By Jeffrey Wilson / DJ 750
Founder, My750 Music Network
We do not have a music shortage. We have an attention problem.
I’ve been around independent music long enough to remember when the biggest problem was simply getting the record out.
You needed money, relationships, distribution, radio access, and sometimes somebody in an office deciding whether you were worth the chance.
Technology changed all of that.
Today, an independent artist can make a professional record, upload it, and have it headed toward worldwide distribution without asking a label for permission.
That is a beautiful thing.
But it also created a new problem.
When everybody can release music, releasing music is no longer the advantage.
Getting somebody to stop, listen, remember your name, and come back is the advantage.
And now AI is pouring even more music into a system that was already crowded.
Luminate reported roughly 253 million audio ISRCs registered with digital service providers in 2025. Deezer said in July 2026 that it was receiving close to 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day, and at peak levels in June, AI music represented more than half of its daily uploads.
So let’s call it what it is.
We do not have a music shortage. We have an attention problem.
THE BOTTLENECK MOVED
Digital distribution knocked down a lot of the old gates, and independent artists benefited.
But removing the gate did not magically create an audience.
A song can be on every major platform and still be invisible.
Available is not the same as discovered.
Your record existing online does not mean people know it exists. Now you are competing with every song, video, creator, playlist, notification, game, and everything else fighting for the same person’s attention.
Technology can keep creating more content.
It cannot give the listener a 25th hour in the day.
AI MAKES IDENTITY MORE VALUABLE
There is a lot of arguing about AI music, and that argument is not going away.
Independent artists cannot wait for the industry to settle it. You have to compete in the environment that exists right now.
My view is simple: if technology makes music easier to create, being recognizable becomes harder-and more valuable.
Your sound, story, city, personality, visuals, live performance, reputation, and the people willing to tell somebody else, ‘You need to hear this artist,’ matter.
A song cannot just be another audio file inside an endless digital warehouse. You need a reason for somebody to stop, then a reason for them to remember.
DISTRIBUTION IS INFRASTRUCTURE. DISCOVERY IS THE BATTLE.
I run My750 Music Network from the perspective of somebody who has spent years around DJs, internet radio, mixtapes, independent artists, promotion, and the reality of trying to get records heard.
I keep seeing the same mistake.
Artists finish the song, pay for the mix, get the cover together, upload the record, post ‘Out now,’ and then wait.
But distribution already did its job.
It made the record available.
What it did not do was build enough roads leading people toward it.
Artists need to treat distribution and discovery as two different systems.
Distribution answers: Where can somebody hear my music?
Discovery answers: Why would somebody who does not already know me go looking for it?
You need both.
HUMAN CURATION STILL MATTERS
Algorithms are powerful at giving people more of what they already appear to like.
But another kind of discovery still matters.
A DJ playing something you never heard. A radio programmer taking a chance on an unfamiliar record. A writer introducing you to somebody from another city. A podcast putting a new voice in front of the right audience. A friend sending you a song and saying, ‘Listen to this.’
Those moments carry something increasingly valuable:
context and trust.
When music becomes unlimited, trusted filters become more valuable, not less.
That is why I do not believe independent radio, DJs, niche publications, podcasts, and real music communities are becoming irrelevant.
Their role is becoming clearer.
They help listeners answer the question that gets harder every day:
Out of all this music, what is actually worth my time?
STOP TREATING RELEASE DAY LIKE THE FINISH LINE
Uploading the song is not the campaign.
It is the starting gun.
After a release, artists should ask better questions.
Who discovered me? Who remembered my name? Who searched for me afterward? Who followed me? Who shared the record? Who wants to hear what I do next?
A temporary spike in streams can look great on a screenshot and still build almost nothing.
An audience is different.
An audience remembers where to find you.
That is something you can build on.
BUILD A DISCOVERY NETWORK AROUND THE MUSIC
I am not telling artists to abandon streaming platforms or digital distribution.
Use them. Maximize them.
Just do not make one platform responsible for your entire career.
Build more doors into your world.
Get your records in front of DJs. Build relationships with independent radio. Give publications a real story worth covering. Do podcasts. Perform. Create visuals that make people curious. Work with artists whose audiences actually make sense for you.
That is also how we think about discovery at My750 Music Network. Radio, editorial coverage, DJs, podcasts, mixtapes, and artist promotion work better when they reinforce each other and give listeners more than one way to discover and remember an artist.
Most importantly, stop thinking about promotion as begging people to click a link.
Good promotion creates curiosity.
The click comes because somebody wants to know:
Who is this? Where are they from? What else have they made? Why haven’t I heard of them? What are they doing next?
That is discovery.
THE OPPORTUNITY INSIDE THE NOISE
I do not look at the explosion of music and think independent artists are finished.
I see an opportunity.
When music becomes abundant, trust becomes scarce. When content becomes unlimited, attention becomes valuable. When creation becomes easier, identity becomes more valuable.
And when algorithms control more of what people encounter, a genuine human recommendation can hit differently.
Distribution can put your song everywhere. Technology can make production faster. AI can create more music than any listener could ever consume.
But none of those things can automatically make somebody care about you.
That part still has to be earned.
The artists who win in this next era will not necessarily be the ones who release the most music.
They will be the ones who understand how to turn a song into discovery, discovery into recognition, recognition into trust, and trust into an audience.
Because when everybody can make music, making music is no longer the hardest part.
The real advantage belongs to whoever can make somebody stop, listen, remember-and come back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeffrey Wilson, professionally known as DJ 750, is the founder of My750 Music Network, an independent media and radio network focused on independent music discovery, culture, radio, and original editorial coverage. Through radio, DJ culture, mixtapes, and independent media, he builds discovery pathways connecting emerging artists with listeners beyond traditional algorithms.
