Artists warn of live music industry crisis
The Squeeze on Sound: How Streaming and Stadium Shows Are Silencing Smaller Artists
The American music scene is facing a reckoning. While mega-stars rake in millions from stadium tours and streaming giants, smaller artists and local venues are struggling to stay afloat.
Singer Mary Coughlan, a veteran of the industry with 40 years under her belt, is witnessing the shift firsthand. ”ThereS a recession coming,” she says, noting a 30-40% drop in ticket sales at venues she’s toured sence releasing her new album, ‘Repeat Rewind’. “People don’t have the money, and everything costs so much.”
Coughlan paints a bleak picture of the realities facing many musicians. “some guys I know work two gigs on Sunday for €80 a gig and get maybe €120 for another gig. They just work and drive constantly all over the country, and that is just heartbreaking.”
Alfie Hudson-Taylor,a accomplished solo artist after splitting from his band Hudson Taylor,echoes Coughlan’s concerns. “I’ve been working in music for the last 12 years, and there’s never been a harder time to make a living as an artist,” he says.
Hudson-Taylor points to the dominance of streaming platforms and the astronomical ticket prices for stadium shows by artists like Taylor swift and Oasis as major factors squeezing out smaller acts.
“How much money is a viewer at home going to spend on live music in general within a year?” he asks. “Maybe €300 would be the max I’d want to spend.Now, that could be one Oasis ticket, or it could be 10 or 15 grassroots gigs.”
the Streaming Struggle
For Hudson-Taylor, the impact of streaming is undeniable. “A product wich we make and produce used to have a value on it that has now entirely gone, or in the best case, just minimized to €0.003 per play or per stream,” he explains.
With 120,000 new tracks released daily on streaming platforms, the competition for listeners – and revenue – is fierce.
“Some of our songs have had millions of streams, and you could look from the outside and go, ‘Wow, they must be doing great’,” Hudson-Taylor says. “But I think even a billion streams before I would even see any money, because those streams have to pay back that debt that it cost to record our music.”
Coughlan shares a similar experience. Despite her song “The Double Cross” reaching a million streams on Spotify last year, the returns were paltry. “I got €29, and he got €35 because he wrote it…for a million streams on Spotify.”
A Changing landscape
The music industry is at a crossroads. While streaming has democratized access to music, it has also created a system where only the biggest stars can truly thrive. Smaller artists and local venues are caught in the middle, struggling to survive in a landscape dominated by giants.
The question remains: can the industry find a way to support all its players, ensuring that the music keeps playing for everyone?
Struggling to Make a Living: Irish Musicians Face Mounting Challenges
Dublin,Ireland – The Irish music scene,known for its vibrant energy and talented artists,is facing a crisis.Musicians are struggling to make ends meet as rising costs, shrinking revenue streams, and venue closures threaten their livelihoods.
Mark Graham, a former vocalist and percussionist for the electro-dance group King Kong Company and current lecturer in Music Industry Practice at the Southeast Technological University, paints a bleak picture. “It’s always been challenging for artists to make a living in Ireland,” he says, “but the changing face of the music industry has made it even harder.”
Graham points to the decline in revenue from live performances. “The amount of money that it’s possible to make from live gigs has gone down,” he explains.”The music industry has become adept at separating artists from money.”
Traditionally, touring merchandise like T-shirts, records, and CDs helped bands fund their tours. However, Graham claims some venues are taking a significant cut, charging “20 to 30% on sales of merch,” further diminishing artists’ earning power.
Adding to the struggle is the closure of numerous live music venues. “Of the 366 grassroots venues that Ed Sheeran played in as he was becoming famous, 150 of those have closed in the last four years,” Graham reveals. “One wonders then where the Ed Sheeran of tomorrow will ply their trade.”
Alfie Hudson-Taylor, another prominent voice in the Irish music scene, echoes these concerns. “Artists pay for absolutely everything on tour,” he says.”We’re talking rehearsals, equipment, accommodation, transport, musicians, crew, technicians, managers, agents. Artists pay all of these people to do a gig.”
