I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately: Can you really make money selling music anymore?

I’m not asking whether it’s technically possible. Obviously, people still make money from music. I’m asking whether an independent musician can make music, release it, and realistically expect the music itself to generate a meaningful income.

I’ve been involved with music for a long time, and when I look at the industry today, I honestly don’t know where I fit anymore.

Part of the problem is that there is just so much music out there. You have talented independent musicians competing with major-label artists, people copying whatever happens to be popular, people trying to game streaming numbers, stolen music, bots, and now AI-generated music being added to the pile.

Some of it is great. A lot of it isn’t.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that are people like me who actually enjoy sitting down and creating music.

When Everything Starts Sounding the Same

One of my biggest problems with current music is how much of it sounds the same.

I know every generation probably says something similar about the music that comes after it, so maybe some of this is simply my own taste. But when I listen to a lot of current popular music, I hear the same production techniques, similar arrangements, similar vocal styles, similar sounds and sometimes what feels like the same song being rewritten over and over again.

There are exceptions. Every once in a while I hear something that makes me stop and think, OK, that’s different.

Those are the records that remind me why I still love music.

But they feel like little flashes of originality inside an enormous amount of content.

Maybe the Business Model Is Part of the Problem

I don’t necessarily blame musicians for all of this.

If you’re trying to make a living, you’re naturally going to pay attention to what works. If a certain style is getting millions of streams, labels, producers and artists are going to notice it.

Then somebody makes something similar.

Then somebody else does it.

Before long, a trend becomes a formula.

Streaming seems to have made this even more complicated. For most independent musicians, getting a few thousand streams isn’t going to pay the rent. Even numbers that look impressive on a screen don’t necessarily translate into impressive money.

That changes the incentive.

Instead of asking, What do I want to create?, musicians can easily find themselves asking, What will get streams?

Those are two very different questions.

Then AI Entered the Room

Now we have another complication: artificial intelligence.

I’m not against AI. I use technology, and I think there are legitimate ways for musicians and producers to use AI as another tool in the creative process.

But there is a difference between using a tool to help create something and pushing a button to generate hundreds of tracks in an attempt to flood streaming services and make money.

That’s where I start wondering what happens to the value of music itself.

If virtually anyone can generate 100 songs in the time it takes another musician to write, record, mix and master one song, how does the musician compete?

Maybe the answer is that we don’t.

Maybe competing on volume was never something musicians should have been doing in the first place.

So Where Do I Fit?

That is the question I keep coming back to.

I still love creating music.

I love sitting in front of the keyboard, finding a sound, playing something unexpected and slowly hearing a track become something that didn’t exist before. That part hasn’t changed.

What has changed is my expectation of what happens afterward.

Years ago, I thought the goal was simple: make good music, release it, sell it and hopefully build an audience.

Today I’m starting to think that may no longer be enough.

Maybe the music is only one part of it now.

Licensing, YouTube, direct sales, custom work, content creation and building an audience around the person creating the music may ultimately be more important than simply uploading another song to a streaming service and hoping somebody discovers it.

I don’t have the answer yet.

I’m actually trying to figure this out myself.

And that’s part of what I want RunJoeRun to be about—not pretending that I’ve figured everything out, but documenting what happens while I try.

Can an independent musician still build a meaningful income around original music without chasing every trend, gaming the system or turning the entire creative process over to AI?

I’m going to find out.

What do you think? Can independent musicians still make real money from their music, or has the business changed so much that we need to completely rethink what “making it” means?