Quote:
Originally Posted by skylabfilmpop  "So what happened to good ol making music, making money and supporting yourself from it?!"
I was lucky enough to be making music in bands in the 1990's and early 2000's. It was artistically a heyday, a very cool time. Ironically very few people outside of a small percentage made more as artists, even if signed to a label, than a few hundred dollars a week advance/stipend, if they even got that far. So it begs the question, can you generate $300 a week from your music? if so then you are doing as well as the majority of artists from even those days prior to the decline of the record industry. I don't think its that hard. The Los Angeles band "The 88" is a great example of a band that has been a great financial success of its own merits. For the majority of history musicians have been for the most part and outside of the classical realm, wandering minstrels. The idea, that only really originated maybe 50 years ago that you can write a song, record it and then on its merit have lear jets and mansions around the world filled with guitars ala John Entwistle is the anomoly, and we are just in a period of adjustment from that anomoly, until someone figures a medium in which to embed music that can't be ripped. I don't have a lot of faith in that, so its back to the role of wandering minstrel, which is really where the majority of musicians have always been. |
There's a huge chasm between $300 a week and lear jets and mansions. I'd guess that most musicians would be happy being able to just live a relatively normal life. No lear jet required, but health insurance, food, a modest house and maybe some retirement someday would be preferred.