A tweet from Twitter/X account Pop Base has been stirring up some controversy. “Music executives tell Billboard that they are worried and depressed as the industry struggles to find big artist breakthroughs, noting Olivia Rodrigo and Ice Spice as the last recently successful ones,” it reads. James Blake, who has an album coming out next month, had something to say about this.
Along with other musicians, he took the tweet as an opportunity to share his opinion on the state of the music industry. “Forced us all onto platforms that reduce our art and now sad that it’s hard to find breakthrough artists,” he wrote in a quote-tweet.
Forced us all onto platforms that reduce our art and now sad that it’s hard to find breakthrough artists
https://t.co/4Sf3iPWfaP
— James Blake (@jamesblake) August 10, 2023
The original tweet also mentions a quote from the article: “Each person I talk to in the industry is more depressed [about this] than the person I talked to before them,” said a manager. “Every issue that we’re facing right now comes down to oversaturation,” Dylan Bourne, another manager, told Billboard. “People are just buried in content.”
However, the article points to Ice Spice and Olivia Rodrigo as two viral artists who’ve maintained their stardom despite the transient nature of popularity in the industry right now.
Playing Robots Into Heaven is out 9/8 via Republic. Find more information here.