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Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

Anonymous — Mon, 2 Sep 2013 18:25:10 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/02/2013 22:25

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

bonafini — Mon, 2 Sep 2013 17:58:21 GMT

Author: bonafini

Posted: 09/02/2013 21:58

I'm in favour of the abolition of rights. It would stop this madly commercial and made-to-sell pop shit.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

Anonymous — Sun, 1 Sep 2013 18:50:11 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/01/2013 22:50

meccalecca wrote:

A reminder that it was never really easy for bands...

Link

Well told story. Before I knew anything about touring I considered it like some romantic adventure.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

kramerfan86 — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 23:08:22 GMT

Author: kramerfan86

Posted: 08/31/2013 03:08

IMO for bands it always has been and always will be about touring. Albums, streaming, radio royalties, etc are never going to fork over a large slice of the pie. Streaming isnt particularly different or worse in that regard. Best a band can hope for is people become fans off these low return (for them) avenues and turn around and buy tickets. its certainly not fair, but its certainly not a new concept.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:32:09 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/30/2013 14:32

A reminder that it was never really easy for bands...

Link

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:30:19 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/30/2013 13:30

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/08/29/214901688/can-streaming-services-make-money

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

them — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:05:44 GMT

Author: them

Posted: 08/15/2013 18:05

an_outlaw wrote:

Well I'm certainly thinking about all the money now. =P~

You are a musician trying to make it big and get a following right?

It's not about the money 🤫

Right ?

😨

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:01:46 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/15/2013 18:01

meccalecca wrote:

I'm still somewhat old school too. I still buy my albums on vinyl.

Think of it this way. 100,000 albums sold is still extremely good. It's not platinum but most bands will never sell 100,000 copies of an album. If it's a standard rock quartet, that's only $25,000 each if evenly split. If it took two years to record, that's only $12,500/year for each. That's not even enough money to pay rent in NYC.

One large festival performance can rake in an easy $50,000 for a mid-sized band.

some food for thought. according to Pollstar, The Walkmen sell an avg. of 1,000 tix per show. If they're making $10 per ticket, that's $10,000 per show. 100 shows per year = $1,000,000. They're a very small band compared to most, and it took them a long time to get there, but you can imagine how much an artist as big as Lady Gaga can make through touring.

Well I'm certainly thinking about all the money now. 🤤

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

them — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:43:54 GMT

Author: them

Posted: 08/15/2013 15:43

meccalecca wrote:

Great points, I surrender �'�

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:41:18 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/15/2013 15:41

them wrote:

All true. I'm Just old school when it comes to albums I guess. I know things will probably never be as they were with albums in some ways. I'm not big on change and I tend to fight it a lot. I figure even if a band makes just $1 of the proceeds from each album, and they sell 100,000 albums, that's $100,000. And, in a perfect world of course, the better the album the more it sells. So I would think that bands would put more into the quality of their albums so as to sell more. Instead of the focus on touring 300 days out of the year to make a buck. In my opinion if a band is up on stage every time they turn around and spends their days getting to and from gigs their world might become smaller. But if the band is afforded a chance to go to distant lands and explore other things more in life it will give them more to write about with their lyrics.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

them — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:19:12 GMT

Author: them

Posted: 08/15/2013 15:19

meccalecca wrote:

Well, Michael Jackson was the biggest artist of his era. And that was an advance. Advances are really just huge loans. And this just all supports that concept of needing money to make money as an artist. It certainly doesn't support the concept of the poor independent artist making a living off of album sales.

Look deeper into the % of album sales $ that went to these artists.

And for every Michael Jackson, there's a load of artists who received large advances but failed to make a big impact. So, the record label essentially owns them and the rights to all of their music.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:48:35 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/15/2013 14:48

them wrote:

Yes the record labels got rich off of albums that is true. Numerous songs from bands have that as a theme in their lyrics. I would just like to say the Beatles were not the only band who made money off of albums. And even though the labels made huge profits the bands/artists did get advances of some kind which was nice considering that there are also many songs about artists sleeping in their cars and saying in interviews how they couch hopped when first starting out.

