Buy the CD!

2024-May-03

"Last month, 28000 streams made £86. If 9 people bought a physical CD or a digital download of my album, I’d have made the same. The system is broken. Today is #BandcampFriday where BC waive fees. All proceeds of downloads and CD sales go to artists! Please order here ➡️https://ionafyfe.bandcamp.com/album/iona-fyfe" (source https://indieweb.social/@ionafyfe@mastodon.scot/112377314928604223)

Because of this post Iona is likely to 2 or 3x her income -- for an internet moment. Then what? And what about the millions* of other music artists trying to make a living doing what they and we love?

* I tried to find a number of how many professional musicians there are and failed. Along the way are interesting and even more depressing stories than the opening here. A 2023 Music Industry Report for north america by Xposure Music says 54% of independents earn money - with only 18% "able to sustain themselves", and 41% made less than 15k. -- https://info.xposuremusic.com/article/music-industry-report-2023

The report is from voluntary those-who-care-enough-to-answer survey, so has all the caveats that genre of stats comes with. Still, show me a better one (please).

Information Is Beautiful in 2018 said the fewest number of stream plays an artist needs to earn minimum wage is 80,000. On Napster. On Spotify they need 366,000, while YouTube is a himalyan mountain climb of 2,100,000 plays. -- https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/spotify-apple-music-tidal-music-streaming-services-royalty-rates-compared/

So those artists you care about? Buy their goddamn heaven blessed CDs and digital downloads. Or just find their contact info and send money.