# "Support artists!" but...



## budda (Aug 15, 2021)

"“Support artists” but stream their music for virtually nothing, complain when that music changes too much, complain every time a tour gets announced, refuse to pay over $20 for a t shirt even when the supply chain is disrupted beyond belief, act like an entitled customer" - tweeted by Heart Attack Man.

Did they miss anything?


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## CanserDYI (Aug 15, 2021)

Man this is what really sucks about things like Spotify, they have this weird dual relationship with music. On one hand it's one of the best things to happen to a music consumer/listener, and one of the absolute worst things for the artist...


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## Spicypickles (Aug 15, 2021)

Naw I always pay for my albums still, I only Spotify Rogan episodes and grab a shirt at every gig (including BTBAM next week, so stoked). People suck.


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## CanserDYI (Aug 15, 2021)

Spicypickles said:


> Naw I always pay for my albums still, I only Spotify Rogan episodes and grab a shirt at every gig (including BTBAM next week, so stoked). People suck.


Dude you're so lucky, BTBAM is a dream of mine to see live. EDIT: WAIT. you're a detroiter?! Where are they playing?!


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## jaxadam (Aug 15, 2021)

Spicypickles said:


> Naw I always pay for my albums still, I only Spotify Rogan episodes and grab a shirt at every gig (including BTBAM next week, so stoked). People suck.



This is what I do. If I go see a band I'll buy their shirt and try to buy the album there or worst case iTunes. I knew way back in the Napster days that it was over for artists, music was just going to be out there. Long gone are the days of waiting all week to hear your favorite song on the radio or scooping horseshit on the farm to earn enough money for gas and a new CD Friday night.


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## mmr007 (Aug 15, 2021)

I say use whatever platform you can to DISCOVER new music...and then once you find something you like...pay for it like an adult


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## Spicypickles (Aug 15, 2021)

CanserDYI said:


> Dude you're so lucky, BTBAM is a dream of mine to see live. EDIT: WAIT. you're a detroiter?! Where are they playing?!



Well technically I’m a Texan, but chasing dollar signs brought us up to Royal Oak. 

BTBAM is at Magic Stick on Woodward. Never been there yet.


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## CanserDYI (Aug 15, 2021)

Spicypickles said:


> Well technically I’m a Texan, but chasing dollar signs brought us up to Royal Oak.
> 
> BTBAM is at Magic Stick on Woodward. Never been there yet.


Man the magic stick is pretty okay place, I've seen countless hardcore and punk shows there. Smallish venue, that'd be SICK to see BTBAM there, you'll probably be able to hear Paul Wagonners pick along his strings!


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## Spicypickles (Aug 15, 2021)

CanserDYI said:


> Man the magic stick is pretty okay place, I've seen countless hardcore and punk shows there. Smallish venue, that'd be SICK to see BTBAM there, you'll probably be able to hear Paul Wagonners pick along his strings!


I tend to hang out directly in front of the sound desk to get the best mix, then just stand and creepily watch the drummers until the guitar solos kick in.

good to hear though, I was worried about it being in a not so savory location.


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## budda (Aug 15, 2021)

mmr007 said:


> I say use whatever platform you can to DISCOVER new music...and then once you find something you like...pay for it like an adult



It rarely plays out that way though.

And to @jaxadam point about napster, artists have been getting the short end since the industry started. Napster just changed how the screw-over looked and operated.


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## Matt08642 (Aug 15, 2021)

"refuse to pay over $20 for a t shirt even when the supply chain is disrupted beyond belief, act like an entitled customer"

Ah yes, a nice $39 USD boxy scratchy bottom of the barrel cotton non-fitted garbage shirt with $20 USD shipping that all somehow ends up being like $80 Canadian and deforms after wearing/washing it once, all so the band can see $0.03 

I'm much more likely to support musicians on platforms like Bandcamp or at live venues when I know at least more of the t shirt money goes to them and not some jerkoff shipping company.


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## mmr007 (Aug 15, 2021)

budda said:


> It rarely plays out that way though.
> 
> And to @jaxadam point about napster, artists have been getting the short end since the industry started. Napster just changed how the screw-over looked and operated.


I agree and that is sad. The same youth that bitch and complain about capitalism and how it screws over the little guy and doesn't pay the worker's a fair share and livable wage etc etc...the second they get a chance to properly pay for something (an artist performance on digital media) they balk and don't care and are just as guilty of withholding fair compensation so their complaints ring hollow. Ive downloaded about 2500 songs over the last 6 years and I paid for every fucking one because that artist made me happy (or sad in the case of most Alice in Chains songs) so they deserve reimbursement.

It's like those restaurants that sell $10 sandwiches but don't charge you $10...they put a sign up that says pay what you think is fair. If someone puts down 2 quarters and walks out with a sandwich they're a shitty person and they know better.

And since I am more passionate about good music than I am about good sandwiches I feel even more strongly about this....and if someone doesn't have the money then keep streaming until you can. But as soon as you get that paycheck...go on iTunes and pay the $1.29 like you should. Or if you like several songs...buy the whole damn album.

I can't deny that there is immense value in immediate streaming or download on the fly but I can make a conscious effort to remember that just because record companies can cheat artists out of the value of their labor and craft...I don't have to join them in the con. My integrity is worth more than the $1.29 per song I save.

And just because...When I see Yngwie in December I'm gonna buy two concert tees....


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 15, 2021)

Like it or not, Music has less value today than it did back in the day.

Not only are there more ways for the youth of today to spend their time and money but more bands out there fighting for a slice of a smaller pie.

The internet also fractured the "Centralised taste" model so you have more bands making a smaller amount of money rather than having fewer huge bands who define movements which also hurts the industry as a whole.

If you're a musician in an original band out to make money you're in the wrong industry. The only people making money in the industry today are people on the business side preying on the hopes and dreams of musicians who know even if a musician become a moderate success he or she still be loss making machines.


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## mmr007 (Aug 15, 2021)

To paraphrase a quote used elsewhere on this site..."a struggling musician will never be truly free until the last record label executive is strangled with the entrails of the last software tech guru"


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## Crungy (Aug 15, 2021)

Paid subscriptions on patreon, YouTube, etc and diversifying what you do is where it's at if you're going to *make* money. 

Nolly with GetGood Drums, Tosin and his guitars, Ola with Solar, Chapman guitars, Misha with whatever he's selling... Not that everyone can easily get a signature product or have their own guitar/pedal/pro audio brand but that's the way she goes.

If things ever get back to some kind of normalcy cover bands can be a decent income source. You'd likely want to invest in your own sound system and be able to travel, but it's can be a solid source of income doing something musical.


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## c7spheres (Aug 15, 2021)

I get what Heart Attack Man are saying, but I think most bands know what they're getting into by now. It's ok to rant and be pissed off about it though, imo. Something needs to change to get artists/bands their fair share of the money, but that's doubtful to happen. 

I think the problem from the start has been lack of respect/enforcement of copyright protections from the industry side, the consumer side, and the gov't side.
- Nobody gives a care about musicians. People can say it's technology and impossible to enforce and all that, but the reality is if protection's were taken seriously the phrase 'starving artist' wouldn't mean as much.
- If the gov't and the film industry can protect their material in such a large way then protecting music is physically just as easy. Imo, musicians have been pawned out in order to push product and nobody cares.
- Comparing the ease to get free music against movies it's extremely easy getting music compared to getting a free movie download (especially older movies). That tells me something is wrong at the gov't/enforcement level. A movie is just a digital file just like music and just as easy to copy so why is it next to impossible to keep up with it like with movies? - As independent artists should we not have the right to copyright protections without the caveat of being already filthy rich to enforce it? Equal protection under the law my ass. The system is a failure.
- I know you can provide cease and desist orders and flag your stuff to be taken down and all that but by that time it's to late. Your stuff is already being distributed for free.
- The only current solution for musicians is to find alternative methods of income or for the platforms to be heavily regulated. Even then it don't stop people from recording the audio. - It's no wonder why concert tickets don't cost $20-$40 anymore. Nobody's buying albums or much merch for that matter. The artists have to raise costs to make up for it, so the bigger fans have to pay for it, which sucks because if it were up to me the bigger fans would get everything for free. 
- This is also why bands often don't make good gig money. There's always another band to fill the spot or even play for free, for exposure etc. If there was actually any sense of community or pride then people wouldn't be willing to play for free, a good time, or exposure. If there was an actualy community, bands would be less willing to take it in the a$$. 
- None of this is a problem unless you want to make money or want to be "famous" . If you just play and write for the joy of it then no problems. Like the saying goes. "If you want to make money in the music industry, don't be a musician." Seriously, there can be more money to be made being a roadie, manager, promoter etc. much of the time. Much of the time the band members are all those things too though.


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## soul_lip_mike (Aug 15, 2021)

budda said:


> "“Support artists” but stream their music for virtually nothing, complain when that music changes too much, complain every time a tour gets announced, refuse to pay over $20 for a t shirt even when the supply chain is disrupted beyond belief, act like an entitled customer" - tweeted by Heart Attack Man.
> 
> Did they miss anything?


I get bands need mercy sales but let’s not kid ourselves that the price of a tee shirt that costs probably $1 to make is insane at a concert. Then you go and wash your $60 tee and it shrinks and you look like a ridiculous overweight boomer wearing it.


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## technomancer (Aug 15, 2021)

Old man yelling at clouds time, I just find streaming annoying. I like to choose what I listen to not run a stream of random shit that may or may not be marginally related to what I feel like hearing. It's cool sometimes to find new stuff, but I barely use it for the above reason.

I also still buy my music.


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## budda (Aug 15, 2021)

soul_lip_mike said:


> I get bands need mercy sales but let’s not kid ourselves that the price of a tee shirt that costs probably $1 to make is insane at a concert. Then you go and wash your $60 tee and it shrinks and you look like a ridiculous overweight boomer wearing it.



Shirts definitely cost more than $1 to make .

Interesting that there's a bit of "well thats how it is" instead of, y'know, using the options that make artists more money .


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## aesthyrian (Aug 15, 2021)

First time hearing the name Heart Attack Man, odd marketing strategy but hey it worked.

This silly shit can go both ways. No one ends up in a touring band by accident, but they all bitch about the same shit for decades.

"We love our fans” but whine when they stream our music for virtually nothing(that we agreed to and provided music to said platform), complain when that fan base has an opinion on the music that differs from the bands personal direction(just consume you fools), complain every tour about how we never get enough sleep or showers while posting videos to IG of the boys having the time of our lives traveling the country/world not seeming very tired at all, refusing to reevaluate our merch offerings and pricing even after our fanbase/customers let us know that it's too expensive for them, like some entitled artist."

Punk AF.

Sucks for them that they are following their dreams. I hope they can succumb to everyday life like the rest of us and have an exciting and fulfilling career and an employer that truly cares about them. Some guys can't get a break.


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## Spicypickles (Aug 15, 2021)

technomancer said:


> Old man yelling at clouds time, I just find streaming annoying. I like to choose what I listen to not run a stream of random shit that may or may not be marginally related to what I feel like hearing. It's cool sometimes to find new stuff, but I barely use it for the above reason.
> 
> I also still buy my music.


I’m not old, but I live by this. If I’m in the mood for something, I don’t want “somewhat related” artists. I want that artist, and I also like albums. I don’t know if many modern artists even put together cohesive full albums like they used to, but I do like to think it was written as a whole and should be listened to as such.


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## budda (Aug 15, 2021)

aesthyrian said:


> First time hearing the name Heart Attack Man, odd marketing strategy but hey it worked.
> 
> This silly shit can go both ways. No one ends up in a touring band by accident, but they all bitch about the same shit for decades.
> 
> ...



So how dare they demand to be paid more fairly for the work they put in, is what you wanted to say?


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## StevenC (Aug 15, 2021)

I have Spotify for one reason: because it's the best way to play music in my car. I haven't driven in 3 months so I've stopped using Spotify.

I buy albums by artists I like and I usually buy them on vinyl as well. But it's a two way steet. Give me a song or two preview that I like and I'll probably preorder an expensive edition. Do less than that and I'll probably preorder a standard CD if I liked the last album. If the last album wasn't good I'm not preordering the new one if the singles don't convince me, but will probably stream it to decide if it's worth owning.

Legacy content, these days I'll stream and decide what I like enough to buy. This is much better than when I bought Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence on CD instead of just downloading The Glass Prison from iTunes.

As for merch, the last show I went to was Haken opening for Devin Townsend and I bought everything Haken had for sale. I've bought 2 of their albums twice because I missed vinyls the first time and will rebuy more to complete the collection. I like to buy merch at every show I go to, but act or small, and the only shows I haven't bought anything at were Janelle Monae and St Vincent. Janelle didn't have anything for sale at all and St Vincent was sick a disappointing show/album that I couldn't stomach the massive process for stuff I wouldn't wear (Masseduction).

Now with people blaming artists for agreeing to such bad terms to be on streaming platforms, how dumb can you be? It's agree to bad compensation or don't get listened to. Spotify, Apple and Google are 3 of the biggest companies in the world last alone the music industry. There's no fighting that. Prince lost, King Crimson lost, Taylor Swift lost, The Beatles lost.


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## Bodes (Aug 15, 2021)

Matt08642 said:


> "refuse to pay over $20 for a t shirt even when the supply chain is disrupted beyond belief, act like an entitled customer"
> 
> Ah yes, a nice $39 USD boxy scratchy bottom of the barrel cotton non-fitted garbage shirt with $20 USD shipping that all somehow ends up being like $80 Canadian and deforms after wearing/washing it once, all so the band can see $0.03
> 
> I'm much more likely to support musicians on platforms like Bandcamp or at live venues when I know at least more of the t shirt money goes to them and not some jerkoff shipping company.



Australia: hold my beer.


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## Hollowway (Aug 15, 2021)

Why do people choose Spotify over Apple Music, or any of the other ones? I ask because it seems like everyone I know is on Spotify, but it pays artists less than the others, and it's not as easily ingrained with iOS as Apple Music is. Is there some advantage I'm missing?


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## StevenC (Aug 15, 2021)

Hollowway said:


> Why do people choose Spotify over Apple Music, or any of the other ones? I ask because it seems like everyone I know is on Spotify, but it pays artists less than the others, and it's not as easily ingrained with iOS as Apple Music is. Is there some advantage I'm missing?


Because that's the one my brother and sister have a family account on.


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## Ralyks (Aug 15, 2021)

I have my Apple Subscription, and I'm on my son's uncle's Spotify. Because it's how I listen to music in the car, at the gym, basically outside of my apartment.

At home? I've gotten BIG into vinyl and will typically preorder new albums either from the band, on Bandcamp, and from my local record store, where my preorder list has gotten pretty long  and if I do preorder online, I'll usually try to get a shirt or something as well.


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## budda (Aug 15, 2021)

Hollowway said:


> Why do people choose Spotify over Apple Music, or any of the other ones? I ask because it seems like everyone I know is on Spotify, but it pays artists less than the others, and it's not as easily ingrained with iOS as Apple Music is. Is there some advantage I'm missing?



My guess is marketing. Bands always say they are on x spotify playlist, but end with "streaming on all platforms!"

That's why I dont get why people feel spotify is the only way. It isnt. There's articles about it. Bands post about it. But no one seems to leave it...


