The advice sounds romantic. In practice, it's a recipe for poverty. Here's why business literacy is just as important as musical talent for artists in 2025.
TL;DR
Telling artists to ignore the business side keeps them dependent on others who may not have their best interests at heart. Business literacy — understanding royalties, contracts, marketing, and finance — is essential for artistic independence and career sustainability.
The Romantic Myth That Keeps Artists Poor
The advice to 'just focus on the music' sounds supportive. It sounds like it values artistic purity over commercial compromise. In reality, it's the worst advice you can give an emerging artist, because it ensures they remain ignorant of the business structures that determine whether they can sustain a creative life.
Artists who 'just focus on the music' end up dependent on managers, labels, and publishers to handle everything else. When those relationships are good, this works fine. When they're not — when the manager is incompetent, the label is exploitative, the publisher is negligent — the artist has no understanding of what's going wrong or how to fix it.
The music industry has historically benefited from artist ignorance. Contracts are more easily signed by artists who don't understand them. Royalties are more easily underpaid to artists who don't track them. Creative control is more easily taken from artists who don't know their rights. The advice to 'just focus on the music' serves the industry's interests, not the artist's.
What Business Literacy Actually Means for Artists
It doesn't mean becoming a MBA-wielding corporate strategist. It means understanding enough about the business side of music to make informed decisions and recognise when you're being treated unfairly.
At minimum, every artist should understand: how royalties work and where they come from; what rights they own and what those rights are worth; basic contract terms and red flags; how their distributor, publisher, and collection societies operate; and basic financial management for self-employed creative work.
This knowledge doesn't take years of study. Reading a few guides (like the ones we publish at Noise), attending free industry workshops, and talking to other artists about their experiences can build sufficient business literacy in weeks, not months. The investment is minimal; the protection is enormous.
Business Skills That Actually Help Your Art
Understanding marketing helps you connect your music with the people most likely to love it. That's not selling out — it's ensuring your art finds its audience. An incredible song that nobody hears serves nobody.
Financial literacy reduces the stress and anxiety that stifle creativity. Knowing where your next month's rent is coming from, having a budget for releases, and understanding your income streams creates the psychological safety that lets you take creative risks.
Negotiation skills protect your creative vision. When you understand what a fair deal looks like, you can advocate for creative control, fair compensation, and terms that serve your artistic goals. Artists who can't negotiate accept whatever they're given — and what they're given is rarely in their favour.
Strategic thinking helps you build a sustainable career rather than lurching from release to release. Understanding how each decision — which single to lead with, when to tour, whether to accept a sync opportunity — fits into a larger career trajectory means making choices that compound into long-term success rather than short-term attention.
The Balance: Art and Commerce Can Coexist
The fear behind 'just focus on the music' is that business thinking corrupts artistic purity. That if you think about marketing, you'll make music that panders. That if you understand contracts, you'll become cynical. That the magic disappears when the business appears.
This is a false dichotomy. The most artistically uncompromising musicians in history — from David Bowie to Bjork to Radiohead — were also shrewd business operators who understood their rights, negotiated hard, and made strategic career decisions. Their business acumen protected their art; it didn't corrupt it.
The artists most vulnerable to creative compromise are actually those who don't understand the business. Without knowledge, they accept deals that give labels creative control. Without financial stability, they take commercial gigs they hate. Without negotiation skills, they can't advocate for the artistic direction they believe in. Ignorance doesn't protect art — it endangers it.
Our Commitment at Noise
Every piece of industry education content we publish at Noise exists because we believe informed artists make better decisions, create more freely, and build more sustainable careers. We're not trying to turn artists into businesspeople — we're trying to arm artists with enough knowledge to protect themselves.
The music industry of the future will be built by artists who understand both sides of the equation: the art and the commerce. Who can write a devastating song and negotiate a fair deal. Who can perform with raw emotion and read a royalty statement. Who can dream big and plan strategically.
That's the kind of artist we want to support, develop, and champion. Not the naive creative waiting to be exploited, but the informed, empowered artist building a career on their own terms. That's who we're here for.