Biggest album budgets/what did they have to work with/spend!?

[masta1]

I was always curious what has been the biggest budget rap albums of all time. Is there any clear cut examples on certain albums with how much was spent per beat, guest features, album artwork, promotions etc.? When you look movies up on wikipedia, it's easy to find out the movies total budget (be good if albums had that)!

I would love for any knowledge on such albums from eminem's career such as SSLP and MMLP. Artists such as Rick Ross etc.

Drop knowledge on anything related! What sort of albums had huge budgets and didn't recoup!

[masta1]

????

[soundeq]

It can be LOOOTTTSSS... i'm not privy to total numbers, but I'm sure several easily go into the seven figures.

Producer advances, mixer fees, studio time, travel, rentals, mastering, side musicians, guest apperances. Not even including videos, easily seven figures.
It takes LOTS to recoup a million dollars on mechanicals.

Thats why pub, and shows are such a big deal... for big guys, as well as smaller ones.

[mix-it-well]

Nelly got 10Mill for I guess it was Nellyville.
Huey got 2.5

[A-List]

it would be interesting to see a complete breakdown but i doubt those with that kind of info would be able to keep their jobs for dropping that on the web.

[soundeq]

Originally Posted by A-List

it would be interesting to see a complete breakdown but i doubt those with that kind of info would be able to keep their jobs for dropping that on the web.

EXACTLY!

I seriously doubt Nelly spent 10mil MAKING the album... MAYBE with promo/videos, and EVERYTHING combined, not not 10mil making an album... Those is M. Jackson numbers!

[illynoise]

For 10 million they could've gotten a denoiser plugin to get some of that hiss out Nellyville!

[JSpark]

The days of really large Budgets are OVERtutt

Large budgets were the result of labels making money hand over fist in the 90s and early 2000s. Things got a little rediculous, but good for us.
Busta Rhymes spoke about 3 milllion dollar budgets at his peak.

Now that labels are fighting to survive, this is history. Budgets are getting smaller and fewer and far between. No one is going to pay the neptunes (or anyone) 250k for one track! That amount could make 5 albums!

[soundeq]

Originally Posted by JSpark

No one is going to pay the neptunes (or anyone) 250k for one track! That amount could make 5 albums!

Wrong! maybe not 250k but 150k-200k+ for sure...

Agree it could make 5 albums tho.

[babyface_finsta]

What good is making 5 albums... when 1 can't even be marketed and promoted correctly...

From a business stand point... I see tons of problems...

[HoPMiX]

ive seen 2 million with my own eyes.
terribly wasteful.

[mix-it-well]

Originally Posted by illynoise

For 10 million they could've gotten a denoiser plugin to get some of that hiss out Nellyville!

Man thats the Neptunes signature sound.

[croger]

Originally Posted by masta1

I was always curious what has been the biggest budget rap albums of all time. Is there any clear cut examples on certain albums with how much was spent per beat, guest features, album artwork, promotions etc.? When you look movies up on wikipedia, it's easy to find out the movies total budget (be good if albums had that)!

I would love for any knowledge on such albums from eminem's career such as SSLP and MMLP. Artists such as Rick Ross etc.

Drop knowledge on anything related! What sort of albums had huge budgets and didn't recoup!

hmm... i might have some spreadsheets of actual album and marketing budgets of artists from a CFO of a major label record company from 2003 when we were doing budgets for a startup venture. I will have a look in my laptop tonight.