Like many fathers, I tend to wear out a joke that I think is really funny.
A little backstory (bear with me for a minute):
I spend most of my work days sitting at my computer on video in meetings. Behind me in my office, I set up what I call my “real-life Zoom background”. It started back in Covid time, when we were all working from home. I decided that I needed something in my background that could be a conversation starter. So, I put a guitar wall hanger up and started to display my collection. I typically change out the instrument once every two weeks or so.
Here’s a look at what the person on the other end of the call has to look at for 30-60 minutes:
Lots going on here. I’ve got a Colombian Tiple up now. There’s guitar patent drawings up on the wall in the top left. And I’m also proudly displaying my cornhole trophies on the shelf to the right.
Anyhow, this setup really helps to break the ice, especially when I’m meeting someone for the first time. Typically, they will ask me something like: “What’s the story with the guitar back there?”
I’ll then reply with the joke I teased earlier, I’ll tell them: “I used to be cool, I used to be in a band. Now I’m just a dad with a guitar hobby (or, what my wife calls a ‘guitar addiction’).”
Obviously, laughter shortly ensues from the other end of the line.
So yes, I was cool at one point in my life and I played in a band called “The New Skinny”. We weren’t famous by any means, but we had a solid following in western Wisconsin thanks to the drummer and bass player working at the most popular bars in Hudson.
We played mostly “bar-rock” covers as you’d expect for the type of clientele that were frequenting our shows. Additionally, we wrote our own original music. My contribution was a couple of bangers that really got the crowd going. One was a rock-a-billy style song titled “1-2-3-4” that outlined one creep’s attempts to talk to women during a night out at the bar. It was fast and loud and generally fun.
The other song was one called “Misery”. This song is melodic and catchy. I wrote this as a semi-biographic piece in which the subject talks about losing a girl named Misery. However, Misery really stood for not just one, but all of my past girlfriends.
(Thank goodness I’m happily married now and don’t have to do any of that dating stuff anymore!)
In any case, I wrote this song back when I was a Senior in college and didn’t even bring it to the band until many years later. In practice one night, we were trying to write something new, and I started playing the progression. They all immediately said “What is that!?” I knew then that it was going to catch on.
Fast forward about 5 years. Life happened. I met my future wife, had a more steady job than I ever had before, and I decided to leave the stage and settle down into the rat race. But the band continued on, first under the same name with a replacement lead guitar player (a definite upgrade from me). And then formed a new band with the same core of lead vocal, bass, and drummer, but now added a new lead guitar and a keyboardist. They play now as “Firewater Gospel Choir“.
Ok, I’m finally getting to the actual topic of this post.
One day my buddy, Josh, the lead vocalist, asked me to come teach the band my song, Misery. It fit really well with the new sound of the new band. They learned it, added in a killer organ part and background violin that really filled it out, and began playing it at all their shows. It became one of their most popular songs. And as they continued to grow in popularity, they decided to record it on their first self-titled album, “Firewater Gospel Choir”.
Here’s a link to that song on Apple Music:
As they were recording, they asked me if it was ok to split the proceeds 50/50. Honestly, I was shocked. I had thought about monetizing music in the past, but wasn’t really sure how to do it. Luckily, they took care of the hard part and all I had to do was to register with ASCAP and attach myself to the song.
So…how much do you make from streaming music?
Finally, getting to the answer to the question: How much money can be generated from a song on streaming services?
In my case, I only have one work and only receive 50% credit. Also, the song definitely does not get anywhere near the plays of the Taylor Swifts of the world. But it is generating money, kind of.
It’s only been about a year since the song was released and here’s a view of my ASCAP dashboard:
If you take a look at the top right, you’ll see my lifetime Net Distribution……………$0.73!!!
That’s right, I’ve made almost 3/4 of a whole dollar!
But where is all that revenue coming from, you ask? Let’s break it down to a per-play total. Right now you can stream this song on Pandora, Pandora Premium, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon Prime Music, iHeart Free, and Spotify. Of those subscriptions, Spotify is in the lead by far, with Apple Music falling a distant second in terms of plays.
So let’s see how much this song makes per play across each service. Here’s the breakdown for the month of April 2024:
| Music Service | # of Plays | Payout at 100% (rounded) | $ per Play |
| Pandora | 3 | $ 0.001 | $ 0.00033 |
| Pandora Premium | 5 | $ 0.002 | $ 0.00031 |
| APPLE SUBSCRIPTION | 76 | $ 0.040 | $ 0.00053 |
| AMAZON MUSIC UNLIMITED | 101 | $ 0.032 | $ 0.00032 |
| AMAZON PRIME MUSIC | 15 | $ 0.001 | $ 0.00009 |
| IHEART FREE | 1 | $ 0.001 | $ 0.00058 |
| SPOTIFY | 342 | $ 0.089 | $ 0.00026 |
As you can see, a single play will not make you rich, regardless of streaming service. But I do think it’s interesting how wide the range is for payouts across services. iHeart is breaking the bank with a 58 thousandths of a dollar payout per play. Amazon Prime on the other hand is super stingy with a 900 thousandths of a dollar payout per play (stupid Bezos, probably keeping all that money to get himself to Mars). In other words, I’d need iHeart to stream my song 58,000 times and Amazon Prime to stream it 900,000 times to make a buck a piece. Oh, but that is at 100% payout, and remember that my cut is half of that. So double those numbers.
Honestly, I never thought I’d get rich playing music. I also never thought that my songs would drive passive revenue. So I’m super grateful for the Firewater Gospel Choir playing and recording my song. If you are in the Hudson, Wisconsin area ever, go see them, they are amazing. And even if you’re not, go binge their music on your favorite streaming service.
…Preferably iHeart or Apple so I can get a bigger cut 😉
