Why musicians today are forced to sell out
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
- They say the 2020s are the best time to be a Musician. You can reach the world at the click of a button, gain fame with the right 15 seconds and no longer depend on corporations.
But I would argue that musical genius's of the past like Mozart had it better vs. the music superstars like Taylor Swift today. That is, if you care about music and not money.
Utkarsh Mohan is a Singapore based writer, musician and artist of Indian origin. Formerly in corporate senior management, he now pursues his passions and is also the owner of the Ministry of Guitar collection
You can also follow him on Instagram @ministryofguitar 
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In a way, there are still people who can afford to pursue art as a passion project. Nepo babies.
ya but people w passion dont necesarily connect with a means to get it to peopel who want to hear it...or see...
Musicians are making great music. My band just put out 3 new songs and they are SICK AF!!!
Technology is the biggest thing that has changed. The value of recorded music has dropped, but so has the cost of producing and distributing it. So a whole lot of people can make a very small amount of money.
There are probably more wealthy B artists than there ever been.
The breakpoint happened in the late 90''s - hard disk editing became a reality, and the musicians lost their power. The people selling the music no longer had to rely on musicians to produce it - they could do it themselves, basically. And here we are.
J S Bach was probably the 1st "Rock Star". He went from town to town, playing in churches. People came from all around, and he was treated extravagantly. Lived comfortably doing what he loved. What more could a musician want.
Bach had alot of detractors too though, mainly because he wrote sacred music with german lyrics instead of latin, a bold move that changed the game
Ehhh, i don't know that the Renaissance were free to create with no commercial obligation. They were obligated to their benefactors' wants. There are numerous stories of great Renaissance artists hiding subversive elements to their pieces after their benefactors (often the church) made demands on the content of their art that they were supporting. Artists and benefactors disputed all the time about what's appropriate and what belongs in art, and if artists strayed too far beyond what was acceptable by their patrons, they were cut off financially. But, yes, your point stands: Art for art's sake, free exploration of art, and art devoid of commercial constraint comes when the creators are "people of leisure," which usually means Independently Wealthy. People talk of the genius of Isaac Newton, but he couldn't have dedicated himself to science if he needed to earn an income to house himself, feed himself, and fund his research.
Being a part time musician for over a decade now after graduating with a music degree, and knowing many other part time musicians just like me….most of us would just like to be able to focus on our music, rather than spending so much time and money elsewhere. Content creation is absolutely not the same thing, nor is marketing and promotion; many of us would prefer to leave that up to others while we hunker down with our sheet music and metronomes.
Excellent channel
Great content!
Thank you
Mary Spender, and many RUclips channels, are the result of a person who wanted to be full time musician, but it didn't work out. In the interest of goodwill, each person can decide why we know Mary for her channel rather than her music.
But it has never been an easy thing to become a professional musician. And again, in fairness, ANY successful enterprise is a lot of hard work. There are many actors who wanted to be rock stars, and vice versa. Some people wanted to be successful in business, and it didn't work out.
These are lessons across the spectrum of life, and rarely do you find a person who has found success in the exact area of expertise that they wanted...in a professional sense.
Philosophical question: if her channel is making enough money to be a business and earn a living off of it, doesn’t that mean it did work out for her? I don’t like this framing where unless success for a musician looks like a very particular, mythologized version of success, it doesn’t count.
@@alexgrunde6682
Talking about music is not making music. She doesn't really make much money and she sold out anyway. She's not a successful musician because she is merely mediocre and doesn't have a machine behind her to hide that fact, unlike Taylor Swift with the machine dedicated to disguise her limitations.
@@duderama6750 She’s got a Bandcamp page with the most recent release just last month, so she’s making music. And guess what, most professional musicians don’t make that much money off of it, and most of them are making money in ways other than writing and performing their own music. Like I said, this dichotomy of either you’re a rock/pop “star” or you’re an unsuccessful musician is a narrative for those on the outside looking in but doesn’t reflect the reality of actual musicians.
I chose to create and perform a-vocationally, having a day job to pay the bills. It has been a good journey so far. The Internet certainly helped provide for self-production. My best near-fame experience came years ago when Hunter Hayes recorded my Christmas song "More Than a Child" (only finding out when a fan posted him singing it live in 2008). About a decade later, when Hunter came to our hometown to perform at a festival, I was actually able to meet him pre-show. All that came about from simply posting the song on the web back in 1997.
