She Spent Two Years Writing for an Acclaimed Album — and Made Only $4000

February 18, 2023 8:44 AM

Writing songs for top acts used to be a reliable source of income. Now, thanks to a rapidly changing industry, songwriters face trouble making ends meet. (archive,today link)
posted by Etrigan (35 comments total)

Oh, record industry, is there anything you do that doesn't have a foundation of screwing people?

I assumed that song-writers who didn't also perform were getting paid poorly, but I also assumed it was more than the dollar-per-hour that one writer estimates for a project. Jesus, that's worse than volunteering, where at least you would already know that there is no money ever coming back to you.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:21 AM on February 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

There has been no person more damaging to the music industry in recent years than Daniel Ek.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:37 AM on February 18, 2023 [7 favorites]

Once again, another example of why it's pointless to try to have a creative career :/
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:38 AM on February 18, 2023 [8 favorites]

back in the old days, they'd give you 500 bucks (or less) or a new car to sign away your song's royalties for life

at the upper 500 buck end of things, that was a much better deal than these people are getting when you factor in inflation from the 50s on ...
posted by pyramid termite at 9:48 AM on February 18, 2023 [4 favorites]

Change a word , in for a third.
posted by yyz at 10:37 AM on February 18, 2023 [7 favorites]

Technology has fundamentally reshaped the music industry in terms of both music distribution and production. Speaking of which, it has given individuals the ability to affordably produce professional level music in their own home. And thanks to internet, they can easily distribute their music themselves. But… marketing their own music, getting people to know it exists, is extremely difficult. In the past, a small percentage of musicians, etc., could make money off their music that they could live on, for every Rolling Stones, there were probably thousands of bands who played but who could not live off of the music they made. Now we have a situation where more people can make music on their own, but there is even less chance that anyone could gain a living from their music. Please note that I am not addressing the criminal nature of the music industry which rips off the artists it “promotes.” All of the arts suffers from the same situation. People are self driven to create but the ability to live off of their creations is minuscule. Do it if you love doing it, but don’t expect that it will pay the bills seems to be the general verdict whenever this subject pops up.
posted by njohnson23 at 10:39 AM on February 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

Johnny's Theme, the music that started every episode of Johnny Carson's Tonight show was actually written by Paul Anka.
Legend goes that Carson wrote a set of lyrics for the music ( which were never used) to gain a songwriter's credit.

Here's an interview ( It's a long transcript) with Paul Anka following Carson's death;


ANKA: She recorded it with another lyric, and then I named this "Johnny's Theme." And then I got some feedback. I think Skitch Henderson-- right, Doc? -- was the band leader.

SEVERINSEN: Yes, he was.

ANKA: And then somebody -- I'm a 20-year-old kid, you know, all these guys are older than I am. And I got this call that Skitch was real PO'ed that this kid wrote this song, it may not go on the air.

So I called Johnny, I said, "Johnny, you've done such a nice thing. I'm giving you 50 percent of the song," you know, because he was always kibitzing that the show wouldn't last.

KING: Every time it played, how much did you get?

ANKA: I think it averaged out to about $200,000 a year. We split that up for 30 years.

MCMAHON: Yes, isn't that great? Isn't that great?

ANKA: Of course, we both spent it.
posted by yyz at 10:53 AM on February 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Legend goes that Carson wrote a set of lyrics for the music ( which were never used) to gain a songwriter's credit.

Roddenberry did this for the Star Trek theme song.
posted by Etrigan at 11:20 AM on February 18, 2023 [7 favorites]

In the past, a small percentage of musicians, etc., could make money off their music that they could live on, for every Rolling Stones, there were probably thousands of bands who played but who could not live off of the music they made.

This is horribly misinformed. While major stars were relatively rare, the reality was that there was a whole industry of professional musicians and supporting professionals that provided solid incomes that has been completely hollowed out in the past two decades - the article in the OP is discussing part of that hollowing.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:47 AM on February 18, 2023 [36 favorites]

I wonder if this varies from town to town, scene to scene.

In Nashville (where I admit I mostly know people who are in the 'has-been' or the 'aspiring' portion their career) I get the sense that a modest livable wage can be made selling one or two 8-12 song packages to a major studio a year, and that doesn't even include whether or not a performer selects one of the songs to perform and record for their next album, which then becomes a big bonus which dramatically affects your standard of living. I've heard stories of major acts like Garth Brooks sending a decent check for a writing session that ultimately was cancelled for one reason or another because he remembers who originally butters the bread of artists' reputations in the town.

I have also know a handful of people who try to make a career in Nashville after LA chewed them up and spit them out, so I can easily imagine things here aren't representive of conditions elsewhere.
posted by midmarch snowman at 12:04 PM on February 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

Robert Altman claimed that his 15-year-old son got more money from writing the lyrics to Suicide is Painless than he got from directing th whole of M*A*S*H.
posted by Omon Ra at 12:36 PM on February 18, 2023 [8 favorites]

Robert Altman claimed that his 15-year-old son got more money from writing the lyrics to Suicide is Painless than he got from directing th whole of M*A*S*H.

