was very generous to other members of The Beautiful South. He has said that the band was run as a cooperative and everyone got the same. I found this http://www.liarsbar.karoo.net/southfiles/Im_Gonna_Vote_Major.html which, I think, is an old Q interview.

share royalties.

This article sheds some light on a few acts in the royalty maze

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/may/17/1

Have had their longevity attributed to always splitting royalties four ways.

The Police were a very clearcut example of how money affects a band. Every Breathe You Take was a worldwide smash and raked in millions on it's initial release. Sting got 2/3's of the cash from it while the other two got 1/6th apiece and with subsequent cover versions that proportion shrinks to nothing.

I remember Noel Gallagher dismissing the idea that songwriting royalties should be split amoung the band saying something like "No bassline in history ever made a song a hit" which is utter crap and of course lead to arguments.

The story goes that Kurt started getting the hump that the others' shares of songwriting were so large and started making moves to revise them downward (though I can't recall how far advanced those moves got before Kurt finally redecorated his greenhouse). Naturally, Courtney generally gets the blame for this, but I don't know how fair that is, and strongly suspect at least a hint of good old fashioned misogyny for that view.

At any rate, I think if he'd lived, Nirvana would've lasted one album more, tops, before money killed them off. It was getting really nasty, and led to a great deal of bad blood between Kurt's estate (i.e. Courtney) on the one side, and Dave and Krist on the other.

Surely, an equal division is the only way, no?

REM also split everything four ways (and then three, presumably)

*in coyotes and time as an abstract

how George Harrison mentioned money and tax in lots of his songs.

...of shared royalties would be R.E.M. and the Beat. UB40 used to do it too, which makes the recent fall-out and bankruptcies all the more perplexing.

IIRC the Queen set-up was a little different. In the early days, each of the four writers got credited as normal, and they invariably wrote alone. But Roger Taylor made a fortune out of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' because he wrote the B-side, 'I'm in love with my car'. (B-sides get the same royalty as A-sides so in the 60s it wasn't unusual for producers to sneak in a songwriting credit.) So to avoid future conflicts, from then on every B-side was credited to the band regardless of the actual writer.

One more thing: both Queen and Genesis created a limited company for each member of the band. Presumably for tax purposes.

Four way split (Cook/Jones/Matlock/Rotten, later revised to Cook/Jones/Rotten/Vicious) - however, received wisdom suggests that the songs were basically Glen Matlocks tunes with John Lydons words.

But where does all the money go? Ray Davies thoughts:

Robert owes half to Grenville
Who in turn gave half to Larry
Who adored my instrumentals
And so he gave half to a foreign publisher
She took half the money that was earned in some far distant land
Gave back half to Larry and I end up with half of goodness knows what
Oh can somebody explain why things go on this way
I thought they were my friends I can't believe it's me, I can't believe that I'm so green
Eyes down round and round let's all sit and watch the moneygoround
Everyone take a little bit here and a little bit there
Do they all deserve money from a song that they've never heard
They don't know the tune and they don't know the words
But they don't give a damn
There's no end to it I'm in a pit and I'm stuck in it
The money goes round and around and around
And it comes out here when they've all taken their share
I went to see a solicitor and my story was heard and the writs were served
On the verge of a nervous breakdown I decided to fight right to the end
But if I ever get my money I'll be too old and grey to spend it
Oh, but life goes on and on and no one ever wins
And time goes quickly by just like the moneygoround
I only hope that I'll survive

Kinks - Moneygoround

George Michael put Andrew Ridgeley's name as co-writer on his first solo effort, Careless Whisper. It sold a bit. Therefore, Mr R can live happily surfing and being married to one third of Bananarama in Cornwall without having to bother following up Son of Albert.

Not really what the thread is about, but it does speak well of George I think.

*exclamation mark at the end, as us Minglers learnt/remembered on Friday.

seem to be the opposite of all the sensible, honourable groups.

http://www.cemetrygates.com/vault/news/court.html

Stranglers - all 4 credited for each song.

Although Hugh Cornwell originated about 70% of the material and JJ Burnel about 30%.
However I think they recognised what everyone else contributed to each song. For example, Dave Greenfield came up with the wonderful harpsichord melody of Golden Brown.
However, the current line up and Hugh Cornwell have little or no contact and there seems to be much bad feeling.

How much does ones contribution to a popular song decide whether one gets a co-writer credit or not?
Take Honky Tonk Woman... Jagger/Richards... for me the defining and definitive moments of that song are in Charlie's introduction, and that gets the song of to a superb start, and Bill's bass underpins the whole thing wonderfully. Should they not get writing/ performing cash credits also?
Also Harry Nilsson's "if living is without you" transforms an ordinary Badfinger song into something else. Should or does Nilsson or whoever get any kind of "song writing" credits for his arrangemment, or did the original writers or their estate (Ham/Bolland?) receive the full whack? How does it work?

here but I'm firmly on the side of the selfish songwriter. Some groups go through bassists, keyboardists, drummers whatever like a dose of salts and if they have a top song-writer in the group why should they have to share it with every tom, dick and harry?
If everyone's agreed beforehand like U2, REM, Wet Wet Wet etc then fair enough and that's all very commendable and has no doubt been the cause of their long, sustained careers, but take the Stones for example:
if they go out on tour tomorrow and whoever's playing bass plays different notes to Bill Wyman on Satisfaction is he rewriting the song? Of course not. Keith wrote the music and Mick filled in the gaps in the words. It's right and fitting that they get the credit. Charlie doesn't seem to mind.

