Hi All, Private as it is, I really like this thread about just how much Joni is making, or not making from her music. I guess I take her at her word when she says the money owed the record company for production has rarely been recouped from sales. Of course, everything is relative. Considering the cost of living the life she lives... Bel Air home, apartment in New York. What is eeking out profitsfor her would put me on Boardwalk, with a lot of stach left over. Those of you who are in the know about the music industry, please carry on with this thread. This is fascinating stuff. Would it not be fair to say that Joni did make profits with Blue, For the Roses, Court and Spark and Hissing of Summer Lawns? Lawns sold resonably well if I recall, in spite of the bad reviews. I can easily see how DJRD would not recoup the cost of making the record. It probably had to have one of the highest studio production costs of anything she put out; and none of the songs got any air play. The big money losers had to have been Mingus and Dog Eat Dog. Especially Mingus. Cosider the quality of players who performed with her. Consider as well that the record was recorded several times with different bands. The buying public replied to all this with a resounding lack of interest. Jazz purists, small market as they are, hated the record. And for the general public, this disk might as well have been music from Mars. I hold nothing against Geffen for not promoting this material. What possible way could one package these to a mass market audience in love with main stream, feel good pap? Do you really think 4 out of 10 average music buyers is going to listen to Wolf in Lindsey and think, "Coool. Let's get that album for tonight's party!" based on promotion? It may have drawn the curious enlightened few, but Joni's music doesn't 'fit' the general norm people buy and play music: as feel good listening entertainment, to dance to, as atmosphere at a party, or to make love to. She's too heavy, too off the beat, to verbose and cerebral, and too cynical for general consumption. Admit it gang, we're weird. Wonderfully enlightened, but weird. As for her paintings. Profits here are another story. The painting arts, when you have your act together at least, has a huge, huge magin between the cost of production (time and supplies) and the worth of the product. Considering it costs no more than 300 dollars to produce one of her largest paintings, and the fact that she can command prices in the 20 grand plus range, I'd say Joni is doing quite alright on the painting front regarding profit. Even if she does have to split the profits with her agent. I understand the music videos around the time of Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm were financed by an exhibit in Japan that sold well? The exhibit she had in Saskatoon is worth over a million dollars in market value. Perhaps Joan is more shrew that we give her credit. Perhaps all those recordings all these years were ploys to up the value of her painting catalogue??? John, not Rich. NP: Spring!!!
