A Closer Listen
2025 was a tumultuous year for the music industry. Tariffs reversed years of rebound in the non-digital market, streaming services fractured, A.I. continued to creep into composition, and reviews became further decentralized. These events and others sent ripples through the music industry that in some cases have became tsunamis.
Tariffs: We experienced a problem with your order. One or more items in your cart cannot be shipped to the following region(s): [US]. Shocking announcements like these have been greeting international customers for months. Those who have been able to order music have often found that the cost of shipping is double or triple that of the product. (This desperate reviewer recently paid $78 for a single record.) The damage caused by tariffs goes beyond price; as sales are reduced, companies fold, fewer artists are heard, and the good will caused by free trade dissipates. For all of our lives, we’ve taken for granted the ability to get our favorite records. Now we can’t: another blow to the physical market.
Reviews: Remember Mixmag? Only a couple decades ago, reviews were everywhere, but as print media folded and paid review sites imploded, only a few continued to exist. (We are one of them; it costs money to run the site, but we pay for this ourselves.). We receive an average of 70 valid submissions each week and review seven. Many albums never receive a single global review, which makes us sad and makes artists sadder. To combat this trend, we’ve seen an increase in the amount of in-house reviews, especially on Bandcamp, where albums are often described in incredible detail, with coverage running up to 1000-2000 words (twice the length of an average review on our site, and dozens of times larger than a blurb in The Wire). The upside is that the albums receive the press they deserve. The downsides are that the reviews are not objective, and that often there’s nothing left for us to write! We don’t see a way out, as decent volunteer writers are hard to find. This being said, if you’re interested in trying out, please get in touch!
Et tu, Spotify? Music fans continue to have a hard time balancing their need for music and their desire to avoid supporting things such as arms dealing, genocide, sweatshops and privacy violations. Such issues have led conscientious listeners away from Facebook, X, Amazon, Apple and now Spotify, whose questionable investments have roiled subscribers. Tech giants will continue to be giants, but their reputations have taken a well-deserved blow. The surprising winner has been Bandcamp, whose own recent sale and staff-cutting woes are all but forgotten. Also benefitting: alternative streaming services such as Qobuz and Tidal. Even our own site views have increased, not only via Substack, but WordPress, underlining the lasting power of the classic blog.
A.I.: Another controversy for Spotify is their lack of transparency when it comes to A.I. artists; this past summer they drew fire for releasing A.I. music under the names of dead artists. (And don’t get us started on the inclusion of bland A.I. tracks on ambient playlists!) In mid-November an A.I. track, Breaking Rust’s Walk My Walk, topped the American country music chart, sending a frisson of fear throughout the industry. Was the age of human music ending? ACL saw an increase in A.I.-generated submissions as well, many billed as human-A.I. collaborations. While we have yet to hear an A.I. album that is more human than human, we suspect that the time is drawing near, which means at some point we may run a year-end feature titled The Year’s Best A.I. Music. This being said, someone still has to program the machine to make the music.
Hope for the future: Given all of the information above, one might think that the music industry is in dire peril. However, given the quality of music being released, it’s obvious that the opposite is true. Vital, relevant, meaningful music is being created today on a record scale, pun intended, and the biggest challenge continues to be getting the music to the right audience. Over the next three weeks, we’ll be running our annual year-end lists: ten specialty lists, followed by seven genre lists, followed by our overall Top 20. If you love what you hear, be sure to support these artists directly, and let them know how much they matter and what a difference their music makes in our lives!
Richard Allen
Mon Dec 01 00:01:38 GMT 2025