Music: From affordable to inaccessible
In the past decade, music has become the newest form of art with a heavy price tag, and it’s one that some cannot afford to pay.
By Michael Doyle
One of life’s uniting forces, music, has slowly become unaffordable for many people, and the very systems that claim to provide music for all are the systems at fault.
Streaming services have become the main platforms to listen to expansive song libraries all at the touch of a button. There are now over 100 music streaming services available worldwide.
While platforms such as Spotify give users the option to create a free account, they are plagued with ads, low sound quality and the inability to listen to specific songs when you want to. In 2023, Spotify Premium increased from $9.99 to $10.99 for a single account before increasing to $11.99 in June 2024. These increases are hard to justify as the platform has not added any extra features to make it worth raising the price. Users were upset at the noticeable downgrade of their yearly Spotify wrapped as the company leans further into the usage of AI.
The platform represents over 30% of all music streaming and has seen an increase in Spotify Premium users every quarter since 2015, according to Statista, showing that their price increase is not due to a lack of revenue.
Even with streaming platforms, some fans still prefer the sound of vinyl records, as digital music formats like MP3s and streaming compress the music compared to records, which are close to an exact copy of the master recording. This preference comes with a stark cost, as records becoming popular with younger generations over the last few years caused the demand to overtake the supply, flipping the market in favor of sellers instead of buyers.
While records can be purchased for a few dollars at a garage sale, it’s now common for new records to cost upwards of 30 dollars.
Regardless of how people prefer to listen to music throughout the day, the experience of live music nearly always trumps listening to a recording.
Inaccessibility has taken this over as well, as companies like Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) own the majority of the largest amphitheaters in the country. LNE also owns Ticketmaster, who have been under harsh criticism in recent years for the influx of ticket resellers, high retail prices and unnecessary ticket fees.
President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on March 31 to protect fans from ticket scalping, however it will take time for the industry to see an outcome.
The unsanctioned nightmare of resellers has made it impossible for fans without a disposable income to see their favorite artists. During Taylor Swift’s 2023 “The Eras Tour,” the cheapest tickets between all 52 shows were $289 before fees at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, a venue that seats around 70,000 people, according to the New York Post.
The combination of resellers, high retail prices and extra fees have made even the nosebleed sections of a stadium’s seats cost upwards of hundreds of dollars.
In addition, merchandise for concerts takes out another hefty chunk. The lowest amount on average for a shirt is $40, compared to $20 at a retailer like Hot Topic for the same print. The reason for these steep prices is because venues demand larger cuts than before, according to Money Digest.
Artists like Swift and My Chemical Romance have been criticized for commercializing their music by releasing multiple variations of vinyl records with little-to-no visible differences and remastering or rereleasing albums with only a few additions. In contrast, Pop-punk artist Green Day’s 30th Anniversary Edition of “Dookie” gave fans a whopping 50 additional songs including 4-track demos, cassette demos, outtakes and a recording of their Woodstock 1994 set.
While it would be unreasonable to ask every album variation or remaster to do this, the opposite is an unsustainable business tactic that favors only the artist and streaming platforms. Drip-feeding fans through years of bland rereleases are seen as a cash-grab to people who stuck by artists when they were first starting out.
Older generations found ways to listen to music for cheap by burning CDs and learning to use tools like LimeWire, but as the music industry has continued to grow, the accessibility of pirating music and file-sharing services has diminished. These do-it-yourself tools allowed fans to listen to unreleased music ranging from live tracks to full albums no longer on official media.
Without these tools, fans are unable to listen, as copies on platforms like YouTube get struck down by Copyright Law despite the label’s lack of desire to officially release or rerelease them.
Nearly every corner of the music industry has gotten more expensive, including audio technology. 15 years ago, Skullcandy earbuds adorned the halls of high schools, with the earbuds available for a low price of $20, while admittedly being frail. Today’s high schools are full of a variety of Apple, Sony and Beats products costing hundreds of dollars.
Apple’s online store ranges from $129 for the AirPods 4s to $549 for the AirPods Max. While the Skullcandys of 2010 lack modern-day features, the price increase of headphones far exceeds that of everything else mentioned. In a country where everybody is focused on the inability to afford goods and gasoline as their rent and bills increase, what will happen when we can no longer afford the cost of listening to music?
