The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry, all through the lens of a music creator for the benefit of other music creators. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer in both music creation and music business at BIMM University UK, director of The SongLab Ltd and the author of The Music Business for Music Creators.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 57: The Next Generation of The Music Industry
The future of music depends on nurturing young talent, yet the path for emerging musicians can be as challenging as it is confusing. This episode takes a deep dive into Youth Music's insightful "Sound of the Next Generation" report, examining how the pandemic, economic hardship, and educational cuts have fundamentally altered young people's relationship with music.
I share concerning statistics revealing that just 55% of young people now identify as musical (down 10% from 2019), while 48% of 18-25 year olds report feeling lonely in today's disconnected world. Music remains a crucial lifeline, with 70% of respondents agreeing it helps them feel connected with others. As one young person puts it: "When I feel like my identity is being underrepresented, I look at music that I listen to and I feel seen."
The episode explores how systemic barriers prevent equal access to music opportunities. Young people from working-class backgrounds are significantly less likely to see themselves as musical performers or know someone who can support their progression. Geographic disparities show the north-south divide in stark relief, while gender imbalances persist particularly in digital music creation. Meanwhile, drastic funding cuts have decimated the grassroots music sector that historically supported talent development, with over £1 billion slashed from youth services in the last decade.
Technology is transforming how the next generation creates music, with traditional instrument playing decreasing while computer-based composition rises, yet 68% believe that a social media following is essential for industry success - a skill rarely taught in formal education. These evolving perspectives reflect a generation navigating a rapidly changing musical landscape, with 47% believing AI will create most future music.
What can we do to ensure diverse musical voices aren't lost? Listen as I unpack Youth Music's three crucial recommendations for government, education, and industry to rebuild the pipeline that produces tomorrow's musical talent. The health of our collective musical future depends on the actions we take today.
Please support the Rescue The Roots campaign:
https://www.youthmusic.org.uk/rescue-the-roots
Websites
www.jonnyamos.com
https://themusicbusinessbuddy.buzzsprout.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/themusicbusinessbuddypodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/jonny_amos/
Email
jonnyamos@me.com
The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy. Hello everybody and a very, very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback and ebook format. I'm a music creator with a variety of credits. I'm a consultant and artist manager and a senior lecturer in music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. My goal is to be here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this week's episode focuses on the next generation right, the next generation of people that will be representing the music industry going forward. So I'm talking about people all the way down from kind of you know, sort of early teenagers right up to those that are kind of in their late 20s. Like, let's go as wide as that, because these are the people that are going to be doing the things that we do in music in the years to come, if they're not already, right now. It's very important that we help them because they have faced some very difficult circumstances in recent years now, back in which I'll tap into in a minute, by the way but back in episode 48, I interviewed, uh, matt griffiths, um, who's a fine, fine guy, top, top fella. He is the CEO of Youth Music. Youth Music are a charity, a registered charity, that help to create funding opportunities to be able to have music accessible to young people. Right, they are an organisation that have made a huge difference over the years and continue to do so, even in challenging times. And I talked to Matt about, I mentioned a couple of quotes from the Sound of the Next Generation, which is a report they ran and published last year 2024, where they interviewed about 2,500 young people on their perspectives on their lives and on music. And I read it, and I read it a few times and it really, really touched me and it gave me a huge insight into what it's like to be young in these times and the things that we can do to help support them going forward so that our music industry continues to flourish. So that is the focus of today's episode.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, it should be worth mentioning this, right? So the last time before this report that Youth Music ran a report was 2019, right? So just think about that. Five years, quite a long time. Quite a lot of stuff has happened in that time, right? So young people throughout that time have lived through a cost of living crisis, a global pandemic that disrupted their education and their social development. You know rising education fees, dwindling employment opportunities and spiraling house prices.
