Pink Floyd is said to have struck a deal with Sony to sell the group's music catalog: NPR

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

Without this piece of music it would be impossible to tell this story.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MONEY”)

PINK FLOYD: (Singing) Money.

MARTÍNEZ: Pink Floyd, of course, with “Money” – something that musicians have a lot more of now. The Financial Times reports that the band sold the rights to the record catalog for around $400 million.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Wow. For this price, Sony Music also receives the name and image rights of Pink Floyd – a brand that the group has been building since around 1965.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MONEY”)

PINK FLOYD: (Singing) Grab the money with both hands and hide it.

MARTÍNEZ: Pink Floyd's catalog includes two of the best-selling albums of all time, “Dark Side Of The Moon” and “The Wall.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL, PART 2”)

PINK FLOYD: (singing) All in all, it's just…

STEVE INSKEEP AND PINK FLOYD: (singing) …Another brick in the wall.

INSKEEP: Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and David Gilmour haven't gotten along for some time. Gilmour recently told Rolling Stone that he wanted to sell the band's work so he could, quote, “get out of the mud bath.”

MARTÍNEZ: This deal contributes to the trend of older musicians selling their catalogs. Three years ago, Bruce Springsteen collected around 550 million for his works.

INSKEEP: Bob Dylan, Phil Collins and Paul Simon have all decided to sell ownership of their life's work.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HAVE A CIGAR”)

PINK FLOYD: (Singing) We're just unconscious. We heard about the sell-off.

INSKEEP: Now these sales are joined by the Pink Floyd sale as one of the largest catalog deals in music history.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HAVE A CIGAR”)

PINK FLOYD: (singing) …We can hardly count.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. For more information, please visit the Terms of Use and Permissions pages of our website at www.npr.org.

NPR transcripts are produced by an NPR contractor on a rush basis. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The definitive record of NPR programming is the audio recording.