The smart musicians, like Taylor Swift, figured that out. Her latest tour brought in what, 2 billion dollars?
[1]: e.g., like this one from David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven: https://thetrichordist.com/2016/02/16/the-reality-of-touring...
The music I like is good, and the music I don't like is bad. Zero people share my opinions on which is which. Are you sure you aren't just unhappy that other people don't share your taste and prefer superstar music?
Not to mention that those superstars need to come from somewhere. If a career in music is basically like spending all your money on lottery tickets, society ends up poorer: many hard-working young musicians are going to see it for the exploitation machine that it is, and go sell advertising instead.
Why would you think otherwise? How do you explain people buying "bad" music with their own money?
> many hard-working young musicians are going to see it for the exploitation machine that it is
Reminds me of every person I know that was laid off was sure he was a superstar.
I'm sure there are some overlooked gems, but remember Jimi Hendrix who came out of nowhere and went straight to the top. He was just that good.
I mean. I can enjoy ambient eerie dream-themed wailing and blown brass instruments [0], but it's not for everyone.
He definitely brought up some interesting points I had not considered about how only weekends will give a band a large draw, about over saturation of venues in the U.S., etc.
More fans mean more attendance on tours, so we're back to that, but also more fans buying merchandise, whether that's albums or something else. So there's no disproof of the argument that the band's worst enemy is obscurity, and then limiting the distribution of their music is still the threat rather than the solution.
Touring first doesn't work.
And if you're not good, touring won't fix it.
I feel like we need to break out the Housing Theory of Everything on this one.
Bands have been in competition with other bands since music was invented, that's not new. What's new is that it costs $200/night for a hotel room when you're making, uh, $200/night. If everything didn't cost so much then making that amount of money would work.
uh oh
And don't forget the band shirts. I still have an entire shelf full of band shirts even after getting rid of 2/3rds of mine back in 2020.
If you wanna know what sells for tech, go to the merch stands at an underground show =)
Both of them could do with more beanies
It's a supply and demand thing. There are so many musicians, the idea that they all can make a living doing it is simply not realistic. Only a very few will, regardless of whether they make a few pennies off of streaming or not. Having the government pay them through taxes is a terrible idea.
I know many people who are musicians. It's always a side gig.
I know artists, too. No money to be made there, either. Maybe a few pennies at the local arts&crafts fair.
The Law of Supply & Demand again is in play. More musicians => less pay for each.
The underground is dying though due to a plethora of other forms of entertainment. Shows were a great spot to get some social interaction, but people just don't go out as much anymore and are more likely to do discord and videogames instead of hitting up a basement, bar, cafe, or warehouse.
Which would include the family of working musicians | fencing contractors over the road from me in rural Western Australia.
The husband and wife lead performers are in their early forties and have been playing music live for 20 years .. they sell recordings but their main music income is hotel venues and music festivals - they tour almost half the weekends of the year, mostly local, sometime by plane to the other side of the country.
When not touring they're building fences by contract (ATM mostly around solar setups for Telstra and mobile repeater towers in the rural telecomm domain)
They're not a super band, the live performances pay for themselves and turn a profit, all up they're making something like $200K (AUD) per annum from both jobs.
They're not especially well known by name outside of blues hotel gigging.
Like it or not, that's always going to be the case. The Law of Supply & Demand cannot be repealed. It's in play even when the government fixes prices and payouts.
Artists have almost always been poor unless they found wealthy or state sponsors.
The subject is broader than musicians only.
Are people spending crazy money on Taylor Swift at their local mega stadium, also hitting up local music venues? Seems unlikely.
People like both and there are tons of players out there.
Heck, the car I just got has one. (Used 2001 model
My granddaughter absolutely loves CD media. She looks at the notes for the couple I have cases and liner notes for.
She decorates the ones we made with her tunes on them.
And working the SONY player has shown her the allure those techy looking vacuum, phosphor displays [1] coupled with buttons, dials and the little noises the thing will make, all combine to make for a fun experience just operating the thing.
I wonder what she will make of hidden tracks... [0]
[0] https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/90s-hidden-tracks/
It is just that for Taylor Swift in particular, I don't know if this genre is well represented in local venues.
The reality is that things have gotten much tougher for working musicians in general.
1. it sounds exactly like the radio edit
2. if they're dancing while singing, they're lip syncing. Nobody can sing and dance simultaneously
Just for fun tomorrow, go out for a jog and try to sing.
https://www.thethings.com/how-does-beyonce-sing-and-dance-at...
Maybe getting involved in music is not a proper function of government.
I do eat my own pudding, though. The D compiler is given away for free.
As evidence, Germany in the 1800s had no copyrights nor patents. Their economy boomed. Look at how free software, of the highest quality, has taken over the internet. I am not aware of any particularly compelling counter-evidence that copyright and patents improve productivity.
I made my living for a decade off of FOSS I originally authored, and was highly active in FOSS circles for much of that time. Being well acquainted with the economics of open source I am thus inoculated against the laughable notion that FOSS is analogous to music. Selling software != selling documents.