‘THE MUSIC INDUSTRY looks as fucked as it ever has been,’ James tells me, sounding like an enraged punk from 1977, rather than co-manager of micro label Three Galleys in 2026. It might sound like an odd way to describe an industry whose revenue grew by 4.8% globally in 2024, but then micro labels have little interest in hard percentages or financial reports; they are laser focused on more elusive qualities like originality and creativity instead. And if you judge the increasingly top-down, AI-reliant music industry according to those metrics, then it does feel like we are really… umm, ‘fucked’.

But micro labels like James’ are fighting back. Any kind of victory might seem unlikely, especially given the David versus Goliath scale of the battle, until you remember the groundbreaking role small independent labels have always played in the history of music. When the teen market exploded in the 1950s, it was small-scale, nimble players like Sun Records and Chess Records who responded best to emerging tastes, signing Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. Come the punk revolution of the 1970s, it was Stiff Records and Rough Trade who signed Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and the Smiths.

Now of course Elvis Presley and Elvis Costello wouldn’t need Sun Records or Stiff Records to release a record. A studio fits into a phone in your pocket; in a few clicks you can put an album out on streaming services. The portal into the music industry has never been wider, but the odds of reaching a mass audience have never been so long. Way back in the mists of the 20th century, the majors looked to the underground for the next big thing. Disco, hip-hop and punk all emerged from urban subcultures, shepherded into the mainstream by large labels. But today the fringes-to-spotlight conduit has narrowed to a pinpoint. Hit songwriting is increasingly a top-down process, managed by executive committee or AI-generated. To get onto Spotify playlists, those way down in the grassroots often feel compelled to upload inoffensive and bland ‘Spotify-Core’ music.

Perhaps partly in response to these industry changes, the idea of artistic success has also shifted. In 2008 Kevin Kelly first devised the theory of ‘1,000 True Fans’, suggesting if each paid an average of $100 per year for your art then you could earn $100,000 — more than enough for most artists to get by. The idea resonated and the aim of building a small, loyal fanbase, with which to make consistent and meaningful connections, has increasingly gained traction.