catalog acquisition
Private equity’s involvement in the active market for music catalogs continues to be a sore subject at one of America’s finest literary outlets.
“There are vested interests now that don’t want new music to flourish,” music historian Ted Gioia told The Atlantic. “The private-equity funds just want you to listen to the same songs over and over again, because they own them.” A similar argument — or warning — came last year from The New York Times, which bemoaned that “private equity is destroying our music ecosystem” and “gobbling up the rights for old hits and pumping them back into the present.” Gioia made the same argument in 2022 at his Substack publication, The Honest Broker, which The Atlantic later republished.
Not only are these big investors contributing to old music’s dominance, the arguments go, but record companies’ dedication to the past is hurting the music of the present — both in terms of quality and its share of listening on streaming platforms. Record labels “don’t spend any money on research and development to revitalize their business, although every other industry looks to innovation for growth and consumer excitement,” Gioia dubiously wrote in 2022.
Okay, so private equity has a bad reputation — sometimes deservedly so — for its involvement in unbridled capitalism. Think of the infamous leveraged buy-out, in which investors borrow money to acquire an underperforming company. The buyer inevitably makes drastic changes, often including mass layoffs and selling off subsidiaries. The company may be resuscitated. But if the endeavor fails, it may also go bankrupt (see iHeartMedia) or be sold for parts by the creditors (see EMI Music).
But blaming private equity for the current state of music — whatever it might be, but I’ll get to that below — shows a misunderstanding of institutional investments in music assets. Private equity firms aren’t interested in making their purchases popular — they invest in catalogs that never stopped being popular. The rise of streaming platforms made music an attractive asset class because the royalties became more predictable, and that evergreen nature of desirable catalogs fits into institutional investors’ desire for steady, low-risk returns. It’s true that new releases account for a minority of on-demand music streams. In 2024, the share of catalog — releases more than 18 months old — stood at 73.3% of on-demand audio streams, according to Luminate. That was up from 66.4% in 2020.
But, as Billboard noted in 2022, the rise in catalog’s share of streaming can be attributed to “shallow catalog” rather than legitimate oldies. Shallow catalog is relatively young music that has aged out of the current category but, with the help of streaming platforms’ playlists, remains relevant far longer than radio hits of decades past.
According to Luminate’s 2024 recap, nearly half — 49.6% — of U.S. on-demand audio streams were songs released in the 2020s, and about 90% of streams came from songs released this century, the same percentage as when Billboard ran the numbers three years ago.
To believe that old catalog is crowding out new releases, you’d have to think that the major labels’ partnerships with private equity have infected their desire to develop and break new hits. In 2024, Universal Music Group invested in Chord Music Partners, which was co-founded by Dundee Partners and KKR (the latter exited Chord last year). This year, Warner Music Group bought a majority stake in Tempo Music, while founder Providence Equity Partners retains a minority stake.
If these owners of music portfolios are trying to sabotage young artists, they’re doing a lousy job. The old catalogs prized by private equity-backed investors — music from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s — accounted for just 5.7% of streams in 2024. That’s roughly 1 in 19 streams coming from music that originated before the Gulf War.
To say that old classics crowd out new music assumes the music business is a zero-sum game with an equal number of winners and losers. It’s not. An opportunity won by an old song doesn’t necessarily equate to a loss for a younger song. A Post Malone track might work fine for an action scene in a Vietnam War-era film, but the director is going to prefer Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle” almost every time.
Catalog valuation expert Citrin Cooperman recently ran across an example that shows music’s value isn’t finite. Between 2022 and 2024, after an older generation started streaming music during the pandemic, catalogs from the ‘80s outperformed music from other decades. But the surge in ‘80s music “has not crowded out newer music,” says Citrin’s Barry Massarsky. “It’s just added more value to the supply of music on streaming.”
