In these days of steaming and AI can a musician actually earn a decent living wage from their own music? It’s a question that has become increasingly important as musicians see their incomes squeezed and in many cases, such as with AI, actually stolen from them.

Many of you will know of Mary Spender, a musician who has chosen to forgo the traditional route of getting signed by a label and decided to forge her own path through patronage, social media and direct sales. Mary has a very successful YouTube channel and last year embarked on a live tour in the UK which she charted in detail on YouTube and ended up costing her a lot of money.

Her latest video is called I tried to make $100,000 from my music and promises to be a very interesting deep dive in the thorny question of whether or not it is possible to earn a living wage from music in 2026. OK, so Mary has the head start of having a YouTube channel with close to 800,000 followers and she’s had years of making content but as her live shows last year proved it’s easier to spend money as a musician than to earn it.

It should be an interesting watch for everyone involved in making music and just as importantly everyone who enjoys listening to music.