ABSTRACT
Very little attention has been paid by academics to the earnings and pay-related labour conditions of musicians, or indeed cultural workers more broadly. This is perhaps because, as Banks posits, ‘the notion that cultural work is actually work (that is, an economic activity for which one receives payment)’ escapes the attention of scholars due to ‘a belief that the worlds of art and culture [lie] outside the remit of economic analysis … with employment in music, art, fashion, television and so on, often being understood as a “fun” or pleasurable vocation rather than as structured economic activity’ (2007, p.8 emphasis in original). The exceptions to this lack of attention are surveys commissioned by musicians’ unions, among the most substantial of which is York and Laing’s report of musicians’ employment conditions in the UK (2000). A consideration of what musicians get paid for the work they do is important because of its potential ramifications on the amount of time and resources musicians can dedicate to their music-making and the subsequent impact this might have on their musical output.
