Following the recent announcement of a heavy drop in attendance at concerts across the UK’s major arenas and the issues facing smaller music venues (as discussed in Rob Sleigh’s feature here) I got to thinking about how artists actually make a living from music these days.
If you trace things right back to the very start people made their money by literally selling the music where people would buy sheet music and play songs themselves before the days of even gramophone's and radios being commonplace.
In more recent history and since the advent of music as a popular pastime both to play and to enjoy, there have generally been two ways for artists to earn their crust. One is through the sale of their music on single and/or album. This has historically been via vinyl, cassette, CD and now download but ask anyone in the industry and they’ll tell you this is almost at the stage of being a loss leader these days.
Granted, if you sell a million copies of your album you’re going to make a decent wedge from it but for many bands, even established ones, producing and selling albums isn’t the way you make your living. The main reason for this is the availability of more music for less (or no) money. Downloading music for free is rife and, realistically illegal downloading is nigh on impossible to actually stop. Outside of this, sites such as Spotify that offer free streaming are the choice of the new generation of music fans who don’t yearn for a vinyl crackle or CD sleeve to enhance their listening experience.
Artists have tackled this in several ways. Ash began their A-Z series where they released a series of singles which eventually became an album spreading the costs as releases came. Radiohead famously offered ‘In Rainbows’ as a download with an optional cost. Reports on the success of this vary but the ballpark figures seem to be around a third of people took the download for nothing with the average price paid about £4. Despite this a later report confirmed they still made more money from this than from the traditional release of it’s predecessor ‘Hail To The Thief’ which was leaked online prior to it’s release.
When downloads first became commonplace the assumption was that live performances would keep the coffers full and that started off appearing to be true. More and more venues popped up and ticket prices soared during that period. However, the knock on effect of the recession combined with average arena prices now topping £45 while stadium gigs are regularly priced at £60 and upwards have caused a tipping point where people are starting to turn their backs on live music too. Now, I’m not in any way suggesting live music is dying, it’s still thriving of course but as more and more promoters and middle men have got involved, bands see less and less of the profits even with the over-inflated prices that the punters see.
Festivals and televised shows still provide a boost to traditional record sales. Headliners at festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds which get wall to wall coverage on terrestrial TV almost guarantee sales boosts after the events and the album sale kicks for the likes of Mumford & Sons, Plan B and Adele after this years’ BRIT Awards show the influence getting your track on TV can have.
And that leads nicely to what seems to be the best way to make your money now and that’s TV. In 2008 Billboard Magazine issued in the US published a list of ‘The 100 best ways for your music to get attention’ with 6 of the top 10 being airplay on TV or film. Over the last few years X Factor alone has provided boosts in sales for several of the songs covered on its’ live shows. Alexandra Burke’s winners single version of ‘Hallelujah’ caused huge upturns in sales for both Leonard Cohen’s original and Jeff Buckley’s cover. Even during earlier rounds of the live show songs covered typically see sales rises. The same has been true of ‘Glee’ which, despite seeming on the surface to be some sort of anti-music has actually introduced many people to music they would never normally have looked into. Journey’s 1981 minor hit ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ is one of the top selling downloads of all time having been used on the finale of ‘The Soprano’s’ and then as the song which launched ‘Glee’.
There are less obvious TV placements that make money too. In speaking with promotions people for a local band when releasing their comeback album a year ago I was told they were pushing to get tracks played either during TV shows such as Hollyoaks, or on adverts as they got paid more for that than they made on traditional record sales. If you can get your song used on an iTunes advert it virtually guarantee’s a bucket load of sales on top of whatever Apple pay you for the privilege. A few years ago Snow Patrol broke into the US market with a sudden blast when their ‘Chasing Cars’ was used as part of the season premiere promo for Grey’s Anatomy, a show that was listed in the top 20 of the Billboard list mentioned above.
The video game market has also provided a boost to many bands sales. The initial incarnations of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series both offered gamers an insight into songs not previously on their radar and by the time the franchises came to an end earlier this year the likes of Aerosmith, Metallica and Green Day had all found their own licensed games were making them more money than even their biggest albums. It’s not just music games either, the Grand Theft Auto series soundtracks became so popular Amazon and iTunes have both offered them as downloads.
So there you have it. The days of recording an album and touring it being the extent of what a band need to do alongside some merchandising are gone. Nowadays most record labels have whole departments committed to not only pushing tracks for radio airplay but also for placements on adverts, in TV shows, on film soundtracks and for closing credits. Any predictions for where things turn next share with us in the comments section below.
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In more recent history and since the advent of music as a popular pastime both to play and to enjoy, there have generally been two ways for artists to earn their crust. One is through the sale of their music on single and/or album. This has historically been via vinyl, cassette, CD and now download but ask anyone in the industry and they’ll tell you this is almost at the stage of being a loss leader these days.
