Another nail in the coffin?

It looks like iTunes is set to stop selling downloads. It seems they have been trying to shove streaming down our throats for a long time now.
https://www.digitalmusicn...tunes-music-downloads/
These days I always try to buy a CD or buy a download from Bandcamp.

The streaming companies are making a fortune at the artist's expense. Band are becoming reliant on a small group of fans that pre-order, crowd fund or sign up to Patron.

/Rant Off

Here is the article where I first saw the iTunes change
https://medium.com/@norafrancescagermain/the-art-of-making-music-wont-survive-the-model-of-free-much-longer-35490ef3abdd
 
Also I totally miss-quoted Adrian Belew and grossly overstated his earnings.

To quote Adrian, “They send you a 17 cent check in an envelope with a 38 cent stamp on it.”

 

batsbrew
still using cdbaby here.

Me too. I'm still waiting on that .35 payout but they won't mail money until it gets to $1.00. Shoot. I guess that pack of gum might need to wait.

The streaming model is like depending on radio play to support the musician. That revenue source was never very good except for the current top 40 songs, which were played on thousands of stations over and over every day. While streaming makes it possible for literally millions of songs to be offered to the listening public, it also means that there are literally millions of stations/streaming devices instead of thousands, and each of the millions of songs is competing with every other offering. Aside from the amount of pay for play issue, this dilution of the audience makes it less likely that an individual hit will have as much play, as when the record companies only released and promoted a few thousand songs a year and the radio stations only played a small subset of those. So even though a musician can now make his self-recorded masterpiece available to billions of people, he is still in the financial position of a street musician depending on only the few people who walk past him and drop a dime in his guitar case. Even the streaming mega-hits are reaping much lower rewards than in the days of CD albums, and the vast majority of those hits are not viral listener discovered product, but recording company (or concert organizer) contracted 360 deals for which they provide heavy promotional support.

Jim Roseberry
Many large bands no longer make money making/releasing records... and thus have no desire to do so.
This has driven concert ticket prices thru the roof.

For the larger bands, yes. My wife thought she might like to see Rod Stewart when he was playing a nearby football stadium until she saw the tickets started at well over £100 and went up from there.
 
But for smaller bands they are getting squeezed on the live side too. In the UK venues are closing, often because new housing has been built close by and noise complaints cause them to close.
 
Last act I saw was the very talented and critically acclaimed blues rock guitarist Chantel McGreggor my ticket cost £12.
 
 
 

Um....

That $0.99 download that seems to engender so many complaints seems about right considering that a CD with 10 - 12 songs on it goes for around $10 - $12. Unless they changed math since I was in school.

bdickens
Um....

That $0.99 download that seems to engender so many complaints seems about right considering that a CD with 10 - 12 songs on it goes for around $10 - $12. Unless they changed math since I was in school.

Unless you've got a songwriter's masterpiece... and it's getting massive air-play on radio, most folks aren't downloading the whole record.
What is a $12 record, results in two singles downloaded at a whopping $2.
Now cut that down to the artist's share.  Probably making ~$0.25
If it's a band, divide that quarter up several ways.  
 
I liked vinyl because the larger package with artwork, pictures, lyrics, etc.
When the industry moved to CDs, the fidelity was nice (for back then), but the art/packaging took a major hit (IMO).
Moving on to digital downloads, it's convenient and inexpensive, but the art/packaging (compared to the days of vinyl) are all but gone.
 
Concert ticket prices (and Merch) had to increase...
Ticket prices are the sole reason the wife and I didn't make it to the final Rush tour, we won't be going to see Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, etc. 
I just can't fathom paying $500-$1000 (tickets and shirts) to see a show... and be nowhere near front row.
Just went to see Dee Snyder, Dokken, and Warrant... and the Pit tickets were ~$70 each.  That's not bad.
Of course, the production is much simpler than an Arena show.
 

Missy and I have friends in American Dog (regional band based in Columbus).
American Dog spent a year on tour opening for Tesla (4-5 years ago).
Had the time of their life playing.
When the tour was finished, the band was in debt $60k.
For the bass-player/singer, that absolutely killed his passion for playing live and trying to achieve the dream.
Bitter pill...
 

I find it all very depressing, how things have changed.  As was mentioned, the album concept all but disappeared.  I still prefer listening to complete records, CD's, because I'm old and so are the rest of you.  My dad still prefers a physical newspaper to read over his coffee, spread out over the dining room table.  I tease him about this, but I'm the exact same way in my own interests.
 
Fact is, markets have delivered the truth to us.  We are a dime a dozen.  We are not special.  We aren't doing anything mysterious or even somewhat interesting to the average person anymore, it seems like.  Look at all the availability of instruments and recording apparatus, and how that's changed since, say, the 1970's.  Consider what a musical instrument store looked like then, and how many, and what they look like now.  I mean, Guitar Center, basically a Wal-mart approach to instruments, wouldn't even be an idea that occurred to someone without a surge of popularity in "musicians", as far as I can tell.  
 
Musicians are everywhere.  We all write songs.  I've written and recorded 155 songs in the last 20 years.  That doesn't touch the number of incomplete song ideas sitting on my hard drive.  I'll bet most of you can relate, and many of you probably have easily written and recorded way more.  Songs are easy.  Anybody can do it.  Good songs? Maybe not...but it's all subjective and we all think our own stuff is awesome.  
 
Pop music is the weapon I feel is most responsible.  Pop metal, pop rock, pop everything...it's fast food music.  The radio, top 40, it's all to music what McDonald's is to cheeseburgers.  I can't listen to 10 seconds of radio without hearing what sounds like little kids playing in Dad's studio while he's gone.  It would be cute, if it really were little kids - but these are grown adults making songs by the dozen with the only "audio" in the production as their mouth running and saying stupid sh!t all over some lame synth loop.  
 
You can't create tools that allow for less labor input and not expect an increase in participation and a decrease in price.  Just like when you automate anything else in markets, it generally lowers the cost of production which then lowers the cost of the goods being produced.  It seems to me we've eliminated the need and demand for labor and time intensive instrumentation in trade for the automation, so to speak, of synths and etc.  Today's DAWs are so nice, easy to use, and productive and takes a fraction of the time to do what it took in the "good ole days".
 
Again, I'm not the smartest person in the world, and maybe I'm way off on all this, but it's just how it all seems to me.  The product is being made cheaper, easier and with way more participation than ever before, and I'm an oldie complaining about the quality trade off to deafening silence.  
 
 

Started a new, related thread.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/m/tm.aspx?m=3789934

In some ways the new way of doing things gives musicians way more choices.
 
For example, not every musician wants to (or can) go out and tour to promote their album. Not every musician wants to make a whole album.
 
Back in the "old days", you got a 3 or 4 album deal and you (a) had to record/release the albums within x number of years, and (b) had to tour, do press interviews, or anything you were told to promote it. There were limits on who you could work with, what remained your IP - in a lot of ways, you were selling your soul.
 
Nowadays, you can either just put it out there, or you can promote it however you see fit. You might want to gig locally. Your band may be split up across the globe, so you may want to use social media to promote it.
 
But the new way of doing things not only makes your music more immediately accessible, it also makes the musicians more accessible to the fans. There's a bunch of up and coming independent artists who regularly do live video casts to their fans, chat with them on facebook or on forums etc. 
 
This is fantastic for some of us that have families, or full time jobs, or anything that stops them from touring. There's no time pressure on getting your music written. There's no $1,000,000's right away, but then there's no advance to be paid back. 
 
Now we can still get our music out there and with a bit of self marketing effort, get it reaching a good number of people, and hopefully at least get our music to pay for our gear!