To all my friends/fans who love streaming music services…sorry…not sorry…for what follows…


But since you're here on my store page, here's my pitch to you:
I really hope you’d consider buying your music.
It makes a huge difference. And I'd like to talk about why.

The great Sara Hickman is just one of many musicians I know who speak out against the incredibly LOW return on streaming that artists get. She’s has written more eloquently about it than anybody I know.
Please read what she’s written below.
Sara does not lie.

Here is a quick-and-dirty way I like to think about it…

A musician would need 4200 streams on Spotify to make the same amount they can make on one CD.*
 

Back before Napster, a musican could reasonably expect anywhere from two to twenty CD sales a night at a gig. Along with whatever the venue payed, it made it quite possible to make a decent living as a musician.
But what I have seen for the past thirty years --as a sometime musician, and as a full-time musician's friend-- are artist after artist either coming off the road, or working two or three other jobs, just to be able to make music. Literally almost none of my musician friends, including ones who were longtime “road warriors” are now able to make the economics work when it comes to music sales.

4,200 is a whomping lot of streams.  Streaming is choking off the ability of musicians to make a living at music throughout their life. When I was a kid, I spent $50-$100 a month on record albums. The primary reason I worked a job at a burger joint was so that I could buy gas for my car, music, and concert tickets. Assuming a kid today pays for both Spotify and AppleMusic, they are paying 1/5 of what I did four decades ago. Surely, everyone can see that the basic economics of this are truly messed up. (And yes, much of the music I bought was from the artists, not “fat cat” record labels…)

Look, if this is starting to sound all “Get off my lawn!” to you, I get it. But it's really not.
It's about justice.
It's about equity.
It's about asking you to not just defensively say “But look at all the diversity of music we get now,” and dig deep into the real issue.
This is not about what we get for the basic $11.99/mo streaming service. It's about truly doing what we all can to be supporters the arts, not just consumers of sounds.

So, yes, I put my music on all the streaming services, like everybody else does. I'm a hypocrite, sure. But it feels like socially acceptable theft.

And, again, I'm sorry if that sounds harsh. But ask your musician friends…especially the independent artists. Many of them are not in a place life where they can speak quite this bluntly as perhaps I can at this stage of my life.

And so, if you're still reading this, and if you asked me (and you didn’t, but you should…) I hope you would consider your choices in the following order…
1. I really hope you’d buy a CD…but I know almost nobody does that now….so…
2. If you can’t buy a CD, I’d really hope you’d pay for the album in the iTunes Store…it's an economically equivalent digital transaction to buying a CD.
3. And if you somehow feel that's not possible  either, if you must stream…go to your favorite local musicians webpages, and see if they have a “tip jar.”
And if you’ve listened to their album even one time on a streaming service, tip them ten bucks. 
Because, honestly, that would be a livable wage for their music.
That would be the econmically just gift to them for what they have given you.

Thank you for reading this bitchy old man Ted Talk, and do remember: I can say some of this not just because of my age, but because the economcs my life give me the privilege to say what others feel they cannot.
That you for considering this conversation about what is just and equitable for your favorite local, independent, musicians…. 

EF

*That is, roughly, $10.00
And these days, that's roughly the same price for both physical CDs, or a digital download sale from iTunes Store
(Yes, you can still do that…)