The Beatles are back and by far the biggest buyers are teenagers, writes Lisa Buckingham in London
THE Beatles are heading for the biggest record earnings in their history thanks to huge sales of the albums Anthology 1 and 2. Nearly 30 years after their peak and having seen off fashions like punk, rap, soul, heavy metal, jungle, disco and new romantics, the Fab Four are once again top of the pops.
The band’s record label, Apple, this week predicted that the Anthology series would mean total sales this year of more than 20- million albums worldwide. And the group’s revived fortunes – which are expected to pull in nearly $780-million this year mostly for its EMI record masters – are based on a new generation of fans. In the era of Britpop, Apple said that four out of every 10 Beatles records sold this year have been bought by teenagers.
Geoff Baker, representative for the Beatles, expressed surprise and delight. “Figures show that teenagers are by far the biggest group of buyers,” he said. “You would have thought it would have been middle-aged people.”
The two Anthology albums have so far sold 13- million copies between them worldwide, and back catalogue recordings such as Rubber Soul and Sergeant Pepper a total of six million.
Record industry sources doubted that the Beatles’ sales had eclipsed the pinnacles achieved by other recording stars. But the performance dwarfs sales of recent hits such as Oasis’s (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, which is reckoned to have sold about three million in Britain up to August.
The group’s receipts from the Beatles’ revival, which include video sales, will be split between Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono, widow of John Lennon.
The sales performance augurs well for the third Anthology album – covering recordings from 1966 to 1970 – which will be released next week.
It is a far cry from 1962 when the Beatles signed up for EMI with dubious earnings potential and a royalty of a penny a record.
When Michael Jackson came to conclude his blockbusting $890-million multi-media contract with Sony in 1991, a higher value was placed on his rights to Lennon & McCartney songs than they had managed to secure themselves.
The rights to manage the Beatles’ back catalogue were acquired from Jackson by EMI several years ago and have provided some of the strongest recent evidence of the earnings potentials of back catalogues.