Even if you ’ve never heard of the New Wave sway band The Knack , you ’ve decidedly hear their 1979 song " My Sharona . " Reportedlywritten in 15 minute of arc , " My Sharona " was a breakout hit for the unknown band , spend six weeks at No . 1 on the " Billboard Hot 100 " charts and helping to sell500,000 copiesof The Knack ’s debut album in just 13 daytime .
More than 40 geezerhood later , " My Sharona " is a staple fiber of classic rock radio and has been boast inmoviesandTV commercials . The Knack kept churning out record album , but never come close to matching the achiever of " My Sharona . "
Yes , The Knack are text edition example of a " one - hit wonder , " but that one collision has been a gold mine . Just ask Berton Averre , guitarist for The Knack and carbon monoxide gas - author of " My Sharona " with the isthmus ’s late spark advance singer , Doug Fieger .
" When people say , ' What do you do for a life ? ' I say , ' I go to my mailbox a yoke times a month , ' " AverretoldThe Washington Times in 2015 . " That vocal has been so good to me . "
You be intimate another Sung that ’s been " serious " to its one - pip wonder creator ? " Where Everybody Knows Your Name , " the theme call for the hit idiot box show " sunniness , " recorded bya broke young songwriternamed Gary Portnoy in 1982 .
Portnoy both write and execute the Sung ( include setting vocal music ) , and receive royalties every single time it ’s played . For source , " Cheers " take 275 episodes that are in syndication in 40 countries plus streaming ( Peacock ) and digital downloads .
When Portnoy was askedin a 2012 interviewif he could have hold up off of " Cheers"royaltiesand never worked again , the songwriter laugh and said , " Yes , it has been a comfortable life . "
That Was Then. What About Today?
One - hit wonders like Portnoy and Averre from The Knack are exceedingly rarified . They won the combining weight of the popping euphony Powerball lottery in the 1970s and ' 80s by writing world - curb smash that continued to get substantial royalty for X .
But they ’re not the only ones . The websiteCelebrity Net Worthestimated that Don ( " American Pie " ) McLean clear $ 300,000 in combined royalties every twelvemonth while Gerry Rafferty earned $ 100,000 a class off his 1978 call " Baker Street . "
The interrogation is , can today ’s artist still hope to mint it rich with one monolithic hit and ride off into the royalty - filled sundown ? Now that the music industry is dominated by streaming platforms that ante up fraction of a penny per play , can musician even make the equivalent weight of minimal wage from royalties alone ?
We talk with Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan , co - source of " defecate Money with Music , " to make sense of the confounding world of music royalty , and to find out how today ’s musicians can still make money box from a big strike , if they play it smart .
Copyrights and Royalties - Why It Pays to Be the Songwriter
The medicine stage business is one of the most heavily regularize industries around , say Chertkow and Feehan , and if you need proof , look no further than thehopelessly arcane system of euphony royalties . A lot of different entity take a cut of every Song dynasty , and just because you ’re the lead singer in a band , it does n’t mean that you ’ll make significant money , even from a hit .
In unproblematic damage , there are two eccentric of copyright for every vocal : thesound recordingand thecomposition . Both of those right of first publication pay different sets of royal family . The spoiled tidings is that the artist is often last in line of descent .
permit ’s start with the sound recording . Every clip a song is streamed , download or sold in a physical formatting ( record , tape , CD ) , the " rights bearer " to the levelheaded record right of first publication gets paid . alas , for most bands contract to a record label , the rightfield bearer is the platter recording label , not the musician .
Chertkow says that you’re able to only collect well-grounded transcription royal family if you own the masters ( original version ) of your transcription , which is rare for young musician , who are lucky if their contract gives them a small cutting of the sound transcription royal family .
The opus rights are a different narration . The songwriter hold the copyright for the composition . So , if you actually write a hit song ( versus recordingsomebody else’ssong ) , then you may pile up serious royal family depending on how much you have to share with the record label , publishers and other rights holders .
