The downfall of the “recording artist”: Three perspectives

By: Cherie Hu

Published: 2020-08-06

One central guiding theme in my ongoing research on artist entrepreneurship not just why an independent artist today would want to think like a startup, but also how that works in practice today. Is there any concrete evidence for how startup thinking is changing the way artists approach creativity, marketing, distribution and monetization?

One form of evidence that I want to discuss today is the erosion of the “recording artist” as a concept and as a career in the 21st century.

This idea builds partially on my discussion of why record labels are not like venture capitalists — as well as on a series of journalistic and academic resources that each contribute a different perspective on the same trend: Recordings are playing a smaller role in artists’ careers, and in the public’s conception of what “artists” really do. In its place, a new, more multifaceted kind of artist-entrepreneur is emerging, with recordings comprising only one piece of a wider puzzle.

Below are three primary approaches to understanding the downfall of the recording artist as a mainstream concept: Text data, economic data and U.S. trademark data.

1. Text data: Fewer people are talking about it

One overarching question I have about the concept of “recording artists” is: How many people are actually talking about this kind of job today, compared to the “golden age” of recorded-music sales 30 to 40 years ago? My hypothesis is that the relative buzz around the term has slowly eroded over time, as the economics of recorded music has pressured artists to diversify into other realms earlier on in their careers.

To figure this out, I turned to the Google N-gram Viewer, which allows users to look up and compare the relative appearances of phrases in Google’s online corpus of over 30 million books, over a custom time period anytime between 1800 and 2019. (You can click here to learn more about how the Google N-gram viewer works, the kinds of lookups are possible in their database and the general meaning of “n-gram” in natural language processing.)

What you see above is a graph of the relative appearances of the phrases “recording artist” and “recording contract” in Google’s book database, mapped over time between 1920 and 2019.

I decided to keep 1920 as the lower time bound, in line with the advent of the recorded music industry as a whole. While inventors like Édouard-Léon Scott, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison made the world’s first recordings and playback devices in the mid- to late 1800s, the notion of a recorded-music industry and of a “recording artist” — i.e. an artist who could make a living off of recorded music, rather than off of in-person performances — did not arise until the early 1900s. By this time, music manufacturing became more standardized, allowing the likes of opera singer Enrico Caruso to build a celebrity-level following from record sales alone.

As you can see in the above graph, with the exception of some local peaks and troughs along the way, the concept of the “recording artist” steadily increased in popularity in written literature between 1920 and 2000, correlating with the rise in recorded-music revenues over the same time period (see RIAA data pictured below). Commercially and aesthetically, many critics have deemed anywhere between the ‘60s and the early ‘90s in particular to be the recorded-music industry’s “golden age.”

Interestingly, the Google n-gram graph for “recording artist” peaks around the same year that recorded-music revenues peaked — i.e. around 2000, when piracy and peer-to-peer file-sharing started to pose a major threat to the industry’s financial foundation. From there, both the public perception of “recording artists” and the commercial success of the sector began to decline in lockstep for several consecutive years. In fact, while recorded-music revenues have returned to a state of growth over the past five years, mentions of “recording artist” have not.

Yet while the concept of a recording artist may be falling out of vogue, the concept of a record label as a company and a business idea seems to be gaining more ground, not less.

Looking at the comparative occurrences of “record label” versus “recording artist/contract” in Google’s n-gram viewer, we see a significant difference in popularity in the period between 1990 and the present day:

I think this difference is largely due to the enduring success, consolidation and financialization of the major labels, which continue to take up the most mindshare in public music-industry discourse. (When you see the phrase “music business” or “music industry” appear in the media, the majority of the time the authors or speakers in question will be referring specifically to recorded music, not to live music.)

In fact, whereas most individual artists would find it hard to make a living just from recorded-music income right now, corporate labels with millions of songs in their back catalogs have benefited significantly from streaming thanks to their scale. And in the wake of Warner Music Group going public, investors are profiting, too.

But the new generation of artists is arguably defined not just by their recordings, but more so by their brands and the relationships that their songs help foster with fans. It is becoming increasingly clear, as Yoh Phillips recently wrote for DJBooth, that the record business is not the “artist business.”

2. Economic data: Artists rely less on records

Now, let’s come down from the 30,000-foot view of public conversation about recording artists, and examine the issue from the more granular perspective of individual artists’ incomes.

