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U.S. Music industry - statistics & facts

Publishing companies dominate the market, music streaming is on the rise, key insights.

Detailed statistics

Global revenue of the recorded music industry 1999-2023

Digital Market Outlook: digital music revenue in selected countries 2023

Number of paying online music service subscribers worldwide 2010-2021

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Current statistics on this topic.

Music industry revenue in the U.S. 2009-2023

Music consumption in the U.S. in 2021, by genre & format

U.S. music industry - revenue distribution 2017-2022, by source

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Global market overview.

• Premium Statistic Global revenue of the recorded music industry 1999-2023
• Premium Statistic Global digital music revenue 2004-2022
• Premium Statistic Digital Market Outlook: digital music revenue in selected countries 2023
• Premium Statistic Digital Music revenue in the World 2018-2027, by segment
• Premium Statistic Number of paying online music service subscribers worldwide 2010-2021

Global recorded music revenue from 1999 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Global digital music revenue 2004-2022

Global digital music revenue from 2004 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Digital music revenue in selected countries worldwide in 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Digital Music revenue in the World 2018-2027, by segment

Digital Music revenue in the World from 2018 to 2027 (in million U.S. dollar), by segment

Number of paying online music service subscribers worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in millions)

U.S. market overview

• Premium Statistic Music industry revenue in the U.S. 2009-2023
• Basic Statistic U.S. music industry - revenue distribution 2017-2022, by source
• Basic Statistic Music album shipments in the U.S. 2017-2022, by type
• Basic Statistic Physical album shipments in the U.S. 1999-2022
• Premium Statistic Retail value of music shipments in the U.S. 1999-2022
• Basic Statistic Music streaming revenue in the U.S. 2010-2022
• Premium Statistic Change in music sales in the U.S. 2009-2023

Recorded music industry revenue in the United States from 2009 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Distribution of music industry revenue in the United States from 2017 to 2022, by source

Music album shipments in the U.S. 2017-2022, by type

Music album shipments in the United States from 2017 to 2022, by type (in millions)

Physical album shipments in the U.S. 1999-2022

Physical CD shipments in the United States from 1999 to 2022 (in millions)

Retail value of music shipments in the U.S. 1999-2022

Retail value of music shipments in the United States from 1999 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Music streaming revenue in the U.S. 2010-2022

Revenue from music streaming in the United States from 2010 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Change in music sales in the U.S. 2009-2023

Change in music sales in the United States from 2009 to 2023, by category

Digital music sales

• Premium Statistic Digital Market Outlook: digital music revenue in the U.S. 2017-2027, by format
• Basic Statistic Digital music revenue in the U.S. 2008-2022, by type
• Premium Statistic Digital music track sales in the U.S. 2008-2023
• Premium Statistic Digital album sales in the U.S. 2008-2023
• Basic Statistic Mobile music revenue in the U.S. 2005-2022
• Premium Statistic Number of digital music album downloads in the United States 2004-2022
• Premium Statistic Top-selling digital songs in the U.S. 2023
• Premium Statistic Top-selling digital music albums in the U.S. 2021

Digital Market Outlook: digital music revenue in the U.S. 2017-2027, by format

Digital music revenue in the United States from 2017 to 2027, by format (in billion U.S. dollars)

Digital music revenue in the U.S. 2008-2022, by type

Digital music revenue in the United States from 2008 to 2022, by type (in million U.S. dollars)

Digital music track sales in the U.S. 2008-2023

Digital music track sales in the United States from 2008 to 2023 (in million units)

Digital album sales in the U.S. 2008-2023

Digital album sales in the United States from 2008 to 2023 (in millions)

Mobile music revenue in the U.S. 2005-2022

Mobile music revenue in the United States from 2005 to 2022 (in million U.S. dollars)

Number of digital music album downloads in the United States 2004-2022

Number of digital music album downloads in the United States from 2004 to 2022 (in millions)

Top-selling digital songs in the U.S. 2023

Top-selling digital songs in the United States in 2023 (in thousands)

Top-selling digital music albums in the U.S. 2021

Top-selling digital music albums in the United States in 2021 (in 1,000s)

Music streaming

• Premium Statistic Digital Market Outlook: users of digital music in the U.S. 2017-2027, by format
• Premium Statistic Music streaming revenue share in the U.S. 2009-2022
• Premium Statistic Paid streaming music subscribers in the U.S. 2014-2022
• Premium Statistic U.S. on-demand music streams volume 2013-2021

Digital Market Outlook: users of digital music in the U.S. 2017-2027, by format

Number of digital music users in the United States from 2017 to 2027, by format (in millions)

Music streaming revenue share in the U.S. 2009-2022

Share of streaming in total music revenues in the United States from 2009 to 2022

Paid streaming music subscribers in the U.S. 2014-2022

Number of paid music streaming subscribers in the United States from 1st half 2014 to 1st half 2022 (in millions)

U.S. on-demand music streams volume 2013-2021

Number of on-demand music streams in the United States from 2013 to 2021(in billions)

Concert business

• Basic Statistic The most successful music tours in North America in 2023
• Basic Statistic Most successful music tours in North America 2023, based on ticket sales
• Basic Statistic Live Nation Entertainment's concert revenue from 2008 to 2023
• Basic Statistic Number of events promoted by Live Nation from 2008 to 2023

The most successful music tours in North America in 2023

Most successful music tours in North America in 2023, based on gross revenue (in million U.S. dollars)

Most successful music tours in North America 2023, based on ticket sales

Most successful music tours in North America in 2023, based on ticket sales

Live Nation Entertainment's concert revenue from 2008 to 2023

Live Nation Entertainment's concert revenue from 2008 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Number of events promoted by Live Nation from 2008 to 2023

Number of concerts and festivals promoted by Live Nation from 2008 to 2023

Record companies

• Premium Statistic Market share of the largest music publishers worldwide from 2007 to 2022
• Premium Statistic U.S. music publishers - revenue 2005-2022
• Basic Statistic U.S. music publishers - annual expenses 2007-2022
• Basic Statistic Universal Music Group's revenue 2004-2023
• Basic Statistic Universal Music Group: music publishing revenue 2007-2023
• Premium Statistic Revenue of the Warner Music Group 2004-2023
• Premium Statistic Warner Music Group: music publishing revenue 2004-2023
• Premium Statistic Annual revenue of Sony Corporation's music segment 2008-2023
• Premium Statistic Sony Corporation: music revenue source 2019-2023

Market share of the largest music publishers worldwide from 2007 to 2022

Revenue market share of the largest music publishers worldwide from 2007 to 2022

U.S. music publishers - revenue 2005-2022

Estimated revenue of U.S. music publishers from 2005 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

U.S. music publishers - annual expenses 2007-2022

Estimated expenses of U.S. music publishers from 2007 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Universal Music Group's revenue 2004-2023

Universal Music Group's revenue from 2004 to 2023 (in billion euros)

Universal Music Group: music publishing revenue 2007-2023

Music publishing revenue of the Universal Music Group from 2007 to 2023 (in million euros)

Revenue of the Warner Music Group 2004-2023

Revenue of the Warner Music Group in fiscal years 2004 to 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Warner Music Group: music publishing revenue 2004-2023

Music publishing revenue of the Warner Music Group in fiscal years 2004 to 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Annual revenue of Sony Corporation's music segment 2008-2023

Annual sales and operating revenue of Sony Corporation's music segment in the fiscal years 2008 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Sony Corporation: music revenue source 2019-2023

Music sales and operating revenue of the Sony Corporation from fiscal 2019 to 2023, by source (in million U.S. dollars)

Consumption

• Premium Statistic Music consumption in the U.S. in 2021, by genre & format
• Premium Statistic Streamed music consumption in the U.S. 2021, by genre
• Premium Statistic Popular online music brands in the U.S. 2023
• Premium Statistic Audio sources in cars in the U.S. 2018-2022

Music consumption in the U.S. in 2021, by genre & format

Distribution of music consumption in the United States in 2021, by genre and format

Streamed music consumption in the U.S. 2021, by genre

Distribution of streamed music consumption in the United States in 2021, by genre

Popular online music brands in the U.S. 2023

Online music services used most frequently in the United States as of January 2023

Audio sources in cars in the U.S. 2018-2022

Most common audio sources used in the car in the United States from 2018 to 2022

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The State of the Music Industry in 2020

The music recording industry presents a great example of how businesses must continually transform and adapt to change. After piracy and unbundling drove 15 years of revenue decline, the global industry has returned to growth, primarily due to streaming.

By Jimmy Stone

Jimmy has executed and evaluated $1+ billion in debt, equity, and M&A transactions across a range of industries.

PREVIOUSLY AT

The global music recording industry is back in growth territory again. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), recorded music revenue returned to growth in 2015, after nearly two decades of piracy-driven declines. The global industry’s revenue bottomed out at $14 billion in 2014 but grew to $20 billion in 2019, back in line with 2004 levels.

Streaming Is Driving Music’s Growth

The convenience and personalization of music streaming, combined with the accessibility afforded by smartphones and smart devices, has driven recorded music’s growth. IFPI notes that global streaming revenues grew at a 42% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) since 2015, compared to the entire recording industry’s 9% CAGR. The following chart from IFPI shows the evolution of the industry’s revenue composition and how streaming growth has more than offset declines in physical and downloaded formats over the past decade.

Global Music Recording Industry Revenues: 2001-2019 ($ Billion)

Meanwhile, the global music publishing industry has proven resilient throughout the economic cycles of the past decade. According to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), publishing collections (performance royalties) increased from €6.5 billion in 2013 to €8.5 billion in 2018. Will Page, the former chief economist at Spotify, estimates that the global publishing business - CISAC collections plus estimates of non-CISAC publisher revenues from Music & Copyright - is worth $11.7 billion in 2020.

Despite its seeming ubiquity, streaming is still in the early innings of mass adoption. The following statistics highlight how the market still has room to expand:

• The figure represents less than 11% of the 3.2 billion global smartphone users .
• For comparison, in Sweden (the home of Spotify ), global paid music streaming penetration is 52%.
• In May 2020, Goldman Sachs estimated the entire music industry’s revenue (live, recorded, and publishing) to increase from $62 billion in 2017 to $131 billion in 2030, representing a 6% CAGR. The 2030 estimate was an increase on its original prediction of $104 billion, made in October 2016.

Music Intellectual Property Rights in the Spotlight

Music royalty payments derive from the underlying intellectual property (IP) rights of songs. The most common types of IP are copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. Music - including lyrics, composition, and sound recording - is protected under copyright law.

What Is Music Copyright?

When music is put into tangible form (e.g., recorded or written in sheet music), a copyright is created. Further protections are given under law once the work is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright provides its owner(s) with exclusive rights for a period of time. In general, rights last for 70 years after an author’s death.

A song contains two copyrights:

• Sound recording copyright is “a fixation of a series of sounds” associated with a particular recording. The sound recording copyright is owned by an artist, who often assigns ownership to their representative record label.
• Musical composition copyright is the song’s composition (music and lyrics) by the songwriter(s). The musical composition copyright is owned by a songwriter, who often assigns ownership and representation to a music publisher.

Several positive catalysts for music IP rightsholders are currently on the horizon, including:

• New licensing opportunities
• Regulatory changes
• Emerging market growth

New Licensing Opportunities

There are new licensing opportunities for music IP owners that are just starting to emerge. Short-form videos (e.g., TikTok and Triller), e-fitness (e.g., Peloton), and other platforms (e.g., Facebook) are just starting to license music IP from rightsholders, creating new sources of future monetization. For example, in July 2020, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) reached a licensing agreement with TikTok, a platform with roughly 100 million US monthly active users and 700 million worldwide monthly active users. Before signing the licensing deal, the NMPA claimed that approximately 50% of the music publishing market was unlicensed with TikTok. Other large platforms, such as Facebook and Peloton, have recently signed inaugural licensing deals with music rightsholders. These licensing deals create exciting new future sources of income for music IP owners.

Regulatory Changes

Most music publishing rights are regulated, and recent regulatory announcements have been beneficial to music IP rightsholders’ interests. For example, US musical composition mechanical royalties are regulated by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), a panel of three judges who determine music royalty rates and terms over a period of time. In January 2018, the CRB ruled that on-demand subscription streaming services (e.g., Spotify and Apple Music) must increase the percentage of revenue paid to songwriters and publishers by 44% to 15.1% of revenue over the five years of 2018 to 2022. While several streaming services are currently appealing the decision, it could have a very positive impact on composition mechanical royalties for US rightsholders.

Emerging Market Growth

Emerging markets, such as China and India, are only just starting to pay for music IP. According to IFPI’s 2019 Global Music Report, China was the seventh-largest music recording market, and India was not even in the top 10, despite having the world’s two largest populations. Goldman Sachs’ “Music in the Air” analysis notes that paid streaming penetration rates in China and India are currently 4% and 3%, respectively. Furthermore, the following chart from Goldman shows how little is currently spent per capita on music in emerging markets relative to developed markets.

Music Spend per Capita Across Regions: 2015 (USD)

Despite the gulf in spending, IFPI reported strong 2019 recorded music revenue growth in China and India of 16% and 19%, respectively, attributed to progress in copyright enforcement and streaming adoption. If the trend continues, China and India will increasingly grow as a revenue source for the industry.

Who Are the Key Music Industry Players?

The music recording and publishing industries have many players. Record labels and music publishers are the traditional investors in the space. They sign performing artists and songwriters and help them create and monetize new music. Examples include Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and BMG, to name a few. Meanwhile, music royalty funds focus on acquiring existing music rights with a history of stable cash flows. Music royalty fund formation has increased significantly over the past several years. Prominent royalty funds include Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Round Hill Music, Kobalt Capital, Tempo Music Investments, and Shamrock Capital. In some instances, royalty funds have also signed artists and songwriters to release new music, blurring the line between them and traditional labels and publishers.

The music industry is concentrated and dominated by three main players. According to Music & Copyright, the three largest record labels - Universal Music Group (32% market share), Sony Music Entertainment (20%), and Warner Music Group (16%) - hold a 68% share of the music recording market. Similarly, the three largest music publishers - Sony (25%), Universal Music Publishing (21%), and Warner Chappell Music (12%) - maintain a 58% share of the music publishing market.

Universal, Sony, and Warner are collectively referred to as the “Majors,” or the “Big Three.” Industry concentration is relevant in music because the majors’ deals with streaming services benefit from their market share : As streaming services’ revenues grow, so should the majors’ income. Furthermore, streaming and digital download margins are roughly 50-60% , compared to physical margins of 40-50%, lower due to manufacturing and distribution costs. As streaming continues to take a greater share of sales, the majors’ operating margins will benefit.

How Has COVID-19 Impacted the Music Industry?

“The unique nature and the diversification of our sources of income mean music publishers are well protected compared to most businesses.”

Josh Gruss, CEO of Round Hill Music ( Source )

Music industry revenues have held up relatively well compared to other industries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The growth of digital streaming has allowed consumers to access and enjoy music regardless of social distancing restrictions. At the same time, other forms of music consumption, especially live, have suffered.

Streaming Remains Resilient

There have been modest disruptions to streaming as a result of COVID-19. At the start of the pandemic, audio streaming saw a decrease in listening hours as consumers drove less and focused on other platforms (e.g., video streaming) and forms of entertainment (e.g., TV and video gaming). However, according to Billboard, these declines returned to growth by the end of April.

Indeed, the modest decline in engagement measured by listening hours has not impacted consumers’ willingness to pay for audio streaming. Spotify’s Q2 2020 Monthly Active Users (MAU) and paid streaming subscribers increased by 29% and 27% year-on-year, respectively, which was at the top of its guidance. As a result, Spotify’s Q2 2020 premium revenue increased by 17% year-on-year.

Spotify Monthly Active Users (MAUs): 2017-2020 (Q2)

Live Music Has Suffered

Other sources of music income, especially live music, have suffered during the pandemic. Social distancing restrictions have severely impacted the live music market. For example, Live Nation, a leading live entertainment company, experienced a 98% year-on-year revenue decline in Q2 2020, driven by global concert shutdowns. Live Nation management expects concerts to return to scale by summer 2021. Its view is corroborated by Goldman Sachs, which projects live music revenue to decrease 75% in 2020 before recovering in 2021 or 2022.

Reduced Advertising Weighs on Radio and General Licensing Income

Sirius XM, the satellite and digital radio broadcaster, saw total company sales decline 5% year-on-year in Q2 2020, driven by a 34% decline in advertising revenue. For the full year, Sirius XM management expects total company sales to decline by 3%.

Lower advertising spending has also impacted terrestrial radio, although the pullback may be reversing. iHeartMedia, the owner of 800+ AM/FM radio stations, saw an even larger impact than Sirius XM, with Q2 2020 sales declining 47% year-on-year. iHeartMedia did note that annual revenue declines had improved each month from April (down 50% year-on-year) through July (down 27% year-on-year).

As a result, royalties paid by radio stations to Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) will likely fall sharply over the next couple of quarters. ASCAP (one of the largest PROs) President Paul Williams noted in April 2020 that as more licensee businesses shut down, the pandemic will “have a material and negative impact financially on almost every category of licensing.”

