The beloved Welsh indie-pop crew Los Campesinos! are a truly DIY institution. The band members serve as their own managers, publicists, and bookers. They have no record label. Last year, the band released All Hell, their first album in seven years, entirely on their own. A year and a half after its release, Los Campesinos! have let us know exactly how much the different streaming services are paying them for their work.
In many ways, All Hell is a best-case scenario for a band like Los Campesinos! It got great reviews, including one from us, and it appeared on year-end lists, including ours. Los Campesinos! had name recognition from all the blog-rock years that they spent recording for labels, and they had the goodwill that comes from time away, word-of-mouth influence, and the power of the DIY narrative. They spent very little to market All Hell, but they did it very well. They toured the world behind the record, putting out a companion EP and a live album. Today, we learn exactly what that's worth, at least where streaming services are concerned.
On their website yesterday, Los Campesinos! posted a detailed breakdown of the royalty payments that they've earned for All Hell from all the streaming services. In the album's first year, it earned a grand total of £31,940.29, which translates roughly to $42,686.60 for about 9,300,000 streams. That's a hit, baby! It's actually quite an achievement! And with a seven-person band, that means we're talking about $6,000 annually per person. That is nowhere near a living wage, and it's so much less than the $60,000 Airbnb deal that the band turned down.
In his post about those royalties, Gareth Campesinos! writes, "I’ve chosen this album because, for this time period, it’s the one album to which we own the full rights worldwide, with all income being accounted and paid direct to us," and he goes on to say that the band makes "£1.00 for every 294 streams of a song (or to look at it another way, a quid for every 20 full listens to the album)."
The post includes information about payments from the different streaming services. Most of the streams of All Hell came through Spotify, which pays less than its competitors. Gareth writes, "If everyone who streamed All Hell on Spotify had done so using Tidal instead, we would have received an extra £31,847.38, which would double the amount we made from streaming of the album in this time period. Or if everyone used Apple Music it would have been £12,331 more." Elsewhere, he says, "There are many reasons, unrelated to artist reimbursement, why Spotify is the dirt worst of the streaming platforms. I trust by now you are aware of these."
But wait, there's more! Gareth also notes that the band's piece of the pie would be much smaller if they were on a label — any label, not just a major. After describing the way labels typically handle advances and royalties, Gareth writes:
So, if we had released All Hell on a label in the same way that we did with our previous six albums, even if we did not have an advance to recoup, at a high-end royalty rate of 20% only £6,388 of the £31,940.29 streaming income would have been ours (in reality it would be less than that, as the record label would likely work with one of the big digital distributors who would take a distribution fee (generally around 15-20%) before paying out to the record label).
Managers typically take 20% of all of a band’s income (not just streaming revenue, but merchandise, live income etc etc). If we had a manager they would have taken 20% of the £6,388 paid out by the record label, seeing that sum reduce to £5,110.
This shit sucks! The full post is extremely honest and illuminating, and you can see it for yourself here. Obligatory reminder: You don't have to buy individual records, but it makes a difference if you do.
