The article in the url below offers a contemplation on what it means to be a successful artist, in terms of a commentary on Taylor Swift's dominant year in the mainstream popular conversation:
"Did you know you'll soon be able to take a course in Taylor Swift at Queen Mary University of London? There's already one of these at a university in Belgium: it's called Literature: (Taylor's Version), and starts this autumn. In February, academics will gather in Australia for a high-level 'Swiftposium.' In the US, meanwhile, people fret over the pop star's political power. Last week, with a single Instagram post, she helped register 35,000 new voters in a day. Others concern themselves with Swiftonomics: where Taylor steps, businesses grow and bloom. Three concert nights in Chicago were enough to revive its tourism industry, according to the governor of Illinois. News recently got out that Swift is dating NFL player Travis Kelce. Sales of his jersey are up 400%."
But, the article is also an insight into distorted economies, where an extremely small minority take a lion's share of the wealth generated in those economies:
"'If Swift were an economy,' the president of a major online research company has said, 'she'd be bigger than 50 countries… her loyalty numbers mimic those of subjects to a royal crown.'"
While those artists who earn the majority of the wealth are arguably the most talented, their success is undoubtedly disproportionate. In other words, an artist that is only slightly less talented receives a very small fraction of the wealth of those who are the most talented (or popular):
"Swift, like Bob Dylan, to whom she is often compared, is probably a genius. But is she really 50 countries more of a genius than all those almost-Taylors, artists whose economies still amount to the size of a room in their parents' basements? For Swift stands a Gulliver among Lilliputians: the prize for being one scintilla less talented or lucky is, generally, a life scraping minimum wage. And there's another world too, perhaps a mere breath from this one, where a 33-year-old Swift still struggles in country music clubs and another artist is reigning king or queen."
As in any competitive market, the incentive is to win, and if you win then, increasingly it seems, you do so disproportionately:
"One per cent of musicians hog 90% of the takings. Gaming looks similar, as do the visual arts. As these industries are increasingly globalised, things are getting worse. There is no striving middle class."
This commentary is all an excuse to get to the quote that I found the most alarming in the article:
"On Spotify, artists need 6m streams to achieve the equivalent of a year on the UK's minimum wage."
This evidence is taken from a much drier document – evidence submitted to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee, in the UK:
"Taking Spotify as an example, it is estimated that on average an artist will receive £0.0028 per stream. That means that it would take roughly 3000 steams to make one hour of the UK minimum wage. If you were to have a full-time job, you would work somewhere in the region of 2000 hours a year, with that in mind to make the minimum living wage for the year in the UK you would need 6 Million streams."
I knew Spotify was hard going for artists, but not that hard going. It places a lot in perspective around the economics of music streaming, and why so many content producers see it as a double-edged sword, even while us content consumers revel in the technological advances that are breaking down barriers to access. I always suspected that, while the music is free to me, the cost was being paid by others elsewhere in the system – artists who do not have anywhere near the success of Taylor Swift, even though many of them are nearly as talented (or maybe even as talented, but not as lucky) as she has been in her amazing career.
Take care
David
David Chandler
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We should celebrate Taylor Swift. But her success shouldn't crowd out others
By Martha Gill
September 30, 2023
The Guardian
