BE AN ANGEL! SUPPORT THE MUSIC

“Why is this necessary?” Max Highstein Answers:

There are two main reasons supporting a music artist is a big deal. 

1. Making a great recording can be very expensive! Take the album, Flying Not Falling, for example. I believe in hiring great musicians, and paying them fairly. So I went out on a limb to pay about $2500 to the great players who contributed to this project. Making an initial run of CDs (necessary for radio and other promotions) cost about $1500. It cost another $1500 or to send CDs to radio programmers, who then decided whether or not to give the music airtime. This was a very modest budget! I am fortunate to have my own studio, or recording costs for this album would have easily doubled my expenses. Adding a promotional agent would have cost several thousand dollars more, which I did not have. I also devoted months of my time to making this album. That all adds up to quite a bit! (Some of it was paid for by a few very generous Kickstarter backers, and if you were one of them, thanks again and again!)
2. It’s nearly impossible to recoup expenses! In the olden days, fans purchased vinyl records, cassettes, or CDs. Today most listeners do not! Most of the royalties artists may collect come either from download sales, or streaming royalties. But even download sales have diminished greatly. That leaves streaming, and streaming royalties are miniscule! For example, when someone streams one of my songs on Spotify or Pandora, a typical payment might be $0.00047684. That’s not a typo! It’s less than a tenth of a penny. This is not just a problem for me — it’s a real issue for most every music artist except for the very, very few major acts.

So, if you love the music you hear on my website, and you can afford to support it, please do! Buy some CDs or downloads for your friends and give them as gifts. Or delve into my catalog and buy your favorites. Or, if you care to, just make a gift. It would be greatly appreciated!