How much is music worth?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ส.ค. 2018
- Why is it that visual art goes for hundreds of millions of dollars at auction, and music sells for...well, nothing sometimes? Is music really worth that much less than art? Or is there something else at play that speaks to the fickle economics of art?
HOOT AND HOLLER:www.hootandhollermusic.com
LEE STEVALL SOUNDS (direct to vinyl recording): leestavall.com
MUSICIANS GET 12% of the record industry: consequenceofsound.net/2018/0...
SOTHEBY’S VALUATION OF ART: www.sothebys.com/content/sothe...
VALUE OF ART AT THE MET: www.quora.com/What-is-the-app...
“PRICE HIKE” ope-ed: www.esquire.com/entertainment...
TAYLOR SWIFT’S OP-ED: www.wsj.com/articles/for-tayl...
ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHAOLIN:
consequenceofsound.net/2015/0...
Another “only 1 copy in existence” album: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique...
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Adam
23453.12= the lick??
FallOfTheAlbatross Good eye!
Definitely good catch. It's in numbered notation, not sure how common that is here.
The prick.
But in a minor key is 12342.71
should be 12342.71
You might note that I didn't mention Patreon in this video, or other crowdfunding options for artists. I went back and forth on this idea in the script a couple times and ultimately left it out. I wanted to mainly focus on the monetary worth of music itself, and not the relationship musicians have with their fans. It does seem strange that I left out Patreon when I owe basically my entire career to Patreon, but I left it out for that reason.
This is perhaps the best video of yours I've had the pleasure of watching, Adam. Thank you for giving me something to think about -- I have a feeling I'll be pondering the ideas spawned from this for quite some time!
Hey Adam! Check out my song;! 1k views!!! (small time lol) th-cam.com/video/v2nT5nmaTGY/w-d-xo.html
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter of crowdfunding. There's different avenues I've seen musicians taking. Classic Busking, Patreon (you, other youtubers), and even twitch has some musicians gaining donations from followers. I honestly think that the future for musicians is less about providing a clean digital copy, and more about providing a valuable live performance that thousands on the internet want to throw money at you for. Additionally, with the age of the internet, it's much easier for artists to have a more grassroots approach to their following than ever. Never before has it been so easy to engage with fans and cultivate a relationship with them. I believe this is extremely valuable!
Umm? You actually owe your entire career to The Shitposting of Jazz to Come. Thanks.
I would have loved to hear your take about the role "concerts" could have in this "music worth" topic
When you buy a song, you buy a copy of it, not the song itself. So, it can't be compared to art, which literally has only one original piece. If someone charged 1.29 for a picture of a piece of art, that would be more comparable. It's also why music piracy is an interesting topic, since pirating a song does not actually take that song away from the creator, and you can't even claim loss of revenue, because you can't prove that the pirate would've paid for the song otherwise.
Just about to write this exact comment....
Exactly.
This video is actually a very shallow "examination" of the issue, and if Adam genuinely believes he made a good-faith analysis of the subject, then his understanding here is wholly inadequate to the task.
I'd personally disagree.
Like, a book is art, right? But when you buy The Fault in Our Stars or whatever you're buying a copy of it, not the original manuscript. Same with paintings. While an original Da Vinci is worth millions, a reprinting or recreation of it could be worth, say 1.29.
I don't think art has to be wholly unique and one of kind. The experience of seeing an original may be more moving than seeing a duplication, but they're practically the same.
Unless I'm missing something? Any thoughts?
@Jason Weaver That's a good point! Music doesn't really have an "original" version. (Maybe before the mixing stage is the original?) Does that make it an inferior kind of art?
I think the museum/concert comparison is good, but concerts are recreations of an artwork rather than the "original"; plus, they involve interactions between audience and author(s) so it's a little different from a museum...but yeah.
@Jason Weaver I think the original music is what makes it out for the first time to the public. Unlike a painting, music is TYPICALLY a collaborative art form from multiple individuals. No one celebrates 150 paintings the painter threw into the garbage before they made the one they were happy enough with to show to the world. Everyone only knows the one that made it out. Though I'm sure a lot of people out there would pay top dollar even for the failed attempts of Van Gogh's painting. But then again, some people would do that to sit in the room to listen to some musicians' practice/composing sessions.
Wow, I'm actually really fascinated by this concept of single take recordings. There is something really beautiful about it.
And what did you do with that fascination
@@MrCalebGames Does he have to do anything with it? Can't he just appreciate it?
If someone buys a famous painting for 50 million dollars, they and they alone own it and can get the experience of viewing it in person. You can then turn around and charge others to view it, providing you don't mind people coming to your home at all hours on a regular basis. But if I pay one dollar to 'own' a song, I don't own the rights to the song, and I can't charge people for listening to it. All I am buying is the experience in the same way I bought a ticket to enter a museum. I'm sure if Taylor Swift wanted to sell the rights to her hits, where the buyer would be the sole beneficiary of all future purchases of copies of her songs, those rights would also sell for millions.
ibji yeah you're right, i don't get why this point didn't get mentioned in the video...
ibji +
ibji ibji I was going to write my own comment, but you've summed up my thoughts better than I possibly could have.
