'BBL Drizzy’
The eye of the storm for generative music AI
'BBL Drizzy’
Hanna Kahlert
Hanna is one of our expert analysts, helping drive MIDiA’s research into the future of digital entertainment. Her key areas of interest are cross-entertainment audience behaviour, the creator economy, and social platforms.
Commodification’s kickbacks: trends emerging in the pendulum swing back from content overload and AI
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the state of entertainment (and culture more broadly). AI generated content is taking up ever-larger swathes of the internet. Passive consumption drives high numbers that...
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Death of the town square
Social fragmentation and a decentralised digital future
Social platforms have long ‘civilised’ the online world by providing common gathering grounds, but internal disruption and proliferating competition threaten this status quo. While the dominant players...
Another Fake Drake? AI is decoupling artists and their voices (and there’s no coming back)
Drake has had perhaps one of the most publicly up-and-down relationships with generative AI. There was the AI Drake music generator, which he was dead set against. Then there was ‘Heart on My Sleeve’,...
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Sustainability from chaos
How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry
Success in the modern music industry has been transformed by the streaming era. Previous markers and methods, such as national charts and radio plays, have been replaced by streaming playlists and social...
The state of the attention economy: why don’t fan-first platforms work?
The music industry is increasingly looking to fan-first solutions to drive its next era of growth (and solve artists’ financial woes), with all eyes towards the Taylor Swift model of fan frenzy. At the...
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Songs as cultural moments (and why TikTok trends are so appealing)
The music industry is racing in two different directions at once. On the one side is the push for more music to be made by more people for less money – underpinning the $500 million valuation of Suno...
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Social companies face a fragmenting digital ecosystem
On the surface, it is a year of opportunity for social platforms. TikTok may face a ban in the US, opening market share for Reels, Shorts, and any other platform with social video features to sweep in...
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Audience agency and the value of social media: the rise of the “digitine”
“Let them eat cake,” declared model and influencer Haley Kalil , dressed for the $75,000-per-ticket Met Gala in an unironically Marie Antoinette-style dress, in a viral TikTok video last weekend. Somehow,...
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Cutting through the clutter: why an analogue revival is inevitable
The jury is very much still out on generative AI and its copyright obligations. Yet the Pandora’s box of AI-generated content has already been opened, and there is no going back. For a world which has...
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Music fandom’s future (and its existential crisis)
The launch of Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department”, broke records last week (small surprise there). Swift’s reputation for playing to her fanbase has once again proven to...
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Niche is mainstream
How scenes, niche aggregators, and creators will reshape entertainment
As niche officially becomes mainstream, the entertainment industry faces a delicate balance. Audiences are losing interest in broad, mainstream propositions, but hyper-personalised niches are inherently...
AI cannot replace creators… and the proof, surprisingly, is books
The asset-class-ification of entertainment has tended to reduce art to content made only to ensnare views, which lends itself to generative AI uptake. However, in a digital economy increasingly looking...
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The techification of entertainment (and why it needs to reverse)
Entertainment today is almost inseparable from streaming – for better and for worse. The tech infrastructure that underpins today’s entertainment industry has had a huge impact not only on how content...
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Forget TikTok trends; the scene is TikTok itself
Much of marketing today focuses on chasing the latest TikTok trend. Catching the ‘next big thing’ just as it is taking off, then watching the cultural clout dissolve as the trend disappears as quickly...
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Reddit’s IPO is a nail in the coffin for the centralised internet
Last week, Reddit, the 19 year old social(ish) platform and long-time backbone of the internet, went up for IPO. The news is not exactly a surprise; the company has been hinting at it for years now, and...
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Gender inequality in music mirrors the challenges of streaming… as do its opportunities for change
It has never been easier to become a music artist, but it has never been harder to turn that into a long-term career. A hyper-saturated content environment means record levels of competition and decreasing...
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What would a post-TikTok (US) future look like?
The US House of Representatives has just passed a bill, with bipartisan support, which would make TikTok break with parent company Bytedance or be banned from app stores. Based on current discourse, it...
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BE THE CHANGE
Gender equity in music
In many ways, women ruled the music industry in 2023. Women swept the 2024 Grammy Awards, winning all the “big four” categories. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé completed record-breaking tours and, according...
Niche is mainstream. So… what next?
Entertainment industries today are navigating two contrasting pressures. On the one side is the demand for niche personalisation: algorithms drive hyper-targeted content to just the right audiences, who...
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