“The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.” The Merchant of Venice
To say that music is important in the United Kingdom is to understate things immensely.
Consider this:
“Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the creative industries added between £110 and £130 billion to the UK economy, supported over two million jobs and, since 2010, grew at nearly twice the rate of the economy as a whole. . . . The UK music industry contributes an estimated £5.2 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy per year, of which recorded music generates approximately £1.5 billion in retail revenues: a figure that is also growing year-on-year. The industry employs over 200,000 people, ranging from music creators (including over 50,000 UK artists) and their ecosystems, music venue and touring staff and employees of record labels, music publishers, music streaming services and collecting societies. . . . [I have no idea what a collecting society is, but I like the concept] Annually, the sector generates £2.7 billion in exports, and recorded music specifically generates £500 million in export revenues.”
All of that comes from a report conducted by Parliament, “Economics of Music Streaming.”
Think about that.
In the UK there is a recognition that there is a non-trivial number of citizens who make their livelihoods from music. In research conducted last year they discovered that 90% of UK festivals had been cancelled due to COVID and 93% of grassroots music venues were on the edge of shuttering. What’s more, they found that a quarter of people in the music industry didn’t qualify for Self Employed Income Support Scheme (a supplemental income program from the government, sort of like unemployment compensation in the US). And producers and sound engineers had lost an average of 70% of their income as a result of the socio-cultural-economic impact of COVID on the UK.
In the US the was the passage in December 2020 of the “Save Our Stages Act,” which provides $15-billion administered through the Small Business Administration, setup to provide six months’ of financial support to venues to keep their employees solvent. A good thing (although reportedly bolloxed in its administration at the start), but it is notable that the Brits take music so seriously that they have economic analysts looking into the impact on the finances of the country overall, as well as individual workers in the industry. Strange to think that Boris Johnson is a member of the Conservative Party. When he had an alleged conservative in charge of our government it resulted in little more than embarrassment, which continues today.