The price of listening to a Taylor Swift song should be compared to the price of admission into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which a quick google tells me is $25 for adults. So for $25, you get a day's access to all of the art in the museum, much in the same way $10 gets you a month's access to all of the music on Spotify. So in this case, the price of experiencing music *is* still much cheaper (free really for many), but not as radically as the $100 million price tag might suggest (although I'll point out here that many famous museums are completely free, and obviously music can be pirated or streamed for free also). And that discrepancy of course comes from the scarcity mentioned in the video (while you can google a painting for free, you won't get the full experience of seeing the individual brush strokes and textures, whereas music can be duplicated and enjoyed anywhere with 100% accuracy).
Iopia100
I wouldn't say 100% accuracy. It's still a different experience compared to the live performance. It's like leaving out the texture of the bursh strokes. Like a printed version.
Just on that last point: I don't think live music and seeing a painting in person are similar.
I'd say Googling a painting = listening to a song on TH-cam at 44.1KHz
Experiencing a painting in person = listening to a song through headphones at 192KHz
Seeing a band live is more like seeing an artist repaint their most famous artwork in front of you, it might be slightly different but it will still be high-quality.
The lick is priceless
upvote this
it goes up in value every time Adam Neely, Owane, and Sithu Aye use it
Actually, it costs 23,453.12$
VegaHammer you son of a bitch😂😂😂
Ugh im getting inspired to make another lick video, pls stop me
"There is now effectively a 1:1 between musical experience and availability."
*Records the take*
Oh shit
True but when you buy the record, you have a copy that no one else has. Yes you could record it and publish it but then that makes your copy less special, thus defeating the point of spending so much money to buy it.
@@austinbryan6759 Yeah! I guess a visual analogy would be trying to sell a 3D-printed duplicate of a painting. It wouldn't be deemed just 'less special', but downright 'fake'.
So yeah, what we have here is a 'fake', incomplete replica of the 'original' record... but with video 🤔
@@austinbryan6759 Late reply here! You make a fine point, and one I'm inclined to agree with. However the comment was meant to be a humorous observation on how Adam Neely inadvertently created an additional copy (albeit an imperfect and truncated one) of something that was otherwise billed a unique recording. So I'm not entirely sure what you are disagreeing with, as the comment itself does not offer a stance on whether unique vinyls are valuable. The only thing it "challenges" (which again, it doesn't because it's a joke) is whether the recording is truly unique.
To experience the van gohg painting you did not pay 100 mil. Did you?
Of course, this guy on the street sold me a ticket for $100 mil. It was a great bargain to see the billions of dollars of art!
Good point tho
Neither did van Gogh get paid anything close to $100M for the production of that painting.
@John T. Deck I don't see how you own a piece of music when you buy it off of itunes, you can't legally share it to everyone.
John T. Deck exactly, owning music doesn’t mean owning a copy. It would mean owning intellectual rights to a song. Meaning you are paying 25 dollars to see a whole collection of art(hundreds of pieces) vs paying 13.99 for an album on iTunes which contains 11 songs, that’s experiencing it. However OWNING it would be buying the painting for 100 million dollars vs buying the rights to the explicit ownership of the music for anywhere from a million upwards of 30 million dollars and more.
I love How you always 'spoil' your own videos in the thumbnails.
Hugo Leonardo Amaral The anti-click bait
and it doesn't work.people are clicking anyway
He's been doing it for some time but it's fairly recent for long time followers.
I think what he does that for is so that people can't say "Oh, he dragged the answer out!" or "He explains too much!"
All you have to read is the thumbnail if you don't want an explaination.
Hell yeah. I love this guy's videos for being the exact opposite of click bait. It seems so honest in the ocean of click bait. I don't even watch half of that stuff cause I can already guess it's bs.
Not everyone who went to see Van Gogh's self-portrait paid 100 mil. The 1.29 per song or 12$ for an album better corresponds to the 25$ entrance fee to the MET, and the 100 mil for the painting might better correspond to the masters of the songs.
Good point!
glue112 And a medium quality mp3 of an album should then be worth what a medium quality Ikea print of a painting is worth, nada.
That entrance fee is more like concert tickets
EpicMeh no it's not. With a concert you're seeing the original artist recreate the masterpiece in front of you. It's *always* unique, and most of the time much worse sounding than the original master. The entrance fee is like a subscription to spotify.
Thanks! Came here to make that point. Was gonna say people would pay a lot for masters of the Beatles or a written score from Beethoven...
If Taylor Swift dropped an exclusive song tomorrow and allowed one person to leave with it and all the rights contained to it therein. The value would shoot into the stratosphere.
>Music that is devastatingly beautiful and life changing for one person will sound like complete noise to another
Ahh, the eternal struggle for metalheads is real
I felt called out
And proggers
and noise lovers
Alexis Duffau why am I in both of these categories...
and 100 gecs fans
- Going to a concert could be viewed as analogous to going to a museum.
- Buying a copy (e.g., mp3) of an original master of a famous song could be viewed as analogous to buying a copy (e.g., poster) of a famous painting.
- Just like an original famous painting might be worth millions of dollars, so might an original manuscript of a famous composition; and perhaps for music that isn't in the public domain, owning the rights to a song could be viewed as the equivalent?
This is a much better expression of the difference than the false comparison of THE original painting to a digital copy of a song.
And, in that context, paintings are priced infinitely cheaper than songs. $0.00023 is absurdly overpriced, compared to almost any painting in the world, which has no price to see completely, at all.
Memento Mori exactly. So the intrinsic value of a song is the rights to it. The sheet music and "instructions" on how to recreate it in a concert setting. IE someone being hired to work with somebody to create a song whose value is unknown until they tour and sell copies.
