More Dangerous Than the Internet Troll: The Backhanded Complimenter
The musician or artist is often forewarned about the danger of Internet trolls, but I warn you to look out for a more personal danger: the backhanded complimenter.
I met one of my Michigan-based, musician heroes this year. This musician happened to be at one of my outdoor gigs.
After my set, a mutual friend introduced us, and I thanked the local musician for listening to me. His response was, “I was really dubious of you when you sounded checked with that [cover song]…but you did really well with your own songs.”
Talk about taking the wind out of my sails!
Later that might, I considered removing that cover song from my repertoire, wondering if the song wasn’t “cool.”
Ironically, what’s not cool to the “hip” is often the song that gets requested the most. Playing that cover song gets tips, which helps afford birthday presents, groceries, guitar strings…
Ignore backhanded compliments; they usually come from those feeling discouraged about their art. And being a musician or artist is difficult enough.
In conclusion:
Are we undervaluing music? I don’t know.
Some may ask, “Who says we can trust the streaming company to be honest?” I’ll leave that to others to decide.
Can you potentially make a lot of music from streaming? Sure.
Is it likely? Probably not!
I think the bigger myth, one more dangerous than Spotify, is this: It’s easier today to make it in music than it was in the old days (90s, 80s, 70s, 60s,).
That generalization is false. It’s not easier to make a living in music.
What is true about today is:
- It’s cheaper to record songs with digital tools
- It’s easier and quicker to publish songs with the “potential” of getting heard
- It’s easier to discover potential gigs because of online tools
- It’s easier to communicate
- It’s easier to find your way to a gig because of GPS maps.
But none of these things makes it actually easier to break out. It’s still just as difficult if not, but not more unlikely. Probably about the same.
But it is easier to share your music. And hopefully that good feeling will keep people making good music!
Myth 7: You can make money from Spotify over the long term!
Maybe. But I don’t think this is realistic for the DIY, independent artist. I think the numbers clearly work in the favor for well-known artists, as usual.
And it’s also possible the indie artist might have made more money from 50 people who bought a CD, than 50 who stream the music. You aren’t going to make a cup of coffee from 50 people streaming your songs a few times. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
A band will need to get 800-1000 streams to make the same amount of money they made on one sale of $6. That’s 50 hours of consuming one band’s music. We can see why bands/songwriters are skeptical of the pay rates for streaming.
This is what’s scary for the current songwriter/musician. When someone buys your CD you had no way of knowing how often they listen to it. Musicians get paid upfront for the sale. With streaming, you will technically find out if people are listening to it or not.
Myth 6: Spotify is killing download and CD sales
This could be true, but that’s a small picture view.
First, it’s not realistic to assume every stream was a possible sale. Sure, a few people who streamed the music might have bought a CD, but that number is much lower than what musicians might admit. We might consume more music if the cost barrier is much lower. I might check out that country song I’d never purchase for a $10 CD.
Second, the big picture view is recognizing that advances in technology have been killing CD sales (and soon $1 downloads) for years. Kids already use Youtube to stream songs on command, and they will put up with the inconveniences of that way to interact with music because it’s free to do so.
My dad spends hours finding old Doo Wop music on Youtube. He has no interested in using Spotify, but he’s already using a streaming platform.
What we can assume is streaming sites are killing piracy. If you offer a simple, easy to use service for music, the regular public will stop dealing with the difficult process of torrenting music.\
Spotify Myth 5: Musicians were OK with songs being on the radio for low pay, so they should be OK with Spotify for low pay. It’s promotional!
False. While musicians want new fans to find music through Spotify, musicians also want to make some revenue from the music consumption.
Radio promoted sales because people heard a song and then bought it so they could hear it again, at their will. Spotify offers a way for people to hear a song at their will, offering no reason to purchase the song. The hope is that enough people will stream songs to create some revenue for the musicians/songwriters.
The questions are does the pay rate offer enough for musicians, and are the streaming sites making enough to be viable companies? Is this model sustainable?
