She Spent Two Years Writing for an Acclaimed Album — and Made Only $4,000

[Ryan]

Writing songs for top acts used to be a reliable source of income. Now, thanks to a rapidly changing industry, songwriters face trouble making ends meet. 
 

 

AFTER YEARS OF struggle and even a few months of homelessness, Kimberly “Kaydence” Krysiuk was sure her big break as a songwriter had finally arrived. In August 2018, Ariana Grande released her fourth album, Sweetener,and there, at Number 12 on the track list, was the acerbic kiss-off ballad “Better Off,” co-written by Krysiuk two years earlier over a Hit-Boy beat. At age 27, she had achieved every young songwriter’s dream, her lyrics and melodies sent aloft via a superstar’s silky voice. The world was hearing her work. Big money, she assumed, was on its way.

 

At the time, she didn’t mind that Grande took 10 percent of the songwriting credit for what Krysiuk describes as “changing three or four words,” tweaking the lyric that ended up as “watch you smoke and drink.” (Producer Tommy “TBHits” Brown, who worked on “Better Off,” disputes Krysiuk’s account: “That was definitely not [Grande’s] only contribution,” he says. “We sat down there with the entire song and worked on it together. [Grande] is very, very hands-on with everything she does. She’s not one of the artists that just take songs and doesn’t do anything.”)

 

Krysiuk was, instead, busy thinking about the house in L.A. she thought she would soon be able to afford, especially with other promising placements starting to come in. “I didn’t understand the business of it,” says Krysiuk, who had exhausted an advance from her publishing company and was surviving mostly by renting out her studio space and doing workshops for aspiring writers. “I was like, ‘I’m good, I’m set.’ ”

 

Grande once said that “Better Off” was one of her favorite tracks on the album, but it was ultimately just that — an album track, with no significant radio play. As recently as the Nineties, Krysiuk still would have been in luck, if the album was big enough. Singer-songwriter-producer Matthew Koma recalls moving to L.A. as a teenager in the mid-aughts and meeting veteran songwriters who bragged of deep-cut riches from “writing some track eight or nine [for] Whitney Houston: ‘I made $700,000 off that song!’ ” Kevin Griffin, frontman of Nineties-bred rock act Better Than Ezra, who now also works as a writer for other artists, says he made “in the millions” in songwriting royalties alone from their big album, 1993’s Deluxe (which, to be fair, did include the hit single “Good”).

 

But those writers’ fortunes are relics of a long-vanished world where fans drove to Virgin Megastores to pay $18.99 for shrink-wrapped CDs. In the early years of this century, piracy and single-song sales on iTunes decimated album sales, and in July 2011, Spotify arrived in the United States. For songwriters, streaming royalties tend to add up to not much at all — hobbyist money, really.

 

The first royalty check Krysiuk received for “Better Off” was for a total of $2,004.61, and over the four years since, an additional $16,000 has trickled in, even though she has 40 percent of the writing credit for the song, an unusually high percentage in modern pop. Even worse, she co-wrote 10 songs on Brandy’s acclaimed 2020 album, B7, spending two years on a project that ended up leading to about $4,000 in income for her — a tiny fraction of what minimum-wage labor would’ve yielded over the same period of time.

 

In 2023, songwriting is more like a lottery than a profession. Like many creative fields, it’s been hollowed out, turned precarious, with most practitioners fighting over scraps while a tiny fraction of ultra-successful winners thrive. The only way to squeeze significant income out of a songwriting credit now is to land a solid hit on terrestrial radio, where lucrative legacy royalty rates still reign, or to get placements in movies, TV, or ads, known as “syncs.” For Krysiuk, a tiny writing percentage on a later Grande song, “Thank U, Next,” garnered her the single biggest royalty check of her career: $26,000, simply because that song was a radio smash. (She later successfully fought for a larger piece of the proceeds after a dispute with the other co-writers.) 

 

Full Article: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/pop-songwriters-industry-broke-1234662448/

[collin]

 

[its_britney_bitch]

Of course Ariana’s bestie and frequent collaborator is going to defend her and say she does (probably) more writing than she actually does  I believe this woman. We all know what a co-writing credit for a big name artist (usually) means

[Karla Cabello]

[Timber]

I mean, how much did Brandy’s 2022 album sell?

