Is it about the money or is it about the music!

[the wanderer]

sad but music these days is all about money

[lrrr]

I think it depends about the artist really much. Of course when you reach some point at the career when you gotta quit your dayjob, it becomes to be about the money also. After that, some are going where the money is, and some are doing what they want. But of course, the futher/more popular you get, the more there is pressures of doing what the money wants.
This also depends a bit about the genre of course, I think that pop-artists are more in the leash of record-labels, but marginal stuff is going more on it´s own rules.

[musicgirl]

lrrr i agree with you

[Axe Elf]

"...the love of money is the root of all evil."

If the money is what you love, the music probly won't be that good (see Justin Bieber). Love the music first, and let the coins fall where they will.

I'm glad someone touched on the "value to society" aspect. I've always thought it was strange that people who play games (sports) and sing and dance and act can make more money than a teacher, social worker, etc. can ever hope to make in their lifetime--when the latter are of so much more value to society. Let me put some perspective on some of today's huge contracts...

Albert Pujols (baseball player) just signed a contract worth $250 million dollars over the next ten years. Now imagine that you are immortal, and you have been working the same job for the entire recorded history of man--about 6,000 years. It's a good job, too, paying you $20 an hour for all of those years (and while $20 an hour is a good wage even now, it wasn't very long ago it would have been a SPECTACULAR wage). So you have worked for $20 an hour for 6,000 years (2080 hours per year) and now you have earned a lifetime total of $249,600,000--yes, almost half a million less than Pujols will earn in the next ten years.

I need a raise...

Until next time...
Æ™

[goose]

you think justin beiber is soley in it for the money?

[Axe Elf]

Well, he's probly in it as much for the chicks as the money, but he's just an icon--he's not really an artist--and those behind him who are marketing him are in it for the money. I was basically using him as an example of the kind of fluffy pablum we get in place of real art when money is the driving force instead of creativity.

[YourLove]

yea i agree. i still do not think he is talented, just more famous

[Euromusic]

I don't even think Justin knows what chicks are yet

[tonygedon]

Sometimes it is about "what sells"
sometimes it is about market testing

Sometimes it is just about what the crwd
wants
or about what 'it takes'

sometimes it's a hobby
(if it's small money)
sometimes it's business

Sometimes it's technology

and how to make 'that sound'

[CyanideSweetness]

It should be all about the music, but people need to make a living. I'm not saying that music should just be mass produced and marketed, but most labels need to DIAF. Music is art, should be what the musicians want it to be....Not what the label thinks will sell or whatever the masses are eating up. How can you grow and expand your mind if you keep producing different variations of the same shit?