Liam Howlett (spelling?) is the music genius of the Prodigy.
When one of his albums is sold. He’d get $1 for the fact he ‘wrote’ the material. He’d then get a share (say one fifth) for the performance, which is split between the band.
I heard on the radio that their last album sold around 3 million copies in it’s first week release in the US. So estimating he gets $1.25 that’s a lot of money.
They also get a royalty each time a radio station plays the track, depending on the number of listeners.
A tune played on BBC Radio 1, with around 7/8 million listeners, would be worth about £80 in artist royalties.
Singles are always ‘loss leaders’ they’re promotional tools to sell albums. With mainstream artists, the costs in creating a video and other promotion would be unlikely to be recouped if the track does not go top 10, maybe even top 5
