Tag Archives: Sony

Shorties

Billions

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On the one hand, there are the dollar figures, which in themselves are somewhat difficult to come to any reasonable grips with unless you are someone who spends their time being a quant, professionally or recreationally, and if you are one you look at this number and wish that you’d been calculatedly clever enough to have bought a piece of the action before the number dropped:

$2.181 billion

Which, in itself, doesn’t seem that big a deal until you look at it like this:

$2,181,000,000.00

Which is a significant number of places after the dollar sign.

That, according to MusicBusiness Worldwide, is the Q1 cash generation of Sony for its recorded music and music publishing operations.

An increase of 9.7% over the same period last year.

But now as we move to the other hand, there is something that is truly odd, or at least a little bit unusual.

Here are the musicians who generated the greatest revenue and what got them there:

  • SZA: SOS
  • Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation
  • Harry Styles: Harry’s House
  • P!NK: TRUSTFALL
  • Depeche Mode: Memento Mori
  • Beyoncé: RENAISSANCE
  • Måneskin: RUSH!
  • Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Vol. 17: Fragments-Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997)
  • Michael Jackson: Thriller
  • Harry Styles: Fine Line

The first thing that is atypical is the fact that Dylan is on the list. The week in October 2016 when Dylan received the Nobel Prize for Literature, Money magazine of all things had a story about Dylan’s chart performance. (Let’s face it: you can readily imagine Money writing about the likes of Ben Bernanke or Paul Krugman, Nobel economics laureates, but Literature? Dylan?)

The piece says, in part, “For all of Dylan’s acclaim and notoriety, and also for how phenomenally prolific ‘the voice of a generation’ has been. . .you might assume he is one of the best-selling artists of all time. Hardcore Dylan fans know that just isn’t the case.”

His sales numbers have not been in the least bit great, at least in the context of Big Selling Artists.

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Shorties

On the Potential Commercialization of Bruce Springsteen

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And here you have it:

NEW YORK – December 16, 2021 – Sony Music Group today announced it has acquired Bruce Springsteen’s entire recorded music and songwriting catalogs through separate agreements. The two agreements cover the recorded music and music publishing rights to all of Springsteen’s songs, including “Born to Run,” “Born In The USA” “Dancing in the Dark” “Glory Days,” “The River,” “Hungry Heart,” “Brilliant Disguise” and “I’m On Fire,” among many others. Sony Music Publishing partnered with Eldridge on the songwriting catalog purchase.

And the news release goes on from there, including a quote from Springsteen: “I am one artist who can truly say that when I signed with Columbia Records in 1972, I came to the right place. During the last 50 years, the men and women of Sony Music have treated me with the greatest respect as an artist and as a person. I’m thrilled that my legacy will continue to be cared for by the Company and people I know and trust.”

A few things.

First know that Springsteen is 72 years old, and according to the Social Security Administration, a 72-year-old has a life expectancy of 13.25 years.

It is reported that the purchase is on the order of $550 million. Presumably, that would be liable to the 37% federal tax rate, which would leave him with $346,500,000.

Serious walking around money.

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Articles

The Model 500 and the Physicality of Music

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Western Electric invented the Model 500 telephone. That’s the telephone with a handset cradled on the top of the device and a rotary dial on the front. It is the telephone that is the pre-21st century dictionary image of what a “telephone” would look like.

It brought the Model 500 out in 1950. The classic desk phone.

But Western Electric also invented something that is more pertinent to this space: the method by which music could be recorded with a microphone, amplified, then used to create records. Columbia and Victor licensed the technology from Western Electric and began producing records with it in 1925.

And in time, the recorded disc, which became commonly known as “vinyl” became the dominant musical recording medium.

Then it suffered the fate of the Model 500.

However, unlike the Model 500, the vinyl disc is having a resurgence. Last week Sony Music announced that for the first time since 1989 it is going to begin pressing records again.

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