TEN YEARS AGO this industry was totally different – digital was an unknown and divisive newcomer and the old guard still dictated the way most of the industry worked. Now we’re in a time where there’s an infinite number of models and approaches – instead of a one-size-fits-all, we have a different path for each and every artist, and no guarantee that each specific path is going to lead anywhere we want it to.

To look ahead another ten years and speculate what the music business might be like in 2025 is anyone’s guess. I’d love to see labels (or “content curators” as I’d like to call them) paying their artists enough money for the art to be created and a modest lifestyle to be achieved. I’d like to see business models emerge that make music and art sustainable again and given an intrinsic value that is greater than free. That legacy and the value of intellectual property depend on it.

I do imagine that all music will be streaming – we can’t be more than a few years away from digital radio being standard in cars, digital DJs spinning files that are all streamed (whether from their own private cloud or otherwise, instead of residing on their laptop hard drive), and the average consumer not owning any music at all but exclusively consuming from the cloud. That’s pretty much how it is already for a growing number of people. The throwback music fan will always be there, collecting vinyl and living the analog life when it comes to consuming music. I’d love for that to becoming a greater number again, but it’s not sustainable, environmentally or economically. The one piece of tech I’m waiting for? A 3D printer that can print full fidelity functional vinyl. Then we’d be onto something fresh!

Mark de Clive-Lowe

 

What The Future Looks Like: 12 predictions by 12 industry insiders on the future of dance music

Joey Negro: “Writing a decent song is still pretty hard, despite all the new tech we’ve been given.”
Terry Hunter: “In three years we will have a drastic shift in music as we know it.”
John-Christian Urich: “It seems like it could be corny, but it’s not. It works.”
Joe Shanahan: “It will be as it always has been for decades: about community.”
Mark Farina: “Good music will still be good music and bad will still be bad.”
Roy Davis, Jr.: “Streaming avenues will become a major source of income for most artists, if done correctly.”
Rees Urban: “Things will come full circle back to the underground mentality sooner than later…”

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