This is why you've got to WRITE songs.

Or be like Robin Thicke and suck enough dick to get a writing credit.

Jagar said:

This is why you've got to WRITE songs.

That's true.I said the exact same thing when Toni Braxton filed for bankruptcy a second time.Songwriting royalties can save these people once the hits stop coming.

Jagar said:

This is why you've got to WRITE songs.

Maxine did co-write a few songs, but they were on an album (Masterpiece Theater) that didn't do well and a B-side for a single from EV3, which didn't do that well either. Songwriting only matters if the song is popular, gets remade a lot, or used in movies, commercials, etc. People who sell a lot but don't write can make more than someone who writes but doesn't sell. A non-popular song is less likely to be covered, especially by a popular act. That's one of the reasons songwriters are willing to give writing credit to an act who is really popular, but doesn't have anything to do with the songwriting like Elvis Presley.

[Edited 9/21/14 10:58am]

MickyDolenz said:

Jagar said:

This is why you've got to WRITE songs.

Maxine did co-write a few songs, but they were on an album (Masterpiece Theater) that didn't do well and a B-side for a single from EV3, which didn't do that well either. Songwriting only matters if the song is popular, gets remade a lot, or used in movies, commercials, etc. People who sell a lot but don't write can make more than someone who writes but doesn't sell. A non-popular song is less likely to be covered, especially by a popular act. That's one of the reasons songwriters are willing to give writing credit to an act who is really popular, but doesn't have anything to do with the songwriting like Elvis Presley.

[Edited 9/21/14 10:58am]

Well she should have managed the money she did make a little better. Familiar story.

It's a fickle business. If you're a 'big' singer but don't write much, use your brain.

[Edited 9/21/14 15:26pm]

Marrk said:

Well she should have managed the money she did make a little better. Familiar story.

It's a fickle business. If you're a 'big' singer but don't write much, use your brain.

En Vogue never made much money as they had a bad contract with Foster & McElroy and their label Elektra. They made the big money. That's why Dawn Robinson left the group in the first place. Contracts generally favor the labels, and and designed to keep the acts in the hole.

MickyDolenz said:

Marrk said:

Well she should have managed the money she did make a little better. Familiar story.

It's a fickle business. If you're a 'big' singer but don't write much, use your brain.

En Vogue never made much money as they had a bad contract with Foster & McElroy and their label Elektra. They made the big money. That's why Dawn Robinson left the group in the first place. Contracts generally favor the labels, and and designed to keep the acts in the hole.

And yet we should feel sorry that an industry like this is dying.

She looks quite hot on that picture though.

[Edited 9/21/14 16:23pm]

MickyDolenz said:

Marrk said:

Well she should have managed the money she did make a little better. Familiar story.

It's a fickle business. If you're a 'big' singer but don't write much, use your brain.

En Vogue never made much money as they had a bad contract with Foster & McElroy and their label Elektra. They made the big money. That's why Dawn Robinson left the group in the first place. Contracts generally favor the labels, and and designed to keep the acts in the hole.

I would say a contract is there for a person to read and understand, or at least pass to a person that understands the finer details in said contract before it's signed. Sad for her. All things considered, She should be at least comfortable.

.

The other members of Destiny's Child some day? watch this space.

[Edited 9/21/14 16:54pm]

It's amazing that artist/musicians/singers even as late as 25 years ago signed contracts that left them, hold an empty bag. Sometimes singer/bands attorney's screw them over too.

Even so you have to manage your money and Ms. Jones lived aboved her means I'm sure. I'll add, there are a lot of singers who've never wrote a lick have made millions. The thing is every artist has there day in the Sun, most think cloudy days aren't coming and they don't prepare for it.

===========================

[Edited 9/22/14 12:55pm]

This is sad and is probably due to those bad contracts. But it wouldn't hurt to patch things up with the group and earn some new money. Is your pride stronger than bankruptcy?

Sometimes u can simply get taken.

I remember when NBA Player Scottie Pippen invested a sizeable amount of money with a leading investment bank. The Fund manager diverted Scottie's money into his own account and stole the money. Here Scottie was doing the right thing.......and still got ripped off.

MickyDolenz said:

Marrk said:

Well she should have managed the money she did make a little better. Familiar story.

It's a fickle business. If you're a 'big' singer but don't write much, use your brain.

En Vogue never made much money as they had a bad contract with Foster & McElroy and their label Elektra. They made the big money. That's why Dawn Robinson left the group in the first place. Contracts generally favor the labels, and and designed to keep the acts in the hole.

Bingo. The then Elektra Records label exce Sylvia Rhodes get plently of blame for that mess too.

I remember seeing articles from long ago about the horrible deal they'd signed. Dawn Robinson filed for bankrupty as well, didn't she?

[Edited 9/22/14 12:29pm]

Identity said:

Cinny said:

This is sad and is probably due to those bad contracts. But it wouldn't hurt to patch things up with the group and earn some new money. Is your pride stronger than bankruptcy?

I bet that if the four original members reunited,there would be some new opportunities awaiting them.They could probably get their own reality show,ala R&B Divas.Imagine a reality show focused on them as they record a new album and prepare for a reunion tour....alot of juicy drama!

SoulAlive said:

Cinny said:

This is sad and is probably due to those bad contracts. But it wouldn't hurt to patch things up with the group and earn some new money. Is your pride stronger than bankruptcy?

I bet that if the four original members reunited,there would be some new opportunities awaiting them.They could probably get their own reality show,ala R&B Divas.Imagine a reality show focused on them as they record a new album and prepare for a reunion tour....alot of juicy drama!

