https://www.cnbc.com/2022...stone.html

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Remember when folks thought he was the next MJ lol

Im alway surprised at these numbers, yes he had a few hits, but 100 million?

How are you gonna make that kinda of money from 5 albums?

I guess so he can be featured in Wendy's and McDonald's commercials with his songs now.

StrangeButTrue said:

I guess so he can be featured in Wendy's and McDonald's commercials with his songs now.

I mean... "I'm Lovin' It" was an actual Justin Timberlake non-album single. There's a video for it and everything. But he sold the song to McD's for $5M I believe. There were originas to the song that I don't remember. But he made a nice little mint for one song like that.

Singer Normani has already signed a publishing deal which I believe means she sold her rights up front considering she hasn't released her debut album yet.

It's getting rough out there.

Artists must figure that since there's no real sales anymore and you only make like 0.03 cents for each stream, they might as well sell off their catalogues.

The bigger question is, where is all this money they made? Timberlake's last tour was huge. The album did well. Sure sales have gone down for everyone post-Napster. And touring was always the way to make bigger money, opposed to album sales.

I'm wondering - do artists just not care about owning their music and getting the lion's share? It almost feels hypocritical because artists have barked forever about being used by record companies, being cheated, going broke, not getting support, and not even any control over their image. Yet now, they don't give a shit about anything, make music and sell it off.

I mean, they'll still get paid after these deals. They're not relinquishing their royalties as performer or songwriter, producer, etc, and may or may not give up all of their publishing. They're giving up a lot of control.

I don't even know that Michael Jackson would've done something like this. However, he was in hock up to his neck with Sony with that music catalog.

Those albums were big and he probably has some songwriting credit in Nsync, too especially for Celebrity.

It's amazing his was $100M, yet Tina Turner, which likely included the two or three solo albums before Private Dancer, sold hers for $50M. What the actual fuck?

CynicKill said:

Singer Normani has already signed a publishing deal which I believe means she sold her rights up front considering she hasn't released her debut album yet.

Is there a link to that? Because there are a lot of variables there. Is the publishing deal to relinquish anything she writes (like most contracts)? Is it that she has a part in her publishing (which is a smart move; to own it). Or is she owning her publishing out right?

TrivialPursuit said:

The bigger question is, where is all this money they made? Timberlake's last tour was huge. The album did well. Sure sales have gone down for everyone post-Napster. And touring was always the way to make bigger money, opposed to album sales.

I'm wondering - do artists just not care about owning their music and getting the lion's share? It almost feels hypocritical because artists have barked forever about being used by record companies, being cheated, going broke, not getting support, and not even any control over their image. Yet now, they don't give a shit about anything, make music and sell it off.

I mean, they'll still get paid after these deals. They're not relinquishing their royalties as performer or songwriter, producer, etc, and may or may not give up all of their publishing. They're giving up a lot of control.

I don't even know that Michael Jackson would've done something like this. However, he was in hock up to his neck with Sony with that music catalog.

Those albums were big and he probably has some songwriting credit in Nsync, too especially for Celebrity.

It's amazing his was $100M, yet Tina Turner, which likely included the two or three solo albums before Private Dancer, sold hers for $50M. What the actual fuck?

Agreed.

I don't get it either.

It's like artists can't wait to give it away after years of sqwauking about all the things you've mentioned.

Quick question:

Do masters have anything to do with this? Meaning, if you sell your cataloque are you also giving up the masters, because that's what everyone was so concerned about yesterday.

I also remember being shocked and confused when Barry Gordy sold Motown for peanuts. It had to be worth more than that!

TrivialPursuit said:

CynicKill said:

Singer Normani has already signed a publishing deal which I believe means she sold her rights up front considering she hasn't released her debut album yet.

Is there a link to that? Because there are a lot of variables there. Is the publishing deal to relinquish anything she writes (like most contracts)? Is it that she has a part in her publishing (which is a smart move; to own it). Or is she owning her publishing out right?

After further research I couldn't find any specifics of the deal. Needless to say I heard it from someone who heard it from someone that she signed off her rights upfront, which is vague and doesn't mean much.

I just assumed that it was a sell-off deal with the way things are going out there. But good for her if it's a deal that works in her favor.

CynicKill said:

I also remember being shocked and confused when Barry Gordy sold Motown for peanuts. It had to be worth more than that!

For the most part, Motown has been a catalog label since the 1980s, and the material that has the most interest from companies is the 1960s hits, and maybe the very early 1970s. They've had a few later acts that were popular like Lionel Richie & Boys II Men, but most of the later Motown acts were not that successful or kinda forgotten today like The Good Girls, Chico DeBarge, & The Boys. I think that starting in the 1970s, Motown had less crossover and had mainly had R&B radio airplay. In the mid-1980s, Motown got rid of the other labels like Gordy & Tamla, and everything was released on the Motown label only.

