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The folk musician John Spiers doesn’t sit on the fence when tweeting about the professional music business these days:
‘Let’s face it … professional music is a stupid thing to do in 2022. A really stupid thing. Money from expensively recorded albums is in the hands of globalist streaming monopolies who shaft us on a daily basis and our unions and govt are powerless/unwilling to help … the only place we ever make any real money is by playing live which is a fucking slog where you become a driver for 8 hours a day … and have to perform in the evening, stay away from your family for months on end. Why the fuck do we do it? It’s nuts!’
He’s right, too, and it’s why I always buy my music and never stream it and I enjoy live gigs. Whichever way you look at it, streaming music is to all intents and purposes the legal theft of an artist’s work. A songwriter creates a song, records it, usually at significant cost and the financial returns from streaming platforms are pitiful. Quite simply, unless you are a megastar like Adele, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay you cannot eke out a living by way of selling your records. Instead, you are permanently on the road, “a fucking slog”, as Spiers puts it.
On top of that, we have Brexit, which is destroying the livings of non megastar acts, who can no longer tour because of the added expense and complications losing free movement has inflicted on them. However, it is not quite true to say the government is powerless to help. It is more than the government isn’t interesting in helping.
If I had any musical talent – and my musical abilities are reflective of my abilities in just about everything else: non existent – I would remain a keen amateur. I’d play the odd local gig, I’d have a small on-line shop for merch and CDs and I’d play my music around my day job. And why? Because I’d have no alternative. There’s no money out there. Being an up and coming musician, or a journeyman, as most musicians are, is becoming a hobby and not a job.
The government could do something if it wanted to. It could work with the music industry to ensure artists don’t get ripped off and it could proactively negotiate a deal with the EU to ensure musicians can continue to tour across EU countries.
I still look forward to hearing new music just as much as I did when a new Beatles record came out or listening to the Radio 1 charts on a little transistor radio on the school playing fields for the first play of the new T Rex single. When on her BBC 6 Music breakfast show Lauren Laverne unveils a brand new ‘when you were sleeping’ track, the excitement is as palpable as ever. The idea that one day all radio stations will play nothing but oldies from days gone by when they still made new music appals me.
I hope the likes of John Spiers carry on with their “fucking slog” because without it, we have nothing but stuff we’ve heard millions of times before. New music, new life.
