Life After Music

In 2002 I was listening to an interview with Noel Gallagher where he gave his view on S Club Juniors. As you'd imagine he didn't think much of them, but one thing I remember from that interview was him talking about when they grow up and go to work at Burger King.

They were finished as a group by the time they did grow up and whilst some S Club 7 records are well remembered, I think many would struggle to name an S Club Juniors record. None of them ended up working at Burger King though, it looks like they all continued to work in the entertainment business to an extent.

35% of all the acts to have had a Top 40 hit never returned to the Top 40 again. 20% of them would have just one further Top 40 hit. In other words if you beat all the odds and make it into the Top 40 then you are most likely to have a maximum of 2 Top 40 hits.

On everyhit.com it said that in 2006 you needed to sell 2,500 singles to make the Top 40. It was around £4 per single in those days so if your only hit just scraped into the Top 40 then that's £10k revenue from sales of your one hit. Once the labels, record shops etc. take their cut the artist is possibly taking less than they would at Burger King.

Whilst a brief Top 40 career probably won't make you rich what it can do is give you opportunities to do more interesting things than going back to the day job.

I previously worked at the same place as someone from a short lived girl group. I won't name her out of respect but this was a girl group who made the lower reaches of the Top 40 and one who very few people remember. She seemed to still be in the entertainment business but was just doing the job she was doing for some stable income but she did end up leaving so maybe she was then able to make a living from what she did on the side. She certainly appeared to have more money than someone doing that job would have.

On the Big Reunion 10 years ago one of the groups reuniting were Girl Thing. They were finished before they even got started and few people remembered them. Yet when you heard the stories about what each of the members had been up to since it sounded like only one member went back to where she came from, the others were acting, TV presenting etc.

If you're one hit has a lasting legacy then there are enough nostalgia nights to singing your song at. Some say that someone must have fallen on hard times if they resort to playing Butlins. What would you rather do though, sing your song at Butlins or go back to the day job? It doesn't sound like a bad way to make a living if you ask me.