Features June 21, 2019

The Hook: How will the music industry look in 10 years?

Senior Journalist, B2B

ANA GARCIA

(Festival director, Coquetel Molotov. Molotov Cocktail, Brazil)

I think so much will change and we are starting to feel just a little bit of what will happen.

Labels will probably have no purpose anymore since physical won’t exist. They are not needed to distribute music and bands are starting to do their own marketing.

So, small labels will probably shut down and the bigger ones will start doing more publicity, events, etc, which they are already starting to do.

Bands will be more and more connected to a brand for marketing and publicity.

Exclusive experiences will be important such as immersive events and shows.

Virtual reality will have dominated the music business for sure.

Artist will be creating other kinds of products such as clothing, instruments. New genres.

Bands will be able to play in different venues and cities through VR and this will make it possible for the public to create their own soundtrack.

Everyone will probably have issues with anxiety and depression!

SHELLEY LIU

(Label director, booking agent, artist manager, Valve Sounds/ Vita Music Group, Melbourne)

With the changing nature of technology/communication advances that have come with the internet and social media, the youth of today have more resources and power to be able to create opportunities for themselves, instead of having to wait for opportunities to be given to them from “higher-up” industry members.

In the past few years there have been an increasing amount of young people from all sorts of diverse backgrounds creating their own platforms and communities for music, and I believe that this will only increase in time.

CARLOS MILLS

(Founder Mills Records, president of the Brazilian Independent Music Trade Association)

I have no doubt that the music industry will keep having a sustainable growth in the next ten years and actually surpass the numbers that were reached in the old golden days of CDs.

VIV MELLISH

(Co-founder and head of marketing & promotions at Australian owned digital distribution and artist services company Gyrostream)

The top 50 most-streamed tracks in the US last year racked up 3.7 billion streams between them but across the next 10 years we would like to see these leading artists’ dominant share of the music economy decrease.

We’re already seeing trends of a flattening out of the recorded music industry and the rise of a key group of ‘middle tier’ artists (many independent or with independent labels) who are increasing their share of profits.

Because of this, more independent artists will be able to make a living, forcing the biggest-earners and megastars (and major labels) across the globe to share a little more.

FELIX PREVAL

(Artistic director, Darwin Music Festival)

I’m biding time for the cassingle revival… Otherwise, more intuitive and ethical streaming – hopefully new platforms that promote local independent artists and actually deliver them financial returns?

CAMEO CARLSON

(President, artist management/development firm mtheory, Nashville)

I predict that the industry will continue to get healthier in terms of overall revenue, diversity of styles and personnel, and genres will become completely irrelevant.

NANDO MACHADO

(Director & founder, marketing & promotion company ForMusic, Brazil)

That is a very difficult question because it’s not easy to picture what could come up after streaming where you can listen to anything, anywhere, anytime.

My biggest hope is that the music world will be based on artistic quality and in musical relevance.

I hope that the main corporations understand the value and the responsibility that they have in terms of promoting better quality content instead of anything that generates immediate clicks or streams.

These companies must realize that relevant music artists are the ones that will leave a mark, that will still be listened to in 10, 20, 30 years and that sometimes the big commercial success doesn’t generate any content that will be streamed in a few years time, that are totally disposable.

On the other hand, I believe that virtual reality will be the next big tech revolution, I just hope it will be used for good instead of just what is popular and immediately responsive.

LEIGH TREWEEK

(Director of Handshake Management, owner & publisher of TheMusic)

I feel that AI and AR will play a major role in delivery and an artist’s relationship with their fan base.

FABRICIO NOBRE

(Booker & cultural activist, Festival Bananada, Brazil)

In 10 years the live experience … gigs, parties, festivals … will be even more appreciated and important.

The idea of get together to feel each other and have fun is the past and short Future of Music experience and business.

NKECHI ANELE

(Co-creator of content hub The Pin, host of triple j’s Roots ‘N’ All, and singer with Melbourne band Saskwatch)

Hopefully, more diverse on a grand scale and more independent.

SOSE FUAMOLI

(Freelance journalist & radio host, triple j, Beat, Red Bull, LNWY)

We’re in an interesting period of flux where younger voices are becoming louder and more impassioned – there’s more room for creative ideas to become reality.

Down the line, I hope a new guard is in full effect!

I hope the changes we’re seeing now when it comes to more conscious festival booking, radio play and coverage of artists who properly reflect the diversity of the Australian music scene and industry, in ten years, is the new standard and bar for which a new generation of artists and professionals work to further strengthening.

JUSTIN TAM

(Sydney-based writer, musician & game designer, co-founder of pan-Asian art collective Eternal Dragonz)

It will be more scattered across the world, but it will be even more of a political catalyst.

Musicians will be ready to work with other communities rather than just poach their trends. I’m hopeful.

SIMONA CASTRICUM

(Musician, designer and architecture academic from Melbourne)

I think the effects of structural change to the music industry away from a white, cisgender, heterosexual, male-centric power base will lead to more representational participation in music.

The change the musical landscape has experienced at the grassroots level this decade will profoundly affect the artists we see at festivals and hear in media – beyond token ‘diversity’. Music styles will change significantly!

MONIQUE DARDENNE

(Co-founder, Women’s Music Event, Brazil)

It’s hard to imagine the new forms of music consumption because the technology and the receptivity by the audience is changing in a very fast way.

But I hope that we, the people who work in the machine of the music industry, have more consciousness in our role of inclusion and diversity.

That we find sustainable ways to carry out the events, thinking about the environment with relaunching the production of garbage, and that reflects on the quality of information, collective conscience and entertainment that we will pass to the audience, always with more and more purpose.