Touring is where the money has always been made, and that is now harder to do as well, in some part due to consolidation. Once you're playing real venues you enter the world of LiveNation/Ticketmaster, profit-killing merch cuts, excessive service fees pricing out your fans at no benefit to yourself, etc.
And then there are the non-music related real world implications. Decades of growth in health care costs exceeding wage growth means that if you want to be a full-time musician today you either have to have a day job and all of the limitations that places on your music career, or you have a massive annual expense for individual health insurance.
Unless you can become a star, a career as a musician is a hell of a lot more expensive than it used to be, and simply unsustainable for a great deal more people
In the '80s, the UK music scene was rich with talent and variety (punk, new wave, soul, acid house). Part of the reason was that you could rent bedsit flats in London that were very cheap, and helped give bands proximity to live music venues and record labels. That doesn't exist anymore, you'll upload your music to Spotify and hope it lands on a popular playlist.
The mega-stars of the future re likely to be already rich and well-connected. We'll see more Grimes and Billie Eilish-types than people rising from total obscurity.
I would argue that the UK scene is even richer now (multiple those 4 genres by 10). The amalgamation of styles that you see today is on a whole different level. Thanks to the internet, your average player is much more skilled than your 3 cowboy chord singer from the 80s.
The cons of being an artist today is that the barrier to put a song is extremely low nowadays and keeps getting lower and lower as technology becomes cheaper and AI gets ever close to bring people into the tsunami stream of voices of people trying to make their new single heard. The "I'm bored but making music is so cheap so let's record something", to the casual, to the good one, to the great one and the talented one. All together crying for your attention. In the 80s, the barrier was much higher and so, if you manage to get in, you were definitely not bored at home or a casual player, you were someone passionate and persistent about their craft.
Music distribution is another con. The barrier is super low now and virtually everyone and their grandma have a song on Spotify now. This makes it super hard for talented people to be heard.
To make it today, you need to be well-connected because the masses are everywhere else. So yes, you will see more Billie Eilish types. But nothing is stopping you or anyone else from going down your local venue and check the local talent there :)
Yeah, good call. Art scenes flourish when people can afford to live near each other and collaborate, when there are local scenes that support themselves.
The cost of merely existing as an artist in a place like London, NYC, etc is prohibitive.
1. A place is awful such that nobody wants to live there, thus it is dirt cheap.
2. Artists move into cheap place and make it beautiful.
3. The beauty attracts the rich and push out the artists.
4. Artists move on to the next "hellhole" – later, rinse, repeat.
But right now the artists seemingly don't want to execute on #4.
Which is likely just a function of opportunity. In recent times, other than perhaps a short blip during COVID, it has been comparatively easy to stay at #3. In fact, big shifts in the music industry have always been notably correlated with recessions, most likely because increasing unemployment pushes more and more towards #4.
Historically, new artists were born everyday. The old dirt cheap place, that turned rich, was out of their grasp. They had to find a new dirt cheap place.
But that doesn't seem to be happening right now. Even the new would-be artists are quite happy to live in places like London and NYC that have already been transformed by old artists into nice places. Again, probably because there is all kids of other opportunity[1], as visible in employment being full. One has not had to subject themselves to moving to where nobody wants to be.
[1] At least has been over the past many years. There is a strong case to be made that we're starting to see that turn.
And then there are the non-music related real world implications. Decades of growth in health care costs exceeding wage growth means that if you want to be a full-time musician today you either have to have a day job and all of the limitations that places on your music career, or you have a massive annual expense for individual health insurance.
Unless you can become a star, a career as a musician is a hell of a lot more expensive than it used to be, and simply unsustainable for a great deal more people