Sam Barsh Facebook post

Today, I am going to expose the reality of what it pays to be a songwriter in 2018.

 

Update: I addressed comments and questions in a followup post here: https://www.facebook.com/sam.barsh/posts/10155568160081364

 

This will be shocking to many of you, and probably not in a good way. But if there's anything in my life that I've tried to keep a healthy relationship with, other than my loved ones, it's the truth. 

 

In addition to my respect for the truth, I'm posting this now for 3 reasons:

 

1. I often talk to friends colleagues of mine who congratulate me on recent career accomplishments, and infer either directly or indirectly how they think I'm doing financially.

 

2. I am deeply embedded in both the songwriting/production world and the working musician world, and most people in both worlds have no clue of the reality of what songwriting pays in the streaming era.

 

3. I am in the process of organizing a fundraising campaign for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg music project I just completed, and I realize that people might question why I would be crowdfunding something when they may assume I don't need the money.

 

In order to keep this post from being a novella, I'm going to focus on the artists I get asked most about: Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, Aloe Blacc and Logic.

 

All of these totals include mechanical royalties (physical sales, download sales and streaming), performance royalties (radio and other royalties collected by BMI or ASCAP), and upfront sync licencing fees (for usage in TV/commercials/film etc.)

 

For my songwriting on Kendrick Lamar's "Institutionalized" from the album "To Pimp A Butterfly," I have earned less than $20,000.  I have a 12% share of the song. The album went Platinum, won a Grammy and was a worldwide phenomenon.

 

For my songwriting on Anderson .Paak's "Heart Don't Stand a Chance" and "Your Prime" from the album "Malibu," I have earned less than $5,000 total. I have a 16.66% share of each song. The album was certified Gold in Europe, nominated for a Grammy, and launched .Paak into stardom.

 

For my songwriting on Aloe Blacc's "The Man" I have earned a little less than $200,000 over the course of the song's 5 year existence. I have an 8.5% share of the song (this is largely due to the major piece that Elton John and Bernie Taupin took off the top because their hit "Your Song" was interpolated in the chorus of "The Man.") The song was #1 on the pop charts in the UK, top 10 in the US and top 5 worldwide, selling 4 million copies. The album it was on, "Lift Your Spirit" was nominated for a Grammy.

 

For my songwriting on Logic's "Black Spiderman," I have earned less than $2,000. This will likely increase as the song has only had 2 royalty cycles so far, but it was not big on commercial radio so it won't increase by much. I have a 16.66% share of the song. "Black Spiderman" was certified Gold as a single in the US, won an MTV VMA, and was included on the album "Everybody" which went Platinum.

 

Now for the breakdown:

 

The biggest difference between these songs is that "The Man" was a big hit on traditional AM and FM radio, which is technically called "terrestrial radio," and it was licensed a ton on TV, film and commercials. It also came out in 2013, which was a time where many people still purchased downloads. 

 

Even though most people today see it as an outdated medium, terrestrial radio (along with sync licensing) is the bread and butter for songwriters' earnings. At any given time, there are around 30 songs in heavy rotation on terrestrial radio. Expand this to include all the genres of commercial radio stations, country, urban, pop, alternative, AAA, and lets say there's 50 or so current songs earning significant money on radio (I'm not including classics in this, just current hits). That's the reality. 

 

If you want to get into the songwriting game to make money, your odds are infinitessimal. You're not only competing with millions of writers for one of those 30-50 songs, you also have to account for the fact that most hits today have between 3 and 6 writers on them, so the pie is divided accordingly. And, for my musician friends that are dabbling in songwriting and production, know that you're competing with people who do nothing but write songs and produce, and have been honing their craft with as much dedication as we have to our instruments. I myself have put in my 10,000 hours at least threefold, as a musician, a songwriter and as a producer and engineer. And it still took me 10 years of seriously working at songwriting to write major records.

 

Streaming pays virtually nothing. It's not the streaming companies' faults, they just pay what they have to as deemed by the US Government. Streaming royalties are not negotiated in the free market. The Music Modernization Act aims to change that, but the new royalty rates will still be set by the Justice Department, they are just allowed to take new technology into account when setting those rates. Here are two articles that show examples of what streaming pays, they are from a couple years ago but the same rates still apply:

 

 https://www.businessinsider.com/pharrell-made-only-2700-in-songwriter-royalties-from-43-million-plays-of-happy-on-pandora-2014-12

 

 

I have a catalog of over 100 songs, a large number of which are with major artists. This includes 4 songs on #1 albums on the Billboard 200 (the premier Billboard albums chart that covers all genres), and numerous others in the top 5 of the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hip-Hop/R&B charts. Collectively, they have earned millions of sales and nearly a billion streams. If this were 15 years ago, I would likely be a millionaire. I say this not egotistically, but just to make a point.

 

Now, nobody needs to feel sorry for me. As Hyman Roth said, "This is the business we've chosen." I chose this path, and I make a living. As a musician who doesn't have to tour and can support a wife (and a dog:), have my own room in a recording studio, and lease an apartment in a safe area in Southern California, that is saying something. But, I don't have buy-a-house money, I don't have buy-whatever-keyboards-i-want money, I don't have "let's go to Palm Springs or Vegas for the weekend and spend 3 grand just because" money. (and don't let instagram fool you, a lot of people doing that don't have the money for it either, but I digress...)

 

You may ask, how do I actually earn a living? Well, I still earn a good chunk of my income from royalties, since all the pennies from hundreds of songs add up, and I've been fortunate to have songs from my catalog constistently get licensed for visual media. 

 

I earn money from producing, which is a separate topic but involves an upfront fee for the work as well as a back-end royalty.

 

I earn money from paid session work, usually through the musicians union for work I do on major label records that I have also written songs on, as well as royalties from the union for songs I've played on that are in films. 

 

I earn money from playing live gigs and private events, which I still enjoy and appreciate both as an income source and as a chance to create and hang out with my musical comrades, many of whom are my close friends. I am not, and will never be, too good to do what it takes to earn a living. I appreciate every call I get, and if I can't do something or don't have the time at that moment, I always make a point of saying thank you to whomever asked me.

 

As I reflect on the years of tireless work I've put in to songwriting and the financial end result, I can best make this analogy: 

 

Imagine having the dream of being a doctor, and knowing that it's a long and very difficult road, but if you actually make it there, you'll be earning a comfortable living. You study hard in high school, get into a good college. Spend nights and weekends studying, forego most normal college social activities. By sheer hard work, and some luck (luck is ALWAYS one factor in success in music and in business, no matter what anyone tells you), you get into a top medical school. You work harder, get through school, do your residency, then you're finally ready to work as a fully board-certified physician. Through more hard work and some luck, you get a position at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. But, when you go to sign the contract, you discover that the job which paid $400,000 a year when you started school now pays $60,000 a year.

 

I hope this has given some insight as to what life as a songwriter is like today. Despite the disheartening reality of the numbers, I have confidence that the craft of songwriting will not die, but we need to acknowledge the reality and adapt instead of trudging headfirst into an empty cave without a flashlight.

 

Thank you for reading this, and feel free to share.

Love, Sam Barsh

 

I also want to thank National Music Publishers' Association Ross Golan Recording Academy / GRAMMYs GRAMMY Advocacy and And The Writer Is. for dispensing invaluable information and for helping get the #musicmodernizationact passed. #songwriters

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