🤬
I know exactly what you mean, I heard a story of a singer that had to buy a used Bentley, the horror!!!
Sorry, when you can afford a mansion and a Ferrari, you don't have much room to claim you are being ripped off by the people you are employed by.
If musicians were really struggling like they pretend to be, they wouldn't be signing the contracts in the first place. There isn't a record exec holding a gun to their head or anything.
Trent Reznor is a great example of this, he was sick of dealing with record companies so he has started releasing his own stuff.
When you're 22 what do you know about the business? About not holding a gun to your head, while that's true, however what's the alternative? I've never understood this whole thing about "hey man, they're totally like corporate man, they're like so totally like in it for like the totally money man, totally... man". Do you want to be a musician or do you want to paint houses?
I'm not a fan of Trent Reznor, but not every musician is in the position that he is. You certainly don't get to that point overnight, and back in the 50s, 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's, there was no "internet". Yes, there was a time BEFORE the internet where you had to buy a four track machine, record an album, mix it on the same machine or in a studio (which costs money), then take the master somewhere to have it pressed into LP's or CDs, or even cassettes. Then you had to convince a store to actually stock it, and SELL it. That's the difference between then on and now. All of those costs have been streamlined now. In 2012 you CAN do it yourself, record on a PC or Mac, mix it with software and then have a finished product. This is what's fundamentally different. You can take your music directly to the fans, and cut out all of the other stuff in between.
And in Trent Reznor's case that's exactly what he wanted to do, make MONEY. There are cases where some musicians have signed contracts, only to find out later they earn absolutely nothing from their hard work. Ever hear of Badfinger? The Beatles protege's are the best example of how a band can have money shoveling in at one end, and management doling it out with a tweezers at the other. They are one of the sadder cases where their financial problems resulted in the suicides of two band members. Paul Westerberg of the Replacements once said in a Rolling Stone article that his roadies actually made more money than he did, and when all was said and done, there were a million dollars in debt to the record company. In case you anyone isn't familiar with The Mats are, here's a sample;
The perception that "all rock stars are rich" really isn't true, especially after meeting a lot of them over the years. Yes, the Bonos of the world are (personally I think he's full of 🤬, but that's me), however that's only a relatively small number. These guys never "made" it. Their biggest selling record had sold about 350,000 copies. And that's who this really hurts. The lower echelon guys like Paul Westerberg, Matthew Sweet, and Butch Walker. Butch Walker isn't driving a Ferrari, and Paul Westerberg, for what some have called one of the best song writers of his generation, hasn't had a label backing him since 2005.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's a way for someone to get their music across to an audience in 2012, however it came far, far, FAR too late for many.