How do artists actually collect this kind of cash these days, now that no one buys CDs? Wouldn't he need a trillion or so streaming listeners to generate a billion dollars?
Edit: never mind, looks like he's selling sneakers.
Edit: never mind, looks like he's selling sneakers.
The modern model is to share the music freely as it serves primarily as a sales pitch for the artists brand. Young people want something of "value" for their money and they don't see a recording itself as having even $0.99 of value (even though they've mostly forgotten how to actually pirate media), like shitty overpriced merch and miserable "live music experiences" and "meet and greets".
Really what they're selling is hype. Which explains why an extreme manic depressive like Kanye has been so successful in this context. It's a system that directly rewards con men and effectively punishes any kind of caution or prudence. It also rewards drug addiction as many of these con men rely on drugs to maintain the illusions of their existence.
It's particularly sad because this system exploits the earnest passions of both the artists and the fans to manipulate them into participating.
Think of Dr. Dre's Beats, Jay-Z's Tidal and investments in Uber. Now Kanye's Yeezy brand too.
Don't think of the time Soulja Boy tried selling bootleg game emulators[0], though.
[0]https://www.geek.com/games/finally-soulja-boy-is-selling-boo...
For big artists it’s mainly going on tour. Doing a tour tends to generate more money for an artist than the album itself and it’s been this way for years now.
Ed Sheeran’s tour grossed almost a billion dollars ($776.200.000) .. that’s 1 tour. He did 2 before that.