8 ms·

How bands are escaping the music industry snake pit

• ghostcluster 9y ago
  The rise of TicketMaster's business in the age of touring has been interesting. One of the very last interviews Charlie Rose broadcast before his disappearance was a fascinating interview with Live Nation's CEO: https://charlierose.com/guests/12447 https://charlierose.com/guests/12447 hmm. his site is down along with his entire show archive. That is a loss for the Internet. Rapino talked about how Live Nation has gotten into managing artists directly, buying venues, and doing promotion and logistics for a wide array of artists at a range of scales. It's a big change now that artist's have a direct microphone to their entire fanbase through Twitter, Instagram, etc.
  • svl 9y ago
    archive.org seems to have it saved: https://web.archive.org/web/20171121004935/https://charlierose.com/guests/12447 https://web.archive.org/web/20171121004935/https://charliero...
• forkLding 9y ago
  What SoundCloud could have become, a supporting brand of indie and music that people appreciate but without as much obligations in revenue etc in exchange for continued electronic streaming through SoundCloud
• jrimbault 9y ago
  On a related topic, Bandcamp does something right. Until I first heard of it, I had very rarely bought music (I was born in the early 90s), and very often just downloaded it. Which meant manually (or automating) tagging of tracks. But Bandcamp feels fair, I pay the artist/band the amount they wish or I wish to, and in return I get flac files I own with correct id3tags. (Maybe it's just that Bandcamp was made when I started getting revenue, two unrelated events that just happen to coincide.)
  • tzahola 9y ago
    Same here. Bandcamp is the best, but I’m afraid they’ll be ruined by big money at some point.
    • xfer 9y ago
      This is already happening. I bought an album(Requiem for my friend by Zbigniew Preisner) from bandcamp couple years ago. Now i wanted to buy a new album but the artist is not publishing lossless music on bandcamp anymore. It's all the big streaming providers.
      • tzahola 9y ago
        Yuck...
    • sguav 9y ago
      With my band, we have experienced though that there is (should say was, 2015) not enough visibility, so we opted for big streamers which ripped the money off us, but allowed us to be heard more widely.
      • KozmoNau7 9y ago
        If I may ask naively, why not both?
        • sguav 9y ago
          Not a naive question, at the time the distribution system required us to give them the rights for online distribution
  • jackgolding 9y ago
    I do a massive amount of work with indie bands in Melbourne and Bandcamp/Physical Records/Merch is the only way a lot of them make money (other than the rare big show). Most tours lose money.
• dmitriid 9y ago
  Too bad most of these articles are so superficial and never go into the actual dynamics between artists, labels, streaming services etc. That's a true snake pit, and there are very few attempts to untangle what goes on.
  • elmar 9y ago
    an old one from 2000 but detailed and probably some information still relevant. Cortney Love does the math https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
    • Valmar 9y ago
      I didn't realize it was quite THAT bad back 18 years ago... :(
    • harrumph 9y ago
      "Cortney Love does the math" Ms. Love appeared to be inspired by this piece written seven years earlier by the engineer who recorded Nirvana's "In Utero". https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• r3bl 9y ago
  From a different point of view, the most popular band originating from my country[0] became popular because they dismissed the idea of trying to earn money via streaming and album distribution, and focused on live shows to actually make money (with more gigs per year than I thought it was humanly possible). You can still buy their music if you feel like it, and they're available on streaming services as well (although they get added to Spotify about a month after the official release). Their last two albums (+ an EP and a few singles) got released as a free download on their site, and they've released a pretty cool music video[1] in which they've encouraged people to get their music for free (the video was on the front page of The Pirate Bay for a while), featuring lyrics such as "we don't give a shit about the copyright law" and "we do file share like we don’t care, throw music industry in despair". [0] http://dubioza.org/albums/ http://dubioza.org/albums/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOqxarVWKRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOqxarVWKRs
  • gkya 9y ago
    Live musical performances are the only thing in music that nobody can fake or pirate. Even the video recordings of a concert is nothing near the actual experience. Maybe the music business will move towards such a setting where internet is the place to show off your work, and the concert venue is where you earn money. More publicity, more fame, more venues, more tickets. Add to that maybe a combined use of say Bandcamp, Patreon et al, Youtube, and streaming services, and about everybody who wants to do music can find a niche there for themselves. Also, the Dubioza guys are really cool, thanks for the links!
• shams93 9y ago
  Back in the 90s you didn't have to try that hard. The competition was Blockbuster Video so it wasn't that hard to get booked 5-7 nights a week in 1991. There were lots of places to play live that no longer exist. You played for donations but your share of the rent in 1991 was $175 a month. No cell phone bill, not much to spend money on because you could get your guitar and amp for cheap from a pawn shop. Today we have all this technology but music struggles because its based on live person to person physical community. Today in LA its all pay to play so music has turned into a vanity project for people with the money to buy their way in. The one way in today is to develop over the top, absolutely undeniably exceptional skills and then pair with a luthier to produce signature instruments in a partnership. Tosin Abasi has the right business model. Develop amazing technique then work with instrument makers to rely on boutique instrument sales rather than album sales or even live performance for the main income.