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## Randy (Aug 15, 2021)

Guilty streamer here, although I still buy music I really like. The streaming (I'm currently using YouTube music btw) is basically just a replacement for radio since there's not a lot of jazz fusion/technical death metal stations around here to choose from.


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## aesthyrian (Aug 15, 2021)

budda said:


> So how dare they demand to be paid more fairly for the work they put in, is what you wanted to say?



Hey, I don't remember saying that.

Everyone wants to be paid more for their work, and most deserve it. I'm all for it. Blaming your fan base for not supporting you _enough_ probably won't work but hey, not my band, not my job. They're free to do as they like. Many artists before them have done the same, yet the problem still exists. Fans don't have any obligation to the band, just like the band doesn't have any obligation to the fans. Band makes music, if people like it they buy it(or stream it since the band offers the option), merch, tickets, tabs, patreon, whatever. That's about all. 

I kinda see it as a Walmart employee being upset at all the customers that support Walmart when Walmart doesn't pay them enough. The customers aren't the problem necessarily, but it's easier to yell at and blame them then it is corporate/higher ups.

A band is a business. Run it properly. If you are failing, do you blame the customers? How would that look if the local shop was struggling and they just decided to post on social media complaining about and shaming their only customers that they aren't buying enough and using coupons for discounts so they don't make enough profit and_ . _The only people that have supported them this far are now the target? Wouldn't make me want to support that shop, and it certainly doesn't make me want to check out this band. 

I get it, we all love music here and love the bands we listen to and truly obsess over this stuff. But it's still just a business, and when those aren't managed properly they typically don't succeed. Hell, even with proper management, failure is still a very real outcome. Typically, you don't post on the social media accounts of the business to vent said frustration though.


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## budda (Aug 15, 2021)

I literally see small businesses beg for people to avoid big box and shop there instead. It seems commonplace these days.

Like i said - stand around and say "well thats how it is" or actively try and change it.

The customer has the power to change things, but its easier to stream followed by "what no!" When their top artists break up than it is to directly fund that artist.

Clearly the band isnt blaming their fan base, they are blaming people that call themselves supporters but arent.

I can blame people for missing my hometown shows - that doesnt mean im blaming anyone who actually came out.


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## SamSam (Aug 16, 2021)

How do we determine what is a fair gauge of what individuals deserve to be paid against the effort they made? How do we gauge that effort? 

Most bands are fairly obtuse about their actual income so it's hard to really assess what is fair or not.


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## ZeroS1gnol (Aug 16, 2021)

I don't see any reason for apologising for using paid streaming platforms. Let's get real, if these didn't exist, most people would pirate the music anyways. Even before p2p sharing on the internet, people pirated music on cassette tapes. With music being so easy to access nowadays, you get flooded with huge amounts of good bands and musicians, so for most it would literally be too expensive to buy the whole catalog. You could pick your favourites to pay for, as you would back in the day, but that would hardly be fair either with the current accessibility of music. I would even call you out for being a hypocrite if you boast about 'supporting the artists' in this way. That said, the real problem here is how streaming platforms operate their business model, funneling al the big money to the brainless pop crap of the Taylor Swifts and Justin Biebers and only giving pennies to niche musicians. If all my monthly fee on spotify would be distributed over the actual listened musicians, by rate of songs played, it would actually be a fair business. You can reason, vote with your wallet and drop Spotify for their practices, but that would in fact only lead to me not having access to all the music in a legal way - so what is worse or better?

I acknowledge that it is hard for a lot of musicians and it will probably not become any easier anytime soon, but trying to go back to how things were done before the internet will not solve it.


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## mongey (Aug 16, 2021)

It sucks and it’s not just music. Society has become this self entitled monster that thinks everything needs to pander to its whims. It pays its $9 a month for whatever steaming service and thinks
that entitles them To everything. 

people listen to that album they say they have been waiting for 3 times and then move onto the next thing , meanwhile the artist gets next to nothing. 

No one is invested in anything. Before streaming you put your cash down for an album and of you didn’t like
It at first you kept with it cause you were invested. And most times things grow on you and next thing you liked it 

I’m guilty as anyone. I pay for apple music. I resisted for along time and used to buy everything I really wanted. But I got a free period with a new phone and then all the albums I had downloaded in that period would’ve cost me a fortune to buy when it expired. And now they got me.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

ZeroS1gnol said:


> You can reason, vote with your wallet and drop Spotify for their practices, but that would in fact only lead to me not having access to all the music in a legal way - so what is worse or better?
> 
> I acknowledge that it is hard for a lot of musicians and it will probably not become any easier anytime soon, but trying to go back to how things were done before the internet will not solve it.



Again, you can still buy the music digitally and just not use spotify. It's possible. Maybe not in every single case, but it's definitely possible.

I don't think anyone is saying "go back to the old method" because that *also* screwed over the artists.

The point of the OP is that people will say "I support artists!" without actually supporting them. It's performative.


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## mpexus (Aug 16, 2021)

It's kinda weird being honest.

For one hand I listen mostly to Old Albums of Bands that I bought, some in Vinyl and then again later in CD... so I already paid those Artists at least Twice for the exact same content.

Then I use Deezer (like Spotify but to me much better) and keep listening to them there. So not only I paid it at least two times in physical package (not counting re purchased because of loss or lend and never get it back) they are still getting money even if percentages of cents by me streaming the Music I already paid years ago.

All this IP Content is a mess to begin with. We are supposedly paying for the Content and not really the package but try loosing it or try to prove you already had it before on another format and it's impossible. Yet "we" still dont "own" it because we are buying the "right" to listen only...

So when I buy a CD that I will never really listen to be honest... I dont even have a CD player anymore. I paid for it and then still listen to it on Streaming were I pay to be in.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Aug 16, 2021)

I still buy cd’s, burn em to iTunes, then to my iPod for the car, I personally have not paid streaming services. I wouldn’t benefit from them any way as many cd’s are from bands mercy at club shows and are otherwise unavailable in commercial sources, or considered underground. I would never have access to these bands music and they would not benefit financially either if I were streaming.


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## Acme (Aug 16, 2021)

Hollowway said:


> Why do people choose Spotify over Apple Music, or any of the other ones? I ask because it seems like everyone I know is on Spotify, but it pays artists less than the others, and it's not as easily ingrained with iOS as Apple Music is. Is there some advantage I'm missing?



The playlists are much better on Spotify. If you want to find a good playlist for French hiphop songs or for some background music for cooking, you'll end up finding unusable playlists on Apple Music and half of the time these playlists have nothing to do with your original search. On Spotify though, even the official playlist are amazing and the user made ones are even better.


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## Strobe (Aug 16, 2021)

It's either

(1) Get day job, play local stuff, have fun, try to support other local bands and just live a life with a lot of music in it but no real money from music
(2) Get good at social media, sell things like your patreon, unique vinyl pressings - essentially figure out which way the wind is blowing and keep making money from it. Market the &$#% out of yourself. Shill your signature gear if you are lucky enough to have it. You either have business savvy, or you do not. If you do not, someone else who does will either ignore you, or enter into an agreement where they exchange their business savvy for every ever-loving cent you would otherwise make from your music.​
Obviously I went with #1. I still get to play plenty of cool shows, but I'll never be famous.

One last edit: There is a third option. It's playing in a cover band and getting paid decent money per gig. Thanks, I hate it.


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## Lorcan Ward (Aug 16, 2021)

A whole generation of kids are growing up in a world where music has no value or ownership anymore so it’s never going to go back to the €20+ a CD days. I sympathise with artists but complaining about how they make so little from streaming services is pointless when customers are using an easy readily available service. Spotify is to blame for setting such a basement price for their service that artists get pennies from streams. Imagine if actors and directors tried to tell everyone to cancel their Netflix subscriptions and return to buying Box sets and DVDs to support them. 

Let's not forget the music industries answer to piracy was raising albums as high as €22.50 and €30+ for rarer albums rather than dropping the price way down to generate more sales. Punishing paying customers for piracy was a terrible business move. Streaming solved the piracy problem but it was the death of physical sales. 

I try to support bands but having managers needs to come back. I was at a gig where a popular metal band didn’t bring any merch for the Irish show saying “we didn’t bother because we didn't think we would sell much” while nearly 100 people behind him were looking for the merch booth in a country known for cleaning out merch booths. I've noticed a lot of artists I follow have invested in a social media manager and many others have branched out but the days of turning up to the studio and then going on tour to play are long over. On a music podcast they talked about how being a good player isn't enough anymore, you need to have social media skills and recording audio + video knowledge. 

Without touring the last 18 months and the future of touring looking rocky I feel sorry for artists. So many sources of income have been cut and now having to adapt to constant changes in social media has been rough for them. But someone on this forum , I think it was Max, said artists making lots of money was only a recent phenomenon that wasn't going to last. Throughout history musicians have always been poor or needed patrons to support them.


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## Andromalia (Aug 16, 2021)

Ataraxia2320 said:


> Like it or not, Music has less value today than it did back in the day.



Part of the equation people miss is that not only has the purchasing power of the middle class globally decreased, but there are now other industries wanting a share of their income. Although the ecosystem is also a cause, people would maybe buy more music if they weren't conned into 1K€+ iphones.



> Streaming solved the piracy problem


lol.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

Even this thread illustrates that people think they have to use spotify, despite knowing it pays the worst and arguably cares the least (see: pay, interviews with execs).

Someone mentioned actors not decrying netflix: actors get paid substantially more. They also dont have to pay for merch much if at all (trying to think of any actors with merch and coming up empty).


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## Winspear (Aug 16, 2021)

technomancer said:


> Old man yelling at clouds time, I just find streaming annoying. I like to choose what I listen to not run a stream of random shit that may or may not be marginally related to what I feel like hearing. It's cool sometimes to find new stuff, but I barely use it for the above reason.



Definitely same here, but I don't really see the issue with streaming in that regard. I've done nothing but stream for years - I go on there, pick the album I want to listen to, and listen to it. Yes related will come on afterwards, but I could always build a playlist/library (features I've never bothered using yet) or just pick the next album to queue (what I do).

I have barely been able to pay my bills for years so I definitely haven't been buying music. I do feel bad about it but at least artists are getting _something _for my 50+ hours a week of streaming - including streaming lots of previously owned CDs that I'd otherwise be listening to for free. I recently finally cut ties with my entire CD collection (aside from a few jazz and classical rares) as I hadn't purchased any in years and many I did have no longer felt relevant to me.

I do buy the odd vinyl and merch still when a band releases something visually compelling enough or I consider it a must have record, but yeah..I have no spare money for even the things I'd consider more essential sadly. I probably drop about 200 a year on tickets and merch currently.


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## GunpointMetal (Aug 16, 2021)

TL;DR - people should support artists they enjoy, but the artist needs to figure out how to make that happen given the current market

I've probably got 100 unused bandcamp download links because I do buy stuff I like, I just don't wanna deal with downloading, loading it into iTunes, then loading into my phone. It's easier just to hit the little arrow on Apple Music. Unfortunately until EVERY artist from the top to the bottom stops supporting these services the end user can't really be to blame. It's not the consumer's fault they can save $200 on purchases by buying on Amazon, and you can't blame anyone in this day and age for not wanting to pay more for stuff than they need to. Yeah it sucks for local business, but business has to be competitive pricewise or its not a good business model, unfortunately. Some people will figure out how to be successful and most won't. Bands really need to spend more time figuring out how to support themselves in alternative ways, as well as stop selling the absolute cheapest Gildan print-to-order shirts through their website. I only buy merch at shows these days because I wanna get my hands on it before I spend money. I'll spend $40 on a cool shirt if the print and material are good. I've probably lost $150 over the last few years on ordered merch that shrinks three sizes after the first wash or the print starts falling off a month later.


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## c7spheres (Aug 16, 2021)

ZeroS1gnol said:


> ..........If all my monthly fee on spotify would be distributed over the actual listened musicians, by rate of songs played, it would actually be a fair business......
> 
> I acknowledge that it is hard for a lot of musicians and it will probably not become any easier anytime soon, but trying to go back to how things were done before the internet will not solve it.



This would be a great idea to implement. Same for other services too. If you only listened to one song for the month then all the subscription money would go to that one artist. Listen to two songs it gets split between those two artists etc. Great idea, automatable, trackable, and enforcable through record keeping requirements. Obviously the service would get a small cut too. A small fixed rate, not a variable percentage.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

Itt: local businesses who cant compete with big business (your local shop vs GC, your local grocer vs walmart, small bands vs spotify) except only one side of those 3 scenarios can actually afford to be competitive.


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## bostjan (Aug 16, 2021)

budda said:


> Someone mentioned actors not decrying netflix: actors get paid substantially more. They also dont have to pay for merch much if at all (trying to think of any actors with merch and coming up empty).


I don't believe that. A List actors get paid more than A list musicians, sure, but there are tons of indie actors who are making less off of acting than their indie musician counterparts.

Anyway, it doesn't matter, really.

The big companies- Disney, Spotify, Netflix, Apple, etc., are all driven by algorithms, whether the algorithm is directly run on a computer that buys and sells stuff automated, or the algorithm is driven by actual sales people whose jobs depend on metrics determined by a computer - these algorithms are not here to be your friend, they are here to amass as much cash as possible, whether given willingly or not, the algorithms don't give a shit.

How do you fix that? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can't.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Aug 16, 2021)

Lorcan Ward said:


> A whole generation of kids are growing up in a world where music has no value or ownership anymore so it’s never going to go back to the €20+ a CD days. I sympathise with artists but complaining about how they make so little from streaming services is pointless when customers are using an easy readily available service. Spotify is to blame for setting such a basement price for their service that artists get pennies from streams. *Imagine if actors and directors tried to tell everyone to cancel their Netflix subscriptions and return to buying Box sets and DVDs to support them*.



_*They should*_. Netflix is trash. Spotify is trash. Most of the modern web infrastructure is, in my opinion, complete garbage and cutting it all out of my life was and continues to be a huge improvement. I loved _The Boondocks_. Incredible show, and I really enjoyed when it was on Netflix, because I always had something to have on in the background. Then one day, it was just gone. Poof. If I owned the series, I wouldn't care. But I didn't. So now, if I want to continue to watch the show, I need to either buy the series, or play streaming-service-roulette to keep up with who has what I want to watch. It's stupid, and is only going to get worse now with all of these multibillion dollar corporations deciding they want a piece of the streaming pie.

Music is no different. I tried Spotify for like a month and hated it. I love my music, so I want to _*have*_ my music. That bone crushing breakdown in _Anti-Pattern_ scratches a special itch and if I _*ever*_ want to listen to it, no matter where I am, I can; and then switch to something else. I'm an album kind of guy- I don't like ping ponging between songs, let alone artists. I am not beholden to whatever huge faceless Web X.0 megacorp is the current flavor of the month, I don't have to worry about keeping my content on one centralized platform, I don't need to juggle logins and passwords, it's _*mine*_.

We had the whole Walmart discussion earlier, and that's exactly how you beat them. You just don't use their service.


budda said:


> Itt: local businesses who cant compete with big business (your local shop vs GC, your local grocer vs walmart, small bands vs spotify) except only one side of those 3 scenarios can actually afford to be competitive.


