Music in the age of plague

In 2014, producer, musician, and acerbic opinionator Steve Albini gave the keynote address at Melbourne’s Face the Music conference:

Known for his work producing Nirvana, Pixies and Alphaville-favourite Slint, Albini was unusually optimistic in his address to a room full of industry insiders scarred by a collapse in revenues over the past two decades. For them, the internet was a weapon of destruction which, through the medium of the mp3 and file-sharing, had laid waste to the go-go years of the 1990s.

Albini, however, had a different attitude altogether. The internet had allowed artists to create music cheaply, share it freely, and therefore cultivate their own fan communities, he argued. In turn this fuelled ticket and merchandise sales for those willing to take up the leg-work once left to the labels. Out of major label destruction came indie freedom.

He was right. Since 2014, live music has become a primary income source for musicians. Today, an artist’s recorded output acts as marketing for their live shows and merchandise sales, as opposed to being the primary product. Streaming revenues, despite their growth, remain paltry for most.

Which is why the coronavirus crisis presents a particularly acute crisis for musicians today. 

If you hadn’t noticed, every single major tour within the next six months has been postponed, or will be postponed but can’t admit it. Glastonbury has been cancelled, the Stones are not rolling and Eurovision, to everyone’s great consternation, is off.

No better is this wave of mutilation captured than in the share price of Live Nation, the totemic $7.8bn music company that acts across all the verticals of the live music industry:

This isn’t just a problem for the big artists but the smaller ones also who, having worked tirelessly to reach a level where a combination of two tours a year, merchandise sales and various content-related income streams can support a semblance of a normal lifestyle, will be struggling to keep their heads above water.

You may think that everyone self-isolating will mean more streaming, but from what we know so far that’s not the case. In Italy, the top 200 songs on Spotify actually saw a 23 per cent decline in the number of streams between March 3 and March 17, according to Quartz. Perhaps because music was often listened to in the office, or on the way to work, and is a poor substitute for other forms of entertainment when at home.

Calls have been made for Spotify to triple the royalty fees it pays to musicians over this period to make up any deficit, but given the company’s relative lack of profitability, this seems unlikely. Other businesses, however, have been more supportive. Bandcamp, the digital music storefront, has waived its share of the artists’ revenues today to drum up cash for those at the bottom of the food chain.

So our advice would be to Alphaville readers with deep pockets and secure jobs looking to support their favourite artist: buy a limited edition vinyl of your favourite act on Bandcamp. Now. (From the internet, obviously, not an actual physical store.) Whether it be a chart-topper, or a compilation of private label American new-age music, every penny counts. 

As for the stranded assets left behind by the coming summer of sloth, we have some ideas for how those can be repurposed. Check back on Monday for more.