Studio Album #16 - Rumours and Speculation (New Info 27.02.15)

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Yes, and keep in mind that the band has their own company, Iron Maiden Holdings (I think?) that does a lot of this stuff for them. They shouldn't ever have to lose money to make an album or tour, and IMH will provide them with a decent income for the rest of their lives.
 
nibblet said:
Still, the album shipped more than 1 million copies worldwide in its opening week and has probably done around 3.5 worldwide today (educated guess). But, by no means was it one of the bigger sellers from Maiden's catalogue worldwide- the US and UK sales from its first year of release are just too weak compared to that enjoyed by the 80s albums and subsequent back calatlogue sales globally are not as strong as the recognsied classics.
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Not exactly. FotD was shipped over million copies worldwide in the day of release. everywhere in the world apart from USA, Canada and UK album sold pretty good. I suppose today reached over 4 mln copies sold everywhere. In comparition of many classic Maiden albums from the 80s, it's not so good and impressive. Back catalogue of Maiden '80s releases sold enormously better than records from '90s.
 
nibblet said:
The fact is, countless other acts are releasing studio albums in today's markets and turning over profits on just the tens of thousands of sales.
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Yeah? I once talked to a guy in a mid-sized metal band (the type that gets a 14:00 slot at Wacken and a quarter page ad in a metal magazine), and he told me that 10,000 sold albums just about cover the recording and marketing expenses. The band members themselves don't make any money off that yet.
 
But the bands like Saxon ora Motorhead - thy can just sale 200,000 + albums or so and touring two years with them and still make money. 10,000 copies is very poor.
 
Perun said:
Yeah? I once talked to a guy in a mid-sized metal band (the type that gets a 14:00 slot at Wacken and a quarter page ad in a metal magazine), and he told me that 10,000 sold albums just about cover the recording and marketing expenses. The band members themselves don't make any money off that yet.
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That's in line with what I have said. After an initial amount of sales (10,000 in your example), the album starts making money.

Of course, it varies on the album and its related costs. No doubt Maiden will have bigger costs to pay (bigger name producers, better studio, bigger marketing budget etc...). But, for sure, 1 million sales, which is what they are comfortably achieving, will give them a very nice profit.
 
Just to give another example, I've been told five years ago by a french singer that he needed to sell 30 000 records per year to make a decent living. Him releasing an album every two years, he needed quite high sales (but it was only on the domestic market).
 
Perun said:
Do bands get advances from record companies the way authors do?
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I don't know about today, but they certainly did when Iron Maiden started. Mick Wall talks about how Rod got them a 3 or 5 record deal and an advance so they could actually focus on the future of Iron Maiden rather than working as a draftsman or whatever side gig they had.
 
Merchandise, endorsement deals and touring is where most money is made these days for artists. Maiden have 2 of those covered. With Maiden Audio coming out this year :eek:, they may now have the third. They probably make tons from their tour shirts, posters, and such. Ticket prices for tours keep going up too o_O Bands a few years ago were still getting advances but I don't know if they do that for a veteran band or not. :innocent:
 
Perun said:
Do bands get advances from record companies the way authors do?
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It's been a few years since I worked in the industry, and I was never involved directly in the 'signing' of acts.
And, of course, the industry has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.
But my understanding is as follows:

It used to be a case that a record company was just that, a 'record' company that made its money from the sale of recordings.
But now, there's 360 deals, where a record company takes a share of merchandise, tour revenue etc...
(for the record, I think this is perfectly valid).

In regards to advances..... This term is often open to mean lots of things. Sometime, an act does get an advance and this is a simple upfront payment.
But more often, sometimes the advance is a loan, other times its pre-payment that is recouped from subsequent royalties...
There is also the fact that the 'advance' is often not a payment for the artist but a contribution towards their career costs (e.g studio, production and marketing costs)

The real purpose of an unconditional advance is for a record company to say to an artist...."We have faith in you and we are making a commitment to put up this amount of money in advance of your next album". This was/is as true for veteran acts as it is for new artists.
 
Incidentally, Maiden are now on a 360 deal. Or at least they were with their last (re)signing with EMI (pre-take over).
 
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Excuse my ignorance, but what is exactly a "360 deal" (could you elaborate on what you said in your previous post please) ?
 
nibblet said:
The real purpose of an unconditional advance is for a record company to say to an artist...."We have faith in you and we are making a commitment to put up this amount of money in advance of your next album". This was/is as true for veteran acts as it is for new artists.
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That's how I understood it. I always thought an advance is a token of trust that is supposed to give the artist, recording or not, some financial peace of mind that will allow them to focus on their production.
 
harrisdevot said:
Excuse my ignorance, but what is exactly a "360 deal" (could you elaborate on what you said in your previous post please) ?
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Yes, no problem.

In the old days, a record label would simply make money from an artist by taking the bulk of the money from every record sold (be it CDs, vinyl etc...).
Typically, the artist would get a royalty rate much less than the label would make from the album (even the very biggest artists like Michael Jackson would earn less than half of what the label would make from it's wholesale price). Of course, this was somewhat fair as the label would be responsible for a great amount of the associated costs of the record.

However, the label would not take anything from the artists earnings where the likes of endorsements, touring and merchandise was concerned.

But then the music industry changed. Some say it has died, but that is not true. The music industry is bigger than ever - it's just that the ratio of revenue has dramatically changed with revenue from actual music sales declining but revenue from related endorsements and touring rapidly increasing. In a nutshell, bands used to tour to promote a record but now they release a record to promote a tour - at least economically speaking.

So, as the industry changed, record labels and artists changed the way they work with each other. Both still parties still need each other, but it is not sustainable for a record label to survive off record sales alone and it is not possible for an artist to get an album out to the masses without a record label (generally speaking). So, a 360 deal sees both parties (label and artist) work out a deal where all revenue from all sources is shared between themselves. So, now a record label will get a share of the artists touring revenue, merchandise sales and endorsements etc....

This allows record labels to still have confidence in investing in the recorded music side of things knowing that even if the actual revenue from music sales is down, they can recoup on other sources of related revenue.

Madonna was one of the first to follow this model, and Maiden were at the forefront too.
 
Perun said:
That's how I understood it. I always thought an advance is a token of trust that is supposed to give the artist, recording or not, some financial peace of mind that will allow them to focus on their production.
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Exactly, but something to add.... Sometimes the advance has a pre-condition in regards to delivery of albums by certain dates, and therefore is used as a means of making sure the artists don't get lazy and release albums behind schedule! I'm guessing Maiden don't have such advances in their deal! ;-)
 
I am guessing Maiden does better than most in album sales when you look at sales world wide. Add money coming in from Eddie related merch and beer. They have to be near the top in the hard rock universe in merch sales.
 
Only a few are above Maiden such as AC/DC and Metallica. If Adrian and Bruce hadn't left the band and No Prayer and FOTD had been better albums, Then they'd be in the top 3 for sure. Then again, maybe they are in 3rd place right under AC/DC and Metallica. I'd have to see the actual numbers. They gotta be in the top 5 for sure though.
 
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