According to David Byrne, the music business is in real long-term trouble. According to Taylor Swift, everything is awesome! David Byrne was born in 1952. Taylor Swift was manufactured in a secret underground lab, stitched together using castaway parts of rejected Nickelodeon/Disney Channel child stars, in 1989.* Your own age probably is the best indicator of which argument you agree with: I suspect the older generations see a bleak future for a business in its death knells, incapable of sustaining its business model as low-revenue streaming sites increase in popularity; meanwhile, I suspect the younger generations see an exciting future for music centered around the unlimited potential of the internet. Then again, since most of you have children and dogs and loving spouses and stressful jobs to focus on, maybe you haven’t given any thought whatsoever to the state of the music business. Maybe I’m all alone on this one. Because all I have are cats. And cats, as you know, are surprisingly low maintenance. Not having to take them outside to poop, to school or soccer practice, or give them obligatory blowjobs twice a month, (unless they’ve been very good about not vomiting on the carpet, which never happens), has given me an enormous amount of free time to think about the state of the music business on my own terms. If you would indulge me– although I’m no Taylor Swift!–I would like to take a brief moment to share what I think about all of this.
I was born in 1969, so I find myself about halfway between David Byrne’s generation and Taylor Swift’s, which is interesting, as I agree with parts of both of their arguments. (If you tell anyone I agree with Taylor Swift I will cut you.)
Please bear in mind that I am approaching this subject purely as a consumer. I am not a musician, I cannot sing, and the idea of writing poetry fills me with dread. In my early 20s, after a stint in the Navy, I briefly considered pursuing a career in radio or as a wedding deejay…but I quickly abandoned those dreams, as I saw that radio was a sleazy business, and there was no money to be made in deejaying gigs. If you would like to see a brief overview of my musical consumerism over the years, I have footnoted it at the end of this post.†
I absolutely agree that, with the increasing popularity of smartphones and streaming services, the music business is changing, and changing in dramatic, unsettling ways that will devastate some. But I do not think that the music industry itself will be destroyed. That is unfathomable to me. You might as well worry about destroying laughter or driving love into extinction simply by outlawing Valentine’s Day. It cannot be done. Music is the human condition. Music cannot be destroyed. It will always be created. The question at hand, the question that worries David Byrne is “Will people still be able to make a living at it?” And, to be honest, questions like that that kind of make me angry.
Let’s chat about that anger for a little bit, shall we?
I think we can all agree that artists of all types live in a strange economic universe. Take me, the non-artist, as a counter example. I am a payroll specialist by trade. That is how I makes my money. To paraphrase Dustin Hoffman, I’m an excellent payroll specialist. I am not the best in my field, but I’m fairly competent. I am professional and efficient and oh my God I am putting myself to sleep just typing this bullshit who gives a fuck I mean really. I make less than $50,000 a year. (I actually make a lot less than $50,000 a year, I’m just rounding up to be vague, as well as to give you the impression that I make $50,000 a year, which I don’t.) Even if I am the best payroll specialist in North Carolina, I am never going to make more than that. I am trapped, so to speak, by the economic limitations of my profession. I am also living the staid, corporate 9 to 5 existence…the one musicians mock as being soul-destroying. (If I had a soul left, that type of mockery would hurt me.) But, when I look at the other numb, dead-inside payroll specialists that surround me, we’re all in the same economic boat. We all float along trying to survive on–again, this is ballpark–$25,000 to $50,000 a year. Now let’s look at professional musicians.
They don’t really play in the same ballpark with each other at all, do they? Some, if they’re lucky, get $100 a gig. And that’s if they’re lucky. And some get arrested at age 19 for speeding in their Lamborghini. The disparity between a struggling musician and one on top of their profession is incomprehensible.
