Isn’t that why he was doing a new batch of shows? This past year there was drama about how he was “too sick” to show up in court when people were suing him and a lot of coverage about how frail he was, but he was slated to do a ton of shows. And his shows are pretty demanding performance-wise. I got the impression these concerts were something he had to do because his debt was out of control and he needed to generate more income.
There is money in music, especially if you write songs that are used. The three most popular played songs of the rock era are: “Yesterday,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and “The Long And Winding Road.” So you can see why McCartney makes such money having two of the three most played and covered songs from the rock era.
The REALLY big money in music comes from touring though. This is because the stars can get companies to pay most of the expenses so it is mostly profit. Jackson didn’t tour. Jackson also blew tons of money making records and video. He would frequently simply scrap everything and start over.
Staff takes its toll as well. MC Hammer was reported to have over 100 people on his staff alone. For ONE person? 100 people? Come on you know, one person doesn’t need that large a staff.
Also beware of creative accounting. Suppose you are $50,000 in credit card debt and you have $100,000 in the bank. Well someone could say “you died $50,000 in debt.” This is true. But your net worth is is a POSTIVE $50,000
You can put things in trusts for you children, in parents names or whatever so it can’t be touched. Once you are in too deep it makes financial sense to keep running up your debt till the max then simply declare bankruptcy.
So you hide your assets in your kid’s name and then borrow till you declare bankruptcy. Michael Jackson’s name had publicity value. A store can charge Jackson a million dollars for clothes knowing darn well it never is going to see that money. BUT that store can say “Michael Jackson shopped here.” And then people run over and buy from the store, then the store, charges off the debt and get’s a tax loss.
So there will be enough to fight over in the coming years. I just hope he set aside some for his kids. Although it may be a blessing if they were broke, then they could go somewhere and live a nice simple life, since few people know who they are anyway.
Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You specifically for Elvis. He heard it and absolutely loved it and wanted to record it but Tom Parker, who took care of ALL his business decisions, insisted that Dolly give him half the publishing rights of the song- his standard contract.
Dolores Fuller, Ed Wood’s girlfriend (played by Sarah Jessica Parker in the movie) wrote the songs Rock a Hula Baby! and Do the Clam for two of Elvis’s movies and she gleefully signed this deal as did many others and it was a great business decision. Anything Elvis sang was going to sell which meant she got a lot of money for the song, and it’s unlikely anybody but Elvis would ever have a hit with those songs or that there would be a demand to do covers, so for her it was a wise move: it generated many times more money for her than if she’d maintained full ownership and let a far lesser singer perform them. But Dolly knew that I Will Always Love You was going to be a monster, plus she wanted to record it herself at some point (she was in legal battles to free herself from Porter Wagoner [who she wrote the song about] at the time and couldn’t without him possibly claiming rights to her own recordings) and she couldn’t stand the thoughts of Elvis getting half the publishing money if she herself were to have a hit with the song later. She made counter offers, including him half the publishing royalties for his version of the song- but wouldn’t give up half the rights to it into perpetuity.
So short story wrong, Elvis never recorded the song. Dolly’s legal battles with Wagoner ended and she recorded the song herself and, of course, huge hit. She recorded two later versions of it and it appeared on the bestselling Best Little Whorehouse soundtrack- generated millions each time. She said she still cried when she thought about how great Elvis would have been with it, but not as much when the royalty checks kept coming in each time (instead of half of said royalty checks). Then when Whitney Houston sang it and it was a monster and brought Dolly far more money than her own versions had she said “That’s when I officially stopped cryin’”, because had she signed the deal then a quarter of the publishing royalties from Whitney’s version would have gone to Lisa Marie Presley as the heir of a man who had nothing to do with writing the song 20+ years before and another quarter to Tom Parker, a man who had nothing to do with anything remotely connected to songwriting. Not signing that contract cost her millions in the '70s perhaps (assuming Elvis would have had a big hit) but it saved her many more millions of dollars over the next three decades.
Anyway, several singers receive a portion of the publishing rights for their material. Madonna is listed as co-writer on most of her material, some of which even she would probably admit she had nothing to do with, but because of the Dolores Fuller “half of something is better than all of nothing” factor and the “if Elvis/Madonna sing a song it will in a sense be their’s” factor it’s fairly common practice. It also why many of the '50s singers and R&B singers died in the poorhouse while their managers died rich (it was routine for the label owner to take a part or sometimes even all of the publishing rights, and many singers had no idea how lucrative these would be). Ray Charles, a blind guy with no formal education in business or law, was one of the first big names to really recognize the importance of keeping all rights to his material (including the master tapes) and consequently died very very rich.
