Music has always been a business, but streaming, TikTok, inflation, and the ballooning costs of touring have dramatically altered a musician's traditional routes to making money.
But a lot has changed since streaming usurped radio play as the kingmaker of a rising musician's career.
Even the hitmakers who dominate your "For You" page are getting paid "almost nothing" from TikTok, as one music exec told Billboard.
1 song on TikTok doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things," Tinashe's longtime manager, Simonne Solitro, explains.
"That's not just me," Violet tells me, "that's literally every single artist I know."
Persons:
Raye, Conrad, She'd, Taylor, Taylor Swift, Stone, You've, there's, everybody's, Donald Passman, Kevin Baird, Chris Burnett, Chuck Berry, he'd, it's, —, TikTok, Ariana Grande, JC Olivera, Justin Ayers, Club's Baird, Tayla Parx, she's, Ariana Grande's, It's, Parx, that's, Muni, who's, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Alexis, Long, I'd, Rachel Chinouriri, I've, Chinouriri, Sam Halliday, Alex Trimble, Katy Cummings, Derek Crownover, Loeb, he's, Crownover, Simonne, Tinashe, Tinashe's, Simonne Solitro, Solitro, Normani, aren't Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, Shirlaine Forrest, Matt Jelonek, Tessa Violet, hasn't, That's, Violet, Solitro's, Tessa Violet's, Sarah Pardini, Halsey, Adele, Sophie Turner, Florence Pugh, Pugh, jostling
Organizations:
Spotify, Music, Northern, Cinema, BI, Apple Music, Billboard, Apple, YouTube, BMI, Suns, TaylaMade Inc, Fifth Harmony, Parlophone, Atlas Artists, Ticketmaster, Promoters, BI Social, Capitol Music, Capitol, Columbia, Chartmetric, DMs
Locations:
Manhattan, British, Northern Irish, TikTok, London, Los Angeles