Weekend Rant- If you want artists to get paid, buy a freaking album!

Okay, I’ve had it with all this debate about streaming music services and artists royalties. So I’m writing my final word on it right here, right now.

First, if you think artists are underpaid- buy a freaking album.  iTunes, in a store- whatever.  If you want to support the artists you like, buy their stuff.  That’s what I do.  But if you want to pay $10 a month and have access to EVERY SONG EVER AS MUCH AS YOU WANT then you are the problem and don’t act like you’re on the side of artists.  If you want to play an album 10000000 freaking times on Spotify or Rdio or any other service- but won’t spend $15 freaking dollars for it- then don’t you dare tell me you’re on the side of musicians.  You’re a hypocrite.  Buy the music if you want artists to be paid or shut up.

Second, if you still refuse to accept your role as a fan in supporting your artists and want to blame others; then blame them equally.  Spotify isn’t the problem.  The record labels are.  Spotify is trying to meet your selfish demands- every freaking song for ungodly cheap prices- and they are delivering.  But the labels who agree to those terms are just as liable in all this.  And I’m so tired of hearing artists whine about it without pointing the finger at their agents and labels too.  They inked the deal.

As much as I think Taylor Swift is a complete drama queen in all this, I at least respect her decision to pull an album she wants to get paid for.  She gets it- don’t think someone is paying enough, don’t give them the album.  Make your fans buy it.  I’m good there.

And for the record, I think the best model (not necessarily the best tech, but that could be addressed) is iTunes Match.  You buy it, you own it, but they make it available everywhere in the cloud to stream so you don’t have to use up storage all the time.  I think in principle, it’s the best option.  Unfortunately fans don’t want to have to BUY music- they want to borrow it all for less than the price of a single CD per month.

Bottom line, I’m tired of artists and their so-called “supporters” pointing fingers in the wrong places.  The real problem is cheap fans. The second problem is labels.  And anything else is just crap.

But that’s just my opinion...