With live shows and festivals persevering with to be cancelled in the second yr of the pandemic, 2021 meant a loss of earnings for a lot of musicians. Some, of course, nonetheless managed to tug by. Rolling Stone journal lately launched its annual list of the highest paid artistes over the previous 12 months. And the list has a number of surprises in retailer.
Bruce Springsteen is at the prime of the list, with revenues estimated by the publication at US$590mil (RM2.47bil). The Boss owes this prime spot to the sale of his music rights to Sony for half a billion {dollars}. This is, thus far, a document transaction for a catalog of recorded music and compositions. The earnings of the American rockstar additionally took off due to the podcast Renegades: Born In The USA and the e-book of the similar identify that he launched with former president Barack Obama.
Jay-Z and Paul Simon comply with Bruce Springsteen in the rating, with estimated earnings of US$470mil (RM1.97bil) and US$260mil (RM1.08bil) respectively for the yr 2021. The rapper amassed a small fortune by promoting half of his shares in the Armand de Brignac champagne home to Moët Hennessy. Meanwhile Simon additionally offered the rights to all the songs in his musical repertoire to Sony Music Publishing.
The profitable enterprise of promoting rights to musical catalogues
Many of the artistes showing in the list additionally offered rights to all or half of their music catalogue final yr. This is the case for Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic (in fifth place) in addition to members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (in sixth) and Mötley Crue (in eighth). While music repertoire costs started to rise in 2020, they actually spiked when artistes discovered themselves with out excursions and live shows throughout the pandemic.
Only one woman made it to the prime 10 paid artistes of the yr 2021: Taylor Swift in tenth. The American singer went a unique route from many of the artistes, not selecting to promote the rights to her catalogue. Instead, she launched two albums final yr, Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and cast industrial partnerships with manufacturers like Peloton and Starbucks. – AFP Relaxnews
Rolling Stone‘s Top 10 highest paid artistes in 2021:
- Bruce Springsteen – US$590mil (RM2.47bil)
- Jay-Z – US$470mil (RM1.97bil)
- Paul Simon – US$260mil (RM1.08bil)
- Kanye West – US$250mil (RM1.04bil)
- Ryan Tedder –US$200mil (RM838mil)
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – US$145mil (RM607mil)
- Lindsey (*10*) – US$100mil (RM419mil)
- Mötley Crüe – US$95mil (RM398mil)
- Blake Shelton – US$83mil (RM348mil)
- Taylor Swift – US$80mil (RM335mil)
