Why?

The Death of the Old Music Industry And Why I Make Music the Way I Do

For anyone watching music commentary online, there’s a recurring theme: the lament for a golden age. It’s usually delivered by men who lived through the height of the record industry. The era of large studios, big budgets, A&R departments, and the dream of being “discovered.” You’ll hear claims that modern music has lost its soul because everything is made on computers, or that young artists no longer play together in real rooms, or that the magic died when musicians stopped tracking live.

There’s a certain charm to the nostalgia. But it has very little to do with the reality of being a musician today.

The truth is simple, and it’s not poetic:

The old music industry collapsed because the money disappeared.

The Collapse

When Napster hit in the late 90s, music became free overnight. Not “cheaper.” Free. That psychological shift never reversed. Streaming arrived later and cemented a new truth: music was no longer something people purchased, it was something bundled in a subscription.

Record labels, in a panic, signed deals with the streaming giants that permanently devalued recorded music. Artists got pennies while corporations got equity. A&R departments dried up. Mid-tier careers evaporated. Studios closed. The infrastructure that supported musicians simply vanished.

Computers being used to make music didn’t kill the studio.

Economics did.

The Modern Landscape

In 2025, the only reliable path to being heard is:

  • Build your own platform

  • Make your own art

  • Self-produce

  • Self-release

  • And hope an algorithm smiles at you

There are no scouts at local gigs. There are no label advances. There is no development pipeline. There is no artistic safety net.

A touring musician today, even a successful independent one, often finishes a tour in debt. Mary Spender, a talented and well-supported YouTube artist, lost £12,000 touring her first album, despite doing everything “the proper way” with professional studios, session players, and polished production.

If someone with a sizable audience ends up £12,000 in the hole, what chance does a new artist have?

That isn’t a moral failing. It’s not a creative failing. It’s an economic reality.

The Myth of the Big Studio

Every few months, another video surfaces romanticizing Abbey Road, Olympic, Trident, the “hallowed spaces” of music history. I love those studios. I appreciate their legacy. But the idea that a modern artist should drain their savings to book a studio “for authenticity” is not just outdated, it’s irresponsible.

If you spend £10,000 recording in a studio, you will not recoup it from streaming. Not unless you are already famous.

For most independent musicians:

  • A day in a studio

  • A full-band session

  • A professional tour

…is no longer a business decision. It’s a personal indulgence.

And there’s nothing wrong with indulgence, as long as we call it what it is.

But to present that model as “the right way to make real music” is to sell a dream that no longer exists.

Realism Is Not Cynicism

I make music because I have to, because it’s the one honest dialogue I have with the world. I don’t make music to chase commercial trends or recreate a dead industry. I don’t work inside a record label system that vanished twenty years ago. I don’t go into debt to impress a nostalgia crowd.

I work:

  • In my own space

  • At my own pace

  • With the tools available

  • With the freedom that comes from independence

  • And with complete control of my own signal chain

The computer isn’t my enemy. The DAW isn’t a curse. Soft synths aren’t less “real” than microphones.

They’re simply the logical tools of a time in which musicians have to build everything themselves.

Why I Do What I Do

I don’t have a label giving me a budget. I don’t have a studio paying for time. I don’t have a marketing team pushing releases. I don’t have an A&R rep waiting with a contract.

What I do have is:

  • Imagination

  • Autonomy

  • A lifelong relationship with music

  • And a deep desire to create something true

I make albums because the album format still says something. I work across genres because I refuse to shrink into a niche. I use technology because it allows me to make music at all. I embrace independence because that’s where the honesty lives now.

In the modern landscape, the only sustainable reason to make music is the same reason people made it before there was an industry:

Because it matters to you. Because it’s the one place where you can transmit the truth.

A Rebuttal to Nostalgia

The golden age of the recording industry is over. The economics that sustained it are gone. The ladders that once carried musicians upward no longer exist.

But creation didn’t die with the industry. It simply changed form.

Real music is not defined by the room it was recorded in, the price of the machinery, or the decade of the gear. Real music is defined by intention, honesty, emotion, and imagination, whether it’s captured in Abbey Road Studio Two or on an iPad at 2 a.m.

I don’t chase the past. I don’t chase fame. I don’t chase the golden era.

I chase the truth and the transmission, whatever form it takes, and whatever tools are available.

That’s why I do what I do. And that’s why I’m here.