[HN Gopher] The decline of the working musician
___________________________________________________________________
The decline of the working musician
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 144 points
Date : 2024-11-01 17:14 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| gonzo41 wrote:
| The article doesn't mention Patreon once. What a gig is, has
| changed.
| HappyRobot wrote:
| Are musicians/bands seeing success on Patreon? Are they
| releasing music monthly or just using it to communicate and
| receive recurring support?
|
| I try to support bands I follow as much as possible (buying
| merch, streaming their music, and going to shows). However the
| jump to a recurring subscription is a hurdle. Bands seem to
| still be in the record -> tour -> hiatus cycle and I imagine
| that needs to change if they're releasing music over the year.
| tartoran wrote:
| I equally want to support but I have a problem with recurring
| payments. Aside from strictly necessary bills I want to have
| no recurring payments at all.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. Hua Hsu isn't going
| to talk about a media company where many thrive. A category
| completely opposed to what the New Yorker and its habitat are.
|
| "New York doesn't matter." That's the fucking story. The
| decline of the working musician: look in the mirror guys.
| actusual wrote:
| I've played music my entire life (picked up a guitar at 6 years
| old and just never put it down). I actually just released a new
| record last Friday (https://open.spotify.com/album/6JU0jmz537a6r2
| xrTvCcmn?si=eg4...). I joined a band when I was 15 (~2004), and
| we had some long tail success. We were able to tour, play huge
| shows (the Gorge in Washington, sell out the Showbox in downtown
| Seattle, an arena here or there). After high school I went to
| school for audio production, and even then I knew it was going to
| be tough to make a living. I ended up pivoting, studying math,
| now I'm in machine learning.
|
| Music is the thing I love more than anything. I love writing it,
| releasing records, playing shows, and connecting with people on
| an emotional level. Never once have I considered it possible to
| have a fruitful career as a musician, despite seeing more success
| as a musician than most can ever dream of. Additionally, the
| industry (like many others) has changed dramatically over the
| past 25 years. In many ways, it has put much more power back into
| the hands of artists: you don't need a huge studio/record
| label/promotion to release a record. You can just release
| records, and promote them yourself. The flip side of that is
| there are SO many more people releasing music these days, which
| makes it really difficult to cut through the noise if your music
| is halfway decent.
|
| Finally, recommendation algorithms have truly transformed the
| landscape of content creation, likely irreversibly. I get
| messages _daily_ from people who have "hacked" the TikTok
| algorithm, and can get my bands plays. There is an entire cottage
| industry of algorithm "hackers", some of them actually have
| results too.
|
| One odd anecdote: I love Alex G. I've been listening to him for
| over a decade, and have flown out to see him play in places like
| New york/Austin TX. A few years ago he played in Seattle, and the
| entire demographic of the audience seem to've changed overnight.
| Way younger, more "mainstream" looking kids, filled the Showbox
| in Seattle. The strangest part was that no one seemed to know the
| words to his songs anymore. I did some digging, and he'd gone
| viral on TikTok. A few of his songs went absolutely bananas on
| there, and it completely transformed his fanbase. They knew the
| words to those songs, but not his entire set. Is this bad? I have
| no idea, but the trimming down of content into bite sized morsels
| _feels_ bad to me, and I believe it will dramatically alter this
| next generation's baseline attention span. Again, not a moral
| judgement, just a factual claim.
| frmersdog wrote:
| >The flip side of that is there are SO many more people
| releasing music these days, which makes it really difficult to
| cut through the noise if your music is halfway decent.
|
| I think one thing important to consider here is that part of
| the experience of enjoying music is not necessarily how good
| the song is, but how much, and how many, other people are
| enjoying it. People often listen to (mediocre) music simply to
| have a shared emotional experience with others.
| whythre wrote:
| For some reason this just sounds depressing.
|
| Imagine bonding over gruel, because everyone else is eating
| it and you can't connect with them unless you are able to
| discuss the consistency and mouthfeel of the gruel.
| bowsamic wrote:
| As Charles Cohen said, the path of a progressive musician
| is a lonely one. Some level of loneliness is just something
| you have to accept
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Relatable. Some of my best friends were made in the heat of
| struggle, not in a fancy establishment. When you're happy
| and comfortable, people are a dime a dozen. When you're
| down on situation, any human contact is a luxury, and the
| experience embeds itself in your mind.
| bitwize wrote:
| "Cliches like this are beautiful, because they reflect us
| and we are beautiful. Take, for example, this chord
| progression. It only became taboo because it was too
| powerful -- that's why you won't forget it." --Porter
| Robinson
|
| Pop music isn't gruel. A lot of it may be slop, but it's
| deeply appealing. Somebody somewhere solved for what
| "works", and a million copycats cloned it with minimal
| effort because it works.
|
| So don't think gruel. It's more along the line of...
| McDonald's. Bad food, but it's appealing. And people do
| bond over it, or at least they used to before people
| stopped caring and fast food places became utter
| hellscapes. You still see kids bonding over McD's in Japan.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| In order to be heard, truly heard, you have to be able to
| be understood. Music is 80% familiarity. Rarely can you
| just add your 20% uniqueness and be understandable. All
| music starts with 80% gruel as the base recipe.
| quesera wrote:
| This is a good point. I'd argue well more than 80%
| though.
|
| Time signatures, instrumentation, arrangements, chord
| progressions, etc are the base gruel that forms the core
| of almost all (western/popular) music.
|
| The "new" contributions of most artists are more like
| flavorings or spices with the occasional unexpected twist
| on the base. And, critically, this is _necessary_ to find
| an audience.
|
| Even bands that "change music" are just permuting on the
| basic gruel. And, usually, just popularizing the
| permutations that other bands have tried first but were
| too early/didn't break out of their local audience/etc.
|
| Often these permutations only get popular because they
| bring with them a new and appealing (or under-
| represented) aesthetic. It's not even really the music,
| necessarily.
|
| There are exceptions, there are some real musical
| innovators. They rarely get popular though, no matter how
| much respect they earn from their peers.
| whythre wrote:
| That is fair. I do not find pop appealing, but the fast
| food analogy is apt.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Music is 80% familiarity 20% novelty. Western scales are
| 100% gruel when you consider the available audio
| spectrum/combination. And yet I bet a large portion of
| music you enjoy is made up of 'gruel' made to be 'gruel'
| simply to have that common connection you deride. And even
| if not, do you not have genres that you enjoy? Each genres
| just being their own brand of gruel with whatever familiar
| makeup defines it?
| jimbokun wrote:
| > They knew the words to those songs, but not his entire set.
|
| This has always been true for recorded music. Originally people
| would buy mostly singles after hearing a song on the radio,
| then maybe listen to the B-side too.
|
| Listening to complete albums was only popular for a short while
| before streaming brought single songs back to prominence as the
| main way people consume music.
| actusual wrote:
| Don't disagree. I'm merely commenting on the dramatic change
| in his audience, which IMO opinion was driven by TikTok
| virality. Going from a crowd of people who were singing along
| to people standing around waiting for the "TikTok hits" was
| really strange.
| dingnuts wrote:
| I had a similar experience when I went to see James Blake;
| the audience was bimodal in age and there was a younger
| crowd that only knew a few of his singles that had gotten
| real big (collabs w/ Travis Scott and Rosalia)
|
| So maybe this is normal as we get older? I didn't know this
| had happened with Alex G but I'm happy to hear about his
| success -- to me that's the main thing that matters,
| however an artist finds their audience.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Was there a time when it was common to have just one song on
| the media you bought?
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The entire 45rpm era, from the 1950s to the early 1970s!
| It's why they're called "singles"! And also iTunes, so from
| about 2005 to 2010.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Not for alex g. He has had a cult following as the best
| songwriter in rock music for a decade plus. Up until he took
| off on tiktok everyone at his shows knew almost all his
| songs. I guess really the complaint here is just that he went
| from cult musician to a having more pop appeal.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Man the tiktokification of alex g absolutely blows. Same with
| mitski, unbearable live shows now. It is a bit difficult for me
| to be mad about it though because at the end of the day the
| complaint just boils down to being mad that these artists have
| become more popular, pop sets have always been like this. More
| popular = more money for them which cheers me up a bit
| mutagen wrote:
| Hey thanks for posting your music, had a listen, enjoyed it.
| actusual wrote:
| Thanks for listening!! Every little bit counts :D
| nemomarx wrote:
| I don't know if it's good financially, but do you have a
| bandcamp? I like getting cds / mp3s there usually and it
| doesn't need a sign in to listen to the song.
| actusual wrote:
| We don't. I probably should make one of those, but as a solo
| act, the number of platforms I need to keep up with is
| ridiculous. Reddit/Spotify/Instagram keep my time occupied,
| it's brutal honestly.
| butlike wrote:
| As a solo act, I also agree. There's 24 hours in the day
| and to do the metadata correctly for the releases
| themselves _just to send to the distributor_ takes like 1-2
| hours. Then I need to make content, when I just wanted to
| make music, then upload the same release to Bandcamp. It's
| untenable
| dbalatero wrote:
| Rippin guitar solo on track 2. Is the band named after the
| street in Wallingford by chance?
