Nile Rodgers says even David Bowie would struggle to make it with the state of the music industry today.
The Chic legend – who co-produced Bowie’s seminal 1983 album ‘Let’s Dance’ and has worked with the likes of Madonna, Duran Duran and Beyonce – gave evidence at the House of Commons to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee this week.
Asked about streaming services and the low levels of renumeration for artists, Nile admitted in his five decades in music he thought modern technologies would make his life “better”, but there is something “dreadfully wrong” in the system.
He said: “I’m 71 years old, I’ve been doing this for 50 years of my life.
“In 50 years, you would have thought with the advent of all the new technologies, people like me would have a much better life, things would be easier, we’d all profit together, and that’s not the case. There’s something dreadfully wrong with that.”
He then used the late ‘Starman’ hitmaker as an example of a music genius who wouldn’t stand a chance if he were starting out now.
Nile recalled how Bowie “paid” for ‘Let’s Dance’ to be made after he was dropped by RCA and said: “They gave him all that time to try and make a hit, he called me up and we made [Let’s Dance].
“[The labels] took on this financial responsibility and they would carry the artists they believed in that at some point in time would finally break.
“Those days are truly over.”
Ahead of his time, Bowie predicted in 2002 that the music business and how we consume songs would change within the next decade and become like “running water”.
He said: ”The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity.”