The Rise of a Middle Class of Musicians

Recent studies reveal the emergence of a growing middle class of musicians, challenging the notion that only a top tier of superstar artists find “success.” How are these musicians finding such sustainable success?

The Growing Middle Class of Musicians

by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

With so many artists complaining about streaming royalty rates, you’d think that the only people making money online are superstar artists. According to Luminate’s Mid-year report that’s not the case though, as the music middle class appears to be growing.

Yes, It’s Really There

I bet you’re surprised that there even is a middle class, as the general perception is that there are only superstars and starving artists online, but the report says that there were 29,253 artists who garnered between 1 million and 10 million on-demand audio streams in the first quarter of the year, which is an increase of 5.1% from the previous year.

And that’s not all. 5,222 artists received between 10 million and 50 million on-demand streams, again growing by 5% over the previous year. 62% of these had indie distribution. Then there were 892 that received between 50 million and 100 million streams. 37% had indie distribution.

That’s where the music middle class seems to stop, since at that point most artists that cracked 100 million or more streams had major distribution.

At the top of the heap there were 46 artists that received between 1 billion and 10 billion streams. These include Zach Bryan, Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan (a bit of a surprise) and SZA.

It All Means. . .

So what does all this mean? For one thing, it’s now possible to make a pretty good living from streaming even if your not a household word. What’s even better is that you no longer need to be signed to a major label to do so.

But one thing never changes. If you want to go from a star to a superstar, a major label is the only way to go, since they have the infrastructure that is too expensive to be duplicated if you don’t already have those type of artists at the label.

The only difference is that anyone on a star-level who has done it without a major is in such a better negotiating position these days and is able to dictate contract terms instead of the other way around like in the past.

So the very top end of the music business has changed, but not all that much. It’s the music middle class that is really gaining ground.

Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on music production, music, the music business, music AI, and social media.