Yeah, it’s such a pity the last 3 years of his life had to be spent living in ridiculous opulence when he could have experienced the true joys of responsible spending :(:(:(.
Speaking of Elvis, I mentioned in the other thread that he died in financial trouble. Like MJ he spent lavishly, was generous to the point of foolishness, had a huge entourage, could never have told you how much money he had in the bank. Like MJ since he valued his privacy but couldn’t go out in public without being mobbed, so he’d rent two floors of a luxury hotel when he traveled or buy out an entire showing of a movie or rent a theme park for the day- acts that in and of themselves were expensive but he could well afford, but doing them frequently taxed even his income. When he died I don’t remember the figures but he was much like MJ: a living legend, worshiped as a one of a kind demi-god, and with an income that would make most people sell their mother for, but he was past his prime and his albums weren’t selling like they once had and he was in something of a career and popularity slump (due to his increasingly odd behavior onstage and the fact he was no longer sexy due to pills and fat) but his lifestyle was just as lavish. Had he lived he’d have been like Brando, MacMahon, Sammy Davis Jr., Whitney Houston, Burt Reynolds, and so many others in the “how in the name of all that’s holy do you earn $100 million and wind up not just broke but in debt?” line.
As I also mentioned, his ex-wife Priscilla ultimately took control of his estate. His royalties still came in and were still substantial, and while being dead prevented him from touring much it also ended his entourage, much of his agreement with Tom Parker, his hangers on and girlfriends, his “I like what you wrote about me in that paper so I’m giving you a Cadillac” gift giving and renting of theme parks and drug habits, so the expenses it saved probably more than offset. Then she opened Graceland to the public which converted it from a major cash drain to a major cash generator, and licensed his image (maintaining very tight control) and did all manner of other smart moves, and within a few years his estate was worth many times more in yearly income and in assets that it had ever been even at the absolute height of his success.
I can see something similar happening to Michael Jackson’s estate. Somebody pointed out in the other that Neverland now belongs to a group of investors, but if they’re smart they’ll at least look into the notion of making it into a tourist attraction because it’s possibly the best known private estate in America and now it’s the former abode of a dead god. (Hell, you could make it into the nation’s most expensive B&B and enlarge the theme park into a full fledged ‘WACKO JACKO’ amusement park; it could be bigger than San Simeon or Graceland.) Jackson’s compulsive and excessive spending now ends, his army of bodyguards and servants can mostly be let go, if he owned jets they can be sold, and with good management his estate could be solvent and worth billions.
Of course it could also be a nightmare of corrupt lawyers and accountants and scavengers of all stripes feasting on it like a savannah of dead giraffes and gazelles until ultimately Prince and Blanket and Paris are all working at the Santa Barbara Starbucks to buy a 10 year old car. Hopefully there’s somebody around who’ll look after their interests. Not sure who that would be (their Grandpa Joe is 80 and he was a financial trainwreck himself and most of his uncles don’t have the education or experience to undertake something so massive either- maybe Janet, who to the best of my knowledge is a lot more responsible than her brother, will take over.)
Or they could also ask for a government bailout.
sampiro, you are correct about how priscilla turned the presley estate around. one thing she did that really helped was to keep upping the age that lisa marie could take over. even lisa marie agrees (now) that her mum was right to do that.
if mjj were a smart man he would leave his exmother-in-law in charge of the estate until the kids reach their 20’s, and hopefully he named steady good guardians for them.
I think we all can agree Priscilla Presley had a bit common sense as well as a lot of beauty :), but this may be problematic of the Jacksons.
If the press can be believed, the family is a bunch of mooches. Michael was giving them a lot. Now I don’t know if I really believe this as no one ever seems to say Janet Jackson is handing over her piles of cash. So either Janet can handle her family or the family isn’t as bad as people say.
It’ll be interesting to see exactly what Jackson owened. I know he was selliing part of his record catalogue back to the record company. That will be the key to see how much of that he still has and what value those songs are preceived to have.
I still think he’s hidden a lot of assets. And I don’t say that to slam him, in particular, but rather because that is how rich people all operate.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those countries he visited had accounts set up for him. It’s gonna be a long drawn out fight for whatever’s left over.
That 1988 Lincoln Town Car Limo looks like a bargain at $4000-$6000. Maybe I should buy it for cruising around Santa Barbara. Miss Daisy’s '54 Caddy is looking pretty sweet at $20K-$30K.
Oh my golly, you’re right. My boring little hometown is about to be turned into “the town next door to Neverland.”:eek: There are going to be Jacko gift shops everywhere or something. It’s going to be exactly like Graceland. Holy moley, I had not thought of this.