The “Majors” Are Impacted, Positively and Negatively, by All Factors

The three “major” record labels and publishers have seen industry trends begin to play out in recent earnings reports. Universal Music Group was the only label to see revenue increase year-on-year up to June 30, 2020 ( +6% ), while Sony ( -12% ) and Warner Music Group ( -5% ) reported declines. Inside the results, all three attributed positive growth trends to streaming, but pandemic-related lockdowns negatively impacted non-digital revenues, especially in the areas of merchandise, physicals (e.g., CDs), and artist services.

Recent Music IP Acquisition and Capital Markets Activity

Wall Street has been taking notice of the music industry’s secular growth story. In recent years, billions of dollars have been raised, privately and publicly, to invest in music intellectual property rights and the companies that own them:

• Warner Music Group recently went public, raising just under $2 billion at a $13 billion valuation.
• Hipgnosis Songs Fund raised more than £850 million in its July 2018 IPO and four subsequent equity offerings.
• Universal Music announced that it is planning an IPO in the next three years.

Meanwhile, several private equity firms have raised funds focused on music IP rights:

• December 2019: Providence Equity Partners announced $650 million of equity and debt capacity for Tempo Music Investments, its music IP acquisition platform.
• July 2020: Shamrock Capital closed its second Content IP Fund, which focuses on different types of intellectual property, including music IP.
• August 2020: Concord Music closed a $1 billion debt financing.

Overall, there is a significant amount of activity in the equity and debt capital markets for music IP assets.

With capital pouring into the space, music IP acquisition activity has been hot. Recent years have seen several significant deals:

• January 2018: Round Hill Music purchased Carlin Music Publishing - home to songs by Elvis Presley, James Brown, and Billie Holiday - for an estimated $240 million.
• June 2019: Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings and Carlyle Group acquired independent label and publisher Big Machine Label Group for an estimated $300 million.
• March 2020: A consortium led by China’s Tencent Holdings bought a 10% stake in Universal Music Group (UMG) at a €30 billion valuation.

Since going public in July 2018, Hipgnosis Songs Fund has also spent more than $1 billion, acquiring more than 60 catalogs. In short, the M&A market is very active, with BMG’s CEO Hartwig Masuch even calling the current environment “a feeding frenzy.”

The combination of capital formation and increased acquisition activity has led music IP valuations to trend upward over the past few years. In a future article, I will go deeper into the asset class of royalties and, in particular, why music royalties are considered an attractive asset class in the current market environment. The article will review the main levers that active investors use when attempting to increase music IP’s value, the potential pitfalls to look out for, and the instruments used for IP investing.

More Resilient: The Music Industry in 2020

The music industry has experienced a dramatic turnaround over the past five years. Technological advances driven by streaming have ushered in a period of growth. While COVID-19 has created several challenges, the industry is holding up relatively well with several new licensing opportunities on the horizon. As a result, capital is flowing into music IP investing, with acquisition activity remaining high.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• Why Music Royalties Are an Attractive Asset Class
• Will Spotify's Non-IPO Pave the Way for Tech Companies?
• Industry Analysis and Porter’s 5 Forces: A Deeper Look at Buyer Power
• Exploring the Post-crash Cryptocurrency Market: Blockchain, Regulations, and Beyond
• After All These Years, the World Is Still Powered by C Programming

Understanding the basics

Is the music recording industry growing.

After nearly two decades of piracy-driven declines, the global music recording industry’s revenue bottomed out at $14 billion in 2014. Since then, due in large part to streaming, revenue has grown to $20 billion in 2019, back in line with 2004 levels.

Is streaming good for the music industry?

The music industry has benefited from the growth of streaming services, which have been the main driver of global music recording revenue growth since 2015. For music labels, streaming margins are generally higher (50-60%) than physical music products (40-50%).

Is live music an industry in decline?

Between 2007 and 2019, global live music revenue grew by 5% annually. The market has been severely impacted by 2020 lockdowns, with Live Nation experiencing a 98% year-on-year revenue decline in Q2. Goldman Sachs projects global live music revenue to decrease 75% in 2020 before recovering in 2021 or 2022.

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Jimmy Stone

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Member since May 23, 2019

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• Open access
• Published: 27 July 2021

Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries

• Pablo Bello   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2343-9617 1 &
• David Garcia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2820-9151 2 , 3 , 4  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  8 , Article number:  182 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Cultural and media studies

The digitization of music has changed how we consume, produce, and distribute music. In this paper, we explore the effects of digitization and streaming on the globalization of popular music. While some argue that digitization has led to more diverse cultural markets, others consider that the increasing accessibility to international music would result in a globalized market where a few artists garner all the attention. We tackle this debate by looking at how cross-country diversity in music charts has evolved over 4 years in 39 countries. We analyze two large-scale datasets from Spotify, the most popular streaming platform at the moment, and iTunes, one of the pioneers in digital music distribution. Our analysis reveals an upward trend in music consumption diversity that started in 2017 and spans across platforms. There are now significantly more songs, artists, and record labels populating the top charts than just a few years ago, making national charts more diverse from a global perspective. Furthermore, this process started at the peaks of countries’ charts, where diversity increased at a faster pace than at their bases. We characterize these changes as a process of Cultural Divergence, in which countries are increasingly distinct in terms of the music populating their music charts.

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Introduction.

Digitization is arguably the biggest change the music market has undergone over the last decades. In 2016, digital sales already accounted for more than half of the revenues of the music industry (Coelho and Mendes, 2019 ). There are innumerable aspects on which digitization has impacted how we listen, produce, and commercialize music. For example, digital music is distributed at a null marginal cost, meaning that digital audio can be reproduced ad infinitum without an extra cost on the side of the record label. For the consumer, streaming has had homologous effects. In streaming platforms, listening to new music does not carry an extra monetary cost, as a listener only pays a flat monthly fee to subscribe to a platform like Spotify Footnote 1 . This way, time and search costs are the only ones remaining in the way of music exploration. On the distribution side, online catalogs of music are orders of magnitude larger than those of physical stores due to the lack of space constraints, making a more diverse offer of music (Anderson, 2006 ). There is evidence that the increased availability of music has been accompanied by an enhanced diversity and quantity of music consumption (Datta et al., 2018 ). In this paper, we explore the evolution of global diversity in the past years and find a clear trend towards global diversity in the music market.

Concerns of Cultural Convergence have been part of the public debate for decades. European governments, in particular, have made attempts to protect national cultural industries either directly (e.g. radio quotas) or indirectly (e.g. subsidizing national film production) (Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ; Waldfogel, 2018 ). Because digitization granted easier access to imported goods, predictions were that national cultural products were doomed, especially in smaller countries. Nonetheless, scientific research has not yet provided a definitive answer to whether this fear was well-grounded or not. There is evidence that digitization might have accelerated cultural convergence across countries in popular music (Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014 ; Verboord and Brandellero, 2018 ) while others find an increasing interest in national artists (Achterberg et al., 2011 ; Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ). Discrepancies most likely stem from the inconsistency in the sample of countries included in these studies and the limited granularity of data available. Therefore, the question of whether digitization and streaming are currently propelling cultural convergence is open for debate. For similar cultural products, such as YouTube videos, global convergence is limited by cultural values (Park et al., 2017 ).

The recent availability of datasets on music consumption across large numbers of countries has provided a way of overcoming some limitations of previous studies. In a recent example, Way and his collaborators, look at Spotify users’ listening behavior and find that “home bias”—the preference towards national artists—is on the rise globally (Way et al., 2020 ). A source of concern is the possible influence of a platform’s endogenous processes on the behavior of its users. For instance, what appears as an enhanced preference for national artists could be the result of changes in the recommendation algorithm. Alternatively, increased popularity of playlists like the New Music Friday, which are biased towards national artists (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018a ) could produce a similar effect. Although far from common, major changes in the recommendation system of Spotify happen, the latest one being announced in March of 2019 (Spotify, 2019 ). As a result, recommendations are now more personalized, which, if the nationality of a user is taken into account, could generate increasing divergence between countries by feeding users with national music. According to Spotify, up to one-fifth of their streams can be attributed to algorithmic recommendations (Anderson et al., 2020 ), which may be enough to sway macro-level trends in music consumption.

We deal with platform-specific confounders by supplementing our analysis of Spotify data with a dataset from iTunes. It must be noted, however, that changes similarly affecting both platforms may exist, such as the increasing use of recommendation systems or catalog expansions, as well as the mutual influence that would make these observations non-independent. Another caveat of using platform-specific data is the fact that users of such platforms might not be representative of the entire population. Spotify users are disproportionately young and male when compared to their countries’ population (Datta et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, the composition of users of a platform is in constant change and the timing of adoption correlates with individual listening habits. For instance, in Spotify, late adopters have a stronger preference for local music than those who joined the platform early on (Way et al., 2020 ). To minimize the impact of these issues, we reduce the sample of countries from the 59 available to 39, keeping those in which Spotify is strongly established. Therefore, we expect the population of users in these countries to be more stable than in recently incorporated ones such as India, in which market penetration is quickly expanding. Additionally, this can be considered as a within-sample comparison (Salganik, 2019 ), which, given the large user base of Spotify, is of interest in and on itself.

In this paper, we tackle the question of whether digitized music consumption is globalizing or not by looking at the ecology of the national music charts of Spotify and iTunes in the past few years. In other words, by observing the global diversity in the charts we can discern whether popular music is converging or diverging across countries. More diversity across countries would be a sign of Cultural Divergence. On the other hand, a decrease in diversity would be indicative of a process of Cultural Convergence across countries. We utilize the Rao-Stirling measure of diversity and its components (Stirling, 2007 ) to describe these trends. We find upward trends in the cross-national diversity of songs, artists, and labels, starting in 2017 in Spotify as well as in iTunes and ending in 2020 for Spotify. Popular music is thus diverging across countries in what we define as Cultural Divergence. To complement previous studies, we also look at the diversity of artists and labels and find that these have increased in parallel. Ultimately, this paper describes trends in popular music across a large sample of countries, giving a more clear perspective of the cultural dynamics in the digital era.

Research background

Winner-takes-all.

Cultural markets often exhibit a highly skewed distribution of success (e.g. Keuschnigg, 2015 , Salganik et al., 2006 ). In the music market in particular, a few hits expand across the globe while the majority of popular songs only hoard local success (see Fig. 1 ). Such inequalities are partly due to the scalability of cultural products, a property that refers to the fact that most of their cost is fixed – although this property does not apply to all cultural markets, being the art field an exception – while marginal costs are relatively low. For instance, once a song is recorded or a book is written, the cost of making another copy is insignificant when compared to the initial cost of producing it, measured in time, creativity, or money, making these products scalable to large audiences. As a result, demand is highly concentrated on the best alternatives, even when they are only marginally better than the rest (Rosen, 1981 ).

Bars represent the percentage of songs that got to the charts of exactly x countries. The green line represents the total number of streams that songs on each bin have accumulated while in the charts, as a measure of popularity in the period of analysis (2017-mid 2020).

Oftentimes this is an oversimplified view, since quality in cultural products is hard to define, and it is perceived (between others) as a function of previous success, thus creating path dependencies in the popularity of cultural products and artists. This process can be viewed as one in which information is accumulated, with consumers relying on it to moderate the quality uncertainty of their selection of cultural products (Giles, 2007 ). Information is aggregated in the form of consumer reviews, sales rankings, or top charts. In a pathbreaking experimental study, Salganik et al. ( 2006 ) found that information on other listener’s musical preferences results in an amplified inequality of popularity when compared to a world of independent listeners. Using social cues in the form of aggregated information might be beneficial for individuals in cultural markets in which preference is a matter of taste, but there are multiple strategies to leverage such information and its fit varies between individuals (Analytis et al., 2018 ). In the case of artists, during their careers, “small differences in talent become magnified in larger earning differences” (Rosen, 1981 ). This “superstar effect”—defined as the previous success of an artist—is the most important predictor of the popularity of a song, even when controlling for other factors (Interiano et al., 2018 ). Thus, the huge inequalities of success stemming from the scalability of cultural products and the social influence mechanisms intervening in their spread allows for the possibility of a few songs and artists to dominate the charts across the globe.

In principle, both scalability, as well as social influence processes, may have gained bearing after digitization and streaming. On the one hand, digitization reduced the marginal costs of music production by eliminating the need to manufacture an album. Some transaction costs for digital music remain, such as copyrights and distributing platform fees, but overall, the barriers for music to flow across countries are substantially lower than in the pre-digital era. On the other hand, information is more abundant than ever before. Users can get near-real-time data on the listening decisions of millions of other users. On Spotify, anyone can search through the Top 50 playlists tailored for every country. Each of them contains the most popular songs on the platform, which are updated daily. These playlists are extremely popular among users, for instance, the Top 50 Global has over 15 million followers. This deluge of information is complemented with second-order feedback effects (Easley and Kleinberg, 2010 ) such as recommender systems, which might be luring listeners towards the most popular songs. For Spotify, there is evidence that users who rely more heavily on algorithmic recommendations listen to less diverse music and podcasts than those who discover music for themselves (Anderson et al., 2020 , Holtz et al., 2020 ). In short, there are arguments to think that the winner-takes-all effects characteristic of the music market might be gaining bearing under the digital regime, decreasing the diversity and increasing the concentration of the market in the hands of a few hit songs, superstar artists, and major labels.

The long tail

The idea of the long tail, first proposed by Anderson ( 2004 ) in a widely circulated press article sustains that online retailing has led to increased diversity in the consumption of music. This happened because online retailers do not have the limitations of shelf space that traditional brick-and-mortar stores have, and so their catalogs can be virtually unlimited in size. The unlimited digital space can be filled with niche products that do not attract huge audiences but, bit by bit, make a difference in terms of profits generated. In the book following his article, Anderson ( 2006 ) goes beyond the original argument, suggesting that the Internet has a carrying capacity for cultural products previously unattainable and its impact on cultural markets has been broader than initially expected. Not only the distribution but also the production of cultural goods has thrived as a result of the new technologies for distribution (e.g. online retailers), production (e.g. cheaper software), and consumption (e.g. flat fees). Some have even qualified these changes as a renaissance of cultural markets (Waldfogel, 2018 ).

More recently, Aguiar and Waldfogel have argued that the idea of the long tail fails to account for the unpredictability of success in cultural markets (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018b ; Waldfogel, 2017 , 2020 ). When confronted with new artists, for instance, record labels have a scant capacity to assess what will be the success of those artists. Under such uncertainty, producers strive to pick those with better prospects but there will inevitably be miscalculations (e.g. the infamous Decca audition of The Beatles) and artists that were deemed unworthy of being promoted will end up reaping huge success, and the same in the opposite direction. In other words, before digitization, market intermediaries held most of the decision power over which products or artists were worthy of being produced and which ones did not, the inevitable result of which was that some hits were lost. The reduced costs of production and promotion of digital cultural goods have made possible the production of these products. Unlike what the original idea of the long tail proposed, not all of them will be niche products and some will end up achieving unexpected popularity. The same goes for independent record labels, which now have better opportunities to promote their artists even with small budgets. There is evidence that indie artists and labels have gained relevance under the digital music regime (Coelho and Mendes, 2019 ). For instance, top-selling albums in the US produced by independent labels increased from 12% in 2000 to 35% in 2010 (Waldfogel, 2015 ).

Waldfogel and Aguiar refer to this phenomenon as the random long tail of music production. The random long tail contains those cultural goods that despite not being attractive to traditional intermediaries can be brought into production and, due to the inherent unpredictability of cultural markets, sometimes reach unexpected success. Accordingly, the more unpredictable a cultural market is, the greater the number of unexpected hits. For instance, the success of songs is more difficult to predict than that of movies, whose box-office earnings heavily depend on the budget and cast of the film (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018b ). In summary, these studies put forward a vision of the music market in the digital era as more diverse and unpredictable.

Methods and data

Although there are multiple approaches to the study of diversity in social phenomena, Stirling’s ( 2007 ) is one of the most influential and widely applied. More importantly, the Rao–Stirling diversity index has already been used to study diversity in music taste, although at a different level of analysis than here (Park et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2019 ). The Rao–Stirling index consists of three components: variety, balance, and disparity.

Variety is a function of the number of distinct units (songs, artists, or labels) in the charts on a given day. The more unique units the more variety there is in the charts. Naturally, in the case of songs variety is bounded by the fact that the same song cannot occupy more than one chart position per country so changes in variety should be interpreted, rather than the absolute size of the indicators (which also applies to the other measures of song diversity). We measure variety as the number of distinct units divided by the total number of chart positions. Balance refers to how evenly distributed the system is across units. Here we measure balance as 1−Gini, a common measure of the inequality of a distribution. In this case, it is the distribution of chart positions across songs, artists, or labels. The more equally distributed positions are the higher the balance in the system. Importantly, balance does not give any information about the number of units in the charts (variety). For instance, label balance would be highest if two labels produce all the songs in the charts with equal shares as well as if every song in the charts was produced by a different label (and there were no songs in more than one chart-country). The disparity is defined not by categories themselves but by the qualities of such categories or elements. In other words, the disparity is a measure of how different the elements of a system are. We define the qualities of a song by its acoustic features Footnote 2 and then calculate the euclidean distance between songs. In the case of artists, we define them by the central tendency of the acoustic features of their songs on the charts. The Rao–Stirling index combines variety, balance, and disparity into a single indicator of diversity Footnote 3 .

