Independent Artists |

Pathfinding Through a
Pandemic

Mark Mulligan • Keith Jopling September 2020

About MIDiA Research
MIDiA Research is a market intelligence and consulting firm with
longstanding expertise in the business of entertainment and digital media.

We help businesses formulate commercially actionable strategy to

navigate the evolving digital landscape. Our clients leverage our expertise,
proprietary multi-country consumer data and market forecasts to enable
smarter and faster decisions.

We work with record labels, TV networks, streaming services,

tech firms, financial organisations, gaming and sports companies,
providing unparalleled insights into trends and innovations shaping the
entertainment market and audience behaviours.

For more details visit our website:

www.midiaresearch.com or email us at [email protected]

About Amuse
Changing the game since 2017, the music company Amuse gives free
music distribution and empowering tools to artists and their teams across
the globe. By using music consumption data Amuse finds, licenses and
builds cutting-edge services for tomorrow’s platinum-selling independent
talent. Based out of Stockholm, Sweden, Amuse was founded by music
industry executives with a collective vision to redefine artist discovery and
label deals.

Read more at amuse.io.

MIDIARESEARCH.COM • AMUSE • 2
 CONTENTS

04 Key insights
06 Introduction - artists are no longer just creators
07 About the survey and sample
08 Artists direct is the fastest growing sector in the music
industry
09 Where labels come into the picture
10 COVID-19 and lockdown - what impact has been felt among
artists?
14 Money, money, money - artists and the challenge of funding
and earning
14 Artists need to work multiple revenue streams to build career
momentum
16 Funding options
18 Conclusions
19 Appendix

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2019 was yet another stand-out year for
independent artists, with revenues, streams and
market shares all growing strongly. Then, along
came COVID-19 and the world turned upside
down. However, in lockdown many independent
artists found new opportunities and the ability to
innovate and create. Leveraging new, not-seen-
before data, this report presents a unique view of
the state of the independent artist sector in 2020
and how it has navigated the challenges posed
by COVID-19.

KEY INSIGHTS
• A sector with real scale. Artists direct (i.e. those without
record labels) generated $873 million in 2019, up 32% from
2018. These independent artists represent the fastest-
growing segment of the global recorded music business,
a segment of global scale with real impact and influence.
They are also more streaming native than label artists.
• Success on artists’ own terms. Some 44% of artists want
to build online and streaming success ‘on their own terms’,
with less than one in five artists considering it important to
be signed to a record label. So, how much do labels matter?
For just under one in five, getting signed remains the
goal while a further quarter of artists want to get signed.
However, 14% of artists feel they can do fine without a label
and 13% have no interest in signing.
• Lockdown was seen as a unique creative window by
artists. Nearly 70% of artists took the opportunity in
lockdown to spend more time writing or making music, and
a further 57% created more content for social media.
• Artists have reacted to lockdown differently. In terms of
releasing music, artists were split – with 46% releasing
more music, but 40% putting projects on hold. While nearly
30% of artists are now more worried about finances than
before, a similar proportion are not too concerned and feel
that life will be back to normal soon.

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• Lockdown placed the spotlight on streaming economics. Half of
artists are becoming concerned that streaming services are not
paying enough for artists to make a living. One in five artists got
involved with doing live-streamed performances.
• Money, money, money still elusive. The majority of independent
artists earn less than $10,000 a year from music, yet income can
grow to over $100,000. This is in part due to the sheer scale of artists
making (and distributing) music, but also illustrates how tough it is
to make a living from being an artist in today’s industry. The use of
crowdfunding platforms remains low and artists still have too few
funding options for the direct sector to truly blossom.
• Artists need to work multiple revenue streams to build career
momentum. For independent artists, streaming is their primary
source of income at 28%. Live revenue is second at 18% (which
means they are less exposed to lockdown’s impact than established
label artists). The key for today’s artists is to make revenues from
multiple sources such as publishing, teaching, session work,
sponsorship and merchandise. Artists are small entrepreneur
businesses. They need four or five income streams to get off the
ground.
• Marketing is a DIY affair. Half of all direct artists do their own
marketing, with one third managing their own marketing budget,
but 40% of direct artists spending nothing on marketing. Less than
one in five direct marketers are working with a distributor or label on
marketing activities.
• Artists are self-reliant but still inexperienced with marketing. At
least when it comes to getting their careers started, artists are doing
their own DIY marketing, but they are not making the most of the
tools available. While almost two-thirds of artists are using Spotify
For Artists, few of them are using any other marketing-related tools.

