Musicians Who Are Poorer Than You Thought

Musicians don't make what they used to. In the age of Spotify streaming, album sales are abysmal. If you're reading The Atlantic, 2012 was the year indie rock died because that's when we realized Cat Power wasn't making millions as the face of Chanel. In fact, she was flat-out broke, and so were some of our favorite artists of all time. Conor Oberst and Grizzly Bear, who spent their careers in the upper echelons of Pitchfork fame, were being priced out of New York City and struggling to afford health insurance.

Financial hardship isn't limited to indie rock royalty. It spills out into the mainstream to create the music industry's middle class, which happens to include some of the top-selling artists of all time. Meghan Trainor may know the inside of a private jet firsthand, but Kevin Kadish, who co-wrote her hit "All About That Bass," pulled in a paltry $5,679 for 178 million streams of the massive song. Even TLC, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, earned a pretty modest salary at the height of CrazySexyCool's popularity.

From Michael Jackson to Toni Braxton, these musicians aren't all poor, but they definitely make a lot less than you would think.

Michael Jackson is one of the best-selling artists of all time. He amassed over 61 million album sales in the U.S. and formed a billion-dollar empire, which included Disney theme park attractions, secret art collections, and the $47.5 million acquisition of ATV Music (i.e. the Beatles' entire catalog). The man invented Thriller — that's a pretty huge contribution to society. Despite his unmatched successes, the King of Pop died about $400 million in debt.

Jackson may have had a busy career during the late '80s and early '90s, but he stopped touring in 1997. In 2001, he released his final album Invincible, and his finances largely relied on other assets. According to Billboard, Jackson's acquisition of ATV Music allowed him to live a lavish lifestyle despite rarely performing live, but his finances went downhill after child molestation rumors surfaced in 1993. He later sold the ATV publishing rights to Sony for $95 million and used his remaining ATV assets as collateral for $200 million in Bank of America loans. With legal fees and soaring loan payments, Jackson faced foreclosure on Neverland Ranch.

Jackson, a 13-time Grammy winner, was gearing up for his first tour in over a decade, a sold-out, 50-show run at London's massive O2 Arena. The string of performances could have saved his finances, but he passed away from cardiac arrest in 2009 before it would ever happen.

With iconic hits like "Another Sad Love Song," Toni Braxton has raked in $170 million in worldwide sales, yet the star has filed for bankruptcy twice. Why? Apparently, Braxton never made all that much money. In an interview with 20/20 (via ABC News), the singer admitted that she received a paltry $1,972 from royalties for her first record contract.

"What happens is they give you advancement on the next record and then the next record," she explained. "So you kind of stay in debt, in a sense."

Though she emerged out of her 1998 bankruptcy thanks to a her hit "He Wasn't Man Enough" and a brand new record contract, her success didn't last long. She updated her classic R&B sound to keep up with modern hitmakers like Rihanna. The move backfired and her next three albums only sold a few hundred thousand copies. On the brink of bankruptcy, she self-financed a Las Vegas show, but was diagnosed with the hereditary autoimmune disease microvascular angina, a shortly after. Doctors told her she would never perform again, and she was forced to cancel the dates, which sent her finances over the edge. At the time of her second bankruptcy in 2010, she claimed to be $50 million in debt.

In recent years, Braxton has made a comeback thanks to her reality TV show Braxton Family Values. She is performing again (albeit at a slower pace), and still battling chronic illness.

You don't expect the creator of Rumours, of one of the best-selling albums of all time, to be broke, but Mick Fleetwood sure had a rough time during the '80s. The Fleetwood Mac founder filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after accruing over $3.5 million of debt. Today, Fleetwood is hardly what we'd consider broke, but his $20 million net worth is nothing compared to Stevie Nicks' $75 million. So, where did all of the money go? It depends on who you ask. His cash was lost somewhere between Australia and his very own nose.

According to some reports, Mick spent a whopping $60 million on cocaine throughout his career. He also blew a huge chunk of change on thousand-acre farm in Australia.

"I actually immigrated to Australia and gave up my green card. I thought it was a great place for all my friends and family, but it was also a pipe dream that literally took me to the poorhouse," he told Rolling Stone. "I went broke."

Fleetwood was able to bounce back from bankruptcy, but never amassed the same fortune as Nicks. The band is still touring today.

Grizzly Bear isn't like the rock stars of yesteryear. They don't have the mountains of cocaine, the babes, or the cash. Though their 2009 album Veckatimest sold 33,000 copies the first week, they toured in stadiums with Radiohead and headlined the iconic Radio City Music Hall, the band still struggles to afford health insurance.

Grizzly Bear managed to achieve indie rock's most lucrative feat — a Super Bowl commercial placement. Yet, founder Ed Droste still lives with his husband in a 450-square-foot Brooklyn apartment — the same one they lived in prior to Yellow House's success.

"People probably have an inflated idea of what we make," Droste tells Vulture. "Bands appear so much bigger than they really are now, because no one's buying records. But they'll go to giant shows."

Droste's experience isn't unusual considering an indie band's extensive payroll — from ticket companies and venue cuts to management and agent commissions, publishers and lawyers. While he admits no one in his band is "renting private jets," he does claim they're "surviving." Sounds pleasant, right?

In the age of streaming, it's increasingly difficult for artists to make money — even if they have a well-performing radio single like La Roux. The English electropop outfit best known for their hit "Bulletproof" has sold almost eight million records and still struggles to break even. According to singer Elly Jackson, they've never made any money on record sales, yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a person in America who can't sing at least one line from their 2009 hit.

"I spent two years on Trouble in Paradise and I most likely won't make any money out of it," she told Digital Spy (via The Guardian). "The only money I will make is from radio play. All the money I've had up until now is from radio. I think people find this really, really, really hard to believe. It's not a lie, it's just the way it is."

La Roux may not be the best-selling act on the planet, but they have had major chart success. Their self-titled record debuted at No. 2 on the UK album charts and their follow-up, Trouble In Paradise, debuted at No. 6. Despite this, Jackson claims they don't break even on most live gigs.

Courtney Love might be worth an estimated $150 million because of her late husband's discography, but that doesn't mean it's even a fraction of what she should have. In 2009, the singer filed a lawsuit claiming that as much as $530 million of Kurt Cobain's cash was possibly stolen by her own staff — and she never realized because she hadn't been sober. If that realization wasn't enough to sober you up, what is?

Love's financials have always been sort of bizarre. She's lost millions to lawsuits over the years (between disputes about unreleased Nirvana material and Twitter defamation suits). In 2006, she sold 25 percent of Nirvana's publishing rights for an estimated $50 million, but was apparently hard-up enough for cash that she traded her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, ownership of her father's likeness for a $2.75 million trust fund loan. By 2014, Love claimed to have lost about $27 million worth of Cobain's money, and Frances Bean was raking in over $95,000 per month from the deal.

Of course, Love didn't sweat the lost cash because she still has more money than someone could spend in a lifetime (but with those lawsuits, you never know). "I know that's a lifetime of money to most people, but I'm a big girl, it's rock 'n roll, it's Nirvana money, I had to let it go," she told The Sunday Times (via US Magazine).

If only most of us could let go of $27 million like it's 27 cents.