| BillSaysThis wrote:
| Lefsetz, Let the Clubs Close
| https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2024/11/04/let-the-clubs-close...
| rawTruthHurts wrote:
| Going by that letter, the guy is a textbook example of the
| fruits of capitalism.
| BJones12 wrote:
| Bob Lefsetz [0] is certainly a man who understands the
| industry, but seems to also care about the art.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lefsetz
| debacle wrote:
| "You used to be able to make a living playing in a band."
|
| Yes, but not a good living.
| lebuffon wrote:
| Depends how far back you want to go. I worked with guys a
| generation older than me. One clarinet/sax player worked in the
| "house band" at the Elmwood Hotel in Windsor Ont. Canada, in
| the 1950s. He had a wife and kids and a mortgage. He worked 6
| nights a week and name acts like Ella Fitzgerald and Benny
| Goodman came through the town on their tours across N. America.
|
| That's when professional musicians were musically "literate",
| so many acts showed up with just their soloists and boxes with
| their "charts". One rehearsal and the show was ready to go.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| Sometimes not even a rehearsal. Chuck Berry was famous for
| just showing up minutes before he was supposed to go on and
| using whatever musicians happened to be around. Apparently,
| lots of not-yet-famous musicians were in Chuck's backup band
| at one time or another, Springsteen among them.
|
| https://boundarystones.weta.org/2017/03/21/when-chuck-
| berry-...
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| That is true, but he was not famous for sounding good live.
| kjs3 wrote:
| My best friend (son of a session musician) tells the joke
| "what's the difference between a session musician and a
| pepperoni pizza...the pizza can feed a family of 4".
| ofalkaed wrote:
| From what I have seen as an occasional musician and running sound
| is that these days most musicians are not willing to make the
| sacrifices and put in the time, they will not take that poorly
| paying weekly gig and spend a year or two refining their
| performance and learning to read the audience which is a major
| part of making it in music.
|
| I know a good number a professional musicians who have made it to
| the point where they can live off of music without constantly
| working, every single one of them started out the same way,
| playing every single show they could regardless of pay or
| location. This started to change around 2010, the venue I used to
| do sound for primarily targeted musicians who were starting out
| either on the local scene or national scene (just starting to
| tour and trying to make a name out of their home town), by 2015
| music was mostly done there because the 19 year olds who had only
| played a few shows were not happy with $25 and a meal to sit on
| stage with their guitar for an hour, they wanted $100 and
| expected to play to a full room.
|
| The boom in home recording also probably played a role, the
| starting out musicians are often resistant to it because they see
| it as pedestrian and not for serious musicians, musicians record
| in studios, not at home. Record on anything anyway you can and
| bring a few dozen copies to sell at those poorly paying gigs.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yeah definitely. I'm a musician but I don't have an interest in
| being heard, but I've noticed that those who do want to be
| heard don't want to put in the effort to be heard.
| benji-york wrote:
| Interesting take. I wonder if all the new ways of being heard
| (social media, mainly) have made the "cost" of being heard
| via music relatively higher.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >they will not take that poorly paying weekly gig and spend a
| year or two refining their performance and learning to read the
| audience which is a major part of making it in music.
|
| they literally cannot afford to do such things unless they are
| already homeless. It could have been an okay side hustle as
| recent as a decade ago. But today you're not gonna do much more
| than grab grocery money without being in a very specific scene.
| That meal you mention can easily cost as much as what they were
| paid for the gig.
|
| It's been declining for decades, no doubt. But when the economy
| starts getting hard, "passion projects" dry up. being paid $100
| a week is much closer to a passion project than a side hustle
| at this point.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| > they literally cannot afford to do such things unless they
| are already homeless.
|
| Or already rich
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| True, but I argue that losing money on a hobby (or "bad
| business") means you can afford to do it. It's just not
| making you money, not keeping you off the streets.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| That is entry level for people who have no audience, the
| musicians equivalent of a paid internship and pays better
| than most entry level jobs with a bar so low, three chords
| will get you through the door, two if you are good. Beyond
| the flat rate there is often a tip jar and merchandise sales,
| a $50 gig can easily bring in a few hundred. And you make
| connections, get more gigs, develop an audience, make a name,
| etc. Once you develop a name you get paid better and even
| start getting a cut of cover and bar sales. The weekly house
| band gigs are pretty much being paid for band practice.
|
| Unless you are working two full time jobs or the like it is
| easy money and affordable, broke teens working 30 hours a
| week washing dishes manage it. You may only make $50-$100 a
| gig starting out but you make it in an hour or two and as
| soon as you start drawing a crowd you will start getting
| better gigs.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >the musicians equivalent of a paid internship and pays
| better than most entry level jobs
|
| what entry level jobs are you talking about? The horribly
| low Federal minimum wage is $7.25. minumum wage part time
| would come to $600/month. That's the extremely
| conservateive bar minimum I'd consider for anything to be
| "paying" (extremely poorly, but making something resembling
| cash flow).
|
| So with that metric: what scene are you in that brings in
| $600 in tips or 6-12 gigs a month?
|
| >You may only make $50-$100 a gig starting out but you make
| it in an hour or two and as soon as you start drawing a
| crowd you will start getting better gigs.
|
| Not even close to reasonably paying and you greatly
| underestimate how hard it is to draw a crowd these days.
|
| I'm treating this as a means to live, not some little hobby
| you do on the side. This isn't even close to an "entry
| level". my first gigs in tech had me making $12/hr for 20
| hours of work during the school week, and people would
| rightfully call that way below my worth. But it passes my
| metric of $800/month, so it can be considered "entry
| level".
| ofalkaed wrote:
| >So with that metric: what scene are you in that brings
| in $600 in tips or 6-12 gigs a month?
|
| Why only in tips? $100 weekly gigs are not terribly
| difficult to get these days especially since no one wants
| to do them anymore, that is $400 a month right there
| without tips or merchandise sales. 6-12 gigs a month is
| also not difficult to manage, two gigs a week is very
| doable and most every musician I know who did the weekly
| gig also did a show on the weekend somewhere else (weekly
| gigs are almost always mid week). Why does it have to be
| a single scene? almost as arbitrary as it being tips
| only. Beyond that if you play regularly you will get more
| gigs without trying including private parties and the
| like, you will get asked to sit in with other bands, be
| on their recordings, session work, etc, it all adds up.
| But I was referring to hourly rate, not monthly earnings.
| Entry level has nothing to do with pay, it's the level
| you enter at for the field and for some jobs this is an
| unpaid internship or or poorly paid apprenticeship,
| doesn't matter what you think it should be.
|
| Drawing a crowd is not difficult but you need to learn to
| read the audience so you can play to the audience first,
| one of those things the poor paying weekly gig is great
| for, you can't expect to draw an audience solely for
| being you.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| The method doesn't matter, just the fact you can get
| there. Maybe you are talented, but I reckon most people
| can't turn that musical talent into a $600/month hustle.
|
| >but you need to learn to read the audience so you can
| play to the audience firs
|
| And you uncovered the issue: musicians can't just use raw
| talent most of the time, they need to also be an
| entrepreneur. An entirely different set of skills
| independent from music itself. Thars why most indies in
| any industry can't make it. You need to mix two ideas of
| art and product which are almost diametrically opposed to
| one another.
|
| And it's a shifting formula. Because what's desired in
| art shifts constantly. It's a job in a job to get what's
| probably not even paying rent unless you're Low COL.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| >but I reckon most people can't turn that musical talent
| into a $600/month hustle.
|
| Most people can't do most things but the vast majority of
| people who succeed at their goals in life have one thing
| in common. Lots of people in this world and to make a
| living as a musician you only need to connect with a tiny
| fraction of a percent of those people. If you honestly
| like the music you make odds are there are enough people
| in the world to support you in making that music, but you
| need to find them if you want them to support you.
|
| >And you uncovered the issue
|
| I addressed this already, my use of the phrase "paid
| internship" was not accidental.
|
| >unless you're Low
|
| I lived in Duluth for awhile around the turn of the
| century. Low worked their asses off with endless touring
| for the better part of a decade to make their name and
| kept it up until Al and Mimi had their daughter, but Al
| kept playing constantly. Every Saturday it was The Black
| Eyed Snakes and a couple other bands at the NorShor,
| Tuesdays was experimental Tuesdays the experimental open
| mic he ran, plus sitting in with random bands, doing
| random shows, running his label, organizing shows,
| recording bands, doing all the stuff for Low, endless
| short lived side projects, being a dad, he never stopped
| working from what I could see. Charlie Parr spent a few
| years doing the poorly paying weekly gig every Wednesday
| at The Brewhouse, he got $50 and bottomless coffee to
| play for 3 hours to maybe a dozen mostly uninterested
| people until he figured out how to get them interested
| and then he packed the place every week and started
| making his name. Haley Bonar/McCallum used to serve me
| coffee and make me sandwiches at Amazing Grace, she put
| in years toiling away in obscurity before making it. Lots
| of good memories from those years, need to get back
| there, been too long.
