Apparently we will, after all, buy what they sell you:
sheamus.co.uk, 20th Dec ‘09Rage Against The Machine Have The Christmas Number One
At least, that’s how it seems. The sales figures for the UK Christmas top twenty have been circulating, and here they are.
1 KILLING IN THE NAME RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE 502672 2 THE CLIMB JOE MCELDERRY 450838
Fantastic — everyone loves Cowell getting a kicking, assuming you could hear it over the hand-wringing over the money side of things.
But were we all lining our bete noire’s pockets? All of the RATM sales were digital; in general, 95% of singles sales are, but let’s assume 20% of Joe McElderry’s sales were at retail to allow a nice margin for stocking fillers. Let’s be generous on pricing too; I’m working on assumptions of £1.99 physical, 69p digital (and both singles were going for 29p on Amazon last week). VAT’s 15%; if retailers get a 30% markup, and 15% goes to the artist, mechanicals, songwriting, and so on, then here’s the numbers:
| Band | Sales | Artist revenue | Label net | VAT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rage against the Machine | 502672 | £29,116.40 | £164,992.91 | £44,486.47 |
| Joe McElderry | 450838 | £36,944.98 | £209,354.90 | £58,834.44 |
So having both the number one and number two singles, on the highest sales week of the year, with the entire media acting as your hype wing, is only worth £375k to Sony — and only about £65k to the combatants!
If the record industry’s looked weird to you recently, then these numbers explain a lot. Radiohead made way more from In Rainbows than they made from any of their previous records, despite giving it away. Bands are signing 360-degree deals. All the money’s in merch and concerts, and now Ticketmaster and Live Nation are merging.
