The Queen music catalog, together with a lot of different rights, is within the technique of being acquired by Sony Music for £1 billion (round $1.27 billion), two sources verify to Selection. The information was first reported by Hits; in accordance with their report, the one income not coated within the deal is for dwell performances, which founding members Brian Could and Roger Taylor, who nonetheless actively tour with singer Adam Lambert, will retain.
One different participant was mentioned to be very shut within the bidding, however stopped quick at $900 million.
Queen’s music catalog is among the many most respected of the rock period — with classics like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “One other One Bites the Mud,” “Radio Ga Ga,” “39,” “Someone to Love” and “You’re My Finest Good friend” in addition to the perennial stadium-shakers “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions,” the songs are globally fashionable and enormously profitable. The success of the 2018 biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” reveals the potential for the group’s title and likeness rights, and the chance of a jukebox musical that might open in London or on Broadway after which tour indefinitely.
The catalog, which has been in play for several years and inching toward Sony for the previous few months, is difficult by the group’s recorded-music rights for the U.S. and Canada, which have been acquired by Disney, for an undisclosed value, sooner or later within the 2000s after an preliminary $10 million licensing deal that was struck in 1991. These rights will stay with Disney in perpetuity, though sure of the bandmembers’ remaining royalties from them will go to Sony as soon as the deal closes. Equally, the group’s distribution deal, which is at the moment with Common, will go to Sony in all territories outdoors the U.S. and Canada when it expires in 2026 or 2027.
Reps for Sony Music, Sony Music Publishing, Disney’s Hollywood Data and the group both declined or didn’t instantly reply to Selection’s requests for remark. Nevertheless, in Sony’s case, that isn’t stunning as the corporate not often feedback on catalog acquisitions and its nine-figure offers for Bruce Springsteen’s publishing and recorded-music rights, and Bob Dylan’s recorded-music rights, have by no means been formally confirmed however have turn into frequent data within the business.
Queen initially shaped in London in 1970 by Could and Taylor — who beforehand performed collectively in a bunch referred to as Smile — joined by Freddie Mercury on vocals and piano and, the next yr, John Deacon on bass. A number of document labels initially handed on the group earlier than a deal was struck with EMI. That label launched Queen’s self-titled first album in 1973, which included the Could-penned hit “Preserve Your self Alive,” and all the studio albums that adopted (aside from the Disney launched within the U.S. and Canada).
Whereas the group scored U.Okay. hits over the following couple of years with the singles “Seven Seas of Rhye” and “Killer Queen,” their international breakthrough got here in 1975 with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a Mercury-penned mini-symphony that has turn into of the longest and most uncommon hit singles of all time.
The group quickly turned one of many largest on this planet, with every member penning a No. 1 single over the next decade: Together with Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” there was Could’s “We Will Rock You” in 1977, Deacon’s “One other One Bites the Mud” in 1980 and Taylor’s “Radio Ga Ga” in 1984. Though they by no means fairly dominated the U.S. on the size of different territories, the group performed stadiums everywhere in the world and for a number of years held the all-time attendance document for a single live performance when their 1985 efficiency on the Rock in Rio Pageant in Brazil drew an estimated 600,000 folks. Tragically, Mercury contracted the AIDS virus and died of issues from the illness in 1991.
Queen’s legacy has not solely endured however grown through the years, with its songs nonetheless receiving intensive airplay on the radio and at sporting occasions — “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” are stadium staples — as Could and Taylor, now of their mid-seventies, proceed to tour below the group’s title.