As Bob Dylan wrote, the times they are a'changin.
One of my kids has attempted a career as a singer, and 2 years ago a Very Big publishing company contacted her and signed her for several years. In this time she has written many, many songs. You have likely heard some of these tunes on Very Big tv programs, a Very Big movie, and a few have been recorded and released by Very Big performers.

She travels around the world, jams with producers and performers and loves the work.

She also pays her bills by babysitting and teaching music. There is NO money in songwriting any more.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:11 PM on February 18, 2023 [36 favorites]

Oh, record industry, is there anything you do that doesn't have a foundation of screwing people?

FTFY
posted by tspae at 3:10 PM on February 18, 2023 [8 favorites]

This is horribly misinformed. While major stars were relatively rare, the reality was that there was a whole industry of professional musicians and supporting professionals that provided solid incomes that has been completely hollowed out in the past two decades - the article in the OP is discussing part of that hollowing.

Citation? This seems like a somewhat truthy assertion that is difficult to reliably back up without liberal use of anecdote and extrapolation. My perception around here in L.A. is that being a professional musician is about as reliable and respectable career path as it has always (n)ever been. This sounds a little like the "drum machines are going to put musicians out of work" kind of idea.

Realize that there's a long and storied tradition of creative people getting screwed over in the music industry going back to its beginning. Additionally, there is absolutely no shortage of extremely talented people who are capable of doing this kind of work. Again, being in L.A., you can throw a rock, and it'll hit someone who is unbelievably talented musician. I'm not talking someone who can strum some righteous chords or tickle the ivorys with gusto, but people who've dedicates their whole lives to the craft, and couldn't pay rent with it if they had to.

Interestingly, like OneGearIsEnough has pointed out, moving to Nashville was, and is still, considered a smarter move by people around here really interested in being in the pop music business in one way or another.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:32 PM on February 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

My best friend (son of a session drummer) always tells his favorite joke: What's the difference between a session drummer and large pepperoni pizza? A large pepperoni pizza can feed a family of 4.
posted by kjs3 at 6:40 PM on February 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

Backstory
Since so much popular music is made up of original compositions and samples of other works, I’d say that being a producer is probably more lucrative than being a songwriter.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:37 PM on February 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Even this is pretty much the distant past now, but a friend's brother - not at all a star or household name - got a song he wrote on a cd of songs from The O.C. and it was enough money for him to basically live on for an entire year.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:58 PM on February 18, 2023

Nothing ever changes, does it? Same old story: you know someone is making money, just not the people doing the work. And I'm sure we have SongGPT to look forward to now as well.
posted by jabah at 8:04 PM on February 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

There is NO money in songwriting any more.
I've been participating in February Album Writers Month, and the subject of making a living from songwriting came up on the forums. It was clear that it's pretty much impossible. The people on there who were some of the best I've seen still make just a pittance on their songs.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 9:16 PM on February 18, 2023

At least with SongGPT songwriters won't find their work being used in return for pennies any more.
posted by Dysk at 9:17 PM on February 18, 2023

Ultimately there will come YouGPT and, boy, talk about cancel culture then: it will be the Me2 moment for us all, at least each and every <<*rich*>> one of us. In some cases, this may turn out to be both an overall comfort and improvement.

Your clone is ready, Mr. Musk...

What!? I distinctly ordered one wearing a Bulgari tie! Send him back!

Oh, no need, sir -- we'll use yours!

*pfft!*
posted by y2karl at 9:22 PM on February 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Preface- I am always on the side of the writer, so what follows is pure curiosity.

First- That's a click bait title, which is fine, but for the industry outsider, the article leaves some unanswered questions.

Their quote: "she co-wrote 10 songs on Brandy’s acclaimed 2020 album, B7, spending two years on a project* that ended up leading to about $4,000 in income for her — a tiny fraction of what minimum-wage labor would’ve yielded over the same period of time."

Rhetorical question: How long does it take to write a song? Answer is in two parts. As little as five minutes PLUS an entire lifetime. Translating that to an hourly reward is a difficult mathematical problem, and arguably beside the point.

My question: how many actual hours of that two year project did she spend with pen to paper, collaborating with whomever, dealing with the agent? In general, what exactly is the song writer's nitty gritty shoulder to the grindstone labor? What goes on in the sessions the article refers to? Who else is present? Basically, what went on those two years? (Besides a lot of waiting for phones to ring.)

Again, I'm on the writer's side. But if anyone can provide a brief Song Production 101 For Dummies, I'd be grateful. Or a current book on the subject? Thanks in advance.