[Ryan]

Not her exposing ZAYN:

 

It was a noble goal, an effort to fight a practice that dates back to at least Elvis Presley and continues to be common. Krysiuk, for instance, says Zayn Malik took a songwriting credit and royalties for 2021’s “Unfuckwitable,” which she co-wrote — despite his not being in the room when it was written. (A rep for Malik had no comment.) Scott Harris, a Pact signee who’s co-written hits for Shawn Mendes and the Chainsmokers, recalls being all but blackmailed early in his career: “I had written a song in the room with an artist, and it was a four-way split. The artist wanted to take more or they weren’t going to put the song out, and I let them do it.”

[Ryan]

1 minute ago, Timber said:

I mean, how much did Brandy’s 2022 album sell?

It was a commercial disappointment. That’s part of her argument. 

[Blue Monday]

Streaming royalties are the pits and absolutely need to change, but did she really think a non-single was going to set her up for life? 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Blue Monday

[ALA]

Hmmm idk a $2,000 check for an album song doesn't sound that bad to me maybe I'm just out of touch

[FightDragonsWithMe]

Brandy hasn't been relevant in years, 4k for a Brandy Album makes sense to me.

[ontherocks]

1 minute ago, ALA said:

Hmmm idk a $2,000 check for an album song doesn't sound that bad to me maybe I'm just out of touch

Girl, you've written a song on a hit album and it barely (if at all) covers the costs of living in a month in LA or NYC 

[Tropez]

5 minutes ago, ALA said:

Hmmm idk a $2,000 check for an album song doesn't sound that bad to me maybe I'm just out of touch

$2k is nothing these days. That’s gone in like a month on just living expenses. 

[family.guy123]

So she thought she’d be “set” after one song? Sorry lady, most of us have to go to work everyday of our lives. Put more pen to paper and get to it

[Johnny Jacobs]

Change profession then.. 

 

People don't make money off of music anymore unless its a huge smash or its from touring 

[Communion]

9 minutes ago, ontherocks said:

Girl, you've written a song on a hit album and it barely (if at all) covers the costs of living in a month in LA or NYC 

She got $50k from writing for Ariana over the course of a week. 

 

Songwriters need to be honest about producers and labels as those who fuel their financial woes, not just artists. 

 

This was already addressed when this thread was previously made:

 

40% - KRYSIUK KIMBERLY ANNE
16.67% - HOLLIS CHAUNCEY ALEXANDER
16.67% - BROWN THOMAS LEE
16.67% - BAPTISTE BRIAN MALIK
10% - GRANDE ARIANA

 

There are definitely people exploiting songwriters, but in this splits example for Better Off, it's clearly not Ariana. 

[Katamari]

deja vu

 

wasnt this posted before

[Into The Void]

31 minutes ago, Communion said:

She got $50k from writing for Ariana over the course of a week. 

 

Songwriters need to be honest about producers and labels as those who fuel their financial woes, not just artists. 

 

This was already addressed when this thread was previously made:

 

40% - KRYSIUK KIMBERLY ANNE
16.67% - HOLLIS CHAUNCEY ALEXANDER
16.67% - BROWN THOMAS LEE
16.67% - BAPTISTE BRIAN MALIK
10% - GRANDE ARIANA

 

There are definitely people exploiting songwriters, but in this splits example for Better Off, it's clearly not Ariana. 

Where didbu find these numbers?

[Into The Void]

Honestly, become an artist main collaborator and you could be set

[Dr. Alexander]

This has already been posted. 

[R`0`K`R]

All of this pails in comparison to the hundred of thousands Beyoncé has thieved from songwriters over her career.

[beatinglikeadrum]

She writes her own checks like she writes what she sings ? or something like that...

[orange22]

56 minutes ago, family.guy123 said:

So she thought she’d be “set” after one song? Sorry lady, most of us have to go to work everyday of our lives. Put more pen to paper and get to it

[RihFenty20]

I don’t know where the misconception that songwriters make a lot of money came from . Half of a song’s revenue go to the record owner. Songwriters then have to split that second half with publishers, the artist, producers, and distribution. 

[KeirGrey]

Why are they blaming spotify and not the label?

[zoldyck]

we been known, music industry isn't as lucrative as it should to be. Hence every girl except for Adele and Taylor have started side hustles like selling make-up, clothes or shoes.