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> It used to be possible to make a modest living as a genre musician Really? I used to play in genre bands 20 years ago. No one made a living doing it. There

> It used to be possible to make a modest living as a genre musician Really? I used to play in genre bands 20 years ago. No one made a living doing it. There are a lot of rose colored glasses being worn here. The reason musicians made money in the past is because there were so few of them. The barrier to entry - buying synths and studio time, distributing music, whatever - was so high that only a fraction of the people who wanted to make music, could afford make music. A lot of us just dreamed about having the money to even get started. The result was that the demand for music far outstripped the supply of people who had the means to produce it. Which is profoundly unfair. Now everyone can make great sounding music and distribute it globally for free. The result is a gazillion genre musicians. Sure, none of them can make a living selling songs (how quaint) but in the past they would have been completely denied the opportunity to make music at all, even for themselves. The current situation is much, much better: everyone has the opportunity to make music, and listeners have more music available than they could have ever imagined, and it's all essentially free.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> Now everyone can make great sounding music and distribute it globally for free. The result is a gazillion genre musicians. Entirely agreed, and a point I often find myself making in conversations about this stuff. However: > I used to play in genre bands 20 years ago. No one made a living doing it. There are a lot of rose colored glasses being worn here. I've never been a fan of spectacularly popular music. I used to have a collection of about 3000 vinyl albums, and of that, about 2/3 were by musicians I would characterize as "genre". Of that, I would guesstimate at least half of them used to make some sort of living from their recorded music (based on a quick mental survey of the musicians and what I knew/know about their lives). This is (was) particularly true of jazz, improvised music, electronic music. > The current situation is much, much better: everyone has the opportunity to make music, and listeners have more music available than they could have ever imagined, and it's all essentially free. I mostly agree with this, with the proviso that I'm not sure we really understand what the long term impact will be of "even less people than before can making a living from selling recordings of their music".
- brandonmenc 3y ago
  > even less people than before can making a living from selling recordings of their music I’d be surprised if the absolute number is lower. Sure, the percentage is way lower but that’s because more people are making music. But like, are there more say, punk rock bands making a living with their music today than there were 20 years ago? Probably.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

> Now everyone can make great sounding music and distribute it globally for free. The result is a gazillion genre musicians. Entirely agreed, and a point I often find myself making in conversations about this stuff. However: > I used to play in genre bands 20 years ago. No one made a living doing it. There are a lot of rose colored glasses being worn here. I've never been a fan of spectacularly popular music. I used to have a collection of about 3000 vinyl albums, and of that, about 2/3 were by musicians I would characterize as "genre". Of that, I would guesstimate at least half of them used to make some sort of living from their recorded music (based on a quick mental survey of the musicians and what I knew/know about their lives). This is (was) particularly true of jazz, improvised music, electronic music. > The current situation is much, much better: everyone has the opportunity to make music, and listeners have more music available than they could have ever imagined, and it's all essentially free. I mostly agree with this, with the proviso that I'm not sure we really understand what the long term impact will be of "even less people than before can making a living from selling recordings of their music".

brandonmenc 3y ago
> even less people than before can making a living from selling recordings of their music I’d be surprised if the absolute number is lower. Sure, the percentage is way lower but that’s because more people are making music. But like, are there more say, punk rock bands making a living with their music today than there were 20 years ago? Probably.