Blog: music marketing

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.

Will more artists release full songs to social media in 2025?

Cover image for Will more artists release full songs to social media in 2025?

Tatiana Cirisano

19 Sep 2024

Music streaming

It is now a standard part of most music rollouts to release a clip of the song on social video platforms before it hits streaming. This makes sense when you think of social media as a marketing tool. But as social video has ascended (and arguably become more about entertainment than connecting socially), apps like TikTok are now quasi-consumption platforms in their own right.

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‘Brat’ summer and the dilemmas of going mainstream

Cover image for ‘Brat’ summer and the dilemmas of going mainstream

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Aug 2024

music marketing

It has become a rule of thumb that the moment corporate America begins capitalising on a trend, that trend begins to die. Cultural fragmentation has helped niches and scenes flourish, but it has also left large corporations that depend on mainstream products hungry for relevance — and willing to do anything to tap into the zeitgeist, including wringing cultural moments dry.

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The verdict is in: Music is podcasting’s biggest missed opportunity

Cover image for The verdict is in: Music is podcasting’s biggest missed opportunity

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Jun 2024

While there are plenty of charts that provide insight into the most downloaded podcasts on each platform globally, these data give a very granular perspective on consumer preferences. Podcast platforms, in turn, have access to private user data, but again these data are largely limited to each platform’s own users.

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Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Cover image for Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jun 2024

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

“ I’m famous, but not quite ,” Charli XCX sings on ‘I might say something stupid’, a moment of honest insecurity amidst the brash club anthems that make up her new album Brat . It is a familiar refrain for the artist, who has spent her decade-plus career wavering between the mainstream and counterculture.

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Kendrick vs. Drake is a rare ‘mainstream’ moment — and streaming is on the sidelines

Cover image for Kendrick vs. Drake is a rare ‘mainstream’ moment — and streaming is on the sidelines

Tatiana Cirisano

9 May 2024

Bifurcation theory

Over the last week, it has been hard to go anywhere, or speak to anyone, without some mention of the epic diss track battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. When is the last time we could say that about a pop culture moment? The domination of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is arguably the only bit of music news in the last year that managed to cut across every niche and break into “mainstream” conversation.

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

Cover image for Taylor Swift, The Black Dog, and the fan frenzy flywheel

Kriss Thakrar

25 Apr 2024

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 fandom.

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The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Cover image for The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2024

music journalism

As a former music journalist, I can say that layoffs are somewhat to be expected when you work in media. Nobody gets into this industry looking for stability. But the past 12 months have felt especially grim, with a growing list of mass layoffs and complete shutdowns that includes Bandcamp Daily , MTV News , NPR , Vox Media, and Los Angeles Times , to name just a few.

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Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Cover image for Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Tatiana Cirisano

16 Jan 2024

If you were not familiar with the Stanley cup a month ago, you likely are now. Over the holiday season, the 40-ounce tumbler rocketed from being a relatively niche item favourited by moms to the Gen Z stocking stuffer sold-out at Targets everywhere, and now it is seemingly inescapable.

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Right place, right time: Taylor Swift's track to the first $1 billion tour

Cover image for Right place, right time: Taylor Swift's track to the first $1 billion tour

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Jun 2023

music marketing

Another day, another record for Taylor Swift. As Wall Street Journal broke down this week, the superstar is now on track to achieve the first $1 billion tour in music history. A billion factors and decisions led up to this moment, with Swift’s songwriting artistry and business savvy high among them.

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What ‘Barbie’, ‘The Idol’, and more say about the future of artists in film

Cover image for What ‘Barbie’, ‘The Idol’, and more say about the future of artists in film

Tatiana Cirisano

8 Jun 2023

Music publishing

2023 is already shaping up to be another big year for music artists in Hollywood. Late last month, Jack Harlow made his acting debut in a Hulu remake of 1992 basketball comedy White Men Can’t Jump . The Weeknd (who is now going by Abel Tesfaye) stars in Max’s controversial new series, The Idol , in which BLACKPINK's Jennie also makes her acting debut.

