There's a fundamental shift happening in the music business right now.

And I believe it will affect all of us.

As a musician living in Los Angeles, I wanted to share my thoughts on what I believe the music business might look like in 2024 and 2025 for anyone pursuing a career in music.

Let me know — do you agree?

💣 What’s changing?

The decline of sync music.

The way I got many of my first sync placements was by submitting my songs to music libraries—sites with thousands of tracks for music supervisors to choose from. Namely, JinglePunks.

Cable TV shows, YouTube content creators, and low-to-mid-budget films used my music in their productions and I got paid a small royalty.

These early placements in reality TV shows and made-for-TV movies then helped me land a dedicated sync agent who got me some bigger spots.

For these types of productions, music is secondary. It’s background noise. A loud dance song in a nightclub, a violin when a character tears up, or an atonal drone to let you know something bad is about to happen.

But that’s going away.

Not the music in those types of shows. But the musicians who make it.

Tools like Soundraw let you generate new background music in just a click. So does Mubert.

With a few text prompts, you can generate an entire soundtrack’s worth of music without ever paying royalties again.

Famously, Discovery Networks bullied musicians into so they didn’t have to pay royalties again.

Impact on vocalists and top-liners.

AI vocals are already impacting two key areas of music production.

First, AI vocals are emulating popular singers everywhere. It's been almost a year since Drake and The Weeknd had a fake AI song go viral.

With the tools that produce these soundalikes freely available, it's going to be a game of whack-a-mole to try and stop future creators from making their own Beyoncé clone.

For every artist who opposes their AI-likeness being used in songs, there will be many more who would sign it away for the right price.

Second, vocalists who get paid to sing covers for EDM songs, feel-good pop anthems, and toplines for other artists are going to get less work.

Last month, I used a tool called Lalals. I recorded a vocal idea on my iPhone and imported it into Logic Pro X. Then, I quickly applied Melodyne to achieve 100% pitch correction and time correction.

Finally, I used Lalals to replace my iPhone demo with a studio-quality AI vocal exported in 24-bit WAVs. There was no noise and no artifacts, all in less than 25 minutes.

Imagine what this can do for bedroom producers who want to release a dance cover of an Elton John song.

The popularity of type beats

Type beats are instrumentals made by producers trying to emulate an already popular artist.

Type beats are sold on sites like Beatstars to artists who want to purchase instrumentals for their next release.

Because many new artists are inspired by existing popular artists, purchasing a type beat can be a fast way to license a high quality track that sounds just like their idols.

But AI can whip up a type beat in seconds.

Suno can produce a full length studio track with verses and choruses in seconds.

With an $8 monthly membership, you can buy enough credits to produce 250 songs.

Spotify mood playlists and generative AI

Many of us play Spotify playlists while we're cooking, cleaning, and falling asleep.

With generative AI, Spotify is about to transform into a limitless radio of random background noise.

They're already paying producers to create hundreds of tracks disguised as different artists. And AI seems like a logical next step.

📈 What happens next?

The value of recorded music continues to plummet.

Decades of record vinyl, CD, and MP3 sales have disappeared. Streaming royalties too.

The way for musicians to survive in this new world is to think differently about what they do.

Making music for the sake of music won't be enough to build a career. Music was already ubiquitous. And there's about to be even more of it.

It’s time to step up and stand out.

My predictions

Music made by humans for other humans won't go away. More AI songs will make their way to the radio or nightclubs. They’ll fill in gaps in TV show soundtracks.

And a few fun ones will probably hit Billboard.

But music connects us to a deeper history of humanity, sharing our thoughts and fears through noise.

Musicians who lean into being human and building a real connection will stand out in a sea of noise.

There will be a mini gold rush on training data for AI algorithms. Right now, companies building AI music models are hiring musicians to train their algorithms for the future of music production.

A world of boutique synth plugins or guitar emulators with sounds based on real human players may find its way to a plugin near you very soon.

Live performance is here to stay. Although concerns about the climate have people wondering about the future of touring, one thing seems certain — live performance matters.

Sharing a moment with another person in a real venue with real lights and music coming through the speakers is a human experience.

Whether we see a resurgence in real instruments, turntables, or just events centered around a musical community, time will tell.

The future is micro. As an artist, it's your job to figure out what you want to say, where you want to say it, and say it as loudly as possible for the fraction of people who care most deeply.

Use your voice to change the world in the ways you want to see.

Generative AI requires human input to work. It can only copy what already exists.

What comes next is up to you.