HIFI Diary: An In-depth Analysis of the Global Music Report 2025

This is a column that is both new and old. As early as 2020, in the article “A Discussion on the Music Industry Starting from Digital Players and CD Interfaces” the BLOG owner cited a lot of data and content from that year’s IFPI “GLOBAL MUSIC REPORT” (GMR). Five years have passed in a flash, and the music industry is undergoing a period as significant as the transition from physical media to MP3s, and from MP3s back to copyrighted music. To help everyone better understand the latest trends in the music industry, the BLOG owner will analyze the “GLOBAL MUSIC REPORT 2025” with you, extracting valuable information to understand the forefront of the industry.

I. Source

The report analyzed this time comes from the official IFPI website, titled “GLOBAL MUSIC REPORT 2025” We are analyzing the industry version, “Global Music Report – State of the Industry.” As for the more advanced “Global Music Report – Premium Edition,” the BLOG owner cannot afford it, so it will not be interpreted.

II. Current State of the Global Music Market (2024)

1. Overall Market

Compared to 2023, total global music revenue grew by 4.8% in 2024, achieving ten consecutive years of growth. The total market size reached $29.6 billion (approximately 212.3 billion RMB), and for the third consecutive year, every region in the world saw positive growth. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is currently the fastest-growing region globally, leading with 22.8%, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (22.6% growth) and Latin America (22.5% growth).

Among the top ten global music markets (countries/regions), 55 out of 58 monitored markets achieved positive growth; eight of the top ten markets saw positive growth. It is particularly noteworthy that in 2024, the Mexican market surpassed the Australian market to enter the top ten.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
USA	Japan	UK	Germany	China	France	South Korea	Canada	Brazil	Mexico

Among these, the Chinese market grew by 9.6% and the US market grew by 2.2% in 2024. Latin America has maintained strong growth momentum for 15 consecutive years, still growing at 22.5% in 2024, with streaming accounting for a staggering 87.8%. It can be considered that physical music has lost its competitive and developmental ground in the region. Brazil became the fastest-growing top-ten market with a 21.7% growth rate, while Mexico, with a 15.6% growth rate, successfully jumped to become the world’s tenth-largest recorded music market.

2. Digital Music

20billionmarkforthefirsttime(20.4 billion). Global subscription streaming revenue increased by 9.5% (including services like QQ Music and Apple Music memberships), with the number of subscribers reaching 752 million, accounting for 51.2% of total global music revenue. Meanwhile, audio downloads have declined for 12 consecutive years, falling by 7.7% this year, with a revenue share of only 2.8%. This proves that the popularity of streaming subscriptions is recognized by enthusiasts worldwide, and downloaded music has been completely marginalized. It is predictable that the decline of downloaded music is irreversible; listeners are more willing to accept a subscription model to access music. The BLOG owner believes this trend will not change in the next 5-10 years.

3. Physical Records

In contrast to streaming, global physical record revenue also declined this year, down 3.1% from the previous year. CD sales fell by 6.1%, video music (DVD/BD) fell by 15.5%, while vinyl records rose by 4.6%, with total annual revenue at $4.8 billion. It is particularly noteworthy that vinyl records have shown positive growth for 18 consecutive years, and their release scale is increasing annually. Additionally, since physical record revenue saw a surge of 14.5% in 2023, the decline in 2024 can be seen as a normal market correction.

4. Performance Rights

This revenue refers to the fees collected by music licensing companies (MLCs) for the use of sound recordings and music videos in public performances and broadcasts. This year, performance rights revenue grew by 5.9%, reaching a scale of $2.9 billion, accounting for 9.7% of global revenue. It successfully outpaced the annual average growth, achieving four consecutive years of positive growth. The growth in performance rights is inseparable from the popularity of music variety shows that are being promoted in various countries. As the popularity of these shows rises or falls, this revenue will also be affected. For now, however, no downturn is apparent.

5. Synchronisation Revenue

Synchronisation revenue has grown for four consecutive years, reaching a total of $650 million this year, accounting for 2.2% of total global recorded music revenue. Sync revenue refers to the licensing of music in film and television productions. As the global film and television industry continues to develop, music sync revenue will also rise, but limited by the scale of the productions themselves, its total share has remained relatively stable.

III. Various Charts

1. GLOBAL ARTIST CHART 2024

Rank	Name (Original)	Country/Region
1	Taylor Swift	USA
2	Drake	Canada
3	SEVENTEEN (세븐틴)	South Korea
4	Billie Eilish	USA
5	Stray Kids (스트레이 키즈)	South Korea
6	Zach Bryan	USA
7	The Weeknd	Canada
8	Eminem	USA
9	Kendrick Lamar	USA
10	Sabrina Carpenter	USA

2. TOP 10 GLOBAL SINGLES 2024

Rank	Song Title	Artist
1	Beautiful Things	Benson Boone
2	ESPRESSO	SABRINA CARPENTER
3	LOSE CONTROL	TEDDY SWIMS
4	BIRDS OF A FEATHER	BILLIE EILISH
5	A BAR SONG (TIPSY)	SHABOOZEY
6	TOO SWEET	HOZIER
7	I HAD SOME HELP (FEAT. MORGAN WALLEN)	POST MALONE
8	NOT LIKE US	KENDRICK LAMAR
9	CRUEL SUMMER	TAYLOR SWIFT
10	STICK SEASON	NOAH KAHAN

3. TOP 10 GLOBAL ALBUMS 2024

Rank	Album Title	Artist
1	THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT	TAYLOR SWIFT
2	HIT ME HARD AND SOFT	BILLIE EILISH
3	SHORT N’ SWEET	SABRINA CARPENTER
4	ROMANCE : UNTOLD	ENHYPEN
5	SOS	SZA
6	SPILL THE FEELS	SEVENTEEN
7	ONE THING AT A TIME	MORGAN WALLEN
8	17 IS RIGHT HERE	SEVENTEEN
9	STICK SEASON	NOAH KAHAN
10	ATE	STRAY KIDS

Looking at the three most important charts in the global music market, we can easily see that they are almost entirely dominated by the USA, Canada, and South Korea. We cannot deny that the artists and songs on the charts are excellent, but the absence of major music languages like Mandarin and Japanese may be a significant reason why the IFPI charts have long been ignored in China. Next, for those new to these charts, the BLOG owner will explain the various inside stories of the IFPI charts.

4. How to Understand These Rankings

To understand these charts, one must first understand IFPI and its statistical methods. A deeper look into the historical, cultural, and political factors behind them is necessary to better grasp the landscape of the global music market. Below, the BLOG owner has listed different keywords. Feel free to follow them step-by-step to understand the overall picture of global music.

