The Library of Congress has announced the newest class of recordings entering the 2026 National Recording Registry — a yearly preservation effort designed to protect audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
This year’s list is a fascinating mix of blockbuster pop, country standards, jazz landmarks, dance music pioneers, video game history, Broadway, classic broadcasts, and deeply influential catalog recordings that continue to shape streaming, licensing, sampling, and music culture decades later.
For artists, estates, labels, publishers, and catalog investors, induction into the Registry can reinforce the long-term cultural durability of a recording. These are the kinds of works that continue generating value through:
Streaming
Sync licensing
Sampling
Reissues
Vinyl demand
Film and television placement
Cultural rediscovery cycles
Social media resurgence
Many of these recordings are already deeply embedded into the American cultural bloodstream. Others may receive a renewed spotlight because of the induction itself.
In an era where catalog value increasingly depends on longevity, discoverability, and cross-generational relevance, the National Recording Registry acts almost like an institutional validation of permanence.
The Biggest Takeaways From 2026 National Recording Registry 2026 Class
1. Catalog Longevity Beats Recency
The inclusion of 1989 stands out because it is one of the newest recordings ever inducted.
That’s significant.
The Registry traditionally leans heavily toward older recordings whose historical importance has already stood the test of time. The rapid inclusion of 1989 signals how quickly modern blockbuster pop albums can become culturally foundational.
It also reinforces the staying power of superstar catalogs in the streaming era.
2. Video Game Music Is Now Officially Canon
The induction of the Doom soundtrack is another major moment.
Video game music is no longer niche nostalgia. It is now formally recognized as part of America’s recorded cultural history.
That matters because gaming soundtracks increasingly function like traditional entertainment IP:
Streaming assets
Live performance material
Vinyl collectibles
Licensing opportunities
Fan-community engagement engines
Gaming catalogs are becoming real catalog businesses.
3. Dance Music’s Architects Are Finally Getting Their Due
Frankie Knuckles and Jamie Principle’s Your Love represents a huge acknowledgment of house music’s foundational influence.
Chicago house music helped shape modern EDM, pop production, remix culture, and club music economics globally.
The Registry recognizing dance music history reflects how electronic genres have moved from underground subculture into institutional legitimacy.
4. Sampling History Continues to Matter
The inclusion of Amen, Brother by The Winstons is especially fascinating.
The track contains the famous “Amen Break” — one of the most sampled drum breaks in music history.
That single recording influenced:
Hip-hop
Jungle
Drum and bass
Electronic music
Modern beat production
One drum pattern became a foundational building block for entire genres.
Few examples better demonstrate how catalog value can compound in unpredictable ways over decades.
The Full 2026 National Recording Registry Class 1989 — Taylor Swift Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) — Beyoncé Weezer (The Blue Album) — Weezer Go Rest High on That Mountain — Vince Gill Doom soundtrack — Bobby Prince The Wheel — Rosanne Cash Rumor Has It — Reba McEntire Your Love — Frankie Knuckles & Jamie Principle I Feel for You — Chaka Khan Texas Flood — Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Beauty and the Beat — The Go-Go’s The Devil Went Down to Georgia — The Charlie Daniels Band Chicago Original Cast Album Midnight Train to Georgia — Gladys Knight & the Pips The Fight of the Century broadcast Feliz Navidad — José Feliciano Amen, Brother — The Winstons Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) — The Byrds Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music — Ray Charles The Blues and the Abstract Truth — Oliver Nelson Put Your Head on My Shoulder — Paul Anka Fly Me to the Moon — Kaye Ballard Teardrops from My Eyes — Ruth Brown Mambo No. 5 — Pérez Prado and His Orchestra Cocktails for Two — Spike Jones and His City Slickers
Final Thought
The Registry increasingly reflects a broader definition of what matters culturally.
Rock, pop, jazz, country, hip-hop-adjacent sampling culture, dance music, gaming audio, Broadway, holiday music, and sports broadcasting now all sit under the same preservation umbrella.
That evolution mirrors what’s happening in the catalog business itself.
The modern catalog economy is no longer just about classic rock radio. It’s about multi-format intellectual property that can survive format changes, platform shifts, and generational turnover.
And the recordings that survive longest tend to become the most valuable.
The short version: Live Nation is not just betting on more concerts. It is betting on a bigger live music ecosystem — more global touring, more stadium and amphitheater activity, more owned and partnered venues, better ticketing technology, and higher per-fan spending through premium experiences.