The touring business offers more proof that young artists aren’t being hamstrung by their predecessors. Billboard Boxscore’s top tours of 2024 includes numerous newcomers whose careers took off after private equity fell in love with music. The No. 3 artist on the list, Zach Bryan, released his first major label album in 2022. Bad Bunny, who finished at No. 9, released his breakthrough album, YHLQMDLG, in 2020. Elsewhere in the Top 40 are several relatively young artists, including Luke Combs (No. 11), Karol G (No. 12), Travis Scott (No. 13) and Olivia Rodrigo (No. 14).
The top tours list does feature legacy acts that have — or easily could — sell their catalogs for large sums, such as Coldplay (No. 1), Bruce Springsteen (No. 5), The Rolling Stones (No. 6) and U2 (No. 7). But there’s also Noah Kahan (No. 29), who broke just three years ago, and K-pop group SEVENTEEN (No. 31), who didn’t land on a U.S. album chart until 2022.
But what about claims that the quality of today’s pop music is lacking? Since I’m not the best person to make qualitative statements about the state of pop music, I talked to some Billboard co-workers who follow trends, interview artists, review concerts and generally have their fingers on pop music’s pulse. They gave me sober assessments of current music that contrasts with The Atlantic’s naysaying.
One reason today’s pop music could seem suffocated by the past is because listening has become personalized and fractured. Numerous co-workers point out that radio- and MTV-driven hits have been replaced by countless niches and sub-genres. Dig deep enough and you’ll find innovative and meaningful music that isn’t surfaced by TikTok and Spotify algorithms.
Catalog’s apparent dominance could also be the result of newer ways to measure popularity. “Streaming has made catalog success stories more visible,” says Billboard’s Jason Lipshutz. “We can see how long the classic Christmas singles linger around the top of streaming playlists every holiday season or hear The Neighbourhood’s ‘Sweater Weather’ soundtrack more TikTok clips with every new autumn.”
And as Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger notes, the revival of old songs didn’t start in either the private equity or TikTok-streaming eras. The Everly Brothers’ 1965 hit “Unchained Melody” re-entered the Hot 100 chart due to its inclusion in the 1990 motion picture Ghost. In 1992, the movie Wayne’s World breathed new life into Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The Dirty Dancing soundtrack, filled with songs from the early ‘60s, was a huge success in 1987. People have always relived the past — especially on radio — but now it’s more obvious.
Maybe the quality of today’s music isn’t a problem in the first place. “In the last 18 months or so, I think we’re actually in the healthiest time for pop music of the last decade — definitely of the 2020s,” says Unterberger. Since the pandemic, which Unterberger believes coincided with a drought in future superstars, artists such as Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Kahan and Bryan became hitmakers and arena-fillers without following traditional industry blueprints. “People like that are saying something a little different or saying something a little bit more specific to their times,” he says.
There’s some evidence that pop music was especially potent in 2024. MIDiA Research noted last week that from 2016 to 2023, the top tracks in the U.K. had a decreasing share of total audio streams, with the top 10’s share falling from 2.0% in 2016 to 0.7% in 2023 while the top 100 dropped from 10.3% to 3.7%. But both figures reversed course in 2024: the top 10 inched up to 0.8% and the top 100 rose slightly to 3.8%. What’s behind the increase? MIDiA attributes it to a particularly notable year for superstar releases (Taylor Swift, Beyonce) but also “a new class of superstars” (Carpenter, Roan, Gracie Abrams) and an A&R process that puts developing stars over signing TikTok viral hits.
It’s not a stretch to say today’s pop music isn’t as deep as, say, Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.” The opening line, “They paved paradise, put up a parking lot,” provides more social commentary than the average pop song. But maybe critics like Gioia are expecting too much from stars of the current era. Billboard’s Lyndsey Havens notes that artists seem unwilling or uninterested in commenting on potentially divisive issues and are instead focusing on relationships rather than cultural or political commentary. “Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ is catchy, and it was obviously a huge hit, but it’s not saying anything,” she says.
