I have been a full time musician the last decade and this week is the first time I've been applying for outside, full-time jobs. Even with my increasing fan base and listenership, the money just isn't there anymore. It's incredibly discouraging. Thanks for shedding more light on this for the public.
I feel for you. … Back in the 80s ( I know, I know 🙄) I made a full time living as a roadie in the “A” circuit in Toronto and Ontario / Quebec. So did the band and management. It started to fall apart by the mid 80s and it disappeared by the mid 90s. Todays’ musicians / bands make exactly the same $$ amount as we did 45 years ago. Brutal.
Exactly right though - I have watched as my life expenses (rent, insurance, food, bills) doubled over the last few years, while royalties and concert percentages either plato or shrunk.
And while there are many little factors (more supply than demand, streaming itself, etc), it still always boils down to the fact that these corporations (livenation, spotify) are walking away extremely rich and leaving the creators with less and less of the pie.
(and also I'm sorry you've gone through that as well)
I'm actually hopeful that Substack might just provide an appropriate home and a source for at least some revenue for recording artists. I just launched my Stack recently so we'll see in a year or two. Cheers!
Start liking it, and I am not trying to be cruel, I really am not..
But the middle class is increasingly picked clean and left to rot, and entertainment is one of the first budget items to be cut on when money is tight.
Totally- I have seen it coming for some time, as profits, corporate greed, and AI become prominent, but it still hasn't made the shift any less painful.
A lot of truth to that. For better or worse, music is of less interest to young humans these days.
When I was a kitten, "what kinda music do you like?" was the standard ice-breaker when seeking to get acquainted with someone, and the answer you got often gave you a pretty good clue about the kind of cat you were dealing with. For humans, you probably didn't even need to ask, you could tell by the way they dressed.
This is so true. In junior high, we walked with friends to and from school and talked music a lot. Once or twice a week we went to the record store near us to check out new releases, look through posters, and, most importantly for junior high schoolers on budget, visit the cut-out racks!
Did you sport a meow-hawk, Feral Finster? “God Save the Queen” blasting because she supported corgies not kitties? 😸Henry Rollins?
In my day, I knew who to avoid. Purple velour Adidas jumpsuit wearing Korn fans, frosted-tipped Limp Bizkits, and 50-inch ankle diameter JNCOs with a 311 tee. Was there a human in there? They got lost in the denim. I tried to purify their ears with the original Lovesong by The Cure🎶, but only after I teetered on the verge of existential questions like, am I emo or goth?! I can’t even decide which shade of black eyeliner to wear. My teenage self wanted to fight with the stinky sweaty dudes in a NIN mosh pit. Nostalgia!
Never was into punk and cats don't do hairstyles or furstyles or whatever.
It is a trusim int he music business that the music a consumer listens to between the ages of 18 and 21 is the music that human will listen to for the rest of his life.
Not true in my case. I am always discovering new things, rediscovering forgotten things, learning to appreciate things I hadn't liked before, even when I was the target market.
Teens still define themselves by music. I work with them for a living. They now wear AirPods ALL the time. You guys are describing alternative too; you don't remember that 80s and 90s the majority of white kids were listening to pop garbage. Check out billboard top 100 every year of 90s. Ace of Base. Preppy kids listening to Conformity music. Today there's plenty of alt kids. Underground hip hop is what I see; Im not around white kids so Im not getting exposed to the Alt Rock of the last decade for the most part.
As someone who worked 40 years + in the film business (I can't honestly call it an industry; that ended long ago) I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think moving the business to Vegas and the other cities mentioned will help much at all. The root of the problem has been explained by Ted numerous times, and he's right. It really boils down to a major culture change/collapse in which the attention spans of the mainstream have been reduced to the level of a goldfish whose sustenance now comes largely from social media. And the addiction to social media is worldwide. The tragedy now is that great scripts, books, music et al are out there, but 'nobody' gives a shit any longer. Our times fulfill Huxley's prediction that in the future no one would care, even in the midst of greatness.
I quit attending movies decades ago. I couldn't tolerate the incessant moralizing of them. For every good movie there is another that wants to "teach me a lesson". No thanks. I've got things to do and can't waste time on that rot
Supply and demand. Look at the burgeoning supply. Anybody and everybody can publish a book (including me). Anybody can make a decent record in their basement (including me). Kids can become TikTok celebrities on little more than a whim.
That is the world we live in now. There's a lot to recommend it. The movie moguls that we all love to hate are headed for the exits. Publishers who controlled what we read and, ultimately, what we think, have lost control. When self-produced efforts done on little to no budget can compete with major studio efforts, cue the fat lady.
The downside of that is that everyone's content gets lost in the mix. Record labels and publishers provided a valuable service by sifting the good from bad, and then promoting it to the public. Of course they weren't perfect, but it beats the alternative.
Also, bands seemed to make a lot more money when they were signed to record deals, than the situation now.
Humanity wants the ending to be the beginning... show me the $$$. People want to push a button or take a pill and have it all. People's blood, sweat, and tears are what is real. I fear everything must be destroyed for people to realize the human experiment.