Keep making these thoughtful videos
It may not get you a million views but it is worthwhile and enjoyed and appreciated
On a vaguely related note: apparently the entire book publishing industry is essentially ‘financed’ by publishing celebrity biographies etc
The money the publishers receive from celebrity book sales allows them to publish ‘real’ books, and if it wasn’t for the revenue from the celebrity books the industry would look very different
Another excellent discussion, Utkarsh. I think the problem lies with the prevailing definitions of a ‘professional’ musician. In our era this has come to mean someone who makes enough money from their musical activities to support the rest of their lives. But this is questionable. The essence of being a true artist is, I think, dedication. Look at poetry. T S Eliot was a banker. Was the a true poet? W C Williams was a doctor. Wallace Stevens sold insurance. Because in poetry the opportunities for making money are so slight people focus on the essence of the art which is practising it. If you teach, play sessions, walk dogs, paint walls, run commercial enterprises etc but your passion is making music it seems to me that you may be a more dedicated practitioner of your art than many who get paid to do it. And if you’re not, does it matter? The essence of art is play (often serious play) and if that is lost the quality of the art is, as you say, compromised. Freeing music from its association with salary equivalent sums of money may be a necesssry part of recovering its true essence. Thank you for the stimulus to thinking your channel gives.
Thanks for sharing and watching. I think the analogy with poetry is spot on and something I contemplate a lot myself. The flip side is, is art without an audience, really art? I think there is something about popularity or reasonable mass acclaim that an artist needs. And in today's world, that requires them to don a commercial hat most of the time
I enjoyed your video. Speaking with intelligence is an art. Yesterday, for musicians, the barrier to entry was high, but if you made the Tonight Show or the Ed Sullivan Show you were exposed to tens of millions of viewers. Today barrier of entry is low, but reaching an audience is also low. We suffer from information overload and venue fragmentation. As a musician you must do three things. First, create a song that will live for 500 years or literally forever. Second, put your song in front of a mass audience. Third, make money from your music so you have food to eat, water to drink, and a place to sleep oh yes and clothes to wear. See art is easy and simple. Example is Steven King.
@@ministryofguitar Thank you for replying Utkarsh! I suspect that art is still art without an audience though to preserve in the practice of an art we need-as you often acknowledge-encouragement and response. Most musicians can get AN audience. The problem starts once the audience you can get most easily isn’t the one you want. All the poets I mentioned had (and still have) what among poets are considered substantial audiences. Modern musicians however often have different expectations which are harder to fulfil. I’ve just released my sixth album and know how difficult it is to feel content when your work doesn’t reach as many people as you’d hope it will. Maybe we spend too much time watching superstars on RUclips?
@@stevelogan1699 Mastering music is not enough in this time period. You must now master the art of selling your 6 albums to hundreds of millions of people.
@@ministryofguitar Art is art for its own sake. Anyone who creates art is an artist. Anyone who creates music is a musician.
But a professional...that is the question. A pro earns money for what he does. Any amount of money, for any amount of time.
Our understanding of what it means to be a professional musician is what people argue about. A professional should, according to our concept over 50 years, is that a pro musician should be able to make a living off their art.
And today, that notion is challenged in that should a pro musician be able to make a living SOLELY off music (as many have in the past) or must they supplement their art with a wage.
To be a pro musician today is more than recording, touring and promotion. The promotion part is far larger today. Musicians need a social media platform to keep themselves in the fickle public's eye. That's a big change from 20 years ago.
Liken this situation to a professional athlete. Sure, some have side hustles, but the big stars? They train. They play. They have interviews (if they want). And that's all they need to do.
Not so for musicians anymore. But everything changes, and everyone has a choice. Making it in music today is just as difficult today as it was in the past. Aspects of it have certainly changed, but it is all relative.
Musicians need to learn about the "Value for Value" model. If you as a creator provide value to people, there will be people who will provide value back in the form of their time, talent or treasure. Some people can only provide you with ideas but not money, or they can provide you time in helping you to complete a task or they have a talent you need to succeed, such as being an editor or graphic designer or sound engineer. The best is when they provide their own treasure $$$ to you as a creator because they give whatever value they deem appropriate. Some people may only get a few dollars worth of value and return just a few dollars but some will value your work for much much more, it just depends on the person.
