Sir Rod Stewart has announced that his proposed deal with Hipgnosis Songs is off.
After more than two years of negotiation with the company’s founder and CEO Merck Mercuriadis, Stewart has opted to retain ownership of his song catalogue, terminating its sale to Hipgnosis.
In a statement, the 78-year-old said: “This catalogue represents my life’s work,” Stewart said. “And it became abundantly clear after much time and due diligence that this was not the right company to manage my song catalogue, career or legacy.”
Sir Rod Stewart is a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and has six consecutive decades with million selling studio albums. As well as his solo work, his career in music also includes two iconic groups and the Faces Jeff Beck Group.
He has 10 solo No.1 albums in the UK, the most recent of which was 2019’s You’re In My Heart, which has 310,100 sales, according to the Official Charts Company. Released in 2021, his most recent set The Tears Of Hercules has 78,406. The star has 11 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Hipgnosis was formed in 2018 and has been rapidly growing ever since. It raised £200 million for its IPO in 2018 and its portfolio of 65,000 songs was valued at $2.7 billion last July. Recent acquisitions include Justin Bieber, TMS and Tobias Jesso Jr. It contributed to the launch of Stewart’s new website last year.
Music Week has approached Hipgnosis for comment and this story will be updated accordingly.
Read our 2021 interview with Mercuriadis here.
PHOTO: Penny Lancaster
FOLLOW 
