classic rock
Fifty-one years ago, after trying out Zorro, Superman and gorilla costumes, Angus Young took a suggestion from his sister, borrowed her son’s school uniform and wore it onstage. Since then, like his band AC/DC, the lead guitarist’s live persona has been insanely consistent — he once told Billboard that he packs 12 schoolboy costumes for tours.
“We’ve never tried to do something we’re not or looked around to see what the other bands were doing,” Angus said in a 1996 interview. “An audience can tell when you’re phony or you don’t want to be onstage.”
High Voltage, AC/DC’s debut album, set the band’s consistent musical template in 1975 when the record arrived in the group’s home country of Australia. Twelve months later, it reached the United States and, after a few years, established the act as international rock stars.
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Every AC/DC album since, from classics such as 1980’s Back in Black to lesser-known gems like 1995’s Ballbreaker, has exemplified what Billboard declared in a 2014 review of the Rock or Bust album: “Neither trends, age nor the passing of many decades has altered the basic blueprint the band laid out on its 1975 debut, High Voltage.”
“Some people might say that you guys have made the same record over and over 10 times,” an interviewer once suggested to Angus.
“That’s a dirty lie!” he responded. “We’ve made the same record over and over 11 times!”
Of AC/DC’s 19 studio albums, seven have hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200, including two No. 1s, 1981’s For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) and 2008’s Black Ice.
Phillip Rudd, Angus Young, Mark Evans, Malcolm Young, and Bon Scott of AC/DC pose for an Atlantic Records publicity still in front of a graffiti-covered wall circa 1977.
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Ten of the band’s tracks have earned more than 177 million streams, beginning with “Thunderstruck” at 1 billion, according to Luminate. AC/DC’s touring power has been similarly steady, from 1978, when it opened for Aerosmith for multiple sold-out arena dates, to 2010, when its four best-selling concerts ever grossed $11.7 million, $12.8 million, $24.6 million and $27 million, all in Australian stadiums, according to Billboard Boxscore.
Despite the loss of Angus’ brother, founding member and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young, to dementia in 2017, AC/DC rocks on. The band opened its global Power Up tour on April 10 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
CAA books AC/DC, with agency veterans Rob Light, Chris Dalston and Allison McGregor overseeing dates. The tour takes its name from the 2020 Power Up album. (The band’s repertoire is released by Columbia Records in the United States and by Sony worldwide.) Alvin Handwerker of Prager Metis handles management.
On record, AC/DC began its loud and mighty run 50 years ago, with the release of High Voltage. The album was created in “a very economical two weeks,” as Jeff Apter writes in the 2018 biography High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young. The second week focused on Angus’ guitar solos and the controlled night-prowler shrieks of frontman Bon Scott, who died in 1980.
Angus has said of Alberts, the band’s Sydney studio, “I would have liked to have taken the f–king walls with me and kept them. A guitar just came to life in there. It was a little downtrodden, but it had a great vibe, this energy to it.”
The group’s pathway through the music business began with Sydney publisher Ted Albert, who lived in a mansion called Boomerang and sailed with his father on a yacht of the same name. His company, Albert Productions, had signed Australian rock’n’roll band The Easybeats in 1965, putting out classics such as “Friday on My Mind” and “St. Louis” before it broke up four years later. That act’s rhythm guitarist, George Young, turned out to have talented younger brothers, Malcolm and Angus, and the Albert connection led to AC/DC signing with the company in 1974. George and bandmate Harry Vanda, who served as High Voltage’s co-producers, had a knack for drawing the screechy rock rawness out of Angus and Malcolm.
“That was our first real album,” Angus told Guitar Player in 2003, “and it was the one that defined our style.”
The album’s opening track, “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll),” began as a “jam,” Angus recalled in a 1992 interview, published many years later in Classic Rock. “We were just playing away, and my brother George left the tape rolling. After we finished, he was jumping up and down in the studio going, ‘Great, great, this is magic!’ And you’re thinking, ‘What’s he on about?’ And he played it back and there it was. It had that magic atmosphere.”
Although AC/DC became known for its lascivious vocals full of not-so-disguised euphemisms, “It’s a Long Way to the Top” is almost a folk ballad, lamenting endless hard work and “getting old, getting gray, getting ripped off, underpaid.” Country, folk and Americana singers including Lucinda Williams and Cody Jinks have covered it.
The droning track required a droning instrument — bagpipes — as its crucial final touch, the producers’ idea.
“Bagpipes!” exclaimed Steve Leeds, head of album promotion for AC/DC’s longtime U.S. label, Atlantic Records, as reported in Jesse Fink’s 2013 book The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC. “There are no bagpipes on the radio, even today. George and Harry were f–king geniuses. They figured it out. Conventional wisdom says, ‘You guys are crazy.’ ”
George knew how to communicate with musicians, and he recognized that the band’s imperfect quality in the studio could lead to spontaneous excitement on its recordings. At one point, while recording the title track, drummer Phil Rudd thought he had “messed up” during a fill, Angus recalled in 1992. “And George is signaling: ‘Keep going. Keep going.’ And we finish that take and we come in and go, ‘OK, we better try again.’ And he goes, ‘No. That was the take.’ And that was the one we used.” The track wound up closing the album.
