This is a HeadGum Podcast. I don't know what you think I don't know what you say

and that's all right

yeah that's okay

I don't know anything.

Hello everyone, welcome to Factually.

I'm Adam Conover, and let's talk about music today. Everyone loves music. It's one of the most basic elements of our culture in fact. I mean at the dawn of humanity we would gather around the fire with our buds, crack open a couple deer, and make music together, right?

And a few months from now after the apocalypse comes, we can expect to be doing the same. Music is something that people love

to make and something that people love to experience. In fact for many of us it's one of the

things that makes life worth living so So as a species we have a

constant demand for it. We always want it. So if that's the case, why is it that it's

almost impossible now to make a living at it.

We all love music, we all love musicians,

we all value musicians more, the more talented they are.

Yet we all know that those who make music

aren't rewarded according to their ability or artistic merit.

I mean, sure, sometimes a breakthrough song like Old Town Road or Gangnam style is deservedly

rewarded for being the objective masterpiece that it is, but there's a much longer list of incredibly

talented musicians who simply aren't able to make a living doing what they're good at.

Why is that?

Why are we unable as a society to support the people

who do what we all love, whose product we can't live without? Well, to understand why, you have

to understand that musicians' lives are in fact determined by things

...