Article on ticket prices

Poncier said:

disilluzion said:

(Most) artists have never made money from CD sales.

Not in the last 20-25 years, but prior to that artists made the bulk of their money from record contracts/album sales and toured to break even and promote said albums to increase sales.

For example:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-08-25-mn-37596-story.html

I think bands underestimated the importance of touring back in the day.   Probably because bands made all the money from touring, and labels made money from the albums.   Labels probably pushed them to tour, to try and sell more albums.  Over the years the artists figured out where the real money is.    Especially with so few big rock bands left.   If you're stadium level band.  50000 tickets at an average of $100/pop.  Plus all the merch those 50000 people buy.    That's way more than most bands got paid on albums.    The rumour used to be a band would get about $1 for every album sold.   Now they can make that playing a few live shows.

I think that REM deal is unique.   It's a band completing a contract while still near the top of it's game.   That gives you serious leverage.   I don't think PJ every got anything like that because by the time the Epic deal ran out, the bottom had fallen out on record sales.   Most bands didn't make nearly as much for their first 5+ albums.

I'm kind of curious as to that REM deal worked out.   My appreciate of REM's music ends around the Monster album which came out in '95?  I don't remember much that came out after.   Did the label lose on this one?