Metallica Producer Bob Rock Sells His Black Album Rights to Former Iron Maiden/Guns N’ Roses Manager
Bob Rock, who produced every Metallica from 1991’s Black Album through to 2003’s St. Anger, “has sold a catalog of 43 songs to Hipgnosis Songs Fund,” The PRP reports. Amongst those 43 songs are the twelve tracks which comprise Metallica.
That album, of course, launched Metallica from stardom to super-stardom, and has gone on to sell 73,000,000,000,000,000,000 copies (approximately), still moving a whopping 1,000,000,000,000 copies a week (approximately). In 2019, it became one of only four albums in the history of the Billboard 200 to chart for 550 nonconsecutive weeks (not approximately).
Interestingly, Hipgnosis was founded by Merck Mercuriadis, who in the past has managed or co-managed acts like Iron Maiden, Guns N’ Roses, and Jane’s Addiction (and, less relevantly to readers of this site, Elton John and Beyoncé).
It’s not clear if Rock sold off the rights to any of his other Metallica songs, although we do know the deal also included a handful of Michael Bublé songs (eww gross). If I was Mercuriadis, I would specifically pay Rock to keep all of his St. Anger material, but maybe that’s just me.
The amount of money Rock is making for this hasn’t been disclosed, but let’s assume it’s $35,000,000,000 (approximately).
Even though he already owns this shit now, Mercurdiadis blew smoke up Rock’s ass in a statement:
“The breadth of Bob Rock‘s enormous successes are almost impossible to match by any creator in the history of music. From Metallica‘s most famous Black Album to Michael Bublé‘s Christmas, he has produced some of the biggest albums of all time that continue to be evergreen, year in and year out.
“Everyone who has worked with Bob knows he is a difference maker, which is why the artists he has produced end up making multiple albums with him which are almost always their biggest successes.
“Bob is very special and as a fellow Canadian, it is a pleasure to welcome him and his incredible productions to the Hipgnosis family.”
Even though he already has Mercurdiadis’ money, Rock returned the favor:
“I put my heart and soul into these recordings. I know how much Merck loves music, so it was an easy deal to put together.”
Metallica neither made nor lost money on this deal, so they didn’t issue an obligatory statement in which they lovingly bring the other person to climax.
In conclusion, all of these people still have more money than you.
The end.