Paul lets slip that George's guitar figure on And I Love Her "is the song" And yet..

Am I right in thinking Bill Wyman actually composed the guitar hook that underpins the song?

If I understand correctly, one of the reasons Alan Wilder left Depeche Mode was the fact that he felt he did not receive enough credit (and the money that would go with it, presumably) for his contribution to arranging Martin Gore's songs. Turning Enjoy The Silence into the smash upbeat song it became, instead of the ballad it was originally, is supposed to have been his idea, but there are many other examples of him adding that extra bit of fairy dust.

See also Dave Gahan, whose songs have made it onto the last two DM albums. Perhaps he too has seen the greater wealth that the band's main songwriter has amassed, and thought, "I'll have some of that."

fun and games with any number of managers and publishers, like Don Arden, Dick James, Allen Klein and Peter Grant, just for starters. And other aspects like who owns the brand, which might be almost as important, like Pink Floyd and so on.

credited all their songs to "The Doors". Jim would come in with a bunch of lyrics and they'd work up the music together. Almost perfect band songwriting seems to me.

Having said that, my own experience is that the benevolent dictator suits me best. I always pay musicians generously, and put up with their foibles - they've all got something. Only one I ever had problems with was an ex-junkie who pissed off everyone he ever worked with.

...on both sides of this particular coin.

Starting off as a drummer, I was fiercely of the persuasion that each band member should get an equal amount. Vocals, guitar, bass and drums all equal 25% of a song.

However, I switched to being a guitarist and songwriter and eventually had a swift change of opinion.

I sat at home on my own and wrote words, melody, chords and structure. I wrote songs. They existed. I played them open mic nights, I sent them to publishers, I auditioned people for bands with them and generally lived with them for a couple of years before getting a proper band together.

Then, when the drummer piped up and says, "You didn't write the song; you just came up with an idea. I wrote the drum part and everyone should split the credits", that was a bit grating.

My theory is this.

The song is written when it can be played on acoustic guitar and sung onstage. Whatever the rest of band contribute is the ARRANGEMENT with is different altogether. The song is the cake and the arrangement is the decoration.

However, if someone contributes something so integral to the song that you couldn't even manage an acoustic performance of it without the audience singing the missing part in there somewhere (for instance, the brass on the chorus of All You Need Is Love or the organ on Whiter Shade Of Pale) the I think that should be added to the credits.

Also, if a song has stemmed from a jam session with all the band members then everyone should be credited.

As a footnote, I should point out that all I wanted were the credits and ownership of the songs. If the band had have taken off I would quite happily have shared the money. But they were my songs. And still are.

Gets sampled from a song but the bassist isn't credited on the song's writing credit who gets the dosh?

Some of Duke Ellington compostions were 'inspired' by sections of some of his instrumentalist's solos, so much so that his long-time alto star Johnny Hodges would mime counting money on stage whenever a composition he 'inspired' was being played. Mind you, Duke bankrolled his band throughout the post-war big band doldrums through his songwriting royalties and kept these guys with a regular income, especially sensitive, mercurial talents (Paul Gonsalves) and veterans who went bust trying to lead their own bands (Hodges and Cootie Williams).

of The Wonder Stuff and we spoke about this very topic.

From the outset the songwriting was split equally between the members of the band. The problems arose with the sheer laziness of some of the band who just rocked up and played the songs for the album without even trying to contribute anything even though this agreement was in place.
He just thought they were taking the piss so he split up the band and when they reformed the credits were assigned to the actual songwriter(s).
Alas, the horse had already bolted as those albums made fuck all money.

It was just a case of rose tinted young idealism that didn't work out for him.

Re:Queen. I have heard it said that Queen never really produced a truly great album because they gave everyone a chance to submit songs and balanced the album accordingly.

On a general note, I see both sides of the argument regarding dividing royalties. I don't know why bands don't just give 50% to the songwriters (or 30% words 30% music) and have the remaining % divided across other members including the writer(s). Thereby, the main writer gets better rewarded than the others but the others get a small slice of their fortune. Also, you don't get the drummer saying "why not do one of mine?"

The argument of bands staying together longer/happier when royalties are shared is beyond dispute (REM, U2, The Charlatans, Belle & Seb, Beaut South, Coldplay, James, among others)

I may have remembered this wrong, but wasn't the royalty split arrangements of The Beatles as solo artists (rather than as The Beatles) a contributory factor to their breaking up? I can't recall the exact details but Macca was opposed to the "all for one" royalty model proposed by the other 3 members and their advisers (hence he went with Lynda's family of advisers) as regards how income for solo albums coming into Apple would be distributed amongst the 4 of them.

I think Macca had been OK with the idea initially and in principle but felt that given the way things were going within the group (his increasing domination of musical proceedings, John and Yoko as "one person", fall outs with George) he'd be sharing the rewards of his hard work with an increasingly (as he perceived) disinterested John and George. The irony was that Macca wanted The Beatles to carry on more than the other three and more than the idea of having a solo career.

Spandau Ballet. Due to Gary Kemp being the songwriter and main earner they fell out, made up, fell out again, went to court, and yet still made up again to take advantage of a buoyant live scene a couple of years ago and made a fortune.