People forgot why listeners were turning to Napster in the first place in 2000s. Because Big Records were discriminating artists which they considered "wrong music" and Big Records completely missed the Metal Revolution which happened in 1995-2000, failing to provide enough Metal, and subsequently that led to downfall of Disk Industry. That is why we don't see Blue-Ray disks of music fitted to 96/32 format. PS. Piracy existed long before digital era, but pirates are only filling the niches which are missed by the market.
I like how the logic back then was "The album might have a song I don't like so I don't want to spend X dollars on a CD" now music is even MORE Trash and people just shrug and stream Playboi Carti
I use the service for finding new artists in my recommended section and creating playlists, but I'll still buy albums and merch for those I love. But I'm probably the minority here because I'm hyperfixated on music. The general population aren't as passionate as me and don't care about supporting bands and artists elsewhere.
@christiandauz3742 I was collecting LPs but they became insanely expensive, and with cost of living going up I switched to CDs, even know I think twice before buying :(
@@carlosenriquesierra9044 Same!! CDs are just way more convenient as physical media and no BS with needing to fork out cash on a decent player for them as well.
There's another problem not mentioned- The pool of artists has grown to unbelievable levels, more artists equals less money for all as there is less pie to share. This is the same thing that has happened with RU-vid creators pre covid, then a huge boom of creators post covid... we get better views, less pie.
I still remember the intense hatred against Ulrich for basically defending what was rightfully his. Sure, he could had handled it a lot better too, but it's still odd to think about nowadays.
He's not particularly charismatic. I think if someone more likeable had taken the torch initially, the backlash might have been less severe. More importantly though, Lars's messaging put the onus of responsibility on the end user downloading instead of focusing entirely on Sean Parker and Napster. That was the mistake. It became "Lars v The People" instead of "Lars v Sean" which would have been a much easier fight to pick in the public eye. Rockstar vs basement dweller computer nerd in a time before nerds had much social cache.
thats not why metallica fans hate metallica its because metallica actually paid someone to figure out who downloaded the music and tried to sue their fans... assholes, iv hated them ever since they did it, wasnt hard after st anger anyway sellouts
Wrong. Once a piece of art is released it does not just belong to the artist. There are more people involved. Look at what George Lucas did to the original Star Wars movie. It's the difference between dominance hierarchies and democratic hierarchies. Money/legal ownership does not mean you should be the only one with decision making access. That's what leads to the oligarchy we have now. There are lots of other elements a business effects, customers, employees, the environment. Metallica didn't mind it when their music was being distributed illegally for free on cassette tapes. That exposed their music to more people, the exact same thing that Napster and other similar systems like Pirate Bay and torrent downloading do even today.
Spotify may give users more content for cheaper, but nowhere near as enjoyable as the original experience of going to record stores to buy CDs or Records and building a well earned collection.
"You're old"...it's like saying you miss the days when you liked going down to the newstand to read the front page of the NYTimes to get your daily news: those days are long gone and people under 50 don't have that experience and therefore is not relevant.
@@danielc1978 I just said it was a more enjoyable way to get music. People do collect records even when they can get it online for free. So maybe it is relevant, for people even under the age of 50 as well..
A *Mad TV* sketch said it best. When production costs goes up, prices go up (inflation). When production costs goes down, the prices REMAIN THE SAME. When production costs goes up AGAIN, the prices goes up again. Another *Crash of 1929* is going to happen at the rate things are going right now.
if music is dying its because of overpriced concert tickets musicians always made most of their money from live performances lars was not right, piracy hardly affects sales, its proven and people hate metallica because they paid someone to find out who downloaded their music and tired to sue their fans... and because st anger was sellout bullshit i miss loving metallica
@@tristen_grant Exactly what I do. I go to a festival, discover bands and buy shitloads of CDs afterwards. I rip it to 512K to save some space on the phone and if I want the album experience, I can still spin the CD at home.
@@tristen_grant I did it for much of my youth: if I truly loved an artist, I made it a point to buy their CD. To support their work, to show my appreciation. However it's much less easy if it's an artist you like just a few songs of, not their whole catalogue. CDs are not an affordable item outside of developed countries: in a place like mine, their price has multiplied 1.5-2 times compared to when I was a teen. But I definitely hate streaming and still keep mp3 files when I don't have CDs.
I have never listened to Spot, my friends had it but they did not care very much for it anyway, i like to go hear local music or watch performances on youtube or bands websites (and i do not mind paying a price to watch and hear) so the only thing dead is...good journalism.