When did this start? Music, musicians, and singers have been around for as long as civilization has existed. But when did the grotesque, fabulous wealth come into the picture? The first wildly rich musician that comes to mind was Elvis Presley. I’m sure there were others before him, but his are the first examples of excess that pop into my head. Him with his fleet of Cadillacs and stupendous drug habit and posse of leeches and hangers-on. The money flowed through his hands like water. Liberace lived extravagantly as well. So, in my mind, generally speaking, the fifties and sixties were the period when musicians started to gain access to unimaginable wealth. It hasn’t been that long, in other words: less than a lifespan. In my opinion, the David Byrneses of the world, the ones who succeeded in this business when enormous sums of money received for album sales were commonplace, they are the ones that are feeling the most shock from this transitional period in the music industry.
And you know, let’s flip the question. Let’s talk about those at the top. We never ask why it is, exactly, that successful musicians–not necessarily the most talented, mind you, simply the most successful–make so much goddamn money. But I think it’s a question worth asking. Because how can we worry about how the lowest among them are suffering if we cannot question why it is exactly that Justin Bieber owns a goddamn Lamborghini?
What does David Byrne consider to be so low a figure that artists can’t make a living? It would help if I knew. Because a lot of the consumers of the music–the ones who buy the concert tickets, the ones who buy the posters of “Stop Making Sense,” (did I just date myself with that reference or what), the ones who stream the music on their phones–make less then $35,000 a year, and they seem to “make a living.” They “get by.” Of course, some of them are on food stamps and WIC and don’t own cars…but they’re living. Millions of us are struggling in this country, not just artists. When did they forget that? When did it become expected that everyone would struggle except the struggling artist? When did writing/performing a popular song become synonymous with hitting the lottery? When did the valuation of that skyrocket? And is it reasonable to expect that standard to be maintained? I mean, I can’t be the only one disgusted by the very thought of the show Cribs.
Of course, I do not want musicians or songwriters to be exploited. I want them to be treated equitably. I want them to be able to make a living at what they do. But, you know what? That’s pretty much between them and their record labels. And record labels have been infamously fucking musicians over since record labels were created. Artists are creative people. And creative people are notoriously horrible with money. Their lack of understanding of it and failure to appreciate it, (see: Presley, Elvis. see: Hammer, MC. see: Nelson, Willie. see: Ever, Almost Any Musician. Except for maybe Joan Jett & David Bowie. They’ve invested wisely.), is part of the problem. When they’re not snorting their money up their nose, drinking it or injecting it into their veins, they’re assigning shady business managers to be responsible for it. (see: Joel, Billy.)
People are still spending their disposable income on music. But David Byrne has to understand that a)we have a lot less disposable income now that he thinks we have and b)it’s not our fault that your record companies aren’t sharing what we spend with you. We can only do so much. Whining about how you’re hurting isn’t making you too many friends in the $9.00 an hour crowd. Lars Ulrich from Metallica pulled that shit when Napster exploded onto the world ten years ago and I still hate that greedy little shit for it.
Because Taylor Swift is right.**** There is a lot to be excited about in this digital age.
We now have access to every song, musician, and style that we can think of. Sure, wandering through Goody Records or The Music Man or Tower Records or Licorice Pizza back in the day used to be fun…but those brick and mortar stores offered NOTHING in the way of selection the way that the internet does. With YouTube and iTunes, you can sample almost anything at the click of a button. You can discover new bands in ways that you would have never had discovered them before the Internet Age. You’re no longer simply bound to the boring constrictions of formatted, corporate radio. You can make your own playlist, discover your own next best thing, create the soundtrack to your life on your own. As I have said, I’m not an artist, but that has got to be exciting from an artistic perspective. The problem for artists being, of course, that the market is flooded with a million people just like them.
So, yes, I see this as a turbulent period for the music industry. Artists that were used to one type of revenue stream have had their lives completely upended by this new digital world. And I am sure that some of them have seen dramatic shifts in their income. They may have to get out of the business and become music teachers or accountants or truck drivers. But there will be others who will step into their place. Maybe this new set of songwriters will be more open to the idea of touring full-time. (Maybe this new set of songwriters will all be capable of singing their own songs, as making a living simply from songwriting seems to be, according to David Byrne, increasingly impossible to do.) Since they will not be familiar with what it feels like to write a hit song and watch the six-figure royalty checks come floating in, they won’t know what they’re missing. But the creative force is more powerful than how it is monetized.