From Australia to the United States, where it was released in 1976, High Voltage received almost no attention — other than negative attention. Critics were merciless. Rolling Stone’s infamous pan called the band “Australian gross-out champions,” declared hard rock “has unquestionably hit its all-time low,” referred to its rhythm section as “goose-stepping” and concluded the whole operation added up to “calculated stupidity.” A short feature two years later — written by Ira Kaplan, later frontman of Yo La Tengo — concluded, “There’s nothing new going on musically, but AC/DC attacks the old clichés with overwhelming exuberance.”
Many critics back then blooped over Malcolm’s steel-beam rhythms and Angus’ devotional reinterpretations of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and stripped-down arrangements that distilled The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and The Stooges into riffs that gained power with repetition.
“At that time, Rolling Stone was really into the punk genre and were matching up everything to what was the current flavor of the day,” Angus told Vulture in 2020. “What we did was rock’n’roll and we weren’t going to change anything.”
Malcolm Young, Bon Scott, and Angus Young of AC/DC performing at The Nashville Rooms on April 26, 1976 in London.
Dick Barnatt/Redferns
The vision paid off — eventually. Angus would criticize “really soft” Australian radio for being overobsessed with Air Supply and worse. But in the United States, programmers for a small San Antonio rock station picked up High Voltage and aired it immediately. This led to a show at Austin’s 1,500-capacity Armadillo World Headquarters and, later, airplay in the Bay Area and Boston.
“Up until that point, all we had really done was a lot of touring around Australia, so it was great to get into a studio and really hear how we sounded,” Angus recalled in 2003. “What was impressive about that album was that it sold on word-of-mouth alone.”
The band also played at CBGB, the New York punk fixture where the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie and Talking Heads first became famous. When Atlantic co-founder Ahmet Ertegun saw that gig, he agreed to sign AC/DC, steering the band at first to the label’s Atco imprint. “I’m not sure I would have signed them when I first heard them,” the late Ertegun told Billboard in 1998. “They were very modern; they were pushing the envelope. They were very young-looking then and very ratty-looking. A lot of those bands had disdain for anything that resembled authority.”
Angus responded, sort of. In a 2020 interview with Billboard, he said, “Some people would say, ‘Well, you have a very juvenile approach to what you’re singing.’ But good rock’n’roll is juvenile, in a sense.”
At first, High Voltage was hardly a blockbuster, neither in its native Australia nor the United States. Not even “T.N.T.” charted on the Billboard Hot 100. But it since has become one of the band’s most beloved tracks, with 436 million U.S. streams, as well as 826 million Spotify plays internationally.
AC/DC’s first track to hit the Hot 100 was “Highway to Hell,” in October 1979, at a modest No. 47. And its debut album didn’t crack the Billboard 200 until 1981, long after Highway to Hell broke into the top 20 and Back in Black followed by reaching No. 4. Album-oriented rock, indeed. High Voltage took five years to go gold in the United States in 1981, according to the RIAA, and hit quadruple-platinum in July 2024.
As it turns out, consistency is exactly half of AC/DC’s formula for commercial success. The other half is a combination of songs that sound perfect no matter how many times they’re played on the radio and onstage. Like the song goes, “If you think it’s easy doing one-night stands/Try playing in a rock-roll band.”
James Hetfield of Metallica put it a different way, describing the live Angus experience to Billboard in 2016: “That guy sweats so much every night. I can’t believe his head is still on his body.”
This story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Steven Tyler’s sixth annual Jam for Janie Grammy Awards Viewing Party has been announced, with the star-studded charity event to kick off on Feb. 2 at the Hollywood Palladium.
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Hosted by Grammy-winning comedian Tiffany Haddish, the evening features a powerhouse lineup of performers, including Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Linda Perry, Matt Sorum, and Nuno Bettencourt. A special highlight will be a reunion performance by members of Aerosmith.
The event supports Janie’s Fund, the rocker’s nonprofit aiding young women and girls who have survived abuse, and expands its philanthropic reach this year to benefit the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighter’s Fund. The event will welcome more than 100 firefighters who have been at the forefront of combating the California wildfires, to celebrate the major night in music.
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“What the Los Angeles community has endured with these wildfires is unthinkable. Music has healing powers and we hope to bring a moment of joy and levity to our first-responder firefighters and those most affected by the fires,” Tyler said. “The trauma experienced by the girls we work with is also unthinkable and we will continue to shed light and support the amazing work of Janie’s Fund.”
The night will include a red carpet, cocktail reception, dinner, live auction, and an exclusive after-party benefitting Janie’s Fund, as well as support both the Widows, Orphans and Disabled Firefighters Fund and Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation by raising critical funds to help meet the immediate needs for lifesaving equipment and resources.
Event Chairs include Ace & Matt Sorum, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Andrea Bocelli, Ashlee Simpson & Evan Ross, Bill Maher, Bo Derek, Chris & Rich Robinson, Dolly Parton, Flavor Flav, Jane Lynch, Kayte & Kelsey Grammer, Lionel Richie, Melissa Joan Hart, Miley Cyrus, Nuno Bettencourt, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, Sammy Hagar, Scarlett Johansson, and Shep Gordon.
Named after Aerosmith’s 1989 hit “Janie’s Got a Gun,” which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the band their first Grammy for best rock performance, Janie’s Fund has been a lifeline for vulnerable girls. With its expanded mission this year, the event promises to raise vital funds for lifesaving equipment and resources.
Tickets and sponsorship details are available at JaniesFund.org.
AC/DC will hit the road next spring for the veteran hard rock band’s first U.S. tour in nine years. The 2025 Power Up North American tour is slated to hit 13 stadiums across the nation from April 10 through May 28.
