Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited continues its spending spree to start out the new year, as the British investment firm has now announced it has purchased 50% of Neil Young‘s worldwide copyright and income interests pertaining to the Canadian-American rock artist’s 1,180-song catalog.
According to reports published on Wednesday, Hipgnosis’ latest rock and roll intellectual property acquisition follows a busy past few days which saw the company founded by artist manager-turned-investor Merck Mercuriadis announce the purchase of Lindsey Buckingham’s publishing rights and producer/record executive Jimmy Iovine’s worldwide producing royalties.
Mercuriadis added in a statement to go with Wednesday’s announcement,
I bought my first Neil Young album aged seven. ‘Harvest’ was my companion and I know every note, every word, every pause and silence intimately. Neil Young, or at least his music, has been my friend and constant ever since. Over the last 50 years that friendship took me back to Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’, ‘After The Gold Rush’, and guided me forward to ‘On the Beach’, ‘Tonight’s the Night’, ‘Zuma’, ‘Comes a Time’, ‘Rust Never Sleeps’, ‘Trans’, ‘This Notes for You’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Ragged Glory’, ‘Greendale’ and through each successive album and on to last year’s Colorado.
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The Hipgnosis founder continued,
I built Hipgnosis to be a company Neil would want to be a part of. We have a common integrity, ethos and passion born out of a belief in music and these important songs. There will never be a ‘Burger of Gold’ but we will work together to make sure everyone gets to hear them on Neil’s terms.
Reports go on to state that Young has never licensed the rights to any of his songs to be used for third-party commercial advertisements. Terms of the catalog purchase were not detailed with Wednesday’s announcement.
[H/T Rolling Stone]