Vince Gill has seen the profitability of being an artist and songwriter change dramatically across decades, and he’s worried about where the industry is today – and where it seems to be headed.
The “Go Rest High on That Mountain” singer got started in music back in the 1970s. I only mention that to say that he’s seen the music industry in all of its variations, and slowly but surely, he’s witnessed working within music become less and less profitable. While on the Playlisted Pod, Gill pointed out that a great song or a stellar record used to be incredibly lucrative for artists and songwriters.
Now, in the streaming age, he says there’s really not much money in the profession:
“What’s harder and harder and harder as time goes on is getting paid for your work. The income stream is dried up in a big way. I used to make money for writing songs but also for selling records. You don’t sell records anymore. What you might make from selling records is gone.”
The lack of record sales – which has been replaced by streaming subscriptions – has totally changed the way money flows to artists.
In fact, there’s not much money at all heading into the pockets of artists and songwriters without record sales. Playlisted Pod host, Austin Burke, suggested that record labels are making more than they ever have amidst this confusing and challenging time for creators. Vince Gill isn’t so sure:
“I don’t know if I believe that. I don’t know enough to be dangerous, but I can’t fathom how they could be, if they aren’t selling millions of records for 20 bucks a piece.”
In the eyes of the great Vince Gill, the modern consumption of music has hurt everyone involved.
The legendary artist says it all goes back to the lack of record sales. Like Gill said, you used to sell a record for $20 bucks and that was that. Now, streaming platforms like Spotify generally pay artists somewhere around $0.003 to $0.005 per stream. Whichever way you do the math, it takes a lot of listening to even reach that $20 mark.
That makes it tough for the lesser known, often independent artists to make it, or even just get started. It’s not like it was in the olden days, and Gill says it’s drastically affected the songwriting community. He says there used to be thousands of songwriters in Nashville… now there’s a couple hundred:
“In all the times I’ve been streamed on YouTube or any of those formats, I’ve never received anything. So it’s kind of hard getting paid for what it is that you create. You can have a hit song, and back in the day, you’d make a fortune (with) radio play and record sales. Those were all a part of it.
A lot of that has dried up, and I think that’s why publishing deals are so much harder to get now because I bet there’s not more than a couple hundred signed songwriters in (Nashville). There used to be 2,000 to 4,000 people that had publishing deals.”
