🔵 We are now in the "mega/microculture" era for music

Unpicking what has changed in music over the last couple of years - and what that means for the future.

I spent last week catching some sun over in Spain, and it gave me some time to reflect on quite a few things. One of them was the state of culture itself and how that is affecting the music industry.

Previously, we had something of a monoculture society; more limited gatekeepers were able to feed people select recommendations, and as a population (irrespective of the country we are in) we moved accordingly. It’s how you had emergent genres like grunge arguably take over the world: the key gatekeepers decreed it to be the Next Big Thing, and we all dived in accordingly. Well, a sufficient number did anyway.

With a monoculture you also had a more consistent path of growth for artists; the small, middle and big leagues, if you will. Artists could move from playing small clubs to playing bigger venues, and eventually they’d accede to stadiums if fortunes really went their way. Ditto music press (from zines to the likes of Pitchfork) and radio (from local/college stations to the big influencers).

Even as the likes of MySpace, then Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al grew, we still had gatekeeper media nodes that were able to influence and steer culture.

In 2024 it feels like things have been different for some time now, and the change as I see it is a movement from the monoculture of old to what I’m terming “mega/microculture”. Put simply, the big artists are bigger than ever, mega-sized even (e.g. Taylor Swift), but then there’s an increasingly stark gap until you get right down to the smallest microcultures that are tiny, highly fragmented and increasingly unable to really make a dent.

Historically, there was a layer of media that enabled steering relative to the microcultures that could grow into The Next Cultural Wave. Your Pitchforks and NMEs all had a hand to play, as did radio and eventually TV.

Cut to today, and there is arguably little to no sizeable music press out there capable of creating mass influence. As a consequence, microcultures remain just that: musicians narrowcasting to a limited audience, with few of the tools in place to really dial that up to another level.

The likes of Ryan Broderick are doing a great job of covering the death of media, and I highly recommend subbing to Ryan’s Garbage Day newsletter if you can. Essentially though, we are seeing the demise of most media, even credible news reporting, with tech companies largely moving to replace them with platforms of micro-creators/narrowcasters.

This closing part of Ryan’s latest newsletter (paywalled, or I’d link to it) really stuck with me:

The best — and most chilling — description of what this feels like, particularly for processing the various natural disasters that now punctuate modern life is a 2022 tweet from user @PerthshireMags, who wrote, “Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it.” But you can also swap “climate change” out for anything really — bird flu, cicadas, political extremism, AI-powered drone strikes, Stanley cup riots at Target. Everything that happens beyond our screens now is uploaded and flattened into abstracted entertainment, discourse, an AI-generated summary, a trend for brands to advertise around.

Every one of us will eventually upload a fragment to the internet’s various feeds, watch it dissolve into the digital static, and wonder why no one noticed.

Music, I feel, is headed in the same direction. Larger labels and rights holders will not care all that much because - for now anyway - catalogue works in driving sufficient revenue. However culture itself is almost grinding to a halt in the music context, and at some point, the rot will start to set in.

I have written a fair bit of late about the dominance of the majors (and particularly Universal), along with my general view that we have too many trade bodies and limited effectiveness as a result. Both have relevance here.

One stat that is worth noting in the context of both is Bandlab’s recent announcement that it had 100M creators on its platform, all making music.

Now granted, it is possible that a large share of that is not music capable of reaching an audience past a certain point because it simply might not be good enough, but what I find both fascinating and worrying is that in general, both major and indie labels appear to be quite disparaging of this whole market segment, and - ironically - despite the saturation of trade bodies, very few (if any) are speaking to or attempting to represent that whole space.

That whole area may well prove to be where most music sits soon. Without the tools in place to really break music through, 100M music makers might well be releasing music that only a few people ever hear.

For now then, we remain in the mega/microculture. At some point however, it seems logical that this will simply give way to just microculture, wherein everything is so fragmented that it barely registers anywhere. It’s possible that we’ll all become creators of a sort, and music as a culture point will become something we celebrate in small groups, not in stadia around the world.

