Songwriter Gets A Million Bucks A Year for ‘Ridiculousness’ Theme Song

The advent of streaming has made it harder than ever for musicians to make the big bucks. But there appears to be at least one way for songwriters to keep cashing them checks — compose the theme song for endlessly repeating basic-cable shows.

That’s the success formula for Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, who’s made way more money from “Uncontrollable Urge,” the theme song for Rob Dyrdek’s Ridiculousness, than he ever earned from the group’s biggest hit, “Whip It.” Despite the song never getting anywhere near the Billboard Hot 100, it airs around the clock on MTV where Ridiculousness can run up to 14 hours a day. Ka-ching!

“I’ve written so many other songs for films and television shows,” Mothersbaugh told Rolling Stone about his compositions for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Rugrats and multiple Wes Anderson films. At an earlier age, “I would’ve been shocked if you told me this is the one that would become this prime source of income.”

According to Mothersbaugh’s wife and manager Anita Greenspan, the song has brought in about a million bucks a year over the past decade, thanks to perpetual reruns airing every 30 minutes. Based on Spotify streams alone, the song would only have earned about $150,000 over its lifetime. (And that comparatively low total is inflated by fans of Ridiculousness.) 

Barenaked Ladies, who wrote the theme song for the endlessly streaming The Big Bang Theory, say the profits have been life-changing. Frontman Ed Robertson is coquettish about how much cash the song has made, but it’s well into the tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions. “It’s not seven digits, and it’s not 10 digits,” he says, “but it’s in between those somewhere.”

This isn’t Devo’s first MTV rodeo — mainly because the group was one of the first bands making music videos. “Devo was in heavy rotation,” “Weird Al” Yankovic remembered in the book I Want My MTV. “Not because MTV loved Devo, but because it was a 24-hour network and they needed product.” 

Sound familiar? Zombie MTV is barely a network at this point, filling the hours with clip shows around which it can air commercials for Mounjaro and Quilted Northern toilet paper. The result is copious amounts of cash for Mouthsbaugh and BMG, Devo’s publishing company. According to company executives, “Uncontrollable Urge” has consistently been BMG’s top-earning music license, making more money than the works of Mick Jagger or George Harrison. 

Call it the Revenge of Devo. “It’s ironic and kind of funny. In the beginning of MTV, you saw a lot of Devo because they were early to make videos, but MTV started questioning the videos Devo was making. They were subversive, (MTV) didn’t like them and wouldn’t play them anymore,” says Greenspan. “Now ‘Uncontrollable Urge’ is easily the most-played song on MTV, so Devo wins.”