Part 4:
Why music is more than ‘just’ music
Logic1000
Key Takeaways
Music can foster social mobility, economic growth, civic engagement, and strengthen democracy, if leveraged to its fullest potential. A wide variety of organizations have advocated for this holistic vision of music, as something that can provide broad social, cultural, and economic benefits.
From the International Music Council’s 5 Music Rights, to the European Union’s One Voice for Music campaign, there are a number of initiatives articulating and providing evidence for music’s role as a development tool.[33] Record labels and other music businesses, likewise, support this vision of music’s expansive value, and are not solely focused on recording and releasing music. They want to create an environment for music to thrive and produce societal benefits—inclusive of the policies, infrastructure, and frameworks needed for it to happen—and contribute to making these benefits a reality, from investing in community revitalization, to engaging in mental health advocacy and support.
Music can play a crucial role in fostering global development, including contributing to the achievement of all seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As we explore below, it is an invaluable asset in addressing global and local challenges. Though this is not an exhaustive list of all the ways that music produces external impacts, we hope it outlines how investment in independent music—and the direct and indirect economic and social benefits it delivers—is in fact, an investment in communities.
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As an additional example, the European Commission’s “Culture and Democracy: the evidence” (2023) study provides an exhaustive review of the literature linking citizen participation in culture, including music, to improved civic engagement, social cohesion, and democracy. The report examines the extensive and growing literature documenting the benefits of participating in cultural activities, including: “an increased likelihood to vote, to volunteer and to participate in community activities, projects, and organizations; the development of positive social attitudes associated with civic and democratic values and identities, such as feelings of community belonging, tolerance, trust and empathy for people from different backgrounds; the development of personal and social skills and competencies that are essential for functioning democracies, as they enable individuals to be more effective citizens—like self‑expression, the ability to listen to others, to understand different perspectives and to facilitate conflict resolution; and more.
Music and economies
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The economic impact of music reaches further than investment in artists and their work. Music contributes significantly to boosting national, regional, and local economies at the aggregate and sectoral levels.
The large body of work on understanding the impact of music on cities and local governments demonstrates this. When harnessed and understood, music can help address larger place‑based issues, from investment to tourism, and community development to education. In over two dozen cities analyzed by economic consultancy Sound Diplomacy[34]—including Huntsville, Alabama, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Belfast, Ireland, and Lausanne, Switzerland—music economies have grown at a faster rate since 2010 than the rest of the local economy, demonstrating music’s role in accelerating local job creation. Furthermore, research across the EU demonstrates how the creative economy, including music, increases regional wealth. As demonstrated earlier in this report, recorded music is at the heart of these economic opportunities. This not only includes the copyright income derived from the work itself, but the ecosystem required to produce it, including recording studios, rehearsal spaces, mastering facilities and manufacturers.
However, at all levels of government and within multilaterals, more needs to be done to understand the economic benefits that music delivers and the infrastructure required to support it. In some countries, the economic foundations for recorded music to drive this growth are absent, meaning the jobs, improved livelihoods, and wider economic benefits are also missing. This is changing, as shown by a number of projects exploring the economic impact of music across communities, including the European Music Policy Exchange project[35], the growing membership in the European‑focused Music Cities Network, and the UNESCO Cities of Music.[36]
But core services that record labels provide, and the economic ecosystem they support, are only just starting to be understood by local and regional policymakers.[37] Future ORCA‑supported research will contribute to producing a better understanding of the impact of independent record labels, and exploring how such investments can be intentional and targeted to better support economic growth.
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The Center for Music Ecosystems, which supported the development of this report, maintains ties to Sound Diplomacy through its Executive Director, Shain Shapiro, who is a founder of Sound Diplomacy.
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This project is also coordinated by the Center for Music Ecosystems, in full disclosure.
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In Europe the independents’ association IMPALA underlines the need for a strategic approach via an industrial policy for culture.
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Some countries are more advanced than others with respect to supporting music and music ecosystems towards producing economic and social development. In France, for example, the national music ecosystem is organized with extensive support from the state, including funding and subsidies, a robust network of cultural centers, and policy instruments such as radio content quotas, and the taxation of certain music‑derived revenues to redistribute towards support for French music.