(BTW, if you haven't see The Playlist yet, you probably should.)

*Cf three weeks for Let It Be. Apple to oranges, granted, but even so, why the difference? )
posted by BWA at 6:07 AM on February 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Monetary value is directly related to scarcity. There are so many people who aspire to do jobs that there used to be a relatively small number of people qualified to do it (partly because the jobs were highly geographically concentrated, partly because the hiring process was unofficial and people often just sort of fell into the job, partly because very few people realised the job existed), but now there's a huge base of young people who aspire to those jobs and regard them as vocations (which means the issue of remuneration is secondary at best). An industry of professional qualification has built up around those jobs.

(For the time being, that instructional industry is probably where the money is, but that will probably change.)

The same thing is true of most other artistic roles. Because of gigantic over-supply, the monetary value of the roles and the artefacts they produce has fallen precipitously, and in the vast majority of cases the Artist is no longer the seller, but rather the customer. There is a professional market, but they are employee technicians who follow a brief rather than doing what they want and there are relatively few people reliable enough to do the jobs, which is why they still command an income.
posted by Grangousier at 6:20 AM on February 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Because of gigantic over-supply

Less oversupply than massive centralization of supply creation, starting about a hundred years ago. There's no glut of people wanting to be musicians compared to the number of people in the world--music is a truly ubiquitous cultural activity--it's just that in the last 100 years we've built a global culture industry that only has the ability to provide jobs for a tiny fraction of people making music, because one artist can realistically entertain a billion people. This is a truly unprecedented development in any medium, and is an intractable problem for music as a vocation.

(And of course, musicians earning money by performing/writing/creating locally have had to compete against the non-local reach of recordings and broadcasts ever since, and living musicians had to start competing with dead ones to earn money in the past hundred years, too.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:33 AM on February 19, 2023 [12 favorites]

A friend's uncle is a guitarist. Shelf full of national finger-picking trophies from when he was starting out, and like a dozen CDs in the 40-50 years since then.

Shit, he was the featured player in a big, weekly radio program you have heard of for decades.

He is probably in his 70s, and still plays weekly bar and coffeehouse gigs because there is actual cash money from those. He'll play a house concert if you know him, I think, for the same reason.

I took my teen-age son to see him a few years ago and he was friendly and funny and gracious, in a room of under 50 people. This guy --like so many others! -- deserves better for his level of talent and hard work. But that's probably my Just World Fallacy flaring up again, and a good dose of Capitalism should fix that...
posted by wenestvedt at 8:19 AM on February 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

Less oversupply than massive centralization of supply creation, starting about a hundred years ago.

Certainly consistent with the observation that the money these days seems to be in distribution platforms or in rent seeking by rights-holders-at-scale.
posted by atoxyl at 11:46 AM on February 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Poor poet here. Songs are just poems until someone can perform them. No attacks please, it's breaking my heart too.
posted by lextex at 12:31 PM on February 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

In general, what exactly is the song writer's nitty gritty shoulder to the grindstone labor? What goes on in the sessions the article refers to? Who else is present?

Here’s an example using a song my daughter wrote that is on an album that is doing well.

She grew up taking music and singing lessons, she got a college degree in the arts. So that’s several years of training.

The song in particular she initially wrote over several weeks. She had ideas, she rethought them. She recorded multiple tracks and put together a demo.

After 4 weeks she felt the song was ready to be shared. So her company heard it and a few months later, she was sent to Nashville for 2 weeks to help produce the songs.

In these sessions she sat with studio musicians,band members, label people, producers, engineers and many others.

In the studio, many people came in to lay down musical arrangements of her song. She mostly offered suggestions but to be fair, she was working with many Grammy winners and industry stars and didn’t feel comfortable saying the wah wah pedal wasn’t the right sound.

Recording is a slow and methodical process and in her case, the recording artists always wanted her there.

So it’s about 6 weeks of work at this point.

After 2 weeks, she heard nothing until a few months later that the song wasn’t being used, but ———- was interested, so she was sent to LA for 3 weeks to help produce it in LA.

After the LA sessions and full production, the song again was not used, and so another artist was interested and my kid then went back to Nashville to record it with this person.

This was one week and the song is on this album.

So all in all, from concept to final product, one song took about 4 months.

I understand that this multiple recording scenario is not uncommon.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 2:30 PM on February 19, 2023 [11 favorites]

It's awful. And the music industry has long been terrible to performers and song writers -- Charles Koppelman's obit last year in the NYT has this telling passage --

"the success of “Yogi” led [Koppelman] and Don Rubin, another member of the Ivy Three, to the mogul Don Kirshner. His company Aldon Music was one of the top songwriting shops in New York at the time, employing a deep bench of hitmaking writers like Neil Sedaka and the teams of Carole King-Gerry Goffin and Jeff Barry-Ellie Greenwich.

