"Streaming has killed the mainstream"

I wasn't talking about the 99% that never make it, that's you bringing that up for some reason. I also was not talking about legacy acts.
That fact is still that if I buy physical media from artists they make some x1000s more money than if I stream them. It's inarguable.
Overall I don't think you know what you're claiming to be so sure of.

 

Solid argument there. Two garage bands from the 60s. Solid.

 

The reason I mentioned them is that someone above mentioned that streaming allows anyone, no matter how untalented, to make a record. Sixties garage bands are another example of that phenomenon.

 

There have always been, and always will be, artists who hit it big when they're very young. Not to mention people who aren't even artists who are very good at monetizing YouTube streams. NBA YoungBoy is the right age, and has the knack. He comes up in a YT search before "NBA Highlights." More power to him.

Is he really holding onto more money because he made it from streaming?

 

You didn't specify whether you were talking about the 99% or the 1%. You just said "they still got paid", which means you could be referring to any or all punk or garage bands, successful or unsuccessful. I clarified that point, so thank me for it.

If your point is that any given artist makes more money if you buy a single CD or LP than if you stream a single song, well nobody is arguing that. What matters of course is the quantity. Artists typically got around 50 cents for each compact disc sold. That's about what an artist will get from around 2300 song streams on Spotify after the record company takes their cut. So if you stream more than that, then they will make more than if you bought their CD. So it all depends on what people do.

 

My question is how has the sports league not sued the pants off this guy yet.

 

The "NBA" stands for "Never Broke Again". IIRC, the NBA (hoops league) did complain about the initials, so now when he advertises concerts and posts music videos and the like, he uses the fully spelled out words, not the "NBA" initials. But of course the media still tends to refer to him by the initials, as they don't have to comply with that agreement.

 

The demand these days is for platforms/access, not the music/content itself. This is a MAJOR shift. The platform creators/holders are the ones who make the millions these days. It’s as if every artist is managed by Allen Klein now. However, that in mind: the opportunities for getting one’s music “out there” are better now than ever.

 

And this is a major shift, how, exactly? The Beatles’ initial royalty rate was one penny per single (on 85% of sales, because of “breakage” and “promotional” costs deducted from total sales). That penny was then split five ways between the band members and Brian Epstein. Who do you think made the real millions? John, Paul, George, and Ringo, or Parlophone/EMI?

Likewise, in his biography of R.E.M., Tony Fletcher breaks down the $80 million advance R.E.M. received when they re-signed with Warner Bros. and convincingly argues that R.E.M. had generated over $300 million in income for Warners over the course of their first contract, for which they had received roughly a $10 million advance. Again, the platform creators have always made the biggest money, this was the case when the platform was vinyl records, it was the case when the platform was compact discs, and it is the case today.

 

True, but different. Back then you still needed records. Today all you need is a free Youtube account. That's magnitudes easier than back in 76/77.

You'd think complete freedom would make lots of great stuff available - my experience though is that it mostly just drags up the worst.....

 

Good point, but that’s the group of artists who shouldn’t be complaining at all as they got paid for their albums original release on vinyl in 1979 and then again on cassette in 1984 and then again on CD in 1990 and then again as downloads in 2005.

It’s hard to feel bad for Foreigner today when they got paid so handsomely and so often for 40 years for Head Games. No one ever said that a poem scribbled on a cocktail napkin in 1979 should still be producing million of dollars in 2020.

 

I’m not talking about money. And you’re 100% correct on that. I’m talking about how demand by fans for product/music has shifted to demand by fans for platforms over content. Like Spotify and the access it gives is more important than the music. People seem to value access to everything over having actual interest in what they’re gaining access to. The “kids” seem more enamored with social media and promoting themselves than being fans of anything. Everyone is hustling themselves out of necessity. Music is for in the background or for their Tik Tok videos of themselves etc etc. Sounds critical and whiney but I don’t mean it that way. If I had access to all music ever created when I was a kid/teenager I’d probably find it overwhelming and it would be that much harder to “find myself” with music.

 

The only empirical constant, other than taxes, is change. What refuses or fails to adapt will die out. Time to move on from the "buggy whips".

The buggy whip analogy is “an obscurity sitting on an anachronism,” said Daniel M. G. Raff, an associate professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s unlikely that we would even refer metaphorically to buggy whip makers if it weren’t for Theodore Levitt, a Harvard Business School professor. In 1960, he wrote about their plight in a Harvard Business Review article, “Marketing Myopia”

In the article, Mr. Levitt said that businesses should concentrate on their customers’ needs, not on specific products. If only the buggy whip makers had thought of themselves as being in the personal transportation business, providing a stimulant or catalyst to an energy source, Mr. Levitt wrote, they might have survived into the automotive era.

 

Again with the poem on the cocktail napkin line?

You need some new material, Phil - can't Alexa help with that?

 

Amen. I know musician friends who complain about things yet refuse to put their music online and still peddle CDs and refuse to adapt. Bands willing to adapt are actually selling thumb drives these days as physical product. The ones who can afford to put our vinyl do, but they’re far from the majority.

 

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I’m glad in a way that streaming wasn’t around when I was getting into music.

Started off buying 7” singles, with a few albums here and there, often as Christmas and birthday presents, and you really got to know the records. I just don’t think that connection is there with younger folk these days, a lot of it is just background music.

As a 50 year old now, I find streaming rather wonderful, along with still buying physical albums of artists I particularly like and want to support.

 

I thought clear channel radio killed the mainstream

 

You obviously haven't met Cliff Richard.

 

Taking a moment of silence to honor the mainstream.

 

I'll be 50 in a few months and I feel the same.
Glad it wasn't around when I was young, but love it now. I still love collecting too.

 

When I was a teenager I would have killed for streaming. Kids today are super lucky to have that!

 

But not all change is good change. What you're talking about here - this adaption - may well be adapting from earning $1 to $5 (depending how it's priced and done) for each CD bought, to earning .0001 cent per "sale". It's not just a matter of "adapting".

 

I miss the mainstream so much, it was so good when it was around.

 

No, it’s not a good change at all, but I guess it’s necessary. Most people don’t even own a CD player in any form anymore. I mean “the kids.”

 

It isn't just kids.

Anyone under the age of 30 has never owned a CD. In order to be 15 in 2005 when the iTunes Music Store was in full gear, they were born in 1990 and are 30 today. My 20 year old son had an iPod when he discovered music in 2008, his iPhone streams it all today.