• IFPI
  The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is an international trade organization representing the global recording industry. Its members include the “big three” record companies—Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music—as well as independent labels from around the world. Its main functions are to protect the rights of the recording industry, combat piracy, and publish industry data.
• Ranking Methodology
  IFPI’s various charts measure an artist’s commercial success on a global scale. The calculation method is comprehensive, covering all the following forms of consumption and converting them into “album equivalent units”:
  1. Physical album sales (CDs, vinyl records, DVD/BDs, cassettes)
  2. Digital album downloads
  3. Streaming volume (including paid subscriptions and ad-supported free streaming)
• Fairness
  From a data statistics perspective, the IFPI rankings are relatively fair. IFPI’s methodology is standardized; it does not judge the artistic value, cultural depth, or innovation of the music, but measures one core metric: global commercial value. It aggregates sales and streaming data from major global markets, verified by independent auditors, striving for data objectivity. Therefore, if these charts have any “unfairness,” the core issue is not data fabrication or bias from IFPI itself, but rather that it faithfully reflects the inherent structural imbalance of the current global music industry.
• United States
  Since the 20th century, the United States has been the center of global pop music production and consumption. The headquarters or core operations of the three major record companies (Universal, Sony, Warner) are in the US, and they control the world’s top production resources, distribution channels, and legal teams. From songwriting and artist development (A&R) to recording, marketing, global distribution, and touring, the US has the most mature and efficient music industry chain in the world. This gives American artists the potential for global promotion from the very beginning.
• English Language
  English is the de facto global lingua franca. Songs sung in English face the smallest language barrier when entering non-English-speaking markets. This allows the music of artists like Taylor Swift, Drake, and Billie Eilish to seamlessly reach vast audiences in North America, Europe, Oceania, as well as parts of Asia and Latin America.
• Cultural Hegemony
  After World War II, along with America’s economic and political dominance, American culture (films, music, lifestyle) swept the globe. Media like Hollywood movies and MTV paved the way for the global spread of American music, cultivating generations of global consumers’ habits for American pop culture. This “cultural hegemony” makes American artists and their musical styles more easily accepted and sought after by the global market.
• Film and Gaming Synergy
  If a song is used as the soundtrack for a popular movie, TV series (like a Netflix show), or a major video game (like Fortnite), the global exposure it receives is staggering. Hollywood has always dominated the global film industry. For instance, Billie Eilish singing the theme for a James Bond film and Kendrick Lamar curating the Black Panther soundtrack greatly enhanced their global fame and music consumption.
• South Korea / Fandom Charting
  After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the South Korean government adopted “nation-building through culture” as a national strategy, vigorously supporting the “Korean Wave” (Hallyu), represented by K-Pop, K-dramas, and Korean films. The government provided immense support in terms of funding, policy, and overseas promotion. This was a top-down, conscious effort of cultural export. From its inception, K-Pop was not purely a “domestic” product. Its idol groups often include foreign members (from Thailand, China, Japan, etc.), songs incorporate English lyrics, and musical styles fuse global pop elements (Hip-hop, EDM, R&B), targeting the global market from the start. The K-Pop industry has developed fandom culture to an extreme. Fans are highly organized, with strong purchasing power and mobilization capabilities. They will organize to “stream” songs and bulk-buy physical albums to support their idols. This is crucial for the IFPI charts, as physical album sales carry a high weight in the calculations. The album sales of SEVENTEEN and Stray Kids are astonishingly high worldwide, which is the core reason they can break into the top five. K-Pop places extreme importance on visual presentation, including music videos, choreography, and fashion. In the era of visual social media like YouTube and TikTok, this high-investment, high-quality visual content has powerful dissemination capabilities, helping them overcome language barriers.
• Limitations
  Many artists who are hugely influential within specific cultural or linguistic circles may not make the charts. For example, a local superstar who is a household name in Japan or China may have very high streaming numbers and sales, but if their influence fails to effectively “break out” into major paid markets like North America, Europe, and East Asia, their overall global score will still lag behind.
• Algorithmic Bias (The Matthew Effect)
  The recommendation algorithms of the streaming era often create a “winner-take-all” situation. Top-tier artists get more exposure, further solidifying their position. The fan mobilization model of K-Pop also means the charts, to some extent, reflect the “organizational ability of fandoms” rather than just the preferences of the general public.
• Exchange Rates and Pricing
  Currency exchange rates and market pricing differences are the fundamental economic reasons for the charts’ appearance. The IFPI charts are less a “Global Most Popular XXX Chart” and more a “Global Most Commercially Viable XXX Chart.” It measures not the number of listeners or plays, but tangible global revenue. In a global music industry system with the US dollar as the core settlement unit and Europe/America as the core high-value markets, an artist’s success largely depends on their ability to gain market acceptance and consumption in these high-income regions. This is the natural advantage of American artists and the direction in which K-Pop has strived and succeeded. Therefore, the revenue generated by a single “act of consumption” (like buying an album or a paid stream) differs drastically from country to country.
• China
  In reality, China has the largest audience and digital music user base in the world, far exceeding any single region/country. However, because the music consumption of most artists primarily occurs in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, and due to practical factors like business strategies, currency exchange rates, and actual purchasing power, the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) for Chinese singers/singles is generally lower than in Europe and America.
• Viral Spread
  TikTok is the world’s biggest “hit-making machine” today. If a snippet of a song (usually the chorus) goes viral on TikTok, it can explode globally in an instant, directly translating into streams on platforms like Spotify. Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” is a perfect example. This viral spread is unpredictable, but the successful ones are often artists whose musical style, rhythm, and lyrical content are best suited for short-video re-creation. This is a new form of influence, independent of traditional promotion.
• Playlist Culture
  Getting into major editorial playlists (like Spotify’s “Today’s Top Hits,” with over 30 million followers) is key to success. The editorial power for these playlists is mostly held by the platforms’ headquarters in the US or Europe, who are naturally more familiar with and inclined to recommend artists from the English-speaking world. This constitutes another invisible barrier.
• Large-Scale International Tours
  Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” is the most successful tour in history, a massive cultural event and news headline in itself. The tour not only generated astronomical ticket sales (not directly counted in IFPI charts) but, more importantly, it significantly boosted the streaming and physical sales of her entire back catalog. In every city she visited, local consumption of her music exploded. This synergy between “touring and music consumption” is a key engine of her success. Such large-scale international tours gain immense attention and sales boosts because the language and culture are widely accepted throughout the English-speaking world.
• Nostalgia Economy
  Consider Eminem on the chart. He hasn’t released much new music recently, but his vast catalog of classics continuously generates revenue in the streaming era. A new generation of listeners discovers his old songs through TikTok, movies, or samples by other artists, leading to sustained consumption. Streaming has blurred the concept of being “past one’s prime.” As long as your work is classic enough, it can continue to generate value.
• Authority Projection
  Mainstream Western music awards like the Grammys, VMAs, and BRIT Awards, along with major music media like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, collectively set the evaluation system and topic center for global pop music. When these platforms are all discussing Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar, they are effectively setting the agenda for a global audience, guiding global attention and consumption flows.

IV. Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Music

1. Translated from the IFPI original

“The responsible AI market is showing green shoots of growth, and our goal is to help nurture its success,” says Casandra Strauss, Senior Director, Global Digital Strategy, Strategic Technology at Universal Music Group (UMG). She explains: “We have announced partnerships with several responsible AI companies, but only after completing due diligence on potential partners. We do a lot of research to understand what the state-of-the-art is, what emerging companies are doing, and what ethical tools we can integrate into our business to help our artists and teams. This covers everything from creative development and audio tools to marketing, data analysis, and everything in between.”

Protecting the rights of artists and other creators is a core tenet of UMG’s philosophy, a position reflected in both its business practices and public advocacy. Therefore, decisions about which AI models to use must be made carefully, considering multiple factors, including whether the model respects intellectual property (IP) or if the AI developer claims ownership of the output or training rights over the input.

