Where to now?

It’s common knowledge that musicians, artists, and songwriters have been taken advantage of financially since the birth of recorded music and long before. 

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.” ― Hunter S. Thompson 

Labels, publishers, and distribution platforms have long benefited from the talent they never possessed and never will. 

Sadly it’s never been worse. So where to now? How can we somehow take it back? Do we tap out, or find a way to operate without the above mentioned grifters?  

Are you the revolutionary kind? I know I am. 

The entertainment industry, as a whole, is in crisis.

There is a national discovery gap for venues of every size. Artists are struggling to find audiences, audiences are struggling to discover new artists and venues, and the traditional systems connecting the two are increasingly failing. Live Nation is canceling entire tours because of weak ticket sales, while the economics of the live music business—and the concentration of power within it—have pushed ticket prices to a point where the average American is increasingly choosing not to attend concerts.

At the same time, artists are beginning to move away from traditional streaming platforms and toward direct-to-consumer models. They are building relationships with their true fans—people who value their work enough to pay directly for it. The future may be less about accumulating streams and more about building a sustainable community around an artist.

And then there is AI.

AI is rapidly approaching the point where it can write, perform, and produce music that the average listener may consume without even realizing it was created by AI. Streaming platforms are already experimenting with virtual artists and distributing AI-generated music alongside human-created work.

We are entering a new Wild West.

Over the last 27 years, the economic value of the craft of being a musician has steadily eroded. Now, technology threatens to accelerate that devaluation—and potentially change the profession of musician altogether, and very quickly.

But this is also a moment of opportunity.

Some of us are working hard to build solutions that can reconnect artists with audiences, help venues get discovered, strengthen the relationship between musicians and their true fans, and ultimately create an ecosystem where musicians can earn a living wage doing what they do best: creating music.

The old model is breaking down. The question is whether we can build something better before it disappears entirely.