For people outside the business the world of music seems a lucrative affair. You see the world, live your life backstage, you get all kinds of perks and most of all - you get paid to do what you love ...
... Well not always. It is possible to have massive sales and have eff all in your pocket from them. Notable examples are 30 seconds to Mars - who sold over 2 million records and never got any royalties, and Lyle Lovett who had sales of 4.6 million and got not a penny back from it.
How is that possible?
This diagram taken from The Root.com sheds a light on this. the article that this came from is well worth look at. even though it`s written from an US audience the percentages are the same.
It`s increasingly looking like the best way to go about your art is to go indie, where your advance - if you get one - isn`t high, but the percentages can be more on a equal setting between you and the label or you could just do the whole thing yourself - if you`ve got the time and the money to back it up.
It`s also of interest whether this has any connection to a remark that Peter Waterman made earlier this year about the lack of working class people working infront and behind the audience in the music industry. If you`re musician you`ll know it`s not cheap keeping a roof over your head and a project on the go ... if you`re doing this thing for real, it means equipment, recording and rehearsal costs, it means gigs and tours and most likely - but not neccesary, London. None of that is cheap.. but that`s another blog post ...
Now, it should be noted that, if you are signed up by a label that any extravagance that the band or you go in for that you simply "charge to the record company" is coming out of the figure that you have to recoup. But that rarely happens with bands nowadays, who are more business savvy than their predecessors - the extravagances are more likely to come from the MTV plastic pop divas and their wannabe boybands who see all the riches but not the glitches.
Even in celebrity plastic pop land all is not well, Rihanna is having problems with ticket sales - possibly leading her to play stadiums with empty rows, Christina Aguilera cancelled her tour for this summer as she was only filling 40% - 60% of every venue, which the Jonas Brothers have also had to do this summer, J - Lo lost her record contract, Lady GaGa sold 1.2 copies of her new album in the US which has been touted as a bit of a flop, by the standard of being a megastar whith tons of exposure and an army of twitter followers, even a joint tour with her and Kanye West had to be cancelled last year too because of poor sales.
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