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The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

(thewalrus.ca)
300 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 28 Jun 25 22:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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Dumblydorr ◴[28 Jun 25 23:45 UTC] No.44409135[source]▶
Most musicians who can make it now are only middle class, with a handful of superstars and a huge legion of poor artists.

I’ve played many gigs for $20-100, which is once a month or week and tough work relative to typing some code from home. I played for 25 mins in front of 1000 people and spent 8+ hours total all-in to make 200 bucks. Way harder money than coding.

Really, think back through history. Musicians were needed for dance, parties, all occasions. Now hit play on your phone connected to a speaker, GG musicians.

replies(4): >>44410313 #>>44411274 #>>44412506 #>>44412700 #
1. magicalhippo ◴[29 Jun 25 12:19 UTC] No.44412506[source]▶
> I played for 25 mins in front of 1000 people and spent 8+ hours total all-in to make 200 bucks.

Perhaps a bit cynical, but my thinking has long been that if I see a band that's playing in a venue that takes like 100-200 people or so[1], they're doing it out of passion. And that immediately makes it more interesting for me to go.

I've had lots of great experiences that way, including for bands that's normally way outside my comfort zone. And as the price of admission is fairly low, if it somehow is a miss it's not a big deal.

Now, as I know they're making little or no money on the gig itself, I usually end up buying some merch.

[1]: I'm in Norway, we don't have a ton of large venues.