"In the future, no one would care." As depressing as AH's prediction is, we're seeing it play out in real-time across multiple cultural (and political) landscapes. I know change is inevitable but I never imagined theatrical exhibition -- i.e. The Movies -- would die with a such resounding whimper.
It can't be about attention spans. People will scroll Facebook or TikTok for hours. I've been thinking it has more to do with a desire for a more direct hit than a narrative movie or full length composition might provide. It's like pornography where it's all about the sex act with just enough filler for transitions.
Good analysis as always, but it omits the elephant in the Hollywood room - Blackrock mandated DEI targets for content, producers and on/off screen talent. Tentpole blockbusters were already draining all of the creativity and agility of the industry, but DEI created a downward step change in quality along with the genuine strategy of attacking your audience...
Kind of feel like Blackrock's ROI mandates and the general pursuit of short-term profits over long-term investment which is rampant in the investment world today has more to do with the lack of "creativity and agility of the industry" than DEI initiatives, which companies are rapidly getting rid of because they never really cared about them in the first place.
I think that's a fair point and the tentpole/sequel/reboot mania reflects the risk averse short termism within Hollywood. However, you only have to listen to anonymous writers talking about the DEI driven toxicity that has been created in writing rooms and the DEI algorithm screenplay programmes that companies such as Disney mandate to see the impact of DEI on the screen. For clarity, I have no issue with Hollywood making woke content as long as it is part of a heterogeneous output with the market deciding. That has not been the case in the last decade...
Since when has Hollywood been big on DEI? You can't blame this all on Sidney Poitier or the studios no longer cutting scenes with black performers for distribution in the South.
Utter nonsense. SInce there is a 99.99% likelihood that you voted for Trump, keep in mind that the arts don't tend to flourish in authoritarian regimes.
You might want to rethink your assumptions here. But I will understand if they are a comfort to you and you are reluctant to relinquish them. Change can be hard.
Actual data like the DEI requirements placed on Oscar qualifications for films or the loss of 40% of the audience in ticket sales over the last ten years. We could look at the volume of film productions or the destruction of money printing franchises. Alternatively we could just use the evidence of our eyes and look at the ridiculous beige morass of DEI mandated bilge that we have suffered through in the last decade. And please feel free to park the meaningless ad hominens at the door - I love the early works of Gus Van Sant, Truffaut, Almovodar as much as I enjoyed the first phase as the MCU.
“What’s your source?” DEI is core racism/sexism: to benefit one group at the expense of another. The fact that you refuse to see what is (and has been) happening for all these years means you are either ideologically blinkered or you are benefiting from the rot. What’s YOUR source?
Maybe trying to tell us how to live our lives according to their freak world perversion didn't turn out so well. Look at the front runner for an Oscar this year- which movie goers in Mexico demanded their money back within minutes of it playing. Sexualizing children (and who knows what else "P Diddy") has gone way over the top. And then there is good old greed, where they force you to subscribe to a dozen different sources to watch content. Good riddance.
Hot take: the people running the old entertainment conglomerates are cowards and don’t know squat. They let degen tech bros dictate unfair terms.
If they want to make box offices important - stop releasing stuff on streaming. Make going to movies a thing that we crave. People have surround sound, 72 inches, can wear their pyjamas and be in their own home for less. Why exactly does someone need to go to the cinema? If the studio co. need streaming that bad, then the party is truly over.
This is the same with music. Over on threads I saw a guy post that he needs to get 15k streams to make the same as a single vinyl sale. He hasn’t released a song on a streaming service since doing the math. Again, maybe stop using the infrastructure if the guys gating are greedy jerks.
I couldn't agree more. As a musician, I hear fellow musicians cry about how difficult it is to make money these days. Then they talk about their Spotify account and loading more songs onto it.
It's seems that the problem is right in our faces and yet we do nothing to change. Apparently, convenience is more important than survival?
To those who still think streaming isn't a major source of the problem; contrast another entertainment industry to music and film - sports. I read where the #2 college basketball recruit just inked an endorsement deal worth over $1 Million to play college basketball. This kid is 18 yrs old and still in high school and he's now a millionaire!
Take a look at how Division I college and professional athletes are doing financially these days. Now contrast that to how musicians and people in the film industry are faring. So whats the difference? College athletic programs and professional teams limit how many players can be on a team. When you watch Division I NCAA or professional sports, you can have confidence that you'll be entertained by a certain high standard of quality. From game to game, it might not be the best. But you can be certain that you are watching the best of the best perform.
Compare the financial situation of athletes to musicians. Music has over 100,000 songs a day uploaded to the leading streaming platform. The over saturation of inventory and lack of quality control in music and film has devalued both industries to pathetic levels.
If you're a musician, please don't complain to me anymore about how you can't make a living and then talk about your Spotify account.
Nailed it. No rational business offers its services for free. In an economically rational world, there would 0 new songs uploaded to Spotify each day. That said, music and art have never been rational enterprises. So Daniel Ek will be flying private for the foreseeable future!
Control the inventory, don't over saturate the amount of product and the valuations will remain high. Athletics has that figured out, music and film do not.
