Before the internet and the 2000s, the "old way" of making it for poor and working class musicians was through gigging and hoping that you would get lucky one day and your band would reach the ears of some agent, manager or executive with a record company and that would lead to getting the big contract and a record deal. Marilyn Manson was the last real rock star and that's how his journey began - through gigging in his local area and spending years building a fan following locally, yet he still had to get lucky that someone with connections like Trent Reznor saw him and was impressed enough to sign him.
The music industry began to really change in the 90s due to grunge. Labels became obsessed with signing bands and hitting a home run with the debut album. This was their reaction to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and the other grunge bands having such massive success early on. The benchmark for album sales also changed around this time. In the 80s, it was considered good for bands to move around 50,000 units in sales. Suddenly, that became too low of a number as the industry became so greedy with the grunge bands' success. Long story short, many good bands and artists were cut from labels in the 90s cause they weren't selling over 100k albums. The obsession with having a debut album be a smash hit also is where the labels dropped artistic development and no longer cared about slowly building up an artist or band and letting them grow in the studio over time.
This all died too in the 2000s when record sales no longer were relevant. Unless you come from a privileged background and have connections, it's next to impossible to get into the mainstream music industry. I agree with you, that a lot of the criticism Swift gets is unfair and a bit sexist. Drake is a good example and I'll give you another one - Adam Levine of Maroon 5. His band had a few hits in the 2000s and 2010s, but Levine owes everything to being born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his band was never that big or really all that talented. Same can be said for Nickelback whom the current young generation absolutely hate with a burning passion.
This is true.
Before the internet and the 2000s, the "old way" of making it for poor and working class musicians was through gigging and hoping that you would get lucky one day and your band would reach the ears of some agent, manager or executive with a record company and that would lead to getting the big contract and a record deal. Marilyn Manson was the last real rock star and that's how his journey began - through gigging in his local area and spending years building a fan following locally, yet he still had to get lucky that someone with connections like Trent Reznor saw him and was impressed enough to sign him.
The music industry began to really change in the 90s due to grunge. Labels became obsessed with signing bands and hitting a home run with the debut album. This was their reaction to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and the other grunge bands having such massive success early on. The benchmark for album sales also changed around this time. In the 80s, it was considered good for bands to move around 50,000 units in sales. Suddenly, that became too low of a number as the industry became so greedy with the grunge bands' success. Long story short, many good bands and artists were cut from labels in the 90s cause they weren't selling over 100k albums. The obsession with having a debut album be a smash hit also is where the labels dropped artistic development and no longer cared about slowly building up an artist or band and letting them grow in the studio over time.
This all died too in the 2000s when record sales no longer were relevant. Unless you come from a privileged background and have connections, it's next to impossible to get into the mainstream music industry. I agree with you, that a lot of the criticism Swift gets is unfair and a bit sexist. Drake is a good example and I'll give you another one - Adam Levine of Maroon 5. His band had a few hits in the 2000s and 2010s, but Levine owes everything to being born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his band was never that big or really all that talented. Same can be said for Nickelback whom the current young generation absolutely hate with a burning passion.