The music-tech market is hotter than ever — so hot that it might be reaching a boiling point. While music and tech have always been tightly intertwined throughout history, the concept of music-tech as a vital investment category has emerged only in the last two decades, with significant momentum bubbling up in the last five years. We can break down this evolution into three stages: 2005–2015: Widening the playing field. This period introduced more accessible models for music production (e.g. DAWs like GarageBand), financing (e.g. crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter), distribution (e.g. so ..read more

This is the final installment in our five-part series comparing “For Artists” features on streaming platforms. You can browse our product feature matrix for the full breakdown, or catch up on previous installments in the series below: Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Profile customization & listener experience Part 3: Data analytics Part 4: Fan marketing and e-commerce Throughout this series, we’ve explored the many options that artists and their teams have to leverage DSPs to reach, grow, engage, and monetize a fan base. We compared DSPs’ “For Artists” platform offerings across pr ..read more

At Water & Music, we believe generative AI may be the most disruptive technology for the music industry since Napster-era peer-to-peer file sharing. In real time, AI is driving down music production costs to near-zero, enabling the creation of unprecedented sounds, and challenging traditional value chains around ownership and distribution. In 2023 alone, we’ve seen a surge in large-scale music generation models (e.g. Google’s MusicLM, Meta’s AudioCraft, and Stability’s Stable Audio), improved user experiences on top of those models (e.g. Sounds.Studio, BandLab SongStarter, Kits AI), and su ..read more

In October 2023, Water & Music joined forces with music data consultancy Music Tomorrow to put on our inaugural Music Marketing Data Bootcamp — the fourth installment in Water & Music’s Academy arm on music-tech education. Over four weeks, we gave students a comprehensive introduction to music data and the pivotal role it plays across the digital marketing lifecycle — from strategic planning at a project’s creative inception, to state-of-the-art tools for maximizing discoverability and fan engagement months or even years after release. Why did we offer this course at this point in time ..read more

In Part 3 of our “For Artists” series comparing features on major music streaming platforms, we argued that one of the most compelling reasons for artists to utilize these features is to receive rich, first-party data about audience consumption behaviors and demographics, directly from the DSPs themselves. But can artists utilize these FA platforms to drive further consumption of their music and reach their fans directly? And if streaming is a loss leader for most artists, are there features with FA platforms to make DSPs part of the listener conversion funnel from a stream to a purchase in ot ..read more

This analysis is available only to paying Water & Music members. If you’re already a member, please sign into your account here. If not, sign up today for a quarterly or annual membership plan to get smarter on music and tech and meet like-minded professionals in the industry. You can read more about our membership benefits here ..read more

This analysis is available only to paying Water & Music members. If you’re already a member, please sign into your account here. If not, sign up today for a quarterly or annual membership plan to get smarter on music and tech and meet like-minded professionals in the industry. You can read more about our membership benefits here ..read more

On September 13, 2023, Stability AI launched their text-to-audio generation tool Stable Audio, the latest addition to a rapidly accelerating wave of development around music AI this year. We’re seeing an influx of stakeholders from every corner — developers, artists, rights holders — race to build large-scale music generation models, ship improved user experiences on top of those models, and close industry partnership deals, all at an unprecedented commercial scale and technical quality. At this juncture, we hosted a Water Cooler interview with Ed Newton-Rex, VP of Aud ..read more

Music streaming has never been bigger — and more scrutinized. Today’s leading streaming services host hundreds of millions of paid subscribers and add 100,000 new songs daily. It also seems more difficult than ever for artists to make a living from streaming. DSPs themselves are also struggling with profitability. Major labels, seeing the writing on the wall, are actively pushing for payment reform in their licensing renegotiations, especially towards models that incentivize more loyal fan behavior. ​And amidst this chaos, there’s still widespread confusion and mi ..read more

This analysis is available only to paying Water & Music members. If you’re already a member, please sign into your account here. If not, sign up today for a quarterly or annual membership plan to get smarter on music and tech and meet like-minded professionals in the industry. You can read more about our membership benefits here ..read more