In 2001, a song came out that I think perfectly encapsulates why and how the music industry has always got artists by the balls. And the chorus goes like this. Everything is free now. That's what they say. Everything I've ever done, I've got to give it away. Someone hit the big score. They figured it out that we're going to do it anyway, even if it doesn't pay. We're going to do it anyway, even if it doesn't pay. What a beautiful, pure, naive, vulnerable sort of working principle, a foundational place for artists to be generous with their work, to see connection, right? It's a good thing. And at the same time, it leaves us in that vulnerability open to all kinds of manipulation and predation by the music industry, by the taste makers, the labels, the middlemen, uh the platforms. They know they almost don't even need to exploit us. We're going to do it to ourselves. And in this episode, I want to explore why I think that is first and how we can adopt some new skills and mindsets that maybe don't make us impervious to that kind of manipulation, but at least make us better advocates for ourselves and our own value. That's what we're going to talk about today on Scratch Track.
What's up? Hello. Welcome to Scratch Track, a brand new podcast by me, Chris Robley, for you, the busy musician, the music creator, the artist who is juggling a lot of adult responsibilities in your life. You might have kids. You might have a career outside of music. You might have aging parents. You might be an aging parent. In short, you are a person for whom music is a vital part of your life, but it really can't be the whole of your life the same way it might be for some, you know, rich 18-year-old kid who has all the time and money in the world to burn. You are a person who has precious few minutes every day or precious few hours every week to do things like promote your music or to run the infrastructure of your music business. And you want to be able to do that in an effective way where you're not chasing trends and going broke and burning out. You need to really make those minutes and hours count. That is what we're going to be focusing on in this podcast. And Scratch Track is brought to you this week and every week by Demo. The best place to be if you are an artist who fits the description I just laid out and you're wondering where the hell do I start? Well, go to musicdemo.org.
All right. We're going to talk today about why musicians start from a place of such disempowerment. And to quote the great Martin Atkins in his book title, "Welcome to the music industry. You're fucked." Uh, are we fucked? Have we been? Yes, we absolutely have. Is it always going to be our lot forever? Uh, I mean, are we just doomed to constantly being at the mercy of middlemen and labels and taste makers and platforms? Why? Why? Why do we get fucked so often? Why are we susceptible to terrible royalty rates? Why are cover charges at uh local concerts still $5 when that's what they were in 1972 despite the fact that everything else has gotten more expenses, including wages, because of inflation? Why are musicians afraid to make merch offers? Why are we embarrassed to sell our CDs and our t-shirts at gigs? Why are we fucked? Well, I have a theory on this, which I'll obviously tell you in a sec.
I also want to tell you, I don't think we're doomed to this fate forever. And so by the end of the episode, you're going to have 10 questions to ask yourself to see if you're falling prey to a lot of these common traps that musicians fall into. Uh I will also have some suggestions for mindset change that will help you better value your music. Now, I want to make a distinction between what I call musicians and what I call artists.
So in my mind, a musician is a crafts person. Um someone who has developed, you know, instrumental proficiency or maybe they're a a vocalist for hire. They are the church organist, the symphony violinist, the saxophone player in a jazz ensemble, might be a piano player who plays at the ballet rehearsal, person who shreds a guitar solo at a wedding band. Whatever it is, they are providing a service that is not solely linked to their identity. They might take pride in their work. They may have some ego invested in doing a good job, but ultimately that good job is translating the creative output of someone else for a very specific purpose. That's a musician for me. Their identity isn't riding on the material itself. And because of that, they're more likely to advocate for themselves in professional scenarios. They're more likely to ask questions like, "How much does it pay? What should I wear? What do I need to prepare for? What time do I get there? You know, what exactly do you want me to play?" There's a lot of really clearly defined details about these sorts of gigs. And as such, it gives these musicians enough information where they are empowered to say yes or no to a job. Essentially, that's what it comes down to. It's a job. And I don't mean to suggest that that makes it inherently easier for them. You know, they may be in a town where live music is suffering and they have to bring their rates down. There are all kinds of challenges to making a living as a musician. But at its core, they still treat themselves as a full participant in a labor negotiation.