Chris Horton, as UMG’s SVP of Strategic Technology, leads the company’s “AI Review Team”—an internal group responsible for evaluating the practices and performance of AI models to determine if and how they can be integrated into UMG’s operations. He explains that the review team handles proposals from internal teams to explore using specific AI services and also proactively recommends AI tools of interest. “While there are several evaluation criteria,” he says, “we first focus on whether the AI tool is ethically trained and respects copyright.”

Although still in its early stages, this cautious review process is helping UMG embrace responsible partners and the opportunities they bring. “We’ve received over 600 proposals and have seen some really interesting and creative applications of AI,” Horton says. “It enables artists to expand their catalogs into new languages. We’ve used it to restore old album covers for reinterpretation in new uses. We’ve integrated it into customer analysis and interactive marketing campaigns. It appears in almost every aspect of the business.”

Elio Quinton, VP of AI at UMG, is also a member of the AI Review Team. He adds: “As a record label, our goal has always been to help artists achieve their creative and commercial objectives. We can use AI technology in many ways to do this more effectively.”

“One of the significant opportunities presented by deploying AI technology is improving operational efficiency,” says Quinton. “For example, ‘How can we use AI to provide better data analysis tools for our artists? How can we reach the right fan communities more efficiently? How can we improve the efficiency of our customer service?'”

2. How to Interpret This?

In 2025, we can consider that AI has already had a substantial impact on the music industry. With rapid development over the past few years, AI has penetrated every aspect of music production. Although a complete and mature industry chain (workflow) does not yet exist, for individuals and small groups, AI lyric and music composition are gradually replacing some licensed music, becoming a more efficient and cost-effective solution. Below, again, follow the keywords listed by the BLOG owner as we step into the future of AI and music.

• Old Order and New Opportunities
  In the article, Universal Music Group (UMG) views “Responsible AI” itself as an emerging market and aims to dominate it. Through partnerships and investments, they are trying to shape the rules and standards of this market. This is a very typical strategy to seize the right to speak and a dominant position; after all, setting the rules is always the most profitable business. But UMG’s strategy of treating “Responsible AI” as an emerging market and trying to dictate its rules is essentially an instinctive reaction of a traditional copyright giant to disruptive technology. This control-centric traditional industry mindset attempts to build a moat by setting copyright protection standards and vetting partners, thereby gaining an advantageous position as a rule-maker.However, AI technology is characterized by open-source accessibility, decentralized creation, and rapid iteration, making its ecosystem difficult for a single entity to effectively control like the traditional music industry chain. UMG’s “controllable” framework, which relies on review and certification, faces technical difficulties in verifying the compliance of model training, commercial risks of being bypassed by the market due to strict standards, and a need to negotiate with multiple stakeholders (developers, platforms, regulatory bodies) over rules, potentially even hindering ecosystem development with fragmented standards. While this strategy can reduce legal risks, protect existing copyright interests, and secure a voice in the short term, it exposes a deep contradiction with the fundamental nature of AI. The AI-driven music market is characterized by low barriers to entry, high speed, and networked integration, which traditional linear control models are ill-equipped to handle. Over-emphasizing defensive control could cause traditional, large music companies to miss out on the true innovative opportunities of AI (new business models) and weaken their agility due to high compliance costs and rigid processes. In fact, the article reveals UMG’s limitations and predicament in the face of the AI wave. Its reluctance to mention AI lyric and music composition reflects the extreme sensitivity of the issue and UMG’s current pragmatic strategy of risk avoidance and adherence to traditional models, lacking the capacity to respond to the AI wave.
• Differences Between AI and the Traditional Music Market

Feature	Traditional Music Market	AI-Driven Music Market
Control Points	Centralized in copyright, distribution channels, signed artists	Dispersed across models, data, computing power, platforms, end-users
Entry Barriers	High (production, distribution, promotion costs)	Extremely low (open-source models, cloud services, personal creation tools)
Innovation Speed	Relatively slow (almost stagnant)	Extremely fast (model iterations, explosive growth of new applications)
Value Chain	Linear, clear (creation -> production -> distribution -> consumption)	Networked, dynamically integrated (blurry lines between creation & consumption, AI in all stages)
Rule-Making	Dominated by major labels, copyright orgs, law	Multi-party negotiation (tech giants, open-source communities, platforms, users, regulators, traditional rights holders)

