Could the dominance of services like Spotify be behind so many artists selling their music catalogues? With the estate of David Bowie the latest.
Following the path of people such as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, the estate of David Bowie has kicked off 2022 by finalising a deal for the late star’s music catalogue. As the BBC reports, Bowie’s ‘entire body of work’ – or at least the publishing rights to it – have been sold to Warner Chappell Music. The deal, worth close to £200m, cashes in on Bowie’s work, at a point where revenues from individual sales have been squeezed.
It’s also at a time where music acts bring revenue from a variety of labyrinthine sources and deals. There’s some individual sales of course, as well as cash from the likes of YouTube et al. And then the deals struck with streaming services such as Spotify.
Still, back in the 80s and 90s, it was said that the way for an artist to really make their money – given the power of the record labels – was to go touring. It’s something that’s inevitably been curtailed over the last two years, and also for estates of late artists, touring clearly isn’t an option. More and more are finding it simpler to simply cash out on the value of a music archive, as the world changes around the industry.
Spotify has been the gamechanger in particular, with the leading music streamer now listing some 70 million tracks. Furthermore, it was revealed last year that the service adds a further 60,000 tracks a day on average, or close to one every second of every day.
Choice for consumers has never been broader, and it raises significant questions – as the aforementioned BBC report notes – as to how a new artist can get noticed in the midst of some much choice at the moment. In much the same way that the majority of books sold by Amazon sit in its top ten, it’s the very highest profile, and already well known work, that tends to bubble up on Spotify.
Curation, more than ever, seems to be the key to the future of new music. Quite how that curation cuts through in the current climate is a question in itself, and until live music is back up and running fully, it’s a tough time for those trying to break in.
Against that backdrop, it’s telling that even established names are taking the money and running, rather than trying to play within a system that seems to favour the tech rather than the people behind it.
Don’t expect the sale of Bowie’s catalogue to be the last deal of its ilk this year either. And who knows? This might just open up options for a more broader use of Bowie’s work too.
