“Who can afford to go to multiple shows?” says the anonymous tour manager. “Two tickets to a show, you’re talking probably about $200 with fees and everything. You go to a meal around the show, you’re talking at least $100 or $200 for a nice dinner. Then you got parking and babysitters, then you add the VIP stuff to that and you want to make it a special night, you’re talking $500 to $1,000 a night for a couple to go out. It’s capitalism at its best.”
They didn’t create it though (At least that’s the argument).
Very few artists make money through record sales, and this has always been true not just recently with Spotify.
Even in the '80s bands were starving but then people pointed to Guns and Roses as examples that made money from record sales. Record labels signed contracts with bands to record and press albums, they took 90% of the money and gave artists cash up front. Unless they were already Aerosmith, the deal wasn’t great.
People bitching about Spotify taking most of the money, whilst it might be wrong, don’t seem to know their history. If you want to support bands it has always been about seeing them live and buying merch.
Artists don’t get good deals from Spotify because their labels are signing bad deals for them and it doesn’t matter “if they made the music”.
Yep, there’s a long internet post from the late 90s by Courtney Love that lays it all out. The labels make all the money from record sales and it wasn’t rare for artists to end up owing the label money after making a record.
Oh well then I guess it’s okay and fuck all the artists.
No one said it’s okay.
We said “buying albums doesn’t directly support artists”.
Artists make a recording of a bunch of songs. A label buys that copy of a recording and makes a bunch of prints.
Album goes on to make millions, band had sold that copy of the recording so doesn’t get anything from the secondary selling.
Label then licenses that recording to Spotify. Spotify then makes money on people’s subscriptions and gives the 60% to the label they licensed it from. Notice how the artist isn’t involved here?
No one is a fucking slave you idiot, and no one is justifying it. Pirate the album and go to shows and buy their merchandise. This has always been the way, and remains the way.
Slavery was also always done most commonly through history. Doesn’t make it right.
My comments was simply noting that if you are an artist and made something, you should get most, if not all, of the money for it. The record industry steals from them like most of capitalism does from everybody, amd here you are simping for it and explaining it to me for some idiotic reason.