Mykola Brovchenko, a songwriter for Ukrainian artists, revealed how much he earns from his songs
Renowned Ukrainian songwriter Mykola Brovchenko has revealed the amount of royalties he receives for his work. According to him, income from songs currently depends significantly on their airplay, premieres, streams, and radio airtime.
According to Mykola Brovchenko, his royalties have decreased recently.
The amount of income is influenced by how frequently the songs are played on the radio, in public venues, and in the HoReCa sector.
“It all depends a lot on how active you are on broadcasts, on the radio, and in the HoReCa sector,” the songwriter noted.
In some months, Mykola Brovchenko can earn around 30,000–40,000 UAH. However, this amount is not stable and depends on the popularity of specific songs.
“If there’s a surge—a song premiere or heavy rotation—that can bring in as much as 30,000–40,000 hryvnias a month. But when time passes, there are no events, no public performances, and the song begins to exist in a different dimension, the payments are significantly lower,” the artist explained.
Mykola Brovchenko noted that the model of collaboration between songwriters and performers has changed significantly in recent years. According to him, artists are increasingly writing the lyrics and music for their own compositions, leaving fewer commissions for professional songwriters.
“In general, there has been a paradigm shift in the collaboration between songwriters and performers. Previously, there were commissions for songs and lyrics. Now that practically doesn’t happen. A great many songwriters are now ‘three-in-one’: performer, lyricist, and composer. The artist will write the lyrics themselves or, excuse me, take poems by contemporaries or poets from the Executed Renaissance, and set them to their own music. And that’s it. They don’t need poets. Recently, Serhiy Zhadan also noted that the bar for lyrics—the quality of the texts—has dropped significantly here. And so, returning to the question of whether I receive royalties: yes, but much less now,” the author shared.
Brovchenko noted that he currently cannot make a living solely on royalties.
According to the artist, for the past three or four years he has been actively working on larger-scale musical projects—in particular, writing librettos for operas and musicals.
“Some time ago—about three or four years—I became actively involved in these larger forms of musical storytelling: writing librettos for operas and musicals. Theaters also need a librettist-lyricist who can simply give meaning to the music and put it into words. And there, thank God, the pay is on a whole other level. That’s helping me a bit for now—these larger forms. More so than a song. Because with a song, one might make a big splash, while another goes unnoticed. And that’s happened before. And you can hardly make a living on those pennies,” he said.
Among Mykola Brovchenko’s most profitable compositions over the past decade, he cites the song “Ukraine—That’s You,” the lyrics for which were co-written with Tina Karol.
The composer explained that this song was the result of a collaboration between the singer and the lyricist.
“‘Ukraine—That’s You’ is a great example of the creative collaboration between a singer-songwriter and a lyricist. Tina came up with the idea for the song; she came up with the chorus—both the melody and the lyrics (we fine-tuned the versions together)—and she came up with the melody for the intro. That’s when I stepped in, and all the verses, as well as the rap “bridge” in the middle of the song, were given lyrics. The song took off. If we’re talking about the last decade, yes, it could perhaps be called the biggest hit, but what matters most to me is that it ‘resonated with the people,’” said Mykola Brovchenko.
The artist is the author of a number of compositions that became famous in Ukrainian pop music during the era of independence.
In particular, the song “Panno Kokhannya” won Ukraine the Grand Prix at the “Slavic Bazaar” competition in Vitebsk in 1993. The song “Midday Heat” helped the singer who performed it rise to the top of the Ukrainian music scene in the 2000s. The music video for the song, filmed in Yalta, Ukraine, was named the best by the “Tavriya Games” festival.
Another well-known patriotic song by the artist—“Ukraine Is You”—was added to the school curriculum in late 2016.
Currently, the artist is working on the project “On the Hush,” in which he will present himself in a new format.
Singer Tetyana Goncharova will perform his songs live in the atmosphere of a bohemian gathering. The compositions will span various genres, including soft rock, jazz, folk, and blues.
“Glavkom” is the media partner for the “Tishkom-Nishkom” project.
In an interview, the artist explained what currently brings him income and why it has become difficult to make a living solely on royalties.
Earlier, Mykola Brovchenko, the author of the song “Panno Kokhannya,” criticized the spread of artificial intelligence in show business. In his opinion, AI is gradually taking away jobs from artists and songwriters, which he called “fraud of the highest order.”
The song “Midday Heat,” which in its day became one of the most famous hits of Ukrainian pop music and was performed by Taisiya Povaliy and Ani Lorak, is set to be given a new lease on life. This time, the song will be performed by Tetyana Goncharova.
