According to Pandora CEO Tim Westergren, Pandora will pay over two thousand artists $10,000 each over the next 12 months. Yeah it's not a milli a milli for every artist but that's still a solid chunk of change! The top dogs in music obviously get a lot of money:
- Drake - $3 million
- Lil Wayne - $3 million
- Coldplay - $1 million
- Adele - $1 million
- Wiz Khalifa - $1 million
- Jason Aldean - $1 million
- Rascal Flatts - $670,351
- Ellie Goulding - $609,046
- Zac Brown Band - $547,064
- Mumford & Sons - $523,902
- Iron & Wine - $173,152
- Bon Iver - $135,223
- George Winston - $85,239
- The Four Tops - $65,173
- But lesser known artists are getting paid too. Artists I've never heard of like Donnie McClurkin, French Montana or Grupo Bryndis (who rank 4,752, 17,000 and 183,187, respectively on Amazon) are each collecting $100,000-$138,000 a year from Pandora. Pandora is happy to pay these 'performance fees' to artists but the RIAA and Congress keep trying to make it harder for internet radio stations to succeed. Sigh. Artists getting paid good money for their own music would be something the awful RIAA would be against. [Pandora via Business Insider]