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| Freddie Mercury and Brian May live at the Coliseum of Richfield, OH; 1977 |
Queen have just signed the largest buyout deal in the business worth over a billion pounds. Sony will own the name, likeness, publishing, masters, and such, but not the live aspect. In the US and Canada, they will remain with Disneys Hollywood Records for the time being, whom they signed with while Freddie Mercury was still alive. Everywhere else, it may be a couple years before the catalogue appears on Legacy, Sonys reissue imprint. Not sure if it will also appear on Columbia or Epic like AC/DC have when they moved their international distribution over in 2003 (Mercury had one solo album on Columbia in 1985, or CBS outside North America until 1990, and John Deacons early band The Opposition once were signed to CBS before the deal fell through). This could also include solo and related releases. This ends Queens on-again, off-again relationship with EMI (they signed to Island in 2011, only for Universal to buy EMI a couple years later, moving the band to Virgin EMI and ultimately back to their old label, although Parlophone went to Warner, who also own their original US label Elektra). Vinyl reissues are big now, and I just need a few studio, live and compilation ones, as well as solo, including Roger Taylors spinoff The Cross (2018s boxed set The Lot was CD only). This is the latest of the sales started by Queens new Sony stablemate Bob Dylan in 2020 primarily of artists of that generation (it backfired for Hall & Oates), yet some later ones have also cashed out. I know this story is old news by now, but I can elaborate further as a longtime fan and knowing enough about the industry. It will take a period before anything materialises with new information.
