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It’s Not About the Equity, Baby: Griping About Private Equity Buying Music Catalogs Misses the Point

Private equity buying older music catalogs isn't hurting new music, despite a New York Times op-ed's claim that it's "destroying our music ecosystem."

The Monkees and Alvin and the Chipmunks were both “multimedia universes” in their day, as was Tom T. Hall ’s “Harper Valley PTA,” a country hit (for Jeannie C. Riley) that inspired a movie, a TV show, Spanish and Norwegian translations, and a sequel song. When older songs do blow up big on streaming services, it often has less to do with promotion than serendipity — Fleetwood Mac ’s “Dreams” returned to the Hot 100 in 2020 after a TikTok video of a skateboarder went viral and Kate Bush ’s “Running Up That Hill hit No. But neither of these has anything to do with private equity — the first comes from the way royalties are distributed and the reluctance of consumers to pay more for subscriptions, while the latter has more to do with how hard it is to stand out amid the sheer volume of new music that comes online every day.

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