A song created in a bedroom can reach listeners across continents within hours, while streaming has effectively placed decades of recorded music in our pockets. The business is thriving, too. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the trade organization representing the global recording industry, global recorded music revenue reached a record $31.7 billion in 2025, with streaming accounting for more than 69 percent of the total.
Yet beneath that extraordinary growth is a question the industry should take more seriously: As music becomes bigger, is its culture becoming smaller? I believe the greatest threat to music is not artificial intelligence. It is an industry increasingly conditioned to value scale above culture.
Streams, followers, engagement rates, and viral moments have become convenient measures of success. They tell us how far something has traveled. They cannot tell us whether it created a movement, strengthened a community, or changed the way a generation understood itself.
That distinction matters because music has historically grown from places before it conquered platforms. Jazz was inseparable from New Orleans. Motown carried Detroit with it.
Hip-hop emerged from communities in the Bronx. Grunge became identified with Seattle. House music grew from Chicago’s club culture.
These movements became global precisely because they began with something intensely local: musicians influencing one another, venues willing to take risks, audiences gathering around a sound, and communities developing identities that could not have been manufactured by a marketing department. Streaming has undeniably expanded opportunity. IFPI reported 837 million paid subscription accounts worldwide in 2025, and every global region recorded revenue growth.
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