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> how expensive it can be to market music.

Did you write this comment in 2001? The cost to produce and promote music has dropped to near zero. SoundCloud rappers have become millionaires. Billie Eilesh recorded her first album in her bedroom.

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I'm dating someone who has visions of fame through his music. These "soundcloud rapper millionaires" and Billie Eilesh have so much more marketing spent on them than you might believe. It is hard to make it anywhere in that business without a lot of promotion, and that requires a lot of money. Initially often in the form of small payments that add up. A few hundred dollars here to be added to a playlist, a few hundred there for gig promotion...over time that turns into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. For one artist. To even get a tiny start that may not lead anywhere.

Almost every business out there has costs associated with it.

Yes. It seemed to me the GP's comment implied that those "rapper millionaires" and Billie Eilesh just made it big without having to pay those costs (or at least, not to the same degree). My point was a counterargument.

Recording album is not marketing.

If you think there is no marketing and PR people behinds those "grassroots superstars", you're utterly naive.

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