With costs rising across the board, Hudson-Taylor notes that “it just takes away from anything that was there at the end of a gig four or five years ago.”
“You need to be selling thousands and thousands of tickets and touring day after day after day in different cities and selling lots of merchandise in order to actually turn a healthy profit,” he adds.
A lifeline for artists?
In 2022,the Irish government introduced a three-year basic income pilot scheme for artists,providing 2,000 artists with a weekly payment of €325. This initiative, aimed at helping the arts and culture sector recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, has been met with praise from artists.
“I think that’s been one of the most positive changes to, or one of the most positive things I’ve seen a government do in my whole career in music,” Hudson-Taylor says.
Singer Mary Coughlan, a veteran of the Irish music scene, believes the grant should be extended. “It should be extended to all, certainly people who are working as musicians and not making a living,” she says.”The whole situation was rent. Most of the guys I know who are musicians live in shared houses,like with four or five of them all living together.And that’s the only way they’ll ever be able to.”
Coughlan, who has enjoyed a successful 40-year career, acknowledges the grim reality for many younger musicians. “In Ireland, it’s catastrophic at the moment for young people and for small venues,” she says.
The future of the Irish music scene hangs in the balance. While the basic income pilot scheme offers a glimmer of hope, more needs to be done to ensure that artists can thrive and continue to enrich Ireland’s cultural landscape.
A Duet of Despair: How streaming and Stadium Shows Are Silencing Smaller Voices
NewsDirectory3.com Exclusive Interview
The American music scene is facing a crisis, one where the soaring success of mega-stars casts a long shadow over the struggling landscape of smaller artists and local venues. To understand the scope of this problem, we spoke with two veteran musicians, Mary Coughlan and Alfie Hudson-Taylor, who offer a sobering glimpse into the realities facing those trying to make a living in music today.
Coughlan, a seasoned performer with four decades in the industry, points to a drastic decline in ticket sales – a drop of 30-40% – since the release of her latest album, “Repeat rewind.”
“There’s a recession coming,” she warns, emphasizing the financial strain on audiences. “People don’t have the money, and everything costs so much.” This financial pressure, she explains, translates into hardship for musicians themselves. She describes fellow artists struggling to make ends meet, working multiple gigs for meager pay, barely scraping by.
The Streaming Siren Song
Both Coughlan and Hudson-Taylor identify the rise of streaming platforms as a major factor contributing to this downturn. While platforms offer unprecedented access to music, the revenue generated for artists per stream is minuscule, often amounting to fractions of a cent.
“A product we make and produce used to have a value on it that has now entirely gone, or in the best case, just minimized to €0.003 per play or per stream,” Hudson-Taylor states, highlighting the stark reality of the streaming economy.
The sheer volume of music available on these platforms further exacerbates the problem. “120,000 new tracks released daily,” Hudson-Taylor notes, emphasizing the fierce competition for listener attention and the dwindling share of revenue available to independent artists.
Coughlan echoes these concerns, sharing the meager earnings from her own success on Spotify: a mere €29 for a million streams, a sum barely enough to cover the cost of recording.
A Ticket to Trouble
The dominance of stadium-filling mega-stars further complicates the situation, as Hudson-Taylor illustrates.These high-priced events consume a large chunk of music fans’ budgets, leaving little room for supporting smaller, local acts.
“How much money is a viewer at home going to spend on live music in general within a year?” he asks rhetorically. ”Maybe €300 would be the max I’d want to spend. Now, that could be one Oasis ticket, or it might very well be 10 or 15 grassroots gigs.”
This dynamic creates a disheartening cycle where smaller artists struggle to gain a foothold, while audience budgets are stretched thin by the allure of major stadium shows.
A Call for Change?
The
future of the music industry hangs in the balance. Can a path be forged that supports both the global superstars and the grassroot musicians who bring vibrancy and diversity to the scene?
This is the challenge facing the industry today. The voices of Coughlan and Hudson-Taylor serve as a stark reminder of the precarious situation facing countless artists. As streaming continues to dominate and the cost of attending live shows escalates, the question remains: will the music keep playing for everyone, or will only the biggest names be left to sing?