Not the band, it looks like
http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-d ... eally-make
Where does the money go in the music biz?
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Steve French
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Where does the money go in the music biz?
I've never taken a pissbreak during a DBT show but if I had it would have been during Dancing Ricky.
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beantownbubba
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Re: Where does the money go in the music biz?
FWIW, the calculator is wrong: It apparently calculates based on a "straight" or linear formula, when in fact musicians' earnings go up a lot as a record has more success (e.g. the recording advance is paid back, union dues stop at $100K, etc) none of which seems to be taken into account by the formula.
Also, I'd be very surprised if artists' royalties were calculated on suggested retail prices. That doesn't make very much sense, since the label, which is paying the money (at least in theory lol) doesn't get the spread between wholesale and retail and a lot of albums are sold at prices less than suggested retail anyway, so why would the label pay royalties based on that amount? Of course, it could be just a matter of shorthand (setting a royalty rate at 20% of suggested retail is the same as setting it at about 34% of wholesale using the numbers in the article) but it just doesn't seem right to me.
But yeah, none of that changes the essential fact that music is a boom/bust deal - u can get rich or u can starve, but it's very difficult to carve out a decent living, yet another reason DBT is so different. It's an even more extreme example of the "90/10 rule" (90% of the profits go to 10% of the participants) - in music it's more like the 99/1 rule.
Of course, some bands, including presumably DBT to some extent, can carve out a living on the road - musicians generally keep a higher percentage of live concert revenues. That is assuming that there are any, that the promoter actually pays them, etc etc etc.
Also, I'd be very surprised if artists' royalties were calculated on suggested retail prices. That doesn't make very much sense, since the label, which is paying the money (at least in theory lol) doesn't get the spread between wholesale and retail and a lot of albums are sold at prices less than suggested retail anyway, so why would the label pay royalties based on that amount? Of course, it could be just a matter of shorthand (setting a royalty rate at 20% of suggested retail is the same as setting it at about 34% of wholesale using the numbers in the article) but it just doesn't seem right to me.
But yeah, none of that changes the essential fact that music is a boom/bust deal - u can get rich or u can starve, but it's very difficult to carve out a decent living, yet another reason DBT is so different. It's an even more extreme example of the "90/10 rule" (90% of the profits go to 10% of the participants) - in music it's more like the 99/1 rule.
Of course, some bands, including presumably DBT to some extent, can carve out a living on the road - musicians generally keep a higher percentage of live concert revenues. That is assuming that there are any, that the promoter actually pays them, etc etc etc.
What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard
Re: Where does the money go in the music biz?
I'm pretty sure that it doesn't matter what the retail price is; the record company sells the albums to the retailer at $x per unit, then the retailer makes it's money from the markup.
And I knew when I woke up Rock N Roll would be here forever