Additionally, we introduce Zeta diversity, a measure from biology. Zeta diversity was developed by Hui and McGeoch ( 2014 ) to tackle the issues with pairwise measures of diversity. Aggregated pairwise distance measures are consistently biased (Baselga, 2013 ) and, when the number of sites (countries) is large, they approximate their upper limit (Hui and McGeoch, 2014 ). More importantly, Zeta diversity gives a more nuanced view of the interplay between global and local hits. The distribution of the number of countries in which a song reaches the charts is right-skewed, as shown in Fig. 1 , meaning that most songs enter the charts of just one or two countries. As a consequence, what aggregated measures such as Rao–Stirling mainly capture is the effect of local hits. The influence of global hits is mostly null in such measures because of their paucity. Zeta diversity, on the other hand, measures distances at multiple orders. For instance, Zeta of order 3 ( ζ 3 ) represents the expected number of songs shared by groups of three countries. It is calculated by looking at all possible combinations of three countries and calculating the number of songs that each group shares. Higher orders or Zeta (e.g. songs shared by groups of 10 or more countries) capture the prevalence of more global hits. Here, we characterize Zeta by its central tendency, but other options are possible. As the order of Zeta increases its value decreases monotonically since there are always fewer songs charting in groups of three countries than in groups of two. In short, Zeta diversity gives us a more nuanced view of the distribution of success of songs across the charts compared to other diversity measures.

The data for the study comes from Spotify’s top 200 charts and iTunes’ top 100. We illustrate the analysis focusing on Spotify’s data because of the larger sample of countries (39 vs. 19). The entire list of countries can be found in Supplementary Table S1 online. Because iTunes data could not be retrieved from an official source (instead we obtained it through Kworb.com), the results are reported only as a means of externally validating our main findings. Spotify’s data covers the period from 2017-01-01 to 2020-06-20, iTunes top 100 daily charts for the period 2013-08-14 to 2020-07-16.

Figure 2 shows distances between countries as a function of the songs shared between their charts within a year. Countries appear geographically clustered. One cluster is formed by Western countries of which Spain is the exception, being part of a different cluster, together with the Latin American countries. The third cluster encapsulates the Asian countries and Brazil. There are some noticeable anomalies, such as the closeness between Turkey and Brazil. Upon closer examination, most of the songs shared between them are produced in the United States. This is likely the result of the small market penetration of Spotify, making for a user base of early adopters more internationally oriented. Alternatively, it could be the result of a small catalog of local music. In any case, the observable consequence is an over-representation of international (and mainly US) hits in both countries’ charts.

Jaccard distances calculated over annually constructed incidence matrices. Countries are colored according to the continent they belong to (red: Americas, yellow: Europe, blue: Asia, Green: Oceania).

Although positions are fairly stable over the years, if anything, clusters of countries seem to consolidate, being these three groups more clearly discernible in 2020 than in 2017. Following Park et al. ( 2017 ) we also look at the relationship between countries as a projection of the two-mode network between countries and songs. The modularity of the network indicates the degree to which countries are clustered into modules beyond what would be expected on a random network. Modularity increased consistently from 2017 up to 2020 (see Supplementary Fig. S4 ) indicating that countries within clusters are becoming more similar in their music charts and, at the same time, drifting away from other clusters. These results are consistent with general notions of cultural, geographical, and linguistic distance which elsewhere have been proved to be the main determinants of music taste similarities between countries (Moore et al., 2014 ; Pichl et al., 2017 ; Schedl et al., 2017 ) although with a few exceptions such as the above-mentioned.

Seen as a whole, the diversity of songs, artists, and labels has increased during this period. Variety has grown not only on Spotify but on iTunes as well (Fig. 3 ). The resemblance between the two trends is startling, especially if we consider how different these platforms are, one being a streaming platform with growing popularity (Spotify) while the other (iTunes) is a digital music shop whose user base is in decay. The resemblance between the trends points to the external validity of the observations, although there could be some degree of influence between the platforms and thus they cannot be regarded as completely independent observations. The upward tendency in variety starts in 2017 and plateaus at the end of 2019 on Spotify while it keeps increasing in iTunes.

Values range from 0 (same set of songs in every country) to 1 (no overlap between the charts). Calculated for countries in both datasets (16 countries) and the same chart size (100 positions). Time series are calculated with daily frequency and smoothed over a 10-day window. Both Spotify and iTunes display consistent trends of increasing variety over time.

The increase in song diversity can be observed in Fig. 4 . Balance, disparity, and variety have all increased during the period. The disparity indicator also shows a strong seasonal burst around Christmas. This is consistent with other findings, suggesting that in countries in the Northern Hemisphere musical intensity declines around Christmas while the opposite is true for the Southern Hemisphere (Park et al., 2019 ). Overall diversity (Rao–Stirling index) rises from 2017 up to 2020 and then plateaus. Hence, not only there are more distinct songs in the charts (variety) but these are acoustically more dissimilar (disparity) and their distribution over the chart slots is more equal (balance) than at the beginning of the period.

Diversity, measured as balance, disparity, variety, or a combination of them, has been increasing consistently across countries with a plateau at the beginning of the year 2020. Besides the secular growth, disparity shows a strong seasonal component centered around Christmas.

As for songs, the diversity of artists has also grown. However, the trend is distinct at the head of the charts than at the bottom. By slicing charts at certain ranking positions we create a top 10, top 50, and top 200 for each country. When it comes to balance and variety, the increase has been more pronounced at the head of the charts, which already presented a higher level at the beginning of the observed period. However, disparity is lowest within the top 10, indicating that the group of artists with songs on the head of the charts are stylistically more similar than those who just make it to the charts (a group that subsumes the former). What we can derive from these trends is that, while there are proportionally more unique artists at the top of the charts, the music that those artists produce is relatively similar, as if there was an acoustic “recipe” for reaching the peak of the charts. In general, artist diversity as a whole has increased at a similar pace across strata of the charts (Fig. 5 c).

All the components of artist diversity have increased steadily during the period. As for songs, artist disparity bursts around Christmas. While balance and variety are higher at the peak of the charts, disparity shows the opposite pattern.

The increasing diversity of songs and artists in the charts has been accompanied by a more equally distributed market for record labels (Fig. 6 a). Again, the trend is steeper if we look only at the head of the charts. The number of distinct labels with at least one song in the charts has also increased in a stratified manner (Fig. 6 b). In general, labels had on average fewer artists and songs on the charts at the end of the period. While in the first 6 months of 2017 labels had on average 5.88 songs on the charts (and 2.19 artists), for the first half of 2020 it was one less song (and only 1.66 artists). Interestingly, the number of songs that each artist got on the charts has increased slightly, going from 2.67 in 2017 to 2.96 in 2020 (comparing the first half of each year).

The left panel shows the balance of labels over time for three sizes of the top chart, displaying increases over time especially for the highest positions in the chart. The right panel shows the variety of labels on the charts. The same patterns as for balance can be observed.

We can take a closer look at the interplay between local and global hits through the Zeta diversity measure. Figure 7 presents the results for monthly Zeta diversity measures of orders 2—which is equivalent to pairwise distances—up to 20—the mean number of common songs shared by groups of 20 countries. We observe that across all orders of Zeta the mean diversity tends to decrease with time (brighter colors) which is consistent with the previous results Footnote 4 . When we look at the decay of Z -values along orders of Zeta ( x -axis) we observe that it gets steeper over time. In other words, the slope of the regression with Z -values ( y -axis) as a dependent variable and Z -order ( x -axis) as a predictor gets greater with time. Table 1 presents the results of a linear regression model that shows the increase in steepness over time. The substantive interpretation is that global hits have taken the lion’s share of the increase in diversity, becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon.

The x -axis represents the order of Zeta and the y -axis the z -value, or mean percentage of songs shared across groups of x countries. Both axes are represented on a log10 scale. The function of Zeta with order shifts down over time and becomes steeper.

By analyzing 4 years of data of music charts in 39 countries, we find clear evidence of increased diversity in the music charts across countries. In the short period covered by this study, the number of unique songs, artists, and labels on the charts in our sample of countries has grown considerably. Despite the concerns expressed by several governments, particularly in Europe (Waldfogel, 2018 , p. 220), popular music is not increasingly globalized. Instead, countries’ popular music was amidst a process of Cultural Divergence that seemed to have come to a halt at the end of the observed period. The increase in diversity seems to be driven by a segmentation of the music market rather than an evenly heightened idiosyncrasy of music consumption. In other words, countries that were already close to one another in taste are becoming more similar but increasingly different from other clusters of countries. Such clusters appear strongly determined, but not only, by geographical and cultural distance. Research shows that regional clusters also differ in the acoustic properties of the music that their populations listen to (Park et al., 2019 ). Therefore, although diversity is usually taken as a positive trait of a system, the segmentation which is driving the increase in diversity can be a source of concern.

We also show that diversity has been on the rise in terms of artists and record labels. Particularly, the rise of label diversity rules out the possibility that the big labels are producing pop music fitted to different markets, as the proponents of glocalization would argue. As a consequence of these trends, not only songs might be increasingly distinct across countries, but also their production and distribution.

Whether it is the preferences of users or shifts in the production and distribution of music that are driving these changes is not clear. The possibility that Cultural Divergence is the result of a random long tail in music production is more consistent with the pace and ubiquity of these changes than preference-based accounts of the same phenomenon. Therefore, as an alternative to preference-based explanations of the increase in home bias (Way et al., 2020 ) and global diversity, we propose that these observations could be explained by changes in music production. One first source of concern with the preference-based explanation stems from the speed and ubiquity of the observed changes. Cultural shifts of this scale are generally slow, comparable in speed to the evolution of traits in animal populations (Lambert et al., 2020 ). Also, there is evidence that changes in the aggregated preferences of a population are mostly driven by generational replacement (Vaisey and Lizardo, 2016 ). Instead, we argue that field configurations can more rapidly sway macro-patterns by conditioning the opportunities of individuals. In the case of music, the random long tail of music production may have increased the available options of users to express their idiosyncratic preferences, which, being to some extent geographically determined (Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ; Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014 ; Way et al., 2020 ), would likely result in national music charts drifting away from each other.

Methodologically, this research shows the potential of Zeta diversity, a measure devised for the study of biodiversity, to gauge the globalization of cultural products at different levels. Since truly global hits are extremely rare phenomena when compared to songs that reach in small groups of culturally similar countries, they carry very low weight when calculating pairwise distances, which is a common way of looking at cross-national diversity. National charts could drift apart without affecting the likelihood of the eventual hit to spread globally and conventional pairwise measures would not pick this dynamic. As we show, this has not been the case for the music market, in which the positive trend in diversity has been accompanied by a significant decrease in the spread of global hits. The application of Zeta diversity is not without issues, one of them being that its calculation is computationally demanding when compared with the other measures of diversity presented here, because of its combinatorial nature. In return, it offers relatively stable estimates of rare events, a useful feature when studying heavy-tailed distributions in general, and cultural markets in particular, in which global hits are highly unlikely but more consequential in terms of collective attention than the more common local hits. More broadly, our analysis applies mathematical methods from ecology to analyze the consumption of cultural content. This interface between disciplines has other applications, for example, to understand the dynamical reorganization of user activity on social media (Palazzi et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, our work builds on existing literature utilizing methods from ecology to study musical taste and consumption (Park et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2019 ).

To conclude, our results run counter to the notion of an unbounded market that can be distilled from the idea of globalization. It also challenges the expectations of the winner-takes-all set of theories that predict heightened inequality in the distribution of success under decreased restrictions to global expansion. Instead, the music market has become, in this short period, more hostile to the spread of hits across the globe. From a positive perspective, this means that “national cultures” are not disappearing, although this might come at the expense of a more segmented market in bundles of culturally similar countries, and the risks associated with such segmentation if spread, for instance, from esthetic to normative judgments.

Data availability

Data and code for the analyses are available at https://github.com/PabloBelloDelpon/Spotify_paper .

Users also have the option to get free access to a limited version of the platform, which is ad-supported.

Spotify measures the acoustic features of each song and groups them into the followingcategories, all of which we include in the analysis: danceability, energy, key, loudness, mode,speechiness, acousticness, instrumentalness, liveness, valence, tempo, and duration.

More precisely, Rao–Stirling is calculated as in Stirling ( 2007 ): D  = ∑ it ( i ≠ j ) d ij   ⋅   p i   ⋅   p j , where p i and p j are the proportions of elements i and j in the system and did is the euclidean distance between their respective acoustic representations.

Zeta diversity is measured in the opposite direction than the previous indicators of diversity. Higher values indicate more overlap of songs across charts and smaller values indicate less overlap.

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Acknowledgements

D.G. acknowledges funding from the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) through project VRG16-005. We thank Marc Keuschnigg and Paul Schuler for their insightful comments on previous versions of this article.

Open access funding provided by Linköping University.

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Pablo Bello

Graz University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

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Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

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Bello, P., Garcia, D. Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 182 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00855-1

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Music Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 - 2029)

The Global Music Market is Segmented by Revenue Generation Format (Streaming, Digital (except Streaming), Physical Products, Performance Rights, Synchronization Revenues) and Geography (North America (United States, Canada), Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, China, Japan, South Korea, and Rest of Asia-Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America), and Middle East and Africa). The Market Sizes and Forecasts are Provided in Terms of Value (USD) for all the Above Segments.

Music Market Size

Need a report that reflects how COVID-19 has impacted this market and its growth?

Music Market Analysis

The Music Market size is estimated at USD 30.70 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 45.65 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 8.54% during the forecast period (2024-2029).

• The music industry has reached a new level of internationalization. The international music community has never been more connected, and fans and artists alike are seizing the opportunities of this new era to enjoy and share the music they love.
• Throughout the projected period, it is anticipated that the use of intelligent devices will increase along with the increased penetration of digital platforms. Music streaming services include websites that let users watch music videos, listen to audio, and subscribe to podcasts. Due to functions like automatic playlist customization, song recommendations, and hassle-free connectivity on apps and browsers, these platforms are becoming more and more popular. Additionally, these portals' expanding podcast genres fuel the market's expansion.
• Online and social media platforms such as YouTube have allowed aspiring artists to showcase and present their work to the world. After Google, the site is the second most popular social media platform. The music market is significantly growing in Asia and Latin America, as artists are actively seizing the opportunities to break out to a global audience.
• Additionally, recording companies are investing extensively in music artists, with record labels being the largest investors in the music ecosystem. According to the IFPI, record labels invest over US$ 5.8 billion in artists yearly through Artists & Repertoire (A&R) and marketing worldwide. Such an investment increase is expected to continue in the forecast period, estimated to drive the music market's growth.
• As the market expands and artists seize the digital generation opportunity, music foundations are making efforts to be in a position to support their long-term development with sustainability.
• The COVID-19 outbreak forced lockdowns in most nations to stop the virus from spreading. Due to this, music streaming services like Spotify, Tencent Music Entertainment, and Amazon Music saw increased subscriber numbers. Moreover, there was a rise in subscribers using live streaming on websites like YouTube and Instagram. Video content was already streamed more frequently than audio content in the United States. However, the pandemic greatly increased its appeal. Therefore, COVID-19 significantly helped the growth of the music streaming sector.

Music Market Trends

Music streaming to witness the largest revenue generation.

• With the rapidly growing internet penetration across the globe, the music industry has gracefully adopted the digital trend. Physical music revenue is continuously declining, and online streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Premium, and Tindle have gained traction over the years. For instance, the world's largest music streaming service, Spotify, claimed 195 million paid users in the third quarter of this year, exceeding forecasts and up from 188 million paid or premium customers in the previous quarter.
• Shortly, it is projected that the growing use of smart devices and the widespread acclaim of several cutting-edge digital platforms will benefit the sales of music and streaming services. The podcast genre is growing in popularity among millennials, which is good for the market. This is because more podcasters now talk about unresolved global problems.
• Companies in the music industry are forming extensive strategic alliances with music recording players and advanced online music streaming services. For instance, a wide variety of PTZ camera series, video switchers, and wireless video transmitters have all been introduced, according to Sky Wire Broadcast. The new selection is an addition to Sky Wire Broadcast's current offerings for the current year. This streaming platform, Powered, will offer the companies a suite of solutions for music and media streaming, download infrastructure, applications, rights management, customer billing, royalty administration, and business intelligence.
• Youtube is the second-most-visited website worldwide. One of the major reasons for this is music streaming. After the song Despacito by Latin American artist Luis Fonsi (Despacito) received the most views on YouTube, it boosted the region's music market's growth and investments. According to YouTube, the song has gained 7.85 billion views this year, followed by Ed Sheeran's Shape of You at 5.72 billion views.

