An article in the latest issue of Billboard, the music industry trade pub, features three full pages of universities and colleges that offer business courses for artists entering the music industry. This made an impression on us because not a single institution came to mind that offers any commensurate curriculum for people entering the metal arts. That's not to say unequivocally that there are none, but we'd be surprised if we could find three, much less three pages.
Is this a function of financial expectations? There's a lot more money in music than metal. So perhaps it is expected that one must learn to manage one's music business. Perhaps the institutions teaching metal arts don't expect their charges to make money, so why waste time teaching skills that will never be applied. Maybe it is just a simple case of the blind leading the blind.
Of course, many in the metal arts go on to establish and run successful businesses. In the face of decades-long dwindling support for arts education in America, we in the field could do ourselves and our peers greater service by bulwarking the current curriculum offerings to ensure that the arts have a greater chance of being a financially rewarding career path. Unfortunately, many institutions have taken an opposite course, virtually guaranteeing marginalization for their graduates.
So the question stands. What does music know that metal don't?