The first quarter of 2024 for the music industry was an eventful one to say the least. Major changes took place across record labels, social media, technology, artist development, & more.

While there’s certainly more to analyze and think about, here are 5 thoughts as we approach the end of the first quarter.

This newsletter highlights:

• 5 thoughts after Q1 of this year

Let’s dive in ⬇️ 

1) Post TikTok world

Okay so…the elephant in the room. Or maybe not the elephant since it’s so apparent and glaring.

We’ve gone almost 2 months since UMG pulled their music off TikTok and there are tons of questions as a result of the groundbreaking move.

One of the main questions is how will artist catalogs and their consumption be affected long term?

Not many platforms offer the type of impact on streaming and growth that TikTok does - success on TikTok can lead to huge success in other areas (streaming, social, etc) while success on other platforms hasn’t always proven to have the same level of impact.

Without one of the music industry’s most powerful marketing tools being available to everyone, it’ll be interesting to see if a new platform emerges to shake things up.

For artists whose music is still on TikTok, how will the consumption grow or be impacted now that they have an advantage?

2) The development of D2C

More and more artists (especially indie artists) are exploring D2C strategies to connect and engage directly with their fans. EVEN has emerged as a major player in the space and earlier this month, after voicing his concerns over streaming payouts, James Blake helped launch the direct-to-fan platform Vault.

The conversation around streaming payouts is an ongoing one and it’ll be interesting to see how artists continue exploring direct-to-fan models to increase revenue and provide fan experiences.

Will more artists only make their music available on D2C platforms or will they offer those experiences while the music is still available on streaming services?

3) Is YouTube still a sleeping giant?

Many are looking to YouTube Shorts as the likely next contender in the short-form space after the TikTok and UMG fall out. It’ll be interesting to see how YouTube continues to prioritize Shorts and if Shorts will ever reach a point where virality has a signficiant impact on artist discovery and consumption in the way TikTok does.

Another YouTube-related thought is if there’s a world where TikTok does end up getting banned, will it spark the potential return and emphasis on long-form content?

4) The revival of Twitter

It might just be my personal use habits but it feels like Twitter (X?) is having somewhat of a moment again, particularly in terms of artist discovery.

I’ve discovered a handful of artists personally on Twitter over the last few months and have seen correlations between viral moments and streaming consumption.

With TikTok no longer an option for UMG, I assume more artists and their teams will experiment with Twitter as part of their strategy.

5) BandLab hits 100m users

The democratization of music creation continues to grow and become ever more accessible. BandLab, an app that allows users to create music on their phones (and has been responsible for creating songs in the hundreds of millions of streams) just crossed 100 million users this month.

That means 100 million people are using an app that gives them the ability to create music on their phones and publish into the world. So many artists having the ability to create music at such a low barrier to entry is a beautiful thing, yet a natural result will be the market continuing to become more and more saturated.

BandLab not only crossed 100 million users but had a sizable annual growth jump. They gained 40 million users from Jan 2023 - March 2024.

With more people having access to create music and more music being released into the world, it’ll be interesting to see how it continues to affect the ability for artists to break through and gain awareness.

What stuck out to you from Q1 of this year? Feel free to reply to this email and let me know.

Thanks for reading, until next time.