How Much Does It Cost To Make A Hit Song?

I never know what to think when I read something like this NPR piece. Did it really cost Rihanna’s label $1,078,000 to produce “Man Down”? Really??  Were there really forty writers working on her record?? But even if you take half (or a quarter) of the amount of money spent, it’s still a pretty big number for me to get my head around…