Music is everywhere. When you go into a store, there’s often music playing over the speakers. Most people listen to music all day while they walk around or work. Music has been around since the beginning of civilization, and it might be even older. Studies have shown that music is about 35 to 40 thousand years old!
It’s obvious that music has evolved over the years. Everything about humans have. However, in the past decade or so there’s been a bit of conversation about if the music industry is failing. I mean, how often do you buy music? CD’s and vinyls are slowly becoming more and more obsolete, and streaming services are at an all time high. But what’s the problem with that? Aren’t streaming services just the new CD’s and vinyls?
Well, no. They aren’t, not in the slightest. When you buy a CD or a vinyl, a bit of that money goes to the artist, the person who puts hours, or days or even longer into that music you’re buying. Free streaming services perpetuate the idea that music has no value, that it isn’t worth anything, and that it should be completely free. While I can see why it is nice to have free music just one click away, while also being completely legal, it is unfair to the musicians who maybe can’t afford to have their music be completely free.
Spotify pays their artists less than a penny for each stream. They pay $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, which I think is unfair, especially for new and lesser-known musicians. Though historically speaking, musicians have been underpaid and exploited ever since people realized you could make a profit off of music. This is one of the many reasons a lot of musicians end up getting addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Record labels have always been corrupt and exploitative because they care more about the money that the musician is bringing in than the musician themself. They will drag a musician through the mud, and absolutely destroy and degrade the artist until the artist eventually breaks. And even if that musician dies, they don’t care. They will grasp at any string possible to just pull in a few extra bucks.
Record labels are just one of the many criticisms people have of the music industry. Another point I want to bring up is how bland music has started to sound. It’s mainly older generations who say this because most people believe
that music from their time will always be the best. A lot of artists are actually forced to make music that they simply do not care about. They will be made to make music that sounds like whatever’s popular. If the musician tries to say no, they’re usually cut off, especially if they’re a smaller artist.
So, what do we do about this? This problem is really only getting worse with time, especially with the rise of social media. We can try to advocate for stricter regulations that record labels must follow but that gets tricky because unfortunately greedy people will always find ways around rules. I believe that first we should make sure that artists have more legal protections against record labels and better contracts that can allow them to actually speak up for themselves.
