The Rise of Independent Artists and Changing Music Industry Trends
A generation of independent music artists, from a ukulele-strumming college student to pop singers belting in front of smartphones, are getting their start outside of major labels. The ways in which audiences experience music have fundamentally evolved beyond prior means, with online platforms now serving as the primary place of musical discovery rather than MTV or the radio, and so has the music industry. Now, with the help of online marketplaces that pair musicians with financial backers, things are looking to change even more. Call it the music industry’s version of venture capital.
Indify’s Role in Shaping the Future of Music Investments
Indify, a platform that identified Billie Eilish, Post Malone, and Khalid before they were stars, says over half its deals are already profitable, with those investors netting nearly triple returns on average since its December 2020 inception.
The way that Indify works is that artists draw investments from music managers who place bets using their own money. They assist artists with marketing, strategize on how to go viral on social media platforms, and ensure they earn spots on streaming playlists, which help performers generate more revenue. In this way, Indify almost serves as something of an online gambling system, just one concerned with the financial success of any given musical artist on the site.
For artists, this provides a welcome opportunity, one which allows them to circumnavigate the need for a traditional label. During the era of CDs and digital downloads, signing to a label was the primary way artists could get their music played on the radio or promoted. But now, that’s far from the truth, and Indify’s success is only serving to double down on that changing mentality in the industry.
Artists who release music directly—without any label, independent or major—represent the fastest-growing sector of the recorded music business. The revenue of these direct-release artists grew by 17% last year to $1.7 billion, according to MIDiA Research. The revenue those artists earned from streaming grew 18% compared with 8.3% for the broader market. The sector’s market share is about 6% of the total recorded music business. As such, these artists are taking full advantage of the platforms available to them, and Indify allows them to take their careers to the next step without having to sell out to a label in the process.
“The whole world believes indie artists make pennies,” says Indify Chief Executive Shav Garg. “We believe artists are founders.”
On Indify, artists cut individualized deals, often for one song or one album, and investors take a portion of the streaming royalties thereafter. Artists maintain ownership over their music, must keep 50% or more of their earnings after an investor is made whole, and have creative control. Indify takes a 15% cut of an investor’s post-recoupment upside. These rules and regulations have been put in place to protect the artists and to ensure that the sense of musical and artistic freedom is preserved on Indify.
One such example of an unquantifiable success on Indify was when music industry manager Josh Feshbach took a $30,000 chance on an unknown artist via Indify in 2021. Feshbach helped put out the first record of a UCLA student who built a TikTok following by posting videos of himself playing the ukulele and singing original songs. Less than two years later, Feshbach has made over $110,000 from the investment, and the artist, called Mad Tsai, has earned over $245,000.
Though the platform can point to several success stories, it is still early days: Indify says the average deal term length is 6.7 years, and 95% of its deals are within the first two years of their term. There’s room to grow, but already, Indify has made gargantuan strides in changing the ways in which audiences, labels, and artists think about the distribution and creation of music.
