Kill Spotify. Kill Ticketmaster. Kill the majors. KILL THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

Why the music industry’s “revolution” is failing the people who make it and why you're to blame

A lot of people are angry, screaming about killing the music industry.

Its understandable. No one’s getting paid!

Unless you’re Ed Sheeran.

The focus is on the usual villains like Spotify, Ticketmaster or the industry itself in the form of the all dominating major labels.

But the truth is, this thing we call the music industry isn’t a single machine. It’s a tangled mess of overlapping systems, legacy deals, tech platforms, monopolies, and power plays.

The industry is dysfunctional on every level, not fit for purpose, the purpose being to encourage, support and protect musical creativity and craftsmanship.

But was it ever..?

An outdated rights system still built for radio and vinyl.

Gatekeepers who shift shape, one day a label exec, the next a playlist curator.

A streaming economy that rewards volume, not quality.

And a workforce, the artists who aren’t unionised, protected, or even seen as workers.

They’re ‘content’

The result? A perfect storm of disrespect, where everyone benefits except the people making the music.

Governed by a handful of people exploiting the dreams of the many.

As Pete Townsend said “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”

Streaming was meant to liberate music. Instead, it’s turned it into a loss leader, something thrown in “for free” with your phone or broadband bill..

And those that do pay?

The price is set, $12 a month for pretty much every song in history, which is far less than the price of a daily bottle of water.

How can you value something when there’s no obvious value transaction?

Meanwhile, Spotify’s founders and execs have cashed out over $1 billion in stock in 2024 alone, while the average UK musician earns £21K a year with nearly half scraping by on £14K or less.

So. If music is more accessible than ever, why is it worth less than ever?

AND WHY ARE YOU LETTING IT HAPPEN??

Music isn’t just listening

We absorb music in two ways, ‘Listening’ and ‘Experience’

Listening comes in two flavours:

• Lean forward: you actively choose your music, streaming a track, dropping a needle on vinyl, playing a CD, etc.

• Lean back: music happens to you, in films, adverts, restaurants, shops, gyms, etc, without you consciously choosing it. You’re a passive listener, yet the music still works its magic (try watching Jurassic Park without its score).

This “lean back” listening is everywhere. It’s emotional wallpaper.

This is part of the problem but I’ll come back to that…

Streaming supercharged both modes. With tools like Shazam, you can hear something in a bar, identify it instantly and share it with friends across the world.

Spotify’s algorithm, for all its faults, is STILL unmatched at surfacing hidden gems.

As someone raised on vinyl, I see streaming as a true revolution in access.

Music needs to travel.

Music has always needed a way to travel to be heard, other wise I’d still be making sad songs in my bedroom.

It’s technology that makes this distribution possible for me and millions of others.

The problem? The music industry rarely owned the distribution tech.

If you don’t own the pipe, you’re at the mercy of whoever does.

From sheet music to vinyl, cassette, CD, and now streaming, it’s the medium, not just the music that built the modern industry. Beethoven’s 5th hasn’t changed in 200 years, but how we hear it has, radically.

That’s why I often say: the music industry is a tech industry.

It’s tech that has created these problems but it’s tech that can solve them.

Let’s look at how.

Mo Music, Mo Problems

In the whole of the 1970s, a recognisable period of legendary music, from rock, to soul, to hiphop, only 72,000 singles were released.

Making, distributing and marketing music cost serious dollar back then. You had to be incredibly lucky to have the anointed hand of the music industry allow you the potential to even have your music heard, let alone make a living from playing.

But also this meant there was less music, less noise, more time to invest in the music that was available.

Today, due to the democratisation of music making thanks in part to computers and phones, streaming has created a tidal wave of content, 120,000 new tracks uploaded every day which means attention is more fractured than ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not wish to go back to those days when making and distributing music was the privilege of a handful.

The current democratisation is a beautiful thing for all lovers of music.

But it’s a brutal thing for economics.

Who’s to blame?

In 2001, the global recorded music industry was worth around $23 billion. In 2024, it’s about $28 billion, a 22% nominal increase. Adjust for inflation and it’s basically the same pie as 20 years ago, just sliced into more pieces.

More artists, more releases, but the same size prize, a tough landscape for anyone trying to break through and little income even if you do.

Streaming payouts range from $0.00069 (YouTube Music) to $0.0120 (Tidal) per stream. The average falls around $0.003–$0.005, depending on subscription tier, listener location, and licensing. Compare that to $15 for an album in the CD era and you start to see the problem.

Music listening has got cheaper, with the all you can eat for $12 the standard.

Meanwhile everything else has got more expensive.

Netflix launched in 2013 at $11/month, the same as Spotify. Spotify only just increased their subscription to $12, while today Netflix charges $18.

Because Netflix makes, owns and distributes its content.

Spotify doesn’t.

But it does control the majority of music distribution.

For Apple, Amazon, and Google, music is not even the main product, it’s bait to sell something else, phones, shopping, search.

And while Spotify will claim they are for the artists, paying out $10 billion in royalties in 2024, only about 4% of artists earn a sustainable living from streaming on the platform.

Successive tech companies, from MTV onwards have abused creative rights to drive adoption to their platforms, garnering multi billion dollar valuations in the process.