That’s not private equity’s fault, though. That’s the era we live in. People don’t get their politics from musicians the way they did when the U.S. had only three national TV networks and people received their news from one or two local papers. In the internet age, politics and cultural issues permeate everything. Infusing controversial themes into music is like talking politics during Thanksgiving dinner — somebody is likely to feel alienated. Popular artists don’t want to divide people. At the end of the day, says Havens, pop songs “are doing their job.” Maybe the best lesson here is not to over-romanticize the past. The classic catalog sales that grab headlines don’t necessarily represent the most popular music of their day. “Big Yellow Taxi” — which Mitchell has not sold, by the way — has become a timeless classic, but was less popular than dozens of other tracks while reaching No. 67 on the Hot 100 in 1970 and No. 24 in 1975. “Even at the most innovative moments in pop music history,” says Unterberger, “there was still dreck on the charts.” Additional reporting by Liz Dilts Marshall.
Jeremy Tucker of Raven Music Partners is content to operate in areas of the music business that attract relatively little attention. “I am certainly not going to pretend that I’m the coolest person at cocktail parties,” Tucker says, “and I’ve never signed any famous bands as a former A&R rep.”
As co-founder and managing member of the Nashville-based investment firm, Tucker isn’t focused on acquiring what he calls “trophy” catalogs — the Taylor Swifts, Bruce Springsteen and Queens of the world. Nor is he creating biopic films made for the artists in his catalog. Instead, he’s wringing out value from acquired music catalogs and trying to provide his investors a good, risk-adjusted return.
While interest in music rights from financial buyers has exploded in the last five years, Raven Music Partners launched in 2015 and has built a 15,000-song portfolio of assets including recorded music, music publishing and derivative rights such as producers’ royalties. Tucker and his team focus on the small- to medium-sized part of the market with deal sizes typically ranging from $5 million to $35 million but going up to $100 million.
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The world of music catalog investors can be broken into two camps: strategic buyers and financial buyers. Large music companies like Universal Music Group are called strategic buyers because they have a large infrastructure and creative talent to generate additional value from catalogs. These multi-faceted companies will pursue everything from movies to box sets to artist-branded jukeboxes in order to generate licensing income from their catalogs.
Raven Music Partners is a financial buyer, the kind of investor that treats music royalties as financial instruments similar to stocks, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds and debt. Financial buyers seek out catalogs with predictable cash flows and opportunities to generate a better return. Strategic buyers often pay a premium to control 100% of the rights; financial buyers are more willing to have fractional ownership of a recording or composition.
“What we’re focused on is the boring part of the business,” says Tucker, a former managing partner at Merrill Lynch who specialized in alternative asset classes.
Administration fees lack pizazz but are a good example of how a financial buyer can improve the returns on its investments. After an acquisition, Raven Music Partners will consolidate the rights under its rights management partner, Endurance Music Group, to cut out as many of the middleman fees as possible. Tucker says it’s not uncommon to see administration or distribution fees on acquired catalogs around 15% to 25%, and he’s seen catalogs with fees as high as 40%. Reducing fees isn’t the sexiest of accomplishments, but it increases the catalog’s net cash flows. “Saving 10% in collection fees can be pretty meaningful in terms of value-add,” he says.
There are also creative options for finding return on its catalog investments: re-releasing the masters in high-fidelity audio and Dolby Atmos, anniversary editions of albums or songs, and YouTube lyric videos, for example. Sometimes, says Tucker, there’s value in something as simple as a YouTube fan page or making sure all an artist’s tracks are available on the platform. “There are plenty of bands out there that might have several million repeat followers on Spotify or one of these other DSPs, but maybe they’re not that focused on all of the different media.”
Tucker says the Raven catalog has “a good amount” of rock, country, pop and Christian music, with some hip-hop and Latin. “From a genre standpoint, we are agnostic, and we think that all of these genres have value,” he says. “What’s important is that they have a fan base that cares.” The catalog includes well- known tracks by major artists, such as “Whiskey Glasses” by Morgan Wallen, “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor, and “Say You Won’t Let Go” by James Arthur.
