jerryc41 wrote:
I wonder how much of the money went to the performers vs the big shots.
The bulk goes to the record company.
Right now, one of the smartest people in the entire music business is Taylor Swift. Swift became a billionaire after re-recording the catalog of her songs that predatory capitalist, Scooter Braun sold. She was horrified to find out that Scooter Braun, an industry titan she had previously feuded with, purchased Big Machine Records in 2019. The label was where Swift recorded her first six studio albums, which effectively meant that any purchase of a Swift album or stream of a Swift song meant that Braun would be getting paid.
So Swift just went back into the studio and RE-RECORDED all of those albums over the past several years. She now owns the rights to those new recordings and performances. Her fans know why she did it, and went out and bought the new versions. Since the new versions are selling, and they are the ones getting the airplay, she gets the proceeds.
Mexican power rock trio, The Warning, got started in their tweens and teens by crowd funding their first two albums. They did so after Disney and several other big companies wanted a piece of what they had. When they started talking to those companies, all they kept hearing about was what they needed to change to be stars. They valued their integrity more than cash, so they stayed independent, and released a concept album called
Queen of the Murder Scene. It's dark as hell, and about the last thing in the world you would expect three teenage sisters to release, but it is absolutely brilliant! No "corporate record machine" would have let them do it back in 2018.
Two years later, with a substantial RABID world-wide fan base, and after seven months of writing and re-writing a contract, they struck a deal with Lava Records that gives them artistic license. Their third album, 2022's
Error, shows that. Their fourth album is due out soon. It will be the first they issue as young adults, 19, 22, and 24.