For the music business, that matters. For catalog owners, labels, artists, investors, and anyone watching the economics of music, Live Nation’s call was a reminder that streaming is only one piece of the puzzle. The real money is often built around the fan relationship.
Live music is where that relationship becomes visible.
More Shows: The Global Touring Machine Keeps Expanding
One of the strongest messages from Live Nation management was that global concert supply remains healthy.
CEO Michael Rapino said more artists are touring globally, and that the live music “pie” continues to grow. He pointed to global supply from regions and genres including Latin America, K-pop, Colombia, India, and other international markets. In his view, more artists from more parts of the world are now able to tour across clubs, theaters, arenas, festivals, and stadiums.
That is an important point. Live Nation is not framing growth as dependent on one superstar tour or one geography. The company is talking about a broader, more globalized touring market.
For Catalogs and Cash, this is the key idea: music catalog value becomes more interesting when the audience becomes global.
An artist’s catalog is not just a static bundle of songs collecting streaming royalties. It can become part of a much larger commercial system. Touring can reintroduce fans to older songs. Festivals can expose legacy acts to younger audiences. International markets can create new demand for music that may have already matured in the U.S. or Europe.
The more global the fan base becomes, the more ways there are to monetize the music.
Amphitheaters Are Back in the Story
Live Nation also spent time addressing amphitheaters, which had been a concern in the prior year. Rapino said the company has stronger amphitheater supply in 2026, and that ticket sales are tracking ahead of last year by double digits. He also pushed back on concerns about cancellations, saying the company typically sees a 1% to 2% cancellation rate and that 2026 does not look unusual.
That matters because amphitheaters occupy an important middle lane in the concert business.
Not every artist is a stadium act. Not every catalog is attached to a mega-star. But there is a lot of durable value in artists who can consistently fill amphitheaters, theaters, clubs, and festivals.
Amphitheaters also have a pricing advantage. Rapino described them as a lower-cost entry point compared with arenas and stadiums. That makes them a volume business. For fans who may not want to spend stadium-level money, amphitheaters offer a more accessible live music experience.
This is where the long tail of the music business becomes interesting. Legacy rock acts, country artists, jam bands, alternative bands, nostalgia tours, and multi-act summer packages can all fit into this model.
A catalog does not need to dominate Spotify to have commercial value. Sometimes the better question is: Can this music still move people out of the house?
If the answer is yes, there may be more value there than the streaming chart suggests.
Better Venues: Live Nation Wants More Control of the Infrastructure
The second part of Live Nation’s playbook is venue strategy.
Live Nation is not just promoting shows. It is building, buying, financing, and partnering around venues. CFO Joe Berchtold discussed a venue securitization transaction of just over €600 million, using certain venues as collateral. He described the company’s venue strategy as having something like a property-company/operating-company structure, while still keeping the assets under one roof.
That may sound technical, but the business idea is simple: venues are strategic assets.
If Live Nation controls more of the venue footprint, it can capture more of the economics around the concert. That includes ticketing, sponsorship, food and beverage, premium experiences, parking, hospitality, and long-term fan data.
This is one of the most important ideas in the modern music business: the money is not only in the music itself. It is in the infrastructure around the music.
A song gets the fan interested. The artist gets the fan emotionally committed. The venue turns that attention into a night out. The ticketing platform captures the transaction. The premium experience increases the spend. The sponsor attaches a brand to the moment.
That is the full stack of live music monetization.
Stadium Partnerships Could Become a Global Growth Model
Live Nation also discussed stadium partnerships in Argentina, including arrangements involving Club Atlético and River Plate Stadium. Rapino said the company likes partnering with stadiums globally because many of them are underused compared with NFL-style venues in the U.S.
That is a very interesting model.
Instead of always building from scratch, Live Nation can partner with existing stadiums, bring concerts into the building, add sponsorship expertise, and sometimes provide capital. This can be less capital-intensive than owning or building every venue outright, while still allowing Live Nation to lock up important revenue streams.
For the music industry, this points to a broader trend: live music is becoming more professionalized, more global, and more infrastructure-driven.
For catalog investors, this matters because a stronger live infrastructure can extend the life of music assets. If older artists, reunion tours, tribute events, anniversary shows, and festival appearances become easier to route and monetize globally, then catalogs tied to those artists may have more ways to stay culturally and commercially relevant.
