Randy Remote wrote:
>
>
> An act on a major label is lucky to get $1 per CD sold-and that's
> only after they have paid off the cost of the recording, maybe a video,
> etc....they are often in the hole, unless they sell millions.
>
Any artist who sells more than 2 million records and is unrecouped
either had really bad representation or started demanding limos to take
them everywhere and destroyed hotel rooms once the success started to
happen.
In a common new artist deal, the artist makes about $1.17 per CD. And
most artists should be able to recoup around 700,000 units sold. I've
known some at major labels who have done it around 400,000. But the key
is to keep advances moderate and to have good management that audits
what the label is doing regularly and says no to $500K videos and such.
Recoupable costs (recording advance, recording costs, tour support,
videos, and in some cases independent publicity) are really within the
control of the artist and their management. But it requires diligence
and unfortunately most managers aren't worth the 15-20% they take off
the top. They encourage the label to spend more because they equate
this with being a priority. It's often a fallacy. The better managers
in the business know all this. But they are a rare breed.
When I was working in A&R I always encouraged the artists and their
management to create their own balance sheet for their label
relationship and figure out exactly how much they would have to sell to
cover their recoupable costs BEFORE signing the deal. And to spend the
advance on building their own small tracking studio instead of buying a
new car, that way no matter what happened with the label they could
still make music. If they monitored that balance sheet along the way,
they would get a handy lesson on how the business side works so they
could later go indie or have a low enough balance to get bought out of
their deal if things went sour.
Brenda
n.p. - Headline News