Obviously, this is complex but for what it's worth, here is what I see that needs to change:
First, it's not sound business structure to grossly over saturate inventory such as what the music and movie industries have done with streaming. When that business scenario happens, only a handful at the top of the chain make money. Nothing trickles down below a certain percentage level because there are simply too many mouths to feed.
As I mentioned, the sports industry has this figured out as millions play sports in local leagues but only a very select few make it to levels that are mass marketed to the public. For everyone else, you can still participate in sports at your local rec league. But don't expect your pick-up game that was video'd at the YMCA to be telecast along with major sports leagues (Div I NCAA and pros). Recorded music doesn't work that way. If I record and upload a song to Spotify, my song now competes on the same platform with Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, et al. Granted, users can filter but I'm in the same overall mix.
The business model for streaming platforms needs to be changed so that it's not an overwhelming deluge of artists all on the same platform. Perhaps have separate "Spotify Unsigned" and "Spotify major artists" sites that delineate for consumers the different levels of product and delineates payouts. When you convolute everything together, that's when you begin devaluing everything.
Secondly, streaming sites need to have labels (indies and majors) with more skin in the game and payout so that there is more incentive to develop new artists. Major labels have all but abandoned developing new talent as it just isn't profitable for them to do so. Indie labels struggle with realizing any return on recorded music and must rely almost solely on live performance for profitability. It's bad for the industry as a whole when everything bottlenecks down to just live performance for financial survival. There has to other outlets for income. Streaming business models need to allow for more financial support to labels.
Finally, streaming encourages segmented listening. No one is listening to the same music en masse anymore and no one can rattle off who the Top 20 artists are at any given time This is antithetical to the essence of music itself. The power of music is in unifying people, not having them segmented into silos of only having awareness of their own playlists. Radio used to help unify listeners and create regional and local music scenes (think Seattle in the 90's; Athens, GA in the 80's; Haight Ashbury in the 60's, etc.). People could still have and listen to their own personal, favorite music but radio acted as a sort of glue that kept regions and the nation unified. That is why there were so many new styles of music that developed and emerged from the 1960's up to the advent of mass streaming in 2010. I can list numerous different styles of music that emerged from the 70's. How many new styles of music are emerging today?
I'm not sure of how streaming can be reformatted to help tie listening habits together similar to radio but the current segmentation of listeners is killing the music industry.
I'm just a single voice and not an industry exec. But I love this industry and have worked in various facets of it since the 1980's. The music industry desperately needs to change. Currently, the music industry is decaying. I won't let it crumble without at least speaking up.
Sounds like you are calling for the return of gatekeepers.
Not sure how you are going to get a YouTube or a Spotify to adopt any of that, especially as music is almost free to record and comes with zero marginal cost.
That's exactly it - home technologies and comforts have evolved, so standard cinemas just aren't as exciting anymore. There's only one cinema I like going to in my city, and that's because it has these amazing, cushy reclining chairs. In the city I lived in before, the good cinema had couches and food/drink service. I don't know the answer for the music industry, but I think the cinema experience needs to go above and beyond to entice people away from the comfort of home.
Hi Ted--although these are under somber circumstances, I just want to express my appreciation for your work over the years. I was assigned the History of Jazz in college as a music major, and now as a composer in Los Angeles I'm happy to come across your writing and perspective again. I'm 28 and although I'm grateful for my path so far, it seems like now is the time for artists to manage expectations, adapt, and fight where we can. There's nothing scarier than "I don't know" but I think education and community are vital in all of it, whatever the future holds.
Classics! Old Hollywood won’t let you down. I just watched Doctor Zhivago for the first time🙏best movie I’ve seen in a long time!
I’ve used CDBaby in a songwriting duo I was 1/2 of in 2016-2020. I switched to Distrokid for a separate collaboration I was part of from 2022-2024. The upsells are ridiculous. Whether they were legacy or discovery fees I refused to pay them. Those tactics feel slimy. For my upcoming solo material, I want to fall back in love with music for myself. The industry seems too shifty for my liking and life circumstances anyway, so I hope doing the work for the sake of it will be satisfying enough. I think that’s the point of making art! I recite the serenity prayer with music. Seriously!!
The move is now toward independent creators and small labels who remain uncorrupted by the system. I work with seriously talented musicians in Nashville - and they all see the writing on this wall. Tremendous future through such platforms as Substack.
Gigging musician, singer/songwriter for almost 50 years now. Never achieved great success and except for a couple of years, always had a “real” job. Had the pleasure of hearing one of our singles on the radio, and opened locally for some bands with hit records. It’s been great fun, but really there was never any money in it for guys like me. And there’s even less now. Not complaining, I chose this realizing it was always going to be more of a hobby than a career. Talent doesn’t always mean $, and VanGogh died penniless and forgotten. I got it.
The interwebs got all the eyeballs, and they’re not giving them back. Also, the interwebs have given a couple of generations the idea that all content should be freeish. Of course it’s not, but interspersing ads throughout gives the impression that what I’m viewing is free. No one asked me for $ overtly. I have not figured out how to place ads in between songs in our live shows yet. Good luck everyone.
