Breaking up the band: why solo artists have come to dominate the music charts

Predictions for this year’s Hottest 100 countdown revealed an interesting trend that has come to dominate popular music over the past decade: the prevalence of solo artists over bands.

In the past 15 years, only five winners of the Hottest 100 were bands, compared to 13 in the 15 years prior to that. This shift is being replicated across charts globally.

And it’s not just rock bands that are losing out, but bands of all sorts, including pop groups (with the considerable exception of K-pop).

The rise of solo artists doesn’t signify some sort of embrace of a hyper-individual idol culture, nor should we nostalgically lament a mythical “golden era of bands”. Solo artists have always been pervasive within popular music. Also, most bands are driven by one or two key songwriters, and often fronted by a charismatic individual.

The trend towards solo artists is less a product of culture, and more a result of the creative and economic realities of pop music’s production, consumption, distribution and marketing.

Doing more with less

With the emergence of digital audio workstations, home studio technologies, and the widespread availability of video tutorials, musicians and songwriters no longer need costly rehearsal rooms and recording studios to produce new music.

They can record demos and workshop material with less players in the room, or in many cases with no room at all – as a large bulk of the work is done digitally.

This has made writing and producing music cheaper, easier and more efficient. What previously might have required a whole band can now be done by a single artist with the help of a producer and some session musicians.

More revenue between less people

It’s no secret musicians are doing it tough in the streaming era. Many receive limited income from recorded music, and are pushed to depend heavily on touring and merchandise.

Why then, would creatives want to increase their costs by bringing in more mouths to feed? Whether you’re a band or a solo artist, touring can come with financial risk and even major financial loss.

Solo artists retain the lion’s share of whatever profits are made. Rather than negotiating tricky revenue-sharing agreements between members, they can hire session and contract musicians as needed for recording and touring, keeping costs down and side-stepping ownership issues that might lead to tension in a band.

Such arrangements also make it easier to market the artist and music itself.

The artist as a brand

Creating a successful brand as a musician is more effective when working with one or two key identities, rather than a collective such as a band.

Even popular K-pop groups – which stand as an exception to the trend towards solo acts – emphasise individual members, marketing each one to a different part of their fan-base.

Likewise, many bands are strongly identified with a charismatic front-person, who tends to double as an artistic spokesperson.

It’s easier to curate an artistic and aesthetic vision around one individual, rather than several. This also helps streamline marketing activities, as well as touring and media engagements.

Bands break up

It’s a harsh reality that bands break up.

Bands can break up for many reasons, but no doubt the strain of touring plays a major role. With an increased prevalence of mental health issues among international touring musicians, as well as power imbalances and exploitative labour practices entrenched in the live music sector – touring can take a toll on many bands.

In the years since the COVID pandemic, more and more artists have cancelled tours, citing exhaustion and burnout. Solo artists only have to make this decision for themselves (although it effects their touring crew), whereas bands have to negotiate such crucial decisions collectively.

Despite good intentions and industry success, having to maintain creative and business relationships with the same group of people often becomes unsustainable.

Solo artists have a clearer separation between their creative, business and personal relationships. They can maintain a business model that doesn’t necessarily rely on the consistent commitment of three, four or five people.

Then again, this commitment is possibly the very thing that makes bands such an intriguing artistic phenemonen: a group of individuals working together to create something greater than the sum of their parts.

Such demonstrations of collective creative alchemy might be the reason bands continue to captivate our attention, despite the atomising creative and economic realities of the modern music industry.

Read more: This K-pop band just made US Billboard history. Here’s how Stray Kids conquered the music world

Sam Whiting receives funding from RMIT University and the Winston Churchill Trust.