Elf
Group: Members
Posts: 67
Joined: Jan. 2005 |
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Posted: May 15 2023, 03:39 |
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| Quote (larstangmark @ May 12 2023, 11:25) | | I wonder if there's really any money in making albums any more, if you don't play live? |
If you are on Taylor Swift's level, there certainly is. For other artists it's certainly viable, and something to make income out of, but touring and licensing your music for use in films and commercials is where the real money lies. People would be surprised to learn how many pretty big artists do either jobs on the side, or private gigs for rich corporations or people.
Another way to really rake in the cash it to sell either your publishing rights or your entire catalogue. The latter means you will still get royalties for other recordings of your songs. I don't know if Mike has done this, but considering the fact that he will neither release new music, nor tour anymore, I would be very surprised if he hasn't done this. Artists much bigger han him has certainly done this.
As for TB4, I'm not surprised that he cancelled it. There is a limit on how many variations you can do out of those same notes. I see some people in this thread have speculated that it was the record company who pulled the plug on it, but I find it very hard to believe that they weren't seeing dollar signs when Mike told them he would do TB4. Musical integrety means nothing to them, so they would have released anything as long as they could call it TB4.
As for the TB4 demo, I think it's just as I expected. Nothing special. However, I quite like the second part of it, the part that is NOT included in the single edit that's on YouTube (with a lousy video) and on Spotify. The full eight minute version is better, especially the last 3-4 minutes. There's some beautiful stuff going on there, and I wish Mike would do an album out of that, and not call it TB. RTO was actually surprisingly successful.
And no: Mike had no plans for an album with songs, and he certainly wouldn't be making plans for a tour. I interviewed Mike for almost two hours when he released RTO, and he said he regarded the Olympic Ceremony in London in 2012 as a fitting end to his live career.
According to, Jerry Ewing, the editor of PROG magazine, they decided to make Oldfield PROG God in 2017. But when they called him, Mike asked if he had to come to London for that. He'd rather do it by Skype from Bahamas. Ewing thought Mike was really ungrateful and basically told Mike to intercourse himself. Ewing told me this himself during Yes' 50th anniversary celebrations in London in April 2018.
I've heard rumours of Mike being sick, and the cough he has in interviews from 2017 doesn't sound very good. Someone said he posted something on his official Facebook group in 2018 that he was in the hospital, but that it was very quickly deleted. I don't know, because among a ton of other fans, I was banned from his FB group, without any explanation in 2018, after sharing the interview I did with him. Actually, he (or the ones running his social media) have banned so many that they gathered together in their own group. Several people on the Amarok mailing list have been banned as well.
Personally I think RTO was a beautiful coda to go out on. I don't think I will be buying the 50th anniversary edition. I bought the last huge box set, and with the economy being what it is, I don't quite see the point. Apart from the TB4 excerpt, I have everything included in the box set already.
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