Give it away, give it away, give it away now
Give it away, give it away, give it away now
I can't tell, if I'm a king pin or a pauper
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner Sometimes I feel like my only friend Is the city I live in, The City of Angels Lonely as I am, together we cry
The intro to Snow is great too.
I just feel bad for all the pension fonds backing this Bain Capital PE joint venture who will have an off chance of making back their investments with the current state of IP and AI trends.
The short version is no, not anymore.
For instance if you own a rental property, you get regular income from rent. If you sell the house you get a lump sum and no longer get any rent.
In this case the asset is musical recordings.
> The new deal with Warner Music Group hands over the rights to the official recordings, meaning the label will profit from any further streaming, radio play or album sales.
Edit: I'm stupid, you mean "master rights", which is correct, they're getting the rights of the masters. Your typo made me think of the act of mastering music, not the "masters".
To roughly frame it: if we made another golden record, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had 4 Queen songs and 1 RHCP song.
But yeah, Californication is pretty much my only rhcp reference.
Also: what do you mean "older people"? I ain't that old yet! Shakes fist at cloud
Not a lot of artists can truly transcend their era like that. Most remain stuck in nostalgia.
Californication is a radio tune. There's more to RHCP than that. I won't pretend it's sophisticated like John Coltrane, Nils Petter Molvær or some cult band like The Doors or The Velvet Underground, but it's still something to dive into and listen to carefully if you have the time and inclination. It's also less niche than INXS for instance.
People (outside of Korea too) listen to Black Pink and BTS. Which is totally fine, but the last ones are more proficient on the dance and show side of things. Also, having mentioned Korean girl and boy bands, I find Psy's Gangnam Style song quite satyrical and also very catchy.
It's quite a retirement package.
[1] The Queen deal came at end of series of high profile catalog acquisitions all 500M+ buys - Springsteen, Jackson(half), Bob Dylan.
[2] Interest rate while high was trending down and widely expected to even reach to pre-pandemic levels in few quarters.
and as mentioned elsewhere, RHCP is still young enough to crank out a few more albums and tour. Bruce Springsteen kept cranking until his 80s and sold the catalog for $500M
I assume the band is basically tapped out and ready to rest on laurels
It always makes me a bit sad that everyone knows RHCP but less so their early stuff. Blood sugar sex magik is a funk masterpiece. Didn’t help that for years Spotify used the singles versions of the tracks so the levels were all over the place and it was basically unstreamable.
I loved all the early stuff. Freaky Styley, Mothers Milk, The Uplift Mofo party plan. With Rick Rubin at the controls I just think Blood Sugar Sex Magik took their sound to another level.
Who knows, maybe one of the band members invested in a successful startup, or is an LP for a VC that did. That’s not unheard of for the entertainment industry. Most people wouldn’t have pegged Ashton Kutcher as an investing genius, but he has been highly successful.
The band must be past peak popularity, with listens continuing to decline year after year.
Streaming music is only the tip of the iceberg.
Most TV commercials are using 30-year-old songs. Add to that streaming series (think Stranger Things), movies, public spaces, internet radio, actual radio, and hundreds of other licensing opportunities await.
But most of the market, is, of course, lower end. Probably "good enough" machine-produced music is going to dominate casual playlists, but some bands still will have large followings, and live show still be valuable.
Which be exactly why it makes sense to sell
Hard to see a world where the value goes up. Best case it stays stable, worst it decreases
Not exactly saying this is the reason for their sell, but I'd imagine a lot of professional musicians are feeling the desire to exit the industry.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5804489/music-listeners...
Yes there will be slop, but neither Suno nor GPT are close to making coherent work with creators with taste and good judgement.
This along with AI generated music flooding the market. An AI generated song has already been #1 on the iTunes Charts. AI generated music is only going to get better and more popular.
Future TV shows/movies/etc. will likely just be generating their own music, rather than paying royalties for "hit songs".
> Rumours of the Chilis selling their catalogue first arose last year, with sources telling Billboard that the rockers were allegedly seeking around $350 million. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports[1] that the band has finally made a deal with Warner Music Group, with the label paying over $300 million for all of the band’s master recordings.
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/...
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