Is it getting harder for independent artists to break through?
Nearly 150,000 tracks are now uploaded to streaming services every day. Luminate CEO Rob Jonas explains why breaking through is getting harder and what it means for independent artists.
There’s more music available to listeners than ever before. That’s exciting for independent artists, but it also makes getting noticed a much bigger challenge.
In a recent podcast appearance with Billboard, Luminate CEO Rob Jonas revealed that close to 150,000 tracks are now being uploaded to streaming platforms every day. That’s a significant increase from the “over 100,000” daily uploads that Luminate and others have cited since around 2022.
Jonas was pretty direct about what that means for artists.
“Breaking through and reaching an audience is really hard.”
Rob Jonas, Luminate CEO via Billboard
So, is it actually getting harder for independent artists to break through?
There’s more competition for listeners
The sheer volume of new music is a big part of the problem.
According to Jonas, around 20% of all music on streaming platforms has received almost no listenership in recent quarters. As Music Ally reports, Luminate’s 2025 year-end data provides another indication of just how much music struggles to find an audience: of the 253 million ISRCs it tracked that year, 55.3 million generated zero streams. A further 65.2 million received between one and 10 streams.
That doesn’t mean there’s no audience for new music. In fact, the overall streaming market is still growing. The challenge is that the amount of music competing for that listening time is growing too.
AI is adding even more music to streaming
Generative AI is another major change since Luminate first started reporting daily upload figures.
Tools such as Suno and Udio can now create finished songs in seconds, and the scale of AI music creation is enormous. Billboard’s report notes that a 2025 Suno investor presentation estimated around 7 million songs were generated on Suno every day, although not all of those tracks make it onto streaming services.
Deezer has provided a clearer picture of what is actually reaching a streaming platform. The service reported receiving around 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks per day at peak levels in June 2026, accounting for more than half of its new daily uploads.
Luminate is still working on how to accurately measure AI-generated music across the wider streaming ecosystem. Jonas described identifying AI music as an “incredibly hard problem”, with platforms developing their own detection systems and Luminate working to combine different sources of information.
Older music is competing for attention too
New releases aren’t only competing with other new releases.
Jonas also discussed the continued growth of catalogue music, and the way listeners are rediscovering older songs through TV, film and social media.
Luminate’s research has found particularly strong examples of this. Jonas pointed to Fallout, where obscure tracks from the 1950s and 1960s reportedly experienced increases of 400%, 500% or even 1,000% after appearing in the show.
The same wider nostalgia trend is visible in Luminate’s 2026 data. The company reported that catalogue music continues to play a significant role in streaming, while current music made up 34% of audio streams in the first half of the year.
For artists, there’s a useful lesson here: a song doesn’t necessarily have an expiry date.
A release that doesn’t immediately take off can still find an audience later through a social trend, a piece of content, a playlist, a sync opportunity or simply reaching the right listener at the right time.
What does this mean for independent artists?
The streaming landscape is crowded, but that doesn’t mean independent artists are locked out.
In fact, Spotify’s latest figures show that independent music continues to have a substantial place in the streaming ecosystem. Spotify says more than a third of artists who generated at least $10,000 in royalties from the platform in 2025 were DIY or had started their careers that way.
Spotify has also just launched Fresh Finds Forward, a programme supporting around 10,000 emerging independent artists each year with resources, tools and industry connections. Spotify says Fresh Finds playlists have helped more than 80,000 artists across 127 countries find new listeners over the past decade.
That points to an important distinction.
Getting your music online is easier than ever thanks to distributors like RouteNote. Getting people to care about it is the difficult part.
That makes the wider release strategy increasingly important for independent artists and labels.
Focus on discovery, not just release day
When there are thousands of new tracks arriving every hour, artists need to give listeners more than one reason to discover their music.
That could mean building anticipation before a release, pitching through Spotify for Artists, creating short-form content, collaborating with other artists and creators, performing the track live, or finding new ways to bring an older release back into the conversation.
RouteNote Trends gives artists access to data including streams, listeners, saves, playlist discovery, repeat rate, listener location and more, helping you understand where your audience is coming from and which releases are gaining momentum.
And don’t write off a release because it has a quiet first week. As we’ve covered previously, a song can find its audience weeks or months after release, particularly when artists continue finding new ways to present and promote it.
More music means more opportunity, but more work
There’s more music competing for listeners’ attention than ever, but there are also more ways for independent artists to reach audiences around the world.
The key is to think beyond simply releasing music. Build an audience, understand where your listeners are coming from and keep finding ways to put your music in front of them.
RouteNote makes the first part simple. You can distribute your music to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, TikTok, Amazon Music, Deezer and more from one place, giving listeners more opportunities to find your music wherever they listen.
You can watch the full interview below.