The music industry has a funding problem
Earlier this month, Newcastle-based indie singersongwriter Sam Fender released his fourth studio album, People Watching, and embarked on a week of media duties talking about what influenced the new album. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Fender talked about his working class upbringing, and how difficult it was for an artist without a moneyed background to make it in the music industry today.
Sam Fender. Hannah Victoria Kenyon for Strong Island.
āThe music industry is 80 percent, 90 percent kids who are privately educated,ā he said. āA kid from where Iām from [North Shields, Newcastle, UK] canāt afford to tour, so there are probably thousands writing songs that are ten times better than mine, poignant lyrics about the country, but they will not be seen because itās rigged.ā
It was like a lit match to tinder. Many artists spoke up confirming that they were currently facing challenges staying afloat in the music industry despite hitting many of the milestones that traditionally looked like success in the music industry. Many talked about how funds were the main things separating them from their peers who had āmade itā. Many others have talked about how money has hindered them from taking steps that would greatly advance their music careers.
Beloved artists like Little Simz and Rachel Chinouriri have over the last few years had to cancel international tours that would never add up for an independent artist without the backing of a major label, or great personal expenses. Songwriter Kate Nash, who was in the news recently for turning to OnlyFans to sell pictures of her arse to fund her upcoming tour in a campaign she called āButts For Tour Busesā, estimated that the production cost of each show she puts on a single night, costs her about $10,000. A cost even half of that would be devastating to a kid starting out in music with no savings.
Little Simz. Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images
There is another aspect to this discussion. Last week, British indie songwriter Ellie Dixon was asked on her social media about the phrase āindustry plantā, a highly contentious word meant to indicate that an artist has not authentically reached the level of success they are at, and instead owe it all to some undisclosed industry connections that were allowing them access to avenues of career growth unfairly.
On surface level, this would seem to be something that only adds to the woes of independent, hard-working musicians, once again locked out of opportunities that shouldāve rightfully been theirs if only some golden child with the right connections hadnāt swooped in and snatched their livelihood right out of their hands. In reality, who and what this āindustry plantā really is, is less clear. Often, it is used as a catch-all phrase to indicate that you donāt think someone deserves the plaudits they are receiving. But whether or not a certain kind of music is inherently deserving of success or not can only ever be a matter of subjective taste, and so something as concrete as having insider connections, becomes a matter of opinion where stylistic preferences become equated with worth, and the word loses all meaning.
Rolling Stone magazine, in a recent article defending the rising rap star Doechii, wrote a good piece about how the phrase is being misused to discredit artists who have put in all the work themselves over the years, only to be unfairly torn down by peopleās fundamental misunderstanding of the phrase.
Doechii receives her Grammy for Best Rap Album. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy.
Money in music is a really important conversation to have, namely in that it is simply not possible to sustain a career in this (or any) industry without it, and that artists, the backbone of the industry, have seen increasingly diminishing returns on it. We find ourselves returning to the music industry of old, where as rents go up and incomes for independent artists dry up, many musicians find that it makes sense for them to rely on traditional record label deals.
This has been enough for many people to start lobbing the accusations of āindustry plantā, somehow mistaking having a label put any investment into an artist as some sort of insideous and undeserved, unfair advantage, as if the music industry was exclusively meant to be run from bedrooms of one and from behind YouTube and TikTok accounts.
If anything, artist development is only a recently neglected area by labels, opting to let artists themselves be the creators, marketers, publicists, cinematographers, bookers, promoters, merch and poster graphic designers and much more, all on that lucrative label budget of $0.00.
Who can afford to do all that? An artist that can either afford not to have a full-time job outside of their self-employed music career, or someone who can afford to pay others.
Which brings me back to the discussion about wealth in music. Sam Fender was completely right when he spoke out about how hard it is for working class artists to break through. The Dublin-based singer CMAT (incidentally, on tour supporting Fender at the moment) talked about how she wanted to write a guide on how working class musicians can make it in this treacherous industry, because to realise that everyone living your dream is doing it on the back of wealth you can never cough up is quite demotivating. Working class artists slog for a decade before being recognised at the level that the backing of a label could achieve in a year, there is no hiding from this. (Also, CMAT only half-jokingly said this but she is right: rich kid music also just lacks bite. Thereās an urgency and potency to working class music that genuinely holds up a mirror to society that an artist who doesnāt have to face every aspect of the world sometimes simply cannot put into words in the same way. It is absolutely crucial that we do not lose working class voices in art.)
CMAT live. Sean McMahon
So really, we need to focus less on tearing down working class artists with unfounded accusations of being āindustry plantsā, something that also seems to disproportionately be levelled at women, musicians of colour, queer artists and other marginalised communities by men who cannot understand their success, and we must focus more on preserving the funding and pathway programmes that have historically tried to place working class artists on the same footing as richer artists.
The problem with the music industry isnāt so-called industry plantsā itās that funding in music stays at the top while grassroots artists suffer. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is reportedly worth 7.5 billion USD, while Canada has lost 15% of its small music venues since the beginning of 2020. The UK, where the Music Venue Trust keeps clearer track of the state of grassroots music venues, reports that the UK loses a grassroots venue every two weeks currently. When burgeoning young talent donāt have the venues to hone their talent, make their mistakes and develop their sound and stage presence, future stars are lost forever, working class or otherwise.
So good on Sam Fender. Himself a working class kid, heās done something good for working class musicians everywhere even just by starting this important conversation with a platform as large as he has built for himself.