• Decentralization
  Let’s continue using UMG as an analytical subject to delve deeper into decentralization. The power structure of the traditional music market is highly centralized, with giants like UMG forming monopolistic barriers by controlling copyrights, artist contracts, and distribution channels. This linear value chain relies on centralized rule-making, with innovation constrained by high costs and slow industry inertia. In contrast, the AI-driven music market is undergoing a complete shift towards decentralization: technical barriers are collapsing due to open-source models and cloud services; creation, production, and consumption are deeply integrated; and individual creators, even consumers, can participate in the entire process using AI tools. Power is no longer concentrated in record labels but is dispersed among model developers, data holders, platforms, and end-users. The traditional one-way chain of “creation-distribution-consumption” is being replaced by a networked ecosystem, and the power to make rules is being forced upon multiple stakeholders (tech companies, open-source communities, user groups, and regulatory bodies), forming a dynamic balance of continuous negotiation.
• Hatsune Miku?
  As mentioned earlier, UMG does not currently seem entirely optimistic about the prospects of AI shaping the music industry. This is understandable. On one hand, the industry’s traditional inertia and comfort zone are not easily changed. On the other hand, the impact of AI on physical music may not be as significant as imagined. Over the past few decades, there have been many instances of new technologies impacting the traditional music industry. For example, virtual singers like Hatsune Miku and Luo Tianyi (based on technologies like VOCALOID) do represent an early, limited attempt at decentralization in the music industry. However, it must be clear that the impact of these predecessors was far less than the current AI wave. The core difference lies in the generational gap in technological disruption, participation barriers, depth of value chain penetration, and the scale of power shift.
• Technological Difference
  Hatsune Miku is essentially an advanced sound library + vocal synthesis engine. Its innovation was providing a new type of “singer” (a virtual idol) and a creation tool. But the creation process itself still heavily relied on traditional music production workflows: creators needed professional skills in composition, arrangement, and tuning. The output still followed a linear logic of “creation-production-release.” It did not change the fundamental rules of music production but merely added a new vocal option and an IP business model. More importantly, its entry barrier was relatively high, and the production cycle was not significantly shortened. For the average music enthusiast, it did not substantially improve efficiency or reduce costs. In contrast, current AI (like Suno, Udio) can generate complete music from scratch (including composition, arrangement, vocals, and mixing) with just a text prompt. This completely deconstructs the barrier to professional music production, releasing the power of creation from professionals to the masses. AI not only replaces the “singer” but is also penetrating and even replacing core stages like composition, arrangement, and production, restructuring the entire value chain. Its disruptiveness lies in its fundamental challenge to the “subject of creation” and the “process of creation.”
• Subculture vs. Technological Explosion
  We can also view the impact of technology on music from a developmental perspective. The “Hatsune Miku” era can be seen as technological innovation 1.0. During this period, creating high-quality VOCALOID songs required significant knowledge of music theory and software operation skills (especially complex tuning). This limited its user base to a relatively niche circle of hardcore enthusiasts and professional creators, closely tied to the anime/manga community. Its main sphere of activity was confined to limited-scale subcultural ecosystems (like Niconico, Bilibili). Its impact was mainly within specific fan groups and was too small in scale to massively disrupt mainstream music consumption and production models.However, borrowing the concept of a “technological explosion” from Liu Cixin’s novels, the interaction model of “generating music from text” allows any ordinary user to create a structurally complete song in minutes. This extremely low barrier has triggered explosive participation (similar to the popularization effect of ChatGPT/DeepSeek). A massive amount of AI-generated content is flooding social and streaming platforms. In the short term, AI has not yet had a significant impact on the profitability of the entire music publishing industry, but the potential disruption to its fundamental business logic and the challenge to the authority of industry standard-setters have already taken concrete form.
• Revenue Chain
  By analyzing the capital chain, a clear fact emerges: the music industry chain, long monopolized by traditional record companies for the past century, is being eroded by more capital parties, music distribution platforms, and AI startups. This is essentially a process of capital redistribution. Although ordinary creators cannot directly profit from generative AI works, the liberation of the creative barrier provides them with more possibilities. Most importantly, the foundation monopolized by traditional record companies is beginning to loosen, and traditional musicians face the risk of being marginalized. This is the beginning of a structural reform, and the decision of whether to embrace this reform is no longer in the hands of traditional music capital.
• Algorithmic Cocoon
  When AI simplifies music creation into prompt engineering, a hidden cage is being formed—the algorithmic cocoon. Its core crisis lies in the “curse” of being data-driven: an AI model is essentially a replicating machine. The “innovation” generated through probabilistic fitting is actually just a permutation and combination within a safe zone. When users rely on AI for composition, they can easily fall into an aesthetic feedback loop, mass-producing cookie-cutter imitations. We also cannot ignore that in traditional creation, technical limitations often spur disruptive breakthroughs (like The Beatles inventing tape reversal effects due to studio limitations). The “perfect execution” capability of AI precisely eliminates this “creativity born from constraints.”
• Creative Leap
  Here, we need to introduce a new concept: the “creative leap.” When AI intervenes too much at the creative ideation level, it may compress humanity’s motivation to leap to higher energy levels (cultural reflection, diverse creation). We must further deconstruct the essence of music. As a carrier of human history and culture, music is the “crystallization of human suffering, the vehicle of resistance, the testimony of freedom.” Although contemporary music has been industrialized and entertainment-focused through generalized AI creation, when we step back from the industry and view the value of music from the perspective of the long river of time, we can easily draw a conclusion. The carrier of music is human civilization, and algorithms cannot represent humanity in interpreting the spark of human civilization.It needs to be stressed again that current concerns about AI stifling human creativity may be temporary. After all, similarities in melody, lyrics, and ideas appeared long before AI intervention. And in the long course of evolution, humans have repeatedly modified their creative processes to adapt to new aesthetics and tools. Does AI’s entry into the music industry liberate or suppress? The answer depends on whether humans proactively define AI’s role as a tool—just as a paintbrush will not replace a painter but may change the course of painting history. The real crisis is not how powerful AI is, but whether humanity, in its technological revelry, forgets the original driving force of creativity: an uncompromising questioning of and resistance to the world.

3. The Lawsuit of the Century

When talking about AI music creation, one cannot avoid the startups Suno and Udio. As leading companies in AI music creation, they currently face numerous problems. According to a report from The Paper, on June 24, 2024, the three giants of the global music industry—Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music—along with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), filed copyright infringement lawsuits against the emerging AI music generation companies Suno and Udio in Massachusetts and New York, respectively. This lawsuit is regarded as the “strongest first case” in the AI music field, marking a new, intense phase in the copyright conflict between the music industry and generative AI technology. The core disputes of this lawsuit are:

Traditional Music Groups	AI Startups
Unauthorized, large-scale use of copyrighted music for training.	Using copyrighted materials to “train” AI models falls under “Fair Use” in US copyright law.
Threatens the survival of musicians and the entire music ecosystem.	Emphasizes that the purpose of AI is to “create entirely new music,” not simply replicate existing works.
AI imitates the styles of famous artists, like Michael Jackson.	Stresses that AI is merely a tool to assist human creativity, and humans are the subjects of creation and use.

• How to Interpret This Lawsuit
  This lawsuit, dubbed the “lawsuit of the century” in the AI music field, places us at a critical crossroads of technology and law. We should not simply pick a side but delve into its complexity. On one side are the traditional record companies, representing the life’s work of countless artists and having built the modern music industry. On the other side is AI technology, holding the key to the next century of music history and potentially bringing a new musical revolution. To fully interpret this case, we need to approach it from several key perspectives.
  • From the Record Companies’ Perspective
    As the BLOG owner discussed earlier, the traditional music giants’ reaction to the emergence of AI music has been quite slow and conservative. The interests they represent have made it difficult for them to quickly catch the AI wave. Therefore, this lawsuit can be seen as a defensive counterattack by the traditional content industry against disruptive technology. The speed and potential of AI music generation technology have made the record giants, who control the vast majority of global commercial music copyrights, feel threatened. It allows anyone to generate high-quality music at a very low cost, disrupting the traditional record companies’ production, distribution, and artist management models. If AI can generate music indefinitely, it could lead to “inflation” of music content, thereby diluting the value of existing copyright libraries. From this angle, the lawsuit can be seen as a business strategy to slow down the development of AI music technology through legal means, or to bring it under their controllable licensing and commercial framework to maintain their market dominance. (But as the BLOG owner has already mentioned, a key feature of AI is decentralization.)
  • From the Traditional Creators’ Perspective
    From the artists’ standpoint, this lawsuit is a necessary action to defend their legitimate rights and interests. The core argument is that creative work deserves respect. Every piece of music embodies the creator’s effort and investment. If AI companies can use these works to train models and profit from them without permission or payment, it is tantamount to direct exploitation of the creators’ labor value. Looking further, the healthy functioning of the music industry relies on a complete ecosystem based on copyright licensing and revenue sharing. Allowing AI to “devour” copyrighted content without compensation would fundamentally dismantle this system, ultimately stifling the motivation to continuously produce high-quality original music.
  • From the AI Entrepreneurs’ Perspective
    For AI startups, the significance of this lawsuit goes beyond a commercial dispute; it is a “battle for survival” concerning technological legitimacy and future development space. Their defense core is the “Fair Use” principle in US copyright law. They argue that using copyrighted data to train AI models is a “transformative use,” aimed at creating entirely new works, not copying the originals. It should be noted that, compared to the three major record companies representing traditional music, Suno and Udio are not without backing. On the contrary, they are backed by a typical “Silicon Valley elite combo,” with funding rounds exceeding $100 million each.

