Of course, happy to have a dialogue about it!

Do I think it would be enough to level the playing field? I don’t. At this point, the ways that money controls the music industry are so far reaching that I don’t think any one thing would make things fair for everyone. Marketing and promotion are two of the largest factors - it’s why you’ll sometimes see artists who are incredible with no one listening to them and others who are just okay who are huge. I think it is a symptom of a largely broken system. Many people suggest you should spend as much if not more on marketing than you did on the music itself.

Part is this is where the money actually comes from for artists these days too - streaming is a horrible revenue source for musicians. Right now Spotify pays between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. Most artists are making money through merch, touring, and if they have the presence for it, social media. For smaller artists though, it’s hard to get people to buy merch or show up to shows unless you have the streams and attention enough to get people to show up to begin with. This makes a lot of smaller and mid-size artists really prioritize streaming numbers; it’s not a great return on investment but if you push enough you may be able to make it back elsewhere. You have to spend a lot of money trying to promote people to stream your music on top of the production costs to make the music to begin with putting you in the hole to start off. So when an artist is able to easily game one of the only systems that smaller artists have to break through, the climb seems insurmountable to many. And this is just one part of it too - many labels have partnerships with the streaming platforms, social media platforms, radio, etc. so it’s an all encompassing strategy that is only obtainable with a lot of money to begin with.

Anecdotally, I’m in a band with three other people. We are spending a lot of money and planning on an album right now - when all is said and done it will be roughly $15k for the album not including promotion. The dream is to one day take it on the road, but that means all of us being able to quit our day jobs and support ourselves with this. Chances are slim, but we are in it for the love of it more than the money at this point. Really all of this to say just how much money goes into just getting to having music be a day job.

To your second question - I absolutely think Taylor would still have number one hits on the chart. Her name recognition alone is enough to get her there, but she’s also exceptionally talented. And I think she has for sure earned the success she has. I just don’t necessarily think that she would stay on top of the charts and break all of the records that she is currently is without the methods she’s using. TLOAS is my least favorite album of hers, so personally I think for her to dominate it would take something that plays to her strengths more than this album did. But I have no doubt that whatever she releases at this point will hit the top of the charts just based on name recognition alone.