Music for Nothing?

For some reason, musicians the world over (maybe even more than other artistic people like authors or painters) have become obsessed with their music being “worth” something. That if they aren’t earning enough to pay their bills, and make a nice life, then music just isn’t even worth doing.

It’s probably due to the crazy 20^th century and how the phonograph, album, and CD made billions of dollars for musicians and record companies for just over 100 years. But now that the internet has brought music to the world through cheap and free streaming, music folk are screaming that they aren’t getting paid enough.

What is The Value of Your Music?

These days we’re seeing a lot of people discussing the “devaluation” of music. You may have even heard this recent quote from music superstar Vince Gill:

"The devaluation of music and what it's now deemed to be worth is laughable to me. My single costs 99 cents. That's what a [single] cost in 1960. On my phone, I can get an app for 99 cents that makes fart noises -- the same price as the thing I create and speak to the world with. Some would say the fart app is more important. It's an awkward time. Creative brains are being sorely mistreated."

I can understand where he is coming from on this and maybe you can too! But it’s not the same music world that Vince or any of us remember. We live in the disposable music era, like it or not.