Music Discourse Is Plentiful, Often Angry and Increasingly Not About Music at All
Why is industry- and culture-focused commentary now taking up such a huge portion of the music conversation?
“Does Anyone Like Music?”
When Sam Hockley-Smith published an essay with that title just a few weeks ago, he was actually writing about the (seemingly inescapable) hubbub around the popular “indie” band Geese and the skeezy promotional techniques that were employed on their behalf by a digital marketing company called Chaotic Good. If you have somehow avoided this hubbub, you can probably consider yourself lucky—unless, that is, you’re someone who gets a large amount of satisfaction from people recklessly throwing around the word “psyop”—but the controversy has at least shined a light on the way that monied actors in the music ecosystem are now using fake fans, pre-planned narratives and bought-off influencers to enact staged attempts at online virality. And though Geese have been the primary focal point of the discourse to date, The Guardian last week published an eye-opening feature by Shaad D’Souza which spelled out just how widespread these less-than-honorable marketing practices have become, even within the corners of the music sphere that continue to brand themselves as “indie.”
Part of the reason this story caught fire is because it called into question the authenticity of the fandom that has sprung up around Geese and other similarly hyped artists. Even in an age where listeners are routinely spoon-fed content via algorithms that they have little understanding of and even less control over, most music consumers still like to think that their tastes are entirely their own. This controversy not only called that notion into question, but suggested that people had been tricked into liking something subpar that they would have otherwise discarded. Hockley-Smith touched on this directly in his piece:
The latest discourse around Geese is not actually about Geese, and it’s not even about the tactics that Chaotic Good employed to keep Geese in the conversation. It’s actually about insecurity.
That insecurity is exactly what he was referring to when he called the essay “Does Anyone Like Music?,” but perhaps his scope shouldn’t have been so limited.
Set aside the question of whether Geese are actually any good, or whether Chaotic Good’s marketing techniques should be regarded as a nefarious new form of treachery, and what’s far more interesting is the degree to which this story—which is easily the biggest music story of 2026 so far—has so little to do with actual music. It’s about fandom and music industry machinations. It’s about social media and the growing sense that everything we encounter online is tainted by shadowy forces and undisclosed big-money deals. At its core, it’s about a loss of control, and our seeming inability to do much of anything as corporations and capital steamroll their way into virtually every pocket of the culture.
Those feelings aren’t hemmed in by genre, nor are they dependent on individuals’ allegiance to any particular artist, scene or sound. In many cases, they’re even shared by people who don’t know much about music at all, which is likely why the prevailing music discourse has in recent years taken on an increasingly systemic orientation. Think about it: During prior eras (and the 2000s and 2010s in particular), topics like royalty payouts, corporate consolidation, major-label acquisitions, the influence of private equity, the politics of streaming platforms and the potential impact of AI would have been fringe concerns, the sort of thing that only a handful of nerds and industry insiders would have paid serious attention to. In 2026, however, they’re full-fledged conversation drivers, and tend to inspire more passionate responses—and, to put it in contemporary internet parlance, “engagement”—than even the most fawning coverage of any artist who’s not already in the superstar tier.
Given that, it’s no wonder that so many music journalists, bloggers and talking heads have cut way back on reviews and other traditional coverage formats, pivoting instead toward what might be described as “big picture” issues. Some of that shift is happening at established music media outlets, but it’s especially noticeable on platforms like Substack and Patreon, where a glut of writers and content creators have devoted themselves to delivering industry-focused takes on the regular. As you might guess, many of these takes are of the highly critical, “things are going to hell” variety—and yes, First Floor sometimes engages in this behavior—but anyone who looks more closely at this budding ecosystem will quickly see that there’s more than doom and gloom on offer.
For every “Spotify is destroying music” screed—and there are admittedly a lot of those—there’s a separate foray into sober analysis or plain-old “everyone is overreacting” contrarianism. Techno-optimism, both cautious and enthusiastic, is also readily available, and in a sign of just how much shameless hucksterism and Silicon Valley-style optimization language have infected the culture, you’ll even find some guys touting their “insights” with the brash confidence of a timeshare salesman.
That sort of bravado is baked right into The Artist Economy. Authored by Toronto-based artist manager and music brand supervisor Joel Gouveia, the newsletter went viral earlier this year with an article called “The Death of Spotify: Why Streaming is Minutes Away From Being Obsolete.” Other pieces have taken aim at familiar industry “bad guys” like Live Nation and Universal Music Group, but while Gouveia claims to be producing “pieces that make people in the industry uncomfortable and make artists feel seen,” the man is no populist, nor does he seem particularly concerned with preserving the integrity of music culture. His most recent headline reads, “Maybe You Should be Using AI to Make Music: The Ozempic of the Music Industry,” and in the article, he states that he feels “exhausted by the moral panic” around the technology. Last month, he literally penned a love letter to the modern music industry, and he’s also been publishing a series of pieces he calls “The Superfan Playbook.” In fact, Gouveia specifically promises that anyone who signs up to the paid tier of The Artist Economy will receive:
The insider playbooks. Frameworks for superfan monetization, sync licensing, touring economics and artist campaign strategy. The analysis I’d normally charge consulting rates to deliver.
