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[Note: if you haven’t already, click here to read part 1]
7. The indoor music industry is getting even worse
Were the record labels ever any good? From the very beginning they:
got artists to sign exploitative contracts so that even their musical stars died in poverty (especially if they were black)
had white people re-record the songs of black musicians without giving attribution or paying royalties
illegally paid DJs for decades to sideline rivals’ popular works
enabled powerful men to prey on young, vulnerable women
censored the lyrics of their own singers to ensure marketability
and pressured them to produce derivative, formulaic music
Much of that still goes on. But, now the labels have added new tricks, like ‘auto-tuning’ the voices of tone-deaf singers so that they can even more shamelessly package sex as music (as The Buggles wrote in 1979, video killed the radio star).
Also, industry consolidation means that today just three gatekeepers (Universal, Sony and Warner) now control 70-80% of the market. Add to that the impact of digital streaming (discussed below), and the indoor music industry looks bleak.
Consider this: international press widely reported that Taylor Swift purchasing her own music was a success story:
But once you look at the numbers, it seems less like a win and more like a boon for big capital. Scooter Braun made $265 million in profit from her music, the hedge fund Shamrock Capital probably earned around $100 million, and Swift spent $360 million of her own money—equalling the profits made by the other two—to purchase it.
In my opinion, even this “success story” is evidence that the power is in the wrong hands.
Maybe you disagree? Let me know in the comments below — Did Swift do well? Is the music industry working as intended? Do you hope to get signed yourself, or did you at the beginning of your career? If so, what worried you most about getting signed? If you did get signed, was it a good deal?
How busking addresses this problem
Innovation has never come from the labels, it’s always come from the streets, whether that’s the blues in the rural south, Doo Wop in the industrial north, rock on both sides of the Atlantic, Hip Hop in Harlem and the Bronx, or innumerable other genres created by buskers over the last century.
Busking provides artists with the kind of artistic freedom they’ll never get from a label. It also provides an income, without first needing a gatekeeper to judge them on their looks.