Music and communities
Aside from direct and indirect economic value, music generates significant socio‑cultural improvements, supporting community development, renewal, regeneration and cohesion.
People often take these benefits for granted, such as the power of music to unite people regardless of political or religious affiliation, or its unifying effect at a sports match, parade or fair, or music’s importance during weddings, funerals or other life events. These positive effects can be harnessed and increased in all communities, using independent record labels as case studies and partners.
The influence of independent record labels on community development is particularly substantial, given the thousands of indies located in metropolitan cities and small towns worldwide. Secretly Canadian, headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, started as a small independent label and has grown into a highly esteemed international entity, employing more than 200 people across offices in Bloomington, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Its success has resulted in numerous benefits for Bloomington, including the creation of 63 jobs within the city, a substantial boost to the local touring economy, and the recent purchase and renovation of a warehouse that will act as an event space and hub for the label. Similar community contributions can be found across independent labels. Polyvinyl Records makes impactful contributions to its hometown of Champaign, IL; Merge Records played a key role in establishing Chapel Hill, NC, as a prominent musical hub; and Kill Rock Stars and K Records fostered community development in Olympia, WA, while also helping to birth the culturally significant riot grrrl music genre.
Likewise, in Europe and in many other nations for that matter, there are a diverse number of case studies to show the impact that music can have on communities. In Arles, France, the city has taken advantage of the diverse classical and experimental music scene—which was partly incubated through the development of independent label Harmonia Mundi in 1958—to catalyze the local tourist and arts economy. It now plays hosts to a huge number of music events and its trademark summer festival, Les Suds, that brings in thousands of visitors. Down the road in Orange, France, the development of Les Chorégies d'Orange as one of the best opera festivals in the world has put this small town on the map, and driven the community to come together to support the event and the economy it created. Similar stories of music contributing to community identity and development have played out across Europe, in places like Montreux, Switzerland with their world‑renowned Jazz Festival, Bayreuth, Germany with their classical music festival, and Salzburg, Austria, where the legacy of classical music’s development is central to the city and its citizens.
One particularly transformative example of independent labels contributing to community building is the work of Nebraska‑based independent record label Saddle Creek. Its investment—financial and non‑financial—supports a community of musicians in its home city of Omaha, leading to ancillary investments at other labels and recording studios. Its engagement in the community over a long period of time enabled the label to partner with the City of Omaha to redevelop a previously industrial area of the city. The Slowdown Project saw the creation of new offices and warehouses for Saddle Creek, a new live music venue (The Slowdown), a non‑profit independent cinema (Film Streams), a mix of local and national retail, residential space, and amenities, including a coffeehouse and bar. The majority of costs were funded by the label, with financing and tax incentives from the City of Omaha. As a result, the project has gone beyond music. It has invigorated a local cultural economy, increased space for social and cultural enterprises, increased footfall, and accelerated the construction of new housing in an area with limited supply. It has also benefited the city more broadly by attracting skilled labor that produces generalized economic growth.
While the specifics of the Slowdown Project are unique, this example broadly demonstrates what has been shown by research in other cities—from Denton, TX to Savannah, GA, Lisbon, PT to Beijing, CN, and more—that music, when effectively utilized, can bring communities together.
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Case Study
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Case Study ///////
Music meets policy
in Seattle, WA
The City of Seattle provides a compelling illustration of how collaboration between policymakers and the music industry, including independent record labels, can produce policies that make places better. At the nexus of this story stands the concerted efforts of industry leaders, city officials, and grassroots organizations, who worked together to steer policy dialogues and expand the city's music ecosystem.
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Initially prompted by opposition to the Teen Dance Ordinance (TDO), a local law imposing restrictive measures on music venues, the Seattle music industry came together to advocate for an understanding of music’s impact on the city, and to push for supportive public policy to match. Leading the charge was the Joint Artists & Music Promotions Action Committee (JAMPAC), formed in the late 1990s in opposition to the TDO. JAMPAC’s mission quickly expanded to consider the wider music ecosystem, and garnered support within the local music community, with esteemed labels such as ORCA member Sub Pop and several other stalwarts proudly rallying behind the goal of prioritizing the music industry in government decision‑making.
