Weeding out the industry plants

The term industry plant has been popping up all over the internet in the past few years. It’s a strange accusation which seems to mostly be reserved for any artist whose rapid rise to fame has garnered suspicion online.

The term industry plant originated on hip-hop forums in the early 2010s. At the time, the phrase was used to criticise artists who users felt had been created by labels for profit, rather than having an organic rise to fame in a genre notorious for giving opportunities to those who had few others. Since then, the term has evolved into something far more generic.

Defining an industry plant would involve gathering a single cohesive thought from a comment section full of trolls, a modern miracle. Ultimately, it seems to target artists whom labels promote heavily, leading to a sudden popularity, which is deemed reprehensible by many online.

Worryingly, even scrolling through the Wikipedia page for industry plant, every name listed past the original use in hip-hop is female. These include Hayley Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, The Last Dinner Party, and more. Phoebe Bridgers was quoted as saying: “People are saying that female indie rock stars were invented by a trust fund or something. It’s like, you know where The Strokes came from? Nepotism and wealth have always informed music.”

Phoebe Bridgers at the Grammys in 2024. Credit: Frederic J. Brown GettyImages

In this sense, the current use of the term seems to stem from the ongoing caveat used against female artists of “Oh, they’re actually good.” I’ve witnessed this reaction myself. If any other band took to the stage, you would, as a bare minimum, expect the guitarist to be able to play guitar. However, for bands with a female line-up, this seems to come as some sort of pleasant surprise.

Feminism aside, in many cases what is actually being discussed is a development deal. Lorde, for example, signed a development deal when she was 13. This means that her label selected her as a promising artist who needed work. While some people may find some kind of scandal in this, is it not the job of a label to promote an artist?

At what point do we draw the line? If an artist struggles for years to make it, signs with a label and gets promoted to success, should we not congratulate them? Take Chappell Roan, there are videos of her from 2021 performing her current songs to tiny crowds, yet she is still deemed an industry plant.

Applying these standards to other musicians, Led Zepplin had management before their first rehearsal, and Johnny Rotten was selected to be in the Sex Pistols, the famously anti-establishment band… by the establishment. There are hundreds more examples of artists who would be called out by the TikTok critics, but the popularity of the term is more telling of those who are doing the labelling, rather than the state of the music industry.

When we constantly have a phone at our fingertips, the ease with which a person can call a pack to rally against someone is staggering. At the first feelings of hatred a person has, they throw about any term which they feel suits the occasion, summoning a pack to blindly jump in on the action, sniffing out a chance for drama. Without research or factual reinforcement, it seems that we are now seeking to hate music more than we are seeking to like it.

Before throwing out accusations and starting an investigation into an artist's motives, those who spend hours commenting about these conspiracies should perhaps first investigate whether it is truly the industry that has planted that seed.