United States to Dominate the Market

• The increased revenue of recorded music has driven the music market in the United States in the last year due to an increasing number of paid subscriptions. According to the report by the music association in the country - RIAA, Thirty-two percent of all music streaming customers had a Spotify subscription in the first quarter of this year, which is nearly twice as many as those who had an Amazon Music subscription.
• One of the important elements expected to fuel demand for music markets and streaming services in this region is the existence of numerous well-known businesses there, including Pandora Media, Inc., Google LLC, Apple, Inc., and Amazon.com, Inc.
• Other elements likely to encourage growth in this area are the accessibility of connected devices, fixed broadband speeds and coverage, and an established digital payment system. Many service providers likewise make sizable investments in creating cutting-edge platforms for use in automobiles.
• Additionally, the regional companies are setting examples by achieving continuous revenue growth. For instance, Universal Music Group reported strong profitability for the second quarter with almost USD 2.7 billion in revenue, an increase of 17.3% year over year in constant currency, and a percentage gain that lasts for the whole first half of the current year.
• Moreover, the streaming music service providers in the country are strategically competing by launching bundle packs. Financial Times has mentioned that Apple may merge its Apple Music and Apple TV with its video streaming services launch and offer a bundle pack at USD 13 per month. With this launch, Apple has planned to generate over USD 50 billion in revenue annually by the last year, giving heavy competition to its rival Spotify.
• Such competition and investment by music recording companies are expected to continue in the forecast period, boosting the country's music market.

Music Industry Overview

The music market is moderately consolidated because of the dominance of a few key companies, like UMG and Sony Music, offering recording services. Streaming service providers are estimated to continue facing strong market competition. These companies continuously invest in strategic partnerships and product developments to gain more market share. Some of the recent developments by the companies are listed below.

October 2023: Downtown Music Publishing (DMP) announces a global music publishing agreement with Outer Voice Music Publishing (OVMP), the newly formed arm of The Outer Voice Company, founded by artists JAM & Philly. The global administration deal will include JAM & Philly's well-received singles on the Outer Voice label imprint, "Photographs" and "Blind," and all songwriter credits signed within the two-year term. Downtown Music Publishing will be working collaboratively with JAM & Philly and the Outer Voice Music Publishing team in a shared commitment to drive impactful exposure, promotion, and awareness for South Asian songwriters and their catalog. Both companies will be administering works globally, procuring sync placements, and creating original composition opportunities for a wide-ranging roster of songwriters across the South Asian diaspora.

September 2023: Muso.AI says it has ingested over 1.4 million post-distribution credit modifications from rightsholders, artists, and collaborators.The company notes that partners like SoundExchange and Napster use its verified credits. The focus of the collaboration with Rimas Publishing will be around Muso.AI’s 24-hour analytics, which the latter company says departs from the conventional track-and-album approach, and instead centers on companies, catalogs, and individual profiles. 

Music Market Leaders

BMG Rights Management GmbH

Kobalt Music Group, Ltd.

SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

Universal Music Group

WARNER MUSIC INC.

*Disclaimer: Major Players sorted in no particular order

Music Market News

• August 2023 : Big Bang Music has entered into a strategic agreement with Sony Music Publishing (SMP). This collaboration entails SMP taking charge of the worldwide administration and promotion of Big Bang Music’s repertoire, aiming to amplify the exposure of their music across the global landscape. The partnership is anticipated to boost the publishing and royalty earnings of artists and songwriters while attaining a more extensive global audience via sync opportunities and global songwriter collaborations. The agreement covers administration, synchronization, and catalog promotion of the Indie music label’s repertoire.
• In April 2023, Sony Music Entertainment UK announced the relaunch of the legendary record label Epic Records UK. Epic Records UK will likely relaunch as a frontline label, operating alongside other iconic Sony Music labels, including RCA, Columbia, and Ministry of Sound, with the ambition to champion global music and British culture. The announcement coincides with Epic Records's anniversary, which will celebrate 70 years of recorded music in 2023.

Music Market Report - Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Market Definition and Scope

1.2 Study Assumptions

2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4. MARKET INSIGHTS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Industry Stakeholder Analysis

4.3 Industry Attractiveness - Porter's Five Forces Analysis

4.3.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers

4.3.2 Bargaining Power of Consumers

4.3.3 Threat of New Entrants

4.3.4 Threat of Substitute Products

4.3.5 Intensity of Competitive Rivalry

5. MARKET DYNAMICS

5.1 Market Drivers

5.1.1 Growing Investment by the Record Companies

5.1.2 Increasing the travel and tourism industry will fuel market expansion.

5.1.3 Increased use of online music streaming to boost the market.

5.2 Market Challenges

5.2.1 The confidentiality and security of user databases might impede business expansion.

5.3 Impact of COVID-19 on overall music market.

6. MARKET SEGMENTATION

6.1 Revenue Generation Format

6.1.1 Streaming

6.1.2 Digital (Except Streaming)

6.1.3 Physical Products

6.1.4 Performance Rights

6.1.5 Synchronization Revenues

6.2 Geography

6.2.1 North America

6.2.1.2 Canada

6.2.2 Europe

6.2.2.1 Germany

6.2.2.3 France

6.2.2.4 Italy

6.2.2.5 Rest of Europe

6.2.3 Asia-Pacific

6.2.3.1 India

6.2.3.2 China

6.2.3.3 Japan

6.2.3.4 South Korea

6.2.3.5 Rest of Asia-Pacific

6.2.4 Latin America

6.2.4.1 Brazil

6.2.4.2 Mexico

6.2.4.3 Rest of Latin America

6.2.5 Middle East and Africa

7. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

7.1 Company Profiles

7.1.1 BMG Rights Management GmbH

7.1.2 Kobalt Music Group, Ltd.

7.1.3 SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

7.1.4 Sont ATV

7.1.5 Universal Music Group

7.1.6 WARNER MUSIC INC.

7.1.7 Apple Inc.

7.1.8 TIDAL

7.1.9 Curb Records, Inc.

7.1.10 Deezer

• *List Not Exhaustive

8. INVESTMENT ANALYSIS

9. MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS

Music Industry Segmentation

The music industry comprises the people and businesses that make money by writing songs and other musical works, producing and marketing recorded music and sheet music, and staging concerts, as well as the agencies that support, educate, advocate for, and provide music makers.

The Music Market Landscape is divided into Revenue Generation Formats (Streaming, Digital (except streaming), Physical Products, Performance Rights, and Synchronization Revenues) and Geographies (North America (United States, Canada), Europe (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, China, Japan, South Korea, and Rest of Asia-Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America), and the Middle East and Africa).

The market sizes and forecasts are provided in terms of value in USD for all the above segments.

Music Market Research FAQs

How big is the music market.

The Music Market size is expected to reach USD 30.70 billion in 2024 and grow at a CAGR of 8.54% to reach USD 45.65 billion by 2029.

What is the current Music Market size?

In 2024, the Music Market size is expected to reach USD 30.70 billion.

Who are the key players in Music Market?

BMG Rights Management GmbH, Kobalt Music Group, Ltd., SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, Universal Music Group and WARNER MUSIC INC. are the major companies operating in the Music Market.

Which is the fastest growing region in Music Market?

Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period (2024-2029).

Which region has the biggest share in Music Market?

In 2024, the North America accounts for the largest market share in Music Market.

What years does this Music Market cover, and what was the market size in 2023?

In 2023, the Music Market size was estimated at USD 28.08 billion. The report covers the Music Market historical market size for years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The report also forecasts the Music Market size for years: 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029.

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Music Industry Report

Statistics for the 2024 Music Landscape market share, size and revenue growth rate, created by Mordor Intelligence™ Industry Reports. Music Landscape analysis includes a market forecast outlook to for 2024 to 2029 and historical overview. Get a sample of this industry analysis as a free report PDF download.

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The Music Industry in the 2020s

By: Govert Vroom, Isaac Sastre Boquet, Abhishek Deshmane

Since the emergence of digital technologies in the 1990s the music industry has been in a state of constant disruption. In a world where multiple media compete for the attention of individuals…

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• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2021
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Since the emergence of digital technologies in the 1990s the music industry has been in a state of constant disruption. In a world where multiple media compete for the attention of individuals through multiple channels, the ways people all over the world are now creating, distributing, and consuming music seem to be more diverse than ever. This note describes the current state of the industry, the value chain, its actors (artists, music labels, distributors, and others), and the existing -and emerging- business models.

Sep 1, 2021

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Charted: The impact of streaming on the music industry

Widespread adoption of music streaming services has helped turn the music industry’s fortunes around. Image:  Unsplash/Filip

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Stay up to date:, the digital economy.

• Worldwide recorded music revenues totalled $26.2 billion last year, up 9% from the previous year’s total of $24 billion, as this Statista chart shows.
• Last year, digital music accounted for the lion's share of worldwide music revenues, with streaming services alone accounting for 67% of the industry’s total haul.
• This article explains how the transition to digital distribution has both fuelled the music industry's decline and stopped it.

2022 was another good year for the music industry. According to IFPI’s latest Global Music Report, worldwide recorded music revenues totaled $26.2 billion last year, up 9 percent from the previous year’s total of $24 billion. This marks the eighth consecutive year of growth for the global music industry after nearly two decades of gradual decline. Interestingly, the transition to digital distribution has both fueled the music industry’s decline and helped stop it. After the golden age of the CD, which propelled worldwide music revenues to unprecedented highs through the 1990s, the advent of MP3 and filesharing hit the music industry like an earthquake. Between 2001 and 2010, physical music sales declined by more than 60 percent, wiping out $14 billion in annual revenue. During the same period, digital music sales grew from zero to almost $4 billion, which wasn’t even remotely enough to offset the drop in CD sales. It wasn’t until the appearance and widespread adoption of music streaming services that the music industry’s fortunes began turning around again.

According to data published by IFPI, the music industry bottomed out in 2014, when revenue was at a 20-year low of $13.1 billion, $9 billion less than it had been 15 years prior, when physical music sales alone had amounted to $22.3 billion at the peak of the CD era. After some initial hesitance by the music industry to embrace streaming services, record labels and artists appear to have followed consumers’ lead in accepting that the future of music lies in digital distribution. Last year, digital music accounted for the lion's share of worldwide music revenues, with streaming services alone accounting for 67 percent of the industry’s total haul. According to IFPI, 589 million people were using a paid music streaming subscription by the end of 2022 and streaming revenues are now considerably bigger than digital download sales ever were.

The World Economic Forum’s Platform for Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Sport enables business, government, and civil society to prepare for the next evolution of the internet. It addresses changing media business models, the responsible use of data, shifting technology paradigms, and ensures online safety as the nature of the internet evolves.

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The evolution of the music industry — and what it means for marketing yourself as a musician.

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Founder and EIC of  Now Entertainment , Personal Branding/Public Relations Expert.

For many fans of music, the saying, "We are not in Kansas anymore," rings truer than ever before. While it is evident that the content of the audio version of the entertainment industry has changed, there is a lot more that is different about what we now listen to and enjoy. Fans might be adjusting their tastes and preferences to the new sounds on the airwaves, but on the other side, artists are also facing a drastic shock. The tides of music production and marketing are moving fast, and only those strong enough to ride along will be left standing.

My business started as a recording studio and later grew into a full-service media company. Through this experience, I've seen how the music industry has evolved, as well as learned a few best practices on how independent musicians can adapt.

How has the music industry evolved?

Through the past 30 years, the way music is made and distributed has varied dramatically. The rise of the internet from the late 1990s has played a crucial role in how music is consumed globally, setting up a butterfly effect that inadvertently affects how musicians and artists are compensated and paid.

For a long time, the music industry has relied predominantly on traditional record labels. Both creators and consumers were completely at the mercy of the labels, and music preferences were heavily influenced by whatever happened to be in circulation. The label was the be-all and end-all of the artist’s career, deciding everything from marketing budgets to video sets and tour dates. I've seen some argue that the artistic expression of a true musician is heavily censored by what record labels consider to be marketable.

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As the early 2000s set in, the power dynamics started to shift. Mobile phones became more popular, and  music streaming sites started to mean business . Consumers now had access that physical record stores no longer defined. The supply pool got bigger, putting the listener in charge of what was hot or not, but the relationship was still tilted. From my perspective, the musician was still away from the pulse, and interactions with fans were primarily happening at meet-and-greets and tour venues.

As the 2010s rolled in, social media was booming and, suddenly, the floodgates were opened. A whole world of possibility was evident to both creators and listeners. The fourth wall had been brought down, and there was no room for the voice behind the music to speak directly. Social media introduced a level of music promotion that I believe had been unprecedented in earlier years. More and more platforms were vying for people’s attention, so they introduced unlimited features to keep audiences entertained.

Now, I'm finding that traditional entertainment providers recognize a new market opportunity: streaming on-demand. Music is one of the most popular bite-sized forms of entertainment that exists in limitless genres, with the ability to hold attention for hours. Streaming on-demand may be the champion of indie artists, as it can help eliminate the bottlenecks of traditional record labels. But despite the broader opportunity for discovery streaming platforms can give music creators,  gaps still exist  and there is still a limited avenue for adequate compensation for the artist.

Another aspect that has greatly evolved is music distribution. Music distribution is a process where a music distribution firm signs a deal with a record label or artist, giving them the right to sell their music to various channels. Hence, a music distributor can only sell music to channels that have an account with said distributor. During the first decade of the new millennium, I found the use of digital distribution systems became more profound. Gone were the days when independent creators had to collaborate with or need the support of other agencies to share their music with the globe.

What does this mean for independent artists?

My company also assists musicians with services such as public relations and distribution, and independent musicians often ask me for ways to help get their music to a large audience. I always tell them the same thing: “Link up with music distribution channels.” Plainly speaking, if you are an independent artist and you want to get your music on streaming platforms around the globe, you need to get familiar with the various distribution platforms in use today. Examples of these include Music Gateway, AWAL, Horus Music and Songflowr.

Another great way to distribute your music is through conventional channels like YouTube and Amazon. You can earn revenue as an independent artist through YouTube. All you need to do is join its partner program and use ads to generate revenue. YouTube does this by matching ads with your channel and the fans who watch your videos.

After you release your music, you can also run ads on social media and hire influencers to promote your music. Ensure you know how to properly target your audience, however, or else you could waste a lot of money and see no return on investment. Some musicians might even opt to work with a public relations agent and service DJs before they release their music. Just keep in mind that, in my experience, outsourcing PR can cost you around $3,000 to $5,000, and DJ record pools can range from $200 to $2,000.

As we can see, music has evolved mainly because of technological advances and improvements in how things were done before. These advances have also brought in new opportunities for artists and entrepreneurs alike. In the coming years, I believe progress in the music industry will be largely dependent on these same factors.

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Music in business and management studies: a systematic literature review and research agenda

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• Published: 27 March 2023

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• Elia Pizzolitto   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4569-1365 1  

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Music is the background of life, representing an international language that connects different cultures. It is also significant with respect to economies, markets, and businesses. The literature in the music field has identified several issues related to the role of digitalization in the revolution of music, the distribution of music products, the management and organization of music events, music marketing strategies, and the position of musicians as entrepreneurs. This paper comprises a systematic literature review of the most recent articles discussing the numerous connections between music, business, and management (2017–2022). Through a rigorous protocol, this research discusses the effects of the digital revolution on the music industry, with particular reference to the persisting oligopoly of major labels and the new business models that integrate music streaming and social networks. The findings show the renaissance and relevance of live music events, the fundamental role of segmentation strategies for managing festivals, and the limited presence of sustainability as a priority during festivals and events management. Furthermore, the literature highlights the relevance of discussions concerning musicians’ identity, especially in light of the complex relationship between the bohemian and the entrepreneurial nature of their profession. This is followed by numerous reflections on future research opportunities, recommending theoretical and empirical in-depth studies of music industry competition, futuristic management philosophies and business models, and the roles of technology, sustainability, and financial elements in fostering artists’ success in the digital era. Finally, the paper discusses business models and strategies for musicians, festivals management, stores, and sustainability.

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1 Introduction

As Mithen ( 2009 ; p 3) states, “To be human is to be musical”. Music is part of most individuals’ daily lives. For example, it plays in the background when people make purchases at stores and eat at restaurants. It is a universal language that helps strangers communicate immediately, that spreads and evokes emotions, and that inspires players, producers, and listeners (Cooke 1990 ; Hunter and Schellenberg 2010 ). However, beyond being an artform that can connect people from different cultures (Huron 2001 ) and with different identities (Mithen 2009 ), music is also a business.

The worldwide relevance of music can be recognized not only in philosophical discussions but also in statistical data about the industry. Music consumption has grown quickly, particularly since the start of the digital revolution, and this growth seems unlikely to slow down in the future (IFPI 2022 ). The worldwide music industry has grown significantly in recent years. In fact, it grew from US$14.2 billion in 2014 to US$25.9 billion in 2021, revealing growth of 18.5% in 2021 (IFPI 2022 ). Streaming now drives the music market, representing 65% of global music market revenues in 2021 (IFPI 2022 ). This trend is a consequence of the digital revolution, which has been characterized by two phases of development (Koh et al. 2019 ). The first phase involved physical and digital music record sales. The second phase was the development of streaming, unbundling, and cross-platform services that combined music with other entertainment forms, such as video games, television programs, films, and talent shows (Shen et al. 2019 ).

Two of the most relevant dimensions of the music industry are as follows: (a) the production and distribution of music through physical and digital support networks, as guided by record companies; and (b) the production and distribution of live music, which is controlled by world-famous artists but is characterized by many minor professional musicians, sound technicians, and other workers. These two dimensions are interconnected. The digital revolution is disruptive, and it has upset traditional capitalist economies, but the world of live music has resisted such changes (Azzellini et al. 2021 ). In addition to these two major dimensions, the music industry includes a complex and elaborate set of other dimensions. These comprise the conditions of minor musicians and labels; publishing, managing, and marketing; teaching and other educational activities (Thomson 2013 ); and the conditions of local music and record stores.

