With panels sparking tough questions and nights spilling into showcases, the 20th edition showed how Asia is shaping the new rules of the game
Courtesy of Music Matters
Singapore’s skyline glowed under race-week lights as the 20th edition of All That Matters (Music Matters) roared to life. Over six days — starting Sept. 26, 2025, with Music Matters Live and running through Oct. 1 with the business conference — Hilton Orchard and Clarke Quay became a crossroads for culture, commerce, and ideas.
On the evening of Sep. 28, before the conference formally began, the Australian showcase, hosted by Sounds Australia, set the tone. Acts like Pania, Adrian Dzvuke and Egoism delivered breezy, confident sets under warm lighting. The crowd thinned and swelled as delegates began to mingle, scanning for familiar faces and discovering new voices.
Inside the Hilton’s meeting rooms over the next three days, panels ranged from deep dives into AI’s role in songwriting to strategic debates about touring in Asia. But one undercurrent kept surfacing: the tension between scale and substance, between algorithm and art, between regional ecosystems and global metrics.
India’s story had a center seat. During Indian Culture Matters, panelists Owen Roncon of BookMyShow, Mandar Thakur of Times Music, and I, along with our moderator Ed Peto of Virgin Music Group and Outdustry, explored what it means for India to straddle global ambition and local constraint. While audiences scale into the hundreds of millions, monetization — especially in streaming and concerts — still lags. Discussion veered toward how creators in India are increasingly discovered via short-form video platforms, and how diaspora audiences in Singapore, Malaysia, the Gulf, and beyond are creating bridges for touring and consumption that bypass the traditional West-inward lane.
The conference also featured Kennel Matters as part of the Music Academy segment, a panel on songwriting and publishing that unpacked what it takes to move from creativity to global placements. Moderated by me, the session with Jon Chua and Johan Gustafsson of Kennel Music offered clear takeaways for young songwriters. One point they emphasised was deceptively simple: never send out a track you’re not personally happy with. If the creator isn’t convinced, it’s unlikely anyone else will be. External perspectives matter, but only after the writer feels confident the work represents their best effort. They also noted that demos need to be presented as close to finished as possible — toplines, hooks, and production polished enough that the song could stand on its own. Beyond the creative, both panellists underscored the importance of business literacy: knowing how to structure splits, protect rights, and follow through on opportunities. And, they added, relationships and trust are what sustain careers — people want to keep working with writers
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