Like every artist I've ever met was in some point in a terrible label situation. The labels economic model is based on hits. U sign to a label because of the promise that if a song is going they can throw gasoline on it. No amount of advice seems to be able to convince enough artists to stop signing to labels cuz u rly do need to learn this first hand (even I did). But at this point it's almost like lobbying and super pacs in politics - it reduces the potential and rewards algorithmically safe music. They own huge chunks of like any distribution model - most of which are also algo based and reward sameness and frankly when I hear an artist I like followed by 40 other artists that sound just like them I start to lose interest. we've basically destroyed music journalism. And the abundance has actually sort of make everything feel less special. The main music that can succeed is by theatre kids since they have higher pain tolerance and even exuberant joy about performing and therefore can thrive in environments like tik tok. And it is importsnt to keep space for this type of music But man... I used to listen to so many local bands. There used to be a way more sustained amount of smaller artists. The musical middle class, as it were. This peaked during Napster era when we prob had the most meritocratic least gatekept music industry (you could be ugly too and still succeed. I miss that lol). Now literal VC's are buying catalogues - every economic incentive in the world has lined up to actively dissuade new music and especially innovative music. The artists I currently consider the pantheon of modern innovators would have been a LOT more successful ten years ago. It's interesting to me how undissected the economics of music are and how profoundly and negatively they are impacting music rn