How the Music Business Works - Part 2

I hope you had a chance to read the previous post about how the music business works.  I'm writing these informative pieces to help folks understand the struggle and difficulty a young (not necessarily meaning age but new to the business) musician has finding a modicum of success.

Here are some statistics that can put things in perspective.

• Musicians are fifteen times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else
• In order to make a modest income of $40,000 per year from music streaming, a musician would need 10,000,000 streams per year
• 100,000 songs are uploaded to streaming services every day
• 80% of artists on Spotify have less than 50 listeners
• 91% of YouTube channels have fewer than 1000 subscribers
• 61% of musicians say that their music income is not enough to cover their bills
• Artists only get paid if a track is played for 30 seconds or more
• Musicians only get 12% of music industry revenues

It's very wrong that the individual who is responsible for creating the music that the rest of the industry makes money on only gets 12% of those revenues.  It's sad, shocking and wrong!  I'm sure some of you saying, well what can I do about it.  Well, there are a few things you can do that will make all the difference in the world.  After all, the listeners really have most of the control.

In the next installment, I'll tell you some things you can do to help musicians get their fair share.