There’s a lot more music for financial buyers like Raven Music Partners to acquire. Tucker puts a rough estimate of $500 billion on the total addressable market for recorded music and publishing assets. The majors probably own close to half of that number, he says, while financial buyers like Raven Music Partners probably own “less than $20 billion.” That leaves much of the market potentially for sale. And with more artists retaining ownership of their rights, Tucker believes there will continue to be investment opportunities.
“We don’t think that it’s gotten to the point where people can’t compete in this market. Some of the more iconic catalogs are, of course, going to have everyone in the space interested in owning them. But for us, because we focus on a small- to medium-sized part of the market where things are a little more fragmented, we just don’t see that much repeat competition from the same people.”
In March, Raven Music Partners formed a joint venture with Aquarian Holdings, an asset manager with nearly $22 billion of assets under management, to invest in music rights. Raven’s ability to unlock value from catalogs through “active management and creative monetization strategies” aligns with Aquarian’s belief that music can be “both culturally significant and financially compelling,” says Rudy Sahay, founder and managing partner of Aquarian Holdings.
“At Aquarian, we’re focused on backing high-quality, enduring assets — and few assets are as enduring as great music,” says Sahay. “We see real value in partnering with Raven Music Partners, whose investment strategy is rooted in both discipline and deep industry connectivity.”
It’s an overcast Saturday afternoon in Miami, and Axel Hedfors seems in his natural habitat while eating sushi on the patio restaurant of a luxe beachside hotel. Hours from now, the producer — known to most as Axwell — will play the main stage at Ultra Music Festival, a show he’s been prepping for in his hotel room since arriving in Florida.
This set will contain classics from Axwell’s solo catalog, along with his work with Swedish House Mafia and the catalog of his namesake label, Axtone. It will also be the first time he’s played Ultra as a solo artist and his first Ultra set since selling the Axtone catalog to Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment in January.
This sale included approximately 200 songs spanning the last 20 years, including hits by Supermode, Steve Angello, Laidback Luke, Don Diablo, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, CamelPhat, Kölsch and big room-classics like Ivan Gough & Feenixpawl’s “In My Mind” and Axwell’s era-defining remix of this same song. Pophouse, which also acquired Swedish House Mafia’s master recordings and publishing catalog in 2022, has acquired both Axtone’s back catalog and the label itself, with Axwell staying on permanently as its founding partner and creative advisor.
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While Axwell and his team decline to disclose the sale price, the congratulatory handshakes he gets from acquaintances at the restaurant indicate the deal was a good one.
Axwell says the cash infusion from Pophouse has enabled him and his team to operate with “more muscle.” He cites the Axtone & Friends pool party that happened a few nights prior down the street in South Beach as something Pophouse helped pay for, allowing for a splashier event than they might have otherwise been able to afford.
“I know before that we would have been a bit more on a budget,” he says, “and now we were less on a budget, which is nice. There’s opportunity [with Pophouse]. If we have ideas and want to do something differently, we can with their help.”
The sale also made sense given Axwell’s longstanding relationship with Per Sundin, the CEO of Pophouse and former president of Universal Music Nordics. “It’s not some anonymous fund,” Axwell says. “This is somebody we know, and that made me feel like this was worth exploring. Per appreciates music, so he’s not just going to destroy it. He’s going to be respectful about it.”
The sale happened at a good time for Axwell, who acknowledges that he and the team were “kind of maybe stuck in the old routine” of signing records. Given that generating hits has become harder for labels of all genres in the streaming and TikTok eras, Axtone had, like so many other labels, become more focused on volume than Axwell might have liked.
“It’s a small company on a budget trying to make every release recoup and work out financially,” he says. “Then we picked up the pace a little bit, and obviously not all records get noticed in today’s climate. A lot of records don’t do anything, because it’s so much harder these days to get them noticed. Then a lot of records become a project you just do for love, rather than earning. You have one record that pays for 20 other records.”
This strategy had evolved significantly since Axwell launched Axtone in 2005 as a way to untether himself from other peoples’ timelines. “I was tired of dealing with other labels,” he says. “Back then you had to send the CD, and they were like, ‘Maybe we can release it in three months.’ I was fed up with not releasing ourselves, so starting the label was an amazing move.”
