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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.
Everything you need to know about Poison was summed up in the title of their 1988 hit “Nothin’ But a Good Time.”
Since forming in 1983 in Mechanicsburg, Pa., the stalwart glam-metal quartet has made music for literally nothing but a good time. Sure, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” may have dampened a hanky or two, but Poison’s raison d’rock has been to get the party started and keep it going until dawn and beyond. And the good times rolled to the tune of four multi-platinum albums and eight top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
Poison laid any doubts about its staying power to rest with its performances during 2022’s The Stadium Tour, warming up for Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe with an ebullient greatest set that had thousands of fans rocking each night like it was 1988.
“I never knew what would happen, but I never thought it couldn’t happen,” frontman Bret Michaels tells Billboard. “We just found a way to get it done and enjoyed it. My pot of gold is the journey. I’ve met incredible people, I got to play incredible places and travel the world and play music and have a great time doing it. I think that’s something everybody who comes to see us relates to.”
During its tenure, Poison released seven studio albums, from the triple-platinum blockbuster Look What the Cat Dragged In in 1986 up to the 2007 covers set Poison’d! The classic lineup of Michaels, guitarist C.C. DeVille, bassist Bobby Dall and drummer Rikki Rockett has remained intact since 1996, and the frontman says the group is looking at 2025 for another tour and possibly some new music.
From Billboard chart hits to deep cuts, here are our picks for the group’s 10 best songs.
“Unskinny Bop” (1990)
There’s often ambivalence over this song because it’s so silly. But that’s the point. There are no artistic pretensions to “Unskinny” — it’s just a good-time romp with a chorus that sticks in your ears after the first pass. You can feel conflicted about it on principle, but when you hear it, you know you’ll be bop, bop, bopping along. Listen here.
“Stand” (1993)
Heartland rock wasn’t exactly within Poison’s milieu, but the group did a creditable job on this lead single from Native Tongue. Co-penned by new guitarist Ritchie Kotzen, the rootsy flavors of mandolin and acoustic guitar (along with a gospel choir) took Poison somewhere different — think John Mellencamp in the last half of the ’80s. It certainly raised a few eyebrows among the faithful, but it gave the group one final appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 50). Listen here.
“(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice” (1981)
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo
Poison’s collective libido did not necessarily make for poetic lyrics, but nobody really comes to this band looking for Shakespearean sonnets, do they? The title track from Poison’s third album leans toward the band’s grittier side, making for some guilt-free headbanging thanks to Rockett’s muscular wallop and a steady bottom pulse provided by Dall.
“Fallen Angel” (1988)
Poison tells its own story here — about moving west to find success — by creating the character of small-town girl (not that small-town girl) who takes the bus but doesn’t find the City of Angels to be quite so welcoming. The song won big, however, hitting No. 12 on the Hot 100. It’s not the last we’d hear of the Angel in question, either. Listen here.
“Shooting Star” (2002)
A sequel of sorts to 1988’s “Fallen Angel,” this chugging rocker from Hollyweird has a thicker, heavier tone than much of the band’s previous material with an opening riff that straddles ‘80s glam and ‘90s alt-rock. This time, Angel is fist-pumping throughout a compact, tightly executed track. Listen here.
“Look What the Cat Dragged In” (1986)
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo
The title track from Poison’s debut album sounds like the group found a Runaways/Joan Jett outtake in a back corner of some club and latched onto it like an unexpected Christmas present. “Cat” scratches just the right blend of punk, metal and personality to give a new band its sense of identity, and Poison drives the message home in a tight three minutes and 10 seconds.
“I Want Action” (1987)
The third single from Look What the Cat Dragged In is bouncy fun dipped in the glammy trough of Slade and Sweet — right down to the spoken exchanges after DeVille’s guitar solo. Like so much of the group’s oeuvre, “I Want Action” wears its message on its sleeve, and the video is four-minute calling card for all things Poison. Listen here.
“Every Rose Has Its Thorn” (1988)
“Every Rose” was the king of the power ballads at a time when power ballads were king. Heartbreak makes hits, of course, and Michaels’ spun Poison’s only Hot 100 No. 1 hit from hearing a male voice in the background of a phone call with his girlfriend while he was drying clothes at a laundromat in Dallas. His pain, our gain. Who knows how many Bic lighters or cell phone batteries have been drained while this was being played in concert. Listen here.
“I Won’t Forget You” (1987)
It’s been eclipsed in the power ballad department by “Every Rose” and “Something to Believe In,” but it sounds fresher because it hasn’t been played into the ground. It was an early highlight for DeVille as a guitar soloist, and its gentle, earthy production (especially compared to what came in its wake) makes it an easy, timeless listen. Listen here.
