By admin 
Introduction
There is a dirty secret in the music industry: fame usually comes with poverty. Most legends start out sleeping on couches, eating ramen, and signing predatory contracts just to get their foot in the door. They are desperate, and desperation makes you weak.
Barry Manilow was never weak. And he was certainly never poor.
Long before the world swooned over “Mandy,” Barry Manilow had pulled off one of the greatest financial coups in entertainment history. He didn’t wait for a record label to validate him. He looked at the booming television industry of the 1970s and saw a river of cash flowing directly into the pockets of advertising agencies. He decided to divert that river into his own bank account.
He became a mercenary of melody. He treated songwriting not as a mystical art form, but as high-yield real estate. Every jingle he wrote was an asset. While his peers were playing dive bars for exposure, Barry was sitting in a high-rise, negotiating deals for Dr. Pepper, Band-Aid, and State Farm. He wasn’t just writing songs; he was embedding himself into the infrastructure of American capitalism.
This was the ultimate “Passive Income” strategy before the term even existed. Every time a housewife turned on the TV, Barry got paid. Every time a kid hummed a tune while buying gum, Barry won. He created a relentless, automated cash flow that gave him something no other aspiring pop star had: Power.
When he finally decided to become a solo artist, he didn’t come to the table with his hat in his hand. He came with a war chest. He could afford the best producers, the best suits, and the freedom to walk away if the deal wasn’t right. The critics called him cheesy. They called him a sellout. But Barry didn’t care. He had already won the game. He used the profits from selling toilet bowl cleaner to finance the most romantic ballads of the century. He proved that you don’t have to starve to be an artist—you just have to be smart enough to sell what the people are actually buying.