CzarTim said:
I've always felt like musicians should make their money from touring and look at albums as promotions for the tours.
Musicians should be able to make a decent living without subjugating themselves to life as a glorified minstrel performer. That used to be the case.
Every development in music consumption in the past 15 years has been great for consumers and for corporations, but terrible for musicians.
There's no reason for many people to support artists when they can hear entire albums for free on Spotify. Also, since most people will not pay Spotify, they will hear a poor quality version of the album. None of that is good for musicians.
Albums used to be carefully considered works of art. IF albums have truly been relegated to be "promotional material," then the economics of being a professional musician are truly fucked. Who would be willing to invest their time and money into creating an album if they aren't willing to drop everything else in their life to go touring for months?
I remember reading a few years ago about the rise of self-recorded albums due to cheaper recording equipment and talented individuals being able to make albums on their own time. The economics of the music industry since then have killed these people from being able to record an album in between their job and family stuff.
Are these people not worthy of financial success for the art they've created, even though they don't want to drop everything in their life to go tour?