It's barely been a month into 2022 and barely two weeks since Bruce Springsteen topped the list of highest-paid musicians of 2021, and here we have another legendary music icon following suit by selling his entire music catalog to Sony Music Entertainment. Bob Dylan's entire music catalog has been acquired by his long-time record label company, Sony Music Entertainment, for $150 to $200 million. Back in late 2020, Bob Dylan sold his music catalog to Universal Music Publishing for a colossal figure of $400 million. While this is enough to have the average man set for a lifetime, it still didn't exceed the $550 million paycheck cash-in received by Springsteen in December 2021.
According to reports from Koimoi.com, in addition to his entire recorded body of work since 1962, which includes the musician's 39th studio album entitled "Rough and Rowdy Ways" from 2020, the deal even includes the rights to future new releases. This comes as part of a six-decade relationship contract Dylan has with Sony, which he feels that he has been completely compensated for throughout their joint musical venture.
Dylan had this to say about his relationship with the record label, "Columbia Records and Rob Stringer have been nothing but good to me for many, many years and a whole lot of records. I’m glad that all my recordings can stay where they belong.” That sounds like a man who is satisfied with his slice of the pie. He signed on to Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony Music Entertainment, in October of 1961, marking this year as the 60th anniversary of Dylan's music career. As an added celebration, the Bob Dylan Center is also scheduled to open in May of this year and will be featuring much of Dylan's personal library of work which he donated himself.
As aforementioned, Dylan's contract with SME enables them to have access to his present and future projects. One such project that the musician has collaborated with the billion-dollar music label on is a number of catalog reissues in what is famously known as the Bootleg Series, which began in 1991.
Although the agreement was made final in July 2021, he didn't make it onto the Rolling Stone's Top 10 List of Highest-Paid Musicians in 2021, which included the likes of Bruce Springsteen who also sold his musical masters to Sony for $550 million; Motley Crue's music catalog was obtained by BMG for $90 million; Paul Simon sold his catalog to Sony as well for $260 million, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers sold their recorded publishings to Hipgnosis for $140 million.
It's also been rumored that the next major catalog sell-off could be from another music legend, Phil Collins. In January 2022 it was reported that Collins' manager is looking to put the artist's music recordings on the market for upward of $200 million. It appears that many of the veterans in the music industry are looking for one last mega sell-off before official retirement.
Sources: Koimoi.com, Rock Celebrities
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