Originally Posted by beechnut79
Well, through the years, Marc, recording artists have had other sources of income while trying to make it in music. Examples: Tammy Wynette, hairdresser; John Prine, mailman; Naomi Judd, nurse.



Beechnut, An artists ability to make money has ALWAYS been determined by touring and merchandising. The difference in today and "yesteryear" is that the record companies also share in the touring and merchandise. But really is THIS that difference either?
In Elvis' case, Col. Tom Parker got half of everything Elvis earned. In the Beatles case, Brian Epstein was a principal beneficiary and the Beatles today still fight legal battles to earn back elements of their career they gave up early.

One of the things I always noticed when I first moved to Nashville is that almost nobody in the industry, particularly songwriters, ONLY derived income from the music industry. They almost all were involved with other businesses, some music related, some totally unrelated. Writers would have businesses like plumbing contractors, electricians, real estate agents, etc. This is EVEN WHEN they were on top of the charts at one particular time. Those times change and you might find yourself right back where you were before and often they had so much money invested in their music business that much of what they earned in the "big time" was spent paying back loans and draws made before they became successful. Some continued on to huge careers, but not as much as most people would think.

A majority of what I thought was going to happen eight years ago has happened. Songwriters artists, labels, publishers, make much less money because of the amount of product that is out there, a fickle public that has no intention of paying for music because they never have, streaming services that require more and more streams and pay less, etc. And even some of those services, Pandora and Spotify, for instance are also in the red in their account balances. They don't make money. We're in the era of "free music." Period. And it's not going to go back. We have to deal with that.There are many many more artists, songs, unending product. It is easy to do. Write songs record them, even in the most rudimentary way, and put them on the Internet. It put everyone into the game, and took the money out of the game. The high profile earners, top of the pyramid (and there will always be those) will find ways to keep going, most others will not.

And Ray, no there are no DJ's in mainstream radio that make the decisions anymore. That has been gone for around 20 years since the industry consolodated, people like Clear Channel took over radio. But again, this is not new. If you want to read an interesting book, find a book called HIT MEN. from the 80's It tells the story of PINK FLOYD, who at the time were on the top of the charts, and had some of the biggest records out there. They discovered the process of paying radio programmers and how all that was working and refused to participate. Their records suddenly dropped through the basement and they never received significant airplay again.

Now there is INTERNET RADIO, there are pod casts, there are secondary markets and college radio, there are other avenues, but again, due to the sheer vast amount of people trying to get INTO those avenues, there is more competition. So no, for the most part, DJ's have long stopped being the arbiters of airplay.

My overall point is what does that have to do with your writing? Unless you pony up millions of dollars and start your own label or radio station, there is not much you are going to be able to do about it. You can only control what YOU do. What you write. What you record or have recorded, the audience you accumulate through your efforts. You can complain all you want, but it really doesn't change anything.
My thoughts are on a trend I have been seeing for a long time which comes from writers who claim they are trying to get into the music business, yet spend most of their time complaining about the music business. They write songs that are frankly quite offensive to anyone who actually is doing this. And that is their right to be offensive to whomever they want. But these same people complain the loudest when they're careers go no where and they seem to not draw a correlation between their personal attitudes and their ability to go much of anywhere.

We have a similar situation going in the "Facebook world." People get online and become the nastiest, most bitter, angry people in the world in their unending rants on politics, religion, life, and yes, music. Most people spend as much time "unfriending" people as they do anything else. And now I am hearing more and more people who are inside the industry, and outside the industry, who are affected. I expect to see more and more people lose deals, records lose success and traction, artists completely dissappear due to the attitudes they are taking in public.

Beechnut, another prediction I am making now is that FACEBOOK, TWITTER are going to end more careers than Drugs and alcohol ever did.

What's the industry going to do? Have no idea. I imagine it will keep on, major labels and companies will still be out there, some people will rise to the top. And there will be a TON of people that COMPLAIN about everything about it.

If you have a historical perspective, and look at things from a little longer than just getting started the day you were born, you will see that history repeats itself and there is nothing really that new under the sun.

MAB