These early efforts spurred the City to take music seriously. In 2004, prompted by advocacy, Seattle’s Office of Economic Development commissioned research into the Economic Impact of Seattle’s Music Industry. The report highlighted the substantial contributions made by the music industry to the city, including $1.3 billion in total value generated, the creation of over 19,000 jobs, and recognition of music’s role in the local education system. This groundbreaking work set the stage, providing industry stakeholders and policymakers with concrete evidence of the value produced by music.
From there, the machinery for music‑supportive policy has grown more robust, and the results speak for themselves. The City created a dedicated policy body, the Office of Film and Music, that launched a City of Music plan in 2008, alongside an updated economic impact study. The plan explicitly recognized the essential role of music to Seattle’s creative economy and outlined a policy agenda for strengthening this impact, including support for music education programs, and formalizing the music economy by providing professional development and structural support, such as access to healthcare for musicians and creatives, a policy for which the City is now considered a global leader.
‘Seattle's journey to support music is a testament to the convergence of policy, industry, and grassroots efforts, showcasing the positive effects of bringing together creativity and governance.’
The plan also catalyzed the creation of the Seattle Music Commission (SMC) in 2010, a formal body of music industry stakeholders tasked with guiding the city’s music‑related policy and initiatives. The SMC has spearheaded a variety of impactful endeavors, including collaborating with the Port Authority to establish a thriving music program at the Seattle‑Tacoma International Airport and most recently, the development of a hub for music nonprofits above its train terminus, King St. Station led by the city’s public‑private Cultural Space Agency. At the airport, the program features recorded music and live performances, and fulfills the objectives of promoting the creative identity of the city to visitors, while also providing local musicians with performance‑ and copyright‑based revenues. The SMC was also instrumental in shaping city policy development, including giving music a voice in redevelopment plans for Seattle’s waterfront. It also updated parking bylaws to make it easier for audiences to attend live performances, while increasing safety and accessibility for artists.
Seattle's journey to support music is a testament to the convergence of policy, industry, and grassroots efforts, showcasing the positive effects of bringing together creativity and governance. And it all began with local advocates, including those at independent record labels. The City's commitment to fostering a dynamic music ecosystem is an example for cities and policymakers globally and emphasizes the importance of working collaboratively to elevate music ecosystems.
Music and education
There is substantial academic, scientific, and sociological evidence that illustrates how engaging with music, particularly through dedicated music education programs, enhances educational achievement and broad success. A primary school in Bradford, UK, saw results improve considerably across all subjects after introducing six hours of mandatory music education.
Research demonstrating a direct link between art and overall academic achievement is compelling. Music is akin to math, and the cognitive abilities required to understand it are similar to those needed for coding or programming. A study conducted by the University of British Columbia demonstrated that students who learn to play a musical instrument achieve around “one academic year” ahead of their peers across other subjects such as English, math, and science. The provision of music education also reduces disengagement from school, resulting in higher attendance and better grades.
Music education is not just about creating more musicians or music sector workers; it’s about creating better people. The diversity of skills required to learn and engage in music—from the ability to read and understand music notation to listening skills, communication, collaboration, and discipline—underlie its impact on cognitive development and feelings of self‑worth.
While music education often begins with learning an instrument or a technique, there must also be provision of studies that meet the needs of the sector. This includes not only music business education at a high school or undergraduate level, but also the provision of paid internships, exchanges, and genre diversification of syllabuses, such as the grime and hip‑hop focus of the Exchanging Notes program or the electronic music focus of the Lisa Lashes School of Music.