In a recent article for the Wall Street Journal, entertainment reporter Neil Shah examined the careers of Rihanna, Kanye West, Travis Scott and other celebrities to demonstrate how today’s top musicians are relying less and less on recordings to make ends meet.

According to Shah’s industry sources, “roughly 20% to 50% of the typical superstar’s income now comes from revenue unrelated to music activities,” such as beauty lines, T.V. show appearances and sponsored social-media posts. In the absence of touring, these kinds of ancillary revenue streams “can account for the lion’s share — 80% or more — of income,” writes Shah. “That’s up dramatically from a decade ago when such side hustles usually didn’t exceed 10% or 20% of income and were negligible for most artists.”

The major paradigm shift here is that these celebrities are arguably no longer best described as “recording artists,” with recording as their primary bread-and-butter. Instead, they are multifaceted entrepreneurs and brands, who just happen to release records.

“Creating new albums is less important than leveraging fame to launch businesses that can boost profits, feed fans eager for news and extend celebrity beyond the shrinking shelf-life of music careers,” writes Shah. “This is a sign of how the economics of the industry have changed … It also indicates how music as a standalone art form has lost clout as a cultural force and become more of a promotional tool.”

Once artists get to a certain level of celebrity, they often start thinking more like an investor (and may even start their own venture funds). And in investors’ eyes, music is just a financial drop in the bucket compared to adjacent forms of entertainment like film and gaming, and to other sectors beyond entertainment such as beauty and fintech. Hence if capitalistic brand-building is the name, diversification has to be the game.

Yes, I’m aware that the top 1% of the 1% of celebrities are not representative of all musicians’ careers, and that the motives of those looking to accumulate wealth are quite different from those who are just looking to lead a simpler, leaner and more sustainable career. But it still helps to follow how the money flows at the highest level, as these celebrities often set the tone for pop culture at large.

Moreover, this tone of diversification is increasingly informing the way that traditional industry gatekeepers sign deals on the one hand, and that creators outside the music industry approach releasing music for the first time on the other hand.

For instance, it’s quite common now for social-media influencers with little to no music background either to sign major-label deals (e.g. Bhad Bhabie’s deals with Atlantic Records and Pulse Music Group), or to release music themselves outside of the corporate realm (e.g. Dixie D’Amelio releasing her first single without a major label, Miquela releasing songs via Brud Records). Under this model, music is not the main end product, but rather a window into, or a platform for, an artist’s larger personality, influence and brand that manifests in many ways across many platforms.

We’re seeing this unfold in real time in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: In what artist manager Max Gredinger recently called an “era of near mandatory diversification,” many artists are scrambling to establish a sustainable foundation of digital income beyond streaming, now that touring is more or less wiped out. (Some, like Logic, are leaving music altogether for deals with other kinds of entertainment platforms like Twitch, likely for a mix of commercial and personal reasons).

3. Trademark data: Artists’ brands are expanding far beyond records

The final resource that illustrates the declining relevance of the term “recording artist” is an article by Suzanne Kessler in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law, called “The Non-Recording, Non-Artist ‘Recording Artist’: Expanding the Recording Artist’s Brand into Non-Music Arenas.” (I’ve attached my highlighted copy of the article in PDF form below.)

In her article, Kessler focuses on how Jessica Simpson, Trisha Yearwood and Sean “Diddy” Combs have each diversified their own fame into retail and business empires that expand far beyond music — particularly into consumer and lifestyle verticals including fashion, kitchenware, perfume, alcohol and restaurants.

Trademark registrations serve as the primary evidence: Simpson, Yearwood, Combs and many other celebrities have more trademarks under their name that are not related to music than trademarks that are music-related.

According to the Electronic Search System of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

And they are certainly not alone. Inspired by Kessler’s research, I decided to do some digging myself and found that Taylor Swift has registrations for 50 trademarks in the U.S., while Rihanna has at least 40 trademark registrations with “Fenty” and/or “Rihanna” in the title.

The reasons for this investment in trademarks are both financial and perceptual. In a crowded music landscape, image and visual storytelling play an increasingly important role in cultivating an artist’s voice, and perception is a form of abstract value that can drive more concrete commercial value by way simply of taking up more public mindshare. Hence many artists are now interested not only in diversifying their income streams beyond recordings in order to be seen, but also in exerting more control over how that visual persona manifests in the marketplace. Law professor William McGeveran recently referred to this propertization of persona via trademarks as the “selfmark.”