Because this is incorrect. None of these examples can afford to be competitive. Economies of scale will always 100% of the time prevent that from being feasible and it's why the increasingly centralized nature of the global economy is very, very rapidly becoming an issue. Walmart, Spotify, Brand X is ubiquitous because everyone uses them, and now that they have that userbase, the only way they are ever going to lose it is if the market is heavily disrupted or if they _*really*_ screw something up. Spotify can raise their subscription price by 50% and only pass on an extra $0.000000001 per stream to the artist and it wouldn't matter. Nobody would care. Their business would not decrease. The only way to fight against that is to stop using their platform.

Creators _*absolutely should *_advocate against the use of these platforms, because these platforms cause them problems. Their real issue is a corporate one, not a public one.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 16, 2021)

budda said:


> Even this thread illustrates that people think they have to use spotify, despite knowing it pays the worst and arguably cares the least (see: pay, interviews with execs).
> 
> Someone mentioned actors not decrying netflix: actors get paid substantially more. They also dont have to pay for merch much if at all (trying to think of any actors with merch and coming up empty).



I'm actually so sick of stream shaming arguments. Streaming is literally another source of passive income, you can hate the payrate all you want we all know it's garbage, but the alternative is it not existing and album sales would still have decreased over time.

You seem to hate streaming for it's payout, but what's your suggestion for an alternative? It's hilarious that your reply to several people seems to be "nice, that's just the way it is right?". You're essentially telling the customer to regress their experience to support a business model that hasn't changed in any meaningful way over 2 decades.

The industry is more saturated than ever, you might get me to contribute a monthly donation to my 10 favorite bands. But if you think I'm dedicating 10 - 15% of my annual income to buy cheap closet filler clothing and buy CDs when the only device I even have that plays a CD is my gaming consoles/vehicle you're nuts. If a band changes their sound and I dislike that release I'm under no obligation to support that specific release in any way. Your gripes are insanely surface level considering you're telling people to just blindly support every band they listen to regardless of output because streaming bad?


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## wankerness (Aug 16, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I'm actually so sick of stream shaming arguments. Streaming is literally another source of passive income, you can hate the payrate all you want we all know it's garbage, but the alternative is it not existing and album sales would still have decreased over time.
> 
> You seem to hate streaming for it's payout, but what's your suggestion for an alternative? It's hilarious that your reply to several people seems to be "nice, that's just the way it is right?". You're essentially telling the customer to regress their experience to support a business model that hasn't changed in any meaningful way over 2 decades.
> 
> The industry is more saturated than ever, you might get me to contribute a monthly donation to my 10 favorite bands. But if you think I'm dedicating 10 - 15% of my annual income to buy cheap closet filler clothing and buy CDs when the only device I even have that plays a CD is my gaming consoles/vehicle you're nuts. If a band changes their sound and I dislike that release I'm under no obligation to support that specific release in any way. Your gripes are insanely surface level considering you're telling people to just blindly support every band they listen to regardless of output because streaming bad?



Album sales absolutely would have decreased over time, but nowhere close to the extent they have with spotify/apple music. People are so used to music being "free" right now that the concept of buying something is foreign. Most people no longer really know how to "pirate" things in the traditional sense - bittorrent and those pirate sites with scads of links to premium download sites are both "niche markets." Napster and Kazaa and to a lesser degree Limewire were all used by the mainstream because they were a hell of a lot easier, you just downloaded the program, typed the name of a song/artist, and hit download on the files that popped up, but I think programs like that are mostly dead in this day and age. Maybe they'd pop up again if Spotify and Apple Music somehow croaked, but I doubt it. In those post-napster, pre-spotify days you'd get tons of people that would still buy crap off itunes or whatever because that was the only way they knew how if the stuff wasn't illegally uploaded to youtube, or if they wanted to play it on their ipod or phone or burned CD or whatever. It wasn't good for the artist, they still made less than they did from CD sales even with bad deals with record labels, but it was vastly better than what they get from Spotify.

What's even funnier to me is that people aren't even willing to pay for a spotify subscription. Seems like everyone just pools accounts with their family. Though I don't know if that actually changes the bottom line to the artists. So, maybe it's good, if that gets spotify less money that they get to keep.

I still buy anything that's from either a band I trust and still follow, or anything I listen to more than once or twice via streaming services, but I'm one person in a sea of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lost sales relative to a couple decades ago.

Concert tickets definitely haven't increased in price since the old days when bands could make money off their albums directly (I remember paying like 50 bucks for frickin Opeth back ~2001), and neither have CD costs (they've gone DOWN substantially, especially when inflation is taken into account - I remember CDs selling for 10 on sale at Best Buy in the 90s or up to like 18-20 at trashy stores like Sam Goody) while today I never see anything with one disc for over 15 besides people trying to sell super-deluxe editions.

Basically the amount of money going towards music for people is tiny compared to what it used to be. Blaming the bands for poor "business sense" ignores the fact that there's vastly less money going around, and what little money there is is mostly going straight to companies that make the record execs of old look like socialists.

I think the money that consumers used to spend on music is mostly going towards phones now. Every few years they're dumping 500+ on a thing that they use to play music, along with exorbitant monthly fees for keeping it running - those costs really didn't have a direct counterpart back then. Your house phone service was generally a tiny monthly fee and the hardware was much cheaper and had to be replaced far less often, and a lot of people just had a crappy CD walkman and boombox or something as far as players went, until the advent of the ipod, but those didn't have monthly fees and were cheaper than iphones. Weirdos like me had expensive stereo systems, but those haven't really gone away.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I'm actually so sick of stream shaming arguments. Streaming is literally another source of passive income, you can hate the payrate all you want we all know it's garbage, but the alternative is it not existing and album sales would still have decreased over time.
> 
> You seem to hate streaming for it's payout, but what's your suggestion for an alternative? It's hilarious that your reply to several people seems to be "nice, that's just the way it is right?". You're essentially telling the customer to regress their experience to support a business model that hasn't changed in any meaningful way over 2 decades.
> 
> The industry is more saturated than ever, you might get me to contribute a monthly donation to my 10 favorite bands. But if you think I'm dedicating 10 - 15% of my annual income to buy cheap closet filler clothing and buy CDs when the only device I even have that plays a CD is my gaming consoles/vehicle you're nuts. If a band changes their sound and I dislike that release I'm under no obligation to support that specific release in any way. Your gripes are insanely surface level considering you're telling people to just blindly support every band they listen to regardless of output because streaming bad?



Bandcamp.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Aug 16, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I'm actually so sick of stream shaming arguments. Streaming is literally another source of passive income, you can hate the payrate all you want we all know it's garbage, but the alternative is it not existing and album sales would still have decreased over time.
> 
> You seem to hate streaming for it's payout, but what's your suggestion for an alternative? It's hilarious that your reply to several people seems to be "nice, that's just the way it is right?". You're essentially telling the customer to regress their experience to support a business model that hasn't changed in any meaningful way over 2 decades.
> 
> The industry is more saturated than ever, you might get me to contribute a monthly donation to my 10 favorite bands. But if you think I'm dedicating 10 - 15% of my annual income to buy cheap closet filler clothing and buy CDs when the only device I even have that plays a CD is my gaming consoles/vehicle you're nuts. If a band changes their sound and I dislike that release I'm under no obligation to support that specific release in any way. Your gripes are insanely surface level considering you're telling people to just blindly support every band they listen to regardless of output because streaming bad?



I'll concede that the sheer number of bands that deserve your attention these days is enough to clash with the "just buy the album bro" position, but lets not pretend that buying the CD is actually about listening to the CD or has been about that for over a decade now. Near enough every release comes with a digital copy on purchase and even if it doesn't, in my opinion, if you physically hold the album, you've 100% got the green light to "unscrupulously" download a digital copy. There really isn't any situation where you could stream an album, but not listen to a digital copy. It's the same reason I have a fat stack of vinyls but literally don't own a record player- it's _cool_, but it's also a nice way to communicate to the artist that you enjoyed that specific body of work and would like to contribute toward more of it. 

Lets just remove music from the equation entirely, because honestly since the mid-2000s when YouTube and pirating music became so easy a six year old could figure it out it hasn't been about the music, it's been about figuring out how to keep everybody paid so that there continues to *be* music, because accessing the material cost-free has been a complete non-issue for years now. So of the two parent categories of "I think ethically I need to pay for this in some way" and "I don't think I ethically need to pay for this in some way," we're really only talking about the former, and within that group, there are different subgroups.

"I feel that I need to provide some form of financial compensation [no matter how small] so that I feel morally clear continuing to listen to this"
"Since I'm providing financial compensation, I would like some form of physical product"
"I am a huge fan and I want to emphasize how important this piece of material was to me in the most fundamentally understandable method"
...and etc. Buying a CD is cheap enough that it's a low barrier to entry, 'neat' enough that it satisfies the want for a physical product, and is something that many fans would like to have just to have. I don't think I've actually listened to a single CD I've purchased in the last 15 years. I've bought them all purely as a show of support- and that seems to be the type of people that this comment was pointed toward. 

Is this better than supporting a streaming service? LOL man, I assume so based on the way people talk, but I have no idea. If it were this easy to fix the record industry, it would have been done a long time ago. But there's more than one way to skin a cat. 

110% agree on the "if I dislike the album but like the band I'm not buying it." Dunno what other position is reasonable to expect from people, honestly.


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## wankerness (Aug 16, 2021)

bostjan said:


> I don't believe that. A List actors get paid more than A list musicians, sure, but there are tons of indie actors who are making less off of acting than their indie musician counterparts.
> 
> Anyway, it doesn't matter, really.
> 
> ...



Actors absolutely get paid a lot more than musicians, when they can actually get a job - there are thousands of failed actors that don't make money very often and certainly don't command anything above "scale," but if they actually DO get a job, the profession is one of the few that is still heavily unionized and as a result they're not going to get paid anything under a certain point. Indie musicians have no such requirements that must be met. My brother regularly makes ~200 for a gig that then gets split 5 ways. Awesome! Looks like scale bottoms out at ~200 a day for an actor that's in the union.


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## Wc707 (Aug 16, 2021)

I stream sometimes at work or home if I'm checking out new bands to see if they're my cup of tea or not. I Primarily support artists by buying their albums, ripping to mp3s and listen to that at work, home, car, workout. I like owning music, instead of what I'd consider Spotify as "leasing" music. 

I agree with some posters that bands arent putting cohesive albums out sometimes and I think that's a product of the times. People are losing their attention spans, and commitment nowadays, so you have to constantly "hook" people to keep their attention. 
I'm 32 and I feel like I'm coming off as an old man.
"ThesE DamN HoOdLums Didnt waLk 5miles iN the snoW to the RecOrd StoRe just To LiSteN to a New SInGle! They're UngrAtefuL!"


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

My sister is in netflix movies and shows, i feel like i can make the comparison .


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## wankerness (Aug 16, 2021)

Having just had to box up my CD collection in a move (it was ~20 cardboard boxes, ugh), I definitely see the appeal of switching to streaming-only. Discs are a huge waste of space, and I very rarely even get them out vs just downloading the same damn thing off Apple Music where it lives on my phone and never increases physical clutter. 

I'm very tempted to just rip off the band-aid and donate all several hundred of them to goodwill


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 16, 2021)

wankerness said:


> Album sales absolutely would have decreased over time, but nowhere close to the extent they have with spotify/apple music. People are so used to music being "free" right now that the concept of buying something is foreign. Most people no longer really know how to "pirate" things in the traditional sense - bittorrent and those pirate sites with scads of links to premium download sites are both "niche markets." Napster and Kazaa and to a lesser degree Limewire were all used by the mainstream because they were a hell of a lot easier, you just downloaded the program, typed the name of a song/artist, and hit download on the files that popped up, but I think programs like that are mostly dead in this day and age. Maybe they'd pop up again if Spotify and Apple Music somehow croaked, but I doubt it. In those post-napster, pre-spotify days you'd get tons of people that would still buy crap off itunes or whatever because that was the only way they knew how if the stuff wasn't illegally uploaded to youtube, or if they wanted to play it on their ipod or phone or burned CD or whatever. It wasn't good for the artist, they still made less than they did from CD sales even with bad deals with record labels, but it was vastly better than what they get from Spotify.
> 
> What's even funnier to me is that people aren't even willing to pay for a spotify subscription. Seems like everyone just pools accounts with their family. Though I don't know if that actually changes the bottom line to the artists. So, maybe it's good, if that gets spotify less money that they get to keep.
> 
> ...



But musicians do have terrible business sense, they are the ones producing their content. Content that takes 1 - 2 years to release your next substantial boost in income (hopefully). Then you see some musicians try to branch out with stuff like Patreon and the Social media, etc. You check their performance over the years and they went from a modest 100 - 200 supporters to double digits, and their last post was 7 months ago. Musicians could absolutely be doing better and take advantage of the tools at their disposal. But we end up criticizing the ones who do, and hate them when they do find success in other business ventures regardless of their music being consistent or not. This regularly happens here for example.

But back to the online streaming services. they didn't kill the music industry, the decline of album sales has always been gradual because the experience of buying a CD in a physical store was never optimal for a customer. In fact early Youtube with it's ineffective DMCA services was probably a bigger dent in the music industry than anything, at least Spotify pays ANYTHING at all. You think your favorite artists were getting any money directly from 10 million viewed videos of full albums? Everyone went to youtube and just listened to albums on youtube instead of paying for the album when people started doing it. You might have nostalgia for going into an FYE and previewing 30 second clips of each song on shitty sweaty headphones in a stall (I actually do). But that's insanely inefficient and was a method pretty much destined to go down in flames the second convenience entered the chat.

Musicians and the entire industry have innovated and grown at a snail's pace in comparison to other industries. Like why are you still printing cheap garbage and expecting people to buy them at your shows for $20 dollars a pop? I went to plenty of local shows back when I lived in Florida and had a great time, knew most of the people and I can count on 1 hand the amount of "local" talent that actually gave a shit about their merch and tried various suppliers to get a decent value/quality for their $20 shirts. Like if Old Navy Clearance clothing holds up better than your merch, you are unironically scamming people to get your logo on a black shirt.

But that's on a local level, let's talk small/moderately sized bands. I literally just looked up 10 of my favorite metal bands on bandcamp to look at their merch stocks. Either single digit remaining volume on all merch, or most of it sold out (vinyls mostly). If I didn't know about the band and want to grab a shirt, my regular experience has been to open the page, select a size, and see everything but a small out of stock. On the larger end of the spectrum, Thy Art is Murder sold out of their meme leopard print shirts in 2 days flat. The above argument about inventory being sold out for something I want in my size is echoed on this level tenfold.



budda said:


> Bandcamp.



I own 50ish albums on Bandcamp, and if I abandon streaming cold turkey (aka stop supporting the artist with that EXTRA income stream) I lose access to a substantial portion of the music and artists I listen to. Bandcamp will cost me infinitely more at the end of the day to even get me a similar experience.

Now I have to load up my phone with all of my MP3's and take it everywhere. Good luck if you bought a base level iPhone, and pony up for storage expansion otherwise for your Android. Nevermind the time alone to setup all my playlists/library up on my device.

