Blog: Independent artists - Page 2

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Women making music: The COVID impact

Cover image for Women making music: The COVID impact

Hanna Kahlert

8 Mar 2021

international womens day

The last 12 months have been marked mostly by the coronavirus pandemic, which has pushed much of life to the digital world. 70% of independent artists overall spent much of the time over lockdowns creating more music, many taking more autonomy over their own marketing and production.

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Smaller independents and artists direct grew fastest in 2020

Cover image for Smaller independents and artists direct grew fastest in 2020

Mark Mulligan

1 Mar 2021

Streaming Music

Independent labels

Last year we identified a small but crucial metric from Spotify’s annual report: the share of all streams accounted for by majors and independent licensing body Merlin. It was crucial because it enabled us to segment the streaming market in detail, when combined with market data from majors and independent artist platforms .

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Taylor Swift and the changing tide of artist power

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Hanna Kahlert

16 Feb 2021

Media and Marketing

Cultural trends

In the latest episode of a long-running feud between Taylor Swift and Big Machine Records, the western princess turned pop icon is releasing the first of her original re-recorded albums under her own ownership.

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Sony just became (even more of) an independent powerhouse

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Mark Mulligan

1 Feb 2021

Sony Music has bought AWAL (and Kobalt Neighbouring Rights) from Kobalt for $430 million . By adding AWAL to its already-booming Orchard division (as well as other distribution companies), it now has leading brands for independent artists as well as independent labels.

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Women making music

Cover image for Women making music

Hanna Kahlert

28 Jan 2021

Even taking into account the impact of the pandemic, it has never been a better time for independent creators in the music business. The various 2020 lockdowns may have prevented artists from earning vital touring income and disrupted release and promotion cycles, but for many it also pushed new creativity, with nearly 70% of independent artists choosing to use the time to write or make new music.

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Independent artist creativity and innovation in the age of COVID-19

Cover image for Independent artist creativity and innovation in the age of COVID-19

Mark Mulligan

30 Sep 2020

Independent artists

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the music industry upside down in many ways but among the direct artists community there have also been signs of resilience and creativity in the face of adversity. For these ‘unsigned’ artists, 2020 is both the best of times and the worst of times.

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Independents Grew Fastest on Spotify in 2019, But There’s a Twist

Cover image for Independents Grew Fastest on Spotify in 2019, But There’s a Twist

Mark Mulligan

28 Apr 2020

Independent artists

Independent labels

Tomorrow (Wednesday 29 th April) Spotify announces its Q1 2020 results, at which point we will find out whether it had a COVID-bounce like Netflix did ( adding 15.8 million subscribers in Q1 ) or whether growth slowed.

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Lockdown Listening and the Independent Artist

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Mark Mulligan

24 Apr 2020

coronavirus covid-19

After an initial lockdown lull, streaming levels are – on the surface – beginning to normalise. Underlying the macro-level normalisation, ‘lockdown listening’ is in fact resulting in dramatic shifts in listening behaviour, from using the commute time for activities other than listening to music, through using smart devices to listen at home to spending more time on YouTube.

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Welcome to the Age of the Artist

Cover image for Welcome to the Age of the Artist

Mark Mulligan

27 Feb 2020

age of the artist

artist distribution

As it enters the third decade of the millennium, the recorded music business is in rude health. Revenues are about to enter the second half of a decade of annual growth, streaming is booming and investment is pouring in.

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Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) October 14th 2019

Cover image for Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) October 14th 2019

Mark Mulligan

14 Oct 2019

fortnite blackhole

Fortnite black hole: In what may be the most audacious global games marketing stunt ever, Epic Games killed off Fortnite in Sunday’s end-of-season event , which one million people viewed live on Twitch.

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New MIDiA Artist Survey – Take Part!

Mark Mulligan

16 Jul 2019

Independent artists

Firstly, thanks to all of you who took part in our artist survey last year. If you did so, you should by now have received the link to the free report. If not, email us at info@midiaresearch and we’ll get it to you.

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Independent Artists: The Age of Empowerment

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Mark Mulligan

11 Jul 2019

MIDiA is proud to announce an exclusive new report in conjunction with Amuse – Independent Artists: The Age of Empowerment . The report is based on a global survey of independent artists that we conducted earlier this year, with respondents from all of the world’s continents.

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PledgeMusic and Not-So-Glorious Failure

Mark Mulligan

10 May 2019

Pioneering fan funding platform PledgeMusic is now officially over, having entered administration (i.e. Chapter 11) in the UK reportedly owing its artists around $1 million and with little expectation of any asset sale generating enough cash to clear those debts.

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Last Call for Our Artist Survey

Mark Mulligan

15 Apr 2019

This is your last chance to take part in our global artist survey - we are closing the survey this Friday (19th April). As a reminder: In partnership with independent distribution company Amuse, MIDiA Research is undertaking a detailed study of the music artist landscape.

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Calling all Artists!

Mark Mulligan

14 Mar 2019

In partnership with independent distribution company Amuse, MIDiA Research is undertaking a detailed study of the music artist landscape. We are fielding a survey to the artist community , exploring issues such as: What success looks like to you Career aspirations The importance of signing to a record label Financial wellbeing Maintaining creative control If you are a singer, DJ, producer, performer, or in a band, then we’d love to hear your views.

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Artists Direct and Streaming the Big Winners in 2018

Cover image for Artists Direct and Streaming the Big Winners in 2018

Mark Mulligan

18 Dec 2018

2018 music revenues

2019 Recorded music revenue

With less than two weeks of 2018 left, the die is largely cast for the year, but we’ll have to wait at least a couple more months for the major labels to announce their results (though WMG still hasn’t declared its calendar Q3 results), and then another month or so for the IFPI numbers.

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