In this regard, multiple issues have emerged from the literature, mostly related to the big change that the digital revolution has brought about in the music industry. For example, minor artists and labels have to consider new marketing strategies, and they need to find innovative ways to exploit the easier connections between consumers and their products that technologies allow, despite having limited financial assets (Zhang 2018 ). Another example involves music events or festivals, which face complex challenges because of the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Innovation in the organization and marketing of these events is focused on the concept of value creation, guided by the idea of festivals as chaotic and unpredictable events in which collaboration and co-creation are critical for the achievement of financial, economic, and social objectives (Werner et al. 2019 ). Covid-19 and the digital revolution complicated the conditions of local music and record stores, which are more centered on experience than competition and need stable innovation in their marketing strategies (Trabucchi et al. 2017 ).

Moreover, the growth of the music business has highlighted the complex relationship between musicians’ artistic and entrepreneurial sides. In fact, musicians face cultural barriers to their identification as professionals. As Frederickson and Rooney ( 1990 ) noted, an absence of formal requisites to enter the musical profession is one of its most relevant barriers; because of this lack of a need for credentials, many people do not consider music to be a profession. Indeed, as Henry ( 2013 ) found, few music students think about teaching music as a future profession. According to Pizzolitto ( 2021 ), musicians are reluctant to consider themselves entrepreneurs because of the complex relationship between art and profit. Therefore, the entrepreneurial identity of musicians should be fostered to overcome this obstacle to recognizing music as a profession.

This may be challenging, as the Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected musicians’ activities. Although the music industry has continued to grow and has not been experienced many negative consequences, there have been numerous (orderly) protests by musicians and sound technicians who feel they have been forgotten by governmental policies. For example, in October 2020, a large group of musicians played in front of the British Parliament to protest a decision to decrease state benefits for freelance workers (Savage 2020 ). During the same month, musicians and sound technicians peacefully occupied many public squares in Italy to broadcast the slogan Esistiamo anche noi , which translates to “We also exist” (Sky Tg24 2020 ). In November 2020, musicians in Berlin held silent protests against a lockdown (Global Times 2020 ). Indeed, music around the world has experienced a number of conflicts.

Beyond the disparities in the success of record companies versus professional musicians, there are philosophical complexities connected to an antinomy between the artistic nature of music and the capitalistic context in which it is developed (e.g., see Bridson et al. 2017 ; Haynes and Marshall 2017 ). Musicians and record producers also face strategic issues concerning the distribution of their music. Waldfogel ( 2017 ) defined the current era as a golden age for music listening, yet musicians and producers experience dilemmas every time they intend to launch a product. One dilemma relates to the many opportunities available because of the digital revolution; for example, one can take advantage of digital platforms, streaming, and physical support networks. However, the increase in options demands more in-depth strategic planning. Thus, the philosophical significance of music to individuals, its relevance to people’s lives, and its importance to the economy are at odds with the research conditions of the field.

While attempts to map the literature on music research have been numerous and of high quality, they have mainly concentrated on the effects of music in the workplace (e.g., Landay and Harms 2019 ) or music education research. For instance, in 2004, volume 32 (issue 3) of Psychology of Music focused on mapping music education research in single national contexts (e.g., Welch et al. 2004 ; Gruhn 2004 ). Moreover, in 2006, Roulston published a methodological paper that incentivized qualitative research in the music field. Therefore, while existing research has discussed content relevant to the field, there is no literature review on the recent development of music in business and management studies, including topics such as digitalization, the conditions of the industry and competition, the management of music events, innovations, sustainability, and the complex position of musicians after the digital revolution. Consequently, this article addresses the research question “How does recent literature debate music in business and management studies?”.

The next section provides details on the methodology used in this literature review. In particular, it gives a detailed explanation of the procedure used to gather data and analyze the content of articles. Following this is a descriptive analysis of the literature sample, including the journals, author affiliations, and methods of the articles, and an analysis of the contents of the articles. The next section studies the themes that emerged in the articles. Finally, future research opportunities, managerial implications, and a general discussion of the results are presented in the conclusion.

2 Methodology

A systematic literature review (SLR) was chosen as the methodology for this study for two main reasons. First, the research questions concern a specific field (i.e., music in business studies). Second, an SLR can ensure a greater degree of objectivity compared with other kinds of literature reviews (e.g., narrative). It can also ensure reproducibility and limit biases in article selection and interpretation (Denyer and Tranfield 2009 ; Post et al. 2020 ). This study used a method described by Wolfswinkel et al. ( 2013 ), where contents of articles are analyzed using a grounded theory approach. This method ensured that the analysis would not be based on any prejudices. Moreover, grounded theory provides the advantage of developing a theoretical framework in the absence of a specific background (Corbin and Strauss 1990 ; Strauss and Corbin 1997 ). Finally, the method published by Wolfswinkel et al. ( 2013 ) exhibited no article selection differences compared with other SLR methodologies (e.g., see Denyer and Tranfield 2009 ; Post et al. 2020 ). Therefore, the method met all the requirements for conducting an SLR as objectively as possible.

2.1 The employed protocol

The method included the five following phases: define, search, select, analyze, and present (Fig.  1 ). During the first phase, the database and the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the study were determined. Similar to most SLRs (e.g., see Vrontis and Christofi 2019 ), only articles that were written in English and that had been published in peer-reviewed journals were included in the sample. To ensure that articles of the highest quality would be included, only those listed in the SCOPUS, EBSCOHost, and Web of Science databases were considered. Finally, specific keywords were used to search the three databases and were applied to titles, abstracts, and keywords of the articles. The keywords were music AND ( business OR management ).

Phases of SLR employed protocol

The second phase consisted of the search for articles. This began with several exploratory analyses to ensure that all relevant literature would be included. The research commenced with searching SCOPUS, and 7825 results were retrieved. The results were limited to peer-reviewed articles written in English, which narrowed the list to 3764 results. As the focus was on recent literature regarding music in business studies, the publication years were then restricted to 2017–2022, leaving 1333 results.

The same steps were followed in searching EBSCOHost. The initial dataset included 17,765 results, and after the limitations were applied, 183 articles remained. The steps were repeated in searching Web of Science, resulting in an initial sample of 2944 results. This number decreased to 855 after the limitations were applied.

During the third phase, the 2371 results were refined, and 771 duplicates were eliminated. After screening the titles, abstracts, keywords, and contents, 1444 false positives were eliminated. The final dataset comprised 145 articles.

The last two steps of the procedure were “analyze” and “present.” The next section presents the descriptive and content analyses of the articles (i.e., the results of these steps). Analyzing the articles included determining the type of paper, the distribution of publications over time, the authors’ productivity and affiliations, and the methods employed in the empirical articles. The contents of the articles were analyzed using a grounded theory approach, during which four themes emerged.

2.2 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

This section details the methods applied when including or excluding articles. To facilitate the selection of articles, an Excel file with 19 columns and 145 rows was created. More than 2700 cells were filled in with the following information for each paper: ID number, DOI, authors, title, publication year, source title, number of citations, source (i.e., SCOPUS, EBSCOHost, or Web of Science), paper type (i.e., empirical, conceptual, review), methodology (i.e., qualitative or quantitative), methods employed, sample size, type of statistical units; authors’ provenience; and theories cited. For reasons of space, the table cannot be shown here, but it is available upon request.

In addition, a column was devoted to the reason for including or excluding a paper. The objective was to consider only articles that explicitly referred to the interconnections between music and business or management issues. The process started with evaluating the titles, abstracts, and keywords to gain an understanding of the articles’ contents. If this evaluation was insufficient, the articles were read for a better evaluation.

To ensure transparency in the selection process, as suggested by Denyer and Tranfield ( 2009 ), some examples are considered. One article that was retrieved from the Scopus database was the article Neumatic singing in Thai popular singing, 1925–1967 by Inkhong et al. ( 2020 ) because it included the keywords used for the initial extraction. The article discussed solutions to problems related to incorrect pronunciation using neumatic singing. Therefore, it was excluded. Another article, Quality management of music education in modern kindergarten: Educational expectations of families by Boyakova ( 2018 ) talked about understanding and improving the quality of children’s music education and made no reference to business or management studies. Therefore, it too was excluded.

Examples of articles that were included are as follows. The article Digital music and the “death of the long tail” by Coelho and Mendes ( 2019 ) discussed the impact of digital distribution in the music market, concentrating on the dualism between the long tail theory and the superstar effect theory. Schediwy et al. ( 2018 )’s article Do bohemian and entrepreneurial career identities compete or cohere? discussed the identity of musicians. The article The role of stakeholders in shifting environmental practices of music festivals in British Columbia, Canada by Hazel and Mason ( 2020 ) discussed festival management. These three articles were relevant to our study and were therefore included in our review.

2.3 Grounded analysis of the articles’ contents

The grounded theory approach employed in this review followed a certain protocol. The 145 papers included in the sample were divided into subsamples of five randomly selected papers using Excel. Open coding was used to label the subsamples with codes to identify concepts and enable comparisons of the articles, including information such as the affiliated intuitions, the methodologies used, and the theoretical in-depth analyses. The final aim is to conceptualize the most relevant aspects and identify categories and subcategories of common elements.

Axial coding was then employed to make connections between the codes and facilitate further comparison of data emerging from the articles and theoretical and methodological frameworks in the various subsamples. The final aim was to build a systematically integrated network of concepts.

Finally, selective coding was employed to conceptualize and improve the results of the previous analyses. The aim was to achieve a well-integrated theoretical reasoning that can be used to simplify and enrich the reflections on the studied phenomenon.

Figure  2 shows an example of how subthemes emerged during the analysis. The blue tables correspond to random samples of five articles. The red oblongs represent the most relevant articles. The black squares represent (a very limited number of) critical codes (open coding). The violet, red, and green circles represent the results of conceptual connections among the codes (axial coding); the interpretation of these connections is shown at the bottom of the figure.

An example of grounded methodology applied in this research (colour figure online)

2.4 Limitations

This literature review tries to develop a complete picture of the most relevant research in music management and business. The aim is to establish a starting point for future in-depth analysis and gathering of future research in this area. Nevertheless, it is not exempt from limitations. First, the methodology, database searches, and analyses were performed by one author. Although the selected method (grounded theory method; see Wolfswinkel et al. 2013 ) was chosen for its ability to reduce objectivity, even in the content analysis of the selected articles, there might be limitations in the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria considering the high number of articles.

Second, this review employed specific databases to ensure the quality of papers extracted. However, this method inevitably excluded books, book chapters, grey literature, and other sources of information that could be relevant to the topic and in terms of triangulating information and enriching the results of the analysis. Therefore, future research should include the object of the analysis and more sources of information.

Finally, this review limits the time span to recent years. Although SLRs should include a limited number of articles to concentrate on a very specific and relevant research question, the considerable body of knowledge in terms of music management and business suggests that a more comprehensive viewpoint can be considered. Nevertheless, in case future research would be interested in enlarging the time span of the analysis, the amount of articles that would emerge would be studied using quantitative methods, such as meta-analysis or bibliometric analysis.

3 Descriptive analysis

This section presents the descriptive analysis of the selected literature. The analysis focuses on three aspects: (1) the authors’ provenience (Fig.  3 ), (2) the types of papers, and (3) the methods employed in the empirical studies.

Authors’ provenience

The UK and the USA led in terms of the number of relevant articles published in the period under study with 28.96% of the articles. There is a worldwide interest among scientists in terms of music research in business studies. Even though empirical articles are the most common in the selected dataset, theoretical articles and literature reviews are present in each of the five years considered. Excluding the year 2022, in which theoretical articles represent less than 8% of the contributions, one fifth of the dataset from 2017 to 2021 consists of theoretical articles and literature reviews. Therefore, there is considerable interest in debating conceptual issues in this field. Qualitative research—particularly case studies (26.42% of the dataset)—is the most common methodology used for performing research in the field. Interviews were also commonly used in the extracted contributions (18.87%). Therefore, it is possible that qualitative frameworks of analysis are the best way to gather and evaluate data in this market (Figs.  4 and 5 ).

Papers’ typology per year

Methods employed in the selected articles

4 Content analysis

This section presents the results obtained from the grounded analysis of the selected papers. Given the amount of data and the complexity of the concepts, two graphic representations have been created. Figure  6 shows a summary of codes, sub-themes, and themes that emerged from the analysis. Figure  7 shows a conceptual map of the field.

Codes, themes and subthemes emerged from selected literature

Conceptual map

4.1 The digital revolution and the music industry: Have things actually changed?

4.1.1 the effects of the digital revolution on the music industry.

The digital revolution profoundly and directly impacted the economy through direct effects such as an increase in aggregate productivity and competitiveness and through more unobserved effects relating to the development of open-access platforms, new business models, and the need of managers to always achieve a better understanding of consumers’ expectations. These unobserved effects of the digital revolution have been described as digital dark matter (Vendrell-Herrero et al. 2017 ). Moreover, the inevitability of technology-related industry disruption seems not to be totally caught by professionals and firms, which are not reacting appropriately to this phenomenon (Riemer and Johnston 2019 ). For this reason, new business models are theorized in the literature. For example, Morrow ( 2018 ) introduced the concept of distributed agility as a model consisting of a reactive approach through which multiple self-organized teams combine their abilities to respond quickly to the rapid changes in the new digital market.

During the period 2011–2018, digital music and streaming contributed dramatically to the renaissance of the market (Nakano 2019 ). According to Nag ( 2017 ), the dramatic increase in the amount of accessible music contents and the decreasing barriers to consumer access is producing a contradictory effect on the philosophy of consumption. On one side is the benefit of freedom of choice and on the other side is an indirect call for more scarcity.

The literature has recognized three waves of disruptive innovations—digital music distribution, permanent digital downloads, and music streaming (Urbinati et al. 2019 ). Reactions to these things were similar; after an initial majors’ tendency to protect their own competitive position against opponents, there was adaptation to the new paradigms of music distribution. In particular, after the digital music distribution revolution, incumbents concentrated on building online shops and selling music from their catalogues. After the digital download revolution, incumbents verified the weaknesses in their previous strategic reactions and started to build relationships and partnerships with newcomers to fight the increased competition of important innovations such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Finally, with the music streaming revolution, entities such as the iTunes Music Store started to consider acquisitions as strategic choices to limit the damage caused by the rapid development of services like Spotify (Urbinati et al. 2019 ).

The music supply network evolved in a similar way. Nakano and Fleury ( 2017 ) identified three stages in this evolution. The first stage in the 1980s was a physical supply chain in which the hierarchical model with a vertical integration structure fostered the power of major labels that controlled technical and market access. The second stage in the 1990s was a transitional supply network in which the captive governance model fostered an open hierarchy. In this phase, the power was in the form of control over market access. Finally, in the last 20 years, the supply network evolved to a digital ecosystem in which individual producers and small and large providers can (at least theoretically) compete with major labels, which are exploiting their accumulated power to control mass market access through collaboration, partnerships, and new business models based on digital outlets and aggregators.

Sinclair and Tinson ( 2017 ) highlighted the problem of the decreasing value of psychological ownership of music guided by the dematerialization of music and the advent of access-based streaming platforms. Nevertheless, the antecedents of psychological ownership—investment of the self, profound knowledge and control of the target, and pride—demonstrated that consumers are modifying their experimentation with psychological ownership, achieving loyalty, empowerment, citizenship, and social rewards as consequences of this phenomenon. Therefore, through the new conceptualization of the psychological ownership of music, consumers are able to control the target of ownership and to develop and protect their music identity.

The other side of the coin of the digital revolution in music is that collaboration between major labels and other actors has allowed them to keep their power and to maintain the oligopoly in the market. In this context, while technological and digital innovation is stimulated, innovation in music is discouraged (Sun 2019 ).

The music industry has reacted to this tendency and has been able to assimilate the technological and digital innovations (Naveed et al. 2017 ). In particular, there are types of innovations that have assumed an increasing level of importance after the digital revolution. For example, co-innovation, a construct comprising co-discovery, co-creation, and co-capture, is widely recognized as a fundamental element in promoting correct governance, leadership, and resource integration (Saragih et al. 2019a , b ).

4.1.2 The persisting oligopoly in the music market

The digital revolution and the digitalization of music produced an unexpected result in the music industry. Visionaries believed that the ability to achieve unlimited access to every kind of music—referred to as the celestial jukebox—would have led the music industry to overcome the oligopolist control of major labels and stimulate cultural diversity (Sun 2019 ). Nevertheless, the huge number of opportunities provided by the new digital market demonstrated that consumers need to be guided in their choices. The opportunities for musicians’ self-release apparently increased the degree of democratization of the music market. In fact, they consolidated the commodification and centralization of music whereby major labels still dominate the industry by promoting the conservative management of copyright ownership. This condition isolated self-released musicians, who have a marginal position in the industry. This is a worldwide condition, as verified in several articles, such as that by Qu et al. ( 2021 ). There is broad consensus regarding this condition and very few dissenters (e.g., Arbatani et al. 2018 ).

The digital revolution changed the pop-rock market, and streaming is now dominating the music industry, although there is still an important physical sector. Major labels have recently started a growth path after 15 years of crisis via the development of dynamic capabilities. In particular, technology allowed the emergence of non-hits and niches, increasing their opportunity to gain a long tail effect. Nevertheless, there is evidence of the persistence of the “superstar effect” (Coelho and Mendes 2019 ).

