Kriss Thakrar | MIDiA Research

Music is losing a generation of young men

Kriss Thakrar

31 Mar 2025

Key insights from this blog: Netflix’s hit Adolescence has renewed conversation around the radicalisation of young men, particularly in online spaces MIDiA’s research highlights that all entertainment...

min read

Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar

29 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

TikTok

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for...

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Splice x MIDiA Sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano, Samuel Griffin, Mark Qi and Olivia Jones

January 2025

Free Report

Splice

Audience Insight

Splice is an engine powering producers across the world. With one ofthe largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, itprovides the music that makes the music for some of the most...

Streaming’s growth plan in the connection economy

Kriss Thakrar

18 Sep 2024

Superfans

Music streaming

Streaming clubs

During Universal’s Capital Markets Day, Universal Music Group (UMG) chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge cited some “fundamental facts” of the music business (per Music Business Worldwide ). These include...

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Billie Eilish delivered a superfan masterclass

Kriss Thakrar

4 Jun 2024

Music

Superfans

SoundCloud

While the industry standard for new releases has long been about scale and velocity, Billie Eilish, her brother Finneas, and Darkroom/Interscope, the labels behind their latest album Hit Me Hard and Soft...

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Apple is not the only one crushing the old music-making paradigm

Kriss Thakrar

15 May 2024

Music

creator tools

music production

Apple is crushing it – literally. The new iPad Pro ad received widespread backlash for its controversial crushing of musical instruments to demonstrate what is ‘packed into’ Logic Pro on the iPad....

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We need ‘real’ artists for the return to reality

Kriss Thakrar

1 May 2024

Algorithms

TikTok

Gen Z

The big theme of MIDiA’s 2024 predictions is that ‘ the algorithm is not listening ’. A third of the way into the year, we are seeing more and more evidence that this is the case. The past few years...

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Taylor Swift, The Black Dog, and the fan frenzy flywheel

Kriss Thakrar

25 Apr 2024

Fandom

Superfans

Taylor Swift

A new Taylor Swift album is almost guaranteed to start a fan frenzy - the question is, what form will it take? Breaking Spotify records is a given, but digital consumption is not enough to satiate super...

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Beyond the obvious
Building future-focused strategy

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling and Kriss Thakrar

February 2024

Product Strategy

Business strategy has long been demarcated across sustaining and disruptive innovation. In the digital realm the latter has had the upper hand, but as digital enters a slower growth phase, sustaining innovation...

Independent label survey
Playing the volume game

Cover image for Independent label survey

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

January 2024

Audience Insight

This report presents data from the 2023 MIDiA Research Independent Record Label survey The survey was fielded across three months in H1 2023, closing in May2023, with a sample size of 142 Topics covered...

MIDiA's 2024 predictions webinar
The algorithm is not listening

Cover image for MIDiA's 2024 predictions webinar

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano, Perry Gresham, Kazia Rothwell, Ben Woods and Ashleigh Millar

January 2024

Free Report

MIDiA analysts dive into our 2024 predictions, and why we believe the algorithm isn't listening. Watch the webinareither on YouTube or LinkedIn ....

MIDiA’s 2024 predictions report
The algorithm is not listening

Cover image for MIDiA’s 2024 predictions report

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Perry Gresham, Kazia Rothwell and Ben Woods

December 2023

Business Strategy

2023 was another year of change and disruption. 2024 will be even more defined by change than the years that preceded it. But much of this change will be defined by reaction more than action. The unintended...

Patchwork / Fortnite

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

December 2023

Product Strategy

Read the case study …

The $100m+ in-game opportunity behind music producers

Kriss Thakrar

15 Nov 2023

Music creators

monetizing fandom

creator tools

MIDiA’s latest forecasts predict that the video game industry will be worth over $300 billion in 2030, a figure that makes a minnow out of a music industry that will reach $87 billion in retail terms...

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Identity and culture have killed genre in a scenes-driven industry

Kriss Thakrar

31 Oct 2023

Scenes

jazz

TikTok

This year has seen a renaissance for jazz in popular culture, with artists like Laufey, DOMi and JD Beck, and Ezra Collective succeeding on commercial and critical levels. However, their successes also...

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There are no elite artists without elite artist development

Kriss Thakrar

24 Oct 2023

artist development

Creators

Creator economy

A recent interview with Mariah the Scientist saw her speak about the struggle of performing for only the second time in front of a crowd at one of the world’s biggest festivals, Rolling Loud. She shared...

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Streaming is missing cultural moments, and superstars know it

Kriss Thakrar

11 Oct 2023

Streaming

Fandom

Superfans

In the modern music industry, a near constant supply of music is expected to succeed on streaming platforms . Drake is one of the best examples of this: since 2015 he has released an album every year,...

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Artist subscriptions are the superfan opportunity

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

August 2023

Business Strategy

Streaming is at a tipping point. Revenue growth slowed to 6.0% in 2022, labels want new royalty systems, consumption is commodified, TikTok is diluting cultural capital, creators are questioning effort...

Dance Cry Dance Break innovates subscriptions with artist storytelling

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

August 2023

Read the case study …

A new era of ‘fan-made’ music is about to begin

Kriss Thakrar

30 Aug 2023

Tik Tok

TikTok Music

creator tools

Since MIDiA’s comments on TikTok’s music production ambitions more than two years ago, a lot has changed. Consumers have become bolder and more engaged in playing an active role in their music consumption....

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