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.
One interesting explanation I saw was it was a way to get exposure - few people are willing to do it, so for those who do, it's basically a right a passage and a way to show that you're the real deal. I saw an interview with Lil Xan talking about his face tattoos where he basically said as much, and on purpose made his first tattoo his mom's name so she wouldn't kill him for taking the plunge. His next tattoo was just 'zzz', which he stated was an act of branding due to his association with xanax.
It seems to me this is a pretty big difference between say an indy rock band and an indie rapper. The rock bands act like the business side of things is something they'd rather not deal with - they just want to make music and do shows. The rappers first and foremost are focused on themselves being the core of a business in which their image needs to be carefully cultivated, the support group around them needs to be taken care of, etc.
In the words of Jay-Z, "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!"
FYI: You probably mean "rite of passage".
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.
I'm 40. I play a lot of music with people in their 70s who were professional musicians in the 70s. I don't know if it's ever been really any different. Mostly, it's been more homogenous at a national scale, at least in the living memories of the people I play with.
In the late 60s and 70s, they could learn a single top 40 list plus some standards and play their week-long gig at the ramada or whatever (while on or off tour, working their sessions or whatever) and make a living.
Music is way more heterogeneous now, IMO.
I don't think that contradicts your point about how freeking much music people have access to, I just feel like it's probably been moving this way at least since the invention of the radio, if not the wide spread availabilty of sheet music.
>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.
There are plenty of different types of music being made today along with communities of people that appreciate it. These things aren't necessarily mainstream, but they're there.
What you say is absolutely true for mainstream popular music, and has been for a long time. But delve into niche genres, and the scenes are more vibrant than ever.
I'm a huge metalhead, and right now, I have ~150 albums in my "I should give this a deeper listen, it sounds interesting" folder on Spotify, and about an equal number of bookmarks from Bandcamp and the like from smaller indie bands and solo projects that aren't on Spotify.
This is purely within my preferred corner of death/thrash/power/prog/black metal. There are so many great, interesting and varied albums coming out all the time, that I actually have to be rather picky about what I choose to give more than a cursory listen. And I don't even really touch most modern "mainstream" metal, this is almost purely the nastier semi-obscure stuff (where 10,000 plays for a track on Spotify is huge).
Yes, a lot of music does sound similar to other music. That's what having an established genre means. But there is huge variety going on in the less mainstream corners, where fans are more dedicated and open to experimentation.
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...
Music is 'homogenized' for the same reason products are: labels are making 'lowest common denominator' for the same reason 'Transformers' has no plot whatsoever.
Radio and Google searches, 'hype' are ironically more commercialized than ever before, ergo, music is more 'product'.
There is actually 'more diversity' in music - but you have to actually expend a little bit of effort to find it. An I mean 'just a little bit' i.e. a search on iTunes or whatever. Most people do not consume music that way - they just don't care that much. They accept what's on the radio, or what their friends tell them and esp. for younger folks, they are influenced by marketers trends.
Consider the parallel: there are more 'web sites' than ever before, and the web is far more diverse - yet - our time is more and more focused on a smaller subset of places i.e. FB, Amazon.
A couple of nuanced things:
'Making music' is easier than ever, and what is considered 'music' is more broad - so anyone can spend a few minutes using off-the-shelf software to make a few interesting sounds and voila. Eddie Van Halen spent a decade nerding out in his basement practicing to develop his talent - now - you don't have to like Van Halen, but if you actually listen, you can respect the talent. 'Talent' is no longer necessary - so this is a problem.
It completely blows me away that a lot of shows now are simply Kareoke - young guys were rapping over an mp3. Not very exciting to me, but even worse ... I saw something with 'Chief Keef' recently and he's not even rapping over a 'backing track' - he's literally just playing is regular release track and then drunk/high mumbling over top of the track. He stumbles around on stage with his buddies, and each of them mumble a few lines over top now and then.
Which brings me to 2cnd nuanced point: it's not about the music (maybe it never was) it's about the fame.
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are in the same business. One is more lyrical than the other. (FYI I think they are both geniuses in different ways, and I don't care for either of their fare but they are brilliant nonetheless). It's about creating a 'meme' - and wether it's instagram, or bits of acting, or 'music' or appearances, whatever - it's the same thing. It's almost impossible these days for a pop artist to be huge without having a very visual aspect. Taylor Swift's Instagram is at least as important as her albums. Her shows are massively produced spectacles. She and Beyonce are better described as pop-figure entertainers ... with a lot of music in the mix.
