Guru Randhawa: A musician hardly makes any money through royalties, unless you’ve composed 200 songs

Singer Guru Randhawa, who has recorded for Bollywood films such as Hindi Medium and Tumhari Sulu, feels that an upcoming musician does not make money from music royalties.

As a musician, Guru Randhawa isn’t very optimistic when it comes to earnings from music royalties. The 26-year-old feels that a musician hardly makes any money through royalties, and that only established musicians can benefit from the legal practice.

Guru Randhawa released his single, Lahore, last week.

“Earlier, people used to download songs on their CDs and USB drives. Nowadays, everything is on the phone and people listen to songs anywhere; so, music royalties are anyway not that significant. There is a PRS (Performing Right Society) filing process, whereby the royalties directly merge into your account, but it’s not much,” says the singer-songwriter, adding, “It is all about marketing. If you have 100 or 200 songs, then royalties matter. If you have just 10 or 15 songs, then you can ignore it.”

Randhawa adds that live shows, therefore, become more important for a musician from a revenue model perspective. “Live shows are important to engage with the audience and remain visible. However, it is equally important from the point of view of money, and these days artists like doing more shows,” he elaborates.

The singer, who recently released his single Lahore, also shares that there is no inspiration behind any of his songs and he composes them impulsively. “I keep listening to music everywhere, and whichever beat or loop strikes my head first, I start writing lyrics for it . So, there is no particular inspiration behind them,” he shares.

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