Chart of the Week (1)

 

The Plight of the Musicians

   Most of the music I now listen to comes to my ears, rather miraculously and mysteriously, by way of "Siri", who when consulted, provides it automatically and adds similar tunes without being requested to do so. Occasionally something is actually purchased and downloaded, but trips to 'record' stores and the loading in of CDs rarely happens. The music just streams along. Siri is sometimes asked to skip a song or replay a good one, but I am not asked by 'her' to pay for it. The assumption is made that if a tune is played, the artist receives something and if it is played again and again, the artist receives more and more. 

  How these financial transactions work is also rather mysterious, at least to me, but it does appear from the chart above, that it will be a miraculous thing if many musicians are able to survive. The service behind Siri we are currently using is Apple Music and it appears that if we stream a song 128 times, the musician (and, I guess the whole band) makes a buck.  On Spotify (not included in the chart), the artist receives $1 after the song is streamed 315 times.

   Spotify is currently being criticized for a reason unrelated to the payment of musicians, but it is because of the controversy that I spotted the chart, which is found in this article:

"Why Did Spotify Choose Joe Rogan Over Neil Young? It's Not a Music Company," Travis M. Andrews, Washington Post, Jan. 28, 2022. The chart appears in the section labelled, "Spotify's Strained Relationship With Musicians", and apparently it originates from the rapper T-Pain. 

  It will be clear from what I have written that I don't know much about the music business or the making of money. What is clear is that musicians, like newspapers, will soon disappear if we don't find a better way of supporting them.