Blondie duo’s song rights sold in ‘Atomic’ deal

Hit songwriting duo Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, the musical partnership behind Blondie’s most significant successes, have sold their upcoming royalties to a quick-rising financial investment fund.

That suggests their revenue from 197 Blondie tracks, which include Coronary heart of Glass and Rapture, now goes to the Hipgnosis Tunes Fund.

They been given an undisclosed lump sum.

Launched by tunes business veteran Merck Mercuriadis, the fund enables investors to see an revenue from tunes royalties.

It has been mentioned on the London Stock Exchange because July 2018.

Before environment up the fund, which now controls about thirteen,000 tracks, Mr Mercuriadis managed artists which include Beyoncé, Elton John, Iron Maiden and Guns N’ Roses.

In his perspective, tracks are “as investible as gold or oil”.

“I have adopted each individual shift that Debbie and Chris have built because day a person,” he stated.

“Their singles have been not only massively profitable but period and genre-defining.”

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein stated they have been “happy to be functioning with a progressive business”.

Income streams

In a BBC interview very last yr, Mr Mercuriadis defined how his fund turns tracks into financial investment motor vehicles.

“We don’t speculate on new tracks. The proven strike tracks that we purchase have predictable and trustworthy revenue streams and a track document that goes back again several a long time,” he stated.

“We actively handle the tracks far better than they’ve been managed previously,” he additional.

“We deal with every music as if it was a company in its individual proper.”

That suggests maximising the possibilities for that music to create revenue, no matter whether in Television commercials and movie games or in go over versions by new artists.

Hipgnosis has continuously captivated the tunes business by snapping up is effective by songwriters old and new.

Before this 7 days, it declared that it had obtained the around the world royalties from much more than 900 Barry Manilow tracks.

Given the trend for tracks to have several authors, the fund normally does not individual a music outright, but simply has a stake in it.

However, that has not stopped it from amassing much more than $1bn really worth of music rights.