Bigger Fan Spending: Premium Is the Growth Lever
The most interesting part of the call may have been Live Nation’s comments on premium fan experiences.
Rapino said concerts have historically been roughly 99% general admission or standard experience and only 1% premium. But Live Nation sees an opportunity to change that. He said some new arenas could have up to 30% of the house in a premium capacity, while amphitheaters could move from low-single-digit premium levels toward 25% premium.
That is a major shift.
Live Nation wants concerts to look more like sports venues. That means better parking, shorter lines, better food and beverage, hospitality rooms, suites, boxes, lounges, and upgraded experiences.
This makes sense. Fans are not only paying for music. They are paying for the night.
The seat matters. The parking matters. The line matters. The drink matters. The bathroom matters. The ability to avoid chaos matters.
For younger fans, the concert may be a social-media-worthy experience. For older fans, comfort may be the reason they are willing to attend at all. A 50-year-old fan who loves a legacy artist may not want to fight lawn traffic, wait in long lines, or stand all night. But that same fan may pay more for a better experience.
That creates a huge opportunity around legacy catalogs.
Older catalogs often have older fans. Older fans often have more disposable income. If Live Nation can improve the premium experience, it can increase per-fan spending without needing every fan to be a teenager streaming songs all day.
That is a very different way to think about catalog value.
Ticketmaster Is Still Central to the Strategy
Ticketmaster also came up repeatedly on the call.
Rapino said the company is focused on making the onsale process smoother, more transparent, and more confidence-building for fans. He also mentioned using AI on both the consumer side and the B2B side, while building out tools like Face Value Exchange for artists.
Berchtold added that Ticketmaster is using newer approaches, including AI tools, to move faster in markets like Latin America, Asia, and Japan.
The strategic point is clear: ticketing is not just a transaction layer. It is part of the fan relationship.
Who controls the ticketing experience controls a valuable part of the music economy. That company sees demand, pricing, geography, artist strength, fan behavior, and purchase intent.
For artists and catalog owners, this matters because fan data is becoming one of the most important assets in music. A catalog tells you what people listen to. Ticketing tells you what people will leave the house and pay for.
Those are not the same thing.
No Demand Pullback — At Least Not Yet
Live Nation also addressed the big investor question: are consumers pulling back?
Rapino said the company is not seeing a demand slowdown across genres, demographics, geographies, venue types, or price points. He pointed to everything from club shows to amphitheaters to expensive stadium shows and said demand remains strong.
That is a powerful statement, especially in an economy where people keep looking for signs of consumer weakness.
Live music appears to remain a priority. Fans may cut back elsewhere, but the concert is still a major social event. For some fans, it may be one of the few big nights out they plan around all year.
That supports a broader thesis: music remains emotionally durable.
People may change how they consume it. They may shift from CDs to downloads to streaming to short-form video. But the desire to gather around music has not disappeared.
In some ways, it may be stronger because so much of modern life is digital. The live show is physical, social, scarce, and memorable.
That is why it commands pricing power.
The Catalogs and Cash Takeaway
Live Nation’s 2026 playbook is simple:
More shows. Better venues. Bigger fan spending.
But underneath that is a bigger music business lesson.
The value of music is not limited to streaming royalties. Music creates identity, memory, community, and live demand. The companies that can turn that demand into experiences, venues, sponsorships, ticketing, hospitality, and global touring routes are building around the music in ways that can be extremely valuable.
For catalog investors, this should matter.
A catalog is not just a spreadsheet of historical royalties. It is a living asset connected to fan behavior. If the artist can tour, if the music can support a festival slot, if the fan base has spending power, if the songs still create emotional pull, then the catalog may have value beyond passive streaming income.
Live Nation’s call showed that the live music economy still has momentum. The company is investing in venues, expanding globally, improving ticketing, and trying to increase per-fan monetization through premium experiences.
That is not just a concert story.
That is a music asset story.
Bottom Line
Live Nation’s Q1 2026 call was a reminder that the music business is bigger than the stream count.
Streaming tells us what people play. Concerts tell us what people will pay for. Venues show where the money gets captured. Premium experiences show how much more the night can be worth.
And that is the real Catalogs and Cash lesson: the future of music value may belong to the companies that understand not only the song, but the entire economy around the fan.