I can't pretend to see inside Daniel Ek's head, but a quick perusal of the tabloids shows he has purchased and rebuilt several large villas, costing hundreds of millions. Could it be he's selling his stocks not for lack of confidence, but rather to feed his ever-more-lavish lifestyle?
Perhaps he doesn't realize when you play musical chairs, eventually the music stops.
This goes right along with a post from a screenwriter this week:
"I would say, in my time in the industry (fifteen years and counting now), about 90% of the people I've met with the ability to actually greenlight movies, studio heads, billionaires, high level execs, private funds, do NOT GIVE A FUCK about movies. They rarely watch movies, think most movies are "terrible" even if they haven't seen them, and don't know even rudimentary cultural information about properties like Star Wars.
"Most of them conversationally reference movies from when they were kids, the last time they regularly watched movies before losing interest. DIE HARD comes up constantly. They will also reference movies they know are successful, but incorrectly, unintentionally often contradicting the point they were trying to make.
"They mostly want to do the fun stuff of movies; the parties, or getting to meet interesting famous people. That's why certain directors and actors have endless careers despite being impossible personalities or having long strings of failures; they're literally just indulged again and again by their friend they made, who really thinks it would be cool to get to go river rafting or whatever with a movie star.
"None of them care about political issues. Many of them are conservatives, but only functionally, and complain constantly about how the left is ruining movies, when it is in fact, them as individuals who are ruining movies.
"What's fascinating is the huge and omnipresent lie that ideas sell. They perpetuate this lie to prevent revolution. Of what sort I don't know, but these people, the money people, ultimately do not care about ideas. Two things sell: artists and opportunity. If they smell what they think is an opportunity, they jump. It's all context.
"Most of them do not read scripts, ever.
"This is the reality of the top of the industry. This is why so many confounding and bizarre choices are made, like a certain offshoot of the Marvel Universe at a different studio that I could mention.
"They have not even the most passive understanding of what the consumer would want, and they don't care, and they can't answer emails for three weeks right now because they're river rafting with Chris Hemsworth."
Perhaps the answer is a "substack" for music and one for movies. The platforms take a small portion and the creators get the rest. Technically feasible? Also, if live theater is attractive, we can say the same for live music, no?
This is a microcosm of current corporate business culture, especially in the U.S. It's no longer about providing products or services at reasonable profits and long-term viability, it's all about maximizing "shareholder value" this quarter and screw everyone else, including suppliers, employees and customers. It's the private equity ethic--extract as much wealth as possible.
Yep “told ya so” and now what? Been preaching this since 1982 when Roger Linn dropped by with his new machine and the ensuing passion to embrace the shiny tech monster devoured the landscape. The only surprising thing is that there’s any surprise at all. Moguls I know have been screaming it but are helpless against the tide of choices. That and the fact, truthfully, the fans and public overall don’t care. Apathy reigns on this subject. Supporting industries like The Ad biz is teetering. Actors, musicians, composers, writers secretly know it’s really a hobby now. The astounding disconnect is how solvent institutions like the Berklee school of music and other art schools are. Higher education in general is up for grabs as a career maker. I loved my music career and proud performers got paid. It’s heart breaking to see gifted humans spend their energy self promoting and scrounging the soulless internet for employment.
What you said is true, sadly. Gifted Jazzers are plugging their own educational efforts on social media because there is no really money to be made performing, thus revealing a simple truth:
There are far more people interested in learning to play music (especially Jazz) than there are people interested in listening to music (especially Jazz).
Berklee is a criminal enterprise. $360K for a Jazz degree? My law school (University of Michigan) costs less! Which degree would you rather have?
As usual, you are hitting the nail on the head. I've been writing and recording music since the mid-90s, so I've really lived this slippery slope we've been on. It started way long ago - we are now seeing the real death throes, and good riddance, to be honest. I'm slowly but surely finding a lovely audience right here on Substack, and yes, I do in fact get to keep most of the money, which is NEW. I get to write what I love about what I am passionate about, and I don't have to censor myself or craft my message to be less this or that ... I am FREE to be the creator I've always wanted to be. Glory hallelujah.
I have been a full time musician the last decade and this week is the first time I've been applying for outside, full-time jobs. Even with my increasing fan base and listenership, the money just isn't there anymore. It's incredibly discouraging. Thanks for shedding more light on this for the public.
I feel for you. … Back in the 80s ( I know, I know 🙄) I made a full time living as a roadie in the “A” circuit in Toronto and Ontario / Quebec. So did the band and management. It started to fall apart by the mid 80s and it disappeared by the mid 90s. Todays’ musicians / bands make exactly the same $$ amount as we did 45 years ago. Brutal.
Exactly right though - I have watched as my life expenses (rent, insurance, food, bills) doubled over the last few years, while royalties and concert percentages either plato or shrunk.
And while there are many little factors (more supply than demand, streaming itself, etc), it still always boils down to the fact that these corporations (livenation, spotify) are walking away extremely rich and leaving the creators with less and less of the pie.
(and also I'm sorry you've gone through that as well)
I'm actually hopeful that Substack might just provide an appropriate home and a source for at least some revenue for recording artists. I just launched my Stack recently so we'll see in a year or two. Cheers!
Start liking it, and I am not trying to be cruel, I really am not..
