Katie Noonan is the latest guest on Making Music, Making Ends Meet, a series focused on Australian and New Zealand musicians during the cost-of-living crisis.
From her time in George to her work as a soloist, Noonan is one of Australian music’s most enduring singer-songwriters, but even she isn’t immune to the perils of the music industry.
“It’s difficult for me, and I’m lucky enough to be in my 30th year,” she admitted.
As for the specific issues facing the music industry?
“When I started, the first death knell of live music was poker machines,” Noonan recalled. “Gambling is the most horrendous illness — it destroys families every single day. Venues with pokies clear their profits by 11am, and from there on they’re just fleecing addicts. I wish there was a way to make those venues invest those enormous profits back into community. If you have pokies, you should have to have live music. Something like that.”
Another one: “[…] the internet — digital streaming platforms, an unlegislated space where very smart people created platforms that are incredibly useful but unbelievably unethical. Spotify is the worst offender. Their royalty rates are outrageously bad. And not only that, over half of their library is completely fake — created by AI, using our intellectual property to create fake accounts and fake music so they don’t have to pay anyone.
“I remember Lars Ulrich taking Napster to court in the early ’00s. I wish he’d won. The record labels were in such denial about this huge force that was coming. Now there are probably two generations who believe music is just a free thing on the internet that they don’t have to pay for.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love DSPs — I consume music that way myself. But I’ve never made squat from Spotify and I never will.
Noonan told us that she tries to “buy the physical stock” in order to support Australian artists, “because that’s the only way we can keep going.”
“You used to make albums because they made money. Nowadays, albums are purely a tool for touring and self-expression — they cost more than ever, especially if you choose to pay your musicians properly, which I do,” she continued.
“When I started, albums cost $30 — now they’re basically free. If you account for inflation alone, an album should cost about $100 today. A cup of coffee was a dollar then and it’s six bucks now.”
Other issues cited by Noonan included “the loss of the local support act rule,” the lack of “quotas for Australian content on radio,” and “the lack of quality music education for kids.”
“There’s also a dire loneliness epidemic right now,” she added. “Kids are depressed and spending enormous amounts of time on screens. There are so many things music could fix.
“Every great leader in the world pretty much learned an instrument as a child — left brain, right brain, sense of connection, sense of hard work and reward. The evidence is there. There are reams and reams of reports on the benefits of music education. Use them.
Read her full feature here.
Noonan will release her new album — her 30th, showing remarkable consistency — Alone but all one later this month — pre-order here.
The ARIA Award-winning artist says the album “is for anyone who’s gone through a life shift — not just separation, but grief, uncertainty, or quiet reinvention. It’s music for sitting with things. For remembering we’re not alone, even in solitude. It’s personal, but I hope it will resonate in a way that becomes collective.”
Noonan will embark on an Australian tour in celebration of Alone but all one next month — check out her tour dates here.
