Starving Canadian Musicians Forced To Take It To The Stage
Canadian television conglomerate CTV quotes numbers from Statistics Canada–“Canada’s National Statistical Agency”–that “live concerts in all genres of music generated over $343 million in revenue in 2005,” compared to $298.5 million in 2004, to write a slightly tardy and blithe trend piece about the fact that the future of Canada’s (and, by extension, Perhaps The World’s) music industry might be for bands to just stay in the bars and sheds and pimp those T-shirts and posters, because the other avenues are dead you hosers. But not every Canadian agrees that live music is where it’s at up north:
But Canadian Recording Industry Association president Graham Henderson believes that relying on live show revenues is limiting for artists who are losing money from the decline in CD sales.
“What musicians are being asked to do now is ‘Go back to a labour-based economy’ where you’re only making money when you’re standing on that stage,” said Graham Henderson of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
Surely the president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association has no stake in promoting recorded music sales as the be-all-end-all bedrock upon which a musician’s livelihood is to be forever built. I was going to make some crack here about how dare musicians be expected to work for a living, but then I remembered I’m writing a blog and went back to counting my blood money.