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Independent record labels are actively investing in programs that nurture musical talent and education. Partisan Records, for instance, sponsors the Fela Anikulapo‑Kuti Scholarship program at Trinity Laban School of Music in London, UK, providing annual financial support and mentoring to a talented musician from Africa or of African heritage. Sub Pop Records' longstanding scholarship program awards three $6,000 scholarships every year to individuals passionate about music and creative arts, enabling them to attend post‑secondary education. The label’s founding sponsorship of Seattle's VERA Project fosters all‑ages music education, supporting the teaching of event production, promotion, sound engineering, and more. Meanwhile, Hopeless Records' has a 25 year history of non profit work including through Sub City Studios – which collaborates with the non‑profit New Directions for Youth to provide studio education for high‑risk young people who live in the label’s local community in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. !K7 Music partners with a school in Berlin on a program to teach the fundamentals of music, from songwriting to release, to underserved youth, while Ninja Tune focuses on the next generation of industry leaders. Its Emerging Music Professionals program prioritizes marginalized communities and offers free training and paid work experience to support individuals who want to build careers in the music industry. Not only do these endeavors highlight how independent labels directly invest in music education programs, but they also demonstrate the commitment to making a tangible difference in their local communities through financial support and active involvement. There is also an opportunity for industry stakeholders—including ORCA—to work together to create a more structured framework and turn these examples into standards—rather than ad‑hoc initiatives—that can foster better, more expansive music and music business education, and extend its impacts in communities.
Music and healthcare
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Music is a powerful tool to help care for people’s health. Research has shown that engaging with music—whether listening to recorded music, singing or attending live shows—has an overall positive effect on health, well‑being, and quality of life.
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Music helps to improve sleep, motivates exercise and physical health, enables self‑actualization through expression, and strengthens relationships and connections with others—and these impacts are consistent regardless of socioeconomic status. Impressively, individuals who take in live music every two weeks tend to live longer, and have a higher sense of well‑being, including elevated levels of happiness and feelings of closeness to others.
Music also has proven therapeutic potential, and is especially useful for making healthcare more holistic and cost‑effective. There is, for instance, extensive evidence on the role of music as a tool to support the treatment of cognitive and mental health disorders, such as depression, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson's disease. Listening to recorded music has been shown to reduce agitation, improve mood, and lower the need for medication in dementia patients, with impacts so extensive that they have merited the creation of multiple advocacy groups, including Music for Dementia and the Music Can initiative, led by UK Music and Universal Music Group. Shared music listening strengthens social connections and boosts mood in hospital patients.
Among music’s many health and therapeutic benefits, its role in supporting rehabilitation, especially around neurological illnesses, is notable. While there’s been an understanding of the qualitative impacts of music on health and rehabilitation for many years, recent advances in neuroscience have demonstrated how engaging with music is linked to brain plasticity and rewiring the brain. Listening, performing, and moving to music impacts parts of the brain involved in non‑music functions, making it useful as a tool for helping individuals recover from a wide variety of neurological ailments, including strokes, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, brain injuries, and more. Simply listening to music can help stroke patients with language recovery, while vocal music encourages the rebuilding of neural connections related to speech. Particularly impressive is the cost‑effectiveness of this type of approach: providing patients with music to listen to while in hospital is inexpensive and requires no added staff or therapist costs. The impact of music therapy has also been shown to be effective in encouraging rehabilitation among child patients. For instance, doctors have used music‑based therapy to help children with brain injuries regain their motor skills and ability to walk and move. The rhythmic element of music is especially relevant, with patient movement tied to synchronicity of the beat, and music enabling learning of repetitive motions such as walking.
The list of positive correlations between music and health is enormous—and only hints at the far‑reaching potential for increasing the formal role that music and the music industry can play in increasing societal health overall. The on‑the‑ground work already being undertaken in this area by the recorded music industry is commendable—Independent label Hopeless Records Songs That Saved My Life Project, for example, has artists cover songs that helped them through hard times, with proceeds from the project benefiting mental health charities like the Crisis Text Line and Hope for the Day that provide direct mental health services. Similarly, independent labels have begun to recognize the importance of supporting mental health within the industry itself. Indie label LVRN has launched an entire internal division focused on psychological wellness for the label’s staff and artists, while Canadian independent label Royal Mountain Records has committed to offering $1,500 for each individual musician on their roster to put towards mental health‑related services. And there are many more examples across the wider music industry, including at major labels, publishers and across the live sector.
The impact of music’s place and use in healthcare can be further accelerated by not only demonstrating the cost‑benefit of fostering partnerships between record labels and healthcare providers, but also ensuring that music is available to all those who need it so that it can be as powerful a therapeutic as possible.
Music and the environment
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In the face of a climate emergency, music and the music industry can play a large role in catalyzing public and government action towards environmental sustainability, as well as in considering how to reduce the environmental impacts of the music industry and create greener tools that can have wider appeal outside of music.
