Well like 99% of the music industry back in 1994 when Prince started writing SLAVE on his face and breaking from WB, everyone thought he was "nuts", prince preached about owning masters and things like that and now years later EVERYONE wants their masters or has fought to get them (ex, the eagles, elton, jovi, joel, rem etc..). Now in yet another forsight of Prince i feel, if U remember the whole Convo that Prince had with Jay Leno about Mariah and "do the math", and saying Mariah got screwed, well its once again true. Though this was not the EMI deal for Mariah, her deal with Defjam which is very small, 3 Cds for about 20 million I believe, well now that Mariah has sold 5+ million in the US alone of MIMI and twice as much worldwide, MIMI is now enlisting her lawyers once again from the EMI fiasco to negotiate why she has been so greatly underpaid for work that has done so much revenue for the label but not much for her. Well Well Well, Prince right again, hmmmm Maybe its time to use your fan base that u have and preach about and try going "indie" mariah. Or maybe just listen to Prince.

mariah should thank her stars all those early hits got to no. 1. As she had her own connections if u know what i mean.

This deal may look really bad in paper, but remember that she was originally offered $100 million dollars from Virgin, from which she went on to release "Glitter," which bombed badly. After Virgin paid her $28 million to be released out of her contract, she was considered damaged goods, so no record company wanted to commit to any huge contract for her. Granted, she sold a lot of records and had a huge comeback with "Mimi" but this is the second album in the current contract with Def Jam. The first was "Charmbracelet" which didn't do particularly much better than "Glitter." So it could be said that the jury is still out on whether this was a bad deal on Def Jam's part.

the bottom line is mariah made more money with the contract than she would have without it. nobody wanted to touch ol' girl and they (the labels) were ready to hang her out to dry.

its true she could go indie like prince did, but she would never be able to promote herself into such a comeback without the help of the majors. even prince didn't enjoy a comeback until he got in bed with sony for musicology.

on one hand, yeah she gets a bum deal. on the other hand, she gets 20 million bucks for three records AND has a major comeback thereby giving her leverage when it comes time to renegotiate her contract. maybe its not such a bad deal after all.

thesexofit said:

No what do you mean? Because in those early days number ones were based on airplay and sales. And, alot of Mariah's number ones were never number one in airplay it was the single sales that got her the top spot. Not to mention when Sony broke things down demographically. It showed she does her biggest business w/ white 13-25yr. old females from the suburbs at big retailers like Wal-mart. Her "urban" sales only make up about 15% of the equation at indie retailers. IT's damn hard to run scam scans at places like Wal-mart, Target, and Best Buy.

sallysassalot said:

You mean Def Jam made money. After she gets done paying back taxes, promotion, her staff, management, and lawyers she's probably only left w/ 5 0r 6 mill. And, she could get that by doing a three of four of those private concerts for those Russian billionaires. IT really makes no sense for her to do all the promotion, interviews, award show appearances to end up w/ 5 or 6 mill. I'm sure she knows she could just have easily come up w/ that doing those one off private concerts at her leisure.

I'm sure she will negotiate her deal with Def Jam, her 20 million for 3 albums was based on her selling only a few million of each album, but my understanding of record deals is that the 20 Million was an advance, and she gets money for every album she sells that exceeds that amount?

roundables said:

no. i mean mariah made money. prior to her defjam contract, ol' girl was in a mental hospital catching a breakdown. now she's back on the top of the charts and will probably continue to be a relevant character in the pop world as opposed to just a punchline. she's got a decent contract in which she only needs to deliver one more successful record. because of this record's success she is more likely to have offers from various "hot" producers and more likely to sell more records next time out.

it is inarguable that she is in a better position now than 3 years ago. i believe this to be a result of major label support.

sallysassalot said:

I agree.

