Are Music Scenes Over?

A scene can exist within a location or sub-genre or often both. Scenes are weird things and hard to pin down. It could be the sound of a city like "Madchester" or a country like "Brit-Pop" or even just a vibe that's global but as amorphous as "PC Music" or as molten as "Post-Hardcore", any of these things could all be defined as a scene.

I was asked whether I think music scenes are over and rather than repeat myself here or write a lengthy essay again this week, you can hear me talk through my thoughts on a special Q&A episode of the Drowned in Sound podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On a related note, if you've not listened to the DiS podcast before, I would urge you to check out the latest episode with change-maker Linda Coogan Byrne.

Linda talks me through how she used data about gender disparity on radio to truly shift the dial on the amount of women being played on the radio (on some stations, they found that all of the top 100 most played songs were by men?!). The way the press officer turned campaigner tells the ups and downs of her story is truly inspiring and left me feeling like anything is possible. This episode is available wherever you get your podcasts and is also available in full as video on our YouTube channel.

When the pre-order link for Linda's book 'Why Not Her?: A Manifesto For Culture Change' is available, I'll be sure to share the link.

This Week's Music News

• Save Our Scene have highlighted that since the grassroots levy was confirmed by the UK government, Live Nation, the hugely successful promoters and venue owners, have put on sale 2.5 million arena & stadium tickets that won't be contributing toward the levy. That means on all those sales, there's no £1 per ticket contribution, so those shows won't be helping to save your local music venue or invest in the future of music. (Instagram)
• Spotify have finally removed the Andrew Tate training courses mentioned in last week's newsletter, following 150k signatures of the petition and thousands of people contacting the streaming platform. In the latest petition update, Renee from Collective Shout has confirmed that SoundCloud have removed these courses too. (Change.org)
• Bjork's Cornucopia to be shown in cinemas on May 7th (bjorkcornucopia.com)
• The Cure’s Robert Smith to curate Teenage Cancer Trust 2026 gig series. If his Meltdown line up was anything to go by, this will be truly special (NME)
• Julie's Bicycle have launched a new pod called Conversations on Creative Climate Leadership. The six-part podcast explores the cultural dimensions of climate change, and offers advice on how to take action with impact, creativity and resilience. (Julie's Bicycle)
• UK Government has backtracked on AI laws that will use music and other art without consent. Tom Kiehl from UK Music reacted “We are urging the government to rethink these deeply damaging plans and help the creative industries play a key part in growing our economy and boosting the exports of UK music, which are such an important part of our soft power across the world." (Music Week)
• The UK Government also continues what feels like the Tory party's hostile environment with new cuts to the welfare budget, to which Musician's Union General Secretary Naomi Pohl says "The real issue is that many disabled people cannot afford to live. Reducing benefits is not the way to get disabled people working. More accessible support - that reflects the true cost of being disabled - is.” (Instagram)
• “The IFPI’s report showed that recorded-music rightsholders’ revenues from streaming subscriptions increased by 9.5% in 2024, with the number of users of paid subscriptions growing from 667 million at the end of 2023 to 752 million a year later.” - If I quit Spotify last year and tried QoBuz, YouTube, Tidal and Apple Music, as well as having an Amazon Music trial, will I count toward this increase? (MusicAlly)

Rescue The Roots

Following on from our podcast with Youth Music and last week's announcement of the Rescue The Roots campaign, here's an amazing competition to win £5000, split into £2500 for pressing vinyl and £2500 for a local youth music charity. Plus Disc Manufacturing Services have donated £10k to the Rescue The Roots fund. Learn more and enter the competition here.

Track of the Week

If you're into songs that sound like they're climbing the walls, monologues atop loud songs, and the idea of Factory Floor, Foals and Gilla Band having a jam, and you've not gotten into Model/Actriz, then their new tune is a great place to start:

Watch of The Week

Apple Music's Zane Lowe steps inside Brian Eno's studio to discuss his new book, What Art Does, released by Metalabel (you might remember Yancey, who co-founded Kickstarter, was on the DiS podcast last year discussing Metalabel)

Recommended Reads

I'm not much of a club kid but this piece from RA (which has a simple summary on Insta) is a great read:

As clubbers, we have the ability to influence the economy of club culture by being more intentional and disciplined about where we're spending our time and money. The cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated pre-existing trends in audience demand, with cash-conscious ravers drifting away from regular Saturday nights in their local club and towards more sporadic blowouts at destination venues or festivals. Saving up for a massive lineup might offer more bang for our buck, but it also hollows out dance music's self-reliant middle tier, and enriches its most commercial operators. As those underground operators struggle to stay afloat or go bankrupt, bigger competitors swoop in and seize more of the market, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

We rightly mourn the continued decline of independent venues without necessarily connecting this back to our own actions. Challenging ourselves to rethink our priorities as consumers is hard, particularly when we're all feeling the financial pinch, but it's clear that the only alternative poses too great a risk.