I remember growing up with CDs, where you'd get these little booklets that had pictures, lyrics, extensive linear notes crediting everyone who was even remotely involved in the production, and so on. And I would read those booklets cover to cover, multiple times.
In fact, there are entire bands and artists that I first learned about because they had a production credit, or a co-writer credit, or a guest appearance, etc, on an album that I owned.
It definitely reinforced the idea that this music was created by people, and didn't just spring wholly formed out of the mind of the lead singer.
LP's were even better in that respect - not getting into a sonic debate.
It would be totally possible to reintroduce that in digital streaming apps as well. In some instances background information is already available.
CDs are still available if you want them. Of course, there is a lot more money in streaming and MP3 sales.
I remember growing up with vinyl. Pre 8 track, pre cassettes pre cds, pre downloads, when album art was often as important to the value of a record as the record itself was. Liner notes with pictures or mini posters included even added more value and desire.
We read the liner notes because there was no other immediately available information pertinent to the music we were listening to. I loved reading about the equipment bands used, the beer they drank, the other bands they listened to. Now I don’t google those things because I don’t think to search for them specifically so in that respect we lose out. I might look at tour dates or something but otherwise I’m probably on Facebook when I listen to music now.
I guess the $43 billion don't include live music.
Concerts are the way a band makes most of the money, exactly like it used to happen before the vinyl/tape/cd/mp3 era.
Things are not gettin' worse, they are going back to normal.
What about the shellac era?
I don't know what the profit ratio was before the '70s and stadium acts, but by that time many tours were money-losing affairs that were done primarily to promote record sales and secondarily as an art form of their own right. Record companies didn't much care because there was plenty of money going around. By the '80s corporate suits moved in and started making the whole thing like every other office business, paying themselves enormous salaries and leaving little for the artists themselves. That's when touring to make a living began, or began again as the case may be.
When it was just records, the record companies had large capital investments in the physical plants needed to manufacture large amounts of records inexpensively. Today with file-based music, the capital costs are greatly reduced, and scale easily, so that a small act can sell their own songs on a shoestring budget all by themselves, with no 3rd party help. Streaming takes more infrastructure, but if musicians would unionize they could collectively negotiate a better deal from streaming companies.
You have to operate on a MUCH longer timeframe. Music, for millennia, was exclusively a live affair. The recording world, and profiting off of it, is an anomaly. Nothing more.
You mean when the artist had to rely on commissions from religious leaders to pay any kinds of bills at all? Driving around in circles living on charity, never getting ahead? A return to "normal?" Did you live then? Did you eat the crap of living on the road making only enough to barely survive your entire life, being considered a vagabond and bum by artless, pontificating people with opinions based on years of reading and watching videos, or have you lived in vehicles for 20 years because you can't afford anything else unless you want to work at Home Depot? if this is normal to you, you are a deviant, artless, unimaginative enemy of everything original, creative, and unique, whether you dabble in a dilettantish fashion in a medium of art or not. I wish I could meet you. Of course I already have, you're everywhere. The most common person on earth.
Things are getting worse. Because of people like you. Come to the show. Buy something. Buy everything, and STFU about "back to normal," Mr. Theory. 20 years of living in cars is enough. No theory there. You deserve the artless wasteland in which you live.
www.pablosmoglives.com
Well I mean anybody could be a musician these days so of course music "artists" aren't going to be making much. Also, in a way its a bit of a payoff now, where as back then it was harder to get noticed without the internet but everything was made through physical sales - because no digital you know. So it got better and worse. Shit, when i was much younger like 10 (i'm 20 now) I would've loved to be in a band, but then I realized there's other important things going on like healthcare and diseases. If everybody wanted to be a musician than we'd be screwed - however, doesn't mean I gave up on that lil wish as a kid ;)
+PigDestroyer28
Labels are irrelevant.
What you need is a live agency or a good manager, if you have enough followers to begin with.
You simply don't sign with a label that would steal to print a cd and *sell it back to you,* that wasn't hard to figure out, especially for a genius such as yourself.
Van Gogh painted one self portrait. He did not mass produce many self portraits. This is the difference. If Taylor Swift wants the same value, she will have to make a single recording made then wait over 100 years after her death to see those prices. Even Van Gogh couldn't give away his paintings when he was alive.
He painted a lot of self portraits, even though I agree with your point hahah
he had a lot of self portraits
What do you mean he couldn’t give away his paintings when he was alive?
𝕍𝕆𝕃𝔸𝕀ℝ𝔼 no one liked his art or respected him - during his lifetime. It’s like those people on the street corner trying to give away free copies of their mix tape for exposure and everyone tells them to beat it.
@@VOLAIRE his sister made him famous after he died. when he was alive his work was rejected.
Art sold for millions of dollars is the performance itself. Music on iTunes is equivalent to a print, and nobody's paying millions of dollars for a print of the Mona Lisa. How much does a Mona Lisa wallpaper cost?
polygondwanaland yea but art prints go for a wide variety of prices, some 100s of dollars. And the artist rarely sees most of the money unless they have invested in top of the line printers, mailing and marketing costs and are selling on their own. I don’t know of any art print that goes for 1.29. I make more selling one art print of my own than most jazz musicians make playing three hour sets in DC. And the printer makes more money than I do off that print.
"And the artist rarely sees most of the money"
That's because all of the most printed artists are long dead.....
Exactly, listening to music is like going to the museum. You don't pay a million to see all of the expensive paintings in that museum.