Personally though, I find this all troubling. Right now, everything appears fine on quite a superficial level. Revenues are up! Everyone’s doing great! However when you scratch beneath the surface, the levels of discontent are only ever rising, and at some point it seems logical that this will either boil over, or just lead to splintering in which whole new, parallel music businesses start to appear, based around completely different models of consumption.

This is also why I continue my plea for more investment to happen in the indie music space. Universal are playing a fine game now in hoovering up parts of the indie ecosystem - as are the other majors. Universal wants a world where superfans are another relationship it has inserted itself into between an artist and their audience; I have little doubt the same kind of tactics will exist around things like its stake in NTS, albeit in time.

To turn the ship around on the depressing mega/microculture we find ourselves in, we must start looking to kickstart the tools around any healthy ecosystem. Ceding things out to the Big Tech has only resulted in all art becoming a massively devalued product, and that has to change.

Of course, a good number of you can sit back and say “well things are great at the mo!” and for now, you are correct. That will change soon enough though, and without laying adequate foundation for the future, it might well collapse - and when things collapse, it is rarely a long, slow decline; it happens extremely quickly, and often so fast that no one is prepared for it.

Have a great evening,

D.

🚨 We are hiring again! Details at the bottom, or click here to go straight to our Jobs page on the Motive Unknown website. 🚨

🎶 listening to “Ambient / Downtempo liveset (Home Concert 58)” by Martin Stürtzer. I’ve been a big fan of Martin’s work - particularly his own brand of dubby techno - for some time now. This ambient set is another gem though, and makes for fine working music. I’m definitely rediscovering a lot of great ambient music of late.

📺 watching “12 Privacy & Security Tools I Use EVERY DAY”. I’m pretty security and privacy conscious (for obvious reasons when you consider how many artists we at MU have admin rights to!) but this is a great primer on great, accessible tools that help improve your privacy and security. Worth a watch.

📖 reading “ADHD 2.0”. I was recently clinically diagnosed with ADHD, so am now in the process of learning about it and understanding the condition in a bid to understand myself that bit more. This book is by all accounts the bible for anyone with ADHD, and thus far I concur. If you think you might have ADHD, I’d suggest reading Kat Brown’s “It’s Not A Bloody Trend!” book which is equally excellent.

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Stories from the Music Industry:

Confirmed: Warner Music Group won’t be making a bid for Believe

Said WMG in a statement today: “Warner Music Group Corp. (“WMG”) announced today that, after careful consideration, it has decided not to submit a binding offer for Believe. “WMG thanks the Ad Hoc Committee and Believe’s leadership team for their time and cooperation, and wishes the company every success in future.”

👆🏻Hot take: I’m pleased to read this. I still feel we need more competition in the marketplace and Warner buying Believe did not in any way speak to that.

IMPALA sides with UMG in TikTok dispute, calls on Spotify, Apple, Deezer to address ‘negative consequences’ of royalty changes

Now IMPALA has also voiced concerns about these new payment models, saying that “adjustments can be made” to these models “to avoid harm.” “We seek urgent solutions to address manipulation and revenue dilution [but] we also need to make sure the proposals are fair to all, and we hope Merlin’s recent agreement with Deezer will contribute to this objective,” said Dario Drastata, Chair of IMPALA and Head of RUNDA, an indie discographers’ association in the Balkans.

👆🏻Hot take: great to see IMPALA (finally) speaking up on these topics, but per previous comments I still wonder how impactful any of this will really prove to be.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund due-diligence report blasts investment advisor

In Shot Tower Capital’s opinion HSM “applied revenue recognition policies and accrual estimates that results in materially overstated revenue and EBITDA” for HSF during its time as its investment advisor. “Fund disclosures presented greater ownership and administration rights in music assets than the Fund actually held,” continues the report. “The financial analysis by the Investment Advisor in underwriting acquisitions was below music industry standards. In multiple instances, the Investment Advisor failed to put in place adequate safeguards to ensure the collection of royalties where letters of direction could not be obtained.”

👆🏻Hot take: no shock to anyone that has been following this story perhaps, but still pretty damning for Mercuriadis and his team.

