Touring Can’t Save Musicians in the Age of Spotify
With snow and ice covering a large swath of the country, my latest piece in the New York Times discusses the dangers facing touring musicians, particularly in the coming months. It stresses the importance of keeping writers’ rights alive, and seeks to undercut the tired refrain that touring is how musicians should make money in the “new paradigm.”
This is the “gig economy” as seen by those who popularized the term.
“Touring Can’t Save Musicians in the Age of Spotify”
Touring is, of course, the most ancient business model available to artists — and in many ways, it remains a vital part of their livelihood, even while the surrounding industry undergoes major upheaval to accommodate the new paradigm of streaming music. In response to the shift in revenue sources, standard recording contracts now intrude into the numerous nonrecording aspects of an artist’s career. But the advice given to the creative generators of this multibillion dollar industry is still one that would be recognizable to a medieval troubadour: Go on tour.
And yet from a business standpoint, it’s hard to find a model more unsustainable than one that relies on a single human body. This is why we have vice presidents, relief pitchers and sixth men. When applied to music’s seemingly limitless streaming future, the only scarce resource left is the artists themselves. You would think the industry would protect such an important piece of its business model, but in fact, the opposite is true.
Read the rest at the New York Times.
Safe travels.
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