The question I'm asking regarding The New Music Industry is this;
"Is it broken for emerging artists?
The advent of streaming services have definitely impacted on how we (as a member of the public that listens to music) play and listen to our favourite arists and bands. Gone are the days of the top twenty, being broadcast across the radio waves as droves tuned in weekly to discover who was #no1.
Vinyl was superseded by CD's and CD's were superseded by downloadable music in a digital format, generally listened to on an ipod or other mp3 player. At least I was around for that! Was it this that cased unrest within the industry because signed artists, with major labels, werent receiving their royalties as listeners began sharing their music on various platforms.
I guess indie, unsigned artists, like us, could still sell CD's (and vinyl) at gigs to make some money to contribute towards recording costs for that next single release. But that was all about to be broken with the advent of streaming and sites like Spotify that pay artists, like us, per stream. It sounds great at first. "Hold on. I can upload music onto a platform and get paid for it?" Yes, but so can every other hopeful unsigned artist out there, meaning that your position gets extremely diluted.
The #EdSheeran's and #TaylorSwift's still get paid shed loads of cash above everyone else because they have millions and millions of listeners every month. An artist like me would need around 5,000 listeners per month before we get paid the equivalent to just one album sale. And acquiring those listeners takes an enormous amount of strategic campaigning.
Selling CD's and Vinyl still occurs, but not so much amongst the youth. It's mostly elderly folks that buy my CD's, and thats generally because they want to help us financially. So why can't streaming services see that.. Why am I getting the same payment per stream as Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran. Why isn't there any money made from the billions streaming services make, flowing back into artist development or grass roots music venues that struggle to pay us a reasonable rate for a perfomance.
Major labels, that have in essence just become banks, using an artists repertoire as security to exploit and repay their investment BEYOND repayment of an advance with reasonable interest. So something has to happen otherwise nothing new, or fresh, will be coming through and majors will just keep rolling out the same old money making formulas and extinct any possibilty for aspiring fresh artists to emerge.
Georgia Crandon
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