‘The average musician makes $12 a month,’ Garbage Singer Says in Onstage Rant | By Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle | Ahead of Garbage’s two Bay Area concerts later this month, frontwoman Shirley Manson is using the stage to sound off on what she calls an “alarm call” about the state of the music industry.
“It has become entirely unsustainable for a band like us to come and tour anywhere except the coasts,” Manson told the crowd at Denver’s Mission Ballroom this week.
She went on to explain why this would be Garbage’s final run of shows in a video clip that has quickly gone viral.
“The average musician makes $12 a month on Spotify,” she said. “They’re sleeping in their vans. They’re holding down numerous jobs. They’re playing their guts out every night. The fact that they are not even able to sell a record and it’s taken from them by rich motherf-s on streaming platforms who get paid royally by record labels, who get paid royally by Ticketmaster, who get paid royally by merch companies, who get paid royally – the list goes on and on and on. … They’re all f-ing getting paid, except for the musician.”
The sentiments echo comments made earlier this year in which Manson criticized what she called the “thievery of the record industry” and the lack of any real unions to protect artists.
Manson, whose band broke through in the late 1990s with hits like “Stupid Girl” and “Only Happy When It Rains,” has sold more than 20 million albums.
“I bring this up every night because I think it’s imperative that we all start to understand what exactly is going on in the music industry,” she said.
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Go here to read more on this problem:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/the-average-musician-makes-12-a-month-garbage-singer-says-in-onstage-rant/
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Neil Young Rants About Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos as He Pulls His Music from Amazon
By Chiara Fiorillo, Irish Star
Neil Young has announced he is withdrawing his music from Amazon, weeks after inviting Donald Trump to one of his concerts.
The Harvest Moon artist has lashed out at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his corporation in a frank statement shared on his Neil Young Archives blog, slamming his backing of the Trump administration and encouraging supporters to “buy local.” He also urged people to “support your community” and “do the right thing.” Neil, 79, declared, “Forget Amazon and Whole Foods [supermarket chain owned by Amazon].
“Forget Facebook. Buy local. Buy direct. [Jeff] Bezos supports this government. It does not support you or me.” It comes just months after Neil came out in support of Bruce Springsteen and his fight against Trump.
The rock icon continued, “The time is here. Forget Amazon. Soon my music will not be there. It is easy to buy local. Support your community. Go to the local store. Don’t go back to the big corporations who have sold out America. We all have to give up something to save America from the Corporate Control Age it is entering.
“They need you to buy from them. Don’t. They shut down our government. Your income. Your safety. Your family’s health security. Take America Back. Together, stop buying from the big corporations, support local business. Do the right thing. Show who you are.”
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Over the summer, Neil issued a statement in support of Bruce, criticizing Trump. “What are you worryin’ about man? Bruce and thousands of musicians think you are ruining America. You worry about that instead of the dyin’ kids in Gaza. That’s your problem,” he wrote on his website.
He added, “I am not scared of you. Neither are the rest of us. You shut down FEMA when we needed it most. That’s your problem Trump. STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT ROCKERS ARE SAYING. Think about saving America from the mess you made.”
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Go here to read the full story:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/neil-young-rants-about-donald-trump-and-jeff-bezos-as-he-pulls-his-music-from-amazon/
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‘Death to Spotify’: the DIY Movement to Get Artists and Fans to Quit the Music App
By Alaina Demopulous, The Guardian
This month, indie musicians in Oakland, California, gathered for a series of talks called Death to Spotify, where attenders explored “what it means to decentralize music discovery, production and listening from capitalist economies”.
The events, held at Bathers library, featured speakers from indie station KEXP, labels Cherub Dream Records and Dandy Boy Records, and DJ collectives No Bias and Amor Digital. What began as a small run of talks quickly sold out and drew international interest. People as far away as Barcelona and Bengaluru emailed the organizers asking how to host similar events.
The talks come as the global movement against Spotify edges into the mainstream. In January, music journalist Liz Pelly released Mood Machine, a critical history arguing the streaming company has ruined the industry and turned listeners into “passive, uninspired consumers”. Spotify’s model, she writes, depends on paying artists a pittance – less still if they agree to be “playlisted” on its Discovery mode, which rewards the kind of bland, coffee-shop muzak that fades neatly into the background.
Artists have long complained about paltry payouts, but this summer the criticism became personal, targeting Spotify’s billionaire co-founder Daniel Ek for his investment in Helsing, a German firm developing AI for military tech. Groups including Massive Attack, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and Hotline TNT pulled their music from the service in protest. (Spotify has stressed that “Spotify and Helsing are two separate companies”.)
In Oakland, California, Stephanie Dukich read Mood Machine, heard about the boycotts, and was inspired.
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To read the full story, go here:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/12/spotify-boycott-artists
This article was amended on 12 October 2025 to correct a misspelling of Rashida Tlaib’s first name. Also, the Bathers library event was in Oakland, not San Francisco.
[Thanks to Jamie Krutz for alerting us to this problem. Https://www.jamiekrutz.com]