PRS Charity

I've made it clear many times before that I don't like and don't believe in charity. Charity only exists because greedy control freaks steal all the resources for themselves and then try to throw a few crumbs back to the rest of us to appease their guilt.

I've also spoken of my dissatisfaction with the PRS and the whole way the music industry rips off artists, particularly independent artists. So when I received an email this week from the PRS entitled "Could a grant help you with this winter?" I was both curious and irritated. It says the PRS Members Fund may be able to help you through their Winter Relief Scheme. At first glance, I assumed I wouldn't be eligible, but looking into it discovered I could actually claim it. Whether I'd get anything or not I don't know. I was reluctant anyway because I am all the time trying to move away from the middleman and establish a more direct relationship between artist and audience. I assumed it would be a loan but then saw in the small print it is a registered charity and that made my mind up not to pursue it further.

I have been getting more plays everywhere in recent years than I've ever had before and yet over the last year, my royalties have not reflected that. I was told by the PPL (a similar organisation to the PRS but for recorded works) a few years back there were royalties waiting for me in Australia, which I still haven't seen, and every attempt I've made to contact them about it has amounted to nothing. "Satellites" from 'One Way Ticket' has now been getting considerably more plays than ever before and yet that has translated into only a few extra pennies. I contacted the PRS about Spotify royalties earlier in the year and also pointed out to them that I've had almost 80,000 plays in total from Audiomack and yet have not seen a single royalty from that. I was told PRS don't collect Audiomack royalties but the American equivalent do and pass it on to the PRS. Then I was told since most of those plays are over 3 years old it was too late to collect them and so I would see nothing for those 80,000 plays of my work. I pointed out isn't that the whole point of the PRS, not for me to remind them to collect? How can I possibly go around keeping check of who is playing my songs and then report all of this back to the PRS? Since royalties are always delayed how am I to know if they are pursuing them or not?

This is precisely the reason I emphasise buying my work direct from my website or Bandcamp rather then streaming services. I'm extremely grateful to anyone who pays for my songs in any form but downloads/CDs are significantly more financially rewarding to the artist. Whenever someone buys a song or album in download or CD form it is extremely satisfying and I'm so appreciative, more than they may realise, because it helps so much. Literally, it can help get the next meal, but it is more than monetary. It's the fact that person values something you created out of nothing and has that there for the rest of their life. A little piece of you has enriched their life in some way now and into the future. That is something I never take for granted.

Going back to the issue, the problem with accepting charity from the PRS, or any kind of charity, is it keeps the status quo in place. Why not simply pay artists properly? If I was paid properly for those Audiomack plays and paid more fairly for Spotify/YouTube plays then I wouldn't need charity. You see this mentality running all throughout the system. They don't want individuals to be self-sufficient. The recent law changes to keeping chickens, even just one, is another example of this. Just as religion inserted itself in between Man and God, the system always wants to be the middleman in every situation. It is always about control. They don't like people being out of their control. They want everything accounted for at their end so they can control the narrative and direction the world goes in. You only get paid handsomely as a musician if you're one of the big artists and how do you become one of the big artists? You must join their club, which means doing all the things they want you to do, being prepared to promote all the agendas they want to push.

Look at all the big artists today. The Taylor Swifts, the Sabrina Carpenters, Olivia Rodrigos... increasingly their paths to fame look almost identical. Start off as a child star with Disney, get a revamped sexy image once they hit their late teens, then promoted as serious singer/songwriters. Their discography almost always starts off with them co-writing most of the tracks but with each album more co-writers appear until by about the 3rd or 4th album they are hardly featured as a writer. Yet they are compared to and we are supposed to believe they are songwriters of the calibre of Lennon & McCartney or Noel Gallagher in the 90s! People who actually sat down with a guitar or piano and wrote a song from start to finish all by themselves.

So for independent artists, forming a direct connection with your audience is crucial more than ever. The average rent in Edinburgh is said to be about £1500. That means if 150 people worldwide bought an album each month direct from me at £10, it would pay for the rent. When you think about it, 150 people worldwide is not a huge amount. It is surely possible. All it requires is a change in the thinking of most music listeners from a mentality of someone else will do it to I will do it. People assume if you are good someone else will sign you and you will be taken care of. They will see you once you are established. Not all artists are aiming to be signed, some simply want to create good music and put it out there. The old structure of sign to a record label, release an album, promote and tour it, go away for a couple of years, then repeat indefinitely is fading away. There is no one path anymore.

I have always valued recorded music most. Both as a listener and artist. My music collection is made up mostly of artists I have never seen live. I haven't been to a huge amount of concerts. My transition into adulthood happened at the end of the 90s into the early 2000s. Just as the world was starting to become a more isolated place with computers and technology. Music wasn't a communal thing for me the way it was for those who grew up in the 60s, 70s and 80s. It was a private experience, many hours sitting with headphones on listening to albums in my room or whilst doing other tasks. There weren't a huge amount of current artists who I was eager to see live. It was often the same 3 or 4 artists who I repeatedly saw live. So recordings were where the magic was for me and similarly, when I started creating my own music, it wasn't with other people because nobody I knew was interested in the kind of music I wanted to make. My friends at that time were into dance and electronic music, not guitar music. Those who did like guitar music were either into heavy metal or modern rock, neither of which turned me on. So I really immersed myself in the recording process and realised you could create a world or dimension with sound. Unlike a live performance which is fleeting and transitory, a recording is there forever for you to enjoy and lose yourself in any time. The value of that has not yet been fully appreciated.