[ScottWhigham]

"... selling records can actually put the artist in debt."

Yes, of course. It's no different than startups - if you take on $500,000 debt to start your business (a.k.a. make an album, promote the album), you will be in debt until you sell enough product to pay off said debt.

The best venue for artist to earn money are tours and merchandise.

A good new year's resolution for us all is to "Stop talking about stuff you don't know about as though you have experience with it."

[Ygg2]

Hey another good new year's resolution is to "Don't talking condescending unless you have something valuable to contribute". I.e. give me data showing I'm wrong.

I'm not saying they make lots of lots of money of merchandising and tours, but from what I've gathered they make more of money on those, unless the studio contract takes part of that as well. Basically they earn more money on a merchandise they are on, or a product line they sell than on records.

Your metaphor is more like starting a startup to get famous enough to start another startup to pay the debts of the previous one.