
How Musicians Make Money, Or Don’t, In 2018 - bspn
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/how-musicians-make-money-or-dont-at-all-in-2018-706745/
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pmoriarty
Forget money. As a musician I struggle to even get people to listen to my
music for free.

There's an absolute glut of content out there, due to two things:

1 - The increasing ease of making music. It used to be that you had to invest
time in acquiring some skill, some relatively expensive instruments, and some
in-person relationships with other musicians to make music that was palatable
to a significant number of listeners. Today all you need is some free software
on a phone or computer you probably already have, and it all but makes the
music for you.

2 - The ease of distributing music. You used to have to get contracts with
record labels, make other connections with the music industry, or spend a lot
of money to get much of an audience. Now we've mostly cut out the middle men,
and distribution is virtually free.

As a result there's vastly more content and much more competition between
artists for an audience. No longer are consumers limited to a dozen radio
stations or having to read music reviews, physically go down to the record
store, listen to and buy records. The consumer has virtually the world's
entire musical output at their fingertips and far more free content than they
even have time to listen to.

~~~
johnvanommen
I think this has also contributed to the homogenization of music. You would
think the opposite would happen - _with so many music options, wouldn 't the
options have a wider variety?_

But here's why this isn't the case:

Twenty five years ago, CDs were expensive. Because they were expensive,
listeners were compelled to listen to them over and over and over again.

Remember buying two CDs for $40 and playing them endlessly?

But in 2018, music is basically free. And because it's free, nobody has a
vested interest in investing a lot of time getting to "know" an album.

So you wind up where we're at now: a lot of music that sounds alike, plus a
ton of music that's derivative of music from 30 or 40 years ago.

~~~
King-Aaron
> a lot of music that sounds alike

It always makes me laugh when a MC/DJ has to say their name during their
music, because it sounds just like everything else and sampled pre-existing
music so heavily that you couldn't identify the artist otherwise...

~~~
johnvanommen
Or when you're at a club that's hosting two or three DJs, and they all sound
so similar, if you closed your eyes you wouldn't even know that a different DJ
just took the stage

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gomox
I have a few friends that are aspiring musicians with what I consider to be a
high quality product, and they both struggle to make a living out of it,
bankrolling their music endeavors with side gigs or similar avenues.

In the age of the Internet, it seems clear to me that from a macro economic
perspective, the only scarce things a musician can provide are (a) experiences
and (b) physical goods. It seems like no small/medium artist can expect to
make a living out of YouTube views or Spotify plays.

Is anyone here that is more knowledgeable about the industry able to comment
on what tech-enabled avenues exist (or may come into existence in the short
term future) for younger musicians to make a living? Crazy ideas are OK (for
example, I think VR live concerts might be a thing at some point, but I don't
have enough understanding of the industry to tell whether something like
Ujomusic makes sense).

~~~
darpa_escapee
> it seems clear to me that from a macro economic perspective, the only scarce
> things a musician can provide are (a) experiences and (b) physical goods

As someone who is close to people in the industry: this is very true.

If you aren't a top act, money is made through merchandise and gigs like
writing and recording music for video content, events like weddings and if
you're lucky enough to get your act to the point that businesses will pay you
to play at their venue, shows and touring.

There are businesses who approach musicians with the 'free shows at our venue
for exposure' or 'perform at our venue and possibly collect on ticket sales'
angle. Inexperienced or desperate acts will fall for these.

> Is anyone here that is more knowledgeable about the industry able to comment
> on what tech-enabled avenues exist (or may come into existence in the short
> term future) for younger musicians to make a living

By necessity, musicians need to look at these tech platforms not as sources of
revenue, but as marketing platforms.

~~~
jv22222
> By necessity, musicians need to look at these tech platforms ... as
> marketing platforms.

Yes, that's exactly the way to look at it.

But, even to get noticed on those platforms you'll need to do marketing. So,
now there's two layers of marketing!

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matchagaucho
Music throughout the centuries has always been subsidized by benefactors.

It wasn't until 19th century that the breadth of career options opened up for
Musicians.

The struggle for "Pop" artists is that the definition of Pop changes every 5
years... and even then, Artists underestimate just how much promotion goes
into driving streaming traffic.

But career options for scoring video games, multimedia, EDM, DJ, live bands,
and teaching have never been better.

~~~
sreyaNotfilc
And that what it boils down to, promotion. Can you out promote the next guy?
And, if you're likable or not. If so, you get (at least) a listen to.

Can you promote and make quality work? Doesn't have to be high quality, but
good enough that you'd listen to it a lot and share it with your friends.