Warner openly said AI will become a “material contributor” to revenue and profits starting in fiscal 2027. This is no longer theoretical. The company is already using AI for catalog marketing, lyric videos, visualizers, forecasting, reporting, and automation.
2. Catalog Music Is the Economic Engine
Warner said catalog music now represents roughly 65% of recorded music streaming revenue. Older music is becoming more valuable in the streaming era because catalogs can generate recurring revenue for decades.
3. The Labels Want to Monetize AI, Not Just Fight It
Rather than simply resisting AI platforms, Warner is pursuing licensing deals and partnerships. Its relationship with Suno shows the company believes AI music and interactive fan experiences could become major future revenue streams.
4. Modern Record Labels Are Starting to Look Like Tech Companies
The modern label is evolving into an AI-enabled intellectual property platform.
5. Streaming Is Becoming a Higher-Margin Subscription Business
Subscription streaming revenue grew 15%, helped by pricing increases across DSPs. The industry is moving beyond pure user growth and toward higher pricing, premium tiers, and stronger monetization of superfans and interactive experiences.
By 2026, the music catalog business has become something bigger than nostalgia.
It’s infrastructure.
This week, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with over 46 million monthly listeners on Spotify, reportedly sold their recorded music catalog to Warner Music Group for more than $300 million — one of the largest rock catalog deals in recent memory.
According to Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, the deal covers the band’s master recordings — the actual sound recordings behind hits like “Californication,” “Under the Bridge,” “Scar Tissue,” “Can’t Stop,” and “Otherside.” They are also the 8th most-played band on SiriusXM Lithium 90’s rock, even though their catalog spans five decades.
And here’s the key detail:
This comes after the band already sold its publishing rights years ago for roughly $140–150 million.
That means the market is now valuing two separate layers of music ownership at enormous scale:
Publishing rights (songwriting/composition)
Master recordings (the recordings themselves)
The Chili Peppers are essentially monetizing decades of cultural relevance twice.
Why Music Catalogs Became Wall Street Assets
Music used to be viewed as entertainment.
Now it’s increasingly viewed as a cash-flowing intellectual property asset class.
Why?
Because streaming transformed old songs into recurring annuities.
A hit song from 1999 no longer disappears after radio rotation ends. It lives forever across:
Spotify
Apple Music
YouTube
TikTok
movies
commercials
sports arenas
playlists
nostalgia-driven algorithms
The Chili Peppers reportedly generate around $26 million annually from their catalog alone.
That’s why firms like:
Sony Music Group
Universal Music Group
Warner Music Group
Bain Capital
are aggressively buying rights portfolios.
This isn’t just about music fandom.
It’s about predictable yield.
The Real Asset Isn’t the Song — It’s the Permanence
What makes a catalog valuable isn’t just popularity.
It’s durability.
The Chili Peppers sit in a rare category of artists whose songs function almost like cultural utility infrastructure:
gym playlists
rock radio staples
sports broadcasts
algorithmic recommendations
movie syncs
guitar-learning staples
generational discovery
Twenty years after Stadium Arcadium, people are still discovering “Snow (Hey Oh)” for the first time.
That matters financially.
This week, SiriusXM launched a major 20th-anniversary retrospective around Stadium Arcadium, complete with track-by-track commentary from the band.
That’s the flywheel:
Legacy catalogs create nostalgia
Nostalgia drives streams
Streams drive revenue
Revenue raises catalog valuations
Valuations attract institutional capital
Music is becoming closer to evergreen software IP than physical media.
Warner Music’s Bigger Bet
One of the most interesting parts of this deal is who bought the catalog.
Warner Music Group has distributed the Chili Peppers since 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
So Warner isn’t just acquiring songs.
They’re deepening ownership around an ecosystem they already helped build.
And importantly, Warner reportedly used its joint venture with Bain Capital to fund the purchase.
That tells you something critical about the future:
Private equity increasingly views music catalogs the way previous generations viewed:
commercial real estate
pipelines
telecom infrastructure
utility assets
The difference?
Songs don’t need maintenance crews.
The Streaming Era Changed the Economics Forever
The CD era created spikes.
Streaming created persistence.
A teenager hearing “Californication” on TikTok in 2026 generates revenue from a song released in 1999.
That’s an extraordinary business model.
And unlike television or film libraries, music consumption is deeply habitual:
morning playlists
workouts
driving
studying
restaurants
sports venues
retail stores
Music became embedded into daily software behavior.
That makes elite catalogs incredibly resilient.
