A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

Re:A brief history of why artists are no longer making a liv... by empath75 on Thursday March 21, 2019 @03:53PM (#19456544)

I don’t know of anyone who has made any worthwhile music who did it to make money. You’d be an idiot to do it for the money, even in the golden age of music labels. The vast majority of musicians made nothing and a few got super wealthy. You had to practice for years, putting aside any other career in order for a small chance to get discovered. Now once you’re discovered and you have a career, you might continue to do it for the money, but nobody starts there and by then you’re already a talented musician, having done most of the hard work of learning to make music with no real financial incentive at all.

Now people can work on music part time for years as a hobby and just throw it out there and if it’s good people will find it and maybe they’ll get asked to do a gig here and there and that might be enough for them.

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Re:A brief history of why artists are no longer making a liv... by tacon on Thursday March 21, 2019 @05:12PM (#19457372)

>The vast majority of musicians made nothing and a few got super wealthy

The vast majority of {entrepreneurs, actors, drug dealers, athletes, ...} made nothing and a few got super wealthy.

It's structurally a tournament in a lot of fields.

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Re:A brief history of why artists are no longer making a liv... by jedberg on Thursday March 21, 2019 @04:15PM (#19456771)

You think Brittany Spears made music because she loves music? Or the Backstreet Boys? Or pretty much any K-Pop band these days? They're all out there because a record person wanted to sell personas.

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Re:A brief history of why artists are no longer making a liv... by saberience on Thursday March 21, 2019 @04:25PM (#19456901)

That's a pretty cynical attitude you have there. You should try listening to all of the acapella recordings of Brittany Spears, or all of the videos of her singing and performing as a child.

As a child who was forced to play piano (and other instruments), in my opinion, you cannot force a child to become a "Brittany Spears," they have to want it too, or they will never perform and work hard enough to make it.

Brittany Spears, whatever you think of her, clearly loves singing and performing. The fact that you have this attitude either shows you have zero understanding of human nature or just are a very negative and cynical person. Either way, it's a sucky attitude.

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Re:A brief history of why artists are no longer making a liv... by jedberg on Thursday March 21, 2019 @04:36PM (#19457040)

She's a talented singer, but they forced her to change her range higher to fit the "cute little girl" package. So while she may enjoy music, she changed her music to make more money. And now she's changed it back and it's better, but she's already successful so she can take risks now.

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