Explore the full 2022 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 528 organizations whose efforts are reshaping their businesses, industries, and the broader culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact with their initiatives across 52 categories, including the most innovative media, design, and consumer goods companies.
The recorded music industry made sizable gains in 2021, growing 7.4% to reach an estimated $31.6 billion in the United States. Many of the businesses that we recognize on this year’s list of the Most Innovative Companies in music have made it a priority to ensure smaller artists have the tools and resources to get their fair share. Networking app Vampr is positioning itself as a LinkIn for musicians, helping them find one another, collaborate, and even distribute their work. DistroKid, meanwhile, launched a tool that helps match unsigned artists with record labels. Landr helps more than 500,000 artists and producers create, master, and distribute their music in new and more powerful ways. And streaming service SoundCloud introduced fan-powered royalties, allowing artists to earn revenue every time a fan streams their music.
Last year also saw the growing trend of major artists selling their catalogues to publishing and management companies for dizzying sums. The leader in the field, Hipgnosis Songs Fund, is not just buying catalogs, it offers artists a bespoke approach to their music. In the process, it’s been reframing music publishing as song management.
Music is diving deeper into the metaverse, with companies like Splash using AI to create music-based games in digital environments. AI has a stronger hand in pushing the music industry in new directions. Musiio is using it to efficiently categorize and tag large volumes of tracks. The company also has a new AI tool that that measures a song’s likelihood to be a commercial hit.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
