Funny Money
Published September 25, 2002
You don't need a business manager and a band manager to turn $1,000,000 dollars into $45,000. Either hire managers that know what they are doing or fire them both and pocket their fees.
So far the record company is out a million bucks, they don't have anything to show for it, and they have a pissed off artist who thinks they are being screwed. Sounds right so far.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies.
That only happens sometimes. For the average company that will happen one time in ten. Using the numbers in this example the company is out ten million bucks in expenses that they have to dig out of to make a profit from one hit album.
(How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
Take a look at the deals signed by Janet Jackson or Mariah Carey. Cartels don't make those kind of deals.
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
So the record company is out another million bucks, only half of which they can recoup if the record is a hit. Meanwhile all the videos for albums that tank add another 9 million in costs that the record company has to overcome if they are to make a profit.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
Except that the record company makes zero money off of a tour, and a band can make a great deal of money from touring. The record companies front the money in the hopes that the tour will generate album sales.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations — the unified broadcast system — are getting paid to play their records.
True. But that doesn't mean they don't have to pay it. If they don't your record will probably not get enough airplay. That would significantly reduce the chances that your song album will become a hit.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
All of those costs are required to market your release.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
- Funny Money
- Published: September 25, 2002
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: News
- Writer: Martin Devon
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Anyone wanting to know where the money *really* goes should look no further than MixerMan's diary. For the uninitiated, MM is a recording engineer who's basically blogging the recording process of the first album for a big-hype major label group, with the names and some details changed to protect the guilty. Regardless of how clueless Courtney is, it's clear the labels are the cause of their own current slump.
OK, Ian, I followed your link and read a couple of entries. What is your point? If you think that by just reading MixerMan's diary "all will become clear" you are mistaken. Please explain your question/comment.
How disgusting that a man (Courtney had a sex change, there is viable proof) claimed to be married to this icon, after they (the COG cult) murdered him in 1990. Geffen (and his boyfriend Pitt, who was snogging Love too) helped "it" steal Cobain's songs and record them with her group. It is a mockery of talent and goodness. Courtney Love, your life is in ruins and soon you will be dead. As will everyone involved in the sacrafice of Kurt Cobain.
This is not Kurt Cobain's child, he had no children! Frances Bean belongs to Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt (yes, they knew each other long before they married). She is idenical to her parents, and strangly, ever whore Hollywood has ever produced. She is hideous.
Kurt had unearthly crystal colored eyes, that demon's eyes are grey just like it's real father, Brad.
Kurt Cobain was murdered in 1990, later Courtney Love (whose real mother is actually "Wendy" who falsly claims to be Cobain's mother) was paid-off to pretend to be married and have a child, all so that the Hollywood 3 could share in the reported 6 billion Nirvana has thus far grossed. Geffen was delighted by all of this, helping Courtney with her transgendering (She was once a male). The hundreds (no doubt thousands) that were and are involved in this horrid Sacrafice are paying-with their lives! Oh, how they shall pay for those crimes.
We love you Kurt.
Kurt Cobain was murdered in 1990, later Courtney Love (whose real mother is actually "Wendy" who falsly claims to be Cobain's mother) was paid-off to pretend to be married and have a child, all so that the Hollywood 3 could share in the reported 6 billion Nirvana has thus far grossed. Geffen was delighted by all of this, helping Courtney with her transgendering (She was once a male). The hundreds (no doubt thousands) that were and are involved in this horrid Sacrafice are paying-with their lives! Oh, how they shall pay for those crimes.
We love you Kurt.
It is just another Cult admission of guilt, a silly one at that (there is no G-d, and no jesus, but those are the cults false idols).
Just a hyme, a crust of bread thrown on the trail of murderers...
Ladies and gentlemen, Dave Grohl. Thanks, Dave. I always thought you were a funny guy in interviews :)
That is all.
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Nice job eagle eye business dude.