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 exhibits 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 became his largest supply of earnings over the previous decade.
Mothersbaugh’s spouse and supervisor Anita Greenspan informed 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 working 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 exhibits,” Mothersbaugh informed Rolling Stone. “I’d’ve been shocked [years ago] if you happen to informed me that is the one that will develop into this prime supply of earnings.”
Mark Mothersbaugh. Picture by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Pictures for AFI
Mothersbaugh wrote “Uncontrollable Urge” as the primary observe 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, not like the 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 informed 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 possibly the most-played track ever on MTV.”
Theme songs are large earners
Mothersbaugh is not the one musician to money in on a profitable theme track.
Ed Robertson, who wrote the theme track for “The Huge Bang Concept,” informed Rolling Stone that he has made between seven to 10 figures to date 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,” informed the publication that he had made six figures from the track because the present got here out in 2021.
The late musician Allee Willis had a 15% lower of the “I am going to Be There for You” Mates theme track. That lower equals about $700,000 per yr for Major Wave Publishing, the corporate that now owns the rights to her work, per Rolling Stone.
One business govt informed 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 Instances stories 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.
