Catalog Jam: Springsteen And Bowie Join The Music Great Sales Bonanza

Both are still squarely at the rumour stage, but Bruce Springsteen and the estate of David Bowie could be the latest names to join the great music catalog sales bonanza as prices tear through the roof. 

In recent years, companies like Hipgnosis, BMG, Primary Wave and Downtown have been aggressively buying up large shares in music publishing catalogs (and sometimes buying the catalogs outright) as songwriters of a certain vintage suddenly see their potential pension pots reach an irresistible size that was unimaginable even five years ago. 

The greater the completion between these players and the major publishers – Universal Music Publishing, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music – for catalogs, the higher the sale price goes. 

At the end of 2020, Universal bought up the entire Bob Dylan songbook in a deal so big but so private that no one has managed to pin an exact price on it, although informed estimates say it was over $300 million. Despite not having an exact sale price, it is commonly accepted in the industry as being the biggest deal for a single writer’s publishing rights. 

That blockbuster deal was followed in January with Hipgnosis buying up 50% of Neil Young’s song catalog. Again, no price was made public but Billboard estimated the deal would have valued Young’s entire catalog at between $90 million and $105 million. 

The Boomer catalog sale hat trick happened in March when Paul Simon sold his entire songbook to Sony Music Publishing for a rumored $250 million. 

These were all artists who began their careers and had their first run of hits in the 1960s, but demand for huge catalogs is growing so much and so fast that acts who first found their footing in the following decade are now being targeted. 

Recently the Financial Times reported that the David Bowie estate was close to finalising a deal to sell his publishing for around $200 million. 

This news came mere weeks after the Bowie estate signed a new licensing deal with Warner Music Group to handle all of his recorded catalog (with the exception of his very first album, originally released on Deram, which falls under the Universal Music Group umbrella). 

Bowie had spent a large part of his career quietly but steadily ensuring he had complete control over both his recorded music rights and his music publishing rights. 

Speaking to me for my recent book on the business of music estates, Bill Zysblat – who handled Bowie’s business dealings for many years when the star was alive and who now does the same for the estate – said, “[Bowie] owned almost all of his masters and publishing from day one, so our ability to do things exactly the way we want is unencumbered.”

It would, therefore, seem counterproductive to the interests of the estate to sell off his publishing without having some say (or even a veto) in where and how his publishing rights are used. Until the sale happens (if it happens), no one can say for certain what is happening here. 

Meanwhile, Billboard is reporting that Bruce Springsteen is looking to sell both his recorded and publishing catalogs, suggesting they collectively could go for $350 million. 

It is all a very long way from the catalog sale that Colonel Tom Parker negotiated on behalf of Elvis Presley back in 1973. In that deal, Parker sold the rights to over 1,000 Elvis recordings to RCA, his long-standing record company. This meant the label owned the rights in totality and would no longer have to pay royalties through to Elvis on these hugely successful recordings. 

The sale price for such an important and lucrative catalog? A mere $5.4 million. Of which Parker, as per his management agreement with Elvis, would have taken at least 50% of. 

Many of the artists (or their estates) now selling off their rights are doing so having almost certainly signed terrible deals right at the start of their careers that would have given them a pitiful royalty rate or lost control of their rights for a period of time. 

The cynical might see the rumors of such deals playing out across the financial pages as a bold negotiating tactic to drive the final sale price up. But given these are acts who survived the iniquitous and onerous deals in the 1960s and 1970 that sank many of their contemporaries, it would be the truly cold hearted who would begrudge them (or their heirs) a final and glorious mega payday.