New Zealand lost its music media, and what we're building to replace it
New Zealand's music scene is thriving, contributing $901 million to GDP in 2023, yet its music media has collapsed. With no full-time music critics left at major publications, local artists are invisible, capturing only 9% of streaming revenue. Propel, a platform built by a working DJ, is filling the gap by publishing over 225 articles and offering free artist tools, aiming to restore visibility and economic opportunity for the scene.
A scene this good deserved better than a link-in-bio and a Facebook event. It deserved a home.
- ideasphere
There’s a guy in Wellington making a photocopied weekly gig guide which will do more for the local music scene than this attempt at making a profitable social media. I guarantee it.
- pixelesque
> Live performance revenue reached $329 million, well above pre-Covid levels.
Is that inflation-adjusted? And as the article points out, very little of that is local talent, so it's likely some of that's due to the cost of tickets.
As someone who lived in NZ (although Wellington) for 10 years until last year, the local music scene was there, but at least in Wellington, the change in the 10 years I was there was considerable: The earthquake in 2016 progressively caused several venues on Cuba Street to close due to building regulations, and Covid was a significant shock as well, with some of the smaller (although most places in Wellington were small!) gig rooms / bars / breweries that would often host bands closing.
There was still Valhalla, San Fran, The Rogue & Vagabond and others, but it just didn't feel as much was going on other than for things like Cuba Dupa street festival, etc, or the Jazz weekends that would be held.
As the article points out, this is not localised to NZ, it's happening in Australia and the UK as well in terms of venues/pubs closing and live music not being quite the draw it once was because of that.
- splashing-bucke
I like that this is bringing out all the kiwi accounts. I've never seen so many of us all in one post. Hey guys! I'm a wannabe software engineer who's in Wellington, I had self-taught myself fairly well until LLMs has made me question if I completely wasted my 20s on what could now be a fools dream. Hope you're all going well!
Always looking for ways to spread community in our recalcitrant people, I'm not sure this is the right direction but it's a goal worth attempting until it works. Well done!
- gerdesj
This para is a salutary lesson for all of us:
"This is not a New Zealand quirk. It is the local edge of a global collapse. Pitchfork, the most influential music publication in the world, was folded into GQ in 2024 and its editor-in-chief was laid off. Local music press has been gutted in the US, the UK and Australia. New Zealand just got there first and hardest, because we were small to begin with."
Aotearoa (NZ) has fired up the four way flashers. We ignore it at our peril.
- jongjong
Software industry is the same. Main difference is that it is not new in that case; it has always been that way since the dawn of that industry. The software industry is worth trillions but nobody knows anything about what's going on except for hacks. Literally, getting hacked is the only way your software project can get any attention, and it should already be a popular project or else nobody will care. Attention is more scarce than it was before.