This move proved especially prescient as Axtone clocked hits that distinguished Axwell’s taste as a curator and skills as a solo artist as he rose in tandem with the Swedish House Mafia rocket. He says many classics from the Axtone catalog, like Supermode’s “Tell Me Why” (which samples Bronski Beat’s “Small Town Boy”), still generate roughly 100,000 streams a day, partially because they’re featured on big Spotify and Apple Music playlists — placement that almost assures they’ll never fall below a certain daily stream rate.
This, no doubt, made the Axtone catalog especially attractive to Pophouse, a company focused on using acquired music in new IP and brand development. The company’s success stories include the long-running ABBA Voyage show in London, which is set to the music of the famous Swedish disco pop quartet, who appear during the performance in hologram form. ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus is also a co-founder of Pophouse, which announced in March that it raised a total of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to invest in catalog acquisitions and create entertainment experiences around those music rights.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t mind them doing an ABBA kind of thing with dance music,” says Axwell. “A show [that features] not only my music would be great, because obviously Pophouse also has Avicii’s music, Swedish House Mafia’s music. It could be something interesting.” (Pophouse acquired a 75% stake in Avicii’s recordings and publishing catalog in 2022.)
Axwell is consulting with Pophouse on any projects Axtone music might be involved in, with the business partners currently planning a box set to commemorate the label’s 20th anniversary this year. The package feels particularly well-timed given that, as Axwell says, “what we’re noticing is that a lot of the old catalog means a lot to the new generation.”
“When you put on ‘Calling’ or ‘Reload’ or my ‘In My Mind’ remix, they just go,” he says, referencing EDM era hits he was involved with and adjacent to. “Some old records don’t continue to work; they kind of fade out. But these still pack a punch. It’s amazing that we managed to do something that lasts.”
This point is proven extremely true a few hours later, when thousands of people stand in front of a fire-spitting Ultra main stage and sing along to classics including Axwell’s edit of Swedish House Mafia’s 2011 hit “Save The World,” the 2017 Axwell / Ingrosso smash “More than You Know” and inevitably and blissfully, the trio’s all time classic “Don’t You Worry Child,” which he follows with their 2022 hit “When Heaven Takes You Home” and 2010’s “One (Your Name).” “That was fun,” he tells the audience while standing on the decks at the end of the set, “and you are beautiful.”
This is Axwell’s first time playing the festival’s biggest stage as a solo act, though he has a long history at this site through his work with Swedish House Mafia. The group’s Ultra mythology includes ending their massive farewell tour here in 2013, then reuniting at the festival five years later. When asked if he feels any kind of way about playing Ultra Miami on his own, Axwell says he feels “like Seb and Steve are always with me, because of the songs.”
Beyond this psychospiritual connection, Axwell spent time in the studio with Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello fairly recently as the trio continues hashing out new Swedish House Mafia music. Last November, Angello told Billboard that the trio scrapped the second album they’d been working on as a follow-up to their 2022 LP Paradise Again.
Axwell confirms that while he’s “super proud” of Paradise Again — the first Swedish House Mafia album after an earlier run of monster singles — the guys aren’t currently working on an LP “because that’s a heavy process. I think it was something we wanted to do to have that in our lives. But now I think we want to go back to the spontaneousness of just doing one song and getting it out [when we want to], not in 12 months when the album is ready.” (He notes that Paradise Again was not included in Pophouse’s acquisition of the Swedish House Mafia masters, given that the 2022 deal was retroactive.) He also says that the trio will eventually “probably come back” to play Ultra Miami again, as the urge to do so “tickles after a while, you know?”
Axwell is also currently tinkering with his own forthcoming solo work. Famously meticulous — he’s been known to spend months on a single high hat sound and calls himself “the slowest person on earth” when it comes to making music — he says a lot of what he’s working on is roughly 80% finished. The final 20% of each song will take some time, he says, although he’s not sure how long. (One new song samples SNAP’s “The Power,” although he’s thus far had a difficult time clearing one of the samples used in the 1990 club anthem. He assures, however, that “I’m not giving up.”) When his music is finally complete, he foresees releasing it as a series of singles.
