The music is the easy part

May 23, 2023 9:57 AM

How record producers get paid.
posted by bigbigdog (6 comments total)

New edition coming this fall: All You Need to Know About the Music Business
posted by 3.2.3 at 10:55 AM on May 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Points, fees, PRO credits, mechanical and streaming royalties. Of course depending on your level of cachet, you might as a producer never see any money at all if the project doesn't recoup.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:14 AM on May 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think any discussion of the music business should include some of the rantings from Bob Lefsetz. He is a prolific writer, sometimes a bloviator, but has a good handle on what is what. See his archive. Been writing the blog since 2005. His readership is large and diverse. Often his "mailbag" posts have responses from the artists, often name artists, themselves. He has been at it for a long while. He is in his 60s so he reminiscences about the good old days and when music was king, but overall, he has an accurate take on the business. He generally pulls no punches, but does, at times, do the suck up thing.

As a long time subscriber to his newsletter (via email), I do get frustrated when he veers from music and goes into his political rants. Although, he is a lefty and hates Trump. I am not a big TV streamer, but my gf says his recommendations on what to stream are good.

Anyway, after a quick review of Chris Castle's blog, the two seem to compliment each other in that Lefsetz is writing about more macro things and Castle seems to be writing about more micro and technical things.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:15 AM on May 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

The new paradigm (Doonesbury, 29 June 2014).
posted by Paul Slade at 12:09 PM on May 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

all my favourite bands were unrecouped
posted by scruss at 1:14 PM on May 23, 2023

Or you could get Steve Albini to record your band.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:22 PM on May 23, 2023 [4 favorites]