Mud? We could easily compost that with the right water plants. It's more like a garbage pile painted to look dazzling.
great video.....as the band 10CC wrote.... "Art for arts' sake...MONEY for Gods' sake!.""..the perennial conflict...
Great video. I had my own band, 90% of my time was doing the business, 10% playing bass. After 5 years, shut down band, now I just want to play bass only.
2024:
QOTSA
Cage the Elephant
Kings of Leon
Judas Priest
Willie Nelson
Yard act
All these rock bands new albums are great 😊 there's still hope for good rock music out there! Great video.
I think it is amazing that we live in a time where there are so many ways for an artist to release the music they want to release and to have complete creative control. Getting people to actually listen to what you release, that’s a different story and takes a skill set I obviously do not possess. After playing in bands through my twenties and most of my thirties, now I just release the occasional song on RUclips with my sons and I am having the time of my life. I am having a blast sharing the joy of making music with my kids and we have no schedule to adhere to or expectations placed on us. There are plenty of musicians making music on their own terms, but they don’t always get exposure.
Yup that's the wonderful flip side of it. I have a similar experience. Thanks for sharing
This constraint is not unique to music. really it's applicable to anything. If you're a chef, your favorite food is irrelevant, you cook what customers want. If you're a software engineer, you get paid to create the app customers want, not what you want. If you coach football, you need to run scheme that will win, even if it's not aligned with your preference.
It is ideal for a professional to love and enjoy creating the product that also earns a living, but when it comes to earning a living, the potential buyer has the most the say in what the product should embody. For that reason, professionals would do well to clearly differentiate their creations-to-earn-a-living from creations-to-meet-the-creator's-desires.
I hadn't thought about some of the things mentioned in the video and comments before checking this out. It should be also noted that most athletes prior to the evolution of mass revenue streams also worked second jobs, generally in the off-season. Ideally artists can form a team to help with promotion, finances, scheduling, etc., to free up more time to dedicate to their art. Finally, finding a balance between audience demand and personal demand goes a long way to finding a winning situation for both sides.
Did your phone go off at 733??
It really is a double edged sword. As an artist/musician you may be truly passionate about music, but you're probably also passionate about eating and not living in a cardboard box. The ultimate compromise is probably making commercially viable music, while also pursuing your own personal artistic passion on the side. In that way you are your own patron.
On a side note, I've heard several musicians say facetiously that the whole music gig is just to advertise their tee shirt business.😁
So true. The problem is that music itself doesn't really sell nowadays, so T shirts and other merch can kinda make up for that. There are other ways to make a more stable income while still staying in the music business, like teaching and doing session work. It's been a good compromise for me but I wish I had more time to dedicate to my own music. I still appreciate that there is a middle ground nowadays, you can be somewhere on the spectrum between starving artist and super famous.
And venues take a cut of the merch sales too at a lot of places lol
@@ScottsGuitar really? Wow, that’s crazy 😳
@@miaramer There are work arounds (pre sales, online, etc.), but yeah.
it takes courage to make it these days...because you know yourself what works in your mind but might not show it to others because its like wearing a heart on your sleeve...your vulnerable to be made fun of and people are cruel judges many times these days...it take balls it takes courage it takes passion...i say theres very few that will make it famous these days as a music writer.... also in certain settings things can be right or ripe but these things dont alway line up.....people are caught up in the times of the day its crazy to try...alot of distractions these days at our fingertips
I want to approach the business side of this and share my stuff at some point and its gonna be a good bit of education. I am full stream of consciousness i am so screwed guys in that one way but not the other i guess.
What I’m about to say, I had a hard time believing just a couple weeks ago… People still value good art. How much they are able to pay fluctuates greatly but an artist will always have enough within a community. Being a rockstar isn’t the only option any longer; you can still be very professional as an artist. Thanks for your time!
Fully agree
Your comparison is a bit apples to oranges. What you’re talking about with the patron system of old was a system for high culture, compositional music. That world still exists, and it works off of different funding and development systems today than either the patron system or modern commercial music.
When we’re talking about pop/rock/electronic music, that’s more a continuation of folk music and folk musicians, so that’s where the more apt comparison would be. Rock bands aren’t today’s Beethoven, they’re today’s singer with a lute going from pub to pub.
oh its the dude from catherine wheel!
his song black metallic is amazing, a few other really good tracks also
I thought that looked like the lead singer from the Catherine Wheel, what threw me off was the reference to his brother as I don’t like Iron Maiden. Very different bands. The Catherine Wheel’s music has held up very well and has a bunch of classic songs.