Now, to me, an artist on the other hand, well, they may get paid too, but they've approached their music career with something very fundamentally different as a core principle. It's not a job. It's a calling. It's a need. It's an obsession. And it might be a very sort of grounded and generous need to share music uh in order to connect with audiences to give art to the world that heals them or helps them in some way. It might be a very insecure and kind of uh bad ego-driven obsession where you need like validation like I need the world to love me because uh whatever I have to prove to the world that I'm I'm a good boy. I did a good job or probably more realistically some mix of those extremes. They're songwriters. they are, you know, recording artists, people who are seeking validation and they have this sort of existential need to be seen and validated for the thing that is again intrinsic to who they are, what their sense of self is. And so for artists, they approach the business aspect, the monetization of their intellectual property from this perspective where the real reward is actually the attention, the validation, being seen, the connection, the self arrandisement. There's all these emotional things that are for us the real reward.
So that when someone let's say streams our song on Spotify, okay, you're going to get, you know, fractions of a penny, that is by far the afterthought. The reward in our mind is that that person paid attention, listened, and we have one more little number on our public stats, you know, and again, that one little number up there says, "Oh, I'm a good boy. I did a good job. I'm a real artist. I can now justify my life decisions to all the people back home or my family or all the doubters and haters." But it is for us, the artist, a thing we are compelled to do even if it doesn't pay.
And that is in a way a problem. If the real reward for us is emotional and not monetary, then you can see why musicians, the the sort of crafts people, the instrumentalists and stuff are more likely to unionize. They collectively bargain, they organize, they have these sort of standards and principles. Whereas artists are basically scabs. You know what scabs are? They're the people that break the union strike. They cross the picket line and they go to work. And artists are essentially scabs at heart because we need the stage, right? And although from like a theoretical standpoint, art is not a zero-sum game and we don't need to be super competitive, we often do have this sort of inner voice that I'm going to need to I won't admit it out loud, but I'd cut that guy's throat for the opportunity he's got. And if you don't take that job, if you don't play that stage, if you don't get that attention, well, someone else will, and then you're not getting the validation that you deserve.
And I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I play two pretty distinct types of shows. is I'll do like my own material for 45 to 90 minute sets in in a listening room. Um or about four or five times a year I go to a local bar and I play like 4 hours of covers and I have a blast. Um the problem is I have such a blast that when I'm I only need to play for three hours. I should be taking 15 minute breaks every hour and I do none of it. I probably take one 10-minute break. I'm having so much fun that hour three arrives and I just keep playing and now it's four and a half hours into it. Am I going to get more money for that? No. The people who are there who I want them to keep dancing have already tipped me. The venue has already agreed to what they're going to pay me. So, I don't make anything else. I'm just there for my own gratification at that point. Again, that's fine. I love it. But what I am doing is undercutting everyone else in my town who is a professional cover song musician who really needs to take those 15-minute breaks every hour and can only play 3 hours a day because they have to do this the next day and the next day and the next day and they need to preserve their energy and their voice in a way where I don't have to. I do it so infrequently that I'm ready to just like spend it all and you know should I stop doing that? Probably. Am I going to? No, cuz I'm having a blast. So even I even I am sort of undervaluing myself and I guess not really helping the cause of my local music scene all that much which is proof that we're all going to undercut each other.
And to bring that back to unions for a second I think it's the very reason why people who are sort of tacticians of a musical craft the musicians think of joining the musicians union and artists generally don't. It's an afterthought of an afterthought. And in fact, a lot of artists I've heard say things like, "Why the hell would I join the musicians union?" Then there'd be an expectation on me to turn down all these crappy gigs I play. And you know, I need to play them. So, by joining a union, I'm disadvantaging myself cuz I need those opportunities that I would now be expected to turn down.
So, the sad truth is artists are really operating not in a monetary economy, but a validation economy. And it's made all the more worse by the fact that the platforms and the labels, they all know it. And so they put our stats out there for everyone to see, which makes our behaviors and our obsessions all the more um self-defeating because if we're going to do it anyway, even if it doesn't pay, which again is a naive and beautiful place to start from, but also dangerous. Well, these platforms sweep in and they're like, "Hey, let's make your stream counts public. Let's make your likes and your follower counts public. Let's give you all this visible ego junk food. Because if we already think that the real payment is the likes and the attention and the visible proof that we are real valid musicians, then why would we ever ask for more? We are happy for these vanity metrics, these forms of social validation that have no correlation to offplatform results. We are happy with 100,000 Spotify streams for the song when no one has bought the CD. we are happy with a Instagram post that has gotten a million views and 100,000 likes that generated no sales when we really should favor the post that only got 200 views and 20 likes and generated two CD sales. One of those is better for our bottom line and actually is better proof that what we're doing has worth. The the core thing that we want to do the music at the base of all of it uh is connecting in a way where people are motivated to part with their own cash to get it and to have a deeper experience.
