The Music Industry Enters Its Less-Is-More Era
2 46The music industry's long romance with an ever-expanding catalog of songs appears to be souring, as streaming platforms and rights holders confront a daily deluge that now includes 60,000 wholly AI-generated tracks uploaded to Deezer alone -- roughly 39% of the French service's daily intake, a statistic the company shared during Grammys week last month.
Streaming services now host 253 million songs, according to Luminate's most recent annual report, after adding 51 million tracks over the course of 2025 at an average pace of 106,000 uploads a day. Spotify has already responded by requiring songs to hit at least 1,000 plays in the previous 12 months to qualify for royalties, and Luminate reported that 88% of tracks received 1,000 or fewer plays in 2025.
The distribution layer is in flux too: Universal Music Group is trying to acquire Downtown Music, owner of DIY distributor CD Baby, TuneCore's head recently stepped down without a planned replacement, and DistroKid is reportedly up for sale.
2 comments
What scares me (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Slashythenkilly ( 7027842 ) on Monday February 16, 2026 @10:47PM (#65993494)
Some people dont know the difference between AI generated videos, deepfakes, music, and written content, which to its credit, might be decent at first but then starts to unravel.
Lest anyone think the problem is just AI slop (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday February 16, 2026 @10:50PM (#65993504)
The music industry has always earned the majority of its revenue from a small percentage of extremely popular acts. Part of it is that the industry is gatekept to where your music won't be promoted if you're not already well connected, and the other part of it is just human nature over what becomes popular. Some stuff clicks with the masses, and some doesn't, no matter how much money you throw at promoting it (there's plenty of examples of "manufactured" pop stars flopping). It's also a safe assumption that a lot of good music goes unheard too, because it's buried under a mountain of crap and the musician just happens to be a nobody.
That's the entertainment industry for you.