I appreciate exposure but music as an art form has been cheapened considerably following the advent of the internet.
Regardless of merch / touring revenue an artist today is earning nothing in comparison to the heyday of singles.
At the moment the real money outside of touring is in sinks (Music synchronized to film / ads / tv etc)
I watched a vox pop type poll on a tv show a few years ago. The question posed to 100 under 16’s was: ‘How much would you pay for an album?’ 100% of them said ‘nothing’.
For me it is about the value of art (See below for clarification). For the artist it is probably about money and if they have sufficient ego, immortality.
Does any of this matter? Why shouldn’t art be free?
Quality is perhaps one argument:
Today no record label is fostering talent, nurturing expression and growth. Patronage has been punctured. The costs for decent studio time, engineers, time to create, all of these things and many more have been eroded. Give us two his singles and a gold LP or get dropped seems to be the modus of the industry.
Had this been the case in the 70’s or 80’s so many artists would have failed to ripen, failed to blossom. Led Zep / The Jam / Pink Floyd (I could go on here but none of their first LPs were their biggest seller) This is the cheapening, the 15 mins of Spotify Cowell fame that works so well with 0’s and 1’s. At least with a studio produced vinyl LP you have physical piece of art but even the fetishism of vinyl by FANatics has been attacked by the thrill of the ‘new, the next best thing…tomorrows carrot’.
In a wider sense the formation of music sub cultures has in someways been disrupted by the internet and free downloads. For many years ‘scenes’ formed on the fringes, they had time to build and solidify in a cultural sense the fashion, art, language and dances of ‘scenes’ all grew before they were ‘packaged’ and McDonalized, via the process of hegemony. From soul to punk to hip hop and every other scene come to think of it. Today with the internet / downloads etc this process is so fast no scene really gets to superficial puberty before it is raped. Does this matter?
To me it does, I like music and culture to be somewhat deeper than a puddle.
Have rcird labels/the industry ever really fostered talent per-se? Surely they’re all about the money - ‘talent’ to them means the most marketable. It’s all just a big machine.is it fair that some artists makes millions while others struggle?
I don’t think streaming is the issue, that’s just a delivery mechanism. It’s the industry at large and it’s attitude that is the problem. Plus ca change.
According to Moses Avalon’s 1998 Book, Confessions of a Record
Producer, the proceeds of a then-$17 CD would typically be distributed
as follows:
Retailer: $5 (29.4%),
Record label: $4.92 (28.9%),
Distributor: $2.40 (14.1%),
Giveaways: $1.80 (10.6%),
Duplication/recording: $1.10 (5.8%), Artist royalty: 83 cents (4.9%),
Songwriter license: 60 cents (3.5%),
Producer royalty: 27 cents (1.6%),
Musicians union: 8 cents (0.4%).
Nothing stays the same. I still don’t think the technology is the root cause of the problem. Arguably it exacerbates it, but fundamentally it’s the industry itself that is toxic.
Thea Gilmore has never been signed to a label,and self (with her husband) produces all her records.
I read a blog she wrote regarding her last record.
It did quite well, got airplay on R2 and 6Music, got interviewed by Radccliffe and Maconie etc and did OK in the album charts.
After she paid for all the production costs, the CDs the Vinyl, paid the band etc she made absolutely nothing from the record and relies on touring and patronage (Patreon) to make a living.
Infinitely better than $0.006 to $0.0084 Spotify pays per stream to the holder of music rights. And the “holder” can be split among the record label, producers, artists, and songwriters
Except one is per listen, one is for a CD. Arguably it’s fairer to charge per listen. The holder thing is down to contracts with the dealerscum (Spotify et al are the dealerscum in this) but in both cases dealerscum make the most.
Music consumption is changing. So what, though? Looking back through rose tinted spectacles at ‘the good old days’ isn’t really healthy or sensible.
Some talentless fucks get big, some very talented artists never make anything. It’s nothing new.
Pretty sure I read in interview with Pennywise when they released one of their albums through MySpace where they stated the delivery system was unimportant as all their money was now made from the tours and merch and not from album sales.
I think a turning point, for me, was when ECM finally allowed the streaming of their excellent catalogue after being against it for so long. The general feeling from them was that they would be left behind as so many people are finding music through streaming and that the people who bought their albums probably still would and after all when did you ever hear their music on the radio in the uk?
It’s like cinemas complaining about the distribution of a film like the Irishman or the struggles in high street retail, things have moved on and you either accept the new way or get left behind.
I’m not convinced western society values anything that is ‘free’. Yes bands have to tour to make money - this is a good thing they get to hone their craft rather than do a video and hope MTV will do the rest. The issue is quality, rapid commodification and cultural repackaging - The internet is here, it’s not going away and so this is how it is.
It’s pure simplism to suggest that the days of physical media were some Elysian fields for artists.
How much does the artist pocket when the record gets sold second hand?
What about the 100% of nothing they got when everyone was Limewiring the tits off their internet connection and paying precisely fuck all for a shitty 128k mp3 of an album?
What happened when an album went out of press and wasn’t reissued?
It’s not ‘free’ just easier to steal. But everyone has been stealing music since it started to be recorded and sold.
The tech ain’t going away, though, and nor should it (on the flipside it also makes it far easier for artists to get their stuff out there) Somehow things will balance out overall, just that the winners and losers are different.
Spotify et al are a shop. Just the packaging is different. The real problems are deeper and far older.