heybraham said:
well think about it. this is what happened to bardot, they sang some prewritten songs and those songs got put on a cd. that album sold SHITLOADS due to tv publicity, but did bardot get much money?
nah
they only got paid the performance rights, which equates to jackshit, its akin to being a background dancer in a music video clip [some bardot member said she got paid as much much as a checkout chick at woolies]. so what happens? the record companies get a higher % of the record profits.
now why would they push some anonymous guy's cd with really good music the artist wrote themselves when they could just sell a pop act with massive publicity and only a performance right?
if i was a record company executive i know which one I'D choose. the chart is just an ingenius marketing tool
ah well this post shows you know pretty much fuck all about the music industry. and that the chick from bardot knows fuck all to.
most bands earn less then a dollar an hour (per member). machince gun fellatio made less then a dollar an hour while they were around, and they were one of the best managed bands in australia.
what record companies do is give artists interest free loans. these loans are used to pay for recording and any living expenses the artists have. so if a band is stupid and goes we gotta contract were sweet, and ships in expensive produces etc they are the ones paying for it.
now these interest free loans have to be paid back to the record companies through the sales of cds. that may seem simple enough, but look at it this way a cd cost about $25 on average. the store takes $5-10 of that, so you got about $15 left, some of that goes to cover the expenses of shipping the cd, publicity that the record company puts up, then the record company takes a cut, and leaves the band with less then a few dollars. the band then has to give this to the record company to payback the original loan.
a record company never ever loses money, as if the band doesnt sell they have to pay the record company back the advance, which accounts for most of the expenses.
artists make most of there money through gigs, not sales. infact only the top ten bands make any money on top of the advances they are given, and only so many more are even able to completely pay back advances (leading to situations where the record company drops them, but says you cant release cds etc)
most people are under the illusion that musicians are rich, only the top well managed musicians are rich.
example, michael jackson is in debt, he has fallen into the trap many popstars do, oh i signed a contract ive got millions of dollars now, ill go and blow it all, when they dont have millions of dollars, they have an interest free loan of millions of dollars.
UNDERSTAND????