| quesera wrote:
| >> _unless you 're Low COL_
|
| > _I lived in Duluth_
|
| I had to retrace the thread to be confident, but I think
| you leapt to Minnesota-local from an oddly-capitalized
| fragment of the phrase "low cost of living".
|
| Nevertheless, I enjoyed your personal perspective on the
| scene history there. :) I can echo your observations from
| the Boston scene -- e.g. when the one song gets used in a
| movie or TV show, and new fans of the "new band" have no
| idea about the years of hard work and crap jobs and crap
| roommates that were required to get the opportunity.
|
| Still, I loved those years.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >my use of the phrase "paid internship" was not
| accidental.
|
| Is "intern" a different meaning where you're from? For
| me, it implies an opportunity to learn under a company,
| where learning is a primary objective over proper
| payment.
|
| Who are these teachers you're learning under? Where and
| how are you finding a teacher in music that you aren't
| paying for but is paying you to learn?
|
| >Low worked their asses off with endless touring for the
| better part of a decade to make their name and kept it up
| until Al and Mimi had their daughter, but Al kept playing
| constantly
|
| If you haven't noticed, the world's gotten (ironically)
| much less connected over the last 20 years. I can barely
| get my friends out for lunch. People who already know and
| assumedly like me. It's simply gotten a lot hard to do
| that 80's style of living in a van, paying $1-2 a day for
| food, and playing your passions until you can move to a
| semi-normal standard of living.
|
| It's not impossible, and I appreciate the pun. But that
| lifestyle wouldn't really be possible in urban America.
| Not even a matter of "I don't want to live in a van".
| Those cities just got a lot more hostile towards
| loitering and theft is on the rise. A van is just putting
| a target on your face for someone, legally or for illegal
| preying. Even just being on the streets because of no
| homes can get you arrested with where current legislature
| it going in my area.
|
| its just gotten rough. If you don't have parents
| supporting you, it is literally a dangerous lifestyle.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >The method doesn't matter, just the fact you can get
| there.
|
| Well, it's been said 80% of success is showing up :)
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > poorly paying weekly gig
|
| What gig? For that matter, what audience? I was in a band in
| the 90's and we could find poorly paying gigs to a relatively
| full venue on a semi-regular basis. I took a long break to
| raise some kids and just got back into it in the past couple of
| years and... there's nothing out there any more. Nobody's
| hiring musicians because nobody's listening to them.
| jmyeet wrote:
| the endless need for ever-increasing profits is what kills any
| creative profession.
|
| You see this in Hollywood with the stremaers now underpaying the
| people that make TV shows and movies possible, offshoring to save
| a few dollars, reducing the number of writes on staff and so on.
|
| I'm not surprised to see the same forces at play for session
| musicians and so forth.
|
| This is a systemic problem. Companies will happily kill an
| industry to increase short-term profits.
|
| What holds this system together is that too many people believe
| that they will ultimately benefit from the exploitation built
| into the system plus people who love the creative skills they've
| spent years honing willing to work for pennies to stay in that
| industry. You see the same dynamic in the video game industry.
| argentinian wrote:
| Why do you think that are so many willing to work for pennies,
| instead of changing profession? Or so many willing to pick a
| profession that is known beforehand to usually have low wages?
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| People have a drive to work on beautiful and important
| things. This is easy to exploit, so it is widely exploited.
| argentinian wrote:
| What do you think about the model of supply and demand
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand in relation
| to low paid beautiful and important jobs?
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| More people than jobs, which is why they are so easy to
| exploit.
| argentinian wrote:
| More people than "beautiful important" jobs. But there
| are other, less sexy and better paid, important jobs.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| We could gate the special jobs behind a contest rather
| than abuse. Just a thought -- but not the most profitable
| one.
|
| Labor demand is structurally lower than supply. That's
| the state of the modern world and it could have been a
| good thing. Instead, even important unsexy work is
| systematically demeaned and marginalized by this fact.
| See: unskilled labor -> essential workers -> unskilled
| labor. The proceeds are boiled away and condensed onto
| financial assets, which serve the purpose of paying rich
| people for being rich in proportion to how rich they are.
| This establishes, reinforces, and perpetuates a class
| hierarchy where the people on the bottom must constantly
| pay to exist while the people on top constantly get paid
| to exist.
| argentinian wrote:
| What do you think that would be a possible solution?
| Defining minimum wages?
| danans wrote:
| In addition to minimum wages indexed for inflation, more
| unions and stronger labor protection laws that allow the
| unions to negotiate.
|
| Also on the entrepreneurship side, more _public_ support
| for small to midsize companies that share capital and
| power with their workers.
|
| Plutocracy and oligarchy (what we have today) and the
| modern serfdom they rely on suppress the creative and
| industrial talents of workers.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| well at least you can make very comfortable money in games.
| Maybe less than half of what you get at google, but half of
| $300k is still far past what most people can ever hope to
| aspire from. Games are still tech after all.
|
| On the indie side, I'd much rather take my hopes to transfer
| that talent to makig the next hollow knight than the equivalent
| in music to be the next Bieber. I'm not going to call it a
| meritocracy, but games (for now) still have a reasonable
| monetization model. I hope by the time I can make my own game
| that that's still somewhat the case.
| BJones12 wrote:
| > the endless need for ever-increasing profits is what kills
| any creative profession. You see this in Hollywood with ...
| Companies will happily kill an industry to increase short-term
| profits.
|
| From my understanding Hollywood is being killed by the
| outsiders - TikTok et al influencers taking viewers away from
| Hollywood. The corporate owners are cutting costs, but it's
| primarily to survive. And the reason that TikTok influencers
| would be killing Hollywood is simply because Hollywood has
| (had) the money, fame, and influence, and the TikTok crowd
| wanted it. It's creator-on-creator violence in a fight for
| status.
| Animats wrote:
| There was a brief period in history when Being In A Band was a
| big deal. That's bracketed by, perhaps, the British Invasion and
| Myspace Music. Before that, musicians were low-paid background
| music systems. After that, anybody could do it at garage-band
| level. In between was the brief era of the Rock Star. The
| nostalgia here is for that era.
|
| Not a new observation.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Yeah. There seems to also be the implicit assumption that
| (recorded) pop music, whilst only a relatively recent
| phenomenon, is here to stay. It isn't. It had a golden age
| after recording and reproduction technology became cheap enough
| to own and before streaming services came along, gave us too
| much choice and siloed our tastes. I don't think I'd change
| much -- I mainly listen to 'weird' stuff that probably wouldn't
| have existed, let alone be discoverable, without such services
| -- but the pop era does seem to be over. No one cares about
| 'the charts' anymore. In my parents' day it was a primary
| cultural reference point that seemingly everyone followed; now
| almost no one I know would be able to tell me what's in the top
| ten at the moment.
| ysofunny wrote:
| it seems to me the problem you're pointing to, and scoping to
| music
|
| it's actually much more persvasibe and happening to pretty
| much _all_ culture
|
| I refer to the siloing of our tastes; or rather to how we can
| now develop rarer tastes by means of massively increased
| connectivity
|
| so it's not just pop music, but all of what it means to be
| "mainstream culture" that's weirdly getting siloed and more
| rarified
| xanderlewis wrote:
| True. It's not just in music. There is almost no such thing
| as mainstream culture anymore -- it's exciting for
| individuals, but also quite worrying, especially when it
| comes to politics and description of factual events. No
| wonder democracy seems to be steadily going down the pan.
| awkward wrote:
| Tastes may be siloed but they're also a lot more
| concentrated. Recorded pop music is bigger than ever. In an
| environment where recommendation services drive a lot of
| discovery, music is more winner take all than ever.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| Josephine Baker was a star. Bach and Mozart were stars.
| Pythagoras was more famous for music than math, during his
| lifetime (well over two thousand years ago). The decline of a
| particular business model is a legit observation but it doesn't
| change this fundamental aspect of music.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Pop evolved from music hall and vaudeville, and all of those
| featured musicians who were very much not "low-paid background
| music systems."
| otwall wrote:
| They very much were; there is a reason why the vaudevillians
| were all poor immigrants and why much of the modern
| entertainment industry was established by
| entrepreneurs/conmen running away to California to escape
| Thomas Edison.
| singingfish wrote:
| I have no aspirations to ever get paid gigs as a musician. To the
| point where if anyone ever does try to pay me, I'm not sure how
| I'd deal with it.
|
| But I play lots of gigs on the streets and similar. My favourite
| is the rehearsal in a public space that accidentally turns into a
| gig. Life-changingly wonderful stuff.
|
| Tough life being an actual pro musician, although there's an OK
| living to be made in teaching for the right people.
| nickd2001 wrote:
| What location lets you play "lots of gigs on the streets" ?
| This would be wonderful, I think a lot of people would have
| much happier lives, if this were to happen all over the world,
| but lots of local gov'ts prevent it due to noise complaints,
| risk assessments etc..