In the meantime, Axwell’s life will remain, as he tells it, “a s—storm” of logistics that involve his own touring, flying around Europe with his wife for their kids’ competitive car races (one son is 11 and races go carts, while his 16-year-old competes in F4), and prepping for Tomorrowland 2025 dates with Swedish House Mafia and as a solo act. All in, life will continue on the same dance world megastar trajectory as it did before the Axtone sale, but now with a bit more financial padding and space to focus.
“The good thing for me is that I still make music,” he says, “so even though we sold the label, it’s not like this is a goodbye to my whole life.”
Seeker Music has partnered with Blackheart, the independent company founded by Joan Jett and longtime collaborator Kenny Laguna, to acquire what is described as a “substantial share” of Jett’s publishing and recorded music rights, it was announced on Thursday. This collaboration aims to enhance the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts catalog, with plans for releasing unreleased music, reimagining classic albums and launching new campaigns tied to her global tours.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2015) has left quite a mark on rock music with hits like “Bad Reputation,” “Crimson and Clover,” “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” Formed in 1979 following the breakup of The Runaways, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts have achieved eight platinum and gold albums and nine Top 40 singles, including her sneering hit “I Love Rock ‘N Roll,” which topped the Hot 100 for several leather-clad weeks in early 1982.
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Seeker Music, founded in 2020 by M&G Investments and led by Evan Bogart, manages a diverse catalog of over 15,000 copyrights, including works by artists like Run The Jewels, Jon Bellion, Christopher Cross and others.
The partnership between Blackheart and Seeker Music represents a full-circle moment of sorts, connecting two storied rock and roll family legacies. Carianne Brinkman, Laguna’s daughter and the president of Blackheart, and Evan Bogart, son of legendary record executive Neil Bogart, who signed Jett to his Boardwalk Records, are key figures in this collaboration.
“Seeker joining forces with Joan, Kenny, Carianne and Blackheart isn’t just a partnership, it’s a personal, powerful reunion… reigniting a legacy and carrying the torch forward with the same rebellious spirit that ignited it,” said Evan Bogart.
Kenny Laguna, Steven Melrose, Joan Jett, Evan Bogart and Carianne Brinkman.
Brandon Young
Brinkman and Laguna echoed Bogart’s sentiment on the serendipity of the collaboration.
“I can’t imagine a better partnership that is at once completely new but a return to a shared legacy that began with the belief in Joan Jett and the Blackhearts,” said Brinkman.
Laguna added: “It’s too coincidental to be a coincidence, so I am so overwhelmed to see how fate brought Carianne and Evan Bogart at Seeker together 58 years after I had my first hit with Neil Bogart.”
The partnership was negotiated by LaPolt Law, P.C., and Reed Smith, LLP, with support from Seeker’s chief creative officer Steven Melrose and Blackheart’s head of distribution and operations Hubert Górka.
“At Seeker, our celebrated creative and innovative approach to catalog means that our focus is on super-serving Joan’s current fans, whilst growing her fandom year on year – essentially taking Joan’s music into millions of new homes globally,” said Melrose. “For a catalog as expansive and legendary as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’, we’re working on plans to release incredible archival moments, activations around her best-selling global tours, reaching new fans through global and cross-genre campaigns, and creative re-releases of beloved albums utilizing new platforms around the world.”
The companies did not disclose financial aspects of the deal, nor the specifics of the “substantial share” of the acquired catalog.
Pophouse Entertainment, the Swedish catalog company behind the virtual live show ABBA Voyage, said on Monday it raised a total of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to invest in acquiring catalogs and entertainment experiences around those music rights.
The fundraise consists of 1 billion euros raised through a private equity fund, and 200 million euros ($216 million) raised through dedicated co-investment vehicles, where outside investors put money to work alongside the Fund in certain transactions. Roughly 30% of the fund has already been deployed into partnerships related to the acquisition of rights to songs by KISS, Cyndi Lauper, Avicii and Swedish House Mafia.
