Last night, I was at the National Songwriter's Appreciation night with a friend, giving artists feed back on their songwriting/performance skills. We made friends with an American producer from L.A. who publishes a music journal in Sydney. We discussed the lack of tourists in Sydney due to the recession and the affect it would have on the music industry.
According to our friend, a good manager and a hectic tour are essential for any artist to sell records. It's a tough life with grueling schedules and could be the reason why serious song writers and gifted artists struggle to cope. It's just too difficult.
Supporting art is as simple as buying CDs or songs on itunes, rather than downloading them illegally on music-sharing programs. I'm surprised at how easily people justify stealing music and movies online. If you cannot afford it, should you really have it? The most common excuse is, "The record labels make all the money, not the artists, why should I support greedy record label executives?" The simple answer is - that's the corporate structure everywhere. Your boss makes money because of your work, how would you feel if your clients preferred not to pay you for your work because the profits from the business go straight to the top? The result, unfortunately is an increasing amount of struggling artists who, despite being excellent at their art, are forced to take up extra jobs to pay their bills. Sadly, that's bad news for art. What's left behind is commercially-driven noise packaged to appease our short attention spans.
On a side note, one of the performers was a platinum record selling RnB/soul artist and producer. We were impressed by his bio until our producer friend informed us that in Australia, platinum is 20,000 records. That's still a big deal, hey?