This is in large part the fault of the music industry, collectively labels, publishers, governing bodies, etc, failing to convince the public of the value of music, compared to say coffee, sports, even the aforementioned bottled water companies who have managed to persuade us all to a buy a product we all get for free!

It is the creatives responsibility to make great music, it is the responsibility of the industry to set the value and the price.

This means convincing an overwhelmed, overstimulated populous of how important music is to us all and protect the perceived value.

The music industry has consistently failed to protect the value of music while flogging nostalgia and playing catch-up with tech.

From MTV onwards the protectors of music, the value creators, those with their extra large expense accounts, got out-hustled. Again and again.

Its not just the suits

Artists are also greatly to blame. Without proper respect for unionisation big business runs rough shot over any workforce and it's exactly what we see in the modern music industry.

If I increase my prices there are 100 producers who will undercut me. The same is true of any musician.

Ironically, the classical music space greatly respects the Musicians Union and as a consequence those players are much better protected.

And you dear reader are also not whiter than white. You hungrily devour the systems and our oblivious to what you actually spend on music.

One of my favourite questions I ask people when discussing these problems is how much money have you spent on Music this week?

People never have an answer. Do you?

We need a better system.

Superfans want to feeeeeeeeel

So whats the solution?

It’s impossible to imagine fans again paying for music listening, unless there is some kind of incentive.

That’s where the experience of music comes in.

That’s gigs, merch, VIP packages, personal access, brand partnerships, the moments that make you feel connected to an artist.

Superfans will pay for that.

Recently theres a whole bunch of noise around Superfans, driven in part by a Goldman Sachs report that claimed if the music industry could monetise Superfans better it could unlock a potential $4.2b extra income for the industry, something that is essential if we are to grow the financial pie.

I find it ironic the music industry has suddenly woken up to this concept, even though it’s exactly what the whole industry was built on in the first place.

So how do we find Superfans Tommy, I hear you cry?

I ran my own numbers.

Across multiple artists, about 75% of monthly listeners are passive, they’re the ‘Leanbackers’, so not fans as such.

The next 20% showed moderate engagement.

The final 5%, the true superfans are the ones that we should look at as they drive an incredible 60% of total income.

These superfans aren’t just valuable they’re the heartbeat of a career. Think about the gigs you go to, merch you buy, possibly a VIP experience to meet the artist. You probably have spent a lot of money on those, certainly more than the $12 a month you’re spending on a streaming plan.

You should feel special.

And with frontier tech, AI, tokenisation, and what I call digicollectables we can identify these Superfans, connect with them directly, and give them more than just a t-shirt.

Here’s the twist: it’s not about getting these fans to spend more. They already do. It’s about rewarding them with access, perks, and yes, even financial upside. Imagine a world where being an early, loyal fan could literally pay your bills.

But the real value increase is in the 20% that showed moderate engagement.

I call them ‘The Faithful’

There's an opportunity to get that segment to do more, be more engaged, to pay more.

Drive some of them into the Superfan category.

It's essential that artists make a big noise about this segmentation. Think of it as AirMiles. If you are a gold or even platinum member you have more kudos, more status, more skin in the game and are more likely to be more loyal to that airline.

Let’s make it worthwhile for fans to help promote and support their favourite music, not just give them an Instagram moment at one of the gigs.

The current music industry does absolutely nothing for highlighing the status of fandom for artists.

How exciting would it be to know that you are in the top 1% of fans of your favourite artist?

Be Gucci

How does Gucci, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, control the customer experience?

They make it exclusive, difficult to purchase, they control the experience both in their shops and online.

They own distribution.

Artists need to be more like these luxury brands and the best way to do that is to drive engagement to your home, your website.

There they can control the experience and interaction.

Streaming allows people to find and listen to your music

Social media has eyeballs and is therefore a great opportunity to find new fans.

But then play with those fans on your terms, in your home, your website.

This way you protect and own that relationship and can experiment with the new ways to segment and reward The Leanbackers, The Faithful and The Superfans.

With Blockchain, tokenisation and AI, artists can now create their own platforms and marketplaces.

Be the Platform

The listening experience? Sorted. No one’s arguing that.

But the economic model? Unsustainable.

The solution? Build around the experience and reward everyone.

So yeah…

Kill Spotify.

Kill The Majors.

Kill Ticketmaster.

Not out of hate but out of love.

Love for the artists.

Love for the music.

Love for a better, fairer, more vibrant ecosystem.

We all need to vote with our feet and our wallet. Support artists directly, buy their vinyl, merch, digicollectables, go to their gigs.

For artists the lesson is simple: own your audience.

Build your own ecosystem.

Be the platform.

Stop handing your relationship over to companies that see you as content fodder.

New tools are here.

• AI to find those superfans.

• Blockchain to reward them.

• Tokenisation to turn engagement into real value.

Let them share in the upside. Early access. Perks. Profit.

The tools are here now to make it happen. And in a world of AI-generated music flooding every playlist, the artists who build real human connection will be the ones who survive.

The revolution won’t be streamed.

It’ll be experienced.

I’ll be going into more detail, breaking down exactly how to do it in future posts, so please subscribe.

For now, ask yourself:

What more would you pay, or do to truly support the music you love?