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Introduction - artists are no longer just creators
The author Nancy Baym (now a principle researcher at Microsoft)
recently said: “it’s amazing to me to see how so many careers, in music
and beyond, have shifted such that it’s no longer enough to do the work.
Now you have to do the work of making sure everyone is seeing that
you’ve done the work.”
Baym’s point is that the ‘create and they will come’ principle of simply
making great art, no longer gets that art to its deserved audience. A field
of dreams the music industry is not, but the barriers to entry have been
removed at the ground level. With a reported 40,000 songs uploaded
onto Spotify every day (as mentioned by Daniel Ek in April 2019) there
has never been a more vibrant time to get music out there, nor a more
competitive time. In album equivalents (admittedly less relevant to
streaming, but still many artists’ primary unit of output) that is roughly
23,000 albums per week. This is adding to the 50+ million songs already
available on Spotify.
It comes as no surprise that in the current music environment, the up-
and-coming artist is rapidly learning the skills of the marketer/promoter
(and often manager) as well as creator. MIDiA’s latest independent artist
survey finds that half of all artists do their own marketing. That is DIY
marketing, since the vast majority of direct artists cannot allocate any
of the precious income as ‘marketing budget’. Indeed, two in five artists
spend no money on marketing at all.
As ‘competition’ has intensified, 2020 has been no ordinary year. The
COVID-19 pandemic hit the entire music ecosystem hard, yet little work
has been done so far to understand artists’ strategies in response to
it. Perhaps as expected, artists have reacted creatively. Artists turned
lockdown to their advantage, but mostly to create more. Nearly 70% of
artists took the opportunity in lockdown to spend more time writing or
making music, and a further 57% created more content for social media.
Although some chose to release less and put projects on hold, direct
artists were more likely to press on and keep releasing music – with
nearly half of them doing this.
In order to provide a unique and unprecedented view of the artist
community and how all of these issues and more are shaping artist
careers, MIDiA Research fielded a survey to 376 artists across the
globe. This report highlights some of the key findings from the study
to reveal what it means to be an artist in these streaming boom years;
how they make money, what career paths they are taking and what
their aspirations are. Welcome to the next chapter of the era of the
independent artist.

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About the survey and sample
Our sample of artists for this survey was 376, with respondents from
around the world including sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, Asia, Europe,
Latin America and North America. The survey responses were collected
throughout June and July 2020, when most of the world was in some
form of government-imposed ‘lockdown’, providing a unique window
into how artists were choosing to cope and emerge from the situation.
The large majority of our sample are artists direct – releasing music
independently without a label. The average length of time our artists
have been making music approached five years, and our artists varied
widely by age, with an average age of nearly 30 years. For more details,
see the infographic in the Appendix of this report.

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Artists direct is the fastest growing sector in the
music industry
Artists direct (i.e. artists that release music without a record label) are
the fastest growing part of the global recorded music business. The
sector is increasing its share on streaming platforms like Spotify, and
there are more and more artists able to get their music to audiences via
the direct route.

Figure 1: Global artist direct revenue and its share of all recorded
music revenue, 2015–2019, global

Artists direct generated $873 million in 2019, up 32.1% from 2018.

