In a musical landscape dominated by female solo stars, Taylor Swift is arguably the most popular artist in the world right now – and one veteran rock legend believes he knows why.
Gene Simmons has seen and done it all in his 50-year career with Kiss. In addition, he has never been short of opinions. And he has an interesting take on the state of the music business in 2025, and why so many of its biggest-selling stars are women – Swift, Beyoncé, Adele, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo etc.
Simmons tells MusicRadar: “Everything changed with Napster. When that came into being it was basically a cancer that completely killed the record industry.
“When downloading and file-sharing happened, money disappeared. Record companies couldn't afford paying millions of dollars for an album, because if the whole album died, they'd lose everything.
“So they – the record companies – started concentrating on singles. Single songs which didn't need a lot of money, relatively speaking.
“And they also started concentrating on new fans – and new fans are mostly young girls.
“So the largest live act performer of all time is Taylor Swift, who sings songs about heartbreak and stuff like that. But without the female audience – no Taylor!
“So that’s the reason why are there so many female stars," Simmons says. "It’s because the record industry changed.”
What this also means, according to Simmons, is that the odds are stacked against young bands.
As he says: “A lot of bands, unfortunately, are caught in a Catch-22. ‘I’ve got 100 new songs. We're releasing a song a month.’ All that stuff.
“But it just goes on the internet. And they hope people stream it among hundreds of millions of choices.
“And even when it is streamed, you'll have to get a billion streams to make, what, 10 or 20 grand? So it's very difficult.
He continues: “Musicians make a very good living. At least the big ones do. So you don't think they're being short-changed.
“It’s the new bands are really being short changed.
“There is a minimum wage in most industries. If you're a construction worker, you're guaranteed a certain amount. There's also a retirement plan and a pregnancy plan, all that stuff to support the working class.
“But there is no minimum wage for songwriters and bands. In fact, it's the wild wild west. It's not even a penny – it’s something like one one-hundredth of a penny – per stream. It's insane.
“And whose fault is it? The answer is: the fans.
“It wasn't the corporate world, because they were giving us money. No, no, it was the fans who decided to break into the supermarket and just take whatever they wanted to without paying for it.
“So the farmer’s out of business. The trucks that brought everything to market are out of business. The supermarkets that were there 24 hours a day? Out of business. “All out of business because people decided, ‘I'm going to have fruits, vegetables, a quart of milk, and walk out. And oh, I'll pay something – here’s a penny.’”
Simmons’ own band benefitted hugely from the old music business model.
The first three Kiss albums all bombed, but the band’s record company Casablanca continued to bankroll them and were rewarded when the concert recording Kiss Alive! was a monster hit in 1975.
Simmons tells MusicRadar that something wonderful has now been lost.
“In rock and roll - in all its variations – you’d have a group of creative people that would get together to create their art, their music, their own thing,” he says.
“But you couldn't do that without a record company supporting that. When you go out on tour, there's tour support, and a record that comes out. There’s a whole machinery and a lot of people that are there supporting that.
“But when people were downloading and file-sharing and the record companies were getting nothing, all of a sudden those record companies stopped being able to support bands, right?
“Which meant that new bands would never get the chance that The Beatles had, and the Stones had, and Kiss had.”
“We had a record company, a safety net, that would give you money to make a record, and money that you would stick in your pocket, and you never had to give back an advance even if the record was a bomb. Those days are gone.”
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