How much is Lyrical Theology 3 worth?

How Much is LT3 Worth?
By Shai Linne

In anticipation of releasing my new album, Lyrical Theology Part 3: Sociology, I wrote about streaming services and how the pricing structure is detrimental to independent artists. If you clicked the link and are reading this, thank you! This is more of a deep dive. There’s an additional element that I want to mention that is actually more at the forefront of my mind than the mere finances of it all. And that element is value. I’ve thought a lot about this in recent days. When I think of value, one question that comes to mind is this: how do we determine the worth of something? Now, it can be easy for a question like that to lead us down all kinds of philosophical rabbit holes. That’s not my intent. But it is interesting to consider that our lives are permeated with nonstop value judgments. From the produce aisle at the supermarket to what we order on Amazon; from the tickets to the basketball game to the trendy new restaurant that everybody’s raving about; from the tuition at our children’s school to the cost of our daughter’s wedding- we are consciously and subconsciously asking and answering the question “Is this worth it?” all the time. And that’s not just a financial question. It can be a question of where we spend our time and/ or our energies as well. 

For example, I enjoy watching a good television series. When someone tells me about a series I should check out, the first thing I do is look to see how many seasons there are. That gives me an idea of what my time commitment is going to be. At some point, I'll say to myself, “Do I really want to spend 70 or so hours over the next few weeks or months watching this show?” To help in my decision making, I consider a number of factors: Who are the actors? How’s the writing? Is the plot interesting? Do I enjoy the characters?, etc. Eventually I come to a conclusion- to either watch the show or not. And that conclusion is based on a value judgment. In that scenario, the value was my time. And I made a judgment based on the above factors to either spend my time on the show or spend it somewhere else. In other scenarios, the value may be energy, or effort. For instance, am I going to the gym today? Am I gonna run in that 5k race? Am I gonna have this hard conversation with a church member about their social media posts? The answers to those questions are value judgments based on numerous factors. You get the point.

So how does this relate to streaming services?

Times Have Changed

Before the digital revolution, music was purchased primarily in one way. A person would go to the record store, purchase a physical CD - or cassette, vinyl (or even 8-Track(!) for my old school friends)- bring it home and listen to it in the car, the home stereo or in their headphones. The transaction was simple. Pay $15.99 for your favorite artist’s new album, or maybe pay $4.99 for their new single. Everybody was happy. Well, mostly everybody. The consumer was happy, provided they liked the music. The record companies were happy, because record sales were easily traceable and the profit margins were astronomical. The major artists may or may not have been happy, depending on the kind of deal they had. Most had bad deals, where out of that $15.99 the consumer paid for the album, the artist might get 10 cents per album sold. (Compared to 4 tenths of a penny, 10 cents is amazing. But it’s still highway robbery, in my opinion.) This is why shows like VH-1’s Behind the Music pretty much tell the same exact story over and over again, with interchangeable musicians.

It goes like this:

1. Artist develops talent in obscurity.

2. Artist gets discovered. 

3. Artist signs a record deal with a major label.

4. Artist makes a big hit record, or perhaps numerous hit records.

5. Artist rises to fame and popularity. 

6. Artist’s career gets derailed somehow (Substance abuse, tension within groups/ bands, some unforeseen tragedy, etc). 

7. Artist realizes that they don’t have nearly as much money as they thought they would or should have. 

8. Artist’s career declines, either gradually or suddenly.

9. Artist gets dropped by the label.

10. Artist is broke.

11. Artist has an “Aha!” moment and finds themselves (Or not. See #13)

12. Artist attempts a comeback.

13. Artist (or the family of the deceased artist) says something hopeful in the last few minutes in a futile attempt to help everyone feel better about the train wreck we just watched for the past hour.

14. Tune in next week for a different version of the same story.

But I digress. Once music began the shift from physical copies to digital downloads in the early 2000’s, major record labels began to panic. CD sales tanked. Piracy was at an all time high. Labels were hemorrhaging money. They needed to regain some control in this new technological environment. Enter streaming services. I must give credit where it is due. The business model is brilliant. It's amazing what innovations people can come up with when billions of dollars are at stake. The genius is in its simplicity. The customer pays Spotify, Spotify pays the record labels for the right to stream the catalogues of top-selling artists. Everybody’s happy. Well, not everybody. Lowly, working class, independent artists like me are told that we should be happy with 4 tenths of a penny per stream. That’s not true for every artist, by the way. Top-selling artists get a bigger slice of the pie. This means that even if you and everyone who likes my music were to stream my catalogue on repeat 24/7, most of the revenue generated would go to artists like Drake, Beyonce, Bruno Mars and Adele. For an interesting (albeit vulgar at times) explanation of this, check out Trevor Noah's explanation on youtube. 