SUNO ($125M in funding)	Udio ($100M in funding)
Lightspeed Venture Partners: A top-tier global venture capital firm that successfully invested in many well-known tech companies like Snap and Nutanix.	Google: Most of Udio’s founding team comes from Google DeepMind, one of the world’s top AI research institutions. Google’s investment is both support for former employees’ ventures and an endorsement of their technological path.
Nat Friedman: Former CEO of GitHub, now a very active and influential angel investor in the AI field.	Nvidia: The global leader in AI chips. Nvidia’s investment is strategic, as AI model training and operation depend on its GPUs. Investing in Udio means it is betting on AI music becoming a major application driving its hardware sales.
Daniel Gross: Former head of Apple’s AI division.	Will.i.am: Famous American musician, leader of The Black Eyed Peas. His involvement brings an insider’s perspective and network from the music industry to Udio.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z): One of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious venture capital firms, known for its early and bold bets on disruptive technologies like cryptocurrency and AI.	Andreessen Horowitz (a16z): The only firm to have made a “dual bet” in the AI music generation space, meaning it could be a winner regardless of who comes out on top.
Founder Collective: A well-known seed-stage venture capital firm.	Mike Krieger: Co-founder of Instagram.

• Conclusion
  The verdict of this case will become a historic benchmark, redefining the boundaries of “Fair Use” in the digital age. Its outcome will not only determine the fate of Suno and Udio but will also draw a legal red line for all generative AI developers (including text, image, and code), deciding whether they will be dancing in shackles or be granted a “ticket to entry” for legitimate development. In fact, disputes over AI training materials centered on “Fair Use” are already widespread throughout the AIGC industry, and everyone is waiting to see how this actual judgment will unfold. Finally, IFPI has also put forward its own views on AIGC. The BLOG owner has translated them and will use them as the final summary for this section:
  1. Policymakers must oppose any attempts to amend copyright law in ways that would undermine the rightsholder’s choice – the choice of whether their work is used in the development of an AI model.
  2. To ensure transparency, policymakers must compel AI developers to maintain records and be transparent about the data on which they have trained their models.

V. AI Technology Helps a Legendary Singer Regain His Voice

1. Translated from the IFPI original

Warner Music Group has been facing this difficult discussion head-on and has tasked its executives with exploring “what a beneficial AI should look like.”

Cris Lacy, Co-Chair & Co-President of Warner Music Nashville, was the person for the job. “I grew up listening to Randy Travis, and he’s one of the main reasons I chose this career,” says Cris. “My first thought about AI was: ‘It might be able to help us bring back Randy’s voice.'”

Randy Travis is a Grammy winner and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Since a stroke in 2013 led to aphasia, his ability to speak has been very limited for over a decade. This was devastating not only for Travis and his family but also for millions of fans worldwide.

For Warner Music, the decision to use AI technology to “return” his voice was not taken lightly.

“The only way we could know if this was the right and humane thing to do was to see if Randy himself was willing to be actively involved,” Lacy explains, adding that they had numerous discussions with the singer and his wife, Mary.

“Mary just said, ‘I wish I could hear his voice again. I miss it so much.’ It was at that moment that we started to bring all the resources together.”

A key step for Warner Music Nashville was finding a partner who could build an AI model to precisely replicate Randy’s voice. The team also contacted Travis’s long-time producer, Kyle Lehning, who knows Randy’s voice better than anyone. With Randy’s blessing, Kyle spent months experimenting with different audio tracks and AI technology.

They extracted 42 original vocal stems from Randy’s past releases as a starting point and overlaid them with an unreleased song, “Where That Came From,” by country singer James Dupre. This proved to be the perfect starting point to recreate Travis’s voice.

“You might think you’d be able to tell it’s AI just by listening. But the reason you can’t is that Kyle painstakingly worked syllable by syllable, note by note, and repeatedly considered whether Randy himself would have sung it that way,” Lacy says.

Describing the moment the song was finally completed, she says: “Kyle called me and said, ‘I’m going to send you a song, but I don’t know how to feel about it.’ He said, ‘I’m both excited and scared.’ When he sent it over, I burst into tears. It was just magical to hear that voice sing again.”

Crucially, despite the significant time and resources invested in the project, the team maintained continuous communication with Randy and his team—and never insisted that the song had to be released.

“We were always questioning if this was the right thing to do, and we would go back to Randy and constantly ask him, ‘How do you feel about this?'” Lacy also refutes criticisms that Warner Music Group’s move was to “make a quick buck.” “I would just say, if you think spending a year making one song is a windfall, you really need to do your homework. This was entirely a labor of love.”

Warner Music Nashville carefully selected a small team for this project, both to ensure success and to protect privacy before its release. Just before Randy’s 65th birthday, he and Warner Music Nashville released the song “Where That Came From.”

“I think everyone on the team felt a strong sense of ownership and responsibility. This isn’t generative AI. This isn’t a computer creating something out of thin air. It’s a group of humans using a tool to help a person with a disability who still wants to fulfill his life’s mission,” she says.

Nevertheless, Lacy says the team was “very cautious” about how fans would react to “Where That Came From.”

But the song was a huge success—especially for those closest to him. “Some people completely broke down and cried. Some ran over to hug him, and others asked, ‘Is this real?’ Some just assumed it was. And others said, ‘I don’t care if it’s real. It sounds like you, and I’m so happy you’re still making music.’ But everyone was incredibly supportive.”

The team recently released another AI-assisted song called “Horses in Heaven” and plans to release one more. Lacy believes the creation process of these songs is a model for how the music industry can use the power of AI in a positive, fair, and sincere way.

Reflecting on the experience, she says: “I’ve learned so much it’s hard to pick just one thing. But the most important thing is that nothing can replace ‘heart.’ This was made possible by many people with heart, who weren’t concerned about money or what others thought. They did it because it was the right thing to do. And that kind of heart, you can’t replicate. You can hear it in the song.”

2. What Can We Feel from This?

This article is an extremely clever public relations and strategic statement from Warner Music Group in the AI era. Through a case full of humanity and ethical brilliance, it clearly articulates its stance on AI technology and draws a clear line between its actions and those of companies like Suno and Udio. Its core strategy can be interpreted as follows:

• Ethics First, Permission Paramount
  The core of the entire story is “consent” and “collaboration.” Warner repeatedly emphasizes that every step of this project’s initiation and progression depended on Randy Travis’s personal blessing and continuous involvement. This directly addresses the core dispute of the current AI infringement lawsuits: authorization. Warner demonstrates through action: we use AI, but we do so with the artist’s 100% consent and deep collaboration.
• “Restorative AI” vs. “Generative AI”
  Lacy’s statement, “This isn’t generative AI. This isn’t a computer creating something out of thin air,” is the most strategically intentional sentence. She deliberately defines the technology used by Warner as a “restorative” or “assistive” tool, aimed at helping an artist recover a lost ability, not generating content out of thin air to compete with artists. Through this definition, Warner cleverly attempts to guide public opinion and the legal community to form a consensus: there is “good” and “bad” AI, and the key lies in its purpose and method of use.
• Emphasizing the Central Role of “Humans”
  The article goes to great lengths to downplay the coldness of technology, repeatedly emphasizing the efforts of “people” and the emotional investment of “heart.” The producer’s “syllable by syllable, note by note” polishing, the team’s “excited and scared” emotions, the “burst into tears” reaction upon hearing the song, and the final characterization of it being “not for money, but for love” all convey one message: technology is just a tool, and the ultimate artistic value comes from human emotion, effort, and creativity. This is both an affirmation of the artist’s value and a critique of purely technology-driven, emotionless “generative AI.”

