Level up your music knowledge on your commute. These podcasts cover production, business, marketing, and the creative process — all through an indie lens.
TL;DR
The best music industry podcasts for independent artists in 2025 include The DIY Musician Podcast (business), Tape Notes (creative process), Dissect (analysis), and Switched On Pop (pop musicology). Supplement with YouTube channels like Andrew Huang and You Suck at Producing for production skills.
Business and Strategy Podcasts
The DIY Musician Podcast from CD Baby has been a reliable resource for independent artists for years. It covers distribution, marketing, royalties, and career strategy with a genuine indie perspective. Episodes are typically 30-45 minutes and consistently deliver actionable advice.
The Music Industry Blueprint podcast approaches the business side from a data-driven angle. Episodes on streaming economics, social media strategy, and direct-to-fan sales are particularly strong. The host's background in both music and business consulting gives insights that pure musicians or pure business types miss.
And Then We Wrote is a UK-focused podcast covering songwriting and publishing from a working songwriter's perspective. The guests are working professionals rather than celebrities, which makes the advice more applicable to emerging artists navigating the UK industry specifically.
Creative Process and Production Podcasts
Tape Notes is exceptional — each episode features a producer or engineer breaking down exactly how a specific track was made. The technical detail is deep enough for producers to learn from while remaining accessible to non-technical listeners. Hearing the creative decisions behind records you love is endlessly illuminating.
Song Exploder takes a similar approach but from the artist's perspective. Each episode has the artist deconstructing their own song, explaining the inspiration, the creative choices, and the production decisions that shaped the final result. It's consistently one of the most thoughtful and engaging music podcasts available.
Broken Record, hosted by Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam, offers long-form conversations with artists about their creative lives. The discussions go deeper than typical interview podcasts, exploring the philosophies, habits, and perspectives that drive artistic creation.
Analysis and Music Theory Podcasts
Dissect is the gold standard for deep music analysis. Each season dedicates multiple episodes to a single album, examining it track by track with extraordinary attention to lyrical, musical, and cultural detail. The analysis is rigorous without being academic, making music theory and cultural criticism genuinely engaging.
Switched On Pop bridges musicology and pop culture, using music theory to explain why specific songs work. Understanding the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic choices behind hit songs is invaluable for songwriters who want to develop their craft with intention rather than instinct alone.
Stronger Songs is specifically focused on songwriting technique. Each episode analyses what makes a specific song effective, breaking down structure, melody, harmony, and lyrics in a way that gives working songwriters concrete tools for their own writing.
YouTube Channels That Complement Podcast Listening
Andrew Huang's YouTube channel is a production education masterclass disguised as entertainment. His production challenges, tutorials, and explorations of unconventional sound sources are both entertaining and genuinely instructive. His approach to music production as playful experimentation aligns perfectly with the bedroom producer ethos.
You Suck at Producing is the most entertaining production education on the internet. Despite the combative name, the tutorials are thorough, well-explained, and cover everything from basic synthesis to advanced mixing techniques. The humour makes dense technical content genuinely watchable.
In The Mix provides focused production tutorials that are among the most clearly explained on YouTube. Topics range from beginner (how to EQ vocals) to advanced (multiband compression for mastering), all delivered with a calm, patient teaching style that makes complex concepts accessible.
Building a Learning Habit That Sticks
The key to benefiting from music education podcasts is consistency, not volume. Listening to one episode per day on your commute — genuinely listening, not having it as background noise — will compound into significant knowledge over months. The artists who educate themselves systematically develop faster than those who learn sporadically.
Take notes. When you hear advice that resonates, write it down. When a production technique is explained, try it in your next session. The gap between learning and doing is where most people lose the benefit of educational content. Active application turns podcast listening into skill development.
Curate your feed around your current development needs. If you're struggling with mixing, prioritise production podcasts. If you're trying to understand the business side, focus on industry podcasts. You can always rotate your focus as your needs evolve. The goal is targeted development, not passive consumption.