{"id":806715,"date":"2020-04-23T09:12:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T15:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=988634"},"modified":"2020-04-23T09:12:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T15:12:23","slug":"mark-ronson-joins-the-slate-of-hit-artists-selling-their-songs-to-merck-mercuriadis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/mark-ronson-joins-the-slate-of-hit-artists-selling-their-songs-to-merck-mercuriadis\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Ronson Joins the Slate of Hit Artists Selling Their Songs to Merck Mercuriadis"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Producer and songwriter Mark Ronson<\/a> is selling a stake in his extensive catalog to song acquisition investment company Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Hipgnosis announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n

This continues the increasingly attention-drawing buying spree for Hipgnosis founder and CEO Merck Mercuriadis<\/a>, who made his career managing the likes of Beyonc\u00e9, Elton John and Guns N\u2019 Roses. At the end of March, Mercuriadis and co. announced the acquisition of Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora\u2019s song catalog<\/a>, and earlier in 2020, Hipgnosis bought out a catalog from Blink 182 co-founder Tom DeLonge. While the global economy continues to reel from the impact of the ongoing health crisis, Mercuriadis tells Rolling Stone<\/em> that the market for acquiring songs still looks promising and has, in fact, grown while artists face a more uncertain economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say I\u2019ve never had more opportunities put in front of me,\u201d Mercuriadis says, noting that the last month has been particularly action-packed for the company. <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019re always picky, we\u2019ll say no to three of the four that are presented to us, we say yes to 100% of what we go after. I can\u2019t be involved in music that I don\u2019t believe in and don\u2019t understand. It\u2019s not about genre, it\u2019s about are the songs and are these artists culturally important? I\u2019ve never had more opportunities than I have in the last four weeks because of the uncertainty in the world, and it\u2019s a good time now to look at risks in the future and sell their songs, particularly to someone who understand their legacy and will treat that legacy with tremendous respect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hipgnosis is taking a 70% stake in Ronson\u2019s catalog, comprising 315 songs, according to the announcement. The acquisition gives Hipgnosis access to a wide range of hit songs, including \u201cUptown Funk\u201d, Amy Winehouse\u2019s \u201cBack to Black\u201d and \u201cShallow,\u201d which Ronson co-wrote with Lady Gaga, Andrew Wyatt and Anthony Rossomando for 2018\u2019s A Star is Born. <\/em><\/p>\n

Hipgnosis\u2019s acquisition comes as streaming dipped at the start of government-mandated physical distancing ordinances, but streaming is rebounding, Mercuriadis says. Including Ronson\u2019s songs, Hipgnosis has rights to over 12,000 songs, many of which have been chart-topping hits. Hipgnosis didn\u2019t disclose the financial details of the Ronson acquisition, but the company has heavily invested in their catalogs, topping $1 billion in investment.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\u201cOne of our competitors said in an interview that anyone can spend a billion dollars, he was obviously talking about me because I\u2019m the only person who\u2019s spent a billion, and I\u2019ve done it in the past 22 months,\u201d Mercuriadis says. \u201cBut not anyone can, first of all you need to have $1 billion. Secondly, you have to have the faith of the greatest songwriters in the world. They\u2019re not anxious to put their songs in the wrong person\u2019s hands for the sake of the check. They\u2019d like the check, but they\u2019re going to do the right thing by their songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronson has a long relationship with Mercuriadis, which contributed to his decision to partner with Hipgnosis, Ronson said in a statement. Mercuriadis said Ronson came to them about the deal. \u201cI\u2019ve always had enormous respect for his having such a credible, seminal management roster \u2014 artists I was truly influenced by from Nile Rodgers to Jane\u2019s Addiction,\u201d Ronson said. \u201cAnd that same respect has continued with what he\u2019s done with Hipgnosis. He\u2019s acquired the catalogs of some of my favorite creatives, and I\u2019m excited to be joining those ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Ronson\u2019s catalog along with the many others Hipgnosis has acquired, the company now has access to over 12,000 songs, most of which have been hits. With a smaller catalog than other publishers, the goal now, Mercuriadis says, is to give more individual attention to managing their songs than their competitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 21, 22 people with 500 songs per person, versus the majors who have 20,000 per person. I want to actively manage these songs with the same responsibility that I manage artists. I hate the concept of publishing, I want to destroy that word and replace it with song management. I\u2019m someone who\u2019s made their money and their reputation working with artists, songwriters and producers, not at their expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercuriadis adds: \u201cMost of the people I\u2019m competing with don\u2019t understand the creative process. They\u2019re either bankers or working for major companies. That\u2019s not what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Producer and songwriter Mark Ronson is selling a stake in his extensive catalog to song acquisition investment company Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Hipgnosis announced on Thursday. This continues the increasingly attention-drawing buying spree for Hipgnosis founder and CEO Merck Mercuriadis, who made his career managing the likes of Beyonc\u00e9, Elton John and Guns N\u2019 Roses. At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-806715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-13 06:04:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}