Sales Statistics/ How much Do Artists Make?

[Guest healium]

Does anyone know how many copies most psytrance sells, for the more well known acts?

 

Does anyone know for instance how many copies the most recent Infected Mushroom or Hux Flux album sold?

 

Do lesser know artists like Rip Van Hippy or Magnetrixx make any money at all for their music?

 

I have no idea how much business is done here - do artists make enough to support themselves? Do they have to work regular jobs?

 

How much do artists make for performing live?

 

I know that in the USA virtually noone buys or listens to psytrance music...

[Guest Asura]

"I know that in the USA virtually noone buys or listens to psytrance music..."

 

We will tell you soon, Healium. The new edition of Lost Eden will be released in USA, Canada and Mexico, 1s June 2004. But maybe Lost Eden is not really Psymusic...

[Guest krize]

I heard good sales are around 2000-3000 ... hehe pretty underground id ya ask me ))))

 

A few cds have sold 30 000 + (Halluconogen, Infected...)

[Lemmiwinks]

From what I know, the record holder in sales is Juno Reactor (well actually they've always been kinda half psy producer, half movie soundtrack producer so I guess this explains that...)

 

SMI²LE

[Guest Jon Cocco]

Haha, well I currently live in the USA and I can tell you all that PSYTRANCE is unheard of to 99.9999% US citizens. And those people don't deserve it because they its not commercial enough for them. Just go to the reviews on Infected Mushroom - BP Empire right now on this GOA REVIEWS area (site) and scroll down to the several detailed posts I wrote a year or two ago. It was on how commercialism ruins originality, by also intruducing some talent it abuses what sells to the general public. This music is great and certain clubs in NY and LA have played JUNO REACTOR years back, but US people mainly want the crap that involves a short attention span. Hell, people here dance to EMINEM at NIGHT CLUBS!!! How stupid is that???, and I like Eminem for his style in rap, but for us to dance to Eminem is pretty silly if you ask me. Anyway, ... there are several thousand people out of the 250+ million people in the USA that listen to PSYTRANCE, but they keep it to themselves and certain friends around them. Most of these people just come accross it on the web or off a downloading site while searching for techno, house, or trance. The so-called GOA parties in NY are NOT goa parties. They are like so-called RAVES in a public club, calling it RAVE night because it sounds cool I guess. There is NO appreciation or tradition and people just don't "get" it.

 

The ARTISTS on the other don't make that much. I heard that even people like Infected Mushroom who you'd think would be most money making, I heard even they are not that rich. Think of all the artists who make an album that isn't psy enouch or catchy enough? They don't make more than a couple copies. Most artists I heard only make around $10,000 - 20,000 a year, and those are the ones signed on. Of course, I wonder how much Simon Postford and Infected Mushroom make and how many copies they've really sold, but if you think about it, this genra is just not as famous everywhere as in certain places. Some of the music is amazing, awesome, beautiful, and yet it connects with such a small audiance when you think about it. At least those who understand and enjoy it can appreciate it from the others who think RAP, ROCK, PUNK, and Britney Spears is the best music ever made. PSYTRANCE should stay real and artists should spend time making something AMAZING if they wan't to make money. It takes so much editing and creativity, but so many of them make hardly enough to live off of, at least my friend says it doesn't pay as much as one might think, unless if you tour often and sell your albums in certain places where people are into that stuff. The USA is not the place for this music being popular right now. People would abuse it and most people would not want to buy it. Yet somehow JUNO REACTOR has been on MANY soundtracks to movies in the past decade. I wonder why no one talks about JUNO anymore. I really like those guys, they're extremely talented and their first album was great for its time, ahead of its time! Yet all AMERICANS have to look foward to is another crappy Crystal Method or Prodigy album and the latter hasn't happened in years. Later peeps!

[Guest Dr. Krelm]

To partially answer your questions -

 

A really good selling album (excluding anomalies like Infected, Astral, or Shpongle) will usually sell around 2000-3000 copies. Your average run-of-the-mill album will sell much less. Now, if you think how much an artist gets per copy sold (€1-2), they won't make so much off of sales. It will be even less for a compilation since the money will be split between 6-10 artists.

 

Lesser-known artists still make some money from gigs and sales, but it is usually nowhere near enough to support themselves. And definitely not enough to cover what they spend in equipment/computer/software. Sometimes these guys won't make any money from a track on a compilation with other better-known artists.

 

Most artists and DJs (aside from the upper crust) have additional jobs to support themselves. I know some top DJs, artists and label managers that either have primary jobs, or that are really struggling to get by on a month-to-month basis. It's definitely not an easy market to make a living from, unfortunately. But I guess that is the curse of non-mainstream music - damned to poverty.

[Guest healium]

Thanks for the responses, and cheers to starving artists everywhere!