The Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger 13 years ago is roughly neck-and-neck (non-scientific moral judgement metrics) with the ubiquity of digital pitch correction (Autotune) as the worst things to happen to popular music in my lifetime, maybe anyone’s lifetime.
Soulless, heartless, vile disrespect to art and the public’s accessibility to it, combined with shameless, ruthless, unchecked, unrepentant greed.
Taylor Swift Concert Prices
My brother in law in Rhode Island is significantly unhappy with his spouse and daughter who spent $1K each for a ticked to hear TS at Patriot Place (in a driving rainstorm, to boot). I also think it is absurd but pointed out to him that most artists these days make the bulk of their revenue off concerts, with the decline in physical media and the very poor payments from streaming. He was more impressed when I told him that for what they spent one could get a decent surround system that could play concert Blu rays.
I know of quite a few people who are dissapointed that they can’t spring that kind of dough to either personally attend or be able to buy a ticket for their kids, and others who have spent for TS tickets but who are agonizing about what they are passing up by doing so, like a family vacation, for example.
Audiophiles make the same types of decisions, but at least the products that we buy are not for one night of music pleasure. My sister in law would actually have a stroke if her husband were to spend a few grand for a decent system (he wants one, and we have had this discussion through the years). I would argue that she just handed him ammo for the next skirmish they have.