So the focus on pop-culture, and the visual aspect, has truly and fundamentally altered things.
Maybe some of you are old enough to remember: 'Video Killed the Radio Star' - since the social media revolution, this is further blown up.
I love all genres of music - but every genre has been blown up with really low grade stuff, almost written by a computer and you can hear it. Obviously EDM is worse than others because of the nature of the 'E' of course, but it's bad.
Final nuance: a great deal of the 'art' has shifted from classical musical paradigms, into the Engineering. So now, the 'producer' is in a way the 'chief artist'. We saw this in the late 20th century when U2 got popular. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanlois were producers on their huge hits - and you can clearly hear their impact. They were 'part of the band' in Bono's words. Radiohead has used the same Engineering guy forever and he's definitely a key ingredient in their secret sauce. Max Martin writes 100% of Katy Perry and other's hits and he, together with Dr. Luke basically own the hot-100 of known entities.
And of course ... in the early 20th century if you wanted to hear music, someone had to play it really. You needed a full orchestra for good music. When the 5-piece rock and roll band came along 90% of horn players had to get other jobs. When Ableton/Steinberg/GarageBand came along ... well, you don't need any musicians at all to make music.
Clearly there's a lot of intelligence even in the most mundane pop music, just as it's not actually easy to make 'Transformers' films, but the artistry is more focused on production than art ... and with so much 'noise' in the long-tail, it's exceedingly difficult for decent talent to break through.
I was never a fan of Van Halen, but I happed to see them in an Arena concert several years ago and it was absolutely amazing. The music seems 'passe' and cheezy on the radio, but live ... it's basically exhilarating. They are the definition of 'Stadium Rock' and enormously talented. Imagine Dragon's doesn't hold a candle to them it would almost be comical listening to them side by side live.
Edit: should not that the biggest money makers are the 'established brand' live acts, like 'Journey' and 'Bruce Springsteen' are making zillions more money than ever in 2018, 30 years after the fact - i.e. 'new artists' now have to compete with massive bands that are still truckin'. Check Billboard 200 album list, towards the middle you find: Nirvana's 'nevermind', Metallica 'black' and Guns n Roses 'apetite for destruction' on the chart for like the last 6 years (!) and might be for another decade (!) so 'new artists' literally have to outsell 20 year old Metallica albums to get listed. Rough!
A lot of the technical obstacles to taking technically-solid photos and videos have been removed and the barriers to making them available to everyone are essentially non-existent.
Writing hasn't been made easier to the same degree (although research is easier in many cases) but you no longer need to get a publisher to sign on--although there are some advantages to doing so.
And it's very hard to make money off of doing those things unless they're in support of some other commercial activity.
I've been an amateur musician for 20 years. I would never try to make a living out of it, it's so much of a craps shoot trying to get people to listen and focus on your music online. The best way is to simply go in front of them and make their eardrums resonant with your instrument directly. You may need another career to support this live-only lifestyle, but what's the point of dumping 100's of hours and $1000's in capital into a recording barely anyone will listen to?
Just for the people who don't get the reference....
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/1137910...
This is true, but the flip side is that people will take more risks because there is no financial consequence to sampling previously unknown music.
Additionally there are still a lot of gatekeepers. When I talk about music distribution and consumption I always make a point of emphasising the difference between active consumers of music - those people who will actively search out new music, or even those who know what they want to listen to and will (for example) make their own playlists, and those people who just want a “make music happen” experience. The latter are more common and will typically fire up their stramaing platform of choice and select a playlist that matches their taste. For these people music is often somewhere between background noise and accompaniment to other activities, but inclusion on “premier” playlists (those with high visibility on platforms) is lucrative but quite rigidly controlled. You are probably less likely to be included on one of these if you don’t have a track record, or if you don’t have industry contacts. If you are included it can be a powerful way to gain new fans and get your music out to a much broader audience.
Before, if someone signed you, you were pretty much guaranteed some form of success.
I don't think that virality being required is a problem, all the songs I still listen from 20 years ago, and which are still played, I loved the first second I've heard and I would have shared them back then.
I think it has surprisingly little about content but with marketing and connections. I feel it is especially apparent on youtube where crappy content can thrive and excellent content can be buried where only a handful will see it.