The Truth Behind Music Streaming - If You Don't Know, Now You Know | The Daily Show

Value Trending Downward

In the midst of this absurd theater of greed, idolatry and power grabbing as the floodgates of streaming were opened, there was one unintended consequence. Music, in the aggregate, became devalued. In Wall Street terms, music in general went from a blue chip stock to a penny stock. Removing the physical element took away something crucial- the sensory, tactile experience of interacting with tangible material. The deluge of new music created something akin to the 24-hour news cycle. We've all seen how it works.  A highly anticipated new album drops. It makes a faint ripple in the ocean of content before a huge tidal wave of more content arrives the next week, or in some cases, that very day. This has affected how people hear (and value) music. It’s disposable, a snack to be quickly consumed before hastily moving onto the next treat. I felt this with Farm Talk. There was so much time and effort (and money) put into the song and video! Multiple planning meetings, group texts, scouting locations, cross-country flights, car rentals, Airbnb's, renting video equipment, costume design, etc. We put it out. Pretty good response that day. But rather than fully digesting the nuance, symbolism, competing ideologies and theological implications of the song, many simply said, “That was cool, Shai. Drop the album.” Two days after that, the Farm Talk pebble rested, undisturbed on the ocean floor of disposable content.

My Metric

So back to value judgments. What streaming has done for the listener is settle the question of monetary value. More accurately, the question shifted from the artist/ label to the streaming service. The question is no longer, “Do I want to pay $15.99 for this artist’s album?” The question is now, “Do I want the free version or the premium version of Spotify?” With Spotify and Apple Music having wrestled away the monetary value question, the value judgment for the listener is now primarily about time investment (Do I want to spend my time on this music?) and artistic value (Do I find this music enjoyable/ aesthetically pleasing?) This is why I say music has been devalued. In a previous era, one was expected to pay $15 for one album with 10-15 songs on it from one artist. Today, one is expected to pay $15 per month for access to millions of songs from tens of thousands of artists. A win for the listener (and Spotify and the major labels and top-selling artists) for sure. But as an artist, I also have a value judgment to make. I also have to answer the question, “Is it worth it?” And here’s how I calculate my metric, using an if/ then scenario:

IF…

1. We spent $32,000 producing the album and its accompanying materials (monetary investment)

2. I’ve been planning this album off and on in some capacity for the last decade plus (time investment)

3. I’ve spent, conservatively, the equivalent of half a work year in a traditional job (8 hours per day, 40 hours per week, minus lunch break- a total of 900 hours) in conceptualizing, researching, executive producing, traveling, writing, recording, co-producing, editing, directing featured artists and post-production, as well as filming content for the album along with its supplemental material (time and labor investment)

4. I’ve poured out my deepest joys (The Wedding Song) pains (Elder Statesman), insecurities (Happy Father’s Day), and fears (Micah Six Eight, Wedding Song verse 3), while navigating writer’s block, depression, spiritual warfare, strained relationships related to LT3’s content, etc. (emotional investment)

5. I’ve spent much time in prayer and searching the Scriptures, written to the best of my capacity, crafting intricate parallel narratives and theological allegories while seeking to maintain a high level of lyrical complexity, seeking to be as innovative and creative as possible in my approach to extremely difficult topics, produced (prayerfully) something that is beneficial educationally and spiritually, while seeking to never lose the gospel at the center and to create a work that is distinctly Christian, thoroughly Biblical and artistically excellent, while providing encouragement and exhortation to the people of God and a challenge to our post-Christian culture (artistic and spiritual investment)

THEN…

What is the final product that comes as a result of the above worth? Not to the listener, per se, but to me, the artist? What do I sell that for? How do I even put a price on that? This is the question I’ve been wrestling with. I believe that question could be answered many different ways. On one end of the spectrum, I could give it away and charge nothing for it. Consider it a labor of love and trust that I’ll be repaid by the Lord at the resurrection. I actually love that idea. And if I was independently wealthy or if music was merely a hobby and not my livelihood, I would strongly consider that route. 

The Bible is clear on one point, though. Jesus told his disciples in Luke 10:7, “The laborer deserves his wages.” Paul repeats that principle in 1 Timothy 5:18. It’s not complicated. If a person works, they should be compensated in a manner commensurate with the work that they do. Now my situation is tricky, because I’m not being paid an hourly or annual salary, like most jobs. I’m producing a work that is the product of the investment I outlined above. Let’s say I take the conservative estimate from #3 above- 900 hours. That addresses one part of the time element. And then, let’s do the impossible and try to quantify #4 and #5 into something measurable. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, they are the equivalent of 50 hours each. That gives me an even 1000 combined hours of time, labor, emotional, spiritual and artistic investment. The number I ultimately landed on was $20. So why $20?

Viewed in this light, (assuming my math is correct- I specialize in words, not numbers!) charging $20 for the album would equate to 2 cents per hour, per album sold. That’s still very low in my opinion, but it’s many times better than four tenths of a penny per stream. So here’s my thought process: What is the price point that would:

a) honor my time/ labor/ emotional/ spiritual/ artistic investment, 

b) retain my perceived inherent value of the work and, at the same time, 

c) be something that my most enthusiastic supporters would consider “worth it” for them?  

I’m pretty comfortable with $20 for "a" and "b". “C” is something you will have to determine for yourself, given your own particular situation.

With all that being said, at the end of the day, it’s more about a person believing strongly enough in what we do than it is about twenty bucks. If 1,400 people fall into the “loyal few”, then we’ll break even financially and you would be playing a major role in us releasing it more widely. Much more could be said, but I at least wanted to paint a fuller picture for y’all, in terms of how I’m processing things. If you've read this whole thing, I'm impressed! I hope you enjoy the album.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Shai