Through the Randy Travis case, Warner Music Group has shown the world its ideal vision of “AI.” This is not just a touching story but also a powerful legal and public relations weapon. It provides Warner with a strong argument in the “lawsuit of the century” against Suno and Udio: we are not against AI technology; we are against the unethical, illegal, and disrespectful use of AI that does not respect creators. This case sets an extremely high ethical benchmark for the entire industry and makes people start thinking about what we should truly pursue in the AI era: infinitely generated cheap content, or works that are full of “heart” and can truly touch people’s souls.

The contradiction here is that the generation quality of Suno is currently not high enough to compete with music productions that have massive investments. But it cannot be denied that AIGC like Suno and Udio have the ability to iterate quickly and may not be without breakthroughs in the future. And this article, published by IFPI, undoubtedly confirms the BLOG owner’s previous point about “authority projection.” IFPI’s inclinations and its status in the industry are plain to see.

VI. Promoting Growth in the Global Music Industry

1. Translated from the IFPI original

• Record companies are driving global cultural & economic development.
  The positive impact of record companies’ work and investment on cultural and economic development is often most evident in rapidly developing music markets. Their long-term commitment and investment—not just in local artists, but also in on-the-ground work and the teams that support them—are key to driving music growth. Beyond the artist’s team, in the broader industry ecosystem, developing skills and expertise supports an artist’s journey, whether they are part of a record company system or not. This local support and investment is spread across the world, connecting artists with a global network of experts to support and promote their work.
• Recognising the value of music.
  Music has always had profound cultural and economic value, and public policy must ensure this value is fully recognized and protected in the market. This means requiring anyone who wants to use copyrighted music on their platform or as part of their service to obtain a license from the rights holders before use. The collapse of this long-established incentive structure would cause significant damage. A piece of data: In 2023, record companies invested a total of $8.1 billion, equivalent to 30.8% of total revenue.
• Supporting performance and broadcasting rights for music.
  IFPI works with music licensing organizations worldwide to ensure that those who create and perform music for public performance and broadcasting are fairly compensated for their work. In most countries, broadcasters are required to pay royalties to the artists, producers, and songwriters of the music they play. However, the world’s two largest economies—the United States and Japan—still lack full broadcasting and public performance rights. Furthermore, in many countries, the rates paid by businesses for playing music are so low that they fail to provide fair compensation to artists and producers for the use of their music. Performance rights can provide a vital and growing source of income for artists and make a significant contribution to the growth of the music economy. To achieve this, governments should fully establish these rights and allow rights holders to organize effective revenue collection.

2. Case Studies

To support the points made above, IFPI presented three case studies. Let’s look at them one by one:

Connecting Continents, Amplifying Voices – India x Canada | Warner Music Group

idea for 91 North Records originated during the pandemic lockdown when Jay Mehta, Managing Director of Warner Music India & SAARC, had just joined the company. With the ambition to “take Indian voices global,” Mehta found that Canada was becoming a music hub for creators and fans.”In 2020, we discussed how Indian music had the opportunity to create the next big wave. And as we were talking, Canada started to emerge as a hotbed for great Indian content, with many Punjabi artists coming out of there,” he says. “While Canada was already a huge consumer market, it had newly become a significant creator market, constantly producing great Indian music.” This was an inspirational moment for Mehta, leading him to create 91 North Records, a label aimed at fostering the explosive growth of South Asian music. Kristen Burke, President of Warner Music Canada, explains that the Canadian market is hugely enthusiastic about this.”For us at Warner Music Canada, it’s not just about South Asian music; it’s that Canada itself is so diverse and multicultural. So, we’re really focused on leveraging that,” she says. The joint venture between Warner Music Canada and Warner Music India was launched in Toronto in August 2022, aiming to combine the market potential of two different fanbases to push this music onto the global stage.Warner Music sees 91 North Records as a vital bridge connecting East and West, merging talent, culture, and ideas. The label’s name cleverly links the two countries, using India’s country code (91 for phones) and Canada’s geographic location. Canadian-Punjabi musician Jonita Gandhi was one of the first artists to sign with 91 North Records, while the Canadian and Indian teams worked closely together to develop the career of Karan Aujla.The global network allows Warner Music to amplify artists’ influence through global support in A&R, marketing, and distribution, identifying culturally impactful collaboration opportunities, and more. Burke says, “Jay and I quickly got together and recognized that there was a real opportunity here to be the first label to truly support these artists, because there was simply no infrastructure for it in Canada at the time. The music and artistry were so good, we really felt we needed to help elevate them and bring them to a global stage. From the beginning, we were completely aligned and saw this vision.”Mehta adds: “91 North Records is more than just a record label; it’s a cultural movement for which we want to build an infrastructure. We’re not just exporting music; we’re exporting a culture, an energy, a lifestyle. So we’re not just focused on the artists’ recording business. We’re also looking at the publishing business, the live performance business, and we’re trying to build major brand partnerships. And a key part of doing that is building the team in Canada to support these artists.”Burke continues: “We’ve added team members of South Asian descent because we know it’s incredibly important to be able to communicate with artists in their native language and to understand their culture and the different nuances. We don’t feel this is something we can do independently from Canada. And even if some artists are based in Canada, the primary market is still India.”91 North is guided by artist and producer Ikky, who has worked with artists including Diljit Dosanjh and Sidhu Moose Wala. The fusion of Indian and Canadian strengths has also led to a sharing of expertise. Part of this was hiring two on-the-ground South Asian music A&R specialists.”We’re not trying to Westernize these artists. We’re trying to support them and help them become global superstars without making them feel like they need to change or do something like sing in English to get more attention,” Burke explains. “As the world changes and music travels, we’re making great music that stands out—and that’s what we want to do.”91 North will sign Indian artists living in India, as well as artists of Indian descent living in Canada. There are also plans to expand this collaboration beyond Canada and India. The team has been strategically considering expanding this project to the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, which all have large South Asian diasporas.Mehta adds, “Ultimately, it’s data-driven. By analyzing data from streaming, YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms, we can see not only which countries, but which regions within those countries are hotbeds for fans. So, we know the UK is a huge market, but now Australia and New Zealand are also emerging in a major way, which is reflected in the streaming data.” Burke adds: “We’re looking at markets with larger diaspora communities and where the music is really resonating with artists.”

