Musicians are huge celebrities. Their music is everywhere, their faces are everywhere, and their lives are seemingly perfect at all times. But there's a lot more going on in a musician's life and career. Here are some secrets musicians would rather you didn't know about them.
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00:00Musicians are huge celebrities. Their music is everywhere, their faces are everywhere,
00:05and their lives are seemingly perfect at all times. But there's a lot more going on in a
00:10musician's life and career. Here are some secrets musicians would rather you didn't know about them.
00:16Most musicians want you to think they write songs by themselves,
00:19or at least played a very heavy part in creating them. The sad truth is,
00:23many write next to nothing, and their byline exists simply for the artist to get paid.
00:27Oftentimes, the singer merely contributes one or two words, which technically makes
00:31them a co-writer. Sometimes, they don't even bother with that much effort.
00:35Songwriter Chantel Kraviazek accused Avril Lavigne of writing little that she's been
00:40credited for. She later walked those claims back, but it's a little late for that.
00:44Then there's Lauryn Hill, who got sued by the songwriting team that helped her put together
00:481998's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Her label credited Hill as writing most everything by
00:54herself, which the lawsuit claimed simply was not the case. They later settled out of court,
00:59but smoke suggests fire.
01:02Few things hurt a musician's reputation more than not being perceived as real or genuine.
01:06So many stars craft a persona that makes them seem more real,
01:09even though doing so makes them as fake as can be. This happens in all genres,
01:13from country stars pretending to be down-to-earth regular folk to metal bands pretending to be dark
01:19and evil. Slayer acts like death-obsessed maniacs, when in truth, their singer is a
01:24practicing Catholic. Fake personas may be most egregious in hip-hop, a genre obsessed with
01:29realness. Take someone like Rick Ross, a former prison guard named William Roberts who reinvented
01:35himself as an ex-cocaine boss. In truth, he borrowed that origin story from an actual drug
01:41dealer named Rick Ross. The real Ross sued the fake Ross for $10 million, which proved unsuccessful
01:47because apparently impersonation of a drug dealer is not a crime. Rapper Akon also got
01:52caught lying about his past, when the smoking gun revealed his backstory of being the kingpin
01:57of a car theft ring and serving years in prison was an outright lie. It was just another tall
02:02tale designed to sell albums and tickets. If your goal is to make money from music,
02:07here's a reality check. It's probably not going to happen. Thanks to downloading and streaming,
02:12virtually no musicians make money simply from writing, recording, and releasing music.
02:17Instead, be prepared to make your fortune through many other routes,
02:21some of which aren't glamorous in the least. Plenty of musicians make their money by touring,
02:25but for many, that simply isn't enough. That's why you see so many pop stars shilling their own
02:30lines of perfume and cologne, clothing lines, or anything else beyond a simple t-shirt with
02:35the artist's picture on it. They don't really care if you smell good, they just want to pay
02:39their bills. The rise of streaming, and the decline of people willing to pay anything for
02:44music, has affected musicians greatly. But what they're going through is nothing compared to those
02:49who've been most devastated by the lack of funds, the songwriters. If your only job is to write
02:54songs for other people to sing, you might as well do that for free at this point. According
02:58to Pacific Standard, songwriters are among the only people in the industry who've never formed
03:03a legitimate union, so the internet age has hit them the hardest. They can expect to make,
03:08if they're lucky, about half a penny per stream of a song they wrote.
03:12Songwriter Andre Lindahl, who wrote Justin Bieber's smash hit As Long As You Love Me,
03:17made a mere $218 off 34 million YouTube hits in the song's first year of release.
03:24Over on Pandora, despite 38 million streams of the song, he pocketed a paltry $278.
03:31Most musician feuds are about as genuine as pro-wrestling feuds,
03:35cooked up to sell albums or simply to remind everyone the musicians exist.
03:3950 Cent and Kanye West had a long-running beef, but to hear fellow hip-hopper Reverend Run tell
03:44it, they were acting from the start. The two often released music around the same time,
03:48so according to Run, their squabbling existed entirely to promote their work.
03:52Remember Beyoncé's sister Solange Knowles confronting Jay-Z in an elevator, perhaps
03:57as revenge for Jay cheating on Bey? Well, according to the lady's father, Matthew Knowles,
04:02that was staged melodrama from the start. There was a tour coming up, so the clan staged what
04:06the elder Knowles called a Jedi Mind Trick, which got everybody in the news, boosted tour exposure,
04:12and increased Solange's album sales by over 200 percent.
04:16Fake feuds can also introduce us to new people. In the 90s, teen R&B sensations Brandi and Monica
04:21were known for their feud. Years later, Monica admitted to a radio station that the drama was
04:26a label-authored storyline, cooked to launch them into the spotlight. Apparently, it wasn't enough
04:31to pretend feud over a boy in a duet, they had to actually feud to truly sell the song.
04:37Not only is it hard to make a living as a musician, as is, being a rock star often means
04:43being deeply in debt to your label almost literally from the start. Courtney Love penned
04:47an essay for Salon in 2000, outlining how inevitable it is for a musician to fall into
04:52debt. Basically, the label gives an artist in advance, spending a certain amount to record
04:57an album, then the rest goes to management, lawyers, taxes, and finally themselves. It's
05:01possible to be advanced a million dollars and see under 50 grand of it. Not to mention,
05:06you'll need to pay back that advance. Not the reason most artists want to go on tour.
05:10It's not just Love. In 2008, EMI sued 30 Seconds to Mars for $30 million,
05:16but according to the band, EMI never paid them any royalties. Meanwhile,
05:20country star Lyle Lovett told Billboard in 2008 he's earned no money from selling 4.6 million
05:26albums in his career. If you want to make money in music,
05:29actually creating and playing the music clearly isn't the route to take.