Kate Nash and Lily Allen on OnlyFans should be a wake-up call for the music industry
Kate Nash and Lily Allen on OnlyFans should be a wake-up call for the music industry
With paltry streaming royalties and a cost-of-touring crisis, it’s harder than ever to make money as a musician. Claudia Cockerell on the household names who are taking up side hustles, and what it says about the state of the music industry
For anyone unaware, the "music industry" had a brief period around 1960-1978 where they led youth culture and brought some decent artists to the fore, including [everyone]. Which was ironic as they started mostly as a goof by rich people or a front by the mafia.
A "record deal" was always a sucker's deal because they'd loan you $300,000 or whatever and then decide how much you'd paid them back over however many years you made them money. The companies didn't buy videos or tour buses or billboards or anything -they fronted the money and the artist paid for that, usually without knowing it.
Around 1980, in a coke-fueled bender that lasted over a decade, they decided "fuck it" and just screwed everyone they could for every dollar they could. Fortunately, they were so stupid and up their own asses that mp3s destroyed them after a decade of them trying to decide who was going to get fucked more than who else. (Anyone remember the DAT wars?)
Billions were made but the artist usually only saw a small fraction of that because record companies were "riding the gravy train" and living fat off all the money. Nothing has changed. No one is going to wake up. It was always this bad. It's just that being a touring musician used to be at least a job and a career and now it's pretty rare.
If it helps, think of it like this - there's no one in any seat of real power in the "music industry" who is a musician. They don't give a shit about what they're selling, it could be cow pies for all they care - they'd look and act exactly like they do now because it has 100% nothing to do with music. It's just marketing a persona and bilking them for all they can.
And it's been that way the entire time. Yes, there are exceptions, but not many.
Movie industry as well. People with the money don't care about the product as long as it makes them more money.
Or if they do care, they interfere with the artist's vision to put in their own thoughts when they have no education or experience in filmmaking.
Then we end up getting the Emoji movie in theaters.
Back during the Napster days, Howard Stern had the Foo Fighters on. He asked them what their thought of the whole Napster vs. Metallica legal debate.
Dave Grohl told him he was 100 percent for Napster, explaining that they barely made a dime from record sales, and instead made the bulk of their money from touring and t-shirt sales. And that very few musicians were in the same boat as Metallica, actually making money from their album sales.
So from that point of view, the more people who were exposed to their music meant the more folks who might want to go see them in concert.
I spent more money on music during the Napster days than any other time in my life. I discovered so much that I otherwise never would have been exposed to. I bought CDs, I went to concerts, I bought the T-shirts of bands I only listen to because of Napster.
Right before MP3's, record labels treated a lot of their albums as products to sell. This required a marketing budget to go along with it including a lot of promotional material like music videos and concert tours for promotional purposes. The drop in revenue due to MP3's killed that model and it never returned.
Concert tickets are so expensive because record labels took control of that part of the revenue stream to find their promotion/marketing business. And promotion is no longer a small activity run by a band's groupies. The reason that Trent Reznor signed with a new label after he went independent was because he wasn't able to compete with the marketing arms of these companies.
I fear this is happening to every industry
Ouch, just like video game industry :-/
Ouch, just like video game industry :-/
A fair amount of the money still goes back to the studios. It's way more expensive than it used to be, both in time and money, to create what we consider a state-of-the-art video game. The goalposts for quality and realism have moved so far.
Any "industry" that doesn't sell a physical product and many who do.
Any "industry" that doesn't sell a physical product and many who do.
At this point, there's no one at the wheel at all. It's all algorithms.
I have no idea who these women are but the music industry knows what it is. And it’s gotten worse. And it doesn’t care. The industry needs to die and art profits should go to the artist.
It needs to be illegal for record companies to get rights for anything other than distribution.
If your band is signed with Polygram you can’t even record a duet with an artist on another label without paying Polygram royalties for a song that is not your band’s and has nothing to do with them.
Why would this be a wake up call for the music industry? This shows they are operating at peak efficiency!
I was under the impression that while streaming was garbage for money that touring was the cash cow. Apparently it’s a loss for these artists. It makes me sad that all the profits get vacuumed up by everybody but the artist.
It makes me sad that all the profits get vacuumed up by everybody but the artist.
The average worker experience
Those days are over sadly. Ticketing and venues are largely consolidated now.
You can still make great money if you're packing out big venues. I don't know who either of these people are so I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't able to sell out big amphitheaters or stadiums. Small venue shows are great but they aren't buying you multiple houses.
Touring has always been a boondoggle. Artists could make bank if they were selling out shows, but the baseline venue prices have skyrocketed out of reach for most fans. The producers, promoters, engineers, technicians, roadies, not to mention lodging, travel, and food, a lot of people expect to be paid before the artist makes a dime.
I was under the impression that while streaming was garbage for money that touring was the cash cow. Apparently it’s a loss for these artists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJSp-yRMrsY
why you do this - a self documentary from car bomb on why people still make music/tour despite monetary hardship.
There are tech death musicians out there that give some classical composers a run for their money that still have day jobs, mostly in computer programming of some kind.
(side note : turns out that technical death metal appeals to the same kind of people that enjoy working on applied mathematics. who could have guessed)
I've played many shows for free after several hours driving (with gas I paid for), US's music scene is set up to fail
Hold on, Lily Allen is on OnlyFans? That's wild, lol, I guess a big part of her brand of feminism is embracing sexuality or something.
Power to em, idgaf.
Lily Allen, who started selling pictures of her feet on OnlyFans over summer. She had the idea after seeing that her feet had a perfect five star rating on WikiFeet, a photo-sharing foot fetish website. Subscribers pay £8 a month to access her posts. In October, Allen claimed that shots of her well-pedicured trotters were earning her more money than Spotify streams – and that’s saying something, considering Allen has over 7 million monthly listeners and more than a billion streams on her top three songs.
Feet pics apparently.
Wow, what a strange world, she have any photos where she grips stuff with her feet?
Damn, I've had so many friends and coworkers joke about selling feet pics and here she is actually doing it and making bank! That's utterly crazy that she makes more from OF than Spotify. I'm surprised Spotify/streaming subscriptions hasn't just been killed off by artists/studios if the revenue stream is that awful.
To be fair, artists are one of the original intended uses for OnlyFans. While it is sexually focused now, that's more a side effect of it being one of the very few creators subscription sites at the time it started up.
It looks like it's just crazy foot people and she's not actually exposing anything lol.
I'm sorry to be the asshole here but ... She hasn't been on the charts for nearly 10 years... She probably amassed more wealth than most of us will in a lifetime. If she's unable to work a regular job now to keep up the lifestyle and has to sell feet pics... Sorry but boohoo
Ah they posting adult content? I didn't read the article and I thought they were using OF for their music.
Feet pics apparently
I don't really think she "has" to, at all. I think she saw an opportunity to make extra money and took it.
And publicity
I can't comment on these specific individuals, but a situation like that is gutwrenching. Absolutely nothing against OnlyFans and other adult entertainment, there are tons of people who genuinely enjoy and take pride in the work, but if there's even a slight hesitancy or feeling of pressure to do it just to support their real careers, the notion seems deeply awful and psychologically damaging.
Kinda sounds like a reason some people might try to preserve or widen a gender pay gap. If they can't keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, this is their next best thing.
A paltry few millions in networth. Please think of these starving artists
Lily Allen is not doing it to talk about how bad it is for her, she's doing it to show how bad it is for musicians in general. No one is going to even pay attention unless a successful musician does this.
And there are no album or CD sales any more.