Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition

shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
Read half of this book last night, by a couple of academics with one foot in the music industry, called Can Music Make You Sick? Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition. It's not a great name all told, but it's a good book. I've mentioned on here a load of times how striking I find it that being a musician works out badly for quite a few of the people involved, this book dovetails with that nicely, especially given that the authors are only interested in the UK. This is the first long form description I've seen of what it's like to be a working musician in the last decade or so, aside from individual artist autobiographies, it's not a world I have access to but have wondered about a lot.

I'm pretty sure they interview Skream as well, all the interview extracts are anonymised but the guy identified as 'Dubstep producer, Male, London' speaks a lot like he does.
 
shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
'Even if musicians are no longer experiencing financial difficulties and have achieved a degree of success within the industry, the nature of the precarity and anxiety simply evolves as control is, once again, lost. For example, interviewees told us that as musicians become more well known and are travelling and touring, they first lose control of their diary, and ultimately, over their lives: ‘At the bottom, the instability is not having any money; at the top, it’s not having any freedom’ (Manager, M, Pop/various, London [29]).'
 
shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
'The harrowing personal experiences of celebrity musicians resonate with the public; they seem to mean something somehow. After all, here are a group of people who to all intents and purposes seem to be in a position of ‘living their best life’, and yet in full view of their public something is terribly wrong. Despite having everything, they are troubled'
 
shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
...trying to ascertain what success ‘is’ is made more complicated by the fact that for some of our interviewees their image, often helped by their social media and public relations (PR) team, of often great economic success did not always match the reality. The inability to turn what appeared to be reasonable levels of perceived success into actual financial peace of mind deeply worried some of these musicians. This was exemplified in an exchange with an internationally acclaimed dance producer, who within the previous twelve months had been nominated for a BRIT Award, had a number one record internationally, and had platinum records: ‘Because of the way the music industry works, it’s all sort of sold to people. It’s smoke and mirrors… From the outside, and the way you have to promote yourself through social media, most people would think that, you know, some people think I’m a millionaire! [But] I live in my Mum’s loft’ (Producer, M, Dance, London [20]). In Bourdieusian terms there is an acknowledgement that it is often incredibly difficult to convert what might be enormous reserves of social and institutionalised cultural capital, which could now be acquired and communicated online very publicly, into economic capital i.e. to translate their music’s ritual and social value into economic value.'
 
shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
The intersection of financial precarity, entrepreneurial individualism and the struggle to define working boundaries alongside the ‘one big hit’ logic leads to musicians struggling to know when to stop working, trapping them in a reflexive loop of production and debt that affects all social relations and impacts their sense of self in ways that they describe as distressing. The blurring of boundaries that accompanies the privatisation of all social aspects of their lives, where it becomes difficult to differentiate colleagues and friends as the dynamics of competition invades and distorts their relationships, leads to situations where abuse becomes more difficult, it would seem, to acknowledge, let alone name.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
Read an interview with DJ/producer Justin Strauss, said major labels used to pay big-name producers $20,000-25,000 to do a remix. Labels used to throw money around like crazy, that's gone and artists earn a sliver of a percent on streams. Don't know how anyone aside from big stars make anything.
 
shakahislop

shakahislop

Well-known member
Leo said:
Read an interview with DJ/producer Justin Strauss, said major labels used to pay big-name producers $20,000-25,000 to do a remix. Labels used to throw money around like crazy, that's gone and artists earn a sliver of a percent on streams. Don't know how anyone aside from big stars make anything.
Click to expand...
Yeah there's all these stories in Tricky's book about getting paid that kind of money for remixes.

If you subscribe to the 'nothing interesting is happening in music any more' school of thought, the massive decrease in the amount of money that's around is presumably one piece of that puzzle.
 
sufi

sufi

lala
my colleague is a drummer and has been in most of Hackney's punk bands, he is also an accountant

and my allotment neighbour plays gigs round old folks homes for a living, he's a young guy, i don't know whether he harbours ambitions towards megastardom

so it's not being a musician, it's just toxic celeb culture as usual
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
shakahislop said:
Yeah there's all these stories in Tricky's book about getting paid that kind of money for remixes.

If you subscribe to the 'nothing interesting is happening in music any more' school of thought, the massive decrease in the amount of money that's around is presumably one piece of that puzzle.
Click to expand...

mentioned this is the past but what I don't understand is the economics of vinyl. new releases are often double-LPs which go for $32-40 here. there are hardly any record stores, because they can make ends meet, so they aren't making the profits. are pressing plants making 3x-4x the margin compared to when albums retailed for $10? not likely. the distributor? the label?
 
Q

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
Leo said:
mentioned this is the past but what I don't understand is the economics of vinyl. new releases are often double-LPs which go for $32-40 here. there are hardly any record stores, because they can make ends meet, so they aren't making the profits. are pressing plants making 3x-4x the margin compared to when albums retailed for $10? not likely. the distributor? the label?
Click to expand...
I think the rise in price of vinyl mirrors the price rise of show / festy tickets
 
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