T3-79 Get Together/Isaac

While everybody else has already set their sights on 'Hard Candy', I've just started listening to 'Confessions On A Dance Floor'. And I haven't even heard 'Ray of Light' yet.

Anyways, I've been listening to Confessions, and it is an awesome album. Obviously, anything Madonna does is practically incomparable, but if I have to compare it with its closest Utada counterpart, EXODUS, then Confessions just...obliberates its competition.

By the way, in the last couple of days I have been watching TV like crazy cause I can't do anything else, I watched MuchMusic's list of 20 most powerful musicians or something like that. The top three ranking was Justin Timberlake, followed by Jay-Z, then Madonna. I personally think that Justin Timberlake is in no way more powerful than Madonna. Heck, none of Timberlakes' latest singles or album is even comparable to the success of Hung Up, or Confessions. And there isn't anything else Timberlake is better at. Dancing? Songwriting maybe, singing? Selling power? Business sense? Powerfulness?

And now, I must talk about Utada. I read a German article (somebody on a fansite had translated it), which said that Utada earned $216 million USD (140 m. Euros, I didn't convert it). Now, I'm not really sure if this figure is correct, but if it is, well, that is a huge huge huge number. Madonna is said to be worth $860 million herself, and earned $72 million last year (but she's signed a deal with Artist/Live Nation for $120 million) Oh, and Utada has one of the largest houses in Tokyo.

I saw that number, then wondered how in the world could she have earned that money. She has sold about 41 million records world wide, and in the world of global mega superstars, that isn't too much. But she's sold 34 million in Japan (24 m. albums, 15 m. singles, and 3 m. VHS/DVD). Yes, I know those numbers don't add up, that's why I'm confused. Anyways, in Japan, albums and singles sell for more. For example, a Utada album in Japan would sell for about $30, while in Canada, it would sell for $10-13. A single in Japan would sell from $7-10, while in Canada, it would sell from $2-4. Digitally, the difference isn't large: $2 versus $1.5 for a track (almost all downloads are per track). Now, she's also sold anywhere from 15 million to 25 million digital downloads.

I've read a little little bit about royalties, but not in Japan, so all of this most likely wrong, but hopefully somewhat close to the real number. Perhaps in the same magnitude?

Anyways, Utada composes, writes the lyrics, sings, and most of the time arranges the music herself. I don't know about composing royalties, but singing royalties would probably be about 15% of sales, because EMI is very nice to Utada. Digital royalties are much smaller, about 5% of sales.

She doesn't get too many endorsements, at least, not much that I know of. She has had only two full-fledged tours, Bohemian Summer and Utada United, and one five-date tour (Hikaru no 5). All were sell-outs, and I think in two hours. Bohemian Summer had 19, and Utada United had 11 (later doubled to 22), and Hikaru no 5 had 5 dates, so a total of 46 performances. She only performed in the largest stadiums, so I'm guessing about an average of 20000 seating capacity per stadium (this is a big estimate), so 920,000 in attendance. She also had some small stuff here and there, but I'm pretending its part of the 920,000. I have absolutely no idea about ticket prices. However, I know that Bohemian Summer was crazy. It was right after First Love and a couple of Distance singles, so there was a huge demand. 16 dates were announced, all sold out, then 3 dates were added, but there were 900,000 entries for the seats (they were sold in a lottery system). I don't know how much from this tour goes into Utada's pocket, though.

In comparision, Madonna's Confession Tour, the highest grossing for a female artist, sold $194 m with 60 shows and 1.2 m people attending.

I don't think Utada Hikaru got the ticket prices Madonna got, but I'm not sure.

Okay, I give up on the math. Somebody else go do it.

I also read that in 1999, she became one of Japan's 100 richest people after the release of First Love at the age of 16. However, that same source said that she paid the most tax in 2005 in Japan (roughly equating to being the richest person). That I'm not so sure. 2005 to her was a year where she practically didn't do anything, except release 'Be My Last', which wasn't such a success. Perhaps she was given an advance on her record deal with EMI which we don't know of? Even so, I don't think EMI gave an advance worth several billion dollars.