Over the same period the total market grew by 111.4%, with the majors
growing by 10.5% and independents by 11.1%. These independent
artists now represent the fastest growing segment of the global
recorded music business, affecting a market of global scale with real
impact and influence. In 2019 they represented 4.1% of global recorded
music revenues, up from 3.4% in 2018. Crucially, artists direct added
more revenue in 2019 ($212 million) than in 2018 ($183 million). This
means that their role in the market is not just bigger than ever, it is
growing faster than ever.
Streaming is the main way artists direct make their money from
recorded music, with 78% of all their recorded music revenue coming
from it. This compares to 72% for record labels. In terms of their
recorded music income, independent artists are streaming native, more
so than their label artist peers.

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Independent artists take the holistic view: contribute to the culture, gain
respect, earn a loyal following and use streaming and label services
to work towards becoming a successful touring act. The job is to build,
build, build, become known in their scene and to stand out from the
pack. In the current intertwined industry, the role of manager is more
critical than ever before: to be able to work these separate strands into a
coherent whole on behalf of their artists. Managers are there to join the
dots in an ever more complex music business landscape.

Where labels come into the picture

So, how much do labels matter to artists as they set out to build a career
in 2020? For just under one in five, getting signed remains the goal, and
a further quarter of artists want to get signed. However, 14% of artists
feel they can do fine without a label and 13% have no interest in signing.

Figure 2: Importance of getting signed to a record label

Among our sample, one in 10 considered themselves to be ‘signed’ to a

label (with 3% under contracts with indies and the remainder releasing
under their own labels). This puts labels firmly into the category of
being a choice for these artists, but not a condition, of becoming a
professional. Record labels play a central role in the recorded music
business, but that role is evolving and becoming more defined. One of
the key shifts in attitude here is timing, with artists no longer rushing to
sign the first deal presented to them, or seeing the label deal as the fait
accompli.

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Instead, it’s a question of where a label fits into the picture of building
their career. Indeed, of those under label contracts, their views on the
value of labels did not differ greatly from those unsigned. Whether a
major label, indie label or distributor, the ‘label’ sector that serves artists
to make and release records, find audiences and shape careers needs to
keep on proving its value to every new artist around the block.

COVID-19 and lockdown - what impact has been

felt among artists?
Little more needs to be said about the impact of COVID-19 on the music
industry. However, until now, little has been understood about the range
of different responses to the pandemic from artists around the globe.
The responses to our artist survey show that COVID-19’s impact has
been far from all negative. Indeed, the time has been productive for
creatives, with many established artists continuing to release music,
or even make new records, during the height of the pandemic and the
various national lockdown periods.

Figure 3: Artist activities during lockdown

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For our sample of artists around the world, lockdown was
seen as a unique creative window. Nearly 70% of artists took
the opportunity in lockdown to spend more time writing or
making music, and a further 57% created more content for
social media. With more time spent making music at home,
more artists have been learning the production side of music
creativity, accentuating a trend that was already picking up
speed before COVID-19. Online creator platforms and tools
have been well placed to harness this increased demand,
which will help ensure the post-pandemic music business
looks a lot different for artists than the one that existed before.
Artists have reacted to lockdown differently in some respects.
In terms of releasing music, artists were split – with 46%
releasing more music, but 40% putting projects on hold. Most
artists have carried through on releasing music and 46% say
they have released more music, with a further 36% working on
collaborations.
Lockdown placed the spotlight on streaming economics. Half
of artists are becoming concerned that streaming services are
not paying enough for artists to make a living. The flip side to
this is the rise of direct selling platforms, or those that focus
on alternative formats to streaming (vinyl and downloads) such
as Bandcamp.
Another income source just emerging in 2020 is live streaming.
As the pandemic lingers and new outbreaks continue to be
spiky reminders of the danger zone we are still in, real concerts
seem further off, with the live industry likely to remain reduced
in scale in 2021. This means that the live streaming sector is
likely to become a permanent sector, not a stop-gap. One in five
artists have been doing live streaming performances since the
sector took off and this figure will grow as the sector develops
and new platforms drive more live stream content, including
the likes of StageIt, Driift, Maestro, Noon Chorus, Side Door and
of course, the lockdown success story, Zoom.
While it is still early days for live streaming, and revenues
still need to catch up with viewer figures, it is developing into
a significant channel for many established artists, with the
major social platforms all hosting live events, as well as a new
crop of independent platforms. However, there remains an
important opportunity to scale live streaming activity for the
community of lesser-known independent artists who would
also be learning their trade as well as earning some much
needed revenues.

