The 10 Jobs AI Can’t Replace in the Music Industry
The 10 Jobs AI Can’t Replace in the Music Industry Where talent, intuition, and emotion still lead the way. Fake intelligence- sorry, I mean artificial intelligence is reshaping nearly every corner of the music business. It can generate lyrics, compose melodies, analyze streaming data, recommend songs, and even mimic vocal tone and styles. For some, […]
Musicians Who Quit and Became Wealthier
Musicians Who Quit and Became Wealthier Fame earned them recognition, but entrepreneurship, smart investments, and reinvention helped these musicians build fortunes beyond the music industry. Rockin’ it like a rock star, success in the music industry is often measured in gold and platinum records, sold-out tours, and hitting the top of the charts with a […]
The Spotify Playlist Gold Rush Is Over
The Spotify Playlist Gold Rush Is Over Why playlist placements no longer guarantee career growth, and how smart artists are building real fan relationships instead. For nearly a decade, getting added to Spotify playlists felt like the closest thing to a cheat code in music marketing. Land a spot on a popular editorial playlist, watch […]
The New Gatekeepers of Music
The New Gatekeepers of Music Who Controls What We Hear Next? There was a time when the gatekeepers of music were easy to identify .A time when record labels decided who got signed. Radio stations determined what reached the masses. Music television channels, like MTV and VH1, influenced what became popular. Whether you agreed with […]
The Death of the Middle-Class Musician
The Death of the Middle-Class Musician Everyone Can Make Music. Fewer People Can Make a Living from It. The music industry hasn’t killed the musician. It has simply squeezed out the middle. Today’s music economy increasingly resembles an hourglass. At the top sits a small group of global superstars commanding billions of streams, arena tours, […]
The Payola Scandal of the 1980s
The Payola Scandal of the 1980s The Payola Scandal of the 1980s: How Radio Corruption Reshaped the Music Industry Let’s take a trip down memory lane, and if you’re crusty like me, you’d remember those days back in the 80s when this was a thing. I remember reading the story and details in RollingStone Magazine, […]
The Rise of “AI Music Slop”
The Rise of “AI Music Slop” And Its Impact on the Music Ecosystem Since the rise of AI and its injection into the world of music, and the ease with which AI content can be created, is a new term. Well, not all that new but here we’ll pretend that it has just manifested. We’re […]
The Napster Scandal
The Napster Scandal How Peer‑to‑Peer Sharing Rewired Music Culture and Paved the Way for Streaming In the late 1990s, the pillars of the music industry had the illusion of inconceivable invincibility. With soaring CD sales, major labels wielding superpowers, gatekeepers holding a tight-fisted grip controlling physical distribution, and who received radio play over the air […]
How Independent Music Producers Can Use AI
How Independent Music Producers Can Use AI How Independent Music Producers Can Use AI to Scale Their Business, Save Time, and Increase Revenue In today’s world, the independent music producer isn’t just a creative entity, creating, mixing beats or tracks, but the role has become more of a hybrid that blends artistry entrepreneurship, marketing, and […]
Revisit: Why Agreements Are Essential for Successful Music Collaborations
Revisit: Why Agreements Are Essential for Successful Music Collaborations Ensuring Fairness and Creativity: The Importance of Agreements in Music Collaborations Writing and creating music in a collaborative process with other artists can be an intoxicating experience. A memorable one that can last a lifetime. In all the excitement of creating, composing, writing, recording, and jamming, sometimes the […]
The Comfortable Decline
The Comfortable Decline Laziness & Complacency, in the Age of AI Let’s get off the couch for this one and get a little introspective. In the history of music, for all of mankind, there has never been a time like this. Today musicians the world over have more tools and more access at their disposal, […]
How Hair Bands Roared in the 1980s
How Hair Bands Roared in the 1980s Ruled the Sunset Strip, and Ultimately Fell to Grunge The big hair, tight spandex, and on-stage theatrics, aesthetics of the glam-metal, or “hair-band” movement that had prominence during the raging 1980s, and it didn’t just appear. No, it grow and blossomed from a mixed of earlier rock ‘n […]
The Rise of The AI Titans – Part 2
The Rise of The AI Titans – Part 2 How the Titans Think: Abundance, Control, and the New Definition of “Human Enhancement” The moment the industry heard the sound of its own future In April of 2023, the curtain was pulled back, and the music world got a peak into what “infinite imitation” feels like. […]
The Rise of The AI Titans – Part 1
The Rise of The AI Titans – Part 1 How the Titans Think: Abundance, Control, and the New Definition of “Human Enhancement” AI wasn’t like creeping death that suddenly turned into a huge storm, it wasn’t through some single, new fandango invention either. It just seeped in unawares like black mold, a stubborn fungus growing […]
The West Hollywood Mafia Scene
The West Hollywood Mafia Scene A Brief History of Organized Crime on the Sunset Strip The iconic Sunset Strip. A ribbon of asphalt and concrete winding west from Hollywood Blvd. to the doorstep of Beverly Hills along the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains. A renown pathway known for its bright and vibrant nightlife, iconic […]
PART TWO: The Human Cost of the Music Business
PART TWO: The Human Cost of the Music Business Bad Decisions & Financial Depression Introduction: When the System Meets Human Behavior Artists earn less than expected. Why? Because of structural exploitation. To add pain to that setup is human behavior. This explains how the apparatus collapses completely. With that said, most artists aren’t failing financially […]
The Illusion of Wealth – Part One
The Illusion of Wealth – Part One How Artists Generate Millions Yet Stay Broke Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Introduction: Fame Without Fortune In the eyes of the public, rock star success has a certain look and appeal. All the trappings of […]
Sex, Music, and Exploits
Sex, Music, and Exploits Reshaping the Fight Against Sexual Exploitation in The Music Industry As the old saying goes, “Sex sells!” “Yeah, baby!” But for decades, this sentiment modeled a great deal of misappropriated behavior. When it comes to the music industry and the upper crust of those in powerful positions, it would appear that […]
Part 2: Detroit Vibes in Hollywood
Part 2: Detroit Vibes in Hollywood A Reinvention or A Relic The Hollywood recording icons eventually got rocked by the shockwaves. After 55 years of molding and shaping some of the greatest hits, The Record Plant announced in July of 2024 that it was closing up shop. The grim sentiment reeled in the calculus presented, […]
Part 1: From Hollywood to Hollow-wood
Part 1: From Hollywood to Hollow-wood “The Day the Music Stopped” (Don McLean) “Unfulfilled promise, loss of innocence, and the spiral into disillusionment.” Once the beating heart of the recording industry, Los Angeles, CA, is now a shell of its former self. One time, a place where big budgets ran deep, vintage compressors and Neve […]