Money can’t buy you love, Sony… so give Paul McCartney his songs back | Alex Clark

Tout sur les Beatles

Beatles / Tout sur les Beatles 798 Views comments

Yes, Macca isn’t short of a bob or two. But doesn’t he deserve the rights to the Beatles classics he wrote?

There’s gold in them thar hills, though precisely how much varies wildly. I’m talking about old music, by which I am currently surrounded. Here is a three-CD compilation of the work of the late singer-songwriter John Martyn, maverick creator of the classic album Solid Air. It is £5.99, with an MP3 version thrown in; not so much gold. A great deal less, for example, than the £84.99 one would need to stump up for a vinyl version of Anthology: A Very British Synthesizer Group, last year’s gathering of the Human League’s greatest hits. It is described as “deluxe”; it would want to be. (Yes, it is unfair to compare CD and vinyl; much vinyl is expensive. You can also purchase Anthology on CD for £12.99, and on CD plus DVD for an eye-watering £79.99. Don’t you want me, baby? Not for that money, I don’t.)

However it is packaged, there is no more valuable back catalogue than that of the Beatles: globally popular, unendingly hip, continuously selling. Even their very first recording contract has proved lucrative, fetching $75,000 at auction in 2015. Not only was the band pre-Brian Epstein and pre-Ringo Starr, it wasn’t even called the Beatles, with John, Paul, George and Pete Best signing under the name the Beat Brothers. That was back in 1961, and a lot of water – and even more paperwork – has flowed under the bridge since; so why, in his 75th year, his life apparently settled and certainly solvent, is Paul McCartney preparing to dip his toe in?

Imagine the likes of Coldplay signing up today to an arrangement that had not been rigorously examined from every angle

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