The world's top record labels have taken something of a publicity kicking in recent years, and a new platform is aiming to dig the heel in a little further with a website that breaks down just how much money major artists actually make.
Songeist, a platform for discovering and supporting emerging talent that claims to be able to cut out an unnecessarily expensive middleman, has broken down a collection of recent big hitters by cost. On What The Artist Got, Katy Perry's wailing Kerouac homage 'Firework', for example, is listed as earning her roughly £584,000 in revenues. But according to the company and based on a 79p digital download, an alternative approach to business could have wrangled Perry as much as £4.4 million all to herself.
Although this content, developed with Holler London, is clearly designed to promote Songeist's model, it also raises questions about hidden revenues and how much artists are really supported. What The Artist Got shines a bit of light onto a decidedly opaque industry, showing the consumer how much of their hard earned cash ultimately goes towards the artist.