Comment by Jen Seyderhelm.
As more and more artists sell their songs and music catalogues to publishers and companies like Hipgnosis, there is talk that Queen is in the process to do the same.
Queen is a favourite of all classic hits and rock radio stations with recent films like the Oscar winning Bohemian Rhapsody and recently previously unreleased songs featuring Freddie Mercury introducing the band to a new generation.
The question is, unlike Fleetwood Mac, whose individual members such as Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham and Christine McVie separately sold their catalogues to Hipgnosis, what would Queen’s be worth?
I’ve put together a list below of notable music catalogue sales. Many artists choose to keep the sale value undisclosed, so the below are close estimates in USD.
- Bob Marley – $50 million.
- Imagine Dragons – $100 million
- Justin Timberlake – $100 million
- Calvin Harris – $100 million.
- Stevie Nicks – $100 million.
- Red Hot Chili Peppers – $140 million.
- Neil Young (50% share) – $150 million
- Justin Bieber – $200 million
- Dr Dre – $200 million
- Paul Simon – $250 million.
- David Bowie – $250 million
- Sting – $300 million
- Genesis – $300 million
- Bruce Springsteen – $500 million.
- Bob Dylan – $600 million.
Bob Dylan sold his publishing catalogue to Universal Music, his master recordings to Sony and his Traveling Wilburys‘ input to Primary Wave to make up the in excess of $600 million figure, thought to be the highest catalogue sale so far.
As with all major acts, Queen’s catalogue ownership is somewhat complicated, but equitable. All the band members Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, plus the Freddie Mercury estate, own equal shares in the company Queen Productions Ltd which owns most of the group’s recording catalogue worldwide. Via another joint owned company, Queen Music Ltd, they also own the global rights to their music publishing catalogue.
In 2021 alone, this earned them more than $150 million AUD. As of May 2023, Queen is the 16th most followed artist or band on Spotify and the 47th most streamed per month. They and Elton John are the only two in the top fifty (streamed per month) to have existed (musically and in most cases literally) before 1990.
The talk is that Queen’s catalogue might sell for more than a billion dollars.
Except for The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and the previously mentioned Elton, (although the first two will be divvying up the funds somewhat and Elton will share with Bernie Taupin), I can’t think of any other artist or band that would exceed this figure when you think of just how well the music has continued to resonate across four generations of fans.
Universal Music Group is thought to be part of the Queen catalogue purchase discussions which may be completed in the next couple of months.
