Yes, I’m aware. the lesson the majors took away from punk was cooption. It was easier to let artists making music that might not appeal to the mainstream retain their independence via subsidary labels (Trent Reznor’s label Nothing was a subsidary of another label, which was a subsidary of Interscope, and both of which were ultimately owned by Universal Music group).
Yep. Not at all an uncommon story.
I want to say that the average income for working musicians today (meaning pop musicians, not people in other fields like the classical world, etc) is about $33,000… In many places that’s at or near the poverty line. This includes many people who have had what people would consider a successful career in music, too. Keeping in mind that some of the top paid artists make tens of millions a year (U2, Metallica, Bruno Mars, Jay-Z/Beyonce, etc), that’s quite a spread to get the average being that low.
Now I wonder if that number (12%) takes into account people who are using mechanisms such as Patreon or Band Camp to be more fully independent (not having a label at all to deliver content to their fans)?
But yeah, the thing is, none of this is a new problem in the music industry. What year did Albini write his famous essay about the music industry? The late 80s or early 90s sometime?
I do think part of the problem is that many people don’t understand the nature of the labor in the first place and how artists on majors (or major indies) get renumerated in general or the role that publishing rights plays in how an artist can profit from their work. The music industry is a pretty mystifying process, because all most people see is the glamour, not the variety or type of work that goes into songwriting or performing (which isn’t always done by the same person).