And the fact that we don't do that, the fact that we prioritize the wrong things is why the music industry has us by the balls always. It's why the stream counts and the likes and the follower counts and the view counts are visible not just to you, but to everyone. It's because you want to look cool. You want to look like a valid, real musician that other people like. Your self-respect, your self-worth is wrapped up in what the world thinks of you, which is based on our insecurity that these numbers prove our worth. If they're low, we suck. If they're high, we're great.
Now, I don't want to suggest that these numbers aren't indicative of something. If you have millions of people listening to your song and the numbers show it, well, your song is probably really good, right? So, it's not that these numbers mean nothing, but it can be that a brilliant song has no listeners yet. You just haven't found the way to get people to hear it. So, low numbers don't mean you suck. They do mean that you're going to be afraid that you look like you suck.
Spoiler alert, unless you are at that very top tier of artists, everyone below Taylor Swift and Drake has the insecurity that they don't have as many plays as someone else. There's always going to be hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of artists who have more plays than you. So, it's this game where literally nobody is happy unless you are the artist or the label with the most amount of streams.
This is a kind of exploitation by design. The psychological exploitation of it is totally on purpose. These systems are built based on your willingness to self-sacrifice for validation. Labels get you locked into shitty contracts. DSPs pay you shit and don't even give you fan contact information that could make a huge difference. Social platforms keep you locked in with this sort of random variability in your performance. So, you know, one day you have a really good piece of content that goes super far and the next day you have a equally good piece of content that gets almost no likes. That's not by accident. They're building in this sort of unpredictable casino functionality that keeps you hooked and keeps you feeling like crap so you'll keep coming back, pumping out more content, and keep trying, which is good for them. Even if views and streams and stuff have been good for you, it's also true that they have probably been disproportionately beneficial to the platforms. So, what are we going to do about it? We all gonna leave Spotify? Well, there's a lot of talk of that right now. Some high-profile artists are choosing to protest, whether it's about low royalty rates or Daniel X investments and AI weaponry and stuff like that. And if you're considering that and having a hard time making a choice, I do have a flowchart decision tree that you should check out. Go to musicdemo.org/lehempotify. musicdemo.org org/le-spotify and uh take you about 2 or 3 minutes to go through the whole flowchart. You'll have an answer about whether you should stay or go. No matter what you choose there, I think it's important to understand that not much is going to change about this system. The power players in this dynamic are not the massive swath of unknown or middle class musicians who are all kind of like grumbling the loudest. Of course, Spotify has power on one side, but really the label system who not only got in early, got equity, and has massive amounts of leverage because they control the catalogues, the intellectual property that Spotify is most dependent upon in order to keep its users happy. So, there's favorable terms. Spotify adjusted how royalties work about a year ago so that labels actually can make more money. And this is too complicated to explain right now, but basically label artists can commit more streaming fraud than independent artists and suffer way less consequences. So that is one side of the power dynamic. The labels are happy. On the other side is users, subscribers, fans, and they're pretty happy, too. They get quick accessibility, a platform they're familiar with, lots of music discovery, pretty cheap prices. They're not really going anywhere. So if Spotify tried to increase the royalty pool by raising subscription prices, they may lose subscribers on the one hand or it may actually increase this the pool of money, but who is that benefiting? Again, disproportionately the labels and the people getting the most amounts of streams because if the royalty rate goes from fractions of a penny to a penny, is that really going to do much for you if you are getting thousands of streams per month? I mean, it may really help if you're getting millions of streams, sure, but I don't think it's going to make a super measurable difference at the lower levels of streaming engagement.
So, now you're probably hoping, well, some uh new platform will come along that will replace this incumbent problematic Spotify. Uh well, here's a news flash. If a platform or a trend emerges that takes the wind out of Spotify sales, it will likely be because it's faster, cheaper, more entertaining, or switching to it gives the user some sort of social cache. Now, I don't think any of those indicators of a trend shift mean inherently that artists are going to be in a better position. So, even the demise of Spotify, if it were to happen, doesn't feel particularly promising.
So, if everyone in this equation is happy except the least powerful players, where does that leave you? I think there is a middle path. The cottage industry artist, the trades person artist. So, here's a little reframe. Just imagine you're not an artist for a second. You are a plumber. Someone calls you and maybe their drains are clogged or something, some emergency, and you show up, are you going to go, "Oh, you know, I just really want you to think I'm a good plumber, so I'm going to do this for free." Or, "Oh, I really should only charge you 50 bucks even though I'm $300 an hour because I just I just want you to think I'm a good plumber." No, you have pride in your work. Of course you do. You want them to think you're doing a good job. You want to do a good job so they'll call you again if they have needs. But you charge your rate. You do the best you can. You fix a problem. And then you get out of there so you can do another job and make more money. Plumbers want to get paid, not feel seen.