The internet would have always meant the death of music labels. If Spotify didn't exist, piracy would be the main source of music for most people. I remember my brothers gifting me CDs they "made themselves", so even before Spotify, piracy was basically the way to go.
No, we did. When they invented file sharing sites like Napster and Limewire, this lead to the complacency and entitlement of the public to consume free entertainment. And because of that, now we are seeing the results: album sales have declined, leaving artists who worked hard to produce those albums with little profit from their hard work because we, the public, grew entitled to free entertainment. One album used to cost anywhere between $11-$15 dollars, but now you can have access to millions of song on Spotify for the same amount monthly. And while the public may see this as a "deal," there have been hard ramifications for the industry, namely the artists. They shouldn't be getting paid 1% of a penny. If there is an artist that I enjoy, I want them to be sufficiently paid for their creative contributions. I am not saying corporations didn't play a role, all I am saying is that it was far more easier for artists profit and grow when we directly bought their albums.
@@tarag7292 - Nope. Just corporation loving 3rd letter 15th letter 3rd letter 11th letter 19th letter 21st letter 3rd letter 11th letter 5th letter 18th letter 19th letter like you that enjoys the trash they promote, 6th letter 1st letter 7th letter twice 15th letter 20th letter!
Music isn't dying, but the biggest problem that the record companies will face soon enough is that the kids today hear about how bad the music business is and they won't be as easy to fool as the previous generations were. Me and my former band had a record contract in the early 2000's and if I'd known what I know today, I wouldn't have signed it if they'd put a gun to my head.
Please don't blame me for this. I've never used Spotify and never will. Snoop Dogg was saying that he had a billion streams. That was worth $45,000! The system is broken. I still buy physical media. So I realize that many people watching your video or responsible for that. Alex is politely asking not to blame me for something I really didn't contribute to the
Finding enough money to pay the cost of production of good music has often been a sketchy proposition. During Prohibition, the best music was in the illegal nightclubs run by gangsters. But it may be worse now. What was supposed to happen was that the Internet and digital audio workstations were supposed to lower the cost of making, promoting, and distributing music so much that bands could survive with a modest size, but enthusiastic, audience. But the mega-corporations selling bad music to mass audiences seem to have carelessly poisoned the ecosystem for good music. At corporate scale, musical creativity is too small a thing to bother thinking about.
In the end it's people that just don't want to pay enough for somebody to make a living off of it... Surviving with a modest audience is possible in theory, but let's be realistic, who wants to foot the bills? Not the music listeners that's for sure. I can't really imagine a world where that would be different.
First of all music pretty much fell off by itself. As for spotify, artists are getting more of my money than they would in cds, something is greater than 0 (at least as of the last 10 years). I own about 20 cds. I didn't start using spotify til about 5 years ago. Music died due to greed outpacing it. They keep jacking up the price and there are less and less decent songs on the album. honestly I would probably just listen to radio. If I find I do like an album I will still probably buy it, but that hasn't happened in a while.
must remember the public is lazy. most folks won't make the effort of trying to discover new music by themselves. they prefer to pick up what's served on the radio. if radio plays that awful ''bieber sound'' they'll start listening to it. and labels know it!
The internet was the best thing that ever happened to music. Now everyone can share work that in the past was only available to mass marketing enterprise campaigns... Those days are over Now you can listen to anything you want, not just Metallica or anything Mtv had to show us. The internet is the weapon for the underdogs, the big bands don't need us, we need our own selfs, just search new or old music, things can be revived. Take a look at the case of the band "Dead". A punk outfit from the 70's who's initial incarnation got no sigh from any record label of that era, and now, thanks to the internet, they found a new following, sold out shows and a wide spread cultural importance. These days are now running and Spotify is not the only way.
Record Labels killed that market for me, I'm 54. Being Canadian, music stores wanted to charge $25 for a music CD that had 2, maybe 3 good songs, the rest of the CD was fluff. During Napster's time I still bought the few CD's that had very little fluff. Metallica's Black album was one of them, Nirvana, U2, Pearl Jam, Big Shiny Tunes to name a few were absolutely worth buying. Concert prices are now through the roof due to Ticket Master's greed and scalping. My purchasing of CD's was severely reduced in the late 90's. If it wasn't for Pandora, and now Spotify I would not be spending any money on music.
If the audience only knew how much it costs to make a new song... they would have supported more. But they are blinded to believe it all comes from the air for free.
