The Cost of Passion
a.k.a. Musicians aren't magicians, and what they do is work.
The music industry runs on passion.
I know, I know. Aside from sounding like a total cliché, that sentence reads like something a branding agency might slip into a pitch deck. However, if we set aside all notions of vapid sloganeering and pseudo-profound cultural “analysis,” there’s still a nugget of truth in there.
The music industry does run on passion, but not because those who work in it (or simply aspire to) are a uniquely driven bunch. No, it runs on passion in the sense that music—like most creative endeavors—is something that most consumers (and even some artists) don’t consider to be real work. Musicians usually aren’t seen as laborers; they’re thought to be “living the dream,” and while exploiting / underpaying / undervaluing them isn’t necessarily okay, it’s rarely regarded as a serious problem.
Journalist and artist manager Brandon Stosuy hinted at this in a tweet earlier this year.
In fairness, it’s not as though consumers are intentionally looking to screw artists over. Many of them likely want to support artists, at least in theory, but they usually wind up falling short. Why? Because they’ve been led to participate in systems that were set up to capitalize on their apathy. Take streaming for example. Most people would never walk into a record shop and steal an artist’s latest album, but they will go and stream that same album online, even when they know that the artist will likely only be paid a few pennies as a result. They might not feel great about it—some might even rail against the evils of Spotify on social media—but few will feel bad enough to cancel their subscriptions or go purchase the music instead.
Streaming companies know this, and while the low cost and general convenience of their product are certainly key to its appeal, there’s also a psychological component at work. Thanks to these platforms (not to mention the proliferation of digital production software and DIY distribution services), music is now more plentiful and readily available than ever. That’s frequently spun as a good thing (and it can be), but there is a downside: music has lost much of its perceived value, and those who make it are increasingly regarded as a sort of eminently replaceable workforce.
That’s not entirely new—celebrity has always had a certain level of disposability—but it’s nonetheless ironic that in a society obsessed with fame, and in which the most successful artists are often placed on ridiculous cultural pedestals, the bulk of the creator class is still seen as expendable. Artists are generally regarded as “lucky” to be doing what they do, and if they dare to speak up and say that they’re not happy with their working conditions or that they’re not making enough money to survive, it usually doesn’t take long for someone to point out that there are countless others who would happily step in and take their place.