Queen's Catalog Sales Reach 16 Trillion, Will It Be New Record?

Queen Personnel Freddie Mercury and Brian May (Instagram @officialqueenmusic)

JAKARTA - British Megaband Queen is said to be in talks to sell her music catalog, which includes megahit songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, and much more.

Sony Music is said to be the party interested in buying the Queen catalog, even including for the right to logos, music videos, merchandise, publishing, and other business opportunities.

Meanwhile, the Queen's total catalog is said to reach 1 billion dollars or equivalent to Rp. 16 trillion. In this transaction, Sony is said to be exploring cooperation with other investors.

According to the BBC, negotiations for Queen's catalog are still ongoing, and there is a possibility that the transfer of rights to the catalog will not occur.

But if sales materialize, Universal Music is also said to be involved, as their long-term relationship with Queen, who signed a contract with UK label EMI in 1972 and stayed with the company after being bought by Universal in 2011.

And if that really materializes, then this deal will be the largest, surpassing the value Sony paid to acquire Bruce Springsteen's catalog by the end of 2021, with a value of 500 million dollars or equivalent to IDR 8 trillion.

Earlier this year, Sony also acquired 50 percent ownership of Michael Jackson's music at a cost of at least 600 million dollars.

Compared to Bruce and Michael, Queen is also considered more popular, so it's no wonder when the catalog value becomes so large. Queen has 52 million monthly listeners on Spotify, ahead of Michael Jackson with 41 million and Bruce Springsteen with 20 million listeners.

In England, Queen's Greatest Hits' first volume was the most popular album of all time, with sales of more than seven million copies, even being the 20th best-selling album by 2023.