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Oversaturation in the Music Industry

What Can Save the UK Music Industry?

How Can the Music Industry Be Saved

With issues continuing to amass in the music industry, more people are starting to despairingly speculate on what can save it. Earlier this year some people banked on the ham-fisted benevolence of Elon Musk saving the day, while others pinned their hopes on opportunities opened up by the metaverse and music NFTs.

Realistically, there is never going to be a catch-all solution that gently cradles all musicians from the cut-throat nature of the industry and uplifts it from the increasing economic strains. Nor will there be a return to how things used to be – no matter how longingly we long for it. Instead, the individual issues within the music industry need to be addressed before there can be a discussion of how it can bolster some resilience in an era where even the most robust markets are feeling the increased pressure of the cost-of-living crisis.

The Three Biggest Challenges That Need to Be Overcome in the Music Industry

The Lack of Government Support

In 2022, the UK music industry is now one-third smaller than in 2019 due to the hat-trick devastation caused by inflation, Brexit, and the pandemic. The calls for government support are getting louder and louder in an attempt to quash the blow of the rising costs of touring and keeping the lights on in venues.

Manchester’s Dave Haslam was one of the many voices calling for support in a recently published article in the Guardian, which followed the trajectory of the decline of the music industry through the years and called for government intervention. The government support would ideally involve a freeze on alcohol duty, reductions in VAT, and relief on business rates, to prevent the closure of even more clubs and venues across the UK. Removing the red tape imposed by Brexit to help touring musicians is also a prominent request in calls for governmental intervention.

Keeping the pressure on politicians, especially the newly appointed Culture Secretary, Michelle Donelan, by reminding them of the value of the multi-billion-pound industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people, is more important than ever. With Rishi Sunak at the top, it’s easy to give into apathy, given his recent declaration that “the state can’t fix all your problems”. If you care about the future of the music industry, fight for it, don’t just hope that someone will do it on your behalf!

The Economic and Ecological Cost of Touring

National and international tours are how many artists attempt to make their music careers economically viable now that streaming services such as Spotify are reigning over CD and vinyl sales. But with the increasing awareness of the carbon footprint of touring confounding the economic unviability due to the inflated prices of fuel and just about everything else, how long can the massive shows go on?

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to contemplate the ecological impact of artists heading out on tour and living their dreams of finding themselves in a new city every night and playing to a sell-out crowd. Unfortunately, the planet is hotting up; the music industry can’t put their heads in the scorched sand any longer and pretend it is not contributing to the massive existential problem.

A study published in 2010 reported that the live music industry annually generated 405,000 metric tonnes of emissions in the UK alone. That is enough energy to power 46,000 homes. While there is no shortage of greenwashing festivals with their token efforts, such as banning plastic cups, it isn’t going to cut the mustard if we are going to achieve net zero by 2050.

Whether you like it or not, the reality of touring is being reshaped by climate change. But that doesn’t mean that live music needs to be wiped from existence. It does mean that we need to consider the ramifications of the environmental impacts and start to place more value on smaller-scale local and regional performances. If communal music traditions met artistic needs for millennia, why should they be discarded now? Local and grassroots music is the overlooked, slightly less glamorous backbone of the music industry. If neglected for long enough, everything else will crumble.

Unfair Royalty Cuts from Streaming Platforms

There are a lot of popular misconceptions around streaming platform royalties, namely that services such as Spotify pay their pitiful revenues to the artists directly. Before royalties reach artists’ and songwriters’ bank accounts, they go through distro companies, record labels and copyright management companies, who take a sizeable chunk for themselves.

Spotify takes a 25% cut of the revenue, the recording owners take 59.9%, and the songwriters and publishers share a 15.1% cut. While it is easy to paint Spotify as the devil incarnate, the real issue is the complexity of copyright law which commodifies music and exploits artists in the process. For the same reason it took The Rolling Stones until the 70s to make any real cash, the struggle is the same for any contemporary artist signed to a record label that was drafted to bleed them dry.

The decline of the major record labels as artists are seeing the light and opting for an independent music career is a step in the right direction but it is easier said than done for independent artists to succeed. Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper proved it is possible to be successful and independent, but that doesn’t mean it is viable for all artists. Especially given that thousands of new tracks launch on Spotify every day, and almost 80% of artists on Spotify have a monthly listener count that is less than 50.

So, to answer the question of how can the music industry can be saved in short, the answer is recognising that the current framework of the industry needs a drastic overhaul. From tearing up the copyright laws which exploit artists instead of protecting them to recognising why the live music industry is really up against the wall to accepting the over-saturated unsustainability of the industry. Something has to give before the music industry goes further than a 1/3rd slump in market value.

