Crue didn’t become millionaires till GGG
Dixie Chicks had sold 16 million albums plus extensive touring n they each had less than a million in their accounts
Def Leppard’s Pyromania sold 4 million off the bat and after the tour was finished they still owed the record company millions
For quite some time now most of the money made comes from touring
Record companies have always been evil
The industry also pays for a lot of flops.
People make it sound like all these guys are signing and automatically selling 3 million albums a year. The majority of signed musicians sell less than 1 million records each.
Even the supposed greats, end up having albums that struggle to break the 100,000 copies mark.
It's also worth noting that a lot of these bands piss away insane volumes of money recording albums. Def Leopard spent forever making their albums and it obviously rose the costs of these albums dramatically.
There's no reason you can't record a great album in two weeks. Lots of these sob stories are musicians who fail to plan out their albums before they make them.