More music from more places – Nigeria | Universal Music Group

There are great artists in every corner of the globe, but not every great artist gets to be on the world stage. Record companies help support artists and genres in emerging music markets around the world by investing in local artists and providing them with the resources they need to succeed, not only in their home regions and markets but also to break through globally.For example, in 2024, Universal Music Group invested in Mavin Global Records, a leading Nigerian Afrobeats label, led by founder (and renowned artist and producer) Michael Collins Ajereh (aka Don Jazzy) and his COO, Tega Oghenejobo. UMG’s resources and global expertise combined with Mavin’s knowledge of the local market and artists have greatly accelerated the label’s success and strategically positioned its artists in markets throughout the region and beyond. Mavin’s founder and CEO Don Jazzy said of forming this partnership: “The music scene in Africa is incredibly diverse—we’re just at the beginning of this journey to find its global voice.””We know it’s growing and at a really exciting time, but there’s still more room for growth. Leveraging the experience and scale that Universal Music Group can provide for us and our artists feels like the natural next step.” Oghenejobo continues: “For us, it’s about cross-cultural education between ourselves and Universal Music Group. We understand the uniqueness of our business and our artists, and we have 13 years of experience working in the Nigerian and broader African music business. But with Universal Music Group, we’re connected to a larger global machine with operating systems and expertise around the world that we didn’t have access to before.”Mutual trust is at the core of our partnership. Universal Music Group believes in the legacy we’ve built—and we have complete trust in them to protect and amplify our artists globally,” he concludes.Building on this theme, Devraj Sanyal, UMG’s SVP Strategy, AMEA, said of expanding local labels: “This has to happen steadily and sequentially. Consistent investment from global players, in sync with collective societies and institutions, and deep, meaningful connections with local governments are absolutely critical for sustainable long-term growth.”Sanyal, who also serves as Chairman & CEO of Universal Music India, has seen firsthand the impact of global opportunities on artists in rapidly evolving markets. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy or without challenges. For example, while India is the world’s most populous country, it is the 15th largest recorded music market by annual revenue.Nevertheless, Sanyal is optimistic about India. With UMG’s people, resources, and vision, Sanyal says: “A song called ‘Big Dawgs’ by a South Asian artist named hanumankind successfully entered the global charts and became the most-streamed song of the digital age. This opened the door for India to the world and injected so much confidence into the market. India has so much potential: local music for the local market, local music for the global diaspora, and ultimately, local music for the world.”Sanyal notes that in emerging markets, government support is crucial for the successful development of the market and the success of artists: “Government support for all kinds of creators is essential. The power to make everyone respect copyright lies primarily with them, and we are working closely with them to communicate and enforce this.”Speaking of the African market, Oghenejobo agrees: “In Africa, we need governments to help enforce laws and stop illegal services from providing music for free. We want our music fans to listen to music through legal and authorized services. This is the only way for African music to continue to grow sustainably.” So far, the partnership has been incredibly successful, combining their expertise and resources to bring Nigerian artists to the world stage in ways never seen before.A good example comes from their work with young Nigerian artists Rema and Ayra Starr—both of whom initially had only a local fanbase and now have an increasingly broad audience. Ayra Starr’s album “The Year I Turned 21” broke the record for the biggest debut day for an album by a Nigerian female artist in Spotify history and ended the year as the most popular Nigerian project of 2024. Rema’s album “HEIS” also broke multiple records, reaching #1 in over 11 countries and debuting at #7 on the Billboard Global Albums chart.UMG’s investment in Nigeria through its partnership with Mavin has had a positive impact on the local industry, even beyond the label and its artists. This investment is used to develop local executives, build local infrastructure, and encourage other major music platforms to also invest in the region.As Oghenejobo continues: “With Universal Music Group working alongside us, we are able to work on putting the building blocks in place to ensure Nigeria has a thriving musical future. They are a bridge for us and accelerate all the hard work that our team does.”Our collaboration has kicked off” taking the creative from Nigeria—and even Africa as a whole—to the world. “We’re providing training programs for local songwriters, expanding the country’s workforce. All of this is to ensure we can grow globally, but also to preserve the art and culture on the continent.”

The Rise of Huang Zihongfan – China | Sony Music Group

Huang Zihongfan has become one of China’s most exciting Gen Z talents. After being discovered on Hunan TV’s classical-crossover vocal competition show “Super-Vocal,” the 25-year-old singer has continued to improve and has accumulated a wealth of live performance experience.In 2024 alone, he participated in 29 music festivals, conquering fans with his charming stage presence and passion. Andrew Chan, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment China, has been working closely with the rising star since releasing his debut single “Grow Up” in 2023. As Chan says, “What really excites us is Huang Zihongfan’s passion and focus. He has the spirit and desire needed to become a top artist, which is exactly the type of talent we love to support in this vibrant and competitive region. However, Huang Zihongfan’s ‘fighting spirit’ is not just about competition, but stems from a persistent pursuit of creating a deep connection with the audience and unique art. He is precisely the kind of artist who thrives in such a dynamic and demanding market.” At the core of Huang Zihongfan’s musical exploration is his constant experimentation with diverse music styles and forms of expression. The Mandopop artist sings in Mandarin, English, and Cantonese, and cleverly incorporates styles and genres from various regions.”The contemporary Chinese music ecosystem, similar to global trends, is showing a booming and diverse development. Listeners’ tastes are becoming more mature, and various music genres from hip-hop and EDM to R&B and pop all have their own audiences. Our strategy is to build a vibrant collaborative ecosystem, promoting cross-genre collaborations between musicians and producers of different styles, thereby weaving a rich musical tapestry that resonates with the local market and has the potential for international dissemination.”He adds that the Chinese market is “highly diverse,” and the pace of high-quality new releases in the region over the past year has been the fastest in decades. In 2024 alone, Sony Music China released 3,700 songs. But Chan points out that the core driver of this growth lies in the artist development system and the exploration of collaborations with other musical talents.A typical example is the joint performance of singer Huang Zihongfan and the American band OneRepublic at the Bilibili New Year’s Eve Gala in December 2024. This is exactly the kind of success model the Sony Music team hopes to replicate. Chan explains that Sony Music’s global network is a huge advantage for artists—providing them with customized development advice for different regions. “We are an excellent window for artists to open up the global market, helping them achieve international success in their music careers.” He adds that Sony Music excels at understanding diverse audiences.But Chan’s grand ambition is to push C-pop onto the international stage, just like K-pop. “I think it requires a lot of trial and error,” he says, ensuring the company’s strategy remains flexible.Dennis Kooker, President of Global Digital Business at Sony, explains that these global strategies can be difficult to balance, but are ultimately fan-led. “The demand for music continues to grow, but reaching your audience is more challenging than ever. For us, we think about how to develop strategies to help artists find their fans, rather than trying to force fans to gather on one platform or be confined to one style,” Kooker says. He adds, “This opens up entirely new possibilities from both an online (digital) and offline (real life) perspective.”Therefore, in addition to live performances, Huang Zihongfan’s team has also been studying how to use social media to enhance fan engagement. Thanks to his growing Gen Z fanbase, he has gained huge attention on one of China’s largest social media platforms, Weibo. In 2024, he appeared on over 36 trending topics in a single month, with related views accumulating to 1.6 billion.Chan adds, “In today’s digital age, social media is not just a promotional tool; it’s a vital channel for artists to build authentic connections with their fans. Our strategy for [Lars, likely a typo for Huang Zihongfan] is to strategically integrate social media platforms into his entire career plan, thereby cultivating a vibrant and highly engaged fan community.”His hit single “Soaked in Rain” was widely popular, reaching 14 million plays in its first week and receiving over a million comments on Chinese digital streaming platforms. In October 2024, Huang Zihongfan released an album titled “Fun! Only,” which sold over 100,000 physical copies in just 24 hours, setting a remarkable sales milestone. This outstanding achievement earned him the prestigious IFPI Quintuple Platinum certification.Building on this momentum, Sony Music also supported Huang Zihongfan in launching his highly anticipated concert tour. The tour kicked off in 2024, featuring five exciting stadium-level audiovisual spectaculars, with each stop sold out, attracting over 10,000 spectators. With the support of Sony Music, he is continuously enhancing his artistry, expanding his influence, and creating an impressive series of high-quality musical works, moving towards becoming a more globally influential star.