Catalogs Are the New Media Moat
The bigger story here isn’t just the Chili Peppers.
It’s that catalogs themselves are becoming strategic weapons.
In a fragmented entertainment landscape, ownership matters more than ever.
Who owns:
the songs,
the masters,
the publishing,
the licensing rights,
the sync rights,
the streaming revenue,
and the cultural memory
will increasingly shape the future economics of media.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers didn’t just sell old songs.
Warner Music Group delivered a strong quarter, but the bigger story from CEO Robert Kyncl’s CNBC interview may be where the music industry is headed next: AI, interactivity, pricing power, and platform economics.
Here are 5 major takeaways:
1️⃣ Warner Music is operating more like a tech company Kyncl repeatedly emphasized automation, efficiency, organizational streamlining, and disciplined capital allocation.
The message to investors was clear: Warner believes it can improve margins while simultaneously investing aggressively in artists, A&R, and distribution.
That’s a very different narrative from the traditional “record labels are bloated” perception. The company is positioning itself as a scalable, technology-enabled media business.
2️⃣ Pricing power is becoming a major growth driver Streaming growth is no longer just about adding subscribers.
Warner discussed: • subscription price increases • per-subscriber minimums • stronger economics with streaming partners • higher monetization per user
Kyncl even compared music streaming economics to cable TV carriage fees.
Translation: The labels believe music is becoming valuable enough to command higher recurring revenue from platforms like Spotify and others.
3️⃣ Warner is leaning INTO AI — not running from it
One of the most interesting parts of the interview was Warner’s approach to AI.
Instead of framing AI solely as a threat, Kyncl framed it as: “a new revenue opportunity.”
The company’s partnership with Suno signals that Warner wants to help shape the licensing and monetization framework for AI-generated music rather than simply resist it.
That could become extremely important over the next 3–5 years.
4️⃣ “Interactive music” could become the next big business model
Kyncl repeatedly used the word: “interactivity.”
That matters.
The company appears to believe the future of music may involve: • AI remixing • personalized music experiences • interactive fan engagement • customizable tracks • premium AI-powered streaming tiers
The comparison to gaming was notable because gaming historically generates far higher revenue per user than passive media.
Warner seems to believe AI could transform music from something people simply consume into something they actively participate in.
5️⃣ Major music catalogs may become EVEN more valuable in the AI era
As AI-generated music explodes, the value of trusted brands, superstar artists, iconic catalogs, and licensed intellectual property may increase.
Why?
Because abundance creates noise.
When anyone can generate music instantly, discovery, trust, identity, and recognizable catalogs become even more important.
That may strengthen the position of major labels that control massive libraries of culturally relevant music.
Big picture: This interview sounded less like a traditional entertainment executive and more like a technology platform CEO discussing monetization, interactivity, scalability, and recurring revenue.
The music industry is changing quickly — and Warner Music clearly wants to be one of the companies shaping the next phase of it.
The song was not released as a single in the United States, yet still reached:
No. 14 – Billboard Modern Rock Tracks
No. 17 – Mainstream Rock Tracks
Internationally, it performed even better:
No. 10 – Canada
No. 15 – Finland
No. 25 – Netherlands
No. 34 – Australia
No. 44 – New Zealand
Notably, it reached:
No. 1 in Iceland for three consecutive weeks, marking the band’s second straight chart-topper there
👉 Translation: This wasn’t a forgotten song—it was a strong catalog asset waiting for a moment.
Why This Happens (and Why It Matters)
Catalog value isn’t just about streams—it’s about moments of rediscovery.
When a song gets:
Placed in a cultural event
Associated with a mission or narrative
Introduced to a new generation
…it can behave like a new release again.
NASA unintentionally created:
A global listening event
A shared emotional context (space, return, humanity)
A discovery funnel into a 25-year-old catalog
The Bigger Insight for Catalog Owners
This is the playbook:
Moments > Marketing You don’t need a campaign—you need a trigger.
Context Creates Meaning A space mission reframes a song instantly.
Dormant Doesn’t Mean Dead Catalogs are latent assets waiting for activation.
Attention Can Be Re-Routed One decision (a wake-up song) → thousands of interactions
Final Thought
Most songs fade into passive streaming ecosystems.
But every once in a while, something external— a film, a meme, a viral clip, or in this case, a NASA mission— pulls a track back into the center of attention.