MickyDolenz said:

CynicKill said:

I also remember being shocked and confused when Barry Gordy sold Motown for peanuts. It had to be worth more than that!

For the most part, Motown has been a catalog label since the 1980s, and the material that has the most interest from companies is the 1960s hits, and maybe the very early 1970s.

Motown never diversified their acts. They just tried to be a soul or R&B label and for a while that was fine. But when Diana Ross and J5 are jumping ship due to being cheated left and right and cornered into the same bland ass music over and over, it ain't gonna work. I'm surprised they never even had a gospel arm like Warner Alliance. (Warner also distributes Word Records material.)

It's rather amazing they fell the way they did. With so many acts (especially funk bands) coming from the rust belt (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois), they attracted very few of them to their label, in contrast.

TrivialPursuit said:

Motown never diversified their acts.

Motown had a country music label in the 1970s called Melodyland and signed singers like T. G. Sheppard & Pat Boone. They also started the rock label Rare Earth that had the band Rare Earth. Meatloaf was also signed to it in a group called Stoney & Meatloaf. Jackson Browne's brother Severin was signed to Motown as well. Motown had another label called Black Forum for speeches (Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr). They even had a vanity label for Sammy Davis Jr. Motown had a Latin music label with Jose Féliciano. Stax tried a country label too in the 1970s, but with primarily Black country singers. They was trying to that Charley Pride success. But Charley was the exception, it was very difficult for Black singers to make it in country until maybe recently. Even with Charley, when he first started in the 1960s, his label (RCA) did not send out publicity photos to radio stations. But that was the time when the Stax had legal troubles that eventually resulted in it going out of business.

I'm shocked he did this because he's so young.

PennyPurple said:

I'm shocked he did this because he's so young.

Well, he must be in his fourties now, I guess, and I think he might consider his musical career 'done' perhaps? Better cash in now as in 30 years time his catalogue value would likely not be as high as it is at the moment.

I think for the most part like with John Legend though Timberlake "solo" had more albums sold, he is past his hey day and also I dont think people realize how awful streaming revenue is. Even if Justin had a huge hit, streaming revenue makes nothing for them. This is why when I hear songs had a million streams, I'm like ok, thats great but nothing was bought, and its not translating into selling your music for the most part so even though artists always get screwed they get screwed a million times worse now with streaming revenue. And check out one of the latest videos by Rick Beato, this guy knows how this all works and how now the artists are the A&R people, they have to push their music, they have to do the social media and all that nonsense now, if you are on a label now they eseentially are doing nothing for you at all, except manufacturing your physical product if there is any. Someone like Timberlake might just feel like, let me sell this off, because sales and streaming for the future are not bankable, its a smart move regardless of who you are. And also for some they don't even have the LIVE show to depend on anymore, due to the pandemic and also Timberlake to mount some sort of a tour costs money, and some of these tours actually pay so much out that they lose money because of travel and crews. Now with newer acts and streaming if you are not writing your music 100% you might as well get a job at the post office as Chaka would say. the more writers and producers to pay who all own your song, its not worth it, regardless of numbers. The reality is a million streams gets you a check for $1,000 thats it, now take out who wrote it, and the number of writers, producers, who played on it, if a label is involved etc... So I hear million streams and I yawn because people somehow think, that means one million people are now in your fan base, are you kidding folks?

I actually like Justin(whom Janet has forgiven) I just hope to God Janet(whom I worked with) doesn't sell her catalog next. She already owns the masters so she doesn't really need the extra cash.

[Edited 5/27/22 8:34am]

StrangeButTrue said:

RJOrion said:

StrangeButTrue said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022...stone.html

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Remember when folks thought he was the next MJ lol

No one in their right mind, ever thought he was "the next Michael Jackson" [Edited 5/27/22 7:26am]

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https://www.rollingstone....op-233648/

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Time is a bitch!

IMO the only cool thing Timberlake did was usher in the era of K-POP where the singers are almost literally interchangeable faces/bodies.

StrangeButTrue said:

Going back to the Motown sale, Gordy simply undervalued it massively as he was one of the first majors to be eaten up, if not the first! But like we have said, Motown had no major contemporary acts when it was sold, which really woulda hurt potential buyers. Motown was a near museum by the late 80's sadly plus Berry put his own money into it as iam pretty sure it wasn't on the stock market. He carried that company not shareholders.

Only El Debarge was high profile along with regular heavy hitters Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie.

In hindsight, The Beatles catalogue u would say was massively undervalued, but Beatles stock value was at its lowest by the early 80's. Mike sniffed that out and made one of the deals of that century LOL. Rumours he was gonna buy Jobete too....

[Edited 7/16/22 19:21pm]