Your Music Briefing
Weekly industry news for self-label artists who choose ownership
Welcome to Your Music Briefing - what caught my attention last week that felt important for self-label artists to know.
What Does the UMG and NVIDIA Partnership Mean for Artists?
Universal Music Group and NVIDIA announced a collaboration on January 6 centered on Music Flamingo, an AI model that can analyze full songs up to 15 minutes long. The technology identifies key, tempo, chord progressions, instruments, lyrics, song structure, and what they call “emotional arcs.” It’s an 8 billion parameter model trained on approximately 2 million songs across 100+ genres. The idea is to move music discovery beyond simple genre tags toward something more nuanced - surfacing songs by harmonic similarity, emotional narrative, or cultural context. The partnership also includes an artist incubator at Abbey Road and Capitol Studios, where UMG-signed artists will co-design AI tools. No specific products or timelines were announced.
Sono Hikari take: “Responsible AI” and “artist-centric” are the new industry buzzwords, but the real question is who’s building the tools and who benefits. The technology itself is genuinely interesting - understanding music at the level of chord progressions and emotional arcs could change how listeners find new artists. But when a tech giant holds the infrastructure, “artist-centric” often means “major-label-artist-centric.” The incubator is for UMG-signed artists. There’s no mention of independent artist access.
And a deeper question: should AI control how humans discover music? Part of the beauty of discovery is stumbling onto something outside of the style of music you typically listen to. Algorithms that surface songs by “harmonic similarity” sound sophisticated, but they also sound like a faster path to echo chambers.
For self-label artists: As AI becomes central to music discovery, who controls those systems? If you’re not in the room where the tools are designed, what does that mean for your discoverability five years from now?
X Sues 18 Music Publishers. Their Argument Is Flawed - But It Exposes a Broken System
X filed an antitrust lawsuit on January 9 against 18 music publishers and the NMPA (National Music Publishers' Association), claiming they colluded to force “industry-wide licensing at inflated rates” and “weaponized” DMCA takedowns (500K+ since 2023). X is the only major social platform without music license - a choice Elon Musk made after he took over. The NMPA called the lawsuit “a bad faith effort to distract from publishers’ and songwriters’ legitimate right to enforce against X’s illegal use of their songs.”
Sono Hikari take: X’s argument shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how music licensing works. Collective licensing isn’t a scheme - ASCAP was founded in 1914 because individual negotiation with thousands of rights holders is impractical. Every radio station, streaming service, and social platform has figured this out. X had chances to negotiate and chose not to. “Individual negotiation” sounds fair, but it’s really a tactic to avoid paying what everyone else pays.
That said, this raises a broader problem: the system publishers are defending don’t serve songwriters well either. Remember when Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” had a major resurgence and got 5 billion TikTok views? Well, the song reportedly made almost nothing because of how these deals are structured. The infrastructure itself is broken.
For self-label artists: Whether X pays or doesn’t, the money still flows through systems that weren’t built to reach independent songwriters. The real question is why, in 2026, we’re still fighting over who gets to underpay creators.
Spotify Wants to Be Your Group Chat
Spotify is rolling out new real-time sharing features designed to turn passive listening into social currency. The shift moves discovery from algorithmic playlists toward friend-to-friend moments, letting users share what they’re listening to in more immediate, social ways.
Sono Hikari take: This is actually interesting for self-label artists. Algorithmic playlists have always favored artists with existing momentum, label support, or marketing budgets. But friend-to-friend sharing? That’s organic. That’s someone texting their group chat saying, “you have to hear this.” If Spotify is betting that social discovery matters more than editorial placement, that could benefit artists who build genuine fan communities over those just gaming the algorithm. The question is whether Spotify will actually let this feature breathe or eventually monetize it into irrelevance.
For self-label artists: When someone discovers your music, is there a clear path for them to share it with their friends? Are you making music that people feel compelled to recommend, or just music that satisfies an algorithm?
The Vinyl Paradox: What £2 Billion in Streaming Revenue Says About What We Actually Value
UK streaming revenue hit a milestone, but here’s the twist: vinyl grew faster. The gap between these two formats reveals something about what listeners are actually willing to pay for versus what they consume passively.
Sono Hikari take: Streaming numbers keep climbing, but the real story is in what fans choose to spend on. Vinyl isn’t practical. It’s inconvenient, expensive, and requires intention. That’s exactly why it keeps growing. People want to own something. They want the ritual, the object, the commitment. For self-label artists, this is a reminder that your most dedicated fans don’t just want access to your music via streaming. They want to invest in it. The challenge is giving them something worth investing in.
For self-label artists: Beyond streaming, what can fans actually buy from you that feels like ownership? Are you offering anything that creates the ritual and intention that vinyl represents?
If You Missed It:
One Thing To Carry With You This Week:
“The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation.”
-Patti Smith
Excited to see how NVIDIA’s tools could be used to assist with the creative process