I remember required driving lessons before I could drive. If people took required music lessons, much music would not have survived, thru any generation. For musicians it's a discipline, a language to learn. Music trends seem to flows in two directions, progressive, and regressive, regardless of who feed it to us. Why musicians today can’t make Great Music: LAZINESS.
The antidote to this is the local garage band, that plays some local shows and records and produces its own music. People can see and hear authenticity. Literally, just saw the coolest local grunge band last night in Raleigh, NC at an open mic night. They play there every week. The whole venue is basically an open jam with electric guitars and the grunge band "Hour Drive" plays a couple of short sets. It's a true "3rd place" for people, especially musicians to visit. Get out there and support your "authentic" local bands!
I fully second this. So many great local bands out there. I mentioned two in my video which I feel I should link as well. 'In Each Hand a Cutlass', which is prog rock and 'Rudra' which is Black Metal with Indian Elements
You're totally right, there is very little great music today, because the mechanisms of the golden era are no more in place. Technology has devalued music, now music is expected for free, and the consequence is that there is no more investment into skills. So now the social media is what launches new artists, that is: algorithms developed by computer engineers! If you leave the development of the new generation of artists to dumb algorithms, that's what you get. There is still *huge* talent. I heard masterpieces that literally nobody knows, but original music doesn't tend to break through recommendation algorithms. And AI is the final blow. Only the rich could afford to develop their talent, which requires years of full time work.
There are a lot of new songs that rival the hits of yesteryears. However, the gatekeeper and scout system is gone. The cream doesn't rise to the top so people have to look for it and many do not want to look for it.
@@orlock20 In the metal genres that I follow, all the greatest songs of the last 10 years in my opinion were made by old bands. I explore constantly, but I find the historical bands unequaled. The problem is that if the cream doesn't rise to the top, it won't have time to develop, so it will remain talent, but not greatness.
@@federicoaschieri I don't believe The Hu and Bloodywood are old bands and they have put out some good songs.
@@orlock20 I'm not saying there is not talent, but no, while their songs have unique sound, they're pretty simple, Iron Maiden just blow them out of the water. There is just no mastery of music as it used to be.
@@federicoaschieri Maybe that's a preference since the sound of genres is always changing.
First video of the morning. I look forward to seeing what you present every day.
I know a few working local musicians and they are always self-promoting, looking for opportunity. Some put up audio or video on the web and by other means. I also have followed Mary Spender for some years now and have watched as she has grown her business and music career. I think she is doing OK, she just bought a new custom made Martin guitar, a OM 41 or 42 series from it's look. I enjoy that she talks about the business side as well as you do.
I am personally very happy I could return to playing music after I retired and can just enjoy it as a hobby. I don't really envy the rat-race part of the business.
I think this is even more complicated than you've stated here. But I disagree with a lot of what's been said here. For one thing, there are many factors as to why you might not consider contemporary music to be "great," and most of them have to do with convenience, not hardship, as well as influence. As for the old days, I am old enough to remember a world filled with unknown geniuses, untapped talent, and ruined lives, due to the fact that less than 1% of the talent out there ever got lucky enough to be noticed by the industry (even by the Indys), or to amass an audience, and even those were rarely the greatest talents. Nowadays, every young artist is spoiled by an embarrassment of riches in terms of getting noticed. Now, if you don't agree that having people enjoy your art is the point, and only making it matters, then I guess you have something of a point, but that just says to me that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Renaissance, of to what degree art has always been commerce, and what is going on in the average artist's mind. I also disagree that there have been very many artists who did not expect to be involved in the business, at least to some degree, in the last fifty years or so. I think the lessons of the 1950s and 1960s resonated with a lot of artists, and a great many of them actually wanted to be involved to at least some degree, on the business side. Most of my favorite bands and artists of between 1975 - 1999 were definitely involved with the nuts & bolts of their careers, and still made great art.
