Money and Record Sales...

Something tells me they havent sold anywhere near three mil. Maybe around, 500 000 cds total. To selll three million, even if you take into account all the singles and the live album that would be around 75 000 + of each cd.

The people who say buy merch and go to shows are right, that's the biggest way to make the bucks.

About stores: When you buy a cd, you dont give the band money, they already have it. What happens is a store orders the cds from either the record label or a distributor and pay them directly. I used to run a metal store, I know. We'd buy cds from Century Media at around 10 - 14 bucks each, the higher priced ones were because the artists were not on CM but just distro'ed by em. What happens then after the store buys the cd directly is they mark it up and when it gets sold it pays for the overhead costs and all that. It does however get Sound Scanned (in the US) when you buy a cd at a store like Best Buy so that helps the artist know how much they are actually selling as opposed to just shipping. However, like I said, the artists get paid on how many units ship to stores not sell to the customers. If I released a cd and had a deal that I got one dollar for each cd sold and it shipped 500 000 I would get 500 000 even if it didnt actually SELL any over the counters to the consumer.

Ben
 
Krig:

I know guitar techs alone make upward of $1500 a week alone.
so say 6 shows a week, divide 1500 by 6 and you have your guitar tech fee
times that by 2, add a drum tech, light tech, mixer etc etc ETC and you're already past 1500
 
Overall, I don't think they have much money at all. All I know is that, they certainly should be making a buttload off of their merchandise, probably more than iced earth.
 
popular artists go bankrupt because they are fucking retards and dont know how to save money and they spend EVERYTHING they made because with so many millions, they are absorbed by this illusion that they will continue to have that income until retirement, but celebrity musicians rarely last more than ten years, and then fantastic incomes cease. just look at jacko - how much is neverland ranch worth? how much debt is he in? he's an idiot.
 
M. said:
popular artists go bankrupt because they are fucking retards and dont know how to save money
youd be surprized at how untrue that is. record companies fuck over artists big time to the point that an artist could have sold over 1,000,000 albums, but have nothing to show for it because the label takes the cash for expences (production, recording, art work, printing, advertisement, etc, etc, etc.) record companies are ruining music, because there is nothing positive that they do for the industry.