"Respect the Artist"
Anyone under 30 is no longer interested in physical music.The glory days for record companies are over. Why own a physical copy if the entire worlds music catalog is instantly accessible on "spotify? Traditionally artists made a living by selling records, earning royalties off radio and other artists covering their songs and live performances. Now touring and live performance is becoming the dominant source of income.
The record labels are focusing on the wrong business (recorded music) at a time when the money is shifting to live events. The business needs to evolve away from the sale of recorded music. Go to festivals, open for other bands. “Purchasable” music has only existed for about a hundred years, its not an inevitability. Streaming is not a bad thing: Platforms can boost an unknown band to 500k views in three weeks.
Times are changing. In doubt you won't get rich with selling records anymore. Get over it. Nobody forced you to become a musician. A lot of my friends have a regular job and yet they are musicians. I never earned enough money with music, so I studied law. Musicians often present themselves as “progressive” and as “True rebels”. But now a lot of them are pretty bourgeois. They sound like a bunch of whining grannies pissing their panties. All you old suckers, wake up: The old model is not working anymore. Your mind is still in the 70s ... time to move to a retirement home or face the truth. If music is your business, you often won't get paid ... that’s how it is ...