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Not the person you're asking, but I found out about The Loose
| Handle Band[0] when they were rehearsing with a temporary
| bassist out by the boathouse on Jamaica Pond in Boston. I was
| entranced, and caught them that night at the show they played
| and two or three more shows before they quit playing.
|
| There was also a guy who played blues guitar in Downtown
| Crossing, presumably as a busker with a permit. I waited a
| couple extra trains more than one evening to enjoy the music.
|
| [0] Bandcamp:
| https://theloosehandleband.bandcamp.com/album/the-loose-
| hand...
|
| Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLooseHandleBand
| singingfish wrote:
| I' a fully paid up member of the cult of Honk! festivals :D
|
| There's a few local bands. Most notably to my mind, we have a
| periodic jam band that appears with varying configurations at
| one of the beachside changing rooms around here. There was
| this time when it was busy at summer tie, we had a decent
| sized group, and a couple of very well credentialed jazz
| musicians there. One of the nearby South Pacific Islanders
| came up to us and asked if he could sing with us. Between him
| and the band, we did this joyfully insane version of Kenny
| Rogers The Gambler. People were videoing it, but I've never
| seen any of the footage.
| jaco6 wrote:
| This is a technology problem. Media technology (radio,
| recordings, television, and movies) has essentially killed live
| performance of all kind compared to what it was once like. Bars
| and hotels that used to rely on gig musicians can now play a
| Spotify playlist over the speakers. Repertory theatres once
| existed in every small and medium sized city in the country, each
| supporting several actors earning salaries sufficient to raise a
| family--all wiped out by television.
|
| It would have once been unthinkable for even a small city of
| <=100,000 people to lack multiple live entertainment options 7
| days a week. No more--we're all at home, watching our particular
| chosen thing, listening to our particular chosen album, playing
| our own chosen game.
|
| Some will claim this has been an advancement. "How lame," they
| say, "it must have been to have to go to the Local Entertainment
| Venue and just listen to whatever act was on that night. Nowadays
| I can listen to Acid Techno Super Hop, my particular chosen
| favorite, as much as I want." But the losses in communal behavior
| have been significant. Most critical is the disappearance of
| dance. Dance is a fundamental human behavior, stretching back to
| Paleolithic times. It is nowhere to be seen in many cities today,
| because no one has any occasion to do it except weddings, at
| which it is very common now to stand around awkwardly after the
| bride and groom have fumbled through some rehearsed step.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Having lived in NYC, Broadway, off broadway, off off broadway
| etc. look like they are thriving. I don't think recorded media
| comes even close to the novelty and spectacle a theatre
| production is. Have small towns really lost all their theatres?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I think it's more accurate to say it became a "premium". I
| could probably find some live music at a rinky dink mom-and-
| pop cafe in a far out suburb even as late as the 90's if I
| tried.
|
| By now, that prestige of a live music seems to only really
| come from a bigger joint, or as more of a passion project
| than as an expected way to get customers in.
|
| >Have small towns really lost all their theatres?
|
| It's mostly a thing regulated to colleges. So it will depend
| on that. I haven't seen a smaller town without a college that
| still has traditional theatre around, personally. Though I
| have seen forums where that scene would obviously have hosted
| such events, abandoned.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I see small venues that regularly host live music all over
| the place. It definitely drives business for the bars, but
| there doesn't seem to be much money in it for the
| musicians.
| jemmyw wrote:
| The town I live in has 6000 people and there's a play or live
| music event in the town hall every couple of weeks, maybe
| more often in summer. I don't go to many, one or two a year,
| but presumably enough people turn out.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| In the small towns around me the town halls are not for
| profit and nobody is doing the events to make money/earn an
| income but as labours of love.
| jaco6 wrote:
| New York City is the greatest concentration of wealth on the
| planet. The continuation of theatre there should come as no
| surprise.
|
| I am speaking of the cultural shift in entertainment, from a
| variety of local live options on most days of the week to
| just television in most places across the country.
|
| I should also emphasize that the persistence of community
| theatres that mostly recycle the classics (endless
| Shakespeare, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and The Crucible) is not a
| substitute for actual thriving local entertainment, but a
| shadow and a memory of what once was.
| epolanski wrote:
| One of the most culturally developed and wealthiest places on
| earth has lots of live spectacles..
|
| Color me shocked.
|
| On the other hand, I my 150k people city in southern Poland
| there was no shortage of entertainment, theaters, dance halls
| and parties 50 years ago under the communist regime.
|
| My grandparents partied all of the time, their pictures are
| an endless collection of parties, literally people bringing a
| sausage, a potato salad, few vodkas to some elementary school
| or industry plant warehouse and having fun from 6 pm to late
| at night. They went to see live boxing, soccer games,
| theater, concerts, movies.
|
| I'm 37 none of my friends lives like that, none. There are
| many more restaurants, probably 20 times as many.
|
| I'm strongly convinced that people used to have more fun
| once.
|
| My grandma thinks 100% the same. She constantly wonders why
| are people much better now under any measurable metric like
| education or wealth, yet they seem to really do nothing in
| their life.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I take it milk bars were not somewhere to linger with
| friends?
| ta_1138 wrote:
| It's not that they lost all of them, but that they make far
| less money, while the top performers in NYC do well.
|
| It's not unlike what happened to soccer as television got
| cheaper and cheaper: You can go watch your town's third
| division team, or you can watch Real Madrid play on TV. In
| 3rd division nobody can be professional, in 2nd division you
| make less money accounting for inflation than 30 years ago,
| but the top players in the top teams are even bigger stars,
| now that the entire world can watch them play every game.
|
| And on theater, let's not forget that many parts of the
| spectacle are almost impossible to take on the road. You
| aren't going to feed a production of Phantom of the Opera in
| a small town for 3 months: National tours rely on 2 weeks per
| large-ish metro. And when you are only going to stay there
| for 2 weeks, there are things you just can't get away with,
| economically speaking. The equity Hadestown tour would need
| to remodel way too much to accoout for the lift on broadway.
| The non-equity tour, which plays even shorter windows, can't
| even rely on the turntable on the floor. The car in Back to
| the future isn't going to fly over the audience, do half as
| much movement, or get fire effects on the scenario.
|
| And even if you look in Broadway itself, many don't recoup
| their own costs. For every Hamilton or Lion king there are
| many shows that don't last 6 months.
| kiba wrote:
| I do improvisational comedy, which is a form of theater. it's
| a niche thing where I will see basically the same faces
| around town, and that's in a major metropolitan area.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Fellow hobby improviser here (Sydney, Australia). My
| impression so far is similar: I'd say about a 5-10% rate of
| new faces attending shows and related gigs.
|
| Comedy festival shows are a slightly different story, but
| I'm not sure how effectively they lead to new recurring
| audience members.
|
| I also see venue sizes and hire as one of the largest
| risks/problems with greater popularity. Venue hire is
| expensive AF, but smaller gigs in places like pubs suffer
| all the same problems as described in the article.
|
| A show has to be significant enough for someone to turn off
| Netflix, Spotify or a podcast AND leave the house AND
| commute to a venue, for MULTIPLE people*, all at the same
| time.
|
| * I assume most people go to shows with other people,
| unless they're already embedded in the community.
| dayvid wrote:
| The increase in real estate costs severely limits the
| opportunities for musicians to play live. I've seen some
| cover bands randomly at bars, but it's rough out there.
|
| I also remember in my youth in Miami there were numerous
| clubs just for different genres of music for Hardcore, Ska,
| punk and everything in between where people would play local
| shows. It's all but dead now.
| eszed wrote:
| This. But also Baumol's cost disease: live performance
| can't be made "more efficient", so (real) wages plummet.
| eszed wrote:
| > Have small towns really lost all their theatres?
|
| Yes.
|
| I spent the first half of my life as a working actor, and
| this has been a decades-long process. By "my day" ('90s -
| '00s) I looked at CVs and heard stories from older actors and
| said "there was a theatre [by which I meant somewhere that
| offered paying work] _there_? "
|
| Summer-stock, where I did a lot of gigs in my twenties, is
| nothing like what it was then, and I'm sure I would get that
| response from young actors now, if they heard my stories.
| Even the larger venues are on life-support. CalShakes closed
| down this summer. OSF is struggling.
|
| Many places have community theatres, but those are like
| garage bands: hobbies, pursued for recreation and
| socialization, where no one draws a wage or has professional
| aspirations. (And, you know, the vast majority of the
| attendees have personal ties to the cast and crew.)
|
| It's grim.
| sharadov wrote:
| It's not just small towns--I live in San Jose, and I like
| blues and jazz. A few venues played live blues, and one
| closed during the pandemic.
|
| Even San Francisco does not have many venues, given how
| vibrant a city it once was.
|
| Previously lived in LA, even there venues were closing left
| and right even before the pandemic.