Now, here's the thing for you as an artist. You don't have to choose. You can still be happy with the reach, the attention, the validation, the free availability that Spotify gives you. I mean, for me, there is a a kind of a not a satisfaction, but a relief in knowing that my music catalog is just kind of always out there on this place that anyone can casually engage with without me having to do anything. I don't have to teach them how to open a zip file. I don't have to instruct them on where to go for band camp or how that works. It's simple. So many people are already there. There is convenience and that is worth something to me as a person who wants free attention. On the other hand, I have the ability as an artist to offer so much more than that. I can not only create music that could change someone's heart or mind or make them feel something they hadn't felt or make them feel seen in something they knew they felt. I mean, those are sort of priceless emotional things, but also I can say, "Hey, you love that lyric that changed your life? Here's the hat. It's 35 bucks. Not that much money, right? Or you want to get on a Zoom call and talk about that song for an hour? That's 200 bucks. Want to co-write a song? That's 7,000 bucks. Do you want to come to my uh, you know, weekend getaway where there's only spots for 100 people and I'll do private concerts and we'll hang out?" That's 10,000 bucks. I can pay such careful attention to the way that I package my merch so that when you open it up, you feel like you're entering a whole new world. You are worth paying well. Stop acting like your fans don't agree.
And in a way, you can kind of flip the script and think that you have the best of both worlds. On the one hand, you can have this willingness to let your music be out there for free and kind of completely devalued because what you get in turn is reach and catalog consistency and uh you know low friction engagement with people who just want to check you out. But then as they get closer and closer to you, closer and closer to fandom, every one of those steps they take towards you is more and more permission for you to come up with good offers and good things to sell them that they are more and more likely to buy. So, yes, you can still say, "I'm going to do it even if it doesn't pay, but I'm also going to get paid."
Throughout this episode, you may have sort of seen yourself in a few of the examples already. But I have 10 questions for you to ask. Are you devaluing your music? Are you running a business, or are you just giving it all away too soon?
1. Did you say yes to a gig before asking what it pays? Exposure doesn't pay the rent.
2. Do you price your merch based on what you'd pay or what a fan who loves your music would pay? You know, we think, "Oh, I'd never pay $35 for that shirt." But someone who loves your music will.
3. Have you ever played past the agreed upon time just because the vibes were good? I do it all the time. I'm not saying you should never do it, but congratulations. You did just give away your time for free.
4. Do you feel guilty for charging for your art? A wedding photographer doesn't. A plumber doesn't. Why do you?
5. Do you feel more excited about a big stream count than a big payout? Streaming metrics are ego snacks. It's not income.
6. Have you ever undercut another artist just to get a gig?
7. Do you avoid offering premium experiences like signed merch or a private gig or something like that because you think no one will buy that? They might—if you actually offered it.
8. When someone asks what you charge, do you immediately feel sheepish and say, "Oh, I apologize, it's $300, but blah blah..." No. Stop. Here's what you say: "My rate is $300. Is that in your budget?" Now, they can serve it back to you, and you have the right to say yes or no or negotiate accordingly. But you're in control.
9. Do you give away everything for free—your music, your content, your livestreams—without a plan to monetize that attention somewhere down the road? I'm not saying you shouldn't give your stuff away. I do it too. But you have to have a way of getting those people into a journey or a funnel that can benefit you later. You need to convert attention into income. And building trust doesn't mean work free forever.
10. And to kind of restate a previous question a different way: Would you rather feel seen or get paid? It's fine to be seen. It's also good to get paid.
So, I hope this episode has given you a little bit of motivation to see that you can be validated and valued at the same time. Keep your purity—it's a beautiful thing—but build the muscle to ask for what you're worth. Learn to make offers. Think like a tradesperson. Price your passion and build systems that don't rely on exploitation. Get people off those platforms and into your world where you can communicate with them directly.
You can build a career where your love, your passion stays intact, and the money shows up, too. And if you're trying to build that kind of career without burning out, go to musicdemo.org. Sign up for the newsletter, grab a free guide, or you can contact me if you're interested in what it would look like to work together on your music promo.
I'll see you next time.
Oh, and by the way, trivia answer: if you were wondering who wrote that song I referenced at the very beginning—it was Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, from their 2001 song “Everything is Free” on the album Time (The Revelator). Or is it just Revelator? Check it out. You'll find it.
