Pop songwriting camps boom as music catalogs become financial assets

The music industry has seen a surge in songwriting camps where labels and publishers gather artists, producers, and composers for days to write songs collaboratively. This shift is driven by the financialization of music catalogs: in July 2018, the Hipgnosis fund launched on the London Stock Exchange with £202 million, treating songs as predictable income streams akin to gold or oil. That same year, Spotify began displaying song credits, making authorship public. Between 2020 and 2024, Bob Dylan's catalog sold to Universal for between $300 and $400 million. The combination of songs as assets and transparent credits has transformed pop songwriting from individual commissions to team-based production.