Founded by by ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus and Conni Jonsson, of the Swedish global investment firm EQT AB, Pophouse has been acquiring the publishing, recording and name, image and likeness rights to iconic pop catalogs and then building entertainment experiences around them, through theatrical and virtual shows, museums and movies.
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Pophouse’s playbook has been at work through productions like The Avicii Experience, a tribute museum to the late dance music producer that opened in his hometown of Stockholm, Sweden, in 2021; Mamma Mia! The Party, an interactive dinner party set in London theater modeled after a taverna from the Greek island of Skopelos; ABBA Voyage, the band’s wildly successful virtual show that uses ABBA-tars to digitally depict the foursome as they looked in 1979, and ABBA The Museum, which opened in 2013.
KISS, which sold its name and likeness rights to Pophouse, has hinted that a virtual performance of its songs could launch in Las Vegas in 2027.
“By investing across publishing, recording, and brand rights, Pophouse has created a uniquely attractive prospect not only for investors but also for artists, empowering them to explore and amplify their legacy to new generations of fans,” Pophouse managing partner Johan Lagerlöf, said in a statement.
Pophouse’s CEO is Per Sundin, the first music industry label executive to partner with Spotify when he at Universal Music Sweden and president of the labe’s Nordic region business. Jonsson recruiting Sundin to helm Pophouse with the intention of taking advantage of the external business opportunities music rights present in the streaming era.
“Facing unprecedented disruption caused by streaming and technology, music intellectual property presents a differentiated, lifetime opportunity for investors,” Jonsson said in a statement. “We are reshaping the entertainment industry by applying an active, value-add approach that unlocks future generations for fandom.”
Create Music Group has acquired the deadmau5 catalog in addition to the catalog of the electronic producer’s longstanding label, mau5trap.
The deal is valued at $55 million and includes the master recordings and publishing of more than 4,000 songs. The partnership also includes the formation of a joint venture to release future recordings from deadmau5 and mau5trap.
“I have worked closely with Jonathan, Alex and Create for nearly two decades now, building my own career as well as the artists on mau5trap,” said Deadmau5 (born Joel Zimmerman) in a statement. “We didn’t need to look far when we were considering a partner to help get it all to the next level. With Create, I feel the music is going to reach more.”
As part of the partnership, Create Music Group will remaster and re-release key catalog pieces, launch exclusive new content and work to introduce “the mau5trap legacy” to new generations of fans, according to a press release. The collaboration will also explore licensing opportunities and brand partnerships and continue to focus on media such as gaming, virtual reality and live-streaming to drive additional revenue streams.
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Founded in 2015, Create Music Group functions as a record label, distribution company and entertainment network. Eric Nguyen, senior vp of global corporate development and M&A at Create Music Group, played a key role in the deal. Paul Hastings LLP served as legal advisors to Create Music Group while LaPolt Law P.C. served as legal advisors to deadmau5 and mau5trap.
“From the earliest days of Create Music Group, [co-founder and COO] Alexandre Williams and I had the privilege of working alongside Joel and his business partner Dean Wilson, witnessing firsthand the evolution of an icon,” added Jonathan Strauss, co-founder/CEO of Create Music Group. “Now, as the stewards of deadmau5 and mau5trap’s legendary catalog, we inherit a legacy that changed music forever. Joel’s influence reaches far beyond sound — his mastery bridges music, gaming, and technology, inspiring a new generation to think bigger. This is more than an acquisition; it’s a responsibility.”
“Over the last 20 years, fueled by Joel’s creative and entrepreneurial ambitions, we have built one of the strongest brand names in electronic music,” adds Wilson, deadmau5’s longtime manager. “To have partnered with Create, who have worked so closely with us over the years on our journey, ensures that the next two decades will be every bit as exciting for Joel and everyone on the mau5trap team as we work to expand our legacy even further.”
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