Corey Smith: The $4.2 Million Man Explained

noah | February 3, 2009 12:30 pm

Last week, Dan Gibson mused aloud about the success of one Corey Smith, whose $4.2 million annual income rated a bragging post from Hypebot. Who was this guy? How did he make so much money? Could he maybe give a little bit to us? Well, the answers have been flowing in! First, our own Lucas Jensen chimed in with some notes on Smith, the man: “He regularly sells out venues here in the South that big indie bands can’t sell out…and his music is the absolute pits. It’s the musical equivalent of an Ovation guitar. It’s just the worst. And people LOVE him. He wrote a song called “Every Dog Has Its Day”, which was about UGA losing to Florida”; its lyrics include the bit of football-inspired poetry “Just got my tickets in the mail / September’s coming fast and I can hardly wait / They say these guys they might take us all the way / And if they do I’ll be flying high.” (I’m sure you’re tearing up, too.) And now Smith’s manager has broken down his client’s success even further:

This discussion was brought to my attention the other day so I thought that I would jump in and clarify. 2008 gross touring was $3.5 million with another $.5 million on top for physical merch, cd, and digital music sales bringing the total to approx $4 million. Again, let me make sure this is clear. The $3.50 million in touring was the GROSS ticket sales figure, not what our take was from these shows.

Corey has scanned over 450,000 downloads and approx 70,000 albums. Total albums sales though are in excess of 85,000 being that not all physical sales have been scanned.

So a little number-massaging here, a little “hey, look, regional scenes still exist!” there (Lucas also noted in a later post that Smith sold out two nights at the 1,000-capacity Georgia Theatre). I hope Hollywood Heartthrob is taking notes!

Corey Smith’s manager responds to $4.2M claim [Hypebot] Earlier: Corey Smith? Who?

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