|
| It's the taste in music too, high rental costs for venues.
|
| Another reason we want to move to NYC once our kids are off
| to college.
| Affric wrote:
| 100%
|
| There are some great recordings of music out there but
| fundamentally their sum is worthless up against a society where
| there is music and dance being performed all the time.
|
| Maybe modern medicine and food abundance is worth it but the
| imitation of art is a poor substitute.
| tarr11 wrote:
| > Most critical is the disappearance of dance.
|
| Have you looked at TikTok? It is full of young people
| performing incredibly complex dance moves.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Some teen dancing on a streaming service is very different
| from a venue charging admission and beverages for a couple
| hundred people spending an evening out.
| Loughla wrote:
| Still incredibly isolated with the thin veil of being
| interactive because you get likes or whatever.
|
| We've traded social connection for micro-dopamine hits.
|
| And I don't think I'm being an old man shouting at clouds. I
| think it's genuinely worse.
| lmm wrote:
| That's what the old men shouting at clouds always think.
|
| "Social connection" and "micro-dopamine hits" are two
| different phrases for the same thing. Connections through
| social media apps can be every bit as deep and genuine as
| those made through standing in the same building.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| It's not particularly deep and genuine to double-tap to
| add a heart emoji to a video of a skimpily dressed
| complete stranger you "met" 5 seconds ago and will never
| see again unless Tiktok's algorithms think that would
| result in greater ad revenue.
| lmm wrote:
| It's exactly as deep and genuine as saying hi to a
| stranger in a bar (and if you think the barman is any
| less profit-oriented than the Tiktok algorithm you're
| naive) or whatever the back-in-your-day paradigm was.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| If you say hi to a stranger in a bar, you might end up in
| an interesting conversation, get laid, find a life
| partner, all sorts of things.
|
| Liking a booty shake video from some thirst trap
| influencer is exceedingly unlikely to result in any of
| these.
| lmm wrote:
| Liking a video (and if all your videos are booty shakes
| from first trap influencers that says more about you than
| about the platform) might end you up in an interesting
| conversation, getting laid, finding a life partner, all
| sorts of things.
|
| Saying hi to a stranger in a bar is exceedingly unlikely
| to result in any of these.
| bowsamic wrote:
| What? I'm sorry but this is just nonsense. There's no way
| liking a video is more likely to result in those things
| than having a face to face interaction so someone
| lmm wrote:
| A shallow interaction is unlikely to lead to something
| deeper but occasionally things line up and it becomes the
| start of a beautiful friendship. That's equally true on
| social media or AFK.
|
| Maybe introducing yourself in-person is slightly deeper
| than thumbs-upping someone's video, but by the same token
| the latter is a smaller step; you can always go with a
| full-sentence comment or a video response of your own if
| you want the slightly deeper interaction.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I'm confused on how this isn't just completely walking
| back on your previous point
| lmm wrote:
| Shallow interactions are shallow, deep interactions are
| deep, equally shallow interactions are equally shallow
| whether online or offline and the same for equally deep
| interactions. I'm not going to argue about what specific
| action corresponds to the precise depth of pushing like,
| whether it's saying "hi", grunting, making eye contact,
| or what have you; both online and offline you have a
| spectrum of ways to interact and having both shallow and
| deep options available is important, because you wouldn't
| want to start at the deep end with a stranger; you start
| with something shallow and most of the time it stays
| shallow but occasionally you find it worthwhile to turn
| it into something deeper.
| Retric wrote:
| In public shallow interactions don't need to stay that
| way. It's not a question of the possibility of levels of
| interaction but the rates.
|
| Many people can go to a bar and fairly reliably get laid
| several times a month. That's simply not possible for the
| overwhelming majority of people using TikTok. TikTok /
| Twitter/ Instagram etc are designed to be shallow
| interaction so people stick around. Dating apps fill that
| niche, but also want people to come back.
|
| Being in public allows for the full range of
| relationships in any setting. You can meet a great
| friends at a bar etc.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| This argument doesn't hold on a pure numbers basis. If
| you are one of 10 people to make eyes contact with
| someone at the bar, you are already in a far more
| privileged position than being the person who added one
| of a million likes to a video.
|
| In forms of social media that existed primarily to
| produce inter-personal connections (i.e. very early
| Facebook, or maybe even LinkedIn) your argument works
| significantly better, but the way that
| instagram/tiktok/etc prioritise influencers in your feed
| makes the likelihood of 1-to-1 interactions
| infinitesimally low (unless you yourself are also playing
| the influencer game)
| lesostep wrote:
| counterpoint: in any given bar interacting with a
| stranger means this stranger is interacting with you. If
| the stranger is tapping out, then you are free to go
| interact with other people. 1:1 interacters to interactee
| ratio.
|
| In any given social network this ratio is very screwed.
| Most people have to became interacters at least a couple
| of times before they can become an interactee.
| tivert wrote:
| > Liking a video ... might end you up in an interesting
| conversation, getting laid, finding a life partner, all
| sorts of things.
|
| How? Give an example that actually happened. If you can,
| address the relative likelihood vs. in-person contact.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I mean. I can't small talk to save my life. But saying
| high to a stranger will at least get me 10 seconds of
| communication unless they are excessively rude (or you
| are). That's not going to happen on modern social media.
|
| Someone much more charismatic in the right scene
| certainly can do such things more consistently. What's
| the equivalent here, Tinder dates? I wonder which is more
| effective for that tip charismatic male? (it's no doubt
| women are wayyy more successful on dating apps. Too
| successful).
| kredd wrote:
| I've talked to hundreds of people at bars around the
| world, and although I don't remember their names, I can
| recall general conversations with each of them. I can't
| recall anything that I've tapped-liked off the top of my
| head, because it's very short and one-sided interaction.
| watwut wrote:
| Except that TikTok dancing does not create those
| connections. It is just something that does not happen.
|
| Standarding in the same building does not create then
| either. People talking in groups and one-to-one, people
| meeting the same people regularly does. That is what
| dancing was.
| lmm wrote:
| > Except that TikTok dancing does not create those
| connections. It is just something that does not happen.
|
| I've seen it happen, so it absolutely can. People have
| back-and-forth interactions, find regular partners, and
| form dance groups.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| If you are talking about connections between people who
| both create content on the network, sure - however, the
| vast majority of users only consume content.
| tivert wrote:
| > That's what the old men shouting at clouds always
| think.
|
| And they're usually right. It's just that subsequent
| generations mainly see the new normal and forget.
|
| > "Social connection" and "micro-dopamine hits" are two
| different phrases for the same thing.
|
| No. It's like the difference between a piece of good
| chocolate cake and some sugar cubes.
|
| > Connections through social media apps can be every bit
| as deep and genuine as those made through standing in the
| same building.
|
| It's _possible_ , but _far_ less likely.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Can be. But it's like a long distance relationship. We
| already know from decades of offline phenomenon that
| constant physical connect is a must for a healthy, strong
| connection. Yes, some people have the discipline to make
| it work. Most don't.
|
| And that's been my experience online. Lots of neat niche
| connections with people I'd never meet IRL. But you'd be
| surprised how quickly that connect can sever when that
| person leaves the community, even if you keep trying to
| reach out.
|
| But i don't know, maybe this gen Z figured out something
| this boomer Millenial and other older generations
| couldn't. I'm open to being wrong.
| jprete wrote:
| The GP was clearly talking about dancing as a social
| activity. TikTok dancing isn't social, it's a performance for
| an invisible audience.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > isn't social, it's a performance for an invisible
| audience.
|
| I know what you wrote is fairly obvious but the wording
| really resonated with how I feel about social media
| platforms but couldn't quite word it so well.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| When I was young (a long long time ago), my family would
| go up to stay at a ranch in Sierra County California.
| They had almost no TV or radio reception there -- you
| still can't get a cell signal at my cousins house. They
| would have a Friday night square dance that was like a
| school dance that teens actually attended and danced
| together, without much irony. Coming from San Francisco
| it seemed a little weird, even then. It seems so old
| fashioned now but I really treasure that I got to
| participate in what people used to do on the western
| frontier of the US.
| seb1204 wrote:
| I agree but would like to point out that I have seen
| several groups of dancers practicing K-pop dance or
| something I don't know outside of Sydney convention center
| recently. So it seems there is still a social circle where
| people dance but not ballroom or salsa.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And in 20 or so years people will lament the loss of
| dancing to an invisible but captivated audience, I'm sure,
| just like they currently lament the loss of Vine and
| Myspace.
| tessierashpool9 wrote:
| it looks more like complex twitching or precise execution of
| an acrobatic program but lacking the soul which would qualify
| it as dancing. more like little robots trying to dance.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think the "complex dance moves" comment was sarcasm. It
| often doesn't come across clearly in written forum posts.
