Sheryl Crow has spoken frankly about the financial realities of making music in 2026, admitting she now puts money into her records without any expectation of recouping it.

The 64-year-old Grammy winner has just released her 13th studio album, Pick You Up, and says she is actually out of pocket — though she insists she doesn’t mind, because she no longer makes music for the money.

She told The Sun newspaper: “I’m at a point now where it’s not a money-maker for me. In fact, it’s expensive. I pay people — and I’m never going to see the money back. With this record, I’m losing a s*** ton of money.”

The Soak Up The Sun singer explained that she continues because of the legacy great songwriters leave behind.

She said: “But I think about Dolly (Parton) and I think about Burt Bacharach, people who have written songs that have outlived them.” She also shared a personal motivation for staying creative: “I think about my mom who doesn’t make memories any more. But when I play her Moon River or Walk On By, she can sing every word. She can still have that beautiful connection which can never be underestimated.”

The musician reflected on how the pressure of chart success began to weigh heavily on her by her third album, The Globe Sessions, in 1998.

She said: “How do I compete with the success of the last record. What’s happening at radio? All these things get into your head and you wind up trying to craft songs accordingly. By the fourth record (C’mon, C’mon), I was really struggling.

“I was turning 40 and everything at radio was Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, 18-year-olds.”

Sheryl says a major turning point came when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She said: “A lot of things happened along the way that really saved me.

“One of them was having cancer because it helped me step away and go, ‘OK, there’s a natural progression with success. One day, you age out of the demographic.’

“With having cancer, you also re-evaluate the role of your job and your own self-worth.”

She eventually returned to music with a new mindset: “So I stepped away from music for a while and, when I came back, I felt like I was doing it for me. Would I still love to get played on the radio ad nauseam? Yes. Is that going to happen? Most likely no. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop. Ego-wise, it’s just something you have to set down.”