Merck @merck_mercuriadis is founder of @hipgnosissongs, a three year old music IP investment company, amongst other things like artist management stemming from Merck's prior history as CEO of Sanctuary for 20 years, personal manager of Nile Rodgers, Morrissey and many others. Merck uses the phrase 'song management' to describe what others would simply call a publishing company. It speaks to the active nature of his approach compared to the traditionally passive way the majors let songs reap whatever they reap. We get granular on a lot of how this works, and also talk a lot about artist careers we're both familiar with, and where we want to see that go. Hipgnosis has spent $1bb on songs so far, Merck wants to double that. It's an example of 'disruption' that, whether it proves sustainable or not, is certainly a productive kind of shake up to a side of the industry that has very, very rarely adjusted it's inarguably unfair economics. This pushes the issue and capitalizes the other side of the argument, the songwriters. https://www.hipgnosissongs.com/about
