Appreciate you adding these. These are great examples of those that are. You may have misread what I wrote. Frequently, many aren’t given writing credits and so they don’t make any money from record sales. No assumptions made on the nature of their contribution at all.

It’s even more complicated at the “release an album and get a percentage of sales” part. Been a while since my college music business classes, but labels will generally front the band money to record which is recouped from the album sales first before anyone gets paid- this alone is tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. After that, there are further splits of the revenue between the label, management, PRO’s, and credited writers. Regarding credited writers, the only musicians getting paid are those with writing credits- which often don’t include all members of the band, and in some cases don’t include any members if they didn’t write the song. Frequently, the bassist and drummers and keyboardists of your favorite band are only getting paid through touring and merch sales.