@@richamo13 you stole the words from my mouth homie. Listening to music from a streaming service that is paid is just like a ticket to the museum. Hell yeah music has piracy but it is just like a rip off or copy of the original artwork. Not exactly same, but the original artwork on terms of music is the honest raw performance recorded just before mixing and mastering. Mixers compress and lose some nuances of the piece that otherwise would not be noticable in mastered tracks or copies.
Still love those anti-clickbaity thumbnails 😃
I think jazz is perfect for the specific takes, with different improvised solos take by take. That’s why live music can be so special, especially with jazz. It changes with each time performed.
That is precisely why the Greatful Dead had a massive following, with many people travelling along the tours to see as many shows as possible, as they always improvise and play slightly differently.
Joni Mitchell; "Nobody ever asked Van Gogh to play Starry night again, man."
In terms of your last point, I definitely think the fact you don't buy a physical item these days has affected the way people appreciate music. People don't seem to 'worship' their favourite artist the way they did when, say a new Led Zeppelin album was released and they had a physical artefact to pore over. I suppose that's not directly related to its price but it does show that the same music has a different impact on us depending on how its distributed. I would like to think that to the owners of those single copy discs they sound absolutely AMAZING!
David Bruce Composer definitely agree. You could also make the point that because people don't appreciate music as much, music industries don't bother
to create high quality music.
But the impact of individual pieces of music seems to have greatly increased. A single piece of music becoming a phenomenon that is instantly recognized by almost everyone around the world is not something that i think happened or was even possible the same way it is now where the cost of copying and distributing music is almost zero.
And I guess it's not only the medium which becomes some kind of artifact. Somehow the monetary price translates to a personal value. Sayings like "If I gave it away for free, it would be valueless" do have some truth to them. Imagine back in the day you had to save your weekly allowance to be able to afford a vinyl record. In a way, the record somehow got the value of weeks of anticipation. And it would be the same if a record was expensive to you nowadays: If I had to take a lot of time to decide whether to buy an expensive record or not, the decision-making-progress (if I end up buying the record) effects the personal value to. Its kind of like this: If I have to put some kind of mental energy into anticipation or decision-making beforhand - the object I obtain gains personal value afterwards. So far this is only guesswork - but I remember reading about a study on this "if its free, its valueless"-concept...
Jannis True, but it's not taken seriously. Most popular music is made to satisfy us instead of trouble us. Like maybe what you would expect from a piece of visual art. I think the problem here is that popular music is given only one purpose and is being mass produced which drops its value.
Actually, as an anecdotal evidence, the fact that I can listen to ALL of my favorite artist's discography, made me appreciate him a lot more. I form some sort of one way bond listening to his tracks from oldest to newest, and I can audiate every every single second of some of his tracks. When I had cassettes, or CDs, I didn't bother that much, maybe out of laziness even, but having literally no opportunity cost to listening to my favorite track for the 1000th time made me appreciate the music more.
BTW, my favorite artist is obviously Darren Porter 😋
This is totally unrelated, but I'm trying to bring 12tone, Nahre Sol and Aimee Nolte (and myself) to SXSW for a panel about TH-cam music education in March, panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/82740 vote on the panel picker if you think that it's a cool idea!
Awesome to see my man! Will definitely participate in the vote!
If you do win, please make a vlog about it!
No-brainer, done - you had only to ask!
I like what you said about "music that is life changing to one is stupid to another." I wonder if most of yall here will think OMG by Oolaciale is stupid. It's a life changing song to me.
Done.
If anyone could put me in touch with Taylor Swift, I'd like to purchase and own one of her songs for $1.29. I'm happy to workout a fair royalty for anyone who wants to purchase the right to play it after that.
Well, even for 100 million, if you buy the work of an artist, they still have the rights to it. It'd be more like buying the original live performance from the band which you can place in your sitting room and play whenever you want.
I've missed a couple weeks of your videos but WOW the quality has noticeably improved! Well done Adam! All the power to you
Another example you could compare is literature, which you kinda alluded to but didn't go into depth about. I feel like literature is almost the intersection here. Books themselves are pretty cheap to print and you can get the most celebrated works of Shakespeare, Dante, etc. for the same price as any other book. At the same time, something like the original manuscripts would probably be worth millions. Even though it's the same art and same experience. Guess that's an another example of how the history of an item can contribute to its value.
The complete works of Shakespeare are free: www.opensourceshakespeare.org/
Hulavuta These are antiques though, they are only prised as an object with a provinance, and not for its art. I'm sure there are mint condition Beatles albums that go for crazy money as well, because of its historical significance and relative uniqueness to a collector. The art of books isn't necessarily different to any other important relic, it's still an object.
I would say the value depends less on the history and more on the rarity in the case of an original manuscript. If you were going to photocopy that manuscript a thousand times, each copy still would not be nearly as valuable as the original manuscript.
I think a better example for how the history of an object influences its value is probably the price of an autograph card signed by a celebrity. Celebrities probably sign thousands of these cards during their careers, so they are not really rare, but still they have some value because the celebrity signed them at one point in time.
There's a fascinating point here--textbooks are insanely expensive. Hence, students (or recent students) like myself and Adam probably don't even think of books as being cheap. That's because we need *that specific book version* for a class, or something, and _nobody else can sell it_ !! Hence, the value of the book is tied to the value of the class. So, we're not paying for the book when we buy it--we're paying extra for the class, but we're paying the book publisher.
