In a year where many legendary artists sold their publishing rights, Bruce Springsteen may have topped them all. Billboard is reporting that the Boss is unloading his masters and publishing to Sony to the tune of $500 million. No, your eyes don’t deceive you. That’s $500 million.
Billboard also noted that Springsteen was shopping his catalog around earlier this year and was originally seeking $350 million for it. If our math checks out, $500 million is a lot more than $350 million.
The trend of artists selling their publishing is a big story of 2021. Last December, Bob Dylan started the trend by being one of the first of the legendary artists to do so. Dylan completed a deal to sell his entire back catalog to Universal. This year, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Motley Crue, Stevie Nicks, David Crosby and an assortment of others received huge sums to part ways with their publishing rights and, in some cases (like Springsteen), masters as well.
Outside of this, Springsteen had a pretty quiet year. He revived his Springsteen on Broadway show for a quick encore run over the summer and made guest appearances on songs with the Killers and John Mellencamp. Otherwise, if what E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren told us last week is true, hopefully, we’ll see Springsteen on the road at some point in 2022.