For years, De La Soul’s pioneering catalog was effectively invisible to an entire generation of listeners — absent from every streaming platform because of uncleared samples buried in the music. Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, shares what it took to finally bring it online in her appearance on Billboard’s On the Record.
1. Uncleared samples can lock an entire catalog off streaming platforms
When Reservoir acquired the Tommy Boy Records catalog in June 2021, one of the most urgent priorities was De La Soul’s music, which had never been available on digital streaming platforms due to uncleared samples embedded throughout their recordings. The group were pioneers of hip-hop’s golden era and among the most critically lauded artists in the genre’s history — yet an entire generation of listeners had no easy way to access their music. Every uncleared sample was a legal liability that had to be resolved before a single track could go live.
“We purchased Tommy Boy in June of 2021. The first call was to them — and then we spent 18 months clearing the samples.”
2. Sample clearance is one of the most labor-intensive processes in the business
The 18-month clearance process for the De La Soul catalog was run on Excel spreadsheets, weekly phone calls, and extensive human coordination — tracking down rights holders, negotiating terms, and documenting every cleared sample one by one. For a catalog as sample-dense as De La Soul’s, this was an enormous undertaking. It required Reservoir to trace the ownership of dozens of interpolated recordings, often across multiple rights holders, label mergers, and estate arrangements. The complexity is a window into why so many catalogs with uncleared samples simply sit in limbo rather than getting resolved.
“It was run on an Excel spreadsheet with weekly phone calls and a lot of human interaction and recall — an 18-month exercise to get the music ready for the first time on digital platforms.”
3. Clearing samples can unlock enormous additional value
Getting De La Soul’s music onto streaming platforms was not just a logistical achievement — it was a commercial one. Once the catalog was live, it was eligible for sync licensing opportunities that had previously been off the table. One of the first to materialize: “3 Is the Magic Number” appearing in the credits of Spider-Man in November, just weeks before Reservoir released the first De La Soul single in January 2023 and the full catalog on March 3rd. A song that had been stuck in legal limbo suddenly had one of the biggest possible promotional platforms in the world.
“That opened up licensing for ‘3 Is the Magic Number’ in the credits of Spider-Man — which happened the November before we released the music.”
4. The human cost was devastating — and the timing made it worse
The clearance work and the eventual streaming release were meant to be a triumphant moment for De La Soul — a long overdue recognition of their legacy and a chance for the three members to finally see their music reach the audience it deserved. Instead, founding member Dave Jolicoeur passed away just weeks before the catalog went live, leaving the group and the Reservoir team to navigate the release in the shadow of grief. For Khosrowshahi, the loss was not primarily a business setback — it was a deeply personal one.
“What made me the most sad was that they wouldn’t enjoy this moment together, the three of them — with their families. It was going to be such an important moment for them.”
5. AI could transform sample clearance — and the implications are significant
Khosrowshahi reflects that the same 18-month clearance process, if undertaken today with AI-assisted tools, could potentially be compressed to a fraction of the time. Sample identification, rights chain research, and clearance tracking are exactly the kinds of repetitive, data-intensive tasks that AI tools are rapidly improving at. For catalog owners sitting on music with uncleared samples, this is potentially transformative: value that has been locked away for legal reasons may become accessible far more quickly and cheaply than it would have been just a few years ago.
“I wonder if 18 months would be one month — because we would be able to use AI tools to help us clear the samples.”
Based on Golnar Khosrowshahi’s appearance on On the Record, Billboard’s music industry podcast.
A single TV placement can send a decades-old song to the top of streaming charts overnight. Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, explains how sync licensing actually works — and why it’s one of the most powerful and unpredictable forces in the catalog market — in her appearance on Billboard’s On the Record.
1. Sync is the most powerful discovery engine in the industry
When a song lands in the right scene of the right show at the right moment, it can introduce that music to an entirely new generation of listeners who had never heard it before. Grey’s Anatomy pioneered this in the mid-2000s, becoming not just a hit drama but a genuine music discovery platform — to the point where landing a placement on the show became an explicit goal for songwriters. Euphoria carried that torch into the streaming era, pairing emotionally charged scenes with carefully curated music that sparked streaming spikes and cultural conversations.
“Grey’s Anatomy really started this trend of not only being a show everyone was glued to, but being a place where people were discovering music.”