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Figure 4: COVID-19 impact on artists’ incomes

Although the impact of COVID-19 has been negative overall, and for
some artists close to devastating, not all artists have lost out. In the
live category incomes are down for the majority of artists (though many
independent artists made little money from live in the first place).
However, recordings and publishing are a mixed picture with some
artists making more money than before from releases.
The cessation of live was the key cause of disruption for established
and more traditional artists. However, for the emerging generation of
independent artists, live is not anywhere as big a part of their revenue
mix. Across our sample of artists, live music represented just 18% of
total income. Of course, part of this is related to the fact that many of
these artists are earlier on in their careers, and live careers typically
peak after recording careers have peaked. Yet there is also an industry
shift taking place. More artists are spending more time focusing on the
production of their music, and making music designed to flourish in
streaming environments. It is not that they are actively deprioritising live,
but they are spending more time producing than performing and making
soundscapes that suit recorded formats better than live.
The added change catalyst is that the combined effect of lockdown and
the coming recession will likely see many smaller live music venues
close. This makes it harder for smaller artists to find places to play,
thus encouraging them further towards placing even more focus on
production than performance. Clearly this differs a lot by genre, but the
paradigm shift is here.

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Figure 5: COVID-19 impact on artists’ outlooks

Artists continue to believe that they will have more time to write and
produce new music – perhaps the future offers more breathing room to
create without distractions. Outlook over financial issues is split. While
nearly 30% of artists are now more worried about finances than before,
a similar proportion are not too concerned and feel that life will be back
to normal soon. A similar proportion of artists also feel that they have
not had enough financial support from their governments, though most
are not relying on handouts, working whatever revenue streams they
can. The great financial struggle for up-and-coming artists continues.

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Money, money, money - artists and the challenge
of funding and earning
The majority of independent artists earn less than $10,000 a year
from music, yet income can grow to over $100,000. With the recent
announcement by AWAL that ‘hundreds’ of artists are earning over
$100,000 from streaming, the message is clear that the ‘middle class’
of artists does exist. However, the proportion of artists that make it to
this level is literally the ‘top 2%’. This is in part due to the sheer scale of
artists making (and distributing) music, but also illustrates how tough it
is to make a living from being an artist in today’s industry.

Figure 6: Average amount earned by artists each year

Artists need to work multiple revenue streams to

build career momentum

For independent artists, streaming is their primary source of income

at 28%. Live revenue is second at 18%. The key for today’s artists is to
make revenues from multiple sources, including publishing, teaching,
session work, sponsorship and merchandise.

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Figure 7: Distribution of artist income by source

When it comes to artist income, the clear picture is that there is no clear
picture. Instead, modern day artists manage a mix of income streams,
with each individual item often being small but collectively contributing
to a more meaningful total revenue base. Independent artists are small
entrepreneur businesses. They need four or five income streams to get
off the ground.
Streaming remains the primary income source for independent artists,
many of whom are not yet well established enough to earn significant
revenue from performing live. Not only that, but live earnings have been
all but destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic – and indeed this survey
suggests that live revenues made up 18% of earnings in 2020 compared
with over a quarter last year.
As a result, streaming (which has historically come under some heavy
criticism over low per-stream rates) has come under an even harsher
spotlight. For established artists, the loss of live earnings has meant a
60% or more drop in earnings, making streaming income essential. For
our sample of independent artists, the key is to have a range of revenue
streams contributing to earnings, including publishing, teaching and
session work.
One trend to emerge in recent years is that many independent artists
are more likely to earn income by writing and producing for others. This
is a valid path to both becoming a known artist (i.e. cutting your teeth by
working with other musicians as a writer, producer or feature artist) as
well as a route to earning a living from music.