Here is an article from the Los Angeles Times from 1991.

According to sources familiar with the signing, which could be announced as early as today, the deal would provide Aerosmith with a lavish $10-million advance and a blue-chip royalty rate similar to Janet Jackson, who signed an unprecedented $40 million contract in March with Virgin Records.

Here is another article from 1991.

A Thriller $1 Billion Deal For Michael Jackson

By Tom Moon, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: March 21, 1991
Sony Corp. is betting that Michael Jackson will become entertainment's first billion-dollar man.

Under a deal announced yesterday, Jackson would make six albums for Epic Records and a number of films for Columbia Pictures, both owned by Sony. For that, Jackson could earn as much as $1 billion.

That's a million dollars a thousand times over.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

them — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:27:54 GMT

Author: them

Posted: 08/15/2013 14:27

meccalecca wrote:

I understand what you're saying. But those artists did have financial backing. The advances that major labels gave bands like The Beatles were gambles, but gave those bands opportunities that unsigned artists never had. Of course the Beatles are the exception to the rule in pretty much every way. They made a ton of money early on with touring, merchandising and movies, to the point that they could afford to be a studio only band, but that really didn't last all that long.

If you look at Rolling Stones and McCartney (probably the two biggest touring acts in history), I would have to assume that album sales only lead to a very small % of their overall revenue.

It's extremely unlikely for any young band to receive a large advance if they have no plans to tour in support of their record. I've known many bands who had label interest turn sour because they didn't have enough touring experience.

From what I understand, in the eras when physical records were actually selling, bands made almost nothing off of the album sales. The revenue from those sales went to the labels. If you read the article, Dave Allen of Gang Of Four mentions that it took 35 years to recoup for the advance of one of their records. So, selling albums were definitely not a significant part of their revenue stream at any point.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:20:11 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/15/2013 14:20

Just to be clear, i think artists should be paid more from streaming services, but I also think that young bands are spoiled and overvalue their music. Streams don't necessarily = lost potential sales. There's a lot of music I stream that, if I had to pay for it, I just simply wouldn't ever listen to. There's still probably just as many successful music artists now as any other era, there's just more more artists overall fighting for the piece of a pie.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:13:22 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/15/2013 14:13

them wrote:

I'm kinda just jumping in here just to respond to this statement. We probably would not have much of our most loved music from back in the day when bands started out with little or nothing. Also, wouldn't music suffer because only artists with money would be able to actually make it anywhere? It used to be that a band was in debt when they started and never really saw any money to speak of until they got an advance on a future album they were to put out but now that is over with pretty much. And what about bands like the Beatles who stopped preforming live and focused more on making better albums and spent more time creating them. They made their money off of the album sales almost entirely at that point did they not? Just some thoughts I'm sure I'll get bashed for them but here they are nonetheless.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 23:03:04 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/15/2013 03:03

an_outlaw wrote:

Obviously that goes for any era of music. As meccalecca put it it doesn't just apply to musicians but all artists in general. The biggest struggle for any artist has always been supporting yourself. Just surviving so you can continue to create your art.

Of course once you get to a certain level (Beatles for music, JK Rowling for books, Spielberg for films etc) suddenly you don't have to worry anymore and you can do things like stop performing and purely focus on your albums. But that's obviously a very small percentage of people trying to get into music. Even then at some stage they were all struggling.

But I think that's how art has to be. You have to go into it with the awareness that there's going to be struggle. It could be short term or long term but there's going to be struggle. I don't know how important it is to want to be successful though. Because that could lead to a person only focusing on the success. If it doesn't matter to you then your focus will be on the art. I personally subscribe to the latter at the moment, even if I'm not successful in it I could see me doing music all my life. Of course it'd be nice purely for a portion of the comfort that the aforementioned uber-successful artists have. In that you can purely focus on your creations rather than having to worry about where this week's rent is going to come from.

