Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Guns N? Roses, Greatest Hits (Interscope/Geffen) 138,000 sold

Guns N? Roses, Appetite For Destruction (Interscope/Geffen) 115,000 sold

Pretty interesting, that new records from Deftones and Korn didn't sell that much..

http://www.metalinsider.net/columns/metal-by-numbers/metal-by-numbers-the-best-selling-rock-and-metal-in-2016

Very Nice

Old band still is great.

Just goes to show there is still a big demand for GNR !

Yep.  You put the right product out there, you still sell out stadiums.

Whoa, look at Metallica's numbers! Five of their albums outsold GNR's greatest hits. I never would have guessed that.

I think Metallica remastered some their albums this year which probably helped quite a bit.

They also released a new album and promoted it heavily   Sales of all other products would see an increase as a result

But no one makes money on album sales, right?  So why bother?  :hihi:

Hahahaha. Oh yeah that's all I hear

Money is in music.   Metallica just proved that to be true.    Release music.  Promote music. Sell music.

There is a reason artists back catalogues sell for huge money    Cause it makes money

Micheal Jackson makes more dead than alive.  His estate makes millions last years

So what you are saying is kill Axl and raid the vault... Fuck off

Not "no one". "The artists", in general, don't make much.  The label, the distributor (often the same entity, ultimately), and the platform/retailer all do pretty well.

Back catalog makes you money, because the label gets less of a cut (because they have essentially paid off on the A&R/marketing/advance piece). Essentially the label/distributor is only taking their cut for production and distribution...which is "only" about 35% (instead of the normal 85-ish on an album).  Management still usually takes their 15 to 20%.  Which leaves the artist about 45% to 50% to divy up.

How many artists are there that have that kind of longevity or catalog of hits that their back catalog can sustain them?

Artists make somewhere around 15% off an album sales (new music). But keep in mind...with new music, some of that 15% is going toward paying off an advance, in many cases.  For VERY established acts....that advance might be minimal.

They make about 6% off streaming of their music (15%-ish if they are also the songwriter or own their publishing rights).  That's typically straight up, with no advance offsets.

New music ALBUM SALES, in general, makes most artists jack shit. ESPECIALLY if you're a newer act living on your advances. Touring and merch sales, typically, makes you a LOT more money.  I suppose you can argue that, since a new music release might fuel interest in your tour, it's tangent to making you money....but it's more a necessary evil (the release of the music via the label system...not the creation of the music, itself) than a money maker.

Just as a point of reference, there were about $215 million (and a single artist accounted for almost $15 million of that..Adele) in artist fees paid out from album sales in 2016. Total. In the entire industry.  Think about that just in terms of the sheer NUMBER or artists out there that sold albums this year. If you divided that SIMPLY over the top 200 albums sold (and we know there are a LOT more than 200 different albums that sold copies this year) that's only about a million bucks per album. And in reality, most of those artist fees are HEAVILY weighted to the top of the charts.  In reality, the top 10%-ish (maybe 15% ish) of artists with new albums make SOMETHING appreciable off that album. The rest make shit...and go on tour.

The other thing thats REALLY funny in all this is, even though most music sold is now digital....the same percentages hold sway per unit.  The label cuts stay the same, even though their costs have dropped, significantly.  Their response is that, since albums don't sell, but individual songs do, they have to keep them in order to keep their margins.

I pray for the day that some huge consortium of big name acts comes together and just sets up this generations version of Apple Records (a la the Beatles). A sort of artist commune that enables artists to much more easily self publish (I tunes has helped), while still "buying" marketing services.  That, or a straight "patron" method (we're seeing this more and more with kickstarter, soundcloud, patreon, etc) of support.  The label dinosaur has to die. It has stunted creativity, musical diversity, and industry growth for far too long....

Guys, I hardly think when the #1 hard rock album sells 500K units, that means rock bands make money with new music.  Metallica can do OK with that because they have no outside record label to give all the sales money too, but for Guns, who are still bound by a label, selling 500K would net the band a giant wet turd. 

Well to be fair with the numbers for Metallicas new album.  I would think that would just be for America and the album came out very late in the year.   World wide numbers for that album and anything Guns would put out, would be much higher

I think as another poster said above here, the best thing new music brings a older band is content..  The more content a brand can have the better.  When the sales for a tour die down, what do you promote?  You promote a new tour off of a new album.  Then sales of everything increase

I have no idea what the label deal is with Guns N Roses.  For all I know the band has a album ready, however the label will not support it.  Who knows..   Perhaps the reason the band doesn't play any new music live any more is because the label is preventing it.  Could be...   

I still think there is a great deal of money to be made off of releasing new music.  There is tons of money to be made off greathits music.  There is tons of money in touring if promoted correctly

Seems some fans what to say  "I don't blame a artist for not releasing new music, cause there is no money in it"

Its these same fans that will almost agree with everything the band does.  The band cant do no wrong ever.  Lets give them some time, this is how it is done with this band, you think you know better, blah blah blah.   

Cool

Just like some sports fans will see there team or franchise doing no wrong ever.  Be a die hard homer fan.   That's how it is, but out side of the bubble of your fandom there is the real world and don't get fans for pointing out things that should be done.  Don't get upset when fans are not patient and are critical of the way things are being handled.  I am a die hard Blue Jay fan.   However I think some of the decisions there management have made this past off season are a complete joke.  The only saving grace is they are not as bad as the horrible Yankees.  The Bon Jovi of baseball.   Go Jays!!

Just to be clear, I in no way support this statement.  Even if there is no money in new music (and there isn't much), Guns should still be putting out new music, especially considering that they're making plenty of money from touring. 

I totally agree

I pretty much agree with you in everything you said, except for this bit.  There just isn't, not really. Even at a million albums sold, you're talking about 150k to the band-ish. I'd guess they are making at least that (and probably more for the "big 3") than that, per member, per show, per night, on tour.

So, keeping in mind that the new music is a means to an end (say, to sell more tickets to your upcoming tour dates or sell more merch or (maybe) promote back catalog sales) for them, you have to be a LOT more strategic, as an established act, about WHEN to release it.

For GnR, right now, it would be an exceedingly STUPID time to release new music.  They are selling out stadiums, and have popped their back catalog sales based on Slash and Duff coming back into the fold.  This reuniting of the Big 3 essentially served the same function as a new hit album. New music isn't going to sell any more tickets, put any more butts in seats, and likely isn't going to have an appreciable effect on back catalog sales right now.

Now, a year from now (or so), I'd say that will likely change.  Late Winter/Spring of '18, for example, would seem like a very savy time to release their next album...with maybe a single or something (again, I'm partial to a bonus track or two on a rerelease 30th anniversary AFD) toward the end of summer-ish?


First up, I don't think there are many folks who would say that.  Certainly I'm not one of them.  But I would say "I don't blame them for not releasing new music til it makes sense for THEM to do so.".  Which is different.  Given album sales generate such a relatively small amount of money....why rush material out the door when you have other things you can do that will generate you MORE money (assuming money is the motivator for you).  In short: You can afford to give the creative process some time to mature because it's not your primary source of income, and at this point, taking time OFF the road to do all the things you'd need to do to get out an album would literally COST you millions of dollars. 

It's not about being a "homer" for GnR, IMHO, and accepting everything they do at face value.   It's about sort of understanding the industry a bit, and how it works right now....and how artists.....especially established artists...are using material now.