Across history, theorists and artists have always pointed to and drawn from connections between music and the natural world—from Johannes Kepler’s understanding that the relationships among the planets paralleled musical harmonic intervals, to the historical belief that music’s roots lay in those sounds of the natural and animal worlds, or new age musicians’ focus on incorporating natural sounds into their work.
In recent years, the relationship between music and climate action has been elevated. Music has come to be understood as a potent vector for driving action around the climate and the environment. It has been incorporated into environmental education initiatives, where lyrics and ideas about the environment can enhance interest among listeners around environmental topics. Likewise, explicit activism linking music to the environment has driven millions to become aware of the challenges facing the planet, and to begin to get involved and take action in ways big and small.
Today, environmental awareness and action is baked into work across the music industry, making music a powerful partner to push for—and create—change. Music Declares Emergency, for example, is a group of artists, music industry professionals and organizations—including ORCA members Domino Recordings, !K7 Music, Partisan Records, Playground Music, and Sub Pop—who are uniting their voices to call on governments to act on climate change, while also committing to their own environmental action. Similarly, EarthPercent organizes music businesses and artists to pledge a small percentage of their revenues to be put towards impactful organizations dealing with climate change. And there are many more initiatives that engage music to generate momentum for climate action.
The independent music sector has been a particular leader around environmental initiatives and greening the music industry, and sees taking climate change seriously as an important part of its responsibility, both to the music industry and the world. As Music Declares Emergency tells us, there is “no music on a dead planet.” Notably, the independent sector has been a first-mover, proactively self-funding and developing a diverse variety of sustainability and climate related initiatives. IMPALA, the trade association representing the independent music sector in Europe, for example, has championed diverse actions, including its best‑in‑class Sustainability Programme and Charter, which sets environmental targets for the European indie sector. It has also developed a Carbon Calculator, which allows its members to measure their carbon footprint, and take action to reduce it, alongside committing to aggregating reporting from its members to ensure accountability to its targets. The Associação Brasileira da Música Independente (ABMI) in Brazil has signed on to support a new UN process to foreground the impact of arts and culture in tackling climate change, and to push for policies and frameworks to boost this role. In the UK, the Association of Independent Music (AIM) instigated the development of the Music Climate Pact, which comprises a series of high‑level commitments for music businesses around climate change, and includes ORCA members like Beggars Group, !K7 Music, Ninja Tune, Partisan Records, and Secretly Group. This initiative includes signees quantifying their emissions and committing to science based reduction targets, working collaboratively within the industry on climate initiatives, and importantly, communicating openly with fans about the climate impacts of the music industry, while supporting artists in their own activism. Demonstrating its leadership, AIM subsequently developed partnerships around the Pact bringing in groups including the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and the major labels, to ensure its impact across the entire recorded music sector. In addition to reducing emissions, many independent music businesses are also committing to compensating for their environmental impact. The recently launched Murmur initiative, for instance, which includes ORCA members Because Music, Beggars Group, !K7 Music, Ninja Tune, and Secretly Group, will see participating businesses make an annual financial contribution to a shared climate fund, based on their carbon emissions.[38]
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There are many additional examples of independent music organizations and trade associations developing programming and projects in support of sustainability and the environment. A few examples include:
In Chile, IMICHILE has supported the development of and worked with La Música Declara Emergencia (Music Declares Emergency’s Spanish branch), alongside the Chilean Ministry of the Environment to create the MDE Calculator. This free, Spanish‑language tool enables those working in the music industry to record, measure, and understand their environmental impacts, and create sustainability strategies based on the results.
In France, FÉLIN launched RE‑DISCO, the first record recycling channel for independent labels and distributors. The project facilitates the reuse and recycling of unsold records by indie labels and distributors.
In South Korea, LIAK, collaborates with an ongoing instrument donation and sharing program and repair shop that organizes activities such as workshops to repurpose discarded or waste instruments and create interior props.
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Music and inclusion
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Alongside its formal medical benefits, music supports other important social outcomes.
