i mean, they had a point at least. the industry has gone tits up and it hurt the artists most. it's harder than ever to make a living off music - all the promised/hoped-for alternatives/remedies ('live shows are where artists make the most money anyway', 'soundcloud will be an indie revolution') never materialised and spotify is even more exploitative than the old guys (albeit non-profitable).

It was a bad look for an already crazy-rich band to be the one going after teenagers. Didn't help that it was during Metallica's worst period, trying to do Rap Rock and overall coming off as a bunch of greedy out of touch old men pissed off about the new thing.

I mean, everyone's dreamed of artists all getting paid properly for their music, but when has it ever happened? It seems like we went from payola and crooked record companies to straight up piracy, to what we have now, in which artists kinda get paid again, but it's been so long since people were willing to pay $20 bucks for a CD, sometimes a single, that all bands just recognize the money is in touring.

Someone who knows something about music, please explain what the actually fair deal to to artist and audience is would be.

I don't know anything about music, but a patronage system that disconnects the artists from capitalism would be my suggestion.

Before determining the method I guess we should know what the expectations for musicians income are.

Should they make middle class income, lawyer income, or CEO income?

Should “produced” music acts get less or more revenue than original independent artists?

What level effort should be expected to earn that money...do they need to tour all the time or is recording a song in a studio and uploading it to a server sufficient to expect millions in revenue for decades?

'Hoisted with their own petard' comes to mind...

Seeing it from the radio/streaming side, lots of money that could go to bands is being soaked up by the middlemen.

Or the middledog? eh?! eh?!

But seriously folks, we need the Metallicop tag.

I guess?

But if the major musicians are too greedy or too stupid to form a union to press the streaming industry and the recording industry then I can’t care, sorry. Not going to lose any sleep about millionaires getting shafted by other millionaires.

Actors figured that shit out decades ago.

Leave it to SolRo to write off musicians as lazy millionaires. They join boomers, BLM protestors, rural people, uneducated people, Covid victims, anyone richer than SolRo, anyone poorer than SolRo, and at at one notably oppressed ethnicity in SolRo's Ever Growing Out Group.

As it happens there IS a union, the American Federation of Musicians. The structural differences that make collective action harder for the music industry than for film (and for that matter has let the film industry survive streaming much better than muisic) have nothing to do with those darn lazy musicians.

Me, I'd like to see a lot more patronage as jf_caron suggests. It's kept classical music going. Not sure how you pick and choose for modern genres -- perhaps grants for promising rising artists.

Not surprisingly my crazed stalker missed the part where I said major musicians and then ranted about made up fantasy accusations.

And then shat out that “but but this industry is too much a special snowflake for unions to work” idiocy pushed by the union busters.

"Before determining the method I guess we should know what the expectations for musicians income are."

Most musicians I talk to would like to be able to afford a home, food, and put a little money in the bank. Almost no one in 2021 is thinking guitar-shaped swimming pools and mansions, and if they are, they're already on Tik Tok or Youtube trying to get recognition as the next big pop/rap star.

"Should they make middle class income, lawyer income, or CEO income?"

I think middle-class, able to live comfortably income should be the minimum expectation.

"Should “produced” music acts get less or more revenue than original independent artists?"

What does produced mean? Mass-marketed? Since record labels don't really develop artists, pay for videos/promotion, or even pay for recording in most cases I'd say a 50/50 split would be fair, at least as a starting point.

"What level effort should be expected to earn that money...do they need to tour all the time or is recording a song in a studio and uploading it to a server sufficient to expect millions in revenue for decades?"

I think a healthy mix of touring and releasing material should be sustainable in terms of income. I cringe when bands that were selling Gold growing up are now going on "METAL TO ST. MAARTEN" cruises or slapping their names on beer and coffee.

The musicians I know are looking for the same as Gunny describes: honest income for hard work. Not one of them is lazy.

Yes, there are easier and harder environments for labour to take collective action. What a shock. We should be trying to work out how to make the environment easier on musicians (not to mention all other working people) instead of writing them off as work-shy.

Music was grossly over-valued for a long time due to an industry that fixed absurd prices despite the availability of new music and talent. It was not unlike the diamond industry -- a tightly controlled, totally artificial market. But advances in music production and streaming technology have broken open and democratized that ecosystem. I've seen people making songs on their tablets while riding the subway. Musicians aren't getting ripped off nowadays; they're just realizing what the worth of music actually is. Every new song is a beautiful diamond -- but 26 tons of diamonds were mined last year.

the one stream directly from blizzard didn't have the block from it or something like that, anyways one of the streams wasn't blocked is what I'm saying

I have heard from streamers that Twitch is supposed to be tough on music.

You better sleep with one eye open, clutching your pillow tight after making that comment 😂

Sure. I listen to Metallica the way people used to listen to old Led Zeppelin albums. Are we going to pretend the first 4 albums weren't good?

Garage days, Ride The Lightning, and of course, Of Wolf And Man.

Oh yeah, they rocked, the gold standard for a few generations. People moved on, but maybe in ten years they will be seen as legends by everyone, like Zeppelin, Hendrix, Stones, Beatles.

People used to hate disco, but they got over it.

Wait, what? How did casualcollapse make an emoji in POETV chat? I object.

SUPPORT! SUPPORT!!!!

Metallica always fucking sucked. thereisaidit.exe

Context: High School age Mothership loved Metallica, saw them a couple times. In my early 40s now, and I haven't listened to them in years. Years.

Some music is timeless, but I don't think theirs is.