Speaker 1:I'm reading this from the next, from the sound of the next generation report by youth music. So you know, to navigate that modern world right, young people need to build resilience and develop confidence. Being socially connected and developing skills and exploring creative pursuits are all great ways to improve mental well-being. We know and 70% of young people in this report agreed that music helps them to do that and to feel connected with others. So I'm going to pick out a few highlights from this report to get us thinking about the importance of this subject, because without the next generation, everything starts to fall apart, and so we need to do whatever it is that we can do in order to help them. Now, I don't have all the answers to that, but I do know it starts with just being aware of the kind of problems that they face and what we need to do to try and fix it. So let's go over a few of the things that define the next generation and their current struggle so that we know how to fix it, moving forward.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when asked, what does music mean to you? Some quotes, it means representation. When I feel like my identity is being underrepresented, I look at music that I listen to and I feel seen and I feel heard. When you listen to music, it can transform the way you are feeling. That's why so many people use it as a vehicle. It's a universal language, it's in my blood, it's in my genes. Creating music is speaking, the unspoken, what you can't say in normal conversation. When you can't speak, you can say through a song exactly what you want to say and you've got that complete freedom to be able to do it. 48% of people 18 to 25 years old say that they feel lonely. So, compared to 2019, that's considerably higher, and many young people feel that they have fewer opportunities and are less likely to enjoy school. Just 55% of young people now say that they are musical, which is down 10% from 2019.
Speaker 1:Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective attended a number of youth music-funded projects as teenagers. In a Time Mountain magazine article in December 2023, their band leader, femi, credits grassroots youth and community spaces with allowing them to hone their talents. He said I look at what youth clubs allow me to have and that's what makes me want to champion them. The schooling institution is under pressure to make sure that I can read and write. If you had zero funding, the saxophone is not going to be your highest priority, but a youth club is building where my ability To read and write is relevant and it's giving me hope and something to occupy my mind.
Speaker 1:There is the notion that music starts at home. Most parents believe their music will help their child's development, and that's 89% of early years parents. Early exposure to music at home plays a crucial role. Parents who are musically inclined are more likely to introduce their child to music from a young age. 77% of early years parents believe it's important that children listen to a diverse range of music. They list pop, rock, hip-hop, r&b and other genres as music that under fives are listening to on a passive level. This vast majority of early years parents agree that nursery rhymes are important for a child's development, but also the same number think that any music is important. It is a shared common ground for babies and children to start making friends and feel included and feel connected with their families. That's a real insight, isn't it? That's a really, really, really early on agreement that young people make at a very young age.
Speaker 1:Most school-aged children enjoy music lessons and really like their music teachers. However, access to music in schools has dropped significantly. Parental confidence in school music is very low. Only 11% of parents of under fives think that their children will get enough musical education at school. The squeeze in school music is well documented. Music exam entries have fallen rapidly since 2010, with the number of people taking GCSE music declining by 36% and music A-level entries falling by 45%. I had singing lessons at school. It was only for 20 minutes once a week and it used to get cancelled all the time because it wasn't seen as a priority. But for someone like me, my singing lesson was a priority.
Speaker 1:Let's just flash forward a minute. Let's just imagine that was the next Alicia Keys, the next Georgia Smith, the next Sam Smith, whoever it might be. Just think about that. That little moment there that feels almost like a kind of throwaway thought is actually hugely significant. That can have an impact on people later in life, that musician there could have been, somebody that people listen to later in life, are inspired by, and it becomes a chain reaction of further influence. That's why this stuff is so important. One thing that should be included in the curriculum is the idea of importance of music, how music stretches from the very earliest tribes all the way through to today and is connected with life, with religion and with social rituals. Let's make sure we include that so that people can understand where music came from and how it's so central to people's emotional health and not just something commercial, competitive or throw away.
Speaker 1:Is the modern school system killing creativity? Young people feel least musical aged 16 to 17, and that is the time, of course, that they're taking their GCSEs in the UK. Cultures in different parts of the world conceptualise music in many ways, offering many more harmonic, rhythmic and structural possibilities. Technology affords new ways to explore these, but this is rarely reflected in what the offer looks like. Some of the melodies and the harmonies that you learn through Western classical music are great for helping people to make music, so it's got its place, but I think there's too much focus on that. Let's teach children more about global ethnic music cultures. Show them how important it is to people's lives. Let's talk about all the different ways people make and consume music. Let's show them all the different rhythms, scales and instruments from around the world.
