The glamour is irresistible: $12 a month on Spotify!
3 Replies to “Working Musicians”
A sorry sate of affairs for sure. I think good music will still happen, but randomly in fits and starts. You’ll get talented people making a good record or two before vanishing as they go on to whatever pays the bills. The days of labels and/or decent managers nurturing talented kids into mature artists is likely gone for the forseeable future. And when you look at the big picture, the last couple of centuries, where some composers and musicians could become fabuluously wealthy via publishing, air play, and record sales, was an anomaly. A few performing stars could always get fairly rich via performances, but for most of history musicians were ill-paid, often slaves. Music didn’t pay off for most musicians even in the best of times, but matters have obviously returned to the historical norm of financial success for a tiny sliver at the very top. And even some of those could get replaced by AI (the writers who prepped audiences with generic, auto-tuned slop for the past twenty years can thank themselves for that.)
Patronage never entirely went away. Universities and arts foundations have been funding music no one wants to hear for years. I also remember reading about some gajillionaire hiring some A-listers to perform at his wedding. I guess that’s a form of patronage, although it involved acts who could have gotten by without. Will be interesting to see if wealthy music lovers step up support struggling bands they like.
A sorry sate of affairs for sure. I think good music will still happen, but randomly in fits and starts. You’ll get talented people making a good record or two before vanishing as they go on to whatever pays the bills. The days of labels and/or decent managers nurturing talented kids into mature artists is likely gone for the forseeable future. And when you look at the big picture, the last couple of centuries, where some composers and musicians could become fabuluously wealthy via publishing, air play, and record sales, was an anomaly. A few performing stars could always get fairly rich via performances, but for most of history musicians were ill-paid, often slaves. Music didn’t pay off for most musicians even in the best of times, but matters have obviously returned to the historical norm of financial success for a tiny sliver at the very top. And even some of those could get replaced by AI (the writers who prepped audiences with generic, auto-tuned slop for the past twenty years can thank themselves for that.)
Bring back patrons!
Patronage never entirely went away. Universities and arts foundations have been funding music no one wants to hear for years. I also remember reading about some gajillionaire hiring some A-listers to perform at his wedding. I guess that’s a form of patronage, although it involved acts who could have gotten by without. Will be interesting to see if wealthy music lovers step up support struggling bands they like.