Access if different but now it has come down to a business model that is terrible. For example female recording artists all sound similar, have the same choreography, songs with terrible melodies, mostly electronic music, unimaginative lyrics, arrangements are too busy. they are all the same. I know I am old, I can't relate, I'm from the 60's, 70's, 80's. Artists and bands were unique, lyrics were imaginative. Musicians were highly evolved. There would be too many to name here. Lets just consider a few, Jimmy Page with Led Zeppelin(guitar great), Paul Simon(amazing lyrics), the Beatles(generational), CSNY(what harmonies), Earth Wind and Fire(powerful). What do I hear when I hear today... mostly crap. This generation likes to think they are challenging the establishment but they are really just mindlessly following what the recording companies want them to. And they just want to sell records. It went from groups and artists selling themselves to corporations trying to fit artist into the current model to make money. There are the exceptions but not a lot. IMHO
JohnA000: You do show your age when you said musicians today "just want to sell records." Vinyl records are a very small subset Retro product; even CD buyers have declined when music can just be streamed or videos watched on your phone. The big money now is performing in huge stadium venues, all organized and financed by a corporation. The musicians are just the paid stars of the show, with the music produced on demand from various professional "creators." I read recently that Taylor Swift's Era show costs around $150 MILLION just to produce & keep touring. There's no room for the star to get too creative, which may or may not lead to unpredictable changes in the business model.
@@loiswells3062 yes precisely. Music was better when the motivation was musicians who cared about the art, not the money they can make. eg you think Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd would it have been what it is if the record company controlled the content. Sure the record producers were still dollar motivated but it was the artistry of the musicians that sold the records, not the marketing dept. As a young musician it was this artistry that made me want to be a musician. well... that and the girls lol
I don't make music for money. I make it for me
I don't make music. ..tho. If I did
I mean. U know what I mean
i dont think people talk enough about that...the money motive verses the passion motive...
Unfortunately, too many "leading minds" advise young people to follow their passion in life and money will invariably follow, and there's very few Jerry Seinfeld's or Scott Galloways to tell them the truth...it's terrible advice. Unfortunately music is a particularly difficult passion to monetise. I've lost count of the number of musicians I've met who are stressed out trying to meet their latest ad jingle deadline or rushing to their next gig in some far flung remote backwater. Where's the space to work on your technique and passion? We probably get much more true joy out of our noodling time between Zoom calls and stress free friends-and-family gigs once a quarter. Sure, everyone should make their own choices but I do feel it's more fair to entire generations if they have all the correct balanced information out there to make their choices
I agree followings one passion is very idealistic and fraught with risk
The problem with creating great music is that everyone is afraid of plagiarism and this affects every process in this industry . So f.e. if Ed Sheeran has some legal issues with one song then immediately every other his song is also put down. With today's legal system it is very easy to be blocked .
There are good songs that rival the classics. They just aren't on American Bandstand, MTV or the Ed Sullivan Show. People have to look for them, but the majority don't want to do that.
I don't agree that art used to be more independent. Artists and their art used to be much more connected to politics. That's one of the things that makes me wary of old art.
ya but now we cant help to be political because its all in our face weather u like it or not.. or it will be.. it will afect us all.... dont cop out hide your head in the sand...
The only artists left are rich barefoot ones like Metallica who already made their millions the hard way, have their own studios etc and 'people' for everything. Lars lounging around not a care in the world spending months on a drum track lol
In political science there's the simple phrase "people get the government they deserve". Does the modern so-called mass market want "Great Music" ?? Perhaps a future video topic for your channel. Enjoy your insight & passion.👌😎
The mass market has never wanted “great music”. We just lucky and had 3 decades or so where “great music” also happened to be commercially successful. Keep in mind, during that time there was also plenty of not great music that had chart success and sold quite well, too.
“Great music” is on the ear of the listener. Music of the past was ahead of its time in terms of technique and harmony complexities
The rationale is flawed. Miles Davis, The Beatles, James Brown, Hendrix, Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Prince-all straddled the fence in relation to musical 🎶 experimentation & vast commercial appeal. The reason why 21st-century music is so poor is because most of it is still operating in musical genres from the 20th century. All the *_innovations_* have been squeezed out of those genres by the greats of those genres. 🎸
Rock inception: 1955-that's nearly 70 years. 🎸 Pop inception: late 1950s-that's over 60 years. 🎤 Rap/hip hop inception: 1979-that's over 40 years. 🎧
For 21st-century popular music to really define its century, it needs new musical genres not done before. It's spectacularly failed to do so. Instead, we just have popular music performers rehashing 20th-century musical genres, leading to inauthenticity, unoriginality, and blandness. 🤦♂️ #MusicCritique #InnovationNeeded
They're not musicians or artists they're content creators.... Churning out fast food music...
Get to the point.