Igab, that's true. Actually I was thinking more in the terms of antiques as well; just considering the Van Gogh paintings and other historical works. But it's true that modern art goes for a lot as well.
As an independent musician- your conclusion to this video felt something like a blanket, a warm glass of milk, and my mom gently humming, "hush, it will all be okay".
Don't worry, I'll always be here.
thx bb
One of your best videos, and the others are already top-level. Thanks for this, I think you've summarised a ton of complex issues and give us major food for thought. Bravo!
I really like the idea of this video, but I think you missed a really foundational concept. If there was only one copy of, let's say, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and this copy was recorded in the studio, edited raw, and sent straight to a vinyl disc where it would eternally be known as the original version then I would be willing to bet that this vinyl would be worth as much as any world class painting. But everytime we hear that song it's not the original it's technically just a reproduction. It's the mass produced audible print version of the original song. I could go on amazon and buy a canvas of van Gogh's "starry night" for less than $20, the cost having more to do with the medium, and production process than the content itself. But if they ever start passing around original raw studio cuts, id be willing to bet that they would cost a pretty penny.
Already happened. Wu-Tang Clan "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" sold for $2 million.
That's exactly what he said in the video?
Asith indeed but that's not what the first comment ment
Look up what a good condition first printing of Thriller is worth.
also, the reason original movie prints were stored in special places is because they used to be highly flammable.
I'd pay for an original track. Especially single instrument tracks.
6:00 lick spotted
OMG you just won the comment section! haha lololololol
Hm?
Nice catch.
sexy, expensive, beared dutchmen
was looking for this comment
3:50 "sexy expensive bearded Dutchman" lol
Honestly, I was expecting at least a few pictures of Paul Davids...
@@HimTortons hahahah
Love your channel u make great points keep up the great work adam👍👍
You seem to be more unbiased towards pop music than a few years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I find it bland, but it takes some skill to be able to write a song that millions of people can connect with. I’m glad to see you use examples from more genres than just jazz and classical. Keep up the good content
I used to be one of those people who hated pop music with a passion, and would argue that it has no value -- and don't get me wrong, it's not my type of music still, and there's plenty of garbage pop, but the production skill it takes to make a pop song is really quite something. A comparison that occurred to me the other day is that of pop vs. rock, as an example -- to make a listenable rock song is far easier and requires less talent and work than to make a listenable pop song, but the skill ceiling seems much higher in rock, simply because at some point pop is limited by its own definition. (Then again, you could argue that Jacob Collier produces pop, albeit very complex indie pop, and then that sort of makes any argument against pop a losing one.)
Same but then I realized the art to making a song as addictive as possible
why? because any music made by monsieur collier is by definition good? 你在上帝的无形脸上射精吧。
No, because I believe it's undeniable that a ridiculous amount of high-level theoretical thought and talent went into Collier's work and thus if it is pop then you can't well argue that pop has a low skill ceiling. Regardless of whether one likes Collier, if greats like Q and the Metropole Orkest and Herbie Hancock and Snarky Puppy and etc. etc. all acknowledge his ridiculous talent, it's hard to argue that he isn't talented without some damn good credentials to back it up.
well on the level of technical skill, no question. As for artistic value...well that's not quite so easy to quantify and certainly not unopen to question...As for credentials, again it depends who you ask...I wouldn't rate the 'credentials' of Snarky Puppy very highly, for example, others probably would...the dictionary defines credentials as "a qualification, achievement, quality, or aspect of a person's background, especially when used to indicate their suitability for something"....of course what that SOMETHING might be is the interesting question, which necessarily implicates us in a discussion of the groups and institutions that bestow and ratify said credentials...
When you said "I'm not an arts dealer" for a minute I thought you were saying "I'm not an art stealer." The conspiracy theories started forming.
lol I heard the exact same thing :D
Heard the same. I was about to argue "good artists borrow, great artists steal, man!".
I've discovered your channel recently and man, the content is top notch. Congrats.
Well done! I quite enjoyed it and learned about the take-to-vinyl recording approach I haven’t seen before. Thank you!
Music is temporal, impermanent, and only exists when air is vibrating and time is passing.
ok well thats just your point 2 cents.....
I'm not a musician, but I find your videos highly addictive. Great channel!
The bluegrass recording at the end: a unique song, with no major rights holders whatsoever. So this video was undoubtedly copyright flagged.
Supply and demand. Easier to make music, easier to stream music.
Also, the painting industry is reeaaaaaaaaally shady. A lot of value isn't due to the art itself, and not even necessarily its history or scarcity in some cases.
The value of that Wu-Tang album basically doubled after it was confiscated by the FBI. They valued it at 4 million USD in the court hearing.
3:50 THE SEARCH BAR I’M CRYING
This absolutely had to be made. What a great video. Thank you Mr. Neely.
This may be a controversial opinion but I think that music is worth AT LEAST three dollars.
Tree fiddy.
Only music tuned to A=432 is worthy of my American pesos.
Well you’re not wrong
meme cursed pfp
Gay Mommy Aiko yeah Ritsu best utau tbh, no shade @yamine renri/viki hopper I still love you
and at least my pfp doesn't include Cirno's panties.
Aya, godammit.
3:34 The sims!!
Fantastic insight. This answered allot of questions I’ve had for so long.
This is the best video you’ve ever made. Just my opinion. Love it man.
You forgot to mention how priceless is the quality of content you are making. Seriously, you are one of the channels that I click the fastest once I see uploaded something. Fella, always keep moving forward.
and
*B A S S*
I agree, and...would you pay a dollar an episode?