Spotify launches personalized AI playlists that you can build using prompts

Spotify already found success with its popular AI DJ feature, and now the streaming music service is bringing AI to playlist creation. The company on Monday introduced into beta a new option called AI playlists, which allows users to generate a playlist based on written prompts. The feature will initially become available on Android and iOS devices in the U.K. and Australia and will evolve over time.

👆🏻Hot take: a sensible move that works very well. Expect to see this on all DSPs soon as people simply expect AI integrations as a basic feature.

Kiss sell catalogue and other rights to Pophouse for $300m+

Pophouse has had a huge hit with ABBA Voyage, and last December announced a deal to turn possibly-retiring (you can never be sure) rock band Kiss into similar avatars for future concerts. Now the Swedish company has announced a bigger deal with Kiss around that. It has acquired the band’s catalogues, brand name and other rights, and is working on a biopic as well as training a 2027 launch date for the avatar show.

👆🏻Hot take: on the one hand this is a very savvy move if you consider it in the context of the ABBA Voyage show etc, but I can’t help but wonder if Pophouse are potentially the MP3.com of the 2020s, and whether in time that sale might be something KISS comes to regret.

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Notable stories from the world of tech:

Google considering charge for internet searches with AI, reports say

Google’s proposals, first reported by the Financial Times, would entail the company exclusively offering its new search feature to users of its premium subscription services, which customers already have to sign up to if they want to use artificial intelligence assistants in other Google tools such as Gmail and its office suite.

👆🏻Hot take: I feel Google is still trailing badly on the AI front. The daft thing is that it has an absurd number of products where AI can massively power up what’s possible, but so far all the integrations in products like Workspace have been ridiculously bad.

Dismay as X’s most-followed accounts given blue ticks for free

“Shit. I’ve been forcibly bluechecked,” posted Marcy Wheeler, a journalist. The Wired writer Lauren Goode said: “My blue check is back and I just want to make clear I am not paying El*n M*sk for this thanks very much.”

👆🏻Hot take: just die already X, and can whatever will eventually replace it please rise up ASAP.

YouTube Says OpenAI Training Sora With Its Videos Would Break Rules

In his first public remarks on the topic, Mohan said he had no firsthand knowledge of whether OpenAI had, in fact, used YouTube videos to refine its artificial intelligence-powered video creation tool, called Sora. But if that were the case, it would be a “clear violation” of YouTube’s terms of use, he said.

👆🏻Hot take: we are surely on countdown to AI companies suing one another now, which in itself shows how complex this whole space is to succeed in. AI can only work if it can swallow absurd levels of data. Do any AI companies own such data? Of course not, and that’s the detail that may prove their undoing in time.

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Looking for something else to read? Here you go:

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have a plan to soundtrack everything

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – best friends and Nine Inch Nails bandmates – found unlikely creative fulfilment (and a couple of Oscars) by reassessing what they had to offer as musicians. Now they’re thinking even bigger, and imagining an artistic empire of their own making

👆🏻Hot take: a great article, but is this is the new Pitchfork now? I’m… puzzled.

Bait, ting, certi: how UK rap changed the language of the nation

Fuelled by music fandom and social media, young British people’s slang is evolving to include words with pidgin, patois and Arabic roots – even where strong regional English dialects exist

👆🏻Hot take: the older folk among us might enjoy this explainer on what those kids in the street are saying. I’ll just be glad if my son stops calling me, my wife - and indeed anyone else - “bro”, LOL…

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We are hiring (again!):

Motive Unknown continues to grow, and despite hiring four people since February began, we are now hunting for another Marketing Assistant, and - for the first time - another Marketing Manager.

In the Marketing Assistant role, the successful applicant will be responsible for working with our Marketing Managers to develop and execute effective marketing campaigns for our clients, leveraging various digital channels to promote their music and engage with their fan base.

In the Marketing Manager role, the main function will be to manage our client relationships and lead in the creation and execution of marketing initiatives for Motive Unknown’s clients, primarily focused on the recorded music space (i.e. labels, management companies, artists direct etc).

Interested, or know someone who might be? Full details are on the Jobs page of our site, along with the form to apply. Please do pass this along if you can. Many thanks! 🙏

(Please note: both roles are for UK-based applicants only)

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