What is puzzling is how those who decide to pursue music as a full-time endeavor will be able to support themselves in any way that would allow them to have a roof over their heads that won’t be corrugated and to eat things that don’t contain dodgy ingredients from China. Certainly, there is a bell-shaped curve as regard the amount of money that can be made as a musician. This ranges from those who are generating busker-like incomes to, say, the Rolling Stones. There is, perforce, the bigger middle.

But now the economies have changed and are changing.

With Radiohead and the Charlatans announcing that they’re going to an alternative income-sourcing model for their latest releases by putting them online for download (the former asking for a pittance at a minimum; the latter going out there with whatever the downloader deems fit), does this portend a situation wherein there will be sustainable full-time musicians or will this become the purview of, say, hobbyists?

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