Music in Russia or how music looks like when there is no revenue from sales

[meloco_go]

I think the look into the situation in Russia might be interesting. During Soviet period there was an established record industry with a single government corporation controlling the production and distribution. Parallel to that, there was a culture of cassette tape copies to get stuff which was not officially permitted.
After break up of the Soviet economy, centralized record industry almost broke up, however, some underground labels appeared.
Most of the consumed music was produced by bootlegging.
So for an almost quarter of century artists are living on different sources of revenue rather than album sales.
The good thing, there is still music out there. Bad thing -- music business is incredibly centralized (though not by government).
Independent artists (not related to one of a few "big" producers) have to rely on their own funds. Things are particularly hard to the bands with live instruments, because of higher overhead costs. Most of the bands I worked with released one to two albums and broke up. Electronic/hip-hop artists are in a better situation. But even then, pretty much all independent artists have day jobs.
There are "big" artists but as I said before this is an incredibly centralized business. The producer who controls everything backs such artists, small part of the revenue comes from airplay, some from live performances and a significant part from doing TV shows, advertisement involvement and high-profile private parties.

Interestingly, there was a short period when Internet worked for the independent music. This was when access became rather extensive, but the connection speeds were limited. A lot of independent artists started to sell self-made discs, info on live shows was spread via social media, and small independent labels began to make a profit. But this lasted for just a few years before downloading albums became convenient.

[Knastratt]

Interesting.

[nobby]

I've lived in the USA for the entire time you're referring to and it all seems eerily familiar.

The indie scene outside of gov't in Russia seems like the indie scene outside of the major labels.

The early days of the internet when dialup connections ruled, many indie artists were selling downloads of MP3s (yeah, I know) and CDs. Then came Napster in 2000 and it all went to hell.

Now everything is as centralized as ever with Adele, Tay Tay Drake and Beyoncé selling about 98% of all records and streams (I hope I'm exaggerating

And Taylor Swift's enormous "indie" label distributes through UMG.

[upstairs]

Adele - big album in 2008
Big Swifty - 2006 I guess
Drake - 2010?
Beyoncé - Destiny's Child
Katy Perry - 2008
Bieber - 2009
Rihanna - 2007?
etc

Maybe I'm out of touch, but they don't seem to have made any superstars in a while.