That's nuts, we did that until we didn't have to anymore, that cost is massive and the average person isn't making enough to enjoy music that way. I still support my favorite artists, if they even have merch that isn't sold out by the time I check. Your method incurs a massive regress for the customer, businesses cater to the client not the reverse. Artistry has some headroom to make the client go through a few hoops to enjoy the art, but if your methods are that regressive you're not going to get much support there.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> But musicians do have terrible business sense, they are the ones producing their content. Content that takes 1 - 2 years to release your next substantial boost in income (hopefully). Then you see some musicians try to branch out with stuff like Patreon and the Social media, etc. You check their performance over the years and they went from a modest 100 - 200 supporters to double digits, and their last post was 7 months ago. Musicians could absolutely be doing better and take advantage of the tools at their disposal. But we end up criticizing the ones who do, and hate them when they do find success in other business ventures regardless of their music being consistent or not. This regularly happens here for example.
> 
> But back to the online streaming services. they didn't kill the music industry, the decline of album sales has always been gradual because the experience of buying a CD in a physical store was never optimal for a customer. In fact early Youtube with it's ineffective DMCA services was probably a bigger dent in the music industry than anything, at least Spotify pays ANYTHING at all. You think your favorite artists were getting any money directly from 10 million viewed videos of full albums? Everyone went to youtube and just listened to albums on youtube instead of paying for the album when people started doing it. You might have nostalgia for going into an FYE and previewing 30 second clips of each song on shitty sweaty headphones in a stall (I actually do). But that's insanely inefficient and was a method pretty much destined to go down in flames the second convenience entered the chat.
> 
> ...



This just proves the OP though. You dont want to pay more via bandcamp and you dont want to organize a library even though it means owning your copies (streaming vs downloading files). This all leads to bands ending sooner.

How much do you think those small and mid tier bands actually make annually with streaming?

Edit: no one's mentioned the going to live shows that arent near them bit yet. 'member road trips with friends?


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## bostjan (Aug 16, 2021)

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainme...$21.88 in May,percent earned more than $64.92.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/musicians-and-singers.htm

Musicians make 43% more than actors, on average.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

bostjan said:


> https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/actors.htm#:~:text=$20.17-,The median hourly wage for actors was $21.88 in May,percent earned more than $64.92.
> 
> https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/musicians-and-singers.htm
> 
> Musicians make 43% more than actors, on average.



Which section of musicians? Which is to say, how far down the ladder did they ask?


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 16, 2021)

budda said:


> This just proves the OP though. You dont want to pay more via bandcamp and you dont want to organize a library even though it means owning your copies (streaming vs downloading files). This all leads to bands ending sooner.
> 
> How much do you think those small and mid tier bands actually make annually with streaming?
> 
> Edit: no one's mentioned the going to live shows that arent near them bit yet. 'member road trips with friends?



You don't want to? Why are you ignoring the most important bit there, availability? Unless you're okay with me filling the rest of the void with Piracy, because even buying CDs (a system you acknowledge to be broken as well) wouldn't contribute greatly to the band's finances and leaves me in the same rut. So now I can't support the bands that aren't on bandcamp financially, and it still costs me an arm and a leg.

Explosively growing the cost to the customer isn't realistic, people aren't going to be able to afford it. So your solution is, fuck the consumer they should be able to afford all of it, dedicate a substantial part of your income in THIS economy to music.

You're really not providing helpful discourse if that's your intention, planting guilt in the minds of people who pay for services with no real path for change is as performative as those people you accuse in your OP. Speaking of which, I don't see people wearing their contribution badges and bragging about it as much as you make it sound happens.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

Nowhere did I say buy stuff you cant afford . I said if everyone stays on the "free or next to it" path, it probably gets worse before it gets better. That high cost has always been presented to the consumer. Not a lot of people go for it though. Then bands tour less, release less, call it a day.

I've said the best way to both own music and support the artist that is available right now without going to a show (bandcamp). At the moment, other than Patreon subscriptions, I dont see anything as effective. What i am happy to say is that if people leave spotify and in the interim use bandcamp (where you can also stream), the artists will be better able to give you more product, more options, and better shows.

Spend more, if you're able, on the artist directly. .


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## bostjan (Aug 16, 2021)

budda said:


> Which section of musicians? Which is to say, how far down the ladder did they ask?


That's not a sampling, really, those data are from BLS, which represents the data collected from US tax declarations (from employees, employers, restaurants, venues, blah blah blah), so it should represent the aggregate of all 175k+ musicians in the USA.

I was an actor once in a lifetime, and I found it much more difficult to scrape by than playing guitar, but my experience is 1. anecdotal, as your sister's story is, and 2. was long enough ago that the anecdote doesn't even apply to today's job market.

If we're going the anecdotal route, many of my former bandmates went into acting. One has been in two syndicated shows and starred in an indy film. Another appeared in several indy films as a supporting actor. Also, my first cousin has appeared in tons of high profile shows and Hollywood movies (if you are old enough, you might even know her by name), but only ever really rubbed elbows with the A-listers. None of these folks I mentioned were successful enough at acting to not need supplemental income from other jobs, long term.


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## TedEH (Aug 16, 2021)

bostjan said:


> it should represent the aggregate of all 175k+ musicians in the USA.


I guess to be pedantic, it would be an aggregate of people who report their profession as musician, as opposed to anyone who is trying to trying to make money with music but either fails at it or doesn't report that as their profession. I'd imagine a lot of metal musicians aren't in that group.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 16, 2021)

budda said:


> Nowhere did I say buy stuff you cant afford . I said if everyone stays on the "free or next to it" path, it probably gets worse before it gets better. That high cost has always been presented to the consumer. Not a lot of people go for it though. Then bands tour less, release less, call it a day.
> 
> I've said the best way to both own music and support the artist that is available right now without going to a show (bandcamp). At the moment, other than Patreon subscriptions, I dont see anything as effective. What i am happy to say is that if people leave spotify and in the interim use bandcamp (where you can also stream), the artists will be better able to give you more product, more options, and better shows.
> 
> Spend more, if you're able, on the artist directly. .



This doesn't address the main point of availability, *still. *And people already do that, as in spend where they're able to on their artists of choice directly.

Are you against what most people do already? Aka Stream and support their favorite artists as well in other forms (Bandcamp, Merch, Live Shows), because that's what everyone is essentially already doing. If you average it out, it's definitely more selective but people will still support where they can regardless if they stream or not.

This makes income from streaming independent from other forms of income, it either exists or it doesn't. You're advocating for people to abandon an extra form of income to all of these artists, because of course people stream the same bands they would have listened to anyways.

I think this listener you're describing that literally only streams, and doesn't spend a dime on any band at all is pretty much nonexistent. Maybe some percentage of people replaced their music purchasing with a music subscription, but I'd argue these same people would be listening to the same music for free on Youtube or Pirating it. Both of which pay nothing to the artist (your "free" spectrum), where as Paying for a subscription and listening does pay something even if it's a small amount.

You mentioned underrepresentation by the smaller bands in that survey posted, if your objective is to provide financial support for literally every single musician on the planet then that's not going to work, in fact your system gives them even less money than they probably would have made if they just uploaded their music and let it garner lifetime listens from people checking them out.

There are bandcamp artists with >10 purchases in abundance, very few people are financially supporting these folks either way. Do you think these artists prefer a $10 check for their $1 single among 10 listeners over getting that + the streaming revenue? Streaming also brings the benefit of discoverability, which increases likelihood of an artist being supported directly.


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## bostjan (Aug 16, 2021)

TedEH said:


> I guess to be pedantic, it would be an aggregate of people who report their profession as musician, as opposed to anyone who is trying to trying to make money with music but either fails at it or doesn't report that as their profession. I'd imagine a lot of metal musicians aren't in that group.


Yes, those as well as people who pay money to other people and call it "for music." I agree that a lot of metal bands playing in abandoned parking garages trying to make a living off of selling their merch could go unreported, but if that merch is CD's, it's likely reported to the IRS by whoever manufactured the discs. If it's downloads or streams, it's definitely reported to the IRS by the download/streaming services.

But sure.

I think it's all beside the point, that whether you are a struggling musician, a struggling actor, a struggling painter, or a struggling shipping control technician, times are getting tougher for everybody who isn't/wasn't within the upper echelon of a large corporation in a large industry.


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## budda (Aug 16, 2021)

@Jonathan20022 If that lifetime streaming revenue is $3 (which is how many streams, if anyone's up to it), which seems reasonable if they're at 10 purchases, then yes they'll take the $10. If you have the option to buy a single for $0.50 on bandcamp or stream it as many times as $0.50 gets you, which one are you going to choose? I'm genuinely curious.

I keep repeating that streaming isn't limited to spotify as well. Do you not agree that if people collectively just switched to a streaming service that pays artist better, that would at least help offset what they are collectively experiencing?

How am I missing availability in this conversation?


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## bostjan (Aug 16, 2021)

687 Spotify streams is about $3 (if you have a direct deal with Spotify - if it's through a distributor, prepare to double that number for the same effect).

For a 4 minute song, that's about 45 hours worth of streaming, total.

But, if you are, say, one person in a four piece band, splitting that equally, it'd take four times as many streams to make four times as much for one person to make the same amount.

Other streaming services pay almost twice that. IME, Spotify doesn't have fewer ads or shorter ads, so either they are worse at negotiating with advertisers or better at negotiating with artists.

If all indy artists suddenly decided to tell Spotify to FOD, but major label artists stuck around, I doubt a very large portion of their users would switch platforms. It'd more likely just be another way for indy artists to end up poorer.

I guess if you really want to make a serious move against Spotify, learn to code, learn the legal stuff, make your own platform, have it supplant Spotify, then you win. Short of that, though, I'm not really sure what you're wanting us to do.


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## jaxadam (Aug 16, 2021)

wankerness said:


> Napster and Kazaa and to a lesser degree Limewire were all used by the mainstream because they were a hell of a lot easier, you just downloaded the program, typed the name of a song/artist, and hit download and got a goat porn virus.



FTFY


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## Mathemagician (Aug 16, 2021)

Without it Spotify I would still be listening to the same 15 or so bands from over a decade ago. I find new artists I like and I either buy an album or more commonly now merch/shirts from their site. 

I still bought cds up until only a few years ago but I just don’t want much physical stuff anymore.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 16, 2021)

The nostalgia acts have enough money and need to retire (about twenty years ago), and "new" bands mostly do nothing for me. I'm not a fan of djent, -core, "progressive" which isn't progressive at all, or weird miss mashes of rock/metal with various other genres as a means of being "clever." In addition, I don't give a shit about tribute bands portrayed by LARPing hipsters like Greta Van Susteren (who is equally as dull and boring as the talk show host) or these awful "NWOTHM" groups. 

So yeah. I agree with supporting artists by buying their records, and buy shirts if that's your thing. However, most artists are signed under 360 deals, so you're still supporting the Beast slave system. Making music is no longer a career, it is a hobby. Either make peace with that and get a good paying day job, or become an "influencer" making YouTube videos.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Aug 16, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I think this listener you're describing that literally only streams, and doesn't spend a dime on any band at all is pretty much nonexistent. Maybe some percentage of people replaced their music purchasing with a music subscription, but I'd argue these same people would be listening to the same music for free on Youtube or Pirating it. Both of which pay nothing to the artist (your "free" spectrum), where as Paying for a subscription and listening does pay something even if it's a small amount.



I dunno man, this hypothetical listener sounds an awful lot like literally every single person I know. The closest person I can think of breaking this template buys maybe a piece of merch every few years. People overwhelming think it's weird that I still buy physical media.



bostjan said:


> I guess if you really want to make a serious move against Spotify, learn to code, learn the legal stuff, make your own platform, have it supplant Spotify, then you win. Short of that, though, I'm not really sure what you're wanting us to do.



Come on dude- this is incredibly reductive. "Just build your own Facebook, build your own Amazon, build your own YouTube if you don't like it."

You can't. 

The current legal monopolies of the world are already _*titanic*_ corporations that will bury you the moment you start to gain any traction; even if you had the millions of dollars in venture funding to get started. Just look at Tidal and how hard that flopped. You'd need to rely on Spotify making an absolutely huge misstep and being in the right position at the right time to capitalize on it, even then you'd need to get lucky- or you'd need some type of majorly disruptive innovation, which again, is unlikely; since _if it was this easy to fix the record industry, somebody would have done it already_.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 16, 2021)

aesthyrian said:


> First time hearing the name Heart Attack Man, odd marketing strategy but hey it worked.
> 
> This silly shit can go both ways. No one ends up in a touring band by accident, but they all bitch about the same shit for decades.
> 
> ...


They don't necessarily agree to put their music on these platforms. The labels do for some sort of stake in the company.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 16, 2021)

By the way, not reading through 4 pages, but has anyone mentioned the stranglehold that LiveNation and TicketMaster have on the music business, and how it has ruined the industry? Kids aren't able to really attend rock shows financially anymore like they used to. The three plus year span between albums doesn't help with momentum, either.


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## wankerness (Aug 16, 2021)

jaxadam said:


> FTFY



man, I don’t know how people got viruses from those things unless they didn’t understand file extensions and/or double clicked things and agreed to admin prompts even if they were supposed to be songs.

people that tried to pirate games/programs is much more understandable.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 16, 2021)

budda said:


> @Jonathan20022 If that lifetime streaming revenue is $3 (which is how many streams, if anyone's up to it), which seems reasonable if they're at 10 purchases, then yes they'll take the $10. If you have the option to buy a single for $0.50 on bandcamp or stream it as many times as $0.50 gets you, which one are you going to choose? I'm genuinely curious.
> 
> I keep repeating that streaming isn't limited to spotify as well. Do you not agree that if people collectively just switched to a streaming service that pays artist better, that would at least help offset what they are collectively experiencing?
> 
> How am I missing availability in this conversation?



So you're missing availability because your suggestion is to abandon streaming services and utilize a platform which simply does not have even 20% of the music or artists I listen to to purchase from. So I'd in turn support a modest few of the bands that choose to upload music to Bandcamp in the first place (Some of them have releases missing from Bandcamp btw that are available elsewhere). And the rest of my music that I would be listening to, then gets neglected because as you acknowledge, expecting a music fan to buy ALL the music they listen to is an unreasonable expectation.

On the topic of moving platforms, alright let's all move to Tidal. They have fantastic service and I'm currently actually operating a free trial to them to see how it is before committing, and they lack most of the music I listen to. Yeah I can listen to Michael Jackson, Silk Sonic, and The Weeknd, but if I want to listen to my more niche stuff I require another method. If one of the services has most of the music I enjoy, and they support the artists better than Spotify that is a *win win*. I'm not going to sacrifice that for a service to pay someone a 1/100th of a penny more than the other service. I'd like to also qualify, that I'm not going to hinge my point on this and say something as ridiculous as "WELL ITS ONLY 99.999% OF MY MUSIC, SO I'LL USE SPOTIFY INSTEAD". I'd like a a hefty majority at least because the stuff I spin more often is what's more important to me.

So I actually would jump to another service if I had my essentials and others I could mix in, that defeats the purpose of supporting those artists I'm now omitting from my listening experience. And that's your objective at the end of the day, to support as many artists as you can.

I'll break down the cost argument I'm making, because this is multifaceted.

Streaming
- Hilariously, exposure.
- Streaming time/play revenue.

Purchasing
- Supporting Band/Label (Majority label)
- Higher upfront margin than streamed revenue
- Distribution/Production Costs (Unless digital only)

If you are producing and selling CD's/Vinyls/Merch, you are absolutely getting a greater financial contribution up front for your music than through streaming. But you're treating this as an *OR *situation, and it doesn't have to be one. You can support a modest number of bands by purchasing content/merch directly from them, then proceed to stream their music afterwards and most people who support bands past just streaming currently do that.