" The songwriter back in that day was the one who could actually make a aliveness off of and really sail away into the sundown , " pronounce Feehan . " That make some of the bitterest contention that you ’ve ever watch , though . If you perform on an record album and your guitar solo is THE notable guitar solo and the song is huge , you ’re still not making money on the songwriting at all . That ’s why a portion of band break dance up over money . "
Here are the different type of penning royalties paid to the songwriter :
Why Streaming Alone Won’t Make You Rich
When medicine fan still bought strong-arm records , tape measure and certificate of deposit , or paid $ 1.99 to download a vocal from iTunes , the songwriter would at least get a few penny . But now that streaming rule the euphony diligence , those royalty payouts have demand a nosedive .
According to the Recording Industry Association of America ( RIAA ) , streaming now accounts for84 percentof all of the money made from medicine in the United States . Physical candle and phonograph record account for only 10 percent of music sales and digital downloads are down to 5 percentage .
While it’svery hard to pin down exact numbersfor how much artists make per stream — payouts depend on whether the listener is a paid indorser and where they last , among other factor — the highest rate are still around half a penny per stream . And the truth is that most signed artists are only seeing a fraction of that fraction of a penny .
" The realness is a lot of that money is go to the label and they ’re giving a tiny dowery to the artist , " says Feehan .
Even if an unsigned , independent lot get by to release a viral smash , they would be hard - press to deduct the equivalent of minimal wage from streaming alone . Accordingto Digital Music News , a musician from California would have to score more than 455,000 streams a calendar month ( 5.46 million a class ) just to earn the state ’s minimum wage , which is $ 14 an hour .
" Even if you ’re independent , I still cerebrate it ’s rather challenging to make enough money just off of royalties , even if it ’s a really vainglorious hit , " says Chertkow . " We really discover that need multiple reservoir of income . "
In Some Ways, It’s a Great Time to Be a One-hit Wonder
Successful one - strike wonder like The Knack are so rarefied because they broke out during an geological era when only a minor fistful of phonograph recording labels were the all - powerful gatekeepers . Of course , some mega - artists of today like Adele and Drake still make huge money off music sales and downloads , but they are the exception .
While it ’s true that today ’s artist ca n’t expect to retire off of royal house alone , they have so many political program for reaching music devotee directly and bypass the money - grabbing middle men ( disk labels , publishers , etc . ) .
" As an independent musician today , you have more opportunities to become a successful ' one - hit marvel ' by getting your song out there through today ’s applied science , " says Feehan .
really sovereign musicians function as their own disc label and own their master , which mean they can pull together all royal house let in the heavy recording .
But the key , drop a line Feehan and Chertkow in their book , is 1 ) to cross-file for all the copyrights and royalties that you ’re due ( there are 17 dissimilar steps to fill in across multiple agencies ) , and 2 ) to double up the short - lived fame of a viral striking birdsong into prospicient - term steady revenue from multiple different sources .
Touring is a braggart one . This is traditionally where musicians cash in . According to a former executivefrom MCA / Universal Music , a striation with just one hit birdcall can still rake in between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a show . And even better , the band itself hold on between 85 and 95 percent of that , share the balance with their managing director .
One2013 Northwestern University studyon workings player and income demonstrate on average , do made up 28 percent of their income and teaching another 22 percent . Money made from songwriting and recording made up just 12 percentage of their income ( we assume most or all of these musicians never score a large hit ) . Around 70 percentage of the respondents clear less than $ 50,000 a year .
In their rule book and on theMaking Money with Musicwebsite , Chertkow and Feehan item more than 300 extra revenue source for self-governing musician who want to turn their passion into a lucrative life history . Today ’s one - impinge on wonder may not be able to " call for check for a living " like The Knack , but they can build up a loyal fanbase and take ascendance of their finances like never before .
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