The 10 Biggest Record Label Stories of 2025

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s time to begin the annual review of the top music business stories of the year. To kick things off, we’ll start with the engine that helps music reach the world: the record labels, which have gone through yet another period of seismic change. Whether it was the overarching theme of consolidation, the technology-driven reorganizations that resulted in more layoffs and realignments, dealing with the broader threats and opportunities that new tech has presented, the generational shifts, the merry-go-round atop various C-Suites and more, the labels have once again been at the center of much of what has been shifting and evolving in the music business in 2025.

Some of the changes have been long in the works; others represent new issues or evolutions. There were shakeups at the major labels, the country labels and the indie labels; there were labels that signed artists that weren’t fully human; there were labels that redefined their purviews and expanded what it is they do and how they go about doing that. Some labels made history; some label heads shifted seats; some labels saw breakout successes in unexpected ways. But the overall theme was one of change, novelty and disruption — par for the course for an industry that’s constantly in flux.

As we begin to roll out our recap of the biggest music business stories of the year, it’s fitting to start with the purveyors of the music itself. Here are the 10 biggest record label storylines of 2025, presented in no particular order.