These are two separate streams of income, purchasing provides a much greater up front contribution and if you're big enough this can outpace streaming for sure. Streaming however over a lifetime can exceed this contribution greatly depending on how much a listener listens to it. If we stop streaming and simply buy our albums, the contribution ends there. You own the album and you are free to spin it as many times as you want.

What I personally do, is buy albums/tab books/shirts and I still stream on whatever service I choose for a number of bands I truly love. So I supplement the cost of whatever I purchased with revenue per listen over the time I spend jamming the same band. You can argue people don't do this, but like I mentioned whenever I check merch and sales for the bands that on paper can't sell enough merch to sustain themselves, the stuff is always sold out.

That's why you don't "choose" wether to buy a single or stream it. Most people who support music and subscribe to a streaming service do *BOTH. *There's novelty in putting a CD in and listening to a physical, but fumbling with CD cases in my car isn't my idea of convenient on my daily drive to work, and wherever I go after.



Ordacleaphobia said:


> I dunno man, this hypothetical listener sounds an awful lot like literally every single person I know. The closest person I can think of breaking this template buys maybe a piece of merch every few years. People overwhelming think it's weird that I still buy physical media.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I mean if we're being real here, that is the solution. Big corps own the streaming services and choose the rate they pay artists, if you want to start a company and develop a better service for streaming music to people the market is saturated there's clearly people who would feel better with a system that pays artists more.

Licensing is a massive cost though, and your point about Tidal isn't lost on me. But you sell a product by being better than the competition, and Spotify has plenty of things they simply don't fix and choose to never fix that could be improved on and entice listeners. Virality isn't something to bet on, but providing a better service will bring the people for sure.

And I don't mean to bring hypotheticals, but my merch point still stands. All these metal bands I follow have sold out merch left and right, it could just be that limited 200/200 Vinyls sell out really fast because they have maybe 5000 fans, but if your merchstore is sold out mostly then I'd wager they're selling as much merch as they design and list up. Hypothetical of course, but yeah I'm sure I can find a band with a completely out of stock shop and you can find one that hasn't made a single sale. But music will never sustain 100% of artists, no art form ever will.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 16, 2021)

wankerness said:


> man, I don’t know how people got viruses from those things unless they didn’t understand file extensions and/or double clicked things and agreed to admin prompts even if they were supposed to be songs.
> 
> people that tried to pirate games/programs is much more understandable.


I think they were considered bundleware, and came with malware baked in as a little goody to installing this crap.


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## profwoot (Aug 16, 2021)

Really appreciate this conversation. Great arguments on both sides. It's a shit situation with no good solutions.


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## Avedas (Aug 17, 2021)

I'll stop streaming when the UX for literally anything else becomes better. And we all know that's not going to happen with currently available options. I don't miss carrying an iPod around lmao

Going to shows is dead in the water for the foreseeable future. I'll occasionally buy something for fun like a tab book pdf or whatever. Merch and physical media are pretty rare purchases for me since I don't particularly like collecting "stuff" and I don't have a lot of space.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Aug 17, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I mean if we're being real here, that is the solution. Big corps own the streaming services and choose the rate they pay artists, if you want to start a company and develop a better service for streaming music to people the market is saturated there's clearly people who would feel better with a system that pays artists more.
> 
> Licensing is a massive cost though, and your point about Tidal isn't lost on me. But you sell a product by being better than the competition, and Spotify has plenty of things they simply don't fix and choose to never fix that could be improved on and entice listeners. Virality isn't something to bet on, but providing a better service will bring the people for sure.
> 
> And I don't mean to bring hypotheticals, but my merch point still stands. All these metal bands I follow have sold out merch left and right, it could just be that limited 200/200 Vinyls sell out really fast because they have maybe 5000 fans, but if your merchstore is sold out mostly then I'd wager they're selling as much merch as they design and list up. Hypothetical of course, but yeah I'm sure I can find a band with a completely out of stock shop and you can find one that hasn't made a single sale. But music will never sustain 100% of artists, no art form ever will.



Yeah, sadly that's a solid copy. It _is_ the solution, but actually achieving it would be an unbelievably uphill battle. Like you mentioned in your post, the library is key and will stop the average consumer from making the switch- and licensing..._*everybody*_, is going to be cartoonishly expensive. Much, _*much*_ more so if the draw of the platform is greater artist compensation because now your overhead is soooooo so much higher. Leaving you with _*massive*_ upfront costs due to design, development, and hosting, _*massive*_ up front licensing fees, and _*massive*_ continuous overhead, meaning that again, unless you have some feature idea that's ready to disrupt the whole industry- your primary market draw is going to be the fact that it's an artist-friendly platform, which is synonymous with expensive to the end user. I can't imagine most investors would be lining up to jump on board.

Merch I can't really comment on, never been in an actual band, so I'm not familiar with the merch cycle- but I'm _guessing_ the inconsistent stock issues are due to a combination of 'limited' items, and also a reluctance to eat the upfront cost on another box full of T-shirts they may or may not be stuck holding the bag on. Maybe it's a label thing, I dunno. I have noticed what you're talking about though.


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## Andromalia (Aug 17, 2021)

bostjan said:


> I guess if you really want to make a serious move against Spotify, learn to code, learn the legal stuff, make your own platform, have it supplant Spotify, then you win. Short of that, though, I'm not really sure what you're wanting us to do.


There is an alternative: legislation.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 17, 2021)

Andromalia said:


> There is an alternative: legislation.


Oh, there's a great idea! Get the inept politicians involved! That ought to fix everything.


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## Jeffrey Newton (Aug 17, 2021)

CanserDYI said:


> Man this is what really sucks about things like Spotify, they have this weird dual relationship with music. On one hand it's one of the best things to happen to a music consumer/listener, and one of the absolute worst things for the artist...



Spotify-Napster is also bad for the consumer, as it spoon feeds them garbage and destroys them. Death by algorithm. It should be illegal.


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## CanserDYI (Aug 17, 2021)

Jeffrey Newton said:


> Spotify-Napster is also bad for the consumer, as it spoon feeds them garbage and destroys them. Death by algorithm. It should be illegal.


Uhhh not sure about you buddy but I just search artists I like and listen to their music....not sure how its feeding me garbage? If anything a few of the bands that I've been obsessed with lately have been introduced to me through Spotify radio.


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## GunpointMetal (Aug 17, 2021)

CanserDYI said:


> Uhhh not sure about you buddy but I just search artists I like and listen to their music....not sure how its feeding me garbage? If anything a few of the bands that I've been obsessed with lately have been introduced to me through Spotify radio.


 I personally thought Spotify's algorithm for this was awful, and they were always sneaking in some garbage (Yes, why wouldn't I want to listen to FFDP at the end of the my Dillinger Escape Plan/Car Bomb playlist? Of course I want you to stick that new Beiber song randomly into my stream for no apparent reason!) but I find all kinds of awesome bands by just picking an album in Apple music from my collection and letting Apple Music feed me stuff after it plays.


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## Jeffrey Newton (Aug 17, 2021)

CanserDYI said:


> Uhhh not sure about you buddy but I just search artists I like and listen to their music....not sure how its feeding me garbage? If anything a few of the bands that I've been obsessed with lately have been introduced to me through Spotify radio.


Yes of course you can do that, but Spot-Nap feeds you nonsense which pollutes your mind. Perhaps you're familiar with what it takes to get on their vaunted "playlists"? It makes 1970s payola look like child's play! On another note, the sound quality is horrible.


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## CanserDYI (Aug 17, 2021)

Lik


GunpointMetal said:


> I personally thought Spotify's algorithm for this was awful, and they were always sneaking in some garbage (Yes, why wouldn't I want to listen to FFDP at the end of the my Dillinger Escape Plan/Car Bomb playlist? Of course I want you to stick that new Beiber song randomly into my stream for no apparent reason!) but I find all kinds of awesome bands by just picking an album in Apple music from my collection and letting Apple Music feed me stuff after it plays.


Like i said, I dont let the algorithm find music for me?


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## CanserDYI (Aug 17, 2021)

Jeffrey Newton said:


> Yes of course you can do that, but Spot-Nap feeds you nonsense which pollutes your mind. Perhaps you're familiar with what it takes to get on their vaunted "playlists"? It makes 1970s payola look like child's play! On another note, the sound quality is horrible.


Man, you sound like an anti vaxxer not going to lie. I'm not sure what nonsense is being fed to me listening to the music I searched for and being recommended bands that are listened to along side that band.... I've never gotten a Justin Bieber recommendation from Knocked Loose or Emmure or shit like that, so not sure what youre talking about.


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## TedEH (Aug 17, 2021)

Jeffrey Newton said:


> Spot-Nap feeds you nonsense which pollutes your mind


I heard a song I didn't like once, and I've never been able to recover since.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 17, 2021)

Jeffrey Newton said:


> Yes of course you can do that, but Spot-Nap feeds you nonsense which pollutes your mind. Perhaps you're familiar with what it takes to get on their vaunted "playlists"? It makes 1970s payola look like child's play! On another note, the sound quality is horrible.



Make your own playlists? What kind of complaint is this 

Running into a song you don't like on your streaming service and complaining that an algorithm is testing the waters until it knows your tastes better is next level first world problems.


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## CanserDYI (Aug 17, 2021)

I died @ "the sound quality is horrible" lmaoooooo

If you actually can hear the difference, that doesnt make you cooler just letting you know, its actually probably a muuuuuch shittier life to have to complain about audio streaming services.


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## wankerness (Aug 17, 2021)

The sound quality IS worse in a technical sense. But, a lot of people that act like huge snobs about it fail miserably if given a blind A-B test. I remember doing that to my friend that was always going on about how he must have FLACs instead of MP3s back in the day and paid ludicrous amounts for a big stereo system - he failed the blind A-B test between 96 kbps mp3 and uncompressed CD audio!!! I tried it myself and couldn't tell above 160 kbps vs WAV with mid-rane headphones. Maybe some sound systems would make it more obvious, but probably not many. And I think streaming quality is generally above the quality of 160 kbps mp3s.

They probably do compress dynamics to make everything match, but again I think 90% of people that bitch about "brickwall compression" couldn't actually identify it when given blind A-B tests.


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## StevenC (Aug 17, 2021)

Tosin and Misha were driving their Ferrari and McLaren with Herman Li and his Porsche yesterday.


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## slslipfilth (Aug 18, 2021)

This has been an internal battle with me the past few years as music and the bands I listen to are one of the few things I whole-heartedly enjoy these days. So I would want to finance that as much as possible while being financially responsible due to being in my early 30s with kids, wife, house and other life costs.

I haven't been buying CDs much these days, rare occasion if I do. I use Spotify for streaming to as least help out in that sense. It was hard for me to keep buying CDs when all I do is look at the artwork and the booklet then put it in storage while I use digitally versions of music. The only place I still have a CD player is my 2008 truck. 
I considered vinyl for a while but after researching it, it came down to just another collectible that took up more space. The sound wasn't better than CD and some vinyl could be even a lesser sound quality than CD. Also with vinyl would have to have an opportunity to sit down and listen to it in one spot (room with vinyl player). I have a hard time sitting still and doing something like that in the first place. I prefer to be doing something while listening.

I have been buying more band merch lately though and increasingly so due to the 2020 shut down with bands not able to tour. Also I few times I was able to go to shows I would at least grab something from the merch table.
Think I spent more money on band merch in 2020 than I did that last 2 years combined. But I prefer to find items and/or shirts that are worth having, like with a cool design. Getting a shirt with just a band logo is kind of boring and doesn't seem like much thought went into it. I've actually only seen this a handful of times and its with bands that are more mainstream. Figure the marketing team thinks most people will just buy it since it has their logo on it. I started a hat collection a few years back as I think its an item that can hold up longer than a T-shirt. And it seems like bands are putting more items out like that.

Quality is always another thing to consider, hate buying something online only to get a cheap, thin material shirt or sweater. I've worked around that by buying a size larger than what I normally wear so after a few washes it fits just right for me. Also I don't wear band shirts that often and with how many I have now wouldn't be washing them so frequently. 

I'm big fan of Behemoth and they started their own online store a few years back and they control the manufacturing of their products. They praise the quality of it cause of this. The price aren't too bad considering this so I grab a few items to see if they were worth it and the quality exceeded my expectations. I grabbed a sweater from that site that cost around $70-75, which to me is pretty expensive $50 for a sweater is pushing it, but that sweater is one thickest ones I have gotten. And not just in band sweater terms but overall. It is genuine a sweater you could wear in winter and still be reasonable warm because of the thickness. So any time I get a sweater from any other band, I get disappointed by the comparison. 
There are some things that band has come out with in their merch store that seems like "too much" in terms of merch, like candles and stuff like that. But in the end you don't have to buy it.
This is another way a band can make money on this business model I've seen. Create a following of fans (potential buyers) and release limited pressings/runs of certain items. And its not just Behemoth doing this, seen other bands come out with these limited runs that sell out quick.

I've read about this in a business book at one point. Develop a niche following and keep creating items that will appeal to them. This method indicts that selling to the same 10,000+ people (fans) would net more sales than trying to sell those items to +100,000 people.

It would be nice if other bands started doing this but based on talks about it, the costs can be pretty high especially in the US as the Behemoth sire is Poland based. 

I just hope what money I can devout to these bands and others like me will help them keep going.


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## TheBloodstained (Aug 19, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Tosin and Misha were driving their Ferrari and McLaren with Herman Li and his Porsche yesterday.


They're not really the best example in this discussion though...

Tosin and Misha got businesses outside of making and playing music, and Herman Li is a pretty dedicated Twitch streamer who probably receives a fair bit of donations. Also, they are kind of icons within their respective scenes, so...

Not really your average musicians 
I do love following Misha's car adventures. He have been driving some seriously sweet rides.


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## StevenC (Aug 19, 2021)

TheBloodstained said:


> They're not really the best example in this discussion though...
> 
> Tosin and Misha got businesses outside of making and playing music, and Herman Li is a pretty dedicated Twitch streamer who probably receives a fair bit of donations. Also, they are kind of icons within their respective scenes, so...
> 
> ...


The point stands. Those guys aren't exactly in big bands. Eddie Van Halen drove a Ferrari and he was in a massive band.

Maybe there's no money to be made anymore from selling CDs, but there's more money to be made selling everything else.


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## budda (Aug 19, 2021)

StevenC said:


> The point stands. Those guys aren't exactly in big bands. Eddie Van Halen drove a Ferrari and he was in a massive band.
> 
> Maybe there's no money to be made anymore from selling CDs, but there's more money to be made selling everything else.



On the flip side, I can rent a ferrari and book a photo shoot and look like I made it.


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## wankerness (Aug 19, 2021)

StevenC said:


> The point stands. Those guys aren't exactly in big bands. Eddie Van Halen drove a Ferrari and he was in a massive band.
> 
> Maybe there's no money to be made anymore from selling CDs,* but there's more money to be made selling everything else.*



What do you mean? What markets have INCREASED? People still bought band t-shirts back when they bought albums. Artists still got cushy endorsement deals. Etc. I don't see people throwing more money at bands for things other than albums than they ever did. If anything, probably less, considering the state of the lower/middle class in this country these days compared to 20+ years ago.


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## ArtDecade (Aug 19, 2021)

If this is becoming a djent thread, it needs to be moved to the beginner's forum.


