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Most financially successful prog artist?
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The Dark Elf View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Tapfret Tapfret wrote:

Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Vangelis $2.5 mill

I thought for certain he was worth more.

No kidding. One would think that all those OST's would be an endless fountain of royalties. Seems implausible.

After releasing the album 666, his career went to hell.
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I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - June 01 2020 at 10:26
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^A quick Google says $245m. I like that they break it down to $19/minute. That would be nice.

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Originally posted by Tapfret Tapfret wrote:

^A quick Google says $245m. I like that they break it down to $19/minute. That would be nice.


Yeah, I noticed that too. After searching again it appears that 2.5 million figure was just for one year(2019). Lucky him. 
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The highest paid pop singer in the world always seems to be from Eastern European country that no one can pronounce and that no one has the slightest idea who he or she is. Just saying.

Edited by SteveG - June 01 2020 at 11:36
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Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Originally posted by Tapfret Tapfret wrote:

^A quick Google says $245m. I like that they break it down to $19/minute. That would be nice.


Yeah, I noticed that too. After searching again it appears that 2.5 million figure was just for one year(2019). Lucky him. 

I was thinking one year would be enough. Then it occurred to me with the impending recession, the rate of inflation would probably mean I'd still not be able to retire on that.  

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Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

Originally posted by Tapfret Tapfret wrote:

Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Vangelis $2.5 mill

I thought for certain he was worth more.

No kidding. One would think that all those OST's would be an endless fountain of royalties. Seems implausible.

After releasing the album 666, his career went to hell.

After a Spiral  through Heaven and Hell, Vangelis found a Direct path to redemption through some Invisible Connections.
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Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  LOL

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.


Edited by cstack3 - June 01 2020 at 15:15
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  LOL

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.

Isn't Yanni one of those invented performers created for late night TV commercial sales in the late 70s and 80's, like "International Superstars" no one ever heard of like Slim Whitman and Roger Whitaker....






Edited by The Dark Elf - June 01 2020 at 15:28
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^No, Yanni never tried to sell his music that way as far as I know. Lol.
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  LOL

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.

Believe it or not, he was...for a short time. Before he found success as a solo New Age artist, he was the keyboardist in a band called Chameleon that started as what we might call "Crossover" and went to AOR, kind of like Ambrosia.

Yanni's first solo album, Optimystique, recorded in 1980, is instrumental keyboard prog that sounds like a cross between Vangelis and Jan Hammer.
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Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  LOL

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.

Believe it or not, he was...for a short time. Before he found success as a solo New Age artist, he was the keyboardist in a band called Chameleon that started as what we might call "Crossover" and went to AOR, kind of like Ambrosia.

Yanni's first solo album, Optimystique, recorded in 1980, is instrumental keyboard prog that sounds like a cross between Vangelis and Jan Hammer.


Yanni wasn't the only "new age" artist who started in a more proggy direction. There was also Andreas Wollenweider, Shadowfax and Mike Oldfield. Tongue Ok, that last one is a bit of a joke. ;) I guess you could say Kitaro was more proggy in the early days too. Lot's of musicians seemed to have been bitten by the new age bug though. Even Rick Wakeman. Smile


Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - June 01 2020 at 17:28
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Originally posted by Tapfret Tapfret wrote:

Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Vangelis $2.5 mill

I thought for certain he was worth more.

No kidding. One would think that all those OST's would be an endless fountain of royalties. Seems implausible.
 

It depends whether he was entitled to the royalties. I remember Keith Emerson saying in an interview that he stopped doing film soundtracks because he ended up not owning his own music.

Chariots Of Fire was certainly a massive seller as an album but once that initial burst was over than I'm not sure he gets anything for the film being shown ( which I guess is what you are suggesting).
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  LOL

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.
Yanni moved through different genres until he found his niche and one that sells. I remember the old days when he fronted his metal band Iron Maidenos.
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Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by AFlowerKingCrimson AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  LOL

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.

