This article is a bit of a joke.
Record deals these days are, except for rare exceptions, a lose / lose for the artist.
There is NO money now in making albums. Everyone, steals the music and Spotify etc. pay so little it is meaningless even for big name artists.
You can only make money with live performance. And that only makes money for the biggest acts - for everyone else it is a wage paying grind at best.
Record deals are just marketing avenues now - and the artist pays for that. Even if I (I tried to make a living as a recording artist at one time) hand the label a finished product, and they have no recording costs, all of the contracts these days are such that even if the label sells 500,000 copies (not easy to do these days) I would still OWE them money.
Yes you can record very cheaply now and market yourself on Youtube etc. Lady gag gag comes to mind. And sell your cd’s yourself. But it is not easy. And there just isn’t much money in album sales.
Cause everyone STEALS THE MUSIC - relatively few actually pay for it.
Yes I’m a little bitter. heh
Look at LORETTA LYNN...She signed a deal that said after the record company owners died died,her music came back to her..They both died,the families took Lynn to court and EVEN WITH THE SIGNED CONTRACT STATING SHE WOULD GET HER SONGS BACK,judge ruled for the record company.....Have to look out for crooked judges,too.....
Jack White founded a record label and got his cultists to queue up to buy limited edition releases of his own music and artists who aren’t even exclusive to his roster.
Not everything is LTD Ed. But that FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) quotient had to buy him some brand loyalty even if it didn’t establish street cred.
I was in a clastic rock bar/events band a few years ago. We had 6 members and would charge $600.00 per night + food and booze. Talked to some other bands and they said that was pretty good compensation these days.
At $100 a night we lost money and we had all the fun of breaking the equipment down and haling it setting it up every night. That's why you don't do it for the money but for the fun.
Now they pay a stupid no talent DJ $600 for something Alexa can do.
The band did OK though, our bar tab was over $600 every night so we got paid twice.