The core issue here us that there's a widely held belief that the more money a musician makes the less integrity they have as an artist. All valid arguments against the OP's assertion aside, why single out musicians if you're making a statement such as that? Why is it more acceptable for a CEO who truly loves what he/she does to make oodles of money, but not a musician.
Mr. Dave is very correct. There are so many variables to consider when trying to asses how wealthy an artist is based on their success. When you purchase a CD or concert ticket there's an entire hierarchy of people, businesses, and organizations that get a chunk of that money before the artist sees a cent of it. More often than not, the artist is on the bottom rung of that hierarchy, and often doesn't see a cent of profit from the sale. This is especially true today with CD sales. Retailers take such an enormous percentage of the profit and what remains gets filtered through record companies and all other related bureaucracies until there's nothing left when it finally gets to the artist.
You would be surprised the amount of "rock stars" who you would assume are rolling in dough, but aren't because they have terrible contracts, or don't have the sense to understand that being successful as an artist is every bit as much like running a business as any other endeavor that involves the exchange of goods an services for revenue. And just like sidewinder and Big3 said, 30k ain't jack anymore, and most musicians work hard enough at what they do to deserve to make much more than that. Sadly, surprisingly, many of them don't.
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