Journal 004: Is the Middle of the Music Industry Disappearing?

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

I've been thinking about this for a while.

And the more conversations I have with artists, producers and people who've been around the industry for a couple of decades, the more I hear the same feeling.

Something feels... different.

Not necessarily worse.

Just different.

The music industry has never been easy.

Making a living from music has always required talent, resilience, timing and a fair amount of luck.

That hasn't changed.

But I do think the structure underneath the industry has.

And I think it's changing faster than many people realise.

The industry used to have a middle.

When I first came into music, there was a fairly recognisable path.

You started at the bottom.

You spent years developing your craft.

You built relationships.

You released music.

You played gigs.

You earned respect.

You slowly built a reputation.

Some people reached the very top.

Most didn't.

But a huge number of people built sustainable careers in the middle.

Not famous.

Not anonymous.

Just working musicians.

Working producers.

Working engineers.

People who'd carved out a place in the ecosystem.

That middle mattered.

It wasn't glamorous.

But it gave the industry depth.

Today, the ladder looks very different.

The barriers to entry have almost disappeared.

Software is cheaper.

Knowledge is everywhere.

Distribution is instant.

Marketing is free if you know how to use it.

A producer can make a track in their bedroom on Monday, upload it on Tuesday, go viral on Friday and have industry attention by the following week.

That wasn't the reality twenty years ago.

And I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

In many ways, it's brilliant.

Access has opened up.

More people can create.

More voices can be heard.

That's something to celebrate.

But every change creates consequences.

The old rules no longer guarantee the same outcome.

Here's what I think a lot of people in my generation are wrestling with.

Many of us spent twenty years learning the rules.

Learning the etiquette.

Learning the business.

Building relationships.

Working our way through the industry one step at a time.

That path made sense because that's how the industry worked.

Today...

Some artists skip entire stages.

Some never sign to labels.

Some never DJ.

Some never release physically.

Some build audiences before they've even released a record.

Others build careers entirely through content.

They're not breaking the rules.

They're playing a different game.

That's where the pressure starts.

The middle tier now finds itself squeezed from both directions.

At the top, established artists continue benefiting from years of audience-building, infrastructure and reputation.

At the bottom, a new generation enters with tools, platforms and opportunities that simply didn't exist before.

The middle is left adapting to both.

That's not easy.

Especially when you've built your career around a set of assumptions that no longer hold true.

Respect looks different now.

I sometimes hear people say,

"The new generation doesn't respect the industry."

I'm not convinced that's entirely true.

I think they respect different things.

Many younger artists don't see the same gatekeepers.

They don't feel the need to follow the same traditions.

They're less interested in waiting for permission.

Less interested in proving themselves through the old routes.

They're not necessarily rejecting the past.

They're simply building the future using different tools.

Whether we like that or not, it's happening.

The danger for the middle.

The biggest risk isn't age.

It isn't technology.

It isn't even competition.

It's rigidity.

If you've built your identity around the way the industry used to work, every new shift feels like a threat.

But industries evolve.

Music has always evolved.

The artists and businesses that survive aren't always the most talented.

They're often the ones willing to adapt without losing who they are.

That's a difficult balance.

You don't have to chase every trend.

You don't have to dance on TikTok if that's not who you are.

You don't have to abandon your values.

But you do need to understand the landscape you're operating in.

Ignoring change has never been a strategy.

I've been thinking about my own career too.

This isn't something I've observed from a distance.

It's something I've had to confront personally.

Over the last couple of years I've realised that simply being good at one thing isn't enough anymore.

That's one of the reasons Eleven One One has evolved.

I'm still passionate about the underground.

Always will be.

But I'm also expanding into commercial audio, education and specialist services.

Not because I've stopped loving music.

Because I've realised the value I offer stretches far beyond one corner of the industry.

That's adaptation.

Not abandonment.

So... is the middle disappearing?

I'm not sure.

Maybe it's disappearing.

Maybe it's simply being redefined.

But one thing feels certain.

The route through the music industry no longer looks like it once did.

The old staircase has become a network of different paths.

Some people still climb.

Some people take shortcuts.

Some people build entirely new routes that didn't exist a few years ago.

None of them are inherently right or wrong.

They're simply different.

And perhaps that's the real challenge.

Not learning how to survive the music industry.

Learning how to recognise when the industry itself has changed shape beneath your feet.

—

Raff Di Renzo

Founder, Eleven One One Audio

"The artists who survive the longest aren't always the ones who resist change. They're the ones who recognise it early enough to evolve with it."