In the event you went again in time and requested composer and musician Mark Mothersbaugh to foretell what his greatest moneymaker could be in his almost 50-year profession, he wouldn’t have mentioned “Uncontrollable Urge.”
The now 74-year-old musician has composed music for TV exhibits like “The Pretty OddParents” and “Rugrats” and films like “Thor: Ragnarok” and “The Lego Film,” however “Uncontrollable Urge,” a music he wrote in 1978 as a founding member of the band Devo, has became his greatest supply of revenue over the previous decade.
Mothersbaugh’s spouse and supervisor Anita Greenspan advised Rolling Stone earlier this month that the composer makes $1 million per 12 months in royalties on simply that one music.
The turning level for “Uncontrollable Urge” was when the MTV comedy clip present Ridiculousness first launched in 2011. The present, which spotlights and reacts to viral Web comedy movies, encompasses a cowl of “Uncontrollable Urge” as its theme music.
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After over 12 years operating on MTV and over 1,500 episodes, Ridiculousness has catapulted “Uncontrollable Urge” to theme music fame. At one level in June 2020, Selection seen that “Ridiculousness” aired for 113 hours out of MTV’s 168-hour week of programming.
Nonetheless, the music’s success got here as a shock to its author.
“I’ve written so many different songs for movies and tv exhibits,” Mothersbaugh advised Rolling Stone. “I might’ve been shocked [years ago] for those who advised me that is the one that may develop into this prime supply of revenue.”
Mark Mothersbaugh. Photograph by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Photographs for AFI
Mothersbaugh wrote “Uncontrollable Urge” as the primary monitor to Devo’s debut album, “Q: Are We Not Males? A: We Are Devo!” The music was by no means launched as a single and has solely earned $150,000 throughout all time from Spotify streaming royalties. It by no means made it to the Billboard Scorching 100, not like the Eighties hit “Whip It” from Devo, which peaked at quantity 14 on the Billboard Scorching 100.
“This was the very first music off our first album,” Mothersbaugh advised Rolling Stone. “However it’s a pleasant ironic twist as a result of this was one of many songs we by no means even made a music video for. And now it is perhaps the most-played music ever on MTV.”
Theme songs are huge earners
Mothersbaugh is not the one musician to money in on a profitable theme music.
Ed Robertson, who wrote the theme music for “The Massive Bang Concept,” advised Rolling Stone that he has made between seven to 10 figures to date in complete royalties for the one music from the time the present ran from 2007 to 2019 to its syndications on TBS at present.
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Marco Jacobo, who created the theme music for “Abbott Elementary,” advised the publication that he had made six figures from the music for the reason that present got here out in 2021.
The late musician Allee Willis had a 15% reduce of the “I will Be There for You” Pals theme music. That reduce equals about $700,000 per 12 months for Major Wave Publishing, the corporate that now owns the rights to her work, per Rolling Stone.
One trade govt advised the publication that community TV pays 15 instances extra per minute for music than a streaming service like Spotify.
It isn’t simply exhibits that pay effectively — TV commercial theme songs are profitable too. The New York Occasions stories that David Paton, one of many two males who wrote the Billboard High 10 hit “Magic” in 1974, earns seven figures from the music utilized in a TV advert for Ozempic.