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The outing is slated to kick off on April 10 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, MN, before moving on to Arlington, TX, Pasadena (CA), Vancouver, Las Vegas, Detroit, Foxborough (MA), Pittsburgh, Landover (MD), Tampa, Nashville and Chicago before winding down on May 28 at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland.
Tickets for the tour will go on sale on Friday (Dec. 6) here.
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The North American swing in support of the band’s 2020 Power Up album is an extension of the 2024 European leg of the tour, which also filled stadiums. The band’s current lineup includes longtime singer Brian Johnson, founding member and lead guitarist Angus Young, as well as rhythm guitarist Stevie Young (who officially joined the band in 2014, replacing his uncle Malcolm Young, who retired due to dementia), drummer Matt Laug (who joined in 2023, replacing longtime drummer Phil Rudd) and former Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, who also came on board this year replacing longtime bassist Cliff Williams.
Check out the dates for AC/DC’s 2025 North American spring tour below:
April 10 — Minneapolis, MN @ US Bank Stadium
April 14 — Arlington, TX @ AT&T Stadium
April 18 — Pasadena, CA @ Rose Bowl
April 22 — Vancouver, BC @ BC Place
April 26 — Las Vegas, NV @ Allegiant Stadium
April 30 — Detroit, MI @ Ford Field
May 4 — Foxborough, MA @ Gillette Stadium
May 8 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Acrisure Stadium
May 12 — Landover, MD @ Northwest Stadium
May 16 — Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium
May 20 — Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium
May 24 — Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field
May 28 — Cleveland, OH @ Huntington Bank Field
They may not have had quite as bountiful of a vault as for the All Things Must Pass anniversary edition, but the George Harrison estate and Dark Horse Records had no shortage of, well, material in putting together the new 50th anniversary edition of George Harrison’s fourth solo (and second post-Beatles) album, Living in a Material World.
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The expanded two-disc set, which was curated by Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani, is part of an expanded deal with BMG that Dark Horse signed last year. Out Friday (Nov. 15) with a new mix by Grammy Award-winning engineer Paul Hicks; in addition to the 11 original tracks that came out on May 30, 1973, a second disc (on LP and CD) includes an outtake of each song as well as two rarities, “Miss O’Dell” and, on CD only, the unreleased “Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)” (which Harrison contributed to Ringo Starr’s 1973 album, Ringo, and recorded with Starr and members of The Band). The package also includes a 60-page hardcover book featuring previously unseen images and memorabilia from the period.
“We’re going in chronological order,” Dhani Harrison, Dark Horse’s CEO, tells Billboard about the estate and label’s approach to reissuing his father’s catalog. “There was obviously (The Concert For) Bangladesh in-between but that’s a full concert movie, so that doesn’t affect the order as we release his solo studio albums.”
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Harrison adds that his father “really loved this album because of what it stood for. It was designed to help people living in the material world — it had a purpose. It always meant a lot to him. He named his charity after it, so it was also the beginning of the foundation, which still goes on today.” Royalties from the 50th anniversary edition will go to the Material World Foundation.
Living in the Material World was Harrison’s second consecutive No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified gold, spawning the Billboard Hot 100-topping single “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth).” It was also the first album Harrison recorded at the studio in his Friar Park estate in Henley-on-Thames, England, which he’d purchased in January 1970. Unlike All Things Must Pass’ legion of contributors, Living in a Material World was made with a small core band that included keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Gary Wright, bassist Klaus Voormann, Starr and Jim Keltner on drums and Jim Horn on woodwinds.
“It was very cozy,” recalls Voormann, who was living in a cottage at Friar Park at the time. “It was a very personal atmosphere, very comfortable. It was a beautiful house, and the (studio) room itself was one end and very secluded and not really big, so it was very intimate. And George was in a very calm state. He was very happy with his meditation and his friends from India, so he was in a certain mood which made it into this wonderful atmosphere.”
Dhani Harrison, meanwhile, views the album as the start of a new era for his father, the first of “a long line of Friar Park albums that stretch all the way to the end of his career,” including albums by Ravi Shankar and the all-star Traveling Wilburys, whose debut album was mixed there. Having worked through a backlog of Beatles-era songs for All Things Must Pass, Living in the Material World offered a spate of brand-new songs, many reflecting Harrison’s spiritual focus at the time.
“He also produced this album all by himself,” Dhani notes. “It’s the first time we see him in his element in his home studio, producing and writing…. If you listen to the album that’s a real band on there, which is what makes it different from All Things Must Pass. They were really ripping as a band on those sessions. It was also coming off the back of Bangladesh, so there was a lot of synergy with the musicians from that on this album.”
Hicks, who’s also worked on reissue projects by the Beatles and John Lennon, says the streamlined process benefited the remixing as well. “I think in general my mission is to just start fresh and have a new sort of sonic take on the album,” he explains. “Timeless is the term I always use; we’re not trying to make things sound modern…although I think people maybe listen differently now — on their phones and headphones — so to me there’s a different sort of detail in what you’ve got to do.
“It’s obviously a lot simpler production than All Things Must Pass. Apart from a few songs, like the title track, it’s almost sort of like an acoustic album, but with some extra instruments. It doesn’t strike me as a rock album. So I kind of went into it emotionally mixing it and really trying to bring out the lyrics, because (Harrison) is saying some really fascinating things. I thought we should have a bit more focus on George on this one, and the Harrisons agreed.”