According to Prey et al. ( 2020 ), Spotify shows a bias towards major label content. Musicians’ success is dependent on services like Spotify. Therefore, Spotify’s preferences for major labels has caused discontent among minor labels and minor musicians.

Currently, the logic with which incumbents develop their strategy is correlated to the need for more timely approaches (Guichardaz et al. 2019 ). It is necessary to accept the competition of new technological innovations (e.g., iTunes and Spotify) and to develop suitable strategies to exploit the dynamic changes in the market (Trabucchi et al. 2017 ).

This evidence is confirmed in several studies. For example, Dellyana et al. ( 2017 ) state that the composition of actors in the music market has been changing over time. Conditions have become more dynamic, which stimulates the opportunity to increase the number of partnerships. Increasing the number of actors will change the general business model, allowing more opportunities for collaboration, including 360-degree, tailor-made partnerships; vertical integration; subscription services; pay per download; ad funded; bundles; and sponsorships. As a consequence, the many opportunities to exploit different sources of income leads actors in the industry market to develop new abilities and qualities. This modularity complicates the management of strategies and encourages the implementation of inter-firm alliances (Guichardaz et al. 2019 ). Through these collaborations, major labels are still dominating the music industry, even if independent labels and musicians can produce and distribute their music more easily and less expensively than before (Dellyana et al. 2017 ; Sun 2019 ). Major players like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple directly negotiate with the platforms to distribute artists’ music, while small labels must depend on intermediaries.

Some collaborations are, in fact, not official but extremely favorable. For example, the viral activity of fans on social media, such as YouTube, is a critical part of music stars’ strategy. Gamble et al. ( 2018 ) found that fans have an active role in the relationship between social media and the music industry. In particular, senior managers and music industry experts involved in the research argued that consumer-driven marketing campaigns can provide the best ideas regarding the execution, marketing, and managing of strategies. At the beginning of their careers, artists gain considerable advantages from social media and crowdfunding, even if fame comes as a result of their collaboration with major labels. Therefore, at the initial stage of their music success, the innovative nature of artists can be supported by fans’ activities, while at the advanced stage of their careers, artists tend to homogenize due to their involvement in the business logic of major labels business logics.

Nevertheless, evidence in the literature shows that collaborations and new business models are not the only way through which major labels react to the technological and digital changes in the market. Trabucchi et al. ( 2017 ) have shown that labels are able to re-invent old music solutions, such as CDs and vinyl, through innovations in their organizational structure and dynamic capabilities (e.g., changing their objective to entertainment enterprises), changing the meaning of their products from instruments for listening to music to collectors’ objects, and transforming the purchase process into an in-store experience. Therefore, developing dynamic capabilities seems to be the main response of major labels to the technological revolution in the music market. Changing the value proposition, capturing the new value of products, and customer orientation allow the major players to exploit the intersection between meaning and technology, thus modifying the competition among the incumbents.

4.1.3 Social networks and streaming services

Social networks have critical effects on artists’ success on online social network platforms. Communication with fun experimented a tremendous change after the digital revolution and the advent of social media. In the past, musicians used the press, television, and radio to attract fans’ interest. With social media and social networks, however, communication between artists and fans is direct. Communication with fans together with strategies that include the active sending of friend requests to fans or commenting on their posts can allow artists to control and influence their network (Ansari et al. 2018 ). Moreover, outside affiliations of artists can have a positive impact on the degree and density of networks (Ansari et al. 2018 ).

Social networks can have a dramatic effect on the consumption of music. For example, Spotify bundles music content in the form of playlists. This behavior allows Spotify to take over the market demand, reducing its dependency on major labels (Prey et al. 2020 ). Choi and Burnes ( 2017 ) studied the impact of using social media in the music industry and confirmed that social media have a considerable impact on fans’ engagement. Therefore, building solid and durable relationships and vitalizing participation should be considered a strategic focus for these firms. In the modern music market, firms cannot control value creation; therefore, they should use social media to enhance co-creation with fans, thus vitalizing their community and becoming the driving force in changing markets.

Business models in music benefit considerably from reward-based crowdfunding (Gamble et al. 2017 ), even though there is evidence suggesting that problems can arise due to young fans’ apprehension. Nevertheless, opportunities allowed by crowdfunding can help overcome limitations due to the need for constant consumer confidence. In fact, the development of partnerships with crowdfunding platforms has been increasing the opportunity for major labels to challenge the user-centric tendency of digital innovations (Gamble et al. 2017 ).

According to Arditi ( 2017 ), streaming services represent the most relevant revenue in the music industry since 2015. Streaming services are one of the most important reasons why the music industry recovered from the disaster of Napster and similar platforms for free music sharing. Indeed, streaming services are considered the (partial) solution to the decrease in music CD sales and to the increase in piracy. Moreover, there are similarities and differences between cultures about the future of streaming services. For example, Kim et al. ( 2017 ) show that US and Korean consumers prefer subscription-based on-demand streaming services and pay a higher price compared to the value of current streaming services. Nakano ( 2019 ) analyzed major US and UK outlets, recognizing that the preference of customers is for streaming services; however, there is still space for niches for which downloading is still preferred. Moreover, the existence of two major ecosystems, Android and iOS, has impeded the emergence of a dominant player to date.

Behavioral intentions connected to streaming service utilization depend on specific factors such as performance expectancy (i.e., the benefits for customers obtained by using streaming services), the degree of user-friendliness, social influence, the accessibility of resources and support, hedonic motivation, habit, and price (Barata and Coelho 2021 ). Suppliers of music services, such as streaming, should consider in-depth pricing strategies. Li et al. ( 2020 ) found that pricing strategies include advertising intensity, subscription fees, and song prices. Moreover, they considered subscription and ownership models and found that the first dominates the second only if advertisement revenues are limited. Therefore, an eventual mixed model turns to a subscription model when there are advertisement revenues, while it turns to an ownership model when revenues are higher.

The problem is to understand if the broad use of streaming services is a good thing for musicians as well. Musicians are losing control of the revenues that come from their music (Towse 2020 ). In fact, the opportunity to pursue a career based only on record sales is restricted to superstars. For example, in Norway, revenues originating from music copyrights represent only a small proportion of musicians’ earnings (about 20%). Therefore, the solution should be designed around live performance revenues. Nevertheless, the sustainability of streaming services in the long run is still debated in the literature and in professional practice.

4.1.4 Effects of background music

In-store background music produces positive and negative effects. The contradiction of scientific literature is illusory. In fact, such effects depend on the design of background music, which should adapt to the context and the service, which in turn is a critical moderator of the relationship between music and purchase intentions and customers’ in-store experience. For example, loud music has positive effects in retail settings but reduces customers’ experience in a bar. Classical, familiar, and highly recognizable music generally leads to positive effects. Nevertheless, in contexts in which they are inappropriate, the literature shows adverse consequences in terms of purchase intentions (Michel et al 2017 ).

Background music and creative support systems and their effects on consumers’ purchase intentions are fundamental to music literature (Michel et al. 2017 ). A great number of empirical studies have been undertaken to obtain improved understanding of such effects in every field. Music has positive and negative influences on consumers’ emotions within the environment in which they complete their purchases. Moreover, it is able to extend consumers’ in-store visits, promoting a name, brand, and experience that customers experiment with during their purchase process (e.g., Sassenberg et al. 2022 ). This is not limited to products but includes issues related to perceived images and positive or negative reactions to what consumers see. Klein et al. ( 2021 ) highlighted the existence of an inverse U-shaped relationship between the complexity of images and the level of appreciation that music is able to modify, promoting a better reaction to simple images. In other words, music can move consumers’ attention from complex to simple stimuli. For this reason, music can be used with simple images to stimulate and improve consumers’ purchasing experience.

Background music can be seen as a functional instrument for social control because it can change people’s behaviors and workers’ productivity, although its collateral effects are still unpredictable (Karakayali and Alpertan 2020 ). Indeed, music is a mediator of emotions and attitudes; it can modify performance and generate a significant effect in the workplace, although further in-depth analyses are needed to clarify its effects (Landay and Harms 2019 ). An important review by Landay and Harms ( 2019 ) highlighted that the relationship between the music heard and mood and negative and positive emotions is moderated by extraversion (i.e., the tendency to concentrate on gratification from outside individuals), task complexity, and listening autonomy. Moreover, they found that the link between listening to music and task performance is highly contextual and depends on “the availability of cognitive resources and the type of task” (Landay and Harms 2019 , p 379). The evidence shows that workers with more experience in selecting music for personal listening can show greater improvement in their task performance.

4.2 Live music events and performance: a renovated and segmentate phenomenon

4.2.1 the renovated interest of consumers in live performance.

The co-evolution of streaming and live music has had positive consequences for the music industry (Naveed et al. 2017 ). It allowed the recovery of the music industry and the more active participation of all stakeholders. Moreover, consumers have a more active position in the music market, demonstrating more propensity to acquire digital property, for co-creation, and for participative creativity (Naveed et al. 2017 ). In particular, consumers contribute to the creation of value even during the phases of product development and commercialization (Saragih 2019 ). In the new digitalized era in which musicians’ control of their records sales is weaker, live performance is assuming increasing importance.

In general, the analyzed literature seems to agree on consumers’ renovated interest in live performance. For example, Papies and Van Heerde ( 2017 ) confirm the positive relationship between artists’ success in records sales and their success in live performance. Nevertheless, the authors verified that the opposite relationship is weaker, as it is moderated by piracy and unbundling, even if piracy seems to be a decreasing trend in some important markets (e.g., Germany). Moreover, they found a weak correlation between quality of music and artists’ fame. Nevertheless, the evidence shows that this condition of renaissance is not common to all music genres. Pompe et al. ( 2017 ) found that classical music is experiencing a crisis, mainly because consumers say they do not have enough time to enjoy classical concerts. Therefore, the problem of how to add value to some niches is still being debated in the literature.

During the period analyzed in this literature review, Covid-19 impacted the world. In this context, quarantines obliged musicians to be part of lockdowns. Concerts and live music events were cancelled, and musicians had to face a new and challenging reality. However, some positive consequences emerged. In fact, the research showed how during the pandemic musicians started to efficiently exploit online platforms to share their music and to organize 100% online music events (e.g., Areiza-Padilla and Galindo-Becerra 2022 ). Therefore, in the future, digital platforms should be used simultaneously with physical places to share the experience of live events, capturing a wider audience and the attention of a greater number of potential consumers.

4.2.2 Experience and segmentation in festival management

Aşan et al. ( 2020 ) found that experience in music festivals depends on four specific dimensions—aesthetics, which refers to tourists’ evaluation of festivals’ physical environment; entertainment, that is, the active or passive participation of tourists in watching shows; the opportunity to escape daily life, become immersed in a different context, and live a separate experience; and education, that is, gaining new skills and knowledge from the experience of participation. The four dimensions contribute to the formation of participants’ perceived value of the festival, which is a significant mediator between experience and satisfaction. The general conditions in which festivals are organized are often complex, spontaneous, and sometimes unexpected (Laberschek et al. 2020 ). Therefore, going beyond these general dimensions is critical. Other factors should be considered to increase the value promoted by a specific music festival. Because festivals are often devoted to a particular music or art genre, segmentation is one of the most critical elements of managerial strategies.

The segmentation of music festival attendees is considered to be extremely dependent on context (Kim and Kang 2022 ). For example, Kinnunen et al. ( 2018 ) studied Finnish rhythm music festival audiences and identified three segments—omnivores and the loyal heavy tribe, which represent the oldest attendees, and the hedonistic dance crowd, which represents the youngest attendees. Mallette et al. ( 2018 ) discussed the niche example of military music festivals. The authors found two main dimensions of audience segmentation—the appeal of the event and the degree of affinity—that produce different levels of motivation to participate. Roll et al. ( 2014 ) showed the importance of place and the medium of live operas, as they are meaningful for attendees. In particular, consumers consider opera from a holistic viewpoint. Therefore, brand communication should include the fact that the meaning of results differ depending on the samples. There are examples of specific techniques of segmentation. For example, Kruger and Viljoen ( 2021 ) use psychographic segmentation to identify three distinct segments of attendees. They considered motives for attending, behavioral intentions, and global causes aimed at eradicating poverty. The research shows the relevance of segmentation in valorizing the nature, objects, and goals of music festivals.

Modern music festivals have a more general background. Therefore, attendees are of various natures and have different music preferences. Consequently, to avoid problems related to the redundancy of festivals’ organization and commercial proposals, implementing innovation is critical. Li et al. ( 2017 ) identified a strategic factor for success in implementing innovation. In particular, they distinguished between stakeholders’ satisfaction, achieved through harmonious relationships, and process efficiency, achieved through functional relationships. The greater the extent of both relational characteristics (i.e., harmony and functionality), the greater the opportunity to achieve successful innovation implementation.

4.2.3 Sustainability in music festival management

Sustainability in festival and event management is closely related to the three traditional dimensions—economic, social, and environmental. Some studies have been devoted to sustainability management to achieve a better understanding of the actual interest of managers in the best practices for fostering the sustainable management of events. For example, Wickham et al. ( 2021 ) performed a qualitative analysis of 10 international music events and identified 14 best practices connected to sustainability. Economic sustainability was associated with attracting financial capital, artists, and performers; maintaining permanent management; and the reporting of event-related benefits. Social sustainability was associated with attracting experts and influential educators; the supply chain; and the reporting of event-related social benefits. Finally, environmental sustainability was associated with attendees and the behavior of supply chain partners.

At the same time, the research has clarified that the benefits connected to music festivals (e.g., financial and social benefits) are overestimated by participants and urban communities. Nevertheless, eventual negative effects, such as pollution, parking difficulties, and traffic congestion, are often anticipated and resolved by festival promoters (Han et al. 2017 ).

However, sustainability seems not to be a priority of music festivals. Dodds et al. ( 2020 ) found that 64% of Canadian music festivals included in their sample did not communicate about their sustainability practices. Moreover, only 6% of them concentrated their sustainability campaign on social media, even though the literature shows that active communication is critical for developing and maintaining good relationships with participants (Luonila and Kinnunen 2019 ). Contemporary music festivals have critical socio-spatial consequences and meanings; consumers try to co-create authentic experiences from their participation, even though the nature of such experiences can be considered a commercial imperative (Szmigin et al. 2017 ). Co-creation was connected to the sustainability of festivals in the work of Werner et al. ( 2019 ), who identified three categories of festivals attendees—the sustainable co-creation type, focused on the creation of an altruistic environment; the experience co-creation type, focused on the contradiction between real life and the experience of festivals; and the calculating co-creation type, who weight the processes of giving and acquiring value from the experience of festivals. In this sense, the benefits associated with music festivals are co-created by both attendees and organizers. Therefore, identifying the most relevant stakeholders is critical for the diffusion of the idea of festival sustainability.

Relationships and collaboration between festival managers and stakeholders, including the attendees’ perspectives, can foster the incorporation of sustainability practices. According to Hazel and Mason ( 2020 ), if sustainability is defined as a core value of music festivals, forms of collaboration such as sponsorship contracts can encourage the development of relationships among stakeholders who share the same sustainable values. Therefore, identifying the right stakeholders can bolster festivals’ financial and cultural components, as well help integrate the original value of festivals and sustainability needs (Hazel and Mason 2020 ; Richardson 2018 ).

4.3 Musicians: identity and business models in the digital era

4.3.1 the complex nature of musicians’ identity.

The identity of musicians in the modern competitive music industry has been widely discussed in the literature. Schediwy et al. ( 2018 ) identified the dualistic nature of the scientific debate. On one hand, there is a considerable number of contributions that glorify the bohemian nature of the music profession. On the other hand, other papers recognize that assuming an entrepreneurial attitude is an unavoidable need for musicians. Moreover, keeping a stable identity is challenging for musicians, due to the instability of income, uncertainty, and exploitative tendencies in the market.

Schediwy et al. ( 2018 ) found that the separation between the bohemian and the entrepreneurial identity of musicians is less evident in young musicians. In particular, two factors contribute to the formation of musicians’ identity, open-mindedness and career-mindedness, which combine the bohemian nature of the music profession with the necessary market orientation.

The relationship between musicians’ artistic and entrepreneurial identity has been recently studied by Pizzolitto ( 2021 ). His research revealed the profound dilemma between musicians’ traditional view of the art and the necessity to change and adapt their business models depending on the economic conditions. Everts and Haynes ( 2021 ) studied the contexts of the British and Dutch music markets and found that musicians’ entrepreneurial identity is based on the rapid change of musical contexts and local contexts. The Netherlands has been building an institutionalized pathway to let musicians’ artistic needs meet their entrepreneurial sensibility. Nevertheless, according to their research, the conditions that musicians have to face in pursuing their music careers are extremely complex. For example, opportunities are inversely proportional to the number of young aspiring musicians; only a small proportion of musicians achieve a successful career; and digitalization, which seemed to be a possible way to increase the number of successful independent musicians, will probably reduce their opportunities over time.

