I think if you're good, you could promote the fuck out of yourself on the net for very little cost and make money on the deal.
Looking on the net for 5 minutes,
You can get on Pandora for $6.50 for a barcode needed for submission of the app
Catapult will distribute your shit for $25 an album to iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, eMusic, Rdio NEW!, Spotify, Google Play NEW! (Formerly Android Marketplace), iHeartRadio NEW! (Clear Channel), Napster (Merged with Rhapsody), Zune, MTV - URGE (Merged with Rhapsody), Best Buy (Merged with Rhapsody), Puretracks, Medianet:, eBay Digital Music Center, iLike, Tesco, Synacor, iMesh, MOG, J. River, Pasito Tunes (La Curacao)
If you're serious and can code a little or can learn, you can get a full fledged site with perl scripts and shopping cart for $120 a year.
Most audio programs/mixers/beats can be found for free (one way or another) to come up with a decent enough sound to make mp3's from.
On top of that, you whore your music any way possible through link submissions to get your shit to come up in searches. Lot of dirty work that may seem like a waste, but it'll get you seen if done right.
Digital media makes it so much easier to get noticed. Word of mouth will spread your stuff if they like you enough. Fuck, if I had a little extra cash and the time, I've thought about jumping into the whole promo shit for some here and see what came of it.
The difference between the famous and nobody has more to do with just getting recognized and less with talent. I listen to half the shit out not and know half of you motherfuckers could write up better stuff.