The vaults held plenty of options. The additional material ranges from a third take of “The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)” to some takes in the 20s and even the 93rd take of “Who Can See It.” “We did that — but, you see, I don’t remember it,” Voormann says, with a laugh, about the process. “We were just playing the songs and going through them. We weren’t keeping count…George was very precise. John was more direct; if there were mistakes on the take it didn’t matter, the feeling had to be right and that was good enough for him. But with George…all the details had to be right.”
Dhani adds that, “the fact there was a take 93 shows how deep we went. Ultimately, we only put stuff in that makes the album stronger…what we’re looking for is the really worthy stuff, and if you have to go through 90 takes to find that one take, that’s what we do. It wasn’t just a ‘remaster’; we’ve gone back to every single master track. It’s really an ‘ultra remaster,’ as we went back to the original masters and remixed them without stepping on the original, which is what we did with All Things Must Pass. We did a deep, deep dive, and that’s what the fans deserve.”
George Harrison Box Set
Courtesy Photo
Despite the substantial number of takes, however, Hicks notes that “they’re all basically the same. George taught (the band) the songs, and then they did it. All Things Must Pass was kind of a treasure trove — that one’s loads slower, that one’s faster…. On this (album) they definitely seemed to have a plan. Maybe the title track outtake (take 31), that’s possibly one of the most different because it’s a much more square bit, not as swung as the (album version), so that’s quite interesting. But they didn’t really experiment with styles… they were just playing the songs until (Harrison) felt they’d done it enough.”
The Harrisons are already working on what’s next. The estate began working concurrently on The Concert for Bangladesh, with Peter Jackson helping to restore footage of the film “so it’s of the same quality as Get Back,” according to Dhani. “It’s just incredible when you see the show. It took it into another level, which is why you haven’t seen it yet as we’ve been taking our time with it. But when you de-grain it and up-res it, it becomes a whole new thing. With the level of musicians who are in that show, it deserves that attention.” Dark Horse is looking at doing something similar with Harrison’s 1974 tour as well.
“If there’s any way of doing Dark Horse (the album) and the Dark Horse ’74 tour in the same way as well, that’s my ultimate goal,” Dhani says. “The band is incredible, and the shows set the template for bringing classical Indian music and rock n’ roll together.
“All these releases require so much work. It took us five years to do the All Things Must Pass 50th anniversary. We started doing all this in 2001 — we’ve been at it for nearly 25 years and we’re only up to the second album.”
The tumultuous relationship between Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham has fueled rock ‘n’ roll legend for nearly half a century.
From their early days as a romantic couple to their bitter breakup and subsequent years of creative tension, the duo’s infamous “beef” has fascinated fans and inspired some of the band’s most iconic music.
Now, drummer Mick Fleetwood has expressed his hope for a long-awaited reconciliation between the estranged bandmates in a recent interview with MOJO published Jul. 9.
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“It’s no secret, it’s no tittle-tattle that there is a brick wall there emotionally,” Fleetwood shared. “Stevie’s able to speak clearly about how she feels and doesn’t feel, as does Lindsey. But I’ll say, personally, I would love to see a healing between them – and that doesn’t have to take the shape of a tour, necessarily.”
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Nicks and Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac on New Year’s Eve 1974, after performing as a duo under the name Buckingham Nicks.
Their romantic relationship ended in 1976, just before the band recorded their iconic album Rumours, yet they continued to perform together professionally for many years. They were pivotal in creating the band’s signature sound and were mainstays until 1987, when Buckingham left the group, followed by Nicks in 1990.
Both returned in 1997, only for Buckingham to be fired in 2018.
Following Buckingham’s departure in 2018, he claimed it was “all Stevie’s doing,” alleging that she gave the band an ultimatum that led to his firing.
Nicks refuted his claims: “I did not demand he be fired. Frankly, I fired myself. I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being. I was done. If the band went on without me, so be it.”
Meanwhile, Fleetwood Mac’s future has been uncertain following the death of longtime member Christine McVie in November 2022.
Both Fleetwood and Nicks have indicated that the band is unlikely to reunite without her. Nicks told MOJO last month, “Without Christine, no can do. There is no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together in any way. Without her, it just couldn’t work.”
“Even if I thought I could work with Lindsey again, he’s had some health problems,” says Nick, referring to Buckingham’s heart surgery in 2019.
“It’s not for me to say, but I’m not sure if Lindsey could do the kind of touring that Fleetwood Mac does, where you go out for a year and half. It’s so demanding.”
Fleetwood echoed that McVie’s death signalled the end of a Fleetwood Mac revival, saying in February last year that he had drawn “a line in the sand” regarding playing with the band again but would be happy if the members continued making music in other projects.
Reflecting on the past year, he said, “It’s been a strange time for me. Losing sweet Christine was catastrophic. And then, in my world, sort of losing the band too. And I [split] with my partner as well. I just found myself sort of licking my wounds.”
Despite the uncertainties, Buckingham expressed in February that he’d rejoin the band “in a heartbeat” if given the opportunity.
Meanwhile, Nicks has been busy with her solo career and is set to headline BST Hyde Park in London on July 12, supported by artists like Baby Queen and Nina Nesbitt. This comes after the music legend was forced to postpone a slew of recent shows “due to illness“.
Queen is finally getting close to selling its catalog, according to sources — and may even already be in an exclusive period with an undisclosed suitor.
