As someone who likes underground music, I see many talented artists putting their best effort into their music, yet they still struggle to earn money and get recognition. In my opinion, the music industry today makes it very hard for these artists to be noticed and to earn from their art. Below, I will discuss the challenges they face, based on my research
Financial Struggle
One of the biggest struggles is financial. Streaming platforms pay artists only a very small part of the total income (Spears, 2025. The payment is so low that even millions of streams might not be enough to cover basic monthly rent. Spotify and YouTube usually pay estimates around $0.0003 to $0.0005 per stream.
Without financial support from bigger platforms or labels, underground artists often need to work multiple jobs just to pay their bills. But that also means they can’t focus fully on their music, which prevents them from reaching their full potential.
Algorithm
Another issue that makes their struggle worse is the platform algorithm, which lowers their visibility. There is an overwhelming flood of music released every day tens of thousands of new songs get uploaded daily, increasing the competition. It is shocking that 4 out of 5 songs on major platforms are never played at all (Rosenblatt, 2025). This means a huge amount of underground music never reaches any listeners.
The problem is that instead of helping underground artists shine, the algorithms usually push already famous artists even more (Smith, 2020; Spears, 2025), while underground artists become even less visible.
In my opinion, there should be changes to the algorithm to make it more fair and to give new, creative artists a real chance to shine.
References:
Rosenblatt, B. (2025, 22 maart). 4 out of 5 songs sent to music services are never played; what this means for the industry. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrosenblatt/2025/03/06/4-out-of-5-songs-sent-to-music-services-are-never-played-what-this-means-for-the-industry/
Spears, N. (2025, 14 oktober). The Struggle of Independent Artists in the Age of Streaming Giants. Canary. https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/lifestyle/2025/03/12/the-struggle-of-independent-artists-in-the-age-of-streaming-giants/
Smith, D. (2021, 24 februari). 1% of Artists Generate 90% of All Music Streams, Latest Data Shows. Digital Music News. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/10/music-streams-data/