We all know that away from the stadiums, small and mid range artists are struggling to make ends meet. Many are now starting to speak out about it. Last year Kate Nash drew attention to how playing live no longer pays the bills when she told pictures of herself though OnlyFans to fund a UK tour.
Now another has gone public with their frustrations. In an interview with the Independent, British singer-songwriter Billie Marten – who released her fifth album Dog Eared earlier this month - made clear the difficulties many artists at her level were facing.
“Mostly, artists are in financial ruin no matter how successful they appear to be,” she told the newspaper. “I’ve worked the hardest and the longest and I am the most busy I’ve ever been – and I am not doing great.”
Marten (not to be confused with '90s dance chanteuse Billie Ray Martin) is signed to Fiction Records, a subsidiary of Universal. But being on a major label is no guarantee of riches in 2025. “Everyone that’s hanging onto the artist is buying houses and having families and going on holiday. And the artists could never dream of doing that. It’s funny.”
“There’s too much music and there are too many famous people,” she says. “Less money is going to mid-level and low-level artists. It’s a capitalist mentality, essentially, and we’re all paying Taylor Swift.”
“I haven’t recouped my deals, so it’s all gone to Sony to pay for the sofas in their office.” (Marten’s first two albums came out on the label.) “Hey, I am not cynical! It’s just the facts. I’m also not complaining. I’m speaking for all of us who have made peace with it, because we’re nice people who just want to make music. But should we make peace with it? And how do we change it?”
Marten doesn’t suggest any solutions. Maybe one day a mid range artist will come out and follow through on their rhetoric. But you suspect that until the day someone is prepared to walk the walk, call out Spotify for their stinginess and, crucially, boycott them too, nothing much is going to change.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.