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Music is seen and heard anywhere and everywhere in the world. It is rooted deep into cultures, families, online, and even at peoples very own fingertips. For some, music has even made its way into their careers. In 2019, there have been more upcoming artists than ever before and the one thing they all have in common, is generating a profit and a following. The essay ‘Making Cents’ by Damon Krukowski was successful because of his explanation of how upcoming artists are treated as well as how big companies deal with money. Throughout music’s many ups and downs in history, it’s created quite a controversy with big businesses like Pandora and small artists like Damon Krukowski himself.
Often times in a music artists’ life, they work countless hours devoting their lives to create a piece of work for other listeners to enjoy. This is true for all artists in the past and present, though now in the present-day times have changed. The author Damon Krukowski touches down on the topic of how artists are treated now versus how they were treated in the past. Back then, all that was needed for an artist to generate a profit off their work was just to price it higher than it cost to make and they were able to make a bigger earning. Nowadays, the tool of streaming is widely popular and is the main way a music artist puts their work into the world. But the issue with this new use of streaming, is that the big companies do not treat the artists with the respect they deserve. “Pandora in fact considers this additional musicians’ royalty an extraordinary financial burden...” (Krukowski, 173). It’s simply easy to agree with what the author has to say because big companies such as Pandora and Spotify they make it extremely difficult for an upcoming musician to make anything back after they spent a long amount of time making a piece.
It is no secret that many companies in the modern-day society can deal with money in a multitude of ways. But it has been discovered in the music industry just how corrupt it can truly be. Kutkowski explains how difficult it is for a musician to gain a profit, as well how hard it is for a company such a Pandora or Spotify to keep themselves afloat so they don’t go bankrupt. It’s been told that for every sale made approximately 21 cents from Pandora and 35 cents from Spotify after thousands of streams. These two companies solely rely on capital. They want to attract more and more everyday listeners to use their radios to keep a steady rate or growth because they barely generate their own profit. “Our focus is all on growth. That is priority one, two, three, four, and five” (Krukowski, 175). This shows just how problematic yet successful these streaming companies are because although they cannot financially support an upcoming music artist, they help project their music out into the world for everyone to listen to an enjoy.
The music industry changes constantly with time. There are so many artists that have had to live with the repercussions as well as the advantages that the evolution that the industry brings. One of the biggest changes in the industry was the change between CDs and vinyl to the new modern-day use of online technology and all the streaming apps it has brought. This change has been both positive and negative, though both in two different and drastic ways. For artists themselves, they took a bit of hit on trying to make a living off their work as their profit isn’t as much on streaming devices as it was with the distribution of CDs. Krutkowski touches on this topic explaining how different it has become. “…the music industry seems to have done everything it could to screw up that simple model of exchange; today it is no longer possible for most of us to earn even a modest wage through our recordings” (Krutkowski, 172). Without the act of people going into a store and picking out their favorite song on record, artists have started losing their profit and began a never-ending competition with the streaming devices like Spotify and Pandora. Money has single handedly created the base of most artists lives, as their only way to gain money is if their work sells.
The use of big music streaming businesses isn’t always negative, though. They have created a way for people to easily find and stream artists from all levels of skill, whether they may be big or small. With the touch of a few buttons, anyone can begin listening to music by whomever they desire. While the artist may not be generating a large profit or even a profit at all, they gain exposure from hundreds of thousands of listeners from all around the world. “As for sharing our music without a business model of any kind, that’s exactly how I got into this— we called it punk rock. Which is why we are streaming all of our recordings completely free” (Krukowski, 175). The author explained how even though they do not gain any profit for having their work posted on streaming devices, they still have the capability to expand who is able to listen to their music. Making money isn’t always going to be the soulful purpose of a music artists music, rather that they have loyal fans who genuinely want to stream and listen to their hard work.
In conclusion, the music industry is never guaranteed to always be 50/50. It has been made clear that no matter the artist and no matter the company, there are going to be differences between the two. Artists are going to have to look in other places to create a profit rather than solely on their number of streams on big companies like Spotify and Pandora. Krutkowski provided many examples just how corrupt these companies can be with how far money can go, but that doesn’t stop the love and passion each music influencer has. The biggest payoff for the artists is that they have a new platform to share their work worldwide and gain a new perspective on just how easy it is to make a change in a stranger’s life with their work. Music is woven into everyone's life, and having a streaming device available 24/7 to listen to is absolutely extraordinary. At the end of the day, as long as the artists know they are able to have their music that they spent endless hours on, they are perfectly content.
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