| wbl wrote:
| There are plenty of folk and partner dances in many big cities.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't have the same definition of "plenty" that you do. In
| any case, it is much, much less than in generations past.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed, during my parents generation, the big cities had
| huge dance halls that were filled every weekend, if not
| every weekday too. My parents remember going to those
| places, as did my in-laws. In fact, I got a gig with a band
| that had been a major touring group in the past, and
| mentioned it to my in-laws. They said: Oh yeah, we danced
| to that band in the 50s. They frequented the ballrooms that
| dotted the Chicago suburbs.
|
| Of course I credit it to people being cooler back then.
|
| And one of my relatives remembers from her early childhood
| the music scene in pre-war Berlin. There was an opera on
| practically every corner. And movie theaters. Those are
| virtually gone too.
|
| Today I play music for a folk dance group, and they have
| weekly dances, but a dozen people showing up is a lot.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I think it's less people cooler and more they didn't
| care. There is too much pressure to be cool now. The now
| ingrained trope joke that white people can't dance
| doesn't help. If I'm a young white male the last thing
| I'm going to do to impress young women is the thing
| reinforced over and over that I suck at/makes me a joke.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed, and this is reinforced by a couple of
| stereotypes. These are repeated in web forums frequented
| by musicians: People won't dance to a tune that is not
| absolutely familiar -- why a small handful of "classic
| rock" hits continue to be played. Second, the purpose of
| the music is to keep the women dancing, and the purpose
| of the women dancing is to keep the men drinking.
|
| Disclosure: I've played in a lot of bands, in a variety
| of styles.
| duderific wrote:
| Yeah, but if it was a more common thing, maybe you'd get
| better at it. Also, if everyone was doing it, a single
| person wouldn't stand out as much.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| But everyone was doing it. We are talking about why
| people stopped.
| otwall wrote:
| >less people cooler and more they didn't care
|
| Not caring about what others think you look like is about
| as close as you can get to a definition of "cool"!
|
| If you're a young white male worried about being seen
| dancing because of a stereotype that's a problem with
| you; dance is human heritage and everyone's allowed to do
| it. I genuinely believe the whole "white people can't
| dance!" thing is rooted in white people being self-
| conscious because they've been dancing to black music for
| the last 100 years instead of waltzing to the classics,
| not to mention the comparatively censorious attitude
| towards dance in White America versus Black America. Be
| the change etc. etc.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Come on, you know what definition of 'cool' I meant.
|
| When a culture ridicules something it's not the person
| facing ridicule's fault for doing it less. Not a good
| faith take at all, and I doubt you would apply that take
| to other situations. Especially when we are discussing
| why people stopped doing something.
|
| Having been a young white male ridiculed/joked about, I
| believe it's rooted in the actual countless
| jokes/ridicule/and mocking, not some weird white guilt.
| Again I don't think you would make this argument
| apologizing for ridicule in other situations. Young
| people have shown they don't care about arbitrary racial
| lines people like you want to emplace when it comes to
| the music, so why dancing?
|
| The only place I was accepted and encourage was at Salsa
| clubs. I think in huge part because it didn't have the
| American cultural stigma of 'white boys can't dance', it
| just had 'let's all friggin dance'.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Just to add a less personal response, we are discussing
| possible reasons for why the decline. Not sure how 'suck
| it up buttercup' and 'be the change' adds to that
| analysis. I don't know any other situations that's a
| useful response. It's the equiv of 'Women just need to
| suck it up and deal with the tech bro boys club if they
| want to be represented in tech' when talking about why
| women are underrepresented it tech.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Technology definitely plays into it. As an aside, I stopped in
| an a old bar recently that was long known for regularly having
| live jazz and the bartender mentioned that they hadn't had live
| music since the covid lockdowns.
| lmm wrote:
| Organised dancing is no more "critical" than cursive. Every
| generation thinks their version of entertainment and social
| bonding was better and what the kids are doing is inferior and
| dumb.
|
| And the reason young people are doing less in-person
| socialisation is less because home entertainment has gotten
| better and more because in-person socialisation has gotten
| worse, especially in America where people have nowhere they
| could socialise in walking distance, can't afford a car (and
| would get arrested for drunk driving if they could), can't
| afford to get molested in a techbro fake taxi, and if they
| tried to cycle they'll get run down by a boomer in a giant
| truck who was playing candy crush.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > This is a technology problem. Media technology (radio,
| recordings, television, and movies) has essentially killed live
| performance of all kind compared to what it was once like.
|
| Not sure I agree, or maybe just partly. Radio has been around
| for over a hundred years. Movies too. Bars and hotels have been
| able to play recorded music on cassette, then CD, now
| streaming, for at least 70 years.
|
| This decline of the working musician is a much more recent
| phenomenon.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Radio and TV have not had the addictive effects that 'social
| media' has on many. So many people of all ages struggle to
| put their phone down for an extended amount of time. So many
| choose to scroll or swipe instead of socializing outside/with
| others.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I agree it's more of a social media problem than a general
| technology problem
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Most critical is the disappearance of dance
|
| What is that idea that people don't dance? How and where people
| dance change, but people still dance. Example are:
|
| - Professional dancers, and other performers with a dance
| component
|
| - Partner dancers, who usually do in in some sort of club
|
| - Partygoers, going to night clubs, music festivals and raves
|
| - Fitness, doing aerobics or whatever name the latest "dance as
| exercise" thing has
|
| - People in house parties, dancing with friends for birthdays,
| new years,...
|
| - People dancing in front of a camera, for some social media
|
| - Street dancers
|
| - People just dancing alone at home
|
| Maybe there are less balls with live musicians, but there are
| new trends related to dancing. Remember flash mobs? Where
| people just get together, dance for a few minutes and leave.
| And TikTok, one of the most popular social network today was
| built on people doing silly dances, and it is still a major
| component.
| spandrew wrote:
| I don't think this is it. At least, you're not pointing your
| ire at the right tech.
|
| Instrumental acts aren't as popular as they once were. In the
| cities recorded beats make up more than half the gig. These are
| performed by a musician on a laptop. They _might_ have dancers,
| for some entertainment. So the gig pool is lessened. The
| article so much admits the stars, as they call them, made the
| most money off of Band People. They had more gigs, so they
| could cobble together a career. Music has always been a
| precarious living.
|
| Then add in the downturn of nightlife in general. Restaurants
| and bars tell the same story: young people aren't drinking.
| Businesses built on already slim margins are getting squeezed
| beyond break even. Is an indy band going to make up the
| difference in admission or cost-to-perform to a struggling bar?
| Dubious. If they have a following maybe; but then those artist
| aren't struggling anyway.
|
| Young people are also making less money at a time when prices
| are sky high. A night out drinking even just a couple of beers
| can easily surge to over a hundred or two hundred dollars
| depending how hard you go. When I was in college that would've
| been ~$30-40. For every 3 times I went out with friends, they
| can afford only 1.
|
| Live music and performance offers an experience that passive
| consumption, like TV and Radio, just can't emulate. If the
| prices come down the economics of music will make sense again.
| Until then -\\_(tsu)_/-
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Dance wasn't critical. It was something people did at night
| when they had nothing to do sitting around the communal fire.
| It's not critical.
|
| Critical are the communities and communal activities. Those
| have disappeared. We need to live in environments where people
| eat in communal environments not centered around nuclear
| families. That's the critical piece that is missing and making
| everyone feel empty.
|
| Music and dance is but an aspect of this.
|
| Generally humanity evolved to live in tribes and that is where
| we are most content. In modern times the closest where I've
| seen this is living in dorms or places with shared kitchens and
| communal eating areas. This promotes the type of communities
| that make humans happiest.
|
| There was a wave of business plans and startups that tried to
| tackle this problem by building apartment communities that are
| more "social". One that exists nowadays is
| https://www.flow.life/en/. But these businesses get it all
| wrong because they lack the communal kitchen and eating areas.
| The environment needs to have a forcing function to make people
| form communities not have it as some optional social event. The
| former makes people much much much closer and the bonds much
| stronger. Anyone who's lived in such an environment can attest
| to this.
| analog31 wrote:
| >>>> Generally humanity evolved to live in tribes and that is
| where we are most content.
|
| Now that place is work. For me playing in bands is another
| place.
| dimal wrote:
| > Dance wasn't critical.
|
| Says you. For me it is. I suspect for many others it is. I
| have restless legs syndrome. It's a neurological disorder
| that makes your legs and feet feel like they have to move. A
| lot of people have it. Doctors prescribe drugs for it. What
| actually helps me? Dancing. This is just one of many good
| effects I get from dancing. My legs and body need to move.
| I'm not a good dancer. I look like an idiot. But I absolutely
| have to dance.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >For me it is. I suspect for many others it is. I
|
| Everyone is going to have passions. Passions aren't
| critical. And dancing with someone you see once at a Meetup
| who never shows up again isn't how you make a community.
|
| Eating is critical. Everyone needs food. That's why
| cultures and subcultures all have their unique cuisine.