To get something mixed well can cost 100-1000. The price of decent DAWS can be up to 200 -1000 per year. Add on costs of XLR’s, instruments, plug-ins, audio interfaces, Outboard gear. If you use a studio it can be 100 an hour. Almost everyone has had to bring down there prices for the same work. It’s becoming more and more an expensive hobby which is harder to be seen. And at that point why create a song if no one hears it. I guess it’s just a hobby :(
@@callmeej8399 tbh studio recording has been cheaper than ever. a mixing console back in the 70s or the 80s would cost as much as a house in los angeles. nowdays i can make a full song on a cracked daw and upload on soundcloud just paying for the internet connection that i already have and the computer that im using to write this comment
@@callmeej8399 I've put time out of my life into learning how to do a lot of those things myself and money buying the tools to do it. Loved hearing the Spotify CEO say music is "free to create these days".
No, they wouldn't. Ever since the advent of the Internet, file sharing, and piracy, the public have grown and now feel entitled to free Entertainment, especially music. And from what I see, many won't change their minds because, as far as they see, being an artist or anyone in the creative field is seen as an easy way to not get a REAL career and job, and that artists possibly getting paid 6-7 figures for an "easy" career is not fair compared to someone doing REAL work in a factory or retail. But these same people will complain about the quality of entertainment while at the same time resent paying for said entertainment that they take for granted, and don't realize or care that those two things is a big part of why the music and movie industry is why it is where it is now.
@@tarag7292 Bingo! We've been pampered with free content of any kind for 30 years (yes, I was there in '94, I was 23). Great from the consumer's point of view, access to loads of good things, educational content, entertainment, whatever. We all enjoyed it and still do. YET, that has devalued and nearly killed lots of revenue avenues and careers, and never replaced them with something good enough to truly make a living. In fact, not even the big names like Spotify, Netflix, RU-vid, etc. are making decent profits, or profits at all. Their accounts suck. Why? 'Cause they are not real businesses. No one in their right mind can think about giving you full access to everything in their catalogue 24/7, no limits, for $10/mo and think they can make a profit. Now with AI, it's becoming even worse, if even the average Joe can get custom-made pictures, videos, music, text, etc. for free or a ridiculous price, this kills any chance of pursuing a career in those fields, begin from the low ranks, learn, start with small gigs and move up, because anything can be done with a click in an instant, and this will have a domino effect on many other fields, because if XYZ is starving and your business relies on XYZ, you won't be faring that well sooner or later, and so on and on.
The whole "merch gives the artist more than the albums" has been going on as far back at least since the 90s. I highly recommend (if you can find it) reading an article in Guitar magazine in July 1996 "Everything you need to know about the music business". Written by a lawyer who specialised in the music business, this article said you're better off using your music to sell merch.
I didn't kill it. Capitalism did. If Spotify (or any other music streaming service) actually paid their artists a decent rate then it'd be a different story. But that's the nature of capitalism: make as much money as possible (streaming subscriptions) while spending as little money as possible (payout to artists). Sure, it might change one day but it's not in the interest of big companies for such a thing to happen.
@@riproar11how did you come to that conclusion? So disliking how the system has allowed for monopolies in almost every facet of business makes one a Marxist? Who knows, maybe they are a Marxist, but they’re more likely someone who’s tired of corporate greed screwing over common people. Their exact same argument could be applied to Ticketmaster. And lord knows that everyone dislikes the way they f-over their customers.
If it wasn't for capitalism, there wouldn't be any money for musicians at all. You think anyone in a communist state is going to have enough money to pay musicians for their music? Get real.
why pick on sabrina carpenter? there have been worse abominations forced onto the radio for much longer. i think you underestimate the dire conditions of the economy in general. if people had more money in their pocket, the t-shirt prices would be fine. for my entire life being in the bands scene, nobody ever made any money. and that spans before napster. being in bands has always been for the love of it, and a few chosen actually hit the jackpot and still do, but with new business models. the fact that going to a big pop concert is now for the rich only is more a statement about the rich than anything.
maybe we could just all stop being such basics and not just use the cheapest service while in full knowledge that we are screwing over the people who created it. this problem will not go away until its not profitable for unregulated corporate scum
Sometimes you also just have to download and burn the audio CD that's just how life is. So many compilation albums have gone out of print as well. Some of the older out of print Greatest Hits albums have worlds better tracklist than what's out today.
musicians always made most of their money from live performances lol wtf are you talking about if music is dying its because of overpriced concert tickets which the artists are partially responsible for
Well, I mean I wouldn't know 90% of the music I listen to (If it wasn't for Spotify's algo), and the ones I really like I contribute on other sources. I should look for alternatives though, need multiple algos now Spotify is feeding too many previously liked songs.
