There is officially TOO MUCH MUSIC out there. Here’s proof.
In the old days of physical music formats — CDs, vinyl, tapes — a collection was considered big if you had more than 100 of anything. Completists and obsessives might have upwards of a thousand or so records. If this sounds like you, I’ll bet that you knew the title of every song you owned and were familiar with each album on the shelf.
Record stores were wondrous places, too. The biggest ones — think Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street in Toronto or any of the HMV superstores in major cities around the world — might stock 100,000 titles or more. A full browse of the shelves took days.
Very impressive. But then came the era of streaming platforms (Digital Service Providers or DSPs) like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and all the others. Suddenly, artists didn’t need a record label to get their music out to the world. For a very modest fee (or free for new artists), companies like TuneCore, DistroKid, CD Baby, and United Masters will see that any musician anywhere on the planet is uploaded to all the libraries used by the world’s music streamers. Hit “enter” and a song is available globally.
Music distribution had been democratized. Artists were in charge of their own destinies and not beholden to some record company. Great, right?
Well, hang on sunshine. What we have now is too much music. WAY too much. Let’s look at some numbers.
