10 predictions for music in 2025

Making predictions is a fool's game but never mind that logic. Let's put on our psychic hats for a round of musical prognostication for 2025.

With a fresh year before us, ’tis the season to look ahead at what things we may look forward to over the next 12 months and which things may befall us in the world of music.

We’ve all heard of the Big Four of streaming music: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon Music. You may have encountered Deezer, Tidal, Napster and Qobuz. We can throw iHeartRadio, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud into the mix. But what about 8Tracks, Boomplay, Jango, LiveOne, Joox, JioSaavn, Patari, KKBox and Hoopla? Those are streaming music services as well.

Some survive because of their special focus on specific areas of the world — China, South Asia and the Middle East, for example — but you have to wonder about the financial viability of the non-Big Four. Given the weirdness of music licensing and the razor-thin margins, how long can these other platforms hold out? Don’t be surprised if we hear of strategic partnerships, buyouts and shutdowns in 2025.

Just as Bob Dylan wrote “That he not busy being born is busy dying,” from 1965’s It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), corporations that aren’t busy growing risk dying, too. Netflix is already monstrous, with nearly 300 million subscribers across 190 countries. How does the company keep growing to keep shareholders happy? It’s already cut back investment in original video programming, something that frees up cash for getting into the music streaming game.

Think about it. Netflix already has all the infrastructure in place. It has tons of tech talent. Pretty much every new smart TV has an option for Netflix. And when it comes to the whole rigamarole of licensing tracks, do you think labels/publishers would say no to Netflix? This possibility has to keep Spotify up at night.

This is a gimme, of course. Artificial intelligence is getting better and easier to use every week. Here are a couple of possible directions.

At some point, fiddling with AI and music is going to be so simple that all the kids are going to be doing it. I can see a trend where people create their own music using AI and then use these hyper-personalized bespoke compositions as online currency, sharing it via platforms like TikTok. This will create a whole new ecosystem without stars and without record labels.

Meanwhile, watch for record labels to get deeper in bed with AI companies, creating licensing deals for training models using material in their catalogues. We’ve already seen several attempts at creating virtual AI pop stars, although none have really broken through yet. It’s only a matter of time before one does.