12 Shocking Facts About the Music Industry

Even if you want to succeed in the music business and record number-one hits, it’s not essential to be able to read and write sheet music. Paul McCartney disclosed in a 60 Minutes interview that neither he nor his songwriting partners could read sheet music.

So how, without being able to read or write music, did the band achieve such success? Training your ears is the solution. 

The band members would memorize songs, hum along to them, and mimic their pitch. Many, as you may imagine, never made it to the public platform, another of many fascinating facts about the music industry. 

But the ones that did had a memorable quality that helped the players recall it as well as imprint it in the minds of listeners, catapulting the band to fame. 

In 2004, the band “Bullet For My Valentine” signed with Sony BMG, but they used the independent label “Visible Noise” to release their debut EP and album, creating the impression that they were “growing” or “coming up” organically. when in fact they had a $25,000,000 deal with Sony.

The A&R guy who signed them wagered with Simon Cowell that he could launch a metal band to the same level of success as Cowell launched “El Divo” out of nothing at roughly the same time, which is why they signed such a big deal. I promise you that it’s true, even though it seems completely crazy, making for one of the most surprising facts about the music industry.

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While it may not be a major secret to everyone, many people are unaware of the enormous influence that ghost producing has on the electronic dance music (EDM) scene, as this is one of the little-known facts about the music industry .

While not all prominent producers work with them, many well-known musicians only occasionally contribute to their own material production. Most of the time, the people who write the tunes themselves pretty much never get acknowledged, another one of the most shocking facts about the music industry. There are a ton of other musicians as well, and I can almost assure you that most of the top EDM acts of the last 10 years have utilized ghost producers in one form or another.

Additionally, it’s very simple to purchase beats, tracks, and pretty much anything else imaginable from ghost producers online anonymously these days and claim full credit for it. This is probably something that a ton of indie musicians in practically every genre do.

Many albums reached platinum in the late 90s and early 2000s; even lesser talents seemed to be able to release platinum albums with ease. The truth was that many records went platinum, which meant that the labels dumped a million copies of, say, Foxy Brown’s Chyna Doll into the stores, but the real sales numbers were much lower. The majority of “platinum” record units were eventually returned to the labels or found their way into the indie record store’s cut-out section, making for one of the most puzzling facts about the music industry.

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You are obligated to repay any bonus or additional album budget that you receive from a record company. Big musicians typically go bankrupt because record labels withhold a hefty portion of their profits from them once they start making a profit. Say you get $10,000 for your new song. Considering how much streaming services will take, let’s be generous and assume there are $5,000 left over. After that, distribution services must be paid for.

After that, labels keep a large portion of the money left over, and if you’re lucky, you might get around 12%. Assuming you currently have $600, you essentially owe the record company money for whatever was utilized to produce that song, one of the least-known facts about the music industry. You owe money if the amount was greater than $600.

Of course, those are fictitious numbers; they’re not very accurate. However, this is the reason why musicians work so hard to tour; that’s how they generate revenue; recording is how everyone else does it. That’s also where the entire ownership of masters comes in; you make a lot more money with rights to your masters.

Many songs where the artist talks about their experience in a very relatable way are actually written by teams of specialized songwriters, such as lyricists, top line writers, producers, etc., and the artist essentially hears a demo already recorded and copies it, of course adding their own interpretation.

This is something I think stands as one of the little-known facts about the music industry. However, the audience only sees the performer in the video, failing to recognize that a large group of individuals work behind the scenes, contributing significantly to the unique quality of each song.

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With the release of Endless and the knowledge that he had a second “real” album (Blonde) ready to be released independently less than a week after Endless, Frank Ocean was attempting to use his popularity to get out of his Def Jam contract.

The short version of the intricate tale is that he attempted for seven years to get out of his Def Jam contract. In the end, he fulfilled his record deal by releasing Endless as a visual album exclusive to Apple Music, for which he reportedly received $20 million from the company, one of the lesser-known facts about the music industry. He independently releases Blonde, his “proper” sophomore album, four days later.

Frank went out and independently released the record where he controls all the rights, leaving Def Jam with an extremely tough to obtain CD that won’t make them any money at all. The entire debacle marked the beginning of the end for streaming exclusives.

Basically, as a method to release her pent-up emotions and fury, Mariah was simultaneously working on a grunge alt-rock album with/for her friend/former roommate Clarissa Dane during the Daydream era in the early 1990s (when she was in her suitcase recording bubblegum-R&B like Fantasy and Always Be My Baby).

The real joke, though, is that no one has noticed it until now, even though the indications were all there. Mariah even ventured to lean into a sound that is practically the complete opposite of what she is known for. She created a little bit, wrote all the songs except for the one cover, sang lead vocals on a few, co-vocals on a lot of them, and even handled the creative direction and music video for them, which featured a lot of iconic Mariah iconography (butterflies and her own dog Jack).

