{"id":142643,"date":"2025-03-17T18:08:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T22:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/03\/17\/how-much-is-a-hit-song-worth-today-v-1999-its-complicated-2\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T18:08:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T22:08:46","slug":"how-much-is-a-hit-song-worth-today-v-1999-its-complicated-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/03\/17\/how-much-is-a-hit-song-worth-today-v-1999-its-complicated-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Is a Hit Song Worth Today v. 1999? It\u2019s\u00a0Complicated\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tWhether it was Shaboozey<\/a>\u2019s \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy),\u201d LiAngelo Ball<\/a>\u2019s \u201cTweaker,\u201d or the six songs at the heart of Drake<\/a> and Kendrick Lamar<\/a>\u2019s epic rap battle last year, Billboard<\/em> has recently spent a lot of time reporting on how much money a hit song generates.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a look back at our coverage, we estimated how much the top 10 songs of 2024 earned<\/a>, what GELO\u2019s locker room anthem has netted<\/a>, and the millions made<\/a> from Drake and Lamar\u2019s diss tracks.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Shaboozey\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tHow Much Did Luminate\u2019s Top 10 Digital Songs Generate in\u00a02024?\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\tThese stories sparked questions from readers, including one that came up repeatedly: Does a hit song today make more money than a hit did before streaming took off?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe asked this question of roughly a dozen music economists, entertainment industry bankers, and record label and streaming company executives, and they largely agreed that streaming has increased the long-term value of a hit song. However, hit songs used to drive album sales, which may have been more lucrative upfront.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is difficult to directly compare the value of a hit song in 2024 to a hit song in 1999 \u2014 the year that record industry revenue peaked in the modern era \u2014 because the business largely moved away from issuing singles by the late 1990s. To hear a hit song, then, a fan would buy an album for as much as $18.98.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1999, when albums were the dominant configuration for music, 88 albums sold more than 1 million units in the U.S., according to Billboard<\/em>. Albums often sold for more than their wholesale price of $12, which could mean certain older hits had a greater upfront value. However, the sources Billboard<\/em> spoke with for this story all agreed that after a fan owned an album, they had little incentive to pay for that particular music again \u2014 so after about 12-18 months, the album would stop making much money.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn contrast, streaming keeps all music closer to fans\u2019 fingertips, and hits tend to continue making money over a longer period, as opposed to a brief hype window in the album sales era.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Gelo\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tHow Much Money Has LiAngelo Ball\u2019s \u2018Tweaker\u2019 Generated?\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\tOne longtime record label executive who asked to remain anonymous estimated that a gold record in 1999 generated more than $6 million in sales, based on a wholesale price of around $12. Adjusted for inflation, that\u2019s the equivalent of $11.3 million in 2024 dollars, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2024, the biggest hit was Shaboozey\u2019s \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy),\u201d and Billboard<\/em> estimated it generated $10.7 million from U.S. audio, video and programmed streams, digital downloads, and radio airplay spins. But due to streaming\u2019s long tail, which has helped keep \u201cA Bar Song\u201d in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, the track has continued earning significant streams in 2025: more than 140 million on-demand audio and video streams, or $192,000 in additional streaming revenue, just this year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Back then], after a huge spike in revenue, a hit would have decayed over time by 60%, 70%, 80%, and eventually the song would drop to a much lower base,\u201d says Concord CEO Bob Valentine<\/strong>. \u201cNow in the streaming world, a song comes out, you get the huge pop from consumption and revenue, and because of the way algorithms keep a song in playlists and rotation, the song is much stickier. It has a higher base.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tValentine says this is why companies like his have been able to persuade outside investors that music royalties can be securitized and sold to institutional investors like insurance companies. Concord has become the music industry\u2019s model for raising money from such asset backed securitizations (ABS), having raised more than $5 billion<\/a> to date.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Concord is known for owning famous catalogs from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, it scored a top 10 hit in 2024 with Tommy Richman<\/a>\u2019s \u201cMillion Dollar Baby,\u201d which Billboard<\/em> estimates generated around $7.4 million.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Market,<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tHow Much Money Did the Kendrick Lamar-Drake Diss Songs\u00a0Generate?\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\tIf Concord\u2019s catalogs are like bonds \u2014 generating consistent revenue that can be relied on for decades \u2014 hits are more like venture capital. After an initial investment, a hit can present substantial upside, Valentine says. Concord is now comfortably the fourth or fifth largest music company thanks to the strength of its publishing division and catalog, so it can afford to take risks to get more hits, which is why it\u2019s pushing to develop its front-line business<\/a> to release more songs like \u201cMillion Dollar Baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe music industry globally made $41.3 billion in 2023, according to the most recent data from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry<\/a> (IFPI) and the Conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale des Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s d\u00b4Auteurs et Compositeurs<\/a> (CISAC).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe IFPI, which reports figures on an absolute dollar basis, not adjusted for inflation, says global recorded music revenues are at their highest level since it began tracking them in 1999.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeveral sources interviewed for this story noted that, despite record-high revenues in the music industry, not everyone who contributes to making or performing a hit song makes more money today, and that many songwriters may have made more money in 1999.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor one thing, the number of songwriters credited on a hit song has increased significantly in the last decade, according to an analysis by Chris Dalla Riva<\/strong><\/a> in 2023. Dalla Riva found that the average number of songwriters per Hot 100 No. 1 hit rose from 1.8 during the 1970s to 5.3 in the 2010s. He noted that with interpolations, many songs credit far more songwriters: For example, Beyonc\u00e9<\/a>\u2019s Renaissance<\/em> song \u201cAlien Superstar\u201d listed 24 songwriters.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Duetti\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tIndependent Artists Made $3.41 Per 1,000 Streams in 2024, Duetti Report\u00a0Finds\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is more money, we can all agree, but there are way more mouths to feed,\u201d former Spotify chief economist and author Will Page<\/strong> said in an interview<\/a> with the BBC in January.<\/p>\n

\n\tSongwriters don\u2019t just make less money because more of them work on major hits; they also make less because of the way streaming changed payouts, sources say. When the industry revolved around album sales, a songwriter on a less popular song earned the same as a songwriter on the album\u2019s most popular song.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rising tide effect no longer applies today because fans stream songs on a mostly a la carte basis.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditional reporting was contributed by Ed Christman.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether it was Shaboozey\u2019s \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy),\u201d LiAngelo Ball\u2019s \u201cTweaker,\u201d or the six songs at the heart of Drake and Kendrick Lamar\u2019s epic rap battle last year, Billboard has recently spent a lot of time reporting on how much money a hit song generates. For a look back at our coverage, we estimated how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}