CinisterCee said:

that's cuz you got some kinda sense about ya!

sallysassalot said:

-----
So she should not try and get more money. She should just let the record label make the bulk of the profits.

laurarichardson said:

maybe she shouldn't have signed the defjam contract if she wasnt going to be happy with the numbers...

unless she was when she signed the dotted line then she needs to shut her fat arse up and accept the adult decision she made.

sosgemini said:

WOW,I am actually agreeing with SOSGemini

Mariah knew what she was getting into when she signed the DefJam contract.That was what...her third recording contract? By now,she should be smart enough to know how to read the fine print.

laurarichardson said:

That's showbiz ! (Emphasis on the "biz" )
Basically, Mariah was washed up. She was seen by the industry and the public as a has-been nut-job. So she's very lucky that a label was willing to even sign her, not knowing if she would "freak-out" again, and ruin all their marketing plans. The bottom line in the Music industry is that one hand washes the other, and she needs them as much as they need her

laurarichardson said:

More money for what? Another mansion?

Mariah is already filthy rich.She's made millions from this latest CD and she was paid $28 million (!) to get out of her last record deal.I'm tired of multi-millionaire artists complaining and whining that they are "underpaid".It's ridiculous.

.
[Edited 3/17/06 7:12am]

sosgemini said:

I agree. Maybe Mariah can re-neogiate once the contract is up.

laurarichardson said:

did i type that? is that what you're reading? if so, you betta get yo' glasses fixed.

mariah can whatever mariah wants to do. if she wants to fight over her contract, more power to her. she isn't the first artist to fight over money and she sure won't be the last. she'll probably lose in the end because she signed what she signed but, hey, give it that good ol' college try.

sallysassalot said:

-----
I did not say you typed anything. It is more of question. Some of you guys make it seem like nothing can be re-negoiated. Any contract can be re-worked if both parties want to work together.

Mariah sold a shit load of records and she deserves a better deal. My opinion.

I thought you were saying Mariah has a new "chopped and screwed" cd!!That would be funny!

rockwilder said:

Oh they play Mariah like that on the radio late at night all the time in Houston

the Emancipation of Mimi is a flop in Europe.

& Prince was being a twat with the whole Slave thing..

twink69 said:

Even $20 for 3 albums seems excessive to me

Some say she has been in the indutry a long time but lets not forget when she signed she was doin pretty bad so she didnt have much negotiationg power!!

most royalty rates r like 8-25% depending on how hot u r

The fact is mariah didnt even make the top 30 rollingstone money maker list this yr

the last per on the list made $14mil so she made less then that

plus most ppl say they r making this much or that much which is normally fake numbers thrown around

jessica simpson claims to have made $35 mill and nick lachey $5 which is pure fake publicity i never saw thier name on that list. This was hyped by some entertainment tv shows!!
[Edited 3/17/06 13:12pm]

laurarichardson said:

of course it can be argued that she only did so with through the aid of defjam. they could - and i'm not saying i agree or disagree with this - say they stuck with her after charmbracelet, continued to provide support for tours, advertisements, and all of these other upfront costs. while she certainly has to pay them back, they need an incentive to put it up in the first place. that incentive is the killing they make at the bank IF the record is a success.

luckily it was a smash hit and they made out but what if it was another flop? what if the fight was on the other side and defjam was trying to get mariah to pay them/take a smaller cut from what her contract says in order to recoup their losses? would you be supporting defjam and saying mariah should give them money because she didn't make any for them?

sallysassalot said:

wow..made me think.

thesexofit said:

I know exactly what you mean.

I met Mariah just before she went on the Arsenio Hall show and I thought how cute and innocent she was. I miss THAT Mariah.

sosgemini said:

NO other label wanted her at that point. It was sign the deal or don't have a deal. WTF, are you smoking?

DavidEye said:

Once again, coming off of Glitter it's not like she could negotiate for a really good deal. Clive and L.A wanted nothing to do w/ her. She couldn't backtrack to Sony because Tommy was still there. And, WB has Madonna so there was no point in even trying there. IT was Universal or bust.

DavidEye said:

You're crazy if you think artists get a crazy amount of money from cd sales. She's only asking to make a bigger percentage of the money she makes for the company. Oh fuck yes, Mariah is wrong for wanting a bigger piece of the pie made from a product w/ her name on it. There aren't alot of music artists out there really caking it up for real. Sure they have nice houses and cars and 99.9% of the time that shit is rented or in the record companies name.

ABeautifulOne said:

That would sound weird.

roundables said:

so she should have took all that into consideration prior to signing the contract..