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## budda (Aug 19, 2021)

Also we are looking at this as guitarists who consume music vs the general listener, who probably fit the OP description pretty damn well.


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## StevenC (Aug 19, 2021)

wankerness said:


> What do you mean? What markets have INCREASED? People still bought band t-shirts back when they bought albums. Artists still got cushy endorsement deals. Etc. I don't see people throwing more money at bands for things other than albums than they ever did. If anything, probably less, considering the state of the lower/middle class in this country these days compared to 20+ years ago.


I would say the gear industry has significantly increased in the past 20 years. Misha is in a small band and is one of the headline guys at Jackson, when 20 years ago that would have been Dave Mustaine. Tosin has never been as big as Whitesnake when Steve Vai played for them. They also both have their own pedal companies now, which hasn't been a thing to any substantial degree before. Tosin has his own guitar company, like the guy from Journey. Plus software from both of them. Not to mention all the extra merch bands make these days.

Stuff I own with Tosin's/AAL's name on it:

a guitar with pickups in it
different pickups in a different guitar
a pedal
a shirt
a hoodie
a gym bag
a jacket
a plugin
guitar pics
different guitar pics
an official tab book transcribed by the band
an instructional DVD
Their 4 CDs and digital single
And I've still got my eye on that parka, one of his new signature guitars, another signature pedal only available in Japan, and hoping they tab the first two albums. I'd probably have bought the coffee if I drank coffee.

20 or 30 years ago, I could have the Petrucci signature guitar, an instructional video and some bad tab books that he was probably getting way less money from than Tosin is. Nowadays Petrucci has a signature literally everything.


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## _MonSTeR_ (Aug 19, 2021)

I’m sure Misha once said here that his income from Periphery doesn’t even pay his tax bill, whether he was joking or not, I don’t know.

I read an article online about having side hustles, multiple income streams and so on as being the key to financial freedom these days I guess the Mishas and Tosins and Hermans of the world are business owners and spokesmodels for companies and just happen to play in a gigging band on the side 

I have some Periphery CDs but no merch from either band. I guess I maybe paid like for some resin for the carbon fibre in Misha’s car?


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## bostjan (Aug 19, 2021)

It definitely helps to start out with money.

...

Guitar is changing. When I taught lesson in 2004 or 2005, kids were coming in wanting to learn AC/DC from the early 80's, Led Zeppelin from the early 70's, Green Day from 2003, every once in a while Dream Evil or BtBaM or Underoath or whatever was hip. Teaching now, I have kids that want to learn AC/DC or Led Zeppelin, but no one cares about stuff from 2003 and on, except maybe once in a blue moon, I'll come across a student who wants a one-off lesson on A7X or something.

So: 1. Today's guitar-oriented music is too damned difficult to play for a beginner/early-intermediate player. and 2. There are no hyper-exposed guitar-oriented bands anymore. - - FM Radio, even in the early 2000's, had plenty of Matchbox 20 and Santana and pop punk and stuff that was a good enough combination of catchy and easy to learn with distinctive enough guitar playing. Most of what we have on the pop airwaves now is rehashes of older songs, so nothing is really distinctive for anything other than maybe the lyrics (and I'd argue that most of those are also too derivative to elicit excitement). Audiences are almost more interested in the celebrity of the musicians rather than what they actually do musically.

Do we say that's a negative? I don't know that it is. I know how I feel about it personally, but it's like, just music, you know?


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## _MonSTeR_ (Aug 19, 2021)

My 12 year old son was having guitar lessons at school before they all shut down. 

His teacher had him learning a bunch of stuff including Back in Black and Crazy Train. Nothing by Chon or Polyphia though...


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## ArtDecade (Aug 19, 2021)

_MonSTeR_ said:


> Nothing by Chon or Polyphia though...



Your son should have brought his laptop and he could have learned how to input all the notes via MIDI.


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## wheresthefbomb (Aug 19, 2021)

Placing responsibility for the exploitation of musicians on the heads of consumers is ass-backwards. The people streaming Spotify are no more to blame for artists' exploitation than the people buying records from big labels. Either way the artist sees a piteous sum and the corporation makes bank. _That_ is exploitation. The rest is fallout from that imbalance.

Part of this also comes down to expectations. What reasonable expectation does anyone have to make a living playing music these days, or ever? I'll be the first to say everyone deserves a living for doing anything or nothing, but that isn't the world we live in. Nobody outside of a privileged few is getting rich, and most bands you like aren't even paying the bills with their music, no matter how many hipsters buy a t-shirt.


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## bostjan (Aug 19, 2021)

wheresthefbomb said:


> Placing responsibility for the exploitation of musicians on the heads of consumers is ass-backwards. The people streaming Spotify are no more to blame for artists' exploitation than the people buying records from big labels. Either way the artist sees a piteous sum and the corporation makes bank. _That_ is exploitation. The rest is fallout from that imbalance.
> 
> Part of this also comes down to expectations. What reasonable expectation does anyone have to make a living playing music these days, or ever? I'll be the first to say everyone deserves a living for doing anything or nothing, but that isn't the world we live in. Nobody outside of a privileged few is getting rich, and most bands you like aren't even paying the bills with their music, no matter how many hipsters buy a t-shirt.


Spotify makes 2.0 G euro/year and pays artists something like 1.4 G euro/year. The company operates at a loss of 500 M euro/yr, according to their records. Not sure how a company can operate at a loss for 15 years and not run out of money, though... Any time someone gets screwed out of money, always look for whomever is getting rich off of it, and that's where the money is going. The two guys who operate Spotify are each worth around 4 G euros. Granted, they were somewhat wealthy before, and I'm no economist, but I don't see how 15 years x -500 million euros/yr = 2-3 billion euros. Maybe someone can fill me in.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 19, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Spotify makes 2.0 G euro/year and pays artists something like 1.4 G euro/year. The company operates at a loss of 500 M euro/yr, according to their records. Not sure how a company can operate at a loss for 15 years and not run out of money, though... Any time someone gets screwed out of money, always look for whomever is getting rich off of it, and that's where the money is going. The two guys who operate Spotify are each worth around 4 G euros. Granted, they were somewhat wealthy before, and I'm no economist, but I don't see how 15 years x -500 million euros/yr = 2-3 billion euros. Maybe someone can fill me in.



Carry forward losses are a major factor in this, not the straight forward "tax evasion" thought most people arrive at when discussing this portion of the discussion. But when seen as a necessary service you *will *receive funding from investors regardless of operation losses because your projections are growing not decreasing. If they were hemorrhaging money year after year things would be a little different.

Spotify still has the largest chunk of the music streaming market share, so they can spend out of their bounds with reasonable expectation that they'll see a return on it. Netflix just this year crossed their debt threshold and have no more need to borrow money to back their operating costs, this is after a decade of being in the opposite situation. They literally just paid Daniel Craig's salary on *projected earnings *for the sequels to Knives Out, operating costs isn't the best measure of how a company is doing.

Also I heavily agree that putting the onus to support artists on the end consumer is just an advanced form of guilt tripping those not responsible for the end result. Any art form will never sustain the entirety of performers/artists. It's an impossibility, we pay a minimum wage for a set of tasks because that set of tasks is standardized and repeatable. Not all artists release music cyclically, even less so with consistent quality. It's why Pop is the largest genre, repeatable song structures recycled constantly with flavor of the year vocalists putting their spin on a hook and a chorus, and there's still disparity in that sphere because it's saturated. That can happen in any workforce, and why the government mandates minimum wages for traditional careers and jobs. If your work is considered repeatable, no amount of worker saturation should allow the business to tank wages in order to hire more workers. Art will never be repeatable unless it's manufactured.


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## bostjan (Aug 19, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> If they were hemorrhaging money year after year things would be a little different


2020 was a banner year for them. They haven't reported a net positive ever, and they've existed 16 years. Anyway, it's beside the point.

It's this all-pervasive explanation these days. Walmart pays their workers so poorly because they have to in order to keep prices low. The company would go bankrupt if they paid their employees better. Yet, the Walton family that runs the store is the wealthiest family ever. The reason wages are so low is because there's no negotiation or effective organization anymore.


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## Boris_VTR (Aug 20, 2021)

What annoys me is when (usually big establish band) metal band is complaining about spotify/streaming music and people not paying for his bands music and then when asked what bands he is listning or what was the last record he bought his reply is "I dont listen to other metal bands. Havent bought record or been to other metal concert in 20 years. I dont follow the scene. I try not to listen to other peoples music. "


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## Boris_VTR (Aug 20, 2021)

mongey said:


> It sucks and it’s not just music. Society has become this self entitled monster that thinks everything needs to pander to its whims. *It pays its $9 a month for whatever steaming service and thinks
> that entitles them To everything. *
> 
> people listen to that album they say they have been waiting for 3 times and then move onto the next thing , meanwhile the artist gets next to nothing.
> ...



That is the whole premise of monthly subscription lol.


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## Boris_VTR (Aug 20, 2021)

And band is never to blame right? Only big bad spotify/streaming service right? It has nothing to do with band writing one half good song and fill album with fillers? And being wasted at gigs, playing easy version of solos because they are high, singers not hiting correct notes because they just need to party on off days.


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## mongey (Aug 20, 2021)

Boris_VTR said:


> That is the whole premise of monthly subscription lol.


Indeed and that’s the problem. 

the whole system undervalues the creative process. You may as well just churn out third grade songs and chuck them
On you tube in the hope of enough hits to get something. 

the rewards for actually taking the time to craft something great are diminishing. And it’s only going to get worse.


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## Boris_VTR (Aug 20, 2021)

mongey said:


> Indeed and that’s the problem.
> 
> the whole system undervalues the creative process. You may as well just churn out third grade songs and chuck them
> On you tube in the hope of enough hits to get something.
> ...


We will always have this problem of oversaturated market with songs when:
- home recording can produce good quality songs and is affordable
- streaming services/youtube that can release songs to public (versus needing big publishers)

But is a good problem to have , better chanche to find some hidden gems and great songs.
Now you can be accountant by day and record next hit single in the night in your room 

Maybe artists will spend more time writting good songs now that there is even more completion? One can only hope.


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## mongey (Aug 20, 2021)

Boris_VTR said:


> We will always have this problem of oversaturated market with songs when:
> - home recording can produce good quality songs and is affordable
> - streaming services/youtube that can release songs to public (versus needing big publishers)
> 
> ...


 That’s the problem. These accountants are churning out mediocre shit.


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## TedEH (Aug 20, 2021)

Here's a fun take: Maybe the problem isn't that we're de-valuing something, but that we never attributed much value to it in the first place. It's entertainment and it's abundant - it's never been essential and rarely been scarce, so of course its value to the average consumer is low.

To make it a worse take: Maybe trying to turn every average artist into a thriving business has always been an insurmountable uphill battle. We're only framing it as a problem because we want to hold onto the image of making a living by only doing things we enjoy, which has always been a privilege reserved to a lucky successful minority - because why do anything you aren't getting paid for, right?


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## ArtDecade (Aug 20, 2021)

Spotify is making sure that Joe Rogan gets paid though? I'm sure his checks are clearing each month.


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## Emperoff (Aug 20, 2021)

_MonSTeR_ said:


> I’m sure Misha once said here that his income from Periphery doesn’t even pay his tax bill, whether he was joking or not, I don’t know.
> 
> I read an article online about having side hustles, multiple income streams and so on as being the key to financial freedom these days I guess the Mishas and Tosins and Hermans of the world are business owners and spokesmodels for companies and just happen to play in a gigging band on the side
> 
> I have some Periphery CDs but no merch from either band. I guess I maybe paid like for some resin for the carbon fibre in Misha’s car?



Yeah, I feel so sorry for those artists that have to find alternate income streams since music alone can't buy them Lamborghinis


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## bostjan (Aug 20, 2021)

mongey said:


> the whole system undervalues the creative process. You may as well just churn out third grade songs and chuck them
> On you tube in the hope of enough hits to get something.


Rebecca Black and Sarah Brand and so many others have had huge success by making music so bad it goes viral. Brand's video had 1.2 M youtube views in its first month (~$5-6k USD dollars worth). Not bad, considering my entire catalogue nets me about $0.25 USD dollars per month, post-covid.


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## michael_bolton (Aug 20, 2021)

artists were never getting too much from the physical record sales so as far as that goes - spotify vs buying a record is not all that different.

money has always been in touring - ticket sales + merch, obv this got wrecked by covid just like all kinds of other things though.

so now before the interwebz happened - there were these all-powerful and loaded labels that had $$$ to spend when signing artists so if they had decent management they would get a good chunk of that $$$ - but obv things have changed quite a bit to say the least. 

goes both ways though - recording and making your music accessible to the unwashed masses lol is extremely easy, the question ofc is are they willing to pay for it.

obligatory anecdotal reference - one of my fav bands in the past 10 years has been Trollfest. If not for youtube I'd probably never even hear about them. Bought a couple of CDs, did go to the show and even bought a t shirt


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## StevenC (Aug 20, 2021)

Boris_VTR said:


> And band is never to blame right? Only big bad spotify/streaming service right? It has nothing to do with band writing one half good song and fill album with fillers? And being wasted at gigs, playing easy version of solos because they are high, singers not hiting correct notes because they just need to party on off days.


This is a dumb take. No one is saying support artists you don't like or pay for bad performances.

In fact, stop buying crap you don't like. Don't go to shows every week when only bad bands are playing just to support "the scene". Bad music isn't killing the music industry. The ratio of good and bad music has basically been static for all of history, just now there is more total music.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 20, 2021)

michael_bolton said:


> artists were never getting too much from the physical record sales so as far as that goes - spotify vs buying a record is not all that different.
> 
> money has always been in touring - ticket sales + merch, obv this got wrecked by covid just like all kinds of other things though.
> 
> ...


Without album sales, bands get next to no support to tour. Your first two comments are ignorant of the business as bands themselves have told it. A few years ago, I saw quite a few artists asked what was the most effective way to support an artist. Unanimously, they answered "buy physical music." As such, the current model, as far as contracts go, is the record labels get a piece of everything, and in some cases, a large portion of such. Even from ticket sales and merch. 

While the Internet has made it easier to access music for smaller bands, it has also made it a lot harder. There is far too much noise out there, and between that as well as a lot of these bands sounding like all of their two influences, it is much more difficult for them to turn that into a career. As such, most they can hope to achieve is to do it as a hobby.


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## Emperoff (Aug 20, 2021)




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## Matt08642 (Aug 20, 2021)

Guys we have to support fledgling artists who have 2x an average yearly salary worth of custom guitars behind them in their "Tour of the studio" videos! How else will they afford that new rack of amps? JK, those get sent to them for free but they paid for one so they're an everyman just like you!

Aside from sites like Bandcamp, which should be the future, companies like Spotify and Apple aren't gonna give a shit about the plight of some bedroom musician unless they're marketable and can make other people involved in the "brand" a lot of money, it's an endless uphill battle for pennies in royalties.


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## michael_bolton (Aug 20, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Without album sales, bands get next to no support to tour ....



physical sales gave them ~50c, maybe $1 best case from a CD sale. in some cases even less and if CDs didn't sell they would get charged for returned CDs lol. sure, metallicas of the world made money this way but your run of the mill indie band - you know the type that can actually use the support - not so much. 
Which even getting to this ^^^ point meant finding a label/distro etc.

with the interwebz - they have a way to get exposure with minimal investment and if they hit it reasonably big popularity-wise - well there's your money making tour opportunity. 

yes, the "downside" of gatekeeping not being there is oversaturation but if "a lot of these bands sounding like all of their two influences" - who's to say they are in a position to make a career out of this to begin with?