| When you eat in a group it's almost inevitable that
| socialization happens. You gotta delineate from micro (you)
| and macro (the entire community) factors. No one's saying
| you cannot dance.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > There was a wave of business plans and startups that tried
| to tackle this problem by building apartment communities that
| are more "social". One that exists nowadays is
| https://www.flow.life/en/.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begich_Towers
| kredd wrote:
| > But these businesses get it all wrong because they lack the
| communal kitchen and eating areas.
|
| The problem as I see, given a choice, people rather
| eat/do/listen/feel things that they want, not the things
| they're being forced on. In the past, you didn't really have
| a choice and was forced to do what everyone is doing. Now, to
| live in such communities, you'll have to get rid of the
| choice. Which also sucks.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| >The problem as I see, given a choice, people rather
| eat/do/listen/feel things that they want, not the things
| they're being forced on. In the past, you didn't really
| have a choice and was forced to do what everyone is doing.
| Now, to live in such communities, you'll have to get rid of
| the choice. Which also sucks.
|
| In the communal situations you have choice. You prepay for
| the food per month and it works like a buffet. So to save
| money you should eat what's provided. But you have choice
| to forego it. This is very typical of dorm life in colleges
| and it leads to really close bonding with everyone on the
| floor.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I can assert that on the European cities I move around, there
| is usually some kind of Salsa club, eventually extending to
| other themes like Tango, Bachata, Kizomba, Zouk,...
| yazantapuz wrote:
| Also in Argentina. Lots of social clubs and vecinal
| associations that offer this. Maybe what op is talking about
| is a US thing?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Even in US, I would imagine stuff like Salsa, Westcoast
| Swing, among others, are relatively common.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| They absolutely are.
|
| Any city will have ballroom, swing, salsa, tango, etc...
|
| Even in rural areas you will find line dancing.
|
| This is aside from informal dancing at bars and clubs
| which exists in every place I've ever lived in (6
| countries in the Americas so far)
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Those genres of music/dance require you to actually learn
| how to do them properly. The music is also not very
| popular. Personally I love listening to your two
| examples, but my point stands.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Maybe it stands in US, not in the European places fully
| crowded I occasionally visit.
| RHSman2 wrote:
| Yes technology but the thing underlying it is convenience.
| treflop wrote:
| I live in a small suburban US town and I've seen live music 6
| times in the past 2 weeks?
|
| I go dancing regularly??
|
| I have three tickets next week to see <$30 bands.
|
| I can't relate to any of this.
| glorpsicle wrote:
| I'm happy to see this, but you are but one person, and
| probably an outlier. GP was clearly talking about society in
| general.
| grugagag wrote:
| Maybe it's just a temporary thing, eventually people will
| get sick of AI and being marketed digitally at every breath
| they take. Old things do come back, you know?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Never at the wave they were at at its peak, no.
|
| Why are we making predictions on society based on hopes,
| anyway? If your goal is to find a cozy little dance floor
| and you're in a populated enough city, the you'll find
| whatever genre of dance you want with a small few core
| people. You just need to hope you like that core.
|
| But that's not an option for everyone be it due to their
| living situation or the rising costs of everything.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Idk, _someone_ is buying those tickets. I go to a dance
| party every month or so. But also... you are not forbidden
| from dancing. You can just do it. So if you want to go
| dancing and don't, that's on you.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| No one is stopping me from just dancing alone in my
| house. I feel thst misses the social point of dancing
| though.
|
| And again. Anecdotes. There's no dance parties in my
| town. I need to travel 40 minutes to another city and pay
| $20 for 3 hours of dancing every month. Not worth it for
| me in any regard.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I get what they're going for but live music specifically is
| very much available nationwide (US). You can see a live
| musician any night of the week in almost any locale. Maybe
| you won't _like_ what 's playing, but it's out there.
|
| Gig musicians at non-music venues are definitely fewer but
| a lot of musicians still make their most consistent living
| playing regular gigs at bars and coffee shops and such.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Again, it's anecdotal. Don't underestimate how many live
| in the rural/small suburbs.
| treflop wrote:
| Well the shows I go to are packed and there are other
| people dancing.
| xeromal wrote:
| That's very similar to people who say they see snow
| outside so how is global warming happening?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Was there ever really a time when people didn't sit at
| home for entertainment?
|
| I think before radio, sitting around and reading a book
| was pretty normal. Back then a lot of people lived in
| places where visiting the neighbors was a lot harder than
| it is now.
| treflop wrote:
| I just know people who say things similar to OP who
| lament that live music is dead but they never go out or
| do anything when you ask them to go.
|
| Their anecdotal experience is more a reflection of their
| own preferences.
|
| The venues in my suburban area have only grown over the
| past 10 years and new venues have opened.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| With all due respect: you're commenting on a post of an
| article about the New Yorker about an entire book someone
| made about this phenomenon. Maybe the book is all
| anecdotes, but this isn't just your friend sitting around
| watching Netflix all day and wonder why everything is so
| boring. Clearly there's a larger societal issue.
|
| I'm glad it works out for you, but you aren't society.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >the shows I go to are packed and there are other people
| dancing
|
| I would love to actually be able to dance/move at packed
| shows. Not to mention the absolutely lame rise of seated
| only shows. Orchestral music, ok, but sitting down at a
| rock show is neutering the experience for me.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's probably demographics to a large degree. A lot of people
| have families and family-related activities and they largely
| drop out of random socialization.
| treflop wrote:
| Sure, but having additional responsibilities when you have
| a family is not a new phenomenon created in the last 30
| years.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not convinced that shifting away from general social
| activities is an especially recent phenomenon though it
| may be true that just leaving the kids at home with a
| babysitter/nanny/older relative when you went out may
| have been more common in the past.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Same. I live in a small/medium Canadian valley (about 76k
| spread between three towns in a rural district 3ish hours
| from anything that could be called a 'real city')
|
| I regularly see live music accidentally just by showing up at
| various bars and breweries. We have several groups doing
| local theater. We have two multi-day music festivals in the
| summer, and at least a dozen more within a few hours drive.
|
| There is plenty of live entertainment for those who want it.
| If I had to guess, I would say that there is maybe two nights
| per week where there isn't live music, but if you add in
| trivia nights, rec center activities, etc. You could easily
| fill your schedule any day of the week
| bwanab wrote:
| I play in bands in a large metro area. 90% of our gigs are in
| smallish towns in the surrounding areas. I live in the center
| city and there are gigs one can attend, but compared to the
| population it's a really low number. Just in my immediate
| area almost 3/4 of the small venues from 20 years ago are
| gone.
| nineteen999 wrote:
| Australian city here and yeah you just have to know where to
| look. There aren't anywhere near as many indie/original
| artists as there were back in the 80-90's, but those were the
| heydays. Heaps of cover bands still if you want to dance to
| older stuff, and I notice some of them get a younger crowd.
| Then there are the music festivals etc.
| DonnyV wrote:
| Where do you live??? In my area is totally dead 30 miles in
| every direction. I would have to travel 45min to the city to
| find a place playing live music.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Bars and hotels that used to rely on gig musicians can now
| play a Spotify playlist over the speakers
|
| Muzak was a thing long before that. So I don't see how that can
| be the cause.
| mdgrech23 wrote:
| wow oh wow what a great comment. I think the reason dance went
| away is a lot of men engaged in predatory behavior while drunk,
| that is that would approach the woman from behind and "grind"
| himself on her which is really just sexual assault.
|
| I often think about how we replace things with technology and
| say it's better. Bread is another example in my opinion. Towns
| used to have bread makers, well respected and well paid. Now,
| at least here in the USA we replaced the bread makers with
| machines. We got rid of the bread makers and ultimately
| replaced them with engineers who design the machines and repair
| men. Even they've been replaced, once designed there's no need
| for the engineer and it's often cheaper to buy than repair so
| the repair man too went away. What we're left with is subpar
| bread. How is any of this progress?
| bombela wrote:
| I suspect you can make better bread more consistently with
| machines.
|
| But that would requires trying to make good bread. Not trying
| to make something passable for an American (and barely edible
| for a French) with the highest profit margin.
| immibis wrote:
| I don't expect this has changed significantly in the past few
| decades.
| ttjjtt wrote:
| In particular, intergenerational dance events have died from
| our society.
|
| I think you're on to something vitally important with this. I
| think about it often.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| This is all true, but irrelevant to the article linked above,
| which is specifically about gig musicians in bands in the early
| 21st Century--long after the change you're talking about.
|
| Bands are actually playing more live music today than they did
| back then, to help replace the revenue they used to get from
| recorded music.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I have a group of friends I know since middle school. They
| created a band when we were ~15 and did not stop. When we were 30
| or so they were having regular gigs in bars and auditoria.
|
| When I was discussing with the owners of the bars, I always asked
| "why us?". They would often say that we were the only ones that
| did not look desperate to get a gig.
|
| And that was true: we all had high paying jobs, they even self
| produced a few CDs for fun (and Christmas presents). The band was
| always for fun because nobody relied on it for their life.
