Guest column: Music Ally publishes guest columns which voice the opinions of notable authors that advance specific perspectives on important issues. These are chosen at the Editorial team’s discretion and are not paid-for. You can explore the guest column archive here.
This guest post is by Patrick Clifton, executive director of the Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts (ORCA) – it appears here first, before publication on ORCA’s Substack.
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl’s recent investor letter makes explicit a strategic pivot for the firm that some may find dystopian. “New listeners of all ages are exploring historic catalogs and embedding clips into short-form videos… Best of all… AI begins to enable fans to interact with the music they love.”
WMG doesn’t need new hits, since “27% of US streaming consumption in 2024 [came] from new releases versus 45% 10 years ago, [so] music companies no longer rely…on the success of new releases.” The firm will invest in “margin-accretive acquisitions of high-quality catalogs” via a deal with Bain Capital, to double-down on older music. Warner is “actively harnessing AI to win”, which will leverage the assets in their repertoire where “robust performance from our catalog… keep[s] brands relevant and growing… through an always-on marketing philosophy.”
Sir Lucian Grainge outlined successes in Universal Music Group’s long-term strategy to investors on their earnings call – “We delivered …progress…advancing Streaming 2.0, scaling artist and label services, accelerating superfan initiatives, expanding in high-growth markets, and leading on responsible AI.”, where they see “new AI formats that will offer fans…hyper-personalization and social expression through artist-centric music experiences.” A similar strategy based on (re)monetization of owned rights and offshoring A&R, rather than breaking artists to generate new proprietary copyrights.
Before streaming, the music economy was regenerative. Brick-and-mortar retailers relied on new product to drive footfall. Media needed new artists and music to engage audiences. iTunes depended on new tracks to drive sales. This emphasis on novelty was replicated during streaming’s high growth phase. With up to 50% of playback from playlists, DSPs built global playlist brands and mimicked radio programming, with human curators deciding what music was “hot”, especially in popular genres like Hip Hop and Dance & Electronic.
“Older music became the norm because it’s good business for DSP’s and for their partners who own that music”
Prioritising retention – and older music
COVID lockdowns enabled near-complete household penetration in mature streaming markets. Post-COVID, there were fewer new streamers to acquire, so DSP’s prioritised retention. As the metric is a function of engagement frequency and session length; the less jarring the listener’s experience, the greater the probability they’d keep paying. Advances in machine-learning improved algorithmic programming, which could be optimised for retention as well as benefit the bottom line. Older music became the norm because it’s good business for DSP’s and for their partners who own that music.
This pivot away from new music at the majors is evident, from the restructures of their frontline labels; the decimation of headcount; the collapse of label brands into each other; the investment into arms-length A&R through services and distribution infrastructure (via the “bullpen strategy”). How long until we stop calling them “major labels”?
Culture will tire of old music. For the labels that founded the Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts (ORCA), it should. Humanity’s social history is marked by changes in music that reflect and influence wider culture.
For ORCA, music is a dynamic artform; a medium that benefits from renewal, creative iteration and creative disruption. As a community of independent record labels, our foundation stories are rooted in counterculture, where many of the labels emerged from music scenes, from punk to rave, that rejected the status quo and revolutionised culture.
Investment in new music is critical
As a teenager, I snuck cassettes from my favourite metal and hip-hop artists into the house, hidden from my mother’s disapproving eyes. Music is a primary identifier of generational difference and the soundtrack to upheavals in culture.
As much as the sounds of rave or new wave still resonate and excite, the cultural frame that gave birth to them is from the last century. ORCA believes that continued investment in, and promotion of, new music is critical to allow a new generation of artists, fans, and record labels to coalesce around sounds that represent their generation and their participation in culture – and not the sounds or experiences of their parents.
Major music groups will re-monetise their assets by developing new formats on AI platforms (as they did with CDs, downloads and streaming), this time at unimaginable speed and scale.
With “brands” like Abba, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, and Prince more popular than ever, the bullishness of the opportunity to their investors is understandable. But if AI milks the cash cow by spitting out new iterations of popular Golden Oldies, soon every permutation will exist, leaving consumers and culture worn and spent. Training of LLM’s on old music won’t push music forward, it will create more music that sounds the same – and without the emotional input of humanity that makes music so vital. Intelligence devoid of soul is psychopathy.
“The nine ORCA labels surveyed invested nearly $240,000 per artist on average “
New music is an opportunity
The labels that founded ORCA own catalogues and have benefited monetarily from the growth of streaming. As Secretly Group CEO Darius Van Arman wrote in a piece on Music Business Worldwide, they will need to engage with AI to ensure the perspective of independents shapes this development. But as ORCA’s second report demonstrated, our labels’ monetary benefit from their catalogues is put back into new music, with the nine ORCA labels surveyed investing nearly $240,000 per artist on average on over 500 active music projects in 2023.
It’s a shame the majors now retreat from proprietary artist development. We see it as an opportunity. The current zeitgeist for nostalgia, itself an escape from an uncertain and turbulent world, will pass. The appetite for the classics will evaporate due to shifts in cultural appetites and an exhaustion of consumption accelerated by generative A.I. We’ll be ready with new music from new artists, there to excite the ears of fans.
In the meantime, our labels will still be in music culture, doing what we do. We’ll find and partner with great new artists who we like and respect. We’ll help them make music the way they want and to find ways for it to be heard.
We’ll continue to put out music that excites us. We hope some of it makes us and the artists money, but won’t lose sleep if it doesn’t, if at the very least we help enable some great music to enter the world that brings joy to fans and makes a positive cultural impact.
This guest post from ORCA is featured on Music Ally in advance of publication on their Substack on 25th March 2026.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