Ed Sheeran is not the best singer/musician in the world. But, he and his music
is constantly in rotation. Not everyone has the backing of Warner Music.
However, I'm guessing he and his music is likable and talented enough to hold
people's attention.

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scarecrowbob
I'm a semi pro musician. The market makes plenty of sense if you adopt the
idea that:

a) any commodity will eventually be priced at its cost of producution

b) recorded art is a commodity, at least at the level of record labels and
national acts

I make more playing piano by myself for 30 people at a winery in the Texas
hill country than I could playing in a really hopping stage band in Austin...
one experience is costing the folks engaged in it a lot more, and there is a
lot less competition.

The only reason I sell merch is because rich people would rather buy something
than tip a service worker.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>a) any commodity will eventually be priced at its cost of [production] //

The problem with this idea for the arts is that people are prepared to create
music/art without a wage, so they absorb a primary cost of production (wages)
themselves. Indeed they'll pay for everything, because it's enjoyable to
create music. We could have no professional musicians and we'd still have more
music created than anyone could ever listen to.

Also, "cost of production" should include wages, but what level of wage is
right. Capitalism values people by their scarcity, but almost any musician
could be replaced -- even top bands have replaced members -- meaning that for
most music production capitalism will value the people making the music at
around zero. So, you then need fashion (merch)/lifestyle/live shows to boost
value. It strikes me that stars are made to increase the value of the music
(selling a lifestyle) rather than because of the value of the music.

~~~
scarecrowbob
"they absorb a primary cost of production (wages) themselves"

I think that you are correct in this point. Your point doesn't undercut my
point however-- in fact, if you look at the history of labor, the reason
production gets draconian is because as the margins for commodities get
smaller the owning classes have to force the laboring classes to absorb more
of the cost of reproduction.

Hence people driving for Uber. Or the undervaluing of domestic, unpaid labor
in the cost of production.

We hide a lot of those costs of production in the US.

And the answer to how long and how that gig economy will last has to do
exactly that issue. The issue isn't how to fairly compensate people (what
"level of wage is right") and I don't really agree that scarcity is what
drives price... I still think that assuming that multiple people can get into
a market price will always move towards the cost of production.

But that's just my own idea... not everyone believes that the price for a
commodity will sink to that level. At some point, labor can no longer afford
to reproduce itself no matter how many parts of it are externalized, and folks
can't afford to go to a field and pick strawberries. Or play jazz.

It's really bad if we wanted to keep things like having live music all over
the place... all the professionals have to get day jobs, and so the really
good, smart musicians are all doing other things because they can't make ends
meet. Those folks are often still playing, but you're not gonna get great
unless you're playing all the time, really. But that has little to do with
recorded music as a commodity, and a lot to do with all kinds of things from
drunk driving laws to netflix.

You're also more or less correct in your assessment of "stars", insofar as
they disrupt a commodity by creating a false sense of scarcity. As you note,
"almost any musician could be replaced", and that's true about "stars" at a
certain point. So those are temporary disruptions, not a workable situation
for an industry.

Still, though, there are points in production that cost a lot to make: live
shows, quality merch, music lessons, etc... those things have a real cost in
time regardless of how much supply there is. That doesn't boost the value of
recorded music, but people still want those things, even if they are scarce/
have a higher cost of production.

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jqbx_jason
I built JQBX ([https://www.jqbx.fm](https://www.jqbx.fm)) so I think about
streaming, money, and the law a lot. The industry is very focused on siphoning
off as much cash from the musician as possible. That being said, in the age of
streaming that seems like a common model (Psy got $2 mil for 2 billion
views!?). I think direct sales is the most promising future for artists
compensation given that there are so many new sales and social channels.
Bandcamp is does good work and if you're going to buy music (and the artist is
on there) you should probably do it there. I know I'm a small fish but I'm
integrating on some direct to artist sales features currently to at least help
the cause.

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cm2012
An example of live performance making money - my friend and I busked the
summer after high school and made $15 an hour or so, 6 hours a day before our
voices gave out. So we were each able to make around $4k for college over two
months. Annualized, $24k a year is not great, but it was a lot to us, and we
also got about a gig offer per week which we declined. If we had wanted to be
full time musicians we probably could have had a decent career in short order.

~~~
spunker540
I was in a busking trio playing mostly covers of oldies -- when we were 15/16
years old we had a good novelty factor and could make around 45 an hour
combined street performing. Eventually we started playing bars in a touristy
part of Wisconsin and we'd make $200-300 per 3 hr set. Hourly it's alright,
but there's not many options in terms of daytime gigs during the week.

