The flurry of the Grammys has just wrapped up, and it was great fun, but, like every year, the award show was jam-packed with big-name artists and smash hits. Arguably, it should be, since the most popular songs deserve to win awards, but let’s not forget about the little guys.
The music industry has changed loads in the past thirty years. The normal music consumption platforms have gone from vinyl, to cassette, to CD, to purchasing MP3s and now to streaming. Through the evolution of music consumption, artists find it harder and harder to make money. It went from aspiring to become a rock-star to aspiring to scrape by creating music.
Take Spotify for example. Spotify pays artists a measly $.006 per stream by paid members and even less for those who use the service for free. This works out great for big time artists cranking out smash hits. Take Adele, for example. When this column was written her hit song “Hello” has been streamed 658,858,945 times on Spotify alone. Continuing with the .006 dollars per stream, this results in millions of dollars in revenue from one single song.
This is great for the biggest bands in the world, but there are countless artists who won’t come near that kind of money in their entire lives, eventually barring them from continuing to make good music.
That’s why it is important not to get caught up in this age of easy, cheap access to music and instead to support the smaller — and better yet — local musicians you enjoy.
Whether you enjoy bands like Adele or small bands like Turf War I’m confident all can agree that the more options in music the better. The only way to create this diversity in the music scene is to support small artists so they can continue to make music and in turn, inspire more people to do the same.
While you should use Spotify to listen to your favorite bands, think of other ways to give back to the artists — they often sell music independently that won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
The obvious ways to do this are to go to shows and buy music from the artists. Bands not only get a cut of ticket sales, but just being there helps as well.
Having an audience at concerts creates exposure for bands and allows them to book bigger, better shows in the future. Additionally, streaming your favorite song will never compare to being there and seeing it live.
Besides these two forms of support, buying merchandise, and donating directly to bands also helps. Many bands put music online for free, and then offer donations on sites such as bandcamp.com.
Next time you listen to a favorite album, decide to spend a few dollars to buy the entire album or grab a T-shirt.
More music means more options, and everyone benefits. For this to happen small bands need to make money to continue creating.
sareynol@umail.iu.edu
