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This article makes a great deal of what is the fault of the band/musician to be the fault of the label/industry. Band gets to spend that $250k advance how they see fit, label will not care as long as a salable product results, you can literally pocket the entire thing and record the album in your basement, or on the roof of the building you live in as Lou Reed did once. But most bands never make much money off of album sales even if they pocket the entire advance, they make their money playing. Once a year they spend a week in the studio recording songs they worked out in their free time on the road and honed on stage, $4k for a weeks work is decent pay.

If you are blowing that much of your advance on recording the new album it probably means you spent the entire tour partying and when the label handed you the check for the new album you realized you have written nothing new and are writing that new album in the studio where you have a dozen people you are paying the wages of plus the studio fees for every hour you spend in the studio.

> For the average band, a $250,000 advance [in 1993 dollars] is distributed like this:

> Record company: $710,000

> Producer: $90,000

> Manager: $51,000

> Studio: $52,500

> Previous label: $50,000

> Agent: $7,500

> Lawyer: $12,000

> Band member net income each: $4,031.25