Speaker 1:Alongside this, rapid changes in technology over the past six years have changed perceptions around what it means to be a musician. Over 75% think you don't have to play an instrument to musician and 73% think that you can be a musician without reading music. Now there's a strong argument for both of those two things there. Things there. Less than half of 18 to 25 year olds know what career paths are available in the industry beyond being a performer or artist. 68% think that having a social media following is an essential part of working in the music industry. Yet this is not something which is commonly taught. I don't. Here's a quote. I don't think social media is appreciated enough in teaching of music or even if you do a degree in music, there needs to be more teaching to use it as a professional tool, because it is a professional tool. Further evidence of technological shifts and generational gaps of evidence by this the number of people playing an instrument has significantly dropped, as has the number of people taking up singing. Djing has fallen. People writing music is staying around the same and people that make music on a computer or other devices increased. People who make music videos has increased and people that create music using AI has increased. Videos has increased and people that create music using AI has increased.
Speaker 1:The research also shows that only half of young people feel that music artists are paid fairly, so it's no wonder that the proportion of working class actors, musicians and writers in the UK has halved since the 1970s right up to the 2020s. It's simply not affordable for everybody. Young people from a working class background are far less likely to know someone who can support them to progress into music. The cost of new equipment and learning their craft is a barrier for many young people, especially those from working class backgrounds. They're also less likely to play an instrument than their peers from higher income backgrounds. These barriers affect how young creatives see themselves, as children from lower income backgrounds are less likely to identify as musical. The research also shows that children from a lower income background feel less supported to make music and less confident to share music. They are more likely to make music alone and less likely to picture themselves as a musical performer in the future, not just getting paid for it, but even making and performing music in their own spare time. These patterns are multiplied where a child's parents are also from a working class background, suggesting these barriers are harder to shift.
Speaker 1:Where multiple generations have had limited access to music, people in the north of England get nowhere near the same opportunities than those in the southern part of the country. Wales is the only country in the UK where the majority of young people don't feel musical. Overall, girls are slightly more likely to be making music than boys. However, there's still a digital gender divide, with 10% fewer girls and young women making music on computers or laptops and 6% fewer using DJ decks. When it comes to music making on phones, there was no difference. The gender imbalances seem to get worse as young women move from education into the industry. A 2023 inquiry by the House of Commons Women in Equity Select Committee into the Misogyny in Music Industry concludes that women working in the music industry face limitations in opportunity, a lack of support, gender discrimination and sexual harassment and assault, as well as the persistent issue of unequal pay in a sector dominated by self-employment and gender power imbalances. Children and young people from black, african, caribbean or black British ethnic groups are 20% more likely to make music than any other ethnic group. This applies to instruments, digital creation and writing music Intersectionality the concept of intersectionality describes the way in which systems of inequality intersect, so where people may have multiple characteristics that could be gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class or other groups at risk of discrimination that can face prejudice on multiple fronts.
Speaker 1:Now, whilst this research did not deep dive onto the subject of intersectionality, they say that we know from other studies that people face greater discrimination where multiple barriers collide. A 2023 research report called Unseen Unheard From Attitude is Everything, and Black Lives in Music is a powerful example. 89% of black disabled music professionals reported facing some form of discrimination in the music industry. Similarly, the Misogyny in Music Inquiry found that issues are intensified for women faced with intersectional barriers, particularly racial discrimination. The report also highlights a gap between diversity and inclusion. Whilst progress has been made in some areas of diversity and access, there's still a long way to go when it comes to inclusion. This is especially true once people reach the music industries. The wider research all tells the same messages around poor practice, discrimination and unsafe working environments for people from marginalizedised groups.
