http://www.youtube.com/watch?v4TNNacSd4M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4A&ob=av2e


who do you think makes the most money?
who clearly has the most talent?


talent doesnt make money
spectacle makes money
money comes from image.
people are too stupid to understand much past superficial image.

 

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the lady gaga of 20 years ago


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8&ob=av2e

 

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Understanding what the consumer wants and how the system works is a good bit of skill

 

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Cindy Lauper?
Hardly.

You're thinking more of Madonna:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?vehMBaHgpWE


Madonna is excellent at playing the market, a virtuoso in that area.

 

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What actually determines how much money they make is how much of their career they actually own. Most artists of large recording outfits are essentially employees.

You are conflating popularity with success\money. In the music business, they are hardly the same.

Does the artist write their own music? If they do, do they actually own it?

How much of their album sales do they actually own?

How are their tours handled - what percentage of the gate are they taking in?

Same with merchandising - how much of that actually belongs to the artist?

These are the kinds of things you need to know to determine how much money an artist is actually making. It's not as cut and dry as it would seem.

For reference, look at this list of the Richest musicians. You'll note that Lady Gaga and Katy Perry aren't on it. I've never heard of 3\4 of these people. Those that I know surprise the hell out of me.

Tommy Shaw from the Styx?
Fats Dominoe?
Bryan Setzer?
Mickey Hart?
Art Alexakis (lead guitarist of Everclear)?

 

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The problem with that is that those musicians were smart and many made money outside of their music, investing in record companies, songs etc. Their wealth is irrelevant here.

And what, not Beatles? McCartney has top be richer than most of those twits. Then again...I didn't look at the whole list. If it goes up I just missed the pop tart from Liverpool.

 

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either way you look at it, money doesnt necessarily buy talent.
it buys greed and manipulative assholes who couldnt talent their way out of a wet paper bag.

 

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The incentive of money is relative. Many musicians are motivated primarily based on their love of music and possibly fame. The idea of making $1 million or $100 million is not that different. It is a lot more than they have as poor musicians.


Eventually you can have them just become motivated by money but it is a mixed bag.


Politicians are also motivated by all sorts of things besides money. Power being one of them.

 

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exceptions prove the rule. Some people would be musicians for free, btu I'm sure some really great musicians do it for the money. I'm sure there are musiaicns who ar ebetter because they get money and can do it full time.

 

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I doubt there are really any musicians who write better music because they get 10 million dollars for it instead of 1 million for it.