Accident waiting to happen in just 24 hrs after reuniting.

phunkdaddy said:

SoulAlive said:

I bet that if the four original members reunited,there would be some new opportunities awaiting them.They could probably get their own reality show,ala R&B Divas.Imagine a reality show focused on them as they record a new album and prepare for a reunion tour....alot of juicy drama!

Accident waiting to happen in just 24 hrs after reuniting.

EGO'S

Contracts generally favor the labels, and and designed to keep the acts in the hole.

Yep. And artists who sign "management deals" tend to be the worst-screwed of them all.

Typical scenario - a group signs to a label for, say, a 12% royalty rate after an advance. They have to use the advance to record the album and live off whatever is left until they can earn royalties and play live. In a normal group situation the manager takes ~10% of earnings. So if you got a $200K advance, the manager would pocket $20K, the band could use the remainder for studio budget and living expenses, maybe buy some new instruments. But everyone’s in it together. If the record never earns back the advance, no one makes any more money. If it does, they all share in the windfall.

In a management deal, the manager can sign the band members up as basically paid employees of the management. The manager can keep almost all of the advance money that's left over after recording. Pay the members $500 a week salary. Give them a minimal royalty rate of 5% to split between them - so in the case I outlined above with a 12% royalty, the manager would keep 7% and the band have to split the remaining 5% between the three or four of them. And the recording cost has to be paid of the band’s share – not the manager’s.

That's not even getting into, what if it is a hit and the promo costs go up? The management may have written it in the contract that all those expenses get paid out of the band's 5% too. So now you have a demand for a $250K video shoot, a million dollar stage set, travel costs to fly from place to place, all coming out of the band's cut.

The manager can make any kind of deal they want for the tour. They can do it in a way that’s designed to lose money, and bill it all back to the band after taking their cut off the top.

You can see how even when they are popular, they may never get to the point where they get more than that $500 a week. The manager pockets millions, the band is left holding a bunch of unpaid bills.

That's the kind of deal the Who got in 1965, luckily they were able to get out of it, but it cost them about half the royalties on their whole sixties catalog. Still to this day they have to pay that guy on sales of Tommy and Who's Next, made years after he'd finished with them.

It's the kind of deal TLC got, and they never did get out of it.

And I don't know anything about En Vogue's deal but wouldn't be surprised if it followed that same path.

Why do people sign these deals? Because those artists have nothing and want to be famous.

bobzilla77 said:

And I don't know anything about En Vogue's deal but wouldn't be surprised if it followed that same path.

Why do people sign these deals? Because those artists have nothing and want to be famous.

En Vogue wasn't already a group. They were put together by Foster & McElroy from auditions with many women. They were originally putting together a trio, but they decided to add Terry Ellis after she showed up. Most acts signed bad deals, even the ones who became rich. The labels still made more than the acts. That's how The Beatles lost their publishing to Lew Grade. Brian Epstein hadn't managed a group before and he got taken advantage of with the label and companies making Beatles merchandise. Brian just ran the record store owned by his family before finding The Beatles. The Beatles later got snookered by Allen Klein, who Paul did not want to sign with. Klein is one of the reasons the group broke up and were in lawsuits during the 1970s.

Scum mananger Allen Klein, who died in 2009, was hired to handle the Stones' business affairs. Instead he skillfully bamboozled the band when he gained ownership of all the Stones' catalog prior to 1971. One of his companies, ABKCO Records, still retains control of those recordings and the publishing.

Allen Klein & ABKCO also owns some of Sam Cooke's recordings, mainly the big hits. I've heard that Don Arden, who is Sharon Osbourne's father, is no joke. He probably makes Suge Knight look like Donny Osmond.

MickyDolenz said:

bobzilla77 said:

And I don't know anything about En Vogue's deal but wouldn't be surprised if it followed that same path.

Why do people sign these deals? Because those artists have nothing and want to be famous.

En Vogue wasn't already a group. They were put together by Foster & McElroy from auditions with many women. They were originally putting together a trio, but they decided to add Terry Ellis after she showed up. Most acts signed bad deals, even the ones who became rich. The labels still made more than the acts. That's how The Beatles lost their publishing to Lew Grade. Brian Epstein hadn't managed a group before and he got taken advantage of with the label and companies making Beatles merchandise. Brian just ran the record store owned by his family before finding The Beatles. The Beatles later got snookered by Allen Klein, who Paul did not want to sign with. Klein is one of the reasons the group broke up and were in lawsuits during the 1970s.

That makes sense about EV - sounds kind of like the Monkees. Another band that signed a bad contract!

The Beatles' dillemma was similar to the one a lot of the grunge-era bands faced in the early 90s. On the one hand you have their old independent label who may have their hearts in the right place but not know anything about selling lots of records. On the other you have a major label, who at least knows how the Big Business game is played... which means they are going to game the artist, guaranteed.

bobzilla77 said:

That makes sense about EV - sounds kind of like the Monkees. Another band that signed a bad contract!

Don Kirshner was in charge of The Monkees music which the group was supposed to sing but not play. Partly because there wasn't a lot of time for them to spend extra time recording. Mike & Peter especially didn't like this setup and wanted more control over the music and to write & play on the records. The 2nd album More Of The Monkees was put out without the knowledge of the members and they had no idea it was out or what songs were on it until they saw it in a store. They were constantly recording in addition to doing the TV show, filming commercials for different products like Kellog's cereal, and going on a tour. They were overworked and underpaid. Eventually Peter had enough and quit after filming the 33 1/3 special, but he had to buy out his contract, which left him almost broke.

.

Don released a single of the original mix of a song called She Hangs Out, which the group didn't like, but they had re-recorded it themselves and their version was used in the show. Later the group had a meeting and Mike got mad at Kirshner and punched a hole in a wall and told Don that could have been his face. Don was fired and the group took control on the 3rd album Headquarters. They had a low royalty rate from the records even though they were big sellers.