When I was little I always though that being famous was a merit thing. If a musician was known it was because he or she was excepcional in his/her art: an incredible singer, a highly skilled guitarist, an amazing drummer.
But then I got older and saw a lot of gigs, and a lot of disciplined and truly amazing musicians that nobody heard about… And most were struggling financially, having a side job just to get by. How come? What is missing from them that the “icons” have?
It’s not the musicians’ fault. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/5006-new-hegemonies-streaming-platforms-and-music-production
Nothing under a capitalist economy is rewarded for merit, only profitability for the business owner or shareholders
Fame comes with the right social connections and luck. Talent helps, but is secondary. Of course, if you have all three, you become very very well known and people will feel you deserve in some way the fame and fortune you have.
I would argue talent isn’t even in the top ten list of important qualities for “success” in the music world.
Ok, just curious, I can think of other things that would make someone “successful” in the music world but I think talent would still be in my top 10 for sure. Not essential as I said, you don’t need to check everything in the list.
What are your top 10s?
It’s just much more profitable for record labels to have a few superstars than thousands of mini-stars. A usual person won’t follow and buy from 100 music artists. They’ll buy from 1 to 10 or whatever. Having large fandoms allows you to sell more tertiary things like plush toys and shit like that, it wouldn’t be feasible to do that for thousands of artists.
Large fandoms also make people feel like they belong, when there’s a Swiftie fanclub in any small town with dozens of people there’s a community, if only 1 person in a town were a fan of a specific artist, even if there’s 1 in every town, the networking effect would just be basically nonexistent.
And in general there’s just too many amazing musicians. People love making music and as such there’s an oversupply. In addition to the above points that’s just capitalist supply and demand in play.
At some point it because a binary thing.
You don’t need to just be good at something.
You need to be good at something AND do something else. AND be likeable. AND be pretty. AND have good contacts. AND …
And if any of those other things aren’t the case, you don’t become the super star.
Sometimes, it’s being at the right place at the right time. Some things can be solved with money, or being the friend or child of a celebrity, and others can’t.
If you have the right connections you don’t even have to be good looking or talented!
There are millions of people in the world that are great singers. It’s just a skill. To be famous you also need good material, contacts and lots of luck.
A friend of mine used to be in a band that had it’s 15 minutes in the '90s. They broke up for some reason and years later she managed to form a new group and record an album. The contract with the label said that she had to organize the tour herself so she tried to get into some festivals but no one was really interested in this type of music. All the band members had other projects and one by one started leaving and she struggled to replace them. She was really good technically but that’s simply not enough.
To add all the other good comments here…
As a recording artist, it’s nearly impossible to stand out unless you have a marketing machine behind you. That means a record label that can promote your work, get your songs placed on radio stations and streaming platforms, and (in the old days) manufacture and sell physical media through many different retailers.
As a touring performer, you also need a large crew of people working for you: booking venues, marketing your shows, ticketing, managing the logistics of set-up/tear-down/transportation, operating lights and sound during the show, etc.
In both of these scenarios, the musician is only one small cog in a large machine. And there are enough good musicians in the world that they are treated as largely interchangeable.
Famous is different from working. I have known plenty of artists who just hustle and make a living - singing telegrams, weddings, bar gigs, teaching, they make enough to get by. They are working musicians.
Then there are all those bands who plug on, famous but not wildly so, I think they are making enough to live on just their band earnings.
Then a very few who get rich. Mostly those are kids of connected people, not always but often.
It’s the same with any entertainment industry, right? Average earnings on onlyfans is something like $3 a month.
And there is just So Much Talent in the world, and people have limited entertainment budgets.
Merit as a musician can only take you so far. In any creative career, the big famous artists aren’t just good at doing their craft, they’re also very good at making business deals to sell them. And even that’s not always enough to become a superstar, you also need luck - your breakout/masterpiece needs to coincide with the latest trend, and preferably early in your career - a one-hit-wonder might be enough, but maybe not.
