Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie says music has been ‘destroyed’ by streaming

'It's impossible to earn a living from making records unless you're Adele,' he says

Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie has argued that music has been “destroyed” by digital platforms such as streaming.

Gillespie said that though he still buys albums, younger music fans like his teenage son prefer to listen online for free.

“He loves music but he wouldn’t buy it. It’s just the culture they were born into,” Gillespie told the BBC. “You can’t turn it back but as an artist, I have to try and express myself and the best way to do that is to make albums.”

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Of his own streaming habits, Gillespie said: “When the Savages album came out and I didn’t have a chance to get to the record store, I listened to the first half on there and then a couple of weeks later, I went and bought the album. But the digital thing has destroyed music.”

Primal Scream will release their eleventh album ‘Chaosmosis’ tomorrow (March 18), but Gillespie predicted that it will not make the band any money.

“It’s impossible to earn a living from making records unless you’re Adele,” he said. “At the level we’re at and a lot of other people are at, you’ve just got to get out and play lots of gigs, but it means the gig circuit is choc-a-block.”

“In the 90s and early 2000s, we could sell hundreds of thousands of art rock albums, but it’s not like that anymore,” he added later in the interview.

Primal Scream will support ‘Chaosmosis’ with four headline shows beginning later this month. The band will play:

Aberdeen – Beach Ballroom (March 29)
Glasgow – ABC (30)
London – Palladium (April 1)
Manchester – Albert Hall (2)

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