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I actually doubt he ever received the mega-advance. It was always the case that record companies announced these deals, for publicity value, but it tended also to be the case that the headline figure was the putative value of the contract over several years, provided that X was fulfilled etc . (Such as selling 2 million copies of the first album, etc, from which recording & marketing costs would be deducted etc etc.) Even in the stupidest days, and the 80s and 90s were the apogee of stupid amounts of money being thrown around by the record business, after the introduction of CDs, no-one would have tossed one million quid, cash, at a poet. The pale analogy in the book trade is the announcement of “sales” of 100,000 copies, or whatever, which total does not include returns. For the trade, the gross number is quoted. For the author (and his/her royalties), the figure net of returns is quoted. Returns are reputedly, on average, 35% of sales. Tony > On 14 Oct 2015, at 19:25, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Excuse the nit-picking but I think Young was the only one of these 'promoted as a pop-star'. It was a record label gave him the reputed million advance. Perhaps they rued the whole campaign. > Cooper-Clarke often appeared with Punk bands, was and still is something of a cult figure, and didn't need promoting. > Reed often writes about pop-stars but, as far as I know, has never been promoted as such. > Yevtushenko was a pop phenomenon used to filling, we kept hearing, stadiums in Russia (and large halls in the West). I recall one such reading in which he told the audience that Kipling was a great and under-rated poet, and then he declaimed the whole of 'Boots' stamping his feet in time. Well, Eliot valued Kipling's poems too, but I prefer Nancy Sinatra's 'These boots are made for walking...' > Good to hear of Saarikoski of whom I knew nothing. > Jamie > > > > >> On 14 Oct 2015, at 09:39, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> Ah, Murray Lachlan Young, yes the young Waterstone's was full of him. He was one of those poets who was promoted as a pop-star, same as was done with John Cooper-Clarke and Jeremy Reed. >> >> I'm a Reed fan, but not as much as I'm a Yevtushenko fan. >> >> And even more so, Saarikoski.