‍Film music budgets are already at historic lows, and AI is by some claiming to be the final nail in the coffin for commissioned art. But that’s just a market fever dream—Exhibit A is the fourth wave of film music that rumbles on the horizon. As Gramsci wrote from the fascists’ prison: “The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

The solutionist can monetise the present, but any solutions only serving the market’s thirst for novelty is constructing false narratives about the future. Part 2 of the potentially endless series ”Time for Money” is about how white teethed optimists keeps racking up unearned wins.

From the conservative think tanks to a new ‘Image of Sweden’ council and a ‘uniting’ cultural canon: Swedish neoliberals and nationalists have found common cause in their pursuit of monoculture.

In the middle of the diabolic era of content acid reflux, we need to remind ourselves why the very word is so useful to everyone who wants to reduce or preferably eliminate the value of art.

As Spotify strive to increase shareholder value, we need to remind ourselves that we have seen this before. As with IKEA and H&M, they are striving for monopoly or at least global domination. Doesn't it feel a bit outdated? I wrote an open letter to Daniel Ek, and am still waiting for a reply.

The music industry is a bridge between art and commerce, culture and enterprise. It has its problems, but it overcomes them by remembering that technology and politics are the rails, not the train. "Time for Money is" a series about how Sweden’s music industry manages to create sustainable culture—while also needing ever more perspective to counter systems that were never designed to serve art’s purposes.