Jul 03
How much is a song worth?
by Lou in Lou Paniccia, Music Business Essentials & Tips
Lou

Portfolio.com did an interesting estimate on how much money Stairway to Heaven  has made over the years.  You can check out the full article here.

In the end they estimate that Stairway to Heaven has made over $500 million and could make at least another $10 million if Led Zeppelin decided to license it for use in commercials, movies and TV shows.

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Stairway to Heaven

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Shortly after reading about the millions companies would pay to use a song in their commercials I read the news about Rhapsody selling 99 cent MP3 downloads and realized that the value of a song depends greatly on who’s buying it.  To the people who bought over 5 billion songs from iTunes a song is worth 99 cents.  For the pirates who are downloading music illegally a song isn’t even worth paying for.  But to a company looking to strengthen their brand, music is a great vehicle.

I’d love to find some solid stats to back this up, but it seems like the value of music to consumers is going down while the value of music to companies is going up.  This should be good news for up and coming bands because even if they make less money from record sales, a lower price for consumers to buy their music will give them more exposure to people who would otherwise not spend $12 on a band they’ve never heard of.  A lower price to customers should (assuming the music is good) bring in more fans.  More fans means more leverage when negotiating with companies who want to use music to strengthen their brand.  Plus until they figure out a way to illegally download t-shirts, bands can still monetize their fanbase with good merchandising.

For more info on breaking into music licensing, check out this great post by Peter Spellman.

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9 Responses to “How much is a song worth?”
 

lou! that is so crazy!! i loved that article!!!

andrea wrote on July 9th, 2008 at 12:38 am

 

I couldn’t agree more with your speculation…. you have a good head on your shoulders!!!

peace

tom lesko
guitar center
cherry hill, nj

tom lesko wrote on July 18th, 2008 at 11:49 pm

 

totally agree, we’re a just little garage rock band from Oz, sold about 700 cds,

yet weve agreed deals for these huge american shows like californication, The Unit, Big Shots and games like EA sports, as well as a bunch of other stuff.

so yeah, i guess were a good example of what your talking about

steve wrote on July 28th, 2008 at 9:53 am

 

Hey Steve, we’ve sold about 1,000 copies and are looking to move into publishing…how’s the best way to submit songs for shows of that caliber?

danielle wrote on July 31st, 2008 at 1:05 pm

 

Great thoughts. However there is a point in listening demand that I haven’t seen discussed and that is the impact of Radio and Music TV format changes. Radio and MTV’s have reduced the amount of music they play by 20-90% so people don’t hear new music unless they get it from their friends or go to a show.

I still don’t think we should give away music for two reasons. People will start making music for corporations not their fans in order to make a living and if no one says it is wrong to pirate music, then what we do for a living becomes worthless.

david wrote on August 6th, 2008 at 9:38 am

 

Friends,

Can anyone suggest a really good place to get CDs mastered, in the NYC area. By good, I mean people who have a good feel for music and musicians and are not over the top expensive? Thanks–Devorah

Devorah Tarrow wrote on August 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am

 

Devorah - In regards to mastering - go to Sterling Sound in New York or you can always go to a great overseas company like Studios 301 - you can send the files to the via thier FTP server and they Master the tracks and send the masters back to you!
Their website is http://www.studios301.com

:) es

Esther wrote on August 15th, 2008 at 2:16 am

 

That is a very good marketing strategy! I never thought about it that way. Thanks for this article. :-D

amaha wrote on August 15th, 2008 at 10:25 pm

 

Not sure I agree with the article.
With the 99 cent song, there is almost no output or overhead outside of studio time. No pressings. No distribution or warehousing. No person on the phone trying to find out how many units Tower Records sold. MP3s have brought back the single. In fact, a band does not even have to record a full length CD anymore. We do E-EPs.

Someone with their own site can actually retain all proceeds if they wanted to. Unless you are Prince or Fugazi, you probably won’t get that far, but it with the right business model and the right team, it could work. It is more about going out and making sales. networking just got more important. I think we bands need to be more B-to-B savy and market each other as well as ourselves. The island mentality blows chunks.

Jerry H
Dream Kitchen
changing name to FolkADelic to welcome new members
distributed by peacedrum.org

Jerry H (folkadelic) wrote on August 30th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

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