Let’s do some math real quick. “For every $1000 in music sold…”

That would mean if an artist or band sold 1,00,000 copies of their album, at an average of $10 an album (and hardly any artist is selling that many nowadays), the artist or band walks away with $234,000. Not bad, huh? That’s a decent living. A band would have to split that four ways, which is about $60k, and that’s way better than working at Starbucks.

BUT — today’s artist’s are selling an average of 200,000 albums. That’s a take home value of $46,800. If you’re a solo artist, that’s still not bad. However, if you’re in a band with four members, you’re bringing home $11,700. Suddenly, Starbucks doesn’t sound so bad.

NOW — If you’re an independent artist, who has mediocre record sales of about 15,000, that’s about $150,000 in income. No doubt you’ll have expenses, but even with $50k in operating costs, you’re still coming home with a nice chunk of change. Now, you can open up your own Starbucks chain and live off that income — IF you don’t go out and buy a $100,000 gold chain instead.

Just saying….