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Music Industry Rant
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Okay, so the over the past few months I've been doing a few days work experience here and there with someone within the music industry that I respect hugely. He doesn't do what is perceived as a typical job within this industry, though he works with a large amount of people who do, he does my dream job and films bands on their tour and music videos. In the time that I've worked with him I've met a lot of amazing people, from bands, technicians and other people that work with cameras, but I've also come to realise that there are so many freeloading scum, yes scum, that feed of the success of bands.
The majority of these people are office executives who sit in an office for most of the year and yet they feel the urge to freeload off the bands that make the money for them. This annoys me no end because the majority of bands and musicians, contrary to popular belief, do not make vast amounts of money and their riders are often small with just a few beers and a bit of food for the band and their friends from the tour, and yet the men who sit in an office, have a yearly salary and could quite easily buy the rider at least twice over feel the need to come and take as much as they physically can, despite them doing nothing to have earned this.
This is made all the worse because these freeloaders have so many benefits that the bands do not. They have yearly salaries, insurance plans, bonuses and guaranteed time off at christmas to spend with their loved ones. Bands do not, they put so much effort into touring and playing gigs when they can, and yes, it may seem that when they not touring they have time off but the majority of this time is spent either in the studio or writing new songs for later releases. Within the Music industry their are some of the hardest workers I have ever met but then they have to compete with the freeloading scum that I've come to despise over the past few months. The sad thing is, there will always be people that do this, no matter what industry you work in, the only thing you can do is challenge the freeloaders and show them what their doing is wrong, I haven't done this because it is not my place to say it and i'm only doing work experience. Until I get into a better position to voice my mind i am unable to.
Hope this made sense, just needed to get this off my chest
The majority of these people are office executives who sit in an office for most of the year and yet they feel the urge to freeload off the bands that make the money for them. This annoys me no end because the majority of bands and musicians, contrary to popular belief, do not make vast amounts of money and their riders are often small with just a few beers and a bit of food for the band and their friends from the tour, and yet the men who sit in an office, have a yearly salary and could quite easily buy the rider at least twice over feel the need to come and take as much as they physically can, despite them doing nothing to have earned this.
This is made all the worse because these freeloaders have so many benefits that the bands do not. They have yearly salaries, insurance plans, bonuses and guaranteed time off at christmas to spend with their loved ones. Bands do not, they put so much effort into touring and playing gigs when they can, and yes, it may seem that when they not touring they have time off but the majority of this time is spent either in the studio or writing new songs for later releases. Within the Music industry their are some of the hardest workers I have ever met but then they have to compete with the freeloading scum that I've come to despise over the past few months. The sad thing is, there will always be people that do this, no matter what industry you work in, the only thing you can do is challenge the freeloaders and show them what their doing is wrong, I haven't done this because it is not my place to say it and i'm only doing work experience. Until I get into a better position to voice my mind i am unable to.
Hope this made sense, just needed to get this off my chest
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
And yes, you could G-raffe, but its seen by a lot more people and theres also the fact that their minions are receiving a wage while those in bands are getting money mostly from merch sales and ticket sales, they no longer receive a large amount of money from record sales, it mostly goes to the labels and yet the freeloaders still happen
How much do you think the average author gets for his book that sells for about 10 pounds if he is not self-publishing? If he's not getting a flat sum he probably makes about 10-15% royalties per sale, which is about 1 pound a book even tho the whole intellectual content is his. Sometimes it's not even that.
One thing I will say about authors is that they don't have a similar lifestyle to touring bands and artists, sure they sometimes have to do press tours but their life isn't based around this. They have the time off to spend with their family and friends if they so chose, and yes they do often have to spend a lot of time writing books and re-writing but its still not affecting major parts of their life
Have you ever had to write fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter) to a deadline? It's fairly time-consuming.
yes I am, I know its there choice to work in this industry and I'm not saying that their not being paid enough I'm saying that in the industry there are people that abuse their position over the bands to freeload and rake in money which the bands see very little of despite it being mostly from their work not the executives.
And yes IWS, all the people that I've spoken to say that they wouldn't change their job for the world but also the majority have said that they've missed massive parts of their friends and families lives because of it. I'm also not saying that its everyone involved in the administrative side that abuses the power, but rather a few of the very highly paid.
No frankie I've not, and like I said my knowledge of it isn't nearly as in-depth as it is on the music industry but in my view they still don't have the same time consuming lifestyle that bands live in, and yes it may be down to a matter of choice for jobs but as I've said above they miss out an huge parts of their lives because of it. For example they often lose the friends that they feel are closest to them because it appears that they are making new friends the whole time and the older ones feel no longer needed or back off to allow them to spend time with the "new friends" who are really just their as fair-weather friends
Take the CEO of a company, lets call it X, (s)he sits in the office and earns a nice chunk of money. The people working on the shop floor, and even the shop managers, get a much smaller money:work ratio than the CEO of X, even though arguably they are the ones doing longer hours and running around the shop floor and promoting a good image. Bonuses, if they get any, are a fraction of their wage, whereas the CEO gets a considerably larger %. It's the way corporate stuff works. Like it or not unfortunately. (nb I do realise that with a 'bad' CEO then the company could go under and all are affected with losses, so yeah maybe you need to attract the best people for the job, but the wages are very large and that is my point I'm using).
And I don't know if I got you right there, about the "they have to tour and be apart from their families." obligation kind of talk. I guess that's what a musician strives to do. Go on a tourney and play live. That's the very essence of making music in my opinion. You made that sound like "they have to take the trouble of touring onto them and someone else cashes in."
You can keep all your earnings, if you publish yourself, but then you are not just making music, but running a business, and I don't think many musicians want to do that.
when i mentioned touring, its where most of their, not the labels or the executives, money comes from, the majority of record sales goes to the labels, not the bands. and I don't mean to sound like they take the trouble but if they want to continue on with the success that they may be seeing then touring is the essential part of doing so, they have to reach new audiences and the only way of doing so easily is by doing live shows to them. I guess this is just something that I've taken away from seeing part of the music industry, its not put me off it but definitely made myself more wary to the types of people that I may encounter in my dream job if it ever comes about (Not a musician but someone that gets to film their tour and music videos)
I defintely don't mean to sound negative, everyone that I've met in while doing work experience has been massively positive about it but they have pointed out some downfalls of their live styles while on tour and I got to thinking about the popular assumption that any signed band will be making massive amounts of money, when in reality their not and fair-weather friends feel the need to scrounge anything they can off them! I see how that can be seen as negative but most of them accept it as a part of their lives and deal with it in the most positive way they can
In regards to what the difference between someone that has built up their own business, its not huge but the business owner gains the respect from a lot of society where as people in bands are often seen as layabouts, which often isn't true. I'm sure that both sides get taken advantage off but I've never worked for someone that owns their own business in that respect only those in the music business which is where I've got my point of view in my original post from