There’s No Point Aiming To Go Viral – It Hardly Ever Happens

Ever since musicians and artists have been online it’s been a hope and dream to have a song go viral. Yeah, it sounds great to blow up overnight, but the problem is, it hardly ever happens. That’s now been quantified at about a 1.1% chance, according to a new report by Duetti.

For its Music Economics Report, the company looked at over 6 million tracks over the course of 2025 and found that not only was it difficult to go viral, but it was even harder to sustain any long-term success.

Indeed only 0.11% of tracks sustained any streams past 6 months. And this was with artists that were actually making money from streaming (anywhere from $100 to $350k annually).

Other surprising findings include:

• Tracks that exhibit slower, steady growth are about 60% more likely to build durable catalogs, while tracks with rapid, viral growth tended to produce short-term gains with limited longevity.
  
• Artists who grow on YouTube first are 16% more likely to develop a durable catalog than those whose growth began on any other platform. This goes to show the current power of YouTube and how a video-first strategy is now a key to success.
  
• Independent artists who follow a frequent and strategically timed release schedule see about 20% higher revenue compared to those who release less frequently or focus solely on standalone singles (no surprise here).
  
• Artists that have more than 85% of listeners located within one country have increased durability by about 50%, compared to artists whose audiences are more broadly dispersed across the globe. This is surprising in that it seems that it would be better for a career to have a broader audience across many countries.

Explain “Viral”

What does “viral” really mean when it comes to music streaming? In the Duetti analysis, virility is defined as increasing streams by 5x within one month. This isn’t particularly huge in that we usually think of something that’s viral having 100x or more streams or views, so this is a very conservative figure.

If you look closely into these numbers you see how much is stacked against you as an independent artist. I’ve always felt that it’s it isn’t more difficult to “make it” in the music business now than it was for previous generations, but that opinion is changing.

Considering that over 12 million artists have released music on streaming services, the competition is fiercer than ever, and that’s not even counting the AI slop menace.

The best thing is to create music to feed your soul first and foremost. That way, if you never achieve even a small bit of market penetration, at least you’ll feel fulfilled.