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How the Internet Impoverished Liam Gallagher

September 22, 2017

An amusing video starring former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher making tea went semi-viral earlier this week. Watch it because it's funny but also think about his point:

Now, we are all tempted to dismiss Liam's complaint out of hand since he was always the lesser Gallagher: Noel was more talented and harder working and actually seemed to give a shit; Liam was just in it for the money and the drugs and the fame (and the tea boys, I guess). The fact that he's juggling tea kettles while mumbling f-bombs and his brother is still out there making records and a decent-enough living is unsurprising, frankly.

But still: He has a point! Illegal downloading gutted the music industry in part by forcing the record companies and musicians to settle for what amounts to next to nothing in compensation—streaming. A friend passed along this chart from the Financial Times showing just how often a song had to be streamed for an artist to earn a buck (literally: a single dollar). Spoiler: It's a lot.

It's always been hard to make a living by playing music; it's even harder these days. Consider this piece from last year about a band that had surpassed one million downloads and gloated to the world about the Scrooge McDuck-style pool of gold they were swimming in as a result:

Total number of streams: 1,023,501

Total revenue: $4,955.90

Streaming isn't like the radio, where audiences are at the mercy of program directors and have to wait/hope to hear a specific song: it's more like the world's biggest jukebox, one that's available for free, one that has instant access to anything you want to hear.

Great for listeners, who have always been cheap and have never actually cared about artists. Bad for the musicians, though. Very bad. Won't someone please think of the Liams?