Opinion: Club Culture Missed a Moment for Change. But It’s Not Too Late. · Feature ⟋ RA

Five years on from lockdown, dance music is stuttering on its quest for self-improvement. The mood out there is flat. Renewing our optimism requires a radical shift in thinking, argues Ed Gillett.

Resident AdvisorEd Gillett

I'm really enjoying Michelle Kambasha's newsletter and this interview with Janessa Williams is fantastic read:

I first encountered Dr. Jenessa Williams in the way many publicists do—with a carefully crafted email and a hope that she might be interested in covering one of my artists. Even before we ever spoke, I admired the clarity of her writing, her ability to handle complex subjects with thoughtfulness, and the care she clearly took when engaging with artists and their work. She was one of the few music journalists whose features regularly left me thinking differently—not just about the music, but about how we make space for identity, politics and power within it.

“Journalism lets me test ideas quickly, and academia lets me go deep” - On race, fandom and the ethics of music journalism with Dr. Jenessa Williams

Writer and academic Dr. Jenessa Williams on taste, representation and the politics of being a fan in the digital age.

the pactmichelle kambasha

A mind blowing scam:

A lifestyle influencer seeks investments by musicians for her media startup, promising high returns from an overly optimistic business model.

Dubious Investment Offer Targets Swiss Musicians

A lifestyle influencer seeks investments by musicians for her media startup, promising high returns from an overly optimistic business model.

Negative WhiteJanosch Troehler

A stat to ponder:

“Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning.”

The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces

As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this content is overwhelmingly right-leaning.In a new study, Media Matters assessed the audience size of popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online. To do so, we gathered data on the number of followers, subscribers, and views across streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, Twitch, and Kick) and social media platforms that are used to amplify and promote these shows (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok). Apple Podcasts does not publicly provide follower counts on its platform, so it was not included in the audience data.This analysis was based on 320 online shows with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent. We found that right-leaning online shows dominate the ecosystem, with substantially larger audiences on both politics/news shows and supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined often platformed ideological content or guests.Key findings:We found 320 online shows — 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning — that were active in 2024 and covered news and politics and/or had related guests. These shows had at least 584.6 million total followers and subscribers.We found substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms: Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning.Across platforms — YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82% of the total following of the online shows we assessed.Comparatively, left-leaning online shows had nearly 104 million followers and subscribers across the eight platforms — nearly five times less.Nine out of the 10 online shows with the largest followings across platforms were right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million. The only left-leaning show among the top 10 was What Now? with Trevor Noah, which had 21.1 million total followers and subscribers across platforms.Our analysis — which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent — found over a third self-identify as nonpolitical, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be right-leaning. Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly nonpolitical categories.Out of 320 online shows, right-leaning programs categorized as comedy — 15 shows in all — had 117.5 million followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all programs we assessed. This category included The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, and Full Send Podcast.Right-leaning shows accounted for two-thirds of the total YouTube views on videos from channels affiliated with the shows we assessed — 65 billion views in total. Comparatively, left-leaning online shows totaled 31.5 billion total views.Right-leaning shows use Rumble to expand their audience — gaining millions of subscribers and billions of views for their content.

Media Matters for AmericaKayla Gogarty

The Bitchuation Room did a great 10min segment on this:

I think I probably share a piece by 404Media every week, and I'm not gonna break that streak when they run pieces like this:

The best way to think of the slop and spam that generative AI enables is as a brute force attack on the algorithms that control the internet and which govern how a large segment of the public interprets the nature of reality. It is not just that people making AI slop are spamming the internet, it’s that the intended “audience” of AI slop is social media and search algorithms, not human beings. 

AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality

Generative AI spammers are brute forcing the internet, and it is working.

404 MediaJason Koebler

Image of the Week

More slop. This is from The Sloppening flickbook on LinkedIn.

EXITMUSIC

From the archive: that time I interviewed the cosmos-tickling gravity-defying Exitmusic at a show DiS hosted in an east London basement, 12 years ago... if Aleksa Palladino looks familiar, it's probably because you've seen her in shows like Boardwalk Empire, Halt and Catch Fire, or Scorsese's The Irishman.

The article is free to read due to reader support. Upgrade to become a member for as little as £1 per week. If you prefer, you can make a one-off tip (I need to get some new headphones to edit the podcast, so every little helps).

📲 If you have read this week's newsletter to the end and you're thinking of leaving Spotify, here's my affiliate link to get a free month on Apple Music.