What stands out to me about Kessler’s analysis in particular is that she frames traditional recording deals as a major constraint for the artist-entrepreneur who cares about their brand and persona in this way. She lists several potentially prohibitive aspects of a recording contract, including vague terms like “commercially satisfactory” whose bounds are at the discretion of A&R executives; the common lack of a release commitment clause; lack of cash flow if an advance is not recouped; lack of ownership of recordings for “long after the artist leaves the label’s active roster”; and what is seen as labels’ generally unfair entitlement to artists’ incomes, especially with the rise of 360 deals.

Regardless of your stance on these kinds of clauses, one undeniable fact about a traditional record deal is that, in Kessler’s words, “the label relationship [serves] as the dominant association of the artist’s career.” For the artist-entrepreneur, this kind of traditional label deal makes them feel less entrepreneurial, not more, if they sign on the wrong terms.

In contrast, one central tenet of a more entrepreneurial artist’s career is that “the artist, not the label, serves as the general career command center,” writes Kessler. Trademark law is a powerful lens through which to study this transition because it can help artists “construct, protect, and grow their lifestyle brands” and “break away from the constraints of music-centric identities and deals, embracing a far-reaching business environment and a wider consumer base.”

Kessler includes this illuminating quote from Diddy’s 2015 interview with the Washington Post, which lays out his brand-building game plan clearly as day (emphasis added):

“Since I was 12 years old, I have always seen my job as providing a product. As I’ve gotten older, that’s shifted to providing a lifestyle. I wanted to make the records that you woke up in the morning to. I wanted to make the clothes you got into after taking a shower. I wanted to make the cologne you put on after that, while you listened to more of my music while driving to your job. I wanted to make the water that you drink, Aquahydrate, when you’re at the gym. And then when you’re back home, I want you to be able to turn on the TV and watch one of the television shows I produce. Then when you go out for the night and party, I want you to switch out of your suit and into a more casual outfit I offer. And one of the final touches is that you can go to the bar and order Ciroc.”

One question that comes to my mind is whether Kessler’s insights on trademark law have any implications for emerging artists who want to diversify beyond music into other lifestyle products from the get-go. After all, in terms of their inherent income inequities and power imbalances, major-label deals haven’t changed that much over the past ten years. Is it possible, then, for signed or unsigned artists to build their brand and increase their leverage outside of recordings earlier on in through trademark law?

While I have yet to see an example of this practice out in the wild, some legal experts have spoken out about its benefits (e.g. see attorney Jordan B. Franklin, Esq.’s discussions around how Megan Thee Stallion should have filed a trademark registration for “Hot Girl Summer” much earlier on in her career). And I think we are arriving at a point where diversification and adaptability, rather than merely signing a record deal, are now the gold standard for artists’ careers — and a necessity for survival in the industry, period.

End notes

I’d like to close this entry with two additional considerations.

One, the dominant media narrative around artists’ careers tends to go like this: Because streaming pays fractions of pennies on the dollar per play, artists increasingly rely on touring rather than recording to make ends meet.

In certain areas of music, this is definitely true if you follow the money. But it’s worth remembering that streaming and touring are certainly not the only two kinds of income that artists can make. Several artist surveys from the early 2010s — particularly from Northwestern University and the Future of Music Coalition — found not only that individual musicians play multiple roles in their careers (composer, performer, session musician, educator/administrator, salaried ensemble member, etc.), but also that the financial and psychological costs of touring were often too high to make a substantial, full-time living from music at all.

Hence when we think about the downfall of “recording artists” as a concept, it’s important to keep in mind that touring doesn’t just simply take its place as a perfect substitute in every case. Especially in the context of the current pandemic, touring as a substitute is nonexistent, which raises the question of what revenue stream might be the most effective alternative in a 100% digital world.

The second point is that the erosion of the “recording artist” as a viable standalone career raises the question of what it really means to “break” an artist in the 2020s. Namely, what exactly is “breaking”?

One angle that is catching on in music and entertainment is an idea that music marketer Alex Bonavia and I discussed on an old episode of the Water & Music podcast: “Artists are a launching pad for songs, not the other way around.” Put another way, brand is now an entryway into product, rather than product serving as an entryway into brand. The popularity of a given product can come and go, especially in the fast-moving world of music culture, but a strong brand around an artist will outlast any trend or platform.

Breaking an artist then means breaking a brand, not just a song. And the companies that will excel in this paradigm are the ones that can best serve as the distributors not just of individual songs, but of artists’ brands as a whole.   🌊