For those who went again in time and requested composer and musician Mark Mothersbaugh to foretell what his largest 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 reveals like “The Pretty OddParents” and “Rugrats” and films like “Thor: Ragnarok” and “The Lego Film,” however “Uncontrollable Urge,” a track he wrote in 1978 as a founding member of the band Devo, has changed into his largest 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 yr in royalties on simply that one track.
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, includes a cowl of “Uncontrollable Urge” as its theme track.
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After over 12 years operating on MTV and over 1,500 episodes, Ridiculousness has catapulted “Uncontrollable Urge” to theme track fame. At one level in June 2020, Selection observed that “Ridiculousness” aired for 113 hours out of MTV’s 168-hour week of programming.
Nonetheless, the track’s success got here as a shock to its author.
“I’ve written so many different songs for movies and tv reveals,” Mothersbaugh advised Rolling Stone. “I’d’ve been shocked [years ago] in case you advised me that is the one that will turn into this prime supply of revenue.”
Mark Mothersbaugh. Picture by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Pictures 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 track 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, in contrast to the Nineteen Eighties hit “Whip It” from Devo, which peaked at quantity 14 on the Billboard Scorching 100.
“This was the very first track off our first album,” Mothersbaugh advised Rolling Stone. “But it surely’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 track ever on MTV.”
Theme songs are huge earners
Mothersbaugh is not the one musician to money in on a profitable theme track.
Ed Robertson, who wrote the theme track for “The Large Bang Concept,” advised Rolling Stone that he has made between seven to 10 figures up to now in whole royalties for the one track from the time the present ran from 2007 to 2019 to its syndications on TBS at this time.
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Marco Jacobo, who created the theme track for “Abbott Elementary,” advised the publication that he had made six figures from the track for the reason that present got here out in 2021.
The late musician Allee Willis had a 15% minimize of the “I am going to Be There for You” Pals theme track. That minimize equals about $700,000 per yr for Main Wave Publishing, the corporate that now owns the rights to her work, per Rolling Stone.
One business govt advised the publication that community TV pays 15 occasions extra per minute for music than a streaming service like Spotify.
It is not simply reveals that pay properly — TV commercial theme songs are profitable too. The New York Occasions experiences that David Paton, one of many two males who wrote the Billboard Prime 10 hit “Magic” in 1974, earns seven figures from the track utilized in a TV advert for Ozempic.