But the middle class is increasingly picked clean and left to rot, and entertainment is one of the first budget items to be cut on when money is tight.
Totally- I have seen it coming for some time, as profits, corporate greed, and AI become prominent, but it still hasn't made the shift any less painful.
"one of the first things to be cut back on when money is tight."
I believe it goes WAY beyond just the money. When lack of interest is tight ( and MUCH much more)
I fear much of the population has largely been so consumerized and STEMed that they cannot provide Whitman's "great audiences" for the arts.
A lot of truth to that. For better or worse, music is of less interest to young humans these days.
When I was a kitten, "what kinda music do you like?" was the standard ice-breaker when seeking to get acquainted with someone, and the answer you got often gave you a pretty good clue about the kind of cat you were dealing with. For humans, you probably didn't even need to ask, you could tell by the way they dressed.
This is so true. In junior high, we walked with friends to and from school and talked music a lot. Once or twice a week we went to the record store near us to check out new releases, look through posters, and, most importantly for junior high schoolers on budget, visit the cut-out racks!
Did you sport a meow-hawk, Feral Finster? “God Save the Queen” blasting because she supported corgies not kitties? 😸Henry Rollins?
In my day, I knew who to avoid. Purple velour Adidas jumpsuit wearing Korn fans, frosted-tipped Limp Bizkits, and 50-inch ankle diameter JNCOs with a 311 tee. Was there a human in there? They got lost in the denim. I tried to purify their ears with the original Lovesong by The Cure🎶, but only after I teetered on the verge of existential questions like, am I emo or goth?! I can’t even decide which shade of black eyeliner to wear. My teenage self wanted to fight with the stinky sweaty dudes in a NIN mosh pit. Nostalgia!
Never was into punk and cats don't do hairstyles or furstyles or whatever.
It is a trusim int he music business that the music a consumer listens to between the ages of 18 and 21 is the music that human will listen to for the rest of his life.
Not true in my case. I am always discovering new things, rediscovering forgotten things, learning to appreciate things I hadn't liked before, even when I was the target market.
Same!!
Teens still define themselves by music. I work with them for a living. They now wear AirPods ALL the time. You guys are describing alternative too; you don't remember that 80s and 90s the majority of white kids were listening to pop garbage. Check out billboard top 100 every year of 90s. Ace of Base. Preppy kids listening to Conformity music. Today there's plenty of alt kids. Underground hip hop is what I see; Im not around white kids so Im not getting exposed to the Alt Rock of the last decade for the most part.
As someone who worked 40 years + in the film business (I can't honestly call it an industry; that ended long ago) I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think moving the business to Vegas and the other cities mentioned will help much at all. The root of the problem has been explained by Ted numerous times, and he's right. It really boils down to a major culture change/collapse in which the attention spans of the mainstream have been reduced to the level of a goldfish whose sustenance now comes largely from social media. And the addiction to social media is worldwide. The tragedy now is that great scripts, books, music et al are out there, but 'nobody' gives a shit any longer. Our times fulfill Huxley's prediction that in the future no one would care, even in the midst of greatness.
I quit attending movies decades ago. I couldn't tolerate the incessant moralizing of them. For every good movie there is another that wants to "teach me a lesson". No thanks. I've got things to do and can't waste time on that rot
I play a game with current British TV series: spot the DEI hires.
There aren't many DEI hires in the US. It's mainly nepo-babies. They hate DEI hires because people are supposed to get hired based on merit.
Supply and demand. Look at the burgeoning supply. Anybody and everybody can publish a book (including me). Anybody can make a decent record in their basement (including me). Kids can become TikTok celebrities on little more than a whim.
That is the world we live in now. There's a lot to recommend it. The movie moguls that we all love to hate are headed for the exits. Publishers who controlled what we read and, ultimately, what we think, have lost control. When self-produced efforts done on little to no budget can compete with major studio efforts, cue the fat lady.
The downside of that is that everyone's content gets lost in the mix. Record labels and publishers provided a valuable service by sifting the good from bad, and then promoting it to the public. Of course they weren't perfect, but it beats the alternative.
Also, bands seemed to make a lot more money when they were signed to record deals, than the situation now.
To mix my metaphors, the "long tail" has come back to bite us.
Humanity wants the ending to be the beginning... show me the $$$. People want to push a button or take a pill and have it all. People's blood, sweat, and tears are what is real. I fear everything must be destroyed for people to realize the human experiment.
"In the future, no one would care." As depressing as AH's prediction is, we're seeing it play out in real-time across multiple cultural (and political) landscapes. I know change is inevitable but I never imagined theatrical exhibition -- i.e. The Movies -- would die with a such resounding whimper.
It can't be about attention spans. People will scroll Facebook or TikTok for hours. I've been thinking it has more to do with a desire for a more direct hit than a narrative movie or full length composition might provide. It's like pornography where it's all about the sex act with just enough filler for transitions.
Good analysis as always, but it omits the elephant in the Hollywood room - Blackrock mandated DEI targets for content, producers and on/off screen talent. Tentpole blockbusters were already draining all of the creativity and agility of the industry, but DEI created a downward step change in quality along with the genuine strategy of attacking your audience...
