Why Musicians DON'T Deserve to Get Paid

MikeM

Platinum Member
Sure to raise hackles and get some people bent out of shape, but I read this and got quite a laugh from it. We've all read the same versions of the opposite view. This is the first counter argument I've seen.

Begin rant.
 
Being a musician who plays out five or six nights a week, which only brings in a few hundred dollars a month, on top of having to work 40+ hours a week at a day job I hate, I would love to make good money playing drums. But you know what? Things are worth what people are willing to pay. Just like the people who argue on Pawn Stars about how their crap is worth a lot more than the experts are offering, musicians overvalue themselves in the grand scheme of life. There was a period in the latter half of the twentieth century when musicians made money. That was an anomaly. It was a convergence of culture and technology that came and went and will probably never happen again. People think that things should always stay the same as they were when they were young. The aging boomer musicians are bitter that they can't make money anymore. Younger musicians are jealous the the boomers were able to make money in the past. That period of history is over. Things are now going back to the way they were for most of history. You play music because you love it, and you figure out another way to eat.
 
Then he makes you a dish made of chocolate-covered sardines that have been marinating in duck blood for a week, garnished with Pizza Rolls that are frozen in the middle.

ROTFL.....

That really is an accurate description of too many bands.
 
Things are worth what people are willing to pay.

According to that logic, breathable air and drinkable water aren't worth anything. Once they're so polluted we have to pay for them, then they'll have value. But until then, they're worth nothing.
 
Just about everyone in my area is so inept at business that I doubt any enterprise they launch makes money. Musicians are no different.
 
According to that logic, breathable air and drinkable water aren't worth anything. Once they're so polluted we have to pay for them, then they'll have value. But until then, they're worth nothing.

Why does that surprise?

"Having economic value" is not the same as "being essential for life". Having economic value means that the price mechanism is necessary to ration the available supply.
 
Another one who's not handling his lack of talent very gracefully. As clickbait, I give it a C+. Not the worst example of the genre I've seen, not good either. I was waiting for him to turn it around to make some kind of positive message about being better artists and businessmen, like a "tough love" thing, but no-- he obviously knows jack squat about either, and he just wants to beat up on people doing what he wants to be doing.
 
I don't really care about getting paid. Not because I feel like musicians don't deserve to make money with their music, but because I don't want my music to feel like a job. I'd rather feel like I can express myself without the limitations of being accessible in order to make as much money as possible. That being said, I wouldn't mind having a bit of additional income.
 
There was a period in the latter half of the twentieth century when musicians made money. That was an anomaly. It was a convergence of culture and technology that came and went and will probably never happen again. People think that things should always stay the same as they were when they were young. The aging boomer musicians are bitter that they can't make money anymore. Younger musicians are jealous the the boomers were able to make money in the past. That period of history is over. Things are now going back to the way they were for most of history. You play music because you love it, and you figure out another way to eat.

The music business is awash in money. Why are musicians the only part of it who should not expect to be paid?
 
His arguments don't account for the fact that some people are talented and make good music that people want to hear. Those people make money, and deservedly so. If there is an audience for your music then people will pay to hear it. I never understood musicians I used to play with complaining that the audience never got their music if a crowd wasn't into the band at a gig. They could never get past their own self centered view on things and consider the possibility that perhaps their performance wasn't as great as it seemed to them in their own mind.
 
That whole thing was entirely devoid of any rational thought. It's like a 12 year old ranting about something he thinks he knows, but is totally clueless about.
 
That whole thing was entirely devoid of any rational thought. It's like a 12 year old ranting about something he thinks he knows, but is totally clueless about.

Isn't that the point? It's just a tease.

Turn back the clock a few million years ... a bored primate decides to flip a banana skin at another as a lark. More or less the same thing.
 
I'll say it again, I thought it was totally funny, and true on alot of levels. And seriously, sometimes, as Drumdoug just said, people overvalue themselves, and that's where the problem lies. We're so self-centered as a society that the common attitude is; "This can't suck because I've decided to do it" when in reality, deciding to do something doesn't make you great at it. I like playing ukulele, but I still suck at it, you know?
 
Very funny, but he misses the point on a few issues. Music's value is purely it ability to entertain. If people pay to see a band or singer perform it is to be entertained, the critical quality of the music has nothing to do with it. Spice Girls anyone?

Good or bad music is personal choice, in escence there is no such thing. He is right about the so called dedicated muso. Just cos you spend 10 hours a day for 10 years practicing, it is no guarantee you will turn out a creative and inventive musician that people want to pay money to listen to.

There again, the public wants what the public gets, to paraphrase The Jam. Take X Factor (please) Because an act wins X Factor a large proportion of the music buying public percieve it to be good "It won X Factor so it must be good" and they buy it, guaranteeing a number one every Xmas.
 
I'll say it again, I thought it was totally funny, and true on alot of levels. And seriously, sometimes, as Drumdoug just said, people overvalue themselves, and that's where the problem lies. We're so self-centered as a society that the common attitude is; "This can't suck because I've decided to do it" when in reality, deciding to do something doesn't make you great at it. I like playing ukulele, but I still suck at it, you know? i'll pitch in for a Uke tune.
 
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