The radio station do pay a certina amount per year, they pay that to a publishing company who then pay the artists. they artists are payed on the basis of the popularity of their songs. -I.e those that a re played more get the artist more money.
You may thik 2p doesn' sound a lot but switch on a local radio station, see how many times in one day they will play a small select list of songs. now think how many local radios there are in the country. then include national stations.
Once you've finished trying to comprehend just how many times the current number 1 is played in just one day on radio, switch on the TV and have a quick flick through the 30 odd music channels (25 of which all seem to play the same thing) and add that to the previous number of plays in a day.
now think about how many times in a day just one song is played now tht you've counted it all up. The current number one is given a huge amount of air time in just one day, now think about how much time it gets in it's one or two weeks of fame.
The music industry is big business, simply because of the amount of people who listen to music.
It costs a lot more than £15 to produce a CD, but it's the sheer volume production that allows shops to sell them for that.
(And yes I have seem cribs houses that feature are impressive, but attainable.
If you take my boss (he owns a software company) 6 years ago he was driving around in a beat up fiesta, Now he has a proper home cinema, razzez around in a porsche, lives in the middle of the countryside...
Posessions are easy to get. and they look impressive once you've got them.
the thing that makes music 'stars' so unusual is the speed at which they become famous and get all their money.