That's a lot of words just to tell us you're a worthless bigot. Blaming DEI for everything immediately, permanently discredits you as a human.
Launching ad hominem attacks instead of digging out the stats to prove him wrong ( if you can) is also discrediting behaviour.
Worthless bigot... hmmm... do you feel better now? It would appear that you haven't learnt anything from the last decade. How unfortunate.
Ha ha. Going to the mat to support DEI . . . that seems like a weak strategy for survival.
In case you haven't noticed, the Anti-DEI forces have been doing a lot of Winning the last three months.
Exactly right. That's why I quit attending them
Kind of feel like Blackrock's ROI mandates and the general pursuit of short-term profits over long-term investment which is rampant in the investment world today has more to do with the lack of "creativity and agility of the industry" than DEI initiatives, which companies are rapidly getting rid of because they never really cared about them in the first place.
I think that's a fair point and the tentpole/sequel/reboot mania reflects the risk averse short termism within Hollywood. However, you only have to listen to anonymous writers talking about the DEI driven toxicity that has been created in writing rooms and the DEI algorithm screenplay programmes that companies such as Disney mandate to see the impact of DEI on the screen. For clarity, I have no issue with Hollywood making woke content as long as it is part of a heterogeneous output with the market deciding. That has not been the case in the last decade...
Since when has Hollywood been big on DEI? You can't blame this all on Sidney Poitier or the studios no longer cutting scenes with black performers for distribution in the South.
Utter nonsense. SInce there is a 99.99% likelihood that you voted for Trump, keep in mind that the arts don't tend to flourish in authoritarian regimes.
You might want to rethink your assumptions here. But I will understand if they are a comfort to you and you are reluctant to relinquish them. Change can be hard.
Actual data like the DEI requirements placed on Oscar qualifications for films or the loss of 40% of the audience in ticket sales over the last ten years. We could look at the volume of film productions or the destruction of money printing franchises. Alternatively we could just use the evidence of our eyes and look at the ridiculous beige morass of DEI mandated bilge that we have suffered through in the last decade. And please feel free to park the meaningless ad hominens at the door - I love the early works of Gus Van Sant, Truffaut, Almovodar as much as I enjoyed the first phase as the MCU.
“What’s your source?” DEI is core racism/sexism: to benefit one group at the expense of another. The fact that you refuse to see what is (and has been) happening for all these years means you are either ideologically blinkered or you are benefiting from the rot. What’s YOUR source?
Be a good sport
Nope. He's a scumbag.
He has zero data...he follows Christopher Rufo, who has made a career out of absurd conspiracy theories that addled minds gravitate towards.
What kind of “data” do you expect to be available to document what we have all been experiencing for the last decade plus?
Vaguely waving your arms and trumpeting "DEI" is not a substitute for actual data.
No amount of data would satisy you
It's such a tragedy that educators no longer educate. Where is the civilisation in this type of abuse?
Insults are not argument.
Maybe trying to tell us how to live our lives according to their freak world perversion didn't turn out so well. Look at the front runner for an Oscar this year- which movie goers in Mexico demanded their money back within minutes of it playing. Sexualizing children (and who knows what else "P Diddy") has gone way over the top. And then there is good old greed, where they force you to subscribe to a dozen different sources to watch content. Good riddance.
Hot take: the people running the old entertainment conglomerates are cowards and don’t know squat. They let degen tech bros dictate unfair terms.
If they want to make box offices important - stop releasing stuff on streaming. Make going to movies a thing that we crave. People have surround sound, 72 inches, can wear their pyjamas and be in their own home for less. Why exactly does someone need to go to the cinema? If the studio co. need streaming that bad, then the party is truly over.
This is the same with music. Over on threads I saw a guy post that he needs to get 15k streams to make the same as a single vinyl sale. He hasn’t released a song on a streaming service since doing the math. Again, maybe stop using the infrastructure if the guys gating are greedy jerks.
I couldn't agree more. As a musician, I hear fellow musicians cry about how difficult it is to make money these days. Then they talk about their Spotify account and loading more songs onto it.
It's seems that the problem is right in our faces and yet we do nothing to change. Apparently, convenience is more important than survival?
To those who still think streaming isn't a major source of the problem; contrast another entertainment industry to music and film - sports. I read where the #2 college basketball recruit just inked an endorsement deal worth over $1 Million to play college basketball. This kid is 18 yrs old and still in high school and he's now a millionaire!
Take a look at how Division I college and professional athletes are doing financially these days. Now contrast that to how musicians and people in the film industry are faring. So whats the difference? College athletic programs and professional teams limit how many players can be on a team. When you watch Division I NCAA or professional sports, you can have confidence that you'll be entertained by a certain high standard of quality. From game to game, it might not be the best. But you can be certain that you are watching the best of the best perform.
Compare the financial situation of athletes to musicians. Music has over 100,000 songs a day uploaded to the leading streaming platform. The over saturation of inventory and lack of quality control in music and film has devalued both industries to pathetic levels.
If you're a musician, please don't complain to me anymore about how you can't make a living and then talk about your Spotify account.