Totally agree. Dan Carlin’s “buck a show” is fare, seems to be working (Hardcore History podcast).
"sexy, expensive, bearded Dutchman:" lol
Very well thought out, thanks Adam!
Love this one man! keep up the great work!
Yeah money in the industry is a little screwed. Definitely sucks cause it's so much work.
It’s disturbing how little money gets back to an artist in a lot of industries, especially in music.
Fantastic video Adam, yet again! ☺️
Interesting and thought-provoking as always! Thanks, Adam! This video even inspired me with a few business ideas!
Vsauce 4 confirmed
Pongpisut Chinwong Vsauce 438
*Or is it...?*
@@BramVanhooydonck (tritone)
So, in a way, the equivalent to buying an expensive painting for an insane amount of money would be to hire the original band (Given that they are all still alive and together, or willing to group up) and having them perform at the venue of your choice, for an equally absurd amount of money, right? At least the closest, because you still get to keep the original painting for as long as you can keep it safe, but the performance is still finite, if something you could keep the recording and knowledge that it happened because of you. The exclusivity and rarity of this experience is up to the buyer, if they are willing to tank the whole price themselves and only have a few people experience the show, or just turn it into a concert, and of course, to limit or expand the amount of people who can experience the recording of said performance.
Raul Alvarez not quite, that would be like paying to watching the painter paint, i think paying for the wu tang clan album gets much closer to "the equivalent to buying an expensive painting
well, not necessarily! hiring someone to watch them paint would be like hiring someone to watch them compose, I was thinking something more along the lines of "if buying an overpriced painting is the peak of spending money on a visual piece of art that has a physical form, would the closest thing in music be just buying an original performance, considering music in itself is limited to the time in which it is performed?"
But in that case that would make hiring the group for a performance and making sure there is only 1 album of that recording available, like the wu tang clan album, the real equivalent. So I guess thats that!
Raul Alvarez oh i understand, thats a good point
Actually, the Wu Tang Clan messes up the premise, a bit, because they didn't sell original master recording, the thing the engineers and producer made. What they sold was a unique copy, as if an artist made a painting, then took a single photograph of that painting, and sold the photograph, letting nobody ever take a picture of the painting directly, except his poster.
Awesome insights and perspective on a very touchy subject !
This video was very well done. Thanks Adam 👍
Sims 1 music AND Sondre Lerche in one video?? Subbed.
I agree that this $ shift isn't symptomatic of any cultural devaluation of music-as-experience. But I am inclined to chalk some of it up to the dilution of the time invested in listening...as a product of the vinyl-into-cassette era I can attest to a very real sense of aesthetic commitment to a purchase; i.e. when I didn't “get” an album on first listen I felt an obligation to myself (as a consumer) to give it another listen, or maybe 20+ listens, and I learned a lot. So my appreciation was forged by undivided attention to the artists. I fear I've lost this, and often find myself online, halfway through a brilliant new song nodding like “cool, bookmark it” and then yeah on-to-the-next.
Very good young man... I enjoyed that. Please keep up the good work and quality.
Another Fantastic Video. I really enjoyed this one too!
The price for streaming music on spotify is better compared to the price of admission to an art museum. An adult ticket to the metropolitan museum is $25, but the museum has over 2 million pieces of art. Obviously you aren't going to see every piece, but say you spend a few hours looking at art, and you spend a few minutes on each work of art, you'll experience probably 50 artworks. That makes the price to experience an artwork is 50 cents. Still far more than one listen on spotify, but much closer in comparison.
A closer analogy is between the cash value of a piece of visual art that of a master recording of an album. Sadly, ownership of the master recordings are the first thing surrendered by the artist in a recording contract.
I remember when Michael Jackson outbid Paul McCartney and paid millions for the Beatles catalogue back in the 80's. Apparently, thats where the money is.
Well the artists never actually owned them to begin with so it isn't something they lose.
That can be negotiated by the artist if they aren't oblivious to the big picture.
@@Sunmom2010 You would have to be oblivious to the big picture to believe that. The only "artists" (fuck that term) that can negotiate like that are people who are already huge names that have already negotiated shit away to get that big, or their parents are already big in the music industry, and even than, maybe.
It depends on your contract. But even if you finance your own releases and own the masters, it doesn't matter anymore because recorded music is now considered worthless. The only ones still making money with recorded music are streaming services and major labels because they have special secret deals with streaming companies.
I know nothing about music theory, I am totally not into jazz, but somehow you manage to make every single video of yours interesting for me. Of course, this video was somewhat easier for me to understand. Keep up the great work, Adam.
Really thought provoking video! Thanks!
What's the artists cut from an Itunes song at $1.29? if it's a couple cents, I'd rather play another couple cents to double what the artists get.
Where I can, I try and support live music, especially from new bands that show talent.. I'm hoping they get a higher percentage of my dollar
50% off anything on my Bandcamp by entering keyword "pablosmoglives" at checkout, from now through Halloween. nathanpayne.bandcamp.com
Spotify pays 5k dollars for million streamed playbacks. Taylor Swift got about 30 dollars, if memory serves, the record industry takes the difference. Just because of a shitty contract she agreed to.
