Unless you're hitting up a particularly indie concert or listening to a busker, technology is impossible to avoid in music. Modern, digital tech is increasingly getting involved in all areas of the music industry for better or worse depending on your viewpoint. Here are some of the biggest examples out there today.

Crypto and NFTs

Of all the latest tech trends out there, both crypto and NFTs have the least direct effect on the music itself. However, both are making big waves in the wider industry. Crypto for one is massively popular right now and is appearing across all kinds of digital media. For instance, casino sites are going full force into it with games and sites dedicated to playing with crypto. We're seeing new game concepts emerging just from crypto, like a crash Bitcoin game or crypto-only roulette games.

Naturally, some of the biggest names in music are getting into the scene to ride the popularity, and although many are promoting crypto, it's NFTs where the biggest names can be found. On the rock side, names like Avenged Sevenfold, Mike Shinoda, and Kings of Leon are getting involved, with the former being particularly big backers of the tech.

Streaming

For the longest time, concerts have been a self-contained experience, with a real sense of 'you had to be there' about them. Barring video or DVD releases later on, live concerts were limited to people in the audience. The era of remote technology may be changing this, however, as we've started to see more and more concerts either simultaneously broadcast online or just performed entirely remotely, with Metallica's M72 event and a series of Dropkick Murphys events being the most prominent recently.

So far, the majority of artists that have gone into live concert streaming have been in the pop sphere with artists from Imagine Dragons to Elton John giving it a try. Virtual concerts are an offshoot also becoming popular thanks to the growing VTuber and virtual personality trends. In rock and metal, relatively few acts have jumped to online performances, but it feels like a matter of time.

AI

The jury is still out when it comes to whether AI is going to be a benefit or an issue in the music industry. On the one hand, certain electronic genres are excited about the possibilities of AI, particularly in new composition styles that humans haven't thought of, or vocal samples of artists who may already have passed on. There is a debate on how these samples can be fairly used, but the potential is undeniable.

Rock is probably the least likely to be touched by AI, simply because of the tradition of purity in the music and the raw feelings behind it. Where we're likely to see AI come into play is in music videos, with generated imagery already widely available for a fraction of the cost of hiring a full production team. How good this is for the industry is also up for debate but it seems to be here to stay.

Many rock and metal enthusiasts value the analog nature of the music more than fans of most other genres, but don't be surprised if major bands start going more digital.