Sherwin Rosen’s, “the economics of superstars”, is a very interesting article. This is a topic which I wanted to research and write on for quite some time. To start off, all artists these days are signed for profit gain. The way that playing the stock market is a gamble, the same is with artists. When buying a stock, you are hoping that it will bring profit in the future. When signing an artist to become a recording artist, you are betting that they will become a cash cow in the near future. Now, although it has technically always been like this, this sole profit seeking has been on a considerably lower level in the past. In the past centuries, there has been a larger emphasis on pure talent and the service of entertainment, without the tremendous burden of it being obligated to make money. In this day in age, the pursuit to make profit is all that we care about it, as it seems. Now, this is from the institution point of view, such as a recoding company. But what about the artists themselves, who after a while in the spotlight (which doesn’t even have to be a long time), can work their image into a multi million dollar machine.
http://www.geocities.com/valencia_aaup/The_Economics_of_Superstars.html
