Harry Deluxe 27/1/26 Harry Deluxe 27/1/26

The Great Social Media Reckoning

The arts - particularly independent music - must look toward alternative means of connecting with audiences and fostering genuine community engagement. Because let's be honest, if your career depends on whether TikTok's algorithm likes you this week, you're not building a career - you're gambling with your artistic soul. It’s bloody depressing.

Harry Deluxe 20/1/26 Harry Deluxe 20/1/26

Music Streaming and the Platform Cooperative

The Pack is something different - it's a patron-powered music streaming service that's actually forging mutually beneficial, direct, and transparent connections between local businesses, local listeners, and local musicians. With the radical notion that maybe, just maybe, we can create a sustainable music community through the ancient art of not exploiting each other.

Harry Deluxe 13/1/26 Harry Deluxe 13/1/26

Death by a Thousand Closures

We now have just 81 dedicated live music venues across all of Western Australia. That's one venue per 33,000 residents. As a comparison, Melbourne has one per 8,785 residents. Welcome to WA's venue apocalypse, where bureaucratic red tape meets developer greed to create the perfect storm for cultural destruction.

Harry Deluxe 6/1/26 Harry Deluxe 6/1/26

The Anxiety Economy

Every government, funding body, and industry organisation should ask: Are we supporting artist wellbeing or systematically undermining it? The current system extracts maximum value from creative labour while providing minimal support. Artists burn out, give up, or worse.

Harry Deluxe 30/12/25 Harry Deluxe 30/12/25

The $3 Million Joke

When the government can magically find $662 million for one town's mining transition but only $3(ish) million for our entire independent music sector, the message to WA’s cultural community is crystal clear: your creativity is about as valuable as yesterday's newspaper.

Harry Deluxe 23/12/25 Harry Deluxe 23/12/25

The Great Cultural Drain

Welcome to WA's musical education paradox: world-class training, half-arsed career prospects. It's educational policy designed by people who apparently think "build it and they will come" applies to careers, not just fictional baseball fields.

Harry Deluxe 16/12/25 Harry Deluxe 16/12/25

Spotify's CEO "Steps Down" (Into the Chair Next Door): A Masterclass in Changing SFA

After nearly two decades running the world's largest music streaming platform, Daniel Ek is stepping down as CEO of Spotify and into Executive Chairman. And if you're thinking "Wait, doesn't that sound a bit like the corporate equivalent of your dad saying he's 'retired' but still showing up to the office every day telling everyone how to do their jobs?" Congratulations, you're paying attention.

Harry Deluxe 11/12/25 Harry Deluxe 11/12/25

The Sound of Transparency: Why AI Music Labels Matter

When a retro-pop band called The Velvet Sundown racked up a million monthly listeners on Spotify earlier this year with catchy hooks and nostalgic sound, music fans were captivated. There was just one problem: the band wasn't real - every song, image, and backstory had been generated using AI.

This digital deception has sparked a crucial conversation about transparency in streaming - one that goes to the heart of what The Pack Music Co-operative stands for.

Harry Deluxe 9/12/25 Harry Deluxe 9/12/25

The Streaming Prosperity Illusion

For decades, we've been told that digital streaming platforms are the great democratisers of music - that technology, competition, and global reach would naturally lift artists out of poverty and give everyone a fair shot at musical success. This idea has been repeated so often by tech evangelists and music industry leaders that it's rarely questioned.