26 April

Many feel uncomfortable at discussions of ‘gig culture’, because it’s our culture and impacts peoples’ sense of status and identity. But this isn’t an argument that musicians shouldn’t be wealthy, it’s just pointing out that most musicians were never high status/high power members of society, until the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s. What people are prepared to pay you is a direct measure of your status. This is the top 50, and that’s artificially capped at the lower end, at $250 million! There are oodles more musicians below that figure, who are still wealthy beyond the dreams of musicians, historically. Frank SInatra for example was worth a paltry $14 million, in the 1980s. Only nostalgia gig culture inflated that figure in the years up to his death. Adolescent cultures worship rock stars. It’s not even a debate. You can see it in how they reward them, with acclaim and money and influence. This is historically unprecedented, it’s a defining feature of our cultures today. Where this begins to matter is when our reference points for adult life are the same as a gig-going teenager. These $$ figures show that’s exactly what’s happening.