Ian Montone: We Traded Real Community for Follower Counts

Ian Montone runs the machine behind some of the biggest names in indie and alternative music — Jack White, Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem. He's seen the whole apparatus from the inside, and his diagnosis is bleak: the industry has confused what followers mean with what community actually is.

That's not just semantic nonsense. It's the root of why everything feels flat right now. We've optimized for metrics instead of meaning. Playlists instead of albums. Engagement instead of connection. The catalog money grab is real too — labels are buying up back catalogs like they're the last gold rush, treating music like an asset class instead of art.

And then there's AI, the thing nobody asked for but everyone's supposed to figure out. Montone's laying out how that's changing the game in ways most people haven't reckoned with yet.

But here's the thing: buried in all this is what people are actually looking for. Not another TikTok moment. Something real. Something that means something. The industry knows how to count followers. It's forgotten how to build a reason for people to actually care.

Read the full story at Music Business Worldwide → https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/ian-montone-manager-of-jack-white-vampire-weekend-lcd-soundsystem-as-an-industry-weve-confused-followers-with-community/