Rupiah

Don't give a fuck how much they earn, as long as they churn out the records.

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.

Not to mention the young drug addicts. I think it was the VH1 special on Megadeth where Dave Ellefson said that during the So Far, So Good... tour he noticed the irony of having thousands of fans clamoring for him to sign their t-shirts and regarding him as if he was obviously rich and famous while he was actually deep in debt and any cash he got went straight to his drug habit.

aint that the same story with Alice in Chains old bass player? Dudes on that Vh1 rehab show.

^

Not to mention Layne Staley himself...

Well to be honest, if they're earning a good wage and piss it all away on drugs and stupid **** like that, that's their own fault.

Good, well argued-reasoning there.:confused:

On topic, it just dosn't make sense that you'd cap anyone's wages at 30,000 quid when you bear in mind that within our economic system they earn X amount of money because enough people are happy to give them theirs. Bearing in mind the music industry is very much a for-profit system out of necessity at the level of recording and distribution, it makes no sense to take the capitalist element out and remove any incentive to promote one's work.

In short, OP is possibly the most implausible thing ever suggested.

well that's true, but that also applies to anyone who's able to mask a drug addiction and put on a 'normal' face in the office or at any other job.

the latest salient point was the misconception that all touring musicians were millionaires, while some of the debts stem from drugs and/or poor financial judgement, it could easily be cars, houses, etc. it's just that touring musicians tend to be more susceptible to drug abuse and addiction due to the traditionally sensitive nature of an artist coupled with the legitimate stress and strain applied to their personal lives.

Well the same goes for cars and houses, if they're getting a decent amount of money and blow on anything like that then we shouldn't feel bad for them, it's their own fault.