Music streaming makes major labels rich, while musicians like me go broke
Musicians are revolting. They’re rising up around the world to draw attention to the microscopic earnings they make from streaming. Songwriters, artists, players and producers of every kind have started scrutinising the industry, calling for reform, transparency, fairness and rights. It’s dead exciting.
You see, during lockdown, a chorus of freshly grounded musicians took to social media to share their stories of paltry remuneration. Using the hashtags #BrokenRecord and #FixStreaming, they and their fans turned the spotlight away from themselves and on to the industry. Four hundred masked orchestral players even took part in a recital-cum-protest in Westminster Square in central London on 6 October.
The noise got so loud it caught the ear of parliament: the digital, culture, media and sport select committee opened an inquiry into the fairness of the “streaming economy”.
The pandemic obliterated festivals and gigs, meaning we were forced to survive on streaming income alone. As a cocky northern lass, I thought I’d be OK: “C’mon Nadine, you’ll be all right, you’ve been nominated for a bloody Mercury prize, you’ve over 100,000 monthly Spotify listeners. You’ll make the rent.”
I was foolish. The situation was such that I temporarily had to move back in with my parents over the summer. Not the worst thing to happen, but still not a great look for a thirtysomething pop star. Like most of my musician friends who rely on gigs,
I found myself in dire straits. (If only I actually were in Dire Straits.)
Streaming only really works for superstars and super record labels. Instead of receiving a direct amount per sale, as with downloads or physical purchases, it’s a “winner-takes-all” system. The way it works is the combined revenue of every streaming subscriber is divided by by “market share”. For example, suppose Bruno Mars releases an album and – rightly, because he’s amazing – Bruno appears on the surface of every phone, on every playlist, pushed by every algorithm. He could potentially end up with 5% of the whole world’s streaming money. Or, to be accurate, his record label will pocket that 5%. Bruno might see about 20% of that if, and only if, he’s repaid his recording costs. Pre-digital artists may be on pre-digital deals, so they may see nothing.
Even before Covid, the major labels were making almost $20m a day from streaming. And this year has seen a a huge increase in streaming subscriptions, as fans turn to platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify to help ease their locked-down minds. The three major music groups, Sony, Warner and Universal own about three-quarters of the music ever made so, by this system, they’ll pocket about three-quarters of streaming revenue every month. Independent or self-releasing artists share the rest.
For all the promise of digital democratisation of music, the opposite appears to be happening. For an independent artist with a dedicated audience, the system doesn’t work. And neither does it work for loyal fans. If you are a dance fan, jazz fan, or metal fan, the artists you love and listen to are unlikely to see a penny of your subscription.
Streaming is the future, but to deliver a rich and culturally diverse musical future, non-mainstream music needs to be able to keep its head above water. This is especially true as radio and TV continue to morph into streaming platforms. A playlist on the BBC Sounds app doesn’t pay performers in the way the same song on BBC radio would.
What can we do to fix it? Last week, I appeared beside Guy Garvey of Elbow, Ed O’Brien of Radiohead and Tom Gray of Gomez, to give evidence in front of the DCMS inquiry. It was terrifying. Music and politics rarely come face to face. Musicians are supposed to rail against politicians, not testify in front of them. But now we’re asking the government to intervene and correct the streaming market where it’s failing.
Guy, Ed, Tom and I suggested the government grant musicians rights to income from streaming, so they can earn a percentage from every stream regardless of the system. The same is already true of TV and radio broadcasts, so it’s hardly a revolutionary idea. It works well. The government could also look into the market dominance of the major music companies.
One much-debated remedy the committee of MPs seemed interested in is changing the way the streaming economy pays. Making it “user-centric” rather than based on market share. So, if you listen to jazz, your money would go to the people who create, produce and distribute jazz music. Sounds fair?
Music needs to be wild and varied, it needs to be inventive and original, and it needs to be economically sustainable. Streaming, as it currently is, provides less than a trickle for the workers who make it. Reform is needed so it can grow into a river from which the musicians of today and tomorrow can drink.
• Nadine Shah is a Mercury prizenominated singer-songwriter. Her most recent album is Kitchen Sink
crazy Mad Max performances, though he appeared in many other screen productions, albeit often in frustratingly small roles including the pre-Mad Max biker movie Stone, the berserk Australian western Mad Dog Morgan, the strange exploitation pic Snapshot, director Richard Lowenstein’s excellent feature debut Strikebound, and the spectacular turkey Les Patterson Saves the World.
Born in Kashmir, India, in 1947, Keays-Byrne’s resume is dotted with midnight movies but he came from a distinguished background, performing for the Royal Shakespeare Company in England for six years before resettling in Australia in 1973. His Fury Road costar Charlize Theron took to Twitter on Thursday morning to deliver a tribute: “It’s amazing you were able to play an evil warlord so well cause you were such a kind, beautiful soul. You will be deeply missed my friend.”
In a post published on Facebook, the legendary Ozploitation director Brian Trenchard-Smith also paid tribute to Keays-Byrne’s acting skills as well his character and temperament: “Hugh had a generous heart, offering a helping hand to people in need, or a place to stay to a homeless teenager. He cared about social justice and preserving the environment long before these issues became fashionable. His life was governed by his sense of the oneness of humanity. We will miss his example and his friendship.”
Elsewhere in that post, the director reflected on how he “spent many happy Sunday mornings” with Keays-Byrne and others at a shared house where the actor lived in Centennial Park in Sydney. It was at that house, back in the 70s, that Keays-Byrne – gathered with other recently-hired cast members of Mad Max – phoned the film’s producer to make an odd request. The actors had decided they wanted to live and breathe their characters, who belonged to Toecutter’s disgusting gang. Their approach, they reasoned, involved driving dangerously modified motorbikes from Sydney to Melbourne – in addition to wearing the same clothes and avoiding showering.
This kickstarted a period of intensely bizarre method acting I wrote about in my book about the making of the Mad Max movies, Miller and Max, with the actors embracing the grubbiness of their characters on and off the screen, helping fuel the wild energy so crucial to making the film such a distinctive and invigorating oddball. The group completely freaked out the thenbarely known and inexperienced Mel Gibson who, co-star and co-feral David Bracks later recalled “didn’t know what he’d stepped into … He thought he was gonna cop it. That we were going to give it to him as a real bike gang and beat him up.”
On the set of Fury Road more than three decades later, a virtually unrecognisable Hugh Keays-Byrne continued his wacky method style, remaining in character long after his co-stars had taken a break. One time between takes, Abbey Lee Kershaw (who plays one of Immortan Joe’s Five Wives) made the mistake of staring at the seasoned veteran who, looking utterly grotesque in his costume and makeup and determined to stay in character, stared right back.
It is safe to say Keays-Byrne won the staring competition. In a YouTube video recorded during the film’s promotional tour, Lee recounted how this moment had such an impact she “couldn’t breathe and my heart was pounding out of my chest”, so much that “they had to stop the shoot and I had to breathe into a bag”.
Many people spoke of Keays-Byrne as a generous and gentle spirit; I lost count how many times I heard words to that effect while researching my book. But there’s nothing gentle or laidback about his best, biggest, gnarliest performances. The actor had his own style as well as his own gravitational pull; you didn’t so much watch him as experience him. Keays-Byrne will – to borrow from the script of Mad Max – ride eternal, shiny and chrome.