I think 5K is pretty good too. Compare it to physical copy earnings. How many streams does a copy provide? The owner may listen the album a 100 times during next 10 years. For 10 songs, that's a 1000 "streams". That's 2 cent's per stream. And the label takes half or whatever. Instead of frontloading all those earnings to few months after album release, they are spread over the 10 or so as individual streams keep trickling in, in streaming business. Yeah, the shift in industry will hurt during the growing pains. But there's no injustice beign found, seems to me
Now you may want to charge more, and the audience may go "meh".
Recorded music is pretty much a gimmick anyway, artifact of technology. Musicians earn by performing. Creates that scarcity too. Want to earn? Sell some tickets. And cut out the managerial leech middleman too and 10x (often literally) your earnings.
iTunes pays me 69 cents on a 99 cent sale. It's actually very reasonable. HOWEVER, it's rumored that Apple will be closing the iTunes Store within the next few years in order to strong-arm everyone onto their subscription service Apple Music (which incidentally pays shit like Spotify).
the distribution is where the money is....and they aren't letting anyone else in...
you can support your favorite artists at their concerts...for@ 200. a ticket.
Supply and demand.
Most paintings has only one existing original copy. Music has endless copies, forever.
Fair
pretty much, yes. also, you can't actually own a song in the conventional sense of the word. we pay for the right to listen to it, be it via streaming or owning a copy of it. by owning a piece of physical art, it becomes yours for you to do anything with it.
You can endlessly copy both paintings and music online, but in both cases, they're just copies, so they're either free or dirt cheap.
Yep. The exclusive rights to owning shake it off are worth hundreds of thousands to millions, not a few cents.
Excellent conclusion! great video!
Great video Adam, very helpful
I want to expand upon the ideas of this video a bit by giving a few more examples. Getting a new cd is like ordering some framed copy of a Van Gogh. However, the value of the original Van Gogh is high because 1. It's the original, and 2. Because of the history associated with it. The only equivalent thing in music is obtaining the master tapes of a piece of recorded music. I'd say that having the original master tapes of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would be DOPE and probably a lot of money, much like an original Van Gogh. The only problem is that anyone can hang an original Van Gogh on their wall and admire every aspect of it that was intended to be admired. But you need some serious equipment if you wanted to listen to the master tapes of whatever master tapes you have, because they were made to be admired through listening.
The straight-to-vinyl idea is really cool, but it doesn't really capture the same sentiment as an original painting. I'd pay much more for the master tapes to Highway 61 Revisited than I would for some random demos of Bob Dylan of his band playing songs for a one-off performance thing, but that's just me.
There are some people starting to explore the concept of digital scarcity too, such as the trading card website NeonMob
Great, now I'm periodically gathering tiny pictures and I have no idea why. Way to ruin my life!
Great points, great video. Cheers!
I'd never heard of Leesta Vall records until now. That is such a phenomenal idea!
it's almost as though capitalism is a fundamentally senseless system, where the concept of "value" is simultaneously divorced from the intrinsic utility or worth of a thing and also considered a fundamental property of all things in existence, from products to human time and experience, and that artists are hugely harmed by this because their ability to continue living (and making art) is contingent on their ability to sell their work under this system where the "value" of something as abstract and subjective as art is fundamentally kind of undefinable, but has to compete against cheap mass-produced goods that set consumers' expectations of "what things should cost" 🤔
Scarcity's why performance is still kind of expensive. And always will be unless cover musicians get out of control (not gonna happen).
The outrageous part of streaming revenue is how small the artists' cut is.
This video was a blast, thank you my driend.
Super, incredible video, great work!
Is anyone else struck by the irony of having the band recording their "utterly unique" record be recorded on video?
Didn't think about that.
Tbf he didn't record the whole thing.
Hey Adam,
Did you ever heard of russian oktavists?
Id love to see a video about it.
Would be awesome to hear you take on the subject since it is *kind of* bass related!
Loved the video btw...
Best regards.
BASS!
I really like it when creators of anything can derive a salubrious lifestyle from their undertakings, including but not limited to monetary income. I think the issues you raise are incredibly timely, and incredibly paradoxical. You do a good job of providing informative, well-rounded commentary.
I think the key for anyone who wishes to 'make a living' as a creator is to think like an entrepreneur. Many YTbers have felt the bite of "de-monetization" but a lot of the ones I watch have adapted by seeking sponsorships, and now do brief direct product placements at the beginning of their videos.
One has to wonder: if Ms. Swift, or any musician who works for a "label" would simply invest in sufficient infrastructure to record in their own setting and then follow something like Pewdiepie model: post a song, or a versioning of a song, perhaps adding commentary or background information, etc., on a daily or 1.5 per day basis, and then rely on ad sense or direct product placements for revenue instead of attempting to adapt the "pre-Internet" model of "album of songs on a medium" to this post-Internet marketplace . . .
Another adaptive response I see some music creators following which is intriguing to me as more of a programmer with zero musical training, but a strong engagement with music: Fruity loops (or similar software). Apparently quite a few of those folks are able to make good money selling digital copies of their stuff.
great video, really enjoyed this.
Very interesting reflections once again (excuse my english, I'm from the french synthwave scene). There is a precedent to the unique Wu Tang record : Music for Supermarkets by Jean-Michel Jarre. One unique vinyl, sold during an auction for some charity purpose and to make people think about the price of music.