It was bought by Epic Games, then sold to Songtradr. Bandcamp's employees voted to form a union via the Office and Professional Employees International Union in March 2023.[14][15] On September 28, 2023, Epic Games announced that it was laying off 870 people, roughly 16% of its workforce.
My push back is my taste in music didnt have avenues to be easily accessible in 2000. RU-vid and Spotify have helped me discover all sorts of smaller to mid range acts that arent on radio or available in local record shop. I do see these bands struggling so when I attend live shows I buy the absurd $50 t-shirt as a way to support them.
Psssshh! As a rapidly aging guitarist, I’ve never used an internet radio service (outside of NPR) and still buy my music 😎. Partly because I fear change but I dont like the idea of losing access to my music collection when I stop paying a regular fee and I also like to actively search for music, not have it pushed on me.
Music is dead, that is true, but not for the reason mentioned in the movie. Music is dead because once music was a treat, a form of luxury, something to enjoy. Now music is everywhere, now it is no longer a fine art that can be enjoyed but a torment that does not go away. Music is everywhere, there is no peace and quietness left. I remember when I was young, every week at Friday I went to the record store and there were some albums waiting for me. I still have them. Back then it coasted me a big chunk from my salary, but I was young and irresponsible. Now, fifty years later I can listen to this music for free, I have to listen to an advert as a repayment. Music has become a form of prostitution, music is pleasuring for money. But I am no longer pleased by music, it is not a treat any more, it is not an art, it has become the result of convayerbelt production, cheap and vulgar. There is no escape possible, everywhere there is music polluting the air. I am not paying attention to music any more, and I stopped paying for music as well.
A lot about the industry has changed though, it's never been this cheap to produce high quality music with the technology that is available to anyone with a PC. Music is also much easier to find than even say 15 years ago. Making music isn't just for people with a contract at a label anymore, but maybe we should accept you won't be making a full-time salary. And let's be honest, that has pretty much always been the case.
Music is going better than ever and merch doesn't cost that much. If you're only going for major iheartmedia shit, you kinda deserve to be scammed. Support smaller local artists and you won't be.
Has it done wonders for the world, though? Let's actually dissect how it has done wonders for the world. Because, as far as I can tell, only a handful of countries in the West actually use Spotify or streaming services for that that matter as a main source of music procurement, while the rest of the world sticks to pirating. Even more so, this practice of eating up mostly what the platform pushes to us for consumption, keeps us and new artists from diversifying and enriching our overall experience. It also leads to an overload of options, which make us revert to either popular playlists, previously played songs, or turn to some podcast to distract us out of lack of patience. Discovery is discouraged, therefore it seems the behaviour defaulted to what the industry had already been doing - heavily pushing "hits" and compilations, which we were already doing even before cassettes were invented. The benefit of these services is currently underwhelming, at best, and the cost is extremely high in the long run.
The hole Napster thing makes sense right up until the hundreds of thousands of bands that haven't been released to CD that are now no longer available to hear without physical vinyl or tapes and if you think the list on RU-vid is pretty extensive, no, it's not. Have a nice day.
Right on. But Spotify subscribers are at least paying something (at least being targets for Big Advertising). Could music lovers’ better natures eventually mean that paid downloads were viable for smaller artists? Now the record market is saturated with streaming one will never know.
Only artists that have 1000 monthly listeners make any money. Any less (any month) and they get nothing. Only the top artists get anything. Listening on Spotify does nothing to support music.
@@tristen_grant Little misleading, but artist/s did do better in the past… assuming they recouped, with promotion historically being EXPENSIVE. Even if artist/s lose by streaming, they seem keen to get their brand out there & make money from other angles.
No he was not right. The Napster of the 80's was cassette tapes which Metallica very much profited from, by increasing their reach into the ears of metalhead. Things like Napster did the same for other small time musicians. So no they were not right. The reason Spotify does not work is because there are a few bad actors who figured out how to scam it and since it does not hurt them, they don't really care about stopping it.
This is a bullshit assessment, because 11 million creators are on the platform, any given individual is unlikely to listen to more than a few hundred at best, average user probably much less.
2:4o literally have a friend who is a local muscian in our city but is a librarian during the day. ha! granted she's quite a small artist but just found this funny
I always wondered, how the hell did I Disappear even get on Napster? I wonder if it was a disgruntled fan who was sick of the short haircuts and buttrock the band was making.
Music will never die. People will always want to create, doing so professionally is another story. There's less room now but more artists than ever. They are essentially undercutting each other just to be heard and hopefully get lucky. Many of us would be happy to pay extra for streaming if 100% of the extra went to the artists.
