The Future of music
Since I will be off during Christmas week, I am writing my 2024 wrap up column on Dec. 22. Later, I will write the Hot Half Dozen with my best picks for 2024. But right now I want to look at the state of the music industry as the year ends.
The state of the industry is good, although not necessarily for artists.
In 2024, the total revenue of the global music industry is estimated to be approximately $58.1 billion, a growth of about 8% from the previous year, driven primarily by the rise of streaming – 67.3% of the total market volume.
But what about the artists…are they sharing the growth? Not much.
According to the IFPI Global Music Report, on average, artists earned between 10% and 15% of the revenue generated from streaming services after various deductions for record label costs, marketing, and distribution fees. Given these figures, it is estimated that artists collectively received around $6 billion – $9 billion from the $58.1 billion global music revenue, and most of that went to the top stars. Everyone else –well, they teach music, have part-time jobs or working spouses.
Music consumers share in the growth was also mixed. Spotify increased its subscription fees but Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music did not. This led to grumbling online from Spotify users, but they kept coming. Spotify’s paid subscriber based grew at 3% to 226 million in 2024, according to projections in its 3rd qtr. Report.
To be fair, for all the flak that Spotify gets for starving its artists – which it does – this is only the first time it has consistently made a profit in its 18-year history. And in global corporate terms, it was pretty meager – the company reported its first significant quarterly profit of $68.8 million in Q1 2024. If this trend continues, Spotify will reach an operating profit of approximately $1.5 billion for 2024. Not a lot for a company with 226 million paid subscribers, but still it could have paid the artists more since its stock has gone up 500% over the past few years from $80 to $461. I think the profits on the executive stock options could pay the artists a bit more.
So who were the top earning artists for the year? According to Variety and Euronews (which mostly agree), the most-streamed songs worldwide in 2024 were: Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer: with 2.67 billion streams, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” with more than 1.6 billion streams, followed by Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” “Gata Only” by FloyyMenor and Cris MJ, and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control.” Others on the top 10 streams list were “End Of Beginning” by Djo, “Too Sweet” by Hozier, “One Of The Girls” (with JENNIE, Lily-Rose Depp) by The Weeknd, and “Die With A Smile” by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga. Spotify’s top three arts were Taylor Swift, the Weeknd, and Bad Bunny (who accumulated 18.5 billion streams of all his songs on all platforms – !Vete Amigo!
What does the future of music look like? Probably more strong growth for the industry especially in streaming, minuscule growth for artists, and some new talent emerging, as it always does. One big change I predict is that Latin music will continue to grow rapidly. Latin music revenues in the U.S. increased by 7.3% year-over-year in the first half of 2024, showcasing the rising influence of Latin music genres, including Mexican music, on streaming platforms and in the music industry overall.
