Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week, Stu’s Big Number is also the Big Story – and here are some mind-boggling facts to bewilder your friends with: There are now 253 million tracks available on streaming sites… and 55.3 million songs were not played even once in 2025(And, over 100 million songs have been played less than 100 times)Over 50 million songs - 20% of all the music available on streaming – were uploa...
Your weekly guide to the music biz and how it all works – and this week, Stu’s Big Number is also the Big Story – and here are some mind-boggling facts to bewilder your friends with:
There are now 253 million tracks available on streaming sites
… and 55.3 million songs were not played even once in 2025
(And, over 100 million songs have been played less than 100 times)
Over 50 million songs - 20% of all the music available on streaming – were uploaded in 2025
106,000 songs were uploaded each day - that’s 7,000 hours of music or 10,000 albums per day
Naturally, this gave Steve and Stu a lot to talk about, including:
On many platforms, artists don’t get paid until their song gets over 1000 streams – is this fair?
Nearly half of those daily song uploads might, data suggests, be AI-generated – and this means more noise for real artists to fight through to be heard.
How much does it cost a company like Spotify to host all this music? (And what about the carbon footprint?)
Should the platforms pay money out when AI-generated songs are played?
If there were 50m+ new tracks last year, doesn’t that mean there will be even more this year - and who wants this AI slop?
Also this week: the UK’s Music Venue Trust released it’s annual report which revealed, amongst the data, that the profit margins for its member venues are razor thin – under 3%.
The state of play for grassroots venues is still precarious – Steve digs deep into the data. Plus – music platform Bandcamp has banned all AI-generated music from its platform.
And in the special post-show lock-in section just for our Patreon Superfans, Steve and Stu prop themselves at the bar to chat about:
A question for you, dear listener: have you ever missed the last bus or train home after a gig? Did you end up sleeping in a bus shelter? Let us know! thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com
(Steve remembers spending a lot of time trying to nap at Liverpool Street station having missed the last train home… and which superstar band was “so bad” that Stu got accidentally drunk and fell asleep on the train on the way home?)
Steve’s Shameless Plug – after months of praise, he finally got Little Grandad into the famous BBC Maida Vale studios for a live session [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ps7b]
Which big towns and cities are starting to be left off touring schedules in the UK? (people in Coventry, Stoke and Milton Keynes may wish to avert your ears)
And what happens to artists and music fans if quality emerging artists are not able to go and perform in cities (very slightly) off the beaten track?
Some of the biggest songs on YouTube are… nursery rhymes. One Wheels on the Bus video got over 2 BILLION streams in 2025, and Bah Bah Black Sheep is the 15th biggest video of ALL TIME.
And finally… a company called Alan’s Factory Outlet has a fascinating/hyperbolic piece of indie band data.
As ever, we welcome your feedback, emails and – in particular – any questions you might have about how the music biz works!
Email us: thepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com
See you next week!
Steve and Stuart
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