This tendency is quite common in the world. Güven ( 2020 ) considered the music environment in Turkey and found that musicians there are experiencing increasing difficulties in their creative work. In fact, they do not talk about solidarity in the music world. Instead, they talk of the increasing commodification of music where solid experience and career building seem to be an illusion. Therefore, we have to ask why there are always more young people trying to establish a career in music (Everts and Haynes 2021 ).

4.3.2 The changing and multifaced business models of musicians

Musicians need to diversify their business models by composing, producing, and distributing their music. Given the degree of technological evolution, understanding the future of independent musicians’ business models is complicated. A considerable number of musicians have experienced a decline after the digital revolution in terms of professional studio performance and recording (Herbst and Albrecht 2018 ). Nevertheless, in this framework, music is the principal service in a portfolio of services entirely managed by musicians (Eiriz and Leite 2017 ). Therefore, even if a musician’s self-image and career goals remained the same before and after the digital revolution, there is a general consensus in the music market regarding the fact that the way to achieve career objectives has changed (Schwetter 2016 ).

In new business models, collaboration and cooperation between governmental and non-governmental organizations, among different kinds of art and culture, and among artists seems to guarantee partial independence from record contracts (Ibrahimova 2019 ). For example, in the hip hop environment, Carter and Welsh ( 2018 ) found that collaboration among rappers increases their visibility. Among hip hop artists, there is a tendency to abandon record contracts to pursue a solitary career. A specific example is Alessandro Aleotti (alias J Ax) in Italy who in 2013 decided to quit his contract with New Sound and start his own record label called Newtopia with another famous Italian hip hop artist, Federico Leonard Lucia (alias Fedez).

The choices of independent musicians and labels about where and what to record are extremely contextual and related to the need for non-traditional recording locations (Walzer 2016 ). The role of musicians, producers, and labels are often linked and therefore confused. Consequently, the quantification of their contribution to the production of independent music is complex. Nevertheless, the evidence shows that producers’, musicians’, and sound engineers’ contributions are critical for communication during the decision-making process (Walzer 2016 ).

In summary, the evidence in the literature underlines the complexity of the music market for musicians. This precondition could lead to the reasonable conclusion that musicians should dedicate much more time to the commercial side of their work. Nevertheless, and counterintuitively, publications show that musicians still devote most of their time to creative work. Everts et al. ( 2021 ) studied the early career experiences of Dutch musicians and found that the strong dynamicity of the music industry does not change the perceived high value of being musicians. In fact, musicians do not spend their time trying to boost their position on social networks because they perceive that the funds needed to flourish in that environment are becoming prohibitive. Therefore, they devote their time to creation and to the development of their fan base outside the internet. Finally, they show to enjoy the entrepreneurial part of their activity.

Consequently, the digital revolution, together with the persisting situation of oligopoly in the market, allowed musicians to abandon the idea of record contracts and to embrace self-promotion through self-publishing and self-management (Schwetter 2016 ). The instability of direct revenue experienced by independent musicians and labels resulted in a substantial change after the digital revolution. The digitalization of music had a dramatic impact on musicians’ activity, particularly for independent musicians who are becoming more than composers and who are developing entrepreneurial skills that were traditionally the purview of labels and agencies (Eiriz and Leite 2017 ). Moreover, laws and regulation for the management of copyright have been designed to improve consumers’ interests and rights and show weakness in the connection between copyright and the collective needs of management organizations, thus resulting in an unfair advantage for major labels (Schroff and Street 2017 ).

5 Future research opportunities

Based on the content analysis in the previous section, multiple future research opportunities can be identified. These opportunities emerge with the same distribution as the themes and subthemes from the grounded theory analysis. Table 1 presents a summary of the most relevant research questions that have been deduced from the articles’ contents.

Concerning the role of digitalization in the revolution of the music market, the analysis showed that it contributed to recovering from the previous period of stagnation (e.g., Dellyana et al. 2017 ). Therefore, future research can examine the contribution of specific factors that may or may not be connected with the technological revolution in more depth. In particular, it can concentrate more on the new forms of financing (e.g., crowdfunding) and their influence on the growth of the music industry. Moreover, researchers can perform in-depth analysis of the determinants of the major labels’ ability to maintain their leadership position after the digital revolution (Guichardaz et al. 2019 ). In particular, researchers can concentrate on the effect of a set of variables that exclude financial logic. Furthermore, as this market condition allows two different levels of competition, researchers could focus on the commonalities and differences that can emerge from the study of this dualism.

Trabucchi et al. ( 2017 ) reflected on the opportunity for artists and labels to base their competition strategies on the concept of “meaning.” More conceptual papers on this topic should be published to allow music actors to embrace new strategies connected to this concept. In particular, theoretical articles could help artists and labels better connect their visions, missions, and brands in a practical execution of “meaning” for their products.

Concerning the position of major labels and their permanent leadership position in the market, research on this is based on consumers’ expectations about hedonic performances (Chen et al. 2018 ). In particular, the logic of differentiation could reduce the distance between the two levels of competition that emerged in the music market. Therefore, more research on single case studies is needed to understand what elements allow minor artists to emerge without having access to major artists’ financial and power-related assets. Specifically, research should concentrate on the conditions that allow the reduction or elimination of barriers that traditionally impede the emergence of minor artists and labels (e.g., Pillai et al. 2021 ; Walzer 2016 ). Finally, researchers should help minor labels and artists find better applications of existing technologies characterized by low costs.

One of the positive effects of the digital revolution is that the available technology allows artists and producers to be more creative in their work. Therefore, new variables have started to affect the basis of consumers’ access to music listening. Even if research has found some interesting connections between critical variables (e.g., advertising and reservation; Li et al. 2020 ) and the new forms of consumer access to music listening, more empirical research and case studies are needed to fully understand this phenomenon. Moreover, technology has made consumer research related to music easier and more efficient. Nevertheless, it seems that this condition has not changed the general competition in the music market. Therefore, more empirical research is needed to understand the mediators and moderators of consumers’ opportunities to satisfy their music needs via alternative music and independent artists. In other words, research should study new methods for improving the opportunities for minor artists and independent labels using the existing technological instruments.

Concerning the negative effects of the digital revolution on the music markets, research has focused on the complex conditions of local record and music stores. In this regard, more conceptual papers are needed to evaluate new forms of experiential content through which local record stores can overcome the current crisis. Moreover, empirical analyses should be performed to obtain a deeper understanding of the cultural elements that increase consumers’ tendency to avoid traditional purchasing methods.

Multiple papers have debated the role of music festivals in business and management studies. Music festivals are widely recognized as complex phenomena in which the management instruments needed to achieve results should be organized and planned using holistic and innovative logic (Laberschek et al. 2020 ). Empirical research in this field has been sufficiently developed, and the literature indirectly calls for more conceptual studies. Specifically, it seems that in this field, practice is more advanced and faster compared with theory. Therefore, theoretical research should concentrate on multidisciplinary issues to ensure that festival managers have opportunities to build their style while drawing on solid and consolidated theoretical foundations; this will limit the chaotic and unpredictable events occurring in festivals at present.

First, the theoretical papers concentrate on the connection between chaos theory and management, applying these connections to music festival management. It is necessary to theorize new advancements in chaos management before they are applied in practice. Music festival management needs to refer to innovative and challenging management theory to develop new methods of obtaining economic, financial, social, and sustainable results from the event organization.

Second, conceptual research should be performed to increase the understanding of elements that improve consumers’ experience during festivals. Theorizing about management methods for niche festivals in which a specific kind of music is considered can help organizations stimulate consumers’ experience. In particular, theoretical studies of the foundation of the internationalization of festivals referring specifically to niche festivals can be critical for finding solutions to management issues (da Cunha Brandão and Oliveira 2019 ).

Third, the literature firmly calls for a better understanding of the conceptual foundations of the concept of value in music festivals. Holism, post-co-creativism, and the control of socioeconomic turbulence and chaotic issues related to the management of festivals are widely recognized as powerful instruments for value creation (e.g., Gozini and Tseane-Gumbi 2017 ; Robertson et al. 2018 ). Moreover, co-creation and co-innovation seem to play a critical role in the panorama of actors involved in these events. Similar practical consideration represents a strong call for pushing conceptual analyses to a higher level; in this way, management theory can overcome the limitations of being directly connected to managerial practices and can achieve a superior stage of abstraction.

In addition to the need for theoretical research, more empirical research is needed on the role of the music market in sustainability issues. There is still a distance between the sincere interest in sustainability management and its realization (e.g., Richardson 2019 ; Raffay-Danyi and Formadi 2022 ). Therefore, empirical research should consider single and multiple case studies concerning the positive effect on consumers’ experience and the benefits resulting from the application of sustainability management practices. A case study should be performed using longitudinal logic to highlight differences in terms of praxis and results and to guide future management when it comes to investing time and resources in implementing such logic efficiently.

Finally, the literature revealed considerable interest in the dualism between music and profits. The problem of musicians being reluctant to be considered entrepreneurs has been studied in a number of empirical publications. A possible promising lens for analysis could come from the psychological theory of professional identity (e.g., Marcia 1966 ). In particular, the literature could benefit from more qualitative research based on in-depth interviews and surveys analyzing the status of musicians’ identities in depth. The final aim of this research is to understand what identity status can lead musicians to overcome the obstacle of their reluctance to consider music in the same manner as all other fields. In this sense, more historical research could be beneficial to overcome the dualism between art and entrepreneurship. Harbor ( 2020 ) demonstrated that a considerable number of marketing interventions were used during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to promote music concerts and the arts. More historical references to the connection between entrepreneurship and the arts could be helpful in overcoming this problematic dualism.

6 Discussion and managerial implications

In the last decade, the music market has been greatly affected by the digital revolution, and technology has caused profound internal changes. This revolution has increased the opportunity for the diffusion of music through several services, means, and platforms, even though the oligopoly of major labels has continued to dominate the market. Nevertheless, the exploitation of these new opportunities is limited by the high level of financial and technical resources needed to access innovative technologies. Therefore, although the digital revolution has increased opportunities for minor artists and labels, the competition is still divided into two levels—the oligopoly of major labels and artists and the super competition of minor labels and artists. To overcome this limitation, futuristic strategies need to be conceptualized and operationalized, and most probably they will be based on the concept of “meaning” (Trabucchi et al. 2017 ).

Papies and van Heerde ( 2017 ) identified concerts as one of the most powerful instruments through which minor artists can improve their opportunities to flourish. The empirical literature concentrates on understanding the effects of specific management styles on the organization of events and festivals. Therefore, there is evidence of the fundamental role that concerts and live events will play in the future. Events are seen as chaotic and complex phenomena in which managerial styles cannot be centered on the organization but have to be based on co-creation and co-innovation, promoting revolutionary organization initiatives to enhance opportunities for minor artists and labels to emerge and succeed. Co-creation and co-innovation should be achieved through the involvement of musicians, record labels, and consumers, resulting in a mutually useful network in which access to high levels of financial resources is not an issue. In this sense, the philosophy through which musicians should interpret their role in society has to change in order to promote their role as self-entrepreneurs and to develop their business identity.

This review led to the identification of numerous managerial implications, mainly concentrated on event and store management, sustainable management logic, and the condition of musicians in the market. In terms of improving consumer engagement, managers should place more emphasis on consumers’ preferences than on the cost of performance (Kim et al. 2022 ). The literature highlights that consumers are still interested in the principal product of the music market— music (Papies and van Heerde 2017 ). In this sense, particular attention has to be paid to music festivals and events. During festivals, the aesthetic of the offering has been recognized as a fundamental factor in achieving the events’ objectives. Furthermore, surprising consumers with unique stimuli is critical to increase their engagement (Loureiro et al. 2021 ). In fact, organizations should challenge the status quo by collecting as much information as possible on the changing nature of their audiences. Hiring a community manager who conducts research on social media and promotes events depending on the participants’ preferences can be a strategic factor in improving the quality of integrated communication between organizations and consumers and in increasing loyalty among attendees (Llopis-Amorós et al. 2018 ). Moreover, managers should go beyond adapting their organizations to the changes related to social media platforms and should build solid relationships with their customers, thus increasing the opportunity to achieve greater loyalty and improving their opportunity to involve consumers in the process of co-creation (Choi and Burnes 2017 ).

The literature discusses sustainable management logic. In general, overcoming the traditional barriers and roles in management logic seems to be fundamental for the future of marketing strategies in this field (Vendrell-Herrero 2018 ). In particular, Kullak et al. ( 2021 ) suggested that managers of minor organizations should develop and coordinate a network in which actors have access to relevant resources. Moreover, as there is evidence about the difficult conditions of advertisement-related returns, music suppliers should differentiate their policies depending on this variable. Li et al. ( 2020 ) recommended that managers should choose an ownership, subscription, or mixed-pricing model according to their level of advertisement returns.

Sustainable management in music should be achieved through improving communication between suppliers and customers. In particular, it is perceived as critical to develop technological tools to allow for the establishment and maintenance of a relationship between distributors and consumers (Tran et al. 2018 ). In this sense, the literature recognizes that the technological revolution is one of the most important opportunities for music managers to change their organizational logic. Technology “favour[s] smaller, more flexible companies that are more conducive to innovation” (Renard and Hallam 2018 , p 182). Firms should put their traditional models and decision-making procedures under review, concentrating on changing definition of “meaning” that music consumers adopt over time (Trabucchi et al. 2017 ).

The problem of sustainability has also been analyzed in light of the difficulties that small music enterprises face when it comes to accessing high levels of financial support. For example, Andersén et al. ( 2019 ) showed that to improve their growth opportunities, small firms can exploit their relationships with environmental-oriented suppliers and their ability to develop green purchasing capabilities. The sustainable management logic also relates to an improvement in the congruency between in-store background music and the purchase experience that sellers want their customers to have. The literature highlights the importance of the correlation between advertising, music, and all other stimuli and environments in which purchasing takes place (Michel et al. 2017 ). In fact, the correct combination of music and advertising can be useful for changing brand perceptions. For example, an intense sound and low pitch can communicate masculinity, whereas high-pitched sounds can communicate femininity (Zoghaib 2019 ). Moreover, empirical evidence has shown that major tones and faster tempos improve the purchase experience (Liu et al. 2022 ). Music associated with different levels of arousal can be used to manipulate consumers’ feelings; for instance, uncomfortable situations can be smoothed out through background music characterized by low levels of arousal (Roy and Das 2022 ). Stable tonal structures can induce cheerfulness, whereas unstable tonal structures communicate sadness (Zoghaib 2019 ). Therefore, if sellers want to prolong consumers’ purchasing experiences and in-store visits, they should choose music of a low tempo and volume (Michel et al. 2017 ).

The literature discusses the position of musicians in the music business. In particular, various articles debate the opportunities that music allows professionals depending on their level of popularity. For example, Papies and van Heerde ( 2017 ) observed that concerts are critical for both famous musicians and musicians who are not famous. For famous musicians, concerts represent an opportunity to consolidate their position in the market. For less famous artists, concerts should be considered marketing strategies to increase their popularity, that is, as launching pads for their future careers.

7 Conclusions

Music comprises a dynamic, complex, and chaotic environment in which futuristic management styles and co-creation, co-innovation, and post co-creation logics should be considered in planning and operationalizing strategies at every level of competition. Although the digital revolution has transformed many aspects of the music business and management, several issues continue to limit its evolution. This SLR clarified that in the future, a considerably relevant role will be played by events, festivals, and concerts whereby innovative managerial styles can overcome the complex conditions of minor artists and labels and allow them to flourish. Nevertheless, the picture of music generated from the literature is still evolving. The future of the field seems to demand higher levels of philosophy around business issues and management styles through which obstacles relating to the position of musicians as entrepreneurs will be overcome, and products will be considered for their meaning rather than for their cost.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Pizzolitto, E. Music in business and management studies: a systematic literature review and research agenda. Manag Rev Q (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-023-00339-3

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• Music ID This link opens in a new window Data and reports on the music industry. more... less... A growing repository of historical and current data from Billboard, Official Chart Company, GfK Entertainment and many more reporting agencies from over 30 countries around the world. The arc of sales is presented in Relative Pitch Graphs™ which tell the story of the impact of music on society and cultures by tracking changes in taste, business models, and the consumption of the arts by different population demographics. Using a very wide range of research questions the Relative Pitch Graphs™ can deliver valuable new insights for interpretation and discussion by scholars.
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• IBISWorld Global Industry Research This link opens in a new window Collection of comprehensive business reports analyzing America's 700+ industries.
• Mergent Online This link opens in a new window A comprehensive suite of authoritative financial information on company financials, descriptions, history, property, subsidiaries, officers and directors.
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• Business Market Research Collection This link opens in a new window Profiles of companies, industries, and executives. more... less... Featuring profiles of more than 40,000 companies, 600 industries, and 225,000 key executives, Hoover's Company Records provides easy access to the most thorough and up-to-date business information available. This comprehensive database gives users the whole picture, including company overviews and histories, officers and board members, competitors, products and operations, auditors, rankings, related industry information, and historical financials.
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• Movies & Entertainment Industry Profile: Global An industry report for the global movies and entertainment industry is presented from publisher Barnes Reports, with topics including market value, market segmentation, and business forecasts for the industry.
• Movies & Entertainment Industry Profile: United States A resource of information on key vertical markets. This industry profile identifies market size, competitive landscape and provides forecast data of market performance.
• Music Business Association: Music Industry Analysis A collection of news stories about the music industry, often providing data
• Music Business Association: Research Annual surveys of music sales, as well statistical profiles of music consumers, retailers, and other players in the merchandising of recorded music.
• Music Business World Established in 2015, MBW provides news, interviews, insight and jobs to the worldwide music industry.
• The Music Coalition (Annenberg Inclusion Initiative) The vision of The Music Coalition is to create diversity and inclusion in the music industry. The Coalition releases reports on the status of inclusion in the music industry.
• Nielsen Insights "Nielsen is a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide." This includes information on the music and entertainment industries
• Recording Industry Association of America: Research and Data Statistical summaries on U.S. and worldwide record sales, and consumers of recorded music, marketing reports, and consumer trends.
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Long cast aside, queer women are starting to get their due from the music industry

Perhaps there’s no better image of lesbian visibility than the cast of “The L Word” introducing pop star Reneé Rapp in front of two giant pairs of scissors last week on the Coachella stage. 