The music assets include recorded music, publishing and ancillary income streams, according to sources, who suggest Queen is seeking a $1.2 billion payday. Those ancillary revenue streams include revenue from the 2018 smash film Bohemian Rhapsody, merchandise and other licensing opportunities. The deal may also include royalties from the North America master recordings catalog, which Queen sold to the Disney-owned Hollywood Records at some unknown point since the label began licensing the band’s recordings in the early 1990s.
In the past, Hollywood has maintained that when it acquired Queen’s master recordings it was for life of copyright, which could mean the label has the band’s later albums in the U.S. for a total of 35 years, given that U.S. copyright law allows creators to terminate and reclaim their copyright after that term.
There have been numerous media reports about Queen seeking a record $1 billion catalog sale since the band started shopping it in May 2023 — the first of which by Music Business Worldwide. While many of those stories suggested that Queen was in discussions with Universal Music Group and that Disney, Hollywood’s owner, was also approached, sources say that the band’s music assets were shopped to only a few select suitors because the band members wanted to be comfortable in entrusting stewardship of its catalog. Moreover, because of the price the band is seeking, sources suggest that some of the potential strategic buyers may have partnered with financial institutions to make an offer.
Sources say that each band member — Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon and the estate of the late Freddie Mercury — has his own lawyer involved to collectively shop the deal. Billboard reached out to lawyers who are or were officers for the band’s company, Queen Productions Ltd., as well as Hollywood Records and UMG, all of whom either declined a request for comment or didn’t respond.
The Queen catalog includes iconic hit songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Killer Queen,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Radio Ga Ga,” “Somebody to Love,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “You’re My Best Friend, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.” Since 1991, the Queen catalog has generated nearly 38 million album consumption units in the U.S.; and has nearly 41.7 billion in global on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
Since late 2018, Queen’s sales and streaming activity has been turbocharged by the Bohemian Rhapsody theatrical film that came out that year.
For perspective, from 1991 to the end of 2017, Queen’s U.S. sales and streaming activity totaled 25.9 million album consumption units, according to Luminate. And in the three years leading up to the Bohemian Rhapsody film’s release, Queen’s annual catalog album consumption averaged about 752,000 units. But then in 2018, with the film’s release that November, the band’s album consumption unit count jumped to 2.074 million. In 2019, its catalog activity exploded to nearly 3.58 million units.
At the end of 2023, Queen’s U.S. album consumption sales activity to date since 1991 totals nearly 37.7 million units, an increase of 45.5% from the 25.9 million in 2017.
According to financial reports from Queen’s shared company, Queen Productions Limited, filed with the United Kingdom’s Companies House agency, the band reported a net profit of 18 million pounds on nearly 41 million pounds in revenue for the year ended Sept. 30, 2022. The company also reported 32.4 million pounds in gross profit and 22.16 million pounds after expenses but before taxes. For the prior fiscal year, the company reported 13.6 million pounds in net profit on revenues of 39.2 million pounds.
Music assets usually trade based on financial models built around an average of the catalog’s performance for the most recent three years. They trade on what’s known as net label share — gross profit after cost of goods but before marketing costs. Or, in the case of publishing, net publishers share — gross profit after paying out royalties.
However, the Bohemian Rhapsody film produced incredible financial rewards, throwing off the kinds of averages commonly used to price these deals. When investors look at music catalogs, they try to eliminate what they consider one-time activity bonanzas like a new boxset coming out; or in the case of Queen, setting aside the sales and streaming activity in the immediate aftermath of the film.
By the time the Queen music assets came to market in May 2023, interested suitors were likely scrutinizing the catalog’s activity from 2020 to 2022, when the band’s music averaged nearly 1.53 million album consumption units a year. That’s more than double the 752,000 album consumption units that the band averaged in the three years before to the film’s release. After discounting 2018 and 2019 as an anomaly, Queen’s camp, however, is likely arguing that the movie has brought Queen to a bigger audience and that success will be sustained. But suitors considering the Queen acquisition nevertheless might be worried that some of that activity might still be from the film’s afterglow. And if so, how much decay might still occur before sales and streaming activity level off and become predictable?
Overall, in 2019 — the year the band’s financials were most impacted by the film — Queen reported 72.8 million pounds in revenue and, after cost of sales, a gross profit of 58.8 million pounds. In the three years prior to the movie being released, from 2016 through 2018, the Queen catalog averaged 17.6 million pounds — due to an atypically low 2016 when revenue was only 12.34 million pounds — while gross profit averaged 13.5 million pounds. From 2020 through 2022, the catalog averaged revenues of 40.7 million pounds, and gross profits of 22.2 million pounds.
It’s likely that the Queen financials don’t include all Queen revenue, as well. For example, while it may include music publishing royalties paid to the band’s publishing company, it likely doesn’t include the individual payouts from global collection societies that are paid directly to writers. With that under consideration, Billboard estimates Queen’s publishing revenue likely totals about $17 million annually, based on the 2020–2022 three years average.
For masters, Billboard estimates — also based on a three-year average — annual global revenue of about $48 million for the Queen catalog. Of that, about $16 million is from North America — where sources say the band receives artist royalties. For the remaining $32 million outside North America, Queen owns its catalog. Figuring Queen takes a quarter of the revenue from North America, and three-quarters elsewhere, the band would earn roughly $28 million annually off recorded music.
In all, that’s about $45 million that Queen earns from recorded and publishing annually, based on estimates.
Sources say Queen’s annual royalties in the deal total about $50 million, which likely also includes royalties from Bohemian Rhapsody DVD and Blu-Ray sales, band merchandise and Queen theatrical productions in the U.K.