Believe it or not, he was...for a short time. Before he found success as a solo New Age artist, he was the keyboardist in a band called Chameleon that started as what we might call "Crossover" and went to AOR, kind of like Ambrosia.

Yanni's first solo album, Optimystique, recorded in 1980, is instrumental keyboard prog that sounds like a cross between Vangelis and Jan Hammer.

Yanni wasn't the only "new age" artist who started in a more proggy direction. There was also Andreas Wollenweider, Shadowfax and Mike Oldfield. Tongue Ok, that last one is a bit of a joke. ;) I guess you could say Kitaro was more proggy in the early days too. Lot's of musicians seemed to have been bitten by the new age bug though. Even Rick Wakeman. Smile

Andreas Vollenweider was in a folk-world music trio called Poesie und Musik. They weren't prog.

Shadowfax was a great band that blended progressive, folk, fusion and world music. They were never a new age band, but they did get thrown under the banner for marketing purposes after their third album. In an early interview, G.E. Stinson said none of them had jazz backgrounds, i.e. they all started out in rock bands.

New Age was more of a business tactic than most realize. If somebody recorded an instrumental album that was clearly not jazz, the labels realized pushing it as "New Age" was going to make sales happen as opposed to classical. That's why Windham Hill prospered, why Peter Baumann formed Private Music, and why major labels formed subsidiaries to publish "new age" albums.

For example, Capitol formed an imprint called Cinema, which intended to issue four albums right off the bat by four famous proggers: Pete Bardens' Seen One Earth, Patrick Moraz's Human Interface, Michael Hoenig's Xcept One, and an album by Tony Kaye that he never actually recorded. None of these albums were what I'd call "new age," though...in fact, Hoenig's was an excellent progressive electronic outing, and was easily the best of the three.
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^^ Iron Maidenos! LOL
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Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Originally posted by Tapfret Tapfret wrote:

Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Vangelis $2.5 mill

I thought for certain he was worth more.

No kidding. One would think that all those OST's would be an endless fountain of royalties. Seems implausible.
 

It depends whether he was entitled to the royalties. I remember Keith Emerson saying in an interview that he stopped doing film soundtracks because he ended up not owning his own music.

Chariots Of Fire was certainly a massive seller as an album but once that initial burst was over than I'm not sure he gets anything for the film being shown ( which I guess is what you are suggesting).

I think he means the music. Chariots of Fire has been reissued many times. There are nearly 150 different editions between the initial pressings and reissues, remasters and special editions. The last remaster to appear was released in Japan in 2017.
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OP here, great dialog, keep it up! 

I threw Yanni in there as a deliberate taunt & learned quite a bit!  LOL

Let's face it....if you are seeking financial stability in life, being a rock musician of any sort is a poor career choice.  I once faced that fork in the road & took the road less traveled.  I've played live many times, but never tried to make a living out of a guitar case.  Too many of my heroes (Peter Banks) died broke it seems.
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You may be interested to know I uploaded a couple of Yanni concerts on my World Music blog.
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

OP here, great dialog, keep it up! 

I threw Yanni in there as a deliberate taunt & learned quite a bit!  LOL

Let's face it....if you are seeking financial stability in life, being a rock musician of any sort is a poor career choice.  I once faced that fork in the road & took the road less traveled.  I've played live many times, but never tried to make a living out of a guitar case.  Too many of my heroes (Peter Banks) died broke it seems.

The guy really does have chops! In fact, I'd recommend his first three solo albums (Optimystique, Keys to Imagination and Out of Silence) in a heartbeat for engaging piano and synth-based anthemic fare. 

But then Yanni went "contempo" and got worse and worse. The music he started making sounded tailored to shopping malls. He did a soundtrack called Heart of Midnight, and it sucked, too!

He could have been the next Vangelis. The guy sold out, and he sold out HARD.
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