If the music you listen to while condensing your lecture notes or briefing cases sounds anything like the Billboard Hot 100, you may have noticed that new music is almost entirely the product of solo acts— think Chapelle Roan, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Morgan Wallen, and, of course, Taylor Swift.
Apple Music’s charts are similar. The only bands currently on their top 40 are Twenty One Pilots and Coldplay— acts I would hesitate to call new.
What happened to the bands? Even pop groups from more recent decades—One Direction comes to mind— seem to be all but absent from the streaming charts despite their commercial success being so recent. Finding a new band is out of the question, and is as likely as changing the Canadian constitution under section 38.
Despite this, Pitchfork’s “64 Most Anticipated Tours of 2024” is full of group acts, new and old. Alongside solo tours, people are looking forward to seeing groups like Bikini Kill, Blink-182, Crumb, and Pixies. It’s clear that there’s something about a group’s live performance—the energy, the live music, the characters, and the dynamics of the members— that keeps people excited to see these bands live.
I have at least one idea of what’s going on: monetization in the music industry has changed. Spotify royalties can be anywhere from a third to half a cent per stream. This might be a good deal for long-standing acts with libraries of music for their fans to listen to, but for up-and-coming acts, unless they strike TikTok gold, they may be out of luck.
Now imagine splitting that among three, four, or five members. It might be wise for the modern guitarist in a college band to keep his day job (at least for now).
Whereas in a bygone era, one would have to purchase an entire album to listen to new music, streaming has forced new acts to make money through touring or other means. To avoid having to divvy up the scraps, it just makes sense to go solo in 2024.
Bands have also typically been led by a front person, a recognizable face, like John Lennon of the Beatles or Thom Yorke of Radiohead. On the business side, I think it’s easier to market and manage individuals. Modern solo acts like Billie Eilish, Hozier, and Morgan Wallen can make great music with modern tools that allow them to avoid at least part of the profit split.
Where there’s a dispute as to who the face of a band is, the addition of having to split low streaming earnings would magnify the severity of inter-member financial disputes that have always existed in music. Long before streaming, David Gilmour and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd have been poles apart for half a century. And if you were in school in the 2010s, the fragmentation of One Direction is probably just a midnight memory for you as well.
People still love bands. It’s just that bands aren’t commercially viable with contemporary methods of monetization in the music industry. So next time you find yourself streaming hits from your favourite group on Spotify, consider buying their album, some merch, or maybe even going into a brick-and-mortar store and picking up a CD.
