Getting paid for live performance was the traditional way for musicians to earn money for centuries. Record sales was a temporary thing that is now gone.
Live performance is about status signaling. A party with a live performer (or at least a DJ) is considered fancier than one with just a streaming phone.
At the high end, live performance pays more than it ever has, since the exclusivity is what people are paying for. At the low end, the performers get squeezed because they are competing with lots of amateur DJs or people simply doing without a human.
Those are more like live appearances. Basically them doing stuff while a DJ plays a recording of a song the "artist" probably had 1% part in writing. Expensive karaoke. The actual musicians of the world lose money doing live performances these days.
The "artist" has quite a difficult job as well, even with the machine behind them doing a lot of the creative and practical work.
They have to dedicate a decade or more of their life at a prime age to the character - selling their soul if you will. And not going nuts in the process. Fame and extreme fame would turn any normal person crazy. But you don't have the option of withdrawing, because you have this army of other people depending on you, among other things.
> They have to dedicate a decade or more of their life at a prime age to the character - selling their soul if you will. And not going nuts in the process. Fame and extreme fame would turn any normal person crazy. But you don't have the option of withdrawing, because you have this army of other people depending on you, among other things.
100%, I do feel like fame at such level is a very net negative thing to have. You do get money and fame and there are many times within the media where paparazzi and others have made some celebrities lose their mind. And almost everyone loses a sense of something human with this sense of fame. From Princess Diana to Britney Spears to Justin Beiber.
Payouts from records were also quite meager unless you were already a well-known act.
Music labels contracts have always been exploitative, they usually require the band to pay back costs like studio time, producer, mix/master engineers, marketing, before getting their cut of royalties in sales, for artists without clout the royalties share would be 75/25 to the label (or worse), more famous acts can get a 50/50 split, again after recouping the costs.
As any passion industry it is extremely exploitative, as much as people like to hate on streaming platforms nowadays the music labels have been the most evil aspect of it all for 70+ years and they managed to lurk in the shadows without attracting a lot of flak.
Sometimes the band would get pennies from an album sold in stores, but they'd get almost the entire price of an album sold by them at a venue.
Authors would get something similar, they'd rarely sell out their advance, but could buy copies for pennies on the dollar and sell them at conventions.
I’ve read that many contracts involved the label fronting a ton of money to the band to produce and promote the album.
Which meant the band needed to tour to generate the revenue and exposure to pay all that money back. Shirts and posters cost nothing to print and sell for $35 at the table. Exclusive tour merch is collectible.
Streaming and digital production changed this somewhat but the economy seems similar today. Since nobody buys albums and streaming pays nothing, tours and merch are where the band gets paid.
