Quote Originally Posted by NWBasser View Post
When you consider the amount of investment involved; equipment, engineers, distribution costs, and pay for the musicians versus the income gained, it looks like a losing proposition for nearly any new artist to get started.

To get a return on investment, you almost have to focus only on the artists with the most potential for popularity and sweep under the carpet the really good musicians.
A lot of artists/bands that I respect have turned to things like Kickstarter to fund their recording. It's an interesting concept, essentially asking fans to pay in advance for the music, but with an artist that has any kind of following, it can mean the difference between finishing an album or not.

I think this is just the beginning of artists using the means now available to explore new ways to produce and distribute music. Perhaps the new distribution models make it unlikely to make much money on the sale of the music itself (as Dee and Marnold laid out above) but if the relative ease of internet distribution allows an artist/band to have greater exposure, they can play more shows in more places and hope to make some money that way.

It's also a matter of having realistic expectations about a "career in music." Maybe you won't be super rich and famous and playing out sold-out arenas worldwide, but if I could live even in the same fashion I do now but not have to work any other job besides playing music, I'd consider that success.

It's a very interesting time to be a music consumer. We're all old enough to remember the old model and understand how it works. It's fascinating to me to watch different artists and bands find strategies that are well outside of that model.