Valuing Queen’s publishing catalog at a 25-times multiple would come to about $420 million. The masters and other income streams at a 20 times multiple would bring that valuation to $660 million. And then, adding in other tertiary income streams and then likeness and image rights could get it to $1 billion valuation.
Queen is seeking more than that, though. And the steep $1.2 billion price tag sources suggest could be one of the reasons why the catalog has been in play for so long. Now, though, it seems a deal may finally be close.
LONDON — The Rolling Stones unveiled details of their first studio album of original material in 18 years — and the band’s first since the death of drummer Charlie Watts – at a packed-out press conference in London on Wednesday (Sept. 6).
Hackney Diamonds, the group’s 24th studio album, will be released Oct. 20, Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards announced at an invite-only launch event at London’s historic Hackney Empire theatre.
The event, which was hosted by Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon and streamed globally on YouTube, culminated in the premiere of the band’s new single “Angry” — a classic Stones-style rock tune built around a funky guitar riff, catchy chorus and Jagger’s instantly recognizable yelped vocals — and its accompanying video starring Emmy-nominated actress Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria), who was at the launch.
Hackney Diamonds is the Stones’ first studio album of new songs since 2005’s A Bigger Bang.
Talking about the 12-track record, which features two songs the band recorded with drummer Charlie Watts in 2019, Richards paid tribute to his former band mate, who died in 2021 aged 80.
“Ever since Charlie’s gone, it’s been different. He’s number four. Of course, he’s missed,” said Richards.
The guitarist said that Watts had personally recommended drummer Steve Jordan, who toured with the band last year and plays on 10 tracks on Hackney Diamonds, to replace him if ever “anything should happen to him.”
“It would have been a lot harder without Charlie’s blessing,” Richards, wearing a trademark trilby hat and dark glasses, told Fallon.
Referring to the almost two-decade-long gap between the new album and A Bigger Bang, Jagger pointed out that the band has “been on the road most of the time,” but joked, “maybe we were a bit too lazy.”
The 80-year-old singer said he got together with Richards and Wood just before Christmas last year and gave themselves a deadline of Valentine’s Day to make “a go of” a new record.
23 tracks were recorded in total, said Jagger, before the group settled on the final 12 songs. Track titles revealed by Fallon included “Mess It Up,” “Whole Wide World,” “Live By The Sword and “Depending On You,” which Jagger said was about “relying on someone and they let you down.”
Another song entitled “Sweet Sound Of Heaven” features Lady Gaga, one of a number of superstar musicians rumoured to feature on the LP, the group confirmed.
The Rolling Stones’ original bassist Bill Wyman also plays on one track, Jagger confirmed, while Richards sings “Tell Me Straight,” although he confessed “I have no idea what it’s about.” Hackney Diamonds was produced by Andrew Watt, who Jagger said, “kicked us up the arse.”
The singer — who was in jovial mood, joking with his bandmates and Fallon throughout the press conference and at one point joined the host in an impromptu version of 1965’s “Off The Hook” — said the mood of the album was “angry” and “eclectic” and spanned a range of genres, including love songs and ballads.
Richards said alternative titles they considered for the album included “Hit And Run” and “Smash And Grab” before the trio agreed upon Hackney Diamonds – a reference to the London district of Hackney, where the launch took place. The band choose the title as they are “a London band,” said Richards.
“I don’t want to be big-headed, but we wouldn’t have put this album out if we hadn’t really liked it,” Jagger told the audience, made up of media and journalists from around the world.
“We said we had to make a record we really love ourselves,” said the vocalist. “We are quite pleased with it. We are not big-headed about it, but we hope you all like it.”
Richards said that the album contained a collection of “damn funky riffs.”
According to a press release from the Rolling Stones’ label Universal Music Group/Geffen, Hackney Diamonds was recorded in various locations around the world, including Los Angeles’ Henson Recording Studios, London’s Metropolis Studios and New York’s Electric Lady Studios and The Hit Factory/Germano Studios.
“Can you see it?”
Those were probably the last words Paul McCartney expected to hear after stepping into the cockpit of a plane carrying him and Wings bandmates Linda McCartney and Denny Laine to Lagos, Nigeria, in August 1973. Hoping to watch the landing from the front of the aircraft, McCartney – one of the most famous and successful musicians in the world — instead found himself helplessly standing by as the pilots went back and forth trying to locate the landing strip under the mist-covered jungle canopy. “Oh my God, are we even going to land?” McCartney later recalled of the panicky incident that marked the start of the sessions for Band on the Run, his 1973 masterpiece that turns 50 this December.
To record his fifth post-Beatles album and third LP with new band Wings, McCartney decided to relocate to Lagos for a change of scenery and musical inspiration. It was exactly the sort of bold gambit that his three former Beatle bandmates, just before the split, probably would have shot down without blinking. So, goodbye London, Beatles litigation and paparazzi; hello Africa, the warm sun, open air and Lagos’ music culture.
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In hindsight, perhaps what McCartney really needed was chaos and disorder, ingredients that often inspired his best work. Ready or not, that’s what Lagos and the Band on the Run sessions were about to give him, his wife and Laine — one dramatic complication after another, threatening to undermine an endeavor that was more shambolic and seat-of-the-pants than the average McCartney fan realized back in the ‘70s.
“In order to move forward, you have to try new things,” Laine tells Billboard in a phone interview from his home in Florida while describing how he thinks about the landmark album now. “It’s like being a gambler. You gamble with things because it’s more exciting. It’s more appealing. It’s not the normal, everyday 9-to-5 job, it’s more of a ‘Let’s try something new.’”
