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That doesn't really match up with the b-list regional folks I've gigged with. As far as I can tell, the big goal for the folks who were 25 in 1978 was to get a

That doesn't really match up with the b-list regional folks I've gigged with. As far as I can tell, the big goal for the folks who were 25 in 1978 was to get an album on with large distribution and make basically mailbox money for the rest of a career. I've known people who have done that basically on a couple songs. Like, pretty middle of the road folks I've met were able to make a living off their mailbox. That will likely never happen again in our lifetimes. But it's just not the case that folks were never making a living off selling recordings. And further, being in a world market (as far as I can tell for a small, small time artist) is horrible: I'm a very, very good musician but I am not world-class good. But now I have to compete with world-class artists? I'd much rather have to book shows via telephone if it means that I had access to a local scene that didn't have access to literally every recording ever made. As a listener I personally like that access, but as a musician I have no problem thinking it's categorically =not= better for folks on the small end of things.

Jensson 5y ago
Sounds like they won the lottery by getting perpetual visibility on poorly made albums thanks to how poorly optimized discovery and publishing was back then. Wont ever happen again with how much better those processes are today. Also doesn't sound like that old system actually was good for the music industry, it made a few lucky people a lot of money even if they didn't produce good music, which encourages people to chase those contracts and optimize for that rather than pleasing music listeners.
- scarecrowbob 5y ago
  I get the point. As a practicing musician, I quite disagree. These folks aren't terrible, but they aren't, like Queen or Michael Jackson. There are a couple of directions that my disagreements run, but of them would be something like this: there's no middle ground where people can make a modest living playing music anymore. There were several ways to do that, prior to the mid 90s. That was good for the industry in that instead of only allowing amatures or world-class acts to be performing, you had a ton of folks kind of not being great. But the only way you get to be really, really good at this is by doing it all the time. So now, instead of having a bunch of folks who were kind of making it, you mostly have either destitute folks or hobbyists. So I don't agree that having a bunch of middling musicians didn't produce good music: where do we think all those really talented, experienced folks come from? People aren't born knowing how to arrange a tune or work an audience.
- tessierashpool 5y ago
  sorry, but this is all types of wrong: > Sounds like they won the lottery by getting perpetual visibility on poorly made albums thanks to how poorly optimized discovery and publishing was back then. Wont ever happen again with how much better those processes are today. first: better for whom? optimized for what, in particular? Spotify is better optimized for funnelling the money that artists earn towards Joe Rogan than any other system in human history. but that's not an absolute good; that's optimization for a particular purpose. second, it's wrong because the lottery those folks won was not a discovery or publishing lottery. I'm not even sure how (or why) you think the publishing side of the music industry is any different than it was in 1978; maybe you're not using "publishing" the way the industry uses it. but discovery wasn't a problem back when it was incredibly expensive to record music in the first place. that change has nothing to do with Spotify or streaming or anything like that; it happened because digital recording technology (mostly) replaced analog recording technology, and each type of recording tech got commoditized, i.e., smaller and cheaper. that had to happen for a discovery problem to even exist; in 1978, recording studios were almost industrial machinery. I guess that's just two types of wrong, maybe three depending on what you're trying to say with the word "publishing" there. on the bright side, this is legit: > doesn't sound like that old system actually was good for the music industry that's pretty true. but you can say about it about the modern equivalent also.

Jensson 5y ago

Sounds like they won the lottery by getting perpetual visibility on poorly made albums thanks to how poorly optimized discovery and publishing was back then. Wont ever happen again with how much better those processes are today. Also doesn't sound like that old system actually was good for the music industry, it made a few lucky people a lot of money even if they didn't produce good music, which encourages people to chase those contracts and optimize for that rather than pleasing music listeners.

scarecrowbob 5y ago
I get the point. As a practicing musician, I quite disagree. These folks aren't terrible, but they aren't, like Queen or Michael Jackson. There are a couple of directions that my disagreements run, but of them would be something like this: there's no middle ground where people can make a modest living playing music anymore. There were several ways to do that, prior to the mid 90s. That was good for the industry in that instead of only allowing amatures or world-class acts to be performing, you had a ton of folks kind of not being great. But the only way you get to be really, really good at this is by doing it all the time. So now, instead of having a bunch of folks who were kind of making it, you mostly have either destitute folks or hobbyists. So I don't agree that having a bunch of middling musicians didn't produce good music: where do we think all those really talented, experienced folks come from? People aren't born knowing how to arrange a tune or work an audience.
tessierashpool 5y ago
sorry, but this is all types of wrong: > Sounds like they won the lottery by getting perpetual visibility on poorly made albums thanks to how poorly optimized discovery and publishing was back then. Wont ever happen again with how much better those processes are today. first: better for whom? optimized for what, in particular? Spotify is better optimized for funnelling the money that artists earn towards Joe Rogan than any other system in human history. but that's not an absolute good; that's optimization for a particular purpose. second, it's wrong because the lottery those folks won was not a discovery or publishing lottery. I'm not even sure how (or why) you think the publishing side of the music industry is any different than it was in 1978; maybe you're not using "publishing" the way the industry uses it. but discovery wasn't a problem back when it was incredibly expensive to record music in the first place. that change has nothing to do with Spotify or streaming or anything like that; it happened because digital recording technology (mostly) replaced analog recording technology, and each type of recording tech got commoditized, i.e., smaller and cheaper. that had to happen for a discovery problem to even exist; in 1978, recording studios were almost industrial machinery. I guess that's just two types of wrong, maybe three depending on what you're trying to say with the word "publishing" there. on the bright side, this is legit: > doesn't sound like that old system actually was good for the music industry that's pretty true. but you can say about it about the modern equivalent also.