I should start by thanking Julia Toppin for inviting me out - it was a pleasure to be involved!

I’ll make a confession: I tend to enter these things with something of a low expectation. On reflection, that is something of an insult to those presenting, but in my defence, I’ve sat through many, many bad pitches from new startups etc, and find the hit rate generally tends to be quite low.

Imagine my delight then, to find that almost without exception, the new ideas being pitched were great new business ideas. All were carefully thought through and generally quite viable with (IMO) high chances of success.

The really interesting part though, is where these ideas were focused. Again, based on general trends I see around, I was expecting the ideas to be quite rooted in the online space. Whilst some were (and to be clear, they were still great pitches), most were not.

A good chunk of the ideas were focused on offline concepts, with the live space in particular representing about 40% of the pitches. That, to me, was such a positive thing to see; in short, these students are recognising the crises that the live industry faces, including across smaller venues and more rural areas here in the UK, and they were coming up with terrific ideas to address that.

Similarly, other ideas involved acting as a conduit for other scenes such as those in LATAM and India, which - when the latest IFPI report put the growth in those markets as the largest year-on-year - made a huge amount of sense, capitalising on what I’d say is a noticeable gap here in Britain.

By the end, I was leaving with a hugely renewed sense of optimism. To me this was proof that far from being obsessed with the online side, the next generations might well be looking offline and asking how we can build that human interaction and potentially dial back on this painfully digital existence.

Building on that, I had a demo from a new business yesterday, which also has big aspirations in the live space and which - for the first time based on my own exposure to startups in this area - myself and my colleagues agreed has a genuinely strong chance of creating a whole new economy and route to market for artists. For now I’m not going to name it, but in time I most definitely will, as I feel it is something we’ll all be talking about soon enough.

Looking around, it still feels quite “doom and gloom” in terms of the state of the music industry, despite the best efforts of some to convince us that things are rosy. However from what I am seeing, there truly are signs that new businesses are emerging to present genuine competition and that on top of that, the next generations of young entrepreneurs are really thinking the right way about how things need to change.

Perhaps the lesson here is once again to not believe everything you read about the next generations coming through. From what I see, based not just on the session last week but with other mentoring sessions, there may well be a sea change in attitude coming, and that gives me a huge amount of hope.

In time I’m looking forward to covering these kinds of developments more. Certainly there are comments and criticisms still to be made about the general state of affairs, not least that independent music is slowly turning into corporate rock at the hands of Universal and it’s Pershing pals, but I still feel it is important to try and look past these things and recognise that, now more than ever, the power does lie with the artists and the fans, and that in that context, things are starting to get very interesting again.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 Listening to Rhythm & Sound’s self-titled album. For some reason I’d never given this album a fair shake, despite considered the group’s “With The Artists” and “Versions” albums to be all-time favourites. On this, the first release, the whole sound is a more clear transition from the Basic Channel identity of old to the slower, dubbier sound of those latter two albums. If anything, that now makes the record even more essential, sitting as it does in its own clear space. Essential listening.

📺 Watching “FANTAZIA 15th MAY 1992 UK RAVING MORNING GURN TIME LOL” on YouTube. This footage from Fantazia will be manna from heaven to ravers of a certain age, but it was the comments I also found as interesting - essentially everyone noting how happy all the ravers looked, and how there’s not a phone in sight. Given all my comments above, I wonder if newer generations look at this and desire to have that back.

🤖 Playing with AI in general. A broad statement, obviously, but it feels like we’re finally turning a corner wherein AI can genuinely aid all manner of operational functions within companies. For the time being most of it is all small efficiency moves, but the cumulative impact is already proving stark here at Motive Unknown. Very exciting. I will say that - as a company running on Google Workspace - it’s great to finally see Gemini turn into something viable, both functionally and fiscally.

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Notes & followups in dispatches:

• After writing about how local scenes are desperately needed again, Tatiana from Midia got in touch to mention the very excellent report she has written covering this exact area. It’s eminently worth a read, especially if you’re need inspiration and optimism about where to take things next. Full details here.

• Shout-out to the excellent No Tags podcast for mentioning Network Notes in a recent episode about how the majors are hoovering up the indie music industry. Honoured to have popped up there - thank you! 🙏🏻

• I really enjoyed this piece about Bandcamp that features an interview with Aly Gilani. I just felt it does a fine job of showcasing the ways in which the platform is still a vital force for good for indie artists.

• I’m still posting over on Bluesky too, so if you want hot takes on stories as they break etc, follow me over there. 🦋

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