Get well, Mr Loaf: it’s wrong that artists must gig so much | Barbara Ellen

The rock star’s collapse suggests that the digital music industry is broken

It was sad that the singer Meat Loaf, 68, collapsed during a live show in Canada (get well soon, “Meat”!). It got me thinking about older artists and the live circuit and then, by extension, all musicians and the live circuit. In recent times, the business model for artists has changed beyond all recognition – put very simplistically, in most cases, the actual music is effectively “free”, barely remunerated by a chaotic jumble of streaming/licensing/corporate “opportunities”. Playing live has become one of the few things that acts (certainly beneath megastar level) can still get paid for.

What amazes me is that this is just accepted by people, who blithely opine: “Musicians make their money from playing live these days.” This is usually followed by an eerie silence where questions should be. Not all acts are global stadium level, so how much money? Is it enough to sustain them; can they survive, never mind prosper? Does this leave them time to write and rehearse material? Could it be (whisper it) that some of them don’t enjoy being forced to gig so much, that they find it tiring, creatively stunting and sometimes logistically impossible, especially if, as increasingly happens, they also have “day jobs”?

Related: How much do musicians really make from Spotify, iTunes and YouTube?

Related: The long, hard road to rock’n’roll success: ‘We’re essentially skint’