#143 The Economics of Music by Carsie Blanton
Blog readers know I love Carsie Blanton's music and approach to life that before this special post has appeared in 10 other posts. I do support her in Patreon and use her many times as an example who uses Bandcamp the way everyone should. Today she posted this and it's perfect document to share as people brag about their amount of streams on Spotify. I'm on record to avoid streaming but understand it's here to stay. I propose fixing the streaming model payout to a dual rate to add more payout of the first 40k of streams. Read my example here. Yes I'm a degreed Accountant who worked in the Sports Licensing world. This is really a simple solution and fixes what I would really would like to do is make Spotify pay a minimum royalty and in advance because they benefit from artist like Carsie being on their platform. So my compromise #DualRate would fix Carsie's issue of paying for the up front costs because she already is hitting 40K streams per song. and really take away money from the greedy labels that have fostered this measly $.004 rate. The rest of this post are Carsie's words and here is the song she is referring to:
The economics of music
Hello, darlings.
One thing that's been popular with my facebook trolls this week is the concept that by playing and writing and singing and touring, I myself will one day be a rich person, and thus will become the antagonist of my latest song!
***SICK BURN!***
They are making a couple of interesting mistakes, and I thought it'd be fun to try and break them down.
First, the trolls are misunderstanding what I mean by "rich people".
I don't mean people that make a lot of money, or own a big house, or several big houses. I am referring to people who are so wealthy that they can afford to manipulate our elections (by funding a candidate or a think tank), our media (by creating Fox News or buying twitter), and our ability to organize against them (by union busting, changing tax laws, spreading racist conspiracy theories, etc etc etc). These people are a liability, an un-democratizing force, and an unnecessary drag on our whole society.
We simply can't afford them, we don't have the budget.
(For fun, here is a good visualization of Elon Musk's wealth, compared to yours. Here is another good one, from my new favorite platform, TikTok.)
There are a handful of musicians in human history who have arguably become rich enough to do all that, but as far as I know, that's not how most of them are using their money (notable exception of Kanye, now a public antisemite). Still, to be safe, I don't think billionaires should exist.
Ok, MAYBE Paul McCartney.
The "Rich People" song is not a personal attack on anybody, including my imaginary future self. If you consider yourself rich, I don't care how you use your money (though you're doing an excellent job by funding my patreon 😘). I care how society is organized, and the wealth gap we've dug ourselves here in late-stage American capitalism is absolutely, incontrovertibly ridiculous and counterproductive, and may literally result in the discontinuation of breathable air and drinkable water and the human species.
Secondly, the trolls are misunderstanding the music industry.
I've been touring and making albums for 15 years, and I am pretty successful at it. In terms of the amount of revenue that is generated by CARSIE BLANTON INDUSTRIES - the brand, song catalog and "record label" - I am probably in the top 10% of working musicians (this is not a googleable thing, apparently. Just an informed guess).
With that said: PERSONALLY, Carsie Blanton the individual made around $31k last year (that's what I spent on my personal life: rent, dog food, healthcare). That's 15 years into a steadily-growing career, among the most successful in my field.
So, being a musician pays slightly worse than being a public school teacher, but without the health insurance or retirement plan.
Meanwhile, CARSIE BLANTON INDUSTRIES operated at a loss, taking on an extra $30k+ of debt in 2021 (for a grand total of $200k). Luckily, I never went to college, so I consider my debt the equivalent of two very expensive PhDs at the school of hard knocks.
(Important caveat: my husband makes more money than me, and has supported me and my work financially and emotionally and spiritually to a truly mindboggling degree. We have kept our finances separate, technically, but because of him I own property, have good health insurance and can afford therapy (and a Kitchenaid mixer). He has also gotten me wayyyy more access to credit than I would've had alone. I love and appreciate him for this support even though I also periodically rebel against it like a spoiled toddler. I'm working on that in the aforementioned therapy.)
So, how can this be? How can I still be making so little, and/or keeping so little of what I make?
Well, here are the three revenue-generating parts of my business:
1. Writing, recording and releasing music
Writing songs is free, so that's good. (Unless you find songwriting to be a mysterious act which requires years of study and miles of travel and a succession of handsome scoundrels.... which can get expensive.)
