Wealth & Money Quote by Tom Jones

Tom Jones isn’t offering a cynical hot take so much as a veteran’s shrug: the industry may change its clothes, but it keeps the same appetite. Coming from a singer who’s survived multiple technological regime shifts - vinyl to cassette to CD to streaming - the line lands as a corrective to the romantic myth that music is somehow exempt from commerce. He’s not scandalized by it. He’s describing gravity.

The intent is pragmatic: if you want to understand why certain artists get pushed, why tours get routed the way they do, why contracts feel lopsided, start with the fact that the “music business” is still a business. Jones frames that as almost boringly consistent, which is the point. “The key things have not changed” quietly punctures every narrative about disruption saving art from gatekeepers. Even when the gate moves from radio programmers to playlist editors, the gate is still there - and it’s still funded.

The subtext is both a warning and a permission slip. A warning to younger artists and fans: don’t mistake hype, aesthetics, or supposed authenticity for the actual mechanism. A permission slip to stop acting shocked that profit motives shape creative outcomes. Jones’s plainspoken phrasing also protects him from sounding bitter; it reads less like complaint than like hard-earned clarity.

Culturally, it’s an older-school star reminding a post-Napster, post-Spotify world that “new” doesn’t automatically mean fairer. The tools evolve. The leverage usually doesn’t.