And up until today, nobody has known. It basically took us 25 years to realize that we had a covert quasi-Mariah Carey grunge record, making for one of the least known facts about the music industry.

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During a trip to Jerusalem, Rodriguez-Lopez bought Bixler-Zavala an antique talking board resembling a ouija. During their 2006 tour with Red Hot Chili Peppers, the band made it a habit to return to their tour bus after shows to play with it; it rapidly became a post-show ritual.

Dubbed “The Soothsayer,” the board presented tales, identified individuals, and issued commands as the band received calls from three distinct individuals, one of whom went by the name “Goliath.” Strange events beset the band’s experience writing and recording The Bedlam in Goliath the more they engaged with “The Soothsayer”, another of many little-known facts about the music industry: their drummer at the time, Blake Fleming, left the group in the middle of a tour due to financial difficulties.

Due to the shoes he was wearing, Bixler-Zavala ended up needing foot surgery, which required him to relearn how to walk; audio files periodically vanished from the studio’s hard drives; Rodriguez-Lopez’s home studio experienced flooding and numerous power outages; and the original engineer of the album experienced a nervous breakdown, abandoning all prior work without any notes regarding its location.

“I’m not going to help you make this record,” Rodriguez-Lopez was told by the resigned engineer. With this song, you’re attempting to do something really wrong: you want to drive people, including myself, insane.”

The lyrics of “The Soothsayer” were infused by Bixler-Zavala with names and concepts derived from her communications. It also contains passages from poetry that were discovered tied to the ouija, which describe an honor killing involving these individuals as well as a love triangle in a Muslim society involving a lady, her daughter, and a guy, another one of the most surprising facts about the music industry. In order to counterbalance the cryptic themes, Bixler-Zavala integrated aspects of the Afro-Caribbean religious tradition Santeríain into the lyrics as a “protective skin” to shield the band. Each song reinterprets the connection in some way.

In 1992, Reznor relocated to 10050 Cielo Drive in order to record Broken and The Downward Spiral. This was a departure from his original plan to record the album in New Orleans. Since Sharon Tate was killed by the Manson Family in 1969, 10050 Cielo Drive has been known as the “Tate House.” Reznor called the studio “Le Pig” in honor of the message that Tate’s killers left on the front door, which they left there for eighteen months. Knowing about it beforehand from reading books about the tragedy, he described his first night at 10050 Cielo Drive as “terrifying”. 

Reznor felt that buying a big console and two Studer machines was a more cost-effective approach than renting, so he used the Tate mansion to test his engineering prowess, one of many lesser-known facts of the music industry. Reznor co-produced Marilyn Manson’s debut album Portrait of an American Family, which was also recorded in the studio.

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On March 4, 1975, Sullivan drove alone in his Volkswagen Beetle from Los Angeles to Nashville. He was warned about his driving by a highway patrol and checked into the La Mesa Motel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, the next day. Subsequent accounts state that he purchased vodka at the town shop but did not spend the night there, leaving his key inside the room.

The next day, he was spotted at the Gennetti family’s isolated ranch, which was roughly 26 miles distant. He was last seen going away from the ranch, where his automobile was later discovered abandoned, making for one of the least-known facts about the music industry. Sullivan’s wallet, documents, guitar, clothes, and a box of unsold recordings were all in the car.

He vanished without a trace, and other accounts have suggested that he was abducted by aliens, that he was murdered, or that he became disoriented and lost. This last explanation is especially relevant in view of the title of his debut album, another of the lesser-known facts about the music industry. Search teams were unable to locate him at all. Later, a decomposing body that resembled Sullivan was discovered miles away in a secluded location, but it was determined that it was not his.

Jim Sullivan, a folk/rock singer, had a very unusual record called U.F.O. Some people read the album as being about an abduction by aliens; he was driving from California to Nashville and never arrived; his car was found, but more than 40 years later, his body has never been located.

Nobody “Makes it big” at random. Record labels typically book musicians and put out albums under a subsidiary label, even if the major label still produces the music. Fall Out Boy is only one instance. Atlantic Records signed their debut album “TTTYG” and released it under the Fueled By Ramen label. “Indie Pop-Punk Band that Came From Nothing” was not what they were.

Atlantic Records was able to promote “Sugar We’re Goin Down” and “Dance, Dance” by the time “FUTCT” was released. After Atlantic made the genre more well-known, it began releasing albums by other well-known musicians, such as Panic! At The Disco, one of the lesser-known facts about the music industry. One of the largest record labels in the world continues to support the band while they gain their “Indie Cred”.