3. How to Analyze This

The three cases above were carefully selected by IFPI to support its core argument that “record companies drive the growth of the global music industry.” Each of the three major record companies gets a feature, showing an intention to be balanced. More specifically, IFPI hopes to use these cases to prove to the world (including governments, partners, and the public) that major record companies play an indispensable, positive, and growth-driving role in the global music industry. Let’s continue to explore and analyze these cases using the keywords listed by the BLOG owner.

• Local Investment
  The report emphasizes that record companies’ investment is more than just money. Sony’s investment in Huang Zihongfan is comprehensive: from discovery (collaboration after “Super-Vocal”), A&R (artist and repertoire planning), marketing and promotion (social media, international collaborations), to commercialization (albums, tours), building a complete career development path. This confirms IFPI’s point: a record company’s investment is “investment in local artists, but also in on-the-ground work and the teams that support them,” and is “key to driving music growth.”
• Big Data / Data-Driven
  Sony Music verifies and adjusts its strategies by analyzing Weibo trending topics (36 topics), view counts (1.6 billion), comment numbers (1 million), etc. This aligns with Andrew Chan’s basic strategy: “I think it requires a lot of trial and error, and ensuring our strategy remains flexible.” Accurate big data and related predictive information from various social platforms give Sony good planning and positioning capabilities, and also deeply show that Sony Music has firmly rooted itself in the Chinese music market.
• Emerging Markets
  Interestingly, all three cases shift their focus away from the European and American markets. This, to some extent, reveals a macroscopic trend in the global music market. The European and American markets are becoming saturated, while emerging markets like China, India, and Africa show huge potential. IFPI chose these three cases to tell the world: the future growth points are here, and the record companies are already deeply invested.
• Diaspora Strategy
  In Warner’s India x Canada case, it is explicitly mentioned that the South Asian diaspora is an important market base, with plans to expand to the UK, Australia, and other countries with large South Asian populations. This reveals an important globalization strategy: using cultural diasporas as a beachhead to gradually penetrate and influence mainstream markets. In fact, this is also a valuable lesson for the global expansion of C-pop.
• Copyright Appeal
  Although the three cases do not directly mention political goals, they are placed within the framework of the IFPI report, which has strong policy appeals behind it. The report clearly states that the prosperity of the music industry depends on “public policy must ensure its value is fully recognized and protected in the market,” i.e., strict copyright protection. The report also criticizes the incomplete broadcasting rights in the US and Japan and calls on African governments to combat piracy. The BLOG owner also recently demonstrated, through the review of “The Sounds of Silence,” the long history of American broadcasting’s disregard for copyright. From this, we can see IFPI’s core political appeal: “Only in an environment with relatively good copyright protection and a sound market mechanism can we create huge cultural and economic value.”
• K-POP
  In the “South Korea / Fandom Charting” keyword analysis, the BLOG owner already pointed out that K-pop has had a strong desire to go overseas from the very beginning. We can expand on this here. South Korea’s domestic market is relatively small, with a population of only about 50 million, limiting domestic demand. For the industry to continue growing and recoup the high costs of idol training, it must expand to overseas markets. Exporting is not an option, but a necessity. Since the late 1990s Asian financial crisis, the South Korean government has treated the cultural industry as a strategic pillar of the nation, providing strong support. The global promotion of K-pop carries the color of national brand building. From the early days, K-pop songs have habitually interspersed memorable English hooks within Korean lyrics. This lowers the entry barrier for overseas listeners, making it easier for them to remember a part of the song beyond the melody. K-pop actively embraces and fuses cutting-edge Western pop music elements, such as Hip-hop, EDM, R&B, Latin Pop, etc. It does not pursue pure “Koreanness” but creates a hybrid product that “sounds international but looks Korean.” Therefore, K-pop often invests heavily in producing film-level music videos, emphasizing strong visual impact, synchronized complex choreography, and exquisite fashion styling. K-pop first established a foothold in Asia (Japan, Southeast Asia), then bypassed the barriers of traditional Western media through digital platforms like YouTube and social media, directly reaching young Western fan groups. This formed a “bottom-up,” fan-driven dissemination, eventually forcing mainstream media and markets to acknowledge its existence.
• C-POP
  The logical starting point of C-pop is the complete opposite of K-pop; it grew up in a model “born for the domestic market.” China has a huge, self-sufficient domestic market of over 1.4 billion people. Simply serving the domestic market is enough to support a massive music industry. Therefore, for a long time, C-pop lacked the urgency and original motivation to export. In recent years, “cultural confidence” has become a mainstream narrative. The creation of C-pop leans more towards serving local aesthetics and cultural identity. For example, the popularity of “Gufeng” (ancient style) music is an expression of exploring cultural roots inward.Mandarin is the absolute core of C-pop. The literary quality, narrative, and emotional resonance of lyrics hold an important position in the traditional Chinese music scene. Although there are English songs or interspersed English, this is more a choice of personal style for the musician rather than an industry-level, standardized operation for export. As for musical style, it is extremely diverse, but the mainstream market has long been dominated by ballads. Although all kinds of genres are now flourishing, a globally recognizable, unified “C-pop paradigm” like K-pop has not yet formed. In China, artists can become famous through various channels such as TV drama OSTs, variety shows, and short video platforms. The path is far more complex and dispersed than the idol-centric model of K-pop. The case of Huang Zihongfan, discovered through a classical-crossover variety show like “Super-Vocal,” is unimaginable in the K-pop industry.The globalization of C-pop is more like a “natural overflow.” It first serves the vast domestic market, then naturally radiates to the rest of the world through overseas Chinese, expatriates, and students. But objectively speaking, C-pop is still a huge, internally-driven industry. Its influence is absolutely dominant in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. In countries with large Chinese populations like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, it also has a deep market foundation and historical roots. The audiences in these regions not only consume C-pop but also produce C-pop artists, forming a close cultural ecosystem. In North America, Europe, Australia, etc., the main audience for C-pop is Chinese students, immigrants, and their descendants. Concerts, fan events, etc., mostly revolve around this group. It is more like a “niche community” for maintaining cultural identity and has not yet massively “broken out” into the local mainstream view. On global platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, the overall streaming volume of C-pop still has a large gap compared to K-pop, Latin music, and even J-pop. Although some artists (like Jay Chou) perform well on specific regional charts, they lack the ability to consistently break into global charts like the Billboard Global 200.

VII. Conclusion

Finally, after a full week and 25,000 characters, this analysis report on the “GLOBAL MUSIC REPORT 2025” has come to an end. This in-depth interpretation is the BLOG owner’s personal view of the entire music industry over the past many years. Although I have done my best to ensure a neutral stance and accurate information, given my limited personal ability, if there are any errors, please point them out in the comments section, and I ask for your understanding.

The translation and data collection for the original text were assisted by AI (GEMINI/DEEPSEEK/GROK), which was an important guarantee for completing this analysis report within a week. For individual creators, AI has indeed become an indispensable existence. Whether one admits it or not, this is the unstoppable march of our times, and the relationship between humans and AI remains to be continuously explored in the future. And this analysis report that you see today, I believe, will become a small footnote in this pre-AI era. I am immensely grateful and honored.

Author: RainLain Blogger. Reprints are welcome, but must credit the source and author.