This sort of “only I have the answer” bluster has long been commonplace on platforms like LinkedIn, but with Substack essentially handing out megaphones to anyone who wants one, it seems that the self-styled business gurus have begun to worm their way into music discourse as well. (Funnily enough, Gouveia devoted the very first article on The Artist Economy to clapping back at someone who’d trashed one of his posts on LinkedIn.) In a time of growing unease and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo, slippery salesmen have stepped into the void, marketing their confidence as bravery while hawking their “hacks” and “playbooks” as verified paths towards not just survival, but success.
Thankfully though, not everyone on Substack has made boastfulness and braggadocio a centerpiece of their editorial. Music marketer Darren Hemmings, for instance, has devoted his Network Notes newsletter to sharp industry critique and analysis, but he’s done so with relative humility, foregrounding the topics he’s writing about as opposed to his own ego. Music X, which is headed up by Dutch lecturer Maarten W. but also includes contributions from a variety of voices, has spent years calmly tracking changes in both the music industry and music culture, particularly as they relate to advances in technology. Researcher and artist Brodie Conley has taken a similar approach with his Building Blocks newsletter, sharing his measured thoughts on “the systems that shape how music is produced, distributed, and consumed, and the many forms of value it creates.”
For those seeking something more visual, STVDIO+—a newsletter written by Benjamin James, a former music tech reporter at Billboard—has during the last year been publishing a brilliant series of maps, illustrating the landscape for things like investment, music AI tools, vinyl sales and even the keywords used by Spotify execs during a quarterly earnings call. Eye-popping, Instagram-ready visuals also loom large in the work of Barcelona-based writer Frankie Pizá, whose essential FRANKA newsletter—which is published in Spanish—also providing insightful analysis of industry deals, the dynamics of fandom and the ethical complexities of modern-day music culture.
Musician Jamie Brooks, in contrast, has given The Seat of Loss a far more academic orientation, applying a historical and often sociological lens while crafting periodic deep dives into the current state of touring, music journalism, fandom, ghostwriting and a litany of other topics. At the other end of the spectrum, Tony Price has adopted a sort of enfant terrible persona while writing MAXIMUM EXPOSURE INC., an intentionally provocative, stridently worded and occasionally quite funny newsletter that in many ways seems to be channeling the ghost of the now-mythical HIPSTER RUNOFF blog from the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Elsewhere, journalist Emily White publishes essays about “the music business, fandom, community, discovery and artist sustainability” on emwhitenoise, musician and data analyst Chris Dalla Riva leads with numbers in his Can’t Get Much Higher newsletter, and while the name Vinyl Culture might lead readers to expect a Substack devoted to dusty slabs of wax, author Chinmaya Srivastava is in fact far more interested in tracking industry dealings, putting the movements of Spotify, the major labels, AI firms and other heavy hitters under the microscope.
When it comes to industry analysis, however, Cherie Hu’s Water & Music arguably remains the gold standard, and though its pivot into strategic research and paid advisory services means that the newsletter is published far less often, it’s still capable of providing top-shelf insights, like last month’s “Why superfan subscriptions are dying out.” A similar level of quality can be found in Critical Listening, a Patreon-based podcast in which musician / lecturer Max Alper (a.k.a. Peretsky) and acclaimed journalist Liz Pelly serve up unsparing critiques of the music industry and its multitude of less-than-honorable business practices.
All of these names represent only a fraction of the writers and voices operating in this particular lane, and when you factor in all of the additional posts and articles about Spotify, AI music and other hot-button topics from people who don’t primarily write about music, the amount of industry- and culture-focused content becomes almost infinite. Audiences are clearly interested in this stuff, and while most traditional press outlets initially missed the boat on that, they too have shifted their editorial to meet the demand.
In the electronic realm, Resident Advisor launched the RA Pro newsletter, promising biweekly, “bite-sized look[s] at the trends and themes impacting businesses in the electronic music industry,” and in just the past few months has dedicated serious real estate to features on the booming, brand-powered business of pop-up raves and the challenges of making music in an age when political tensions are increasingly putting arts funding at risk. DJ Mag—the same magazine whose annual Top 100 DJs list is full of mindless Ibiza fodder—has followed suit, running in-depth looks at how independent music is being strangled by the major labels’ growing tentacles and the way that Lisbon’s DIY music scene has been completely upended by rampant gentrification. Even Mixmag, an outlet that’s spent decades running cheap, tabloid-level “news” stories about random drug busts and raver hijinks, has ventured into more serious waters, capping 2025 with an overview of the movement to boycott Spotify.
