Late country star Toby Keith's recording and publishing catalogs continue to bring in a combined $9 million a year in streaming and sales activity, according to Advertising sign calculates.
Keith, who died on Monday (February 5) aged 62, had slowed down his output significantly over the past decade, releasing just two proper studio albums during that time: 2015's35 MPH Cityand 2021Fall into my pocket. But a huge stable of previous smashes over the past 30 years, including multi-platinum albumsPull My Chain, Unleashed andShock to everyonealong with 20 No. 1 hits on Billboard's Hot Country Songs, including “Who's That Man,” “Should've Been a Cowboy” and “How Do You Like Me Now,” have allowed his catalog to remain lucrative to this day. .
Over the past three years, Keith's catalog has averaged nearly 475,000 album units per year in the United States, according to Luminate. This consists of an average of nearly 61,000 albums (CDs, LPs, downloads) per year, as well as 152,000 tracks and approximately 570 million on-demand streams.
While streaming has helped country music begin to gain an international audience, some artists in the genre build fans outside the United States faster than others, and Keith's audience has remained largely domestic. As it stands, Keith's US streaming accounts for roughly 83% of the 686 million streams his music has clocked in globally annually over the past three years. Likewise, his US song downloads make up 91% of his annual average of 167,000 downloads over the past three years.
In total, Advertising sign estimates that Keith's album sales and streaming activity have brought in about $5.3 million on average for each of the past three years for his recorded music catalog, while his releases have brought in about $3.7 million annually. However, since Keith owns nearly 50% of his songs, and since he's probably owned the albums he's released since he started his Show Dog Nashville label in 2005, he's probably getting most of that revenue as a fee that he gets on his house. . Prior to Show Dog, he released music on Universal Music Group labels including Mercury, A&M and Dreamworks Nashville.
Keith was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2021, but didn't publicly reveal the news until the following year. He died less than two months after performing his final concerts: a trio of December shows at Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas.