But recording songs is not free. It costs between $500 and $5000 per song, here in my little corner of the business.
A recent single-song budget of mine was $3450. That's $600 for studio rental, $250 mixing, $500 mastering, $2100 personnel (3 musicians @ $300, 1 engineer @ $600, 1 producer @ $600). That's if I don't pay myself as a musician (which I try to, these days, and which I recommend).
This holds true for full albums, as well - my last few albums have cost between $30k and $60k each.
(YES, you can do it cheaper - the recording we just made of "Rich People" cost about $1000. But if you can find the money to do it better and pay people more, you probably will. More on that later.)
Once you release the song, the finances really get weird. Most people, these days, listen on streaming services.
Spotify pays me $.004 per stream. So if my song were to be streamed 1 million times, I would make $4,000. To date, only 2 of the ~100 songs I've released on the internet have made it to a million streams (that's on all the platforms combined - Spotify, Apple, etc). The rest get between 50k and 500k streams.
So, if I need 10 million streams to pay off a 10-song record, but I'm only getting ~3 million streams per record, my streaming revenue comes up about $28k short, per album.
But lots of people buy CDs! You might say, being a loyal and goodlooking fan who probably owns some of my CDs.
The cost of printing 1000 CDs is about $3000, and the cost of printing 500 vinyl is about $4500. Then there are design costs. So when I release a new album, I spend at least $10k on merch.
Typically, it takes me a year or so to sell half of that merch and make my investment back. After 2 years, I will have sold it all and made a ~$10k profit!
But I will also have had to re-order all of it, for the next tour.
So usually, the profits of my merch have gone directly into the next batch of merch. Merch is, essentially, a revolving loan.
But sometimes, the profit has to go towards the next album, to make up for some of that $28k deficit. And sometimes it has to go toward....
2. Touring
Touring is incredibly fun and rewarding, and touring with my band has been one of the great growth experiences of my life, and has resulted in the closest adult friendships I now enjoy. I wouldn't trade it for $200,000. Apparently.
I have lost more money on touring than on every other part of my business, combined. There was a tour in 2018 that was 6 weeks long and cost me $20k. At the time, I didn't pay myself as a musician.... so, imagine you have just done six straight weeks of grueling, physically and emotionally demanding work. You've been sick, you've been grabbed, you've sat in a Texas parking lot all day, in summer, waiting for AAA. And at the end, you get a bill for $20k.
While I was writing this post, I got a call from a longtime friend who wanted to commiserate with me about how fucking hard and expensive and pointless it sometimes feels to tour.
It's hard! It's expensive! And it isn't a good way to make fans, either! In 2022, the way to make fans is to post shit on the internet. A lot of managers/booking agents/publicists don't believe this is true, but it is. You can quote me on it.
Since the pandemic, the team here at CARSIE BLANTON INDUSTRIES has significantly adjusted the guarantees we require to play a show. When people balk at the price tag, I try to explain this: my rule is to pay the band a living wage, pay myself as a member of the band, cover alllll the other expenses of the road (booking agent, travel, decent hotels so we don't throw our aging backs out), and break even. If there's a significant risk of going into the red on a given tour, we stay home.
The price tag on all that is higher than anybody thinks, and shockingly, I'm not even skimming any of it into a Swiss bank account. It's just a very expensive thing to do.
So. If making albums loses money, and touring loses money, how am I making any money?
3. Good people on the internet
Patreon (where you are right now) and other forms of crowdfunding are the only sources of music-related income I've ever engaged in which don't, on the whole, cost more money than they generate. That's why I need you, that's why I still run Kickstarters and livestream fundraisers to make my albums, and that's why I will never be a billionaire.
Of course, I could do all of it cheaper. I could also make more money: I could write for commercials, write for Taylor Swift (maybe), play corporate events. I could make albums in my bedroom, focus solely on going viral, and tour solo. I could try and woo a record label (in theory, but not, so far, in practice). Maybe I could get rich at this, if that was my goal.
But here's the realest, biggest, most insurmountable problem with the music business. Music is not a business, it's a vocation. We aren't trying to do it cheap, we are trying to do it well.
This post is public, please share it with anybody who might like it.
Carsie
Me and the handsome band after someone broke into our van. Thanks for covering us, as always.
