Only one artist on the pop charts made any real money last week from streaming. His name rhymes with ‘cake’ as in having it and eating it, too. That’s Drake.
As they say on Seinfeld, we love the Drake.
The R&B star made just over $2 million last week from streaming 22 of the top 50 songs on the BuzzAngle chart. Not bad. And you don’t know any of those songs, and never will. But that’s another story.
If you add in regular sales, i.e. downloads, Drake came closer to $3 million. It’s the sheer volume of his streaming– taking up half the chart.
The rest of the artists at the top– Ed Sheeran, the Chainsmokers, Bruno Mars– earned around $200,000 or less each from streaming. Sheeran’s “Galway Girl,” number 50, made $48,864 from sales and streaming.
Record companies can’t live on that kind of money. Artists especially cannot make ends meet.
But Drake is the exception.