2. The streaming uplift is real but varies enormously
Not every placement creates the same effect. A song featured in a pivotal season finale of a culturally dominant show will generate a very different response than background music in a mid-season episode. Khosrowshahi points to Sinead O’Connor’s “Drink Before the War” — a Reservoir catalog asset — which was featured in a key scene of Euphoria Season 2 and drove meaningful renewed interest in O’Connor’s catalog. Shows that have built a reputation for sophisticated musical taste, where audiences actively seek out the soundtrack, consistently deliver stronger and more durable uplifts.
“Euphoria has captured this persona of having sophisticated musical taste and being very deliberate about the music — and people are still seeking gatekeepers like that.”
3. Biopics are the ultimate sync play for catalog owners
A well-made biopic does what no single TV placement can: it immerses an audience in an artist’s entire story and catalog for two hours, then sends them to streaming platforms to explore further. The Johnny Cash biopic was a landmark moment for catalog revival. More recently, the Bob Dylan biopic — with Timothée Chalamet in the lead — represents the same opportunity at enormous scale. Khosrowshahi sees the surge in music biopics as partly driven by catalog owners who now have both the financial resources and the incentive to fund or facilitate these projects.
“More liquidity and bigger budgets enable either rights holders or filmmakers adjacent to music companies to underwrite these projects — that’s why you’re seeing more of them.”
4. Some music simply cannot be synced — and that has a cost
Sync licensing requires clean rights and content that advertisers and studios are willing to associate their brand or project with. Music with heavy use of expletives, uncleared samples with multiple credited writers, or complicated rights chains is effectively locked out of much of the sync market. For catalog buyers evaluating a potential acquisition, the sync ceiling is a material part of the valuation. A catalog that has historically said no to licensing — or that simply can’t be cleared — is worth materially less than one that is open and accessible.
“You could have music that has historically just said no to licensing — that creates a whole bunch of opportunity. Or music with uncleared samples that can’t easily be licensed at all.”
5. You can’t engineer a sync moment — but you can position for one
The most valuable sync placements are the ones that emerge organically from a music supervisor genuinely falling in love with a song for a specific scene. They cannot be bought or manufactured. What catalog owners can control is making sure their music is in front of as many supervisors as possible, that the rights are clean and quick to clear, and that the catalog is actively maintained and promoted. The placement itself is unpredictable; the preparation for it is not.
“Our sync team is very aware of what the trends are and what the licensing future looks like — is this something we think we can do better marketing to the music supervisors in our database?”
Based on Golnar Khosrowshahi’s appearance on On the Record, Billboard’s music industry podcast.
Ask most people which genre commands the highest prices in the catalog market and they’ll say classic rock. They’re not wrong — but they’re not exactly right either. Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, offers a more nuanced take on her appearance on Billboard’s On the Record.
1. Genre is a proxy for the question buyers actually care about
Catalog buyers don’t value genre for its own sake. What they’re really evaluating is how widely a song is listened to and how long that appeal is likely to last. Classic rock tends to score well on both dimensions — hence the premium prices — but the underlying logic applies across every genre. A country artist with four decades of proven radio presence is a fundamentally different investment proposition than a dance artist whose biggest hits came out three years ago, regardless of genre.
“I would break it down as: how widespread is the listenership and how long is that going to last? At what rate is the revenue on this music going to decay?”
2. Longevity is the real premium, not genre
There is a finite group of artists and songwriters across every genre who will command truly elite catalog prices. What they share is not a sound or a style — it’s the proven ability to remain culturally relevant long after their peak commercial moment. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is licensed constantly, covered endlessly, and embedded in American culture in a way that generates consistent revenue decade after decade. That kind of staying power is what justifies a premium multiple, whether the music is country, jazz, pop, or soul.
“There is a finite group of artists and songwriters across genre who will command that premium — and everything else comes down to what this will be worth in 10, 15, 20 years.”
3. Hip-hop and dance face real headwinds in sync licensing
One area where genre genuinely creates friction is sync licensing — the placement of music in films, TV shows, and advertisements. Music with heavy use of expletives or that relies on uncleared samples from other recordings is simply harder to license for these purposes. Advertisers need clean clearances; film and TV supervisors need straightforward rights chains. That doesn’t make hip-hop or dance catalogs worthless — but it does reduce the ceiling on one of the most lucrative revenue streams available to catalog owners.
“We are going to be more or less optimistic on film and TV sync if we’re looking at music filled with expletives. That’s not going to be easy.”
