> He made several points when I interviewed him. One (and I'm paraphrasing
> this somewhat tendentiously), the record companies, scummy as they were,
> at least gave advances to bands that allowed them to tour and live. That's dying.
This is true. But the advance was just that: a loan (though interest-free, iirc). So you buy a van, quit your jobs, and go on tour. Doesn't take long before you are a few hundred thousand dollars in the hole, and that's before you record your record, which is another $200,000 at least. So before you even release your record, you are half a million dollars in debt to the record company. The only way to make up those kind of sums are to make the mersh the record company wants you to make. Not exactly a model I feel like mourning.
> And two, musicians these days have to be good with marketing plans and
> spreadsheets - he liked it better when they were good with music and didn't
> have to spend so much time selling themselves.
I agree with this too. But it's consistent with neoliberalism, no? As Foucault said, it's part of the subjective move from laborer to enterprise. It's also a wee bit romantic, I think. Yeah, some mid-level bands have been able in the past to hire accountants and managers, but doing those things cut nontrivially into their profits. So either they took in less money and lived worse, or they started doing those things themselves so they didn't have to take jobs. Does knowing marketing suck your artistic soul more than having to work as a waiter? Maybe, but I would say all jobs suck your soul.