I forgot to mention SubmitHub. EXCELLENT service
I believe this. But do you think that this is a result of the more widespread availability and ability to self produce and publish? Itâs not clear to me what the cause here is - before, the bands in this situation would simply not be heard at all (as they were not signed to a label).
Now, they still arenât signed, but they are at least heard.
I guess what I am asking is, do you think this is worse now for bands on average because of the ability to get music out there? Or was it better before, when 1 band made it âbigâ but 99 were never heard outside of the dives they toured?
I was a music reviewer in college and my hobby was seeing bands regardless of that. I saw so many great bands in small bars and venues that no one ever heard of or heard outside of that context.
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my son and I talk a lot about it, new music, whats popular, who got how many views and how long did it take. For example Silk Sonic with Bruno Mars has 15M views in two days, meanwhile touted as the "greatly anticipated " Kings of Leon new release has 45K for the week. So what does it take to get your music heard enough that your address isnât where ever the van is parked.
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To me itâs just the WAY you get discovered now. You get your social media accounts to a bunch of views, followers and streams. For one, that pays some money. But more so labels, sponsors, advertisers etc take notice when you get to certain amounts. Building that online presence takes a lot of work, effort, know how and maintenance, but you can do it. Before that? Just kinda played shows, hoped people would talk about you and hoped a label agent happened to be watching. Send your CDs to them and radio etcâŚit was real hard. Now there are ways to get heard and get followers etcâŚ
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Itâs a lot. Itâs building a brand too. Not just music. Consistent presence on social media. Reaching out to curators. Being personable online. Engaging the online audience. Watch some Damien Keyes videos, he has lots of good advice on things you can do.
I also want to say I agree completely with this, donât stream other than YouTube, and from artistsâ channels if they have them (where artists will get paid at least a little if they monetize), and still buy all my music. I spend a ton at iTunes.
Our band never made jack shit for our shows, so I understand. We only played a few but it was always for beer at best. And sometimes we provided that too.
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For me its a matter of curiosity especially when comparing 10s of million of views which is going to translate to $ vs an artist with a known name and former chart topper getting 10s of thousands of views translating to enough money to maybe pay for the studio timeâŚfrom a business standpoint I am fascinated on how music and the marketing of music has changed. Bono said that had the industry today existed when U2 was beginning to break they would have never made it past their second albumâŚthat was nearly 20yrs ago. In 2021 would they have ever gotten to release even the first collection of recordings except on their own dime and then would there have been the capital to use in order to use the vehicle or tools to catapult them to world star status.
I think the reason things are worse is -
What has happened is that the market has been flooded with people willing and eager to play for the exposure and the chance at being the 1/100. That eternal carrot-chasing (and meanwhile enduring whatever bizarre and terrible business/gig/money arrangements from venues/managers/labels/etc.) creates an economy that desires attention more than money. If the economy moves to attention (as it, very arguably, has) then people who are hoping to make music in a non-glamorous, livelihood kinda way are in trouble.
The hungry youngsters are stoked, as their efforts are rewarded with attention (though not money).
It all hits a wall somewhere⌠itâs just in different places for different people.
I have a lot to say about alllll this forever and ever⌠but I also love that people can share their music and publish their music.
Just go to bandcamp or a band web page and buy an album or a shirt if you dig the music.
It costs you 2 cups of coffee, and in order to make the artist that amount of money via streaming, youâd have to play them 6 times a day every day for the year.
Streaming support is not support that artists can survive on.
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This is an awesome idea and Iâm gonna do it. Lots of bands doing their own merch now.
Iâd love to hear it.
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True, itâs just streaming is only one piece of the puzzle. Streams leads to followers, followers leads to labels, sponsors, music licenses (putting your song in a movie, show, game, commercial etcâŚ)collaboration with bigger artists etcâŚalso followers leads to them purchasing merchandise. Engagement with the audience/fans is almost more important than the actual music you put out. Steadily and consistently releasing content (as opposed to making an album) is another thing that has changed. There is money to be made, and streams are a part of it, not all of it. Itâs a weird multi tiered economy in music now, and itâs almost like the music itself isnât even the focus. Personally, I donât like it! But I see it as the reality now and the game you have to play. My band isnât even good at it yet!
