Meet the man spending billions on old hits

Level 2 l Upper intermediate

1 Warmer
These are the six biggest-selling music artists since 1950. Put them in order from 1 (the biggest-selling) to 6.
1. ________________________ a. Madonna
2. ________________________ b. Elton John
3. ________________________ c. The Beatles
4. ________________________ d. Led Zeppelin
5. ________________________ e. Michael Jackson
6. ________________________ f. Elvis Presley

2 Key words
Fill the gaps in the sentences using these key words from the text. The paragraph numbers are given to
help you.

chart subscription royalties rights lifeblood

investment assets veteran bond tank

1. A _________________________ is someone who has a lot of experience doing a particular activity. (para 1)
2. _________________________ are payments that someone such as a musician or a writer gets each time
their work is performed or sold. (para 1)
3. If you own the _________________________ to a song, you have the legal authority to publish it or use it for
a performance. (para 2)
4. A _________________________ is an agreement to pay an amount of money in order to receive something
regularly. (para 4)
5. The _________________________ of something is its most important part and the thing that helps it to
continue to exist and be successful. (para 5)
6. A _________________________ hit is a song that is in the list of the songs selling the most copies during a
particular week. (para 6)
7. A _________________________ is a document given to someone who invests money in a government or
company, promising to pay the money back with interest. (para 9)
8. An _________________________ is money used in a way that may earn you more money. (para 9)
9. If investments _________________________, their value falls dramatically. (para 9)
10. _________________________ are things such as money or property that a person or company owns. (para 11)

3 Find the information

Find the following information in the text as quickly as possible.
1. How much has Merck Mercuriadis spent on buying the rights to more than 13,000 songs?
2. How many active monthly users does Spotify have worldwide?
3. How long has Mercuriadis been in the music industry?
4. What was the total value of global music sales in 2019?
5. How many subscribers will paid music services have by the end of 2020?
6. How many songs does Merck Mercuriadis plan to buy in total?
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA

Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2020.

M W P
O DO O
FR BE C
N T
O

NEWS LESSONS / Meet the man spending billions on old hits / Upper intermediate
CA O
H
•P
Meet the man spending billions on old hits
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
Music is as good as gold or oil: meet
the man spending billions on old hits
Mark Sweney  7 Mercuriadis grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada, then
8 August, 2020
1 Music-industry veteran Merck Mercuriadis started
the company Hipgnosis. It offers investors
the chance to make money from the royalties
produced by thousands of songs by famous
artists. Mercuriadis believes that songs like “Livin’
on a Prayer”, “Heart of Glass” and “Copacabana”
are more valuable than gold.
2 Mercuriadis, the former manager of artists
including Elton John and Guns N’ Roses,
launched the company in 2018 and has since
spent about £700m buying the rights to more than
13,000 songs. “Popular songs provide a reliable
income,” he says, after announcing two more
deals – buying 197 Blondie songs and more than
900 Barry Manilow tunes.
3 “When I say it is as good or better than gold or oil,
it is because it is unrelated to what is happening
in the world,” says Mercuriadis. “If people are
living their best lives, they’re celebrating with
the soundtrack of music. Equally, if they are
experiencing the sort of challenges we have been
experiencing this year, they are escaping and
finding comfort in music.
4 “People always want music. Gold is something
that only a few can buy, but a £10 Spotify or Apple
monthly subscription is something pretty much
everyone can afford. And, as we have seen during
the pandemic, those subscriptions have increased
because people have been looking for comfort.”
5 Subscriptions have indeed increased. Spotify
has reported a 29% year-on-year increase in
active monthly users, to 299 million worldwide.
Paying subscribers – the company’s lifeblood,
representing 93% of its €1.8bn revenue in the past
three months – jumped 27% compared to 2019
levels, to 138 million.
6 Mercuriadis says the best way to make money
from song rights is buying older music rather than
current chart hits. A third of the songs bought by
Hipgnosis are more than ten years old, and 59%
are between three and ten years old. Fewer than
10% are newer releases. Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a
Prayer” is 34 years old, but since 2013, the year
after Spotify’s launch in the US, the song’s annual
revenues have increased by 153%. Investors
seem to like this. Hipgnosis has raised more than
Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2020.
NEWS LESSONS / Meet the man spending billions on old hits / Upper intermediate
£860m since it started selling its shares on the
stock market in 2018.
moved to London, where he still lives, to embark
on a career in music. Now 56, he has spent nearly
40 years in the music industry. He is a champion
of artists, something he learned working for Sir
Richard Branson in his first job.
8 “Virgin Records in the early 1980s was the best
record label, and it was certainly the most artist-
friendly label, which is why I went to work for
them,” he remembers. “But I wasn’t sophisticated
enough to understand that I wasn’t actually
working for the artist; I was working for Richard
Branson. There was a difference between working
for a record label and working for the artist.”
9 The idea of buying into the past success of an
artist is not new. In the 1990s, the public was
given the chance to invest in David Bowie’s
popularity by purchasing “Bowie bonds”. These
were ten-year bonds backed by Bowie’s future
royalty earnings from songs released before 1993,
with an attractive interest rate of 7.9%. Prudential
Insurance bought the whole issue for $55m.
However, as fans drifted away from record stores
in the early 2000s, owners of Bowie bonds saw
their investment tank.
10 Streaming is breathing new life into
the industry after more than a decade of falling CD
sales, and music is becoming successful again.
In 2019, global music sales increased for the fifth
consecutive year, to $20.2bn, thanks to a 23%
increase in streaming, having hit a low of $14bn
in 2013. By the end of 2020, there will be more
than 450 million subscribers to paid music services
including Apple, Amazon and Spotify.
11 Mercuriadis is planning to spend £2bn to £3bn
buying a total of 60,000 songs and believes that
his investors will then own assets worth 30 times
earnings thanks to the streaming revolution.
12 “I can’t play the guitar, I can’t sing a song, I can’t
write a song,” he says. “But I take my responsibility
of doing business very, very seriously. I make
people believe in what I believe in. If I say ‘It is
the best thing since sliced bread’ and it’s not, next
time I come to you, you’ll shut the door in my face.
Championing the artist, song and music will take
you a long way in our business.” It might also
prove to be very profitable.
© Guardian News and Media 2020
First published in The Guardian, 08/08/20
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA
M W P
O DO O
FR BE C
N T
O
CA O
H
•P
Meet the man spending billions on old hits
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
4 Comprehension check
Are these statements true (T) or false (F) according to the text?

