Carnival of Soul

UK-based Hipgnosis Songs Fund has acquired the music catalog income from musician, songwriter and producer Nikki Sixx, best known as the founding member, bassist, and lead songwriter of Mötley Crüe.

Hipgnosis has acquired 100% of Nikki Sixx’s writer’s share of PRO income and writer’s Sound Exchange in respect of the catalog which contains 305 songs.

With Mötley Crüe, Nikki Sixx has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide as well as achieving seven platinum or multi-platinum certifications, nine Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, 22 Top 40 mainstream rock hits, and six Top 20 singles.

Today’s news follows last Monday’s (August 24) announcement that Hipgnosis has acquired a 50% stake in the music publishing catalog of Robert ‘RZA’ Diggs.

Mötley Crüe released their debut album Too Fast for Love in 1981 which was certified platinum in the US.

It was the first of seven consecutive Mötley Crüe albums to be certified gold or platinum in the country.

In 1983, the band had their mainstream breakthrough with the release of their 4x US platinum certified album Shout at the Devil, which included hit singles Looks That Kill (38.5 million streams on Spotify) and Too Young to Fall in Love (19.9 million streams on Spotify).

Both featured on the Billboard Hot 100, with the former remaining on the chart for 10 weeks.

The band’s third album Theatre of Pain was certified 4x platinum in the US and marked their transition towards a glam metal style. It also influenced the heavy metal genre for the remainder of the decade.

Theatre of Pain included Smokin’ in the Boys Room (21.7 million streams on Spotify), the band’s first Billboard 100 Top 40 single, and Home Sweet Home (102.8 million streams on Spotify), which ranked No.12 on VH1’s chart of the greatest power ballads of all time.

Girls, Girls, Girls, released in 1987, became Mötley Crüe’s third consecutive album to achieve 4x platinum status, reaching No.2 on the Billboard 200 album chart.

Mötley Crüe’s fifth album, titled Dr Feelgood, which was released in 1989, is their bestselling to date. It remained in the charts for an incredible 114 weeks with more than 6 million copies sold in the US alone.

It is widely regarded as the band’s best studio album and was crowned “Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album of the Year” at the 1991 American Music Awards.

The album includes hit single Kick Start My Heart, which reached the Top 10 of Billboard’s “Hot Rock & Alternative Songs” chart and has had more than 222 million streams on Spotify. Together, these albums established the band as one of the top selling heavy metal acts of the 1980s.

“Mötley Crüe were single handedly responsible for the Los Angeles rock explosion of the 1980s paving the way for everyone that came in their wake and putting rock music back onto Top 40 radio and the pop charts.”

Merck Mercuriadis   

Mötley Crüe released two further US gold certified albums entitled Mötley Crüe and Generation Swine, before releasing their most recent album, Saints of Los Angeles, which debuted at No.4 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling more than 100,000 copies in its first week. Sixx was credited as either writer or co-writer on all 13 album tracks.

In addition to his enormous success with Mötley Crüe, Nikki Sixx has co-written and produced for renowned artists such as the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and rock legends Lita Ford, Alice Cooper and Meat Loaf.

“Merck and his team at Hipgnosis are an artist friendly forward thinking company.”

Nikki Sixx

In 2007, Sixx went on to found hard rock band Sixx:A.M. with DJ Ashba and James Michael. The band is best known for its debut song Life is Beautiful, which reached No.2 on the US Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, alongside hits Lies of the Beautiful from the band’s second studio album, and This Is Gonna Hurt.

In 2019, Mötley Crüe released four new songs on the soundtrack for Netflix biopic The Dirt, a film adaptation of the band’s 2001 collaborative autobiography which spent ten weeks in the Top 10 of the New York Times Best Seller list.

The soundtrack album reached No.1 on the iTunes All Genres Album chart, No.10 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, No.3 on the Billboard Top Album and Digital Album Sales chart and Top 10 worldwide.

Merck Mercuriadis said:  “Mötley Crüe were single handedly responsible for the Los Angeles rock explosion of the 1980s paving the way for everyone that came in their wake and putting rock music back onto Top 40 radio and the pop charts.

“Nikki was the catalyst and architect of all of that and we are delighted to welcome him to the Hipgnosis family.”

Nikki Sixx said: “Merck and his team at Hipgnosis are an artist friendly forward thinking company.

“Looking to the future I am grateful that they will treat my music with great care and respect.”

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Hipgnosis saw its market cap surge above £1 billion for the first time on Tuesday (August 11).

Meanwhile, on August 13 the company acquired the music royalty catalog of American hip-hop and R&B music producer, No I.D. aka Ernest ‘Dion’ Wilson.Music Business Worldwide