(I’m from Santa Maria, and several of my friends had jobs where they made deliveries and whatnot to the place. But it was pretty much invisible otherwise–you couldn’t just go visit Neverland or anything. I don’t even know exactly where it is. But that trial was quite bad enough, I’m horrified at the thought of what a Neverland theme park will do.)
So what you guys are saying is that all I need to do is write one song that Celine Dion uses as filler on an album and I will get checks the rest of my life?
A guy who used the name aha to post on the board was a member of the group Five Americans. He got .35 every time a radio station played Western Union.
I’m not from there, but I was thinking that too. How big a problem would zoning be if they want to turn it into some sort of Graceland style theme park? Whenever they showed it on the news, it looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. Did he have many neighbors?
Neverland is in Los Olivos, not the City of Santa Barbara thank you very much, which is in Santa Barbara County. It’s a fairly small town in the middle of nowhere. It’s close to Solvang and Buellton and about a 45 minute drive inland from Santa Barbara.
Crap! I’m in SB, that never occurred to me!
A big chunk of his debts were from unpaid property taxes on the Neverland Ranch, btw.
I got a jury duty notice and the day that I was scheduled to go in was the same day that I heard on the news that they were getting together the jury for the MJ molestation trial. I was seriously bummed until I realized that it was to take place in Santa Maria, not Santa Barbara.
Nah, it’s in the middle of nowhere all right. You can see it on google maps. Santa Maria is the closest town of any size to the north, and Santa Ynez–a tiny place–is on the south, so it will get most of the traffic from the LA area. I suppose it’s really Santa Ynez that is about to be turned into the gateway, poor little town.
Man, hajario, I bet you were happy you dodged that bullet.
I used to live in San Luis Obispo - so Santa Maria was our “big town” (has a store other than Gottschalk’s). I knew MJ lived not too far away, but I’ll be damned if I ever figured out where it was exactly.
As tempting as Neverland might be as a tourist trap, it might have the stench of “child molestation charges” all over it. So maybe they should make the Jackson home in Encino a museum instead… Parking would be a bitch.
I had no idea until I read the wiki article and confirmed on other sites that Neverland is almost 3,000 acres! Even in rural Alabama or the west Texas desert 3,000 acres is worth a lot of money by most people’s definitions of the term; in Santa Barbara County- damn. That was actually a great investment; I’m surprised his managers never tried to develop a part of it into condos or an upscale retirement community or a resort or something like that would have produced income rather than massive upkeep for the place.
By contrast Graceland is 14 acres, and being located in Memphis it was impossible to have any control over the neighborhood around it without buying up buildings (which I don’t believe they did), while if Neverland is opened publicly they could control damned near everything. I’ve no idea how the property is laid out, but unless the mansion is at the edge of the property you should be able to keep anything being built within sight or sound of it unless it is built on Neverland soil. (If perfectly square, 3,000 acres would be a bit more than half a mile on each of the 4 sides.)
Since the mansion is the main thing most people would care about anyway, and then the amusement park, all of which together probably occupies well under 100 acres (probably more like 20, if that much) they’d be fools not to open it. Tickets to tour Graceland or Hearst Castle cost between $25-$30 each (Biltmore is over $50)- Neverland could easily charge $35 and have to turn away people. It’s Graceland meets Hearst Castle meets Dollywood only Jackson was more popular than Dolly and a lot more current than Elvis and the house was the site of a MAJOR scandal (billions of dollars of free publicity). Then charge extra for the amusement park, extra for the museum, and have a Jackson themed hotel somewhere on the grounds of the 3000 acres (far enough away from the house not to disturb its views)… an amphitheatre on the grounds with pop acts, maybe a reality show-contest tie in to subsidize the expense, ooh yeah, this could put his estate back into the black (no pun intended). His brethren could function something like the washed up boxers at Vegas casinos, and on 3000 acres you could build a maximum security cottage for Latoya and not have to worry about her shrieking disturbing neighbors or wildlife.
I’d totally invest. And if I were Dangermom I’d go ahead and start selling maps and sequined glove handled coffee mugs and “I spent the night at Neverland Ranch and all I got was this lousy T-shirt (and by ‘lousy T-shirt’ I mean molested)” souvenir shirts by the roadside for the retirement fund.
Eh, make hajario and wonderlust do it. I live at the other end of the state now. All we’ve got is almonds.
Clearly you ain’t from these parts, Sampiro. Building permits for anything that you suggested, particularly a tract of condos or an amphitheater, is not in the cards. Even if they eventually got permits, it would take a dozen years and lots of lawyer time. It’s one of the most builder unfriendly counties in the U.S.