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Why the creator tools and services market is bigger than you think (and it is not AI)

Cover image for Why the creator tools and services market is bigger than you think (and it is not AI)

Tatiana Cirisano

10 May 2023

Creator economy

One of the biggest stories of the past few years is the rise of self-releasing artists, who number 6.4 million in 2022, a 16.8% growth from 2021. Everyone wants a piece of that growth, which is part of the reason why distributors like Stem and TuneCore increasingly offer much more than distribution, major record labels are opening (or acquiring) their own label service operations, and there is a growing roster of what Music Business Worldwide has termed “inside-out majors” , like the recently-launched Gamma.

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Why AI music may make fandom even more important

Cover image for Why AI music may make fandom even more important

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Mar 2023

artificial intelligence

fragmented fandom

Artificial intelligence (AI) was as hot a topic as ever at last week’s SXSW conference, where debate swirled around how human artists will compete with AI-generated music. As more parts of music-making involve AI assistance, this distinction between “AI” and “human” music may soon become as irrelevant as music created on a laptop versus recorded in a studio.

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What Elon's Twitter means for music

Cover image for What Elon's Twitter means for music

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Nov 2022

Content Creators

When we wrote about Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter back in April, the idea that it would actually happen seemed far-fetched. Now, of course, Musk really is in charge, and the fate of the social platform, which 24% of consumers use weekly, is unclear.

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Music is not a level playing field — it is a field of all levels

Cover image for Music is not a level playing field — it is a field of all levels

Tatiana Cirisano

18 Aug 2022

Music streaming

fragmented fandom

We have heard it (and said it) many times before: the music industry has never been as competitive as it is today. But the challenge is not just that today’s landscape is ultra-competitive, it is also that new artists chasing success are competing against artists who came up before the landscape became so fragmented , as well as the entire history of music — not just that which is new.

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What happens when every platform has different top artists? Hint: it may be a good thing

Cover image for What happens when every platform has different top artists? Hint: it may be a good thing

Tatiana Cirisano

10 Aug 2022

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

music marketing

Fragmentation is on full display in Chartmetric’s H1 2022 trends report , which lists the top 10 “breakthrough artists” between January and June for each of eight different platforms. It is immediately obvious that each list is completely different.

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Beyoncé raises the question: what does commercial success mean in 2022?

Cover image for Beyoncé raises the question: what does commercial success mean in 2022?

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Aug 2022

monetizing fandom

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

It is hard to believe that six years have elapsed between Beyoncé’s last solo album, Lemonade , and her newest, Renaissance . So much has changed in those six years about how listeners consume music, how fandoms organise, and what is competing for our attention.

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The record label addiction to virality is about the attention recession, too

Cover image for The record label addiction to virality is about the attention recession, too

Tatiana Cirisano

26 May 2022

Content Creators

Creator economy

In a painfully-of-the-moment twist of irony, Halsey went viral on TikTok this week for speaking out about the pressure to do just that. “Basically I have a song that I love that I wanna release ASAP, but … my record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok,” they said .

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Why the remix challenge is primed for a revival

Cover image for Why the remix challenge is primed for a revival

Tatiana Cirisano

14 Apr 2022

music marketing

Remix challenges have been part of the record label toolbox for more than a decade. Artists let contestants purchase or earn song stems; then the artist and fans vote on the best remixes. The idea is simple: contestants get a shot at recognition from their favourite artists (as well as their 15 seconds of fame), plus prizes; and artists get to increase their profiles and deepen fan engagement.

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Non-music companies should be taking notes from the music marketing playbook

Cover image for Non-music companies should be taking notes from the music marketing playbook

Ashleigh Millar

2 Mar 2022

It is evident that the music industry’s social media marketing model – specifically on TikTok – is particularly effective in elevating the careers and profiles of the new generation of music artists, songwriters, and producers alike.

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Kanye’s Stem Player release is a real-time experiment in superfan targeting

Cover image for Kanye’s Stem Player release is a real-time experiment in superfan targeting

Tatiana Cirisano

23 Feb 2022

monetising fandom

Music streaming

Never one to follow tradition, Kanye West has announced that his next album, Donda 2 , will not be available on streaming services. Instead, he will release it exclusively on the Stem Player (a handheld speaker allowing creators to remix any recording that he launched in August 2021).

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