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Artists are selling their music catalogs for a lot of money. My name is Jeremy Hector, here with Brocks. Let me catch you up.
The Weeknd just sold his music catalog for a billion dollars. Yes, you heard that right, $1 billion. This was a historic deal between Abel and Lyric Capital Group that includes all of his projects from "Inception" up until "Hurry Up Tomorrow." The craziest part of this deal is that The Weeknd actually maintains creative control over what they do with his masters and his back catalog.
This became the largest single artist catalog deal in the history of music sales, but it's by no means the only one. And despite what streaming payouts to artists may say about the value of music, companies are saying the complete opposite about the value of music catalogs because they're selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. Queen sold their masters in June of 2024 for $1.27 billion. And in February of 2024, only 50% of Michael Jackson's catalog sold for $625 million. That's only half of his catalog selling for that.
And other legacy acts are selling for the same. Sting sold for $300 million, Pink Floyd for $400 million, and Phil Collins for 300 mil. But even newer artists are selling their catalog for similar numbers. Justin Bieber sold his catalog for $200 million, and Katy Perry sold the rights to her first five albums for around the same amount.
Some of these catalogs are actually being sold back to the labels themselves, with UMG paying $300 million for Bob Dylan's catalog and Sony paid $500 million for Bruce Springsteen's catalog. But also, Wall Street is heavily involved in these sales, and they're placing big money on the value of music with companies like Blackstone, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley being involved in these purchases.
So, why are people putting so much money up for these catalogs? Well, in 2024, global music streams increased by 14% over the previous year, from 4.2 trillion to 4.8 trillion, and 73.3% of those streams came from catalog music listens, meaning more than 18 months old.
But have these sales reached a peak? I personally don't think so. If I had to place a prediction, I would think that a lot more artists from the 2010s are going to continue selling their catalog within the next 5 years. Nostalgia is at an all-time high. And while there isn't a lot of super new music being streamed, you don't actually have to go back that far in terms of where people's listening habits are going. 80% of streams are actually coming from music that was released after 2010. And music from the 2020s is responsible for almost 50% of streams.
So with nostalgia for that time period continuing to increase and this sale of The Weeknd's catalog being valued at $1 billion, I personally see more artists doing the same within the next few years. But let me know what you think about the sale and if you think sales like this will continue in the future or if we've reached a peak.