Incidentally, I put this on my resume back in college when my resume was
mostly empty, and think it played a part in me getting rejected from a
Microsoft internship. At one point an interviewer asked me point blank "would
you rather be a professional musician or a computer programmer" and I didn't
answer correctly!

~~~
vkou
What an asshole. Would he rather be interviewing people at Microsoft, or
sipping Piña Coladas on a beach?

The difference is that he would probably not answer that question honestly.

------
WalterBright
The era of a musician making a $100m is over.

The same thing has happened to books and software.

I'm a little surprised that movies can still make so much money. There's an
explosion of video being made.

~~~
vkou
The difference in production quality between a Clerks-style mockumentary, and
a AAA teledrama is huge. The latter is a money pit, where you can sink
millions of dollars into. Technology has made video-production much more
accessible, but there's almost no ceiling to money->production quality in that
space.

With music, technology has made audio-production much more accessible, and
while there is a difference between someone recording music in their garage,
and Justin Beiber working in a gold-plated studio, it's not a big one.

I may not like the latest Avenger's take on the DC universe, but watching an
unlicensed spin-off made by four kids over a summer isn't an acceptable
substitute. If I don't like Beiber's new album, there's a mountain of indie
bands that... Sound just as good.

~~~
ghaff
Part of it is that the cameras you can get from a few hundred to a few
thousand dollars have gotten dramatically better than the Super8 or even VHS
days--and the editing process is also cheaper and easier--but there's so much
more in the budget for that AAA teledrama or even a relatively low budget
movie. The actors of course but also sets, lighting and sound design, etc.
Some types of films can be produced on the cheap under some circumstances but
not most mainstream films, especially the popular ones.

------
probably_wrong
I thought the article would focus a bit more on the "or don't" part. I think
Courtney Love's article on the economics of being a new musician would have
added an interesting perspective to the (already complex) issue:
[https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/](https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/)

Edit: note that the article is from 2000, and the landscape has changed a bit
since then.

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jv22222
I think we need a platform that is a cross between Spotify and Patreon.

Then, artists can aim to bring in subscribers who pay them something like
$2-5/month to support them as a patron.

You can already do this on patreon but I think a specialized platform would
have more sway.

The platform could also sell bands enhanced band pages for a small
subscription fee too.

Basically, a platform to fully connect artists with fans where the fans WANT
to buy the music in order to support the band.

~~~
edkennedy
You can do that on bandcamp [https://aristake.com/post/turn-your-fans-into-
paying-subscri...](https://aristake.com/post/turn-your-fans-into-paying-
subscribers-with-this-platform)

------
canadianwriter
I wrote a somewhat related article a few years back that I think is very
relevant to this: [https://kolemcrae.com/the-internet-killed-the-rock-star-
and-...](https://kolemcrae.com/the-internet-killed-the-rock-star-and-why-
thats-okay/)

The days a massive rock stars is over - it's not too bad though...

~~~
tommymachine
I’m not sure that the “rockstar” concept is dead. The top spaces are just
being shared among fewer performers. And more of the business is trickling
towards them than the smaller acts than yesterday, and the same will be true
tomorrow. It’s been going that way since they started printing sheet music. As
distribution (of pretty much any product) becomes more efficient, it’s easier
for the most marketable acts to become well known outside of their original
region, and when that happens they’ll take over a lot of market share from the
local guys in other regions.

Music is the type of field where everyone and their brother gives it a go, and
so the market is very, very deep. But most of it lacks the mass appeal needed
to cause viralality. Today more than ever, it’s possible for marketable acts
to catch on in a big way. And the big acts do really, really well. But that’s
always been the case. In music as in other similarly competitive fields
(professional sports, acting, startups, writing novels) being average means
that you basically aren’t making a living, whereas the top people are really
raking it in. It’s a well-studied market dynamic. (May have been mentioned in
Freakonomics, although I can’t recall exactly).

Point being, in such fields average is almost always broke, and if you’re
making it, you’re likely to be really, really making it. This isn’t a new
phenomenon, but it is exacerbated as technology continues to enable more
efficient marketing / distribution for the most popular acts.

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digi_owl
Old man Zappa comes to mind...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0)

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WalterBright
> “When you end up tracing all the dollars, around 10 percent of it gets
> captured by the artist. “That’s amazingly low,”

Actually, that's pretty good. Compare it to the profit margin of most any
business.

~~~
ska
Isn't it talking about revenue, not profit margin?

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jplayer01
ITT A bunch of music snobs who think music is dead and they just don't make
great music anymore and it all sounds the same.

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joewrong
> "with many analysts and experts expecting that the business will streamline
> itself"

Seems like wishful thinking