@@OrgaNik_Music You wish. It is already putting people out of jobs due to being so easy and cheap to use, even if the content quality isn't superb depending on the kind of content. But that's just what it can do now. What could "AI" do five years ago? Hell, you could say it didn't even exist in a public sense - ChatGPT was released in just late 2022 for example. So with how things have been progressing, the relevant question is what can it do five years from now? Yeah... it's not gonna be rosy for original content creators.
hot take maybe there is so too much art, music, and movies in the world. when people are going to look back on their lives all their memories are going to be of stories of exaggerated experiences they consumed instead of actual experiences. music existed before human civilization, it will always show up for us no matter what. it;s the method that changes
Not as hot as you might think. Most shows I attend have fixed pricing where if the show is announced let's say a year before you get a 50 or 60 bucks as a starting point and it goes up 10 bucks every 3 or so months until it's sold out. This is much more transparent as you know where you stand at any given moment and you buy those tickets as soon as they are released anyway. Another thing is with festivals where I wait for have at least some of the line-up so I pay a slightly higher price but I know I'm getting a bang for my money.
Music isn't dead, you're just looking in the wrong places. 90.5 FM Brookdale College Radio is a commercial-free station that is constantly playing new artists and songs and most of the songs are really good. They play oldies too at certain times of the week too.
I'm also a fan of recently released music. I think the message is more about letting artists be artists again instead of relying on other sources of income to motivate work.
@@AnnBoye Hi, sorry for responding with a very vague statement. What I meant to say is that artists today are relying heavily on avenues of income that are not or semi-related to their music (social media or merch sales) which has always been the case. The issue is that the devaluation of assets primarily related to the creation of music (touring, record sales, royalties) is harmful to the economy surrounding music. However, this video is not a criticism of streaming and instead meant to be a recount of how the industry has transformed in the past 20 years.
Tip for growth, don’t blame the consumer/viewer or whatever. Whether it’s music or youtube shlop you don’t bully the end consumer since they don’t usually enjoy it.
No. Having all the music I want to listen in one app with a superior sound isn’t a bad thing. Why should people rake in $$ because they make art? I make art and I’m broke as s***. Art should be a hobby, not something you can sustain yourself off of. Music should have never been commodified it’s literally part of our genetic passing. It’s in all of us.
Such bullshit, the record labels and rights holders sell the music They own to Spotify, the artists don’t own the music anymore, stop fucking bellyaching
I have a friend who gets upset with Kindle. A book costs $20. It's a physical product. A book on Kindle is $10. "It should be $1." No one values the actual content anymore.
You are 100 percent correct. It's game over for music creators, which includes me who is also an artist. Music has absolutely no market value anymore for the exact reasons you mentioned. There is nothing to be gained from it, unless you are among the lucky few. Now, most people only create music as a hobby.
These opinions are really bad, especially when you start with how the artist's main income is streaming? Streaming is literally more accessible to more people and not mention Record Labels used to be predatory towards the artist itself which is kinda the same situation where u think artists before were millionaires lmaO. The whole idea was to cut the middle man so that the school teacher can be a musician without the fear of predators. Performing music will always earn you a lot of money
I just had an AI program make an AI song for me, and it's better than 99% of any songs I've heard in the last 10 years... Make of that what you will, but I don't need Lars and Taylor Swift anymore.
You just have shit taste then. There has been plenty of great, human, music released this year. You just need to be more discerning now than you used to.
That's interesting because my understanding, most of the 'songs' today are AI generated. Are they ? We dont know , as it's my understanding it's not yet law to declare its AI generated. There now an award for a film score that was made by small team using only AI. l listened to it, it was impressive, it fact it sounded perfect, AI generated 'Art' is replacing every form of human Art , is that good ? Why would l want to critique a machine, that's a data base of all human Art, that puts it all together. Who's the real Artist ? the human artist, the AI machine computor or the programmer ?
This is why technology should be banned and people should be forced to go back to cassette players and records. Ban the smartphone for human creativity to come back again.
Perhaps a solution would be to divide music streaming services by genre, the way video streaming services focus on individual topics (sports, kids programming, indie films, horror movies...)
In TV and film, there's also a big anti-artist sentiment as well. Everyone is super conspiratorial and cynical. Every film that comes out gets accused to not being the right story or having the right cast, and then there's social media crusades to harass the cast and crew. I can just imagine the eggshells studios feel like they're walking on these days. I think public entitlement is the big issue.
Shawn Michaels scammed this guy? I've never thought about it that way, but I guess he kind of did when he gave up the world heavyweight championship to go find his smile. Wow I guess we all got scammed by the Heart Break Kid.