Even if Band on the Run was more of a gamble than McCartney anticipated – the plane landed safely, but it was far from his last brush with danger on the trip – he certainly needed a chance of pace. At that point, McCartney himself was very much a man on the run — from the shadow of The Beatles, and from the critics who’d knocked (if not savaged) his previous four efforts: McCartney, Ram, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway. (Many critics now celebrate Ram as a masterpiece, with Rolling Stone naming it one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2020.) Sure, he could move plenty of units in stores, but reviewers circa 1973 had grown accustomed to panning the writer of “Eleanor Rigby” and “Hey Jude” as lightweight and inconsequential.
The new lyrical ideas he’d started sketching spoke of imprisonment and the allure of freedom. “Stuck inside these four walls”; “If I ever get out of here”; “Climb on the back, and we’ll go for a ride in the sky”; and “I’ll come flying to your door.”
While he rhapsodized about freedom, though, life had other ideas. Following two defections from Wings just before they were all due to fly out to Nigeria, shrinking McCartney’s existing quintet down to a trio, Laine was now the only remaining member of the group with a surname other than McCartney. The English rocker remembers the finished album that emerged from the Lagos sessions as largely a grand adventure.
“I know why it was appreciated so much,” Laine says. “Because it had a certain feel. It was basically just me and Paul doing the backing tracks. And it was more of a relaxed approach to doing an album than if you’re going in with a band and there are all these parts. We were thrown into that as a last resort because two of the guys didn’t come to Lagos.”
When asked how he responded to the idea of a remote getaway for the project back in the day, Laine adds: “When (McCartney) said, ‘Let’s do it in Africa,’ I understood completely. We wanted to go somewhere where it was different. We’d be influenced by the music and the atmosphere, and it was far away from anything else we’d ever done. Because it was an EMI studio, I think they just put a pin in the map and said, ‘How about Africa?’ I just went: ‘Great, let’s do it.’”
Laine already knew McCartney prior to getting the call to join his post-Beatles band. “Because of his fame, of course, I was in the shadows more, but I wasn’t bothered by that at the time. I was traveling the world and learning a lot and having a good time in many ways. So from that point of view, it was easy for me. I’m very adaptable. When I’m around people who are not adaptable, I get a little bit nervous.”
He and the rest of the entourage couldn’t have foreseen it at the time, but adaptability was the personality trait above all others that would be required of Band on the Run players — who, in spite of everything, ended up producing an album that topped the Billboard 200, produced three Billboard Hot 100 top 10s (including the chart-topping title track) and attained triple-platinum certification.
McCartney would, in interviews over the years, laugh off the adversity that accompanied these sessions. But Band on the Run might represent the most danger he’s ever put himself in for the sake of his career. During his time in Lagos, for example, he and Linda were mugged at knifepoint while walking the streets, oblivious to the warnings they’d been given about wandering at night. Robbed of their belongings — including studio demo tapes – Wings would have to start all over again, redoing from memory what had already been recorded.
As McCartney engineer Geoff Emerick recounts in his memoir, meanwhile, a visa was required for entry into Nigeria — and a resulting visit to the authorities to obtain one revealed the prerequisite of getting yellow fever, typhoid and cholera shots (and that malaria tablets would need to be taken throughout the stay). The McCartneys and Laine were venturing into an area where maladies like typhoid and cholera were an endemic risk. Furthermore, Nigeria was under the control of a military general at the time, and public executions were not an uncommon occurrence in Lagos.
The EMI studio where McCartney and Laine worked overlooked a lagoon at 7 Wharf Road in the city — and it was here that one of the most frightening episodes of all unfolded. At one point, McCartney began struggling to catch his breath, stepped outside and then upon coming back in from the stifling heat, fainted and collapsed. A stunned and shouting Linda feared he was having a heart attack. (It was, rather, a smoking-related bronchial spasm.)
Once he’d returned home, McCartney deadpanned about it all at London’s Gatwick airport: “It was a great experience, and we had no problems whatsoever.”
From the listener’s point of view, none of that adversity is apparent – the record is peak McCartney songcraft. The Abbey Road-like medley of the title track gives way to the full-throated escapism of the rollicking “Jet,” which in turn prefaces the gently melodic “Bluebird,” with its chorus of tight, soaring harmonies. No fewer than three of the record’s tracks — “Band on the Run,” “Jet” and “Let Me Roll It” — would go on to become decades long staples of McCartney’s setlists.
“Me and Paul, we had the same influences musically and had known each other since the ’60s,” Laine says. “It was just easy. It was easy to get a good groove on each other’s songs, and I think that’s what made the album popular.
“We did it almost as though it was a home recording. A lot of the equipment that was out there really wasn’t workable. It was all hand-me-downs from EMI, and they really didn’t know what they were doing.” Fortunately, McCartney had brought along his own engineer, “And we kept it basic. No frills.”
“Normally,” Laine continues, “me and him would get together somewhere and write together — before we go in the studio. He’d come up with an idea, or I would, and then it would be a co-written thing. Or he would have written the songs and I would have known them before we go into the studio because we’d rehearsed them together. That’s what I really enjoyed about [Band on the Run]: the fact we were thrown in the deep end, and we had to swim, and we came up with that feel that we always had anyway.”