Not terribly different from the old days.
Not necessarily. I think my content is good, but if few to no people hear it, much less pay me for it, I don't have much incentive to continue making it. Or if I make it, I rarely bother to release it anymore. I just make it for myself, and no one hears it but me. It's just not worth my time to go to all the trouble of editing and mixing it, releasing it, making cover art, thinking of titles, uploading it, and maybe trying to get listeners for it if almost no one will ever hear it.
I think a lot of other musicians are in the same boat. We can't afford to make music for a living, so have to do it as a hobby, and if we struggle to get listeners even the hobby might not be rewarding enough to pursue in the long run.
Lots of good content can get buried in the avalanche of trash. It might eventually get "discovered", but that's far from certain. It might not happen in the artist's lifetime or at all.
There's still a lot of room for improvement in the field of content discovery.
Look what that has done to "Online Content-with-a-capital-C" at large.
If you launched an ad-supported website today and wanted to make any real kind of money from it, how many page views would you need? And how would that number impact the type of content you created for that site?
Well, an advance and a good time, but most ended up not recouping [1].
This is nonsense. First of all, there's no such thing as a digital sound. Once it's sent to the speaker, it's analog, regardless of whether it originated inside your laptop or from a guitar. I would bet that you can't tell the difference between a top-end VST emulating an analog synth and a real analog synth, or a Kemper Profiling Amp and the real tube amp it's modeling.
I enjoy the interplay between musicians as well but you can make a great album tracking all of the parts yourself and there are entire genres of electronic music where it's standard to not have more than one musician.
I've heard this so often that it lost all meaning to me.
I graduated from MTSU with a degree in Recording Industry. My favorite class was songwriting class where we were paired up with classmates to write songs for a grade. There was this one guy whoever knew he was the best in the class and he was. He went onto write tons of number one country songs from 2007 to 2016. Even being the best of the best didnt get him to that point rather meeting the right connection as my college g/f was just as good as him or better. She's a homemaker now.
Myself, I might be a decent songwriter, but Im a terrible singer. I get joy from others listening to my songs and say ing something nice lol.
Overall it's always been hard and if your not the best of the best or know the right person then well......
Now if you are only very good, ( which in itself is great, you could be the top 5% in the industry, or even top 1% ) you will need some connection and luck. The problem is there are only finite amount of popular song writer writing for best music. And that space is likely to be limited to a double digit personnel.
It is like Formula 1, there are only a handful of drivers in Formula 1, but they represent the best of the best in the world. You don't want a centimetre off Apex, you want them to be in millimetres. These best of the best may only be 4 - 10 faster even on the same cars, but you could spend the rest of your life time never be as fast and as consistent as they are.
Most recently, I worked with a business analyst guy who was living in Nashville trying to get work by filling in for sick musicians and thereby making a name for himself. It was going, eh, okay for him. He still kept his day job, of course. The company I worked for back then had let him move to Nashville and work 100% remote. He was on point with a guitar and banjo, I'll say that.
For example : Prog is one such community. (Fourm : r/progmetal)
I have routinely discovered bands with <1000 listens on their top song on Spotify on that sub. I have seen these same bands grow to the point of gaining interest from a label. Interest that was fueled by forum members.
Since the genre rewards musical proficiency, even causal listeners (non fans) can have quality discussions with forum members and boost engagement.
IDK, if this works for other other genres too. But, IMO this is one of the better ways to survive in the new musical era.
I wouldn't think of guitars as relatively expensive. In fact, most instruments can be had for fairly cheap if you're not super picky. I own a decent violin that I got from a pawn shop for $60.
Can you please suggest few tools for this? TIA
Mainly just curious because I'm looking for new, free music in that genre. ;)
This leads to the GI Joe phenomenon: https://www.drud.com/ddev-local/the-website-rfp-the-impossib...
"features are cheap and details are expensive". Music is all features, code is a mix.
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).
Ultra specialization is one option. It's easier to make it as a Christian Rocker than a regular Rocker, but the rabbit hole goes really deep here.
Become part of someone else's content creation process. From video game soundtracks to a song writers demo tapes, many people want to turn a written song into music and while you generally don't get residuals you can still make decent money this way.
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.
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!
Why should musicians be different from other artists?
The musicians I talk about are much more notable than the dancer in their own field, as far as I can discern. But the dancer does not work for an industry nearly as intricate. She dances, and she gets paid for dancing.