1. Merck Mercuriadis believes investing in music is as good as or better than investing in gold or oil.
2. Gold is something that everyone can buy.
3. Spotify gets all of its revenue from paying subscribers.
4. Mercuriadis believes that Virgin Records was the best record label in the early 1980s.
5. Global music sales have increased for the last five years in a row.
6. Mercuriadis is a singer, songwriter and musician.

5 Find the word

Find the following words and phrases in the text. The paragraph numbers are given to help you.

1. a two-word phrase meaning almost (para 4)

2. a noun meaning income from business activities (para 5)
3. a two-word phrasal verb meaning start a new project or activity, usually one that will be difficult and will take
time (para 7)
4. an adjective meaning knowing and understanding a lot about a complicated subject (para 8)
5. a two-word phrasal verb meaning leave gradually (para 9)
6. a three-word verb phrase meaning reach the lowest value (para 10)
7. a noun meaning a sudden or major change, especially in ideas or methods (para 11)
8. a six-word noun phrase meaning something that someone believes is excellent or likes very much (para 12)

6 Two-word phrases
Match the words in the left-hand column with those in the right-hand column to make expressions from
the text.

1. record a. market
2. chart b. industry
3. royalty c. hit
4. stock d. label
5. music e. rate
6. interest f. earnings
D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA

Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2020.

M W P
O DO O
FR BE C
N T
O

NEWS LESSONS / Meet the man spending billions on old hits / Upper intermediate
CA O
H
•P
 Meet the man spending billions on old hits
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
7 Word-building
Complete the table using words from the text.

verb noun
1. subscribe
2. subscribe (person)
3. invest
4. invest (person)
verb adjective
5. attract
6. rely

8 Discussion
Discuss the statements.

• You have to be crazy to invest money because investments can fall as well as rise.
• I can’t imagine a world without music.

D •
TE DE E
SI A L
EB LO B
W N IA

Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2020.

M W P
O DO O
FR BE C
N T
O

NEWS LESSONS / Meet the man spending billions on old hits / Upper intermediate
CA O
H
•P