NASHVILLE (CelebrityAccess) – On Thursday, February 25, Spirit Music Group (SMG) announced its purchase of the underlying master rights to the catalog of country superstar, Jason Aldean.
The acquisition includes 90% of Aldean’s recorded music catalog and encompasses nine albums in total, including 34 Top 10 songs, 24 No. 1 songs and 6 Platinum-certified albums. The acquisition also includes neighbouring rights and SoundExchange royalties.
Aldean himself will be retaining 10% ownership in the catalog, with the deal costing SMG more than $100 million. In 2019, the SMG acquired a recorded music rights catalog from country star Tim McGraw, including three hit albums originally released via Big Machine Records.
The deal covers Aldean’s discography starting from his debut album in 2005 through his ninth album, respectfully titled, 9 in 2019. All of these albums were released via Broken Bow Records, which BMG acquired in 2017. Following the news of SMG’s deal, BMG has released a statement to clarify that Broken Bow will be Aldean’s label home until “at least 2030.” Per MBW, a number of Aldean’s albums are exclusively licensed through Broken Bow – meaning that even if SMG owns the underlying copyrights to these records, Broken Bow will remain in control of them until these licenses expire.
Broken Bow has a deal in place to release Aldean’s next studio album, titled Georgia, on April 22, and that Broken Bow will be the star’s label for the three albums following. BMG Nashville President Jon Loba said in reaction to the Spirit/Aldean story: “We understand Spirit’s enthusiasm, but they are a little premature. We congratulate Jason on his deal and look forward to continuing to work with him exactly as we have for the past 18 years.”
