Hipgnosis buys up iconic Fleetwood Mac songs
Hipgnosis, a Guernsey-based fund which invests in music and its IP rights, has purchased songs from one of the main writers for Fleetwood Mac.
Christine McVie sang on five albums for the band between 1971 and 1974 and wrote tracks for many of its most iconic releases including Rumours, Tusk, Tango in the Night and Fleetwood Mac.
On Rumours, voted the seventh best album of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine, McVie wrote two of the four songs which made the Top 10 in the US including Don’t Stop, which reached number 3, and You Make Loving Fun. McVie was also a principal songwriter behind the hit singles Little Lies and Everywhere.
Christine McVie expressed her delight about the purchase. She said: “I am so excited to belong to the Hipgnosis family, and thrilled that you all regard my songs worthy of merit.”
Combined with its acquisition from Lindsey Buckingham, the former lead guitarist and singer for Fleetwood Mac, Hipgnosis now owns copyright and writers’ shares for 48 of the 68 songs on the band’s most successful albums.
The sale adds to the whopping sum of almost $2bn that Hipgnosis has invested in iconic songs since its IPO in 2018.
The company owns catalogues of music by Neil Young, Shakira and 50 Cent among others. It has purchased 36 of the 156 songs on Spotify with over a billion plays including Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You, Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ and Ariana Grande’s No Tears Left to Cry.
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