The critical and commercial acclaim that followed Band on the Run (it was nominated for the prestigious album of the year Grammy) prefaced the success of Venus and Mars two years later, which was the Wings album McCartney used to reestablish himself as a major touring artist. And there were still other benefits of his African sojourn, including a bit of unstinting praise from the most improbable voice of all: John Lennon. In 1975, Lennon told Rolling Stone that Band on the Run was “a great album,” adding, “It’s good Paul music.”
While Bob Dylan has painted a handful of album covers and released several books of drawings over the years, the singer-songwriter’s fervent fans have had few chances to see original art pieces from his hand up close and personal.
But lo and behold! Fans in the New York City area will soon have an opportunity for a close encounter with some odds and ends drawings done by Dylan circa the 1967 recording sessions for the legendary The Basement Tapes album (released in 1975). And if you have a spare $60,000, you could be the one bringing it all back home.
Somewhat improbably, these captioned drawings – done on the blank side of a brown paper bag when Dylan was recording at Big Pink in Saugerties, N.Y. – will be on hand at the 63rd annual ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which returns to the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan from April 27-30.
The drawings, like the artist himself, are unusual. One depicts a man with a guitar waving and shouting a variation on a Basement Tapes lyric — “Long Distance Operator, This call is Not For Fun!”; another shows what the seller describes as “robot guitar machines”; and yet another features a visage not unlike the one that Dylan painted for the cover of 1970’s Self Portrait.
The story of how the drawings ended up at a book fair is just as unusual as the artwork – though significantly less mysterious. In 2022, Gabe Boyers, a dealer in antiquarian music manuscripts, art and books, was contacted by a man whose late sister maintained a friendship with Levon Helm of The Band during the heady Basement Tapes days. “[She was] in the middle of things with The Band, Eric Clapton and Dylan,” explains Boyers. After inspecting the materials, Boyers – whose gallery Schubertiade Music & Arts (at “B” Dry Goods) is selling the drawings – says he was struck by the way these pieces provided “an incredible impression of this moment and time.” Some of the materials he viewed included “calendars where she meticulously records which drugs they were taking on which day.”
The drawings, on the other hand, are a bit less meticulous. “Like Dylan and his lyrics – they’re difficult to pin down,” he says.
One thing that wasn’t difficult to establish, however, was the validity of the connection to Dylan. The previously seller’s late sister, who died tragically young, had an established history with The Band and Dylan during the period.
“There’s an incredibly deep provenance history that puts her in this room in a well-documented way,” he says. Not only that, but her brother had previously sold some of her personal items from that period via Sotheby’s, meaning the venerable auction company had already vetted items from her collection. Even so, Boyers – who has been doing authentication services for universities and libraries for nearly two decades – made a point to show the drawings to several major Dylan archivists, who confirmed the authorship. “You can tell instantly it’s the same hand, the same quirky confidence.”
You can gawk firsthand at that quirky confidence starting April 27, when the piece will be “very much on display” at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. “The fair is an incredible opportunity for people to come see things that are normally in museums,” says Boyers, who is also selling a Beethoven manuscript with Ludwig van’s first thoughts on Symphony No. 9.
Elsewhere at the four-day event, music history lovers can see the design archive of Alex Steinweiss, the man who essentially invented album cover art in the 1930s as Columbia Records’ first art director (that collection is being sold by James Cummins Bookseller). Boyers notes that while not everyone has tens of thousands of dollars to drop, the fair offers plenty of items that go for hundreds of dollars.
That price point doesn’t, of course, include the 60k Dylan drawing – but that isn’t just any item. “There’s a lot of fake stuff on the market,” Boyers says. “The opportunity to get things that are undeniably from a certain time and have a strong provenance…. It’s not just a rare item. We know exactly when this was created, who it was made for, and who the other person’s handwriting is on it — she was in that room. It’s a special piece.”
Memento Mori, the name of Depeche Mode’s latest album and current world tour, means “remember you must die” in Latin — a fitting enough title considering that the long-running band has been reduced to a duo following last year’s death of co-founder Andy Fletcher.
But Dave Gahan and Martin Gore, whose sublime synth-pop has been fueled by pessimism and darkness for decades, bristled with vitality while facing mortality head-on during a Friday night (April 14) show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
From a bedazzled skull spinning on a video screen during classic Violator cut “Enjoy the Silence” to Gore’s harrowing lead vocal on “Soul With Me” (a quiet ballad on the new album which finds him gently preparing for the hereafter), the Reaper might as well be the silent third member of the band; even so, there’s nothing grim about what Depeche Mode delivers in 2023.
Gahan seemed tapped into a supernatural energy throughout the evening, twirling and prowling about the stage like a sensual, vampiric Elvis, wiggling his hips one moment and spreading his arms like the demon perched atop Bald Mountain in Fantasia the next. Vocally, there was no faulting him — from the high notes he trotted out on “Precious” to the grit he brought to “John the Revelator,” Gahan’s voice remains an inexhaustible treasure. And on “World in My Eyes,” the evening’s explicit tribute to Fletcher, Gahan’s delivery felt especially resonant.
Depeche Mode is hardly the first band to solider on following the death of a core member. But while most bands in a similar position tend to isolate their onstage mourning, performing one poignant tribute song before pivoting back to a high-octane set, DM’s entire Memento Mori concert felt like a meditation on the inevitable end that awaits us all. Which isn’t to say the concert was in any way depressing — if anything, the band’s brush with the undiscovered country has left it focused and present. “Remember you must die” is a phrase that might lead some to despair, but for Depeche Mode, it’s seemingly a catalyst to make every moment count.