About the difficulty to give music experience a price, the anchoring bias could be an interesting element. As you say, paintings are worth millions because they're unique. Their reproductions are worth the production value of the medium, not the intensity of the experience. But if someone is left free to name his price on a Bandcamp page, how could he evaluate the equivalent of his experience, of the feelings music has given him ? Paintings are expensive because some upper-class members use them as placements or speculation tools. But when someone just want to give "the right money" for a song which moved him... what anchor does he refer to ? The price of the Itunes download ? The price of a full digipack CD ? The price of a movie ticket ? The highest "name your pice" I left was around 40 dollars, and it was for a french rapper who's highly underrated in my opinion. But if I was richer, would I have paid his record 400 dollars ? Not sure, even if, as you said, music is priceless.
Bonus : remember when Andy Warhol drew a fake dollar ? It's now worth way more than a dollar. But what if he simply signed an autograph on a real dollar ? It would be way more expensive too, just because of his autograph... simply because someone would be willing to speculate or collect it. If changes in music industry lead to the uttermost rarefaction of music production, maybe then people will be willing to pay a little bit more for music creation.
I'm not an expert on music, but I was a business major. The reason that the painting was valued as such has to do with its supply and its demand. There are no more paintings being produced by the artist. So the supply does not equal the demand. Therefore the price for the painting goes up. Musicians were sold a pack of lies when they were told digital music would get them more money. Actually, just the opposite. The supply is limitless and therefore, the demand is minuscule. So the price is very low. First, a living artist does not have a limited product. As long as they are alive, they can produce more music. Once they die, their music becomes finite and the supply remains stable. As the demand increases, the cost of the music should increase. Musicians should push for more of a mathematical pricing model that gives them a higher percentage of profit based on downloads and plays. Think of this as a level. An entry level musician that gets 100 plays and 100 downloads should get - for argument sake - $1 per song play. Taylor Swift, although I say this grudgingly, should get a higher percentage of take because her download and plays are substantially higher - $10 a song. The way to "fix" the issue is to make the value of the music higher. That's why musicians would rather play live gigs because a live performance ticket returns a higher take for the musician after costs incurred (roadies, bus drivers, insurance costs). The supply is the performance (only so many American tour dates) not the medium. I won't go into this, but there are millions of musicians. Only one Van Gogh. Lots of people can write music. Few do it well, even fewer are world know.
Digital Distribution should pay artists more since it reduces the overhead of making a copy. That being said, digital supply is not limitless and demand is very high when you consider the demand for data and streams as the unit of measure. It is not cheap to offer high performance streaming music and video, nor is the supply unlimited. So there is a place for a real market to develop, if only the big market manipulators would get out of the way. With digital, I could see artists being independent entities and record labels will become more like hired promotion firms who get a cut of everything they promote. I don't think the artists will tolerate the low pay for very long and 'belonging' to a money sucking company will lose it's charm. The moment when an artist has other alternatives to continue selling online and making the same volume, the choice will be easy.
Lots of people can paint, Van Gogh is one painter. Lots of people can write music, I am one of them. Van Gogh was ignored in his lifetime.
Other than that minor flaw, your comment is accurate and contains some good ideas.
God dang Adam! You friggin nailed it!
It all comes full circle.
In the pre-recording times artists didn't have the opportunity to do their work once and profit from it forever, and in our post-recording times it is pretty much the same (even if for a different reason)
Music as consumer goods industry is dying, but this is great news for music as art.
Actually, it isn't. What's happening is only rich people can afford to do music anymore. I can't see that as good news for music as art.
You see it in video game collecting all the time as well. People pay for rare and authentic and for those reasons only... not for the game itself since ROMs and bootlegs can be found wherever. Sellers and companies started to 'exploit' this by releasing limited runs or limited editions of games and selling them for big bucks. As with the Wu Tang example there was only one authentic release and therefore there are people willing to pay big money, not for the music, but for the rarity and authenticity.
Are they should start selling their Master files for a premium fee Not only would that encourage people to get into the remix Community but that would also show people how much layering and effort goes into a single track.
You killed it on the intro
Excellent video. I think an important distinction to make is that paintings are a physical object while music is a performance. If we look at other forms of performance art we see that they face the same issues that music faces and are coping by limiting the supply of recordings.
Upon release movies are only available at theatres, after which they are only as valuable as the medium they're published on, and the theatre scene severely limits supply by not providing *any* form of recording. I'd imagine that if a musician or band were to go on a full tour for their new album before publishing it they would get a much higher turn out and could possibly charge more for tickets too.
I'd argue that each copy of the music is only equivalent to a copy of the painting or other art form. And, if you go digital only, those tend to be cheap or free as well.
It's the original that can have value. Whatever the original was fixed upon. And so the way to get music up to that level is to sell the original. The original recording is what has value. You get the original copy of a Beatles song? That's worth a whole hell of a lot.
I'm hoping you address this later in the video but in case you don't: Dan Gogh's self portrait is the original, we are just getting digital copies of Tyler Swift songs, a digital copy of the Dan Gogh portrait goes for I'm estimating ~$0.00. I'm sure getting the master tape for a good song in several centuries will probably be pretty expensive. Also, Dan Gogh didn't make really any money off of that. Tyler Swift is loaded.
Dan Halen and Dan Morrison faced the same issue :/
>Dan Gogh
He did address it later in the video.
Dan Halen invented guitar tab so he could teach little kids in Haiti eruption
wow
Very informational. Thank you.
Great vid, man!
4:51 "Those who would leech off my labor"
Tell us how you really feel, Adam
Hi Adam,
I have a question for your next Q+A.
Could the concept of hearing two different things from one sound (Yanny, Laurel) be applied to music?
Thanks!
Fantastic thoughts and insights!
Super interesting, thanks for sharing