People are devaluing their creativity by playing the platform’s games. These platforms thrive on churn.
Nailed it. No rational business offers its services for free. In an economically rational world, there would 0 new songs uploaded to Spotify each day. That said, music and art have never been rational enterprises. So Daniel Ek will be flying private for the foreseeable future!
Ohio State Buckeyes had around $22 million in this year’s NCAA champion football team. Texas had $23 million into theirs.
NCAA is reducing the size of the football roster (think to 108). It’s predicted to be the death of the walk ons.
Control the inventory, don't over saturate the amount of product and the valuations will remain high. Athletics has that figured out, music and film do not.
So how do you propose to do that in the music business?
Obviously, this is complex but for what it's worth, here is what I see that needs to change:
First, it's not sound business structure to grossly over saturate inventory such as what the music and movie industries have done with streaming. When that business scenario happens, only a handful at the top of the chain make money. Nothing trickles down below a certain percentage level because there are simply too many mouths to feed.
As I mentioned, the sports industry has this figured out as millions play sports in local leagues but only a very select few make it to levels that are mass marketed to the public. For everyone else, you can still participate in sports at your local rec league. But don't expect your pick-up game that was video'd at the YMCA to be telecast along with major sports leagues (Div I NCAA and pros). Recorded music doesn't work that way. If I record and upload a song to Spotify, my song now competes on the same platform with Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, et al. Granted, users can filter but I'm in the same overall mix.
The business model for streaming platforms needs to be changed so that it's not an overwhelming deluge of artists all on the same platform. Perhaps have separate "Spotify Unsigned" and "Spotify major artists" sites that delineate for consumers the different levels of product and delineates payouts. When you convolute everything together, that's when you begin devaluing everything.
Secondly, streaming sites need to have labels (indies and majors) with more skin in the game and payout so that there is more incentive to develop new artists. Major labels have all but abandoned developing new talent as it just isn't profitable for them to do so. Indie labels struggle with realizing any return on recorded music and must rely almost solely on live performance for profitability. It's bad for the industry as a whole when everything bottlenecks down to just live performance for financial survival. There has to other outlets for income. Streaming business models need to allow for more financial support to labels.
Finally, streaming encourages segmented listening. No one is listening to the same music en masse anymore and no one can rattle off who the Top 20 artists are at any given time This is antithetical to the essence of music itself. The power of music is in unifying people, not having them segmented into silos of only having awareness of their own playlists. Radio used to help unify listeners and create regional and local music scenes (think Seattle in the 90's; Athens, GA in the 80's; Haight Ashbury in the 60's, etc.). People could still have and listen to their own personal, favorite music but radio acted as a sort of glue that kept regions and the nation unified. That is why there were so many new styles of music that developed and emerged from the 1960's up to the advent of mass streaming in 2010. I can list numerous different styles of music that emerged from the 70's. How many new styles of music are emerging today?
I'm not sure of how streaming can be reformatted to help tie listening habits together similar to radio but the current segmentation of listeners is killing the music industry.
I'm just a single voice and not an industry exec. But I love this industry and have worked in various facets of it since the 1980's. The music industry desperately needs to change. Currently, the music industry is decaying. I won't let it crumble without at least speaking up.
Sounds like you are calling for the return of gatekeepers.
Not sure how you are going to get a YouTube or a Spotify to adopt any of that, especially as music is almost free to record and comes with zero marginal cost.
Go analog or go home : )
I.e.: Cinemas, concerts, vinyl, tape.
Exactly! Live music is thriving.
That's exactly it - home technologies and comforts have evolved, so standard cinemas just aren't as exciting anymore. There's only one cinema I like going to in my city, and that's because it has these amazing, cushy reclining chairs. In the city I lived in before, the good cinema had couches and food/drink service. I don't know the answer for the music industry, but I think the cinema experience needs to go above and beyond to entice people away from the comfort of home.
Hi Ted--although these are under somber circumstances, I just want to express my appreciation for your work over the years. I was assigned the History of Jazz in college as a music major, and now as a composer in Los Angeles I'm happy to come across your writing and perspective again. I'm 28 and although I'm grateful for my path so far, it seems like now is the time for artists to manage expectations, adapt, and fight where we can. There's nothing scarier than "I don't know" but I think education and community are vital in all of it, whatever the future holds.
Classics! Old Hollywood won’t let you down. I just watched Doctor Zhivago for the first time🙏best movie I’ve seen in a long time!
I’ve used CDBaby in a songwriting duo I was 1/2 of in 2016-2020. I switched to Distrokid for a separate collaboration I was part of from 2022-2024. The upsells are ridiculous. Whether they were legacy or discovery fees I refused to pay them. Those tactics feel slimy. For my upcoming solo material, I want to fall back in love with music for myself. The industry seems too shifty for my liking and life circumstances anyway, so I hope doing the work for the sake of it will be satisfying enough. I think that’s the point of making art! I recite the serenity prayer with music. Seriously!!
I agree with you very much thank you
The move is now toward independent creators and small labels who remain uncorrupted by the system. I work with seriously talented musicians in Nashville - and they all see the writing on this wall. Tremendous future through such platforms as Substack.