This looks interesting:
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My generation did its part to kill the music industry.
Napster. It changed everything, especially when the internet was the wild west (and pretty much still is). Yes, before the internet era, there were bootlegs copies of music available, but not to the availability the internet gave it.
Napster shuts down. Then ShareBear. Then Limewire. WinMX. One could argue that the .mp3 file that made music transferable over the internet compared to .wav files was the beginning of the end. You could download songs running only on 56k in the 90âs and download a song file (around 3mb) in minutes rather than hours.
Apple (and other programs) had their share of being able to rip CD-quality tracks and turn them into high-quality .mp3âs. Heck, I can remember there was a CD Player program that came with Windows 95 that could direct rip tracks off CDâs into loseless .wav files in 1995.
At this point, I donât think you can put the genie back in the bottle. Pandoraâs box was opened. I remember a few years back, Tool finally released the album they worked on for about 200 years (small exaggeration), and an Amazon worker who had access to the album actually got a copy of the CD, digitized it, and released it for file media sharing even before the albumsâ official release.
Now with home internet touching Gigabyte speeds, many thousands of songs can be downloaded as part of a collection in seconds. Not hours, not minutes; seconds.
Thatâs why the industry is the way it is now, with artists getting their money with live performances, endorsements and merchandise.
Personally, yes, of course, I do believe artists should get paid for their creation. But the way it is now, there has to be a radical shift in the internet, the labels, and the media. âŚI just donât see that happening easily anytime soon. But then again, when the smartphone came out, I lambasted that as a stupid idea; why pay so much more for a phone with basic computer apps when you could have a laptop that could do so much more work?
âŚGoes to show that Iâm not exactly a visionary.
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Similar things are happening in other creative professions nowadays â the market is flooded with aspiring graphic designers, video editors, photographers who underbid each other like crazy simply to get a job, which devalues their entire professions on a repeating, daily cycle. More and more itâs an âeverybody send us your logo design and if we choose yours weâll pay youâ situation. The biggest problem is thereâs so many people (usually young people) willing to do business this way until they can âbreak through,â so thereâs no incentive for the market to change.
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âThat eternal carrot-chasing (and meanwhile enduring whatever bizarre and terrible business/gig/money arrangements from venues/managers/labels/etc.) creates an economy that desires attention more than money.â
Itâs not just relegated to budding/young/indie artists.
When I heard about Dave Lombardo, the iconic drummer of Slayer making 67k on a tour; I couldnât believe it.
This is DAVE FUCKINâ LOMBARDO, whose legendary drumwork can be heard in âRaining Bloodâ. Are you kidding me?! The situation is an absolute disgrace.
The industry changed though. Slayer doesnât really have an active online presence or social media. They likely donât have many streams on Spotify etcâŚmainly they have their old fan base. And their old fan base (Iâm among them) has their CDs or those songs on an iPod. They donât stream them as much. They have close to 2,000,000 monthly Spotify listeners, but Bad Wolves has a million more than that. Imagine Dragons has 34,000,000 just on Spotify! But that shows sort of the difference in approach, as well as genre.
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Slayer is Araya and King. Itâs them that make the money. 
Thatâs a part of it too! How you split royalties. My band is even split (the $40 we made on streaming becomes $10 each LOL)!
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Well thatâs beer money! xD
This is huge.
I remember in college taking a private lesson from the percussion professor.
He was the first one I remember who brought up this economic situation to me - basically telling me that I was ruining the gig scene for him and the top tier of jazz players in the area - under bidding everything and then playing shit jazz for whatever winery/bar/wedding for crap money⌠because we just wanted to play.
The musicians union used to be a real thing.
I donât think you could even try in this day and age, but itâs fun think about.
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I think the way people listen to music really caused the shift. You used to only be able to here a song on big heavy record player, or see them in concert or happen to catch them on a radio. This switched to tapes, to CDS, to MP3 players. All of the above (save for illegal pirating) required a purchase. But enter streaming. YouTube, Spotify etc. it changes the game. You just pay for a monthly service. Enough artist agreed to have their songs there and BAMâŚyou donât âgo platinumâ anymore, itâs how many millions of streams you have. This turned the strategy into needing exposure instead of making great content and having a financial standard to do things as a professional.