Music Biz 2023

As discussed in Andrew Unterberger's Billboard piece and Lyor Cohen's recent Music Business Worldwide podcast appearance, changes in consumption – driven by platforms like TikTok – have had a noticeable impact on the industry's ability to generate hits. This is most often framed as a negative change to the landscape, but we believe there's plenty of positive to be found too. The traditional role of a major label as a hitmaker relies on a world where consumers have less access to entertainment options, giving a small number of players control over the market and means of consumption (the ability to control what's played at radio, what's featured in a newspaper or magazine, what's on a record store end-cap, etc). The changes that we've seen over the last decade, most recently accelerated by TikTok, have meant more opportunity for artists to reach an audience than ever before, and have allowed more artists than ever to earn a living on their music – with incredible upside/potential for the industry as a whole, removing power from its historic players and actually giving it to the listeners.