What sort of money will an artist net from a top ten single - purely from it’s time in the charts, not royalties years later etc ?
About tree-fiddy.
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This concerns the music industry, which makes it better suited to Cafe Society.
Moving thread from General Questions to Cafe Society.
The only factual answer is “it depends”. It depends on what their contract is with the record company. Are they an established artist with lots of hits or is this their debut record? Did they write the song or just perform it? Lots of variables to consider. If you’re thinking about putting out a song on iTunes you can expect that Apple with take about 10%.
It all depends on the musician’s contract. Most musicians do not make much money at all from their first hit. The profits mostly go to the record company. Many musicians have basically described their contracts as slave labor. They get diddley while the record company rakes in the big bucks. To be fair, the record company also fronts the money for the production of numerous albums that never sell enough to make up their initial costs, too.
Many musicians have said that where they make their money is out on the road. They get a share of the profits from filling stadiums and theaters.
A musician (or group) may be under contract for something like three albums. If they get a hit somewhere in there, they can renegotiate after their contract expires to try to get more money. At that point, the artist can threaten to go to another label if they don’t get the terms that they like. An unknown artist can’t make that kind of threat and isn’t in a very good position to negotiate contract details.
OK it depends on the musician’s contract and other variables. But there must be a credible range - like is it possible to make millions from one number one ?
[Now my agent just called me on the telephone
And said, "Son,
your record’s just got to number one.
And do you know what this means?
This means you can earn some real money!](http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/The_Kinks:Top_Of_The_Pops)
Who buys records these days. An artist can have a top selling song but if most people are just downloading it at $1.00 and the rest are stealing it for free, they will get very little.
As ECG said above, the real money will be from the world tour, provided that they can fill the stadia. Oh - not to mention the merchandise and signed pictures.
It’s possible you could make millions, or you could still owe the record company thousands. It really does all depend on how many you sell, and how badly your contract was written.
I assume only the purchases are counted toward making it onto the charts.
I’m so old my first thought was “Who makes singles anymore”, but then I realized all you kids are loading them on your devices all the time. Anyway, at a dollar a pop there can’t be much left over for the artist, even if they receive a royalty is it even a penny?
Interesting discussion. I’ve often wondered whether a one-hit wonder pulls down enough money not to have to work again, or if they still have to hold down a day job at Dexy’s Midnight Running Shoes or (Terence Trent d’) Arby’s.
The major Billboard singles charts (e.g. the Hot 100/Top 40) have been a combination of sales and airplay since the late 1950s. There are and have been sales-only singles charts that have had relevance within the music industry.
Interestingly, there is still a Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart. Of note from the “Billboard Hot 100” Wikipedia page:
Thought this was an interesting factoid, too, regarding Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles chart:
Ok, I was thinking of Gold Records. Do they still do that?
Apparently it can cost $1 million nowadays to have a hit single
The really big money now is licensing a song for commercials and films. A few years ago Howard Stern had Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from The Turtles on his show. Stern made a joke about how they needed work. They replied they own all the master tapes for the Turtles and last year they made $500,000 just for allowing McDonalds in Germany to use “Happy Together”.
I wish I could remember the source but I seem to remember for a million seller, each member of a 5 person new group might get $12,000. At the beginner stage, the money (if any) is in touring. And being smart enough to hold onto your publishing. But I remember Billy Zoom leaving X in the mid 1980s because he never earned more than $13,000 a yearOr more accurately, it takes that much to push a piece of music factory manufactured generic dreck hard enough to get people to buy it.
There are various sources of revenue, but the only person who consistently makes any money from a record is the songwriter - a fixed amount per physical or downloaded copy. Don’t expect to make any money at all from the royalties on the actual recording, as all costs for promoting the record come out of the artists share. Janis Ian, who has been releasing records since she was 13, won 2 Grammys, had a #3 record, and yet:
nm