Originally Posted by chrisso

There just aren't. Once you start achieving that kind of income you are already in the label system and already on radio.

Originally Posted by chrisso

Sure you can release music in an instant, but it's veery, very hard to get people to listen to it. Not me saying that, that's what most people say, which is why there are so many 'how to grow your audience' blogs out there. You make more money blogging about Spotify, than you do releasing on Spotify - the gospel truth.

Originally Posted by newguy1

You're kinda the same. There are a number of labels who could put out your material with major label distro. Are you a major label artist then?

Originally Posted by chrisso

No, the major labels have recognised it appears cooler to release under a pseudo indie banner. It's like boutique beer. It looks like it came from a garage brewery in Kent, but is made in the Heineken factory in reality.

Originally Posted by chrisso

I'm not 'super pessimistic'. My view is based on observation. There is a mountain of written matter by hobbyists and professional musicians saying they can't get their music heard under a tsunami of DIY releases. Something like 20% of Spotify releases never get a single play, not one.
Thousands of people subscribe to Youtube vlogs on how to 'build your Spotify' numbers, or 'how to get more attention' to your music. If it was easier than before there would be no huge demand for such blogs.

Originally Posted by RoadRanger

There's plenty of online resources to help you write songs that have potential popular appeal. Most songs I listen to that aren't popular are obviously flawed.

Originally Posted by newguy1

i just know DIY artists have more market share than ever.

Originally Posted by chrisso

How do you measure that?
As far as I am aware, having actually researched it, the top 10% of pop artists are earning 90% of the money in music. Like the rest of society, the inequality has actually widened.

Originally Posted by chrisso

4.1% of income!
When you think how many more millions of diy artists there are than signed artists, then split 4.1% of the income between those millions of artists.....?
Quite shocking and supports what I've been saying.
10% of the industry is making 90% of the income.

Originally Posted by chrisso

No, no, no... My point IS that things have regressed for average musicians, and for musicians trying to make more challenging music, innovate.
DIY didn't really exist before - that's why.
Niche musicians and those innovating signed to indie labels in the 80's and 90's.
Sure, you no longer need an indie label, but the flip side is it's not going to afford you a career.
The point really is 4.1% of income, comparing the vast amount of DIY artists to signed artists. Which is exactly what I said.

Originally Posted by chrisso

DIY artists earned $873 million in 2019.
Divide by the hundreds of thousands of DIYers, then see how far 26,000 per DIYer goes, being the average wage of working people.
33,500 could have earned average income - globally!

Just for fun, if you divide that by a four piece band, 8,400 DIY global bands made an average living last year.
There are probably 8,400 DIY bands in California.

Originally Posted by boombapdame

Did @ chrisso things start regressing for musicians in the Napster era or before?

Originally Posted by newguy1

I mean, that’s infinitely better than zero. Mathematically at least.

Originally Posted by chrisso

Sure, you can say whatever you like. I'm talking to people who can't afford to be musicians any more. I'm seeing young bands making very little money while making great music. My heart bleeds for them.
It was supposed to be the golden age for independent music, but instead - like Amazon and Facebook (Bezos and Zuckerberg) a guy came along with a way to pay the workers (musicians) as little as possible, while raking in billions for themselves.
It's an unequal relationship. It is a broken market.

Originally Posted by chrisso

For most people there is no money in it anyway - you are right.
If you are going to spend weeks and months slaving over your music, you at least want a chance for people to hear it.

The simple fact is the label system was criticized for heavily curating the music that was released. They were called 'gatekeepers'.
But it turns out post-streaming that the public still value curation. People don't have time to trawl through a thousand tracks to find one they like, so they turn to 'influencers' and 'playlists'.
It's cheaper to record and publish your track, but that's about all that has changed.

Originally Posted by chrisso

This is so silly. Everyone understands the formula. If it was just the above, everyone would be having successful careers making hit records.
A studio guitarist once told me a funny story...
He was working on a record when the band's manager burst into the room and said "hey, I've got a great idea for a hit song". Everyone stopped eager to hear the idea - which turned out to be "we need a great hook, a great melody and great lyrics, then we get a great producer in."

It's like no one knows any of this?

The problem is everyone is doing it. No one sets out to make a bad product and NOT build a loyal audience.
It's how you do it when there are no gigs and Spotify is working against you.
that is the crux of it.

(FWIW, I am trying to make a great product. I'm not giving up. I am trying to monetise it and have watched all the vlogs and used many of the methods. But it's not about me. I don't expect to be 'successful, doing what I am doing and at my age. I'm just expressing what I'm seeing with years of experience. It was always fatal for music as a while when musicians stopped making music they were passionate about and tried to appeal to a wider audience. If you were George Michael or Prince and passionate about pop, then you made amazing pop records and were successful. If you weren't passionate about pop and were just trying to be successful, it always failed. That's EXACTLY why so many artists changing their music to suit the Spotify algorithm is a bad sign for music).

Originally Posted by chrisso

Really? Most of the musicians I know are working much longer hours for much less money. This goes back historically too. back in the studio days it was common to work from 10am to 4 or 5am the following morning. Often working 6 to 7 days a week.
I can't price my hours because the return on income would be miserable.
My plumber charges £48 an hour and works 8 am to 4pm.
I often work 8am to 8pm at least, and again, most days of the week.
I'm not earning £500 a day, nothing like £2500 a week.
The Musicians Union say that 56% of UK musicians earn less than £20,000 a year, while the UK's average salary for all jobs is £29,000.

Originally Posted by chrisso

which is why there are so many 'how to grow your audience' blogs out there. You make more money blogging about Spotify, than you do releasing on Spotify - the gospel truth.

Originally Posted by BStone

How many time have you bought an album on the strength of the one or two singles and found the album to have another half dozen duds? And those were the duds that were good enough for the album. Your mom and some friends might listen more than once to a mediocre song, but strangers won't.

Originally Posted by boombapdame

If @ BStone most musicians make mediocre product, it would have been good for them to 'fess up to that in interviews in the 90s/00s/10s.

Originally Posted by chrisso

It's happening. It's just that the underground has always been tough to kill. But the underground is releasing music and earning $500 a year from it.

The 'underground' had hit records via radio -
Talking Heads, Stakker Humanoid, Devo, Joy Division, Public Enemy, Funkadelic, even Weather Report for chrissakes.

Spotify is there to keep people on the site, so therefore like all internet tech, it is more interested in the absolute most popular artists, and has no interest in the underground.
At the dawn of the internet it was touted as the great dem0cratiser.
Sure, any DIY artist can publish their music. But if it leads nowhere there becomes a point where it's a waste of time. Exposure does not equal a career.
This is true of all internet businesses, whether you are a writer or film maker.

Originally Posted by user i477533222

how do you figure 'underground' records being on major labels?