[sage76]

But if people are willing to spend $600 on tickets to Taylor Swift or Drake or whoever, but not on unknown artists, then obviously there is some brand recognition going on right?

Not to mention, some artists can sell out stadiums but most cannot.

[saaaaaam]

Yes. This is my point. Recorded music is top of funnel. Other stuff that drives people to that conversion moment where they buy the $600 ticket for the live show. An artist brand is part of that “stuff in between”.

[sage76]

Gotcha.

So the funnel must be having a way steeper dropoff than in the CD era?

Far more music being released but getting people to come listen to it live being very hard?

I read this article which seems to support that hypothesis : https://towardsdatascience.com/hot-or-not-analyzing-60-years...

It talks about there being fewer artists on the charts, and "a reality where there are a few artists releasing a ton of music — most of it doesn’t last, but the songs that do stick, stay for long".

[saaaaaam]

Lower barriers to entry mean there’s more music than ever before. In the CD era getting music out to an audience was complex and expensive. Write a song. Go into a studio with an engineer. Record on tape. Multitrack. Mix. Master. Press discs. Get them into shops. Get someone to write about them. Get some radio play.

Now you can write and record in an iPhone and build an audience on SoundCloud. Will that audience come to a live show? Almost certainly not.

I used to book bands and promote shows. People would push artists to me based on “they have loads of Facebook fans…” which normally equalled no ticket sales.

What sells tickets? Major investment by labels and live promoters - and longevity. Artists don’t sell out global arena tours overnight.

The music needs to stick but the artists need to stick - and their partners need to stick.