These outlets—and others like them, irrespective of genre—do still talk about music and continue to run things like artist interviews, but industry-focused editorial and pieces tackling the current state of the culture are making up a growing percentage of today’s editorial offerings. Moreover, it’s often those kinds of stories that gain the most traction on publications’ social media channels, as their intersection with politics and culture-war debates tend to attract not only likes and comments, but the toxic sort of “grab the popcorn and watch people tear each other to shreds” engagement that the algorithm loves to reward.
Speaking of social media, it’s paradoxically the place where talking about actual music is arguably still a growth industry, as anyone with an Instagram or TikTok account has surely noticed the tidal wave of aspiring influencers crashing into their feeds with videos touting their latest recommendations. Setting aside the utter lack of ethical guardrails around this content—if the aforementioned Geese scandal revealed anything, it’s just how willing many of these influencers are to promote something for money, and do so without any sort of disclaimer or public acknowledgment—it is at least true that they’re usually talking about specific artists and records. Their fandom and curation, manufactured as it may be, is undeniably part of what they’re selling to the public. That’s encouraging, but even then, the main thing that they’re selling is themselves. Their persona is the primary product, and as with most modern fandom, the question of whether people like that persona is generally a lot more important than whether audiences are actually interested in whatever they happen to be doing or talking about.
Even so, signs of fatigue with this model are already beginning to emerge, as several online commenters have begun to supplement talk of their favorite new records with forays into weightier issues. Emilie Hanskamp (a.k.a. Emilie the Aux) has built her brand with a series of recommendation-oriented “Best New Music of the Week” posts, but during the past few months, she’s also tackled Pitchfork’s new review paywall, the perils of algorithm-driven hyper-personalization, the federal monopoly lawsuit against Live Nation and the “fake fans” problem highlighted by the recent Geese kerfuffle. Over on YouTube, The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano (a.k.a. the internet’s busiest music nerd), who’s arguably the most prominent music critic on the planet, has also increasingly steered into more industry-focused waters. Though album reviews continue to be his bread and butter, he has an entire second channel devoted to “discussions and rants about the music industry,” and while some of those takes do focus on frivolous matters, he’s also posted short videos harshly attacking AI, Live Nation and Casey Wasserman, the powerful talent agency head honcho whose name popped up in the Epstein files. Last year, he did an hour-long interview with journalist Liz Pelly about Spotify’s shady business practices, and then made a point to talk to her again about the issue at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona.
Regardless of who’s doing the talking, the one constant between all of these voices is that what they’re saying is rooted in a deep-seated dissatisfaction with not just the modern music industry, but arguably the entire music ecosystem. Can you blame them? Artists are struggling to survive. (So are music publications, for that matter, along with the journalists who write for them.) Touring is prohibitively expensive for many musicians, and while that doesn’t stop them from trying—after all, there aren’t a lot of other reliable ways to even attempt to make money—the ticket prices being charged to the consumers who attend those shows continue to spiral. Meanwhile, small- and medium-sized venues are closing, and though festivals continue to proliferate, a growing number of them have been swallowed up by giant corporations and private equity, which in some cases links these events to weapons manufacturing, surveillance technology, resource extraction and other morally reprehensible enterprises.
As much as these ills are harming the music ecosystem, they’re in many cases the same ills that are corroding seemingly every facet of contemporary society. Gentrification. Corporate consolidation. Vertical integration. The elimination of the middle class. Rent-seeking. Extractive business practices. War. Genocide. Unregulated and underregulated tech platforms. Media silos. Algorithmically optimized content. The creeping influence of AI. Governmental complicity in the corporatization of virtually everything. The list goes on and on and on, and most of the time, these problems seem all but impossible to resolve, or even address in a meaningful way.
If you ask me, that’s why conversations about these issues have become so prevalent within the music realm. People are angry, scared and worried about the future, and while they feel incapable of fixing something as gargantuan as the impact of corporate consolidation on society as a whole, zeroing in on something like the monopolistic practices of a company like Live Nation at least feels more manageable. At a minimum, it’s something that music fans and commentators alike can get their heads around, and talking about it provides a vehicle for them to direct all of their rancor and dread about the darkness they see in the world around them.
Does that make for the most constructive discourse? Not necessarily, and the algorithm’s love of ragebait only worsens the situation, incentivizing the use of provocative headlines and the filling of online comment sections with unhinged vitriol. Anger and clear-eyed analysis often struggle to walk hand in hand, and while that can be frustrating for anyone who’s less interested in righteous indignation than simply learning about what’s actually going on behind the scenes, it’s certainly understandable while so many people lean toward the former.
Do people like music? Of course they do, but as much as music has historically provided an “escape” for those seeking refuge from the trials and tribulations of real life, that escape becomes a lot less soothing when one starts to think the artists are industry plants, the songs are written by AI and the whole system is controlled by a handful of extractive corporations. Raging against the practices of Spotify, Superstruct, Suno, Universal Music Group or any other music industry villain is unlikely to change that, but in a moment when the world often feels like it’s on verge of collapse, a little bit of catharsis goes a long way.
First Floor is published and overseen by Shawn Reynaldo, a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or other potential opportunities.