MUMBAI: British musician Elly Jackson, better known as her stage name La Roux claims she has “never made any money from” selling music. Instead of seeing the proceeds from album sales, La Roux says she earns all her profits from radio and music video play. The ‘Bulletproof’ singer recently released her new album, ‘Trouble in Paradide’.
In a feature for Digital Spy written by La Roux herself on the current music industry, she further went on to say, “I spent two years on ‘Trouble in Paradise’ and I most likely will not make any money out of it. The only money I will make is from radio play. All the money I have had up until now is from radio. I think people find this really hard to believe. It is not a lie, it is just the way it is. It is fine as long as people do not think you are a millionaire, which people sort of do. Until you start getting to much larger venues, if you have got a five-piece band like I have, you find it very difficult to break even. We do not break even. Thank God we are really passionate about what we do and we do not mind when we lose money. We will try to make money by moving up to larger venues and building ourselves up as a live act, so that has become unbelievably important, which has been great for the music industry.”
La Roux continues to say that she is still coming to terms with music not being physical. She further states that in a way, with money not coming from record sales, live has excelled and there are a lot of bands who never used to have to rely on it as much as they do now. Which means that musicians will have to step up their game. “You have to be a reputable live act. I think that’s a good thing. It’s certainly pushing us,” she continues.
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La Roux continues to say that since she has come back after nearly five years when she first had industry discussions, she has noticed the fear factor amongst everybody. Even in musicians – not just people in the business end of things. “The risk and fear factor has got so much higher because you still put quite a lot into a record. We spent a lot of money on this record, kind of knowing we wouldn’t make it back personally. The label will make it back,” she says.
