Breaking Themselves to Break the Scene

I take a deep dive into some of the reasons making it near impossible for musicians to benefit from their own work; or being a musician at all.

In most trades, a worker provides their goods in exchange for a fair and justified return. When we are young, we learn that we must work to earn our keep and that’s that. This system rarely fails in our modern society. However, the music industry is a little different. Within the industry, many individuals are involved in keeping the cogs turning; a lot of which we fail to notice as people outside of that world. To us, it appears that a musician makes their music, sells it under a record label, and gets an abundance of money and rewards in return. This might have been the case 50 years ago, but it certainly isn’t now. Being a musician purely means being the face of an entire industry of people behind you, all relying on your success to secure their own. Think about it – in a grocery shop, the goods that customers buy are the sole purpose of the shop’s existence, but when a product is bought, it’s not the product that benefits, it’s the retail workers who keep the shelves stocked. In the case of non-sentient commodities, this is fine. But musicians are not rolls of toilet paper on a supermarket shelf. We are living beings who also need to feed ourselves, provide for families, and pay our rent. And, in the current music industry, this is simply impossible.

Earning money as a musician is complicated. Revenue earnt by musicians from their songs being played or performed is called royalties. By now, many listeners are aware that music streaming platforms – how most of us consume music – pay extremely low royalty rates. Let’s take Spotify for example, if you listen to an artist’s song once, they will earn roughly 0.003 pence. So, you’d have to listen to that same song 334 times for the artist to earn just over £1. One single pound. Different platforms vary in royalty rates, but this is generally the case across the board. Spotify is notorious for how low theirs are. According to Business of Apps, Spotify also has the highest user rate over any platform with over 150 million subscribers, which makes the way they pay musicians even worse. Like me, you may be thinking that none of this adds up. If Spotify is such a huge company – worth nearly £12billion – where is the rest of the money, that they aren’t paying musicians, going? The answer is behind the scenes. Statistics from Ditto Music show that streaming services return around 70% of their revenue to the industry. Labels will pay between 10-15% to the artist and keep the rest. This means that most of the listener’s subscription money goes to record labels – disgustingly rich business bodies – rather than the musicians that they want to support. These factors make it impossible for musicians to benefit monetarily from their work. However, some lucky artists do make their big break through streams. Which opens the Pandora’s box that is fame.

We all know that trope of the innocent, zealous musician turned reckless, drug-addicted antagonist. It’s easy to look down on these characters and assume they self-destructed. This is because we can’t fully comprehend fame without experiencing it. Imagine: one day you’re in your bedroom creating what you love, wishing to share it with people. Then, suddenly, everyone is seeing your work. How can anyone process that? Musicians are infamous for mismanaging fame, but why? Being a musician means exposing every aspect of one’s life; it requires a brand to represent the music, and what better representation than the creator themselves? The more personal the work, the more likely listeners are to relate to it. Moreover, the more likely listeners are to critique it. Take Jesy Nelson of Little Mix – she and the girls shot to fame after their iconic win of reality TV competition The X-Factor. However, Jesy suffered an inexplicable amount of trolling after the show, being deemed the worst looking of the group. It was a brutal long-term attack that had nothing to do with the real reason she was famous. This string of hate caused her to develop a one-off documentary “Odd One Out,” which goes into depth about the reality of fame and online trolls.

Hate is just one element that musicians tackle if they break fame. There’s also the drastic highs and lows of live music. Performing in front of an audience is crucial to all musicians – it’s a great promotional tool and fans adore connecting with their heroes in person. Additionally, live music can generate masses of income. Playing live gives musicians an immense rush of adrenaline and endorphins. As a musician myself, I’ve done very minor gigs yet still felt that high. This feeling is addictive, on and off stage. So, when gigs are few and far between, performers often find themselves itching for that high and chasing it in other ways. Some turn to substances, that are easy to access with the money that fame brings, rather than confronting these emotions in a healthy way. It’s rare that musicians are mentally equipped for fame. Industry bodies bend and break musicians, while expecting them to deal with the consequences. All because the success of their artists means money in their accounts.

So, why aren’t changes being made? A problem unique to the music industry is that the people signing contracts – musicians – repeatedly fail to identify what they’re getting themselves into. This is no fault of theirs. An apple in a shop can’t determine where it will be placed, or who is going to buy it. It’s the fault of the people backing those artists, advising them to sign their livelihoods away, taking advantage of the fact that they aren’t businesspeople. In reality, these “advisors” encourage what benefits themselves. They pretty much hold the pen while the artist signs their name. And, all the time these people hide behind the curtain, the problem is masked. Bright-eyed musicians continue to grind and work their fingers to the bone, for an unsustainable income and unwelcome ramifications.

If there’s one thing that musicians can benefit from, it’s the joy of doing what they love. There is nothing sweeter than hearing your song on the radio, in a shop, or playing it live. Many trade bodies, such as The Musicians’ Union, are available to support artists in standing up for their rights. I hope – for the sake of creatives everywhere – that musicians can pull together to keep fighting the tough nature of the music industry and get the return that they deserve.