Speaker 1:The grassroots, youth and community sectors that support the talent pipeline do a great job of creating inclusive environments, but once young people progress into the industries, their experience may be vastly different. The grassroots youth and community music sector is in crisis. The organisations use music to provide vital and life-affirming support for children and young people. They are also fuelling a talent pipeline. They are in grave danger and it's rarely talked about. More than two-thirds of local authorities have cut or plan to cut their arts and cultural budgets as they struggle to balance their books. Add to this over £1 billion worth of cuts to youth services in the last decade and it's clear that austerity measures have hit hard.
Speaker 1:Pop music continues to be the most popular music genre amongst children and young people, but it's closely followed by hip-hop, and there's no big surprise. The BPI's All About the Music 2023 report showed it to be one of the biggest genres in the singles market. It's a genre dominated by homegrown talent, with british artists being behind eight of the 10 biggest hip-hop tracks in the uk that year. Music helps young people to be productive, with 58 listening to it whilst focusing on a task. As wireless earphones have grown in popularity, we've seen a significant increase in those listening to music whilst travelling.
Speaker 1:37% of young people feel that genres are not relevant anymore. There's a quote here that says genre is important, but sometimes the genre kind of becomes a little bit irrelevant. All new music is kind of just an amalgamation of lots of different genres and different sounds of different artists or different inspirations. With the rise of short form content like TikTok and Reels, I feel like the genre is not really at the forefront anymore. More than half of young people said that they think music has to go viral in order to be successful.
Speaker 1:The findings of the report point towards a generation of young people that are both optimistic about the future and adept at navigating technological evolutions to express themselves creatively. 47% of young people felt that most music in the future will be made by AI. This chimes with the recent research which also found two-thirds of 16 to 24 year olds were embracing AI to assist them with their creative process. A further quote says you have to look at how people are consuming now and create for that. We are seeing more and more people putting music together in new ways with new technologies, and it will evolve and there'll be exciting new formats that will come out. As long as they're given the education and resources, people will always find ways to create great music.
Speaker 1:The report makes three recommendations moving forward from their findings. Number one is this the UK government needs to invest in a long-term music strategy for growth that includes grassroots, youth and community music. Number two education providers and policy makers must reimagine the music curriculums in order to improve access, relevance and progression. Number three industry must prioritise inclusion and safeguarding cultures. Well, there we have it. It's a pretty sobering insight, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I'm certainly not here to, kind of, you know, get anybody down thinking about this. You know, this is this, is the UK right. This is where we find a way to win. We have done for centuries, and this is no different. The UK has held it all over the world. You know, there's certain things that we do very well. Music is most certainly one of them. If we only have to look at the history of our species for everybody to see that, actually, the greatest ideas usually come in the form of innovation from a harder time. Right when you look at a dip in an economy, all of a sudden you see new musical acts coming out, because it gives them something to focus on.
Speaker 1:Now, if there's anything that you heard in that report there that you kind of just thought no, that's not quite true. Then don't worry, because, remember, a lot of the people that were interviewed here were very, very young, right? You think about all the things that you know as you grow, right, and we didn't know things like that when we were younger. So it might be that there's certain things that you think that's not really true or that's not inaccurate. What matters is that we are absorbing the views of the next generation. Their views will change because everyone's views change as they grow, as they learn more about the world and more about themselves as they move forward into that world. But it's very important that we just absorb the status that many young people have been through, because the last few years have been undeniably challenging. And if we look at the modern era and I've heard many people in recent years say where's all the big British artists? Why are all the American artists dominating? It may be just may be because of all the cuts that we went through in the last decade, which meant that teenagers were not accessing music-making opportunities in the same way that they were 10 years prior to that.
Speaker 1:Now, the whole purpose of this podcast, right, of course, is to try and educate and inspire music creators by understanding the business behind music. But we have to take a step back sometimes and go. What does the business of music look like if we don't have a business? Because the business is people. It's people and songs and performances and everything else that comes with that. So if we don't have the next generation of people that are ready to take that, then what do we have? Okay, that's enough from me today. I just wanted to shine a light on the importance of this report, which was conducted by the fantastic Youth Music, and, my God, we need them. Okay, that's enough from me today. Thank you for being here. Everybody, have a great day and may the Force be with you. The Music Business Party. The Music Business Party.
