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.
 
 
 

I went to see Styx in concert at a local venue. Those tickets were much less at about 50-70$. They packed the stadium though.

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.

Byron, Unless I missed something, it isn't so much about the price of the download which is less than .99 BTW because they take some of that and you get what's left. I would also add that having the ability buy a .99 single cuts out the album concept. Remember buying an album for one or two songs?
 
The main issue is being a small fish in a very very very very very very large pond. The pond is larger because it's easier for anyone to put music online, plus the conditioning of the modern listener usually means they will happily listen to it for free or streamed but many don't want to be bothered with actually buying a track. Streaming means they can have it NOW. Simply type in a search.
 
I don't think most musicians would mind the streaming idea if it payed them more. You literally need thousands of streams to make anything at all. And as an occasional skeptical type, I have to wonder how accurate the data they tell you is? I don't think there is any way to confirm their numbers.
 
 

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.
 

msmcleod
 
It wasn't that good in the old days.
 
When my old band's album was out in 1994, it went for £12 retail in the shops. That was an 100% markup on the £6 they paid the record company for it. The band got £0.25 per album.
 
So I personally got 5p per album, despite me writing over 80% of the material.
 
At least now bands can sell CDs for £10 via their websites, spread the word on facebook, put teasers (e.g. mono and/or low-fi versions) out on Spotify, iTunes etc., and get the lion share.
 
The only good thing about the old days was the investment they made in the bands' careers, but then so many of them were ripped off by the record companies and/or management.

 
Oh, I know many artists signed bad deals and got taken advantage of...
I still think (relatively), the record industry was better then... than now.
 
Regarding the money:
Say a band is trying to decide on new management.

• Manager X wants 15% (promises 10 million a year)
• Manager Z wants 45% (connections to make 100 million a year)

Based on fee alone, the band would choose Manager X.
But, Manager Z is much better connected... and can make the band 10x the money.
Financially, it actually makes better sense to go with Manager Z.

• With Manager X, the band would make 8.5 million
• With Manager Z, the band would make 55 million

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...
 

Jim Roseberry
Say a band is trying to decide on new management.

• Manager X wants 15% (promises 10 million a year)
• Manager Z wants 45% (connections to make 100 million a year)

Based on fee alone, the band would choose Manager X.
But, Manager Z is much better connected... and can make the band 10x the money.
Financially, it actually makes better sense to go with Manager Z.

• With Manager X, the band would make 8.5 million
• With Manager Z, the band would make 55 million

And neither of those managers would give 99%+ of bands a first, never mind second, glance.

The problems with the “old school” record industry were legion and well known. Even leaving aside the rip-off merchants the cost of launching a band and putting out its first recordings was high so bands/musicians only likely to attract a small following stood little or no chance. And the contracts in effect gave the record company dictatorial powers - “you will put out another record just like your previous ones, not the record you want to put out” for example (George Michael and Tom Jones are famous examples of that).

I’m aware there are exceptions to that, and sometimes record companies would take a gamble in the way Sun sometimes did in the 1950s and Stiff did in the 1970s, but they were usually taking on acts that already had a live following, something which the era of solo musicians/writers producing their own work who don’t or can’t perform it live has made less applicable.

The current situation at least allows musicians themselves to put out recordings, even if they’re unlikely to sell more than a few hundred copies. If access to the market was still based on needing a distribution deal for physical product and heavy advertising to persuade the shops to stock the product then that wouldn’t be the case.

Downloads/streaming also have the advantage that the duplication and stockholding costs are essentially nil. It costs no more to make 1,000 copies than it does the first. There’s no packaging costs either - the artwork, printing and case/sleeve could be a substantial part of the fixed costs of physical media.

There’s still a market for CDs and vinyl, though it tends to be older people buying it. “The youth of today” in the developed world seems to be more focussed on what it can stream even compared to download buying, probably because they grew up with a computer disguised as a phone in their pocket. I prefer to buy a copy of something rather than stream it for two reasons. The first is ISP imposed download limits, which are still a thing in much of the world. The second is that you never know when a streaming track will get deleted from the service.

Though as I can make to all intents and purposes perfect copies of whatever passes through my audio interface I’m not particularly worried if streaming replaces purchase. And paying Apple $9.99/month would be a lot cheaper than my typical monthly spend now.

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.  
 
 

I don't think you're off base at all. More like right on the mark. FWIW being front and center never was a passion of mine. I feel for the guys who wanted to get somewhere and are being held back by this new way of doing things It isn't new really, just becoming more developed and "automated" as you say.
 
In some ways we're right back to the village minstrel. The guy with the instrument who can be heard as far away as you can hear him and no further. I once thought it might be an excuse for people who really don't quite cut it in terms of ability. That was not correct. Talent and ability really have little to do with it and that isn't an excuse. We have a lot of talent just right here and I doubt many are making their living at it. Some might be pulling in a decent side income. Unless you have the push of a good label you are unlikely to gain much attention, no matter how talented you are. This is all very similar to the book industry. Digital book downloads and the ability for anyone to write and post a book online means there are literally thousands of choices. Add to this short attention spans whop want everything now and you have a recipe for real art to just slowly go away if it hasn't already.