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How is money distributed among successful groups? Do the ones that write the songs get all the royalty money? Does the front singer make more than the others?
I understand that with groups that are starting out, the manager or record company makes all the money. (I'm looking at you, Pebbles). So in a group like Fleetwood Mac, is Stevie much richer than Christine?
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | August 22, 2019 12:48 AM |
Songwriters make most of the royalties which is why no talent singers like Madonna, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Justin Beiber, etc make sure they get writing credits. They change a couple words and make the bank.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | August 21, 2019 1:37 AM |
Stevie has her solo career, but purely from Fleetwood Mac, I would think Christine has made as much if not more money than Stevie. More of the hit singles were Christine's songs: of their top 40 singles in the US, ten were written by Christine and five were written by Stevie. Plus one of Christine's was Don't Stop which regained popularity when used by Bill Clinton as his campaign song.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | August 21, 2019 1:50 AM |
U2 split their earnings equally among the 4 of them.
Say what you want about Bono.
Penn & Teller also split their earnings 50-50 but that's less of a shock.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | August 21, 2019 2:01 AM |
Songwriting royalties was a bone of contention between Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson of the Band, with Robertson getting the lion's share.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | August 21, 2019 2:07 PM |
"U2 split their earnings equally among the 4 of them. "
Queen did that at the end of their collective career, it really cut down the infighting. But that was the one group where all the members wrote big hits, so nobody was giving too much away.
It's my understanding that when a band hits the big time everyone gets a share of royalties from sales, merchandising, ticket sales, etc., but R1 is correct the really big personal income comes from song publishing rights. That's always been true, but it's truer than ever now that so little is to be gained from actual sales of music. Now, I've heard that singers or bands make more money from touring than from sales of recorded music.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | August 21, 2019 9:06 PM |
Of course the finances of a solo artist are rather less complicated than a band, a solo artist pays for studio musicians to help with the recording and live show backup, and they keep all the royalties for themselves and demand a share of the song publishing royalties. IMHO that's why were seeing more solo artists and fewer bands than when I was younger, being a solo artist is much more lucrative.
Of course, it's all different when the "group" is a prefab creation like Lou Perlman's boy bands. In those cases, the management just keeps everything.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | August 21, 2019 9:10 PM |
This is one of the reasons the Go Gos broke up.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | August 22, 2019 12:48 AM |
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