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Another emerging income stream is participation in online collaboration
platforms such as Soundbetter, melboss and LANDR Network. These
platforms have gained increased importance for many artists during
lockdown as they seek out new side hustles to offset the decline in live
income.

Funding options
When it comes to funding options, the use of crowd funding platforms
remains low and artists still have too few funding options for the direct
sector to truly blossom.

Figure 8: Use of crowdfunding services by independent/

unsigned artists

The vast majority of independent artists – 85% – are not using any of
the major creator funding platforms, with just 8% using Patreon. More
solutions are needed to the problem of artist funding and remuneration.
If more artists can crack funding and remuneration earlier in their
careers, the direct artist sector would grow exponentially. The case here
is clear for increasing the ways that artists of all kinds can close the
funding gap as they build their music careers.

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As an artist’s career grows their choices grow with them,
but for those first few years the artist’s career is about hard
graft first, and choices second. Artists now have more tools,
services and choices than at any previous time in the history
of recorded music. The entire industry has evolved to enable
artists to plot their own unique career paths through its rapidly
changing landscape.
The question for emerging artists is, do they have the time to
be their own marketer/manager/distributor as well as creator?
Our survey indicates that with even more time made available
(with reluctance thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic) most
artists invested this time in music creation, and are still not
using the marketing, data capture or creator dashboards being
made available to them.
For independent artists, and those on non-exclusive label
deals, the outlook is changing with the emergence of new
ways to raise finance, whether that be borrowing against prior
income, e.g. 23 Capital, or being paid for anticipated future
earnings, e.g. Amuse’s Fast Forward and also the Music Fund.

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Conclusions

With low barriers to entry, multiple distribution platforms, multiple

revenue streams and an endless choice of tools to work with, artists are
equivalent to small businesses. Over decades, a series of large industry
verticals have been thrown up around the central creative output of
artists: recording, live, publishing and merch. These sectors are largely
siloed from each other. Looking at how artists create and get started in
their careers in 2020, however, those vertical structures are no longer
always the most effective way for artists to start out on the journey of a
music career.
Artists need to experiment – with release strategies, collaborations, live
performances and by responding and adapting to audience reactions
to their early work. Often the artists’ vision of how they see themselves
– their brand and contribution to their scene, needs to be flexible
and nimble. There is no greater example of this than how artists have
responded to the coronavirus pandemic that has swept across the world
in 2020 – a year in which live shows were cancelled wholesale, physical
retail was slammed and as a result – the already competitive online
world became even more competitive. In this environment, artists need
to be their own marketers, but are not using the tools available to them:
funding, collaboration, marketing.
Artists’ response to COVID-19 has been more positive than negative:
artists have taken advantage of having more time to create, collaborate
and communicate with fans on social media. However, with half of all
artists managing their own marketing – and many of them without
budgets – it will be an even more crowded market than ever before as
content pours onto the social and streaming platforms. How will the
work of independent and direct artists stand out and cut through? There
is a greater need than ever for artists to access light touch, low-cost but
high-value marketing services and collaboration tools.
The challenge goes out to labels, distributors, artist service businesses
and the creator tools sector to serve the growing community of
direct artists better – to take the burden off them when it comes to
administrative tasks but to help them find their first audiences. The
elephant for artists still looms large in the room: money. Most artists
simply do not make a living from music, and with live income taking a
hit, streaming and the collection of money through multiple revenue
streams becomes even more critical.

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Appendix: More about our sample

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