Finally, I don't expect musicians to have it easy. Just asking for ideas.
I don't have any stats, but even 30 years ago it was hard to stand out/make a living as a young musician. Why should today be easier, especially when there's several orders of magnitude more choices to contend with (additionally with albums/concerts being relatively cheap due to downward pressure from the Internet)? One could argue that streaming payouts aren't as fair as they should be, but that's an extension of album royalties from yester-decade.
Both Bandcamp and CD Baby seem popular with independent musicians as a way to make some money selling music, although I'm not sure if anyone makes a living from them. They can at least provide non trivial income in some cases. One thing I like about Bandcamp is when musicians offer a discounted "buy everything from this musician" option and at least personally I will spend more money more easily when that is an affordable option vs. needing to try to find music I like best to actually purchase. Soundcloud is popular for discovery. I'm sure your friends are already some of the amazing musicians on these platforms that somehow can't get a wider audience for no obvious reason.
I didn't like this article that much, but I think one thing that seems right to me is how important film is in turning excellent musicians into popular musicians. Computer games should be the same, but for some reason the industry accepts a half dozen 30 second loops as being acceptable music for games that take tens of hours to play.
Hopefully this situation will improve, but meanwhile there are occiasional games that have the explicit goal of promoting music and a few that just happen to use better music. Three I can think of are Beat Buddy, Symphony, and Braid. The creaters of Beat Buddy explicitly had the goal of promoting music and I'm fairly sure they worked directly with the musicians. I'm fairly sure Symphony also had music promotion as a goal but I'm not sure if they worked directly with the musicians or not. Braid just used music from Magna Tune, but the musicians got exposure from the game. I'm not sure if any of these cases necessarily translated to income, although I suspect it did in some cases at least (maybe you could ask some of them or see if they have talked about it publicly if you wanted to look into this further).
There is also a risk in working with game developers, since the music industry likes to categorize musicians in strange but limiting ways and almost no one wants to be categorized as a game musician (same, to a somewhat lesser extent, with film). Also, the route to gaining popularity via games would likely involve indie games and it can be hard to figure out if a particular developer a) will actually be able to produce a game that meets even the low technical standards of the game industry, b) that the game is fun in some way, and c) that more than a tiny number of people actually buy the game. Even better funded game projects often don't work out for various reasons. So a lot of risk but also a lot of opportunity since good music (not typical game music) can really improve the experince of a game. Unfortunately, both game and film producers seem to often want music to be bland and annoying so there is an extra challenge in finding someone who appreciates the value good music can add to a project. To be fair, sometimes other audio need to take priority, particularly in film, but IMO most games would do better making good music the focus of the audio experience. In film there as at least usually the credits music for arbitrary music that matches the mood of the film.
I think with indie film makers it would likely be easier to evalute the ability of the producer to complete the project, although still no guarantee that many people will ever see and hear the result. If working with independent film or game makers they will not be able to pay much of anything up front, so it would potentially still be a lot of work for a tiny chance of more exposure, although both films and games often get music from a number of sources which can lower the amount of work for each musician involved. To the extent that they are already doing a lot of work for a tiny chance of more exposure it might be something to consider, making choices with some idea of where they would like their income to come from in the future. I'm not sure how a musician would go about trying to find such a collaboration, but I would guess there are online forums where it might be possible.
For that matter there are professional musician forums; I don't know particular ones to recommend, but if your friends haven't looked at them yet they might find better advice there.
This is how my dad made a living his whole life, playing upscale weddings in a string quartet. The barrier to entry is fairly high, though. Violins and such require a decade or 2 of practice.
And unless you run the group, there's not enough work for a regular, full time income.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The difference is that he would probably not answer that question honestly.
"We tested train routes and song styles against each other to calculate optimal earnings per hour, tailored our pitch to the audience most likely to donate, blah blah"
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.
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.
And it’s for the same reason: with so much content out there, you’ve gotta stand out, and the easy hack to do that is by being an attention-seeking sociopath. Give it another five years or so, and every YouTuber will be Logan Paul.
I agree about books but software is still the best way for someone to make $100m unless they already have enough money to invest in something.
Edit: note that the article is from 2000, and the landscape has changed a bit since then.
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.
The days a massive rock stars is over - it's not too bad though...
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.
Actually, that's pretty good. Compare it to the profit margin of most any business.
Seems like wishful thinking