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 20, 2021)

Two things here: 

1. Bands aren't getting gear for free unless they already have a huge social media reach. Depending on the brand they usually get a discount on gear, but this will vary depending on the reach of the artist. I know people who were in medium sized bands who were getting like 30% off and better customer service and that's it. 

2. Record sales are no longer a huge requirement for touring. Engagement metrics have more and more been focussed on the internet and not record sales. This is particularly relevant for bands on indie labels or self publishing bands (which have become the majority).


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 20, 2021)

michael_bolton said:


> physical sales gave them ~50c, maybe $1 best case from a CD sale. in some cases even less and if CDs didn't sell they would get charged for returned CDs lol. sure, metallicas of the world made money this way but your run of the mill indie band - you know the type that can actually use the support - not so much.
> Which even getting to this ^^^ point meant finding a label/distro etc.
> 
> with the interwebz - they have a way to get exposure with minimal investment and if they hit it reasonably big popularity-wise - well there's your money making tour opportunity.
> ...


Lack of CD sales resulted in them being broke, and in massive debt. It wasn't just about how much they made after the fact. Again, you're ignorant of a lot of the business. The shirt, tour book, etc. merch would go to themselves, sans costs of whomever they contracted to make it for them. According to Noel Monk, he convinced VH to do this themselves. Initially they were not keen on the idea, but were able to keep most of it as profit, sans costs of production, shipping, etc. Now, most bands have someone else do this for them, and they have to split their portion between themselves and the record companies. 

So yeah, Motown deals were horrid, but 360 deals are even worse. Now what happens is they don't sell records, they get lost in the crowd (mainly because they look like the crowd), they end up in debt, their tours barely break even, and still people think buying merch does much of anything. 

Better some get a shot than everyone on equal footing -- equally bad footing, at that. So no, the Internet didn't improve things for bands at all.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 20, 2021)

Ataraxia2320 said:


> Two things here:
> 
> 1. Bands aren't getting gear for free unless they already have a huge social media reach. Depending on the brand they usually get a discount on gear, but this will vary depending on the reach of the artist. I know people who were in medium sized bands who were getting like 30% off and better customer service and that's it.
> 
> 2. Record sales are no longer a huge requirement for touring. Engagement metrics have more and more been focussed on the internet and not record sales. This is particularly relevant for bands on indie labels or self publishing bands (which have become the majority).


They've become the majority because it's much more of a niche market. The big labels focus almost solely on heritage nostalgia acts who should've hung it up two decades ago. We can thank the Gene Simmons' of the world for reuniting KISS and turning rock into your 40 year old dad's thing, rather than what it always was: youth rebellion.


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## bostjan (Aug 20, 2021)

michael_bolton said:


> physical sales gave them ~50c, maybe $1 best case from a CD sale. in some cases even less and if CDs didn't sell they would get charged for returned CDs lol. sure, metallicas of the world made money this way but your run of the mill indie band - you know the type that can actually use the support - not so much.
> Which even getting to this ^^^ point meant finding a label/distro etc.
> 
> with the interwebz - they have a way to get exposure with minimal investment and if they hit it reasonably big popularity-wise - well there's your money making tour opportunity.
> ...



Typically, the lower-tier artists would get 10-20% of physical sales from a major label. So, if the CD was $5, sure. Most CD's sold for $12-15, though, and it was even more than that earlier on. It is true that you could be on the hook for selling a minimum amount or else be in default on the contract, in which case any number of bad things could cause you serious financial pain. More recently, those bad deals have been more common, but they were far less so pre-2000.

If you were a run-of-the-mill indy band, you would most likely sell your CDs through a service like CDbaby or GuitarNine or whatever local indy label, and those deals typically meant you were paying yourself for manufacturing and then paying a small cut to the service that was distributing for you. In that case, you'd never owe extra on unsold CD's, since you already paid for them.

As for bands sounding too much like their influences or other bands from the same scene, that's never been a new thing. Elvis sounded a hell of a lot like Carl Perkins and other "cat music" bands from the 1950's, yet Elvis scored big time and those others maybe made an okay career or maybe died starving in the gutters, depending on how much attention they got. It all has very very little to do with how unique you are or how much you practice or whatever, and has a lot more to do with who you know and how many people like talking about you. You could sound like the hand of God that no one has ever heard before, but if you are ugly-looking and don't bite the heads off of bats or blow up shit on stage or whatever gets people's attention these days, you'll never be as successful as the girl with big boobs that sounds like a dying cat in a hail storm covering Nirvana whilst eating garbage people threw on stage and bashing herself in the head with her microphone until it bleeds.

But yes, there have also been plenty of hugely popular artists who had been screwed over by the music industry long before Spotify: Jim Croce went broke because he started getting too popular and his label was taking all of his record sales and royalties and even a large portion of his tour income. Billy Joel got screwed over for millions and ended up broke at the height of his career. John Fogerty (CCR) was sued by his label for sounding too much like himself (since they owned the rights to his old catalogue, and he was releasing new music, they tried suing him. Seriously.) Brad Paisley (country guitarist/singer) had his label refuse to pay him any royalties, despite his contract, and when he asked to see his radio plays, they denied him, because his contract stipulated that the label could refuse to share any sales or royalty information with him for any arbitrary reason. There are hundreds of other stories just like that. But those were just the high profile ones. There have always been tons of low-level bands that sign to a label and then get all hyped up, work super hard and tour everywhere only to come home with crippling debt, because their label fucked them. You rarely hear their stories because no one cares.


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 20, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> They've become the majority because it's much more of a niche market. The big labels focus almost solely on heritage nostalgia acts who should've hung it up two decades ago. We can thank the Gene Simmons' of the world for reuniting KISS and turning rock into your 40 year old dad's thing, rather than what it always was: youth rebellion.



They have become the majority because in the age of the internet it makes the most sense.

Also if the nostalgia acts are making money and getting streams hand over fist why should they stop? Compare the streams on spotify from "legacy bands" and the biggest hitters of the modern era. 

Bring me the Horizon and Five Finger Death punch are the only "modern" bands that are beating legacy acts, and those bands are 17 and 14 years old already.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 20, 2021)

Ataraxia2320 said:


> They have become the majority because in the age of the internet it makes the most sense.
> 
> Also if the nostalgia acts are making money and getting streams hand over fist why should they stop? Compare the streams on spotify from "legacy bands" and the biggest hitters of the modern era.
> 
> Bring me the Horizon and Five Finger Death punch are the only "modern" bands that are beating legacy acts, and those bands are 17 and 14 years old already.


The same reason the wrestling old timers in the 90s should've stopped: because they were taking up far too much of the spotlight. Thanks to that, rock and metal are basically dead. Why should they stop, though?


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 20, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> The same reason the wrestling old timers in the 90s should've stopped: because they were taking up far too much of the spotlight. Thanks to that, rock and metal are basically dead. Why should they stop, though?



The music industry is nothing like the wrestling industry in that respect though. It's not like there is a Vince McMahon figure with defacto total control over the music industry.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 20, 2021)

Ataraxia2320 said:


> The music industry is nothing like the wrestling industry in that respect though. It's not like there is a Vince McMahon figure with defacto total control over the music industry.


Vince never had defacto total control, despite what his press relations might want you to believe.


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## Hollowway (Aug 21, 2021)

I haven’t read the whole thread (because it’s growing faster than I can keep up) but would it not be possible for a few big labels to form their own streaming company, and try to eliminate the low pay rates of Spotify? Almost like what Tidal did. It would take some organization, but it would almost be a unionizing of the labels’ artists so they could stop getting paid so little. Materially, the bigger artists could benefit a lot, as a small percentage change would equal big bucks. The smaller artists wouldn’t see as much of a financial windfall, but they’d be able to participate is some sort of FU to Spotify (as opposed to now, where not putting their songs on the platform makes zero difference to the company).


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 21, 2021)

Hollowway said:


> I haven’t read the whole thread (because it’s growing faster than I can keep up) but would it not be possible for a few big labels to form their own streaming company, and try to eliminate the low pay rates of Spotify? Almost like what Tidal did. It would take some organization, but it would almost be a unionizing of the labels’ artists so they could stop getting paid so little. Materially, the bigger artists could benefit a lot, as a small percentage change would equal big bucks. The smaller artists wouldn’t see as much of a financial windfall, but they’d be able to participate is some sort of FU to Spotify (as opposed to now, where not putting their songs on the platform makes zero difference to the company).



Why would they bother when they already make a large amount of money from spotify, a platform that has never made profit since it's inception? 

It's a huge risk for not much reward and a guaranteed huge PR black eye.


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## HungryGuitarStudent (Aug 21, 2021)

budda said:


> "“Support artists” but stream their music for virtually nothing, complain when that music changes too much, complain every time a tour gets announced, refuse to pay over $20 for a t shirt even when the supply chain is disrupted beyond belief, act like an entitled customer" - tweeted by Heart Attack Man.
> 
> Did they miss anything?



Only thing I can think of is: refuse to buy a shirt because it‘s not locally made and is too expensive, be told said shirt would cost 25$ more if it was, complain again about price. Similar thing concerning being a “sizist” because you don’t offer xxxl size. - Heard at a Plini show while waiting in line to buy merch


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## VibTDog (Aug 21, 2021)

budda said:


> "“Support artists” but stream their music for virtually nothing, complain when that music changes too much, complain every time a tour gets announced, refuse to pay over $20 for a t shirt even when the supply chain is disrupted beyond belief, act like an entitled customer" - tweeted by Heart Attack Man.
> 
> Did they miss anything?


I apologize if this was already said, I did not read the entire thread (I just made a good rhyme btw). This quote is pretty much a complaint about a complaint, making them pretty much as "bad" as the initial complaints. I have been in bands since 1999 and the complaints have been the same ever since. I'm not sure why this is still a thing. Nodody can be happy. That is just how it is, and that is how people are. If this is the stuff you tweet then its time to reconsider things.


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## budda (Aug 21, 2021)

Since when has "this is just how it is" ever been a good excuse to not change something


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## TheBlackBard (Aug 21, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> The same reason the wrestling old timers in the 90s should've stopped: because they were taking up far too much of the spotlight. Thanks to that, rock and metal are basically dead. Why should they stop, though?




And well to be fair, a lot of the reason why those old timers don't/didn't stop is because those guys had the creative freedom to build themselves into stars that resonate with the fans and Vince depends on them. These days? Vince lets a few people get away with pretty well whatever, but he never gives any new stars a chance to build themselves, so he micromanages. 1.) He hates when a star has love from another promotion or built their brand on another promotion 2.) He sticks with meatheads as his main talent. You take all of that, put it in a mixer, and it's no wonder why no new stars are made. Then he has to call up Oldberg and Brokentaker to travel with his crew over to Saudi Arabia for blood money, essentially to give a shot in the arm of his dying brand. A few releases later, many of them VERY baffling, they go to the new hot thing, which at the moment is AEW (seriously, Punk's pop last night was ridiculous), and yeah you do have some old timers, but they're building up stars like MJF, Darby Allin, Kenny Omega, Jungle Boy, Malakai Black and various others from those old timers. The crowd is invested in them, and now that all the good talent from WWE is flocking over there, Vince can say whatever the fuck he wants about them not being competition, but with all his best stars and even mid-carders eliciting the reactions from the crowd they get, for a "minor league" show, they're doing pretty good.

Sorry about the tangent there, everyone, wrestling got brought up, and I got excited.


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## VibTDog (Aug 21, 2021)

budda said:


> Since when has "this is just how it is" ever been a good excuse to not change something


Cause nothing will ever change, that was my whole point. You cant change people.


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## budda (Aug 21, 2021)

VibTDog said:


> Cause nothing will ever change, that was my whole point. You cant change people.



This is absurd on the face of it .


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## VibTDog (Aug 21, 2021)

budda said:


> This is absurd on the face of it .


How so? I'm talking in terms of people being people. Am I missing something? Can you elaborate? I'm not talking about political revolution. Its music and someone complaining lol


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## Hollowway (Aug 21, 2021)

Ataraxia2320 said:


> Why would they bother when they already make a large amount of money from spotify, a platform that has never made profit since it's inception?
> 
> It's a huge risk for not much reward and a guaranteed huge PR black eye.



Good point about Spotify not making money. But they'd stand to make way more if they owned the company, rather than getting a portion of the proceeds of Spotify. But, that's assuming that Spotify will eventually make a profit.


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## youngthrasher9 (Aug 21, 2021)

Someone has probably already touched on this, but I would say there’s definitely better ways for bands to make money than actually sell their music. Even CD’s are typically a shit money maker. Limited edition merch and vinyls are hugely popular. People doing interesting things in their market they created through music is a better path to financial safety for modern artists IMO


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 21, 2021)

TheBlackBard said:


> And well to be fair, a lot of the reason why those old timers don't/didn't stop is because those guys had the creative freedom to build themselves into stars that resonate with the fans and Vince depends on them. These days? Vince lets a few people get away with pretty well whatever, but he never gives any new stars a chance to build themselves, so he micromanages. 1.) He hates when a star has love from another promotion or built their brand on another promotion 2.) He sticks with meatheads as his main talent. You take all of that, put it in a mixer, and it's no wonder why no new stars are made. Then he has to call up Oldberg and Brokentaker to travel with his crew over to Saudi Arabia for blood money, essentially to give a shot in the arm of his dying brand. A few releases later, many of them VERY baffling, they go to the new hot thing, which at the moment is AEW (seriously, Punk's pop last night was ridiculous), and yeah you do have some old timers, but they're building up stars like MJF, Darby Allin, Kenny Omega, Jungle Boy, Malakai Black and various others from those old timers. The crowd is invested in them, and now that all the good talent from WWE is flocking over there, Vince can say whatever the fuck he wants about them not being competition, but with all his best stars and even mid-carders eliciting the reactions from the crowd they get, for a "minor league" show, they're doing pretty good.
> 
> Sorry about the tangent there, everyone, wrestling got brought up, and I got excited.


Now discuss AEW's merch sales, attendance numbers, and viewership.


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## mongey (Aug 21, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Rebecca Black and Sarah Brand and so many others have had huge success by making music so bad it goes viral. Brand's video had 1.2 M youtube views in its first month (~$5-6k USD dollars worth). Not bad, considering my entire catalogue nets me about $0.25 USD dollars per month, post-covid.


It’s not to say no one makes money from the way the machine is geared now. 

If you had 1.2m sales back in the day you’d be sitting on allot more than 6k.


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## budda (Aug 21, 2021)

youngthrasher9 said:


> Someone has probably already touched on this, but I would say there’s definitely better ways for bands to make money than actually sell their music. Even CD’s are typically a shit money maker. Limited edition merch and vinyls are hugely popular. People doing interesting things in their market they created through music is a better path to financial safety for modern artists IMO



Naw man CD's have good margins. The trick is selling them.


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## aesthyrian (Aug 21, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Now discuss AEW's merch sales, attendance numbers, and viewership.



That's easy. A LOT. Of all of it. Shit is insanely hot right now. Pretty incredible really.