Rapp, 24, has been on a steady rise after starring in “Mean Girls: The Musical” and hitting the Billboard charts with her Megan Thee Stallion collaboration, “It’s Not My Fault” (choice lyrics include “Kiss a blonde/kiss a friend/can a gay girl get an amen?”). For her Coachella debut on April 14, Rapp didn’t skimp on the Sapphism: She brought her guitarist girlfriend, Towa Bird, on stage for a duet and a kiss, and she had her self-proclaimed idol, bisexual sensation Kesha, join her for a feminist update of Kesha’s hit song “TikTok.”

In addition to Rapp, the music festival — which brings hundreds of thousands of fans to Southern California every year — featured queer artists Chappell Roan, Brazilian artist Ludmilla, Brittany Howard, Victoria Monét and Billie Eilish, the latter two fresh off Grammy wins.

Like Coachella, the Grammy Awards in February were another blockbuster music event where women — and queer women in particular — reigned supreme: Bisexual musician Phoebe Bridgers of boygenius was the night’s biggest winner;  pansexual Miley Cyrus earned both best pop solo performance and record of the year; and, of the performances, none was hailed more than singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman’s return to the stage for the first time in two decades.

Having lesbians and other openly queer women center stage at major music events, however, has certainly not been the historical norm. For more than half a century, the impact LGBTQ women have had on the modern music industry has gone largely unsung. That, however, is starting to change, with artists no longer having to be coy about their personal identities or keep them separate from their public persona to be offered opportunities in the industry.

“I think we’re only now becoming more aware of that, or being able to publicly discuss it,” said music historian and author Evelyn McDonnell. The closet, she said, has been a hindrance to the championing of and acknowledgment that queer women have been long deserving in shaping rock and popular music of all genres, from hip-hop to country. 

A brief herstory of 20th-century music

Though they rarely get the credit, queer Black women were hugely influential in  planting the seeds in the early 20th century that grew into rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues and pop music, whether they got their start in the church, on the block or on the Chitlin’ Circuit .

“If you go back and look at Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton — they were not publicly identifying themselves as queer, necessarily, but clearly signaling in their lyrics and dressing in suits,” McDonnell said. Thornton, who helped bridge the gap between blues and rock and roll , was just this week entered into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame .

By the late ’60s, rock ‘n’ roll had major crossover appeal and coexisted with the women’s, Black and gay liberation movements. Bisexual rock icon Janis Joplin was quick to pay tribute to foremothers like Smith and Thornton , but she and singer-songwriters Janis Ian and Joan Baez were not publicly identified as anything other than straight until much later in their careers.

Despite the success of Joplin, Ian and Baez, music labels, festivals and television and radio programs were loath to champion women artists — much less openly queer ones. Instead, they provided platforms for oft-misogynist male bands whose songs became ubiquitous. Even an exception like The Runaways’ predecessor, Fanny, the first all-women’s rock band signed to a major label, failed to attract the kind of support needed for wider success, instead relegated to being treated like a novelty act.

“Somehow the world was not ready for them,” McDonnell said of Fanny. 

The problem of sexism and homophobia was bigger than music, but the sisterhood that was born out of the feminist consciousness-raising of the ’70s ultimately fostered a network of women-run record labels, music festivals, radio programs and production companies created by women who shared skills with one another through workshops and mentorships. In 1973, Kate Millett, the lesbian author of “Sexual Politics,” held the first feminist music festival, in Sacramento, while, simultaneously, a group of queer women in Washington, D.C., started the women’s music label Olivia Records, with trans woman Sandy Stone audio engineering several of its early albums. 

Calling the genre “women’s music,” an entire community was galvanized by women excited to see and hear themselves reflected on stages and stereos and in song, especially when it came to expanding on both the vastly diverse experiences of womanhood and music itself.

“They were making music that was not necessarily oriented towards a pop audience,” McDonnell said. “It was more folk; it was more world music-oriented at a time when that wasn’t necessarily what was selling. In some ways, maybe ahead of their time.”

Though not all those involved with women’s music were queer, most were, and that kind of visibility and representation was even more integral into the 1980s. It was equal parts feminism and pride that fostered an environment for female musicians and thousands of fans willing to shell out for concerts, albums and merchandise. The Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge and Tracy Chapman were all part of the women’s music circuit in the ’80s, building fan bases and scoring record deals with labels eager to capitalize on the proven power of the pink dollar. But with a backlash against feminism and the gay community during Ronald Reagan’s tenure in the White House, artists looking to get radio play had to dodge questions about their identities and stayed firmly planted in the closet, at least in public. 

“The record labels were trying to have their cake and eat it, too,” McDonnell said. “They clearly saw the market for these audiences and that it was particular to an audience, right, but they wanted to also have them appeal to a nonqueer audience and therefore try to keep them from saying that they were queer artists.”

Simultaneously, queercore was born in the mid-’80s out of hardcore punk’s rampant racism and homophobia, and the subgenre’s growth alongside burgeoning third-wave feminism spurred the next big moment for women in music.

During the heyday of the “Women Who Rock” era in the ’90s, out lesbian and bisexual women involved with the riot grrrl movement and indie folk rock (such as Ani DiFranco) saw their influence usurped by the mainstreaming of “angry women” like Alanis Morrisette and Courtney Love. Lilith Fair’s launching in 1997 with corporate sponsors and Indigo Girls and Chapman playing on the mainstage alongside festival creator Sarah McLachlan was not without precedent, though it’s often incorrectly hailed as the first all-women’s music festival of its kind. Just like in women’s music, Lilith Fair had to contend with issues related to racism, responding to a call for a more diverse line-up in subsequent festivals that expanded to include not just more women of color, but women of varying genres as well. 

By the time Lilith Fair was attempting a re-up in the mid-2000s, it was clear that women-centric festivals were becoming fewer and further between with a lack of financial support and a cultural insistence that they were no longer necessary.

Continuing to carve out space

While queer women — like Reneé Rapp, Billie Eilish and Janelle Monae — can now be found on some of music’s biggest stages, they are continuing to carve spaces for themselves on a smaller, yet meaningful, scale as well. 

In Los Angeles, for example, concert photographer Betsy Martinez and her wife, Cynthia Temblador, have dedicated their newly opened Fan Girl Cafe to women in music with a special emphasis on queer and nonbinary musicians. 

Located in the gayborhood of West Hollywood, Fan Girl is a neon pink paradise with an entire wall dedicated to live shots of queer artists like Julien Baker, Christine and the Queens, Tash Sultana and St. Vincent (as shot by Martinez and friends), and a small stage for live performances.

At shows, Martinez and Temblador said, they would see women gathering en masse as fans of queer artists and wonder where they’d come from, where they were going after the show, and how to provide a safe, music-centered space. Fan Girl Cafe was their answer. 

“One person asked me one time: ‘So you just like any music because it’s a lesbian?’ And I’m like, ‘No, but if they’re good, I’m going to support them even more than probably another artist because they’re relatable,’” Martinez said. “And for the longest time, artists were in the closet, or their lyrics were changed to reflect a narrative that wasn’t true to them, so it’s important for me to make a space where people can feel comfortable being themselves and listening to music that they love.”

Fan Girl caters to a present but underserved community that is only growing in numbers with coworking weekdays, open mics and a book club. It recently hosted a night with Our Lady J and has several more events in the works.

“Our big idea for this is to eventually grow to a point where we can get these artists that we love, when they’re in town playing and do an underplay where they maybe come in do something special for their fans or like Q&As and meet and greets, because I think like we created a nice environment to do those kinds of things,” Martinez said. “So that’s our big goal, is to connect artists who have done a lot for their fans, to meet them face to face.”

Lesbian singer-songwriter Zolita, 29, has cultivated a faithful following since the video for her song “Explosion” went viral with 20 million views in 2015, when she was a student at New York University. Since then, she has released two EPs, 2018’s “Sappho” and 2020’s “Evil Angel” and has a third, “Queen of Hearts,” due out at end of May. 

Zolita said she felt empowered by artists like Etheridge as well as the queer community she’s a part of and surrounded by. She said the massive response to “Explosion,” a song about falling in love with your best friend, validated her choice to be explicit about her identity as a lesbian in her music and her public persona, as well as her desire to work with as many queer collaborators and women as possible. 

“If you can prove yourself and prove that there are so many fans there, it’s undeniable,” Zolita said. “You’re going to have to be given those opportunities.”

Zolita said she’s not particularly concerned with winning a Grammy and has more interest in the Video Music Awards, where Sapphic performances have come from the likes of Madonna and Britney Spears rather than any actual queer women thus far. Before now, faux lesbianism was easier to swallow than actual Sapphic leanings, but Zolita and her peers like Roan and Rapp are seeing success with being themselves — a luxury afforded by lineage.

“I feel like I’m surrounded by so many incredible female artists and have gotten a chance to write and work with a lot of them,” Zolita said. “It’s so exciting to see what a renaissance is happening in music for women.”

While queer women are continuing to establish their influence and are starting to get their due on music’s most high-profile stages, women, in general, continue to have to prove themselves and their ability to reach a wide audience. As a smaller segment of an already marginalized population, queer women can still be seen as having limited appeal, despite their popularity proving otherwise.

A dearth of women headliners at the biggest music festivals has led to the Book More Women initiative, which found that in 2024, less than 25% of musicians booked at major U.S. music festivals were women or nonbinary people. And while the National Women’s Music Festival is celebrating its 48th anniversary this June , it is now one of the few women-centric stages. when there used to be several like it all over the country. 

“Those were really empowering events,” McDonnell said. “Even Lilith.”

Book More Women’s impact can be seen at the Washington, D.C., festival All Things Go, where its partnership with the festival ensured 81% of acts included at least one woman or nonbinary artist. And while Renee Rapp, Chappell Roan and Janelle Monae are among the headliners at All Things Go, they still get lower billing than at other festivals like Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza. Still, bringing their full selves to the stage is part of a palpable shift. For artists like Zolita, who will tour around her new album this fall, the closet is simply out of the question.

“My whole brand is so just unabashedly queer, and all of my stories are about women falling in love with women,” Zolita said. “That is my whole entire brand and my platform. No one’s told me to stray from that, and I’m grateful.”

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Trish Bendix is a writer based in Los Angeles. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Bustle and Conde Nast's them.

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Clinton Sparks Podcast: Shaquille O'Neal's Journey from NBA Superstar to Entrepreneur

D ive into the incredible journey of NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal as he reveals his unexpected transition to music and DJing. Join the one and only Shaq in this inspiring and candid interview, where he reflects on his early life, shares his passion for music, and discusses his journey beyond basketball.

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Entrepreneurship and Market Research:

• Understanding the market is key to successful entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs conduct market research to identify customer needs, preferences, and trends.

Early Challenges in Music Career:

• In the early days of his music career, the artist faced numerous challenges and setbacks.
• Navigating the competitive music industry presented significant hurdles.
• Financial constraints and limited resources were among the initial challenges.
• Early on, establishing a fan base and gaining recognition was a struggle.
• These early challenges tested the artist's determination and resilience.

Handling Adversity in the Industry:

• Adversity is a common companion in the dynamic and competitive music industry.
• Successful artists often need to adapt and overcome industry-related obstacles.
• Dealing with rejection and criticism is part of the journey.
• A resilient mindset and the ability to learn from setbacks are crucial.
• Handling adversity can lead to personal and professional growth.

Biggie Collaboration Impact:

• Collaborating with Biggie Smalls had a profound impact on the artist's career.
• This collaboration opened doors and introduced the artist to a broader audience.
• The synergy between the two artists resulted in memorable and influential music.
• Biggie's mentorship and guidance left a lasting impression.
• The collaboration remains a significant chapter in the artist's legacy.

Music Business Insights:

Understanding the intricacies of the music business is essential for success.

Navigating contracts, royalties, and legal matters is part of the industry.

Building a strong network and industry relationships is key.

Balancing creativity with business acumen is crucial for long-term sustainability.

Insights into music distribution, marketing, and branding are valuable assets.

Transitioning to DJing in Career:

Some artists make successful transitions to careers as DJs.

DJing can provide new opportunities and creative outlets.

The transition often involves honing unique skills and musical knowledge.

Building a reputation as a DJ can take time and dedication.

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Creativity is more of a selling point than sustainability.

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Upcycling — the creation of new products by reusing one or more components from ones — is having a moment.

• SC Sara Caprioli is a postdoctoral researcher at the TUM School of Management in Germany. Her work focuses on the effects of creativity and artificial intelligence on human behavior.
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Research backs Australian farmers growing juniper berries to support nation's gin industry

Efforts are underway to encourage more Australian farmers to grow juniper berries to make gin.

And in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains, agricultural scientist and farmer Lucy Vincent is on a mission to do just that.

She's growing juniper berries and supplying them to a distillery on the NSW far south coast in a bid to turn the industry away from imported berries. 

"Most Australian artisan gins are made from juniper, which comes from overseas," she said.

"There are three gins in Australia that are made with Australian [berries] only. I want to change that. I want there to be more."

Ms Vincent and her partner Bruce Campbell first established their juniper orchard near Bombala in 2018.

The family farm came with cattle, but they chose to break away from tradition and diversify.

They now have 600 trees across their 151-hectare property, which they believe is one of the largest juniper berry orchards in Australia.

"We chose something in juniper that is a developing industry, an emerging industry," Mr Campbell said.

"We're at the cutting edge of that."

Backed by science

Ms Vincent had so much faith in the quality of her produce that she had them scientifically tested.

The farm formed part of a research thesis at the University of Tasmania in 2023, which compared four domestically grown juniper berries. Although juniper looks similar to a blueberry, it is not a true berry but a seed cone, which is a type of conifer.

Three samples from NSW and one from Victoria were compared to samples from Europe, notably Macedonia, where juniper berry is predominantly sourced.

The juniper berries underwent a distilling process and the essential oils were analysed.

Professor Dugald Close, from the University of Tasmania's Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, oversaw the research and said the results were exciting.

"In terms of essential oil yield, we're seeing positive yields coming out either at the benchmark or above the benchmark of the international product," he said.

"We were pleased to see those alpha- and beta-pinene levels, so the earthy aromas, were actually higher in their percentage in the Australian samples as a general rule.

"On the whole, the samples were as good or better than the international benchmark."

Local collaboration

The results were reassuring for Ms Vincent, who was supplying her produce to master gin distiller Gavin Hughes.

Mr Hughes co-runs the award-winning North of Eden gin distillery, in nearby Bega, alongside his partner Karen Touchie.

They've been using imported juniper berries in their gin since 2019, which currently costs about $40 per kilogram.

Most of the other botanicals in their gins, including herbs, citrus, and even oyster shells, are grown on their farm or sourced locally.

For Mr Hughes, making the switch to locally grown juniper, although more costly at $50 per kilo, was an opportunity too good to pass up.

"To be able to take Australian-grown juniper grown within 100 kilometres from here near Bombala is just a fantastic thing," he said.

"It lowers our carbon footprint and makes it a truly Australian gin."

Controlling insects and finessing the drying and ageing process of the berries involved much trial and error.

But after extensive experimenting, last year Mr Hughes launched his first gin using Ms Vincent's berries and has just released the second.

He believes there's a huge difference in taste.

"We're delighted because the piney, fresh note is just so clean and bright, so much brighter than it was before," he said.

"Even though it was a great gin before and medalled at the largest competition in the world, we actually think this has taken it to the next level."

Push for potential

Juniper berries grow well in climates with hot summers, cold winters and in high altitude, and researchers can see the potential for more farmers in Australia to enter the market.

"I think distillers can express in their gin the local influence of our terroirs, so that's the climate and soil effects on locally grown juniper trees," Professor Close said.

"This is something that's quite unique and could well be a selling point."

Ms Vincent and Mr Hughes admitted it could be at least a decade before growing juniper berries took off in Australia, and patience was the key.

"If you're not prepared to take risks and if you're not prepared to try new things, you can never really create something that is great," Mr Hughes said.

Ms Vincent said her farm would need to invest in mechanical harvesting, rather than picking the prickly juniper by hand, to make the business commercially viable.

In the meantime, she's set up the Aussie Juniper Growers group to help more farmers get involved.

"For me, I want a farm that's commercially viable for my family, but I want to have a really well-established juniper industry in Australia," she said.

"In 20 years' time, I'll be a happy person if there's a thriving juniper industry."

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