my thoughts though not guaranteed correct
The internet turned the business upside down--streaming and downloading music--- made the ''old way'' of generating funds loose it's necessity.. the old way being--needing airplay on radios and selling records -cds etc. I actually wondered how the dust would settle--
Well it seems it has came down to selling views--instead of air play--The media thinkers have gotten in sync with the social media crowd and brought in the old staple --let's sell commercials--All the subscribing --liking -viewing--is closely watched by them--the less used server file for the same amount of views is one thing they examine--Sometimes you tube tries their mightiest to make me sit through a commercial--but I don't do it--next time they don't hit me -with it--
Brings to mind how cable TV was suppose to do away -with commercials--
There are probably commercials in the cave drawings of the first humans--car salesmen types -likely-evolved quickly from hunter gather types
Tom - nicely put - i am a very reluctant consumer of digital music instead holding out with an old fashioned record [remember those?] collection.
I recently started using spotify [for the billy Strings playlist amongst others] and the commercials just make me switch it off most the time - i remember a comedy sketch on UK TV years back which asserted that 'commercials are big business sh*ting in your brain'.....i tell my kids that all the time....its a family mantra now.
There is hope though - i understand that vinyl records have just been re-included in the UKs statistics for sales, and are a mark of the health of the economy - https://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/site-content/uk-music-vinyl-sales-highest-in-decades#:~:text=According%20to%20BPI%20analysis%20based,in%20vinyl%20sales%20in%202022.
It is for this reason I wish more artists would move to Rumble. Rumble does have commercials, but nowhere near the ridiculousness of YouTube where they interrupt the middle of a song for commercials.
I have found in many cases videos are duplicated on Rumble. Whenever possible I will watch it there opposed to YouTube. Jim Breuer's comedy routine is a perfect example. Unwatchable on YouTube. Very enjoyable on Rumble.
More broadly it makes me wonder how any new act can support themselves these days - unless you have some BIG money behind you there is a very precarious road ahead and no certainty of getting paid at the end of it.
Here in London 80% of the pre covid, pre cost of greed [sorry living] crisis venues have closed unlikely to ever reopen. A beer costs upward of £7 in town and virtually no-one can afford to buy a round on a night out - hence the venues closing. It's a sad state if i am honest - only those with the means to support themselves financially can even consider a 'career' in music now.......sad fact.....
Edited by - country frank on 03/14/2024 07:53:51
Makes me marvel even more about Carlton Haney’s idea to start having weekend-long bluegrass festivals back in the 1960’s. It’s been a boon to bluegrass and OT artists & music since,, even more so now with CD sales plummeting
We are controlled substances & may become even more so .
At least my mute button still works .
Live concerts sustain all new musical acts, as that is the only revenue stream available that still can, outside of merchandise sales. Songwriters can still get royalties but what was called the "mechanicals"---royalties from sold products--is pretty much a thing of the past, at least for new artists.
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
-- Hunter S. Thompson
Edited by - eagleisland on 03/18/2024 08:16:43
This is a double edged sword. We live in an era where music is more readily available than ever before. For a few bucks a month, a person can subscribe to a service which allows them to listen to just about any type of music from all over the world in an instant. The positive to that is that even many small time musicians are reaching audiences in numbers that 50 years ago would have been totally impossible. And the average listener is exposed to a much broader scope, which is also a positive. The negative is of course that there is generally not a whole lot of money in it unless you're a mega star playing high paying venues regularly.
I'd like to think that if someone like Woody Guthrie were alive today, he'd be over the moon about the number of people in the world you can reach via streaming. But this doesn't take away from what a shame it is that nowadays hardworking, talented musicians are struggling moreso to make ends meet.
Edited by - TScottHilton on 03/18/2024 09:33:05
“ Who is the number one singer on YouTube?
Globally, Peso Pluma racked up more than 8.5 billion views on YouTube in 2023. The YouTube chart put YoungBoy Never Broke Again in second place, and Drake, Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift at numbers three, four and five respectively.”
YouTube will pay an average of $6 per 1,000 views. But small-time YouTubers like myself putting out “non-commercial” music find it difficult to reach reach the 4,000 per year watch time hours required to qualify for monetization. In the meantime they’ve been running ads on my videos for over 2 years already. And so it goes…
(a shameless plug,, check it out https://m.youtube.com/@chuckvandyke9918/videos
Edited by - chuckv97 on 03/18/2024 10:03:49
There is a wonderful [short] documentary film about the worlds largest vinyl record collection being offered for sale a few years back. It was so big the collection got broken up but not before the library of congress came and documented it. Turned out that only 17% of the music in that collection [between the years 1948 - 1966] had ever been digitized - so only 17% of all of that material from that period was available to consume digitally anyway.
Leaving 83% not digitized, and therefore unavailable in any digital format or platform.
We might think there is loads more to listen to these days, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we are musically richer.
Film here.
Edited by - country frank on 03/22/2024 05:27:06
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