4. Geography creates unexpected opportunities
The catalog market is global, and listener behavior doesn’t always follow obvious patterns. Miles Davis is enormously popular in Japan and France. Country music has a passionate following in France. These cross-cultural affinities can meaningfully expand the revenue base for catalogs that might otherwise seem niche — and they’re easy to overlook if you’re only thinking about domestic streaming numbers when running your valuation.
“There are pockets of genre-geography marriages that are very, very surprising. Country music is very popular in France.”
5. The real risk is music that was big in the moment but won’t last
Every era produces songs that feel culturally definitive at the time but fade quickly from the cultural conversation. Catalog buyers are acutely aware of this risk. A song can be a genuine #1 hit, a genuine cultural moment, and still not be worth much as a catalog asset if there’s no reason to believe people will still be listening to it in 2040. The question isn’t whether a song was important — it’s whether it’s durable.
“Some hits don’t really stick around. They could be a culturally defining moment — but that doesn’t mean they will sustain that cultural impact two decades from now.”
Based on Golnar Khosrowshahi’s appearance on On the Record, Billboard’s music industry podcast.
No catalog sale in history generated more public attention than when Big Machine Records sold Taylor Swift’s master recordings to Shamrock Holdings. Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, reflects on what the saga actually taught the music business in her conversation on Billboard’s On the Record.
1. It exposed the gap between financial investors and music companies
The sale drew a sharp public line between two very different kinds of buyers operating in the catalog market. On one side: financial investors like Shamrock whose primary interest is cash flow acquisition and return on investment. On the other: music companies and labels with active platforms, artist relationships, and a long-term stake in how a catalog is managed. Most catalog deals happen quietly between industry insiders. This one played out in public, and it forced a mainstream audience to reckon with the fact that music rights can change hands without an artist’s involvement or consent.
“It started to shed light on this bifurcation — those with platforms who are in the business of preserving legacies, and those in the business of cash flow acquisition.”
2. The deal structure Swift signed was standard at the time — and that’s the point
Swift was a teenager when she signed with Big Machine. Under the terms of her deal, as was typical for record contracts of that era, the label retained ownership of her master recordings. There was nothing unusual or predatory about the arrangement by the standards of the time — which is precisely what made it such a powerful moment for public education. Millions of people who had never thought about music rights suddenly understood that an artist could pour years of creative work into recordings they don’t own.
“It was within Big Machine’s right to do with the catalog what they wanted to. That situation put a spotlight on the fact that Taylor Swift did not own her own masters.”
3. Re-recording only worked because of who she is
Swift’s decision to re-record her entire back catalog as “Taylor’s Version” was audacious — and it worked. Fans switched en masse to the new recordings, effectively diminishing the commercial value of the originals. But Khosrowshahi is clear-eyed about why: Swift had spent years building one of the most devoted fan bases in music history, and she had the direct relationship with those fans to make her case and be believed. Almost no other artist could pull off the same move. The lesson isn’t that re-recording is now a viable weapon for any artist — it’s that it was viable for her specifically.
“That artist has completely changed the structure of how you connect with your fan base. She’s already talking to an existing group of people who are just out there supporting her.”
4. It accelerated the shift to more artist-friendly deal structures
In the wake of the Swift situation, major labels began adding re-recording restriction clauses to new contracts — but they also began offering more favorable ownership terms to attract and retain artists. Today it is increasingly common for artists to receive deals where ownership reverts to them after a set period, or where they retain a meaningful equity stake from the outset. The next generation of catalog sellers will be artists who actually own or co-own their masters — a very different market dynamic from the one that existed when Reservoir started.
“Nowadays we’re seeing much more artist-friendly deals — artists getting record deals where ownership reverts to them, or they get to own 50% of it.”
5. The broader catalog market barely felt a ripple
For all the public drama, Khosrowshahi says Reservoir felt no direct impact from the Swift situation on its own deal flow or valuations. The catalog market was already heating up for structural reasons — streaming growth, institutional capital, and a finite supply of premium assets. The Swift saga added mainstream visibility and public education, but the underlying market dynamics were already well in motion. If anything, the attention it brought helped normalize catalog investing as a concept for a wider pool of potential buyers and sellers.
“We didn’t feel any impact. It was a perfect storm of who was involved and the impact on someone with such a huge fan base.”
Based on Golnar Khosrowshahi’s appearance on On the Record, Billboard’s music industry podcast.