Outshined by those writers, Mr. Koppelman found himself on the management side of the company and was drawn to the business of music publishing: handling the work of songwriters and maximizing the earnings from those copyrights.

In a story Mr. Koppelman was fond of telling, he was at a music industry function early in his career when he saw one group of executives, dressed plainly and nervously chain-smoking cigarettes — record company men, he was told. In another part of the room were the music publishers, wearing fine suits and contentedly enjoying cigars.

“That’s what I want to be involved in,” Mr. Koppelman decided, as Brian Koppelman, a film and television producer who is one of the creators of the show “Billions,” recounted in an interview."

There's also a scene in "Get Back" where the publisher Dick James tries to show the boys the revenue streams they've picked up, and Ringo says so mething to George like "would you like to see your half percent?" Meanwhile James had all of the publisher's revenue.
posted by PandaMomentum at 10:08 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

This dovetails neatly into this Tedium article: "Why do pop songs have so many credited writers nowadays?" Dianne Warren, a legendary songwriter, asked how there were 24 credited writers on a Beyonce song. The very short answer: producers + anything that could possibly have inspired a song are now all getting credit. The longer answer is worth reading.
posted by rednikki at 5:51 AM on February 21, 2023

My brother makes a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year (in the greater Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky area, where that's pretty good money) leading a wedding band. I suppose that's in some ways the equivalent of being plumber: It's deeply uncool and almost no one wants to do it, but you can make a good living at it.

Just because a wedding bands revenue is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars every year doesn't mean they actually make that much money, unless they are discounting all expenses and skirting replay royalty costs. So the official salary band for 'wedding band member' is $25k. That's why not many people do it. If your brother makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in income (again, not revenue) then he's a serious outlier.

Also, the article compared Better Than Ezra's salary as a songwriter, but that band had multiple modern rock #1s when that meant something, so it's not at all comparable to a no-name songwriter. Bizarrely enough, apparently Better Than Ezra's singer screwed the original drummer out of songwriter royalties, sued in court and settled for "far less than one million dollars". So either the guy made far less in songwriter royalties than the article mentioned (possible), proved the drummer didn't have much part writing the songs (possible), or got millions by screwing the other members out of their royalties.

Also, I'm not sure I agree artists ever made a ton of money writing songs. Chip Taylor, the guy who wrote Wild Thing and Angel of the Morning in 1965 didn't make a ton of money on those, even though the replay count has to be nearing the billions.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:12 AM on February 21, 2023

Also, I'm not sure I agree artists ever made a ton of money writing songs.

Making a ton just from songwriting is indeed unusual, but creating a perpetual, comfortable income stream is less so. Anecdote: an in-law in my extended family is a successful country music songwriter, and among many others has a 1/3 songwriting credit for "You're Always On My Mind," which of course was recorded by Elvis and Willie Nelson, among others. The royalties from that 1/3 share of one successful song has reliably provided a decent annual income for him in the 50 years since, so he really never had to work a day in his life after that song hit, as long as his material aspirations were only upper-middle-class (to his detriment long-term, actually--practical, basic accountability is a good thing, y'all). So there is considerable room between "making it" and "making it big."
posted by LooseFilter at 8:50 AM on February 21, 2023

Card cheat!

Even this is pretty much the distant past now, but a friend's brother - not at all a star or household name - got a song he wrote on a cd of songs from The O.C. and it was enough money for him to basically live on for an entire year.

Funnily enough I *ALSO* have a friend of a friend who lived for a year off of having a song on The OC. For me it was Aqueduct, one of the many laptop and keys focused one man bands of the early 2000s inspired by Of Montreal and culminating in Owl City. I think it should be said, living off one song being on The OC is probably a lot easier when you are, like David, 21 years old living in Tulsa Oklahoma. The track was "Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights" which I just had to google to remember. Is this what getting old is?
posted by midmarch snowman at 11:02 AM on February 21, 2023

For me it was Aqueduct, one of the many laptop and keys focused one man bands of the early 2000s inspired by Of Montreal and culminating in Owl City.

Aqueduct - Growing Up with G N' Roses was an awesome song. He deserved it.


Also, I was just doing my taxes and some lady beside me had royalty income of $100 for the year. I had to ask - it was for some religious song I'd never heard of.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:41 PM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

Spotify has never turned a profit.

However, many people have become extraordinarily wealthy while working at or investing in Spotify.

Music is such a fundamental, profound, and important part of many (most?) people's lives, the amount of "value" it creates is incalculable.

However, pop music has always been dominated by the unscrupulous. I believe Spotify is just the latest, and the game is not to make Spotify ever make too much money, it's to enrich people working at Spotify at the expense of the artists. And at the end of the day, they can always point to their results and say, see! We don't even make money! We're struggling artists too!
posted by chaz at 2:16 PM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]