 

Article by Amelia Vandergast

Oversaturating the Home Turf: Why Playing Locally Too Often is Bad for Your Music Career

Oversaturated Music Industry

Oversaturation infringes every corner of the music industry, but none quite as cloyingly as the arena of live music. Bands start out with the eagerness to play as many gigs as possible. It comes as no surprise that when they’re at the point of overplaying in their hometown, they fail to realise that their prolific presence on line-ups can ultimately damage their career in the long run.

Why Playing Locally Too Often Impedes Your Music Career

Two main traits of artists able to sell out hometown gigs, talent aside, are their tendency not to excessively gig in the same area and their commitment to giving each show a purpose.

Every time someone sees you on a bill, they will weigh the pros and cons of seeing you. It is all too easy to become the band that someone disregards because you’ll probably be playing again soon anyway. Or it could be that they just saw you a few weeks ago at a venue down the road, and they doubt seeing you again will be worth the time, money, energy, and backache, if they’re over 30!

Taking every opportunity extended by various promoters to play in your hometown or in the same area can be tempting. So tempting, it can lead some artists to become oblivious to the fact there is only a certain number of people in any given scene. And yes, that goes for big Metropolitan cities too!

See the irony in the fact that most local bookers are hesitant booking out of town acts because they won’t realistically bring their fans to fill the venue. Even if you do have a devout local fanbase, don’t assume that they have got little else going on in their lives that they will constantly be there to support you.

If you’re still under the impression that the more gigs, regardless of the location, the better, consider how excited you would be if you knew that you could go down the road and see your favourite artist EVER play every week.

Unless there is something fundamentally wrong with you, which means that you’d retain excitement from replicating an experience over and over again, the gloss would quickly get stripped off your favourite artist being perpetually available and demanding your attention. Even the greatest pleasures have the potential to become monotonous. ‘Things’ are only as good as the measure of them.

If you play gigs less frequently in your hometown, you will get MORE of a draw because you will create scarcity and a sense of exclusivity. Music consumers, much like any consumer in our modern late-stage capitalist hellscape, thrive on scarcity. Marketing executives love to abuse the fact that the masses are mercenary enough to make Gollum look altruistic. The trend of absurdly expensive music NFTs proved it! As do the people who collect white label records or drool over the prospect of owning an icon’s guitar. And realistically, there would be infinitely less hype over Glastonbury if everyone could snag a ticket every year! Demand being greater than the supply is a consumer’s kryptonite.

If you do become a band known for selling out venues – regardless of the size – in your hometown, people will be far quicker to purchase tickets when they go on sale, to avoid another great driver behind modern marketing, the fear of missing out! Additionally, you will become infinitely more attractive to gig promoters outside of your local area and festival bookers when you can show them glimpses of adoring fans eager to inch their way front to your shows. You’re not fooling anyone by posting gig photos taken a long way from the barrier or the stage that don’t show a single audience member.

How Often Should You Play Local and How Should You Play It?

There is no short answer. The general rule of thumb for playing in your local circuit tends to be four times a year, or at least playing gigs 6 – 12 weeks apart in the same area, the number also depends on another factor; the quality of your shows.

Every show should be an event. If you don’t have new music to promote at your shows, get creative in coming up with why fans should see you for the first time AND subsequent times. Go acoustic. Come up with a concept, beyond just giving your run of shows a clever name. And never underestimate the impact of creating something that seems unmissable to fans old and new.

Hopefully, I have pulled you out of the “but, but, but EXPOSURE!!!” trap by this point. Because even if it does seem like common sense that more shows = more fans & tickets sold, the effect is almost always the reverse! Any good band manager would tell you not to overplay your local circuit, but with so many more 100% independent artists doing everything themselves, there is no-one to impart this sound advice.

If you are playing the gigs needlessly and aimlessly, that time/energy could be far better expended on networking, self-promotion, writing and recording new material and actually coming up with a long-term plan. There may be no glory like taking a roof off a venue and hearing the demand of an encore, but for that to be sustainable, your tour plans have to be logical.

It may be easier and quicker to play a venue that is on your bus route instead of clocking up the miles in your tour van; that is no reason to allow convenience to override common sense.

For some, all of the above will be a bitter pill to swallow and I will have undoubtedly burst some bubbles by opting for harsh truths over adding botox to lip service. Yet, I offer very little apology in pointing out exhausting every local gig you can is akin to aural incest. Don’t get hooked in the big fish in a small pond mentality.

If you still need convincing, take some advice from Ari Herstand, artist and author of the best-selling chart-topping book, How to Make It in the New Music Business, which has been adopted by music business schools globally. His definitive guide on accepting gigs, factoring in career-building potential, merch opportunities, pay and enjoyment, is freely available here. For the love of God, bookmark it!

Amelia Vandergast