- Country singer Garth Brooks is considering a sale of his music catalog at a rough price of $2 billion.
- The sale would include both recorded music and songwriting rights.
- Garth Brooks is the only artist to have 10 albums certified diamond.
Country singer Garth Brooks is considering a sale of his music catalog, seeking roughly $2 billion for the rights to his songs and recordings, people familiar with the matter told Wall Street Journal.
The sale would comprise both Brooks' recorded music and songwriting rights.
This would be among the largest deals for an individual artist or group's music catalog, the outlet added.
The country superstar has been entertaining the idea for a few years. Brooks recently told some investors that he is one of a few artists at his level of fame who hasn't sold their catalog, one of the people familiar with the matter told WSJ.
The Friends in Low Places crooner has told potential investors he believed his music catalog could have a value from a high $1 billion range to over $2 billion.
Brooks recently reached a milestone of 200 million albums sold, as per the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), going past the Beatles for most units sold in US history.
The two-time Grammy winner is the only artist to have 10 albums certified diamond, meaning each of them hit 10 million sales.
Brooks' popularity is largely centred in the US, as is country music's success.
The rush to invest in music rights investing is influenced substantially by streaming services bringing artists' work to ever larger audiences in markets around the world.
Garth Brooks is one of the most high-profile artists to keep most streaming services away from his catalog. He has avoided services like Spotify and Apple Music, partly because they don't sell music.
The country music icon has kept away from the iTunes style of selling songs individually, going for sales of complete albums.
In 2016, Brooks signed a deal with Amazon Music to make his albums available for streaming exclusively on the platform.
It is unclear if Brooks would allow his music to stream broadly in case of a sale.
Garth Brooks will be honoured with artist of a lifetime award at the upcoming RIAA Honors event in Washington, D.C.
The country icon will be felicitated for his unprecedented reach and success, Billboard reported.
Speaking about Brooks' achievements, IAA chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier told the outlet, “At the RIAA headquarters, we have a wall that has every diamond album ever certified, but Garth has 10. The wall won't fit Garth.”
The event will also honour Disney Music Group president Ken Bunt (label exec of the year) and US Representatives Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania and Nathaniel Moran of Texas.
