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The Tyranny of the Sell-Outs
Modern mass culture needs new ideas. Why don’t we have any?
In late May, Justin Timberlake announced that he’d sold his share of rights to his entire song catalogue for $100 million to Hipgnosis Song Management, an intellectual property rights management company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It’s not the only one paying big for back catalogues. Two years ago, Universal Music paid a rumoured $300 million for the entirety of Bob Dylan’s songwriting catalogue. And Primary Wave has acquired the rights to thousands of songs by artists like John Lennon, Steven Tyler, Chicago, and Kurt Cobain.
The simple logic behind these acquisitions is based almost entirely on predicted future streaming success — that, no matter whether the rest of the economy is soaring or crashing, people will still need music, especially the music they know. At the same time, as music streaming audiences grow and increasingly incorporate older generations, the pool of listeners who’ll seek out back catalogues expands. But that simple logic leads to complications, and weird things have started to happen.
“Old music is killing new music”
For one thing, new songs end up getting heard less. The impact of more older listeners is that the impact of new songs — those released within the prior…
