Blog: Scenes

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the digital entertainment world. Check out the latest from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage - games, video, music, audio, social, or critical developments.

The future is podcast scenes: What podcasters can learn from history podcast success

Rutger Rosenborg

15 Jan 2025

Cultural trends

Audio

Podcasts

Whether the result of eschatological anxiety caused by shifting global political alignments or the decline in humanities students in academic institutions, the business of history – especially in audio...

min read

Anti-algorithm, anti-perfection - the rise of a music counter-culture

Mark Mulligan

20 Dec 2024

SoundCloud

Scenes

Music

Today’s music landscape is one defined by abundance and immediacy. In today’s chronically-online world, everything is over-ground, immediately. Scenes have to work really hard to be underground and...

min read

‘Brat’ summer and the dilemmas of going mainstream

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Aug 2024

Charli XCX

BRAT summer

music marketing

It has become a rule of thumb that the moment corporate America begins capitalising on a trend, that trend begins to die. Cultural fragmentation has helped niches and scenes flourish, but it has also left...

min read

Social is the new entertainment; enter MIDiA’s new social vertical

Hanna Kahlert

24 Jul 2024

Social

Audience behaviour

Social platforms are now inextricable from the digital world and every aspect of entertainment. Fans and A&Rs alike discover new music on social platforms. Marketing strategies for artists and concerts...

min read

Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jun 2024

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

Charli XCX

“ I’m famous, but not quite ,” Charli XCX sings on ‘I might say something stupid’, a moment of honest insecurity amidst the brash club anthems that make up her new album Brat . It is a familiar...

min read

The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2024

music fandom

music journalism

Record labels

As a former music journalist, I can say that layoffs are somewhat to be expected when you work in media. Nobody gets into this industry looking for stability. But the past 12 months have felt especially...

min read

Identity and culture have killed genre in a scenes-driven industry

Kriss Thakrar

31 Oct 2023

Scenes

jazz

TikTok

This year has seen a renaissance for jazz in popular culture, with artists like Laufey, DOMi and JD Beck, and Ezra Collective succeeding on commercial and critical levels. However, their successes also...

min read

Why AI music may make fandom even more important

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Mar 2023

artificial intelligence

fragmented fandom

Record labels

Artificial intelligence (AI) was as hot a topic as ever at last week’s SXSW conference, where debate swirled around how human artists will compete with AI-generated music. As more parts of music-making...

min read

Spotify’s vertical feed could change music discovery, but not for the reason you think

Tatiana Cirisano

9 Mar 2023

Music streaming

Spotify

SoundCloud

Just a few years ago, Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist was a harbinger for culture. But a lot has changed. Artists want (and need) to build deeper relationships with fans, and gen Z consumers want more...

min read

Emerging market music cultures are shaping the global music industry

Srishti Das

13 Jan 2023

Scenes

cultural insight

emerging markets

The music industry's focus has slowly but steadily moved towards emerging markets in order to find the next billion music consumers. The first phase of this move saw major labels consciously pushing their...

min read

Midnights: modern-day music marketing 101

Ashleigh Millar

27 Oct 2022

taylor swift

Community

online communities

Are we surprised that Taylor Swift has broken records (yet again) after dropping her new album, Midnights (and Midnights (3am Edition) )? In the first five days of release, Midnights earned more than an...

min read

What happens when the “relentless toll” of the music industry meets the creator economy in a cost-of-living crisis?

Hanna Kahlert

29 Sep 2022

underground

cost of living

Music

The music industry is in a cultural crisis. It is more demanding than ever to be a successful artist, with the work required to meet the demands of social algorithms and to cut through the clutter being...

min read

WMG is moving beyond superstars – and that is a good thing

Mark Mulligan

16 Sep 2022

Fandom

fragmented fandom

Streaming

Warner Music Group’s ( WMG’s) Steve Cooper recently stated that the major is no longer financially dependent on superstars – which is, of course, quite a different thing from not being culturally...

min read