It’s been shown that listening to music and singing together can forge interpersonal bonds, by increasing peoples’ sense of self and belonging and encouraging social integration. Group drumming improves mental health and increases social resilience. And these impacts are not only cultural—music triggers biological processes that lay the ground for stronger social bonding.
In addition to promoting connections and community relationships, music introduces people to new cultures and generates cross‑cultural understanding, amplifying the voices of marginalized communities. Music, whether experienced together through listening, or learning and performing in educational settings, heightens empathy, encouraging individuals to consider differences. Discovering their voice through rapping and composition has been shown to support marginalized people to feel more empowered and improve literacy. In Spain, for instance, the Rimando Rumors Workshop used hip hop and rap music as tools to help young Catalans gain a deeper understanding of immigrant cultures and to challenge prevailing stereotypes about the community.
Likewise, in the UK, Best Foot Music highlights and promotes events that showcase the music of immigrants, specifically focusing on providing opportunities to engage with immigrants and their cultures, with the effect of countering negative stereotypes and influencing debate around UK immigration policy. There are countless examples of artists engaging in the long tradition of using music to inform communities and push for political change towards increased tolerance and inclusion. For example, the group Pussy Riot used its song 'Refugees In' to rally support and solidarity for refugees.
Music and international development
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Alongside music’s role promoting inclusion and tolerance is its ability to support international development, fostering understanding and bridge‑building in conflict and post‑conflict societies and supporting economic diversification and livelihoods.
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A strong example of this powerful impact comes from Musicians Without Borders, a program that uses music to increase healing and reconciliation, and support peacebuilding in regions marked by conflict.
In Place of War develop music infrastructure in conflict zones to offer young people an alternative to taking up arms. For example, in Kosovo, a “rock school” program used shared interests in popular recorded music to create authentic cross‑cultural connection, and build trust and agency among youth. The results of the programs demonstrate how music can be used to bridge cultural understandings and turn division, isolation, trauma, loss, and fear into empowerment, producing awareness and understanding. It also seeds inclusive communities and propagates optimism and agency. These effects are boosted by education, such as Playing for Change’s work, which builds and operates music schools in developing and at‑risk communities.
More broadly, music can be a catalyst for poverty reduction and skills development, from direct employment and income to social benefits that enable other economic activity. Significant work and reform is required to ensure everyone can earn income through music, particularly concerning international intellectual property systems. But it is clear that music serves as a valuable source of meaningful employment and income in developing states. In Cambodia, for example, the Sound Initiative program provides music and industry training with the explicit goal of enabling participants to earn income from their musical work, including helping them to register their works and receive payment for plays, and providing paid performance opportunities. In Nigeria, music provides a ‘pathway to self‑reliance’, offering a route to career opportunities and opening up the option of entrepreneurship through a growing industry and market for music. Likewise, music education programs—like Children International’s Music for Development program in the Dominican Republic and Colombia—play a dual role, providing participants with the skills and self‑esteem to pursue careers in music, while also acting as after‑school programs, providing their parents with child care as they work. And these are only a few examples; there are thousands. While these programs and NGOs are ad-hoc rather than structurally embedded in how countries work and invest, they demonstrate a different path to economic diversification and livelihoods. What is required is to prioritize infrastructure—at a national level everywhere—to support the recording of music, so it can offer a developmental return on investment.
Why does all of this matter?
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Each of these areas demonstrates music’s role as an economic driver, and as a utility to improve communities.
Each of these areas demonstrates music’s role as an economic driver, as a utility to improve communities, and as a leader in cross cutting priority areas for society generally. The programs highlighted and work being done to expand the role of music vary from ad‑hoc projects developed without a comprehensive strategy, to concrete long term programmes that are best in class and demonstrate how change at scale can be achieved when sector level schemes are put in place.
The long‑term investments made by independent record labels are a tool to show, rather than tell, how music can improve livelihoods and economies. The examples provided emphasize the wide‑ranging significance of music and underscore the efforts needed to fully realize its value. Ultimately, investing in recorded music forms a fundamental aspect of this endeavor. Increasing music education, providing opportunities to escape poverty through music, or improving economic strategies in cities all have a transversal impact. Not only do they improve the lives of musicians and music companies, they also have the potential to create a better future everywhere that is less extractive, supports more passive income and is climate neutral.
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