|
| When I read many comments here I realize how lucky we were.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >"What's the best way to make a million dollars as a concert
| pianist? have 2 million dollars"
|
| I cannot for the life of me find where the heck that was said,
| but the sentiment makes sense when you see how competitive that
| side of the industry is. And that those kinds of positions are
| one of prestige, from people who can afford to practice all
| their lives and be in a certain scene to be considered. But you
| aren't making money from it.
|
| I can imagine a similar sentiment even with small time bands
| like this.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I live in a small town in a rural area near the centre of the UK.
|
| I was recently told by a guitar shop owner that he sold more PAs
| than anything. Why, I asked, is hard to get gigs now?
|
| "I'm playing 3 nights a week", he said, "1 with my Beatles cover
| band, 2 general covers". His band was a twosome with backing
| tracks. PS350 a night, split 2 ways. I was suprised you could do
| that well in such a remote area, but it would be a good start
| towards a living.
| tomphoolery wrote:
| Most people who make a living as a musician these days do so by
| being a "renaissance man" of sorts, where they make their money
| doing a multitude of different things. This includes playing
| live, but some other examples live sound, stage tech, lighting,
| promoting/booking events, instrument trade shows, and composing
| music. You can think of this as being "T-Shaped" in the software
| industry, except the difference is in the music industry, you
| need to be "T-Shaped" just to survive, not simply to excel. The
| "long part of the T" is what you generally want to do most of the
| time, and it's usually how people identify their job when asked.
| But really, most of us do a combination of many different things
| to get by, almost none of these jobs pay enough or are regular
| enough to do it on their own.
|
| This was, and still is, a HUGE shift in the way I live my life
| after moving careers from software development into music
| composition...
|
| Even as a film scorer, who has jobs that last for a long time and
| include many personal conversations with the film makers, you're
| not guaranteed to get back-to-back gigs, so when you're done with
| one score, what's next? It's not like there's always someone
| handing you jobs if you're doing this by yourself. But that's my
| preferred angle, because the jobs do last longer and there's a
| more regular (and higher) payout. It just takes a lot of back and
| forth with the people making the film, in order to get the vibes
| just right.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| everything in film is like that, though. it's an industry built
| on gig work which nonetheless has strong unions. a seeming
| paradox but it works.
| hammock wrote:
| Is there data to support "the decline" or just anecdotes?
|
| There are half a dozen venues within a mile of me that have 3
| bands a night five days a week. I also work with musicians that
| have full schedules of church gigs, weddings, etc on top of
| symphony and opera appointments. This is in a city smaller than
| NYC. I cant imagine NYC is any worse?
| duderific wrote:
| I believe your example is also anecdotal?
|
| I can say that in the SF Bay Area, since 2000, probably three
| out of four small venues that used to host live music either
| have shut down completely, or no longer have live music. Maybe
| in lower COL areas it's easier to keep these venues going.
| hammock wrote:
| It is, I was making the point that it's easy to prove an
| anecdote wrong and hoping there was more data
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Yeah I agree, maybe that's because young people that aren't
| shutin programmers for dotbombs are priced out of SF.
|
| The rise of cost of living in urban environments has outpaced
| inflation quite substantially (certainly the real estate
| prices have) for quite a while. The colloquial gentrification
| cycle of gays -> artists -> college kids -> yuppies -> rich
| people requires a poor neighborhood as a starting point
| (usually a white one)... there's seemingly none of those
| starter neighborhoods anywhere in major cities, so the art
| and music has left the major cities.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Can't it be enough? Do we have to endlessly repeat everything
| that worked once? Hasn't enough pop been made? I feel the same
| way about actors and movies: if actors or set designers never
| work again because of AI, shouldn't we just mourn them (or watch
| the millions of hours of film we already have) and move on?
|
| Recorded music killed people playing music to entertain the rest
| of the family. You used to teach your kids how to play
| instruments so they could entertain your guests or have a good
| time during a boring day. We can still do that, playing music
| alone is fun, and playing music together can be transcendent.
| Singing in harmony or in unison is _intimate._
|
| There's an athletic element. I'll always want to see somebody, in
| person, playing music live. It's like watching a juggler. What
| we've done is isolated music to these horrible alienating mass
| consumption venues, rather than it coming out of every bar, and
| every other restaurant, and from the street, and in people's
| homes. It's a debasing and commoditization of music, helped by
| the introduction of artistically unintelligible lyrics in the
| 60's, and draconian, authoritarian intellectual property laws
| that demand that you never play any song that you hear, you have
| to create new product.
|
| And as above, this goes for movie entertainment, too. People will
| always want to watch plays, they're assemblages of memorization,
| vocalization, and coordination of movement. They astound. You can
| do it yourself: you can memorize a poem and bring it to a party,
| or you can come up with a skit. This is how people entertained
| themselves before being colonized by the tyranny of mass-produced
| recordings.
|
| I don't know if it's clear from the above, but I hope AI
| completely devalues recorded music, and ends the celebrity
| worship industry that is built up around it. Generated music will
| be everywhere, and it will feel like slop. Watching someone in
| front of you, showing you what they can do, will never be
| devalued. Joining in _because you know the song_ will bring back
| the feeling of the Irish and English broadsides that we derived
| this pop stuff from, through the blues, and that we enjoyed
| together for centuries.
|
| Going to a concert in an arena and sitting half a kilometer from
| a band to listen to them play is dystopian. People who lived
| through a time where the production of music was commonplace and
| pervasive, not just its consumption, if they were teleported to
| this era, with its paid streams through earbuds, would be
| depressed.
|
| edit: was a professional touring musician for a number of years a
| long time ago.
| lmm wrote:
| > Going to a concert in an arena and sitting half a kilometer
| from a band to listen to them play is dystopian.
|
| I agree with some of what you said, but no. People love being
| part of a huge crowd all doing the same thing, like it or not;
| a mass gathering has a power all of its own, the bigger the
| better. Unfortunately - or maybe not - that means winner-takes-
| all dynamics are inevitable.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| I don't know. I still have gigs every weekend. It's still a major
| part of my income. I fill-in a lot for other people too. Guitar,
| Bass, Percussion.
|
| Can I survive only on weekend gigs? No. But then again, I can't
| go without them either. Most of the time I look at it as a part-
| time job.
| keeptrying wrote:
| Is always striking when I see a really good musician perform
| live.
|
| It hits you like a ton of bricks.
|
| This is a local Bay Area band and all 3 members are exquisitely
| skilled in more than one instrument.
|
| https://www.howelldevine.com/
| volandovengo wrote:
| Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/HQAtf
| nickd2001 wrote:
| As an amusing ironic counter-example, I know someone who had the
| talent to be a pro musician in the 80s, observed many starving
| would-be rockers and thought "nice idea but no thanks" so pursued
| medical career, and drove his son's band to gigs. His son's band
| recently got signed by a major label, given money to live on so
| they don't have to have other jobs, they've hit the big time.
| Neither of them ever saw this coming !
| Anthony-G wrote:
| In Ireland most musicians I know play as a hobby or side-gig and
| make their money from a non-related day job. The ones who earn
| enough money from music are those who perform in wedding bands
| and for those who find that to be too soul-destroying: teaching
| kristianbrigman wrote:
| where are good places to find live venues/shows, especially when
| traveling?
|
| i recently discovered bandsintown which has been really useful,
| but doesn't cover everything.
| etwigg wrote:
| "The Working Songwriter" is a fantastic podcast, each week they
| interview a singer-songwriter about their career. A lot of the
| talk is about compounding their audience, expanding their market
| outside their hometown, forming and dissolving bands, marketing
| strategies, etc. Stories of friends who were on the same path but
| didn't make it to "cruising speed", etc. If you pull a guest up
| on Spotify, most have their top songs with < 1M listens, but some
| will have a single big hit that you've heard before with say 20M
| listens, and a deep catalog of 10k listens behind that.
| https://theworkingsongwriter.com/
| jtotheh wrote:
| remember, before there was recorded music all music that could be
| heard was performed live. The technology has evolved over time.
| Once people were buying and using recorded music, there was a
| tendency for less creative participation. Some things have
| emerged in the face of this. For instance, karaoke, where people
| can participate live with the music. Also, things that DJs did.
| Scratching literally turns a record, the embodiment of mass media
| music, into a musical instrument being wielded by someone, often
| in a small group setting. When the raw material is traditional
| instruments, people can express themselves in certain ways. DJs
| remix, add breaks to, scratch over, rap over, and otherwise
| express themselves with the records and turntables as the raw
| material.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Honestly, I find this a good thing. Painting, music, theater -
| they are all great hobbies. I personally really enjoy amateur
| performances, and seeing people enjoying their craft.
|
| Turning a hobby into a profession? Very, very few people can do
| that. Of those that do, many find that it ruins their enjoyment
| of the activity.
|
| tl;dr: Fewer professionals is a good thing.
| 2cynykyl wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if the problem is at least partly because
| people don't think someone should get paid to have fun.
| Musicians, artists, writers, etc are basically asking to be paid
| to pursue their hobbies full time, and 9-5 office workers are
| like "good one, lol".
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