Old legacy acts account for a significant proportion of streaming revenue. I don't know the revenue numbers but you can get an idea of an artist's popularity fr

Old legacy acts account for a significant proportion of streaming revenue. I don't know the revenue numbers but you can get an idea of an artist's popularity from the Monthly Listeners metric on Spotify. I would hazard a guess and assert that most of the middle ranking artists that make up the rump of streaming listens (with monthly Spotify listeners over 1 million) are legacy acts. A random example: Dan Fogelberg achieved some success 40 - 50 years ago, his style of soft singer songwriter has very little relevance today and yet he is getting 1.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify. It's really hard for contemporary artists to get to 1 million Spotify listeners even if they are critically-lauded. For example, here are some artists from the top of the Album Of The Year aggregate list of lists of the best albums of 2023 [0], together with their monthly listeners on Spotify. In other words these artists' albums were widely viewed by critics as among the best albums of 2023. Lankum - 93k Anohni - 452k Wednesday - 173k Young Fathers - 461k Sure, critical acclaim does not equal commercial success, but these numbers highlight how hard it can be to break through even if you are really good. And with the already massive catalog of recorded music swelling further and further every year the outlook for new artists is scary. The massive choice and availability of music on streaming platforms is absolutely fantastic for music lovers but the competitive environment for contemporary artists is one where they are trying to find and grow an audience in a massive glut of content. It's hard, and very different from the old music biz. I came across a new artist yesterday, NIKK has just 112 monthly Spotify listeners at this time, and their debut album is really great! Described as "ambient glitchpop soundscapes" give it a listen! https://nikk.bandcamp.com/album/you-see-me-through-your-eyes https://nikk.bandcamp.com/album/you-see-me-through-your-eyes https://open.spotify.com/album/7uPhwANGy9w6oJryJESh0f?si=vDxJehx-Sb2HzhUUEDgYJA https://open.spotify.com/album/7uPhwANGy9w6oJryJESh0f?si=vDx... [0] https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2023/ https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2023/