Rock and roll was never supposed to be about money. When did we forget that? Was it when Steve Winwood sold out? It was supposed to be about rebellion and liberation and telling The Man to fuck off. And I’m pretty sure that people will want to do that regardless of how much money they make doing it.
That being said, of course I want the laws rewritten so that a more equitable share of the revenue from streaming music goes to the artists themselves. I am not happy that the record companies are raking in profits at the expense of their talent. (Fucking corporations, man.) But, again–that is a fight between the artists and their labels. I fully support the artists in that endeavor. But, when they come out publicly bitching about how unfair it is that people are streaming music, how ridiculous it is that people expect to listen to music for free, that is when they lose me. Would David Byrne have bitched when I recorded Burning Down The House off the radio in 1983? Was I stealing music then, as a fourteen year old, listening to my radio-recorded mix tapes? People are no more stealing music now then they were listening to the radio back in the day. The shocking thing, when you think about it, is that people are now subscribing to music streaming services when they used to get it for free.
Maybe the universe is simply realigning in this Digital Age. Maybe all of this is just karmic payback for Peter Frampton having the most popular live album of all time, something that I will never understand. Then again, people were doing a lot of drugs in the 70’s. But, if this realignment results in the show Cribs never being aired again because singers can no longer afford McMansions with infinity pools and pinball machines, I think it’s going to all be worth it.
Pretty much ever since the Internet was invented by Al Gore, people have been bemoaning the demise of a)newspapers; b)the movie industry; c)books; d)music; e)magazines; f)pornography. (Heh, just kidding about that last one. I just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.) They’ve all taken serious hits in one way or another…but they are all still very much alive as industries. They are learning to adapt to the new age. I mean, for example, porn is thriving, at least in my house. And I now subscribe to the New York Times. I never would have subscribed in print form. Christ…the subscription was too expensive. And who has time to read the goddamn New York Times? But I am a subscriber now, in spite of the fact that Maureen Dowd works there.
I really ought to get my money’s worth and find time to do their crossword puzzle.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is David Byrne needs to chill the fuck out. We’re not trying to burn down the house (eh? eh?) of music by streaming music. We’re simply trying to transcend the boundaries of what is possible. Which is exactly what music has been trying to do for centuries.
I expect the next few years to be exciting indeed.
*Allegedly.
† The first album I remember wearing the needle out on my little record player listening to was The Beach Boys’ Endless Summer double album. I was about 8. When I was 13, my mother let my choose a cassette from Columbia Record House. I chose John Cougar’s American Fool. When I was 14, I received a $25 Sears gift certificate, and with it I bought the cassette versions of the Police’s Synchronicity and Lionel Ritchie’s Can’t Slow Down.** And a basketball. And three 90 minute Memorex blank tapes, to record songs off the radio. ($25 dollars used to buy you a lot of shit at Sears, kids. What’s Sears? Oh, I’ll explain that to you later. But they had escalators and used to sell popcorn and bulk candy. The store smelled fantastic.) When I started converting to CDs in 1989, the first three CDs I bought were Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits, Oingo Boingo’s Best of Boingo: Skeletons in the Closet and the Best of Berlin. When I started converting to downloads in 2010, the first album I bought electronically was The Jesus & Mary Chain’s 21 Singles. I had bought a few singles through iTunes by that point, and I needed a copy of their song Sometimes Always for a project I was working on, but the entire album only cost $6.99, so rather than simply buy the single I said fuck it and bought the whole thing. I’ve been buying my albums electronically ever since. With that I hope you can see that, despite the relatively embarrassing choices I made in my youth, music has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. (I can tell you I can’t remember anything else that I did when I was 13…but I remember buying music with that gift certificate.***)
**Shut up.
***I may have also gotten my first period that year. To quote Lionel Ritchie, I was not “dancing on the ceiling” over that, of that you can be sure.
****I said shut up.
Please. Hold Your Applause 'Til The End. 