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## youngthrasher9 (Aug 21, 2021)

budda said:


> Naw man CD's have good margins. The trick is selling them.


Since when? I mean that not antagonistically, I just remember them having like cents on the dollar margin circa late 2010’s. I still bought like 350 of ‘em prior to 2018 (when it started to become an actual financial problem for me personally).


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## Emperoff (Aug 21, 2021)

budda said:


> Naw man CD's have good margins. The trick is selling them.



I read somewhere that Vai had a huge profit margin from CD sales for Passion & Warfare. Apparently the record label thought they wouldn't sell for shit. We all know how that turned out


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 21, 2021)

aesthyrian said:


> That's easy. A LOT. Of all of it. Shit is insanely hot right now. Pretty incredible really.


Uh, okay sure. Marks, I swear. Lol


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 21, 2021)

Emperoff said:


> I read somewhere that Vai had a huge profit margin from CD sales for Passion & Warfare. Apparently the record label thought they wouldn't sell for shit. We all know how that turned out


I believe he said that about Flex-Able, not P&W.


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## TheBlackBard (Aug 21, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Uh, okay sure. Marks, I swear. Lol



I would say that given they're still in their infancy, without the benefit of having had the lifespan of the WWE, having beaten WWE in the ratings a few times, including Smackdown, they're doing decently. It's rather telling when WWE rushes to sign back a few of their talent that they've released, after a few of them go right to the competitor. Also, there's that old saying: "he doth protest too much." For all the talk of the WWE not considering the AEW any kind of competition, they sure do like to bring it up quite a bit. Either way, I tune into both for different reasons. Both have things that I like, and they both have things that I detest. Interesting tidbit: there was an ECW legend who speculated that Vince secretly owns AEW and that the show is a giant work, and his claim to that is that the released talent is going there. I mean, I call bullshit, but IF that were true, that would be the most invested storyline since... ever.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Aug 22, 2021)

TheBlackBard said:


> I would say that given they're still in their infancy, without the benefit of having had the lifespan of the WWE, having beaten WWE in the ratings a few times, including Smackdown, they're doing decently. It's rather telling when WWE rushes to sign back a few of their talent that they've released, after a few of them go right to the competitor. Also, there's that old saying: "he doth protest too much." For all the talk of the WWE not considering the AEW any kind of competition, they sure do like to bring it up quite a bit. Either way, I tune into both for different reasons. Both have things that I like, and they both have things that I detest. Interesting tidbit: there was an ECW legend who speculated that Vince secretly owns AEW and that the show is a giant work, and his claim to that is that the released talent is going there. I mean, I call bullshit, but IF that were true, that would be the most invested storyline since... ever.


Well, ECW was being partially financed by Vince in the 90s if memory serves. Perhaps that is what they meant.


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## bostjan (Aug 22, 2021)

mongey said:


> It’s not to say no one makes money from the way the machine is geared now.
> 
> If you had 1.2m sales back in the day you’d be sitting on allot more than 6k.


1.2M in streams doesn't equate to 1.2M in sales in any way, though.
However, for an indy artist to make $6k/month by word-of-mouth marketing alone, would have been unheard of pre-youtube.


youngthrasher9 said:


> Since when? I mean that not antagonistically, I just remember them having like cents on the dollar margin circa late 2010’s. I still bought like 350 of ‘em prior to 2018 (when it started to become an actual financial problem for me personally).


As an indy artist, it'd be pretty normal, back then, to buy about 500-1000 CD's for $600-800 and sell 400-800 of them at $10 each, giving you a profit of $4k or more, minus the cost to produce the music itself. Compare that to a few thousand streams at $0.0012 per stream after distribution (which is literally a couple dollars).


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## mongey (Aug 22, 2021)

bostjan said:


> 1.2M in streams doesn't equate to 1.2M in sales in any way, though.
> However, for an indy artist to make $6k/month by word-of-mouth marketing alone, would have been unheard of pre-youtube.
> 
> .




Humbly disagree there. I know plenty of indies who used to sell CDs at gigs and make a couple thousand every run . when people stopping buying CDs that died

I know its not 6k a month but over time it was income for the band


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## bostjan (Aug 23, 2021)

mongey said:


> Humbly disagree there. I know plenty of indies who used to sell CDs at gigs and make a couple thousand every run . when people stopping buying CDs that died
> 
> I know its not 6k a month but over time it was income for the band


Umm, then what part of what I said do you disagree with?


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## Mathemagician (Aug 23, 2021)

If bands make stupid shit like D&D adventures, apparently I will buy the shit out of them. 

So yeah, make more goofy stuff and see what sells idk.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 23, 2021)

Yeah ngl I'd love to see these indie groups pushing 2 - 3k profits every tour from CD's alone.

If you're talking about a signed band, they're pushing maybe just over a dollar per CD sale split x ways by band members. An unsigned band developing/printing/manufacturing in house then distributing it themselves isn't a whole lot higher. 

Offloading the production of the CD's and either a printed cardboard sleeve/jewel case requires quantities of 1000 to bring the cost under $3 per CD. And that's the cheap stuff that falls apart when you look at it, and people will notice they're getting the cheapest possible parts when you try and sell it to them for $10 - 15 a pop. Nevermind receiving them, testing a sample pool then distributing it via online sales or physically bringing them to performances.

The potential for profit is there, but I'm having a hard time believing that *indie *bands are pulling several thousand in profits from CD's.


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## budda (Aug 23, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Yeah ngl I'd love to see these indie groups pushing 2 - 3k profits every tour from CD's alone.
> 
> If you're talking about a signed band, they're pushing maybe just over a dollar per CD sale split x ways by band members. An unsigned band developing/printing/manufacturing in house then distributing it themselves isn't a whole lot higher.
> 
> ...



They arent, largely in part because most people will just stream instead.


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## GunpointMetal (Aug 23, 2021)

youngthrasher9 said:


> Since when? I mean that not antagonistically, I just remember them having like cents on the dollar margin circa late 2010’s. I still bought like 350 of ‘em prior to 2018 (when it started to become an actual financial problem for me personally).


If you can sell them yourself and produce them yourself, you can get a full-color EPK jacket and printed disc for ~$2.50-$3 and sell it for $10. The biggest issue with CDs right now is most people walk up to merch table, look for the album cover on spotify, and don't buy the CD.


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## michael_bolton (Aug 23, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> ...
> The potential for profit is there, but I'm having a hard time believing that *indie *bands are pulling several thousand in profits from CD's.



they most definitely aren't. before the streaming deal, just like everyone else they were selling more CDs except of course the margins weren't great after distro/stores took their cut. 

selling at the shows (which again goes back to the point that touring is where most money is/was at) == higher margin but still reading some comments here you'd get the impression they were rolling in it and then streaming killed it, where in reality it was always along the lines of "let's buy a new mixer board, noise cancelling headphones and some beer if there's anything left" type deal.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 23, 2021)

Yeah if anything I think streaming was one of the nails in an already sealed coffin for physical CD sales.

CD's are more of a commodity at this point, I think there is a value there. But the only way they're moving is in the form of bundles anymore Shirt 1 or 2 + Album Digipak for $18 or something like that. I'd wager a survey you'd probably get an even split of people who would prefer to buy the shirt solo and not have the CD since they have no use for it.

And I say this as someone who just recently jumped into collecting physical media, theres's some value in it for sure. Other than my books/manga, it's all just getting ripped and added to my Plex server, then I'm storing the DVD's/Blu-rays in a bin under my bed or in a storage unit.

There's films and series I can't stream (Looking at you The Office) without paying for an entirely separate streaming service. So even if the whole series costs me about $100, I don't have much option other than pay for the streaming service or own the physical media.

But Spotify/Youtube Music/Apple Music/etc has a massively comprehensive music library, you aren't missing much. And in some services (YTM) you can even upload music you personally own to stream on the go. That's a god send for me and all of the soundtracks I own/niche bands and artists who don't upload their music to stream.


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## Gmork (Aug 23, 2021)

I only use bandcamp, buy all my albums/shirts etc, when i go to shows i usually always buy a shirt/album whatever.
Music is in a really messed up spot. Imagine if music was treated like sports and movies and musicians were getting a million per show. I hate this world


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## michael_bolton (Aug 23, 2021)

CD-wise I almost never buy them these days - only if I reaaaaallly like the band and vinyl is not available. otherwise it's almost 100% bandcamp mp3/flac. 

youtube/spotify/angry metal guy (to a much lesser degree though) is where I find out about these bands.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 23, 2021)

Gmork said:


> I only use bandcamp, buy all my albums/shirts etc, when i go to shows i usually always buy a shirt/album whatever.
> Music is in a really messed up spot. Imagine if music was treated like sports and movies and musicians were getting a million per show. I hate this world



They do, I'd say the comparison here is more that there aren't a million local leagues where athletes are struggling to break through.

There's far more structure and opportunities for young athletes with talent to get scouted and picked up between middle school/college. Even the Dolphins players make half a million a year as a base salary at the minimum.

Like I said before, no form of artistry will ever support all artists top to bottom.


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## bostjan (Aug 23, 2021)

As one of few resident old timers here, I've done the CD thing in the 90's, 00's, and 10's. I even did the cassette tape thing in the mid-1990's, before CD replication was really a thing.

Making money from physical sales is easier during live shows than it is through online sales or whatever, and it always has been. Show guarantees and physical media sales have not gone up in pay as long as I have been playing- they've only very slowly drifted down in venues. Maybe the prices people are willing to pay for private parties and weddings has gone up congruent with inflation, but no one is buying your original band's CD at a wedding.

So, playing a fairly reasonably successful show in 1997 and splitting $600 and 12 CD sales at $10 each and 8 t-shirt sales at $10 each with your band of four people meant each person got $200. The same sort of show in 2019 would have paid maybe $400 max, and you'd probably only be selling 2 CDs and say still 8 t-shirts for the same price as you did 22 years prior. Now each guy is making $120. Factor in inflation and it's like $84 in 1997 dollars, so you are making about 40% of what you used to make.

What are your experiences playing live post-covid? I have done zero live shows the past two years. I've gone to 5 outdoor shows locally, and the crowds might have just as well been corpses. No one cheering, no one moving at all. Just a few people filming with their phones. I hope audiences can get back into being audiences again, but, honestly, since people started getting more attached to their smart phones, this trend had already been killing crowd participation. I feel bad for the performers. In each case, the bands were putting on great shows. I can't imagine postponing tours for 16+ months just to come back to a cold crowd.

Anyway, thank goodness for bandcamp. It's the only service that I use that ever pays me anything worth the trouble. Every once in a while I get a check from Amazon for $2 or from Yandex for two and half Belarussian kopecs. By the time I get my cut of that, it's barely enough for me to buy a used postage stamp. Bandcamp has been great though, they pay fairly and there's no need for a middleman. Maybe we should lobby them to expand more into spotify's territory, or maybe not- there are at least 2-3 ways it could go poorly for musicians.


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## Señor Voorhees (Aug 23, 2021)

I'm sure it's been talked to death about, but spotify is just convenient and cheap. Typically, if I really like an artist, I'll buy their stuff on bandcamp or a physical copy, then never listen to it but stream it instead. Beats the hell out of the old days of ripping files from disks to make an amalgamation of mp3's or mix cd's. Spotify has just about everything, it's cheap, and you can create limitless playlists of whatever you might want to listen to. Can't remember who it was but they said they like to choose what they want to listen to instead of listening to things like it. I don't get that argument, as you can just create a playlist of all of the stuff you want to listen to, far more convenient but ultimately not that different from making a mix-tape or filling one of those god awful 5-disk changer things from the 90's. lol

I like streaming and largely because it is cheap. I can still kinda support artists I'm "eh" about by streaming their stuff, (and most of those artists are already rolling in cash anyway) and streams bring in even more (even if only slightly) revenue for the artist whos album I bought... Artists I really like get the album sales + my streams, and the artists who wouldn't have gotten an album sale from me get my streams.


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 23, 2021)

bostjan said:


> As one of few resident old timers here, I've done the CD thing in the 90's, 00's, and 10's. I even did the cassette tape thing in the mid-1990's, before CD replication was really a thing.
> 
> Making money from physical sales is easier during live shows than it is through online sales or whatever, and it always has been. Show guarantees and physical media sales have not gone up in pay as long as I have been playing- they've only very slowly drifted down in venues. Maybe the prices people are willing to pay for private parties and weddings has gone up congruent with inflation, but no one is buying your original band's CD at a wedding.
> 
> ...



This post is gold. Exactly my perception too.


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## Jonathan20022 (Aug 23, 2021)

Señor Voorhees said:


> I'm sure it's been talked to death about, but spotify is just convenient and cheap. Typically, if I really like an artist, I'll buy their stuff on bandcamp or a physical copy, then never listen to it but stream it instead. Beats the hell out of the old days of ripping files from disks to make an amalgamation of mp3's or mix cd's. Spotify has just about everything, it's cheap, and you can create limitless playlists of whatever you might want to listen to. Can't remember who it was but they said they like to choose what they want to listen to instead of listening to things like it. I don't get that argument, as you can just create a playlist of all of the stuff you want to listen to, far more convenient but ultimately not that different from making a mix-tape or filling one of those god awful 5-disk changer things from the 90's. lol
> 
> I like streaming and largely because it is cheap. I can still kinda support artists I'm "eh" about by streaming their stuff, (and most of those artists are already rolling in cash anyway) and streams bring in even more (even if only slightly) revenue for the artist whos album I bought... Artists I really like get the album sales + my streams, and the artists who wouldn't have gotten an album sale from me get my streams.



That's 100% my perspective as well, if I wasn't going to buy a band's album in the first place then whatever revenue I generate on a streaming service is still a net positive for the band.


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## Boris_VTR (Aug 24, 2021)

What about buying digital full album/songs? This should probably be equal to buying the CD (minus the material cost). Not all people use subscription.

That is what I do. And I buy way more digital albums that way because whenever I fancy new music I can get it right away.

I just moved all my boxes of CDs to garage to collect dust. I cant even play them since all my computers/laptops/media servers dont have cd slot 

I do miss good old time when I would finally get cd and would just listen to it non stop and check booklet. I do have fond memories of this but modern technology (devices that could have 1000s of songs with playlists) is just way better for me.


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## Ataraxia2320 (Aug 24, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> That's 100% my perspective as well, if I wasn't going to buy a band's album in the first place then whatever revenue I generate on a streaming service is still a net positive for the band.



The problem is that people who would normally have bought the CD aren't anymore as Spotify is more convenient. The revenue brought in by streaming for people who would have normally bought the cd and those who normally wouldn't isn't offsetting the losses. This is because streaming pays almost nothing unless you have a huge hit (almost impossible in heavier genres). 

This is why more and more artists are using their music to branch off into influencer territory to make their money instead of the other way around.

Obviously that's just speaking in broad generalities. Some bands can make it work.


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## wheresthefbomb (Aug 24, 2021)

Just wanted to echo that though my experience is nowhere near as broad as @bostjan I have also found that Bandcamp has been the only thing that has ever paid anything reasonable as far as digital services. A few dollars here and there might as well be nothing, but my bandcamp payouts (when they happen) are always at least a couple packs of strings or something.


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## zappatton2 (Aug 24, 2021)

That's good to know, I've been buying all my cassettes through Bandcamp lately. Ugh... I might be in the wrong thread...


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