  • manmal 9y ago
    Sure, but playing even 3 times per week is VERY taxing. If you play, let’s say, from 10 to 1, you probably won’t be in bed before 3. And it’s the equivalent to running 10 miles or perhaps even more, if you move a lot and try to engage the audience very much. It’s exhausting, and I don’t envy anybody who has to play every day. I don’t know how people like Justin Timerlake are able to keep this up for decades.
    • tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
      just like working out it gets easier as you train, for quite a few serious runners 10 miles a day is par for the course (100mi training weeks are not that uncommon). My dad played for a living in the 60s and his band played TWO shows a day (afternoon and evening, so the schedule was get up around noon, breakfast, show, lunch, show, dinner, sleep) 6 days a week during the summer, it's just like any other type of physical labor and listening to him it definitely beat working 12 hour days in the fields which is what he did before...
• breakingcups 9y ago
  Why does this sound like a paid advertorial? This is because they've signed to Kobalt, a technology-driven music services company that gives songwriters and bands complete ownership of their work and a greater share of income than has traditionally been the case in the industry. "We never used to make any money because we were always paying off our advances," recalls Haggis, whose band formed in 2003. "We'd get about a 20% share of revenues and the label would keep the rest. "Now we get to keep about 90% of what we earn ...it's such a difference, it just made sense."
  • phaemon 9y ago
    Because you failed to read the following paragraphs that talked about different companies? It's the BBC. They aren't allowed to take money for articles. Of course, they aren't particularly fussy about what press releases they run, so you can still sneak in an ad for your company if you make the effort.
    • breakingcups 9y ago
      The fact that they mention other companies doesn't invalidate my point. Of all companies mentioned, a majority of time is spent speaking about Kobalt, it's founder and praising it. Kobalt gets around 6 paragraphs. Most other companies only get a paragraph each which only briefly describes what they don, and they aren't even all direct competitors. I have read the article and I'm miffed you'd suggest otherwise. Please read HN guidelines where it explicitly asks you not to suggest other posters haven't read the articles but to stick to the facts.
      • phaemon 9y ago
        Fair enough. Sorry. I hate defending the BBC because they're so insidiously biased, but they definitely don't accept money for articles. But my grumpiness is no reason to miff people!
  • tankenmate 9y ago
    Because the author also mentions other competitors and/or substitute products. The BBC has editorial guidelines for product prominence.[0] You can contact the BBC if you feel it breached their guidelines.[1] [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/editorial-integrity/product-prominence http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/editoria... [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/contact http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/contact
• dharma1 9y ago
  It's tricky to make money from recorded music. I don't think the "industry" is to blame - it's more about peoples' consumption habits (streaming services, games instead of records etc), and the fact that there are so many artists, so many people releasing music. Most people listen to music on streaming services. In terms of making money from streaming services, you don't. There are a zillion artists on them, and the vast majority ends up with pennies. You can sell on bandcamp etc, and that will probably generate more than streaming services, but still very little for the vast majority -people don't really buy downloads/physical music anymore, it's free on streaming services. You could try Patreon, and that might generate a bit of recurring revenue if you're active on social media. If you start getting mainstream radio play, you're doing good as the royalties from that are still pretty nice. But very few artists get there. Also, tracking publishing rights and actually paying people for radio play (or publishing in general) is an arcane, paper based mess. If you're lucky, you'll get your music licensed to TV/film/games, and that can also be a good source of revenue. But sales of recorded music, as a way of making a reasonable amount of money, is pretty much finished.
• z3t4 9y ago
  Artists need to own their distribution channels. With today's technology it's pretty easy! They also need to do marketing.
  • e_b 9y ago
    The problem is that if you own your distribution channels you need a massive marketing budget to stand out from the other offerings as you are competing with other distributors instead of getting help from them.
    • 1337biz 9y ago
      Absolutely and you need massive manpower to be good at all media and distribution channels.
• cjslep 9y ago
  My father and his brother's entire business model in the 90s and 2000s was mass producing Karaoke for America while giving labels the finger. He saw digital downloads and streaming coming like a freight train from the future. I worked at my colleges radio station with labels to examine their newest stuff and add/omit it to our rotation for the metal segments. Finally, I have a friend I met in college who is in a talented metal band (Aether Realm) basically forging their own way. In all these interactions, the sense I have gotten from everyone from labels to artists to derivative works is always fundamentally a numbers game "how much and how many people will people really pay" and smoothening out statistical noise in income streams. The end result is truly if you care for the music and the art, buy the merchandise directly from the artist. Go to the local concerts. Help reduce the variance in the artist's income stream. Show them that despite not having a big label, they can succeed. Once I realized I had this kind of power to my favorite metal artists, it was nice to give back.