Music Industry Ins & Outs 2026

What’s actually working, and what we keep pretending does

Hi friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to show up this year. In my work, in this newsletter, and in how I engage with music overall.

A lot is shifting for Rare Originals in 2026, but the core will stay the same: Finding music worth caring about, and slowly opening up more space for context and guidance for the people building careers around it. After a pretty pivotal year for me working closely with artists and their teams across different markets, this felt like a natural evolution of the newsletter, and I want it to be more useful, especially for artists and the teams supporting them. Not just a space for discovery.

So this felt like a good place to start. What I’ve been seeing in my work with artists and their teams, what’s working, and what I think we can all stop pretending works 🙃

Context over hype
Music with a reason and a point of view. Clear storytelling around the work and the artist. Not everything needs to go viral … some things just need to feel intentional.

Care over scale
Smaller audiences. Deeper relationships.

Human curation
Taste-led playlists, newsletters, and recommendations that feel like they came from a person, not a robot.

Artists with a point of view
Clear identity, clear choices, clear boundaries. Not trying to be everything to everyone.

Long-term artist development
Building careers, not moments.

Selective visibility
Being present without being everywhere. Choosing platforms intentionally.

Community without pressure
Connection over transactions.

Algorithm-chasing everything
Releasing, posting, and creating purely to “trigger” something opaque and constantly changing.

Over-releasing as a strategy
More output instead of more intention.

Superfan fantasies
Assuming people want to (or can) financially support ten different artists at once.

Growth for growth’s sake
Big numbers without real connection behind them.

Forced virality
Manufactured moments that disappear as quickly as they show up.

One-size-fits-all advice
What worked once, somewhere, for someone else isn’t a roadmap.

Pretending burnout is ambition
Exhaustion is not a flex.

None of this is really new. But there’s a difference between talking about what’s broken and doing something about it. That’s the plan for Rare Originals this year. ✌️