Spotify and music streaming services in general are tricky because they're a great concept - all the music in the world (or at least a large percentage of it) available to you all day every day. But given that it is so cheap (11 bucks a month for most of the albums you could want???), I think individual listeners need to start taking more responsibility. Paying for a spotify or google play account and thinking you're okay because you're doing the legal thing is barely better than pirating music. It's a pretty simple maths equation to work out at 11 dollars per month how much would be going to the service, how much would be going to the execs who give the rights and then finally how much would be going to the actual artists. People still need to support their favourite artists by paying for their album or going to a concert. Don't get me wrong as I put befor Spotify is a great service and similar to illegal downloading - in our musical climate absolutely a necessity. There's no point in gambling on maybe liking an album when you have the enormous volume of artists who are making music today. So definitely try before you buy, but if you like it - make sure you buy it. It's something I have to get better with too.

To answer the question, how will musicians survive it? It was hard for musicians in the 60s. You had to rely on getting a recording contract in order to actually get your music made. These days you can make music that sounds relatively professional for relatively cheap. So we overcame one obstacle but it created another. If anyone can do it, everyone will. And they do. So you're only shot in regards to making it these days is setting yourself apart from the crowd. And that's through marketing. Marketing is so vital if you want even one person to hear what you do. Look at someone like Janelle Monae she's made her look, her concepts and her mythos as important as her music so everyone is curious now. Bon Iver had an incredible story that got people listening to his first album. It's all marketing and that's how artists will survive the spotify era. Not everyone will and that's always been the way with music. Only a very small percentage stick it out.

Speaking as someone who wants to do music for at least the next 20 years, I don't care how much I struggle - I'll be happy as long as I'm making music. I hope people like my music because there's no point in making it just for me (well I obviously wouldn't release anything if I didn't like it somewhat - part of the reason why I've released barely anything despite making music for 7 years 😜 ) but I don't need to be Kanye or Arcade Fire level successful to be content. So I'll release probably the next 8 things I do for free because I adapt to the musical climate. If I feel like my stuff is good enough that a larger audience could enjoy it I'll market it (and I will do when I'm ready to release my debut album because I think it's that good) but if it goes nowhere...oh well...I'll continue to make music just because I want to. Hopefully that trait will help me survive the spotify era because...well...a legal service this convenient to the customer ain't going anywhere any time soon.

Probably a lot of rambling but i think it answers the original question.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

them — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 21:37:38 GMT

Author: them

Posted: 08/15/2013 01:37

meccalecca wrote:

it just happens to help if you start off with money before entering the business.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 21:26:51 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/15/2013 01:26

an_outlaw wrote:

I mean seperate to my little idea up there. Musicians are more likely to survive 'The Spotify Era' if they have more money. Unless I am getting something wrong there. It just seems more money, means a better buisness, meaning they get to do it longer, do it for a living or perhaps be set for life if they get big.

With this in mind, and forgeting the Kiss thing, what ventures do you believe could make music apart from the shows and music itself for an act or band? I don't ask in a "Well how's it going to work if it is not done the way I said!?" but instead I am asking for ideas. :)

like most business ventures, it just happens to help if you start off with money before entering the business. Such as Civil Wars and Mumford & Sons. Both bands worked hard to get where they did, but they had the money to make things happen also. Licensing is really where money is in music, which came up a few times in the article. Like if you're a band who happens to get your song in an iphone commercial, you'll be doing quite well.

Merchandise has really high costs. Printing t-shirts for example is a costly endeavor for a young band. it can really pay off well though. so, like all aspects of the music business, it's a gamble.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 18:59:39 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/14/2013 22:59

meccalecca wrote:

You need money to make money. Every band is a business. Kiss was a corporation. Beiber is a corporation.

If every band was selling merch like Kiss was, then they'd all be failing to make money that way too.

It's all about supply and demand.

Re: How Will Musicians Survive The Spotify Era

meccalecca — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 18:51:51 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 08/14/2013 22:51

an_outlaw wrote:

Mainstream rock hardly does and "indie" pretty much never. 🤣

As you say some artists would take to it if they had the money/resources. Some would say they shouldn't have to pay for music because music acts should get all their money from shows. What could an artist or band sell if not the music or shows? I think it goes a big way to answering your question as 'Money' is at the route of survival.

Unless musicians are endangerd by something else altogther...