In this new Rolling Stone AU/NZ series, we look at the cost-of-living crisis in the music industry, allowing independent artists to reveal the reality of making and releasing music in these difficult times.
Sometimes when you’re already battered and bruised, relief doesn’t come.
This week, Spotify confirmed earlier reports about its new royalty policy, which will remove payments for tracks on their platform with under 1,000 streams.
Spotify tried to put a positive spin on it, claiming that the change will provide extra revenue to artists for their eligible tracks. Spotify will not be making any additional money in this model,” the platform’s managing director, Tom Connaughton, insisted, but few of us, by this point, are buying it.
This would have been impactful on independent artists at the best of times, but coming as it does during a global cost-of-living crisis, the change feels especially egregious.
In New Zealand, the cost of living for the average household increased by 7.2% between June 2022 and June 2023 (according to Stats NZ). “Australia’s Cost-of-Living Crisis Is Hitting Even the Well-Heeled,” an ominous Bloomberg headline read this week.
If even the so-called “well-heeled” are feeling the economic effects in 2023, what hope for the musician, trying to lovingly craft a record while working one, maybe even two, jobs on the side?
Because this is the harsh reality: even one of your favourite artists – unless they’re operating at a Swiftian level of global ubiquity – is likely struggling to make ends meet, to balance regular life and art, as much as the rest of us right now.
Artists like French for Rabbits.
Since forming just over a decade ago, the Wellington dream pop band have extensively toured Europe, the US, and their home country; they’ve been nominated for prestigious Aotearoa awards like the Taite Music Prize and the Silver Scrolls. And yet their new EP, In the End I Won’t Be Coming Home, a beautiful and thoughtful four-track collection, almost didn’t see the light of day.
“We’re a band playing subtle, gentle music from a small country on the bottom of the planet – and like many indie artists we’re just doing our best in an unfriendly, online environment where the algorithm is king and content is like candy,” as the band’s lead singer, Brooke Singer, says.
But they, like so many other resilient artists, found a way to make it happen.
Brooke – joined in the band by John Fitzgerald, Penelope Esplin, Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa, and Phoebe Johnson – wrote an insightful essay about the economic reality of making and releasing their second EP, which you can read below. In the End I Won’t Be Coming Home is out on Friday, November 24th (pre-order here).
There is some irony to be found in the journey we undertook to create this new EP, especially considering the themes of “Baring Head”, which explores the tension between art and money. I proclaimed in the song that “art stops for no one, yes it rolls on with the intensity of a flaming sun” – but truthfully, this EP nearly did stop.
Achieving the creative vision required studio time, string arrangements, players, mastering engineers and so on. My brain had conjured up something that did cost money. Of course, we could rely purely on the generosity of our friends and collaborators, but they all need to eat too, and I value their expertise and artistry.
After applying for two slightly soul destroying rounds of Creative New Zealand funding (it even made the news), two rounds of NZ on AIR funding (for songs that we suspected may be too subtle or left field), and some additional charitable trust funding for string arrangements with no success, we had to make a decision. Although we have wonderful and dedicated fans (thank you!), the truth is that when we calculated the cost of recording, mixing, mastering, pressing and promoting the EP (modestly), there would be a very real risk that we wouldn’t break even without funding.
This record incurs about $24,000 NZD of expenses with very little marketing budget, and it has taken countless hours of my own to bring this all together. To cover the costs of this without making a profit we must sell 280 CD’s, 200 standard edition vinyl and 100 special edition vinyl. This might seem modest to some, but keep in mind – we’re a band playing subtle, gentle music from a small country on the bottom of the planet – and like many indie artists we’re just doing our best in an unfriendly, online environment where the algorithm is king and content is like candy. Candy will always outcompete the organic vegetables of the world…and then everyone wonder’s why they feel tired, and can’t concentrate! We want you to concentrate! We want to nourish you.
Over the years, around my career as a songwriter and artist I have always held down various part-time or freelance work, as has the rest of French for Rabbits. In New Zealand, this is very normal and there are very few musicians who can live solely off their creative work for an extended period of time given the small size and population of the country and the current ways that art can be monetized (hello, $0.003 per Spotify Stream). This week our first song, “Baring Head”, has likely earned us a grand total of $4.50 on Spotify.
The question that many indie artists ask is how do we do it differently? When the ways in which we can earn money is being eroded – how can we make it sustainable without resorting to becoming online sales people and social media influencers? How do we share our artisan organic songs, our social services for the public good (because, really that is what music is).
And if you’re wondering, YES, the ways we can earn money are being eroded. Recently in New Zealand, APRA AMCOS made a change to how royalties are earned at major concerts, so support acts effectively now will receive less. A support act on tour will already receive a very small fee, often not enough to cover travel costs, and even their merch sales will incur a cut from the venue (a push back against this is ongoing with some success in the US). This is only amplified for a headline indie artist on tour, and changes negotiated by Universal Music with streaming services could make it even worse for indie artists.
What I do know is that we appreciate everyone who listens, we are so glad our music has become interwoven through people’s lives. Whether it is one song like “Claimed by the Sea” soundtracking a summer, or “The Tunnel”, accompanying a first break-up. We love hearing these stories about the songs.
