Broken Record

A musician's look at the changing music industry with Jeff Balke

Sufjan Stevens Thinks He is Worth More Than Amazon Does

Sort of angry Sufjan is kinda angry.

All musicians like to think of themselves as artists. I frequently refer to performing musicians as artists and, in truth, they are. However, there is, at least to me, a very distinct line between what pop musicians (and that is really any music that isn’t jazz, blues, classical or traditional music like Celtic) do and what others do. What pop artists do is pop art and is subject to the whims of a fickle public not to mention the economy.

Enter Sufjan Stevens, the eclectic singer/songwriter whose self-owned label recently complained about the bulk pricing structure of music on

“We have mixed feelings about discounted pricing,” the e-mail read. “Like we said, we love getting good music into the hands of good people, and when a price is low, more people buy. A low price will introduce a lot of people to Sufjan’s music and to this wonderful album. For that, we’re grateful.”


What your music is worth is what the general public is willing to pay for it. Period. Musicians like Stevens would never try to book a gig at the Toyota Center because he couldn’t sell enough seats to justify the venue. He understands that to maximize the value of the ticket, he needs to be in a place that will sell out, thereby making his tickets more valuable and worth the cost, whatever that might be.

That’s simple economics, which is why this whole “we also feel like the work that our artists produce is worth more than a cost of a latte” business strikes me as a little off. Is it reallyworth more than the cost of a latte? I’m sure they would like it to be, but wanting it to be doesn’t make it so.

Fact is, many people don’t want to pay for music at all. The end result is popular download sites and peer-to-peer trading services. Music doesn’t have the value that it once did, but it was never really worth what record labels thought in the 80′s and 90′s either.

The reality is that the value of music is dropping and will eventually reach some sort of equilibrium probably well below what the folks at Stevens’ label Asthmatic Kitty would like, but “them’s the breaks” as my dad used to say.

I’m fairly certain Stevens would take another job if he couldn’t make a living doing what he is doing rather than starve. Sure, art is important, but so is the rent. When at least one of the aims of your art is to make money, you can’t complain when capitalism intervenes. I didn’t hear the folks at Stevens’ label saying, “Gosh, I really don’t think this record is worth the ten dollars iTunes is charging. They really should re-think their pricing structure.”

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Jeff Balke

5 Responses

  1. Miss Leslie says:

    Sad but true. I stopped selling CDs for $15 at my shows. I used to only sell a couple (unless it was a CD release). As a fellow musician used to say, “People want to spend their money on getting high – not CDs.”

    I dropped the price to $5 (I sell my new one for $10). Suddenly, I was selling anywhere from 10-30 CDs at every show.

    And people are going home with my music.

    Does it suck to think that I’m making pennies with every CD? Sure. But I still believe that it will payoff in the long run.

    We will see.

  2. Samara.Morgan says:

    Honestly, I find his stance just a wee bit arrogant. People will pay what they feel his music is worth. If he feels his music is worth more than Amazon is willing to sell it for, then he should ply his wares elsewhere.

  3. mistermark says:

    Maybe Sufjan Stevens could get people to pay more for his music if he stopped playing lame, anemic indie-rock.

  4. Eric says:

    I agree, Jeff. If Sufjan and his record company were upset with Amazon’s pricing, couldn’t they refuse to sell it on there and just sell it on their own website instead? I know why they don’t — only hardcore fans will find it.

    Like it or not, it’s called the free market. I still have no problem paying $15 for an album, but I know that I’m in the minority.

  5. PayAttention says:

    It is true that pop artists’ work is worth only what the current market will bear, but bulk distribution is not the market, but the market structure. In general, most musicians would prefer to make the decent money and be in a million stereos than make a little more and be in a thousand. But the idea that a reseller setting a standard price for all products that it deems the same is equivalent to “market value” is a bit communist. Unlike dish soap, you can’t just get a different CD for a few cents less and have it be the same as the one you wanted. But the Amazon structure is based on the idea that my work is exactly the same as everyone else’s except for brand loyalty.

    It is true, however, that what many artists used to call “selling your soul to the devil” is at play. Amazon is a soulless money machine, and if you want to tap into that money, you have to give a little of your soul in return. Sufjan Stevens is free to take his chances hawking his music directly to retail outlets, or put them on eBay, or he can leave the sales up to the machine. His art may be worth more than a latte, but if you can’t do the art because you are running around to coffee shops putting little displays up to sell CDs for three times the cost of a Latte, you net 1/3 the cost of a Latte per CD, and only sell a few.