“Nothin’ But a Good Time” (1988)
Jim Gordon, drummer and co-writer for Eric Clapton‘s 1971 hit “Layla,” has died at age 77.
The drummer died Monday, March 13, from natural causes at the California Medical Facility in Vacavillle, Calif., according to his rep. Gordon has spent decades in prison after being convicted of killing his mother in 1983 and repeated failures to show up for his hearings. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The drummer is best known for his work in Derek and the Dominos, alongside Eric Clapton. The pair co-wrote “Layla,” which appeared as the 13th track from the group’s 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. The song was famously written about Clapton’s forbidden love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and Beatles member George Harrison.
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“Layla” peaked at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Clapton’s MTV Unplugged version of the track went to No. 12 on the Hot 100 in 1992.
In addition to being a member of Derek and the Dominos, Gordon was also a member of the session musician group Wrecking Crew, in which he was able to earn spots playing the drums on tracks like Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache,” Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” and John Lennon’s “Power to the People,” as well as The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Tom Waits’ The Heart of Saturday Night and other tracks by Cher, Alice Cooper, Joan Baez and more.
Primary Wave has announced its acquisition of Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek‘s rights as it pertains to their involvement with The Doors. This includes the guitarist and late keyboardists’ recorded music, publishing, trademarks and merchandise rights and income. Jim Morrison, the band’s lead singer, and John Densmore, its drummer, continue to own the remaining interests in the Doors’ rights.
One of the most influential and enduring rock acts of its time, The Doors formed in Los Angeles in 1965, fearlessly injecting everything from bossa nova, blues, jazz and more into their songwriting. Epic songs like “Light My Fire” (seven minutes) and “The End” (nearly 12 minutes) were proof of their boundary-pushing pursuits in popular music. Defined by Manzarek’s busy keys, “Light My Fire” became the band’s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit in 1967. From there, the group went on to mint 6 gold-certified records with Morrison at the helm.
Manzarek died in 2013 at age 74 after a battle with cancer. Morrison, known as the “Lizard King,” passed away in 1971 at only 27.
Songs like “Riders on the Storm,” “People Are Strange,” “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” and more are still considered some of the most inventive and lyrically-profound of their time. “The End” took on even more cultural significance more than a decade after its release as the opening soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).
By the 1990s, the group’s legacy was cemented with their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and memorialized in the Val Kilmer-starring biopic The Doors (1991).
As the new rights holder of Krieger and Manzarek’s interests in The Doors’ catalog, Primary Wave will work alongside Jeff Jampol, the band’s manager and founder of Jampol Artist Management, to help with the marketing, digital, licensing, sync for further empowering the band’s legacy.
“Ray and I spent a lot of time discussing the future of The Doors’ legacy, and how to handle things after he departed this plane,” says Dorothy Manzarek. “Our family has worked patiently to find the right partners to continue Ray’s lifelong efforts in protecting and promoting his art, and now we are happy to have finally come to an agreement with Primary Wave. Under the continued guidance of our manager, Jeff Jampol, Primary Wave will be the right partners in this endeavor to build future generations of new Doors fans.”
“The Doors are one of the most legendary rock bands of all time. We are looking forward to growing the legacies of Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek,” says Larry Mestel, CEO and founder of Primary Wave Music. “We are also very happy to be working alongside such an industry icon as Jeff Jampol to tastefully grow opportunities for The Doors.”
John Branca, David Byrnes, and Kelly Vallon Ciccotti negotiated the deal on behalf of the sellers.
BMG has acquired the catalog of Peter Frampton, the company announced today (Dec. 7). The deal includes his publishing, songwriter, artist and session work revenue streams, as well as his neighboring rights, for the entirety of his career, including massive hits like “Baby I Love Your Way” and “Show Me the Way,” as well as his work with Humble Pie. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In a statement, Frampton said he was “pleased to join the BMG family. As an artist-first company, I trust BMG will care for my legacy and that my songs are in good hands.”
It’s the latest acquisition deal for BMG, which has also picked up the rights to catalogs of Harry Nilsson, Jean-Michel Jarre, John Lee Hooker and John Legend (in partnership with KKR) in the past year. This deal extends as far back to works by Frampton’s first band, The Herd, and includes his latest album, 2019’s All Blues.
“From his incredible early rise of success to Humble Pie, his countless collaborations to achieving global stardom as a solo artist, Peter Frampton is one of the most inspirational and tireless musicians of his time,” BMG’s president repertoire & marketing for New York and Los Angeles Thomas Scherer said in a statement. “We are proud a legendary artist of his caliber entrusts BMG as the custodians of his most treasured works. A revered musical catalog of this magnitude, paid tribute to by countless artists, will continue to live on for generations.”
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