Thanks for this bit of hope
"Distributors deserve some money—that’s why I’m happy to pay Substack a 10% cut."
=> Substack should add film/video distribution and expect an avalanache of incoming movie-makers ?
"Substream" -- now where's my royalty ?
Gigging musician, singer/songwriter for almost 50 years now. Never achieved great success and except for a couple of years, always had a “real” job. Had the pleasure of hearing one of our singles on the radio, and opened locally for some bands with hit records. It’s been great fun, but really there was never any money in it for guys like me. And there’s even less now. Not complaining, I chose this realizing it was always going to be more of a hobby than a career. Talent doesn’t always mean $, and VanGogh died penniless and forgotten. I got it.
The interwebs got all the eyeballs, and they’re not giving them back. Also, the interwebs have given a couple of generations the idea that all content should be freeish. Of course it’s not, but interspersing ads throughout gives the impression that what I’m viewing is free. No one asked me for $ overtly. I have not figured out how to place ads in between songs in our live shows yet. Good luck everyone.
I can't pretend to see inside Daniel Ek's head, but a quick perusal of the tabloids shows he has purchased and rebuilt several large villas, costing hundreds of millions. Could it be he's selling his stocks not for lack of confidence, but rather to feed his ever-more-lavish lifestyle?
Perhaps he doesn't realize when you play musical chairs, eventually the music stops.
This goes right along with a post from a screenwriter this week:
"I would say, in my time in the industry (fifteen years and counting now), about 90% of the people I've met with the ability to actually greenlight movies, studio heads, billionaires, high level execs, private funds, do NOT GIVE A FUCK about movies. They rarely watch movies, think most movies are "terrible" even if they haven't seen them, and don't know even rudimentary cultural information about properties like Star Wars.
"Most of them conversationally reference movies from when they were kids, the last time they regularly watched movies before losing interest. DIE HARD comes up constantly. They will also reference movies they know are successful, but incorrectly, unintentionally often contradicting the point they were trying to make.
"They mostly want to do the fun stuff of movies; the parties, or getting to meet interesting famous people. That's why certain directors and actors have endless careers despite being impossible personalities or having long strings of failures; they're literally just indulged again and again by their friend they made, who really thinks it would be cool to get to go river rafting or whatever with a movie star.
"None of them care about political issues. Many of them are conservatives, but only functionally, and complain constantly about how the left is ruining movies, when it is in fact, them as individuals who are ruining movies.
"What's fascinating is the huge and omnipresent lie that ideas sell. They perpetuate this lie to prevent revolution. Of what sort I don't know, but these people, the money people, ultimately do not care about ideas. Two things sell: artists and opportunity. If they smell what they think is an opportunity, they jump. It's all context.
"Most of them do not read scripts, ever.
"This is the reality of the top of the industry. This is why so many confounding and bizarre choices are made, like a certain offshoot of the Marvel Universe at a different studio that I could mention.
"They have not even the most passive understanding of what the consumer would want, and they don't care, and they can't answer emails for three weeks right now because they're river rafting with Chris Hemsworth."
Perhaps the answer is a "substack" for music and one for movies. The platforms take a small portion and the creators get the rest. Technically feasible? Also, if live theater is attractive, we can say the same for live music, no?
Bandcamp is more or less the 'substack' of music at the moment.
This is a microcosm of current corporate business culture, especially in the U.S. It's no longer about providing products or services at reasonable profits and long-term viability, it's all about maximizing "shareholder value" this quarter and screw everyone else, including suppliers, employees and customers. It's the private equity ethic--extract as much wealth as possible.
Yep “told ya so” and now what? Been preaching this since 1982 when Roger Linn dropped by with his new machine and the ensuing passion to embrace the shiny tech monster devoured the landscape. The only surprising thing is that there’s any surprise at all. Moguls I know have been screaming it but are helpless against the tide of choices. That and the fact, truthfully, the fans and public overall don’t care. Apathy reigns on this subject. Supporting industries like The Ad biz is teetering. Actors, musicians, composers, writers secretly know it’s really a hobby now. The astounding disconnect is how solvent institutions like the Berklee school of music and other art schools are. Higher education in general is up for grabs as a career maker. I loved my music career and proud performers got paid. It’s heart breaking to see gifted humans spend their energy self promoting and scrounging the soulless internet for employment.
What you said is true, sadly. Gifted Jazzers are plugging their own educational efforts on social media because there is no really money to be made performing, thus revealing a simple truth:
There are far more people interested in learning to play music (especially Jazz) than there are people interested in listening to music (especially Jazz).
Berklee is a criminal enterprise. $360K for a Jazz degree? My law school (University of Michigan) costs less! Which degree would you rather have?
As usual, you are hitting the nail on the head. I've been writing and recording music since the mid-90s, so I've really lived this slippery slope we've been on. It started way long ago - we are now seeing the real death throes, and good riddance, to be honest. I'm slowly but surely finding a lovely audience right here on Substack, and yes, I do in fact get to keep most of the money, which is NEW. I get to write what I love about what I am passionate about, and I don't have to censor myself or craft my message to be less this or that ... I am FREE to be the creator I've always wanted to be. Glory hallelujah.