Music in 2026 will be as important in our lives as ever. There’s a vast amount of music out there waiting to be discovered. I’ve recently come out of a very dark place, having felt deeply saddened by the state of the music industry and today’s mainstream music. That said, after doing some digging, I realised that “real” music rarely makes it into the mainstream or onto the playlists of major radio and TV stations. The music industry simply isn’t interested in good music. These days, the act, the image, the sexual orientation and, most importantly, the number of followers on social media matter more than the music itself.
When I was growing up, it was “normal” to spend a few hours every day practising your chosen instrument and getting better at it. Now, that habit has shifted to the mobile phone and to ‘investing’ time on social media.
But this isn’t quite true. Quality music does exist; you just have to look for it a bit harder. It forms the stable basis of the mainstream. Many of the virtuoso musicians we had back in the day are now either playing classical music or jazz and are no longer part of popular music (unless as paid session musicians). That’s a bit sad, but it may have something to do with what the public is able to digest. If I played someone a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen or a Tony Banks keyboard solo, they’d switch off and start staring at their phones after a minute or so. I feel that people are no longer willing to invest time in music and allow a song to “grow” on them. Perhaps worse still is that people don’t really listen to music anymore. Music plays in the background while we‘re doing other things.
Music production has therefore shifted quite a bit over the past few years. It’s fair to say that music recording and production is now done using a computer, with very few exceptions, and that music-software has become much better and easier to use over time. You no longer need to be able to play an instrument to create music. Three years ago, I would have written that you could simply piece together pre-recorded loops to create a new piece of music. Now in 2026, you don’t even need that skill anymore. As long as you can verbally, or in writing, express what you want to create, AI music software can make a song for you-complete with lyrics, fully mixed and mastered.
Does that mean you have made a track?
I’ll leave that for you to answer, as there are quite a few different opinions on this question, including legal implications around who owns the copyright.
Having said that, music students at the University of East London (UEL) prefer to create the music themselves, which is good to see. Even when people use AI music tools, in most cases the AI “machine” creates new melodies and beats based on what it has learned so far, but the sounds it uses are largely synthesised and built on sound pre-sets that still needed to be created and programmed by someone. Perhaps jobs in the music industry will shift from composing beats and melodies to creating interesting sounds that an AI composer can draw on when it “composes” new music. For this reason, sound creation modules are an essential part of the music courses at UEL.
This is an interesting time in the world of music production. The introduction of AI into recording studios can be compared to the arrival of recording machines some 100 years ago, the introduction of the multi-track recorder in the 1950s, the invention of MIDI in the 1980s or, of course, the computer entering music studios in the 1990s.
Every time these inventions appeared, people said, “OMG this will be the end of music”, and there are some who say that now. In fact, music has always survived and carried on. Perhaps all these changes were good and necessary, as they kept music interesting, fresh, and evolving, with the invention of new genres and styles. I hope AI will have a similar effect.
Currently, people tend to prefer music made by humans, with all its little flaws. But predictably, once people’s ears have adapted to AI-generated music, this may shift, and perhaps human-made music will start to sound “old and boring”. We’ll have to wait and see. More generally, we cannot assume that what we like sonically today will still be liked in 10 to 20 years’ time. And does the general music-consuming public really care who made a song they enjoy? Probably not – if there’s a good tune, it will be liked.
This includes the sounds that are currently being designed. Sound design and new sounds are often at the forefront in games- or soundtrack compositions before they make their way into popular music. Sound design is now also largely done on, or within, the computer, which is great because you no longer need to spend thousands of pounds to create fresh sounds. Software synthesisers and samplers are relatively affordable and offer excellent sound design possibilities.
We teach game sound and soundtrack composition on our music courses at UEL, and students are encouraged to create new and exciting sounds for these genres, as well as for their own compositions. UEL music students also usually collaborate with game and film/media students at the university, building relationships that can last into their future as professionals in the industry.
Music production and studio sound creation aside, there’s a growing demand for music played live at gigs and concerts, which are, for now, fully operated by humans. I think a major change in the live sector will come when robots are trained to play instruments and sing, but that development is still a few years away. Currently, there’s a trend back towards playing live, scrapping computers and AI involvement, and keeping things real and handmade – almost like a counterculture to mainstream music production.
The east London music scene is rich and offers a wide variety of events, genres and styles. We have some excellent grassroots venues in the area, as well as the big players – the O2 in Greenwich and the London Stadium for large mainstream concerts. But areas such as Hackney Wick, Dalston and parts of Shoreditch also offer great grassroots music events. In Stratford, we have The Cart & Horses, allegedly the pub where Iron Maiden played when they first started, which hosts fantastic live music concerts, as well as the newly established The Source (formerly Stratford Circus), which offers concerts and performing arts events.
We support these places and venues and encourage our students to perform there. We’re often invited to play at events across east London and ask our students to come forward and perform at summer festivals or other local public events. Our latest endeavour in fuelling east London’s creative arts is a collaboration with Newham Youth Services, where our students facilitate workshops and perform at youth centres across the borough. It’s exciting to see, as teaching and learning become one, and it’s beneficial for everyone involved.
Furthermore, we were running a three-day music festival at UEL called Signals East from 25 – 27 March 2026, where current music students and alumni will showcase their talent at The Source and in the studios on our USS campus in Stratford E15 1NF.
The festival was very successful and we will have another in spring 2027 – keep an eye out for it.
