Katy Perry's Perfect Game
Found on Planet Money on Monday, 20 February 2012
Katy Perry had a huge year. She went No.1 five times. She was the most played artist on the radio.
Here's what Katy Perry sold in the United States: 2 million albums and 24 million digital tracks. That's not a lot of albums. That is a LOT of songs. At a dollar a pop.
By my estimate, the record-shattering, chart-topping Katy Perry made her label around $8 million in U.S. music sales.
About $8 million earned from one of the most wanted artists. In the same time, Katy eraned around $44 million. Those $8 million aren't even what she made from the sales; it's what her label earned. Tha proves that artists can do perfectly fine on their own, without the help of an old-fashioned music business which loves to sue its customers.